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Cythereal posted:Thing is, that's all due to the Baldur's Gate games. Yep, the Dalelands and Waterdeep were 100% the focal points at the beginning of the setting. YggdrasilTM fucked around with this message at 10:35 on Feb 29, 2024 |
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Feb 29, 2024 09:58
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  Product Link Product Type: Adventure CoS-Required? Yes This one-shot adventure is designed for 4 5th-level PCs. But unlike other adventure products designed to supplement the base Curse of Strahd campaign, this one is a prequel where the players take on the role of Knights of the Silver Dragon attacking Castle Ravenloft before Strahd became a vampire and Barovia fell to the Mists. The adventure is separated into a Prologue and three Acts, and makes three changes to the base CoS canon: Castle Ravenloft’s construction was completed before Strahd destroyed the Order of the Silver Dragon, the Order assaulted Castle Ravenloft on the same day as Tatyana and Sergei’s wedding, and Sir Godfrey Gwilym can possibly die during the siege rather than at Argynvostholt. With all that out of the way, the adventure goes over the major players and their changes. There are 3 NPCs present who are not in the original adventure but do exist in greater Barovian lore: Gralmore Nimblenobs, Khazan, and Sir Leonid Krushkin, who fight and die for Strahd during the siege. Rahadin is also one of the fighters, but since he’s present in the actual adventure he will be claimed by the Dark Powers to teleport him to the Amber Temple if he’d otherwise die. Quite a bit of NPCs in this adventure have plot armor as a result or have their destinies predetermined via non-interactive boxed text cutscenes. If anything, the only real changes the PC knights can effect are having their equipment show up around Castle Ravenloft during Curse of Strahd proper as mementos of the past. Sir Godfrey Gwilym has stats for this adventure, but instead of the S-tier undead companion he is currently, he instead uses NPC Knight statistics but can cast spells as a 16th level paladin. The Prologue starts out with the PCs attending a war room meeting with Argynvost in human guise* and Vladimir Horngaard laying out the political situation of Barovia. Reports of an internal coup in Castle Ravenloft resulted in the death of Sergei, and Argynvost judges that such dissension is the perfect time to strike. They have Strahd at his weakest, and such an opportunity may never come again. The PCs are to ride ahead of the main force, to secure Castle Ravenloft’s drawbridge before it can be pulled up. The DM is encouraged to ask the players how they came to join the Order and when they first met Sir Godfrey, along with a sample table of Knightly Mementos which are akin to Trinkets but tied more into the Order’s history. *None save Vladimir or Godfrey know he is actually a dragon. Act I begins with the PCs riding on warhorses along the Old Svalich Road. They come across Madam Eva, who at this point in history is known as Katarina, Strahd’s secret half-sister. She fled the Castle along with other servants to escape the massacre at the wedding. PCs who manage to calm her with Persuasion can learn more about what happened at the Castle, notably the death of Sergei and Tatyana and Leo Dilisnya’s failed assassination attempt of Strahd. The drawbridge of Castle Ravenloft is an encounter, complete with a gridded and nongridded map.* A mixture of guards, scouts, and veterans man the walls, and when the guards start to close the gate the PCs must make Athletics checks to jump onto it. They still make it on a failure, but lose an important piece of equipment or Memento as it falls off. *Each Act has an appropriate map, although Act II uses Ravenloft’s existing courtyard. Act II has a larger force of soldiers come out to defend the castle: Rahadin plus the aforementioned Kruskhkin and Nimblenobs and two dozen soldiers. The nameless minions aren’t relevant to the fight, as the Order of Silver Dragon will come into the courtyard to do battle with them. During the conflict, Khazan will appear on the battlements to conjure a storm, which creates intermittent AoE lightning strikes targeting the PCs. In order to deal with Khazan, Argynvost enters Cutscene Mode by transforming into a silver dragon to fly up and kill the archmage with an arctic breath. Argynvost, who has accumulated years’ worth of wounds in dragon form, falls to the ground dead in human form. Act III is the climax of the adventure, when dusk falls and the Mists truly descend upon Barovia. Godfrey’s failure to heal Argynvost’s wounds is remarked by him as feeling “cut off from the Divine,” which is some ominous foreshadowing of Barovia shifting planes. Horngaard leads the remaining forces to the main doors of Castle Ravenloft, which swing open to reveal Strahd who will be broody and unmoved by the paladin’s proclamations of justice. The now-vampiric darklord will cause the courtyard’s fallen to rise as undead, prompting a skill challenge representing a larger defensive battle against the creatures of the night. Some checks are given, and each failure will eliminate 20% of the order’s remaining forces. Sadly these checks have no narrative consequences for the rest of the adventure or even Curse of Strahd proper. After the challenge is completed, Strahd will fell Godfrey with a Blight spell, and the PCs will fight Strahd directly and have a chance to save the paladin if they can reduce Strahd to 100 or less hit points or otherwise secure Godfrey to safety. Like the skill challenge, this has no narrative consequences, as Strahd will use another unnamed spell to blow back the party with no saving throw allowed. Godfrey will either be dead, at which point Horngaard loses all will to continue fighting, or is too weak to assist them in the next fight. The PCs thus pursue Strahd further into the castle, confronting him alone at the altar with him standing over Sergei’s corpse. Strahd will give a melancholy speech of his conflicted feelings over his brother and how he “took” Tatyana from him. He ends the speech by proclaiming that Barovia is his, where not even death can pry it out of his cold, undead hands. Initiative is rolled as normal, but it is expected that the PCs will fall in battle to Strahd. He may spare one survivor to leave and spread what happened at the castle so as to warn others who think to act against him. The Epilogue ends our adventure with the PCs regaining consciousness in a Barovia now lost in Mists, where they become undead ghosts filled with an all-consuming thirst for vengeance. They find their fellow knights in a similar state, including Vladimir Horngaard who says that their watch is not yet over. Not as long as Strahd still stands. Overall Thoughts: Prequel adventures aren’t very common in tabletop RPGs. I am not against the concept in and of itself, but the actions of the PCs in the prequel must have some tangible impact on the present. Otherwise they feel like padding, content for the sake of content. Unfortunately, Assault on Castle Ravenloft’s railroad tracks are downright magnetic, for the player’s agency and meaningful choices are more or less rendered moot. It doesn’t matter if they save Godfrey or fail, he’ll end up as undead in Argynvostholt. It doesn’t matter if the PCs succeed or fail in the skill challenge to repel Strahd’s undead, for the Order of the Silver Dragon will be reduced to literal ghosts of their former selves one way or another. The only NPCs who don’t have plot armor are people who have no real impact on the current timeline besides historical footnotes. One could argue that Assault on Castle Ravenloft can give the players some meta-knowledge on things before the campaign begins, like knowing the impact of Argynvost or why Strahd is obsessed with Tatyana, but these are things that can be learned in the actual adventure. The Knightly Mementos aren’t meaningful items in and of themselves for the plot, being little more than discarded items that act as a metagame shout out to players who end up in Castle Ravenloft. It is for these reasons that I cannot recommend this adventure. Join us next time as we turn Barovia’s ruler into a Dragon Ball Z villain in the Real Devil Strahd! A CR 27 Version of the Devil!
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Feb 29, 2024 10:13
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PoontifexMacksimus posted:With a bit more tech and development, the Birthright video game could have been a true classic... Larian, don't sit out this opportunity! What I've heard of it from people who've played it is that it's a perfectly fine game (aside from dungeon-crawling being mostly pointless), just obscure and niche.
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Feb 29, 2024 13:24
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Loomer posted:That’s the end of Part 1 of Book 2. Next time, we get to Part 2, where the Unholy Trio finally meet Phantomas, the Inconnu get involved, and we see what Sumohn can do. I didn't realize Gailbraith had such the wild ride early on. Gailbraith's fate in the game line, which I'm spoilering because... I dunno. Gailbraith would be retconned into being a Toreador antitribu but the more interesting thing is she would be destroyed by the ever-popular forces unknown which are probably related to the super ancient Methuselah under Mexico City and was replaced by a poor dumb little Tzimisce tailor who was the first to discover her remains and terribly afraid of being framed for her murder. The dummy's also on the semi-heretical Path of Lilith so he was probably not long for the world.
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Feb 29, 2024 14:38
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That's one of the areas I'm convinced they mined Bob's work for. Mysteriously mirked Melinda getting a doppelganger twice? Not a coincidence!
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Feb 29, 2024 15:03
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Loomer posted:That's one of the areas I'm convinced they mined Bob's work for. Mysteriously mirked Melinda getting a doppelganger twice? Not a coincidence! Funny you mentioned a pre-fall of Rome Methuselah being a thing in 1e because the book I'm working on currently ALSO has one. In Denver of all places lol. I just don't remember off hand if he's the prince or the mysterious puppet master behind the dumb plot of the book. Could be both of them, I haven't looked at my review draft since yesterday
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Feb 29, 2024 16:40
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Ah, Alien Hunger? That was a quality piece of gonzo nonsense as memory serves.
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Feb 29, 2024 16:58
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Loomer posted:Ah, Alien Hunger? That was a quality piece of gonzo nonsense as memory serves. Boy howdy. Spoilers here so JD can give it to us farm fresh. Louis Pasteur REPRESENT. Also the Malkavian who thinks he's Jimi Hendrix because he switches basing himself off a popular musician every 20 years or so. I don't know if he's described as being Black so... yeah.
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Feb 29, 2024 17:19
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Dawgstar posted:Boy howdy. Spoilers here so JD can give it to us farm fresh. Oh I had some feelings about that one lol. Also no, our delusional friend is White. Loomer posted:Ah, Alien Hunger? That was a quality piece of gonzo nonsense as memory serves. It is Alien Hunger, and nonsense is a solid description of it because wooof, it's a whole lot of "WHO GIVES A poo poo" with a couple of interesting or good bits sprinkled in. If there's one thing I just love in my adventures is plot that the players have essentially no impact on at all! I do not, in fact love this
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Feb 29, 2024 18:34
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Bob and the rest of the writers at least deserve credit for keeping their heads deep in the poo poo for as long as it took to write all those books, personally I'd just make it known that attempts to make me write more crap for this shared universe would end in real world violence.
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Feb 29, 2024 20:10
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By popular demand posted:Bob and the rest of the writers at least deserve credit for keeping their heads deep in the poo poo for as long as it took to write all those books, personally I'd just make it known that attempts to make me write more crap for this shared universe would end in real world violence. That's kinda what's great about 1e, and the very early years of the setting, it's pretty wide open for crazy nonsense and things don't really start to solidify until each new game comes out, so you've got Werewolves that are whatever you want until Apocalypse comes out, Wizards do whatever the gently caress until Mage drops, etc. Once things start to solidify, that's when the pain begins because then you need the corkboard and strings to plot out all the nonsense instead of just going "Uhhh yeah, the Phantom of the Opera is real and he's a Nosferatu, Houdini is a vampire and the PLO has Werewolves."
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Feb 29, 2024 21:15
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joylessdivision posted:Oh I had some feelings about that one lol. Also no, our delusional friend is White.  joylessdivision posted:That's kinda what's great about 1e, and the very early years of the setting, it's pretty wide open for crazy nonsense and things don't really start to solidify until each new game comes out, so you've got Werewolves that are whatever you want until Apocalypse comes out, Wizards do whatever the gently caress until Mage drops, etc. True madness is trying to tie in the lines together. Like if I run, say, Vampire then werewolves are Lupines and thus little understood ambulatory chainsaws that once in a blue moon (ha ha werewolf joke) you can maybe parley with. If it's Werewolf then vampires... well, they actually don't change much but it's refreshing to not have to worry about 'well, he's a Ventrue' or whatever.
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Feb 29, 2024 21:30
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Dawgstar posted:True madness is trying to tie in the lines together. Like if I run, say, Vampire then werewolves are Lupines and thus little understood ambulatory chainsaws that once in a blue moon (ha ha werewolf joke) you can maybe parley with. If it's Werewolf then vampires... well, they actually don't change much but it's refreshing to not have to worry about 'well, he's a Ventrue' or whatever. I wonder if anyone ever actually used those simplified stats for other types of supernaturals printed in the backs of all the core books. I remember one of the Vampire books had "mages" that could simply spend willpower to have helpful coincidences happen for a while. That's arguably superior to the Ascension magic system.
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Feb 29, 2024 21:36
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LatwPIAT posted:What I've heard of it from people who've played it is that it's a perfectly fine game (aside from dungeon-crawling being mostly pointless), just obscure and niche. Oh, it was by far my favorite fantasy strategy game (speaking of niche categories), but there a lot of features that seem incompletely implemented, janked, bugged, etc. Still nothing else like it; wouldn't mind paying (again) just for a polished version of the original. And later dungeons could get some truly busted artefacts for the strategic layer (in both senses of the word, some I think didn't actually do anything).
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Feb 29, 2024 22:08
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Dawgstar posted:
I feel like if you want to do the monster mash thing with what the corebooks provide covering the different monsters, you have to step back and look at the big picture of "Masquerade is Vampires and how they work according to them, Apocalypse is how Werewolves work" etc, and then you can still use the more vague "Lupines control the wilds and will rampage on a full moon and also they are murder machines so avoid them" because a Vampire isn't going to know a Get from a Child of Gaia, all they see is "Giant, furry murder machine". You just apply that same idea to each line and it makes some sense. The stuff these creatures know about the others is basically what mortals would know about these creatures, aka legends and folklore, because they're all running their own version of the Masquerade. And before anyone points out "But what about Consensus Reality", Mages are dumb assholes who don't know what the gently caress they're talking about. They believe in consensus reality, as do mortals, but lol you really going to argue it with a Garou or Changeling? No of course not because one will eat you while the other cries about how banal you are. I'm a firm believer in a unified WoD, and that there is likely something pulling the strings of said unified universe (and if you want to be meta about it, it's us, the ST's/players/authors who are the gods of the WoD universe). But that's just like, my opinion man
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Feb 29, 2024 23:10
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Monsters from other game lines don't need to be started up with all their special stuff. Vampire just gives werewolves potence/fortitude/celerity/etc for free that's always on to represent that they're terrifying killing machines and leaves it at that.
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Feb 29, 2024 23:21
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wiegieman posted:Monsters from other game lines don't need to be started up with all their special stuff. Vampire just gives werewolves potence/fortitude/celerity/etc for free that's always on to represent that they're terrifying killing machines and leaves it at that. Mechanically speaking, yes absolutely. But if you got the lore brainworms, as I do, then you get my half-assed explanation.
