World of Darkness

[orchid void]

i found that build on my own in middle school damn VtM1e is held together with vibes

[versed zodiac]

Morally foul but powerful magic whips ass

[orchid void]

i love Paradox

can’t WAIT to fuck up

[mighty zephyr]

Like how I'm imagining 5th Mage is gonna work

is that any time you cast a spell you're gonna have Paradox Die

[versed zodiac]

Good!!!

I like Hunger Dice.

[mighty zephyr]

Rage dice are also pretty funny

[versed zodiac]

I’m not as familiar with W5

[mighty zephyr]

Basically you have Rage which is a 1-5 stat

If you roll a 1 or 2 on them you get a Brutal outcome, which is bad

UNLESS you're trying to inflict violence on someone or something

Then they count as 4 successes.

[versed zodiac]

Well

That’s Werewolf for you.

Do Rage crits go funny too

[mighty zephyr]

I mean in 5e terms an average Garou, so someone with 2 strength and 2 brawl (assuming the average woof probably knows how to bite and claw with some regularity)

Is shifting into Crinos to kill and then is rolling a 10 dice pool

because they get +4 to all physical rolls

Assuming 10 dice rolling 1-2 counts as 4, 6-9 as 1 and 10 as 2

You'll paste people

[versed zodiac]

That’s so much success capacity…

[mighty zephyr]

also willpower can reroll the failures

[versed zodiac]

So a werewolf rolling hot in combat is just gonna nuke most supernaturals

[mighty zephyr]

yup

But on the other hand regeneration is pretty weak and a concerted effort will kill you dead pretty quick

I saw a blankroom test on Reddit and someone was like "In a void a coterie outnumbering werewolves will probably be an even fight"

[versed zodiac]

Huh

That’s surprising

Dog Tagging still real confirmed

[mighty zephyr]

The main antagonists of all these settings now aren't giant big bad final fantasy bosses

They're guys with guns

That's the power level now

A garou is not gonna take on an M1 Abrams in a fight

[queen heron]

true, real, and I honestly forgot this was a spicy take lol

blessed to know the mage players I do

what do you mean "Don't cast a fire spell here, just reverse gravity, you only need Forces 2"

I'm playing Pele

everythings about fire

[orchid void]

Lucy is going to make a stalker file with your true name on it- not cast “teleport to space”

“Hey man i built a Minotaur out of your geotia. anyway it’s your new recurring nightmare.”

[queen heron]

Its an area I think Mage being so freeform kinda bites it in the ass

specific rotes and grimoires can be hard to make exciting, compared to something like Ars

where you actually have to learn the spells
funky unique attainments help though

[sacred viper]

I like making optimising characters because irl i am an idiot so it balances out

[clear delta]

Make them be obsessed with acting as a merchant. Just sell a lot of their magic items, just because they like doing it

[queen heron]

a huge reason I like Mage is all my best characters I start by thinking “ok whats wrong with them”

Or at least thinking about worldview, and what they see / look for around them

and wizard-game indulges me there 😌

take something innocuous and then take it uncomfortably far

actually I think the one that was my favorite - Precipice - basically was an optimizer

and that was what was wrong with her

Extreme responsibility for every action you take, full knowledge of everything you could be doing, literally never letting go of what-ifs and could-ofs and maybes and planning and if-thens and-

Acanthus but nooooot good for you

woe, the burden of choice be upon thee

[patent talon]

I think that's fair, you don't become a Mage unless you're capable of becoming obsessed enough you awaken

[velvet sparrow]

This is very funny to me because I've made an Ascension character who can reverse gravity, but not cast a fire spell

[sacred viper]

I should make a Mage....

[hidden rock]

Yes, Mages are Good™️. 10 out of 10 mages agree.

[mighty zephyr]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q_ITh0jTx1cL3G26JZ6R_UTcvDfM7PTetP3pQAjgSgU/edit?usp=sharing

Mages

[clear delta]

Oh, nice

[mighty zephyr]

I gotta say it's nice to actually be over my trauma

There is definitely an aspect of me getting really into Mage out of spite like

"YEAH I CAN LIKE IT AGAIN FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU YEAAAAAAAAAAAAH"

but it's also just like

"Yeah this is cool I'm enjoying it like a normal human"

[clear delta]

Damn, mage fans must suck to have affected you like that

Anyway, love your content

Thyrsus mages are fun

This guy has no idea the gauntlet used to be an important part of Pangaea

[mighty zephyr]

Oh it was a specific game

I don't think Awakening fans suck tbh, though the fandom around Asencion is super strange and reminds me of Rick and Morty

[queen heron]

DAE lawnchair vampire?!?!

why does the technocracy not simply destroy the vampires? are they stupid?

[clear delta]

Scooby doo mystery inc inspired chronicle

Sorry, I wanted to write down the idea

[mighty zephyr]

Mystery Inc is already a CofD game

[versed zodiac]

Having some trouble plotting my campaign out

I know where I want to get to, which is a shadow war between the players’ coterie and a Sabbat pack trying to invade their slice of the city, but I don’t know how to bridge into that from the players doing their job as vehme

[mighty zephyr]

what's Vehme

[versed zodiac]

Masquerade enforcement

I have a starting task for them, which is tracking down a neonate that the Sabbat blackmailed into breaching the Masquerade in a small way to smoke out whoever was sent to get their stooge

[mighty zephyr]

That seems easy

What else do you need?

[versed zodiac]

Well, I don’t want to jump directly from that to the Sabbat pack going “lol lmao we’re your mortal enemies”, there needs to be some intrigue and buildup

[mighty zephyr]

Ghouls are an easy way to do that

[versed zodiac]

hmm

like what, having the Sabbat send combat ghouls after them?

[mighty zephyr]

Nah, the ghoul(s) aren't combat orientated

they're just dogged in finding out where the coterie lives so they can firebomb it

[versed zodiac]

hmm

Could do

[mighty zephyr]

It's good horror tbh

just the horror of getting stalked while you're asleep

all this shit happening during the day

[versed zodiac]

Yeah, it's appropriately troubling for the players to sell the idea that these guys are methodical killers who don't fuck around once they sight their prey

(I'm running a Path of Death and the Soul pack as antagonists so they're very deliberate)

[mighty zephyr]

Sabbat should be treated either as predators-of-predators or millitants imo

Yeah they might be higher generation then you but you haven't spent the last few years in a regimented training camp specifically to kill and eat other vampires

You've been an emo in Seattle for the last 25 years

[versed zodiac]

The commanders specifically are of decent generation via diablerie, they're a blood sorcerer (the brains) and a Tzimisce blood knight (the brawn)

[mighty zephyr]

It sounds like they've systematicaly wiped out a coterie before

[versed zodiac]

Probably more than one, tbh, these guys are supposed to be serious threats, with the main thing keeping them from Just Winning being that they aren't hunting random anarchs, they're trying to invade an emplaced Camarilla fortress city

so every variable is against them to start with and that's why the players even have a chance

[mighty zephyr]

Then yeah if they can't brute force it they'll probably commit "some" resources to the random anarchs

[versed zodiac]

Oh, actually, that works well with the idea of there being a Masquerade breach that the players have to investigate

These guys probably already have been picking off fringe vampires from the Anarch camp, and now they're trying to step up to the big game

The first step being to lure out their opposition who would otherwise investigate their crimes, and take them out before they get a chance

[mighty zephyr]

Yeye

And it's good for them if it looks like some other shit

In fact it looks GREAT for them if the Anarchs and Cammies blame each other

[versed zodiac]

aye

[grave gulch]

.w. as i think of how scary a wizard can be in a hunter game

if they knows about like a condition you have

they could abuse it right?

like lets say you have heart problems

[mighty zephyr]

A life Mage could yeah

Just give you heart palpatations at a look

[grave gulch]

that's so cool

and spooky

[rare swallow]

Sphere of life is pretty cool (and spooky)

[clear delta]

Verbenas with their shapeshifting and fucking with people's health

[velvet sparrow]

Life is pretty cool

snrk

Ok I just realised what I said lol

[clear delta]

Add natural weapons

Hide redundancies in your body

Use life and matter to become doll girl

[midnight grotto]

Hide redundant doll girl body in your body as an emergency backup

A vampire chops my head off and the Bloodborne doll hops out of my ribcage and makes a hasty retreat

[clear delta]

Gotta do a silly little dance before fleeinh

[orchid void]

Make one do it

[sacred viper]

Make a mage create a mage for me?

