World of Darkness

[velvet sparrow]

I'm making a Mage (Chronicles) and am unsure quite what to do for her Nimbus

[queen heron]

mechanics or thematics?

or just what the nimbus does

[clear delta]

What's the mage about?

Her themes, tendencies

Oh, path

[velvet sparrow]

All of the above really

She's an Obrimos, Mysterium specifically; runs an occult bookshop and really likes books

[mighty zephyr]

What's her style of magic

[velvet sparrow]

?

[mighty zephyr]

Like

When you're Wizarding

what kinda Wizard Do You Wanna Be

[velvet sparrow]

I'm unsure what you mean by that

[clear delta]

Smell of paper, for the leftover nimbus? Tge post spell thing
What does she like about books? Simple knowledge, stories, mentally traveling

[mighty zephyr]

You're an Obrimos yeah?

Are you conjuring storms, throwing lightningbolts, are you preaching about God, are you a scientist using physics formulae, etc etc

[queen heron]

whats your character use magic for, and how do they see it?

whats it about, for them?

[velvet sparrow]

I suppose

Languages and scripts, symbols and writing, how their perception and use defines the world and in defining it shapes it

[queen heron]

nice

so

the mechanics of the nimbus, the actual nimbus flare?

least important part ime

people tend to forget about it or handwave it

its kinda fiddly

dont worry about that as much

[clear delta]

Objects seemingly distorting and letting out ink vapours, in the form of letters? How about it?

[velvet sparrow]

hm

[queen heron]

its a signature

its whats left over when your being touches the world

and for the GM

the long term nimbus is an excuse to throw weird shit at you

[clear delta]

Or inky letters in the air, switching between words

[queen heron]

the long term is the way Mysteries get drawn to you

[clear delta]

Books eating your face

[queen heron]

a thyrsus who's big on disease might find gunk spirits follow in their wake

[clear delta]

More seriously, mysteries involving palimpsests could be interesting

Those are books wiped and written over

Grimoires tgat go through tgat produce weird spells

[queen heron]

prophetic dreams, wounds healing more quickly, bad weather, unspoken grievances getting aired

all of these could work for a long term nimbus

its just your characters vibe on a much larger scale

[queen heron]

so for this you got a lot of options

[clear delta]

Okay. Post-spell Signature nimbus: smell of ink and paper, the sensation of strained eyes and insight.

[velvet sparrow]

That's a good one, yeah

[queen heron]

script appearing in midair, the sound of pens scratching, the world starts to look more sketched than real - like a textbook drawing, the feeling of a crisp letter

[clear delta]

More on?

[queen heron]

mistyped

[clear delta]

Found the name! Signature nimbus

[velvet sparrow]

Hm, okay, an idea for my long-term...

Letters start to shift, blur together, becoming indistinct, changing and growing

[mighty zephyr]

As their long-term yeah that works sick.

[clear delta]

I love the grimoire stuff introduced in signs of sorcery

[sudden shoal]

I'm not a mummy or a geist, but i'm unlikely to become a mummy. geists can enter duat i believe. could be wrong in which case fuck what i said entirely and pretend i said mummy i guess.

personally i see du'at in chrod being part of the underworld shown in geist but ehhhhh

[clear delta]

You can split grimoires, put a puzzle on them, set a spell against people without permission, set a spell to erase the rote from memory after casting, preventing the user from learning it.

You can create a huanted grimoire, using a spirit/ghost/goetia to enhance your casting but running risk of possession

[velvet sparrow]

And then for the Immediate; A feeling of insight and conviction, the sight of what path to take to grab the future

[grave gulch]

hecata vamps mess with ghosts right? how possible is it that they end up pissing off a powerful ghost?

[mighty zephyr]

Pretty possible

[queen heron]

I like it
has the obrimos potential theme

[grave gulch]

cool cool

what can a powerful ghost do? i remember hearing something about messing with reality in a similar manner that to the mages?

but extra spoooooky

[rare swallow]

Ghosts can do ghost things but it can get spooky, yeah
I think you're talking about Pandemonium

It can distort time and turn places into Escher painting scapes

[grave gulch]

i remember some of the ones you showed me

what's an escher painting?

[rare swallow]

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRiApgERgLSJK6A7FtLRNC38DiyLfaA7Aaoro2m97umCMNF17kqn7kHgPcW&s=10

This, Pandemonium can do this to physical spaces

Basically

[velvet sparrow]

Next on the list:

Aspirations I get, although I'm having some trouble figuring out what they should be, but I don't get Obsessions

I guess, what's the difference? What kind of thing is acceptable for an Obsession to be?

[grave gulch]

coool

[clear delta]

Oh, Mother Damnable was a real person

The demon corebook comments Cofd has a rule against using real people, and decided to make an exception for her

[mighty zephyr]

I have to wait until after Friday night to post this

in my werewolf cowboy chat

but man I can't wait

[clear delta]

Glitch: can't speak without cursing

[short quiver]

Obsessions and Aspirations are pretty similar.
An Obsession in practice is kind of a magic-focused Aspiration usually for a particular Mystery or kind of study

[clear delta]

And a motivation for a mage to cause trouble

[velvet sparrow]

I put down "Find a new Grimoire for my collection" as my starting one

[clear delta]

Then trying to fix the consequences is further opportunity for hubris!

[grave gulch]

Does anyone know any kind of urban legend or folk tale that has evil cows? Very specific yes

[clear delta]

Remember tgat story in the mage 2e corebook?
Very good example of Obsessions driving the plot

And how magic can create problems

[queen heron]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/324675888149168138/1228005579252043930/image-6.png?ex=662a7851&is=66180351&hm=e52f618af08740e42e12c6a817a2b45bc50aacfd65d279f4b2a2da5a10cb70b3&

^ this is wizards to me

[clear delta]

You can find newbie mages by dangling mysteries as lures

[acoustic plaza]

You have to jingle wonders like keys for mages

Familiars be like;
“I’m a thirsty little flower… you have to feed me… you have to feed me your quintessence”
“I’m not gonna do that-”
“AND LET IT DIE?”

[clear delta]

Goetic familiars are cool because they don't die, they just get kicked back home and recharge

[mighty zephyr]

I mean that's true of most ephemerals

[clear delta]

Oh yeah, spirits hibernate

Still, they're driven by wanting essence

And goetia just don't die easily. They always come back. (Unless they're one of those trauma creatures from astral realms, and a mind master can permanently wipe things from the mind)

[orchid void]

that’s what a Labyrinth is

[clear delta]

One of my favorite taunts in mage is
"I've been in your mind! There's no power there!"
-Mastigos right before losing

[fair jungle]

The LaSombra life
Depending where you go, Catholic ghosts will torment you for not being catholic >:V

[fair jungle]

Horrifying, because that's like seing your Browser History that you CAN'T delete
unless you get creative

[fair jungle]

Oh yeah, Demon The Fallen basically says we don't have angels anymore on earth and god is not here, so any angelic figure it's a demon trying to become better
Is that still canon?

[mighty zephyr]

Probs not until a new demon book comes out

[clear delta]

I thought there were still some angels around?

Acting disdainfuly

[fair jungle]

Ah makes sense
Welp I can only hope I love the lore

[fair jungle]

Technically if DtF is canon,
It would be Demons that are so close to their original selfs pre-fall that they look and act like angels

[clear delta]

Final fantasy summons as powerful goetia.
Guess they'd be more figures in astral twilight, causing some powerful effect in the world, but mostly focusing on messing with local minds?
The summons don't fit a masquerade world like this, but now I'm interested in how well I can make them fit

Gods generally stay in their corner, but master mages can call rank 5 avatars

[fair jungle]

Final Fantasy Summon the antideluvian of the Tzimisce

[clear delta]

Sounds like something tremere the founder would try

[fair jungle]

Tremere, the Founder, was a huge prick and was stopped like the poser he is

Also
Tzimisce Antediluvian?
MAD drip

[patent talon]

You can't blame a guy for trying to become the ultimate lifeform

[fair jungle]

Then he's way off, we all know who the ultimate lifeform is

[velvet sparrow]

Hello! I am back with another Mage (Chronicles 2e) question.

Can someone help me understand Praxes vs Rotes?

[mighty zephyr]

So a Praxes is more likely for you to gain an exceptional success. As you only need 3 successes instead of 5 to do so. Good for things where you need to crit fish to bypass resistance or farm mana or what have you.

A rote lets you turn the dots you have in a skill into a yantra (bonus) to the roll, and considers you as having (Arcana) 5 for the purposes of reach.

[velvet sparrow]

Could you have a spell be both?

[mighty zephyr]

No.

