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If people are still interested in the adventures of our little coterie, gimme a shout, depending on if it's better posted here or in the stories thread.
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Oct 1, 2019 12:07
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 12:43 |
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I'll do a bit of retrospective when I have time, but next session is tonight. We get to find out what happens when you dump 50-odd assorted kindred into a tiny University town just after Brexit, so you'll know tomorrow!
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Oct 1, 2019 14:52
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There will be stories soon, assuming the group is OK with me sharing them in detail! Bear with me. Last night was definitely dramatic.
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Oct 2, 2019 18:08
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OK, so, Oxford By Night. Yes, a decent bunch of us have been watching LA By Night, yes that's how I got into Vampire. The setting is, broadly speaking, What If Oxford, But With Vampires, and we all have at least some experience of the University and its flaws and foibles and my god is But With Vampires a good explanation for a lot of them! Specifically, Oxford is run by the Tremere, and the Prince keeps the centre of the city (bounded by the rivers, broadly speaking) warded against all Kindred who don't have a particular amulet he can provide. Being there hurts, if you're not wearing it. We recently decided that this amulet is a red crystal decahedron, because wearking a blood die is just a fun twist. A brief rundown of the dramatis personae My character: Dr Francis John Albert Lovelace de Quincy Struthers. Born in the late 1790s to a minor landed gentry family, a third or fourth son, not particularly important to anything, so mostly left to his own devices. He went to the University to study science, but back then and this being WoD, he found quite a lot of occult information (don't go into the Forbidden Stacks), and was noted by the Tremere as a good potential convert. But Cambridge is run by Nos and shenanigans happened that essentially led to him being turned byt eh Nos. We've not examined this in detail yet in play, so I'm not 100% sure how it went down, but I do know his sire is in torpor somewhere in the bowels of the city... He was pretty progressive, for his era, believed women should be able to read, write, own land independently, believed colonialism was stupid (but largely because it doesn't work, not because of any inherent flaws to do with, you know, not abusing the natives). He's studied a range of things in the past, starting with science and occultism, moving into engineering and some early 1900s technology, and finally some mathematics and cryptography leading up to WW2 when he was involved with Bletchley Park. After WW2 he moved into Classics and completely loving stagnated, so he's still basically an unreconstructed Georgian toff. But he tries. He's been movign from Mask to Mask as a professor using a generous interpretation of Mask of A Thousand Faces and Wake with Evening's Freshness to supervise one Doctoral student at a time, through the life of each mask, then refreshing the mask each time. He has a haven in one of the colleges, which connects into the library, and his herd is students using the library. His current Mask is in his 70s, and will need replacing soon. This will almost certainly cause problems to which I gleefully look forward. In short, he speaks incredibly posh, he's very driven by academics and ettiquette, he knew and hated Cecil Rhodes, but he still calls it Rhodesia. His ambitions are to do with expanding and spreading knowledge. Kitty Argument. A (possibly fairly schlocky) urban fantasy novelist of fairly significant fame (somewhere around Stephen King level maybe, someone who's known and recognised in the genre, but might be vaguely half-recognised elsewhere) who essentially found herself writing a little too close to the truth. Very into the occult as a mortal, possibly ended up researching in the wrong parts of the libraries (don't go into the Forbidden Stacks!!), and was noticed by the Tremere. She was successfully turned by the Tremere, however, and is now a young up-and-coming leading light amongst them. She continues to be a moderately famous urban fantasy writer, but is no