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Digital Osmosis posted:Kind of a weird question, but how confirmed is it that a Demon's "soul pact" actually involves you know, souls? I know calling one in obliterates the pact-ee from existence, but that doesn't necessarily involve soul use or soul-transfer. I got the impression they worked more along the lines of the rest of Demon magic, using occult physics and the like to hack reality, so that the person you're stepping into the shoes of is over-written by the Demon. I know this is said to destroy them and their souls, but the mechanism could have nothing to do with souls at all. I mean, with the right time magic you can stop someone from being born and that will obliterate their soul without you stealing it. I Am Just A Box already answered the question, but my feeling is that whilst the "demons" of Demon don't resemble anything which anyone who hasn't had previous exposure to Demon: the Descent or associated God-Machine material would regard as an actually demony-demon, to have the "souls" of demonic soul pacts not actually involve souls at all would muddy CoD terminology to a massively pointless extent and, like Box said, be a step too far in distancing Descent demons from literary/cultural demons.
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May 3, 2019 23:17
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I'm inclined to say that the soul gets used as fuel for the Cover, in Demon. So you are, quite literally if not traditionally, selling your afterlife to the demon (whatever that might have been) in exchange for whatever they're offering.
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May 3, 2019 23:23
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Joe Slowboat posted:I'm inclined to say that the soul gets used as fuel for the Cover, in Demon. So you are, quite literally if not traditionally, selling your afterlife to the demon (whatever that might have been) in exchange for whatever they're offering. "Yes, that's right. You heard me, a sharkskin dick. Big as a baby's arm holding an apple. I want that bad boy throbbing like the vein in my stepdad's forehead."
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May 3, 2019 23:35
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I got bored with the Geist book but I'm wondering if there's anything it says about Demonic pacts in there vis a vis ghosts. My sense is that Demons do not literally trade in souls - there is a CoD condition for lacking a soul, and you don't get that when your pact gets cashed. Everything about pacting and Demonic power in general works on the level of the occult machine code that reality is built on, so it's less like drinking your milkshake and more like taking the cup, and your whole house along with it. But there is something special about mundane humans that appears to exclude other forms of life from Demonic hoodoo. It may just be the case that the God Machine was designed / designed itself around them and if it was advantageous to do so it would take interest in other line monsters and design angels to interface with them.
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May 3, 2019 23:46
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Joe Slowboat posted:I'm inclined to say that the soul gets used as fuel for the Cover, in Demon. So you are, quite literally if not traditionally, selling your afterlife to the demon (whatever that might have been) in exchange for whatever they're offering. My own Demon explanation is that oftentimes a soul in-text is conflated with its 'soul-seat'. Mage is concerned the most with the soul-seat because it's what your Legacy shapes and what your soulstones are made of (it's made of a piece of your soul-seat, that's why it stunts your soul-developing Gnosis). That's why you can have a Legacy, lose your soul, stick a sleeper soul into you and you're still a mage with a legacy. Meanwhile, that soul you lost stil has the shape/imprint of your soul-seat in it, which is why it's possible to learn your legacy from it. Anyway, Demon Covers are called soul-pacts, but the reason they erase someone from existence isn't because they take the soul (the ramifications of soul loss are very well-defined) but that in fact, the Demon is taking the entire soul-seat.
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May 4, 2019 00:02
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I post this every time it comes up and I'm gonna do it again: Mage should just refer to your nimbus as the seat of magical power. It uses your soul like a fulcrum and begins to collapse in on itself when the soul supporting it is removed. Soulstones are wrapped in nimbus-stuff. Etc.
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May 4, 2019 00:08
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I don't understand how the game benefits from having interchangeable / fungible souls at all in the first place. If it were counter-intuitive but necessary to make some other really clever or interesting idea work that would be one thing, but instead all it seems to do is confuse people (to say nothing of how half the game lines seem to strain against the concept and do anything they can to make it actually work more like the traditional conception of a soul.)
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May 4, 2019 00:13
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I dunno, I like the idea of the soul as a metaphysical organ, which has an ambiguous relationship with one's sense of self. It has the vibe of a fantastical take on modern philosophy of mind and the alienation of relating self and brain. But with vampires and demons.