Well, yes, but you can only get the benefit of one at a time.

https://i.imgur.com/bY5VNj1.png

[velvet sparrow]

I see, thank you!

[clear delta]

Praxes also help with getting a legacy

[midnight grotto]

As I understand it Praxes get more useful the more powerful you are

[velvet sparrow]

Er, what do Exceptional Successes do

Oh, I might have just found it

[mighty zephyr]

https://i.imgur.com/7AKe1tv.png

yea

[clear delta]

If you have the legacy's first effect as praxis

[velvet sparrow]

Now I just need to figure out what spell I should take as a Praxis...

[fair jungle]

How it was? And how is hte structure of your session if I may ask

[mighty zephyr]

An easy pick is your main offensive spell

whatever you Shoot Out Of Your Fingers at people

the extra reach is probably less useful than bypassing withstand and Full Potency

[velvet sparrow]

Fair

I was kind of planning on having my main offensive spell be "Run and Hide" followed by "Gun"

[fair jungle]

The most powerful wizard spell

[mighty zephyr]

You're an Obrimos so consider that every time you fire a gun multiple things happen

A bullet is fired that you can then Remove Friction From

Fire shoots forth from the gun, which you can then turn into a cascading inferno

a lound sound emenates that you can use to deafen everyone present

[barren vortex]

my plan is what if a knife was a better knife

[rare swallow]

Lmao

[mighty zephyr]

My Obrimos set an entire football field length area on fire by shooting a shotgun once

[rare swallow]

Nice

[barren vortex]

knife 2 the sequel to knife

[rare swallow]

I'm making a Adamantine Arrow Thyrsus maybe

[mighty zephyr]

https://tenor.com/view/callofduty-nutshell-gif-6104626

Knife 2

[barren vortex]

This is the true power of Matter

[velvet sparrow]

Oh actually also, how does picking a Rote Skill work?

[mighty zephyr]

Based off your Order or access to a Grimoire I believe

[velvet sparrow]

Each one has the suggested skills but can you just pick any?

[mighty zephyr]

Yeah I think so

it's usually good form to not just pick all one rote skill though

[velvet sparrow]

I'm also kind of not sure what to pick for my Rotes...

[mighty zephyr]

For Rotes look for spells that have a lot of Reach options or that you'd normally want to affect a large area or number of people

Or things you'd want to last for a while

Generally Rotes you'd lean on things that are utilitarian

[velvet sparrow]

Like Channel Magic, for example

Er

Channel Mana, rather

[rare swallow]

Yeah that's the impression I started to get like
Praxis is for on the field spells that you don't care too much how big or how long they are
Rotes are for more complex spells you might want to use Reach for

[velvet sparrow]

Hm... Invisibility for my Praxis?

[mighty zephyr]

THere's no "right answer" so just ask if this fits your character and the general vibe of the mechanics

[velvet sparrow]

Character Vibe

Yeah okay that helps actually, thank you!

[mighty zephyr]

A really good Rote for you might actually be Platonic Form!

[rare swallow]

It's always about the vibes in the storyteller system

[mighty zephyr]

Conjure a Cellphone whenever the fuck you want

[velvet sparrow]

Platonic Form could be goodd, but it's a bit more expensive than I'd like

Currently I've got Channel Mana, Zoom In, and Postcognition

[mighty zephyr]

Sounds good

[velvet sparrow]

I'm a scholar, my ideal technique in a fight is to not be in one at all

[clear delta]

Hmm, get the spells to read the future?

To predict fights

[velvet sparrow]

Only have 1 dot, currently

[mighty zephyr]

So you're Forces, Fate, Prime?

[velvet sparrow]

Prime 3, Forces 2, Time 1

Postcognition is looking into the past

[mighty zephyr]

Ah! Time right

Yeah this seems like a really flavorful Mage you got going on

[velvet sparrow]

<3

Okay

I think for my Praxis I am going to just

Close my eyes and follow my heart

[clear delta]

Cool mage

[queen heron]

Words of Truth is always a fun one for a praxis

[velvet sparrow]

Maybe

Supernal Vision, perhaps?

Oh, wait

Pierce Deception could be fun

[queen heron]

Vision I think works better as a rote

[velvet sparrow]

Yeah I agree, actually

[clear delta]

Oh, prime spell idea. Perfect a book's knowledge's ability to take your attention, so you focus better on reading

[rare swallow]

I need that irl

[queen heron]

little stretchy for primes purviews but lmao

[clear delta]

World of truth plus that spell to create obsession

Make me think this sort of interaction tgat truth and knowledge have on people is part of the purview

This energizing

[fair jungle]

oh yeah I meant to ask
Aside from "Fight the evil corporation"
What other ideas you guys can give for a werewolf game?

[queen heron]

hmm

phrasing it that way I get it

at first I thought you meant perfecting just an arbitrary part of the book because 'prime perfects'

[queen heron]

"Fight other werewolves" ||/s but also not||

[fair jungle]

ah yes the second greatest enemy of hte Garou
Other Garou (sadly)

[velvet sparrow]

Could go up against some real piece of work Elder vamp?

[fair jungle]

oh true, nice

[mighty zephyr]

A spirit migration hits the Caern

[fair jungle]

like birds?

Yeah I can see shenanigans of stuff like that happening

[rare swallow]

Dealing with other werewolves, principally black spiral dancers or get, dealing with wyrm aligned spirits

[heady kestrel]

Alright reading mage and I found a really fucking funny way to build a Guardian Of The Veil, probably a freaky super esoteric one.

1 guardians status
5 masque
2 dot for bonus mask
2 dot for bonus mask

This gives you a shit ton of perks, including an effective +15 merit dots

And a bunch of weird “I absolve myself of sin” stuff

Also you have 4 virtues and 4 vices

And 4 nimbuses

And an effective +15 specialties

[midnight grotto]

Hell yeah

That's the kind of freak shit I love for Guardians

[rare swallow]

Lol

[midnight grotto]

Play Roger from American Dad

"Don't worry I know a guy. But heads up he's probably me."

[heady kestrel]

I was imagining a very… bizarre and unnerving mage

Like “creepy JRPG villain” type bastard

Not even the other guardians know what the hell is going on

We are reaching levels of mental shapeshifting not legal in most awakened nations

[patent talon]

And you know exactly where every other experience is going...More! Masks!

[heady kestrel]

Its Geniunely such a good use of that experience too

Because its 2 for 5 dots

5 specialties

1 virtue, one vice

And one new nimbus

Also two acts of hubris you can do without consequence

Main downside is your willpower consumption

[queen heron]

YES

[versed zodiac]

Someone help me budget this willpower is critical

“Buy less masks”

No

[queen heron]

you are almost to the peak guardian build

each dot of masque?

dot in a different mystery cult

Johnny SixteenCults

[heady kestrel]

Oh my idea was that you would spread them around

So you have one who’s a “avenging Angel” and is just straight up allowed to kill people

And another who is a cult leader and allowed to mind control people

Etc etc

Your mass quantity of vices+you being allowed to do stuff without wisdom damage does give you a nice willpower harvester though

I feel like this either has to be a Obrimos or Mastigos

Just for the aesthetics

[queen heron]

concept I saw once was a guardian investigator who makes masques from each mage they kill

the whole

"get into the killers head" thing

[midnight grotto]

Also Masks in 1E were more prescriptive but in an interesting way. Basically you had a bunch of preset Virtue/Vice combos representing different archetypes with like, codified symbology.

Very much like Exalted Sidereals

[valid merlin]

oh Resplendent Destiny like is an interesting dynamic

[orchid void]

Yeah! I was thinking of eventually picking up some of the RD style ones for Lucy

[midnight grotto]

It's one of the reasons I think it was a mistake to ditch the premade Virtues and Vices

Limitations are more interesting

[orchid void]

They are but I kinda like the more freeform virtues/vices

I think keeping the set ones for Masques is good

because Masques are a Kind Of Guy

But people can be a little more varied

[midnight grotto]

I get that. I just struggle to think up good ones more than I did with the ol' 7x7

And it was fun to like, ponder the different ways stuff like Gluttony can manifest in a more abstract way

But I realize it's personal taste

[acoustic plaza]

It’s splurging on resources and earthly pleasures

That’s how I view it anyways

[orchid void]

i was going to dig up one of the mages i wrote but the first one i thought of used the classic pairing of Chairty/Greed

Virtue: Charity- There is never a man who does not deserve Outis’ aid, freely given and with a smile.
Vice: Greed- Outis wants experiences, he wants moments and he’s more than happy to let someone suffer if he thinks the Moment will be fruitful.```

[midnight grotto]

Yeaaah

[heady kestrel]

I really like the way personality stats manifest on some of the supernaturals

like Changelings with their Needles and Threads

or Demons and Angels who have virtues and vices but completly decoupled from human morality

Demons will be like
Virtue: Fatalistic
Vice: Helpful

even some of the more minor ones have them

like the NPC splats

Huntsman have a Virtue based on their orders from the Gentry and a Vice based on who they really are as a person, but they swap places when they are in the Hedge

Fetches also have a needle and thread

Rapt mages have a Bonus Obsession/Bonus Vice called a Flaw that replaces their virtue

(If anyone has a better name for them than personality stats please tell me)

trying to think of some other good examples

[fair jungle]

Nosferatu loving gossip more than the moms at the church?

