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nrook posted:Um, excuse me, United States vampires protect the American people by running a powerful anti-supernatural U.S. government agency. They're heroes, if you think about it. I always liked the (possibly) subtle insinuation in the VTR clan books that the vampires involved in Task Force: VALKYRIE might actually be taking an active roll in hunting down their own kind. Of course they're vampires so they gently caress their little war up by being a bunch of crazy corrupt assholes who half-rear end the job and generally just make everything worse. As a side note, the VTR clan books are utterly batshit insane in how much narrative content they're concealing. I wish there were more VTR books like them. I remember there being this thread on RPG.net's forums that had the authors of the VTR clan books posting in them explaining what they were going for when writing them and it turned out to be absolutely huge. The thread ended up being a synopsis of every major named character in the books and the meta-plot it presented. It turned out there was a lot of really sneaky stuff going on beyond the descriptions of how each clan lived that you don't get if you don't pay attention to the written letter segments at the start and end of each book. Or if you haven't read books in the Hunter line. Edit: Found the thread. It's a really neat read on how the books were put together, if nothing else. https://forum.rpg.net/archive/index.php/t-464972.html Keep in mind that the plot synopsis gets updated several times as the topic goes on. It's really nuts how much they managed to cram into those things. Archonex fucked around with this message at 08:06 on Oct 1, 2016 |
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Oct 1, 2016 07:34
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Pope Guilty posted:I'd like the clan books even more than I do if they wouldn't use those horrible cursive fonts. I have the worst time reading them and it's such slow going that I just give up and move on. But how else will you know the people writing these notes are from ye olde times?  I'm convinced that it was a deliberate choice to do that since a fair number of them have some of the aforementioned hidden content hidden in them. Nothing like irritating the hell out of the reader to make them skip over sections of the book! Regardless, they need to quit dicking around with writing the same two or three VTR books for years on end and make more clan book style books. I want more Count loving Dracula and Felix shenanigans. Also, some more stuff with the Mekhet clan book character Frances or the Chicago cast from the novels would be cool. Frances is a character that never gets old. Someone else earlier in the thread also mentioned that the Greg Stolze novels about the Chicago setting were awesome and I can indeed confirm that they're pretty great. Archonex fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Oct 1, 2016 |
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Oct 1, 2016 18:09
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Nicolae Carpathia posted:drat, that's really cool. I love that kind of narrative mystery that you have to piece together. Now I kind of wish I'd bothered to read the Clanbook fiction instead of just skipping through to the bloodlines and devotions... Other stuff I vaguely remember off hand: A lot of the clan books had content cut or rewritten. Like, huge stuff. The thread touches on it when an author mentions that they changed the storyline focus halfway through. Which probably lead to them having a more toolkit approach. There used to be a website out there with some of it, but I think it's since been taken down. Ventrue basically had an entirely different "hidden" storyline intended that never went through due to the later authors taking it in a much more interesting direction of being one big game of lies and skullduggery. Daeva was originally going to be the book that had a character viewing things from the ground floor of the setting similar to the Nosferatu and Gangrel book. Ayesha was going to be a newly embraced vampire before they adopted her as the sire from the "Never Give Up the Night" playthrough on the forums. Unfortunately they went for the generic choice and made the Gangrel be the bloody/gritty/horrifying ground floor look at a character's life in the setting and Daeva be the generic highbrow look at the setting like just about every other bit of OWoD/NWoD fiction. Talk about a missed opportunity to put a new spin on the setting. Archonex fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Oct 2, 2016 |
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Oct 2, 2016 04:46
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Jhet posted:Because that's only half a step from wanting to lull the entire human species into obedience to their fitter mage masters. Nope, nothing wrong with that at all. Except the Ladder's plan would working out would basically require the destruction of human life and civilization as we know it. Setting aside that mages can do a lot of crazy poo poo that invalidate parts of society on a mass scale just look at what sort of devastation a high level mage can put out. Can you imagine if everyone started walking around with superpowers at the cost of taking down the management of the setting? Everything would burn the second some edgelord or power hungry bastard decided to start touching off nuclear explosions with a finger snap. And who would stop them? Why, another group with crazy nuclear fingersplosions or whatever the gently caress a high Gnosis mage could come up with on short notice. That poo poo's why the Exalted setting (IE: The setting they still hint as being a possible prequel.) got messed up in the canon in the first place. The Terrestials and Sidereals (IE: The closest mage equivalent.) took out the Solar exalted rather than fix the curse that was driving them nuts and well, whoops --- it turns out that everyone saying that they want to save humanity has differing ideas within their little group of anti-heroes and heroes about how to do that. What's more, a few of them were doing it out of spite and to basically take their position for themselves. Cue all the humanoid super gods playing out their plans and triggering multiple apocalypses that pretty much blow humanity back to a perpetual feudal age. And that's before all the horrible poo poo outside existence steps in to eat existence or corrupt it in its image. Which by the way NWoD has plenty of too. Like the Helminth or all the poo poo in the lower realms. Call me crazy but the Ladder seems a bit loving nuts. Or at least delusional about what the end result of what their plan is. They'd just be Exarchs 2.0. That being said, "The Silver Ladder removes the lie, tears down the God Machine, turns everyone into mages, and poo poo goes bonkers as all sorts of horrible poo poo starts pouring into a world that suddenly looks like an all you can eat buffet for godlike monsters" would probably make for a pretty good Gehenna knock-off scenario though. Archonex fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Oct 30, 2016 |
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Oct 30, 2016 05:32
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Hey, just saying. It's a terrible ideology when you plot out where it leads within the plot. That poo poo's caused the apocalypse before in multiple settings Onyx Path's designed. Heck, even within the NWoD setting the entire thing that got the Exarchs their start is that they basically decided that "no gods, no masters, burn the heavens" was a good idea. Not like it's not going to inevitably happen again if the Ladder gets their way. "Mages will gently caress everything up given enough time and inclination." is practically a byword of White Wolf/Onyx Path at this point. Archonex fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Oct 30, 2016 |
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Oct 30, 2016 05:50
