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“For gently caress’s sake, Dodgerson, take off the shoe polish!”
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Mar 2, 2024 15:52
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 Joylessdivisions World of Dorkness Presents: Alien Hunger - World of Dorkness #20 Part 3: finale Roger Manot  The last of Edward’s Ghouls, he’s incredibly old and claims to have been alive for 150 years. He arrived in Denver in 1980, on the run from the Sabbat who had killed his previous master. Desperate and running out of time, he was found by Edward before any other Kindred in Denver was aware of his existence. Edward quickly realized Roger’s usefulness and provided him with the blood he so desperately needed. Roger is now Edward’s ace in the hole, watching over the house most of the day from a distance and taking care of business that no one else can. Because Lucy and Mina are well known, Roger takes on spy missions against other Kindred in the city, especially when absolute secrecy is needed. A happy Ghoul, he sometimes thinks that it would be nice to be full Kindred, though his innate distrust of such a change always gets the better of him. Though Edward warned him to avoid Mina for fear of disturbing her, she became aware of Roger when he was forced to deal with several burglars who attacked the house while Lucy was away. Mina now refers to him as her son. Everyone else thinks this is just another symptom of her madness, but Lucy thinks there may be something more to it. Apparent Age: Early 30’s Description: A small dark-haired man who moves with precise motion. Demeanor: Conformist Nature: Plotter Rachel  Behold, the Gangrel booty. One of the independents of Denver, Rachel is a Gangrel who roams all of Colorado, but uses Denver as a semi-permanent base of operations. An Elder in her own right, she’s hunted the cities along the eastern slope of the Rockies for almost 200 years. Originally from Russia, she fled in 1802 for America. Her wanderlust was strong, and she traveled the fringes of the “Civilized” United States. Displaced Natives of the Denver area have a few legends of a red-haired demon brought by the white man to the Great Plains, which Rachel is the basis of. A wild creature, she revels in her animal nature, and Edward isn’t entirely sure he likes having her in the city, though to this point, she’s not done anything out of control in the city, though disturbing rumors tend to follow her outings. Rachel is a practical choice for an enemy Kindred to harass the players, as she has an escape method (literally and figuratively) that the players lack. (She’s got Animalism 5 and Protean 4, so I’m sure she can take either animal or mist form) Apparent Age: Late 20’s The Embrace: 1700 Generation: 8th Clan: Gangrel Description: A strikingly beautiful woman with long red hair to her waist, she’s just over 6 foot and has a feral charm that makes her seem untamed. She is, in fact, untamed and a merciless huntress. Demeanor: Survivor Nature: Loner Roleplaying Tips: You’re one of the toughest Kindred in Denver, and you know it. Still, if you come up against a tough obstacle, you know that flight is always a possibility.  Earl and The Count The other two Kindred who, with Duke, form the “Enforcement arm” of Edward’s court. They happily serve the Prince and enjoy the finer things in Kindred life in exchange for their obedience. Earl Apparent Age: 32 The Embrace: 1952 Generation: 11th Clan: Ventrue Description: A heavy-set man who looks like a bouncer. Demeanor: Bravo Nature: Bravo The Count Apparent Age: 28 The Embrace: 1963 Generation: 12th Clan: Brujah Description: Whip-thin, he moves quickly and with the grace of a dancer. Demeanor: Deviant Nature: Gallant Detective William Brandt  The detective in charge of the investigation that potentially touches the players unlives, he’s an incredibly good detective and he knows something weird is going on. Police work is his life, and if he becomes convinced one of the players has committed a crime, he’ll hound them until they, or he dies. Or at least until it becomes inarguable that they’re dead. Detective Brandt is married to a woman named Linda, and they have a four-year-old son named Jimmy. quote:“If the characters are truly being hassled by Brandt, and are truly vile swine, they might try to get to Brandt through his family. If they choose to do so, they will almost surely lose Humanity if they fail a Conscience roll at difficulty 8.” When playing Brandt, be quirky and prescient, and use whatever ST knowledge you have to guide Brandt’s investigation, but remember that whatever he knows, he should have a plausible way of knowing it. Description: A rumpled and untidy man who gives off Columbo vibes. Given to making seemingly irrelevant statements that tend to circle around to being relevant. Born: 1956, Greeley, Colorado Occupation: Police Detective Demeanor: Jester Nature: Cavalier Tony  Known as just Tony, he’s a loner in Denver. He’s a 9th generation Kindred from 13th century Italy, and he’s getting bored. Having traveled the world and staying only 5 or 6 years in each spot, he’s been in Denver for 3 years now and is beginning to get the itch to move along again. He’s adapted to immortality less well than some others and spends much of his time seeking ways to keep himself amused. Currently, he’s filling that void by flirting with disaster at the 24th by feeding on his favorites in public. This dangerous boredom has also led to his meddling in the players' unlives. It is curiosity that impels him to investigate, and it is his boredom that compels him to use the players against Edward. Arrogant and prone to grand gestures of a mysterious nature, like his introduction to the players. Theatricality is just one way of combating crippling boredom, and as should be obvious, his derangement deals with this love of danger. It’s not quite a death wish, but it’s not far off. Apparent Age: Late 20’s The Embrace: 1228 Generation: 9th Clan: Malkavian Description: A man of dark Mediterranean complexion, he stands 5’8” with the good looks of a Valentino. Demeanor: Loner Nature: Rebel Mavis and Suzy Jackson Mavis and her daughter Suzy are two of the innocents that appear at the beginning of the adventure. Their part in the story can be as large or as small as the ST desires. Mavis is a librarian in the rare books room at the Denver Public Library, which is what brought her to Prestor’s attention. When he decided to take her, he couldn’t bear to leave her daughter alone, so he took Suzy too. Prestor first learned of Mavis via the bank when she negotiated a lone for the library to get some rare books. Mavis is divorced, and her ex-husband lives in Seattle. Mavis and her daughter are an excellent focus for the confusion felt by the players in the beginning of the game. If they choose to kill them, ST’s should torture the players mercilessly for their calloused inhumanity. If the players don’t kill them, then use them as a counterpoint to the players new inhumanity. Depending on the players’ state when they wake up, it’s possible Mavis and her daughter could become an obsession or fixation for a player. Description: Mavis is a pretty black woman with an air of scholarliness. Suzy is an absolute darling child of 8. No stats are provided as they don’t play a major role in the story, beyond acting as a counter example. Vincent Belhurst  A Denver police officer, Prestor chose him to act as muscle for the newly Embraced group. But that plan went out the window with Prestor’s death, and Vince’s reversion to mortality. He works for the vice squad and is married to Monica Belhurst (one of the pre-made PCs), a district attorney. He’s a rough, dependable man devoted to upholding the law. If you choose to use the pre-made characters, then Vince will be a constant thorn in Monica’s side, dragging her back towards her mortal life with every word and action he takes. He’ll be hard to throw off, though it’s possible the police could be convinced that the players have done nothing wrong, but Vince remains a danger until Monica can be rid of him. This is a great chance for some juicy roleplay, as simply trying to convince Vince to kick rocks should bring out the confusion and heartbreak of Vince. If, however, Monica disappears or fakes her death, ST’s should periodically remind Monica that Vince is still out there, and deeply missing her. If the players decide to tell Vince the truth, he’s torn. On the one hand, he can’t abide feeding on human beings, but he also can’t give up the woman he loves. If the players take this path, have Vince help the players as much as he can, so long as they can convince him that they are feeding on animals. If he feels betrayed, he’ll chase the players to the end of the Earth. If the players make their own characters, then Vince’s role will likely be much smaller, unless he’s tied to one of the players, potentially as a husband or gender swap him to Veronica and he can be somebody’s wife. Regardless, the outline of Vince’s actions can serve as a model for any spouse character. Description: A well-built man standing 5’10” with unruly, sandy-brown hair. Born: 1958, Santa Clara, California Demeanor: Caregiver Nature: Cavalier Notes: Allies with other Denver PD. Bothwell  A Kindred for 20 years, he’s a small fish in Edward’s court and despite his ambitions to move up, he’s a coward, spending most of his unlife avoiding Elders and terrorizing younger Kindred. He’s such a coward that if he gets into a fight with the players, he’ll surrender if he reaches Injured, and will bargain for his life with information. While he’s a good fighter, his attitude is far out of proportion to his skills. Apparent Age: Late Teens The Embrace: 1972 Generation: 12th Clan: Gangrel Description: Short and stocky with close cut, blonde hair. Demeanor: Bravo Nature: Child Roger Liverman A biochemist employed by Prestor, he’s quite good at his job, he possesses an analytical and inquiring mind. If the players leave too many strange clues, he’ll likely try to track them down out of curiosity. He is unmarried and spends most nights hitting the Denver singles scene. Description: A paunchy, middle-aged man with glasses, and blonde hair that is being lost to baldness. While far from the ideal Romeo, he more perfectly fits the image of a moderately successful businessman. Born: 1964, New York City, New York Demeanor: Director (at work), Bon Vivant (at the clubs) Nature: Plotter Robert Klondike  A Ghoul involved in the Jyhad for nearly 3 centuries, he began life as a peasant poacher in England (I’m not sure if they mean he was a peasant who poached or if that’s a misspelling of pheasant) who was initially Ghouled by an English Kindred to act as cannon fodder against the Sabbat. He soon found himself traveling against his will under the Domination of one Kindred or another. While he enjoyed the power granted to him from the Blood, he hated the loss of freedom that came with it. The more he was used as a pawn, the more convinced he became that becoming a full Kindred would solve his problems. When his last master was killed by Archons, he found his Blood Bond to be broken and fled to America, hoping to find a New World Kindred who would be willing to Embrace him. Enter Thaddeus. When he realized Thad had no intention of giving him the Embrace, he fled before Thad left Denver and before consuming Thad’s blood on three occasions. An important secret he gained from Thad was the knowledge of Prestor’s serums. Hoping they would turn him into a full Kindred, he broke into Prestor’s house before Duke and the boys arrived and stole Prestor’s notes. After discovering Liverman’s involvement via the notes, he broke into the doctor’s home to steal the serums. Now, he’s wracked with indecision on what to do next, with no clue if the serum will work or kill him. He’s unaware of the players’ existence, and if they do not contact him or seek him out, then he simply injects himself and dies. Apparent Age: 50, though getting older with each day he goes without Kindred vitae. Description: 5’9”, he has dirty blonde hair that is rapidly going grey, and a beard and mustache that are also going grey. Generally, dresses in old rugby shirts and slacks, but wears a flak jacket when he expects danger, and regularly wears a bulletproof vest when going out. Demeanor: Fanatic Nature: Fanatic Roleplaying Tips: You want to live, but not at the cost of your freedom. Whatever it takes to regain control of your life, you will. Before we continue with the chapter, as there is a bit more before we get into the pre-made PCs, I’d like to give my thoughts on the NPCs for this adventure. While I feel like there’s too many needless NPCs presented here, considering there are only a few who have a direct impact on the events taking place, I do appreciate that we get a glimpse at Edward’s weird little Ghoul family, though I feel like the inclusion of the members of Seventh Son is sort of pointless, unless of course you intend to run multiple stories within Denver. Mavis and Suzy suffer the most from this feeling of “Why are we including you in this section” as there is so little information provided about them, and they play such a minor role in events that they’re practically an afterthought. Vince at least has a direct tie to one of the pre-made PCs, and even if he’s not used in that way, he’s still a cop, so there’s at least some function to him if the players don’t kill him, while Mavis and Suzy are just.... there. Duke’s crew also could have been nameless goons that an ST could quickly stat up because again, there’s nothing there to them other than the briefest of descriptions. Edward is interesting, and I like that he’s seemingly the least lovely Prince I’ve encountered to this point in my reviews. Sure, he’s all about stomping out rebellion at the slightest whiff of it, but generally he seems to have a “Obey the laws and we’re golden” vibe that is surprising. I also appreciate that we have such a small council controlling Denver, and it’s not headed up by a Ventrue. Mina and Lucy are potentially an interesting duo, beyond their names being an amusing wink-wink reference. I also appreciate that we’ve got a few Kindred here who aren’t in their 20’s or 30’s, which seems like the most common age that NPCs fall into. We’ve got a 50 something Methuselah running around (or loving off out of town before the story really begins) and a 40 something child of the Prince are nice touches. Although I do think having Wilkes take Boothe’s first name feels a bit weird and could be confusing when referring to “Leslie” when there are two of them, though as I said a moment ago, the members of Seventh Son are basically inconsequential to the plot of this adventure and really would only get any screentime if you were running further adventures in Denver. I’m also fairly certain that naming the Leslie's “Boothe” and “Wilkes,” both Toreadors remember, is a nod to John Wilkes Booth, and if it is, it’s certainly an odd choice. Rachel feels like she’s got a lot more potential than just “Kindred who attacks the players at some point, probably.” and I could see her potentially slotting into the Mentor role if a Gangrel player put dots into it. And of course, we have Louis Pasteur who, as I’ve complained about throughout this review, is wholly wasted here and could easily have been replaced with literally any random Kindred scientist. If you’re going to pull a historical figure into things, DO SOMETHING INTERESTING WITH THEM. I’d honestly be happier if he just popped up in another book as one of those “BTW, this dude is a Kindred and this is what he’s doing” instead of his being a crispy corpse at the start of this adventure. Moving on! Where To Go From Here There are plenty of potential endings to this chronicle, and they provide ST’s with many directions to take future Chronicles. The most “Obvious” of these endings and the potential paths they could lead to are provided. First is the most obvious, that of the players taking the serum to return to mortality. This leads to a few options, primarily, this leads to the Chronicle ending, and you can end the story with the players making up their minds and fading to black once they’ve injected themselves, leaving the results to dramatic speculation. If your Chronicle ends that way, you could then have the players make new characters and use the information provided in this book to run more Denver stories. If the players are dead/mortal, and you want to continue the story, then the new characters could be childer of the pre-made PCs, or you could simply hand the players NPCs from this book such as Duke or Edward and work from there. If you wish to continue this Chronicle, there are of course, options. Tracking Thad for either an explanation or vengeance could drive a Chronicle, and as Thad is obsessed with places of power, this could give your Chronicle a globetrotting adventure vibe. Alternatively, they could be sent by Edward to track the Kindred who used him. Or you could stick around Denver and explore the new unlives of the PCs. If you’re feeling really daring, you could continue the Chronicle with the players as mortals who now have intimate knowledge of the Kindred, allowing them to potentially become Witch-Hunters or simply embroiled in the general world of Kindred politics. The Serum For this story, the serums are designed only to work on those who have gained their immortality via science. But an entire Chronicle could be based around the players having the serums, as many Kindred, like Thad would fear the serums, while others might welcome the opportunity to return to mortality. Of course, this would likely mean the players become the targets of a massive Blood Hunt. If Liverman was left with enough clues to the players true nature, he could become fixated on them and the mysterious “Alpha” substance, with his investigations making him a recurring character. And as previously mentioned, Liverman could always go Witch-Hunter, and then things could get interesting. The Future of Denver Alien Hunger was designed not only to give you jump-start Chronicle, but a jump-start city as well, and with so many of the prominent figures and locations detailed, there’s no reason you can’t just toss the Chronicle element of this book and simply use the rest of the information for your own stories. Monica Belhurst  Nothing was going to stop Monica’s rise to the top, and from childhood she had her eyes set on a career that would let her change the world. A lack of money wasn’t going to stop her, so she married a cop to pay for law school and now she’s one of the youngest prosecutors at the DA’s office, with some already whispering about her potential on the political scene. One of those whispering about her potential was Emerson Wilkershire III, an acquaintance from the community theater. Both had picked up an interest in the stage while in college and continued after graduation. Her primary relationship is with her husband, Vince, who is deeply devoted to her through the last 8 years of their marriage. Both share an interest in theater and spend most of their free time together. Monica first encountered Prestor following a production of Romeo and Juliet when he approached her and Emerson after the final show, praising their talents. Monica is in a unique position post Embrace, as she could continue working for the DA’s office with the night court. If she avoids any criminal investigation and can make peace with Vince, she could keep this position for the entire story and beyond. Her main crisis is that of conscience. Can she keep her dedication to the ideals