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Warhammer Fantasy: Night's Dark Masters Let's talk about some guys and gals who are definitely, actually punching up against literal bloodsucking aristocrats Chapter 2: A Mockery of Life is a catalogue of what is often known in-setting by both a rookie and a fairly experienced Hunter, written first through a short fiction bit about a scholar trapped in a quarantined part of an Imperial city. A vampire has taken advantage of the plague and the isolation to hunt the people even as the consumption slowly kills them, knowing that no Witch Hunters or watchmen will be coming to their aid as long as the area is afflicted with plague. The people of the filthy quarter slowly come to realize that some of the plague dead are not dying of tuberculosis, but rather being exsanguinated; the creature is killing them where no-one from the outside world will ever realize it. They come together to face the beast, the narrator volunteering to lead them in the desperate hunt; he writes that he no longer fears for his life, as he has already contracted the plague, and one way or another, expects to be dead by dawn. This chronicles the more usual experience of an amateur hunter; they find something wrong, a spat of odd murders, an old castle with an ill reputation, or a foreign count who never seems to come out at daylight. Soon, they find themselves caught up in hunting for something they barely understand, with very low chances for survival. Surprised or amateur hunters will find themselves needing to learn very quickly or die very badly; vampires are not the kind of foe you can simply fight head on. Next, we get a much longer account by a respected Raven Knight, one of the knights of the Order of the Shroud. He begins by talking about what is known of the origins of vampirism. A learned and experienced Hunter like himself knows that their sickness originated in Khemri (Not-Egypt), known as the Land of the Dead, thousands of years ago. The very first necromancer, Nagash, came out of Khemri (and also caused the entire land to die, creating the Tomb Kings, but we'll get to that later when we get to the Lahmian Bloodline), and the vampires seemed to be his lieutenants and strongest servants. The author does not know if the vampires were merely fellow travelers of the Great Necromancer, or if he created them, but remarks that modern vampires have little love for those who style themselves Nagash's disciples today. The author theorizes that when Khemri was destroyed and reanimated, it led the vampires to flee the land and spread throughout the world, since they cannot feed on fellow undead. An aside also notes there have never been confirmed sightings of vampires of any race other than humans; no vampire elves, dwarves, or halflings. Next, the author talks about the Blood Kiss, the creation of a new vampire. The author dispenses with the idea that everyone killed by a vampire will rise as a vampire; if this was true the Old World would already be overrun. Vampires are also apparently rather embarrassed to discuss what is involved in the siring of a new bloodsucker, and wouldn't be disposed to talk to a hunter about it anyway. He mentions that the current theory is that the exchange of blood is vital. Yet simple ingestion of blood doesn't seem to do the job; he recounts how a fellow hunter died from accidentally swallowing tainted blood during a battle (and gives a brief aside that hunters should maintain a closed-mouth scowl on the hunt at all times, for their own safety). His theory (which is correct) is that a vampire needs to drain a victim almost to the point of death, then replace some of the lost blood with their own. The body will thus be unable to fight off the infection. According to his notes it can take days or weeks for the poisoned victim to die and arise as undead, and he cautions that if a comrade should be turned, the only way to save them is to commend their body and soul to Morr as soon as possible and put an end to the monster they have become. Even a young vampire can be extremely dangerous, possessed of much greater strength than they had before their infection. He notes even a young vampire only needs to feed once per week or so, and that they do not need sufficient blood to kill a human, but that few bother with such niceties. Next, he gets into how to hunt, starting with disdain for the Order of the Silver Hammer (the primary Witch Hunters of Sigmar). They are too slow, and not specialized enough to deal with this specific foe, according to this devout follower of Morr. He also shares the common paranoia of the setting that getting a Witch Hunter involved risks killing plenty of innocent people as they send many to the pyre 'to be sure' (when we get to the Tome of Corruption, we'll