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May 4, 2019 00:18
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Yeah, the alternative would essentially be to have no distinction between the mind and the soul. I like the nWoD soul's more subtle and ambiguous relationship with morality, solidarity among humans and other thinking beings, etc.
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May 4, 2019 00:32
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What religions are there in WoD? Like, specific to it and not just real life religions like Christianity or Islam? I always gravitate to the cosmological in these settings because it makes sense For example: oh poo poo, vampires are real and also the vampire origin story prominently features God. From there it seems entirely natural to wonder about what does it all mean, what forces or beings are behind everything? Also I'm just a religiously inclined person in general. I know there are cults that worship The Wyrm but apparently vampires don't really know about the Triat for the most part.
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May 4, 2019 07:58
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There are lots of heretical Christian sects of many kinds. Vampire being Eurocentric and goth aesthetics generally being so Victorian / masochistic, there’s a whole lot of Catholicism. And there are of course a whole slew of weird cults around the Chronicles of Darkness’ God Machine. You’re not going to find a lot of religion religion, this is a secret world so the religion is secret too. Which is to say, it’s occult, and given to mystery cults. There’s a faction of anti-Mummy hunters whose power set and beliefs all revolve around literally eating monsters. A couple of bigger Hunter orgs have their own belief systems The closest you get to an actual church is the Scientology-meets-wellness-spirituality cult called the Deva Corporation that worships (and very occasionally, attempts to assert control over) the God Machine and has intl. reach, a lot of money and PR behind it. Basic Chunnel fucked around with this message at 08:24 on May 4, 2019 |
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May 4, 2019 08:18
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A lot of the various monsters' social splat groups are pretty close to religions, especially in the nWoD. In oWoD I think the Sabbat probably qualifies, and in nWoD the Lancea et Sanctum is literally just Vampire Catholicism and the Circle of the Crone is just vampire neo-paganism. But also like, most people (hell, many vampires) don't know about Cain in the oWoD, so his existence doesn't invalidate non-Abrahamic religions because, well, no one knows about him so they don't therefore know that Genesis is literally correct. I feel like either of the werewolf game's protagonists are basically religious warrior types. nMage has The Silver Ladder, a mage organization that is both a religious and political organization. They're interesting too in their use of cults - they basically want to enlighten humanity as much as possible without risking paradox and so their cults, while often still being used for political control, do genuinely try and help support the spiritual development of their cultists. Basically any organized position that responds to the existence of the God-Machine is definitionally a religion. If you mean like, religions for normal human folks? Well, given hidden nature of the occult in both WoD settings they don't have access to any of the supernatural / cosmological information the various PC types do. So I'd say mainstream religion in the WoD probably looks a lot like it does in the real world. There would be a loving ton of sinister mystery cults though: there really IS some weird secret poo poo going on, some people really DO have more mystical knowledge than you do, and of course various supernatural monsters create cults at the drop of a hat.
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May 4, 2019 09:34
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I am thinking mainly of vampires, yeah. It's the setting I came in with and so all my thoughts are generally on a vampire PC and what they might think or do or, in this case, worship. I didn't know the Caine stuff was at all a secret in VTM, however. Maybe it's time I start looking more into CofD, though. Its Mage sounds way more interesting to me than oMage and Requiem's Covenants seem to be right up my alley in looking for a religion for a PC.
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May 4, 2019 10:52
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The Celestial Chorus in oMage are in theory an alliance of various real life religious people but they might as well qualify as their own given how far they take syncretism.
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May 4, 2019 12:58
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The Spectres of Wrath The Oblivion have their own religion, quite emphatically so, around the Neverborn and Oblivion. Much of the philosophy/religion of Abyssal Exalted comes from there. The final chapter of Doomslayers (classic Wraith book) is the place its gone into in most detail, irrc.