of justice, or will she become a predator outside the law? She and Vince are childless, and Monica has no relatives in the area, and because of her husband and occupation, all her friends are involved in either law enforcement or the judicial system, except for the community theater group she and Emerson work with. Your Role: Along with Emerson, Monica provides stability for the group, as she is organized, and self-possessed. Confident in herself, she’s not likely to be bullied, and she’s a likely candidate for leadership of the group. Image: An attractive woman with dark hair, she moves with a purposeful stride. Notes: Her Allies are her husband and her boss, the DA Park Morgan. She has contacts in both her theater group and the mayor's office. Generation: 13th Demeanor: Judge Nature: Judge Clan: Ventrue Theresa Harper  Since junior high, Theresa (Terri to her friends) has never had a problem getting people to like her. Whether dealing with the high school students she teaches Chemistry, or the corporate types she deals with in her work for her computer consulting firm, she’s more than capable of making them friends. As one of the founders of the firm with Flash, she not only deals with clients but helps keep the firm from falling apart. She first met Prestor when leaving Emerson’s bank, as she and Flash had just applied for a loan when a strange, bearded man met them in the parking lot and assured them they would get the loan. Though the loan ultimately won’t help much when she loses her teaching job post Embrace, and the company will likely fold quickly after as well. Like Flash, she has many acquaintances, but few friends, and the few she has are mostly fellow teachers, while the rest fall into either business associates or bar hoppers. Your Role: Terri can fill in wherever she’s needed in a group, serving much the same purpose in her company, that of mediator and mentor. Her response to problems is to make a joke and then seek compromise once the situation is defused. While she’s acted as a leader, it is generally in a behind the scenes role. Like Flash, she’s quick to realize the advantages of unlife and can easily adapt. Image: Slim and attractive with brunette hair, she’s always smiling. She and Flash share a devil may care outlook and often spend time together outside of work. Notes: Fluent in French, her contacts are in the high-tech business world and representatives of the Denver school board. Generation: 13th Demeanor: Bon Vivant Nature: Jester Clan: Gangrel Arnold “Flash” Simpson  Almost the stereotypical college football star, Flash didn’t have the pampered life that many associate with prominent athletes, and spent much of his youth on the streets, fighting, stealing, and avoiding the cops. His mother died when he was five and his father, a warehouse worker, had little time for the boy. It was during this time that he picked up his nickname, more thanks to his skill at evading the police than opposing linemen. An indifferent student at best, Flash would have dropped out of high school, if his then girlfriend hadn’t insisted he try out for the football team. While they broke up shortly after, Flash found a new love in the cheering crowds. He completed high school and was offered a scholarship to Colorado University, where he quickly gained local celebrity as a linebacker. He just managed to graduate with a degree in History, but a late season injury in his final year meant he graduated with no offers from the major leagues. After college, he drifted into sales and became one third of the small company formed by Terri, his job being to wine and dine potential buyers and assuage any tech questions. His time on the streets taught him how to blend in almost anywhere as well as honing an innate knowledge of what people want. He knows Emerson a little, as he and Terri gained their business loan from his bank, which is when he first met Prestor. He has acquaintances, but few friends, Terri being the foremost among them. Many of his associates are people he’s picked up from various clubs, including several ex-lovers and other club hoppers. The rest are business folks he’s met through the company, and he’s got no other hobbies other than cruising for chicks and barhopping. Your Role: Dumb by any standard, and a fact he’s aware of, he nonetheless has a certain animal cunning. He’s also somewhat amoral, and the second likely choice (after Marcus) to commit murder early on. He’s the party animal of the group and can ensure the survival of the group as the best method of ensuring his own. He’ll likely come to grips with being a vampire before everyone else, as the philosophical implications fly right over his head, and is likely to be the first to settle on feeding on mortals. His response to problems is either ignore it or beat it up. Image: Think of “Flash Gordan” from the 1980 film, but not as attractive. Notes: Flash’s contacts are gang leaders, fences, and drug dealers from his days on the streets. His fame comes from his time as a college football star, but few other than diehard CU fans would recognize him. Generation: 13th Demeanor: Bon Vivant Nature: Survivor Clan: Brujah Marcus Smith-Kearns  Founder, president, and sole employee of S-K Imports, a firm specializing in importing Japanese Sci-Fi models to the US, Marcus started the company after being fired for the fifth time, this time from his position as a buyer for a chain of U.S. toy stores after repeated run-ins with his supervisor. Now he does most of his work via phone and only meets with buyers and sellers in person when necessary. He’s connected to the rest of the group through his girlfriend Jennifer, a new ager from a well-off family and through Emerson, who he’s known since childhood. A note: This is literally the only time Jennifer has been mentioned at all, and considering he knows Emerson, she’s not so much a connection to the group, because as I said, she’s literally never mentioned anywhere else, but this write up. Marcus remembers seeing Prestor at one of the formal events Jennifer dragged him to, where he spent most of the night talking with Emerson. He and Emerson have always gotten along, despite their differences, and Marcus chalks this up to their mutual interest in theater, though Marcus wouldn’t dream of taking the stage. He’s got quite a few friends, including some gaming friends and business partners, as well as a moderately extensive network of neo-pagans and new age friends in Boulder, and of course his girlfriend. He is a private and introverted person. Your Role: The mystic, rebel, and edge dweller of the group, he’d be an Anarch if he’d received a traditional Embrace. He can be played as slightly paranoid and distrusting of authority, and he may find it easiest, apart from Flash, to go to ground and abandon his old life, as he quickly realizes the advantages of his new condition. If the others seem to be adapting poorly, he might try to lead the group, though he would be uncomfortable in such a position. Image: A large man with a vaguely distracted look, he wears comfortable clothes, has a mustache, and often looks a bit untidy. Notes: Speaks Japanese and has contacts among the local neopagans. Most of his money is tied to his company, so if he were to abandon it, his Resources stat would drop to 2. Generation: 13 Demeanor: Rebel Nature: Loner Clan: Caitiff (Shocking, I know, you’d expect the mystic of the group to be a Tremere) Emerson Wilkershire III  The son of the insanely rich Roger Wilkershire, Emerson spent much of his youth trying to prove he could take care of himself. Rejecting the pampered lifestyle available to him, he spent his youth seeking challenges and overcoming them. A skilled equestrian like his father, he became known for daring jumps and pushing his horses to any extreme to bring home a trophy. After graduating from college, he got a loan from his father, and with the help of some wealthy friends, got into the banking industry, opening a small community bank which quickly became profitable. He paid off his loan and continues to be a success, now living in Cherry Hills, an expensive subdivision in Denver and keeping horses at a ranch outside the city. His life was just beginning to arc towards zenith, and then Prestor showed up and hosed everything up. He feels he was chosen for Embrace because of his wealth and financial knowledge, first noticing Prestor after a performance of Romeo and Juliet he and Monica performed in. His father Roger is the only living member of his immediate family that lives in Denver, and they have a troubled relationship, though they’ve been cordial in their recent interactions. Emerson’s butler, Windsor Martin, is the quintessential gentleman's gentleman, and completely devoted to Emerson. He’ll take Emersons change with serenity, secure in the knowledge that even the undead need the sort of valet service only a good butler can provide. Your Role: The lynchpin of the group, he knows most of the other PCs at least in passing, and his home is likely to be the group's first headquarters. As a man with burning desires, he’ll likely be the one to hold the group together, knowing that together they are better suited to face the unknown. He’s also a likely candidate for leader, as he’s used to such a position. He is also the most likely of the group to want to hold onto his old life. Image: A slight man, he’s always dressed in the height of business fashion, and he could be easily described as Dapper. Notes: Reads and speaks French, as well as playing the piano and singing. Of note, most of his wealth is tied to non-liquid assets, so if forced underground or after faking his death, he should lose one point of Resources. Generation: 13th Demeanor: Director Nature: Architect Clan: Toreador We close out the book with a map of Denver.  And that, finally, brings us to the conclusion of Alien Hunger. I haven’t been this frustrated by a Chronicle book since.... maybe Chaos Factor. Before I throw my complaints around, there are things I liked in this book. I think the serums stuff is an interesting plot and makes for an incredibly unique embrace scenario, and as I already said I like that Pasteur makes an appearance, though a wasted one. The opening scene of this story is the strongest, and unfortunately it ends up going downhill from there. I’ve already complained at length about the police investigation, so I’ll not repeat myself, but that entire plotline just feels so needless and frustrating. I do like the stuff with Tony, and I think there’s an OK framework in this adventure, but in all honesty, it’s basically the same frame as Blood Nativity, except the group Embrace occurs via SCIENCE! instead of the players being lured to a location by a group of Kindred who should be Anarchs but aren’t because reasons? My point is the core frame of both books is: “Newbie vamps embraced, get into some trouble and need to go talk to the Prince.” Which isn’t a terrible intro story frame, but I just do not care in the slightest about the Prestor/Thaddeus feud, especially since one of them is dead at the start of the story and the other has hosed off at the same time, meaning there is no reason I, as a player, would give a poo poo about either character or pursuing them, especially since I wouldn’t know anything about either of them. And Tony tells the players that fire will kill them (if we hadn’t already figured that out from trying to escape) so it would be obvious that whoever put us in the basement was dead. The subplot around the serums is potentially interesting and fun, but it assumes the players are going to go down some extremely specific paths, when the obvious path is dealing with the Prince directly and getting him off their back. The serum plot is ultimately so unimportant that Klondike can completely be missed and just die off screen. Which raises the question, if this NPC is so unimportant to the plot, why even bother writing him and his subplot into this? Oh, right because the ENTIRE PLOT OF THIS BOOK IS STUPID. I understand wanting to imply a larger world of strangeness happening around the players, but when the bulk of the plot barely involves the players in a meaningful way, I’m left wondering what is the point? And for shits and giggles, let’s see just how deadly that mortality bit really is from earlier. I’m using the premade PC’s, and assuming they have already completed having their Disciplines stripped and going by the Blood Pools they have printed on the sheets. Well, I’m giving them all 4 as that’s what is on Monica and Emerson’s sheets, the others have Blood Pools of 0 filled in, so I don’t see much point in trying this experiment if they’re dead immediately. So, let’s begin with Monica. Right off she’s at Wounded after removing her Blood Pool. Her Stamina is 3+3 giving her a difficulty of 6. I rolled 5 dice, coming up 6/7/8/8/9. Which means she’s just lost 5 health levels so goodbye Monica, you succeeded in regaining mortality, but now you’re dead for real. Sucks to be you.   Terri, you’re up next, let’s see how you do. Once again, she starts at Wounded, with another 3 Stamina for a difficulty of 6. I roll the 5 dice, and I get 3/4/4/9/10, so that means she’s taking 2 levels of damage, putting her at Crippled. Congratulations Terri, you survived!   Flash, you're up buddy! Starting at Wounded, he’s got 4 levels of health left before he’s at Incapacitated, and thus potentially totally and utterly hosed like Monica was. Lucky for Flash, he’s got a Stamina of 4+3, making his difficulty 7. Hot diggity drat Flash! I rolled 2/2/5/5/7 which means Flash loses only one health level, putting him at Mauled, but still very much alive. That’s 2 outta 5 who have survived so far.   Marcus, you weeaboo fucker, let’s see how you do. Starting at Wounded, Marcus only has 2 Stamina, so his target is 5. The dice have been cast and at 4/4/5/8/9, puts poor Marcus at Incapacitated, which isn’t dead! He’s likely to die at that level without medical attention, but Marcus is still breathing (for now.....) so that brings us to 3 out of 5 survivors!   Let’s see how Emerson stacks up. Emerson is Wounded, and like Marcus, only has a Stamina of 2. The dice is cast, and we get 1/5/5/7/7 which means Mr. Fancypants here is, like his good friend Monica, DEAD AS gently caress.   Sadly, I forgot to get screenshots of a couple of these rolls (using an app) so I can’t include them, but there you have it folks, of a team of 5 players, 3 of them survive. Admittedly, I could have adjusted the individual Blood Pools, but keeping a straight 4 across the board made things easier. The point of this experiment? To test my theory that the rules, as provided for the serums are, at least using the pre-made PCs (and a flat BP number), really loving deadly. But I suppose if you’re going to shoot for being a mortal again, thems the risks you take. Now that I’ve read three of these “First Chronicle” books (Blood Nativity and Ashes to Ashes), I feel like Ashes was the most complete and focused of the three, and the best written of the three, despite my complaints about all of them. I would put Nativity just above Alien Hunger, because while it had its issues, most of them were things that could be easily fixed by an ST in minutes while also providing a solid frame to build from. Alien Hunger, however, squanders an interesting opening and decent story frame on a bad story that is frustratingly written at times and would take considerable work on the ST’s part to mold into something better than it is. I’m not mad at you Alien Hunger, I’m just disappointed. Okay maybe I’m a little mad about you wasting loving LOUIS GOD drat PASTEUR! But hey, at least the art in this book is good across the board, and I really like the location photos and am somewhat hopeful that I’ll see more of those in later books. Not to say I don’t like the drawn location art, because I do, but there’s something neat about the real locations with the filters over them that works nicely for the vibe of the WoD. As always, thank you for joining me on this journey through the World of Dorkness, and when we next meet, I’ll finally be reviewing Chicago by Night 1st edition. 
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Mar 2, 2024 17:47
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Rachel the Gangrel being the impromptu pose model for hundreds of urban fantasy books in the future.
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Mar 2, 2024 19:38
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Morte's Planer Parade Part 4 Dabus  The dabus are the the Lady of pain's servants and caretakers of Sigil. They patrol the city using their innate ability to manipulate the city to repair it, and deal with troublemakers who inhibit them or defy the Lady's edicts. The dabus don't communicate by speaking or signing, but instead images and symbols appear in front of them and have to be deciphered to understand them, the dabus themselves can understand all speech and types of language. They are Challenge 2 Medium celestials that are typically Lawful Neutral. Dabus never make melee attacks or opportunity attacks of any kind, instead they fight by making the city's bricks fly at their targets or by having the ground rise up and grab creatures. Darkweaver (it's a creepy spider thing)  Darkweavers are spiderish creatures from the originally from the Shadowfell, but have spread to many dark locals in the multiverse where they wait to drag victims into the darkness with webs of shadow. Darkweavers are also fascinated by sensations and how other creatures experience reality. Taste is the one they like the most and they think each meal is to be savored, drawn out, and considered in all it's aspects, not matter the creature. They also enjoy second hand descriptions of sensations particularly the ones they are not likely to experience, and a captive might delay being eaten if they can share tales with the darkweaver particularly of great meals. Some might even secure release if they promise to bring a darkweaver rare spices or unique food items. (Though they probably should not honor their word as the darkweaver will almost certainly try to eat them after they make the delivery). They are Challenge 10 Medium aberrations that are typically Chaotic Evil. Darkweavers have a shadowy form that makes them more difficult to hit if they are in darkness, while being in sunlight starts burning them alive. For combat they shoot shadow webs are their targets which also inflict damage, before reeling everyone grappled by them closer so they can bite them, which has a energy drain effect to prevent recovery. Lair of a Darkweaver Darkweavers also have lair actions in their near pitch black hideouts. They happen on initiative 20 and can't be used twice in a row. Extinguish. All nonmagical flames within 30 feet of the darkweaver are extinguished. In addition, if this area overlaps with an area of light created by a spell of 2nd level or lower, the spell that created the light is dispelled. Shadow Fears. The darkweaver instills frightful magic into its webs. Each creature grappled by the darkweaver’s Shadow Web must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the creature has the frightened condition until the end of its next turn. Shadow Step. If the darkweaver is in dim light or darkness, it teleports, along with any equipment it is wearing or carrying, to an unoccupied space it can see within 60 feet of itself that is in dim light or darkness. Darkweaver Webs Darkweavers sometimes have several cocoons in their webs full of random stuff. For an example result 4 "A collection of menus from restaurants in Sigil"  Next Time Demodands.