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Feb 29, 2024 23:25
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 Product Link Product Type: Bestiary CoS-Required? No, but presumably meant to be used as a replacement for the default CoS Strahd of that book. As an iconic D&D figure who has existed across editions, the capabilities of Strahd Von Zarovich have differed between incarnations. In the original I6 module, he was a powerful vampire and a 10th level magic user. A fearsome foe to be sure, but not on the tier of a cosmic horror or demigod. In the 2nd Edition House of Strahd update to the adventure, his arcane knowledge expanded exponentially, becoming a 16th level necromancer versed in all but the most powerful magic as well as several magic items equipped on his person. Third Edition saw two versions: Expedition to Castle Ravenloft returned him to his roots as a 10th level wizard, enhanced with the powers of the Fanes of Barovia that gave him various persistent benefits as long as he remained connected to the land. A CR 15 foe, but one that could be reduced to 12 and plausibly defeated by a group of mid-level adventurers. In the Ravenloft Campaign Setting published by White Wolf, we saw Strahd at his most powerful, as a 4th level Fighter/16th level Necromancer, putting him (in theory) as a foe that only PCs nearing maximum level could fight and hope to win. Curse of Strahd harkened back to the 1st and 3rd Edition adventures, positioning the vampire as a learned wizard but not archmage-tier. Of someone more in line to be a dire threat to heroes that can still be troubled by earthly concerns, who haven’t yet graduated to being the most powerful heroes of the Material Plane. At a time before said heroes grow bored of earthly pursuits and yearn for epic level quests beyond time and space. The Real Devil Strahd, in its own words, finds Curse of Strahd’s portrayal of the vampire to be weak in comparison to the novels and descriptions of him in the adventure, notably drawing upon the fact that he beat Mordenkainen and how his stat block is too close to that of the standard Monster Manual vampire. The author suggests that with Strahd being the first of his kind, that should lend him to being far more powerful than the average Monster Manual Vampire. This product rewrites Strahd’s stat block to be an epic-tier CR 27 monster, and advises not to use this stat block save “during the final encounter.” Which makes me presume it’s meant as a replacement for the stats in Curse of Strahd and not just for some alternate epic-tier Ravenloft campaign. In spite of this product’s brevity, I’ve managed to spot a lot of spelling and grammar errors. The book misspells Mordenkainen twice in the same paragraph as well as other words elsewhere, sometimes there would be no spaces between words, certain proper nouns not being capitalized, and the use of a winky face emoji. This reads less like a professional product and more like the first draft of someone’s homebrew. So, what are some of the bigger changes for Real Devil Strahd in comparison to his base stats? In short, he is empowered by the three Fanes, which give him persistent benefits. Furthermore, the Heart of Sorrow gives him a safe bank of 100 hit points instead of 50. He wears his Animated Armor at all times, wears a +3 Ring of Protection, fights with a +3 longsword, and has a ring of counterspell and bead of force. The Real Devil Strahd basically has more of everything across the board. His AC is a massive 29, with 6 of that coming from the Mountain Fane that “protects him against incorporal attacks and also applies when Strahd is in gaseous form.” Which if this were 3rd Edition, would make sense, but in 5th Edition Armor Class is Armor Class. Unless a specific ability is called out, attacks by incorporeal creatures or when in gaseous form don’t alter one’s AC. Surprisingly Strahd still has a low amount of hit points at 161, but can regenerate 30 hit points per turn instead of 20. Several of his values are mathematically wrong; at CR 27 he should have a +8 Proficiency Bonus. He is proficient in Perception and has a 14 Wisdom, so he should have +10 Perception. But it’s +8, and his Passive Perception is 21. He’s actually less sharp-eyed than the default Curse of Strahd! This holds true for the rest of his proficient skills and saving throws, who are off by a value of at least 1 lower or higher than they should be. Perhaps to make up for his dulled senses, Strahd has something called Blood Scent where he senses living creatures with blood or blood-like vital fluids within 240 feet. He’s outright immune, rather than resistant to, nonmagical weapon attacks as well as poison, and with the Swamp Fane he has resistance to the big elemental energy types. Strahd is also immune to all turn undead attempts unless it’s from the “Icon of ravenkind.” Ravenkind is lowercase in the book, and I presume that the author means the Icon of Ravenloft magic item. Interestingly this Strahd not only has a regular Children of the Night feature, he also has a Feral Swarm which gathers a swarm of bats but as an AoE damaging cone that recharges on a 5-6 on a d6. He also has a Beguiling Gaze he can use as a bonus action, which is a gaze attack that grants him advantage on all attack rolls against a target that fails a Wisdom save, and lasts until they take damage or until the start of Strahd’s next turn. The final Fane, the Forest Fane, grants Strahd constant benefits of a Nondetection spell as well as the ability to listen in on and know the location of anyone who mentions his name. As for his spellcasting capabilities, they’re a mess. Some spells are capitalized while others are lowercase, and some that are more than one word have some of the words beginning in uppercase and the others not. Combined with the inconsistent use of spacing, this makes Strahd’s spells a pain to read. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that his save DC and spell attack rolls have the incorrect modifiers, too. Additionally, two of his defensive spells have (active) in parenthesis next to them, which I presume means he cast them before battle. They are Mirror Image and Guards and Wards. In the former’s case it has a short duration meaning that it’s unlikely to be in play should the PCs get the jump on Strahd. The latter spell only affects up to 2,500 square feet of floor space, and there’s no mention in this book if the spell moves with Strahd if we presume a mobile final fight taking place throughout Castle Ravenloft. Strahd can cast up to 8th level spells, with a penchant for offensive and “dark magic” style spells like Finger of Death and Maddening Darkness. Finally, unlike the basic CoS Strahd, this one makes use of various non-core magic, including one Unearthed Arcana spell (Puppet). And what of his Legendary and Lair Actions? Well on the Legendary Side Strahd gets a bunch more abilities on top of his CoS base abilities, such as a use of his Charm, shooting lightning bolts dealing 3d6 damage courtesy of his animated armor, can make a claw attack that is an automatic critical hit if it connects and imposes a Lingering Injury* on the target, a gaze attack that can frighten targets, and can teleport a short range. As for his Lair Actions, Strahd can generate supernatural darkness that dims the light level and grants vulnerability to necrotic damage on living creatures and resistance to radiant damage to undead in it, and finally psychic impressions of the screams of prior victims that impose deafness and disadvantage on Perception checks on a failed Wisdom save. *This is an optional rule in the DMG, so I hope that any DMs using this stat block have bookmarks ready! But wait, you may ask. “This Strahd isn’t strong enough!” “This stat block needs more book-keeping!” “I want Strahd to feel more like a video game boss battle!” Well, it just so happens that this Real Devil Strahd has a secondary Monstrous Form! Don’t worry, it’s not a whole new stat block, just some more alterations to the basic stats if he’s not in sunlight and below 50% health. For 10 minutes he grows to Large size, gaining an additional attack or Dash once per turn, a flying speed of 150 feet, resistance to all damage except radiant damage, advantage on all melee attacks against creatures not at full health, and cannot shapechange into other typical vampire forms. In order to fit all of this onto his stat block, it is split into one and a half pages with a very small font. Now this sounds like a lot of things to juggle for a DM, and you’d be right. But it’s all for making a stronger Strahd. And for those who think that animated armor and a +3 longsword aren’t enough, don’t worry, this book has got you covered! They are both unique items, with the longsword having several abilities such as a crazy base 3d10 slashing + 2d8 necrotic damage, is invisible to divination magic,* and can store the necrotic damage dealt as charges to heal oneself. The animated armor grants a bunch of condition immunities and the lightning blast legendary action. But since PCs don’t have legendary actions, does a PC who dons the armor get one free use per turn? The book doesn’t say. *The book says invisible instead of undetectable, which asks if a diviner with the means of seeing invisibility can detect the sword. The book doesn’t specify this case. Our book ends with four new spells specifically for Strahd. Ground Fog is a 2nd level conjuration spell that is like Fog Cloud but has a much larger radius (the Range says 120 foot radius but the text says 50 foot radius) and only goes up to 2 feet high; Rain of Terror causes rain that can take on various forms from blood to writhing snakes, making it easier for foes to be frightened like advantage on Intimidate checks and disadvantage on saves vs fear; Shadowbind is a 4th level spell that targets up to 6 creatures whose shadows merge on a failed save, forcing them to remain adjacent to each other and only acting on their lowest initiative order together; and Strahd’s Baneful Attractor, a 4th level spell that creates a 15 foot diameter invisible force that can divert spells aimed at another nearby creature to the person who cast the spell instead. Overall Thoughts:  This entire product is a mess. Beyond just the poor formatting and grammar, running this Strahd in combat would require a bunch of unnecessary book-keeping as well as the use of optional rules and non-core sources. There’s no way I would use this on a typical end-game Curse of Strahd party. Even if I was running for an extremely optimized group, juggling this along with the confusing mapping of Castle Ravenloft would give me a headache, and if using the hit and run tactics the default Strahd uses this will be too difficult for even optimized groups. And even in spite of all this, Strahd’s low hit points and typical vampire weaknesses still means that the old Wall of Force plus Sunsword trick can still take him down. Now, I haven’t read novels such as I, Strahd, so I can’t say how faithful this is to his power in the literature. However, Mordenkainen in the base adventure is an archmage. Still very powerful, but lacking several things that Strahd has: namely Legendary Actions, the ability to noclip through the walls of Castle Ravenloft, a bunch of evil minions, the ability to regenerate from most attacks without consuming precious resources, and a high enough Stealth to get the drop on Mordy’s meager 12 Passive Perception unless he pops a valuable spell slot on something like Foresight or Enhance Ability (Owl’s Wisdom). Default Strahd can still plausibly take on the (admittingly depowered) 5e Mordenkainen via his home terrain advantage. I am not against the concept of an epic-tier Strahd villain. We saw a saner stat block for this in White Wolf’s Ravenloft, but it has to be done well. I’m honestly surprised that this product got mostly positive ratings and reviews; we should aim for a higher standard for the Dungeon Master’s Guild. Join us next time as we spice up Curse of Strahd’s haunted countryside in Barovian Nights: 101 Random Encounters!
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Feb 29, 2024 23:56
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 Joylessdivisions World of Dorkness Presents: Alien Hunger - World of Dorkness #20 Part 1 Welcome once again to the World of Dorkness. We have recently been looking at a few of the early Masquerade 1e supplements, with a focus on chronicle books, specifically the Chicago set Ashes to Ashes and the Cleveland set Blood Nativity. Today, we’ll be reviewing the first official White Wolf released quick start chronicle book, Alien Hunger. As we always do, let’s begin with the front cover.  This cover, like many of the early covers I’ve discussed, doesn’t really evoke the title of the book, but it does give us a glimpse of the opening of the adventure. The art itself is excellent and reminds me of an 80’s or early 90’s horror paperback cover, and the orange coloring of the flames really pops nicely against the blues of the rest of the piece. I also like the subtle color gradient of the border.  Alien Hunger quote:A Taste of Blood Sticker price is $10 or $22.64 adjusted for inflation (or $5 for the PDF, $8 for a POD on Drivethru)  Credits: An omen of things to come, the credits are a bit hosed up here. I’ll present them as they are written in the book, errors and all.
Special Thanks to:
Special, special thanks to: KC Lancaster, for the original illos of the V-Team Dedication: quote:I am deeply indebted to the V-Team (Mark Matthews-Simmons, Chris and KC Lancaster, Guy Wells, and Gail Starr), without whom there would be no adventure because there would have been no one to play it. I know I called out typographical issues in another 1e Masquerade book recently, but this book is painfully full of them, to the point that at times I’d have to stop and re-read a sentence to figure out what was being said. These errors appear as words smushed together or oddly spaced leaving weird bits like the error in Jeffery Berry’s name in the credits and occasionally words with a weird extra letter or even a number replacing a letter. I admit I do not know much about the publishing process circa 1991, but there had to have been a proof draft before the books were shipped off to catch this stuff, right? It’s frustrating to be sure. Table of Contents
 I feel like this image has popped up in another book I’ve reviewed, but I can’t remember which one off hand.   Introduction A Jump Start Our introduction kicks off explaining that Alien Hunger was designed for ST’s new to Vampire, regardless of their prior DM experience, and is intended to be run with a minimum of effort on the ST’s part. Pre-made characters are also provided for players to jump right into the story without having to do the work of creating a character themselves. quote:“The very structure of Vampire does not lend itself to the cliched ‘slay the evil one, save the maiden’ type of story commonly found in roleplaying. A Vampire story works on a more subtle plane, where the crisis is that of an ever-dwindling humanity, a loss which the characters must always fear. In such a situation, mood plays a more important role than any enemy could in generating story sessions that will be long remembered." Alien Hunger is written in a linear fashion to help guide ST’s and players through a more traditional scene by scene progression. Of course, ST’s who want to play things more freely are encouraged, but warned that this style of play requires extra effort on the ST’s part. quote:“As a result, the story is highly detailed and full of statements like ‘If the players do that, you can respond like this.’ The intent is bring a group of new players and Storytellers to a mutual understanding of the genre. They are crutches, and if you do not need or want them, then cast them aside!” And like every supplement I’ve covered that contains a story or potentially important Chronicle information, non-ST's are warned off of reading the book further. How to Run This Story Mood is a key element of this adventure, as is atmosphere, and each scene includes details of the mood to achieve along with hints of how to do so. However, you can’t force a mood on the players, and so cooperation with the players and building the mood together is ideal. Two suggestions are made for building mood in the general, first is self-control on the ST’s part, as staying focused on the story and not cracking up at things will help pull the players into the story, while the second suggestion is to be descriptive, adding as much or as little detail as necessary to each scene and to consider drawing on common experiences of the players to help everyone have a shared frame of reference. Another way to keep the mood of the story is keeping the players in the dark, metaphorically, and putting an emphasis on dice rolls related to information gathering. A few other bits of advice include taking copious notes, especially early on as these notes can help enhance the police investigation element of the story later, and hammering on the players about their new condition, the horrors and wonders of being a Kindred, with a special emphasis on their first feeding, noting that animal blood is readily available, but to play up how bland and unsatisfying it is compared to mortal blood. Plot Players not only have to deal with the horrifying transformation from mortal to Kindred in this story, but also the extraordinary paranoia of the Kindred. The players sire, Jacob Prestor is dead when the story begins, leaving the players without a guide into the world of darkness they now find themselves. Further complicating this situation, their sire was killed on orders of the Prince of Denver, and once he finds out about the players, he wants them dead too. But the Prince has been bamboozled, and is, himself, merely a pawn of a more powerful Kindred. The two pressing crises the players must resolve then are how to deal with their new unlives and resolving things with the Prince. It’s likely that at least a few of the pre-gen characters, as well as characters created by the players (and really, any new Kindred) could be seeking revenge for their mortal lives being stolen from them. But figuring out who is actually responsible for situation the players find themselves in is a challenge. While Prestor Embraced them, he assumed it to be a temporary measure, the Prince ordered the death of Prestor, but at the instigations of another Kindred, so who does the blame fall to? I mean.... it’s Prestors fault, he’s literally the one who Embraced the players. The Prince and the Ancient silently pulling his strings aren’t necessarily responsible for any of this. Chapter One: While still mortal, the players nightly routines are interrupted by a bearded wildman who attacks and brings them to his lair. When they awake, they are in a basement of a building that is quickly being consumed by fire. They escape; however, they are now firmly out of the frying pan and into a whole new kind of fire. Chapter Two: As the players begin to deal with their new existence and realize that their old lives are over, they soon find themselves the focus of a police investigation (thanks to family/friends who reported them missing) and the targets of the same Kindred who ended their collective sire. Chapter Three: The players are finally able to begin gathering critical information about their condition, a bit about their Sire and discover that there might just be a path back to mortality. Chapter Four: The hunt for a cure brings the players into contact with a powerful Ghoul that not only holds the keys to their potential return to mortality, but also information about why they were Embraced, and about the Ancient that may soon be hunting them. What’s Really Going On Louis Pasteur (yes, the Louis Pasteur), in 1887 met a man named Georges who seemingly was immune to disease. In 1890, Georges revealed the truth, that he was Kindred, and the two men began researching vampirism, eventually developing a serum that could induce vampirism, a powerful first step towards a potential cure. In 1895, his health deteriorating and George having disappeared, realizing that Louis was likely to die before a cure could be developed, Louis injected himself with the serum, and died.  