[mighty zephyr]

What's your vibe

Can't make one without a vibe

[orchid void]

i can only shotgunne a cabal at you

and say “get weird with it”

sometimes an awakening is being hunted by Bigfoot

[sacred viper]

👀

Oh yeah Brother Samiel fun mage

[clear delta]

Sometimes you go live an abandoned building and the rats worship you

[orchid void]

Samiel and Lucy are in the same conscillia

And I think that’s funny

Two genders
MIB GASLIGHT vs Bigfoot Hunter

[orchid void]

Oh i just thought of a good plot to steal for WoD

There is an old mansion in the city, ancient and moldering. It is the most haunted place in the world. Many disappear within its halls. Those that escape all have the same obsession- the house must be destroyed.

(SOUBOUTEI MUST BE DESTROYED- read it if you can)

[grave gulch]

omg it delilah

she's here to rescue me from this evil garbage can

[clear delta]

I'll weld the can closed

Hmm. The start of kingdom hearts 2 could be used as an awakening

[patent talon]

That rules!

[orchid void]

it’s such a good plot. steal it for any splat

[patent talon]

At first I can see it as a Mage Mystery, it's both the mystery of the haunting and the mystery of what is imprinting Sleepers with no-shit Obsessions which they can't deal with

Werewolves, the mansion could be an idgram (or however you spell it)...even spirits that leave try and claim humans to seek the mansion's destruction

[clear delta]

Ghosts that hate the place and are anchored to it

Or reapers trying to get rid of a place ghosts are anchored to

[orchid void]

See i parsed it as an Abyssal Verge in adaptation

Even Sleepers recognize something is wrong

[patent talon]

Ooo I can dig that!

[midnight grotto]

For Vampire: vampire house

[orchid void]

Strix house oops

[grave gulch]

what makes a house a vampire house

[midnight grotto]

(actually one of the first missions given to our coterie was to investigate a place like that, an elder with a weird bloodline had fused to his lair)

I forget if that's canon or not

[orchid void]

There’s a Dracula like that in one of the old Requiem splats

His blood is every shadow in a small Hungarian city

His childer can manage castles

[midnight grotto]

:o

[versed zodiac]

Tzimisce are weirdos

they do vampirehouse stuff sometimes

[mighty zephyr]

If you shove enough blood into a human you get a ghoul if you shove enough blood into an animal you get a familiar

If you shove enough blood into a house you get a vampire house

[grave gulch]

[mighty zephyr]

Fill a cars gas tank with vitae?

Vampire car

[versed zodiac]

but Voy

if a house had Rage, and could shift into another form

would it be a were-house

[mighty zephyr]

https://tenor.com/view/man-running-out-of-restaurant-man-eating-man-eating-and-running-cartoon-eating-cartoon-man-running-gif-24721662

Does this to u

[clear delta]

Could be like the town in the cofd book ghost stories

[clear delta]

||the town itself became a ghost. It exists alongside the ghost of the racist murderous sheriff, having each other as an anchor. The town produces ghosts of other inhabitabts aa its appendages, but is bad at communicating. The sheriff hates it, but will instinctively stop attempts to destroy it||

[queen heron]

if it drains the vitality from any within it, just a facade of life over a rotten core. Also blood

[rare swallow]

If you shove enough vitae into a computer, what does it become?
Asking for a technomancer Anarch blood sorcerer I know

[dense vault]

Uh. Broken I'm pretty sure.

[queen heron]

depends on where you shove it

maybe it'll develop a CYBERBEAST, maybe it will suck the life of whoever uses it, maybe it'll find that BLOOD IS FUEL

maybe it'll just get a little wet idk

[rare swallow]

Blood mage technomancer with a blood cooling system where they used a ritual to make the blood stay preserved no matter what

(if it's not clear, I'm being very silly)

[grave gulch]

i like u

[orchid void]

mage is so funny

[sacred viper]

Classic mages

[versed zodiac]

that's so Mage

[clear delta]

Looking at a faction in a game abd realizing they're a bunch of moros morpheans (astral liches)

[clear delta]

Oooh. Geist that was trapped in an old puzzle, and was freed by a dying gane enthusiast. Yugioh, basically

[grave gulch]

🌶️

[clear delta]

Research note 1015:
First fox human test of the malbolge pepper.
Subject seems healthy. Watching for further effects and signs of Divergence

[clear delta]

Research note 1025:
The fox is at large. I have sent out a notice with tge capabilities granted by their Divergence, as well as weaknesses.

[clear delta]

Hmm. How would most thyrsus mages see memories and dreams?

[queen heron]

an automatic process

you dream for the same reason you need to rest your muscles, and its not any more important - or any less. The living need to get their bodies in order.

but hmm

you could also delve into the Dionysion stuff with dreams

dreams are more true because they cut through all the stuff we plaster our minds with during the day

distilled, pure experience

the logic doesn't need to make sense, a nightmare still gets you sweating in your bed, gripping the sheets

the big thing about thyrsus, imo, is that they don't hold any revelations at a distance

all the boundaries bleed over

and they experience it firsthand

the mind is the body, the body's the mind

[clear delta]

Also, memories tune the instincts. Trauma puts an emphasis on defensive instincts

[queen heron]

exactly

they might not see memories as some cold-recording of events, they get its not perfect

no, memories matter because they stick in your bones

because even if you forget places and details and names

you never forget how you felt

and even if the part you call "you" doesn't remember

the rest of you does

heart-beating as you climb into a roller coaster, hands shaking as you're ready to get blood drawn

you think you command the flesh, sitting atop the self like a throne, ironclad and sovereign? please.

Thyrsus don't deny theres a brain

but I think they'd see it more like those studies that show the conscious decision making happens after you've already made up your mind

^ he's like a thyrsus, to me

[mighty zephyr]

Memories are also Instinct, there IS a genetic memory ingrained into every living being

a pregnant doe that survives a wolf hunt will birth a fawn scared of wolves

[queen heron]

I like how fear is the first example all three of us went for

[sacred viper]

Atomic-hot take

[queen heron]

He's also a Mastigos, to be clear

but IMO

those are probably the two most similar paths in terms of outlook

you just gotta tune the perspective

[sacred viper]

Oh I was tempted to send "I disagree he's a Mastigo"

[clear delta]

Lots of path pairs are similar

[queen heron]

gee "Everythings connected" and "Boundaries between things are permeable and ever-shifting - wheres the line?"

[clear delta]

Or connected

[queen heron]

oh yeah

Acanthus and Obrimos, Obrimos and Thyrsus, Thyrsus and Mastigos

Moros is there too, I guess

[sacred viper]

Moros is cool guys

[clear delta]

Acanthus mastigos has interesting parallels. Changeling arcadia resonates with both

Freedom, chains

[queen heron]

both are the paths most concerned with willpower and choice

[clear delta]

Mazes

Moros stands as the heat death, in contrast with obrimos big bang

Both are craftsmen

[queen heron]

"You shiver, and the city Shivers with you"

tell me thats not Spirit

all described through physical touches, chills on your back, air flowing from your lungs to the city and back

[queen heron]

see I actually see Moros more as

the crucible

the fire that brings change-and-destruction

they're the end-point too, because they deal with whats been destroyed

but their Tarot is Death - Endings that lead to beginnings, transformation

[versed zodiac]

if you think Harrier DuBois isn't a Mage I've got a bridge to sell you

[queen heron]

oh also when I meant the purple harry is thyrsus I meant purple harry specifically lol

the Sensitive

though if you're a REAL gamer like me you'll go Blue / Purple 😎

[sacred viper]

My DE playthrough was 5/5/1/1

Incredibly funny highly reccomended

[queen heron]

thats wilder than even me lmao

I went 4/5/1/2

[clear delta]

That too.
Forces lashes at matter, stimulating its reactions.
Craftsmen purify and shape the world around them.
But cold and darkness shall claim the world, and matter shall drift, sovereign

[queen heron]

whats that quote from vonnegut

"So it goes"

[clear delta]

Moros and thyrsus would see how everything interlocks, reacts together and feeds each other

[queen heron]

Acanthus and Obrimos too, connections and systems are kinda a free space

[clear delta]