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Mar 2, 2024 20:25
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Once again my culinary education becomes useful, I introduce my captor to meal composition and course order and escape as they search for a salad fork!
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Mar 2, 2024 20:48
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  Product Link Product Type: DMing Tools CoS-Required? Yes Of the various innovative ideas in Curse of Strahd, one of the more notable ones is the concept of the Destined Ally, a randomly-determined NPC in Madam Eva’s Tarokka reading who will aid the party in their fight against Strahd Von Zarovich. Orphans of the Multiverse is a product which provides five more allies for that campaign, but what separates them from the others in the default adventure is that they’re all like the PCs in being adventurers from other campaign settings. And like adventurers, they are built using the rules for PCs save for one, and three of them have different stat blocks reflecting different levels of power at 3rd, 7th, and 10th level. Orphans of the Multiverse writes from a standpoint that all such Orphans are present in the adventure and some can affect each other’s personal stories. Additionally, new Tarokka entries (but no card graphics) are provided for each of them for Madam Eva’s reading, as well as a general “Orphan” card if only including one such NPC from this book in the campaign. We also get a Quick Reference table outlining each Orphan’s basic details, their goals, personality traits, and where to find them in the module. We also get a table for an Example Basic Adventure Sequence outlining the Orphans’ various quests and what the PCs could do to earn their respect and trust. Additionally, virtually every NPC here has a weapon capable of overcoming the damage resistance and immunities of various monsters in the module, particularly silvered weapons. Even the less martial characters, such as Omiros the bard or Myriani the rogue, both have +1 weapons.  Kaylee Forestwatcher (Firbolg Twilight Domain Cleric) comes from the Forgotten Realms setting, having grown up in Luruar.* Although not an elf, her fascination with the moon led her to becoming a cleric of Sehanine Moonbow where a temple of wood elves helped train her into a priestess. She ended up in Barovia after reports of werewolves caused the temple to send out an investigation party to research and deal with the threat. The plan didn’t survive contact with the enemy, and Kaylee’s allies were picked off in hit and run tactics before a mysterious hooded figure told her to follow a path to survive. *or the Silver Marches depending on the timeline. Kaylee could be a recent arrival to Barovia, like the PCs, or has been there for a while. This also affects her mental state based on the Seven Stages of Grief, where an early entry will have her trying to stay positive, but this would wane over time as the cruel realities of Barovia sink in. Kaylee and her goddess have no love for Strahd’s monstrous servants, and she is interested in finding a way to end his threat and heal the land. Her personal quest involves finding her friends and giving them a proper burial, as well as hunting down the werewolves who killed them who happen to be from the Werewolf Den. Should she not be a Fated Ally, she may wish to stay in the Village of Barovia and help out the locals or travel through the land of her own accord. In terms of stats Kaylee is a Twilight Cleric, meaning that she is extremely strong. Others elsewhere have talked about why it’s so powerful, so I won’t repeat myself. Even at level 3 she is a great utility character, possessing a good assortment of spells, limited invisibility, can grant one other creature advantage on initiative, and has a good general-purpose Channel Divinity. She also comes equipped with a silver longsword, providing the party with a means of bypassing the werewolves’ physical damage immunity. At higher levels she gains bonus equipment in the form of diamonds for casting revivify or raise dead.  Myriani Reymaer (Astral Elf Thief Rogue) was part of a pirate crew of the spelljammer galleon known as the Pelican. Everything fell apart when they crash-landed in Lake Zarovich after encountering a strange misty formation in Wildspace. Over time the local horrors saw the rest of her crew go missing or dead, and Myriani went insane and started hallucinating that they were still with her on the ship. The Pelican is inoperable and requires a spellcaster to fly it (which Myriani is not), and even if it became fully functional it won’t be able to part the Mists. PCs can find her on the boat offshore in Lake Zarovich, and while she will initially hide from them should they board the ship, the elf will express interest in who they are once it’s determined they are not monsters. Her personal quest involves helping repair the ship and finding someone to fly it. She may also venture out onto dry land in search of treasure in Barovia, particularly the Tarokka treasure results which can put her as a rival if she’s not the Destined Ally. At this point in the book we start to see what I refer to as padded page count. The book gives an overly-detailed explanation of what Myriani does should the party steal anything from the vessel, which is a 4 step process involving multiple skill checks on both the PC and her side which occur over the couple of in-game hours, along with an entire page’s worth of quote boxes for sample conversations with each dead crew member. While Myriani is perhaps the most egregious example in this book, Orphans of the Multiverse suffers in having its text being needlessly detailed, like mentioning that Jovie’s abandoned cabin will require a light source or darkvision to see inside…when the preceding boxed text notes that there are no lights or signs of current habitation inside. Or being stilted, where a list of facts and events are separated into their own individual sentences where they could be easily combined into one. In terms of stats, Myriani is a 10th level Rogue with the Thief subclass. She has proficiency in quite a lot of thief-related stuff and has high modifiers to such rolls, meaning that she is an excellent scout. Perhaps moreso than Arrigal due to her darkvision, and being an astral elf she has limited-use short range teleportation ability.  Jovie (Warforged Champion Fighter) is a warforged fighter who was built during the tail end of the Last War. When they could not be used as a soldier, they found new purpose as a city guard in Stormreach, and ended up in Barovia in a similar manner to Kaylee: investigating werewolf attacks in the jungles near town. But their failed sojourn into the domain took a turn for the worse when they were attacked by druids, who murdered the warforged’s allies and stripped them of parts to use as grim trophies. Jovie managed to survive by playing dead in the mud. Unable to return to Stormreach, Jovie found an abandoned shack near Lake Luna which they inhabited for a long time. Growing depressed, they find their rest periods growing longer, with nothing more than woodcarving to whittle away the time, until they effectively “shut down.” In its current state the shack is full of small wooden statuettes of warforged, druids, blight monsters, and Jovie who appears as a strange armored figure in the corner. PCs who touch or interact with Jovie will have them reactivate, attacking in a panic but can be reasoned with via skill checks. Jovie currently has no purpose, and the PCs need to give them one, but making a logical connection between defeating Strahd and being able to return home is necessary to convince the ally that this is more than a fool’s errand. The warforged’s personal quest includes hunting down the druids and blights who killed their fellow constructs, and to give them a proper burial. Jovie is a Fighter with the Champion subclass. Due to this, they are really only good at fighting, but interestingly Jovie has something that neither warforged nor the subclass has: blindsight out to 10 feet as well as a higher-than-usual amount of skill proficiencies at higher levels: 8 skills at 7th and 10th levels, to be precise. That being said, Jovie is really only good for melee combat, as their Dexterity is a meager 10 and their Fighting Style is Great Weapon Fighting.  Omiros (Satyr College of Eloquence Bard) is a satyr from the world of Theros, who married an alseid known as Dori. They both became local heroes of their homeland, the Scola Vale, and entered Barovia unexpectedly after the Mists settled in a sunny clearing they were resting in after one of their quests. Dori, whose essence was tied to the land itself, found herself dissolving as she was forced into this new plane of existence, leaving Omiros alone and devastated. The satyr eventually made contact with the people of Krezk, winning them over by using his musical and magical talents to help out the people. But he found himself unable to sing some of his old joyful songs, and when Strahd himself paid a visit to the village out of curiosity for its newest inhabitant, Omiros decided to lay low and keep his presence a secret from all but a trusted few. He was afraid of attracting the darklord’s attention again after the many dreadful stories he heard of Barovia’s ruler. PCs can encounter Omiros if they manage to gain the trust of the village’s Burgomeister, likely after spotting a goat-footed person leaping clear over the wall and bringing it to the guard’s attention or via mentioning Madam Eva’s Tarokka reading. The satyr’s personal quest involves finding and retrieving a hand drum given to him as a wedding gift; it was stolen by the Belview family and is currently being held in the Abbey of Saint Markovia. As an Eloquence Bard, Omiros makes a great face for the party, where his Expertise is in Performance and Persuasion skills. He is overall a great support character, ranging from his new and improved uses of Bardic Inspiration from his subclass plus spells such as Faerie Fire, Enhance Ability, and Invisibility. He also has two unique abilities not present in either his default race or subclass: Boon Aura grants adjacent allies advantage on saves vs the charmed and frightened conditions, and Companion’s Protection lets him take the blow of an adjacent ally once per long rest.  Zrevek (Kapak Draconian Assassin, unique stats) is our final Orphan in the book. He is a kapak draconian in the service of the Red Dragonarmy, part of a special task force charged with extraplanar exploration to give Takhisis’ servants hidden refuges to bolster their forces. Upon discovering Barovia, he was the first, and last, scout through the dimensional portal as it closed behind Zrevek. Separating him from the rest of his team, he happened to meet Strahd early on in Barovia. While the vampire count made pretenses of respectful friendliness, the draconian is fearful of the man and has taken to camping out on an island in the middle of the Ivlis River due to knowledge that vampires cannot cross running water. Zrevek is very much lawful evil, and hopes to relay information about Barovia to his commander in the Red Dragonarmy so that they can mount an extraplanar invasion. While the idea has crossed his mind, Zrevek is aware that Strahd’s single-minded pursuit of Tatyana and general arrogance means that he will never submit to Takhisis.* He is encountered extra early in the campaign, being in the River Ivlis southeast of the Village of Barovia, and will hide his true motives from the PCs by claiming that he ended up in Barovia while on a patrol to protect his hometown. If he is not a Destined Ally, then he may be a competitor in seeking out the treasures from Madam Eva’s readings in hopes of using them to overthrow Strahd himself. Should Strahd be defeated, Zrevek will pull an Arrigal and use a Sending Stone to make contact with his superiors, who will open a Gate spell sending through draconian soldiers. If Myriani and the Pelican exist in the campaign, they will attempt to destroy the spelljammer vessel to prevent it from leaving and spreading knowledge of Barovia’s existence to other planes. *Takhisis is the Dragonlance cosmology’s Tiamat equivalent and the primary goddess worshiped by chromatic dragons and the Dragonarmies. In terms of stats, Zrevek is a CR 8 kapak draconian. He is pretty hardy, with 87 hit points, 17 AC, and proficiency in a variety of Rogue-like skills such as Deception, Investigation, and Stealth plus Religion and Survival. He can’t fly, but he can glide, and also has a natural climb speed. In terms of offense Zrevek’s main feature is that he can multiattack with two daggers which can deal bonus poison damage and paralyze targets on a failed Constitution save should both daggers hit. He gains Legendary Actions and 2 uses of Legendary Resistance only when fighting the PCs after Strahd is defeated. And he can explode into acidic chunks upon death, but that’s really an afterthought given it does a measly 2d6 damage. As far as Destined Allies go, Zrevek is pretty formidable. He starts play being quite strong, and he is very good at being a scout with darkvision, a good array of skills, and alternate movement speeds. His base movement is pretty fast at 40 feet, and while he can’t deal the raw damage output of Arrigal nor will he be as broadly useful as major spellcasters such as Victor, drawing Zrevek as a result is by no means a dud like it would be with Clovin Belview or Stella Wachter. That being said, the alternate ending may be of an acquired taste. Should the Dragonarmies invade Barovia, the book says that they will be even more ruthless than Strahd, which both kind of nullifies the PC’s victory over the Count and also downplays his status as major threat in the campaign by going “there’s an even worse baddie right around the corner, but the campaign’s over!” Overall Thoughts: I’m of two minds when it comes to this product. On the plus side, I do like the idea of populating Barovia with outlander adventurers who haven’t yet joined the March of the Dead, and unlike some of the weaker or more overpowered choices in the default adventure them being in line with existing PC creation rules means that they are less likely to feel totally useless or outshine the party. There is an exception regarding Kaylee being a Twilight domain cleric, but the other Orphans are pretty good at what they do and will be welcome additions to the party. On the minus side, this book has rather stilted text that feels off when reading, and Zrevek is encountered far too early for a being of his power as a Destined Ally. Additionally, using full PC rules results in some rather bulky stat blocks, which gives the DM more to juggle in combat unless a player volunteers to run them. I’d recommend this product if any of the Orphans sound intriguing enough to put in your own Curse of Strahd campaign. If not, I’d give this book a pass. I’m going to take a short break for the time being. I want to take some more time to work on a book I’ve been meaning to review for quite a while now… Join us next time as we turn one of D&D's most famous archmages into a traveling DMPC with Mordenkainen in Barovia!