see this is usually a bit of a misconception about Witch Hunters based on their older, earlier reputation prior to the reform of their order). A hunter of the dead must be a detective, scanning hospitals and graveyard for unexplained deaths or strange cases of anemia, always watching for the signs that something is wrong. Once signs of a vampire have been found, he recommends targeting its mortal servants, should it have them, as a way of finding out more about the specific beast. Always look for people with unusual scars on their necks, strange cases of wolf attacks in urban areas, that sort of thing. Look for people who are out of place, or acting strangely. Humans might serve a vampire in hopes of being paid (many of them are rich beyond the wildest dreams of men) or because they hope to receive the Blood Kiss themselves; these are generally the gateway to their master and much easier to find. "Vampires may be generally known by their lack of reflection, cold skin, lack of interest in mortal food, tendency to stare at the necks of comely youths, and by the wearing of large hats and coats to keep off the sun." After noting that someone matches these symptoms and is not simply a pale person who recently came in from a cold rainstorm, one has to also discover just which kind of vampire they are trying to kill. Vampires vary in their weaknesses and their powers on both a bloodline and an individual level, so research is vital if a hunter is to take their prey. The most easily identified vampires are the Von Carsteins, the nobility of the eastern (and extremely gloomy) country of Sylvania. Von Carsteins have been romanticized by fools due to the fact that Vlad von Carstein was probably the best ruler Sylvania has ever had, but the author warns the reader not to be fooled: They are monsters all the same. He notes their ability to appear human will falter when they are angered, as the mask of refined nobility slips away and reveals burning red eyes and hungry fangs. Pissing off Sylvanians is a reliable test for vampirism, he notes. Next, there are twisted and strange ghoul-kings that haunt old ruins, sewer systems, and ancient graveyards. The Strigoi cannot even pretend to humanity anymore, twisted and ugly. While they are ghoulish and easily identified as monsters, Strigoi are also particularly large and strong, and tend to be masters of other twisted flesh-eaters and cannibals that dance for their favor. Even if they are easy to spot, Strigoi are not easy to kill, and a vampire hunter should not grow overconfident just because the creature cannot hide among the masses of humanity. Another unsubtle breed of vampires, Necarchs, are unable to conceal their corpse-like nature to any degree. These twisted and insane necromancers embrace their role as the masters of the living dead, living in towers far from humankind and only rarely needing to bother to feed. They spend their unliving days in seclusive study, until they shuffle forth from their towers to test their theorems and practices to the detriment of the living. Next come the Blood Dragons, and the narrator here only really knows of the more orthodox ones as they tend to be the loudest of their line. Mostly making their home in Bretonnia and pretending to be Bretonnian knights errant, the Dragons are arrogant warriors to the man. They are also incredibly unsubtle, happily displaying the insignia of their order and rarely making much effort to conceal what they are as they kill their way across the world in search of perfecting their martial arts. Much like Carsteins, they appear human until they are feeding, angry, or in the midst of a particularly bracing battle, where their predatory nature will become readily apparent. Finally, there is the Lahmians, almost all of whom are female. Noted for their subtlety and beauty, unlike the Dragons or Carsteins they will almost never declare themselves and take great pains to remain hidden. A hunter will need to carefully investigate to discover if an eccentric young noblewoman is a Lahmian, and should be careful in doing so: They are lethal assassins and just as strong as any other vampire. Their preference for staying hidden is a preference, not an imperative, and they can tear a man in half with their bare hands the same as any other lord of the night. The next section could just be titled 'Why you do not fight a vampire head on'. The hunter goes over their enormous strength and speed, the way they refuse to die even from fatal wounds like severed limbs, how they can quickly heal themselves by feeding, and how one of the only sure ways to kill them by direct violence is to take off their heads. Fighting a superhumanly strong creature that moves faster than a man and has enhanced senses AND that needs to be decapitated is a tall order