You can create a homunculus in a bottle, or that guy irl who created an ecosystem in a big glass jar that he feeds with sunlight.
We are all walking bottles of oceans and cells

Mastigos and moros both deal with the judgement and crucicle of the souls, and the power of attachments

[clear delta]

Yeah, didn't express right.
All paths gel with the fact All is One and One is All

[queen heron]

oh interesting

I almost see Mastigos as the opposite of judgement

unless you mean judgement coming from the person

the strongest moral element to its path is... not lying to yourself?

probably a better way to phrase it

it doesn't care what you do, so long as you do it intentionally and with gusto

but you're absolutely right about the scourging overlapping with the moros cleansing stuff

[clear delta]

I guess "exposure of the soul" fits better

They're concerned with it. Mind and death are the arcana that talk the most about souls

On thyrsus and moros. I'm reminded of that bit of text about moros mysterium. The belief is pretty much "magic is alive" but they reflavour it as complex chemical reactions. So life, but more pretentious.
And transformation is a proeminent theme for thyrsus too. A perfected metal associated with them helps with transformation spells.
Life eternally transforms but stays the same. A species will have endless variations to the point defining species is hard. Each generation will be different, but still obviously of the previous, for generations until you realize it's another species

A memory being repeated. Fading and being remade

[mighty zephyr]

I've made a Seer Moros

"Dionysus" (Dio for short) is the head of a low-ranking Pylon under MInistry of Mammon, and Awoke to the Path of Moros.

He's a party animal who is the head of a pleasure-club (read: Cult) who appears to all intents and purposes as a regular Trust Fund baby just running rampant.

He actually grew up destitute and impoverished, but Awoke to a Pylon of Seers, a Cabal of Diamond mages, and a powerful Ghost all fighting for control of his soul.

Never wanting to go back to his life again, he's willing to throw any amount of souls or bodies under the bus as possible to keep "the good life", and works that karma off by "spreading joy" through pleasure.

There's no point in making the world better, he'll be dead before he or anyone else sees the results.

He's already seen the land of the dead, why suffer in TWO lives?

[sacred viper]

Oh thats a good character

[patent talon]

Oh they sound like an excellent bastard

Also, is Harry's Awakening triggered by ||his divorce||?

I think my conception of Harry was kind of like an Arcanthus, pulling on threads of fate and following them during the investigation, and Time being where someone was, where they are now, where they will be

[queen heron]

oh the games 100% a Mastigos awakening

I don't think he has a clean awakening moment but like

I'd tie (ha) in the months / years long disco diving

and then chop up a few of the dreams to make a conclusion

"Bloated Corpse of a Drunk" and the Night-3 "Agent of the World" bit for the finale

like...

Mastigos Awaken to confront spiritual wounds, obsessions, and destructive thought patterns. They’re the ones who didn’t fuck to feel good, but to feel something

Mastigos justify [desires] with personal spiritual systems, treatises on vice they might write down, but often commit to elaborate memory palaces. They turn obsessions into functions, symbols, even self-willed servants: minds within minds.

He’s careening toward Pandemonium. The Iron Gauntlet opens its hand when the world narrows to a choice: self-destruction or Awakening. The seeker defines her inner demons and confronts them.

[patent talon]

God yeah Harry is so Mastigos like that

[patent talon]

DETECT OR DIE

[queen heron]

and either Volition "Wasteland of reality" or "I don't want to get better, I want to get worse"

both work in the end

[queen heron]

you know if Harry ever in universe confronted the narrative parallels of his own life relating to the city / martinesse specifically it would probably work for an Awakening lmao

probably how'd I mage-ify DE

a wreck of a guy warped by the past in a shell of a city broken by its own history

don't think DE ever makes it explicit in Harry's thoughts

but honestly just make it more literal, have the investigation start to veer more towards the personal, the people you interview changing from actual people to caricatures, to manifestations of your own thoughts

[patent talon]

I don't think so, I'd never thought of that angle

[queen heron]

its where I think the hopefulness of the game comes from

to believe in martinesse's future, you gotta believe in harrys

he wears stained disco pants and has a bloated face, theres still holes from operation deathblow in the courtyard

can the weight of history be averted?

[queen heron]

to bring it to mage here

[sacred viper]

||No,but it can be blown away by the force of the split atom||

[queen heron]

you ever find the ||snipers smokes|| in DE?

to me thats acanthus

nothing's irrelevant

[patent talon]

Maybe? I think it sounds familiar...

[queen heron]

you find ||some trash out near a buoy, and you can bend over to investigate it||
Kim says ||not every piece of trash is related to the case||
||you can disagree, theres no small piece of evidence. You're a *hollistic* detective||

I always gotta bend my way back around to getting acanthus - Mastermind over go-lucky theatre kid. This sort of focus on the details is what I portray it as everytime.

[grave gulch]

oh

had this idea

if i take some kind of strong drug, can that help me resist the werewolf thingy where they make you panic run away and forget?

[mighty zephyr]

Yes

Lunacy/Delerium can both be countered by drugs

[queen heron]

getting shitfaced smashed to wrestle a werewolf lets goooooo

[patent talon]

It's the Union way

[patent talon]

Damn, maybe I did miss that! That fucking rules though

[queen heron]

(its an ||Inland Empire prompt|| too, lmao)

[mighty zephyr]

Guys this really isn't the channel for disco elysium plots

[heady kestrel]

Alright here is a take 2006-2010 Ohio is the Ideal chronicles of darkness setting

At least for demon the descent

It has a great mix of tech level, bizarre history, urban decay and weird rural parts

[patent talon]

Oh yeah? Can't say I'm familiar with the time period or place!

[heady kestrel]

Like I could see any splat showing up in Cleveland, Ohio circa 2008

[heady kestrel]

Ohio is the heart of the United States

It stopped beating 40 years ago.

There was a golden age once, where the skies choked and the rivers burned and the money came in big piles.

[mighty zephyr]

You know what would be really funny

for Mage 5th edition

[heady kestrel]

What?

[mighty zephyr]

The reveal that the Technocratic Union WAS funding the Second Inqusition

until the SI found out

and proceeded to destroy a good chunk of the Union

[heady kestrel]

Amazing

[patent talon]

That's good stuff, though don't the technocrats have lasers and whatnot? Though I'm guessing they're still effected by sleeper disbelief

[mighty zephyr]

They are.

[patent talon]

I can definitely dig mages of any stripe getting hoisted by their own petard

[clear delta]

Should've learned to just gun well, losers

Get james bonded

[spice abyss]

laughs in Adamantine Arrow

[heady kestrel]

Other bits of Ohio that I feel make it a powerful setting
-It is roughly as big as big as Iceland, giving room for plenty of travel
-The Ohio memes have unironically contributed to the place having a bit of an aura
-the 2006-2010 puts us squarely in the Iraq war/9-11 trauma zone
-Ohio is very dreary, making for great gothic weather
-it being the heart of the rust belt makes it filled with convenient scary looking ruins to have a bad guy use

[patent talon]

Aren't a bunch of astronauts from Ohio, with the joke being that it's so bad that you want to go to space to get away from it?

[velvet sparrow]

https://tenor.com/view/mr-bison-street-fighter-yes-gif-3718772

[heady kestrel]

Yeah, same with our anomalously high President count

[patent talon]

Feels like being a vampire in Ohio would be pretty miserable if all the humans keep leaving

[heady kestrel]

Ohio actually has a extremely high population despite being Ohio

[rare swallow]

Yeah the Technocratic Union's tech is still affected by Consensus and can cause Paradox and such
They teleportation, lasers, robots, orbital lasers even, but it's all a bit too much for consensus lol

But yes Second Inquisition being funded by the Technocratic Union would be a great twist

[clear delta]

Well, cofd hunter did have a hunter organization being funded by the Seers of the throne. Or was it two organizations

[patent talon]

It was a compact, Division Six I think

[rare swallow]

But iirc in general the Technocratic Union doesn't really like hunters? They prefer the sleeper population out of the way of dealing with reality deviants iirc

[patent talon]

Is the Second Inquisition Hunter hunters though? Or just hunters but otherwise human?

[rare swallow]

Well iirc the second inquisition is like heavily a majority of Society of Leopold people, and I feel like Imbued and True Faith users probably even fit the "Reality Deviant" box

I imagine

Like I don't know, but feels like they'd be the "Reality Deviants, but they're useful for now" camp.