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Mar 2, 2024 23:56
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 Product Link Product Type: DMing Tools CoS-Required? Yes While I usually don’t review free products, I felt that this one’s interesting enough to merit its own discussion. When it comes to the various recruitable Destined Allies in Curse of Strahd, Mordenkainen clearly stands out. Not only is he the most powerful of the lot, he is a famous icon in the game (more so than Rudolph Van Richten), and he doesn’t accompany the party on the adventure save for the final battle against Strahd. The maker of this product didn’t like this last part, still wanting to keep the legendary archmage as a traveling companion but also redoing his stat block to be less overpowered but also reflecting his unique talent. Mordenkainen’s stat block is also promised to be “simplified” so that a player can run them in combat alongside their own PC. Mordenkainen here is effectively a 13th-level Wizard statwise, his depowerment explained as undergoing significant mental damage in his fight against Strahd. Even though the PCs may have restored his mind, his practice of Old Vancian Magic means that many spells ordinarily attained by him have been “forgotten” as a result of his prior insanity. Mordenkainen is a CR 13 NPC, and his base stats pretty much scream “wizard.” His Armor Class is an appreciable 16 with Mage Armor, and he does have quite a bit of hit points at 87. The only skills in which he is proficient are Arcana and History, which with double proficiency are +14 each. As is to be expected, Mordenkainen has an unmatched knowledge of all supernatural things, and should know an awful lot about Barovia’s past. His high Intelligence, Dexterity, and Charisma make him decent at stealth, other knowledge skills, and social skills, but will be easily eclipsed by PCs who specialize in such fields. He has resistance to all damage from spells, which while a bit situational is pretty strong when fighting some of the more infamous magical adversaries in the module. Such as the Old Bonegrinder hags, Baba Lysaga, and Neferon the arcanaloth. Mordenkainen’s spellcasting differs from traditional 5e prepared casters. Being explicitly modeled off of pre-4e Editions, he doesn’t use spell slots but has to prepare each and every spell individually. Unless he prepares a spell more than once, he can only cast it once before requiring a full day to get his spells back. Once per short rest he can swap any memorized spell with another spell of the same level from his spellbook, and said spellbook has every wizard spell in it. However, the text is a bit confusing on Mordy’s refresh rate, as while the spells mention they recharge once per day, it also mentions that he can replace any number of spells after finishing a long rest. While a lot of writers often use long rest and per-day interchangeably, in 5e these are two distinct things. A per-day refresh happens automatically with the passage of time, while long rests can be interrupted or foregone. If hewing to the former, this means that Mordenkainen’s spells are regained even should he somehow be unable to rest or sleep. Mordenkainen more or less has access to every non-cantrip wizard spell of up to 6th level, but the stat block gives him a default array for when he’s in an “adventuring mood.” Mordy’s base allotment hews strongly towards battlefield control, with spells such as Darkness, Web, Ice Storm, Wall of Force, and Globe of Invulnerability, with a few utility ones such as Protection From Evil and Good, Dispel Magic, and Arcane Eye. He doesn’t have a lot of damage-dealing spells: Magic Missile, Fireball, Fire Shield, and Ice Storm. As for unique equipment, his spellbook can be summoned and dismissed into a pocket dimension as an action, and he carries a Silver Key of Portals that can spend up to 4 charges per day which can cast the Knock spell with no audible loud sound. I still presume it requires a Verbal component, so it’s not entirely silent. Regarding the Silver Key, most locked containers and doors in Curse of Strahd take a DC 15 Thieves’ Tools check to open unless otherwise specified. There are cases where manacles or physical obstructions also prevent doors from opening, particularly in Castle Ravenloft. The item’s use is a bit situational but very useful in the Castle, particularly to overcome Strahd’s Lair Action in locking such a place. If the Silver Key is given to a familiar or other helper-type ally in such cases, one can avoid giving up an action on the part of Mordenkainen or a PC in case of combat or other scenarios where time is tracked round by round. When it comes to Mordenkainen’s signature spells, he doesn’t cast them the Vancian way. Instead they are unique Actions of his he can use at will, have new features not present in the base spell, and don’t require concentration to maintain but he can’t have two such versions active at the same time. His Phantom Hound can detect creatures within 60 feet instead of 30, and as an action he can have the hound and an ally within 30 feet of the dog swap places, provided an enemy is within 5 feet of an ally at the time. His Planar Sword (Mordenkainen’s Sword but renamed) can be commanded to protect an adjacent ally, granting them +5 to AC and Dexterity saves until the beginning of Mordenkainen’s next turn. Finally, his Magnificent Mansion has a permanent duration but still requires 1 minute of casting time. Being able to use Planar Sword at-will is likely the reason for his lack of damaging spells, as by default it’s his main method of offense. His Phantom Hound can serve a similar purpose albeit is a bit short-range. Overall Thoughts: Comparatively speaking, this version of Mordenkainen is less powerful than the default Archmage stat block in spite of having a 1 higher Challenge Rating. Not having at-will invisibility or the higher-end spells such as Teleport and Time Stop really sting. Also this version of Mordy isn’t proficient in Wisdom saves like the Archmage, which is a very common saving throw. But even with all that being said, some things had to be cut if he’s to be a traveling companion like the other Allies. So how does this homebrew Mordenkainen stack up as an Allied NPC? Will he not eclipse higher-level PCs like the product advertises? Well for one, he is still extremely powerful; even with his more limited Old Vancian Magic, the fact that he can swap out prepared spells makes him different from NPC casters who are more or less stuck with their spell allotments. In comparison to the mage Allies such as Victor Vallakovich or Kasimir Velikov, Mordenkainen can cast up to 18 times per day for non-cantrip spells, while they have only 14 total slots. Victor and Kasimir have more wiggle room in being able to upcast with higher level slots and aren’t locked into casting such spells once or twice in most cases. But Mordenkainen having effectively all wizard spells can open him up to getting some unique magic for themselves and the party wizard. Major Image, Leomund’s Tiny Hut, Summon X series of spells, Polymorph, Passwall, I can go on. Of course, he still needs material components, and given how treasure-poor Curse of Strahd is, Mordenkainen will still be locked out of the more costly spells such as Clairvoyance or ones with rare components such as Evard’s Black Tentacles. His lack of cantrips may initially seem punishing, but his Faithful Hound and Planar Sword make for decent “at will” magical offensive options. An at-will Magnificent Mansion is really good in giving the party a mobile safe base and might be able to elude Strahd and his minions for a time. For other Allies he pretty much blows most of them out of the water. The only ones that can conceivably compare are the higher-end ones. Van Richten has access to support and Cleric spells while also having a variety of skills, Sir Godfrey Gwilym is a very powerful paladin who is literally immortal and is a living Strahd Detector, and Vasilka can solo most enemies who don’t have access to magical and non-physical damage sources. As for Ezmerelda, she is kind of a hybrid in being more broadly reliable with a variety of skills, magical weapons, a curse and evil eye abilities, and some utility magic. So while Mordenkainen has access to better spells than her, Ez can afford to be more liberal in spending her resources. Personally speaking, while this makes for a more “reasonable” Mordenkainen to take on adventures, I still feel that he can outclass PCs. Not as a group, for I can’t see him soloing some of the more powerful enemies in this module, but outclass more on an individual level. A PC wizard is likely going to feel second fiddle in comparison, and even if limited by slots Mordy can still pull out high-level spells such as Globe of Invulnerability to save their bacon. Some spells such as Legend Lore may end up altering certain plot points in significant ways. As for other classes and archetypes, bards/rogues/skill users are still going to be useful, for even if Mordenkainen can ace social or stealth challenges with an appropriate spell it will still cost him valuable slots. For straight damage, a decent martial build will show him up unless he goes all-in on damaging spells like Chain Lightning and Disintegrate. PCs capable of restoring his sanity have access to 5th level spells, so by the time they get him they will have cleared the gap a lot more (Mord can cast 5th and 6th level spells, but once per day each) to the point that he won’t feel like the star of the show 100% of the time. As for whether his stat block is simple enough for a player to run in combat alongside their own PC, I’d have to say no barring those players who can multitask well. It still is a full page worth of text, and as he still heavily relies upon spells the player will need to look up and consult their descriptions when appropriate. It’s a lot more complicated than using a Sidekick, that’s for sure! In a typical party, the PCs are likely going to have Mordenkainen make use of his Hound, Sword, or low-level spells, saving his higher-level slots for the appropriate time. And with his spell replacement for a short rest, they can use it in case they come upon a challenge they hadn’t considered. Personally speaking this product isn’t for me, as Mordenkainen’s placement in Curse of Strahd doesn’t feel right. But for its proposed mission statement, I think it does its job in most cases, albeit I’d still Proceed With Caution in his use as a Destined Ally.
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Mar 3, 2024 05:23
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The “replace this one NPC’s stat block” entries for CoS 3rd party stuff always feel like a cheap cash-grab.
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Mar 3, 2024 05:45
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Gatto Grigio posted:The “replace this one NPC’s stat block” entries for CoS 3rd party stuff always feel like a cheap cash-grab. Well in this case it's free and not even PYWY, so I think it's safe to say they're doing it because they're a big Mordenkainen fan. That smooth pate, that goatee...
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Mar 3, 2024 07:31
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Dawgstar posted:Rachel the Gangrel being the impromptu pose model for hundreds of urban fantasy books in the future. MDC had a special episode of their podcast done up like the old Leonard Nimoy "In Search Of..." where he describes her as Colorado cryptid named "The Butt That Does Not Quit". Also, he mentioned as The Stupidest Thing On This Page is that she shouldn't exist as a super butt model because of her long age and low willpower, she would be Frenzying all the time until she was an undifferentiated mass of animal parts.
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Mar 3, 2024 15:12
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Morte's Planer Parade Part 5 Demodands Fiends from the Tarterian Depths of Carceri also known as gehreleths. They were put into the prison plane long ago for forgotten reasons, and have since declared themselves the plane's jailers, tormenting the other creatures trapped there and defending the few portals that lead out. Demodands are able to leave Carceri but know they are doomed to return, if killed on another plane they agonizingly reform in Carceri over 2d20 days. Even if they avoid a violent end they eventually find themselves dragged back by an unknown tether. All Demodands have the trait Boundless Movement which allows them to ignore difficult terrain, prevents them from being slowed by magic, and allows them to easily escape from any grapple. They are also immune to the paralyzed and restrained conditions meaning that the prisoners of Carceri can't be bound. They also all have the power to try and summon other demodands of their type or weaker to aid them, summoning weaker ones brings in greater numbers. Farastu Demodand  Also called tarry demodands, farastus are the least of the demodands (though still quite powerful) and constantly secrete sticky tar from their bodies. Using their sharp senses they are frequently employed as hunters to bring back any who leave Carceri. They are Challenge 11 Medium fiends that are typically Neutral Evil. As befitting the lowest rank farastus are mostly dim brutes who attack with their powerful claws and bite. The tar allows them to grapple large or smaller creatures they hit with their claws, to let the bite land easier. They do have some magic, namely at will invisibility, and once a day Dispel Magic and Fog Cloud. Kelubar Demodand  Also called slimey demodands, they serve as Carceri's bureaucrats and the intermediaries between the farastus and shators. They love when others are subserviant to them and prefer to battle with words (or with a frontline of farastu minions) rather than directly. They are Challenge 13 Medium fiends that are typically Neutral Evil. If they do get into close combat any creatures that attacks them at close range will get splashed with the acidic slime they secrete, along with the kelubar's acidic bite. But they prefer to stay a range where they can spit 60 foot lines of acid (and they don't have to worry about freindly fire as demodands are immune to acid damage). They can as a bonus action create a fog cloud that poisons creatures in it as well as obscuring the area. They have the same magic as the faratsu, minus Fog Cloud as that would be redundant with their bonus action, with the addition of being able to cast Scrying as an action. Shator Demodands  Also called shaggy demodands, they are the self appointed wardens of Carceri who ruthlessly command the other demodands. Shators when they do end up on other planes try to manipulate powerful leaders and philosophers, to use them to spread poisoned words that will tempt souls towards the chains of Carceri. They are Challenge 16 Large fiends that are typically Neutral Evil. Their most unique traits are the ability to cast the chaining version of the Imprisonment spell (powerful 9th level spell that is near impossible to free a creature from) once a day. And a ritual that transforms all willing lesser demodands within 60 feet of them into liquid each demodand becoming enough liquid to fit in a flask. If put in a container a demodand returns to normal if it's opened, the shator can also return them all to normal at will. This ability is normally used to sell instant soldiers or to smuggle demodands secretly into an area. In combat creatures that touch or hit them at close range are slowed by numbing secretions, while the shator attacks with it's trident and paralyzing bite. They can also spit a 100 foot line of slime that paralyzes creatures hit. They know the same magic as the kelubar with the addition of having at will suggestion, and a once a day Plane Shift to Carceri. Next time the Eater of Knowledge and some Githzerai.
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Mar 4, 2024 00:33
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 Welcome back! "Tomorrow" didn't really work out. but I had a bunch of people flake on me for a campaign session, so here we are with this! Last we left off, we went through a LOT, and today, we're also going through a LOT. Starting with damage! So how do you figure damage? There's a specific formula for it, and it needs to be followed in this order, because as you may have surmised from previous posts, Lancer is often an intricate dance of very specific actions, reactions, and utter bullshit. So, book, how do we do this? Da Book posted:1. The attacker rolls damage, and applies any relevant reductions or increases (such as the doubling from the Exposed status). There's four different kinds of damage:  There's no real difference between the first three types save how they're affected by Frames or various abilities. If a Frame has Resistance to Kinetic, it takes half damage from Kinetic, but Kinetic isn't otherwise differentiated in general effect from Explosive or Energy. However, Burn is an entirely different beast. Burn damage doesn't necessarily mean your mech is on fire, instead it represents any form of damage that's continuous and ongoing. It could be nanites eating their Mech or acid burning through joints. When someone takes Burn damage, they immediately take the listed damage, ignoring armor. Then they mark how much Burn they have. At the end of their turn, they make an Engineering check; if they succeed, all Burn is cleared. If failed, they take the burn damage again. Burn is very scary! When a character takes more Burn, they again take the listed damage, and then add that amount to the Burn they already have! Burn can quickly get overwhelming. You can clear it manually with a Stabilize Action (more on that later), but that's a Full Action! Otherwise, if a character's Engineering skill isn't good, they can end up taking increasingly more and more damage, quickly reaching insurmountable levels. And since Burn ignores Armor, it's a great way to take out heavy mechs who shrug off even the biggest hits. Some abilities or equipment give Bonus Damage, and the book doesn't explain too well what Bonus Damage is, actually. It just mentions that some things give you more damage, and this is important. Which, it is. A few things give a character special effects related to Bonus Damage, so what it IS is important. The general rule is that if it doesn't SAY it's Bonus Damage in the description of whatever is giving you extra damage, it's not. When a weapon does 1d6+2 damage, that +2 isn't Bonus Damage, it's considered part of the base damage. On that note, very rarely, sometimes an ability or equipment give a character Resistance or Immunity to certain things. As mentioned before, Resistance means that you half all of the listed kind of damage after substracting your Armor value. Immunity probably doesn't require much explanation, but it's important to note that having Resistance or Immunity doesn't complete negate attacks. If a Frame has Immunity to Burn, and the Mech is hit with a Krakatoa Thermobaric Flamethrower (Say that five times fast), they would normally take 1 Energy damage, and then 4 Burn. Because of the Immunity, they take no Burn, but they still take the Energy damage. Heat is a special kind of damage that also ignores Armor, but it doesn't get applied to a Mech's HP track. It's added to their Heat track, which I'm pretty sure everyone here could easily guess. When a Mech goes over its Heat Cap, it overheats. Say a Mech has a Heat Cap of 6, and it gets to 6 Heat from various self-inflicted ways. It hasn't overheated yet! It needs at least one more point of Heat. Overheating causes Reactor Stress, which can do some nasty things itself similarly to Structure Damage. Like all other forms of Damage, a Mech could have Resistance or even Immunity to Heat, though the latter is extremely rare and only applies to Heat that comes from outside sources, not the Mech itself. Only Mechs and Vehicles can take Heat. If a character without a Heat Cap, like Pilots, Drones, or Mines take Heat, they instead take the same amount in Energy damage. Finally, Objects! Most Objects don't really have stats. A wall isn't usually going to shoot you in the back. Turrets could, but generally they have stats listed. For everything else, assume all Objects have 5 Evasion and 10 HP per Size, so a Size 3 air control tower would have 30 HP. If an Object has several pieces to it, each of those pieces has its own HP, but it's probably lower than the actual size of the full thing. Confusing? Okay, so, let's say you put down some deployable cover that spreads over three hexes. That's size 3, but the cover is three pieces of wall, so each piece would have 10 HP instead of 30. Granted, this isn't going to be all you have to get through: Most buildings or large rocks have at least 1 Armor, if not 2. REALLY sturdy things probably have 3-4 Armor instead, making it really hard to get through them. Objects generally don't have an E-Defense and can't be targeted by Tech Attacks. That all said, you don't always have to shoot down a wall. Even if that wall has 20 HP and 2 Armor, the GM can easily rule your Mech can just smash through it with a Hull check. I know that I haven't posted many images so far, but believe me, this book doesn't really have that many. It just kind of has a lot of text and now and then, you get something else to look at. This is one of my bigger complaints about Lancer, in that it really doesn't have a lot to break up the walls of text or draw the eye. That, combined with the fact that almost everything in the book is white, black, and red makes it tiring to read. It's a small price to pay for an excellent game, but it also makes this write-up a little hard to do... Enough complaining, let's finally get to the Actions! We've talked about them in the last post to some extent, but to recap, all PCs get a Standard