The next night, he awoke, allowing himself to be buried so that he could escape his grave and leave his old life behind to continue researching a cure. His research eventually caught the eye of Thaddeus, an Ancient who saw the research as not only an end to his own existence, but that of the entire Kindred species. Thad then began harassing poor Louis, going as far as trying to destroy him on a few occasions, forcing Louis to move regularly and work under assumed names. This, of course, hindered his research, and the few friends he made along the way who aided in his experiments have since been killed. Eventually, Louis made his way to Denver under the name Jacob Prestor. Thad followed and wormed his way into Prince Edward’s court, convincing him that Louis planned to wrest control of the city from Edward. Naturally paranoid, Edward saw Louis’ secretive nature as a sign, and made his move to strike. Louis, having discovered this plan, then grabbed a group of mortals to Embrace as allies, assuaging his own conscience that he would succeed in his research, and return his new allies back to their mortal lives when things settled down. While he succeeded in creating these allies, he was killed by Edward’s assassins before he could explain the situation to said allies. Okay, why are we wasting Louis Pasteur this way? If you’re going to pull a historical figure and say “This person is a Kindred (Garou/Mage/Changeling)” then they should probably have something to do besides just be a pile of ashes at the start of a story. I really like the idea of Pasteur being a vampire scientist doing vampire science, but considering his death is the inciting incident of the story, why not just make an original character for this role? It’s an incredibly pointless historical figure pull that doesn’t serve the story in any meaningful way, and even if the truth is revealed to the players at some point, “Hey, Louis Pasteur made us vampires” has about as much narrative weight as an original NPC would. Theme The dangers of change. The players have been forcibly changed into monsters, and to survive they must learn to becomes something more than they were, and once given the choice to change back, they must decide if they want to give up the power they now have. This newly found power is the secondary theme of the story, as the players must learn not to abuse their new powers, or potentially lose their humanity, or worse, lead the entire group to their doom, as cooperation is paramount to success. Mood The conflicts of Vampire are often subtle ones, focused on loss and the slow evaporation of one’s Humanity, and Alien Hunger’s mood is a dark one, of the players lives crumbling before their eyes, and the more they try to stop it, the less they can do. The secondary mood is one of strange hope, as despite the players' old lives being destroyed, they have an opportunity to replace their old lives with something new. Customizing the Story Players can, of course, use the pre-gen characters provided (as the adventure was written with them in mind) or they can create their own, but they need to remember that their characters are mortal until the story begins. With this in mind, character creation should be split into two parts. Part one would focus on the players generating their Abilities and other stats, but not Disciplines. Alternatively, Players can simply create their character as usual, choosing their Clan as they like, and simply ignore their Disciplines until the time is right. A connection between the player characters is important, even if it is a distant one. This will make it easier to explain why the players are together, give them a reason to stick together, as well as making it easier for them to be caught up in the investigation to come. Narratively, it just makes sense that Prestor would choose this group of characters because they are connected in some way. A connection to the mortals in the basement who appear in Scene One should also be made between at least one or two of the players, as this will add complications to various subplots. The other element to remember, as this is a quick-start, players cannot take dots in Herd, Generation or Status. Mentor can be taken, but will be introduced as a character who has taken an interest in that player over the course of the story. The story has been designed for five newly embraced Kindred, and since the story is focused on coming to grips with this change, it would be best not to try and run this with established characters. If, however you want to incorporate Alien Hunger into an ongoing Chronicle, then this can be done, but will require some work on the ST’s part. To get established characters into this adventure, two major elements need to be addressed: How to get the players invested, and how to make them appear to be on the wrong side of the authorities. The first will depend on the characters themselves and where their interests lie. Maybe the hint of returning to mortality is enough, or maybe Prestor was in town and a botched assassination attempt has drawn the players in. Or maybe the local Prince wants them to go talk to Prestor. Whatever works for you and your group. As for Prince Edward? Just make sure the players don’t introduce themselves and Edward’s paranoia will take care of the rest. If the players are already Anarchs, then this could be the climax and resolution of their story. Denver, Colorado  The capital of Colorado, Denver is located at the foot of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of 5,280 feet and is an intersection of highways I-25, I-76, and I-70. Outside the Denver Metro area, there are farmlands to the east and the Rockys to the west, and these farmlands offer the Kindred of the area with ample, low risk animal blood. While the Garou generally avoid the city proper and the farmlands, the Rockies are another story, and there have been at least a few reports of Garou rampaging through Downtown Denver during a full moon. Denver is claimed by Prince Edward, who rules with what could be considered fairness within the Kindred community. A moderately old Kindred, the Prince is comfortable in his position and understands the value of the status quo, and has a deep dislike of firebrands of any kind. His lieutenants, Don Alonzo de Vargas handles much of the daily governance of the city, while Duke acts as the enforcer of the small Council of Denver. All other Kindred in the city fall into one of two camps: The Prince’s Court, and the independents. The Court are, obviously, those that feel the need to cling to a hierarchy, and generally hangout at the Broadstreet club. The independents, by contrast, acknowledge Edward’s sovereignty, but do not pay homage to him. Each of the independents lay claim to small parts of the city where they hunt, and do not hunt in each other's territories out of common courtesy. Cow Tipping  No, not the literal meaning of the term. Among the Denver Kindred, Cow Tipping is slang for feeding on cows. Feeding on cows can be resolved with the hunting rules in the corebook, and should be considered a difficulty 4, with the player gaining 2 dice for each hour spent hunting. While Garou tend to stay out of the general Denver area, and the farmlands, as previously noted, that doesn’t mean you can’t throw one in should a player botch, though botching could result in an encounter with armed farmers, police or even another Kindred. Remember that when describing feeding from cows, that it is extremely bland, and that compared to mortal blood, it’s about as appetizing as plain oatmeal. And that’s our introduction chapter. I skipped over a bunch of stats about Denver as they’re not that interesting, and frankly, I was too lazy to go and look up the adjusted population data. This is a fine introduction, despite my complaints about Pasteur being wasted. The writing here isn’t bad, but Ashes to Ashes felt a bit more in line with how other adventure books I’ve reviewed have been written, while this introduction feels like they haven’t quite nailed down the format and style. I’m also not in love with the emphasis on the police investigation element that pops up in a later scene, but admittedly, I think this adventure is a bit rickety as written in general, but I’ll discuss that as we go along.   The Story Chapter One: First Nights Scene One: The Attacks The players are kidnapped on a Friday night by Prestor, who tries to remove the memory of the attack from each victim. To achieve this, before each encounter, roll Prestor’s Wits + Subterfuge (8 dice) against the players Willpower. Players can resist by rolling their Willpower at difficulty 8, and players should not be told why they are rolling. If Prestor gains 3 or more successes, the player does not remember the attack, and can simply finish up their character generation (if they haven’t already). If Prestor does not get the successes, pull the player aside and roleplay the attack with them. Before each attack, have the players describe their usual activities for the day, to help emphasize the transition soon to come. Once the player has described their day, introduce the Prestor attack, which should occur when the player is alone, or with another player who will be in the basement when the story properly begins. In all the attacks, Prestor will attempt to use Command to put the players to sleep after the attack. Prestor again has 8 dice to use against the players Willpower, with any successes on his part putting the player to sleep. Players can again roll Willpower at difficulty 8 to resist. The book suggests that once each attack is completed, the players should finish their character sheets. Seems like it would be easier to just have the sheets done before the attack and just remind the players that their sheets are essentially meaningless for the moment. Each player should start with 4 blood points. There are several blocks of short fictions detailing a scene with one of the pre-made characters. They’re fine, but not worth elaborating on beyond pointing out that they exist, and they present the mechanical ideas and suggestions in a narrative format. They don’t do much for me personally, but I understand their purpose in the book as a method of helping new ST’s.  Scene Two: A Firey Awakening After each player has been put to sleep, they are taken back to Prestor’s home and placed in the basement with three others, Vince Belhurst and Mavis and Suzy Jackson. Each player is injected with one of Prestor’s serums, and then left to undergo their change, to be tended to the following night. By the next night, however, Prestor is dead, and the house is burning, thanks to Duke, Earl, and The Count. The players awaken, however their companions, Vince, Mavis, and Suzy, have all reverted back to mortal now that Prestor is dead.  Here the story proper begins, and the ST should put an emphasis on the confusion and sense of loss the characters should be feeling, as they’ve just woken in a dark, stuffy, and increasingly warm, basement. The mortals should be described with terms typically reserved for food, and every opportunity should be taken to draw attention to the stark contrast of their old lives and what they are now. ST’s should have the players discuss among themselves what is happening, while a bit of background sound effects, such as a beating heart can help emphasize the change, and anytime the mortals come into contact with the players, draw attention to the heartbeats of the mortals and how they notice the players are cold, going so far as to offer their coats. quote:“The awakening in the basement is the first great opportunity for role-playing, so make the most of it. Try to convince the players to drain the humans dry, while at the same time doing your best to make sure they feel guilty if they do. Welcome to Vampire.” Scene Three: Escape There is one obvious exit out of the basement, a trapdoor at the top of the stairs, however, this door leads back into the house, which is now an inferno. Any player who wants to touch the door will learn this as the heat is so extreme that a Stamina roll at difficulty 4 should be made, lest they lose one level of Health. If the players decide to try and run through the burning house, the mortals will not survive, and the players will have to make Wits + Athletics rolls at difficulty 8 for as many rounds as it takes to achieve 6 successes, at which point they have escaped. Of course, these are vampires and fire we’re talking about, so each round they remain in the burning house (and they’ll be there for at least one round), they take fire damage. Stamina + Fortitude at difficulty 8 to resist, but only if they have Fortitude. Players take two levels of damage, or –1 per success on the resistance roll. If they manage this daring (and batshit crazy) escape, then Edward and his court will be aware of their existence, which will almost certainly have dire consequences. But there’s an easier method of escape. The south wall of the basement is thin and near to the sewers. ST’s can tip the players off to this by mentioning the wall feels a few degrees cooler than the others, or, if they have sufficient light (a few matches are fine) and are searching the basement, then a Perception + Alertness or Investigation roll at difficulty 6 will reveal the weakness. Players using Auspex gain a bonus die to this roll. Breaking through the wall requires 6 total successes on a Strength roll at difficulty 7. Botching takes one level of health from the player trying to break through. This damage can be resisted with a Stamina roll at difficulty 8. Remember that the house is on fire, and as the air is slowly sucked out of the basement, those mortals are going to die. If the players don’t care to save the mortals and figure they can just wait out the fire, then they should notice that the temperature is beginning to rise, until they are making Stamina rolls at difficulty 8 (or take one level of damage.) After 10 of these rolls, the temperature begins to drop again, as the fire is out, and they may leave the basement at their leisure. If the players did wait out the fire before escaping, roll a single die, and on a 1-7, someone (likely a cop) saw them escaping. If playing with totally fresh players, do not hesitate to guide them towards the weakened wall with the aforementioned clues. Scene Four: The Sewers and After If the players escaped into the sewer, they’ll soon find a manhole. If the mortals are still with the players, play up their warmth and how God drat delicious they seem. Once out of the sewer and on the street, let the players know they are a few blocks away from the burning house, and let them plan. If they haven’t fed yet, there are plenty of opportunities around, and if Vince is still alive, then he fucks off to check in with the cops. Whatever else happens in this scene, hammer on the players that their hunger is there, and give them many opportunities to feed. Your Goals During this Chapter  Remember that the Characters should be unaware that they are Vampires, despite the Players knowing this. This is a crucial time to focus on roleplay and encourage the players to think about how their characters are dealing with things. If the players start to slip, remind them of in-game vs out-of-game knowledge. Use the players Disciplines to emphasize the change as well. Players with Auspex should have things described in excessively vivid detail, and if the mortals survived this long, continue using them as a contrast to the players new nature. ST’s are encouraged to try and get at least one player to kill a victim, preferably in a messy and public way. This will help heighten the police investigation in the next scene. Eventually, the players will move along from things around Prestor’s neighborhood, and they may split up and head back to their homes to recover from their mad evening. The next night, the players should see in the newspaper (or on the evening news when they rise) that the fire was at the house of a man named Jacob Prestor, and that at least one was killed in the blaze, and that the police are making inquiries. Aside from the background stuff that puts this story in motion, which I think is kinda lame broadly speaking, I think this is a decent introduction scene. The book really, really leans into the emphasis on the players' change, which is good advice, but also a bit tedious to read what is essentially the same advice three or four times in as many paragraphs. I don’t love the idea of convincing a player to kill a victim on their first feeding just to add something extra to the next scene, but I’m not against letting a player kill a victim if they decide to without ST prodding. That feels like an aspect that would work better with either a semi-experienced player who is already in the roleplaying mindset and thus, thinking about the story elements that can come from it, or a new player who, as ST, you just maybe “Forget” to mention that they don’t have to kill when they feed. Something about trying to talk the player into it feels lovely to me. Sure, pulling it as a bit of a gotcha on the player who doesn’t know better is also kinda lovely, but at least feels more honest. The three mortals are just sort of there, and while Vince has ties to one of the pre-made characters, which is detailed more in the characters section of the book, they ultimately don’t have that much effect on things, other than being a potential snack or dying because the players decide to just wait out the inferno. Chapter Two: Life In Death Now, the players must be reunited (unless they didn’t split up the night before), and how you do this will depend on the characters being used and how Chapter One shook out. If the players are separated, then the character with the highest Occult score (in the pre-made group, that’s Marcus) should be the one who has figured out they are now Vampires and should be the one to realize that they are better off working together than apart. This is part of why the characters having some connection to each other is important, as it should draw them back together (unless they decided to hunker down somewhere together). Scene One: The Police Investigation The police investigation can add a bit of paranoia to the players' lives, as well as offering a convenient way to remove the last aspects of their mortal lives from them and further driving them into the underworld of the Kindred, as well as forcing them to work together so they can get the police off their tracks. The police are investigating Prestor’s murder and the arson of his home. If the players were reported missing before the murder of Prestor, then the cops are investigating this as well. If the players killed anyone, then these murders are also being investigated. If the players have no “Public” life in Denver, either because they are from out of town or already living semi-underground, then the investigation will not touch them. If none of the players reported being kidnapped, then it falls to the ST to decide if anything in the players background or actions taken in the earlier chapter are enough to draw them into the investigation. If any of the mortals survived the basement (and the players didn’t try Dominating them or something else), then they will also go to the police and report what they know.  