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May 4, 2019 13:48
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NikkolasKing posted:I didn't know the Caine stuff was at all a secret in VTM, however. Well, it's a well-known secret. About anybody who does a little digging (or is already old enough) learns about Caine pretty quick. They just usually think he's a quaint creation myth that never existed and while clan founders obviously existed at some point they surely don't know because that would be silly. There's a fun bit in the Lasombra Revised Clanbook where the narrator is telling a young pack all about their origins and shoots holes in in the "Caine Myth" pointing out things like if there WAS a Caine he wouldn't have an 'e' at the end of his name and on and on and then you have the counter example of a dying Lasombra who says "nope, all true."
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May 4, 2019 14:00
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Dawgstar posted:Well, it's a well-known secret. About anybody who does a little digging (or is already old enough) learns about Caine pretty quick. They just usually think he's a quaint creation myth that never existed and while clan founders obviously existed at some point they surely don't know because that would be silly. Aren't the Lasombra to the Sabbat what the Ventrue are to the Camarilla and the Sabbat is all about venerating Caine? Also, sorry for a new topic/question but a few weeks ago in a different WoD thread elsewhere somebody said something to the effect of "sure oWoD had some problems in its worldbuilding but at least it HAD worldbuilding unlike nWoD." And presently there is a thread over on White Wolf's subreddit about why Requiem is less popular than Masquerade with most responses basically being "it's a toolbox." From what I can gather that means you just play it and make up whatever the hell you want. Perhaps you can compare it to the difference between Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate; both set in Forgoten Realms but you play the former just to play it and have fun while the latter is more story and character intensive. But, judging from what I've read of the Covenants in VtR as well as the huge Mage debate that was going on and was primarily centered on nMage, I don't see how Chronicles of Darkness is lacking a metaplot or worldbuilding? NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 14:28 on May 4, 2019 |
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May 4, 2019 14:26
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NikkolasKing posted:Aren't the Lasombra to the Sabbat what the Ventrue are to the Camarilla and the Sabbat is all about venerating Caine? They're one of the founding two clans and like to loudly proclaim how the burden of leadership is theirs, so kinda, yeah.
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May 4, 2019 14:41
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The Lancea appear at first glance to be Vampire Catholics but their actually theology and mythology are hella hosed up and heretical and involve positing that Jesus is a vampire that will devour the world.
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May 4, 2019 15:01
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NikkolasKing posted:Also, sorry for a new topic/question but a few weeks ago in a different WoD thread elsewhere somebody said something to the effect of "sure oWoD had some problems in its worldbuilding but at least it HAD worldbuilding unlike nWoD." And presently there is a thread over on White Wolf's subreddit about why Requiem is less popular than Masquerade with most responses basically being "it's a toolbox." From what I can gather that means you just play it and make up whatever the hell you want. Perhaps you can compare it to the difference between Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate; both set in Forgoten Realms but you play the former just to play it and have fun while the latter is more story and character intensive. You're absolutely right about worldbuilding and setting detail, and the "toolbox" nature of CofD is heavily overstated. It's there; there are books of options and tweaks, and plot hooks presented in the form of alternate possibilities, but I think it mostly derives from the first-book principle CofD is generally written under. Most CofD books were developed under the dictate that each book should be accessible and usable under the assumption that the reader only owns that book and the respective corebook. That doesn't mean books don't reference one another, because they do, a lot, and a bigger picture emerges when you put the pieces together. But it means that if, say, the Khaibit bloodline is introduced in Bloodlines: The Hidden, then an adventure in The Danse Macabre isn't going to contain a Khaibit NPC with a writeup that tells you to refer to the other book to know what they are and can do. On the few occasions that a supplement-specific character or power is present in another book, that book generally either reprints enough of their material to use, or introduces a quick simplified version of how to run that character type and its mechanics. CofD definitely isn't a one-size-fits-all supernatural horror/urban fantasy setting, though. The various types of creature in CofD have their own definition and characteristics unique to the setting, and the books expect you to be along for the ride with their basic premises. There also remains influence from the fact that you only get one chance to make a first impression. A lot of oWoD readers who were around for the introduction of the then-nWoD glanced at the first edition corebooks, couldn't help but compare the newly introduced setting to the oWoD they knew that had