steering firmly away from anything too realistic, and thanks to her mortal connections is something of a PR person for the local Cam. Her herd is her fans and she has (or possibly had, more on that later) a stalker. She's young and attractive and an absolute terror with Awe, and very canny and perspicacious. She has a specialism in knowledge of occult creatures, and routinely ends up with 10-die pools. Esther Brandt. A Malkavian, with damaging levels of perfectionism as her curse along possibly with the mythical flaw of counting seeds etc, turned during her PhD studies in neuroscience for reasons which are currently a little obscure, sometime around 3 months ago. She's very outspoken and willing to speak truth to power, and she's varying between utterly offended by how completely unscientific all of this is, and utterly fascinated to see whether she can figure out the how of it all, including for instance sticking test subjects in FMRI machines and seeing how their brains work when just told to do something, as opposed to Compelled, etc. She has Iron Gullet and is able to take nourishment from dead blood, which frequiently proves handy, as she works out of a teaching hospital which has a blood bank. That is our Nerd Squad. Charles 'Sledge' Hammer. Brujah anarch, owns a vampire-friendly nightclub outside the Tremere forbidding. Former boxer, big and stacked even before he was turned. Also former mortal-drug dealer, turned prisoner, turned former prisoner, now vampire-drug dealer. He is concerned with furthering the lot of the anarchs in the city, and trying to bring the anarchs and the camarilla in the city together. Has copious contacts among the anarchs, a lot of resources, several ghouls, and what seems to be a pretty major chip on his shoulder. In his mid-30s when he was turned during the 90s. Andy Travers, aka Andy Is Not a Vampire. Andy is an amazing character who has been incredibly interesting and incredibly fun to interact with and develop. Andy was a reporter for the Oxford Mail, who was digging into some weeeeird poo poo going down in Oxford during the time running up to the big kick-off with the Tremere in 2008 (more on that story later), as a result of which, he was turned by the same Malkavian who would later turn Esther to try to clean this all up. Andy was then abandoned, and fell fully into his Malkavian curse, which was the sincere belief that he was not a vampire. He lived that way for ten years, believeing he had a weird sunlight allergy, that he was some sort of serial killer. His fiancee left him because he was acting deeply irrationally, his dog hated him, it hurt to be in the town centre unless he was wearing a certain neclace, it was super weird. Our coterie met up when Andy was found outside Sledge's club, having succumbed to his beast and nearly kileld a student, which was session 0. Session 1, coming soon. thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Oct 5, 2019 |
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Oct 3, 2019 19:13
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The early sessions of the campaign are a little bit of a blur, unfortunately, as I only really started making coherent notes after London (more on that story later...) Here's a more detailed recap of session 0, and a brief rundown of session 1: Session 0, and backstory. I will note that a lot of this backstory I suspect isn't perfectly aligned with the TTRPG universe, as our ST learned a lot of lore from Bloodlines. The Tremere are a big part of the campaign, so obviously the raid on Vienna in 2008 played a huge part in the backstory, as all the intricate web of bloodbonding that HAD been keeping central Oxford warded and all the Cam firmly under the thumb of the Prince, Lo Ren, collapsed in a massive night of chaos and violence which was masqueraded as a worse-than-usual May Day celebration. During that time, Struthers' Sire was torpored, Andy was Embraced, and IIRC Sledge took a good run at the centre along with most of the Anarchs before being repulsed shortly before dawn. The wards were re-raised the following night. Andy had, as noted, been living a crushingly difficult life in the belief that he is just a spectacularly messed-up human, and on one of his trips into East Oxford, succumbed to his beast's urging and attacked someone outside Sledge's club. This event brought the coterie together, Sledge was brought into the Cam and granted something like domain over his club and