Detective William Brandt is the man in charge of the investigation and while a very clever detective, he comes across a bit bumbling. Okay, baseline we have the arson/murder of Prestor investigation happening. Any other investigations are theoretically separate and would seemingly not have ties to the key investigation of the fire and murder. So why is this one dude the head of seemingly 6 or 7 different investigations that have little to no obvious connection other than the story says they do? Unless someone saw the players run out of the burned out/burning house, then sure, I can see them running into Brandt, but unless you’re going to the trouble of tying in all these various side investigations into things, it just doesn’t make sense that this one dude is leading the investigations into an arson/murder and potentially 5 missing persons reports (or 8 if the mortals were also reported missing and died/didn’t go to the cops) that have no direct connection to the primary investigation, unless some very specific things have happened, like the players being seen leaving the house, or the mortals surviving and telling the cops about the players. Brandt will personally interrogate each player involved in the investigations. The first interrogation should come as a surprise, and the players should not be allowed to come up with a story unless they had a chance to meet up and talk prior to the interrogation. The players being interrogated should be taken into a separate room and grilled while the ST takes copious notes, so that players can be caught in the lies and inconsistencies of the other stories. Which, sure that could work, and might even be fun, but I’ll be honest, it feels a bit contrived as I previously mentioned. Possible Resolutions If the players covered their tracks sufficiently, then they can avoid being detained, although this is not likely (so says the book.) The more “Likely” situation is the players going underground and “killing off” their mortal existences or abandoning them. This option presents a couple of wrinkles, that of potentially being hunted by the police or dealing with the crimes that have been committed (if they committed any). The players could rather easily fake their own deaths (with the example from the playtest informing that those players ripped off their jaws to get a dental record match. Now, that is creative!), or if they did commit a crime, then Domination of a mortal patsy is worth a shot. Ultimately, this plot thread and its importance falls on the ST. If you want to handwave it, then do so, but if you want it to dangle and be a recurring issue, then make the players work for it. Personally, if I were running this, I’d likely have little desire to have the players (remember there are supposed to be 5 players for this story) all tied up in this investigation nonsense, because that’s just 5 dangling threads I’ve got to deal with. Sure, it could be fun, but something I’d be more inclined to maybe focus to one or two players or something I’d push to the background to bring back later. Front loading it into the story like this just feels unnecessary. I do really love the anecdote about the play testers ripping their jaws off to fake their deaths. That’s loving brilliant, and while that means they were likely spending a couple nights without a lower jaw, it’ll grow back.... eventually. Identification The players may need new identities. If they make peace with Prince Edward, then this is trivial, but if they don’t make friends with the Prince, or they need new ID’s before they meet him, then they can either forge the documents themselves or find someone who can. Forging the documents themselves is detailed in the corebook, with the first roll being a difficulty 5 and the second a difficulty 7. ST’s may want to roll this for the players, thus leaving the players blind to the quality until they try to use it. Regardless of who makes the roll, 2 successes means its very shoddy, 3-4 successes the forgery is pretty good, and 5+ being very impressive. If they botch, then the character thinks the forgery is good, but anyone else would spot it as a fake immediately. Finding someone to do the forgery for them requires a simple Perception + Streetwise roll at difficulty 6, and takes 1 night to complete, however 2 or more successes and the players will find someone who can make the documents of sufficient quality. Scene Two: Angel Tony After a couple of days, each player who is out and about should make a Perception + Stealth roll at difficulty 8. Success indicates the players have a vague feeling of being watched. On the fourth day after the fire, Tony arrives, most likely when the players are gathered. Tony astral projects himself to the players location to scout it out for threats, then he sneaks into wherever the players are and introduces himself by making a pithy comment to draw their attention. Once he has the players' attention, he ignores all questions about his age and abilities while trying to pump as much information from the players as possible, especially about their origins and goals. In exchange, he gives the players a crash course in vampirism. If the players are still trying to keep a connection to their old life, Tony makes rude comments about hanging out with mortals. Along with the basics of Kindred existence that he explains, if asked about his motive, he tells the players he’s helping them because he’s bored, and he’ll confirm that Prestor is dead if anyone bothers to ask about it. He can also provide information about becoming mortal again, but only if the players ask him about it. While explaining Kindred existence, he warns that the players should lay low for now, and that if they meet another vampire, to run. Before he leaves, he suggests that they meet him in two days at the 24th Diocese, a club in his territory. When the players meet with Tony at the club, he tells the players he’s still looking into things and to continue to lay low and that he’ll be in contact with them in a couple of days. The day after this, Prince Edward learns of the players (if he hasn’t already), and his harassment of the players begins. The next day, Tony leaves a message for the players at the 24th: quote:“Guys, you got problems. A guy named Edward, who pulls some weight around here, wants you dead – for good. Avoid Broadstreet, a club he hangs out at, and his house at 654 Mountain Crest, off Route 93. See you Sunday night at 1 am. Tony” Unfortunately for Tony, after dropping off the note, Edward’s goons capture him, torture him for information and then execute him.  If the players are concerned come Sunday when Tony doesn’t show up, they’ll meet Candi at the 24th, a mortal who can tell them that she last saw Tony a couple of nights previously, which should tip them off that it was the night he dropped off the note. Scene Three: Seek and Ye Shall Find The players likely have plenty of questions and not a lot of answers. The following is a collection of topics the players may be interested in discovering and the mechanics of achieving it. General Procedure The exact information gained is based on the number of successes gained on the rolls. Players can try to research again, but successes do not carry over from one roll to another, so if they want the information that comes with 3 successes, they have to get it in a single roll. Jacob Prestor The players likely have nothing concrete on Prestor, other than his name and that they woke up in his basement while his house was on fire. The simplest way to gain some info about him would be the rather mundane task of talking to his neighbors. Attempting to talk to the neighbors should take one evening to complete, and each player can only try once. The difficulty of the following rolls are 6, but solid roleplay can drop it to 5. Manipulation + Subterfuge (if they think just lying will work), Charisma + Empathy (posing as concerned friends or family), Manipulation + Intimidation (scare the answers out of em), Appearance + Etiquette (any points in Fame can be added to this roll), Charisma + Bureaucracy (We’re from the government), Wits + Intelligence (representing themselves as investigators). ST’s can either give these roll suggestions to the players or let them pitch their approach and then suggest the roll that feels most appropriate. The blonde mentioned under 3 successes is Roger Liverman, and with the information the players gain from 4 or more successes, they can roll Intelligence + Bureaucracy at difficulty 5 to learn Liverman’s name (after 2 or more successes on the roll and 3 hours of research) 1 Success: Prestor was a quiet man and a good neighbor 2 Successes: Prestor was a bit odd, didn’t go out much or have many visitors 3 Successes: The only regular visitor was a blonde man with a Jaguar 4 or more: The Jag has a vanity plate that reads “SCIENCE” Monetary Situation If the players want to look into Prestor’s finances (because that’s a thing you’d want to do I guess?) have them roll Intelligence + Finance at difficulty 6. A particularly genius plan can drop the difficulty to 5. 1 Success: Prestor’s money was handled by the Denver broker Aynsely Whitman 2 Successes: Two years ago, Prestor gave Whitman a half million dollars to invest, and was living off the proceeds 3 or more: The money came from a Swiss bank account. Prestor also had two letters of introduction from two prominent Boston lawyers and a safety deposit box at the United Nation Bank of Denver Edward Williams The Prince of Denver is our primary antagonist, and the players will likely want to gather a bit of info about the man. Finances Same roll as investigating Prestor’s finances 1 Success: Williams is a fairly successful businessman who runs the Broadstreet club 2 Successes: He owns the Broadstreet outright, having purchased it on a five year lease. 3 or more: “Well off” financially is maybe a smidgen of an understatement. Prince Edward is rich Origins/Background Where did Edward come from? Intelligence + Investigation at difficulty 7 1 Success: He arrived in Denver 15 years ago from Vegas 2 Successes: He’s got a lot of money that has been invested into the Broadstreet 3 or more: Something about his background seems off.... The Police Investigation If the players are interested in seeing how the investigation into the fire is going, this is how. If the players committed any crimes that are being investigated, the ST will have to design their own success tables. To even try this roll, the players must have access to police records, either because of prior involvement with law enforcement in their mortal life or having a contact in law enforcement (a rating of 2 in Contacts will suffice). If the players don’t have any connection to the cops, then they need at least 3 or more successes on a Manipulation + Bureaucracy roll at difficulty 6 to bullshit their way into a situation where they could conduct their research. The roll for the Arson case is Intelligence + Law, and as with the other rolls, sufficiently clever plans will drop the difficulty by one. The Arson Case 1 Success: It was arson 2 Successes: The body found has been tentatively ID’d as Prestor, but there wasn’t much left of him to really test. 3 Successes: There are leads that suggest three men, only known as Duke, Earl and The Count may be involved. There is also some discussion of a blonde man seen leaving around the time the neighbors noticed the fire. 4 or more: the three suspects are known to hang out at Broadstreet. Any murders committed by the players (near Prestor’s house) are also the suspected work of the trio and the blonde man. Hitting the Streets  For players looking for a bit more local information. The Broadstreet If the players have learned about the Broadstreet, then anyone with Music or Streetwise can roll Intelligence + that ability at difficulty 8 to see what they know about the club. Talking to folks on the street about the club requires Manipulation + one of the aforementioned skills at difficulty 6. 1 Success: “Cool Club, dude!” 2 or more: Owned by Edward Williams, he also plays in the house band, Seventh Son. Seventh Son A band of vampires who play at the Broadstreet. An Intelligence + Music roll (difficulty 8) will allow the players to know the names of the band from memory, while a Wits + Music or Streetwise at difficulty 7 will allow the player to learn the same info. Or they could just call the club and ask. The band is made up of Edward on lead guitar and vocals, Jason Dodgerson on Bass, Karen Mauve on drums, Leslie Booth on keyboards, horns and vocals and Leslie Wilkes on guitar. Duke, Earl, and the Count Anyone with Streetwise who spends a bit of time tracking these three can learn with Wits + Streetwise (difficulty 6) that the word on these guys is “Don’t gently caress with these guys. They don’t start poo poo, they end it.” 3 or more successes will tell the players that the trio has been asking around about a blonde man. Scene Four: The Hunters Once Edward knows about the players, he wants them dead. Unless the players did something rash or obviously attention grabbing the night of the fire, it takes Edward a couple of nights to learn about the players existence. Now the players are under extreme threat as the Prince has declared open season on them, and every Kindred in the city is keeping an eye out. To help simulate this feeling of paranoid danger, remember that if the players go to a Kindred hangout, they’ll obviously run into trouble. If they’re just out and about, then roll a single die every night. On a 1, some kind of trouble occurs. If they’ve been going loud (feeding too openly or generally being obvious) then you can up that roll to either a 2 or 3. The most generic form of trouble the players will encounter at this point is bumping into another Kindred or two who want to kill them. With that in mind, leave an escape for both sides of any potential conflicts. Additionally, don’t rely on the dice to tell you when to drop an attack on the players. If the players are totally lost or haven’t considered any of the other options, then have them take a prisoner. Bothwell (who is detailed later) is ideal for this prisoner situation, as despite being a decent fighter, a concerted effort between 3 or 4 players should take him down, and he’ll crack once captured. Once captured, Bothwell reveals that Edward is the Prince of the city and that Edward wants the players dealt with, dead, out of town or surrendered, it doesn’t matter which, he just wants this problem dealt with. Possible Resolutions As Bothwell points out to the players, they have three main methods of resolving this plot: war, surrender or flight. While war may seem like an obvious choice to some players, they should understand that if they choose to go to war, it is one they are absolutely going to lose. While they can be given a couple of narrow escapes, ultimately, they’re going against much more powerful Kindred. Surrender or making peace is likely the best choice, as all the Prince really wants is an assurance that the players aren’t going to act against him. While this may take a bit of convincing to the players, try to get them to see the situation from Edwards perspective, and if they’ve figured out that Edward is misguided in his fear of Prestor, then he would be grateful. Right, but how the gently caress are the players supposed to figure out, at this point in the story, that someone else was manipulating the Prince into being afraid of Prestor coming for him? There’s been literally nothing to this point that would suggest that. Even with the information the players can gain from the investigation scene above, none of it points to a third party behind any of what has happened to them in the past few nights. If the players go and meet with Edward, they still have to convince him they’re not going to start any poo poo with him, and because he’s a paranoid old vampire, he’ll demand that they each drink from him before they’re allowed to leave, as a sign of good will, as it were. Players can try to talk their way out of drinking from the Prince with a Wits + Empathy roll at difficulty 8, but only if they say something that you believe would convince the Prince. If they can’t convince him they’re not a threat, then they are offered two options: Leave Denver or Die. If, however, they convince Edward that they’re innocent, he’ll happily help them assimilate into Kindred society, teaching them the Traditions and about the Cam. quote:“Additionally, if they can somehow convince Edward that Thaddeus has duped him into being a hit man, then Edward will become a strong ally if they choose to pursue Thaddeus” Great, cool, get the Prince of the city on your side, sounds enticing but HOW THE gently caress DO THE PLAYERS KNOW ABOUT THADDEUS!? Nothing that has been presented thus far related to what the players can learn mentions Thad, at all. So why the gently caress are we suggesting this idea at all? Tony doesn’t mention it, literally no one the players meet to this point, INCLUDING THE PRINCE know about Thad’s involvement in any of this, and the only time they would potentially learn about it is way later in the adventure, AND THEN IT REQUIRES ONE OF THE PLAYERS BE CAPABLE OF READING FRENCH! Or, meeting a Ghoul NPC who also can be completely skipped over. Tomorrow: More Alien Hunger
joylessdivision fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Mar 1, 2024 |
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Mar 1, 2024 00:45
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Morte's Planer Parade Part 3 Baernaloth  Ancient Yugoloths from the Gray Wastes of Hades. Where they came from are unknown and as don't appear to share an origin with the other Yugoloths, the baernaloth's don't speak of their origins either. Most baernaloths serve as scholars of the profane trying to learn the secrets and lore they can of the past and future of the multiverse, many of them seek to use this knowledge to manipulate reality or to preform experiments on the planes. The demodands of Carceri are rumored to have originally been created by baernaloths. They torment and feed off the despair and horror of any creatures they meet. They even use their powers to keep mortally wounded foes alive so they can prolong their suffering. Attacking them also brings suffering as it causes old wounds to reopen. The baernaloths meanwhile coldly observe their victims agony without emotion. They are Challenge 17 Large fiends (yugoloths) that are typically Neutral Evil. In combat they can teleport around using their bite and claws to attack, the bite preventing the target from healing. They also have a breath weapon of despair mist that causes a large amount of psychic damage, charms the targets and makes them regard their allies as foes until they save against the effect. They have some spellcasting to aid their options and can summon weaker yugoloths to aid them. They can also take 3 reactions a round, and have the following extra reactions they can use, one they can force creatures that succeed on a roll to reroll it and take the new result, two when they are damaged they can force their attacker to take damage. Lair of a Baernaloth Baernaloths prefer to dwell in remote mountain crags and secluded caves, their lairs generally have quite a bit of space so they can keep prisoners restrained and at deaths door. A baernaloth is considered Challenge 18 in their lair. Lair Actions They can do these every round at initiative 20 but none twice in a row. Consume Suffering. Until initiative count 20 on the next round, when a creature in the baernaloth’s lair other than the baernaloth takes necrotic or psychic damage or drops to 0 hit points, the baernaloth regains 10 (3d6) hit points. Discover Secrets. The baernaloth uses Spellcasting to cast detect thoughts. A creature targeted by the spell cast in this way takes 13 (3d8) psychic damage. Recurring Wound. A creature that doesn’t have all its hit points and that the baernaloth can see in its lair must make a DC 19 Constitution saving throw, taking 22 (4d10) necrotic damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. Regional Effects A region containing the lair has one or more of the following effects: Persistent Anguish. Within 10 miles of a baernaloth’s lair, when a creature casts a spell that either restores hit points or removes the charmed or frightened condition, the spell fails and is wasted unless the caster succeeds on a DC 19 saving throw using its spellcasting ability. Once a creature succeeds on the saving throw, it is immune to this regional effect for 24 hours. Slow Healing. Within 10 miles of a baernaloth’s lair, a creature other than the baernaloth regains only hit points equal to half its hit point maximum when it finishes a long rest, and it regains only half the usual number of hit points when it spends Hit Dice during a short rest. If the baernaloth dies, these effects end immediately.  Bariaur Wanderer  Hailing from the plane of Ysgard the centaur-like bariaur's have great wanderlust and sate it by traveling the planes. They often make a living as guides in the outlands. Throughout their travels they absorb the ambient planar energies and frequently take on aspects of the planes they spend the most time near. They are Challenge 3 Medium celestials that are typically Chaotic Good. In combat they are skirmishers who use barbed javelins and shortbows and in an emergency a charging ram, they can also jump up to 40 feet as a bonus action. Out of combat they know some druid spells based around survival, and can detect any portal and where it goes if they are within 30 feet of it, as well they know the direction and distance to the last portal they used. Cranium Rat Squeakers  The cranium rats were originally created by mind flayers as spies, but the squeakers of sigil have lost all connection to them, and now live for themselves. The rats are but normal pests and tools on their own, but if they come together in great numbers their intelligence merges into a single whole with the memories of all it's members A single rat is a Challenge 0 Tiny aberration that is unaligned. They are pretty much just a normal rat, but they have can make their brains glow, they are immune to any divination spells and can't be mind read, and lastly if tamed their telepathy can be used by someone touching them to telepathically talk to someone else within 30 feet. A squeaker swarm is a Challenge 5 Medium swarm of Tiny aberrations that typically neutral. They are much more intelligent than a single rat and have gained more combat power, and the ability to cast several psionic spells. Next time Dabus.
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Mar 1, 2024 00:51
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joylessdivision posted:
As memory serves, it’s either the original core book or Chicago by Night. I vaguely recollect it may have been used for the succubus?