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Ferrinus posted:Building Hieraconis and manifesting the Avatar and so on aren't actually the same as the Atlanteans' original plan to dissolve the barrier between earth and heaven so that they could visit the supernal in the flesh. Building a literal city of mages and magic, tearing down part of reality, and breaching the supernal is pretty loving close to what the Exarchs did, yes. The only difference is that the Ladder doesn't talk about the practicalities of what happens after everyone has theoretical unlimited power at their fingertips once they've destroyed and remade reality in their image. quote:The mages of the Silver Ladder dream to build a new city of awakened. There are many names — Tianguo, Shambhala-lokha, the City of God in Man — and none is considered more authoritative than the other, but Hieraconis is the best known. Its people - sleepers and awakened alike - will successfully bridge the gap between the Fallen and Supernal Worlds, destroying the dualism of ages and freeing all humanity from pain, sorrow and want. All thought is magical; men and women create universes as works of art and none can be harmed or forced to do anything against their will. Read that and tell me that doesn't read like the plans of a super villain in the making. They even want to "surpass" their evil predecessors. That poo poo reads like the rantings of a mad scientist about to open up someone's cranium like it's a cantaloupe. Archonex fucked around with this message at 06:12 on Oct 30, 2016 |
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Oct 30, 2016 06:07
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:No, "none can be harmed or forced to do anything against their will" does not sound like supervillainy to me. Yeah. But then you get into "How do you enforce this reality staying that way?". Because if your dream is a world where anyone can do or be anything they want at any time without oppression then guess what? Some people are going to want to make the world in their own image or put the world back the way it was and enjoy a normal life rather than spew cosmic graffiti all over the place or whatever the gently caress a bunch of mages decide to do in their spare time. If your answer to this question is "Well the Ladder or _____ group will keep them from doing that!" then guess what? You've just described the Exarchs and the Seers of the Throne. Edit: I just don't see how anyone can look at the Ladder and think "Wow, yeah. These guys are not crazy as gently caress.". Remove all suffering from the world? Sure, that's a good thing to aspire too. We have real world organizations that want to minimize suffering. Ditto for the idea of taking out the Exarch's. They're basically crazy remnants of a bunch of wannabe god-kings. But the whole "WE SHALL BURN THE HEAVENS AND poo poo FIRE ON REALITY UNTIL IT WORKS THE WAY WE WANT" poo poo comes off as basically a bunch of low wisdom mages bordering on the edge of completely losing their poo poo and declaring themselves as gods to me. In fact: Here's an excerpt to help make my point: quote:Not all Orders view a cultivation of Wisdom as positive. The Silver Ladder derides mages who deny themselves their powers, stating that "Hubris is a coward's word". Likewise, the Seers of the Throne rarely care much enough about Sleepers to grow beyond Understanding. Archonex fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Oct 30, 2016 |
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Oct 30, 2016 06:13
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:If the bit I quoted is actually achievable, then you don't need to enforce it. There's no way to put the genie back in the bottle. And this would be the point where I point out that things very rarely work out the way mages of high power want. It's even a mechanic. You gently caress with reality and it's liable to make adjustments in unforeseeable ways. Also the idea that people can't change the world after they "let the genie out of the bottle" is basically just them imposing their will on every other being to ever exist. It's the Exarch's same trick only they've politely excused themselves from the room ahead of time to try and avoid blame for their actions. Really, i'll leave off of it now but the whole "HUBRIS IS A COWARD'S WORD." quote pretty much sums my thoughts up about why i'd play them as a villainous group. It reeks of someone who in most games would be on a crash course to have their character go right into the unplayable end of the spectrum. Or be careening towards getting their soul eaten out by the Abyss after they decided that using the horribly infectious anti-reality in spells couldn't possibly backfire on them. It is a pretty  quote though. So there's that.
Archonex fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Oct 30, 2016 |
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Oct 30, 2016 06:24
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:It's one thing to argue that radical egalitarianism isn't possible -- there's a distressingly high likelihood that you're right. But you'll have to sell me on wanting it to be that way in my wizardgame. Pretty sure radical egalitarianism can't really apply here. It kind of falls apart when the egalitarianism in question being debated is whether humanity as a whole should be able to melt skyscrapers with a funny hand gesture or shoot nuclear fireballs from their fingertips. Even if you try to take a practical bent the ideology of the Ladder just gets hosed when you start reading the canon info on the setting and realize that it'd lead to one of two or three horrific endings if it was even possible. Don't get me wrong. As a faction the Ladder has some good ideas. But they get drowned out in the middle of all of the crazy bullshit that'd probably lead to the apocalypse. Now, real futurists and transhumanists go for the Free Council as the faction to root for. They're basically the only ones not entirely up their own rear end about Atlantean Archonex fucked around with this message at 07:21 on Oct 30, 2016 |
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Oct 30, 2016 07:17
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Mulva posted:[And there's nothing new or interesting about the Free Council] I was joking about that actually. I'm not a big fan of any of the mage factions, really. Thought it was kind of obvious from my posts about the Ladder, but whatever.
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Oct 30, 2016 08:26
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Tiny Deer posted:I think the problem you're having is not understanding that what the mages here want isn't a world where everyone has superpowers, it's a world where everyone is a god. No, I get that. I literally said it in my first post. I was using the skyscraper/nuke thing as a metaphor for why turning everyone into godlike beings is a terrible idea within the setting. The True Fae comparison is probably a better way to explain it though. Archonex fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Oct 30, 2016 |
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Oct 30, 2016 08:54
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Mulva posted:Counter: There is no Essence in the world now, nor the ability to generate it, so he stands in a nuclear hellstorm for a few turns before mote tapping and being obliterated. Pretty sure that's not entirely true, is it? OWoD Mages are basically mini-exalts in capability and the resources they use (It's even referred to as quintessence I think.). It's just that it's a lot harder for people to get access to essence in the old World of Darkness since non-Exalted can't respire essence like the Exalted can. Granted, just dropping nukes on a Solar until they die is entirely doable provided they don't know Abyssal defense charms. Abyssal perfect defense charms let you just re-materialize behind the person who launched the attack. Picture an increasingly frustrated Technocracy agent playing tag with the smug immortal supergod via dropping nukes across the globe until they could run their energy reserves down and you've pretty much got the situation down pat.  