[mighty zephyr]

SI is definitely Hunter Hunters

Imbued aren't a thing

[grave gulch]

i just figured

weresharks wouldn't give you delirium in wod would they?

cause we got that from the Garou cause the killed the shit out of our ancestors

[mighty zephyr]

Dunno!

[versed zodiac]

It's implied that other shapeshifters participated in the Impergium

the ones that didn't don't cause delirium, but that seems to be limited to the Kitsune

[grave gulch]

i see

[mighty zephyr]

Dio's theme btw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB-w6nTjP6c

Just read the lyrics as with the knowledge that he is a Bastard

[orchid void]

Demon Days is a mage album

This thought brought to you by trawling for Lucy songs

[clear delta]

Oh, idea. Mages with the doctrine the underworld was supposed to be part of the world's memory. The earth slumbers because there are problems with its mind.

So they set out to try to "fix" it, causing problems

I already saw before someone propose the underworld was a part of the god machine that broke, messing up the rest of the system

[versed zodiac]

Does anyone think there’s a problem with running a WoD game in a place you live IRL

[mighty zephyr]

It's what a ton of people do

So no there's no problem at all

[midnight grotto]

yeah it's loads of fun

just walk around for a while and take notes whenever you think "that's spooky"

[versed zodiac]

Cool cool

I’m soliciting opinions on account of someone pointing out it’s a little weird to them

[midnight grotto]

well if a player has issue that's another thing

[versed zodiac]

Weren’t a player lmao

[mighty zephyr]

Then who care

[midnight grotto]

yeah

[rare swallow]

Yeah

I haven't played WoD games without it being in a real place either one of my friends have lived in or visited

[clear delta]

My group played changeling in Brazilian empire

[orchid void]

like I have notes for Baton Rogue WoD

[sacred viper]

I live somewhere too boring for WoD

[clear delta]

Where?

On that note, Brazil does have cofd settings.
Rio de janeiro for mummy.
And I think São Paulo for Geist?
Also, some plotline in the past with quilombos

[grave gulch]

[clear delta]

Undead capoeira cult battles!

[sacred viper]

Boring corner of romania

[grave gulch]

am running WoD in London cause they have a whole vamp book on it

so i get to be lazy and steal a whole ton of crap

[patent talon]

I live close by but I've done a bit of writing about a Mage game for Birmingham, I imagined it as a Free Council strong hold who are fighting against the degeneration of the city

How much can magic fight against austerity polices?

Panopticon, Hegemony and Mammon are yucking it up

[grave gulch]

[heady kestrel]

From what you’ve told me about corruption that might work for mage.

High seer population

[mighty zephyr]

The wait staff at Dio's parties are, occasionally, the reanimated corpses of those that failed to pay their debts to him.

Wearing masks to obscure their identities.

[clear delta]

Is he part of that legacy that marks the souls of those in debt to them and use zombie servants?

[mighty zephyr]

That's a legacy???

[clear delta]

The bokor

[mighty zephyr]

Oh this fits perfect

[clear delta]

The Bokor philosophy is fairly simple, but heretical to the rest of the Moros doctrine. Death is not peaceful, say the Bokor, and it is not dignified. It is messy, painful and demeaning. The Bokor take the Moros attitude of respect and sobriety with a grim smile and a spiteful laugh. But the Bokor are not tricksters or jesters. They want power, and they feel that the bodies of the dead provide a good path to that power. The arts of the Bokor are brutal, bloody and effective. They are primarily concerned with preparing living people to become zombies upon death, and with creating these zombies. The Bokor do not, as a rule, care whose bodies they animate. To the Bokor, a person ceases to be a person at the instant of death. The soul departs, and all that is left is matter. That matter can then be animated, given power and tasks. As the Bokor grow in power, they can gain the ability to kill with a glance, and a potent member of this Legacy may kill a man and turn him into a zombie before his body hits the ground.

Grabbed from the wiki

Despite the Bokor's blasé attitude about corpses, the Bokor refuse to have any truck with ghosts. The Bokor believe that ghosts are fragments of human souls, and that by helping a ghost to move on (by destroying its anchors or severing its connection to them) the Bokor can help the soul to repair itself. If a Bokor discovers that a ghost is anchored to its own corpse, the Bokor will never raise that corpse as a zombie (though the mage might destroy it). A soul is whole at the moment of death, however, and powerful Bokor can stop the soul from fleeing and bind it back into its now-dead body. This creates a powerful undead creature called a revenant, capable of much more independent and complex action than a standard zombie. Creating a revenant, however, is the only way in which a Bokor feels comfortable affecting a human soul. Severing or holding a soul in an object is taboo to them.

Oh, the wiki page doesn't have citations

[mighty zephyr]

I have statted my fuckers

[heady kestrel]

Yipeee

[mighty zephyr]

Tiamat (Bastard Version) has an effective Gnosis of 10 for his Nimbus tilt

which is kinda nuts

[sacred viper]

Thinking about number stations and this spell

[versed zodiac]

these are good thoughts

[clear delta]

What about using forces with life and/or mind to turn the signal into a creature or person?

[queen heron]

Allowed with just life or mind tbh

the imago is the spell

if you percieve the mind as radio signals you can just flavor mind unveiling as that

If you wanted to get funky with it I could see conjunctionals though - sending signals to someone elses limbs with your mind using forces + life / mind or something

there was a whole entire mystery someone else made around that topic, I can dig it up later

[clear delta]

How would you turn a signal into a living being with just life?

[queen heron]

Oh turn

I thought you said tune into

[midnight grotto]

You couldn't, is my initial call

Creating a living being from nothing is pure Life, but translating a radio or similar signal into flesh and blood would require Forces to handle the front half, as it were

[clear delta]

Yeah, scout had just misinterpreted, so I got confused

[orchid void]

Numbers Stations get a writeup in Summoners

Go read it it rules

[heady kestrel]

Number stations?

[versed zodiac]

a numbers station is a radio station that broadcasts sequences of formatted numbers

they're generally assumed to be sending encrypted messages to intelligence assets in the field

[orchid void]

And in WoD some of them are!

Some of them ||are run by ghosts so rotten their only Fetters are the Conqueror Worms that dwell deep in the underworld- things unborn and neverdying. The station’s encryptions lead to black Obelisks. The Obelisks seal the Worms.||

[spice abyss]

Take over a numbers station in order to trap some thing with them

[queen heron]

I think some radio signals are already alive

Scrap-wavelengths ambushing each other, devouring fragments of the loser

[grave gulch]

ok

my hunters want to set fire to a building

wtf am i supposed to do in answer to that? there's gotta be consequences lmao

[versed zodiac]

I mean

you let 'em but then there's like

an arson investigation, pissing off whoever owned the building (supernatural or otherwise), physical harm, and more to deal with

[clear delta]

Smoke inalation

[clear delta]

Hmm. Thinking of how each ephemeral entity relate to their gross arcanum

[queen heron]

oh?

[little light]

Everyone else offered some very good answers but I want to add in that if this was a hideout for some supernaturals then perhaps ANOTHER group of hunters thinks you are covering their trail for them and then you can make new friends!! (Or have to fight them)

[versed zodiac]

came up with a funny justification for why there's a high-ranking Camarilla with high Humanity in my setting; the guy socializes with humans online and attends remote uni classes to keep up with the times

[grave gulch]

cool

[clear delta]

Spirits have a continuous relationship, through a membrane. Without them, emotions deaden, nature withers. Without nature, many of them starve. The world loses some of the dynamics that produce such varied essence, and does not have life to control and stabilize it.

Ghosts are where the wheel stopped

The gears got stuck

They get stuck to the substance of this world

They are good at preserving memory, but the proper long term form of memory is through remembrance by the living, and transmutation of matter. Every monument must be continuously renovated.
Ghosts are where the gears of tge world's engine got stopped, an itch due to a problem in the proccesses

Goetia are fundamentally separated from this world, more than others, and yet so connected. The feelings they produce warp distances and relationships. Yeah not much to say there. Could say the astral realms are so spatially weird because space and mind are about relationships and chaining things together.

