World of Darkness

[nimble gale]

you could argue vampire/mummy/wraith could be similar but only if you're playing around with cappadocians tbh

err, not qaf

was it qaf? hold on the ahl-i-batini are not my specialty

oh no it was qaf

yeah teh digital web is just the modern version of the correspondance point/mount qaf

[marble sorrel]

Fair. Aininur would still be Moderately Baffled

...The Daeva are on Mount Qaf.

Aininur, Nodding Like She Understands: "The internet is full of evil."

[nimble gale]

I mean is she wrong

[marble sorrel]

That and almost no mages can just 'Snap Things Into Existance'. They'll invoke spirits in ancient tongues or craft devices with mad technology or sing the song of celestial spheres.

They're seeing things through their own paradigm unless they are very outside of the normal range.

[nimble gale]

but yeah the short and long of it is that werewolf and mage use pretty much the exact same cosmology at the macro level

and yeah, you gotta remember mages interact through their paradigm. You might get a 'psychic' who believes in conjuring thought-forms or something, but...

well, paradox

[marble sorrel]

It's how the Tremere were able to beat the pants off the Hermetic Order in the First Massasa War.

As despite being vampires now, not mages...Tremere magic meshes very nicely with Hermetic Order magic.

As they're working under the same logical principles and theories.

Since the Tremere used to be Hermetic Order.

And much like how a mundane hacker could cause trouble for a Technocrat machine, hermetic magic is vulnerable to hermetic-based counters.

Well 'very' is perhaps a bit of an overstatement but Tremere counterspelling is literally twice as effective against Hermetic magic as it is against other mage magic

[nimble gale]

also thaumaturgy is backlash-free (and paradox free in the modern age)

if you fail you just... fail, unless you're trying to bind a demon or something like htat

[marble sorrel]

Also: Tremere bans are fucking powerful.

A rank 5 ban just flat blocks any mage magic that's cast with 4 dots or less in the sphere.

So forces 1-4 fireballs are just Not Happening.

You need a Forces 5 Fireball to get through the 'Piss Off Hermetics' ward

Which stops...basicly all but the most experianced of mages from yeeting things at their havens.

[nimble gale]

yeah

[marble sorrel]

Which reminds me: ID, Aininur should totally try to get her hands on the Demon or Spirit version of those bans (As each ban is for a different type of magic). The Fae/Ghost/Vampire/Sorcerer ones are likely outside of what her training would have included.

[nimble gale]

makes sense

well, the vampire one probably, by virtue of practicing the oldest extant form of blood magic in the clan that's explicitly about hunting/fighting other vampires

I would 100% see the assamites developing that power

[marble sorrel]

Fair.

She'll have to trade with Cassia for the Sorcery one 😛

[nimble gale]

the party tremere is more than likely absolutely willing to go 'will trade basic thaumaturyg for dur-an-ki'

she's already done that with necromancy

the local cappadocian don't give a shit about politics, he has dead people to study

[marble sorrel]

And luckily, dur-an-ki isn't a trade secret. It's based off local pre-vampire magical traditions, just with some adaptions.

[mighty zephyr]

Deviant

[marble sorrel]

https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/chorus/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21874606/Emergency_Meeting.jpg

[clear delta]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PSjoVXFGAQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHUVqV5CO6w
Thinking of boss theme for the cptsd/deadname ghost

[marble sorrel]

Aininur's going to murder another of the player characters.

He met a member of a mage order, had him at the vampire's mercy and then just...let him go with 'well, he seems honorable and we're likely fighting bigger threats than him so the enemy of my enemy is my friend'.

This dumb vampire let a member of the Knights Templar know who he is and just walk off to tell his order of fanatic angel-magic combat wizards about it.

@nimble gale Piotr's brain might not have revived with the rest of him.

[nimble gale]

he had one to start with?

[marble sorrel]

I dunno, I'm just shocked he didn't hand him a complimentary sympathetic link as he left.

[hybrid dock]

Holy shit

[mighty zephyr]

Bump that fella's Humanity up

[red flower]

I am struggling with thinking of a character for Vampire.

I played a Gangrel called Batman last time but I didn’t have much fun with it after the gimmick died.

[marble sorrel]

Piotr: "Look, I'm sure there are bigger problems right now than Vampires and Mages. Isn't that right, member of the Order or Hermes and Local Tremere Vampire?" Clueless

No, he's not aware the First Massassa War is currently ongoing.

[mighty zephyr]

You should probably focus on making a normal person first, then making them a Vampire

[red flower]

Thats what I did last time.
Normal guy working on a tech and law degree get turned.
Thinks he gets superpowers and decided he needs to become a Hero.
Until he meets other vampires.

The game was set immediately after we became vampires.

[hybrid dock]

I one time had a former swat team nosferatu

They just kept wearing all their Cloaker ass equipment

[red flower]

Trying to play a good guy while everyone else went headlong into being a monster was odd and didn’t gel well with the party.

[mighty zephyr]

How did your guy feed?

[red flower]

So a vampire in nightvision and kevlar?

[hybrid dock]

Yeah

I just like how dehumanizing that gear is

Felt it would be cool on a vampire

[red flower]

As many blood bags as he could gather.

Forged a false prescription for blood transfutions

[hybrid dock]

https://www.deviantart.com/3randon9othizm/art/Cloaker-PAYDAY-2-546565636

[nimble gale]

Love me a good Nosferatu

[hybrid dock]

I love the nosferatu

[mighty zephyr]

One thing I always wanted to make was a mercenary squad of Spec-Ops vampires

as antagonists

[hybrid dock]

I know little about vampire but I know I love the nosferatu

Ooooo

Shit that would go so hard

Spec ops vampiressss

[mighty zephyr]

Like one guy with Vigor/Potence with a fuck-off compound bow

[hybrid dock]

YEAHHHHH

FUCK YEAH

[nimble gale]

the nosferatu primogen in the dark ages game I'm running has no face. There's a two small holes for nostrils and one mediums ized hole for a mouth. No eyes, nothing else, just smooth skin for the rest of it.

[hybrid dock]

Freaky

I’m big into “no eyes, just a mouth”

[mighty zephyr]

Gives a quest to gather his manuscript

[hybrid dock]

Shskgdjsh

Voy

Killing you

[marble sorrel]

Fortitude/Potence vampire going full Payday 2 Shield Special could be very bloody scary for a spec-ops team.

https://storage.modworkshop.net/mods/images/preview_59581_1576168151_c8ac58daec8e3b6fb52c05a3b06aaf94.png

'How the fuck does a guy in that much armour, carrying that much metal move that easily?'

[hybrid dock]

YEAH

“You’re up against the wall and I am the fucking wall”

[marble sorrel]

Not sure if V5 has shield rules. I know V20 didn't get them until the Dark Ages book came out but going 'Yeah, you've got a riot shield. You can't use anything bigger than an SMG without exposing yourself but you get cover against attacks you know are coming' is pretty easy.

[marble sorrel]

Payday 2 has some great quotes.

[hybrid dock]

It really does

[marble sorrel]

One of the nicest things about armour as a vampire is not just the protection but also the fact that it gives you 'cover' socially.

If a vampire takes a shotgun to the chest and shrugs it off? People will go 'What the fuck just happened here?'

If a guy in a bulletproof vest takes a shotgun blast to the chest and gets back up? Oh, I guess it was the armour.

[hybrid dock]

Yeah

I also like fucked up tacticool vampires cus of the way tactical gear can be used to dehumanize

You’re not a person anymore you’re this thing of armor and glowing green lights

[clear delta]

Years ago I thought of vampires wearing diving suit like armor since they are strong and that protects from the sun

[mighty zephyr]

and then Castlevania ripped you off

[marble sorrel]

Most Subtle Sabbat Attack

[heady kestrel]

Vampires out here looking like payday enemies

[clear delta]

Yeah

[hybrid dock]

Posted it above but like

Shit, this is kickass for a vampire

[valid merlin]

yeah but she still looked sick as hell doing it

[hybrid dock]

And then the fact that it is, indeed, a corpse under that armor?