Night10194 posted:If they actually went whole hog, the Exalted showing up and showing the pampered little jackasses of the oWoD what *really* dysfunctional and insane assholes can do would've been kinda funny. There was talk of an Exalted and World of Darkness crossover book happening years ago. But given that there's not been anything heard about it for so long I assume it's been taken off the table. Funny thing is, the Exalted probably exist in both settings as either broken remnants or the tier 4/top tier beings in the case of NWoD. Laws of Ascension actually had a limited run printed that had an in character blurb from a OWoD era Sidereal. On top of that it's confirmed that there's "heavy weight" versions of each game line hiding out and doing something important in the NWoD/Mage Imperial Mysteries book. They're apparently the reason why some arch mage can't just say "I want all the vampires/hunters/werewolves to not exist.". In the OWoD's case there's all but literal shouting-it-from-the-rooftops confirmation of it. And the NWoD/CoD is built so you could say they were the "tier 4" beings that were kept intentionally vague since they were so powerful they'd break pretty much anything over their knee. Which jives with a bunch of other things. It's not like NWoD isn't positively littered with hidden references to Exalted too. Edit 2: Oh holy poo poo. I found the story. Turns out at least one Sidereal in the Old World of Darkness basically admitted they hosed up the world by murdering the Solar Exalted. Only he or she then goes on to decide that hey --- since what they did was so horrible they'll make amends for their deeds by siding with the Neverborn and becoming super-powered Nephandi. http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Laws_of_Ascension_Rulebook_(limited) for those that want to read it. Archonex fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Nov 19, 2016 |
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Nov 19, 2016 02:28
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I Am Just a Box posted:It isn't? I'm open to hearing any you could run down. I mean, I'm sure there might be a borrowed term here or there, but if you exclude cases where both Exalted and CofD are referencing back to something originated in the World of Darkness, it's a real desert compared to Exalted links in the WoD, to my knowledge. The only particular parallel that comes to mind is how Exalted Third Edition's Liminal Exalted are mildly reskinned Prometheans, but even there, it's the Prometheans that came first, and Exalted which followed after. There's a whole bunch of stuff. I mentioned a few earlier in the thread. A few are really explicit like the whole "Green Sun" cult that reads like someone found a Malefactor's study texts. The rest pretty much are little hints and winks of the eye that require intimate knowledge of Exalted's backstory and the NWoD's hosed up metaphysics to pick up on. It's late and I feel like poo poo but let me try to see if I can remember some offhand: The Underworld has a few areas that are basically cribbed from Exalted. The most memorable one I can remember offhand is the Ocean of Fragments. It's an area that's pretty much at the bottom of the Underworld and is basically the devouring void you could find towards the bottom of the Underworld in Creation. Only something or someone put a giant magical ocean on top of it to plug it up and mitigate it's effects so it doesn't eat everything. It acts the same way as the Void in Exalted mechanically, only slower since there's a fuckoff huge magical ocean in the way between anyone stupid enough to dive into the thing and Oblivion. Go down too deep to try to see what the ocean is resting on top of/what it leads too (The underworld is a nigh infinite series of domains ruled by godlike beings, ancient ghosts, or transcended mortals that were strong enough or lucky enough to take one over. So logically there should be an exit or something there instead of the one or two exits and features above the water line.) and you cease to exist even if you are a living being. Some of the Lunes seem to range back and forth between slightly insane spirits (Which fits with Luna in both settings, actually.) and some sort of super beings that seem more in line with the Exalted depending on the writer. Hell, some of the artwork depicting them shows them as half animal half humanoid beings that are all tatted up like the Lunar Exalted are. There's also artwork showing a bunch of different Lunes with the different caste marks Lunars have hovering over their heads. A number of the older Cruac write ups were literally weaker Abyssal charms that couldn't be performed on the fly like how Charms could be. Amusingly, they also have a top tier ritual that temporarily turns them into a "seemingly godlike being" at the cost of giving them many of the visual effects/drawbacks of the alternate resonance mechanics for modern settings depicted in Shards of the Exalted Dream. IE: The same rewritten resonance mechanics that helped fix a lot of what was wrong with Abyssals in their 2E form. The Strix are literally the Nemissaries from Exalted. Like, literally in every way, shape, and form. The only big difference is that they're viewed and fought from the point of mortals in the NWoD instead of a bunch of supergods. That and they don't get to bling out the corpses they possess any more due to not working for some fabulously rich and powerful entities like the Abyssal Exalted or a Deathlord (Which is actually a term that gets thrown around to refer to a bunch of largely yet-undefined beings that rule over the deepest parts of the Underworld. They're one of the "tier 4" beings that Arch Mages can bargain with that I mentioned before.) any more. The religious groups that dealt with the Underworld in some of the oldest vampire related "ancient past" settings that have been released also described them as the Nemeses or Nemesis. The True Fae/Fair Folk operate and read like some sort of hosed up/mutated version of the Raksha from Exalted. Heck, the Raksha are even called the "Fair Folk" in Exalted. They're actually far less dangerous than the Fair Folk of Exalted too. In the NWoD they're seemingly only interested in kidnapping people to reproduce and amuse themselves instead of kidnapping them to eat their souls, reproduce, and make way for the total dissolution of reality. From what we know of them so far Prometheans are the basis for Liminals in the Exalted setting. Also the strongest versions of Promethean/Promethean-like beings out there in the NWoD don't even use the same sort of power source the rest do. They use extremely powerful Numina. Which run off of essence. As an added bonus some of the core terminology to make a Promethean can be found in parts of 3E Exalted's literature in relation to Exigent Exalted. The Divine Flame comes up as something gods can call on to empower someone at the cost of their own power or health. One of the creation myths for Mages is that a bunch of dragons (IE: The thing elemental start to turn into visually as they get older and more powerful in Exalted. Also the beings that the Dragonblooded in Exalted are related too.) basically came swooping in and gifted it to humans prior to skittering right out of existence for currently unknown reasons. Arch Mages have to start working with Quintessence to do the higher tier spells. Only now the Quintessence reads like Tass instead of the immaterial Quintessence from OWOD. IE: The Quintessence is altered to a physical form and hidden away from general usage for most mages so that it's even more of a nightmare to get your hands on. Have fun bargaining with a Deathlord or other insanely powerful tier 4 being to get your hands on the resources for that imperial level spell if your ST feels like making things interesting! One of the in setting creation myths for one of the vampire clans has them basically being the result of humans mating with beings in a "borderlands" type reality similar to the Shadowlands in Exalted. It's not a big indicator of anything big but the Midnight caste symbol shows up as a plot point in one of the Hunter supplements. I forget where though since it's been a really long time since I played anything Hunter related. Also this post took way too loving long and i'm sick as hell so gently caress looking it up. I think maybe it was Cheiron related? Don't quote me on that though. And finally, an Exalted-WoD crossover book was at one point something the writers said they wanted to do. Unfortunately there's been nothing on that end for a long time so it's probably off the table despite the ground work going in for it. All that being said, keep in mind that the NWoD is very toolkit in its design. It was built so that you can basically choose what you want to be canon. That means that for each explanation for a thing they describe an alternate one exists that you can optionally take if you like it more. So it's entirely doable and proper to say it's a setting independent of Exalted if you want it to be that way. But if you do choose the option to say they're linked it looks a lot like a more positive version of a post-Creation existence that's gotten hosed up by a few huge mistakes early on in its history on the mortal end of things (Atlantis and the Exarchs going all "A god am I!" and promptly breaking reality over their knee, the poo poo that went down in Irem coupled with whatever the thing posing as Ammut and the judges in Duat wants to do to the world, etc, etc.) and doesn't have the Neverborn or Malfean Primordials around to perpetually turn everything into a nightmarish hellfest for living beings. Edit: Holy poo poo that was longer than I intended. Archonex fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Nov 19, 2016 |