already been fleshed out over years of releases, and bounced off, and a segment of those readers never really bothered to update their impression of what nWoD is like from then on. CofD does mostly lack a metaplot, but people use the term "metaplot" loosely and often really just mean setting detail and established worlds. The kind of metaplot the CofD mostly lacks is the idea of the setting's story progressing over time in publishing order. A game with a metaplot, for example, might have a book where a major setting event happens, and maybe you play through it as an adventure or maybe it's just kind of dropped on the reader, but it changes things, and then books released from then on reflect the setting after those changes take place. The world's Ravnos are exterminated, and then books after that book just don't have support for Ravnos except maybe as a few wandering lucky stragglers. CofD mostly doesn't do this, and when it does, it's with a relatively light touch. An entire bloodline won't get exterminated between books, but when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans between its representation in City of the Damned and its later reappearance in the clanbooks, the aftermath of the hurricane was reflected in the clanbooks' portrayal of the city tonight. Mors Rattus posted:The Lancea appear at first glance to be Vampire Catholics but their actually theology and mythology are hella hosed up and heretical and involve positing that Jesus is a vampire that will devour the world. Speaking of hella hosed up Christian heresies that exist to serve the purpose of vampires exalting and justifying their place in the world, the Cainite Heresy is another good example of a religious sect formed by interference with the supernatural, in both oWoD and CofD. The original heresy, anyway; in CofD, the vampires who tried that poo poo found it eventually bit them in the ash, and the modern-day group derived from it uses the name in remembrance of the danger of being duped. I Am Just a Box fucked around with this message at 15:09 on May 4, 2019 |
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May 4, 2019 15:04
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NikkolasKing posted:Aren't the Lasombra to the Sabbat what the Ventrue are to the Camarilla and the Sabbat is all about venerating Caine? There's a difference between backstory/world building and metaplot which is what a lot of people tend to focus on for OWoD. Metaplot is more represented by hard facts verified in the setting, and advancing plotlines through books. So Book A would be mentioned and built upon by Book B, and Book Z would then invalidate all that with the TRUE HISTORY of something, and characters (and many NPCs were) could be knowledgeable about the underpinnings of the setting. OWoD was designed with a lot of 'hard fact' history and advancement on that hard fact history, things interwoven in a complex web of connections. There was a lot of implied 'this is the one way that it is'. NWoD, when it came out, gave you a backstory and history (some of which was more allusions and never 'And Joe Ventrue did X, and James Mekhet did Y' like OWoD often did), but never had that advancing metaplot. It set the story, and then gave you plenty of options and ways the ST can use that history to create their own options, but was never the above interwoven 'book Z tells the TRUE HISTORY of book B' setup. A lot of people disliked this because it didn't explicitly detail out every aspect of the setting for NWoD in the same manner that OWoD did. Requiem 1e, for example, didn't have a flat 'this is how vampires came about' method, and had many various takes on it from various groups' world view, which is different than the almost universally-accepted Caine myth from OWoD and how much of vampire society accepts that.
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May 4, 2019 15:08
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Mors Rattus posted:The Lancea appear at first glance to be Vampire Catholics but their actually theology and mythology are hella hosed up and heretical and involve positing that Jesus is a vampire that will devour the world. I did some reading about the Lancea recently and I'm not sure I agree with this. I mean, they're obviously not like, members of the Catholic church, and their theology is obviously different too, but they still strike me as still predominantly "Vampire Catholics" in organization, history, philosophy, and aesthetics. I know the books talk about how vampires from non-Catholic religions have their own version of the Lancea myths, but those always struck me as more of a "and your PC can be a Muslim Lancea too!" thing and less about Lancea NPCs, which to me means the basic assumption that most random Lancea are Vampire Catholics hold out. This might be a terrible and politically charged analogy, but I think it works along the lines of America's "Religious Right." They're a loosely affiliated religious/political power block with a clear mythological basis and shared narrative that derives from their major religion (American Protestantism, especially Evangelicalism.) They also let in some members of minority religions (Catholics, Jews) but that doesn't change the fact that the "Religious Right" is fundamentally a Protestant organization. Similarly, while you can be say a Protestant and join the Lancea, the mainstream branches of the covenant are going to feel different (and somewhat Papist) from your mortal religion. I'd say the major difference (again, ignoring the baseline theological differences between the Lancea and IRL or WoD Catholicism) is the structure. Has there ever been an explanation on why the Lancea don't have an anti-Pope or whatever? Seems like during the middle ages they would have gotten on that.