[clear delta]

He's like that fisherman from vampires suck

Who needed three vampires to beat him

(Vampires suck has homophobic humor, note)

[queen heron]

I always liked how each of the ‘subtle’ (even if that distinction isnt metaphysical) arcana make up the soul

lets people define which part does what

Spirit as the part that feels, the qualia and vibes

[queen heron]

Forgot

• independently wealthy

integrating this into my worldview for the tokyo mortal honorary vampire guy

hes just wario

[clear delta]

Thyrsus or moros mages using clock imagery ❤️

[queen heron]

Acanthus or Obrimos using clock imagery 😌

[clear delta]

Thyrsus who repairs clocks while negotiating or curing. Who breaks them, throws pieces around when hurting and causing sickness

[queen heron]

I need to make a new Obrimos tbh

havent had enough of a reason to talk about the best path

ooo I was thinking sundials

[clear delta]

Nice

Focus on celestial cycles, perhaps?

[queen heron]

Sundial was clock-thyrsus, for another mage: I’ve wanted to do a musicbrimos for ages

a fancy conductor type is the easiest

but honestly? I’m thinking rock guitar

its not coldly clinical, the musics gotta thrum with energy

its gotta be power

[mighty zephyr]

Man reading mage 2 and it being like

"The Exarch of nationalism is on the decline and is now an empty husk"

And looking at the world now

[clear delta]

Think a dev commented on that. They really thought pure capitalism was supplanting nationalism

And then

"Oops"

[patent talon]

International politics be like "Why not both?"

[mighty zephyr]

I think if I were to update it I'd have the Chancellor and the Unity be now one being and no one knows who ate who

All they know is they're now the same Ministry

And the most, absurdly powerful one

[clear delta]

"Fuuuusion, ha!"

[mighty zephyr]

The new Tetrarch has the first and last name of each one of the previous but looks nothing like either

No one questions it

[patent talon]

Oh that's dope, I like that

What would the new ministry be called? Or the new Exarch?

[clear delta]

"I own you, you worthless fucks"

[mighty zephyr]

The President
Ministry of Incorporation

[clear delta]

Ah, fits well

[mighty zephyr]

Mind and Matter

What a funny combo

[patent talon]

Protectionism goes brrrrrr

[clear delta]

Maybe the ministry is known for ripping objects from within the Temenos, or transplanting them there

Warping the soul of humanity and how it perceives objects, themselves and value

[patent talon]

I do like that, dream invaders and artificers, attacking concepts they don't like and building up ones artifically

[clear delta]

What is their prelacy

[patent talon]

Crown of Authority. Whether it's through rank, wealth or both, you are the master of your domain

It'd be interesting if you had a different Prelacy based on Mind or Matter, with a common advantage between both. It's supposed to be one prelacy but, again, nobody is (openly) questioning it

[queen heron]

the most absurdly pedantic mage take I have is wishing more people talked about the Kyrian ministry

because Mammon gets so much (for obvious reasons)

but they're about the same size, and both are said to be jockeying for major status

Chancellor / Unity has to be corporate colonialism

haves and have-nots on a global scale

[heady kestrel]

What is Gates Ministry again

[patent talon]

Gate doesn't have a Ministry, worshipping them is strictly forbidden. They do have a legacy, though

[heady kestrel]

Interesting

What is Prophet’s ministers like?

(I think that is the time one anyway(

[queen heron]

The Secret Order of the Gate

Prophet is Great Men

tbh I think Exarchs - and especially ministries - start to diverge from single Arcanum

Prophet is the idea that History is only determined by specific influential people, its tides out of your hand

(and the underlying you arent one of them)

[clear delta]

Prophet has the horologion

[queen heron]

and the Kyrian

[clear delta]

That grinds you down with routine

[queen heron]

your timetable is set to someone elses schedule

controlling agency through budgeting every minute of every hour

Kyrians a dual-ministry

they exalt the Ruin and the Prophet

its the ministry of ... entrenched privilege

innate types of elect

social class, the elevation of nobility, "your future is determined by your birth"

I think the dual exarch thing they got going on is called out as being unusual

[patent talon]

Yeah, I would assume the Exarchs are a jealous lot

[queen heron]

Daves said he intended them to be occasionally ripped apart by it

if his ST vault seer book comes out, guess we'll see

I like the Orpheans for their pun: ||they lull people 'back to sleep'||

tbh

Ruin and Prophet were always the two exarchs with the most overlap

Control Through Hopelessness
Control Through Inevitability

guess which ones which

[spice abyss]

Ruin is obviously Inevitability.

[patent talon]

I'm honestly half tempted to imagine that the Exarchs aren't distinct beings anyway, division is just a lie imposed on them by the mechanics of the Fallen World they made

[queen heron]

||wrong||

||but you would think, right?||

[clear delta]

I love how uncrowned kings get passive mind shield and can atack a mind shield spell on top

They can also stack an enhancement spell on their enhancement attainment

[clear delta]

Feels like an uncrowned king could be a good schemer

Probably not gonna have suppress aura as a 2e attainment, but it's fine to just cast as a spell, with the skills and mental shield pulling the weight. Could totally have someone you don't even realize is a mage for a long time.

Everyone expects uncrowned kings to be serious and dignified, so that silly side character totally isn't one.

[queen heron]

post has been fact checked as by real patriots

for my headcanon, I guess it depends on what distinct means...

I have them as people subsumed and dependant on each other

I mean, its facism, right?

they intertwine way more than they fight

I go the other way with it

The General is made of more than just one wizard

putting on the mask gives you the name too

and running with the minor / translated exarchs mentioned in SoS, like The Mother / The Cannibal / The Progenitor / The Traveler

[queen heron]

anyone here ever play Changeing, old or new?

[mighty zephyr]

very briefly but not fully or as intended or in a fun way

[queen heron]

kinda-sorta-same

did a one shot or two, dealt with them in crossover

but my one game of it just.... did not have the right group

been thinking about it more waiting for the hedge book

[mighty zephyr]

my experience was in my Shit Mage Game

[queen heron]

w-what happened

[mighty zephyr]

i've been advised not to go into it

[queen heron]

fair

mine was more bog standard, people unused to WoD style rpgs

jumping into the trauma-dumping one - it just was a little awkward

[mighty zephyr]

I'll sum it up in that I was in a crossover game that was so bad that I have lasting trauma from it.

[mighty zephyr]

I AM A MCFUCKIN GENIUS

AND I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT

"Although her army fled, Tiamat stood her ground and battled Marduk. He sent the winds to incapacitate her and then slayed her with an arrow through the heart. After dividing her body in two, he used one half to form the heavens, arranging the Sun, Moon, and constellations. From the other half, he formed earth, creating the mountains and continents. Marduk reigned over both."

Two worlds made from the primordial ocean, one the Heavens where the Sun and Moon reign, the other the Earth where man reigns as kings.

Did not fucking clock this

until researching

Giving my bastard the name "Tiamat" was the best thing I could've done

@orchid void Look at this shit

[queen heron]

nice

I did the same with my second mage (and first whos chronicle I finished)

named her Messenger after, like, Hermes

the angel stuff happened first on accident

and then I found out what Angel's etymology is

[queen heron]

read the manifesto

honestly? its cooking

[mighty zephyr]

:D

[mighty zephyr]

God okay

I gotta re-do his nimbus now

I'm getting the fucking JUICE

[queen heron]

I might also be making a Spirit / Primer, with the musician

from the other direction

Music as self-expression, as empowering

getting to the real truth better than any words

[mighty zephyr]

Creation is Music

[queen heron]

spirits as just really catchy vibes

[mighty zephyr]

Speech is Song and Song is The Universe

[queen heron]

Every chord with its perfect place, and the pick in your hand

it goes like this: the fourth, the fifth
the minor fall and the major lift

No Such Thing as Disharmony

[barren vortex]

The music is the words and the words are the music

[queen heron]

its easy to think songs want to be heard, and its not quite the truth

the most powerful songs want - they demand - to be sung

[mighty zephyr]

Did you know there's echoes that have carried since the dawn of time that Werewolves turn into Fetishes

like actual verbal spiritual echoes

[queen heron]

yoooo?