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Nov 19, 2016 05:58
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I Am Just a Box posted:That's mostly just a mix of the exception clause I cited, where it's not CofD referencing Exalted so much as both CofD and Exalted deriving from concepts in the World of Darkness, plus some stuff that's just really vague and unsurprising to see crop up in different works. Exalted doesn't have ownership over the ideas of magical dragons, associations between the moon and madness and between werewolves and pictures of the phases of the moon, and a messily drawn black circle. The idea of White Wolf (And now Onyx Path) using similar concepts for each of their settings has been a thing for awhile now, yeah. Hell, OWoD basically established the trend back when it was directly linked to Exalted. If you're expecting Onyx Path to come out and say "Hey, they're connected settings!" outright then...Uh, i'm not sure what to tell you. They've been playing the whole "they could be connected if you want them to be!" card on and off since the latter days of the original OWoD line. That's especially true for a line of games like the NWoD/CofD games. Which were designed to be at least partially be a pick and choose your setting elements sort of game line. Declaring that the NWoD was related to Exalted would have flown directly in the face of that. That being said there's a lot of similarities there. Those same similarities are thematically the ones used to hint at stuff related to Exalted in the OWoD too. There's a difference between "Okay well both settings have dragons and the same symbols." and "Okay, they're using the same fantastical power sources, the same sort of mythical characters in a narrative, and even some of the symbols in relation to that.". So I hope it's not hard to see how someone could make the conclusion that they were dropping some of the same old winks and nods. Especially in light of some of the rumors and comments by the staff. I Am Just a Box posted:Also some odd misapprehensions – I'm guessing you were thinking of qashmallim there for these "stronger Prometheans," but they're explicitly not Prometheans and they're one of the ephemeral exception cases in that they don't use Essence. The power the Qashmallim use definitely has some relation to the powers essence users have. They also are created and kept around by the same power that Prometheans use. I don't think any of the lines ever went into the intimate specifics of what Pyros is however. The closest we got to that was one chapter in Pandora's Box and it basically was just a really long form way of saying "It's inexplicable dude!". The Qashmallim's powers are explicitly stated to fall under the category of Numina though. Numina are only for essence using beings like spirits, ghosts, angels, etc, etc. However, you're right that they aren't explicitly essence users. However the Qashmallim can basically breach game lines and use different essence related powers with Pyros. Given that it almost seems like the Qashmallim use some sort of super-charged version of essence. That's what I was getting at. quote:Powers of the qashmallim take the form of Numina. A qashmal can use any Promethean Transmutation as a Numina, as well as spells, Gifts, and any Numina avaliable to spirits, as well as qashmal-specific Numina. Lilithim can also use Flux and its related powers as well. Granted, the Qashmallim are pretty much written to be a deus ex machina that can help spur a game onwards. So trying to explain why the hell they can do things that only essence users are supposed to be able to do is pretty much a fool's errand. Archonex fucked around with this message at 09:40 on Nov 19, 2016 |
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Nov 19, 2016 08:11
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Loomer posted:Glorious insanity. I would like to take a moment to thank you for making me feel slightly less nerdy for sperging over the lore of a game.
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Nov 20, 2016 03:52
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:At most Golconda should be a way to reverse the vampiric curse and go back to being an ordinary mortal again. Becoming a parasitic monster isn't the path the enlightenment, even if at the same time "the only possible redemption for someone like you is suicide" is kind of a lovely theme. I kinda like the idea of some people achieving some sort of hosed up and evil Golconda. If only because it highlights how loving terrifying/terrible being a vampire is in this setting. There's a running theme that everything to do with vampires is corrupted and hosed up to the point where even good intentions inevitably go wrong in some way. It's how your characters deal with that that determines whether they're downright evil or not. One of the possible takes on The Unholy is basically that entire concept summed up into a character and was a neat way to describe how Golconda might not be the paradisaical state that it was supposed to be in VTM. Edit: I just remembered that the pro-humanity branch of the Ordo Dracul in 1e are written as having literally invented a way to turn themselves back to being human again by leveraging the power of occult science and being a genuinely good person. Also, their branch specific coils outright remove some of the worst banes from vampiric existence if you want to stick around as a vampire. They basically invented Golconda through sheer intellect and humanity. Which the Ordo Dracul responded to by banning the pursuit of those coils and suppressing the gently caress out of anyone that knows them since it didn't let them become the turbo-monsters they secretly fantasize about being. Which proves that aside from some nifty coils that everyone already knows about the Ordo loving sucks since the best Mara and her turbo-Hitler counter-parts could do was find a way to eat souls even harder. Archonex fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Dec 3, 2016 |
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Dec 3, 2016 06:32
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Mors Rattus posted:The Lancea section also includes an Ordo research document by a guy who was convinced that the ability to use Theban Sorcery was tied to activity (or lack thereof) in the parietal lobe and who vivisected (dissected?) a Lancea vampire in order to test it. The paper is covered in notes by his apparent Ordo superior to the tune of 'your methodology is awful, your conclusions are spurious and you are an idiot. SEE ME AFTER CLASS.' The Circle member who responds to a ranting diatribe about how he's simultaneously a worthless leader that's being puppeteered by women and somehow also a domineering rear end in a top hat is pretty great too. It's definitely worth picking up. The in character perspective stuff is definitely where the CofD shines the most. The whole book is done in character except for a very short appendix at the end that lists out new merits. It's freaking long too. Edit: I just got to the part with the Invictus agent bitching that one of his informants writes his reports like he was a detective in a bad noir novel. It's so passive aggressive. 