God

Tactical gear nosferatu was one of my better character ideas

[rapid glacier]

there are rules for cover in the Werewolf book, mostly other people using it against you and lemme tell you

A Nos with Potence/Celerity is pretty damn close to a Crinos if they've got a big-ass shield to hide behind

or a dumpster

hell let them snack on a Ventrue and now you're really cooking

[hybrid dock]

Speaking of werewolf

Continuing my reading and I’m shocked that cannibalism is banned in the oath of the moon

I guess it…makes sense

But

Huh

I expected werewolves to be less caring about that but I suppose it makes sense that only evil werewolves eat people

[mighty zephyr]

A big part of the Oath is codifying what's bad for you spiritually

And cannibalism is incredibly bad for you spiritually speaking

[clear delta]

Cannibal cults do exist

[mighty zephyr]

The Cull is fun

[hybrid dock]

Mhm mhm

Makes sense

[clear delta]

Like, 2 in 2e corebook, and found a lodge that secretly practices cannibalism and soul eating, tricking you into it

[hybrid dock]

The oaths are fun

I love that the lunes partially enforce them but are entirely inconsistent and chaotic

[marble sorrel]

Cannibalism is also very much associated with the Wyrm, the fundemental force of mindless, pointless destruction. Which Werewolves are kinda opposed to.

[mighty zephyr]

This is Forsaken

[marble sorrel]

...wait, sorry. I think you're talkin about a different werewolf

[hybrid dock]

Oh is the wyrm still around in chronicles-yeah lmao

The other werewolves

[mighty zephyr]

Like Pure dont even do cannibalism

Because it fucks them over too

[marble sorrel]

The less Furry Captain Planet ones XD

[hybrid dock]

Yeah they’re more like furry children of two fucking gods

[mighty zephyr]

The Keystone Species Cops

[hybrid dock]

karen when she sees any spiritual being oh so much like angels they’re-

Lmao

A shame they can’t have wings-actually

Question

Can a werewolf grow wings

[mighty zephyr]

Dont think so

[hybrid dock]

Damn okay

[clear delta]

Helios won't let you go high in the shadow, even if you have flying spirit friends

[mighty zephyr]

Mainly flight is done through manipulating elements or asking a spirit buddy for a lift

Also yeah

[hybrid dock]

Mhm mhm

[mighty zephyr]

Theres an entire writer homebrew about going up higher and higher though

[hybrid dock]

Ooooooo

[mighty zephyr]

And part of the theory why no Uratha can go to the moon is because Luna will just instinctually eat them

Their essence is too similar and any werewolf will just get caught in her gravity well and get devoured

Also really cool tidbits about how the ecology of the shadow mimics that of the ocean but in reverse

[hybrid dock]

OOOOOOO

[mighty zephyr]

Since Essence drifts upwards into space

[hybrid dock]

That’s so fun actually???

Holy shit

[mighty zephyr]

I had my pack go into the stratosphere to meet

The Crown of Thunder Who Rules Through Mighty Rumble

[hybrid dock]

!!!!!

[mighty zephyr]

Which is also how I found out werewolves can survive terminal velocity falls

[hybrid dock]

LMAO

[clear delta]

Due to werewolves being shapeshifters, you probably can homebrew a way to get wings

[mighty zephyr]

Probably

I mean any werewolf can get wings

If you wanna become claimed

[hybrid dock]

Nodnod

[graceful saffron]

Any setting that does "Actually this is a spiritual/metaphysical ocean and reality is sort of the ocean floor" is excellent. I love when the universe gets an outright ocean allegory.

[mighty zephyr]

I just love metaphysical ecology

[hybrid dock]

Same

Anyway

More werewolf!

also reading through more werewolf really reinforces how fucking WEIRD eidbrand's interaction with that one werewolf was

as in, eidbrand was the weird one

poor guy, hope he survives the giant evil ass spirit

man reading more of chronicles really makes me appreciate the work you put into that game Voy

[clear delta]

Supernatural biology and ecology is very fun

[heady kestrel]

Do y’all think a mage legacy that fucks around with hosts would be left handed, or do you think the general mage wouldn’t care

[hybrid dock]

WAIT HOLY SHIT @mighty zephyr I ACCIDENTALLY TOTALLY LEANED INTO THIS LMAO

OOPS

well, less oops, more just really funny that eid also saw trains as weird fuckin living snakes that swallow you

fuck

eid was so cool

[mighty zephyr]

[mighty zephyr]

Generally any legacy focused on human sacrifice would be

And you kinda would have to lean into that to deal with hosts

[hybrid dock]

it's so funny watching eid be like
half right with her perception of reality when it comes to how werewolves see it

she was half right and full of weird shit

[heady kestrel]

That makes sense

[hybrid dock]

i was leaning into jenna moran esque animism but man it was real close

[daring hazel]

Seer who keeps a spider host (the tiny not in a person kind) as a pet.

Sometimes they give it someone who is not cooperating

[hybrid dock]

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/VyAnyn

[high current]

ooo

[marble sorrel]

...here is a weird pondering: It's pretty clear that Geist in CoD is very much oWoD mummy's child but...is it also the successor to Kindred of the East, stripped of the MYSTICAL ORIENTAL LAND theming? Playing people who died and returned, dealing with the effects of an unfair afterlife that needs repair and saddled with a powerful spirit that they need to come to terms with.

[nimble gale]

... You aren't wrong

[valid merlin]

I didn't know Kindred of the East was about anything except for the racism

[marble sorrel]

I mean, it's not RaHoWa or 'That time WoD wrote the Romani. No, no. The other time they did it. Why did this happen twice?'. It does have themes and mechanics beyond 'Unfiltered Racism'.

It's actually got a very similar power stat/morality track thing to Geist.

Where your morality stat and power stat are the same thing and they're about how you're getting more in tune with the balance of things/they can float up and down during play.

[mighty zephyr]

The one time WW did the Slur Book

[marble sorrel]

*Two

Clanbook Ravnos is the first with 'World of Darkness: Literally A Slur' as #2

And both repeatedly use slurs for the same group of people.

[mighty zephyr]

Oh I meant the book was just titled The Slur

Which to my knowledge was only done once

But yeah, I likewise do not fully know enough about KotE to say one way or another

[marble sorrel]

Oh yeah, that part they only did once.

Clanbook Ravnos 'merely' has it as the very first word on the back of the book, not the title.

But yeah, that's fair. I had a copy of KOTE years ago because for some god-forsaken-reason, the local store sold a tonne of copies of it when it came out due to 'Hey, we're in Oceania, this might have some more local things than vampire normally does'.

It did not. But it meant the second hand section had a lot of copies of the book a few years later.

[mighty zephyr]

I feel like from that description though like, Yeah thats Geist

Though less actiony

And more introspective

[marble sorrel]

Yeah, the big distinction is the nature of the spirit you're dealing with. In Geist it's Another Soul.

In KoTE it's your own lower soul as since you died, the upper and lower soul became decoupled.

Which is basicly a Wraith Shadow in that game. The part of yourself that wants to see you fail/dwell on the material.

[hybrid dock]

“I no longer serve the judges of the duat-instead I serve our lord and savior JESUS CHRIST”

“…what?”

[spice abyss]

"As laid out in the teachings of the Book of Mormon!"

[hybrid dock]

Lmao yeah

Mummy who witnesses the crucifixion and is like “hm…y’know maybe i get it”

[marble sorrel]

"Look, Osirus is a Cool Guy but I'm just not feeling it."

[hybrid dock]

“Y’know I’ve spent a few thousand years being an Osiris fan, and it was nice but, maybe it’s time for a change-“
“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN”

[marble sorrel]

I'm guessing this is CoD Mummy?

oWoD is even more prone to this when the average mummy goes 'Wait, Osiris is just a Vampire who worked out the Best Spell. Is he really a god?'.

[hybrid dock]

Chronicles mummy

I still don’t know what Irem religion is but

Maybe Osiris is a thing in it

The duat is at least

[mighty zephyr]

Irem predates Osiris

They worship the Judges, who are a council of actual real bona fide gods who seem to be the only deities left of Irem

[hybrid dock]

Mhm mhm

Makes sense

Also Anubis is there

[clear delta]

Azar

The mythology is a bit different but basically

Seth is a hero who died for humanity's freedom, fusing with the pulse of life and guiding mummies to apotheosis

Sutekh

While Azar (Osiris) is a positive god too, but I forget his myths

Anubis is a nice guy who helps mummies as much as he can

Getting transfered under him is a "win condition" in mummy

Another is a careful tightrope between being too good to let go of and too bad to not be punished, so you can convince your judge to let you into heaven

[hybrid dock]

Lmao

[high current]

and then there's the other win con where you say 'lol, lmao, fuck the cycles of guiltrite of return, im done with this shit'

[hybrid dock]

Wow

I feel bad for the deceived

[heady kestrel]

what is up with the deceived

[hybrid dock]

The ritual fucked them up

SO bad

[radiant marsh]

Amusingly, IIRC in the 1e Pure Book, it was mentioned that some Predator Kings do it anyway because they see it as the ultimate expression of dominance over mankind.