[mighty zephyr]

fuck

gotta find it

This may be a dev thing I read

cannot find it rn

apologies

[queen heron]

np

if it was an Acro thing I might go digging for it myself lmao

[mighty zephyr]

yeah I think it was

[queen heron]

Hmm maybe I do Prime + Fate

but then I’d probably want to consider the homebrew cobbling I’ve done for Fate to make it interactive

and actually give it a better medium ||or any at all||

job for the me of tomorrow

[clear delta]

New changeling, imperial Brazil

[clear delta]

Was fun, but didn't get far. Was taken by a ringmaster true fae

There's a world-ending legacy that worships the abyss, and one that worships a supernal god. Wonder at the variety of world-ending mages.

[patent talon]

What, you don't want to blow up the Lie? Not very committed to liberating humanity from the Exarchs, are ya?

[spice abyss]

Truth doesn't destroy a Lie, it just makes it so you can supplant it.

[patent talon]

Genuinely, very Wise

I think an interesting apocalyptic legacy would be a Time based one that posits that if the relics of the Time Before are so temporally confused, then the current way time works in the Fallen World is fundamentally false. Cause following effect is a construction of the Exarchs and must be sabotaged

[clear delta]

Yeah, had a similar idea

Idea. Mages who think the world stagnated, specially because of the Exarchs, using the extant ruins of the Times Before as evidence. Obsessed with driving forward the cycle of Reality and the Truth/Supernal. Maybe can kill supernal beings without losing them to the abyss?

The last part was an idea of recycling them. They're just reborn in the supernal. Was basically thinking they'd want to wreck the supernal world too, to force the rebirth of the world, but can discard it. Does feel a bit forced

[patent talon]

Hmm, I guess my question would be how does the cycle manifest? Like, they thought the world was dying and reborn frequently before the Fallen world was imposed? Or that the fallen world has been reborn before but this cycle is lost?

[mighty zephyr]

There's a really funny Legacy that's world-saving

[clear delta]

Yeah, the world was reborn frequently but got stuck. The Exarchs may be the root.

[mighty zephyr]

It's Space Acanthus who want to make the Earth intangible so whatever disaster is coming passes right through it

[queen heron]

tbh the entire pentacle is an apocalypse cult

[clear delta]

Oh?

[queen heron]

its just baked into their beliefs

iirc the Silver Ladder even has a thing about

martyrs for the cause rising again once the Tyrants are overthrown

Theres a secret cult in the guardians that await a messiah to deliever ultimate judgement

admittedly its based on how different you think a world without The Lie would be

theres not really a answer in the books

is it just the world, without the shittiness humans do? is it not-comprehendable by us?

[sacred viper]

They are more of a post-apocalypse cult imo

[queen heron]

god, the Silver Ladder does have a "after we win bueracracy plan" doesn't it

they would

[sacred viper]

The distinction is thin and some parts are definitely more posadist but I think its the vibes

[clear delta]

Stuff from the times before is hard for mages to understand. But. Shitty human stuff had to exist, for the exarchs to rise

[queen heron]

idk, pentacles def Millenarianist

at least the utopian ones

I dont think everyone in the pentacle is exactly a hardliner on the theology

sometimes you just want some Tass

[sacred viper]

Every word you write in your personal eternal Supernal utopia plan is another step you climb the Ladder

[clear delta]

Hmm, tasty tass

Tass mania

[queen heron]

I wish it was tasty

my game had Tass aligned to the concept of "Unused dust"

grody

[sacred viper]

Tass feels like it tastes like wax

But like wax that you can pretend tastes like honey if you put in a lil effort

[queen heron]

clearly we should uncritically based our current magical society off random contextless fragments we find from then!

[clear delta]

Well, they do fudge things at their convenience

If they gotta do a solid for the Guardians, well. Those new ruins totally belonged to their predecessors

Part of the use of the orders is to create large scale versions of shadow names and cabal themes.

And use the power from that

A founding myth, and feeling of continuing a legacy, solidifies the orders. And the power of their leaders, of course.

[queen heron]

something thats pretty neat is the Orders have a split with Ministries

the Orders are Supernally true in a way ministries aren't

if they were completely destroyed, they would get remade / their beliefs recodified

the Exarchs are true, but the specific cults aren't

[orchid void]

that’s just the inner circle of the Guardians tbh

All Thrones are False, All Souls are Flawed

The Heiromagus shall complete the Diamond Wheel

[queen heron]

I still think the Esoteric tenets get a little too much focus in their write up

frontloads maybe the less palatable parts in ways the others dont get

its like if the Mysterium opened with the Jnanamukti

[orchid void]

I disagree!

I find giving them sincerely held beliefs underneath the Magic Cop routine the Exoteric Tenets present like

Helps make them palatable as PCs?

[queen heron]

hmm, I get that

but I'd assume a large amount of guardian buisness isnt as related to it

[orchid void]

Cause the Esoteric tenents weren't really mentioned in the 1e Corebook

Which made it really hard to like, get why the fuck the Guardians worked/were allowed

[queen heron]

like I think these parts are more core to being a Guardian

[queen heron]

than specifically this part

[orchid void]

Yeah those are the Esoteric Tenents tho

They're a layer you, as a player, are asked to keep underneath whatever Guardians you build

It helps humanize them in a way that keeps them within the Pentacle, if that... connects the way I mean it to

[queen heron]

I guess I think it'd be more served with some more elaboration on the other work the guardians do in the pentacle, because I've had a lot of players basically read all this and go "... why are these people even tolerated by the others"

but it is good they have beliefs

[orchid void]

I get that a lot, and I feel because outside of Guardians and Seers, you don't get a lot of the... Conspiracy? nonsense? that makes Mage tick

Like, you keep the Guardians around because, yeah, honestly, there is a predatory anti-reality and forcing a majority of new mages to spend time with the GoV to learn how Not To Fuck Up And Paradox Yourself To Hell before being shuffled off to a more fitting order

that seems more than reasonable

Magic is, in fact, dangerous and doesn't immediately solve every problem in your life

[spice abyss]

Magic can, in fact, create more problems.

It's exceptionally good at doing that.

[orchid void]

I remember having arguments about this with someone back in the day, they Hated Mage because they "couldn't just fix things without being punished"

[spice abyss]

And some orders, given half a chance, would actively choose to not be careful.

[orchid void]

The Veil is Important Actually if you don't want to invite the predatory anti-reality into your living space

I feel like people read the Guardians shtick and writeup and then don't put the 2 and 2 together that- every mage is doing secret cult/conspiracy shit all the time and the Guardians are here to try and keep that from exploding and killing everyone to various degrees of success/being an asshole about it.

Its like playing a Scorpion in L5R only, you actually have the Abyss to justify your existence instead of [gestures vaguely at John L5R Wick]

[spice abyss]

Guardians do important work.

And work that is, quite frankly, thankless.

[queen heron]

they filter babby wizards into the other orders

(not like they want to be thanked, tbh)

[orchid void]

Which they in turn justify a lot of different ways as the internal security force of the Awakened Nation, with the Exoteric Tenents justifying themselves to outsiders and newcomers- while the Esoteric Tenents justify themselves to longer-serving members

And in turn mirror the way mystery cults structure themselves around a series of revelations and untruths designed to be discarded

because mages are still human and still do stupid, half-witted things even if they're engaged in a struggling cold war against the jailers of reality who have bent their heads to the stolen thrones of heaven

[sacred viper]

Bad and Naughty Magelings get fed to the Minotaur

[orchid void]

Exactly!

hey bud you seem to have just realized that reality is composed of Lies and Suffering.
yeah that's why i'm going to rip the wool from everyone's eyes!
wrong! infinite minotaur attack, idiot!

Truth must be kept from the Unworthy

who are the unworthy? the irresponsible, who would harm Sleepers with their magic, who would harm the Veil, who would invite Doom unto all.

[spice abyss]

Ah, the Mysterium then, got it

[orchid void]

the nerds mostly seem to get along with the cops for keeping their Hidden Stores of Lore away from everyone else

Free Council, However

[spice abyss]

In so much they have a cohesive policy, yeah, Free Council.

[queen heron]

the Lorehouses!

can't have 15 cults in a trenchcoat without a trenchcoat

[spice abyss]

The Seers are generally on the same page when it comes to the Abyss.