[heady kestrel]

I am talking about weird stuff with the like
Willpower recovery duality boxes

[grave gulch]

Man i have no idea as to how nearly embraced folks work.....how should i explain it to my players? Like, i know how the vamps do it, i just dont know if they would have a sire like levin or not necessarily...uuhhh can i have some examples?

[versed zodiac]

nearly embraced?

[grave gulch]

Sorry

I meant to say recently

[versed zodiac]

generally speaking, they receive some measure of training or instruction from their sire

some are left to fend for themselves

[velvet sparrow]

Hey did you know that Rotes in Mage count as Rotes if you cast them from a book? That totally was not confusing when I tried to figure it out

[heady kestrel]

(or if you invented them)

[velvet sparrow]

It is common practice in the Camarilla to hold both the sire and whoever they Embraced accountable for the actions of the latter, so at least there Vampires will give some manner of teaching to whoever they Embrace

[heady kestrel]

Do corporations, political parties, and other organizations have Spirits or do they have Goetia? or do they have both?

[queen heron]

so

they're pretty wildly different

spirits arise from the experience of the world

100% corps and political movements will create essence - people are fonts of it

but

its less likely you'll see a spirit for something as specific as a corporation imo

[heady kestrel]

would it be more likely to create like "Greed spirits" and "Marketing Spirits"

[queen heron]

there will be office spirits, and logistics spirits - greed spirits for sure, media spirits

yeah

and they'll be flavored by where they are

but they come from the world

its not "the embodiement of McDonalds™️ the Corporation" its "the embodiement of this specific mcdonalds and how it relates to the world"

[heady kestrel]

yeah that makes sense

that is kinda what I was thinking

[queen heron]

Goetia are just weird overall

[heady kestrel]

I was thinking a pretty damn strong Goetia might develop from mass marketing

plus the way they are legally and physically constructed

[queen heron]

I think for temnotic stuff I lean into the archetypes

I like to get personal with it

its less "Superman" as a specific entity and more

Heroism lensed as superman, either because of what people think at large or (more commonly) whoevers in the Astral

I make them shaped by whos looking at them

[heady kestrel]

was trying to think of a good "mind mystery" and
"corporation itself start doing shit because its a goetic entity somehow" came to mind

[queen heron]

though

better understanding of human nature. In fact, it’s possible to 
alter collective thought realms by changing their stories. These 
changes manifest in the material realm. If you want to get a 
television show cancelled, kill the protagonists in the Temenos; 
on some level, viewers will believe the show’s dead and watch 
something else. Fortunately, the more pervasive and important 
a concept, the harder it is to adjust. Belief in free will, true love, 
and the rest probably can’t be expunged or radically altered in 
this top-down fashion. Stronger concepts also possess guardians. 
These Goetia don’t depend on an ideal being popular, though 
this helps. Goetia also play the parts of gods, celebrities, and 
other personified ideas.```

it gets weird

[heady kestrel]

because mind msyteries are hard for me to conceptualize

[queen heron]

you got a lot of options

anything weird involving peoples mental states could be a good mind mystery

a spread of similar dreams across a swath of the city - all of them belonging to someone else

some geological feature or building starting to have (slow, alien, hard to understand) thoughts. a Genus Loci

a street that cannot be percieved. Its on all the maps, but people forget as soon as they look away. Functionally, it doesn't exist.

[heady kestrel]

oh I thought Genus Loci would be more of something for matter mfs to nerd out about

[queen heron]

thats the fun part, Mysteries are rarely just one Arcanum!

each one can show you some pieces of the puzzle

[versed zodiac]

genius loci would be matter AND mind

it is literally Mind of Matter

[queen heron]

look at a vampire in Life, Death, Space, or Mind sight

[heady kestrel]

makes sense actually

[queen heron]

maybe even Fate

and you'll probably see something

[heady kestrel]

Trying to figure out how the FUCK reqiuem blood magic works as a Mage

[queen heron]

bloods haunted it Just Does That

sleepers dont want you to know it but its true

[heady kestrel]

mage voice
"NO, IT CAN'T JUST DO THAT. THAT'S BULLSHIT"

"IS IT A LOWER DEPTHS THING????"

[versed zodiac]

Blood is True actually

[queen heron]

||some devs say yeah||

[queen heron]

but this is the way to look at it

its not that vampires are doing something else

[versed zodiac]

mages hate this: vampires are just a Real Ass Thing

[queen heron]

its that they're showing you Truths of blood you hadn't considered

[heady kestrel]

I could see Fate stuff giving you some good shit for the Royalist and Republican vampire factions

the Blood oaths and the Catharian Law

[queen heron]

its like

Mage says that a building gaining a mind or soul isn't outside of whats possible

[versed zodiac]

sorry, gamer

vampires are real

(mage malding sounds)

[queen heron]

its that something about buildings or minds or souls lets that happen

so

poke at it

[heady kestrel]

"At least Promethans you can dig into them, like its fucked up but its like... Prime and Death and Mind and Matter"

[queen heron]

why vampires? Mystery

[queen heron]

(Contagion chronicles gave them like fucking all other splats Fate too)

[heady kestrel]

the Pilgrimage itself seems like a fate thing

[versed zodiac]

vampires know mages to be assholes who show up to fuck with them at random, but they don't know that their existence is a source of confusion and dread for mages who realize the Implications

[heady kestrel]

I love how vampires of all things seem most likely to make a mage completly have a mental breakdown

like its way easier to process... literally anything else

[versed zodiac]

everything else has concrete reasons for existing

[queen heron]

Demons have got to be stranger

[versed zodiac]

werewolves? understood

even demons have a tangible origin and cause

[heady kestrel]

well Demons are like... there's a lot to dig into there but its just uncovering a new layer of fucked up hidden world

[queen heron]

the Supernal is literally* anthropocentric
(*well, kinda)

[versed zodiac]

vampires? sorry, them's the breaks, vampires are real

[heady kestrel]

its the Worlds Scariest Spirit/Matter/Mind mystery

With vampires, you run into them all the time and THEY DON'

T EVEN KNOW HOW IT WORKS

WHAT

[queen heron]

True Fae would also be way scarier

not cause of the power but like

ok

dead people coming back to life

'makes sense' even if we don't know why

person -> corpse -> vampire

[valid merlin]

Mages:

[queen heron]

True Fae give any number of origins, but one of the more common ones is they bargained their way into existence

it went

???? -> True Fae (with cosmic debts)

that raises way more questions!

[heady kestrel]

True Fae are also up there
But I am going for like... guy who tries to dig into vampires and just will rant about it to you for HOURS

[queen heron]

I dont think it'd be surprising

surprising that like, vampires are real, sure

but its way less wild than having a Thrysus awakening

being able to see the Shadow

[heady kestrel]

Well I am talking about "Guy who has this as a Obsession or Favored Mystery"

[queen heron]

with the vampire clan corkboard

managed to interview a 1,500 year old Elder who just said "lmao idr tbh. think I just died"

[heady kestrel]

like, its not about it being spooky/out there its about how fruitless digging into it is likely to be

[queen heron]

well then you turn to the next step

if you can't find the answers ready for you

you gotta do some tests

[heady kestrel]

like.... if you dig into the god machine your gonna have a lot of cosmic horror but its also a thing you can actually learn a bunch about

there is a lot about the god machine its just hidden

But vampires and gentry have so much white noise and ???

[queen heron]

maybe if I mainline this vitae I can get some firsthand experience

[heady kestrel]

YEAH

like thats the type of shit I am talking about

imagine hearing your homie got practically deablirized by a reality warper like DAMN

[versed zodiac]

tremere grindset

[queen heron]

this is all what I meant by having Mysteries be more about whys than whats btw

"who killed x guy" is easy to figure out with magic

"why the fuck does Pilgrimage create a human soul and What Does It Mean and What Can it Tell Me"

a bit harder

thats the type of question a wizard can spend years trying to learn about

it doesn't even need to be a magical thing

"What is the nature of Love?" is a perfectly valid obsession

everything contains elements of the truth

[heady kestrel]

yeah

[queen heron]

the fun way to use this

Isn't to make all the weird stuff secretly have an easy and obvious explanation, but to make 'mundane stuff' weird. Make it magical.