for even the strongest warrior. In addition to their general position as murderously powerful natural predators, vampires also have a variety of powers that vary from individual to individual. Some can turn into various animal shapes to disguise themselves. Some can turn to mist to escape harm or slip through the cracks in a victim's window. Some can hypnotize mortals with a glance. Some are masters of other predators, controlling wolves and swarms of vermin. Some are mighty necromancers beyond anything a human could achieve. All are lethal. And yet all can die. As they are blessed with individual powers, every vampire is cursed. The author assures us the weaknesses of the vampires are the curses of the Gods, a manifestation of their hatred for these unnatural creatures and a boon to let the righteous destroy them. However, a vampire's curses will vary from individual to individual, just like their blessings, and this necessitates investigation. Some plants do work, usually rare herbs used in magic and blessings. Garlic is rarely effective, though it does sicken some of them and seems to be a cause of mockery among their kin in those unfortunate edge-cases. Objects of faith are a very common weakness, and always a good idea to keep to hand. Silver often burns and harms a vampire, though not all of them. A stake to the heart will do some good even if it isn't a specific weakness. The sun will burn and kill a vampire, but it takes time and they can protect themselves with heavy clothing and covering, or by going out in overcast weather. Von Carsteins, especially, are known to be able to summon gloomy and dramatic lightning storms for cover at a whim. Some vampires can only cross running water with a ship or bridge; immersion will melt them to nothingness. Hunters also try diverse practices like 'warning wounds' of blessed silver-paste placed on an open wound to form a scar that supposedly aches in the presence of the undead. Such a practice more generally kills the hunter by infection. The most reliable weapon, the one weakness every vampire has, is being decapitated and burned to ash. This may be very difficult to apply, though... Next time: The history of where these bloody corpses came from, from a more objective point of view! Night10194 fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Aug 4, 2017 |
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Jan 18, 2017 16:39
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I love how just about every major race of intelligent undead created by Nagash just wants to mind its own buisness and lands.Kurieg posted:Nah, he just still thinks that Beast is a game about punching up and wants to defend it to the ends of the earth, just like Bellum Maga. It's downright hilarious how close these two are in terms of goal and execution. You can't make a more offensive parody if you tried.
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Jan 18, 2017 18:19
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Doresh posted:I love how just about every major race of intelligent undead created by Nagash just wants to mind its own buisness and lands. Hey now, he didn't create the vampires. Probably one reason he doesn't like them much.
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Jan 18, 2017 18:23
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I figure Nagash probably likes the vampires who are gross stinky unsociable loners. You just know he mastered necromancy because he was tired of the ancient not-Egyptian equivalent of getting shoved into lockers and rejected by his crush at the prom.
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Jan 18, 2017 18:28
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Halloween Jack posted:I figure Nagash probably likes the vampires who are gross stinky unsociable loners. You just know he mastered necromancy because he was tired of the ancient not-Egyptian equivalent of getting shoved into lockers and rejected by his crush at the prom. Now here's how to fix Beast: Nagash was the first one.
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Jan 18, 2017 18:30
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The Blood Dragons always entertain me because unless they're starving, they're far more likely to show up to defend a village from monsters than to fight the villagers. Not because they care about the village, of course - they just like fighting monsters.
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Jan 18, 2017 18:43
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Doresh posted:Now here's how to fix Beast: Nagash was the first one. I'd play the poo poo out of "Nagash: the Assholeing". Mostly because that game would at least admit its about playing villain protagonists and being as cartoonishly evil as possible.