Move action, as well as either two Quick Actions, or one Full Action, and they can also choose to Overcharge once per round. Unless there's an exception listed, a character can't use the same action twice in one turn. If something gives a character the ability to Boost or Ram as a free action, they can Boost or Ram twice, but to do either a third time, they'd need another way to get the same effect again. When it comes to WHEN an Action's effect takes place, the game generally tells you when, otherwise a character can decide the order of whatever they do on their own turn. If multiple effects would resolve at the beginning of a turn, or at the end of one, the Players (or the GM) decide which order they take place in, depending on who applied those effects. That's a lot to take in, so to explain: let's say a PC uses a weapon that states anyone in the target hex takes Energy damage at the start of their turn, and another that makes a target Mech take heat at the start of their turn. If that Mech starts their turn in that hex, the Player can choose to have the Heat inflicted first, or the damage inflicted first. With that out of the way, let's start listing! QUICK ACTIONS Boost: When a character Boosts, they can move up to their speed again. They have to move at least one space, otherwise why did they even Boost? Grapple: Awww yea, we're getting into the REAL poo poo now! Buckle up for the GRAPPLE RULES: To Grapple, a character makes a melee attack, and if they hit, both characters become Engaged, neither can Boost or take Reactions until the grapple ends, and if one character is smaller, they are Immobilized, and move with the larger character if the larger one moves. If both parties are the same size, they can make contested Hull checks, with the winner counting as larger than the loser. A grapple ends if either character somehow stops being next to their target, the attacker chooses to end the grapple as a Free Action, or the defender breaks free with a contested Hull check as a Quick Action. What if more than two characters are involved in the Grapple? Basically the same, but you add the Size of everyone on either side of the grapple for their effective size. So if a Size 1 attacker is grappling two Size 1/2 Mechs, they're counted as the same size as the attacker. Hey, that wasn't so bad, was it? Hide: Hide is actually worse. I'll try to compact it as much as possible. When a character uses the Hide action, their exact position can't be identified and they can't be directly targeted by any hostile action, including attacks. In order to Hide, a character must not be in any enemy's line of sight or be engaged with any enemy. Hard cover can accomplish this, but Soft cover can be used if the character is completely inside the soft cover, like a large cloud of smoke. If a character is Invisible, they can just Hide even if an enemy has line of sight to them, but being engaged still prevents hiding. Other characters ignore engagement with Hidden characters, and if a Hidden character attacks (even a tech attack!), makes any kind of hostile action, or Boosts, they lose Hidden. If a character is not Invisible, and they cease having cover from any enemy, due to an enemy moving around their position or destroying their cover, they lose Hidden then, too. Finally, while a Hidden character cannot be DIRECTLY targeted, just like with cover blocking line of sight, there's nothing stopping their enemy from laying down an AoE where they THINK the Hidden character is. Quick Tech: When a character uses a Quick Tech, they're doing some electronic warfare. It might be to support their allies, or it might be to hinder their foes. When they perform this Action, they can choose from Quick Techs granted by their abilities or equipment, but the following options are available to everyone, even if they suck at Tech. Unlike other Actions, a character can Quick Tech twice in a turn, they just have to select two different options unless otherwise stated.  hey an excuse to put an image in here yeeeeea Ram: In a lot of TTRPGs, I find whatever their equivalent action to shoving someone is rarely used. In this game, there are entire builds you can make just around hitting a motherfucker with another motherfucker, the second one being you. To Ram, a character uses a melee attack, and if they succeed, their target is knocked Prone and back by one space if the attacker so chooses. The target has to be the same Size or smaller, but there's plenty of abilities that negate that requirement in some form or another. Search: This isn't some kind of Perception check, if something is in a character's line of sight, they can see it. This is specifically for finding characters with that pesky Hidden status. To search, choose a character that is Hidden, then roll Systems against their Agility. If the attacking character succeeds, the defender is no longer Hidden at all. Not just for the character that found them, for everyone. If you're on foot in Mech Combat, you roll using your triggers as a bonus instead, most likely Spot. Skirmish: A Skirming character is attacking with a single weapon Mount. The book says weapon, but technically if you have two weapons on the same Mount, you fire them both when you Skirmish, the second one just doesn't deal Bonus Damage if it has any. You can't fire a Superheavy weapon as a Skirmish, though, only as a Barrage. FULL ACTIONS Barrage: A Barraging character is attacking with two weapon Mounts at a time. You can fire each at different targets, if you want, but you cannot fire the same weapon mount twice. If you're attacking with a Superheavy weapon, you only get that one attack. Disengage: When a character Disengaged, they are no longer engaged. Glad we cleared that up! Oh, yea, and any movement they take doesn't provoke Reactions, either. Full Tech: Like Barrage, but for Tech. You can perform two different (they have to be different) tech actions in one turn. There are some Techs that require a Full Tech Action, granted by Systems or Talents. With those, you only get to use that one Tech, almost like a Superheavy weapon for Barrage. Improvised Attack: Attacking with anything not meant to be a weapon, or attacking with something meant to be a weapon, but not like THIS. To do it, the character makes a melee attack against an adjacent target. If they hit, they do 1d6 Kinetic damage. Stabilize: A very important Action, Stabilize allows a character to 'heal', or get ready for more action. When a character Stabilizes: They choose to either clear all Heat and the Exposed condition, if they have it, or they use 1 Repair to restore all HP. In addition to that, they can choose one of the following four options: Reload all Loading weapons, Clear all Burn affecting their Mech, Clear a condition that didn't originate from their own abilities, or clear an allied character's condition that wasn't caused by their own abilities. It uses your full action, but Stabilize can be a life-saver. OTHER ACTIONS Activate (Quick or Full): A character uses this to use a System or piece of gear. The System or Gear will let you know what kind of Action it is. A character can't Activate the same System or Gear twice in one turn unless they can do so as a Free Action. Boot Up (Full): Clears the Shut Down condition. Mount/Dismount/Eject (Quick or Full): A character can leave or enter their mech with this. If they Mount or Dismount, that's a Full Action. An Eject is a Quick Action, but if the Mech is still intact, it's Impaired and the ejection system is spent until the next Full Repair. When a character Dismounts, they end up in an adjacent hex. If they Eject, they fly 6 hexes away in a direction of their choice. Not up to, they have to move all six hexes. Prepare (Quick): Allows a character to take a specific Action when the specific condition they set occurs. When the prepared action triggers, it uses the character's Reaction. Both the Action and the condition have to be specific. Something like: "If this enemy moves out of cover, I want to fire a weapon at them" works, but "If anyone moves out of cover, I want to do something about it". Also, you can't use a prepared action to circumvent other rules of Actions, either. You can't Ram and prepare a Ram again. Once a character has prepared an action, they're stuck in it. They can't move or take any other Actions or Reactions until the condition is met, the start of their next turn, or if the character chooses to drop their prepared Action, whichever comes first. Also, while a prepared Action goes off as a Reaction, it doesn't TAKE the character's Reaction: You can take another Reaction after the prepared Action has triggered. Self-Destruct (Quick): Why do we even have that button?! A character can blow up their own mech in a spectacular explosion, if they want! After using this Action, their mech's reactor detonates at the end of their next turn, or at the end of one of their turns within the following two rounds. When it does, it kills anyone inside the Mech (duh) and causes a Burst 2 AoE that deals 4d6 Explosive damage. Characters can make an Agility Save for half damage as a Free Action. Really hope you don't roll four 1s on those dice, that'd just be embarrassing. Shut Down (Quick): With this Action, the character shuts their mech off. Why would they want to do this in the middle of a fight? It has some benefits: All Heat and the Exposed Condition are cleared. Any Cascading NHP returns to a normal state. Any statuses or conditions affecting the Mech caused by Tech Actions immediately end, and they become immune to all Tech, period. But once a Mech is Shut Down, it is Stunned (Cannot take any Actions, including Standard Move) until it is booted up again with the... Well, Boot Up Action. So apparently, shutting a mech down is therapeutic for para-causal eldritch horrors, who knew? Skill Check (Full): Just do... Something. Any kind of miscellaneous Action with a clear goal, but no matching Action, will use this. Some examples the book gives are an on-foot Pilot trying to open a locked door with the Hack or Fix skill trigger, someone trying to jump their Mech over a gap with an Agility check, or lift a heavy boulder out of the way with a Hull check. Not covered under any of these Action categories are Overcharge, Reactions, and Free Actions. Overcharge lets you take another Quick Action as a Free Action once per turn. You can do this any time in your turn, mind, so you don't have to wait until the end: You can Overcharge to use a Quick Action, then use a Full Action as your normal action. But there's a cost: Mechs operating beyond full capacity run a lot hotter than normal, and it only gets worse the more a Lancer pushes their Mech. The first Overcharge you do gives your Mech 1 heat. The second, 1d3 Heat. The third, 1d6 Heat. And if you keep going after that, You get 1d6+4 Heat every time. A Full Repair resets this counter, and you usually don't get those until the end of a Mission, so this is cumulative between Encounters. Overcharging is extremely useful, though, so don't let the heat costs prevent you from doing it entirely. We already know what Reactions are, so here's the two Reactions all characters get by Default:  Unless specified otherwise, all weapons have at least Threat 1. This doesn't let you shoot at enemies who move outside your range, you have to use the Prepare Action for that.  What happens if a Pilot is outside of their Mech when in the middle of a big stompy robot fight? Not usually anything good, given that they're squishy and their Mechs are left vulnerable. A Pilot can leave an NHP or comp/con in charge, but they can't control what either of those will do... And if a Mech shoots at them, they're almost certainly going to die. Still, there's a lot of things people can do that Mechs can't, like enter most buildings or operate delicate machinery. Because of that, sometimes a Mission requires a Pilot to get out and hoof it. A Pilot outside of their mech has the following stats, though their gear can change this for better or worse:  Ignoring supplementary materials for the moment, Pilot Gear is extremely limited in what it can do: even the heaviest of Pilot weapons do only 3 flat damage, and those are either Loading (must be reloaded before they can be used again) or Inaccurate (applies +1 DFF to the roll). So they're not going to be doing much effectively against Mechs or vehicles. They have to use Grit instead of Skill Triggers, too, which means that until LL11, a Pilot can't do as well as they normally would in narrative play. They also can't engage or count as obstructions to Mechs or vehicles, no matter their size. They also don't benefit from any Talents, and can't aid Mechs to give them ACC. On the other hand, they also are immune to Tech Actions except Lock On and Scan. If a Mech uses Lock On on a Pilot, that's probably real bad. As stated before, they take Energy damage in place of Heat if something inflicts Heat on them. When it comes to Actions, Pilots get the same amount as Mechs: a Standard Move, Two Quick/One Full, and they can take the following actions: Boost, Hide, Search, Activate, Disengage, Prepare, Overwatch, and Mount/Dismount. They also get three Actions mechs don't: Fight: The Pilot may make an attack with one of their weapons. Reload: The Pilot can reload one of their weapons with the Loading tag. Unlike Mech weapons with Loading, these only take a Quick Action to reload. The third is Jockey, and despite alphabetical order dictating it should come before Reload, I'm leaving it for last because it KICKS rear end. When a Pilot Jockeys, they're assaulting a mech. This is INCREDIBLY dangerous, stupid, and also rad as gently caress. A Pilot has to roll with their Grit against the Mech's Hull. Guess which is usually better? But if they succeed, they climb onto the mech and start being a problem. They choose one of the following options: Distract, which makes the Mech Impaired and Slowed until the end of its next turn, Shred, which deals 2 Heat to the Mech by ripping up coolant tubes and messing with electronics, and Damage, which deals 4 Kinetic damage to the mech by attacking the softer spots. 4 damage is more than any Pilot weapon can do in the core rulebook, so this is great. A Pilot can also try to hijack an enemy's mech, though there's no rules for doing this with a mech that's already occupied, which would require some REAL forethought to do. If a Pilot ends up in a mech they don't have the License for, the Mech is Impaired and Slowed as long as they're piloting it, from not having the correct implants to do so. There's a page with a Quick Reference for all the combat stuff after this info, it's pretty excellent. But it's a full page, so I don't want to put it in here. Trust me, it's useful.   We've talked about a bunch of the statuses and conditions in this game, but what do they all do? I've given a few small explanations, and for some of those, that's really all there is to it. Some we've gone into in-depth, and I won't bother with those. I'll just focus on what we haven't seen and what you don't know. Danger Zone: When a Mech has half or more of their Heat Cap filled, they're in the Daaaaaanger Zooooone! For many mechs, usually Harrison Armory ones, this enables them to act at their full capacity, becoming much stronger at the constant risk of Reactor Stress. Exposed: When a Mech is running hot, too hot, automatic systems kick in to open as many vents as possible. This creates a lot of weakpoints in a Mech's hull, and any Mech that's Exposed takes double damage from Kinetic, Explosive, and Energy. Exposed can be cleared via Stabilize. Immobilized: Immobilized characters can't take any movement that's voluntary. Impaired: Impaired characters get +1 DFF on all attacks, saves, and checks. Jammed: Jammed characters can't make attacks other than Improvised Attack, Grapple, or Ram, nor can they take Reactions, Tech Actions, or benefit from an ally's Tech Actions. They also can't use Comms. Lock On: If a character has Lock On, enemies can expend the Lock On to gain +1 ACC to their next attack against them. Lock On is also needed for some Abilities. Prone: A character that's knocked Prone is slower and more vulnerable. All attacks against a Prone character receive +1 ACC, and a Prone character is Slowed. They can stand up instead of using their Standard Move, unless they're Immobilized. This doesn't count as actual movement, so it won't trigger Overwatch. Shredded: Shredded characters have their defenses are completely open and don't get the benefits of Armor or Resistance. Slowed: Slowed characters can only make their Standard Move. They can't use Boost or any other movement they might get from abilities. Stunned: Stunned characters are just kind of hosed. They can't do anything. Pilots can still Mount/Dismount/Eject from Stunned mechs, though. A Stunned mech's Evasion is 5, and they automatically fail Hull and Agility checks and saves.  To round this post off, we'll step into Structure, Stress, And Repairs. We've talked about this a little already. Mechs have 4 Structure and 4 Reactor stress. When they lose all HP, they lose a point of Structure. When they go over their Heat Cap, they lose a point of Reactor Stress. Both of these have consequences beyond just getting closer to destruction: You have to roll on a table to find out what happens as a result. Worse, with both, you can overflow damage or heat so much that you can lose multiple points in one go, and thus have to make multiple rolls! To find out what happens, you roll xd6, where x is the number of points you lost in one attack/overheat, and take the lowest result of them, consulting these tables:  For reference, a Reactor Meltdown has the same effect as Self-Destruct above. So that's a lot of ways your mech can be instantly destroyed. Even if you don't lose your Mech, you can easily wind up losing weapons or systems, lowering your Mech's effectiveness and thus making it more likely you'll get Structured or Stressed. Oof. But all is not lost: Stabilize isn't the only way to fix up your Mech. When a battle is over, even if the Mission isn't, the Lancers get the opportunity to get their mechs back in working order. First, when a battle ends, Players clear all Heat, end any statuses or conditions, and restore half of their Pilot's HP and clear Down and Out if those are applicable. Then, they get to repair their mech. To restore HP, or repair a destroyed weapon or system, it costs one Repair. It takes two Repairs each to restore one point of Structure or Stress. And if a mech is totally demolished, it needs four whole Repairs. Not many can even get that far, and even with Mechs that can spend their own Repairs on other Mechs, it's a steep cost. To make it worse, a destroyed Mech is brought to only one Structure and 1 Stress at full HP, so it'll need even more Repairs to put it in fighting shape. When the Wing gets a chance to get at least 10 hours in a secure area, they can fix up everything to full, including Repairs, for free. This is called a Full Repair, and it almost never happens during a Mission. If the Wing is able to do this in a Mission, it's only because the GM is about to go ham on them afterwards, expect to need every bit of what they got to win. Otherwise, when a Mission is over, and the Wing has access to proper facilities, they can print entirely new Mechs if they want... Provided they have the Licenses to do so. Pilots may only have one Mech at a time, though. Printing a new mech causes the old one to stop functioning entirely. What happens when a character dies, though? Well, for most people, they just die. Game over, man. But Lancers? Lancers are incredibly important... And incredibly expensive. Losing a Lancer is not like losing any old Pilot, it's like losing the cornerstone of a strategy. It's losing a superweapon, and a lot of employers aren't cool with that. So they're very often cloned. Clones are talked about later, in the lore section of the book, but for now, know there's two "levels" of clones: Facsimiles and Flash-Grown. Facsimilies are, for all intents and purposes, the same person. They may not have the same consciousness, but that's a philosophical question, not a practical one. They have exactly the same personality, memories, skills, and looks as the original, and they're just as much a person by Union law as any other person. Cloning is a process that's highly rigorous, controlled, and monitored for the absolute best results, because no one deserves to come back wrong. But this takes a LOT of time, and sometimes, you need a clone ASAP. While it's illegal in the Union, Flash-Cloning is employed in a lot of places, particularly the Karrakin Trade Baronies. It's a cruel, quick process that always leaves some kind of flaw, but it's quick and a lot easier. Either way, cloning can still have problems. The clone will have a big gap in their memory, from the time they were last backed up to the time they died, and since they keep the LL advancement even if they died in the process of the Mission, now they suddenly have more access to stuff than before, which can be a little overwhelming. They're also still a different person who might not act the same way in the same situations as the original. If a Player wants, they can just make a new character at the same LL, instead of having a clone, but a clone can have its own drama... While Facsimile clones are often perfect, sometimes, especially over multiple clones, issues seep in because of good ol' Chaos Theory. And Flash-Grown clones always have issues. These Quirks don't have any mechanical effects, they're purely narrative, but they're going to happen. Page 84 has a table of 20 random Quirks one can roll on to see what happens, or take inspiration from. Some of them are *weird*.  ... Yea... Anyway! That ends this post! Next time we take our first steps into the real fun of Lancer: The Compendium, where the Talents, Weapons, Frames, et al live! 