"Don't unravel reality, we have a good thing going here you idiots"

[orchid void]

in my head the Free Council has a Minimum Programme

since they're several hundred Nameless Orders in a trenchcoat calling themselves a Sect

[queen heron]

Mage player I really respect points out the Exarchs rely on the Abyss, and treats it as a synonym for the hollow lust for power at the heart of the Seers

[orchid void]

Which, is what the other Sects are

so turnabout is fairplay

[queen heron]

fascistic nihilism

[spice abyss]

I wouldn't say the Exarchs rely on the Abyss. Do they use it as one of their levers of control, absolutely.

[orchid void]

There is also that Exarch of the Abyss

The Gate

[spice abyss]

Also true.

But the Exarchs probably wouldn't mind if there wasn't an Abyss, because they don't really control it.

[queen heron]

the Lie is abyssal in nature

[spice abyss]

The Gate is the Gate and all.

[queen heron]

I don't think you could have the Exarchs without the Abyss

[spice abyss]

The Lie wasn't really the intent of their actions, iirc.

It just sorta happened, and they use it.

[orchid void]

Was it? I feel like the Lie might be

but also we're deep in the metaphysics where any answer we give is easily tossed aside for whatever's more interesting to the story

[queen heron]

also true

Having the Exarchs be the ultimate hypocrites fits how I like to portray them

they fear the Abyss, and wouldn't have their influence without it

There is no Gate

[orchid void]

The Lie is not the Abyss, the Lie is a function of the Fallen nature of the world, the Lie invites the Abyss, the Abyss is a nonfunction of the Hubris that broke the World Before

all are true, what they actually mean is up to interpretation

What did the Exarchs do? They climbed the Silver Ladder to the Realms Supernal and siezed the Empty Thrones Of Heaven

What do the Exarchs do now

well. the father mostly kills you for trying to scry jesus and the prophet mohammad

the rest of them seem to occasionally shit out an Ochema to serve as a Problem for everyone in a twenty-mile radius

[queen heron]

get those mf's off the throne

throw everyone else on there

Celestial Ladder.... 2!

[orchid void]

silver ladder: bro just one more ladder to the heavens bro just one more bro it'll work this time trust me bro

[grave gulch]

would it work for me to have a wereshark be a roaming creature? not necessarily the target for a hunt(at least not their first hunt)

but one that goes around causing trouble

[queen heron]

I think so

are you making the Wereshark specifically connected to shark-shifters?

[mighty zephyr]

As long as you're near the ocean

[queen heron]

or is it just a weird shark person

[orchid void]

or near a large enough river for sharks that can survive brackish water

[mighty zephyr]

Anyway the best order is still the Adamantine Arrown baby let's go

[spice abyss]

Existence is War baby

[grave gulch]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/1014538127722946600.gif?size=128&quality=lossless

there was this one time where a shark got lost and showed up near london, it went viral(friend from the uk who resides in the server told me so)

so i'm drawing inspiration for that

[grave gulch]

it's going to be a shark-shifter just dont think i'll give em a lot of info on it, all they'll know is that it's a big mean shark with legs

[mighty zephyr]

Gotta watch Street Sharks

[grave gulch]

i heard of it .w.

[queen heron]

odd way to spell Silver Ladder

[queen heron]

oh then definitely make it roaming

fit the meme

[rare swallow]

Speaking of adding memes to WoD, in the VtM game my wife is running, she's turning this into a canon thing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_big_cats#:~:text=In British folklore and urban," or "black cats".

Basically the "British big cats" are all Gangrel

[versed zodiac]

That’s powerful

[rare swallow]

I went with it and my character in her game has a panther fight form

[grave gulch]

yeah 'im stealing that

[versed zodiac]

I wasn't convinced of the plot I put together for my VtM campaign at first but upon reflection, a plan that relies on the fact that the Camarilla will intercept and respond to a Masquerade breach and immediately try to pin it on the Anarchs, and using that as a misdirection to do whatever you want while the Camarilla bark up the wrong tree, is actually some primo shit and a great demonstration that the threat is coming from inside vampire society

which is one of the things that makes the Sabbat dangerous - they know the rules their enemies play by intimately and take every opportunity to exploit that they don't have to play by the same rules

[mighty zephyr]

https://www.tumblr.com/probablybadrpgideas/707406857214558208/youtube-channels-by-chronicles-of-darkness-splat?source=share

"Mummy: Entirely dubstep remixes of episodes of “Malcolm in the middle” and you can’t prove that’s not thematically relevant because no-one has ever completed a game of Mummy:The Curse"

"Deviant: As twisted creatures abandoned by society with a fundamentally broken soul only able to comprehend spite and rage, it’s not actually possible to tell a deviant from a standard youtube commentator."

[heady kestrel]

I like all of these besides the Changeling one because that seems more WoD changelings from what I know

[crystal fern]

Missed "Lycan Subscribe" opportunity

[clear delta]

So network zero are the fandom?

[little light]

Spat out my water at "Hunters have a rantsona"

[orchid void]

Mage YouTube Is Real Ive Seen It

[spice abyss]

Sadly I have too

[orchid void]

Marvelously weird shit, like that Russian guy vlogging his attempts to create a homunculus

[spice abyss]

Oh good, we have seen the same Mage channels then!

[orchid void]

ive seen some shit yeah

[spice abyss]

There's some marvelously weird shit out there, it's great.

[orchid void]

world of darkness real sometimes

[queen heron]

reposting from ccc

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/426286410925080576/1209242052265779250/Screenshot_20240219_155554_YouTube.jpg?ex=65e6356b&is=65d3c06b&hm=1d23d46a450f2bc988a40566918194cb2c1cc1f2ed06593be38a038d274610fa&

which gameline is this

[mighty zephyr]

Oh I hate this

[little light]

I think I'm going to run vampire as my next campaign

just can't decide on a campaign premise to sell the players

[spice abyss]

Deviant.

[mighty zephyr]

Reading old mage

and I am wondering like

if I'm reading shit right

That you need 7 magical tools to do your focus to cast spells

[spice abyss]

You probably are reading it right.

[mighty zephyr]

Like

You gotta use ALL seven???

Whenever you cast anything?

If I make Sex one of my tools (which is a default option in the book) do I gotta jack off to go back in time????

[velvet sparrow]

No, you use like, whatever one is most suited to what you're doing?

[mighty zephyr]

But you can get rid of them as you level up

Which is framed as some kinda progression

And I just don't get what the difference is

If anything it makes you worse?

[velvet sparrow]

How so?

When you get rid of one, you can either just do it without needing anything with no penalties, or you can use the thing anyways for -1 difficulty

[mighty zephyr]

Because it seems to mean that you still require the 1 thing in your focus so if you lose that you can't use the things you discarded to not get the massive penalties

[patent stirrup]

No Madeleine is right about how it works

[mighty zephyr]

But it says you usually get rid of the one you use the LEAST

As you grow beyond it

So it feels like either at Arete 3 you don't need tools for the most part or there's no actual benefit

[velvet sparrow]

Yeah... it's kind of uh

[mighty zephyr]

And it's not just me

No one knows how this shit works from what I can tell

[patent stirrup]

I mean your talking about 2 out of 9 sphears potentaly, becosue magic tools are per sphear (at least in the edition we played)

[mighty zephyr]

Talking about m20

Where that us not the case at all

[velvet sparrow]

That's a Revised thing, I think, yeah

M20 like, half ported it over in a really weird and exploitable way

[clear delta]

M20, I heard had messed up rules

Like, two pages contradicting each other

[rare swallow]

M20 is definitely something

[clear delta]

It really is a product they released

[velvet sparrow]

I don't know about that but y'know what I believe it

[mighty zephyr]

Funniest thing is that like

it says you "get better at working without tools"

and then you Just Don't

You remain the same level of competency with or without tools until you're Arete 9

[clear delta]

How is the tool thing even supposed to work

[mighty zephyr]

i

don't know!!!!!!!!

[velvet sparrow]

In Revised, which they half-took the idea from, each of the nine Spheres had a different tool associated with it. As you grew your Arete, you began to be able to use certain Spheres without needing any tools at all, although you could use tools anyways to make it easier

[mighty zephyr]

https://i.imgur.com/H8Rapuh.png

[clear delta]

Like, dunno. If they wanted a different take on tgat. Maybe each milestone, you should gain a passive plus on the roll. Going from negative without tools, to positive

[velvet sparrow]

Also, you do get better at not using tools, because in some classic White Wolf Formatting, there's a thing much later in the book where it says if your paradigm allows, you can cast without using any tools by spending a willpower point and I think increasing the difficulty by like, 2?