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May 4, 2019 17:42
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The tribes of the Uratha werewolves, both the Forsaken and the Pure, revolve around the Firstborn totems, the child of their divine progenitor. And while both sides take a drastically different side regarding Luna, they have their own religious fervor about the spirit of their moon who is potentially their other progenitor. The tribes are called out as religions of their own repeatedly, and the Fire-Touched even have their own version of the afterlife called Taga Dan. Lodges, too, are explicitly compared to cults. While some expand the religious doctrine of the tribes, others go entirely different ways like the Temple of Apollo which build great secret temples (often disguised as private clubs) where they invite the elite to be tempted into decadence and sin and, eventually, have their souls fed to Apollo, the burning alien-wolf thing lurking around the orbit of the sun. So they even have their own Scientology. Two, if you count Panography. Cults seem to be more common in the Chronicles world, they being more in line with what spirits, angels, even vampires and mages and other supernaturals set up. nofather fucked around with this message at 17:47 on May 4, 2019 |
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May 4, 2019 17:43
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You should probably read the Testament of Longinus before you decide they aren’t aggressively heretical. There’s a reason the devoutly Catholic Prince of New Orleans hates them, and in Secrets of the Covenants writes a letter to the Pope about why. E: it is also notable that most Lancea lay members never read the Testament themselves. Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 17:59 on May 4, 2019 |
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May 4, 2019 17:56
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nofather posted:Cults seem to be more common in the Chronicles world, they being more in line with what spirits, angels, even vampires and mages and other supernaturals set up. It's not for nothing that the core set of 2e Merits includes Mystery Cult Initiation, the Merit for "you are a member of a secret society that has a real, no-foolin' occult secret. Drawback: you're in a loving cult."
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May 4, 2019 18:11
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Mors Rattus posted:You should probably read the Testament of Longinus before you decide they aren’t aggressively heretical. There’s a reason the devoutly Catholic Prince of New Orleans hates them, and in Secrets of the Covenants writes a letter to the Pope about why. I'm not claiming their doctrine is Catholic or that they aren't heretics. I am claiming that if they're Catholic heretics that makes them, in some major and significant way, Catholics. I know there's no clear line definition that delineates "religion" from "cult" or "heresy." I just think if you called Protestantism a Catholic heresy, or I dunno, Mormonism a Protestant heresy, you'd be wrong - at this point they have become their own religions. So taking the inverse, "Catholicism, but inverted and evil and therefore dogmatically opposed to IRL Catholicism" still reads to me as fundamentally Catholic, or at least extremely Catholic-ish. Side note: So if the Pope knows about Lancea, the Malleus Maleficarum must too, right? That's kind of interesting. I bet the Lancea is one of MM's favorite targets. I wonder if non MM priests who somehow run into some Lancea poo poo can get clued in if they go high enough up the Catholic ladder.
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May 4, 2019 18:35
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I'm really interested in the Lancea now but I don't want to read the current discussion before I learn more on my own. Are all the relevant details like this Testament of Longinus in their sourcebook? I was thinking about buying it anyway. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/2041/Lancea-Sanctum?it=1 nofather posted:The tribes of the Uratha werewolves, both the Forsaken and the Pure, revolve around the Firstborn totems, the child of their divine progenitor. And while both sides take a drastically different side regarding Luna, they have their own religious fervor about the spirit of their moon who is potentially their other progenitor. The tribes are called out as religions of their own repeatedly, and the Fire-Touched even have their own version of the afterlife called Taga Dan. I definitely need to start reading up more on CofD then.
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May 4, 2019 18:41
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NikkolasKing posted:What religions are there in WoD? Like, specific to it and not just real life religions like Christianity or Islam? oHunter had a quasi-religious stuff going on, but I haven't read through enough to find out if the Messengers ever get explained or not, beyond hunters thinking it was the voice of God.