Mecha_Face fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Mar 4, 2024 |
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Mar 4, 2024 00:47
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Young Freud posted:MDC had a special episode of their podcast done up like the old Leonard Nimoy "In Search Of..." where he describes her as Colorado cryptid named "The Butt That Does Not Quit". Yeah, this early in the game they really hadn't decided what low Humanity meant. Chicago has at least a couple of Humanity 0 Licks running around, some of them in fairly high positions of power.
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Mar 4, 2024 01:13
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One of the interesting things to me about AH was that it showed that there was no inherent stigma to being Clanless in the early game. Caitiff was just the “Make your Own Vampire” option, which was cool.
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Mar 4, 2024 08:55
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Did I miss something here? Is there a new thread or something? This one's gone quiet for way too long! I was going to try and update my Lancer write-up, but I don't want to end up looking like an rear end.
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Mar 13, 2024 00:17
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Nothing happened, the thread periodically lulls between reviews. I'm still working on the write up for CbN, but my work situation has recently changed so my focus is finding another job more than commenting on vampire shenanigans at the moment. Also I just hit the geography chapter and those are my least favorite to write up so thats also slowing me down a smidgen. Book is real fun though and I really enjoyed it
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Mar 13, 2024 03:45
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FATAL and Friends is like a play by post game. People bite off more than they can chew and psych themselves out, procrastinating on huge long posts when they should be posting smaller updates to keep the ball rolling. Eventually we all run out of steam and the thread dies for a while. My excuse is that I hate clipping the pictures out of the book and uploading them one by one.
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Mar 13, 2024 03:51
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I'm still just out of new games I feel I've played/GMed enough to write up, since most of what I'm running now is stuff like a Cardinal modification to run Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead without some of the weird decisions of its core dev team.
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Mar 13, 2024 04:27
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Me, I buggered my shoulder the other week and prolonged typing was making it hurt. It took physio today well so more of everyone's favourite, the Masquerade of the Red Death, soon. Maybe even tomorrow!
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Mar 13, 2024 07:31
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mellonbread posted:FATAL and Friends is like a play by post game. People bite off more than they can chew and psych themselves out, procrastinating on huge long posts when they should be posting smaller updates to keep the ball rolling. Eventually we all run out of steam and the thread dies for a while. This. This is me. Both of these factors.
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Mar 13, 2024 08:37
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joylessdivision posted:Nothing happened, the thread periodically lulls between reviews. On the By Night books, I've been reading through LA by Night for some game prep. Having an anarch gang called the Crypt's Sons that's fighting a group of hunters called the Blood was not something I expected to see. I was also not expecting so many gangs of surfer vampires.
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Mar 13, 2024 09:17
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I for one am not alarmed by this thread taking a break. That's it, I'm not trying to seem clever or something. Have a good one my peeps.
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Mar 13, 2024 09:22
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I've totally lost steam on writing either N2 or Mutant 2087 like mid last year, and haven't been able to regain it since. And then I lost the PDFs due to drive failure later on to make matters worse.
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Mar 13, 2024 12:01
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disposablewords posted:This. This is me. Both of these factors. For what it's worth I've always enjoyed your Eberron review. 
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Mar 13, 2024 15:13
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I'm going to get back to the Cowboy Bebop F&F within the next couple of weeks, it's just been a crazy busy Q1 this calendar year.
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Mar 13, 2024 15:17
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Explodingdice posted:On the By Night books, I've been reading through LA by Night for some game prep. Having an anarch gang called the Crypt's Sons that's fighting a group of hunters called the Blood was not something I expected to see. I was also not expecting so many gangs of surfer vampires. I think I've only read LA by Night precisely once. I always forget it came out so early, relatively speaking. Wonder if any of it made it to the streaming game.
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Mar 13, 2024 15:44
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Morte's Planer Parade Part 6 Eater of Knowledge  Hulks of muscle and brain matter originally created by mind flayer god-brain Ilsensine, and now some of his followers. They collected information by devouring the brains of others, then return to their masters with the knowledge they learned. While related to illithids and very intelligent they prefer brute force to psionic power. They are not lacking in psionics however as they gain more psionic abilities with each brain they eat. They are Challenge 6 Large aberrations that are typically Neutral Evil. Their first notable trait is that a d10 is rolled ahead of time to decide how many brains an eater has already consumed in the past and what Psionics it can use as a result. Their main attack is to slam their opponents twice, if both hit the same target they grapple them, and have a chance of stunning them so they can try extracting their target's brain. As mentioned they also have a number of Psionic Spells they can use, innately having Plane Shift and gaining one new spell in a set order for each brain they have eaten, gaining their final spell once they have 10 or more.  Githzerai  Like their cousins the Githyanki, the Githzerai are descended from a people enslaved by the Mind Flayers, and granted psionics to be better serve. After gaining their freedom and breaking away from the Githyanki over philosophical differences, the Githzerai moved to the Chaos Plane of Limbo to hone themselves against the Chaos. The Githzerai described here are ones that frequently traverse the planes. All have the ability Psychic Defense allowing them to increase their AC by their Wisdom Mod. Githzerai Futurist Githzerai that have transcended their mental limits through focused meditation and can now glimpse the future. Their ability to predict how situations will go allows them to tilt the balance in their favor. They are Challenge 9 Medium aberrations that are of any alignment. They fight with their fists or psychic blasts, they have a fair number of Psionic spells most notably Slow and Telekinesis. 3 times a day they can use a reaction to activate Future Insight allowing themselves or a creature they can see to make an Attack Roll, Saving Throw, or Ability check with advantage or disadvantage. Githzerai Traveler Githzerai that wander the planes to train and peruse cosmic enlightenment. Through these travels they have learned to manipulate the energies of the planes to produce various effects. They are Challenge 3 Medium aberrations that are of any alignment. They fight with their fists, along with a small number of support Psionic Spells. Their primary unique ability is Matter Manipulation as a bonus action they can pick or roll for 3 effects, a short range teleport that also boosts their speed for a turn, turning the ground within 15 feet of them into difficult terrain for a turn, or causing creatures to take a small amount of damage whenever they hit the Traveler in melee. Githzerai Uniter Peaceful Githzerai that desire unity. Many are part of a group called the Sha’sal Khou an organization of Githyanki and Githzerai that desire to reunite the Gith people and put and end to their feud. They also capable martial artists who prefer subduing to killing. They are Challenge 7 Medium aberrations that are of any alignment. They fight with fists and psi blasts like the Futurist, but can also substitute an attack for Pacifying Touch, which causes the touched creature to make a saving throw or be banned from taking an action of the Uniter's choice (from Attack, Cast a Spell, or Dash). They also have some support Psionics the same as the Traveler with Telekinesis as an extra option.  Next time Guardinals, the Kolyarut, and Maelephants
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Mar 13, 2024 16:04
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Cythereal posted:For what it's worth I've always enjoyed your Eberron review. And I actually appreciate that a lot! But my ability to focus, she is not so cooperative and goes off on her own wild whims constantly.
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Mar 13, 2024 16:48
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I meant to ask a question, but I instead triggered a bunch of feels. Whelp. I'll get back to my own F&F this weekend, probably. Next update is going to involve a LOT of images. Might need to cut it up.
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Mar 14, 2024 00:02
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Vampire: Victorian Age trilogy: Book 1, A Morbid Initiation, Part 1: Prologue to Chapter One In a sudden twist, we’re doing something different – we’re visiting one of the better novel trilogies of the old World of Darkness, the Victorian Age trilogy. Why start this when Masquerade of the Red Death is still ongoing? Because I can! But also because I need to revisit these anyway as two NPCs from them are making guest appearances in my ongoing Mage: 1848 game, so I thought we might as well do a read-along with one of best of the best as well as what most people consider the worst of the worst. This trilogy started in 2002, so it’s a late offering for the original run of VtM. It benefits from that. Masquerade of the Red Death is wild-eyed gonzo bullshit. VAV, by contrast, are… They’re not quite good. They’re no The Crimson Petal and the White. But for oWoD novels, they’re excellent. They ooze atmosphere, have some great set pieces, and crucially, they feel like part of the universe in a way that doesn’t scream ‘I read the rules’ and instead confidently says ‘We understand the philosophies of this game, and what it can do.’ They also do the impossible. They make four of the ‘signature characters’ of the late oWoD (for anyone who doesn’t know this already, as the setting went along they decided each splat had to have its signature character, who embodied it. Some were good. Most were either insufferable or tonally inconsistent) into actually interesting and vaguely complex characters, not two-dimensional cardboard standees. These novels give actual flesh and beliefs to no less a character list than Beckett, Victoria Ash, Theo Bell, and Anatole, and while Beckett kinda owns as a sarcastic archaeologist and Theo Bell’s ‘Blade was awesome, right?’ period is full blown superheroes-with-fangs in the best sense, Anatole and Victoria Ash are divisive to say the least. So, without further ado, let’s get on our frock coats, throw some Jill Tracy on the playlist, and get on with…  A Morbid Initiation, Part 1: Prologue to Chapter One Keeping to the proud White Wolf tradition, we start off with an intro quote.  So, obviously deception and masks are going to be a big part of the trilogy. And that’s excellent – what’s a Victorian Gothic novel without a healthy dose of both? It’s probably significant also that we begin not in London, the center of the Victorian World, but Egypt. Prologue: Cairo, May 1886. ‘In which one nefarious plot is undone and another set in motion.’ Subtle, eh? But, aping a rather proud tradition of the Victorian novel stylistically. Done right, these little chapter summaries can add oodles of ambience. Here, it’s a little too obvious, but in fairness to these novels the precise plots aren’t quite so obvious. We’re off to a good start with Beckett, premiere archaeologist of the Kindred. He’s snuck into a private house in Cairo on a mission, but something is already amiss:  The house itself is subject to a curse, if you listen to the locals. An Ottoman tax collector in the 1750s was murdered in it in retribution for an eviction, then fed to street dogs (is there meant to be a connection to the idea that Muslims consider dogs unclean? Maybe, but it isn’t touched on in the text) and the killer, arrested, put a curse on the place. A year later, a Mameluke pasha dies a terrible death of gangrene from a small cut he got in the place and his wives contract terrible withering diseases and die horribly. Napoleon’s aide lived there, got the palsy, and fled – and its been empty since (so for the last, what, 86 years?) save for squatters who sometimes simply disappear. Spooky. But why’s Beckett here? Well:  The prose is clumsy, but serviceable, and the infodump is something of a necessary evil. Some of these artifacts deal with ritual magic and are missing, and Beckett wants ‘em. So off to Egypt he fucks and waits until:  Cut to another PoV – a cultist inside, by the name of Anwar al-Beshi. Anwar isn’t that important. He’s a Follower of Set, and he leads the local cult in their worship of the Dead Antediluvian, which is suitably weird and spooky:  Set’s a god of darkness, afterall, and of storms. But Fahd isn’t Anwar’s only slave:  Now this is a classic piece of Victorian horror and orientalist delirium. White women lured into depravity and slavery by swarthy Arabs – the horror! The degradation! Suffice to say, Victorian Age Vampire plays quite a lot with these ideas, and never quite strikes the right balance of deconstruction versus repetition, but it does it with considerably more taste than the early 90s White Wolf could’ve managed. Emma has an important role in the ritual:  Is this horny? Maybe. It’s also a solid and classic bit of visual, and the connection of blood and sexuality is deeply rooted in Vampire so it might as well go right for a literal one here. This is also your warning that the trilogy can get pretty sexual at times, as befits the Victoriana angle. Beckett, of course, is crouched in the rafters watching this. Anwar sucks at opsec – no guards, not even a ghouled serpent or two. And he’s had quite enough of all this foreign malarkey, thank you. Is he bothered by the degradation of a pristine white English woman? By the flood of good blood going to waste? Well, not quite.  I love this. Its grotesque and atmospheric. Beckett leaps down into the fray, fucks up the ritual, and then rips Fahd a new one with his claws. Unfortunately, we then take a turn in the prose for an unnecessary dialogue scene of Beckett and Anwar facing off. It adds very little to the scene that follows, where Anwar is ripped open by Beckett and consumed by his own spell, and crucially:  Boy, it sure is subtle, ain’t it? But, whatever. The prose itself is still clumsy but acceptable and the visuals are suitably nasty. Fahd’s dead, Anwar’s rotted away, but Emma is still breathing. Beckett’s more interested in looting the place, like any good PC, though in his case it takes the form of making observations and notes of Anwar’s hieroglyphic wall:  It is at this point that our first real wrench in the works happens. Beckett’s observations are interrupted by him getting shot in the back by a British officer. (Anwar’s lack of opsec is contagious, it seems!) Who? Well…  For maximum ‘unhand her, you filthy foreigner!’ vibes, Emma is of course married. She’s done fairly well for herself with a colonel in the cavalry, and to Blake’s credit, he can’t be called a coward. Beckett flees with the loot, and the prologue ends. Part One: County Durham, Christmastide 1887 [25/12/87 to 5/1/88] In which death pays a visit to Bernan House, along with several other strange guests Eighteen-odd months later, we’re back in England with a new PoV – and our most crucial one for the novel. Regina, no last name given. Is her identity a mystery? No. On the same page she’s introduced, we’re also told that:  No prizes for guessing she’s one Regina Blake, then (and if there’s any ambiguity, her second page spells it out.) This also necessarily raises the spectre of colonialism. Is it much of a focus in this trilogy? Regrettably, no – a real missed opportunity in my books. It’s certainly laced throughout but receives precious little interrogation despite the obvious parallels to the vampiric condition. Even here, much of the bloodshed and domination is dismissed merely as ‘military occupation’ with Cairo’s British enclave ‘…blossoming into a beautiful outpost of the Empire.’ After her father’s Hussars ‘restored order’. This is one area I’d have written it differently from Boule, but we all make our own choices. In fairness to Boule, part of this is down to Regina’s perspective, a romantic and uncritical one at this stage in her arc. Regina, we’re told, grew up dashing in the bazaars and souks, hearing the Muezzin, eating wonderfully odd food and seeing all sorts of antiquities and treasures of the past. By contrast, home is rather lacking:  Regina is also nearly eighteen, so a certain degree of teenage waspishness is to be expected. Obviously, they returned in the aftermath of Emma’s rescue from a foreign snake cult. Things weren’t terribly easy, though – that ritual really was a rather nasty affair:  Dark sorceries leading to babbling madness and physical degradation? Delightfully on point. And in a nice change from Weinberg, we get a description of, gasp, a man.  