East Oxford more generally (to the chagrin of the Baron, Paul Rudkin), and the coterie was formed, in order to take Andy under their wing, keep him out of the way, and see if they could work out what the gently caress, exactly. Kitty was brought in as a test for her ascension from a novice to the main ranks of the Tremere, Struthers just... to get him out of the way, most likely, and Esther as a young Malkavian who needed some education. Session 1 saw the group meeting up at Sledge's club on the night of the beginning of freshers' week tasked with tracking down a set of Thinblood alchemist drug dealers, who had made some fun Vampire drugs, a study drug called Cram, a hallucinogen called Violet, and a party drug whose name I forget without checking my notes. But who, much mor worryingly, had been immplicated in some major and fairly unsubtle human trafficking for the purposes of making those drugs in a very masquerade-breachy sort of way. We tracked down their house, and raided it a bit whilst they were out, with the sneaky amongst us going in the back, and the less sneaky waiting at the front to be let in. Along the way, Andy was stricken by complicated visions - our ST has some amazing visions written, some of which seem to just be triggered by the mention of certain words, others of which are more session specific I think - which seemed to related to the fall of empires, if Struthers' Latin was correct. Esther went upstairs with Sledge, and got her hands on a computer. Her very, very nerdy hands which have 7 or 8 dice base at Technology rolls. And thus began the tradition of our ST just stright up handing over a page of the book when we find out stuff. Because we find out lots of stuff. Nerd Squad yeah. Plus, Sledge raided a safe, securing a whole mess of very valuable drugs and cash. Andy and Kitty went to the basement, finding a couple of local teenagers babysitting some fairly obviously kidnapped kids. Andy revealed that he thought this was some sort of Neighbourhood Watch dealy, to everyone's amusement, and Kitty was able to use her wiles and her Awe to corral everyone into leaving, btu not before one of the kids rang their contact in the dealers to check up. The kids were being hustled out just as the dealers arrived, to find things not as they were left. Struthers had waited upstairs (nicking a few bits of the dealers' gear including an ID printing machine, because one of his convictionsfelt like it demanded it, they were counterfeiting University library cards, the cheek), and heard them coming, making his way to the door and blocking it with a foot as they tried to open it, before swiftly repeating as it was clear that were charging it, which was funny. They charged into the room to meet Sledge's fist coming the other way, to unsurprising effect. Struthers stayed behind to finish off the cheeky sod (and ended up drinking him dry when he was full of Cram, which was a little unfortunate), and was bombarded with acid (something like corrosive vitae, but that doesn't normally affect vampires, weird - yes, it turns out, we needed to read the rules a little more closely as a group) and throwing knives as the rest arrived, before using Soaring Leap to get out of the house, allowing Kitty to seal the door with her own vitae, and us all to hustle the kids away and hand them over to a contact in the police who could deal with them in a masquerade-friendly manner. We also leaned a bit on the Baron at the same time to help out. The group discovered various things about the thinbloods and their organisation from the stolen computer data, as well as the nature of one of their contacts within the Cam (who we still haven't followed up on 6 or so sessions later), and Struthers whilst on Cram (which adds 2 to your mental stats :O) was basically able to work out exactly how Thinblood Alchemy works, allowing the whole group to take it more cheaply if we want, though I think nobody has yet), which blinking in and out of cloak of shadows involuntarily. It was a mostly fairly standard first session, we were all feeling out our characters and the rules a great deal, and getting an idea of just how much backstory there was in this game. Also, the beginnings of the game being genuinely funny, a lot of the time. Even in this sessions there were some prime moments of comedy, and it only gets better/worse later on. We keep having to stop, re-centre, and remind ourselves that this is a Serious Game For Serious People.