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Mar 1, 2024 02:04
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Loomer posted:Previously On: The Masquerade of the Red Death - Book 2: Unholy Allies - Part One, Chapters 9 to 13 It’s time for more of that good poo poo. And by good poo poo, I mean Bob Weinberg’s Masquerade of the Red Death trilogy. The Masquerade of the Red Death - Book 2: Unholy Allies - Part Two, Chapters 14 to 17 We’re now into Part 2, and as always, Bob kicks us off with a Poe quote:  This one strikes me as better placed later in the trilogy, or even within the book itself. Divorced of its broader context – and let’s face it, most readers are not overly familiar with Poe -it’s a defiance at the end, a stirring against fate and horror rather than a dread of anticipation. But, not withstanding, as far as pulls go, it goes hard, so fair points. As always, we’re observing my usual practice of treating all chapters as consecutively numbered, even though Bob numbers each Part separately. Chapter 14 In an attempt to tie the pull closer together – and almost certainly having picked it to fit this beat – we return to the Naval Yards at 2AM on the 25th, where Alicia Varney is pulling herself out of her MacGuffin escape pod in a figurative rise from the grave. Bob treats us to another multi-page recap of things established both in the last book and several times over in this one, which is perhaps his worst habit: he trusts the reader to have the memory of a goldfish. Part of that could be because his plots can be a little convoluted, but they’re really not that difficult to keep track of, and it produces a lot of bloat. The genre of ‘what I would’ve done…’ can be obnoxious, but to indulge in it for a moment. If I were to sit down and rewrite this trilogy, I’d probably keep it as a trilogy – but just by ditching the bloat of endless recaps and repetition, you could free up maybe 100-150 pages fairly comfortably. That’s room to explore the more interesting themes Bob accidentally stumbles on but doesn’t explore (maybe fortunately – I don’t know if I’d trust him to do it.) The real parallels between Flavia, Madeleine, and Jackson could easily fill that newly vacated territory, as could actually treating McCann as a proper mystery man. But, back to the story. The Naval Yard is completely destroyed (which comes up briefly in the Clan Novel Saga down the line – as much as people might have gone ‘well this can’t be canon’ over the years) and the storm is now raging. Bob reiterates the World is a gently caress element that the fire department no longer even tries to put out major fires, and gives us a wee bit of the ol’ fascism at the end:  Now we could just say that’s only Varney/Anis’s take, but I’m not entirely confident it is. I love Bob as a weird little guy, but to say he had some regressive political takes laced through most of his work – beyond just a love letter to pulp – is fair. Sanford Jackson (he still gets to be Sanford: in Book 3 Bob forgets his name.) survived by peeling out in their spy van, but he’s disappeared. For once, Bob doesn’t ruin the tension a paragraph later, and Jackson doesn’t pull up on the curb with a smile and a pizza. Alicia instead goes looking for Bern’s headquarters to make sure the attack ultimately succeeds in dethroning Vitel, because if Bern doesn’t manage it she’s liable to get decapitated as a punishment. Bit late there, Alicia, but Bob’s excuse for this is that the pods were too heavily shielded for her to telepathically communicate. Which – sure, okay. We get some more wanking over Lameth, the Dark Messiah (praise him, etc) as Alicia realizes he must’ve conjured the storm, and she carries on along to Bern. At this point, the narrative could go two ways. Genuine horror and terror at discovering Bern is dead and has been replaced while in the belly of the beast, or… Not that. Bob chooses the latter, and has Molly hanging out invisible in the dark (I like to think she’s hiding in a garbage can) to warn Alicia and take her to safety – and a chapter that amounts to sweet gently caress all ends. To actually tie in with the Poe at the start, Alicia falling into the trap and having to escape by the skin of her teeth at considerable personal cost would work better and provide a stronger narrative arc, but c’est la vie. Chapter 15 We’re still with Molly and Alicia. Molly recaps the events of Chapter 11, and makes sure to tell us how she managed it (with Obfuscate? Nah, Protean 6. Must be buddies with a City Gangrel, eh?) Alicia reflects on Melinda’s return, and because our two methuselahs are the bestest methuselahs going, knows the truth:   Terrible comma splices there, as it goes, but yes, Bob read Chaos Factor or at least the cliff notes. Sadly, Sam Haight does not appear in these books – but one does wonder if his overall tone didn’t inform Bob’s approach to character building? There’s a nice snarl in the plan here: Alicia wasn’t Bern’s ghoul, but everyone thinks she was, so now she needs to scramble to find new cover for why she isn’t aging and has her powers. This chapter is set up to be a tense chase sequence through the foggy streets as the Blood Guard track Alicia after she’s slipped the noose. It could work to satisfy some of the possibilities lost by immediately avoiding the trap of the warehouse, but instead, Molly is able to identify and locate the Blood Guard from blocks away, and Alicia does some dark magic, conjures demons using the ability – Bob makes sure to name it – Edge of Hell’s Abyss, and they’re dealt with off screen. Instead of a neat action sequence, or a properly tense chase, its done and dusted in a page and a half so Walter Holmes can stroll on in and drive her back to Manhattan, because…  It’s a classic set-up and premise. Will the execution work? Chapter 16 Maybe, but we won’t find out just yet. We’re back to Paris instead, and the Three Unholy Stooges. A break in the action to let suspense build isn’t a bad idea but we’ve effectively just had two chapters end that way, so it feels a little cheap here to be denied the payoff. But, in Paris, the Trio are invading the catacombs:  Not bad, by Bob’s standards. Bad comma splice again, but he’s making the most of the inherent creep factor of the place. Also, this bit right after, which I love because it is aggressively embracing the stereotype:  It doesn’t take long to enter Phantomas’s tunnels, and the Trio embark on their dungeon crawl. Like any self-respecting dungeon boss, Phantomas has filled it with traps, like:
A ceiling collapse (which does nothing to stop them, being veterans of the trenches). An exploding canister of poison gas. Automatic machineguns firing down a corridor (which we get the weird ‘vampires can defuse circuits with their mind’ thing coming up again to deal with.) An illusion wall. That’s all – just a wall that does not exist but looks like it does.  As it happens, I’m not sure a couple of M2HBs firing down a corridor is something a vampire can snicker at as ineffectual, since it doesn’t particularly matter if its an axe or a .50 round that takes your head off. It’s after all these and the fake wall we get to the good poo poo:  First, I wanna pat that lizard. Second, there’s also a huge mossy log in the pond, and predictably: it ain’t no log.   Do they fight it? Is this a thrilling, tense encounter resolved only through the cunning use of disciplines and extreme force? Nope! They run down a corridor too small for it, and Le Clair decides to kill Baptiste when he gets a chance rather than try and deal with a giant psychopath, since that way he alone gets to eat Phantomas. A little premature, maybe – and then the chapter closes out. Cool set pieces, a classic piece of folk lore, and sloppy execution. That’s Bob alright. Chapter 17 So now it’s time for Varney’s siege? No. We hop over to Etrius, consistently the dumbest motherfucker in oWoD novels. Elaine de Calinot is paying a mystery visit, and Bob, being Bob, describes her thus:  At least he didn’t talk about her tits. This is another good example of where Bob’s style lets him down – emphasizing the intensity of personality and backgrounding the physical would work better here and have the same effect. Elaine’s visit prompts another bit of canon tie-in, and this time of a more obscure sort:  This one is a reference to the events of the novel House of Secrets, released early in 1995. It was a VTES novel, which are usually assumed to be non-canonical and disconnected, but – well, they aren’t. Neither were the RAGE novels, which laid the ground for a couple of signature characters in Werewolf. House of Secrets also holds the dubious distinction of being the single most racist thing White Wolf ever published, which is a shockingly impressive thing. J.A. Moore and K.A. Murphy are pieces of poo poo. Bob takes the time to fill us in on the Council of Seven and the mysterious disappearances of prior Councillors for Africa, and so on. More bloat. Etrius has a significant moment when the conversation turns to the present danger of Etrius’s recovered memories of the Comte St. Germain:  He assumes it was Tremere, because he is the dumbest gently caress. Elaine de Calinot, not being bound directly to Seker, finds Etrius’s memories and account disturbing and plausible, while the rest of the Council think it’s a load of gibberish. And unlike Etrius, she does sensible things, like ward the room – a little late! – because:  Does anything come of the implication Seker is manipulating Vampiric politics in Africa? hahahahaha gently caress no The two make a common purpose to use the Camarilla as a whole as their pawn against him, because the Tremere are too riddled with his influence from the inside. This, as it goes, is good stuff – the Tremere were rumoured to be the puppetmasters of the whole show in early material, but the book doesn’t treat it as a fait accompli but as a rather risky and difficult gambit to escape Seker’s ability to subvert any Tremere assets they use. It’s the closest Bob comes to really grasping Kindred politics. Unfortunately, the tool of doing so is rather blatant. They’re simply going to hold an Emergency Conclave, and they need a Justicar to call it. Cue more infodumping, until Elaine hits on their lever:  Not bad, Elaine, not bad. I’d almost wonder if you knew something you shouldn’t. Unfortunately, Bob ruins any pretense of subtlety and surprise impact a few lines later, at the end of the chapter.  drat it, Bob. Next time: Mafia stereotypes, Bob Weinberg presents The Raid 3: Varney Tower, and the Death of a Child.
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Mar 1, 2024 07:50
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joylessdivision posted:And before anyone points out "But what about Consensus Reality", Mages are dumb assholes who don't know what the gently caress they're talking about. They believe in consensus reality, as do mortals, but lol you really going to argue it with a Garou or Changeling? No of course not because one will eat you while the other cries about how banal you are. I don't get it.
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Mar 1, 2024 10:05
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Bob is absolutely the "I've met writers who use subtext and they're all cowards".
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Mar 1, 2024 11:07
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SimonChris posted:I wonder if anyone ever actually used those simplified stats for other types of supernaturals printed in the backs of all the core books. I remember one of the Vampire books had "mages" that could simply spend willpower to have helpful coincidences happen for a while. That's arguably superior to the Ascension magic system. I definitely did (and still) prefer to use the core simplified stats for other supers. In Vampire, Much easier to just treat a “mage” as a mortal with lots of Thaumaturgy and a few other Disciplines. I also make it clear in my Vampire games that when they meet other monsters, they never line up 1-for-1 to the way they are depicted their own gamelines. Last Vamp game I ran, the werewolves were more like parasitic wolf spirits that possessed human bodies, and magic users were closer to Adepts from Unknown Armies than anything out of Mage.
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Mar 1, 2024 13:41
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 Product Link Product Type: DMing Tool CoS-Required? Yes Another Oliver Clegg* product, Barovian Nights looks to spice up Curse of Strahd’s overland travel with a lot more random encounters. The default adventure has 25 different overland encounter types, but the only real variance is whether it’s day or night and most involve hostile monsters or NPCs. Barovian Nights replaces the default encounter table with its own 101 random encounters, plus supplemental material such as new and altered mage familiars and Dark Powers checks brought in from prior editions. For 33 pages, you get quite a bit of content! *Oliver Darkshire is his other pen name. 101 Random Barovian Encounters is the meat of this book, consisting of 2/3rds of content. The Encounters use 1d100 tables with 5 different terrain types (roads, woods, lake/river, mountain, and wetlands), meaning that some encounters only occur in certain places or more/less frequently depending on where the PCs are in Barovia. Quite a bit of the encounters don’t involve combat, or at least not as a first resort, sometimes setting the mood for Barovia’s creepy atmosphere or providing hints at its history and other locations. Some of the interesting mood-setting encounters include a Shrine to Mother Night (perform a sacrifice to her to receive Inspiration, good-aligned clerics are attacked by a rot grub swarm, destroying the shrine curses the iconoclast), Feed the Birds (a druid feeding a flock of ravens the clothes of children killed by the hags of Old Bonegrinder), Full Moon (characters receive temporary immunity to hexes, curses, and Dark Gifts until sunrise, but all lycanthropes trigger their transformations), and Witch Hunter (archers from Vallaki who are hunting for occultists at the behest of Baron Vallakovich). I like these kinds of encounters. Quite a few tie into other characters and quests, which is a pretty nice touch and makes Barovia feel like a more lived-in place. And to feel like something more than just speed bumps to chip away at party resources. A few encounters are straightforward combat scenes involving monsters, and even the ones that aren’t typically Gothic are still given an appropriate mood-setting or have a kind of B-Movie horror vibe. Such encounters include Red Riding Hood (a redcap harvesting the organs of dead humans who looks like a child clutching a dead body in grief from a distance), Mist Tendrils (the Mists come to life as the extension of some great and terrible power, uses modified Roper statistics such as being Gargantuan, undead, is insubstantial, and deals necrotic damage), Woodbreaker Dryad (dryad corrupted by the druids of Yester Hill and uses her powers to create falling tree traps to attack the party), and Dripping Trees (a cluster of grey oozes slide off surrounding trees as it rains to attack the party). Several of the encounters involve meeting Strahd personally, or one of his spies tailing or inconveniencing the party. In the former examples, Strahd is given a modified list of prepared spells to be used in line with said encounter. Some examples include His Master’s Voice (Rahadin appears to ambush a party member before retreating, Strahd is scrying upon him so he can see how the PCs perform in direct combat), Lost Cat (kitten left on its own in the wild by Strahd, hoping that a PC with a soft spot takes it so that Strahd can scry upon it), Death From Above or the Pack (Strahd takes the form of a mundane bat or wolf in a much larger Children of the Night Swarm as they attack the party), and Wolf Spy (normal wolf attempts to Stealth against the party’s Passive Perception, will report back to Strahd in 2d4 hours to stage an attack 24 hours later). Personally speaking, the Strahd and spy encounters feel kind of uninspired. They mostly involve Strahd directly attacking the party or sneaky scouts tailing the party. I do understand they can’t be too involved given the brevity of the book, but I would’ve liked to see more non-combatant examples. There are two such examples, but they’re very vague, like Strahd appearing in an armchair to pretend to agree to a truce in order to manipulate the PCs. There are a few encounters that I feel are real stinkers, or shouldn’t be deployed given they can have some unintended repercussions down the campaign line or can ruin how the party interacts with certain characters in a way the DM may not have intended. They include Devil on the Water (an airborne Strahd ignoring the Concentration limitation of the Fly spell musters a horde of Strahd zombies to attack the party near a body of water and will attempt to kidnap Ireena if she’s with the group), Arrigal (the PCs meet a nice old man who is then killed in boxed text by Arrigal for the fun of it), the Demon in the Wood (PCs come upon a a black stone with a devil face in the woods, evil voice offers a PC a Dark Gift if they reach into the face, destroying the stone summons a Balor who will attack everyone and everything “until Barovia is a smoldering cesspit of hubris”), and the Magic Cow (a hedge witch is having trouble getting her stubborn cow to move, PCs who help her out will be rewarded with a Bag of Beans magic item). Devil on the Water not only makes Strahd outright ignore one of the rules of the game without any explanation as to how, his blatant kidnapping of Ireena can be an escalation that puts the PCs on a perpetual overtly hostile footing with him. Some campaigns have degrees where Strahd goes from toying with the PCs like an interesting diversion to treating them as an overt threat. Kidnapping Ireena isn’t something he does immediately, and many online guides for DMs advise against this. Additionally, while Arrigal is an evil man, him acting like a murderhobo as a potential first impression can color the PCs of encountering him later in the Vallaki Vistani Camp, and perhaps by extension Luvash and the others. That’s presuming he even gets away at all. Demon in the Wood can end up plopping an epic-level horror into Barovia that alters significant parts of the campaign if it starts running roughshod over locations and population centers. Finally, the Bag of Beans are a rather unpredictable magic item in and of itself. There is one encounter I do like that is a throwback to the 3rd Edition Gazetteer series. The PCs come upon a traveling female scholar known as S who is working on a Gazetteer for a benefactor. She is curious about what the party thinks of Barovia and their experiences in the domain, taking notes before moving on. She otherwise has no time for heroics and typical adventuring stuff, but may be tempted at the prospect of solving an intricate puzzle or fun riddle. Another encounter has the party come upon a unicorn skeleton (unicorn stats but undead, no healing touch or legendary/lair actions) within a desiccated section of forest, who in spite of its undead nature hates Strahd for turning Barovia into such a dismal realm. The unicorn will accompany the party if they prove themselves to be enemies of Strahd, and will prioritize attacking Beucephalus should the two ever meet. The following sections later are short 1 or 2 page articles providing new material beyond just the random encounters. Unfamiliar Familiars gives a short list of unique familiars and their names for PCs who cast Find Familiar in Barovia. We even get a new familiar type: the Wisp, a tiny good-aligned celestial who is basically a floating ball of light that provides illumination and can deal 1d4 lightning damage as an attack. Dusk Until Dawn expands on the Charms in the Dungeon Master’s Guide with 8 new ones corresponding to either the Morninglord or Mother Night for PCs who manage to please them. The Morninglord charms include various “white magic” and light-based stuff like casting Dispel Good and Evil or spending a charge to make a corpse permanently immune to becoming undead. Mother Night’s charms hew closer to “witchcraft” such as being able to cast Find Familiar as a ritual up to 3 times before the charm vanishes, spending a charge to cover Barovia in a moonless night for 24 hours, or summoning a swarm of rats who treat you as an ally.  