Archonex fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Dec 13, 2016 |
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Dec 13, 2016 23:07
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Doodmons posted:Mainly the fact that every Acanthus and their mum has access to paradox free (and Paradox free) at-will time travel, so they can just go back in time and kill their enemies' parents without them being able to do a drat thing about it if they don't have any dots in Time. It's not even that it's overpowered - and it is - it's the fact that I can barely keep up with Mages and their multiple levels of reality in which they can exist, their mage sights, the alternate dimensions and the many powers at their disposal and in no way do I also want to have to deal with casual time travel and worrying about what Abraxas is doing right now last week. Shifting Sands lets you go back a whole scene, and can be chained together. On Acanthus, munchkins, and time travel stuff: Put some ethical concerns on it. Outright power gaming and being a munchkin is anathema to any sort of Mage game that isn't intended to be an Exalted-esque joy ride across the heavens since Mage is at it's core basically a multi-tier game that can reach above all but the undescribed T4 powers. If you aren't willing to enforce consequences then poo poo gets out of wack fast. Even if you set aside paradox then doing something to alter the timeline is actually really hubris ridden as all hell. You're basically murdering everything that ever was or would have been by invalidating their existence through a series of changed events. Mage is absolutely the sort of game where the Butterfly Effect goes into overdrive and wreaks havoc in unforeseen ways too. For big examples just see any time an arch mage gets it in their head that they're going to "fix the world". Your PC's ought to be getting the poo poo dinged out of them in Wisdom and risk becoming one of the Mad any time they try to explicitly say "gently caress the world" and outright custom tailor and realign events to their will since that's literally the sort of thing someone would do when they have pretty much no wisdom left. You're basically putting your own desires above the current existence of literally everything. Alternatively: I forget which book it was but if none of that is your thing then one of the God Machine related books introduced beings that are basically time cops that exist to destroy and correct anomalies in the timeline. They're a hard counter against "I go back in time and shoot your mother when she's pregnant with you.  " bullshit. If nothing else it'd interesting to see how your players react when there's a never-ending tide of demigod-like time traveling Terminator knockoffs coming at them to "set right what once went wrong". Archonex fucked around with this message at 11:42 on Dec 15, 2016 |
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Dec 15, 2016 10:51
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Doodmons posted:Cabal Theme just pumps up Shadow Name, it's not actually a separate Yantra. Sorry if the last post came off as snarky or anything, I was not having a good day yesterday. For real, though, by the sounds of it you're all having a lot of fun playing Mage and therefore are Doing It Right, but imo your capabilities and power level are a lot higher even at Gnosis 2 than I think you are giving yourselves credit for. Mage is a game about power and consequences and using your fearsome wizard powers to their fullest capabilities is both in theme and a whole lot of fun! If you like casting spells you should all definitely buy Shadow Name and Cabal Theme, though, it's the cheapest and best dice-adder to spellcasting rolls in the game to the extent that next time I run mage I'm just giving both of those merits to everyone for free. Don't have much time to type this unfortunately but I didn't mean that the entire Arcana was off limits to people that didn't want to become Mad. Acanthus is more than just time. It's also about fate. There's a reason why all but the craziest mages use it to weigh the stakes in their favor and alter the odds instead of just going wholesale a god am I and rewriting reality to their whim whenever it suits them. Also time has uses outside of "I want to go all Terminator and fix this.". The stuff you're talking about is typically pretty hard to pull off without consequences in 1e. Though maybe it's different in 2e? I've not have a chance to actually playtest 2e yet. Also i'm pretty sure the agents in question are either part of the God Machine or some part of the Principle. Though I don't have time to check, unfortunately. Got a doctor's appointment in a few. I'll try and look them up in my books when I get home. If it's the former then you really are going up against an endless army of demi-god like terminators sent after you since it's literally the God Machine you just pissed off. If it's the latter sending poo poo after you then whelp; you just literally picked a fight with one of the concepts of reality itself. Assuming the latter at that point even a group playing arch mages should probably be passed a copy of the stats for Vampire: The Masquerade's Caine to get an idea of what they're actually up against and what's about to happen to them if they don't fix their mess ASAP. Archonex fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Dec 15, 2016 |
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Dec 15, 2016 18:22
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Are "alternate timelines" a thing in the Mage cosmology? This is going to be long but: Yes to alternate timelines being in mage. No to them just being mage or abyss exclusive. There's entire alternate realities that get mentioned in various books inside and outside of Mage. The biggest alternate reality is probably the Prince of 100,000 Leaves. It's pretty much one of the Big Bad's for the setting itself. It's an Abyssal intruder that wants to make (and possibly already has created a separate reality or even actually may be the original time line where the Exarch's hosed up and let in the Abyss) a reality where a bunch of eldritch abominations conquered earth and rejiggered it to their liking. The world it wants to make reads like Malfeas from Exalted went ape poo poo on the modern world. The summary from the Wiki posted:The Prince was first contacted (or created via an unthinkable disastrous Time paradox) three thousand years ago in Egypt by a coven of cannibal priests. It was ejected into the Abyss soon enough, but knowledge of his intrusion remained and was harnessed by the Ebon Noose cabal via the Mastigos member known as the Lernaean. The Prince used the offered soul to reach into the phenomenal reality and manifested himself. The cabal was soon destroyed, but the Prince has still one lackey, the Medusan, who works to make his master reality. Settling near Salem, the Medusan has built the Cult of the Red Word that worships the Prince as events yet to come. TL;DR: It's basically an invading alternate reality that's so fundamentally vile that reality itself took one look at it and said "gently caress this. This is just too messed up for me!" before interceding and chucking it into the abyssal waste bin. It's basically a walking talking advertisement for why time magic is ridiculously dangerous. Aside from that it's mentioned in the God Machine related books that the God Machine created a few alternate realities as part of some experiment it was doing. This lead to Seattle being a nest of fallen and it's basically been left flailing on how to fix that particular mess and shut them down. It was vaguely implied in 1e that one of the ways arch mages and similar entities can do their thing is that they actually just shift into the timeline they want instead of just breaking reality over their knee. See Abyssal related stuff like the Prince of 100,000 Leaves and the possible implications of the 1e Atlantis origin story as examples of that. They're all over the place, really. One of the Hunter books has a really disturbing in character perspective of a bunch of tier 1 hunters who try to be heroes and get sucked into an alternate reality that reads like something Lovecraft might write. Way back when it came out I remember reading a thread on another forum suggesting that it might either be the leadership of the Cheiron Group's home reality, something to do with the Prince, or something to do with some blurb from the Shadows of the UK book that I can't recall offhand. Archonex fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Dec 16, 2016 |
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Dec 16, 2016 06:04
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Loomer posted:And not spend literal years chained to terrible books? Unacceptable! I'm going to feel sorry for you when you get this insane project done with just as Paradox pulls a CCP and kills off the OWoD line again.