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Jan 18, 2017 18:44
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There'd be an entire Charm tree for Mustache Twirling (which will of course have a more pretentious name).Mors Rattus posted:The Blood Dragons always entertain me because unless they're starving, they're far more likely to show up to defend a village from monsters than to fight the villagers. Not because they care about the village, of course - they just like fighting monsters. The typical "Thank you noble hero" scene afterwards must be really awkward. I can only imagine that a Blood Dragon right after a fight must have a similar look on his face as Christopher Walken in Sleepy Hollow. Doresh fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Jan 18, 2017 |
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Jan 18, 2017 18:53
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Halloween Jack posted:I figure Nagash probably likes the vampires who are gross stinky unsociable loners. You just know he mastered necromancy because he was tired of the ancient not-Egyptian equivalent of getting shoved into lockers and rejected by his crush at the prom. They're also the followers of the only founder who was genuinely, sincerely loyal to him.
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Jan 18, 2017 19:00
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There is a very weird series of novels set in the Warhammer world called "Genevive undead" which I wondered if the book covers at all. I remember reading it at a young age, because it was Warhammer, but not much about it, any further info?
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Jan 18, 2017 19:31
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Josef bugman posted:There is a very weird series of novels set in the Warhammer world called "Genevive undead" which I wondered if the book covers at all. I remember reading it at a young age, because it was Warhammer, but not much about it, any further info? She gets mentioned briefly in the Lahmian section, but, uh... Vampire with magic kung-fu blessed by sigmar who is eternally 16 and also the author insert's wife. I rewrote her into an inveterate bullshitter and showman making up impossible stories about her adventures. Vampire Baron Munchhausen seemed better for the setting than whatever the heck was up with her in the summaries of the novels I've seen. Also, you know, put her in her 20s when she got turned because the original version was creepy. Honestly, I'm going to have a lot to say when we get to the Lahmians in general, because there are seeds of a really good idea with them, but, uh...execution.
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Jan 18, 2017 19:38
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Literally every vampire in WHF is some kind of bullshit though, that's the whole point. You have to figure out what powers they have and what weaknesses they've developed or not developed in order to kill them.
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Jan 18, 2017 20:21
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wiegieman posted:Literally every vampire in WHF is some kind of bullshit though, that's the whole point. You have to figure out what powers they have and what weaknesses they've developed or not developed in order to kill them. Oh, absolutely, but one who has very, very few weaknesses if any is a specific type of bullshit that, to its credit, the book actually points out as 'Yeah don't do this poo poo.' Because the weaknesses define their character, as well as how you're going to try to kill them. One who is cool with the gods, never needs blood, etc doesn't have any hooks left for their massive hubrises and downfalls.
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Jan 18, 2017 20:24
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Night10194 posted:Because the weaknesses define their character, as well as how you're going to try to kill them. One who is cool with the gods, never needs blood, etc doesn't have any hooks left for their massive hubrises and downfalls. So basically it's a Twilight vampire then.
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Jan 18, 2017 20:48
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Warhammer Fantasy: Night's Dark Masters Vampires: Originally ancient Egyptians this time. Vampires started out ages ago, about 4000 years prior to the modern day of the RPG. They began in the land of Nehekara, what would become Khemri, as an offshoot of the works of Nagash, the inventor of necromancy. Nagash had been a priest in the Mortuary Cults of the Nehekaran empire, charged with discovering the secrets of eternal life. He had captured an elven sorceress, one of the Dark Elves who trucked with terrible magic, and tortured her extensively to discover everything she knew. Melding that with his own significant learning in Nehekaran funerary magics, he created a way to use the dark wind, Dhar, to animate bodies past their time and slave their wills to his