Vicious Circles brings a modified concept of the Honor system house rule from the Dungeon Master’s Guide into Ravenloft, where an Honor saving throw is renamed a Dark Powers check. Such checks are rolled whenever a PC does something in line with general evil stuff, with the DC based on the severity of the sins. Failing the save reduces a character’s Honor score, and the Honor score provides mechanical changes based on how morally pure or impure they are. There are three d6 tables of Dark Changes that are akin to Dark Gifts when Honor is lowered to certain thresholds, granting mechanical benefits but with some kind of drawback, such as growing claws that deal 1d4 damage but grant disadvantage on checks requiring fine manipulation. A PC whose Honor score falls to 0 becomes an NPC, enslaved to their evil passions and claimed by the Dark Powers. Death Wish grants new rules for PCs who come back from the dead. If a PC dies and they’re 4th level or lower, the Dark Powers can offer to resurrect them. This is a one-time offer, and when a PC comes back this way they aren’t exactly alive, gaining 2 traits in line with an undead type. They detect as evil undead to divination and they no longer need to eat, sleep, or breathe. Each pair of traits are positive and negative: for instance, the zombie gains the Undead Fortitude as the monster of the same name, but they appear and smell like a rotting corpse and reduce all movement speeds by 10 feet. A ghost can see into the Ethereal Plane and can attempt to possess a creature as the monster ability once per day, but they become effectively insubstantial and unable to affect or be affected by anything in the Material Plane. Jinxed gives us two new house rules. The first is Bad Luck, a new value that accrues during play when a character performs superstitious things such breaking a mirror or having a black cat crosses their path. A Bad Luck score causes an unfortunate consequence to occur on d20 rolls by 1 per point in the score. Such consequences happen on natural 1s no matter the character, but increase by 1 for every point in Bad Luck. For example, a character with a Bad Luck score of 5 automatically fails attack rolls on a natural die result of 1 to 6. The other rule is for Curses that make suggested changes to the Remove Curse spell in Curse of Strahd to better fit the horror atmosphere. Honestly it’s nothing special, mostly suggesting against it: it’s a 3rd level spell slot and doesn’t remove curses from cursed objects and only breaks attunement, so even then it’s still limited. But DMs who wish to reduce its power are suggested to make it require specific material components for unique kinds of curses. Gifts Ungiven provides 10 new Dark Gifts for PCs to gain at the Amber Temple. While the Dark Gifts aren’t exactly meant to be balanced and are end-game level features, a lot of the new ones here feel quite broken, often in favor of the player. Some of the more interesting Gifts include the ability to cast Knock as an action at will but the caster becomes trapped in the Ethereal Plane from sunrise to sundown each day, another gift makes them become more like a rakshasha in granting immunity to the effects of all spells of 6th level or lower but their hands turn backwards, a third gift grants a climb speed equal to their walking speed but they sprout seven spider legs from their spine, and a fourth gift can let the user teleport up to 500 feet between mirrors by spending 5 feet of movement to enter and exit each but their skin becomes permanently reflective. There are some Gifts that provide personality-altering flaws, such as gaining immunity to cold damage as well as nonmagical piercing and slashing damage, but in exchange emotion of any kind causes them pain.  Dealing with the Devil is a short rundown of sample tactics for Strahd to use when fighting PCs near the end of the campaign. As it’s one page, they don’t go into detail, saying things like using Charm against classes without Wisdom save proficiencies, almost always using lair actions to phase through walls, using shadow monsters to drain a Barbarian’s strength, and staying out of melee range of high-damage classes like fighters and paladins. Strahd Magic Tricks has a sample list of prepared wizard spells based on particular tactics. For instance, a Strahd who wishes to prioritize defense will make use of Fog Cloud to block line of sight, cast Greater Invisibility on himself to avoid being counterspelled, and setting up a Leomund’s Tiny Hut to phase through the floor into when he needs to regenerate hit points. These include quite a number of clever tactics I’ve seen on the Curse of Strahd subreddit, such as using Polymorph to turn one of his minions into a T-rex, or using Scrying on the party while in Castle Ravenloft to combine this with the Summon Spectre lair action to harry the party with said monsters even while far away. Dinner with a Vampire provides an alternate CR 20 stat block for a more challenging Strahd than the one in the base CoS adventure. This stat block more than doubles his hit points to 346, increases his AC from 16 to 19, grants him increased bonuses in saves and skills in which he is proficient, immunity to necrotic and poison damage, is immune to the charmed, frightened, and poisoned conditions, has truesight up to 120 feet and a Passive Perception of 24, has 5 uses of Legendary Resistance instead of 3, is still a 9th-level wizard but has more combat-ready spells by default such as Counterspell, Danse Macabre, and Shield, can summon a greater number of animals via Children of the Night, can now cast a spell with 2 Legendary Actions or transform as per his Shapechanger ability with 1 Legendary Action, and the shadow he can summon with a Lair Action is now a shadow demon. I’m of several minds when it comes to attempts at beefing up Strahd. When played well, he is more than capable of whittling down a 9th or 10th level party, but his hit points and Armor Class are very low for a CR 15 creature which has led to a few anti-climactic battles involving him. On the other side, DMs who use his stats and tactics to the fullest can make it all but impossible to win against him as the party’s resources are whittled down throughout the dungeon crawl. Being able to noclip with Lair Actions and regenerate lost hit points in places a party cannot easily reach is perhaps his most powerful ability. This CR 20 stat block shores up several of Strahd’s larger weaknesses; this version more or less cannot be fooled or overcome by the vast majority of illusion and enchantment spells, and his poison immunity makes certain Fated Allies such as Arrigal far weaker in the final battle. The ability to Transform as a legendary action, combined with phasing through solid features of the castle as a lair action, expands his maneuverability considerably. He can still be confounded by the classic Wall of Force/Sunsword trick, however. Or using a Luck Blade’s Wish to entrap him in a Forcecage. Overall Thoughts: Overall I like Barovian Nights. While I’m not a fan of all of them, there’s enough interesting random encounters that I’m definitely going to use in my current Curse of Strahd campaign. The new house rules and materials are a mixed bag: Dark Powers checks work best with anti-hero parties and will be rare in campaigns with typical heroic adventurers bar the token dark mage/dark knight PC. The Bad Luck score is something that I can only see causing frustration in actual play. The Unfamiliar Familiars are a cool way to set the spell apart and give some flavor and motivation to what would otherwise be summonable afterthoughts for many players. I like the alternate magic spell lists for Strahd, and while the sample tactics are passable some online guides have far greater detail on how to use this vampire BBEG. At the price I got it for, I’d say this product is a worthy purchase. Okay, I pretty much posted every draft that I have ready for my Ravenloft reviews. It may take some time for me to get the next one ready. Until then, join us next time as we meet other stranded adventurers in Orphans of the Multiverse: Lost in Barovia!
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Mar 1, 2024 13:52
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I'm just so tired of all these Strahd wars
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Mar 1, 2024 14:19
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It all began as a one night Strahd but got out of hand, we need to stop this before the poo poo really Strahds to hit the fang.
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Mar 1, 2024 14:23
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Joylessdivisions World of Dorkness Presents: Alien Hunger - World of Dorkness #20 Part 2 Fleeing Denver is also a practical choice, as Edward has no desire to chase the players beyond his own sphere of influence. Of course, the players likely won’t take this choice, as it leaves things unfinished. At this point, it’s on the ST to stress Edward’s position while they’re figuring out what they want to do. If they were in his position, wouldn’t they be concerned about a group of random Kindred running around their town? And if these randos weren’t hostile, wouldn’t they just say so? Basically, heavily suggest that meeting with the Prince isn’t an automatic death sentence but try to be subtle about it. Once the players have spoken to the Prince, before they leave, he asks which of the players saw Duke when he broke into the house. The players obviously have no idea what the gently caress the Prince is talking about. According to Duke, someone was inside Prestor’s house at the time of the attack, and he’s certain it wasn’t Prestor himself. The Prince has thus concluded it must be one of the players. After denying this, the Prince will ask Duke to relate any further information about this figure he saw, at which point he describes a short, blonde man. Okay, why wouldn’t this paranoid rear end in a top hat ask that question when Duke brought up that they saw someone else in the house prior to the attack? That seems like something that would have been covered way sooner than the moment the players are standing in front of the Prince, and unless one of the players is blonde, it’s obviously not them. This is a dumb plot point that doesn’t make sense. Chapter Three: On The Offensive  There are a few loose ends for the players to wrap up now, primarily, who the blonde man is. The neighbors can provide the information to find Dr. Liverman, but if they can’t get it from them, then they can also learn the biochemist is under investigation by the police. Scene One: Dr. Liverman I Presume While Thad was busy plotting Prestor’s demise, Prestor was still hard at work on his research. While his home lab did not survive the fire, that doesn’t mean he didn’t have help elsewhere. Dr. Liverman is an independent researcher with access to several labs in Denver with superior equipment to what Prestor had access to. The players can learn about Liverman a couple of ways. First is Prestor’s safety deposit box at the United National Bank of Denver (detailed later) or tracking his car through the neighbors. If they don’t find either of these connections, then a MONTH after the fire, they’ll see a newspaper story that mentions Prestor was involved in biochemical research with Liverman. Once the players know about Liverman, they can begin researching him, and digging into the good doctors' past requires an Intelligence + Science roll at difficulty 6. Any successes gained on this roll will tell the players Liverman is a local biochemist who used to teach at the U of Colorado before going solo a few years ago. 3 successes will tell them he was forced to resign from the university due to some unspecified scandal (he was conducting unauthorized blood tests on students). If the players want to set up a meeting, simply telling Liverman they knew Prestor will be sufficient. Once they meet the doctor, however, he is angry and accuses the players of breaking into his house the night before. He warns the players that the only reason he hasn’t gone to the cops is that he wants them to hand over whatever they stole so everything will be forgiven. Convincing him they had nothing to do with it requires solid roleplay, and once the players have achieved this, Liverman will tell them the burglar stole the results of his work for Prestor. While his first conclusion was the players, on second thought (and after the players have proven their innocence) he suggests it might have been the weird dirty guy who tried to buy his research. If asked about this mysterious man, Liverman describes an unkempt blonde man named Robert Klondike approached him a week previously. When he refused to sell the research to Klondike, Klondike left a number in case the doctor changed his mind. If the players choose to break into Liverman’s house, he is home, thanks to the burglary the previous night. Generally, Liverman is out at the singles bars in the evening, but because of the break in, he’s staying home for a bit. Breaking in requires an extended opposed roll and requires 15 successes to break in and search the house before Liverman notices them. This starts with a Wits + Security roll to enter the house, and then Dexterity + Stealth to remain unheard and Perception + Investigation to find Liverman’s research notes, as well as learning that he was robbed the night before. All these rolls are made at difficulty 6, and Liverman’s rolls are at the same difficulty (Perception + Alertness with 5 dice total) Each player who tries to break in must roll separately and accumulate their own successes. If Liverman hits 15 successes first or a player botches, he confronts the players, armed with a shotgun and will once again demand that the players return what they stole the night before. Convincing Liverman that they didn’t break in the night before is now harder and requires solid roleplay as well as a Charisma + Subterfuge roll at difficulty 8. Domination is a possibility, but a potentially dangerous one as Liverman may already know more about Kindred than he should. Once the notes are found, they find they are painstakingly detailed analysis performed on various samples that Prestor provided. A player with a Medicine score of 4 or more, or with Biochemistry as a specialty in Science can see that the tests were conducted thoroughly and capably. If anyone is scientifically illiterate, then the conclusions section will be of more use: quote:“Anti-Body #1 should in all cases, destroy the unidentified substance, ‘Alpha’, on contact. Analysis of Residue #1, however, indicates that the resulting residue is extremely toxic.” The notes also say that the various serums defy analysis in some respects, that he’s been unable to identify the makeup of “Alpha,” that he’s been unable to synthesize any further serums, and finally that about 1/3rd of each vial would be adequate for a roughly human sized mass. Players who are not scientifically inclined can roll Intelligence + Occult to realize that the conclusions imply a chance of survival is higher if “Anti-Body #2” is used on subject with a lower Blood Pool. Science minded players may want to continue Prestor’s research, and they can if they have either Medicine or Biochemistry skills. Without notes, the startup time takes one month. With one set of notes, it takes two weeks, and if they have both Liverman and Prestor’s notes, then it will take only a week. Once the set-up time is complete, the players will learn that to make said serums will take them decades of work. If they choose this path, it’s on the ST to figure that poo poo out. If the players either don’t find Liverman or simply don’t go looking for him, then he continues to work on his research, potentially becoming a Witch Hunter or associated with them as the serums could prove to be a powerful weapon against the Kindred. Ultimately, it’s up the ST on what Liverman does in this situation. Consider that if the burglary (or burglaries) remain unexplained, he continues his research, and potentially joins forces with Sullivan Dane, or maybe one of Edward’s goons kills him or he’s embraced.  Scene Two: The Shadow Knows Finding Klondike is easy if the players get his number from Liverman, and from there, simply calling information to get his address. Calling Klondike directly is maybe not the best choice, as he’s slightly paranoid (who isn’t in this city), and the players interest in him may cause him to flee. If the players can convince him to meet, then jump to the next scene. If they don’t get his number, they’ll have little chance of finding Klondike. In that case, the impatient ghoul eventually tries the serums on himself and dies. The serums thus cease to exist, and the players learn nothing of Thad. This is an “adequate” ending, as players do not always get a tidy resolution in Vampire. If the players wish to continue their own research into curing their vampirism, especially if they have Prestor and Liverman’s notes, then Alien Hunger can end here, and any further story is up to the ST. Chapter Four: To Live Once More The players can use whatever means they wish to pursue Klondike. If they set up a meeting with him, he knows what they are as soon as he lays eyes on them. If they try to break into his house, they’ll likely end up confronting an armed Klondike. Either way, he knows what they are when he gets a look at them. Scene One: In a Ghoul’s Grasp Klondike rarely leaves his home, fearful that something might happen to his serums. If the players just show up to his house, they’ll find it dark and locked. If they set up a meeting, then Klondike will let them in, but he’ll be on edge. Klondike is desperate to become a full Kindred, which is why he braved the inferno for Prestor’s notes and broke into Liverman’s house for the serums. While he doesn’t know what to do with the serums, he knows they’ll make him a full Kindred. If the players don’t attack him outright, he’ll make them a deal, he’ll give them all the info he has, in exchange for them Embracing him. The players should know by now that an unauthorized Embrace is going to lead to a Blood Hunt being called on them. If they offer to ask the Prince first, Klondike objects and threatens to destroy the serums. He knows Thad is controlling Edward and is afraid of what Thad will do if he figures out Klondike is loving around. If the players want to just take the serums, they can, but it won’t be easy, and they’ll learn nothing from Klondike in the process. The players have essentially two choices, either Embrace Klondike or overpower him and search the house. The serums are hidden in the chimney flue, and the players need to specifically say they are checking the chimney, and then on a difficulty 8 Wits + Alertness roll can they find it. If the players try to fight him, he’s got a heavy pistol and a smoke grenade in his pockets and will toss the smoke bomb to distract them before going to his weapons stash to grab his semi-auto shotgun. If he captures a player, he’ll threaten to leave them out for the sun unless they Embrace him. If they refuse, they are left bound outside, but un-staked, and he repeats the same threat to each player he captures. If they agree, he tells them he’s planning to leave town, and will release the player after they agree to Embrace him. If they Embrace him, he begs they tell no one, then warns them about Thad who he blames for all of this. Once he’s been Embraced and told the players the above, he hands over the serums and then packs a suitcase to leave Denver (until the ST decides to bring him back later). Scene Two: A Heart Beat However the players gain the serums, they’ll find that they are contained in wooden boxes holding test tubes with stoppers, all identical except for minor details between the two boxes. Each box has 4 tubes containing what appears to be blood (the exact number depends on the player Clan choice), two tubes with a thick, clear liquid, two containing white powder, and an empty tube. All the tubes have labels on them as well as on the space where they sit. Each blood vial has a biohazard sticker on it and is labeled “Serum #1” through whatever number you need. The set from Prestor’s safety deposit box has additional labels. The first is marked as “Georges/L. Pasteur” the second reads “Neutral,” the third “M. & S. J, V.B” this was the serum used on the mortals from the beginning of the adventure, and because it was based on Prestor’s own blood, caused the reversion to mortality for those characters upon his death. From here, the rest of the vials are Clan vials, and should be labeled with the initials of the player. For example, if you have three players (Two Gangrel and a Toreador) then there would be two vials, one labeled with the Toreador’s initials and one with the two Gangrel players initials. These serums were developed with the blood of Prestor’s allies. The clear fluid vials are labeled “Anti-Body #1, Test” and “Anti-Body #2, Test.” These are the two experimental cures for vampirism. The vials of white powder are labeled “Residue 1 and 2” and they are what remains when one of the Anti-Body solutions is added to Prestor’s blood. The empty tube is unlabeled and just a spare. “Adventurous” (aka: loving Stupid) players may choose to inject themselves with one of the serums. If they do, ask how much they use. Each vial has 3 doses (if injected), and some will have an effect when ingested, while others will only work with injection. The serums have the following effects: Let me quote what the book says here because I’m having a tough time parsing it. quote:“Serum #1 is the exception 10 three dose per vial rule. If and only if the entire vial is injected, the character will effectively gain 1 generation” I think the 10 is supposed to be a “To”, in which case that makes sense. Serum 2 has no effect if injected. Injecting the vials with the players initials on them has no effect. If they try a different “Clan Vial” then roll a die. 1-4 and there is no effect. 