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Oct 4, 2019 16:15
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Oxford By Night, session 2: fixing Andy's haunting At least I think this was session 2, I might have missed one. This episode was suuuuuuuper busy, so forgive me if it comes off a little incoherent, or I've missed anything. It was also around 2 months ago. I'm pretty sure that for this one Sledge wasn't therer, lining up schedules has been a challenge in this game. Oh yeah did I mention Andy's house is haunted? Turns out that's a thing. Having been out Kitty rang Struthers' 70-year-old secretary and brough her car around so he didn't have to go outside (because Nos, Kitty is kind), Struthers collected Esther, and they all made their way over, desperately trying to work out how to fix this, suggestions included Kitty bringing one of her fans, Kitty popping out to a local supermarket and doing her damsel-in-distress act, and... by the time those ideas had been bandied around, we'd arrived. Kitty had Sense the Unseen up at the time, and we arrived to see a head poked through Andy's (closed) door. She indicated she'd seen something, and the head disappeared. We made our way in, and Esther and Struthers went upstairs to check on Andy, whilst Kitty went to see if she coudl calm down the very angry dog which was disturbing the neighbours (and the very angry neighbours). Along the way, she found the ghost was staring at her very closely, at which point she made eye contact with her (the ghost was a 16th century woman by the name of Mary) and asked if she could help. When it became obvious that the ghost couldn't communicate, Kitty sent her off to find a way to do that (more on that story later), and went up to check in on Andy who was not... doing well... Struthers and Esther tried to get in the door using the key Andy had stuck under the door when he locked himself in, which Mary promtly stole and tried to run away with, forgetting that keys were not insubstantial as she went through the closed door. Fortunately(?) Esther is very good at breaking into stuff (that scavenger feeding style) and picked the lock. Whilst they were checking in on Andy Kitty brought the dog upstairs to keep it out of the way, which caused the very hungry Andy to go... a bit frenzied. Kitty threw the dog into a bedroom, before going into the bathroom and using Awe to subdue Andy, who she wrapped up in towels and stuck in the bath. Struthers retreived the key and they locked Andy in as they left, to try to work out what to do, at which point a voice was heard from outside: "I've found a vessel, we can talk now!" Turns out, Andy's ex-fiancee Sophia had spotted him earlier, and was on her way over to curse him out, when Mary possessed her to use as a ghost phone (more on THAT story later too...). As we were hustling her through to try to talk in the back garden, the scent of a human in the house caused Andy to go into full Frenzy again, and tear off the bathroom door before charging down the stairs. Struthers is old and creaky and really very tired of the whole thing, and has been dealing with these very young Childer for too long already (he started at Humanity 5), and din't make any effort to stop him. Kitty used Awe to stop him feeding directly on her, but unfortunately, the next person in line was the possessed ex-fiancee. Through a supreme effort of will, he was able to avoid killing her, which was extremely fortunate. His hunger sated, we set down to the emotional-discussion portion of the evening and (although there were difficulties with the Masquerade and the ex-fiancee's memory was clouded three or four times) he was able to persuade her that they couldn't see each other any more, that he wasn't safe to be around, and that he was scared of hurting the elderly dog they'd bought together a decade ago. During this time there were many escapades as Struthers demonstrated a distinct lack of understanding of modern technology by trying to make tea. With a plastic kettle. On the stove. Through many escapades tea and instant noodles were made to help the ex-fiancee recover from the feeding, and the Nerd Squad waited anxiously outside whilst Andy essentially sent one of his touchstones out of the city for her own safety. We also took the opportunity to have some in depth discussions with Mary, who turned out to be a Malkavian who had been burned at the stake as a witch by the Prince, Lo Ren, and was out for revenge, during which time she showed Andy that she was able to keep his beast from fully taking over his mind (a liberal interpretation of Quell the Beast, inspired more by the video game than the rulebook) which would allow him to operate more or less normally unless he triggered his clan compulsion in the usual game mechanical ways, and confirmed that she could interact with some small scale physical objects, which between Andy's radio, karaoke machine, and landline telephone, Esther's tech knowhow, and Struthers' background in earlier electrical tech like radios and early telephone, enabled us to rough together a ghost phone through which we could communicate with her, and Esther was able to fashion a (very big, mains-powered) ghost detector, too. The session concluded with Andy sending his ex-fiancee and Orwell off to move out of the city in an honestly crushingly emotional moment, followed by the Nerd Squad closing ranks to support him, and drawing on their connections and some liberal 'For The Masquerade' bullshit to the Camarilla head honchos, to arrange both a job and a substantial relocation allowance to send her somewhere up North. It was an amazing episode, again rangign from high comedy to high emotion, and several Serious Game For Serious People reminders. I love this group so much it's been one of the best RPG experiences I've had thus far. Next up: Elysium. I think. thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Oct 5, 2019 |