It still fucks them over and tanks their Harmony

Like explicitly so

But it's telling that they're still happily violating an set-in-stone tenet of their existence because their own ideological view on said tenet tells them it's fine, actually, despite the very visible consequences.

[radiant marsh]

Also, unlike the Arisen, the Decieved literally cannot be permanently destroyed

Like... "Will be trapped in this until the actual heat-death of the universe" level of malicious immortality

[hybrid dock]

We might need the god-machine cosmic meat grinder for this one

[hybrid dock]

question
what other mummy books exist, if any

besides the main one

[clear delta]

I'll check
I know 1e had a lot

Guildhalls, blue nile

[mighty zephyr]

Dark Eras

Technically

[hybrid dock]

designing god machine infrastructure for fun and things escalated out of hand

i dont think it could ever possibly need three command and control infrastructures

[spice abyss]

I want to kill the snake

It is a weak point

Wait Ophan is for angels

Eh

Point stands

[hybrid dock]

it is a weak point yeah

though the command systems are built to know if any threats will approach it

its a time portal :3

[hybrid dock]

it has been completed

the sinister time machine infrastructure

[graceful saffron]

Hmmmm. Not enough C&C

[hybrid dock]

"help my infrastructure is dying"
"Spend less essence on C&C"
"no"

listen the reason theres so much C&C is that this is infrastructure that exists in all moments in time

so one of those is basically only useful in the distant past and one of those is only useful in the distant future and one of those is a flock of evil camera birds

theyre only unified by the time travel engine

[velvet sparrow]

😭

[rapid glacier]

I have a dumb request/question; how many dumb pun names can you make with the name Ralph for the inventor mages the at aren’t Tecnocracy aligned (Ethernites? I can’t remember and I’m at work)

I’ve got Ralpharius, Ralphazar, Ralphonze, Ralphagor, etc etc

I’m doing a bit for my WtA villain and I want to see if I can make it work by making sure he’s just a huge dweeb

[olive citrus]

Does anyone here who has run W20 come up with narrative retcons for the two pure tribes?

[marble sorrel]

Hmm...debating a second thaumaturgy path for Aininur. Right now I'm looking at Focused Mind, Hunter's Winds and Path of Mercury. That or do a homebrew rewrite of Awakening of Steel, which is thematically cool but mechanically not great.

[marble sorrel]

Do you mean Forsaken Pure Tribes? W20 is Apocalypse isn't it?

[rapid glacier]

Unless they meant the Silver Fangs and Get needing the Pure-Blooded merit, I always retconned it as ‘Pedigree or Lineage’, meaning one of your direct parents had a link to a famous line of Garou

That was my groups retcon for it anyway

[olive citrus]

I mean for apocalypse. For the Native American tribes

[rapid glacier]

I know in W5 the retcon is just taking the specific cultural elements out and leaving the generalizations in; Ghost Council still buck traditions in favor of current or practical approaches, Galestalkers still kill the shit out of Banes and are kinda hard to get along with. Those were the two tribes with the Native American names in W20

If I were to backport them to W20 I would just use the same justifications and narrative elements and say ‘they were really popular or prolific tribes in North America until Shadow Lords and Silver Fangs showed up and were assholes’

[marble sorrel]

I'd mostly just backport the names/make it more clear they didn't exist exclusively there/that most werewolves have aspects of their lives based on the human culture they're from. A galestalker from germany likely has rather different local flourishes to his woof traditions. Much like how a Native American Fianna likely has some local aspects to his own Fianna traditions.

[rapid glacier]

That’s how it works in W5, and it works out well imo; the backport is mostly just supercharging your PCs because the 20th anniversary editions tend to be capable of much more mayhem on paper*

*W5 werewolves are still comically dangerous

[marble sorrel]

They just don't have shit like 'if this is the second hit I've taken in this battle, it instead heals me' bullshit 😛

[rapid glacier]

Yeah or my personal favorite

[marble sorrel]

I love that Fianna trick. Makes them so annoying/actually lets them live up to the fighty claims.

[rapid glacier]

Children of Gaia are so chill they aren’t angry in Crinos

Porcupine’s gift is kind of like that it just reflects what you’re supposed to take

Parry the shotgun? Hohohoho no no sir, I’m reposte-ing it

[marble sorrel]

Does V5 have Pure Breed still? I will admit I find it funny how a good chunk of the Fera take one look at Werewolf Breeding Rules and go 'What elitist bullshit is this?'

[rapid glacier]

Not as a background, no, and even Breed forms are removed

You can make a Lupus born Garou if you want but nothing changes really and there’s no like stat or merit stuff for it

Crinos-born don’t exist in setting and there’s no more weird incest between two Garou having kids, so it’s more common to have families with both parents are Garou

But still pretty rare; they live short and violent lives and that’s not really amenable to child rearing typically

[marble sorrel]

nods

I did kinda find breed forms fun, with stuff like 'if you get beaten up enough, you can be forced back to breed form' and 'you get a few tricks related to what you grew up with as a kid'.

But losing Pure Blood is no great loss. XD

[rapid glacier]

For sure

Also, one of my characters in this new WtA game I’ve got is Crinos born and doesn’t know it, and he’s got some of the old traits (patchy skin, albino, red eyes, etc) with Painful Change flaw

Where he takes superficial damage when he shifts; he’s gonna find out with everyone else when he gets knocked out and reverts to Crinos form and everyone has to sneak him home in the back of a truck under a tarp

But there’s no rules for it other than the Flaw; I just thought it would be a fun twist for someone who doesn’t know shit about the setting outside of Vampire

[marble sorrel]

Werewolves: "Here is my complicated rules about why it's actually good I'm so inbred my Crinos Form has a Pug Nose."
Werecrows: "...I dunno, that sounds like Eugenic-y bullshit.
Wererats: "...why would we give a crap, as long as the rat is ratting?"
Weresharks: "You guys fuck humans? Ewww. Keep your weird fetish away from us."
Werefoxes: "Please consult the chart - If Werefox, excellent bloodline. If not werefox, insuffiently cool."

[rapid glacier]

Oh god Pug Crinos is deeply cursed

I always went with seizures and night terrors, I think the Pug-Born have it worse

[marble sorrel]

One of the other vampires in Aininur's game has family that were Revenants. Sera (The werewolf ragabash that Aininur doesn't yet know is a werewolf/is dating) described him as 'I didn't know Vampires had Silver Fangs', which so far none of the PCs have quite understood what she meant.

[rapid glacier]

Somewhere, a Ventrue is offended and knows why, but like not specifically

[marble sorrel]

Piotr is the Dumbest Vampire. A Tzimisce who's somehow given a pass to both the Tremere and the Actual Knight Templar we've encountered.

[rapid glacier]

…are they a Nando pastiche from What We Do In the Shadows?

[marble sorrel]

I don't think so. He's just a dumb soldier who was in the right place at the right time to get sired because he killed the Mongolian Cavalryman who killed the previous Prince.

Which is an issue because that fucker is now, legally speaking, the current prince. So he's not just the Dumbest Vampire, he's the Dumbest Prince.

Since the previous prince put in her will that the vampire who kills her killer is her choice as prince to replace her.

He's been a vampire for six weeks at this point.

This is the Dark Ages and we're off in 'middle of nowhere, poland', so being Prince is not quite as 'you are a major power player' as it would be in modern nights

But it's Still A Problem.

'I am the prince of all the local vampires. All twelve to eighteen of them'

[olive citrus]

Do Galestalkers still contain that cannibalism part if their lore?