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Dec 20, 2016 13:45
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JohnnyCanuck posted:For this next round of MageChat, let's talk about what happens to a mage when they're caught completely unawares by a werewolf. Or what happens when they confront a vampire that has a theban ritual or cruac rite that shuts down magic in their vicinity. I think that was a thing in one of the recent books. Sure as hell evens out the power difference between the lines too. Archonex fucked around with this message at 06:27 on Dec 28, 2016 |
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Dec 28, 2016 06:25
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Yawgmoth posted:I like that the the rules of the Pax are short enough to fit on a business card, and one of them is basically "if you see a Banisher trying to Ascend, you tell every goddamned one of us you can so we can un-write his entire existence from all worlds and all timelines." I like to think that part of it is probably because they're all aware of the karma that'd occur if they got up there. Most arch mages have some colossal gently caress ups under their wing as of Imperial Mysteries. It's literally a rule of the setting. Plus, all the glorifying of mages aside the idea that some rear end in a top hat mage could throw a philosophical tantrum and say "I want reality to work like this." and suddenly wipe out everything you've achieved is a pretty hosed up idea when you think about what it means for civilization and the fundamental worth of the people living in that reality. The people with power all being self-serving (and often delusional) assholes about what they're doing is a theme in the World of Darkness. No reason it stops with mages. Archonex fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Dec 28, 2016 |
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Dec 28, 2016 18:18
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Joe Slowboat posted:Also, if Vampires can shut down Supernal magic with blood sorcery, can Mages use Awakened Magic to shut down blood sorcery? I feel like there are obvious arcanum/practice combinations to do that, but shied away from the possibility. I'd say it's pretty much up to the ST since I don't think there's been any real in depth examination of how those two forms of magic interact outside of predictable outcomes like "someone is going to get incinerated or sucked dry" in the event the beings wielding them conflict. A supernal mage could probably find a way, though. It's kind of Mage's hat that they have a large bag of potential tricks, even if they can't directly attack the problem at hand. The real problem of any "blood magic versus supernal magic" situation is what horrible side effects a group of mages and vampiric blood mages swinging their dicks at each other would produce. That actually was a minor suggested plot blurb in one of the books from way back in 1e. The canon implications say that it probably doesn't end well for anyone. Doubly so with the inclusion of stuff like Void familiars and the associated cruac style from Secrets of the Covenants. There's no way that any sane or responsible mage wouldn't freak out after seeing a vampire producing some horrific abomination of shadows and mutated flesh every time they cast a spell. Archonex fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Dec 29, 2016 |
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Dec 29, 2016 06:51
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Mendrian posted:I don't think your assessment is flawed really but I think it's worth noting that the Covenants were created as a result of those pressures rather than in spite of them. The Invictus helps maintain order and is not coincidentally a survival tool for elders. The Ordo exist to fight vampiric nature. And so on. Also at least two of the covenants were created out of wholesale power grabs and lies. It helps to know that, since it explains why the whole isolationist-except-not-really thing exists in the modern day games. It's heavily suggested in several books that the Invictus and Lancaea et Sanctum backstabbed the Camarilla and deliberately sabotaged it from within so they could pursue the whole king for life feudal/isolationist mind-set that they benefit off of in modern days. During the time of the Camarilla that wasn't at all the way things were done. They had a senate, representation for the people, governance over large swathes of land, and the whole Roman Republic style of government. The Invictus just kind of filled the role that the Camarilla was filling after all was said and done. It came with the job and gave them an excuse to muscle in on other divergent groups while claiming the higher ground when it came to being the "responsible" ones. Edit: Ditto for the Lancaea et Sanctum being two-faced liars about their history and justifications about being morally in the right. They almost certainly stole Theban Sorcery (The thing they use as proof that god chose them to be a menace to humanity. In reality, they have no real proof of that. Even the Testament they profess as holy truth is being edited to realign itself to modern times come Secrets of the Covenants.) from the extinct ancient Egyptian covenants after doing their damnedest to butcher most of them out of existence and erase any hint they ever existed. Ironically all this means that the Carthians and Circle are right about the Invictus and Lance being two-faced parasites that stole everything that made them become notable groups. Archonex fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Dec 31, 2016 |
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Dec 31, 2016 21:07
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Pope Guilty posted:Is it me or were the Brood and VII more of a thing early on? I feel like they rarely come up anymore in the newer books. I remember reading on either the OP forums or the RPGnet forums that a detailed examination of them got left out due to a lack of space left in the main VTR 2e book. Development for more VTR books has been so slow that i'm not surprised they never got back around to doing something with them. Archonex fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Dec 31, 2016 |
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Dec 31, 2016 21:12
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FutureFriend posted:i always assumed myself that a lot of the covenants would work in the old days like it would work with lieges of a feudal domain, aka in word and philosophies answering to a higher power on the ladder but having minimal contact besides pages and messengers due to how split off those domains usually were. of course, i haven't dipped too deep in the books so i don't know if covenants having central region leaders is ever a thing that's hinted at or not. They're more like professed and famous ideologies that always have common threads. For example: Someone that claims to be a member of the Invictus is basically saying that they prioritize FYGM elitism and old world power structures in their day to day conduct as far as politics and decorum goes. Someone that professes to be a Carthian probably doesn't care for old world elitism and wants to change things. Stuff like that. The interesting thing is how the display of these beliefs changes from locale to locale. Sure, the default assumption for an Invictus controlled city is the image of an Invictus prince on his throne. But then you get stuff like the Invictus prince who operates like a modern day gang leader as opposed to the whole "boardroom and politics" thing. Likewise, it's not impossible to see a Carthian city leader who has become an Invictus style tyrant-prince for one reason or another. This also extends into how the covenant operates as a whole too. Though getting into that is a bit much for a single post. MonsieurChoc posted:No but seriously Damnation City is really good (B v D aside). Damnation City really is a must buy. It's useful even for 2e VTR. Even if you aren't interested in VTR or how to design interesting cities for vampires it goes into some neat stuff about the setting and mechanics that make it pretty invaluable. Archonex fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Dec 31, 2016 |
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Dec 31, 2016 22:02
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Crasical posted:2e vampire, the only book I'm acquainted with, honestly gave me the impression that the Carthians and the Circle exist as opposing philosophies to the Invictus and Lancea, but are kind of doomed in execution. A Carthian uprising that manages to topple the Invictus power struggle disintigrates as the competing, arguing factions previously united by a common enemy start pushing against each other, even if they don't absorb enough of the invictus power structure to turn them into Invictus 2.0 after a short amount of time. The Circle creates anarchic 'rule of power' areas where only strength is respected, and diablerie and ghouling and violence run rampant, and then implodes because of how unsustainable that is as a model of vampire government. Give either enough time, and they collapse and the Invictus and Lance wander back in. The Carthians aren't really doomed by default. Mostly it's the ones that are all "Change for the sake of change! gently caress the system!" that end up devolving into nightmarish power struggles and slaughterfests that end up with half the population dead or fleeing the town. It's a recurring thing that violence in Kindred society tends to lead to even more violence and brutality. See the whole Burning Dawn group as an example. There's a bunch of success stories on that front too, evidently. Though they usually have some caveat. The latest book actually has one in the form of the New York movement, which actively steals talent and ideas from other Carthians to ensure they remain on the bleeding edge. Said theft usually ends up dicking over the Carthian movement in that area. Archonex fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Jan 1, 2017 |
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Jan 1, 2017 05:04
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Jhet posted:I'm so very glad I'm running mage and none of my players have likely ever heard of Beast. I've decided that they most definitely do not exist in my universe. This is worse than BvD and that picture in the Montreal by Night book (you know the one, I'm not looking it up for you). BvD at least was so incredibly over the top and dark that it spun back around to being hilarious in that "What the gently caress is wrong with you people." sort of way. Plus, they actually did something as horrific as BvD right in Requiem. The whole point of the Requiem/Damnation City version of BvD was that the guy responsible for it ended up being murdered in the end for being an evil poo poo by the Prince. It's pretty clear that even the characters in universe that are at least marginally sane are disgusted by BvD and the psychopath that came up with the idea. And like all the stories in the book it turns out it's a story about how willful monstrosity degrades and destroys everyone in the end. These violent delights have violent ends and all. From what i've read of impressions of the Beast core book so far this poo poo is just depressing in how badly it's built mechanically, occasionally tries to justify the monstrous protagonists literally wishing they were wholesale turbo-monsters, and even comes off every now and then like the author is projecting some really weird and offensive societal views on the world. Crasical posted:I've kind of wavered myself between Beasts existing, but being universally accepted by the supernatural community as horrible, horrible things to be hunted/killed, and them flat-out not existing in my World of Darkness. I can't imagine that any supernaturals that were widely aware of them would be tolerant of them if they had a full picture of what they were about. Like, I could picture even the Circle of the Crone just turning their noses up at those poser Beast's when they get into their whole "Dark Mother" spiel. Individual cases where things worked out nicely could work, sure. But they come off as preaching what most other monsters want to avoid being for what are wholly correct and sane reasons. Archonex fucked around with this message at 13:47 on Jan 12, 2017 |
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Jan 12, 2017 11:38
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Kurieg posted:Probably the most hilarious bit is the Blind Man(who isn't actually blind) Who's written like a fairly bog standard horror movie trope until you get towards the end and you find out that he can clench his abs and poo poo eggs out of his dick that make it so that anybody who eats the eggs will also poo poo eggs out of their dick and he's doing this because he thinks that if enough people start making GBS threads eggs out of their dick it will bring back the Progenitor who's their ultra badass patron who's so amazing and badass that he hosed the dark mother. So while you're on the book, what's the Progenitor all about? The idea of there being two big monster makers in the setting that monsters can trace their roots back is interesting to me. Is that how it's played out?