Regardless of what your Arete is

[mighty zephyr]

Difficulty goes up by 3

[clear delta]

I just don't get it. Why release m20 like that?

[mighty zephyr]

Because it's for people already on-board

[little light]

I think the anniversary edition comes with the presumption you already are a veteran of the system

[mighty zephyr]

Hey am I nuts

or have I been lied to for like

years

Of "Mage the Awakening is depowered Asenscion"

it seems like an Awakening mage could just run roughshod on an equivilent dude by virtue of just like

"I can just do shit whenever I want"

I feel like the only thing that got "depowered" is the fluff?

[clear delta]

Maybe? Edition wars be wack.
Do ascension mages get access to magic without paradox like awakening?

[mighty zephyr]

Nope

[clear delta]

Not sure how much ascension archmages can do

[mighty zephyr]

I don't think that really counts towards the discussion

since it's not something anyone really plays

[clear delta]

Oh true

[queen heron]

I’ve heard from ascensionheads

that ascension mages can do bigger things but require a lot more set-up

also more investment into spheres and conjunctionals

while awakening mages can more easily cast, and also you dont need a bunch of prereqs

also 1e Awakening actually was pretty different to 2e

A lot of stuff got reduced in dot-level

[velvet sparrow]

In Ascension there's like, one group that has a sphere they can't take, and maybe a bunch of small ones that also can't take certain spheres. In Awakening it seems like you are barred from taking certain spheres by your Path?

[heady kestrel]

Not completely barred but your limited

[queen heron]

Less barred, more disincentived

cant start with it, explictly need a teacher, face xp penalties if you go too fast

[clear delta]

Yeah, it's just harder

But mastigos mages benefit from learning matter, their inferior arcanum/sphere

Because it helps when setting up filters with space.
"This can pass, this can't. And air can pass"

[mighty zephyr]

Yeah but like

This seems untrue to me

Based on my reading

Like I guess time travel is more prevalent and you have global range on teleport

That seems it in terms of differences

[clear delta]

Huh? Thought ascension time travel required you set time anchors for yourself, making you unable to go further than when you learned enough time for that

Usuzumi no hate has such a moros vibe

A silent land of crystals and corpses. A girl who does the work of purging the crystals, looking for survivors, and collecting the bodies for their rites and cremation. Necessary, as crystal disease is contagious

[mighty zephyr]

Yeah bur you can go back 100+ years

Rather casually

[patent stirrup]

yeah oWoD mage definataly just et you time trave wiht the only major concern being the potental paradox gain from fucking wiht the timeine

[queen heron]

imo CofD should let you do it less tbh

not even for 'balance' reasons or whatever - its just more annoying to have literal rewinds as the 3 dot example spell

over something that works better 99% of the time, like Deviants scene-edits

I'd soft-rewrite shifting sands to focus less on 'how far back do you go' and more on 'what are you saying you did differently', weaving the actions you made in the past and speeding past the changes

let you make decisions now, in the past, at 3 dots. Do some blades style flashacks.

idk if I'm making sense I'm too tired for Time-takes

[clear delta]

Chronicle that's just about ghosts fighting in the junkyard dead dominion

[clear delta]

Basically, ultrakill

[orchid void]

my quickly becoming "Go to" for Time as an arcana is "hey how much Temporal Sympathy do you have to what you're trying to do"

"like yeah you're trying to cast a spell on a guy this morning. but. do you have temporal sympathy to the Him that existed This Morning."

"how are you getting that Sympathy"

basically force time to jump through hoops like Space does to actually start cheating your ranges

[queen heron]

thats not even the wackiest time thing

that one spell on time 4, the “your life if things were different”

makes a lot of conceptual sense, “heres you if you weren’t a vampire”

but someone pointed out to me - whats the actual limit of “things you can affect”

[orchid void]

whatevers coolest for the story and Doesn't Skip The Actual Plot

[queen heron]

True!

Probably cant time weave “me if I won the lottery 5 times”

😔

[orchid void]

that's the actual goal of any restrictions you place on Time (and honestly, any other arcana)

[queen heron]

I have problems with Fate because its targetting is much less in-character

got no medium

[orchid void]

The Medium Is The Pattern

Fate is a Pattern

[queen heron]

not by like base book but I agree

Ive seen people shove infrastructure in the hole, shove the idea of set Roles people play

giving destinies to everyday items, whatever

[orchid void]

This is fair, but a lot of things by base book aren't as interesting

[grave gulch]

are weresharks weak to silver as well?

[orchid void]

Nah, Silver is Luna's Curse

[grave gulch]

that applies to wod as well?

owod

[orchid void]

Yah

[queen heron]

I think if Fate had some sort of “Destiny Sympathy” that was more omnipresent that’d work
Something to hang more concepts off, a specific thing you can measure or affect

I mean I just shoved Pact into mine

Fate as a weight that pulls things in established directions

cause its not a balance issue for me, just what promotes interesting spells and imagos

someone looks at a room wanting to cast forces spells, they think of heat, they check for electrical sources, big objects to be shoved
Matter makes them ask what materials they have, Spirit the Gauntlet or resonance, Life: what things are alive

might not be everyones experience, but Fates caused them to just disconnect for me

[versed zodiac]

I would just go "okay but like, how much do you understand what timestream you're trying to jump to, do you REALLY know what your life would be if X thing changed would be like"

so for small things it's really easy but trying to jump to the won the lottery x times timeline actually kinda hard

[mighty zephyr]

I actually have no idea why WoDwolves are weak to Silver

[versed zodiac]

Luna

[queen heron]

whats the deal with WoD moon anyway

Still ancestor of wolves?

but this time with Gaia?

how do they play into the worm / weaver stuff

[orchid void]

Luna made the Trinity, the Trinity went bad

[mighty zephyr]

but liike

[orchid void]

Werewolves in their attempts to genocide All Other Shifters

[mighty zephyr]

That's not said anywhere?

[orchid void]

got slapped with the Silver Curse

at least this is what my brain remembers from 1e Apocalypse

a book i have not read since 2003 as it makes me Angey

[mighty zephyr]

I have found one thing that it is Luna's chimage for being able to shape-shift

like one comment on a reddit thread

google is producing little results

[orchid void]

did the apocalypse werewolves still try to genocide every other kind of shapeshifter in the rereleases

are the wars of rage still a thing

[mighty zephyr]

In W20 yes

In W5 they have no idea

It's all pre-history and the Garou are just like "What the fuck is that" when it comes to Wereravens and shit

[orchid void]

followup question do they still have the nazi werewolves as a pc faction

[mighty zephyr]

Assuming you mean the Get of Fenris?

(Or do you mean all of them L O E L)

[orchid void]

i remember it being the Storm Lords but the Get are ringing bells

[mighty zephyr]

Storm Lords are Forsaken

And are not Nazis at all

[orchid void]

okay!

[mighty zephyr]

They're just Stoics

[orchid void]

i only ever read 1e Apocalypse and. Apocalypse is sure a game that people seemed to enjoy.

[mighty zephyr]

You may be thinking specifically of the Claws of Heimdall (replace Claws with something I think)

Who are the Nazi Get of Fenris

[orchid void]

some really cool art though which is why i think my dad kept buying those books

[mighty zephyr]

like explicitly Third Reich White Supremacist Get of Fenris

They, and technically the Get of Fenris in general, are no longer a thing

As they are now the Cult of Fenris, an antagonist faction

[orchid void]

well that's probably for the best

my brain is trying to remember facts about apocalypse and refusing.

this is good it means i've healed.

[mighty zephyr]

Also if you read the controversy around W5 in general you'd know they wanted to make the Nazi Get the default bad guy faction

[orchid void]

That seems like a reasonable use of the Get of Fenris

wait was it Shadow Lords

i remember there being the "Asshole PC" faction in apocalypse and reading their actual lore gave me some real bad vibes

[mighty zephyr]

That's most of them

Like

genuinely

[orchid void]

and it was pitch black werewolves who were always presented as "hard men with hard choices" shit

[mighty zephyr]

Shadow Lords probably

[orchid void]

the only faction of apoc worth a thing were Bone Gnawers and Glass Walkers those guys seemed like, not Insane

[mighty zephyr]

These guys?

[queen heron]

oh I thought the trinity were the top dogs?