[marble sorrel]

I imagine not, though I can't say one way or another for certain but it sounds like something W5 would have sandpapered off

[rapid glacier]

Weirdly enough they do, but it’s not the main thing they do; they are required to partake in a fresh kill every day to sate North Winds appetite or they don’t get to restore Willpower normally

There is an alt Ban but I forgot what it is rn it’s in Moonlit Path though

[marble sorrel]

That's a lot of killing/a really big ban.

[rapid glacier]

The litany still forbids eating Human flesh, but it also forbids just wantonly killing humans too and well (side-eyes the Red Talons)

[rapid glacier]

Squirrels and mice count

You don’t even need to hunt it apparently, so if you know a guy who has pet snakes you could probably handle this without a ton of difficulty but rules-lawyering the spirit of a N’oreaster is probably gonna have consequences

[marble sorrel]

Piotr seems to have mostly ended up prince because nobody else wanted the job. Even the more politically powerful vampires mostly looked at how much of a shitshow dark ages Poland is and went 'no, that sounds like something for Someone Else to sort out'. XD

[rapid glacier]

Is the Cam even a thing in Dark Ages

[marble sorrel]

Nope. There's a prince but no Cam.

He's purely a local power.

And right now the job seems less 'rule the area' and more 'keep things stable enough/go stab enough problems that the other vampires can do whatever they want'

The last prince held the job for several centuries because she had Gokubrain and thus was a very good choice for 'X is causing problems with local vampires. Go test your strength making it not a problem any more'.

The Functionally Actually Running The Place guy is the current prince's advisor/the brother of the former prince.

He doesn't want to fight or run things. He wants to play about with economics and do math about grain yeild to make sure there's plenty of healthy, happy humans so none of the vampires are going hungry.

[rapid glacier]

Ah, he got Vizier Chat (secret)’d

Good luck to that poor Tscimize, hope they live long enough to regret these decisions

[marble sorrel]

Well so far Aininur is working out the correct solution to 'The dumbass prince just let a mage walk out because he thinks a knight templar can be convinced vampires are on the level'.

Right now that solution is 'Stabbing. She never agreed not to kill him'

[rapid glacier]

Ah yeah letting wizards do whatever is always bad

[marble sorrel]

Especially Knights Templar. It's never smart to let an Outright Fanatic decide if you're on the level or not.

[rapid glacier]

That villain I was talking about earlier is a whiny tech bro who moved into the area of the pack and is actively trying to make a Nexus Crawler do its bidding

[marble sorrel]

Hahahahah, very fun.

[rapid glacier]

Take a guess how well that’s gonna go lmao

It’s basically a convoluted excuse to have werewolves fight a Voltron made out of construction equipment, like Devestator

[marble sorrel]

Perfect

Which reminds me - I think I might try a bit of an update of Awakening of the Steel. It's a cool thaumaturgy path conceptually and it's got 1-2 really cool powers but the first 3 are just wretched.

[rapid glacier]

Thaum paths aren’t in V5 but there are rituals that have some of the powers because one of the Tremere has the Pact of the Blade one

She used it on a whip and is doing an Indiana Jones type thing

[marble sorrel]

Strike At The True Flesh is a beefy rank 5 and a chunk of why I think it's worth a shot at updating.

You bless a blade and it's next strike ignores all supernatural defences and boosts.

As for a moment you're not wielding a sword, you're wielding the primal concept of killing, which which caine struck his brother down.

[rapid glacier]

Yeah hers just gives her two dots and extra damage

I think it might ignore halving on supernatural critters, nothing seems to last long enough for it to matter

[marble sorrel]

Honestly, for all its fancy wording I can 100% tell what the developers were thinking when they wrote Awakening of the Steel.

It's 'So you want to be a Jedi' 😛

Deflecting ranged attacks, carving through even the toughest of things and calling a weapon to hand from long distances

Which is actually a bit of an issue as...cool, there's a power for parrying ranged attacks. The issue there is that in Dark Ages, there are shields. The tool with which people normally block ranged attacks. But the rules forgot to mention that shields can block ranged attacks so 'oops'.

[hybrid dock]

Thinkin bout “ochemata who forgot” again

The funniest fucking possible mage awakening. Real whoopsies moment.

[marble sorrel]

...wait...hahahahahahah, whoops

Parry is limited to brawling and melee, block is 'bashing damage' (Or lethal/aggravated if you have armour).

...bullets do bashing damage to vampires.

[rapid glacier]

Even if it didn’t you’d need Fortitude for it to work anyway

And Fort 1 is piss easy

[marble sorrel]

I think I'll try to keep the spirit of this while refurnishing the mechanics. Conceptually the powers are cool but most are too expensive or too fiddly.

Like rank 3 is 'your sword ignores armour'. Okay, that's cool. Oh, it also has the additional cost that you don't get strength or successes to damage, just the sword's base value...oh, this suddenly stopped being cool. Most vampires can soak 2-4 lethal pretty easily and this is the post-buff version.

[valid merlin]

Oh thats... hmmm

[marble sorrel]

I might actually steal a couple of tricks from werewolf gifts for this. As the rank 1-2 need Complete Replacement.

Silly pondering on that 'stab through armour' one. It meantions that fluffwise you can also smash up doors or other objects with it.

While this power is active, add your ranks in Awakening of the Steel to your strength when determining if you can break an object (Page 261, V20 Core Rulebook)

Give it a little non-combat stuff by letting them go 'Look, I spent multiple thaumaturgy ranks on Being Good At Sword. I am going to just take that door straight off its hinges without slowing'.

[rapid glacier]

Give them Hare’s Leap while holding it, offer no explanations you just now have a 3m vertical leap inexplicably

[marble sorrel]

Hahahah. Maybe/Maybe Not. I am going to keep it to the 'so you want to be a jedi/inhumanly good blademaster' origins of it.

[rapid glacier]

Staredown might also be a good choice then

Or mocking of crows or whatever it’s called, the taunt

Or just dig up other alt choices for Potence, surely one of them has something

Or celerity

[marble sorrel]

Yeah, I've got some solid ideas sitting about.

I think the rank 1 will be real simple though.

Rank 1 - Spend a turn communing with the weapon. Reduce the TN of your next action that involves the blade. Like a more specific/limited Apecraft's Blessing.

spending time and blood to make a perfect strike

[rapid glacier]

Should make that the 2 dot and have a quick draw or very short range recall to hand the 1 dot

Having a guaranteed better hit is pretty substantial especially in 20th

Since you only need the one for a successful hit before dodging and stuff shows up, lowering that target number is huge

[marble sorrel]

Fair, was pondering it as the rank 1 because a much wider usage version (Apecraft's Blessing) is itself a rank 1 gift but pushing it a bit up wouldn't be terrible.

[rapid glacier]

Also Gifts are balanced around being a 9 foot tall death machine from antiquity; it being a one dot there makes more sense, where the REALLY violent stuff for licks tends to be deeper into the dots

So if you wanna borrow them you gotta keep that in mind that a lot of one dot gifts will stack up against many two or three dot disciplines

[marble sorrel]

That's fair.

I'll push Confer with the Blade up to rank 2 and make the rank 1 fancy but not quite so potent.

[rapid glacier]

Hell in W5? A one dot gift that adds your Glory total to a dice pool to hit someone means you’re looking a potentially like 13 dice out of the gate in Crinos, and 17 if you’re doing it to an inanimate object

[marble sorrel]

I think I might make the rank 1 real simple but very nice.

[rapid glacier]

Something with utility would be a fun one, everyone loves getting a QOL one dot

Or quality of unlife I guess in this case

[marble sorrel]

Your weapons become an extension of yourself, as much a part of you as your own hands.

System: You can draw weapons without spending an action for the scene and you never damage your own weapon, no matter how much potence you have. Unlike other thaumaturgy gifts, does not require an action to invoke. If 'who draws first' is ever a concern (Such as a classic gunslinger quickdraw), add your successes as bonus dice to that roll.

Quick notes version for a 1 dot

So you'll still need to spend the blood point and make the WP roll

But 'not having to spend actions drawing weapons' does not itself cost an action

As that would be kinda self-defeating

•• Confer with the Blade
Although few Assamites claim to have actually spoken to a weapon’s soul, blacksmiths and warriors alike have ascribed spiritual qualities to hand-forged blades for centuries. Confer with the Blade allows a weapon’s wielder to attune with the spirit deep within the blade, allowing the two to act as a single being. The actual impressions only take an instant to gain, though many prefer to spend much longer in contemplation if time permits.