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Jan 12, 2017 16:24
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Kurieg posted:Are you asking if it's played out in a way that's interesting? So what? They're basically void related monsters? The funniest thing about all this to me is that the more I hear about this the more I think that this game would have done better as some sort of retarded mortal tier spin off book for Exalted 3E where you play as the poor monsters that get ripped apart by early level Exalt's. Not that 3E is that good at the moment either, what with toning down the power levels and somehow still making the mechanics of playing it a headache. Titanic sinking sexy snake monsters versus cosmic kung fu super-gods is at least theoretically fun as a concept and helps overlook the general terribleness of it all. It'd at least make people confused about whether the terrible parts were supposed to be a parody or actually serious. Plus, some of the poo poo i'm reading about fits in there far better than it does NWOD/CofD thematically. Exalted's crazy enough that some of this poo poo would just elicit a "Meh." from the fan base. Archonex fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Jan 12, 2017 |
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Jan 12, 2017 16:30
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Kurieg posted:They're posessed by the primordial fear of events, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, tornadoes, or THE UNENDING VOID OF SPACE. This really doesn't seem to fit anywhere else into the setting. Like, most of this stuff seems to be coming out of left field when compared to previous canon. Shame too. I was hoping they'd actually clean the thing up after people kept pointing out how awful it was. Also, like, what the gently caress is the point of some of these monsters? How would you even use "monster that sunk the titanic and is impervious to just about anything short of an airstrike" in a story that wasn't going full gonzo in the vein of Exalted? It just doesn't fit. And that's before you get into the probability that a monster that sunk the titanic is probably not going to be anywhere humans are to even interact with in the first place. What the gently caress would the PC's even be doing to encounter this thing? The egg dude is similarly confusing. I mean, at least I can see how it could be put into a story since it can actually interact with people in an antagonistic way. But...Just...What? Do the eggs kill people or something? Where's the threat outside of the whole body invasion thing and horrifying 4chan tier fetishes being inflicted on the setting? Did I miss that in my read through?
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Jan 12, 2017 16:42
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Ferrinus posted:"Someone probably finds this sexy" is not actually a strong criticism of anything. Do you? Is that the problem here? VTR Night Horrors book about other types of vampiric monsters out there did a horrifying parasitic egg monster man much better. Like, if you want to read how such a concept could be utterly loving terrifying in that "Oh god I need to go check my tongue." sort of way, then check it out. Every inch of it is pure unadulterated nightmare fuel right down to the implied stuff. Even down to the implications that if you were infected that society wouldn't even take you seriously if you were still in the phase where you could get treatment since whoops there's no such things as parasitic monsters that turn people into puppets right? I mean, even the book is aware of the fact that these guys are some of the most disturbing things to be put to pages in the VTR series. Even the book says "You probably can't play these guys as long term characters." because it's by default a doomed story for the protagonists after a certain point is reached. Since hey, the parasite isn't sentient or anything. It's basically an animal that wants to propagate itself and is basically slowly eating the character's brain from the inside out. I guess that's why I posted that post about "What's the point?" when it came to the Beast antagonist (God please let him be an antagonist.  ). Since how the gently caress does this thing even have teeth compared to the example janitor that had a bad run in with an infectee and is suddenly having terrifying blackout periods where he turns the boiler room at a local high school into his own personal nest to infect all the water (and any students using it) in the school? Hell, the writer/s layered the horror on at the end with a new genre of it.Edit: Best part is that the book is humorously self-aware. The writer knew this was a hosed up concept to commit to paper and worked it in as an element of the description. One of the early little "penciled" in remarks by a character in the setting is of a Daeva/Daeva wannabe basically saying "Hey! Neat! Guess I can check another internet fetish off my list of things I wish was real!". Archonex fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Jan 13, 2017 |
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Jan 13, 2017 01:12
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Ferrinus posted:See, you're just making this about your own insecurities. When your objection to something that nauseating is "oh my god, think of how many people find this sexy" that makes me wonder about you, not the material. I gotta disagree with you on pretty much all counts. It literally takes over your life piece by piece until even your body has been subverted by it. It's basically what's disturbing about cordyceps, transmitted diseases, zombies, and parasites that replace vital parts of the organs (like the tongue) all rolled into one horrifying mix. It's parasitic in the worst way. How is it not ruining your life? By the time you wake up and realize your tongue's been eaten and replaced by a horrifying lifeform it's too late. You're already a dead man. The only question is just how much you're going to suffer and make others suffer before you lose your sense of self and start spreading the infection further. And even if you do that it kills you in the end. The example character is a perfect example of this. He starts out as your average janitor at a school and by the end he's a near brain dead zombie that's being worn like a suit and is preparing to spread the infection. There's not even much of the original person left. And what's left of him probably likes it due to how he's being manipulated biologically. Assuming there is any of him left. Archonex fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Jan 13, 2017 |
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Jan 13, 2017 02:41
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So is Null Snyper just a beast that's an internet troll? If so, are there other mechanics in play that make it so that this is punishing over time? Edit: And is the old self-justification for why Beast's aren't inherently evil there still? I know they said they'd lighten up on that after people started shrieking "What the gently caress is wrong with you!" when they read the preview. Archonex fucked around with this message at 07:23 on Jan 13, 2017 |
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Jan 13, 2017 07:20
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Tiny Deer posted:It's a shame Beast is such a waste of paper, but I love the horrified discussions of it in here so I'm torn. Last I checked privileged liberals don't poo poo infectious eggs out of their dicks with every thrust of their hips. Or, well, maybe i've been missing out on some of the subtler aspects of liberalism. Archonex fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Jan 13, 2017 |
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Jan 13, 2017 19:41