5-8 the player’s clan immediately shifts to that of the serum. On a 9, the character becomes a Caitiff, while 10 grants the player 1 point in a Clan Discipline associated with that vial. The Clan changes are only mechanical (thus experience cost to raising Disciplines changes, as does Clan weakness.) Any Clan bonds they may have are unaffected. Any of the blood vials can be drunk without issue and are delicious, granting 1 Blood Point if totally ingested. Anti-Body 1 is designed to restore mortality, but at the cost of the character’s life, so they are mortal again, but they’re just a dead mortal. Players who use this serum must roll their Humanity against difficulty 6. With at least 3 successes, they have achieved their goal of becoming mortal again. However, they have about 40 seconds to give a death speech before they die from blood poisoning. Anti-Body 2, however, will return the player to full mortality. Again, they need to roll Humanity at difficulty 6, and each success on this roll removes 1 point in a Discipline. If enough successes are scored to remove all Discipline points, they return to being mortal. However, the shock of this could still kill them, so subtract 1 health level for each Blood Point the player has under 10. If they are still alive at that point, roll 5 dice against the players Stamina+3, each success removes another health level. Drinking the Anti-Body serums have no effect. If the players take their time with the notes, they could enhance their chances of returning to mortality, while blindly injecting themselves will almost certainly kill them. Which......even if they do use the second serum that’s not supposed to immediately kill them, uh....it sure seems like the aftereffects will kill them, if we’re taking 1 health level away per Blood Point they have under 10, did the author just forget players only have 7 levels of health? So, if I’m understanding this correctly, a player with 5 Blood Points takes 5 levels of health damage, meaning they have 2 levels of health left. At which point we then roll 5 loving dice against their Stamina+3 to potentially remove the final 2 levels. Cool, so you’ve dangled regaining mortality in front of the players eyes and then made it really, really not worth the potential risk. Granted, if they did succeed, the game would end, so the game ends either way but drat does it seem like they stacked the deck hard against the players achieving mortality again. The players could, with a couple months of work, refine the serums they have, allowing them to increase the potency. Doing this requires a player to have Resources at 4 or two with Resources of 3. Or if they have $100,000 dollars to spend on outfitting a lab (which they could potentially steal from Prestor’s safety deposit box) Once a lab has been outfitted, each month they can make a research roll, and can only achieve results with Anti-Body 2. Refining it requires an Intelligence + Biochemistry (difficulty 8) or Intelligence + Medicine (difficulty 9). 10 total successes are needed. Once they’ve gained the 10 successes, the serum is refined, and the players can make the Humanity roll at difficulty 4 with each success removing a Discipline. Once all Disciplines are removed, remove one level of health per Blood Point, then roll 3 dice against the players Stamina+3, each success removing another health level. The book points out here that use of the serum should be a tense moment with “High level roleplay” occurring and suggests reminding players that success means that they return to being mortal with all the disadvantages of such, while remaining Kindred means they have a chance to achieve Golconda. Which yeah, no poo poo. If the players have decided “My character wants to be mortal again” then why am I going to remind them “Well that means you’ll die and have to deal with disease, etc.”? The character (and the player) knows that, and if the player has made the choice that their character would rather be mortal than deal with being a vampire, I’m not going to argue with them. Which brings us to the conclusion of our “Story” chapter. The next chapter covers the major locations involved in the story as well as bits of story elements that would potentially take place in said locations, which is frustrating because it would make more sense to include that in the “Story” section of the book, especially as it relates to getting Prestor’s poo poo from the bank deposit box. As I said way earlier in this review, I think this story is rickety as written, and part of that is because they dumped all the major locations into a separate chapter of the book and tied essential elements of scenes into that section instead of just putting them into the actual story bit. I also really, really don’t like the background plot that sets this story in motion, and specifically I mean the whole Thad/Prestor/Edward triangle of bullshit. Aside from wasting Pasteur here, I just do not care in the slightest about some Ancient Kindred who has a grudge against some scientist vampire. It’s just the standard Elder “Holding a grudge over the stupidest poo poo” angle that we’ve seen before, but somehow, ultimately even more pointless because it doesn’t directly affect the players beyond their Embrace. Hell, if they don’t meet with Klondike, then the serums he stole are lost anyway because he uses them and dies. What exactly is the point of this story for the players? Because aside from a unique way to be Embraced, and Edward putting out the word to find and kill the players, they have little direct impact on anything going on in this story. This isn’t even a semi clever “The players are being played by the Elders” deal, this is just “You got Embraced via magic fuckery, and now you either convince the Prince you’re not a threat or die.” That's the plot of this story. And it’s loving lame. Even considering that this is a “Jump-Start” or one-shot chronicle in a book, I’m unable to find a reason why I would bother running this story, even as a one-shot introduction to how to play kind of thing, because there’s just nothing there for the players to really latch onto. I had gripes about Blood Nativity and Ashes to Ashes but at least both of those books had an interesting enough hook to draw the players in and then enough interesting plot (or at least the framework for interesting plot) to pull them along and give them something to do. They have stuff to do in this story, but most of it is entirely secondary to the main plot of “Convince the Prince not to murder us all.” Let's move on.   Locations of Interest The following are locations of interest to the story (as the title suggests), and some of these locations are required to visit if the players wish to resolve the story. The Broadstreet  A nightclub owned and operated by Prince Edward, it is also the base of his court operations. It is a darkish, moderately well stocked bar that does good business. It can comfortably seat 40, with another 15 at the bar while still leaving space for a small dance floor near the stage. On a good night they can pack about 80 people into the club. On a die roll of 1-7 on a given night, Edward will be at the club. Because of the club's visibility, it acts as neutral territory, as well as offering a prime hunting ground, though prey is never taken within the club itself or its vicinity, as this displeases Edward, and Edward tends to get a bit fatal with his displeasures. When the players visit the club will decide the reception they’ll likely receive. If they are unknown to Edward, they’ll be recognized as Kindred and treated with civility, on the assumption they are out-of-towners who have come to introduce themselves to the Prince. If Edward is aware of them, however, they’ll be pushed and threatened, but no overt violence will occur within the club. Once they are outside and away from the club, however, they are fair game. If the players try to break into the club to root around Edward’s office, well they can try but it’s going to be hard. There are two main entrances, the front door, and the emergency exit/loading dock in back. Doing this during the day would be ideal but lol Vampires, and the club begins to fill with Kindred once the sun sets. If the players haven’t decided to go to war with the Kindred of Denver (and in theory haven’t talked to Edward yet) then their best chance is waiting for the club to close around 2am and sneaking in around 3am, as there is likely to be very few Kindred still in the club at that time. The players can try to overpower this Kindred, but this will blow whatever cover they may have and could trigger war if the witness survives. If the hunt has already been called, then there will be at least 3 Kindred in the club when the players try to break in. If they manage to sneak in when the club is empty, they’ll have at most about 2 hours before sunrise to act. Picking the locks on the doors is easy and requires a Security + Dexterity roll at difficulty 6, with 5 successes needed. A Repair + Dexterity roll at difficulty 7 and 5 successes will also work. While the ST should try to spook the players with warnings of sunrise and maybe even late-returning Kindred, if they’re sneaking in this late, then they shouldn’t have too much difficulty. Edwards office contains a safe, a filing cabinet and Edwards desk. Opening the safe requires Security + Dexterity at difficulty 8 with 6 successes. There's about $4,000 inside. The desk is ultimately of little interest other than a notepad with the words “Prestor? Pasteur? UNB of D?” scrawled on it. Tucked in this notepad is also a photo of Louis Pasteur that has been ripped from an encyclopedia. Players who remember the attack by Prestor might make the connection that the photo bears a striking resemblance. Players with Finance knowledge will know that UNB of D stands for United National Bank of Denver. An Investigation + Intelligence roll at difficulty 6 while searching the file cabinet provides the same information about Edwards financials as the table used for the earlier investigation into Edwards money. The club is in Downtown Denver about a block or two from a residential area. Suggested music to play for scenes taking place at the club are guitar heavy late 60’s, early 70’s rock like the Yard Birds or early Rod Stewart. Prestor’s House The burned remains of Prestor’s house have little if anything worth taking. The only major clue players will find is the trapdoor to the basement. The first two weeks post fire, the wreckage of the house is surrounded by police tape. There is a 1-10 chance that a cop will be there when the players check it out, and the police leave on a 1-5 rolled every half hour. Likewise, every half hour, there is the possibility that a cop will arrive. A simple Stealth + Dexterity roll at difficulty 5 will allow the players to avoid being seen. A player with Auspex can use Psychometry on the house. A Perception + Empathy roll at difficulty 7 is needed, and anything less than 3 successes yields nothing, while 3+ successes will tell the player that Prestor is very dead. Botching will cause the player to believe that Prestor is still alive, and the death was faked. The trapdoor is the only element of mild interest, as it now stands open, and the players would notice that the door was concealed, which is why they were spared the grisly death Prestor faced. Cool, so here’s a location that has no bearing on the story beyond its appearance at the beginning and is of no value after that. Great, I love to waste my time as a player like this. United National Bank of Denver The players may learn through their research (or directly from Edward) that Prestor had a safety deposit box at UNB, located in the center of downtown. If they learn about the box, they’ll need to hustle to get it before the cops do. ST’s should listen to whatever plans the players come up with to get the box, but the most obvious examples are provided. Forging documents to represent themselves as executors of Prestor’s estate or Police is a choice, and to effectively use these documents, they will need to schedule an appointment with the bank after hours. Forging the documents requires the usual forgery rules at difficulty 7 and requires at least 4 successes. Forging police documents is a difficulty 8, but only needs 3 successes. Once the docs are forged and an appointment made, they’ll meet with Mr. Pilkers who checks their documents and will admit them to the bank, if the documents are good forgeries. He expresses his dismay over the loss of a valued customer and reminds the players that while they can examine the contents of the box, they are not to take anything from it, and that they will need to do so in his presence. Fast Talk or Domination can be used to try and convince him they don’t need a chaperone, which should be relatively easy, with difficulties of 4-6, and only 1 or 2 successes needed. Pilkers then goes to get the box and either leaves the players to it or keeps an eye on them. If he was not in the room, then anything the players removed from the box will cause him to pause briefly, check the weight of the box, then shrug and carry it back to the vault. Upon his return he walks the players out and wishes them a good night. The players could also try breaking in. But there are some complications with that plan. First is the front door, which is wired for alarms. A Security or Repair + Dexterity roll at difficulty 5 (Security) or 6 (Repair) and 5 total successes are needed, with each attempt taking two minutes. Once inside, a Perception + Security roll at difficulty 7 will tell the players where the cameras and weight sensors are found. Botching triggers an alarm. There is a security guard making his rounds through the bank, and with observation the players will see he takes a complete pass through the bank every half hour. They could, of course, knock him out or something, but that will certainly blow any chance of this robbery going unnoticed. Finally, there is the matter of the safe. If anyone has Safecracking, then the difficulty of the roll is an 8, and a total of 10 successes are needed. I assume the roll is Security + Dex because it doesn’t offer a suggested roll, and I’m too lazy to go dig around the corebook to see if Safecracking has a system. Physically removing the door is also possible (no rolls offered of course) however, much like taking out the guard, a broken vault door will tip off the bank that they’ve been robbed. A weak-willed employee of the bank could be “Convinced” to bring the contents of the box to the players. If they choose this possibility, hear out the exact plan they intend to use, and then decide on the appropriate roll with a difficulty between 4-7. The contents of the box are some legal documents, including the deed to the house and other similar papers, about $20,000 in used $20’s (Prestor’s emergency cash), a copy of Action Comics #1 in “Fine Condition”, which could go for as much as $30,000 at auction, and two small boxes. One box contains $125,000 worth of uncut diamonds, while the second box contains the test tubes. Finally, there are 10 notebooks in the box, all written in French, spanning the last 100 years, and contain information about Prestor’s movements, his research and the night-to-night irritations that come along with being a Kindred. Any player who speaks French can read the notebooks at the rate of one book per four hours. The contents are interesting, but ultimately not super useful, beyond the research elements, and skimming the books will grant the same information. The first entry is dated September 30, 1895, and details Pasteur coming to terms with his “Death” and that he plans to use the name “Jean Regineau” for a time. The rest contains chemical references and Pasteur’s references to the “Infection” he seeks to cure.  Five years into the books, Prestor begins to mention his fears of some force trying to stop his research, and multiple comments about Georges and the research he and Louis did together, but nothing about meeting with Georges again. The pages relating to the last six months refer to Liverman, and his access to facilities and equipment that Louis does not have access to. The last few entries mention that Prestor realizes he needs allies, and how he chose the players, though it's clear he agonized over his choice. The final entry dated a week before the fire notes that Prestor is convinced that “He” (Thad) has followed and that Prestor must act to create his allies, and that he hopes they can forgive him. Edward’s House A three-story mansion in the foothills west of Denver. There’s not much of interest to recap here other than it’s a big house, Edward owns multiple instruments, and many pieces of music that he composed as well as unknown early works by Bach and Mozart. The 24th Diocese  A proper dance club (compared to the Broadstreet which is more bar/music club), it is within Tony’s claimed turf. There are two dance floors, one a balcony over the main floor. When the players first meet Tony here, he will graciously offer to let them feed in the club. Liverman’s House A smallish house in Aurora. The only thing of interest the players will find here are Liverman’s notes, Otherwise, it’s a bachelor pad. Klondike’s Haven A small ranch-style house, all the outer doors have at least three locks on them, and the windows are barred. Stakes are stashed everywhere, and the place generally looks like a shithole. A trunk in the bedroom holds $5,000 in cash, a bunch of stakes and Klondike’s shotgun. And that’s the entire chapter. Like I said, it’s frustrating that chunks of the plot, like the players finding Prestor’s vials and notes is tied to them going to the bank, which they may or may not pick up on as being a place they should visit, especially since it requires 4 successes on the research roll of Prestor’s finances. Which they may not even think to research. Then again, they could learn it from Edward, but even that’s not a guarantee, because why would the Prince bother to tell them about that? Sure, even if he wants to use the players as pawns, why send them after the safety deposit box when there is nothing suggesting that Edward would know about its contents or even consider the contents of any value to him? My other real big complaint about this chapter is why are we wasting word space on Prestor’s house when it’s a charred ruin? There’s nothing to be gained from going back, so why even waste the space writing it up? If you’re going to include something in a book, it should have some function and use beyond “Yep, that sure is the place the story starts.” Mercifully, we’re getting close to the end of this book, so let’s wrap this thing up.   