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May 4, 2019 18:54
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joylessdivision posted:oHunter had a quasi-religious stuff going on, but I haven't read through enough to find out if the Messengers ever get explained or not, beyond hunters thinking it was the voice of God. They do, pretty explicitly, in the Storyteller's... Companion? I think there are two Storyteller's books and it's whichever one starts with a big combination FAQ and errata. They're the ministers of Creation, either the handful of angels who remained committed to tending Earth after God and his host abandoned or disappeared from the universe, or the few major gods from Kindred of the East's pseudo-Chinese setting that remain committed to their job. (Days of Fire, from Demon: the Fallen, implies that they're the last two archangels and also that they're the Ebon Dragon and Scarlet Queen from KotE, in that way that the oWoD often tended to imply that things from one gameline and things from another gameline were aspects of the same syncretic phenomenon somehow. Humans in the modern day aren't equipped to handle running on angel-fuel, so messages from the archangels are disorienting and only dimly understood. Hunters who grow their power to the greatest extreme can get there three ways, and one is to let the angels take the wheel and hollow you out into a direct instrument of their will. (The others being to invite a demon to get its hooks into your heart, and to wring power from your own raw willpower at the cost of going even crazier than the Imbued already are.)
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May 4, 2019 19:07
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NikkolasKing posted:I'm really interested in the Lancea now but I don't want to read the current discussion before I learn more on my own. The Testament itself was properly written up and is definitely worth a read for a deep lore dive.
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May 4, 2019 19:08
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NikkolasKing posted:I definitely need to start reading up more on CofD then. Read the Vampire: the Requiem clanbooks (Ventrue: Lords over the Damned, Daeva: Kiss of the Succubus, Mekhet: Shadows in the Dark, Gangrel: Savage and Macabre, and Nosferatu: The Beast That Haunts the Blood.) Not only are they good reading on their own, some of the best fiction in CofD short of the Horror Recognition Guide, and perfectly suited to your interests in lore-delving over immediate game utility, but they serve as a neat sampler of little hints of all the other cool setting things going on in nVampire. Mekhet has its narrator meet the Plague Nun, the childe of an early saint of the Lancea et Sanctum, Thascius Hostilinus Numida Pestilens. A lot of material is threaded through Requiem hinting that Hostilinus the Plague Angel lies still in torpor, waiting to rise and enact a terrible revenge on the modern Kindred for the treatment of his bloodline, who can only feed on the sick and have power to spread disease, and are therefore pretty bad to have around if you want to keep the herd healthy. Ventrue chases the side story of an occult killer performing a ritual to ward off the return of ancient blood-shadows that nurse a grudge against Clan Ventrue stretching back to the days of the Roman Camarilla. And that's not even getting into whatever the gently caress the Lambton Worm in Gangrel is, or the thing in the dark cave, the thing of blades and tendrils, lurking in a time before civilization and before language.
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May 4, 2019 19:20
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Mister Olympus posted:The Testament itself was properly written up and is definitely worth a read for a deep lore dive. Sweet I just bought it. Helps it was only $3. I'll have to give it a read later when I have the time. I Am Just a Box posted:Read the Vampire: the Requiem clanbooks (Ventrue: Lords over the Damned, Daeva: Kiss of the Succubus, Mekhet: Shadows in the Dark, Gangrel: Savage and Macabre, and Nosferatu: The Beast That Haunts the Blood.) Not only are they good reading on their own, some of the best fiction in CofD short of the Horror Recognition Guide, and perfectly suited to your interests in lore-delving over immediate game utility, but they serve as a neat sampler of little hints of all the other cool setting things going on in nVampire. All awesome although Mekhet sounds most interesting to me. And sorry two more quick questions about recommendations. Looking at the Mekhet book had this pop up: New Wave Requiem. This can be pretty far down my list in terms of utility but in addition to loving the occult I adore all things 80s. The music, the movies, the books, the fashion... So I was hoping this might actually be a fun read. This also popped up: How To Write Vampire It sounds interesting and potentially very useful for RP'ing or trying my hand at writing my own stories.
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May 4, 2019 19:51
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Listening to elaborate lore dumps by internet spergs is one of my favorite things to do while playing something mindless: is there a recommended podcast/YouTube channel that focuses on the fluff more than the mechanics?