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Oct 5, 2019 20:33
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Oxford By Night chapter three: Elysium. So, this episode really got us into the swing of dealing with downtime between sessions, each of which was roughly a week apart. Elysium had some interesting downtime for a couple of characters, so let's get to that first. Some of this may well have taken place in the previous episode, but I condensed it OK: Kitty had taken some of the Violet, the hallucinogenic drug based on Kindred blood, and had agreed to visit one of the local Tremere who was interested in studying it. Arriving at the house, she entered an ever-shifting labyrinth, through which she was unable to proceed without magical guidace, fortunately provided by previously ringing the gate bell. Arriving with Sierra, the Tremere concerned, they chatted for a bit before Kitty agree to give Sierra the drug in exchange for a boon. Sierra, who had evidently forgotten her good scientific technique, then promptly popped the pill open and took a hearty sniff. And then spent the rest of the night tripping BALLS. Oops. Fortunately getting OUT via the labyrinth was much easier. Struthers was visited by his DPhil student, recently returned from a summer dig in Iran. He revealed that he had found an artefact in there, a wooden box which had some suspicious greek lettering which is written in my notes somewhere, but mentioned, at the very least, The Trinity, and contained an ornate cross. Struthers' eyes would have lit up if they could have, and he retreived a tray for put the thing on (ostensibly to avoid handling it further without gloves, but actually in case it was all burn-y). Said student also revealed that it had all been kicking off a bit in Iran, and he was still really quite shaky. Diagnosing him with an obvious case of shell-shock (Struthers' language is archaic by intention on my part) he was despatched to see Mrs Phipps, Struthers' secretary, to arrange an appointment with the psychiatry service. Struthers arranged with Kitty for her to come over and use Sense the Unseen to see if there was anything wibbly going on. Which there was. He stored it away, and promptly failed several Wits/Awareness checks. The ST made a note. Andy spent some time in quiet and anguished contemplation having lost some Humanity due to very nearly killing one of his touchstones (and also his dog) and then having let her go, and some further time with Mary learning a bit more about how to control his Malkavian compulsion. Sledge dealt some drugs and accumulated some favours (and probably a bunch of other stuff, but it was a while ago, and I'm forgetful). Esther did some FMRI studies on some brains whilst using Compel, and stole some blood bags. Then we got into the meat of the episode, and the characters were all invited to a There was a LOT to Elysium, so I might split some of it off into another post. We all arrived separately, most of us prior to the scheduled arrival time. Struthers declined the invitation to join the local Nos contingent, and instead came through the library tunnels to avoid having to get hungry by going outside, dropped his actual weapon (a sword cane) outside, and brought a decorative brass one in with him. Esther, Andy, and Kitty all showed up relatively straightforwardly. Sledge came in by car, and was met by a fascianting view. Among other things: the local Ventrue Primogen wearing a very tacky suit of silver thread. Horatio, the Herald, essentially accosting him. Magdalena, the Gangrel who guards the non-road borders and lives in Magdalen College deer park (yes that's a thing, this loving city honestly) dressed in what's basically described as 'Poison Ivy cosplay', the Toreador primogen, who is in charge of the Ashmolean, and whose surname is Ashmole, and her contingent, among meny others. After some snarky back-and-forth with Horatio, the Heral announced the start of the Elysium, which then proceeded to a ceremonial entrance of the clans, in particular the Tremere contingent entering, IIRC, to magical fireworks, and the Nos contingent including the Sheriff, Doru, who popped itno view surrounding the throne on which Horatio sat, and by which Sledge stood, which was not intended to be intimidating, honest. And here I'm going to split it off, largely because I need to check mine and everyone else's notes for what actually happened!
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Oct 9, 2019 18:48
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Hattie Masters posted:I just want you to know that this is poo poo, you are poo poo and the whole thing is the worst. We'll get to why that isn't a thing going forward soon. London was. Messy. But it may well have been previously.