Characters Of note, there are some character images in this section, but its occasionally unclear which image is associated with which write up, so I’ve tried to connect the image with the write ups as best as I could. Louis Pasteur aka Jacob Prestor Apparent Age: Late 50’s The Embrace: 1895 Generation: 12th Clan: Caitiff Description: Bearded and heavy set, with a wildfire in his eyes. Demeanor: Caregiver Nature: Architect Roleplaying Tips: Older and wiser than you were when you were first Embraced, you hate what you must do to these innocents, but you feel as if you have no choice.  Thaddeus Formerly Prestor’s arch-enemy, he is a sixth Generation Kindred, Embraced during the time of the Romans, around the time Jesus was kicking around. As a survivor of centuries of vampiric Jyhad, the years of war have left their toll on him, and he’s utterly insane by mortal standards. By Kindred standards, not so much. This insanity manifests in his obsession with preserving his unlife by any means possible. Another facet of his madness is his dread that the Roman gods who he made sacrifices to as a mortal are now seeking his life. This terrifies him, and for the last century he’s increased his sacrifices (cows). He’s also convinced that by seeking out old places of power and learning the secrets there, he can make himself safe from older Kindred. It was during one such trip around the world that he learned of Prestor and his research. He then spent the spent the rest of his time since then working to destroy Prestor, although always indirectly, so as not to draw the attention of other Methuselahs. Which......why does a 6th gen give a poo poo about some 12th gen Caitiff? Even if he is Louis Pasteur and is working to “cure” vampirism, YOU’RE A 6TH GEN MY DUDE! THE OTHER METHUSELAHS AIN’T GONNA CARE THAT YOU OPENLY MURDERED A 12TH GEN CAITIFF. Anyway, Thad’s stats are presented even though he doesn’t appear in the story at all because he leaves Denver once Prestor is dead. Apparent Age: Early 50’s The Embrace: AD 22 Clan: Nosferatu Description: A slight man of 5’5” with a hideously deformed face and extremely prominent Roman nose. Demeanor: Varies depending on who he’s trying to fool Nature: Curmudgeon Roleplaying Tips: Paranoid and crazy, you’ll do anything to pacify the gods who seek your death. Thad, you suck. You’re a dumb character, and you’ve been around since AD 22 and you still think the Roman Gods are after you? And somehow, you’re not a Malkavian? Edward Williams, Prince of Denver In life, Edward was a troubadour, and went with William the Conqueror across the English Channel. The carnage he saw in Hasting and other battles was enough to forever color his view of war. This deep aversion to war has led him to rule through acts that many would consider cruel, but he sees as necessary evils and preventative action. Like killing Prestor. Prestor’s death is a good illustration of several of Edwards characteristics. First, it was an action taken to avoid a potential war. He knew (or was led to believe) that Prestor was going to try to usurp his throne and was building an army to do so. This was also a swift, decisive action, for as much as he loathes war, he’s a firm leader who does not flinch from bloodshed if he believes it necessary. His treatment of the independents is another angle on his nature, as he does not treat them cruelly, and so long as they obey the Kindred laws and his own Domain laws, (and you know, don’t plot treason) then they are free to do as they wish. Like most older vampires, Edward has an obsession or two. The first and most obvious is his aversion to rebellion, while the second is music. In 1808, Edward met Duke, a young Austrian soldier. When a group of mortals figured out what Edward was, he cast aside Toreador tradition and embraced Duke, and the pair defeated the few mortals who had learned the truth. While the immediate Masquerade threat had been dealt with, the Prince of Vienna told Edward and his childe to GTFO, and so the pair traveled Eastern Europe for a time. In 1900, with WWI looming on the horizon, Edward and Duke fled Europe for America, settling in Denver where they met Don Alonzo de Vargas and few other Kindred. By 1920, Denver had a sufficient Kindred population that the anarchy of the city’s past became inadequate. As Edward and Don Alonzo were the only Elders in the city, it was clear only one of them could rule, and Duke tipped the scales in Edwards favor, enough that Edward suggested they form a three-man council, with Edward as Prince. Don Alonzo agreed and the three have ruled since. Fun fact: All current members of Seventh Son are Kindred, and all but one are childer of Edward. Apparent Age: Early 30’s The Embrace: 1075 Generation: 7th Clan: Toreador Description: 5’6 with dark brown, almost black hair, he’s well-groomed and carries himself with an air of authority. Typically dressed in jeans and leathers when performing, or comfortable and immaculately cut clothing when at home. Demeanor: Director Nature: Architect Roleplaying Tips: Try to make everyone see how strong you are, but this is just a cover for your own concern. You know that if you drop your guard for a moment, all Denver will be plunged into war and chaos. Duke  Leader of Edward’s “Enforcement” division, he’s been with Edward for almost 200 years. He is loyal to Edward and would never consider betraying him. While he may question an order given, he will always execute it, despite his personal misgivings. In life, he was an Austrian soldier who would have no doubt fought Napoleon’s army, had Edward not Embraced him. The pair met in 1807 and remained friends for a year before Edward was discovered by a group of Austrian businessmen, seeking to destroy the Kindred and gain his fortune. Duke was Embraced shortly after, and the pair destroyed the threat against them. Because of the nature of his Embrace, Duke has always felt like an outsider amongst his clan, despite his appreciation for art and music, he is talentless, and thus scorned by many. Allowing himself to be consumed by his work and devotion to Edward has inured him to the taunts of his clanmates. Apparent Age: Mid 20’s The Embrace: 1808 Generation: 8th Clan: Toreador Description: A huge man at 6’2” and built like a linebacker, he moves with the confidence of a warrior, despite his general lack of grace. He has deep red hair and a craggy and emotionless face. He dresses in inconspicuous clothing. Demeanor: Traditionalist Nature: Survivor Roleplaying Tips: Schwarzenegger in The Terminator reminded you a great deal of yourself, as you have the same cold threat and dedication to duty. Jason Dodgerson The only member of Seventh Son that isn’t one of Edward’s progenies, He is a Malkavian convinced that he’s Jimmy Hendrix. Prior to that delusion, he believed himself to be Robert Johnson, and on and on, all the way back to his creation in the late 18th century, when he was convinced that he was Bach. In life he was a mediocre violinist in a second-rate French orchestra and on the edge of suicidal depression when his sire swooped in and knocked him over the cliff of madness. He began patterning himself after great musicians, switching to a new one every 20 to 30 years. He arrived in Denver in 1954 during his Robert Johnson phase, and won over Edward, as despite his delusions, he’s become a fine musician. See kids, you practice enough, and you too can become a decent musician. It might take a couple of centuries though. He’s been with Edward through several incarnations of his band and plays multiple instruments. Currently he plays bass for Seventh Son, believing this to be a clever way to keep people from recognizing him as Hendrix. If challenged on his delusions, he responds with complicated rationalizations, and if pushed enough, can become agitated and potentially dangerous. Apparent Age: Early 20’s The Embrace: 1770 Generation: 10th Clan: Malkavian Description: an average looking white dude with longish brown hair that appears perfectly sane, other than a slight, secretive twinkle in his eyes. He acts like Jimi Hendrix, and those familiar with Hendrix usually detect something naggingly familiar in him. Demeanor: Depends on the current delusion Nature: Deviant Roleplaying Tips: Avoid conversation with strangers, but when you do, hint at who you are. Karen Mauve  Drummer for Seventh Son, she is the most recent of Edward’s childer, Embraced in 1985. Edward found her playing drums in Fort Collins and persuaded her to come to Denver to play in Seventh Son. After a year with the band, she was embraced as both a Kindred and a full member of the band. She’s currently engaged in a dangerous practice of feeding on rival band members, and Edward is unaware of this, and would likely be irate if he found out. Apparent Age: Late Teens The Embrace: 1985 Generation: 8th Clan: Toreador Description: Karen wants to be a metal star, spiked heels, leather skirt, the whole shebang, but she’s not built for the anorexic look, instead she’s got a sort of female Billy Idol look going, which is certainly jarring considering her band plays old blues songs. Demeanor: Rebel Nature: Bon Vivant Roleplaying Tips: You enjoy playing with danger, so toy with foes and take the most fun risks you can find. Leslie Boothe The keyboards and horns section of Seventh Son, Leslie has been with Edward for about a century. She first met Edward when he was passing through New York, and she was singing in the opera. Edward was smitten and spent the next month in the city to be with her. Before leaving, he promised to send for her when he could. Years passed without a word, and it wasn’t until the 20’s when Edward finally made good on his promise. Leslie’s career was faltering, so when Edward sent the telegram inviting her to Denver, she did not hesitate, and she was Embraced the night she arrived. As the years wore on, she continued to study music and branched out from just singing opera to other instruments. By the late 60’s, Edward was forming his first band, and the two had a falling out, leading to Leslie bailing on Denver for California. Saddened by her departure, Edward let her go. In 1972, she returned to Denver with a young man in tow, and petitioned Edward to allow her to Embrace him. The Prince, overjoyed that she had returned, agreed immediately. Following his transformation, the young man took the name Leslie as a token of respect for his sire and has been known as Leslie Wilkes ever since. With the formation of Seventh Son, Boothe became a core member. Apparent Age: Early 40’s The Embrace: 1927 Generation: 8th Clan: Toreador Description: A Wagnerian woman who would have looked at home playing Brunnhilde, she is older now but retains the stance and mannerisms of an opera singer. She has blonde hair to the middle of her back and a look of concern in her eyes. Demeanor: Conformist Nature: Martyr Roleplaying Tips: Strong and determined, you are confident things will go your way, though you have a soft spot for underdogs, and will do things for the other members of the band even if they hurt you (though you make a big deal about the pain caused) Leslie Wilkes Les wanted to be a hippie but couldn’t quite capture the rebellious spirit needed. He hung out in all the right places in the 60’s but never fit in, until he met Leslie Boothe. She made him fit in, and he’d do almost anything in return. They spent a few years running around the Bay Area, Boothe helping him to integrate into the culture he believed he wanted while he provided her with the companionship she craved. When she told him she planned to return to Denver, he asked to join her, as she’d hoped. Once they arrived, Boothe made peace with Edward and asked permission to Embrace Les. Suddenly the outsider had become an insider. When Seventh Son formed, everyone in the court took for granted that Les would be at Boothe’s side. Les and Jason don’t get along, and when not with Boothe (a rare occurrence), he’s probably with Jason. He’s got a weakness for taking blood from stoned victims, but only from pot smokers, and most of his herd is made up of drug users who visit other clubs. Apparent Age: Early 20’s The Embrace: 1972 Generation: 9th Clan: Toreador Description: With long, stringy brown hair, dressed in bell bottoms and tie-dye, he looks like he never quite recovered from the 60’s. He also looks a little like Edward. Demeanor: Child Nature: Conformist Roleplaying Tips: You like having people do things for you, but you’re more likely to do what they ask, though Boothe is who you are most faithful to, and you’ll do anything for her. Mina  One of Edward’s Ghoul retainers, he named her Mina (to go along with another of his Ghouls he calls Lucy) because he found it amusing, in a sad sort of way. The eldest of the two Ghouls, she is now pushing 100, though she still appears to be in her mid 20s. Originally a society girl in Denver, she fell for Edward when he was new in the city. Edward, for his part, had no real interest in her, but when he saw her obsession developing, he figured she could be useful. Completely devoted to Edward, though her instability makes her utility a bit limited, she’s not left Edward’s home for 30 years. During the day she watches over Edward and tidies the house, lost in the delusion that she and Edward are happily married. If anyone threatens Edward, she becomes a wild creature in her frenzy. Edward keeps her around entirely because her frenzy can be used to his benefit. Apparent Age: 30. She stopped aging in her 20s, but the general disorder of her appearance adds to her age. Description: Once a pretty woman, she’s now a tangled wreck with matted and dirty hair, though Lucy does her best to keep her clean. This unkemptness does not extend to the house however, as her mania drives her to cleaning and tidying all day. Demeanor: Deviant Nature: Deviant Notes: Whenever Mina makes a Courage roll to prevent harm coming to Edward, she can roll her full 5 Courage dice. Likewise, when using Willpower to resist being controlled to harm Edward or allow him to come to harm, she has the equivalent of an 8 in this stat (she normally has a 3 Willpower) Roleplaying Tips: You will do anything to protect your family. Lucy A more recent Ghoul, she was changed in 1958 when Edward noticed a prostitute with an uncanny resemblance to Mina. Curiosity piqued, he followed her and added her to his herd. He quickly discovered she had one of the most developed senses of self-preservation he’d ever found. Ghouling her became increasingly attractive as Mina became more erratic. He has not regretted this decision. Lucy is the de facto leader of the house when Edward sleeps, keeping Mina, who believes Lucy to be her daughter, in line with subtle manipulation, and running aspects of the house that Mina is too deranged to handle. Lucy is content with being a Ghoul but is very aware of the precarious nature of her existence and is often trying to bargain for a full Embrace. While Edward’s resolve is weakening, she’s just too drat valuable as a Ghoul to make the change just yet. Apparent Age: Mid 20’s Description: Looks enough like Mina to be her daughter or sister, though she’s much better groomed. Her black hair cascades around her shoulders, and she has a sharp expression on her face that shows how she’s always looking out for herself. Demeanor: Caregiver Nature: Survivor Roleplaying Tips: The household seems to be your life, but you’d readily sacrifice it if necessary. For you, life comes first. Tomorrow: More Alien Hunger
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Mar 1, 2024 16:24
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joylessdivision posted:Karen Mauve ::traces Billy Idol album cover, adds lipstick:: Done!
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Mar 1, 2024 20:27
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Way too cool for Vampire. Should be a Nightlife character, clearly.
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Mar 1, 2024 20:42
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Halloween Jack posted:Way too cool for Vampire. Should be a Nightlife character, clearly. 
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Mar 1, 2024 20:48
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I keep trying to imagine what a white French guy from the 1700s who believes he is Jimi Hendrix would look and act like and can’t think of anything but the cringiest poo poo imaginable.
Gatto Grigio fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Mar 2, 2024 |
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Mar 2, 2024 02:48
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It’s actually a bit strange that his delusions would focus on Robert Johnson as early as 1954. Contrary to popular belief, he didn’t really become popular until the early 60s (due to his influence on 60s British blues/rock); he had far less influence on 50s rock and roll than is often assumed. This is a nitpick, of course; as historical inaccuracies in oWoD go it’s quite minor.
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Mar 2, 2024 03:36
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Oh no, I just realized that he’s an immortal vampire and that if he’s still around in 2024, he probably now claims that he’s Tupac…
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Mar 2, 2024 04:20
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I really didn't want to bring this up but Mega Dumb Cast made a comeback season a couple months ago and the MDC host has been covering "Alien Hunger". I can't get the idea that he brings up that Prince Edward as a guy stuck in middle-age crisis, hanging out in his bar and dating barely-legal girls (MDC did the math on Karen, Leslie, and his house ghouls and Ed met most of them years before turning them in their twenties, making them like 17 or 18). I think he also brought up the theory that Don Alonzo really runs Denver, he just lets Edward be visible to draw fire from other vamps and threats.
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Mar 2, 2024 06:23
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I wonder how a vampire named Edward so dorky he names his ghouls "Mina" and "Lucy" would do once Twilight comes out.
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Mar 2, 2024 06:56
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Gatto Grigio posted:I definitely did (and still) prefer to use the core simplified stats for other supers. In Vampire, Much easier to just treat a “mage” as a mortal with lots of Thaumaturgy and a few other Disciplines. Yeah, I think the only reason you would use the full rules for other creatures is if you had a pc that was playing as one. Unless the system is a very simple one to begin with NPCs should always be less complicated stat wise than PCs, PCs only have to keep track of one character, the DM has to track a lot more, plus kinda track all the PCs.
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Mar 2, 2024 08:10
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Young Freud posted:I think he also brought up the theory that Don Alonzo really runs Denver, he just lets Edward be visible to draw fire from other vamps and threats. This is a time-tested way to actually run a city in the WoD.
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Mar 2, 2024 14:54
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Gatto Grigio posted:Oh no, I just realized that he’s an immortal vampire and that if he’s still around in 2024, he probably now claims that he’s Tupac… Either that or Kurt Cobain.
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Mar 2, 2024 15:24
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