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May 4, 2019 20:07
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As was mentioned, LOTS of nHunter groups revolve around religion. For compacts, The Long Night are basically American Christian Evangelicals who hunt evil in hopes of hurrying up the book of Revelations; The Illuminated Brotherhood are drug taking new-age hippies who want to just, like, understand the spirits and like, totally just vibe with them, man; and the Keepers of the Source are also a bunch of hippies, but instead of drug-taking beatniks, they're full on eco-terrorists who kill to save Mother Earth. For conspiracies, the Ascended Ones are technically from all Abrahamic religions but are largely cast as Islamic with some, let's be real, issues and problematic connotations; the Faithful of Shulpae are a cult who believe in sacred cannibalism of supernatural beings; the Knights of Saint George are former anglicans that turned into a cult that appeases "faceless angels" by feeding them mages; Les Mystères are mostly Voodoo or Voudon followers who fight wolves on behalf of spirits; the Lucifuge are the children of Satan, Like, The Real Satan; and lastly, the Malleus Maleficarium are old school Catholic hunters.
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May 4, 2019 20:29
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I Am Just a Box posted:And that's not even getting into whatever the gently caress the Lambton Worm in Gangrel is, or the thing in the dark cave, the thing of blades and tendrils, lurking in a time before civilization and before language. Don't forget the War Pig and the Worm Lord in Nosferatu!
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May 4, 2019 20:57
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nofather posted:Lodges, too, are explicitly compared to cults. While some expand the religious doctrine of the tribes, others go entirely different ways like the Temple of Apollo which build great secret temples (often disguised as private clubs) where they invite the elite to be tempted into decadence and sin and, eventually, have their souls fed to Apollo, the burning alien-wolf thing lurking around the orbit of the sun. So they even have their own Scientology. Two, if you count Panography. Okay but where the hell can I find out more about this Apollo thing because that sounds delightfully weird.
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May 4, 2019 21:00
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NikkolasKing posted:And sorry two more quick questions about recommendations. New Wave Requiem isn't my personal interest so I can't offer much of a judgment, but it's generally well liked among folks who are into it. It's a short mini-supplement, mostly divided between a simple setting overview, some storytelling advice, and a sample adventure. Bite Me is by Rose Bailey, one of the best, if not the best, writer and developer in late CofD or in CofD overall, and documents her perspective on the themes and voice of the game. It's pithy, useful, occasionally enlightening, and you can really see its influence on Requiem once it came under her direction, around the time of Requiem for Rome and most of the clanbooks (the first one published, Ventrue, was just before Rose took over). And it's short and cheap. Pro-click. Slimnoid posted:Okay but where the hell can I find out more about this Apollo thing because that sounds delightfully weird. It's one of the sample lodge writeups in The Pack.
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May 4, 2019 21:23
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Russian Remoulade posted:Listening to elaborate lore dumps by internet spergs is one of my favorite things to do while playing something mindless: is there a recommended podcast/YouTube channel that focuses on the fluff more than the mechanics? Please don't. 
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May 4, 2019 21:31
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I Am Just a Box posted:New Wave Requiem isn't my personal interest so I can't offer much of a judgment, but it's generally well liked among folks who are into it. It's a short mini-supplement, mostly divided between a simple setting overview, some storytelling advice, and a sample adventure. I bought New Wave Requiem and it's exactly as you describe. I like it, but I was also planning an 80's set game so it was definitely helpful in making me think about the period beyond "No cell phones" It's pretty cheap and if you're into 80's stuff it's worth grabbing.
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May 4, 2019 21:41
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I Am Just a Box posted:And that's not even getting into whatever the gently caress the Lambton Worm in Gangrel is, or the thing in the dark cave, the thing of blades and tendrils, lurking in a time before civilization and before language. Okay, I've never once been interested in Gangrel (I like my city vamps, thank you) but what the gently caress? Suddenly my curiosity is piqued by the apparent return of [Tzimisce]. Also, the Ventrue clan book has one of my favorite NPC concepts: The King of the Trailer Park.
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May 4, 2019 22:11
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