Strix might come from a lower depth, but Vampires Are True. What can you learn about blood, or predation, or parasitism if you rub your wizard eyes against them?

[heady kestrel]

thinking about... that one Ordo Dracul Coil that lets you regain supernatural merits

[queen heron]

what about it

[heady kestrel]

I dunno

its just interesting

it has weird implications on why you lost them

[queen heron]

(I also want to add that this part, in addition to the 'mages as colonizers' way other splats can see them, is where the personal horror of the gameline comes in)

(what corners are you willing to cut? what costs are worth it for your goals?)

(are you going to go out of your way to do the 'best' thing every time? Are you going to take the slower - maybe fruitless - route, or do you want results?)

their culture is more libertarian, each Order and consilium has stuff its willing to overlook

do you spend the effort to still be moral every time you need something?

[spice abyss]

Ah, Vampires just being a Truth is fun.

[clear delta]

They are the crabs of magic

[clear delta]

What would be good timeline splinters in Brazil? (Demon the descent)

[queen heron]

Apocolypse Vaults are cool

[clear delta]

By the way, Y2K is such a cool character
Angel Y2K: you bring about your own downfall, but you will be spared. Watch as the glittering ball falls, I will catch it. Happy New Year.
Demon Y2K: There are worse things than being without a cell phone, or a computer, or even electricity. If the world is so badly off that I have to spend the rest of eternity in a box filtering data, then maybe it deserves to not be saved. Sometimes things happen for a reason - I should know, after all.

[queen heron]

tying in a splinter to one of those, some timeline where Brazil has a massive devastating event thats averted, could be cool

[clear delta]

Oh, haven't seen apocalypse vaults

[queen heron]

they're pretty much what they sound like

extremely negative timelines sealed into Infrastructure to prevent them

[crude trail]

i did not realise this was here.

[clear delta]

Hello

[crude trail]

howdy.

[clear delta]

The "grimace shake falls into the world's oceans" timeline

[queen heron]

The August 18th Christ the Redeemer Mecha-Activation Event (kaiju spotted in Guanabara Bay)

[heady kestrel]

hey what does contagion chronicles say about God Machine stuff for mage arcana?

I always thought it would class under spirit or matter but I am not sure now

[queen heron]

idr

[clear delta]

Even funnier, since demon is spy fiction, and James Bond has been on the Christ tge Redeemer.

Imagine a spy fight on mecha Christ while it fights a kaiju

[queen heron]

I think I grumbled at it because it didn't have Space

[clear delta]

You know, the temptation to accidentally drop the horror and turn demon into spy tokusatsu is strong.

[queen heron]

I mean tbh the GM probably uses a ton of Arcana depending on infrastructure

[clear delta]

I'd say prime, matter, forces as the main ones? The GM is a complex system of machines and rituals

[queen heron]

its really big on souls and sacrifice though too

[queen heron]

alright I found the Canon™️ Real™️ Contagion Chronicles answer for GM stuff under Mage Sight

God-Machine phenomena is Fate/Prime, Fate reads Covers as alterations of Destiny

[heady kestrel]

hmmm I always read it as having way mor espirit involved

[queen heron]

tapping the sign

(I'm not the biggest fan of the players guide lmao)

[heady kestrel]

Fate makes sense with covers tbf

like of all things it would be fate

[queen heron]

GM stuff as fate works, yeah

[heady kestrel]

I still choose to read angels as a Spirit thing

[queen heron]

you also can't "Detect Infrastructure"

because Infrastructure isnt a thing

[heady kestrel]

though if you go with them being knockoff Quashiliam they might be a prime thing

[queen heron]

its made up of other things

you can use fate or prime to find Occult Matrix's specifically though

which usually lets you find the infrastructure

[queen heron]

hmmmm

they dont hit its vibes for me

[heady kestrel]

fair, I usually think of it like
"This technically fits under the spirit arcanum, but no one really knows how to do it because angels don't really fit well into the symbology"

[clear delta]

I'd see the covers more as time than fate

[queen heron]

theres a fun bit where compromises count as Oath-Breaking

[mighty zephyr]

FINALE OF WEREWOLF COWBOYS

[queen heron]

Don't have much to do with Time tbf

Aether pings Death Sight

since its waste-heat

and the Prime comes in because the GM uses very symbol-loaded stuff, I guess

(it should've been forces though that would've been cooler)

[clear delta]

You're taking facts and experiences.
Pacts are compared to messing with splinters, as something safer & needed vs something unpredictable

[queen heron]

they're very relational

accepting specific actions and limitations in order to recieve metaphysical backing

not all covers are made from existing people, I thought?

some are just spun whole cloth

demons just tend to do the Pact method because its easier

[clear delta]

And inserted as having always existed

[queen heron]

hmmm

they do have retcon stuff

I mean my take is whatever part you're looking at catches things under it

Space, Fate, and Time could all have some strong pings off Covers

[queen heron]

hope its hype btw

[heady kestrel]

what is the Scelesti Naming Convention

like for the types of Scelesti

Rabashakim
Nasnasi
Autarchs
Shedim
Baalim
Qliphoth

[clear delta]

Nasnas are the ones who joined abyssal ziggurats

Raba are the basic guys looking for befouled rotes

[heady kestrel]

oh I know what they are

but the names all sound relatively similar

[clear delta]

Well

[heady kestrel]

so like... are they sourced from anything

[clear delta]

Mesopotamia is one source

But I know qlipoth is from kabbalah

I'm trying to search now

[heady kestrel]

also Aswadim are Scelesti archmasters, I forgot them because their section is just called "greater menaces"

[clear delta]

Some stuff probably comes from owod nephandi

[queen heron]

Qlippoth was also - yeah

grandfathered in

[queen heron]

in universe, this was explained a large (one of the few in history?) place where Scelestus practices were widespread

[clear delta]

Ueah

[queen heron]

or at least a dominant part of wizard society

[clear delta]

And mages used it to impose order on the abyss

Giving them a common naming convention from their enemies' perspective

Nasnas pops up in dnd.

Oh, from Arab folklore

[queen heron]

Shedim is also from jewish myth afaik

[clear delta]

Yeah, seems the categories for scelesti themselves aren't very Sumerian

[heady kestrel]

Huh, interesting

[clear delta]

But other stuff, like the ziggurats, the world-gods, are

[queen heron]

naming scheme in general seems to be a mix of Impure Things and Royalty

[mighty zephyr]

Qlipoth is from Devil May Cry 5

[mighty zephyr]

WEREWOLF COWBOY

COMPLETE

[clear delta]

Dark souls style thingie

[clear delta]

Yes, excellent

[sacred viper]

Heck yeah

[grave gulch]

yaaaay

[grave gulch]

did they ride into the sunset with a werehorse?

[grave gulch]

pretty sure it's also a concept from judaism

[rare swallow]

For the Mage: the Awakening peeps, could you post some of their Nimbus ideas just for me to get a general feel for it? Currently working on my blorbo

[heady kestrel]

Corrupting Green fire
Divine inspiration
Otherworldly Melencholy
There is a man here now
Light runes

[clear delta]

https://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/main-forum/the-new-world-of-darkness/mage-the-awakening/1396189-examples-of-nimbus

[rare swallow]

Thank you!

[velvet sparrow]

I actually had a talk about this a day or two ago, lemme scroll up and see if I can find it

[velvet sparrow]

Here!

[barren vortex]

YEE FUCKIN HAW

[orchid void]

Sharp angles, eyes on your back, a sudden certainty that you don’t know where a path goes.

The music of the spheres, ever-whirling orbits of all that is, the complex dance of weak-strong forces.

[rare swallow]

Oh yeah I finished coming up with mine:

Immediate Nimbus: The smell of tree bark and white willow wafts the air; protective instincts set over people.
Signature Nimbus: Fallen leaves and a wintergreen taste is left on things.

[heady kestrel]

hey um
Is there a table in mage 2e for "mages at diffrent power levels"

[orchid void]

Kinda? Rank in gnosis

A master is at 4 or 5

An Adept is 2 or 3

Neophytes at 1

Sometimes 2

I usually just assign by Vibes when building NPCs

For players, I guess build an XP budget

Look at how it suggests stating Mentors

[heady kestrel]

would it be useful to look at the mage 1E XP table?