System: Each success reduces the difficulty by one on the next roll she makes for her character related to her weapon. The purpose is irrelevant — this is equally efficacious for attempts to repair the blade as to perform knife tricks as to strike a foe. If she uses her weapon to break an object, add her ranks in Awakening of the Steel to her effective strength for that purpose.

With the rank 2 being 'I speak to the soul of my weapon. It tells me to kick your ass'

Rank 3 will be that 'well what if I just Blocked Some Arrows/Bullets'

Trying to avoid 'extra actions' or 'boost damage' as we already have disciplines for that

I'm not just Stealing Potence's Breakfast.

[rapid glacier]

Yeah that’s a Magpie gift anyway, not thematically appropriate

[marble sorrel]

Not 100% parsing that.

[rapid glacier]

Magpie grants a gift that lets you literally steal gifts or disciplines from enemies and then you can use them and they can’t for a scene

Literally stealing Potence’s breakfast

[marble sorrel]

Ah, right

[marble sorrel]

• Grasp of the Mountain
The best scimitar in all creation does its owner no good if it’s lying five yards away from him. Grasp of the Mountain strengthens the spiritual bond between the sword and the swordsman in order to reinforce the wielder’s physical grip on his weapon. A blade that is under the effect of this art will call itself to her hand at a moment’s notice.

System: The player can draw and sheath weapons without using an action. She may also draw any weapon she regularly wields that is within 30 yards, even if it is not on her body. This can allow her to retrieve thrown weapons and makes her very difficult to disarm. If there is ever a question about ‘which character draws first’, such as a classic gunslinger’s showdown, each success adds one bonus die to any tests related to having the quickest draw.

This power lasts for one scene and does not require an action to invoke, although it still require the normal blood expenditure and Willpower activation roll. 

[marble sorrel]

Alright, got an initial version of it sketched out.

[marble sorrel]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S9UMqzDedpY1WeHMesVd9dX0RYJPqteN3gV2QJleeYA/edit?usp=sharing

[high current]

https://cdn.knockout.chat/image/1161-ec36df77-7d7a-4e87-a494-9e3635f3c9cb.jpg

casual reminder that WtA's tagline is "When Will You Rage?"
there is no if, just when

[rapid glacier]

casual reminder that WtA: Book of Hungry Names is excellent and also touches on this concept A LOT

[nimble gale]

Man I cannot wait for the solo W20 game I'm in to actually start. My character's a crinos-born Glass Walker (with an actually okay family life, though not necessarily an okay cairne life) philodox who's going to law school, and currently works as a secretary for her dad, who is also a lawyer (specializing in corporate and environmental law). The game's set in las vegas, and her defect is albinism, so she's got... a sensitivity for bright lights.

In las vegas, nevada.

I love setting myself up to suffer.

[graceful saffron]

My newly resurrected VtR party has unanimously voted for me to run a game set in LA.

The last three campaigns I have run for them over the last fifteen years have all been in LA.

I adore them for this energy, to be clear.

[mighty zephyr]

https://tenor.com/view/war-vietnam-ptsd-shell-shock-moment-gif-3022747568394546158

Im glad for you

[graceful saffron]

I laugh Not wrong. Its just very funny they keep choosing LA. Not one of them watches the LA by Night live-play or owns/reads any of the books.

[marble sorrel]

Hope this seems okay. Awakening of Steel is a fun path thematically but mechanically is kinda lacking.

[nimble gale]

I quite like it. The capstone's very versatile, which is nice, and I really dig razor's shield; the utility of the first two powers is also very handy. A little niche, but I don't mind niche thaumaturgy paths.

[marble sorrel]

Razor’s Shield is one of the beefier effects but 'making the game less rocket tag' is always fun and it gives you a nice passive defence.

[marble sorrel]

Funny thing - As mean as Strike At The True Flesh is, it's actually nerfed from the original. The original allowed Potence but I felt that was too mean.

[marble sorrel]

Silly Pondering: The Technocracy kicked an own goal with the Void Engineers in the 60s.

The moon landing brought the changelings back.

As it was a massive burst of imagination and glamour.

The VE are directly responsible for a powerful Reality Deviant group existing.

[marble sorrel]

...look, I like you Changeling but...come the fuck on.

[radiant marsh]

Contriwise, in CofD, the Moon Landings brought the Idigam back to Earth

Because they got banished by Luna

But mankind landing on the moon created a spiritual link between Earth and the moon/'outside' depths of space where they were flung

[tough pebble]

that's

that's not even

what autism

what

[rapid glacier]

Oh that’s a new one to me, eeeeessshhhh

[tough pebble]

WoD go 1 book without offending someone challenge (impossible)

[rapid glacier]

Fr

[mighty zephyr]

The technocracy then went and reversed their own goal by killing most changelings through the power of 9/11

[tough pebble]

...how much is that supposed to imply that the technocracy had a hand in 9/11?

[mighty zephyr]

Its a roundabout Bush did 9/11 joke so like 100%

[tough pebble]

Noted.

[mighty zephyr]

It is also real lore that Changelings diminished around the world due to 9/11

[rapid glacier]

…aight I’ll bite, why is that

No more whimsy? GWOT making people too miserable to be wondrous?

[mighty zephyr]

It made the whole world more banal

[tough pebble]

IRL it did result in a very strong collective shift in people mentally, though mainly in the U.S.

[rapid glacier]

Yeah that’s about what I expected

[tough pebble]

Increased paranoia, increased authoritarian ideals, it is kind of hard to ignore the impact on U.S. cultural zeitgeist for the worse

It's easy to extrapolate that to impacts on Changeling, I guess

[rapid glacier]

I’m used to filtering it through Hunter and Werewolf, with two related but drastically different reactions

Speaking of werewolf, I got some artwork commissioned for my roll20 game coming up

I’ll ask if the artist minds if I share it here in the morning

Well, ‘morning’, I work thirds we kinda grade on a curve wrt time keeping

[clear delta]

Ah, and while the US has an influence worldwide, this is still a very US centered take. Does it influence changeling populations worldwide the same?

[clear delta]

Oh it is. Damn

[marble sorrel]

...you know, while most thaumaturgies don't translate into v5 super easily, I think Awakening of Steel would be one of the easiest. As it's faction specific and that faction has both Celerity and Blood Sorcery.

So you could give them a 'Be a Fucking Jedi with your sword' Blood Sorcery + Celerity combo.

Where you parry bullets/return them to sender.

[rapid glacier]

I think this is a celerity and fortitude amalgam

I’d have to look but I swear ‘parry bullets’ is something I’ve seen in a splat somewhere

[marble sorrel]

Something like:

You can use non-lethal defence against ranged attacks. If you win, you can make a Rouse Check to reflect the shot. Treat your roll as an attack with the attackers own weapon against them.

Sorry, got it on the brain after doing that v20 update of it earlier/worrying about if the update is okay.

[rapid glacier]

I think the one I’m thinking of let’s you redirect or reflect a shot if you crit

And the difficulty is the attack roll

[marble sorrel]

On the plus side - I got to give this name to the rank 5 of my redo of it. XD

[marble sorrel]

Sorry for rambling.

[hybrid dock]

Wow

[marble sorrel]

It isn't great!

[high current]

fwiw, according to the source on the wiki that's from 2e(1997); C20 doesn't have that(closest equivalent i can find is "Weird as the Wyrd": your speech pattern becomes odd, the way you look at people is too intense, people regard you as strange, +1 Difficulty on Charisma-based rolls for each Imbalance on your sheet)

[mighty zephyr]

M20 does at least

[fair tapir]

good news! it's not just ableism it's just being incredibly uninformed and tasteless

[marble sorrel]

I wonder what other thaumaturgy paths never made it from earlier editions to v20. I should check that out/add to my list of conversions.

checks list

Hmm...nah, not biothaumatugy. Vivicitude already exists.

Path of Curses, Music of the Spheres or Vine of Dionysus feels like it could be fun to update. Lots of room for tinkering.