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Oct 9, 2019 22:25
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ElNarez posted:Modiphius are doing a Fall of London preview on Twitch, also I guess this is a cover reveal? anyway here we are It definitely wasn't us, not at all nosiree.
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Nov 1, 2019 13:58
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The Penny Arcade one (Seattle by Night) is as you'd expect from Penny Arcade, goofy as gently caress (and STed by Jason Carl in a much less serious wise). I only got an episode and a half in though, so I couldn't tell how it goes on from there.
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Jan 23, 2020 00:06
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Froghammer posted:Existing as a vampire is trying to ethically consume under capitalism Existing as a vampire who only eats billionaires is the only form of ethical consumption under capitalism.
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Feb 19, 2020 12:28
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Morpheus posted:Hey there, I'm going to have my group of mortal players encounter a vampire in a somewhat social encounter (he had his thrall steal a pendant to piss of the ghost wife of some guy he hates, and the party is likely going to end up interfering with this) - I'm not super familiar with vampire rules beyond the typical 'they regenerate fast, don't die except from specific damage, are speedy?', and I just was looking for a quick rundown of what kinds of stuff that should happen in this encounter, without having to flip through the vampire book. In short, assuming they're full blooded Kindred (i.e. at least Caitiff, not Thinbloods) the following are universal: They are tough - they take half damage from all sources that are not fire, sunlight, or a few other thing specific to killing Kindred (but mostly not the ones pop culture thinks work, for obvious reasons) They can immobilise people by biting them - the Kiss stops both parties moving until it's complete. They cannot (usually) see in the dark, and they're not (usually) stronger, more agile, or quicker than mortals. Exceptions obviously exist due to the use of powers. They are immobilised by a stake through the heart, and killed by enough damage, but much more easily by fire, and much more reliably by sunlight. They can and will heal from essentially anything else, but major damage takes days to heal. Minor damage (i.e. anything in small amount that isn't fire or sunlight) can be healed in seconds. For more detail, mostly, strong and fast are fine, but BOTH strong AND fast on the same vampire is very rare, and certain other powers only collocate in certain clans or in caitiff/clanless vampires. And mostly doesn't collocate with either, and typically only collocates with fast when it does. There are also two types of mesmerism type powers, one which generally provides a positive outlook on the kindred concerned by the victim (i.e. the classic 'look into my eyes you vill do as i command' thing), the other of which generally provokes a more negative outllok (i.e. vampires are goddamn terrifying, but this one is supernaturally so). Some of them can also turn into or control animals, and/or be invisible, and/or do magic. Unless they're at very high Humanity, they're usually obviously Not OK to look at unless they're trying to look OK, and at lower levels are very obviously Not OK either way. One specific clan is just Very Obviously Not OK as their clan Thing.
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Feb 20, 2020 18:20
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 12:43 |
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Morpheus posted:These are exactly what I'm looking for, thanks. Good to know that this guy can't be, like 'all vampire powers' at once, I'll try to make it so that he's somewhat consistent with the rules (but obviously I'm not going to be tracking his WP or Vitae or anything like that). The very short version is 'pick a couple of things that stereotypical vampires can do, and do those, you'll be fine'. And (unless in very specific circumstances specific either to the vampire or the person concerned) the usual staples like crosses, garlic, running water, UV light, etc etc do poo poo-all. Stakes are the only pop-culture staple that works, and even then they don't do the stypical thing (i.e. they don't kill the vampire, just immobilise them, the stakee is conscious unless they were damaged to the point of torpor before being staked, so careful what you say...) Torpor is a good point actually; unless the damage concerned destroys their body they can recover from it. No ifs, no buts. Taking their full health in aggravated damage or twice it in normal damage (after halving due to Being Vampires) renders them torpid I.e. unconscious, basically), but they will slowly recover from that condition over time. Their recovery can be significantly aided by feeding them.
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Feb 20, 2020 19:56
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