[midnight grotto]

Experience scales differently between editions

[clear delta]

There's rank by legacy level, too

[heady kestrel]

I might just do
0 New wizard
25 Experienced wizard
40 Major Play maker
70 SUPER WIZARD

[queen heron]

there is a newly awakened template in SoS

its 2 in one ruling, 1 in the other

no rotes, praxis, or dedicated tools*

(*Awakenings by nature break rules, so go wild with it)

thats baby wizards

the 6 dot start assumes you've got some onboarding by magical society, or have been doing this for a little bit

[rare swallow]

Yeah, it assumes you have an Order and that they have taught you some things, which is why you also get a free dot of occult I imagine

[velvet sparrow]

(And also the High Speech Merit, and Rote skills)

[heady kestrel]

I just used new wizard because I couldn’t think of a better term for “baseline player level”

[heady kestrel]

Hey, this is more of a practical question

how hard is each rank of spirit in a combat situation compared to the other ones

[mighty zephyr]

It gets exponential

[heady kestrel]

ye I know that

but in practice how hard is to combat say, a rank 2 supernal being as starter charecters

[queen heron]

rank 2 spirit, not hard at all

rank 2 supernal maybe a bit harder

they maxcast anything they do with arbitrarily large reach

(I'm assuming you mean starter mages here too)

its going to depend a lot on arcana spread and context

4 wizards with unique angles (include Prime and Spirit) getting the jump on a spirit? Hugely advantaged, even a rank 3 isn't that rough

the lone Mattercanthus with the 2-2-2 spread?

now you've got trouble

Conditions and enviromental effects are your friend here

the more chaotic and out of control the battlefield, the more focus they'll need on protecting themselves

if you want the fights to be 'harder', add complications beyond just death

encouraging breaking point rolls, or a NPC sleeper the party cares about nearby is in trouble, or spreading metaphysical taint

(this is also where throwing fun conditions on people works)

[mighty zephyr]

I mean if you're just melee fighting them a Rank 2 is about a Somewhat Dangerous Person

A rank 3 is probably "as deadly as a person can get" and a Rank 4 or 5 is "you have no chance just melee fighting this if you're a normal person"

[queen heron]

rank 3 are superhuman in at least one aspect

unless they are at the very bottom of the attributes for their rank

probably more deadly than any normal human

they got strong rolls and automatic resistance agaist mundane stuff too

[heady kestrel]

Anyone got advice for making legacies?

[heady kestrel]

How weird do you think worshipping oracles would be considered

I know its not mainline for Silver Ladder, but if someone was into that would they be looked down upon or normal wizard levels of weird

[clear delta]

The fun thing about geist is starting the game with an urban legend ghost stuck to you

[heady kestrel]

I wanna read Geist one day

[clear delta]

It's cool. The 2e dead dominions are so, uh. What's the world? There's so much feeling

[heady kestrel]

I am cooking hard with these legacies

You may use computers skill in place of your weaponry skill when using melee weapons

[clear delta]

Oooh

[heady kestrel]

making a goofy ass free council legacy

Acanthus Free Council Death legacy

[velvet sparrow]

Oh are these the Gamers

[heady kestrel]

yeah

[queen heron]

first 3 levels are the most important, so be sure to give the legacy its main thing at 2-3

the stuff outsiders know it for, the central gimmick

otherwise it just crops up too late

[queen heron]

this sort of stuff is also pretty good

legacies can be weird, they don't need to be as rote as "spell but x"

[heady kestrel]

Would you mind if I dmed you the first three levels of the one I am currently working on once I am done?

[queen heron]

sure!

though I might be slow to respond today

[clear delta]

Mage copying traits to create something similar to a patchwork cover

[fair jungle]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1279630/Vampire_The_Masquerade__Shadows_of_New_York/ I have to recommend, really fun Visual Novel

Steam

Vampire: The Masquerade - Shadows of New York

You’re a nobody. An outcast in your own vampiric sect. A political prisoner of no particular value. An immigrant who never found her roots in a city of immigrants. A chainsmoker whose favorite pastime is staring blankly at the streets through the windows of a fast food joint at 4AM. The sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach tells you that y...

Price

$12.99

Recommendations

883

▶ Play video

You play as a newly embraced Cammy Lasombra :3c

[grave gulch]

i read that if u try to embrace a werefox

u get smited

pillar of light comes down on you

[clear delta]

Thought about the underworld.
According to the forums, the dead dominions are shaped/made of the blended up memories in the underworld.
So the underworld could be compared to a dream?

Or a nightmare, more accurately

[queen heron]

kind of

I'd say memory is more accurate

oh thats what you started with

[clear delta]

Since dreams come from memories

[heady kestrel]

Hey how does choosing sympathy Yantra's for mages work?

Like do you say like

Material Sympathy(Photographs) or is it like... something else

[queen heron]

you dont choose sympathy yantras in that way

sympathetic yantras have a connection to whatever they were / are a part of / represent

so like

its basically something that takes the slot of a normal yantra but also has that connection to what you're trying to target sympathetically

unless I'm misunderstanding you

you dont have a set group of yantras to pick from in that way generally so I'm a little lost

[heady kestrel]

I didn't understand if Sympathetic Yantras were based on
(Medium you use to establish sympathy)
or
(Thing they are sympathetic with)

[orchid void]

They’re kinda both

A lock of hair can be used as a sympathy

It is both medium and sympathy to the person the hair is from

[heady kestrel]

I mean when you take sympathetic yantra as one for your charecter sheet

how does that work

do you just write "sympathetic?"

[queen heron]

oh you're asking if you can dedicate sympathetic yantras

[orchid void]

Nah, you just use them when you need to long range cast

You don’t write them down as a tool like Path, Order, or Dedicated tools

[queen heron]

often a yantra is both one of those

and has sympathy

like a knife that someone poured their heart into, and has owned and polished since they were really young

[heady kestrel]

wait so.... what all can you choose when your choosing the Yantras granted to you by your Gnosis

[queen heron]

you don't choose yantras per gnosis level

thats just how much you can add to a single spell at once

and that goes up per level

[heady kestrel]

H U H

[queen heron]

if you use one enough and put some magic juice into it, you can dedicate one

ya lol

at least in 2e!

I dont know if thats how 1e worked

[fair jungle]

V5 sure is amazing

[acoustic plaza]

Ohhohohohoh

This is piss in the lake compared to what older vampire editions were like

[fair jungle]

.
Would you kindly elaborate?

[acoustic plaza]

If I would I think I would be banned

Just look up the ghoul supplement cover

[fair jungle]

Yeah no, Kevin being very against making/sustaining a Ghoul is extremely
Right
He probably saw some weird SHIT being done with Ghouls and they loving it because of their addiction to Kindred blood

[acoustic plaza]

Also the “Degenerate” background for Giovanni

It’s uhh

A lot

[fair jungle]

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeah

and I also learned that WWII Nazi Werewolf was a thing

[fair jungle]

Garou really are fucked

[acoustic plaza]

Like ethically or in the story they are on the loosing side?

[grave gulch]

werewolves are individuals still tho right? that's just a very specific group i imagine?

who's to tell me that there werent any nazi killer Garou?

[rare swallow]

It was the Get of Fenris that went full in with the nazi werewolf thing iirc

[grave gulch]

yuck

i imagine that's not a thing in W5?

[rare swallow]

It might be? In W5 they're a non playable tribe that's mostly there for the ST to throw in as antagonists

Iirc

[grave gulch]

from what i read in there they are like

still fighting the wyrm

but they are also fighting everyone else

[rare swallow]

Yeah, they're just fighting in general.

Everything

All the time

Probably even infighting a lot

[grave gulch]

they seemed a lil deranged from what i read

[mighty zephyr]

They are

Also the Get tbf only had one sect of theirs turn Nazi

[clear delta]

https://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/main-forum/the-new-world-of-darkness/mage-the-awakening/1482089-critian-caceorte-s-awakening-homebrew#post1482110

Known by some as “Anglers,” these individuals do not (generally) fish for actual fish in the streams of toxic water, although with the shape of certain Cthonians that might still be possible. Generally, they instead fish for “memories” among themselves and the dead, “reeling them in” by recalling them or taking them from others to eventually be shared. To Ghosts, the Fishermen are a friendly face willing to help them remember who they used to be and who they used to know. Why they help varies from person to person, sometimes good, sometime bad, but they generally do.