[heady kestrel]

Ya know I don’t 100% mind

“The splat proliferates and dies off in reaction to real world events”

[mighty zephyr]

Its the Americanism of it all which is the funny part

[heady kestrel]

Yeah I was gonna say its a little American centered from what I hear but that is… fixable

[worthy sundial]

a better version would be like, the global war on terror

(which is distinct from the war on terror)

[heady kestrel]

You could also make changelings more about local than ambient

So changelings were created and killed due to those events, but only in the places that that event mattered

[clear delta]

Global rise in fascism and alt right poisoning changelings with banal evil sprinkled with toxic fantasies

[mighty zephyr]

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUx3q1UK533sp7gw7DdBzoFPeydO1LtU1

I never tire of these

[rapid glacier]

lmao these are great

Red Talons 'Fuck it, I ate the Op' lmao

[mighty zephyr]

Dracula canonically having no vissicitude is really funny

[marble sorrel]

Makes sense. His shit in the novel really is more Protean and Dominate. Mist Form Etc.

He's an unholy abomination but he's not really that sort of dracula.

Vissicitude is really more 'later castlevania/van hellsing depictions of Dracula where he wants cool fight scenes with a super form'

[rapid glacier]

Dracula I also canonically extra as hell and every other kindred kinda hates him

Well him and Stroker, whom I always assumed was Dracula under a pseudonym

[marble sorrel]

Dracula: "Mascurade? Mate, I have a publicist!"

Stoker, not Stroker. Bram Stroker is presumably the writer of the porn parody.

[mighty zephyr]

I am still a little annoyed at the Stoker affair ignoring how much Dracula is not a Kindred

Like the dozens of major structural differences

[rapid glacier]

I mean that could also be Dracula doing both :V

[marble sorrel]

I do find it funny how Dracula just decided 'I'm not part of vampire society' and vampire society hasn't really been able to do much to change that.

'This Cam and Sabbat nonsense sounds like things I don't want to deal with, so I won't'

[marble sorrel]

Like the 'Walking in Sunlight' stuff?

[mighty zephyr]

That and the fact that being a vampire is kinda secondary to being an evil wizard

Like 90% of him doing anything is him being a servant of Satan and being an evil wizard

[marble sorrel]

To be fair...that is a cornerstone Tzimisce thing. Before they had Viss, they had koldunic sorcery. They were some of the original Evil Sorcerer Vampires, with a pact to an Earthbound.

[rapid glacier]

He’s more of a typical Tzimisce in the cultural sense; very possessive and tied to specific traditions and rules and such

But yeah the wizard shit and servant of hell doesn’t get touched on much

[mighty zephyr]

Castlevania Dracula somehow the most accurate popular depiction

[marble sorrel]

Entertainingly, I think his printup for WoD has him as just as good a sorcerer as Tremere himself. Though Thaumaturgy doesn't go past rank 5 so matching isn't that hard.

[mighty zephyr]

Im talking about his V5 stats in Memoriam

[rapid glacier]

I didn’t realize he had a statline, I’m gonna have to look at it

[mighty zephyr]

Tremere's stats arent comparable since he is McGuffined

As is everyone in Gehenna

[rapid glacier]

Yeah he’s a what, 4th gen post-Saulot?

[marble sorrel]

Honestly, he's not the biggest physical threat as far as Elder Vampires are concerned. Like he's still a monster but there are bigger, scarier elders.

[mighty zephyr]

Yer

He is also a giant worm sometimes

Hope thats still canon

[marble sorrel]

The scary thing with v20 Dracula is Subterfuge 7 and Wits 6. The guy is smarter than you and he is a better sneaky bastard than you.

Which fits. It wasn't that dracula was going to Murderize London. It's that he had a clever, well thought out, very sneaky plan that would make him functionally untouchable.

His top path among his disciplines is Animalism, which fits.

Oh no, he's hot

Huh, V5 Dracula became much more of a physical threat.

they made him physical dice pools 10, social/mental 8.

[mighty zephyr]

Only like a 2 dice bonus considering

[marble sorrel]

Yeah, 'much' is perhaps an overstatement. It's a swap but he's also very good at both still.

[mighty zephyr]

Hes also not an unbeatable threat at least

An Ancillae Ventrue willing to grab some goons and suffer a bit could probably manhandle his shit in

Ignoring Koldunism

Which everyone should since its bad

[nimble gale]

Like in general or in V5?

I'm not familiar iwth how it works in V5 but I always liked it in V20 and prior

[heady kestrel]

Koldunism?
(I don't know vampire)

[mighty zephyr]

In V5 I dont know v20 off the top of my head

[mighty zephyr]

Vampire elemental spirit magic

Associated with the Tzimece

[marble sorrel]

It's basicly using the magic of the land about you. They can use it to change the land or maintain awareness of all that goes on in their domain.

[heady kestrel]

oh that classic "vampire that can control the weather" type sstuff

[mighty zephyr]

Yeah

[nimble gale]

pre-modern nights koldunism is also very based on 'what land you have made pacts with', such that the thaumaturgy path equivalents are actually based on the physical location--there's a path for the carpathian mountains, a path for the transylvanian forests, a path for the black sea, etc

[mighty zephyr]

Which is fine in theory but in V5 it is an agg damage nuke that can be done from like 5 miles away

And they try to make it clan specific without really making it clan specific and its just eugh

[marble sorrel]

Ironically, 'doing damage' is likely one of the things v20 koldunism is worst at.

[mighty zephyr]

Poorly designed

[nimble gale]

modern nights/tal'mahe'rah koldunism has some more esoteric stuff, but the true black hand are a silly group

[marble sorrel]

It's insanely good at Information Gathering in v20 more than 'blowing stuff up'

[mighty zephyr]

I mean so is V5

[marble sorrel]

As you can't hide from the earth under your own feet

[mighty zephyr]

Which is rhe problem

[marble sorrel]

...I thought the agg damage nuke was the problem? Sorry, I'm a bit confused now.

[mighty zephyr]

Its a combination of omnisience and omnipresent damage which makes it bad to give to players OR npcs

Its "I just decide you die from my lair having watched the whole plot unfold"

Like full "the bad parts of Mage" mechanics

[marble sorrel]

Yeah, in V20 it was much less good at 'I kill you' and much better at 'I can make people miserable at range and scry areas about me'.

The capstone was the only one that dealt damage and it was so overt it was hard to make use of that often (As it caused an earthquake).

[mighty zephyr]

Well if you're earth-tuned it still does

But you can do it with any of the classical elements

[nimble gale]

An NPC in the dark ages game I'm in is a fairly powerful koldun; he has five dots in the Bialowieza Kraina, so his capstone isn't so much devestation; that was never his intention. Instead he summons up a bone tower that can eat people who die inside it

[marble sorrel]

...in v5 is Koldunism considered a type of Blood Sorcery? Aka: Is it in-clan for those with blood sorcery as a clan discipline?

Or is it it's own special thing?

[mighty zephyr]

Own special thing

[marble sorrel]

Kinda surprised it kept 'choose an element/multiple paths' for a unique discipline. That seems...not very V5 Design.

[mighty zephyr]

It's not

[marble sorrel]

Not intended as an insult, just 'that seems to not line up with how v5 does things'

I wonder if it's a herald to future expansion discipline-wise or it's going to remain an odd outlier.

[mighty zephyr]

It was one of the first books and was widely panned as being bad so

probably an outlier

Like that specifically

Blood Sigils is an otherwise rad book

Okay so no I was wrong

[marble sorrel]

Makes sense. I can get it, even if I really like a lot of thaumaturgical paths that obviously wouldn't make a showing in v5 without that sort of expansion.

It's just Not How Things Are Done

[mighty zephyr]

It is specifically Tzimece Blood Sorcery

https://i.imgur.com/CTVzto3.png

[nimble gale]

well, air seems pretty OP as far as senses go there

[marble sorrel]

Water/Fire seem the most 'reasonable' on that front.