own. With this power, he made himself self-declared king of the land of Khemri, murdering its rightful ruler and beginning to plot to rule a world of the dead. Unfortunately for him, Nehekara wasn't willing to go quietly and he was eventually overwhelmed, defeated, and his works were to be burned en masse and destroyed. They would have been, too, had it not been for two people. The first was W'Soran, another mortuary priest, disciple of Nagash, and probably the only person in the entire setting who has ever actually liked Nagash just for being Nagash. Loyal to his master, he did what he could to save some of his works. The other was Neferetem, daughter of the new king of Khemri, and a woman of great ambition. Women were forbidden to learn magic in Nehekara, but she ignored this and was fascinated by what she found among the scrolls and writings of Nagash. W'Soran would claim he used her bitterness at the mortuary cult to manipulate her into doing so, and it's true he almost certainly suggested saving the black art in the first place, but it is also clear Neferetem had a pretty significant role in what was to come. As queen of the city of Lahmia, she secluded herself and taught herself this new art of necromancy, alongside chosen other women who had been spurned by the cult. Meanwhile, W'Soran sowed the seeds of his master's return, planning to betray Neferetem to the other Nehekarans and get either her, or everyone who wasn't on board with necromancy within Lahmia, killed .When the attack on her palace came, the dark queen emerged full of enormous necromantic power, and quickly crushed this rebellion. She then continued her studies uninterrupted, eventually hitting upon Nagash's plans for an elixir of eternal life. Instead of simply making her and her closest followers immortal, though, it changed their nature completely, creating the first vampires. She changed her name to Nefereta, she who is beautiful in death, and vampiric rule of Lahmia began. As ruler, Nefereta spread her curse to those she felt were worthy, and one of the most notable was the lovestruck captain of her guard, the great warrior Abhorash. He had been horrified by her actions, but would not refuse her orders, and so became one of the deathless court with his queen. Realizing quickly that indulging the thirst was going to result in difficulties, he tried to draw up a great charter for the others, a vow that they would only feed on those condemned to death, enemies of the city, and monsters; being a pack of young vampires drunk on seeming immortality and incredible power, they laughed at his charter and ignored him. This would cause terrible problems down the line. Lahmia persisted for quite some time, becoming a particularly powerful state within the Nehekaran empire, and we see the first of a long trend in vampiric history. Yes, the rulers of Lahmia ate people, drinking blood profusely and experimenting in raising armies of the damned. But it wasn't that that eventually saw the Nehekarans unite against them. Rather, it was simply that Lahmia was a powerful state that proved to be a threat to King Alcadizaar, causing him to unite the people of Nehekara against the growing political threat. People will object to the monstrous habits of vampires, but it always seems to be politics that eventually give them enough impetus to actually get the stakes and torches. At the same time, once it's stake and torch time, the fact that people are fighting literal monsters seems to motivate them quite well, which is why they would have been wiser to have listened to captain Abhorash. As plans were being drawn up to invade, one of the king's commanders, Vashenesh, decided he rather liked the idea of having superhuman strength and immortality. He left the camp and made his way to Lahmia, warning them of the upcoming war and so impressing the Queen that he became not only a member of her court, but her husband. This, you might imagine, did not make Abhorash a happy man. When the war eventually came, it was brutal. Lahmia was left to stand on its own against a unified empire, and nothing they could do was going to save them. Many of the vampires fled, recognizing the fight as hopeless, though Abhorash stayed almost to his last breath for the city he loved. Even if no man could match or kill him, one man cannot protect an entire city on his own, and he fled as well when he recognized the entire city was laid waste. In their flight from their doomed city, the surviving vampires would eventually come upon the revived and waiting Nagash, and the next chapter of this unfortunate story would begin. Next Time: Nagash Makes Interpersonal Relations Errors. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Aug 4, 2017 |
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Jan 18, 2017 21:04
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The story of Warhammer vampires is basically a repeated tale of 'Nagash fucks up, someone else does stupid poo poo, one guy tries to keep the stupid poo poo from happening, fails, and the cycle begins anew'.