[rare swallow]

Interesting

Ferrymen vibes

[grave gulch]

ok good

[fair jungle]

yes

[velvet sparrow]

They're losing the war because they killed all of their allies because they wouldn't follow everything the werewolves told them

[fair jungle]

Yeah, in W5 Get of Fenrir is what happens when your Hauglosk max out.
You lose the character, they join the Get and become antagonists because they are extremely "Fuck everyone that disagree with me and die"

Hauglosk is basically you getting blinded for the cause and going full 'The ends justify the means' in pure excess

[fair jungle]

The gerou are fucking stupid(as an organization) and I love them

[acoustic plaza]

This is why Bastet are superior

[fair jungle]

what is a Bastet

[versed zodiac]

cat people

[fair jungle]

oh yeah
Kitten's true colors/j

Shame there is no were-capybara

[versed zodiac]

if there was a shifting breed that could become a capybara person it would be joever for the wyrm

[clear delta]

Oh, I like mokole

[versed zodiac]

triatic wyrm: washed? joever? donion rings?

the garou are "fucking pissed" that "gaia made some scrunkly oversized rat breed to upstage us", currently contemplating a second War of Rage

[clear delta]

Everyone else jumps the garou

[mighty zephyr]

Non

The Cult of Fenris (that they are in W5) is just an entire tribe that has devolved into Hauglosk

You don't automatically join them

[clear delta]

The wererats can gain a mickey mouse form they can only use in the Umbra

[acoustic plaza]

Ratkin capybara flavor

[clear delta]

You know, mages who dive into the depths of the underworld and the astral would be cool

[heady kestrel]

I know there is a big astral focused legacy in Australia

[clear delta]

?

[heady kestrel]

They are called Dreamspeakers or something along those lines

[clear delta]

Oh, no. They're worldwide

As far as I know, psychologists and shamans all over the world join the dreamspeakers and explore the dreaming earth

1e had a thing where some randos would just start suffering intense mental illness from an improper connection to it and had to join the legacy

[fair jungle]

oh
Fair

also, there is one WtA novel that looks interesting, a Garou going to the amazon
But it was written in 1995
People say is good but-
old WoD

[grave gulch]

Old

[clear delta]

Thinking about the thesis may mentioned of, according to shimeji simulation, Babel being a blessing.
So in demon the descent, according to Carta's lore (granted her memory suffered interference), mankind was of one city, under one absolute language filled with power.
Tower of Babel, or similar, happened. Mankind, shattered, spread across the world. Carta could no longer finish her mission of "map the city". She had no idea where it was, and each time she attempts in one city, change happens. Mankind is much more spread, and changing faster.
Carta herself has taken to drawing for its own sake, expressing herself in art, and going to art galleries.
Demons, in cutting off the connection to the God Machine and making their individuality stronger, can learn exploits and interlocks, things unavailable to angels

So, I guess you could argue the same in this setting

And Carta's goal, depending on the story, is falling properly. Truly letting go of the God Machine and following her path

[acoustic plaza]

Caine reference?

[clear delta]

I wonder if the God Machine realized breaking early humanity's language made them stronger, and kept trying to fix that until it's programs reached tge "throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks" stage, grabbing random angels from the past, like Carta

[clear delta]

Caine? Where?

Oh, the city?

Caine and his city were an owod thing

I think caine in cofd is only mentioned by a group of hunters

@sudden shoal

Demon stuff

[clear delta]

When a dead dominion loses a kerberos, how are tgey replaced?

[fair jungle]

"Undead Activist - Death didn't stop this Kindred from fighting for their causes, rallying mortals and Kindred alike their aim is to bring down structures of power from within"

Camarilla would implode

but in a visual novel i do remember reading that, there is some recluse societies that has kindread and mortal living in relative harmony

[queen heron]

Doesn't seem to be elaborated on in the book

I'd probably make it something really hard to do

The Kerberos dies when the dominion falls apart, but as long as its standing they'll 'regrow'

if ones truly been destroyed in a super complete manner, I'd probably make the Dominion start unravelling unless a new one is made / someone takes up the role

[clear delta]

Since there's the possibility of kerberoi who were ghosts, I imagine the difficult task of helping them move on is one way to get rid of them

[fair jungle]

Werewolf call forth the FROG

[grave gulch]

how do i make a wizard spooky?

and i mean spooky

all wizards are already scary

like cray cray wizard making spooky stuff happen

[queen heron]

hmm?

npc wizards?

[grave gulch]

yes

[queen heron]

whats the purpose you want your wizard to be spooky for

[grave gulch]

for me to maybe use as a hunt target

[queen heron]

mage wizards specifically or just people doing occult nonsense?

[grave gulch]

a mage yes the occult nonsense i feel i can handle pretty well already(ran a short adventure with that already and it went really well!)

cause a mage can alter reality but there's so much u can do with that

[queen heron]

hmmmm

make whatever the mage is doing have a weight to it

small scale or spreading across the entire place the hunters live, it should feel from their perspective like something important is going down

[mighty zephyr]

Mage as a monster is the tale of a colonist

[queen heron]

Wizards has a commonality with hunters in a few ways - both are obsessed, both can't look away, both are "more human" than most others (right...?)

[mighty zephyr]

It's someone who comes I with a seemingly unlimited amount of power and advantages and uses it to exploit the area and people to maximum effect

[queen heron]

you can use them to underline the hunt itself pretty well

if the mage is pushed forward by a moral or philisophical purpose, they'll see the Hunters as effectively misinformed

they know how horrible the stuff in the dark can be, and if they were capable of understanding they'd be standing with the mage

(is the mages justification)

[queen heron]

esp if tier 3 hunter groups are involved at all

Task Force Valk, or the church, or that gene-editor corp?

Hunters that are established and entrenched

You can use a wizard whos on a crusade to reflect the hunters and what they could be

and thats a little spooky

the hunters start to find small clues and things subtley twisting around whatever big ritual the wizards doing

sometimes intentional, often unintentional - theres problems cropping up because of magical bullshit

[queen heron]

and the wizard doesnt care because of this ^

what they are doing is more important

[queen heron]

to tie into this, I'd also make the mage have a point

I'd play with the horror of them being at least a little right but in a horrific way, or taking it way too far

maybe the ritual will work but the cost is something the hunters would never be willing to pay

[grave gulch]

sorry had to go out to grab the escaping cat

i'm reading through everything now

[clear delta]

Owod? Grab those death mages who kill because it's necessary

[grave gulch]

u mean like a vigilante or some shit?

[clear delta]

They have some karma thing.

Like, the others gave lots of good ideas and explanations.
Just suggesting, if you want some owod type of mage to build all that off. Thought they might fit.

[queen heron]

oh shoot is this owod

[clear delta]

Obvious moral issue there, and they have aesthetics of death, fate and probability

[queen heron]

💀

[clear delta]

I'm sure Skully plays owod

[grave gulch]

i do

[clear delta]

Which could fit for a proper spooky cool mage

Verbena is about nature and sacrifice. So you could have some druid mages pulling a blood ritual to improve the area? Maybe help hold off natural disasters, or climate change?

So the hunters get what they wanna do, but don't think throwing others into the meatgrinder is worth it

You can also have mages who are so lost to the war for the world, they became too used to collateral and sacrifices.

And to using sleepers and sorcerers

[grave gulch]

[queen heron]

wizards work well as a magnifier of human issues

they have the power, so they shake the world

[clear delta]

The owod Traditions have different kinds of mages.
Though the owod dreamspeakers are just a bunch distinct religions shoved together.

[grave gulch]

nothing stops me from just making my own mage group or stealing something from nwod

i did steal some monsters from nwod like the boogieman

[clear delta]

Hmm. Aight then.
Ideas from cofd. I like spiral, but she's just a monster mage woman

Her deal is she fuses humans and spirits, and has a bunch of spirits fused into herself

There's a guy obsessed with past lives, and killing people to study tge process of passing on

Another is a guy whose thing is messing with destinies. He wanders around experimenting with this, causing chaos while doing his job

[versed zodiac]

this is some kara no kyoukai shit

[clear delta]

Another is a woman obsessed with doorways (literal, dimensional, metaphorical) and spatial distortions. She throws people into distortions to study them, and has a hope of someday finding an aunt that walked out of her family and just disappeared. Her cabal covers up her crimes.

The metaphor of closed doors is important to her. The aunt she lost, the racism she experienced

[grave gulch]

now that's spooky

that's all possible for owod mages too right?

except there's the paradox thingy

[queen heron]

probably

I wouldn't worry too much about metaphysics in either case

you're doing a mage-in-hunter

what matters is having a good hunt

[clear delta]

The hunter must hunt

[versed zodiac]

...even in a dream

[grave gulch]

i just like paradox cause it gives hunters some kind of edge over wizards

which...they'll probably need

[velvet sparrow]

Paradox is pretty important if you're gonna be fighting a Mage imo

[clear delta]

And jumping them

Don't let them get a spell out. Give concussions

[velvet sparrow]

I mean, it works most of the time

But what about when you're fighting a Time Mage who saw that they were going to get jumped and prepared a defensive spell in advance?