Where there is clear counterplay

[mighty zephyr]

The actual shit is the ritual on top of that

[marble sorrel]

That's a lot more targeted/sustained than v20, yeah

[mighty zephyr]

https://i.imgur.com/qsD2dbK.png

And this is "Elemental Attack"

Blood Sigils is also where the vast majority of Paths got turned into Rituals

Most of them are really cool, thematic, and while powerful, balanced with big time commitments and esoterica required

[rapid glacier]

My Tremere player’s gimmick is “was forced to learn Koldunic sorcery by means of shady tomes and badgering a Mage to help make it happen, then fend off diablerie from her sire to steal it for himself”; it has some interesting and weird interactions but she made a tornado in a sewer with it

It’s very flavor first as far as disciplines go in V5 but we needed some local rulings to fill the gaps

I waived the Tsimiscze only requirement in favor of Enemy 3 (basically every Cam Tremere)

[marble sorrel]

A Tremere, stealing magic? I am shocked. Shocked

[rapid glacier]

And that’s not including how any of the Dragons would feel about it if any found out

[rapid glacier]

:V

Hubris is a beautiful thing, as long as you’re watching it and not participating

[nimble gale]

Clan Tremere: "It's not Hubris with a capital H anymore, we're not actually Mages." beat "BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN WE AREN'T GONNA ACT LIKE IT YEE HAW"

[rapid glacier]

It’s really fun just how badly everyone hates the Tremere for this shit too; Blood Sigils has an entire chapter dedicated to “every other clan wants to learn blood sorcery so they can stop relying on the Tremere”

Even the Kolduny entry in Blood Sigils mentions other ‘sorcerers’ trying to learn Koldunic and is only a matter of time before the code is cracked

Which was the inspiration for one Dr Georgia Harper, relic hunter and assistant professor/fellowship of anthropology at Harvard and her now (extra) late professor and Colleague (and sire)

[marble sorrel]

...it's amusing realizing that Fire Kolunic would really fitting for Aininur as she's all about fire as an aspect of nature. XD

[clear delta]

My man built a whole zoo of demons for himself

[craggy coyote]

Makes sense, given Old Lore for Vicci implied it gave "the eldest" contorl over you. Drac probably wouldn't take the chance, and is also absolutely vain enough to go "Why would I need to change my looks, the world should change for me, and obey"

[marble sorrel]

Sorry for being a bother about something from a couple of days ago, just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on redo of Awakening of Steel for V20?

[olive citrus]

Why provide a whole book for Fera if the w20 book already has them?

[marble sorrel]

It gives a lot more setting details about them with cultural stuff and their Unique Gifts that werewolves don't get.

The W20 version is very bare bones 'works until you get a proper book to tide you over' level

[olive citrus]

Ah ok. That makes sense. I guess I'll have to snag that at some point then

[marble sorrel]

It also gives some details on some mostly-non-werewolf groups like the recent alliance that formed in Africa or the Beast Court.

[rapid glacier]

Yeah it’s lore and bonus options, with the worldbuilding being the main draw

[rapid glacier]

I can’t give much of a read on it, it looks like it’s for V20 and I ricochet’d off preV5 vampire so hard it left a cartoonish sound effect, sorry bud

I like the names of the things, though

[marble sorrel]

That's fair. In theory the rank 4 is very 'delete target awakened mage' but well...that's ironically one of the ones that I made the least changes to. That's Just A Thing The Magic Already Did. XD

[nimble gale]

and being fair mages deserve it

fuck mages, they're the cause of literally all your problems and their fans are the shittiest ones in wod (editor's note ID is a massive mage fan)

[spice abyss]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/588396159916048428/1418268363725078679/image.png?ex=68cd80d8&is=68cc2f58&hm=d099320a478719a3f93ad022331681b2373faa572afa85bf3a5ca200a3a242c5&

[rapid glacier]

I mean, sometimes Gaia picks Kin for their....unconventional approaches

[craggy coyote]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_drugs_in_warfare

[nimble gale]

Fighting Mages Dot PNG (note chapter 6 especially, this will be on the test)

[somber scarab]

My Mage was Acanthus which is like... you're fighting someone a dozen times luckier than you who may also have been peeking at the future

Was not built for combat but it's still hard to ambush someone who has "be in the right place at the right time" as a spell

On the flip side he won't be chucking fireballs at you

[marble sorrel]

Fireball Chucking Mages are a worry for vampires

[marble sorrel]

Pondering how I'd do an update for the Werewolf setting. As a lot of my favorite stuff hasn't had a showing in new stuff but also a lot of that favorite stuff had some design issues.

Like the Beast Courts showing what a functional werecreature society is like? Really cool! Some of their initial treatment as 'mystical orient prevents conflict'? Not so good. Pondering how you'd update them for a slightly more modern version as even their most recent showing is over a decade old. Likewise the Fianna are conceptually great but often written really racistly.

...I think I'd likely tie into cultural toxicity, not just literal pollution, for a more modern version. Werewolves are good at fighting overt monsters but they're not the tool for handling cultures that are turning hateful and predatory. Make a revival of racist and sexist ideas part of Pentex's plans to harm Gaia by spreading corruption along paths that werewolves can't just murder their way to the source.

So you've got a bunch of skinhead Fomorii screaming about how the werewolves want to replace humanity and how they're the real alphas, for the game wants 'something to fight that's more on the mook end'.

With the Black Spiral Dancers being a clear case that werewolves are not immune to that sorta toxic mindset/it's good at preying on them.

Minotaur (The BSD patron) has always been portrayed as misogynistic but it's never really been a major notable trait, just a bit of 'oh and he hates women too' but it could tie well into that.

[patent talon]

That's a pretty good angle, werewolves were intended to be a blunt instrument so their tribes are vulnerable to cultural toxicity. Could have been Wyrm's plan all along, that lead to the Wars originally

And if anyone is putting money into Turning Point or Focus on the Family or similar, it'd be Pentex

[marble sorrel]

Yeah, Pentex has always been a sorta 'what the current toxic bugbear is'. When werewolf first came out, that was more Captain Polution stuff.

And I'd not have them not still be into that

I'ts always fun to fight an evil toxic sludge monster.

But I'd push more into both 'toxic cultural stuff' and also stuff like pinkwashing.

So you'd get Pentex doing their 'everyone is valid' campaign while also funding hateful groups because it keeps them the image of a 'good' company while also getting bills through to let them strip mine better.

Pentex profiting from up-arming police and mysteriously, a certain number of those magazines the SWAT teams get sent have a synthetic silver substitute...

So your werewolves need to genuinely worry about the SWAT because while they are Just Human Guys With Guns mostly, there's no promice some Payday 2 Special Enemy won't turn up with the new Wolfkiller LMG the police department got sold for anti-homeless duties.

Less 'Pentex has a personal killsquad that is the main thing you'll deal with' and more 'Pentex at lower levels will send skinheads to burn your shit down for being woke' + 'at higher levels they'll drop a SWAT team + a couple of Specialist Formorii on you'

I might be overthinking things.

[somber scarab]

Something about "synthetic silver substitute" is sending me

[marble sorrel]

Too silly? It seemed more in-character for Pentex than actually using valuable metals.

[somber scarab]

It's a little silly, but it might just be how the phrase frames it

Pentex probably wants to sell it as like... high-tech advanced alloy that replicates the properties of silver, even if their motivation is just that it's cheaper than the real deal

It's not just a silver substitute, it's NuArgent

Accept no imitations (ignore the fact it's an imitation of pure silver)

And I think something like that dials in the right amount of silliness

[marble sorrel]

That makes sense.

...Oh, nevermind. Use the other thing that's super deadly to werewolves and is also much easier to make

[somber scarab]

Wolfsbane?

[marble sorrel]

Radiation

[patent talon]

The evil toxic sludge monster is also a misogynist

[marble sorrel]

Repleted Uranium Bullets 😛

[somber scarab]

Ah, I didn't remember WOD woof weaknesses

[marble sorrel]

Honestly it's not a super common one because well...you don't tend to fight many people with radiation guns.

But 'stuff associated with polution' can hit them hard

Silver really hurts because it's 'you're empowered by the moon, the metal of the moon is a weakness of yours'

Non-werewolf shifters that are connected to the Sun instead of the moon are vulnerable to Gold instead of Silver.

Radiation/Polution stuff hits hard because it's connected to the force that's actively killing Gaia.

[somber scarab]

If you're going for a rad source uranium kinda sucks though, look at things like radium-226, caesium-137, cobalt-60, iridium-192

Though you might want like lead-lined magazines

Also using something with a half-life of a few years instead of thousands of years means your product has an expiration date and your customers have to buy more even if they don't fire it XD

[marble sorrel]

That's fair. I stand by 'repleted' for the pun though. XD

[clear delta]

And we have mastigos, who can read minds, teleport away from trouble or into secure places, mind control people across town and infiltrate any group
Moros can control decay and lack of energy, bring hidden and high quality weapons around, ruin your gear, transmute and reshape matter. A funny spell is altering conductivity to create pathways to shock people. Oh also they may have ghost minions

[marble sorrel]

Technocracy Anti-Mage Tactics. Make them think you're playing their game, then sucker punch them.