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Jan 18, 2017 21:08
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Mors Rattus posted:The story of Warhammer vampires is basically a repeated tale of 'Nagash fucks up, someone else does stupid poo poo, one guy tries to keep the stupid poo poo from happening, fails, and the cycle begins anew'. In fairness to the nobility of Lahmia, they were Thralls, basically. Thralls exist to do stupid poo poo because blood is heroin and oh man is this heroin good. E: Also, hubris. Warhams vamps are 100% about the hubris. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Jan 18, 2017 |
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Jan 18, 2017 21:15
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Finally finishing the XCrawl System Mastery, all I can think is how much wanting to have the modern setting is just an albatross around its neck. It wants to be modern because it can't see another way of justifying the extreme sports angle, but at the same time doesn't want to change things so much it's significantly altered from basic d20. I can only think how much easier a premise it would be to work within basic fantasy tropes: just say it's a Golden Age where most of the evil overlords have been beaten and dungeons have been cleaned out, and have it as means of entertainment in that era. You can have mass scrying scrolls produced to replace TVs, large guilds to sponsor heroes, etc., and you don't have to come up with any excuses as to why people don't bring guns in or why elves are the way they are, because you can just try on the stock fantasy answers to those questions. You don't have to bend over backwards to justify the extreme sports angle, in fact, I think the more you do the more contrived it looks. On a related note, one of the things you could also borrow from Monday Night Combat would be having different small bonuses from sponsors, small enchantments woven into the branding on your shield or armor or spellbook. And if you're working with a reputation system like Fantasy Craft uses to cap magic items, this would work perfectly, where you can choose a different bonus item every time you rank that up. There are all sorts of interesting mechanical things you do do with the setup in general since it's so contrived as well - maybe the dungeon has challenges that'll get you bonus points, like during the kobold melee, you could get a bonus for the most to throw living kobolds into the bonus pit, or maybe you're trying to collect and deposit flags at the end of a trap-filled gauntlet. In fact, one thing I'm surprised doesn't get brought up would be dueling teams in the same dungeon. Maybe they have restrictions on just going to fight one another, but having two teams competing for treasure simultaneously seems absolutely like something that you'd see on that kind of show. It's just one of those games like Necessary Evil that has a great premise but the actual setting doesn't necessarily enhance it, unfortunately.
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Jan 18, 2017 22:42
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Finally finishing the XCrawl System Mastery, all I can think is how much wanting to have the modern setting is just an albatross around its neck. It wants to be modern because it can't see another way of justifying the extreme sports angle, but at the same time doesn't want to change things so much it's significantly altered from basic d20. I can only think how much easier a premise it would be to work within basic fantasy tropes: just say it's a Golden Age where most of the evil overlords have been beaten and dungeons have been cleaned out, and have it as means of entertainment in that era. You can have mass scrying scrolls produced to replace TVs, large guilds to sponsor heroes, etc., and you don't have to come up with any excuses as to why people don't bring guns in or why elves are the way they are, because you can just try on the stock fantasy answers to those questions. You don't have to bend over backwards to justify the extreme sports angle, in fact, I think the more you do the more contrived it looks. But like most terrible settings, the writers thought people would care as much about the world at large as they do, or that people will want to "Adventure" there even though there's really nothing to do but XCrawling.
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Jan 18, 2017 22:58
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Evil Mastermind posted:Well, yeah, the setting spends waaaay too much time justifying everything, but at the end of the day the setting is irrelevant because the focus of the game is live gladiator dungeon crawling. You could just say "it's a crap world, XCrawl is the opiate of the masses/bread and circuses, and one of the only ways to crawl your way out of the lower classes". Or just do an informed setting where everything's implied through sponsors and gear. I found it especially baffling how this just had to be Alternate History Earth, which just ends up wasting time with some weird timeline. Just make it some silly thing any fantasy setting could end up like if it finds a way out of the medieval stasis. Or the wizards just get a bit weird.