[clear delta]

Well, it's time mages. They're a pain.

And mind mages can detect your plans

They could have spirit sentries

Oh, yeah. Mages have lots of defensive measures

[grave gulch]

that's reasonable

They dont really have the physical advantages other supernaturals have

[heady kestrel]

Hey are any other supernaturals besides vampires notably weak to heart called shots?

in chronicles of darkness

[queen heron]

Huntsmen ||/s||

[mighty zephyr]

Not really, the rule is in place specifically for staking vampires and doesn't OFFICIALLY come up at any other point

[heady kestrel]

lmao aren't they automatically immune to heart called shots

or was that a joke I heard

[queen heron]

they might be

the joke works two ways

they dont have a heart

because the True Fae ripped it out (and thus, control them)

something would probably happen if you shot these guys from promethean

uh

probably

probably not something good

[acoustic plaza]

Depends

Mages, in short, are minor gods

They bend reality to their will but only as much as they can handle

They can only bend as much of reality until paradox (counterforce of reality) bites their balls

Each mage is different, and there are factions that do occult shit (Order of Hermes, Hollow Ones) but also there are standard wizards (Also Order of Hermes)

[clear delta]

Hmm. Reminded tgat cofd proposed traveling through the Underworld for FTL travel.
What a terrifying idea

What is the underworld even like in space?

[fair jungle]

Are Metis (WtA) still canon?

From here: (1995 lore)

"Garou were normally born from the union between a Garou
and an ordinary human or wolf, and grew up in the society of their non-
Garou parent, believing themselves to be nothing extraordinary. Until they
changed shape for the first time, there was usually no indication that they
were definitely Garou. Sometimes the forbidden happened and two Garou
mated with each other. In that case, the offspring was born in its monstrous
Crinos form, shunned, sterile, and almost always deformed. The mating of
male and female Garou was regarded with disgust as something akin to
incest. Some tribes were rumored to put such children, called “metis,” to
death."

[clear delta]

Well, hopefully not the name

Since it's a real life name for mixed race people

[rare swallow]

I think they removed the general concept of the condition of being a werewolf being a family/genetic thing in W5 to avoid the whole "pure-blood/breed" bs

[fair jungle]

https://tenor.com/view/john-wick-4-fall-stairs-gif-10023029565514394388

Holyfucking shit White Wolf what the hell

[fair jungle]

thank ya

[velvet sparrow]

Yes.

Not just a mixed race people, a historically discriminated against mixed race people

I am not very knowledgeable on them today

I only really know what I was taught in school, which...

[versed zodiac]

It's even more complicated because "Metis" has often been used to refer to people who are part-indigenous as well as specific groups of people

[rare swallow]

The biggest yikes isn't that in Werewolf they also had "deformities"? Which... yeah what the hell

[fair jungle]

And are born full War form and violent and- yeah

.
I am glad this is old lore

Also , old lore implies zoophilia happens

[clear delta]

Yeah.

One guy tried to introduce it into cofd with changing breeds.

[rare swallow]

Werewolf definitely has had the most... interesting decisions over the years.

[clear delta]

Werewolf forsaken had a weird thing where werewolf couples produced an evil ghost abortion. Which was dropped in 2e, as the writers admit that was bad

[spice abyss]

Fuckin' Satyros

[clear delta]

And punished one player more than the other, as one had to carry the fucked up baby

[rare swallow]

yikes

[clear delta]

Now, in 2e, werewolves can reproduce with each other with no issues

[fair jungle]

at least that

Better awoos

[clear delta]

Tribes are a bit of a leftover thing. In forsaken 2e, they're just cults that teach you to specialize in a way of hunting/holding territory, and a specific sort of prey. And gives you stability, preventing diseases that affect shifter's malleable bodies

Instead of, you know, being tribes

[mighty zephyr]

5e you mean

Oh wait

I was scrolled up sorry

Yeah the Tribes are specifically "Which Firstborn of Father Wolf do you follow"

and that reflects your outlook essentially

[clear delta]

A territory will belong to a pack. And it'll have members of different tribes

[mighty zephyr]

Also yeah Metis are no longer a thing as all breeding lore has been removed from W5

[fair jungle]

Honestly.
Good

But if a Garou breeds a Garou I think is easy to say the chanceso f being a baby Garou are high at lteast

[clear delta]

On the topic of shifters, the ones from cofd war against the pure are pretty cool and I wish there was more stuff of them

[mighty zephyr]

There is an inclination that werewolf bloodlines are more likely to produce a werewolf

but at the end of the day it's impossible to tell until someone's about to turn

[rare swallow]

That's kinda how it is in CtD with someone ending up as just a normal human, Kinain or Kithain. The odds increase but it's never 100%

[mighty zephyr]

The main thing is that you either don't NEED werewolf blood to transform, or everyone on the planet has, at one point, had a Garou ancestor in their bloodline that they now every person ever can possibly experience the First Change.

[clear delta]

The werebulls are being used by Helios to spite werewolves. And it's revealed, in one Dark Eras book I think, they were the children of the pangaean Bull, and used a part of his corpse to make more of themselves, but lost it (due to humans or mages?) so they became dependent on the rite of Moloch given by Helios. It consists of kidnapping a wolf-blooded, then subjecting them to a bloody painful ritual under the sun. Helios seems to be setting up a war between werebulls and werewolves.
You see, cofd Helios hates werewolves for killing his brother-in-law, Father Wolf

[mighty zephyr]

Luna soon forgave the Forsaken, but it's not Helios' nature to change his mind about anything.

[clear delta]

He'll die a hater

[fair jungle]

Sometimes Gaia just likes to throw you a curve ball for fun and make some random shmuck a werewolf

[clear delta]

We have the brineborn. Children of Mother Ocean, their lives suck. A lot. They have sea life forms, need to be near the ocean, and all suffer from a phobia of it. Because Mother Ocean hates them.

[rare swallow]

ooof

[clear delta]

There's a dude, I think Carl, who's just a Brineborn Christian trying to live his life in peace

The Brineborn either worship Ocean or turn from their cruel creator to other beliefs.

A funny one. The arrogant eagle/falcon? shifters often pick a human, usually someone trying to climb their peaks. They paint symbols on the human, cover them in egg's contents, while screaming or chanting?, then throw them off the mountain. If it takes, they shift and fly

These birds are all about achievements, pride, hierarchy. Basically, pecking order.

[rare swallow]

That's some incredibly unhinged behaviour

10/10

[clear delta]

Yes. They're fucking crazy. An npc got picked by them. She rejected their culture, but is so tired of mockery and arrogance she started scheming to get one over them, and climb ranks

[versed zodiac]

conned into becoming a culture participant

[clear delta]

The crocodile shifters. Dunno which book they're from. They're a cannibal cult. To gain their powers, they do a ritual eating flesh from humans and the corpse of the pangaean Crocodile.
Even dead, Crocodile is a powerful god

Oooh. Found crocodile spirits.

Crocodile-Spirits (also known as Sobek, Taninims, Gandans, Suchos, or Mur Ithamus) are ancient natural spirits that take the form of the eponymous predators.
"<<So man is the predator of predators? Come back in ten million years, and we will see. I will be waiting.>>"

Typically representative of power and stealth, Sobek exist within many spheres, among them air, earth, water, and even the Sun. As such, they occasionally act as ambassadors or mediators among such spirits.

These beings are incredibly patient and bear long memories, traits which suit their modus operandi as ambush predators. Typically, they can be found in areas where their mortal counterparts thrive, such as rivers or marshes. Left alone, they will grow unceasingly, to the point that the most powerful among the Sobek will act as islands in the Shadow sea.

[short quiver]

The idea, here, being that werewolves have something like your classic Wolf Man origin story ("I'm a normal person but I'm turning into a wolf??") but to make it more differentiated from V:tM they have werewolfism be something people are unknowingly born with.

You might even get attacked by a werewolf before you start turning, but the bite didn't pass it on or anything, they just know you're about to start turning and want to keep tabs on you.

[spice abyss]

Gotta love that biting things makes them easier to track. It's nice flavor.

[short quiver]

Agreed.
I just do remember some complaints back in the day that werewolves weren't more like their inspiration & the WW devs said that the "get bit, black out three nights of the month and wake up trying to figure out what you've done" is a great horror RPG concept but it's really not meaty enough to support a gameline.