Between this and his introduction, we are told all we need to know about Colonel Blake. He’s getting on, he has a genuine love for his family, and he rues the fact that life is robbing him of his wife and daughter. What happened in Cairo is an unspeakable common secret, the precise details of which he shields his children from, and like Regina, he wishes he could be back there in the dust and sun. This raises another of those points at which I lament the lack of interrogation of the colonies. Both he and Regina miss the liberty of Egypt, the freedom from conventional expectations. This is a real motivating factor when you read the memoirs and journals of the time – its perfectly on point. But of course, it can come only as a product of colonial dominion and power structures. The text even comes close, in their dialogue of mutual longing, to hitting on this:  Solid character work, if perhaps a little obvious. Fortunately for Regina, the balls aren’t all bad:   This being a Vampire novel in Victorian Gothic fancy dress, the marriage is already right and properly hosed – but one of Boule’s strengths throughout the trilogy is tying characters together with actual motives and emotions, so it isn’t just an obstacle to rip through in Act 2 and ignore afterwards. We’ll get to see quite a lot of Seward in the chapters to come. He’s to stay through Twelfthnight, the end of Christide. This is a fairly intimate invitation, it should be noted – large gatherings are common but the entire Twelve Nights is a mutual sign of serious commitment to the prospect. It’s a nice detail. Blake sends Regina off to bed, and remains to think of his daughter.  But there’s more to Blake than we’ve seen. He married Emma for money, a loveless match picked by his father. Emma is, worst yet, foreign – and not even titled. Her maiden name was Ducheski, but her dowry was rich, and there was love. But also pain:  Again, maybe a little clumsy, but it works. And crucially, just what happened is not immediately explained or overlaboured. Take notes, Bob. We leave this mysterious note to turn to Regina lying awake, dreaming of her dashing Lieutenant Seward and the first time they were alone together in Cairo, during the lull between Emma’s rescue and their return to England. We also have our first opportunity for some proper pedantry:  Regina Blake is not, in fact, entitled to be addressed as Lady Regina Blake. She is the daughter of a Viscount, not an Earl. She is the Honourable Regina Blake instead. Is it minor? Yes. Am I being an enormous pedant? Yes. Would it matter in the period? Also yes. Still, when your errors are ‘you have used the wrong courtesy title’, it’s not that bad. So, during this period of chaotic preparation and her mother’s illness, Malcolm Seward was a comfort to her. He’s a friend of the family, a proper military man, and personally saved her father:  Ah, the classic ‘treacherous colonial servant’ makes an appearance. But, you may recall I mentioned that Boule ties his characters together tightly, and this is another good example. No one has truly uncomplicated webs of obligation and loyalty. Seward and Blake are bound together in more ways than one, so naturally he’s a good marriage match – but it also happens that Regina is not displeased by him:   He’s hot. And on that night in Cairo, she discovers his prior romantic entanglement failed to bear fruit as he is a penniless, moderately sensitive soul with nothing to his name but his commission. Left foolishly alone, they embraced, kissed, and began an emotional love affair, sustained since via letters. A girl's reputation could be positively ruined by that kind of carry-on, good god. One almost wonders if someone didn't set it up. It’s at this point we dip into Boule’s desire to lace the erotic through the trilogy. Reminiscing on the kiss, Regina has a crack at herself ‘like a wanton woman from one of the secret books she had found in her mother’s study last year’. It’s not particularly explicit, and surprisingly enough, that mention of the books is actually a minor plot point. When she’s done, she’s too worked up to sleep (so she may not quite grasp the mechanics of the matter at hand) and goes roaming Bernan House in a sequence that is essentially an excuse for her to be seen by the mysterious visitors we were promised. Lit by a candle and sitting in a box window, she’s observed far below by two men lurking in the gardens. One is thin, the other is corpulent, and that’s all we need to know for now.  Creeptastic. That’s where we’ll leave off for now. This was the first 30 pages of the novel – not particularly fast paced, but its used its allotment to build up both a good sense of a normal façade with concealed rot beneath, a staple of the genre. We know Blake and his tormenting secrets; Regina and her youthful fancies and desire; Emma and her degradation and foreign origins. All the ingredients for some good stuff are now there. We've also got the good sense to embrace a wholly mortal perspective for the bulk of these early chapters. In a mainline vampire novel, it isn't strictly necessary or helpful to do so - the big reveal of 'oh, vampires exist' is hardly a shock. But for a Victorian piece aping a modern memory of the gothic romance it fits thematically and helps create that 'what is normal' background that we don't really need for modern pieces. Next time: The Ducheski relations arrive, scars are revealed, and we meet the best version of Victoria Ash.
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Mar 14, 2024 09:04
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Loomer posted:Next time: The Ducheski relations arrive, scars are revealed, and we meet the best version of Victoria Ash. Realizing the only thing I know other than her clan about Victoria is she wears, quote, smoothly-lined sportswear because that was in her stat block description and is a descriptor that obstinately lodged itself in my brain and she won't even have that here!
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Mar 14, 2024 14:22
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Loomer posted:Vampire: Victorian Age trilogy: Book 1, A Morbid Initiation, Part 1: Prologue to Chapter One A Morbid Initiation, Part 1: Chapters 2 to 5 We return to Regina. It’s daytime, and her mother has a question:  Mothers, right? Always asking cryptic poo poo while lounging in a wheelchair (nice touch – very common in the thematic wellspring) in the noon sun. As an aside, there’s an ambiguity of date here. This part is during Christmastide, but Christmastide begins on the night of the 24th – so this should be Christmas Day, but that won’t kick off quite yet, nor has Lieutenant Seward arrived. All we can infer is that this is actually before Christmastide by a day or two. I’m again being something of the pedant here but I’ve gotten into the habit of keeping a full calendar with all the various Victorian English festivities on it for my mage game, and when I first read this trilogy, I didn’t spot this bit. Moving on from my pedantry, there’s some tolerable dialogue between Emma and Regina about what she might want to escape from (everything), why things aren’t so bleak (Seward is coming), and a nice little display of trauma from Emma:  We’ll find out a lot more about just why Emma thinks this way throughout the trilogy, and it sets up a rather splendid contrast between her and her daughter. Both are the wealthy partner in their marriages, both to hussar officers (of the same regiment, to boot) and both are marked by darkness, but their actual arcs will be very different. The discussion is interrupted before Emma can elaborate by the arrival of the creepy fucks from last night. This time they get an actual description:  Fatboy is Emma’s uncle, and she’s delighted. They’re up from Durham, which should give any VtM veterans a shiver. They’re introduced to Regina as Thomas Ducheski, her great-uncle, and the other as Mr. Gareth Ducheski, solicitor, with a split practice in London and Durham. He’s a creepy starer, presumably with some uncomfortably wet lips and a heavy breath for full gothic stereotyping. Then Boule treats us to some not-too-clumsy exposition:  There’s more to the Ducheskis, of course: They’re a revenant line. As a very quick refresher, Revenants are hereditary ghouls – they spontaneously generate vampiric Vitae in their veins, giving them long life and unnatural abilities. They’re also, to a one, all horribly inbred and usually associated with the Tzimisce. One of JD’s reviews has more detail. They’ve come to discuss Emma’s ‘inheritance’. Emma’s not pleased, Gareth is outraged by this, and its all rather effective. The dialogue all has double meaning, as we’ll see:  Boule isn’t Faber, but this gets the job done, and the long pull lets me give you a real sense of how he handles dialogue. The voice of the characters is a little too similar, but that’s forgiveable contextually, and he’s a little too prone to ‘padding’ with physical description, but the prose is essentially sound if workmanlike. I’d give him, just on the technical level, a 5.5-6/10, a 7.5/10 in his better moments – and while that seems low, most of the oWoD authors hover at 3/10-5/10. We return to the story with all of them returning inside. Regina isn’t invited to the tete-a-tete, and we get to hear from Mary, Emma’s Lady’s Maid:  That last bit is a nice touch of foreshadowing. VAV features one Juliet Parr as Sheriff of London.  I have two notes. First – solid bit of classic Gothicism. Weird Slavs doing witchcraft in the countryside? Excellent, love it. Two – the dress, and their relationship. A lady’s maid is still a servant but is also a subordinate companion, so a cautious discussion with the daughter is not unreasonable, though the not-meeting-the-eyes element is more for the Lower Five than the Upper Ten. The dress, however, is interesting. Prepare for pedantry. A lady’s maid reflects on her employer, which colours the practice of perquisites – the big one being the lady’s old dresses (ditto suits for valets and sometimes butlers, especially when they’re valeting.) But they aren’t usually wearing those dresses in the house to avoid embarrassment or confusion – instead, they’ll usually wear something dark but a cut above standard uniform – a solidly middle class dress, for instance, in a finer establishment. But here we’ve got Mary in a hand-sewn blue cotton piece. Hand-sewing? Great – core skill. Blue? Unusual for a lady's maid. Cotton slightly too for a winter dress, but not so noteworthy – a gift of a bolt of print cotton at Christmas to make a dress is pretty common for the actual housemaids of the period, though not so much for lady’s maids. Lighter colours and fabrics tend to be the reserve of the nannies or the print dress, and the unadorned approach more of the Lower Five, and both worn in the morning, not the afternoon. This may all seem like utter pedantry, and to a degree it is. But Victorian Britain is a status-obsessed place, and things like what your maid is wearing speak very loudly. And here, Emma’s lady’s maid is dressed modestly unusually. We can read a couple of possible meanings into it. One – she’s a housemaid, and Emma has no dedicated lady’s maid, which indicates they’re not so prosperous after all. Two – Mary is an informal creature with some especially close connection to her employer, unworried by social norms. Three – Mary is effectively institutionalized who dresses like she’s still a lower housemaid, her entire personality subsumed into service. All three have rather different meanings, and all of them layer into the story in different ways. It isn’t One – we know she’s a lady’s maid – nor Two – Mary’s earliest mentions involve her obsession with propriety - so it’s Three. Or, more likely, it’s a tiny detail Boule got wrong and I’m over-analyzing it. But keep reading three in mind as we go, especially when we hit Mary’s end-game. Returning to the story itself, Mary offers further superstition to close out this section:  My, would that be… a thesis statement? Oh dear. We then slip right to the proverbial devil by hopping to Cousin Gareth’s PoV as he… sniffs the furniture, obsessing over Regina’s scent. Creepy fucker, ain’t he? Marvelously so:  I mean… jesus christ. When Gareth gets his, it’s going to be so satisfying. Gareth has an unusually keen sense of smell and can use it to intuit emotions – confusion, anger, anticipation, and lust, in this case. The layering of the erotic and the perverse continues as we’re told Gareth has only ‘scarred vestiges of his manhood’ to stir as he imagines Regina ‘rutting like a mare’, only to emerge with an unexpected emotion: Pity.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjUq9wemKZg I do love Gareth. He’s perfectly, hideously creepy, a grotesque in the finest Gothic tradition. He wouldn’t be out of place in a penny dreadful. He’s also our first real window into the psychological warping that afflicts mortals drawn into the world of the Kindred – of the powerful blend of disgust, inferiority, and superiority complexes all whirling around The Blood. Renfield would be proud. Chapter 3 Regina again. She’s having a tough night of it – bad dreams of labyrinths and serpents and beetles (gee, what does that remind us of?), of being locked away in them as a prisoner, and of furious rage:  Dreams are important in this trilogy. They Signify, as it were, and they aren’t entirely natural. Before they can give away too much, Regina wakes to screaming – Mary’s – and runs to discover the source: Emma’s bedroom in the quiet, isolated north wing. Boule then treats us to some delightfully creepy prose:  It could use a trim and a little more selectiveness in description – the fully seen is never as effective as the glimpsed – but its solid and weird and I dig it. There’s an important detail – the scar from the ritual is newer than the others, which implies she was already a ritual doll well before that. One wonders what Lord Blake thought, but it hardly matters now. Emma is dead.  (Hahaha I’m sure that doesn’t signify…) Mary’s practically catatonic save for a ceaseless wail of screams and cries of ‘no’, and Regina has to physically shake her out of it and winds up hitting her terribly hard. Her reaction is curious:  Locked in a repetitive loop? Speaking to Emma, not Regina? Gosh, it’s almost like Mary arrived just as someone was loitering at the window and was put into a trance. Lord Blake arrives and plays the role of the freshly bereaved:  But only for a minute. Stiff upper lip and all that.  Fully in command mode, he sends Regina off to arrange for mourning dress with the servants – shouting to go, because there is a matter he needs to attend to alone. Unsurprisingly, Regina has some questions, like ‘what the gently caress’ and ‘what in the holy gently caress’ and ‘what’s with the scars’:  Fortunately for us, he doesn’t notice Regina lingering on her way out.   You guys, I’m starting to think the Followers of Set might have something to do with the plot! The house, of course, enters full mourning immediately. Regina is numb. The vicar comes to deliver the last rites and mentions that the Bishop of Durham will surely attend the house. Pedantic aside: Last rites are not administered to the already dead but hey, Emma ain’t quite dead, so – I guess its fine! We’re given a rather nice bit of mourning detail:   (As another pedantic aside – old stately homes tend to be bastards to heat in the dead of winter, and in Durham, being in the north, winter is none-too-warm. 1887-1888 was also an unusually dry and cold winter. Philippe is, as I understand it, Canadian, not English. As a bit of dramatic license the stifling heat is solid, and not necessarily unreasonable (but more likely in a townhouse than a country home) for the dramatic effect it produces.) As the day wears on, she slowly goes to pieces – as you’d expect. Lord Blake is far too busy handling the details of death to be emotionally available (and frankly – it’s a nightmare logistically even for a relatively simple thing, so fair enough) and is unable to check her sudden urge to inspect her mother’s corpse again to confirm the scars were real. She enters the pitch-black bedroom and goes to open the blinds:    I’ve made a few cuts here but I thought I’d let you all see how neatly Boulle spells it out. It’s not subtle, but its subtle enough. We all already know this is a vampire novel, but Regina, of course, does not. Boulle and Ryan both handle this side of things reasonably competently compared to Fleming and some of the other stable authors. We also get another drop of the dreaded crone Eleanor, who arrives after the cut.  Gareth was sent to fetch her it seems, as he’s the first out of the coach. Boulle offers another effective, if moderately inelegant, piece of characterization:  But at last, Aunt Eleanor:  That’s a right proper crone, that is, and I am here for it. The twisted old matriarch is another staple of the genre. She arrives and almost immediately takes control, demanding to see Emma’s corpse before anything else, with one exception:   That all seems very normal. But when Regina thinks it’s a compliment…  Ouch. We’re treated to another section cut. Regina spends the night in a stupor, shocked by death and by her great-aunt’s horse-exam, ‘and most of all, her father’s refusal to address any of it.’ This is a nice touch. It creates a natural fracture point in a pivotal relationship that makes following events more reasonable. We’re treated to more about Mary:  We get this because Regina is shaken out of it by finding her curled up in a ball. This part of the chapter is just a little wonky – it skips back and forth unnecessarily, without much effect. We go from this to Regina waking and creeping about, and then finding Mary. In the middle, Boulle gives us Regina’s dream:  And an overheard snippet of a Ducheski meeting in the library:  Then it’s Mary time, curled up in a ball in the ‘darkest corner of the maid’s foyer’. Quite why Regina flees up to the maid’s foyer is unclear, and I’m not entirely sure what a ‘maid’s foyer’ is, as another pedantic aside – but let’s assume Boulle means the corridor of the womanservant’s sleeping quarters. Mary’s not sleeping, she’s petrified:  This kind of Victorian madness-at-horror is common throughout VtM but used fairly effectively here, and is another nice piece of evidence that Mary was hit with dominate in the bedroom. Mary can no longer sleep for nightmares, which follow her into waking:  Its effective enough but I feel like Boulle missed a trick here by not having more of Mary’s north country accent come through in her distress – accidental code switching under duress is common in the accounts, and it’d underscore just how terrified she is nicely. Regina’s response to all this is to suggest Mary should go and stay with her relations for a few days of rest, which is a level of humane that’s quite reasonable for the period (and, as an aside, there is the issue of Mary’s employment. She seems fairly young so she might be a good candidate for a ‘hand-me-down’ lady’s maid for Regina. It’s not touched on here but the death of a mistress for a lady’s maid is also a matter of enormous job insecurity.) Things take a slightly inexplicable turn. Mary is sent to get dressed – in the wee hours of the morning – to immediately leave, while Regina will make the arrangements for her to leave. Regina instead starts crying in the maid’s foyer for the first time since Emma’s death, haunted by the memory of Emma’s scars and the blood and by memory:  As a set piece, its moody, but it somehow rings false for me – a little too contrived. Its either absurdly early or the other maids are going to be up and moving through that room so Regina isn’t actually alone as the text treats her. It comes down to Mary’s ambiguous status. She’s a lady’s maid in a household large enough to also maintain a housekeeper, which would usually imply there are also actual maids (as indeed there are – we meet one later, Elizabeth.) In that kind of establishment, a lady’s maid rises relatively late and usually gets breakfast delivered by one of the regular maids. Here, though, there’s a complication: Mary apparently ‘get[s] the great bulk of [her] work done… getting the house ready and all’ in ‘the time before dawn’. All of this lends itself to the idea that Mary really isn’t a ‘proper’ lady’s maid but a long-time servant who’s stuck in a Lower Five mindset, still making up fires and hauling water when her duties should no longer include it. Again, this is probably just me being pedantic, but the dynamics of servants in an establishment are actually quite important for social status and prestige, so its odd to see this kind of figure. In any case, we wrap out the chapter with a final question, one to echo the pull-quote from Byron:  As a chapter, I dug it. Creep-tastic visuals, that spooky gently caress Gareth, Regina’s emotional life getting some development even if its so far very conventional. But it does have some flaws, from the pedantic to the structural. Boulle improves a little as we go but his tendency towards somewhat ambiguous prose increases both where its warranted and where it isn’t. Chapter Four This time, we get a new POV: Victoria Ash.  I think the decision to just go right with ‘she’s a vampire, deal with it’ works in this novel. We don’t need more ‘omg vampires = real??’ than we get with Regina’s story. Victoria boarded during daylight, nicely packaged in a wooden crate. Boulle then diverts onto a character moment that’s more than a little clumsy:  Vampire misses the sun, news at 11. Her increasing distance from humanity is a good point, but we’ve only just met her, and it feels very forced. Also, Victoria’s descriptions make a great deal of hay out of her pallor, so get ready for that. The dining car is being kept in business so late by three hussars, playing cards and drinking. Can you guess who they are? Probably at least one, but before we get there we get a glimpse into power politics:   I like that phrasing – the dehumanization it casually suggests is delightful. We pivot our POV away from Victoria and on to the three soldiers for a couple of paragraphs, establishing their character and relationships in a thumbnail:  All three will play more-or-less significant roles in the trilogy. But we cut back to Victoria. Victoria’s aware of Regina and Blake in some capacity, and she takes the time to properly consider the men, giving us a glimpse at what she sees as a predator:  It’s a consistent enough device through the trilogy. Victoria views people as food and amusement; Regina as people. It’s not remarked on too directly but its an effective way of communicating a predatory mindset. Victoria promptly scandalizes them by joining them for cards, and implied emotional predation shifts to textual immediately:  Easton reacts with obvious lust, Seward with calm propriety that hides his own arousal and fear, and Pool with extraordinary and genuine calm. Victoria isn’t using presence at this stage – she is, it seems, just that hot. We know this because she fires it up to try and draw a bigger response out of Pool, to no avail – even with her screaming ‘look at me’ with her blood, he just goes ‘okay, she’s hot and I’m uncomfortably horned up all of a sudden’ and keeps dealing cards. Lieutenant Pool, Gentleman. This is perhaps unfortunate for him, because Easton bores her with his obviousness, so if he was a little less genteel, well… Here’s how we end the very short chapter:  Oh dear. So, we get to meet Victoria, and unfortunately her introduction is… bland. Its fine, and its stylistically nicely done, but her introduction in the Clan Novels is better. Her overall arc and characterization blossoms through this trilogy, but in this first moment she is nothing more interesting than the Hot Toreador Cutout. I promise – it improves. Chapter Five Its another fairly short one. We begin with Seward’s itinerary:  But now we skip back in time. Regina, our chapter’s main POV, overheard another conversation – the cracked door is a staple of the genre and the period, so fair enough. This time, it was Mary and Lord Blake. Dismissing her to stay with her relation, he has a very strong warning for her after some pleasantries:  It makes you wonder how much Blake actually knows, doesn’t it? His obsession with propriety could be that he fears the consequences of a breach, or just a perfectly ordinary aristocratic fear of scandal. But it all makes Regina wonder too, and not without reason.   Writing-wise, each individual section is fine, but the whole feels a little muddled. We pivot away from Seward’s arrival to these flashbacks, then right back to Seward’s arrival – but before they interact. The gladness she feels could better have informed her paranoid racing mind if it came before we’re told her fear Lord Blake has the same scars, but the prose still works well enough.  Dear god, does she want a scandal? Fortunately, Boulle is aware of this angle:  A touch ‘not like other girls’, but one that isn’t out of place for the genre Boulle is aping here. Regina returns to formality to welcome Seward and his fellows, and we’re informed they belong to the 12th Hussars (which I’m not sure is an actual regiment?) before we get Regina’s take on them, to contrast to Victoria’s:  All three have been fighting in the Sudan, presumably in the Mahdist War. All three are bound by ties of bloodshed, and Seward owes both of them his life. Rather than dwell on this, Boulle introduces Blake into the mix and the day dissolves into ‘happy reunions, earnest condolences, and talk of happenings in Egypt and elsewhere in the colonies.’ This again is one of those friction points I have around colonialism. All four men are quite literal agents of empire, and more could’ve been made of that though, to a degree, it will be via the Taurus Club later on. Instead, the discussion is largely background and neutral, used only to inform us that Seward, Blake, and Regina are all amiably chatting away like old friends while Poole and Easton mostly just sit there, presumably desperate for a cigarette and a brandy. The Ducheskis stay well away, to preserve their secrets. Cue a scene cut to Regina in bed, again tormented and unable to sleep, and again, by erotic desire for Seward. She’s mid-masturbation (nothing too interesting either erotically or prose-wise, frankly – Boulle’s desire to include the erotic could’ve benefited from reading some period smut) when she slams head first into a proper boner killer:  Fair dos, that’d throw me off my game too. Her misery is interrupted by a knock at the door – Seward wants to come in, but they can’t – Blake’s got too much on his plate, he’ll hear, etc. Regina’s resistance lasts approximately 3.5 seconds before she suggests they go gently caress in the coach house, temporarily empty, sends him off, gets ready, and sneaks after him. Cue a POV cut:  What’s he doing there? Well –  creepy gently caress. He’s delighted they’re leaving for the carriage house because now he gets to torture them. Gareth: just a hosed up guy, on the whole. Our PoV cuts back to Regina as she sneaks her way out to the coach house and the waiting Lieutenant Seward’s warm embrace, where they kiss and lie on the coachman’s bed and Seward tries to be a sensitive sort:  They mutually lament the delays this will cause in their marriage plans – no marriage during mourning, its unseemly – and Seward reveals he has friends at Horse Guards who can get him a London post to be nearer her, and cue the makeout, with a couple of salient details:  Seward’s also very bitey. Is he a vampire? No, but he’s not wholly untouched by the supernatural either. The scene here is done with a passable attempt at passion but ultimately falls flat to me. Its all very romance novel and needed either more commitment or more period details for me. But either way, it ends on an ominous note:  So, that’s the end of this installment. Next up will be some Masquerade of the Red Death. But what’s next for Regina? Well – blood, sex, ash and the grave, of course. Dawgstar posted:Realizing the only thing I know other than her clan about Victoria is she wears, quote, smoothly-lined sportswear because that was in her stat block description and is a descriptor that obstinately lodged itself in my brain and she won't even have that here! That's one of the issues of Victoria, and most of the signature characters for that matter - there's very little there. Loomer fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Mar 16, 2024 |
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Mar 15, 2024 05:25
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Loomer posted:A lady’s maid is still a servant but is also a subordinate companion, so a cautious discussion with the daughter is not unreasonable, though the not-meeting-the-eyes element is more for the Lower Five than the Upper Ten. The dress, however, is interesting. Prepare for pedantry. Can you give a cliff notes of what 'Upper Ten' and 'Lower Five' mean? Google sucks now.
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Mar 15, 2024 18:53
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quote:We return to the story with all of them returning inside. Regina isn’t invited to the tete-a-tete, and we get to hear from Mary, Emma’s Lady’s Maid: think there's a duplicate image here? 
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Mar 15, 2024 22:35
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Pakxos posted:Can you give a cliff notes of what 'Upper Ten' and 'Lower Five' mean? Google sucks now. It's the two major gradations of British servant ranks in a grand country house: the Upper Ten have daily and direct contact with the family, while the Lower Five are often not even supposed to be seen. The Upper Ten had the more prestigious and public-facing jobs, like cook, butler, (guards the wine cellar) and personal attendants for the family (Valet, Lady's Maid), while the Lower Five dealt with more mundane tasks where they personally were more interchangeable: laundry maids, scullery maids, housemaids, etc.
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Mar 16, 2024 00:14
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Pakxos posted:Can you give a cliff notes of what 'Upper Ten' and 'Lower Five' mean? Google sucks now. As LatwPIAT beat me to, its servant hierarchy. Basic rule: Upper Ten = quite decent pay, probably their own bedroom and maybe an office/sitting-room in an establishment of quality, less likely to be uniformed, can expect to be waited on by the lower five to a certain degree. Lower Five = still surprisingly decent pay for the period, probably sharing a bedroom except in the best establishments (maybe even a bed), expected to be uniformed and liveried, and ain't no one waiting on them except the bullied hall boys and kitchen girls. There's almost always more than five roles and more than five people in the lower five, just to confuse matters, and to even further complicate it, each individual household looks at things slightly differently and there's also departments with internal hierarchies and the very ambiguous position of governesses + co. Arcanuse posted:think there's a duplicate image here? Whoops, fixed.
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Mar 16, 2024 03:39
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Loomer posted:As LatwPIAT beat me to, its servant hierarchy. Basic rule: Upper Ten = quite decent pay, probably their own bedroom and maybe an office/sitting-room in an establishment of quality, less likely to be uniformed, can expect to be waited on by the lower five to a certain degree. Lower Five = still surprisingly decent pay for the period, probably sharing a bedroom except in the best establishments (maybe even a bed), expected to be uniformed and liveried, and ain't no one waiting on them except the bullied hall boys and kitchen girls. There's almost always more than five roles and more than five people in the lower five, just to confuse matters, and to even further complicate it, each individual household looks at things slightly differently and there's also departments with internal hierarchies and the very ambiguous position of governesses + co. I should perhaps add that the servants and the idea of these two gradations can exist outside the grand country houses, it’s just that it’s really only the wealth implied by a grand country house that allows (and necessitates) the full Upper Ten and Lower Five and its precise gradations. Smaller houses owned by less wealthy families are going to combine roles and leave some out. Combining the house steward and butler seems not uncommon, going by various descriptions of their roles sometimes assigning both the role of managing the other servants, for example.
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Mar 16, 2024 09:46
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LatwPIAT posted:I should perhaps add that the servants and the idea of these two gradations can exist outside the grand country houses, it’s just that it’s really only the wealth implied by a grand country house that allows (and necessitates) the full Upper Ten and Lower Five and its precise gradations. Smaller houses owned by less wealthy families are going to combine roles and leave some out. Combining the house steward and butler seems not uncommon, going by various descriptions of their roles sometimes assigning both the role of managing the other servants, for example. Very common, yes - the house steward only surfaces for especially grand establishments. A good example of how condensed it can get is in the form of the unfortunate maid-of-all-work of the lower middle class establishment. Like her name suggests, she's meant to do... everything. Cook, clean, look after the children, wait at table (to an extent, at least), ready rooms, do laundry (though there's a good chance of sending out for that in said establishments), clean the plate (the silver), and do it all on a pittance by servant's rates and be presentable enough at any given moment to answer the door. And a great example of the status-symbol nature of servants is that there are plenty of upper lower middle class establishments whose first upgrade is hiring a footman, arguably the worst value for money servant, but who are public-facing and go in the same breath as 'my father keeps his carriage'. Behind the scenes there's still some poor fourteen-year-old girl doing drat near everything, though in more equitable households the footman is also doubling up as a general purpose manservant and taking on most of what a butler would in a larger one (and in the memoirs etc this is often a highlight of an early career - a position that should've sucked but the other staff were relatively fair in their outlook, especially in the small 'cook, tweenie, and manservant' establishments where just one of them being an rear end in a top hat is a real problem - while the converse, a status-obsessed smaller household, stands out as a low and dread.) Anyone wanting an excellent resource should try and find The Victorian Kitchen from 1989, which used to be on youtube but is now a little hard to find. It has an obvious bias but it gives a good initial idea of the sheer amount of labour involved in these households.
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Mar 16, 2024 10:30
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Alls I know is there's supposed to be a young handsome guy as footman. Where is the handsome footman?!
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Mar 16, 2024 10:30
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By popular demand posted:Alls I know is there's supposed to be a young handsome guy as footman. Ideally you want two of the precise same height. In the Blake establishment, we don't get a specifically identifiable footman, I'm afraid. We do know that the Coachman is called Milton - and as he sleeps in the coachhouse this suggests he's on the lower end of coachmen, who can either be considered a proper sort or a lowly one - and that there's a servant known as 'Nelson' (and another, Mrs. Baker - Mrs. implies she's the Housekeeper, which is confirmed on page 42), and that the London house boasts 6 servants under one named 'Mr. Goosehound'. In fact, the only mention of footmen are in foreign contexts - either foreign countries or in connection with the pleasure house of Lady Merritt, who we'll get to meet soon enough - with one exception at the very end of the trilogy.
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Mar 16, 2024 10:40
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