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bewilderment posted:Elaborating slightly - Sin-Eaters see ghosts everywhere and if a whiny ghost notices that you can see it, it'll whine you and bug you into helping it, so that's what they do if they don't wanna be ghost-superheroes in some other way. To elaborate even further: You're basically the ghost whisperer with a side order of Terminator-esque and deathly superpowers. You also are a nigh unstoppable walking talking humanoid bag of karma for immortals that subsist by eating souls or murdering people. Like vampires. Especially vampires. It's mentioned in one of the books that features them that lots of geists hate vampires because of the work they force onto them from ghosts wanting their help after they get sucked dry. Also if they step outside the role of "ghost whisperer" and do anything to make the world a better place they're probably going to go nuts from repeated resurrections, get their soul forged into a soul steel ashtray by a pissed off Kerberoi, or just die horribly trying to fix the Underworld (Which is a mess, really.) to be something more benevolent like the sample Geists in the one example dominion they're mentioned in in the Book of the Dead book. The Sin of Onan posted:Yeah, I always thought that the big let=down for Geist was that there wasn't really much to do. Contrary to popular belief Geist isn't pointless in terms of having mechanical and a narrative point. The real problem is that all of the content that gives them something to do is in other books. The Book of the Dead is a good example of this. It has a ton of Geist related related stuff (Right down to one piece of fiction showing an antagonistic geist that pretty much unleashes hell on earth in a localized area.) and gives a bunch of examples of just what a Geist actually might do in the Underworld. However you might never guess this since at first glance it largely appears to be a generalized book for the NWoD/CofD. Archonex fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Jan 14, 2017 |
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Jan 14, 2017 18:52
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Gumball Gumption posted:With geist you are also incredibly outnumbered. You can eat ghosts and gently caress them up instead of helping but they have friends and your bad rep will have things get after you. Don't forget that the Underworld has...mechanisms for dealing with people like that. Like Lowgate Prison. Which is basically what people imagine being tortured in Hell would be like. If you go loving around in the Underworld and break too many laws or act too inhuman they'll send people after you so you can be dragged in and sentenced to a very, very, very, very long time in the jail. Said time in jail means being tortured until you literally lose your vice. Like, it's gone. Forever. This is not a good thing, unless you want your game to be about a bunch of emotionless robots. There's also the "fix the Underworld" bent for games. Which is probably full on epic or tragic in its scope. The Book of the Dead has an example in the form of a Dominion that was basically abandoned when a group of Geist's showed up. They ended up turning it into a sort of frontier town and haven for the dead and living "immigrants" from the surface. Except during the time when the game suggests you play one of the Geists has been murdered, they're slowly growing to distrust each other as a result, another may be slowly being altered into becoming its next Kerberoi by dint of taking the leadership position since they first showed up, and it's starting to look like a few of the original inhabitants may still be around and slightly homicidal. Said immigrants to the Dominion also include a werewolf looking to figure out why there's a pack of undead werewolves roaming the Dominion. She's also slowly losing her mind because it turns out that Werewolves do not do well outside a pack in the underworld due to being oriented towards a whole different plane of existence and (presumably, it's never quite stated for sure) being mortal essence users. There's also a crime boss ghost that's basically lord of his own tiny little territory in the Dominion, numerous minor characters of various unique colors, and one pissed off ghost that may or may not be the former Kerberoi of a small empire that dwelled in the depths of the Underworld in this dominion. The book also shows how an antagonist Geist attacking PC's doing a different type of game might work. See the aforementioned talk about the fiction between chapters to show what I mean. Her way of handling the issue of ghosts was to just "crash the gates" between worlds and let them pass freely from the Underworld to start jacking bodies and walking around in public. It's not so subtly implied that she's also batshit insane. Book of the Dead really is a must have if you're wanting to play with Geist's. It presents so much stuff that you wouldn't think of otherwise and fleshes out the issue of "What do Geist's do outside of hanging out with ghosts?". Edit: Also it helps to remember that ghosts aren't mostly impotent. Only new ghosts (IE: One's you're most likely to encounter in the living world.) are impotent. Ghosts that have been around for a bit can wield essence related powers and have numina. Really old ghosts are likely to be either insane, cannibalistic/life stealing/possessing monsters wanting a second shot at life, geists, or full blown Kerberoi/death lords. Incidentally the Book of the dead also shows what happens when a cannibalistic ghost gets it in their head to establish a Dominion and start stealing essence from the other legitimate Kerberoi in neighboring dominions. Archonex fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Jan 15, 2017 |
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Jan 15, 2017 04:04
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Ferrinus posted:People mentiont that actually going down into the underworld and starting a ruckus is a bad idea, which seems obvious but also irrelevant because why would you in the first place? By this logic no one should ever play DnD since the dungeon's are dangerous places full of bad things that will kill your characters. Or no one should play Hunter since the monsters kill or infect you with what they have. After all, they're not hurting you specifically, right? You'd go down into the Underworld for the same reason that Hunters take up the Vigil. For the same reason that Mage's foolishly quest for powers that will probably hurt more people than they help. For the same cause that the Carthians keep up their whole "hope and change" deal for centuries on end. You and you alone had a glimpse of a wider, bigger world and are curious about it or want to make things better. The Underworld is depicted as being a remarkably dysfunctional place in the example Dominions. Anyone looking at it and thinking "Yes, this is what I want my afterlife and the afterlife of my friends and family to be like." is loving insane. If you had deathly superpowers and the ability to say "gently caress the rules, I live." whenever you die, wouldn't you at least take a shot at trying to improve the situation? And that's setting aside the fact that maybe you've got other reasons. Maybe you want to bring a loved one back? Maybe a friend got on the wrong side of the locals and you need to bail them out? Maybe you need some ancient or esoteric knowledge? Or hell, maybe you'd just want to try and stake out a claim of your own? Becoming a Kerberoi/Deathlord is basically godhood, after all. Archonex fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Jan 15, 2017 |
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Jan 15, 2017 04:25
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Ferrinus posted:What I don't get is why any of this requires the sin-eater template to interact with. Yeah it's a lot of cool stuff to explore or challenge if you've got the motivation to, but sin-eaters don't have the motivation to more than other supernaturals do and it's just writer fiat that they have better access. So you've still got the problem that the central character type has no inherent motivation or particular reason to exist - it's just that it exists in a rich setting, which is a necessary consequence of supplements that aren't bad. Sin Eater's are the default game for interacting with the Underworld, yeah. That doesn't mean that their existence is invalidated because other games can interact with it too. I mean, it's mentioned several times that vampires can reach Arcadia but that doesn't mean that Changelings are somehow invalidated just because the undead can get bum-hosed by some insane True Fae as well. There are themes inherent to Geist just like in every other game. One of those themes is that you have a second chance at life. Sure, it came at a terrible price, but you're alive. Which is more than most other humans can say. So what are you going to do with the time you've got left? Are you going to party like it's the last night of your life for the rest of your life? Or are you going to try to make a difference and see just how far you can go? Or are you going to take that newfound power and see how far you can take it? It's definitely a potentially more optimistic game in the underlying themes it presents. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have a point.
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Jan 15, 2017 04:36
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