[rare swallow]

It's definitely an interesting concept but it'd be kinda weird

But also to be honest the werewolf myth is incredibly varied and kinda inconsistent

Iirc werewolves that turn during the full moon and are weak to silver is actually quite recent historically

[short quiver]

Yeah, that really does more or less trace back to The Wolf Man
Although silver bullets have existed as a way to kill werewolves, as well as other supernatural stuff, for a while.

[rare swallow]

Silver just seemed for a while to be something that counters any supernatural thing yeah

[short quiver]

(Incidentally, I found a really interesting article a while back about why making silver bullets is actually a lot harder than you'd think but I think I lost it.)

But the pop culture idea of monsters is frequently a lot newer than a lot of people realize. Vampires as we would recognize them go back to The Vampyre (1819) and even beyond that the "killed by sunlight" thing is from Nosferatu (1922)

[clear delta]

Vampire and werewolf myths blur

[rare swallow]

Yeah a lot of our current understanding of monsters are actually quite newly established
But I did discover recently that apparently shapeshifting into animals is a concept as old as humans making cave art out of it

[clear delta]

Vampire the requiem does have a lot of weird life drinking spooks from mythology running around

[rare swallow]

For the longest time in human history, though, werewolves were seen as a kind of mass delusion
It started in Christian Rome, apparently back then they believed Werewolves were people who dreamed about becoming wolves and that dream manifested somehow

It's quite interesting

Or a curse from God

[short quiver]

(Short version here: lead melts at 621F/327C, silver melts at 1763F/962C. So not only do you need to make it a whole lot hotter than the lead you'd be using, it's liable to cool in the mold so fast it solidifies before you're done pouring, so the bullet deforms while it's being cast.)
(And then it shrinks a lot more than lead while it cools so the caliber is going to be off, too.)

[rare swallow]

Huh

[short quiver]

There are some stories about people who turn into wolves to fight devils and witches. Feel like that might be an inspiration for the WoD takes.

[rare swallow]

Yeah, those too

I agree, that's probably the inspiration, principally because those stories also talk about spirits

Iirc

Anyway I recommend giving a watch to the video on Werewolves by Overly Sarcastic Productions, it has a lot of interesting information (that's where I learned most of this werewolf trivia)

[queen heron]

same with faerie stuff

[rare swallow]

Tbh the concept of Werewolves being some kind of astral projection into a wolf form (where your human body stays behind in a sleep state) could be awesome for a game too

More as an escapism fantasy tho

[clear delta]

A game about astral projectiom, hmm.

[rare swallow]

Specifically astral projection where your astral form is a wolf

(that's somehow also manifested in the physical world because old werewolf myths were weird)

[clear delta]

Adding other forms

Could be cool

[rare swallow]

Yeah

There's a clear weakness already because your body is left vulnerable

[clear delta]

Pick an animal or construct. Become it when projected.

[rare swallow]

On a different topic, so excited for the MtAw game I joined to start

[queen heron]

yooo?

good luck!

[grave gulch]

Júlia is a wizard

they are going to help me become taller

[rare swallow]

It'll be my first foray into CofD, I'm quite interested in seeing how the dice system is going to work out (since diff is always 8, 10s explode, and most measures of difficulty are based on +5/-5 to dice pools… I hope it feels better than 20th anniversary lol)

[rare swallow]

Power word: Tall!

[grave gulch]

[rare swallow]

Waves arms up in an entallening motion

There

[grave gulch]

i'll show everyone now

[short quiver]

So, IME, the die mechanic of nWoD isn't anything really special to engage with.
But at the same time it does what it's trying to do pretty well? It's a simple kind of mechanic more than a really engaging one.

[rare swallow]

The rule of 1s (1s are -1 successes) just always feels really bad

[queen heron]

^

it works well enough

[short quiver]

I don't think that's a thing in nWoD/ChroD

[rare swallow]

Yeah it doesn't seem to be

[short quiver]

More often than not you only need one success, so after all modifiers you're probably going to fail with 1 die, coinflip odds with 2, probably good with 3, and over three successes in four with 4 dice.
From there returns get diminishing fast but it makes that last little bit of uncertainty less and gives you more ability to succeed with negative modifiers applied.

But the whole design of White Wolf's mechanics has always been pretty basic task resolution over making the mechanics the real selling point. While I realize it hardly looks rules light by today's standards the whole "no math you can't do on your fingers, our character sheets don't even have numbers they have dots" was a pretty big shift from the gaming philosophies in 1992.

(Moving away from the pocket protector watch calculator wargame RPG crowd to appeal to the theater kid and frustrated novel set, and I say this with much love toward both categories.)

[rare swallow]

Yeah it's less about the complexity and more the system in 20th always feels half baked/thought out, while it seems they put a bit more effort into CofD to make sure things work
Like in the games I've played Wits rarely comes up, same for Appearance tbh, and often there's confusion between charisma and manipulation… and the combat system just sucks lol

A simple system can still be so eh, just half-thought out and frustrating at times

So yea this seems promising

[mighty zephyr]

Wits in CofD or 20th?

[rare swallow]

I'm complaining about 20th

[mighty zephyr]

Ah gotcha

How the hell would Wits not come up in a Horror game????

Wits I almost call too powerful a stat sometimes

[rare swallow]

I have no clue, but often my ST uses Per or Dex for things I'd think were wits

[mighty zephyr]

I hate to like say someone's doing something wrong
but yeah Wits is "quick thinking and awareness to sudden stimuli"

[rare swallow]

Yeah most of the time they just use Dex or Per

I imagine it is wrong

[queen heron]

imo CofD has a bit of an issue with the resist stats

you just dont see things actively call for it as often

[short quiver]

Yeah but they're still pretty useful for resisting stuff even if they aren't rolled as often, ime

[rare swallow]

No system's ever perfect sadly

But yeah reading through the book for MtAw, they don't get rolled often but still come up often it feels

[clear delta]

Did you enjoy the fiction in the corebook?

[rare swallow]

I haven't read the CofD 2e Core rulebool since it doesn't seem it's necessary in 2e? But the fiction in MtAw 2e is great.

I love the vibes

[rare swallow]

I meed to finished up my preparation for CtD 20th… all I really need is a map and to stat a couple NPCs

[clear delta]

I meant mtaw 2e corebooj

[rare swallow]

Yeah, the fiction is cool

Vibes are great

[fair jungle]

Thanks! That's actually great new info, specially on the bite thing, speacilly since my sis wanted to make a WtA character that her job is to hunt wild Garou that are about to change

[fair jungle]

Changeling the Dreaming

As I recall, the 'gist' of it is
"Fae soul are in the same reincarnation pool as human, as in, you can be born a Fae and just later in life you will know"
And dreaming while keeping an active imagination/aspect in life is extremely important for them

While massively mundane things can kill a fae

[rare swallow]

I know ctd :p

[fair jungle]

frick

[rare swallow]

Not the same thing as "People who astrally project into animals"

[fair jungle]

I skelletonsplained fae to the fae

Fair fair XP

Also, glass walkers originally had the cockroach as their animal, but in W5 is spider

[fair jungle]

Also, about older editions, it is true it was easier to control the Crinos form? I remember hearing something about it, how in W5 the price for going Crinos is very high and can end in tragedy very easily

[heady kestrel]

What if forces Mastigos legacy for… I could see it for both Scelesti or Seers depending on how you flavor it that lets them influence television broadcasts

[clear delta]

"My name is Doof. Do what I say!"

[rare swallow]

But yeah what I like MtAw's vibes and fiction is that it's very eldritch horror-y, but also reminds me of the Dungeon Dimensions of Terry Pratchett's Discworld (magic attracts the attention of things in Discworld)
It's a very cosmic kind of horror, while not necessarily being a lot of dark, dreary personal horror at its core idk if that makes sense. Like in Vampire the horror is being a vampire and the horror is other vampires. In this the horror is unfathomable, but if you disconsider the Seers and Exarchs, Mage society is pretty alright actually.
The dark academia paranormal investigators vibes are also

I managed to put my thoughts on it down, ish

[queen heron]

doesnt need to be one or the other alone, theres a few split legacies

[heady kestrel]

Right but I feel like the narrative and the mechanics of the legacy would change due to the abyss influence vs exarch influence

One would be “analogue horror demon” while the other would be “televangelist” or “pop scientist/psychologist”

[fair jungle]

I will give the 1995 book that
Even if White Wolf used Metis it does around and point at the Main Character Garou to say he's stupid for thinking bad about all Metis

There is a point where they straight up say is not a issue of having a Metis and how they can 100% just be normal people with a deformity , like not having a tail.
Honestly, nice.

[viscid talon]

Would this be the right place to discuss Mage The Awakening?

[mighty zephyr]

Ye

[viscid talon]

I think I need some help understanding, like, things

many things