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Jan 18, 2017 23:02
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Yeah, I felt like the entire Neo-Roman Empire was totally unnecessary. I would prefer that the setting be a sort-of sequel to dungeoncrawl-revival games like Torchbearer and Into the Odd, where dungeon-delving is explicitly a way for desperate people in struggling societies to find wealth and resources. Let's say that civilization advances past "points of light" and petty kingdoms to real nations, as you see in most of Eberron and Faerun. Nations are strong enough to send armies to clean out dungeons, or leave them alone and forget about dungeon-delving. Drawing on the idea of dungeons as portals to an endless Underworld, the Underworld responds by vomiting up all kinds of monsters to ravage the countryside. Cue the stereotypical Great War against evil. In the aftermath, a bargain is struck, officially or otherwise. Sending groups of raiders into dungeons is a necessary sacrifice to keep the dungeons "fed," or at least, a very dangerous but necessary pest control operation. So, might as well televise it! Dungeoncrawlers are grunts, thugs, no-hopers, opportunists, and scum, but some of them become heroes. It's kinda like Punishment Park, The Running Man, Battle Royale, The Hunger Games and whatnot...kinda. The Zizekian joke at the heart of it is that no one regards dungeoncrawling as sadistic oppression imposed by a distant, monolithic power. They regard it as drat good television. Dungeoncrawling is completely voluntary, the lovely job market notwithstanding...
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Jan 18, 2017 23:05
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I just pulled my (autographed) copy of XCrawl out of the mothballs to check page counts; 114 pages of this ~220 page book are about the setting. The actual rules, everything that's not setting or GMing advice or the sample dungeon, is 50 pages. e: not only is my copy signed, I won it in a contest. e2: Oh man I forgot how useless the Athlete class was. Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Jan 18, 2017 |
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Jan 18, 2017 23:15
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Evil Mastermind posted:I just pulled my (autographed) copy of XCrawl out of the mothballs to check page counts; 114 pages of this ~220 page book are about the setting. You can tell they really thought the setting was the big ticket because of the the prestige classes, one is specifically designed for people that are tangential to XCrawl, trappers, and the other two are specifically for retired or near-retired crawlers. The master celebrity might be the worst prestige class I've ever seen.
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Jan 18, 2017 23:49
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You know your setting is bad when literally just saying "people dungeon crawl on TV for prizes, here are the rules, don't think too hard about it" would have been the better option. X-Crawl would fit in perfectly as a sport in the Bright Republic from Godbound (an island in the setting that has utilized magitech to the degree that it has access to a 21st century tech level in a mostly medieval world... but only if they stay on the island)
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Jan 18, 2017 23:57
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theironjef posted:You can tell they really thought the setting was the big ticket because of the the prestige classes, one is specifically designed for people that are tangential to XCrawl, trappers, and the other two are specifically for retired or near-retired crawlers. The master celebrity might be the worst prestige class I've ever seen. I don't know. I've seen Aberrant D20 and its '1 per 5 levels BAB' prestige classes.
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Jan 19, 2017 00:01
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And as someone else suggested, you can just bolt it into Shadowrun's setting if you really want, the Neo-Roman thing is just weird.
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Jan 19, 2017 00:22
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Robindaybird posted:And as someone else suggested, you can just bolt it into Shadowrun's setting if you really want, the Neo-Roman thing is just weird. That plus I'll take a hard pass on any setting with more than one land of inscrutable mystic brown skinned foreigners that only exist like that because that phrase is easier to write than actually figuring out anything more complex for Asia than "there are dragons there."
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Jan 19, 2017 00:29
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Night10194 posted:E: Also, hubris. Warhams vamps are 100% about the hubris. And the note on politics. The Empire (and dwarfs) wouldn't be so bothered about vampires if the vampires weren't so prone to being scheming, ambitious assholes. As monsters go in the world of Warhammer, the vampires are actually fairly benign in the grand scheme of things. They get hunted more because they're assholes, not because they're monsters.
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Jan 19, 2017 00:59
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Cythereal posted:And the note on politics. The Empire (and dwarfs) wouldn't be so bothered about vampires if the vampires weren't so prone to being scheming, ambitious assholes. As monsters go in the world of Warhammer, the vampires are actually fairly benign in the grand scheme of things. They get hunted more because they're assholes, not because they're monsters. Which I really like! If they would stop trying to take over the world people wouldn't have that much of a problem with them, overall. But you know, never do anything by halves, instilled with endless confidence in their own immortality. They're like less dickish elves, really.
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Jan 19, 2017 01:02
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Night10194 posted:Which I really like! If they would stop trying to take over the world people wouldn't have that much of a problem with them, overall. Yeah, if the Vampire Counts stopped trying to take over the Empire [through illegitimate means], they'd be pretty low on everyone's scale of people to murder, ranking well below Chaos, skaven, greenskins, beastmen, and elves. Just look at Khemri. There are lots of living people happy to be living under the Tomb Kings - taxes are fair, justice is efficient, and the local military is on duty 24/7 and just itching for an excuse to beat the poo poo out of anyone who dares come raiding.
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Jan 19, 2017 01:32
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Still eat people though. That can be a prickly subject.
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Jan 19, 2017 01:33
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Night10194 posted:Still eat people though.  What is the robbing of a blood bank compared to the founding of a blood bank? 
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Jan 19, 2017 01:50
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theironjef posted:You can tell they really thought the setting was the big ticket because of the the prestige classes, one is specifically designed for people that are tangential to XCrawl, trappers, and the other two are specifically for retired or near-retired crawlers. The master celebrity might be the worst prestige class I've ever seen. XCrawl needs to lean not only on the pro wrestling stuff, but also American Gladiators and Double Dare and Knightmare and Smash TV and all the films I mentioned. I'm a Roman Empire nerd and even I don't care about that.
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Jan 19, 2017 01:52
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Halloween Jack posted:Part of the point, though, is that vampire lords' feeding does less damage than ordinary lords' greed. At the same time, usually they eat people WHILE doing the stuff an ordinary lord does. Ideally they lower the taxes and all, but in reality, "this extravagant castle is a suitable tribute to my magnificence and as The Count, shouldn't I have wealth beyond all mortal avarice? Get back to work, peasant, and pray I do not take your children." is more often the norm. The romantic ideal, like Vlad, is actually rather rare. E: But yes, them being a genuine lesser evil and dark mirror of mankind's desires is a big reason Warhams Vamps are great in all their hammy glory. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Jan 19, 2017 |
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Jan 19, 2017 01:53
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Night10194 posted:At the same time, usually they eat people WHILE doing the stuff an ordinary lord does. At the same time, a vampire boss is probably a terrible manager of time and status updates as well as exactly how much a human can actually do, so you go "oh as such a frail human I can move but one brick a day" and it takes you 6 generations to build them an outhouse and they still feel like it got done really fast.
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Jan 19, 2017 01:56
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Barudak posted:At the same time, a vampire boss is probably a terrible manager of time and status updates as well as exactly how much a human can actually do, so you go "oh as such a frail human I can move but one brick a day" and it takes you 6 generations to build them an outhouse and they still feel like it got done really fast. Well I know what I'm adding to my next game now.
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Jan 19, 2017 01:59
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I saw a European Dracula movie that was pretty normal except it portrayed him as a historical hero who fought off the Muslims? Ottomans? I know that there are real people who share the Warhammer view of Vlad Dracul as a harsh but fair ruler who did what needed to be done, but I'm fuzzy on the details. Here's an article I found on it: https://owlcation.com/humanities/Vlad-III-Dracula-of-Wallachia-evil-villain-or-hero
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Jan 19, 2017 02:27
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I've seen the real life Vlad idolised a bit but also mostly by people who just really like the fact that he killed a shitload of muslims.
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Jan 19, 2017 03:42
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The story of Vlad Tepes is actually cool as hell even if it contained zero vampires but the chances of seeing that done is like zero
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Jan 19, 2017 03:44
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Vlad von Carstein, on the other hand, is closer to Doctor Doom.
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Jan 19, 2017 03:49
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