...it's kinda funny how easily you could do Arataka Reigen as a NWO or Syndicate mage. XD

[clear delta]

"Ghosts hate you now. Also, everything you have is now low quality and desperately needing maintenance"

[patent talon]

I should take a look at WtA5, I've only taken a gander through VtM5 but I didn't really enjoy the layout

[marble sorrel]

I'll admit, I've not read all of WtA5. I'd been following it but some of the changes kinda turned me off. As I understand it, much like VtM5 it does try for a smaller scale focus. Less 'Going on Umbral Adventures' (you can but they're a lot more resource heavy/difficult), no Garou Nation and less overlap of splats (You won't say, find Syndicate Mages helping Pentex much since WOD5 tends to silo off the lines more heavily than previous editions did).

I have heard that rage dice is less punishing than hunger dice is for vampires.

[hybrid dock]

“BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!” the Pentex cloaker with an actual fucking silver katana(how did he get that) running at you souped up on amphetamines

[marble sorrel]

...there's a formori gift for letting them step sideways. you could literally have the Pentex cloaker appear out of some shadows without warning because he literally came in from the umbra.

That would be terrifying

[hybrid dock]

Holy fucking shit

Terrifying

[marble sorrel]

...wait...let me check a thing...

[hybrid dock]

Something something “YOU CALL THIS A WARFORM? WE CALL THIS A DIFFICULTY TWEAK”

[marble sorrel]

Found it! A Pentex Soldier could literally have an anti-werewolf taser that knocks them out of warform courtesy of the syndicate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBiGHq-bB6k

'Anti-werewolf payday 2 special enemies' is seeming remarkably 'yep, that would work just fine'.

[hybrid dock]

Yessssddddss

[rapid glacier]

Murkywater is basically a pentex QRF and that's not even a stretch

the final canonical mission of Payday 2 is || a Mayan blood ritual under the White House to steal the President's body for your handler who has been poisoned|| which is just about the most demented Mage thing I can think of

the Werewolf analog is, of course, Vermintide/Darktide

[marble sorrel]

God I love how payday just kept going further and sillier.

[rapid glacier]

its now canonized that the DC police force are summoned from the Elemental Plane of Cops, a thing that started off as a shitpost on reddit lmao

[marble sorrel]

...it's concerning that this is exactly how you could fluff up a Syndicate/NWO summoner.

He's just got a Radio and Summons Cops.

'This is a cop. His only stats are Rage, Gnosis, and Willpower'

[rapid glacier]

Shhh shh, don’t let that secret out, that’s how I’m gonna use Scrags in my games soon

[marble sorrel]

Hahahah

This has the very funny mental image since Aininur is a Spirit Manipualtion Sorcerer of her using the power of faith to drive away cops. XD

[marble sorrel]

checks the payday wiki trivia section for enemies

Since the zombies appear only on Cursed Kill Room and not the other event heists, it can be presumed that the US government has jurisdiction over your nightmares.

[hybrid dock]

LMAO

[patent talon]

I've been thinking about an interpretation of the Pure where they'd keep their auspices. Obviously their main deal is their rejection of Luna, but I think they could still stick to their other goals if you make Luna's will a lot more ambiguous

You could have a version of the Pure who say "Luna would never want the death of Father Wolf, or the end of Pangaea, the Forsaken tribes must have made it up/misinterpreted her/gone along with some psychosis she was having, we stayed true to our mother and father*

[hybrid dock]

I could absolutely see that

Specially since even in the creation myth Luna seemed pissed about the whole thing

[patent talon]

Yeah, maybe it's my love of mirror enemy factions, but it feels odd to me having the Pure only have the Tribe as their "splat"

[rapid glacier]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa my session zeros start next week and im hype as shit

I don’t normally do session zeros for my games, this will be fun

Partially inspired by how well Norfolk Wizard Game’s first four sessions turned out, I hope mine go at least half as well as those did

[radiant marsh]

It's all fun and games until the bulked-out Fomori hits you with a "YOU'RE UP AGAINST THE WALL, AND I AM THE FUCKING WALL!"

The Tide games fit

Warpfire throwers/Tox Flamers are really just shooting Balefire when you think about it

[rapid glacier]

Darktide is a Werewolf game if you squint in the same way Cyberpunk2077 is a thin-blood Vampire game

[dense vault]

This wasn't mentioned but the poison killing Bain, your handler, is a version of the green flu from Left 4 Dead, because the fucking L4D crossover heist is canon to Payday 2.

[marble sorrel]

Entertainingly: in V20, shields are actually very effective if you want to fight a werewolf as they're one of the few defences werewolf claws don't just go through like hot butter. As they're a bonus to your block, not soak.

So Payday 2 shield guys might actually Delay A Werewolf as the werewolf has +1 TN on attacks against them and they can parry claws.

And a dozer-like starts requiring the specialist anti-armour gift.

[nimble gale]

the best way to kill a werewolf without high powered weaponry or silver is, as it turns out, a shield wall with boar spears.

[rapid glacier]

Fire works pretty good too

I'd start with fire, honestly

[high current]

Vampires getting a weakness to fire as if it doesn't burn everyone the same smh

[radiant marsh]

In W20 at least, it's a level 1 Homid Gift that makes fire do bashing instead of agg

[marble sorrel]

There's a vampire ritual in V20 that lets them soak aggravated fire damage.

Doesn't stop the red fear though.

[nimble gale]

There are ways around fire. There are, relatively speaking, few ways around a critical mass of pointy sticks

[mighty zephyr]

Counterpoint

[high current]

Renown 8+ Ahroun gift in W5 to make yourself immune to fire/reduce stronger sources of heat-based damage by your Glory

(Hart Wardens also get it)

[rapid glacier]

I mean yeah if you just blow a werewolf up hard enough there aren’t enough bits to regenerate

[open roost]

After watching twin peaks i can feel whatever werewolf game i end up running in the future being unshakably influenced by the black lodge

[patent talon]

Apocalypse or Forsaken? Or both?

[open roost]

Apocalypse 5

[high current]

https://tenor.com/NDMH.gif

Black Spiral Dancers be like

[vast blaze]

Is being a lower generation worth investing in in Vampire 20th Edition?

Was considering an oldass 8th gen that just woke up again but idk if that'd be a good use of my Background points

[mighty zephyr]

It is the objectively best background

But also if the entire coterie is not doing the same thing, you shouldn't

Because it just fucks with the power dynamic of the game and makes you the specialist character by virtue of number

[vast blaze]

True

[marble sorrel]

It's very potent. Of note - The 5th dot is the most powerful of them (As it unlocks rank 6 stat/disciplines/has thie biggest jump in blood)

Going from 0-2 dots is less notable than going from 4 to 5 dots

[vast blaze]

Oh so it doesn't just boost your blood points?

[marble sorrel]

It also unlocks how much you can spend per turn and the 5th dot gives you enough generation to get 6 dot discpines.

[mighty zephyr]

It also makes you immune to Dominate from higher generations

[vast blaze]

Hrmmm

[marble sorrel]

Like Celerity is very powerful but Celerity is also capped by how much blood you can dump into it. So having enough blood to Celerity and Potence is vastly better than having enough blood per turn to Celerity or Potence

[vast blaze]

Could balance it out with like

[marble sorrel]

If that makes sense?

[vast blaze]

NO contacts, NO wealth, NO background stuff

Because he's been asleep so fucking long it's all just gone at this point

[mighty zephyr]

Its not balanced

I have seen so many people do this exact line and its always unbalanced if its how the chronicle starts

[vast blaze]

Hm

Probably better to just throw the idea away then I guess

[marble sorrel]

We've got a Generation 5 guy in my current game and it's mostly balanced by the fact that as much as I love the guy, he can't make a character to save his life.

Like in WOD where 'get a 5' is the best way to spend stat points, his highest stat is a 3. XD

[vast blaze]

FIFTH?????

FIFTH GENERATION??????

[marble sorrel]

Nah, 5 dots

He's...7th generation iirc, since it's dark age.

[vast blaze]

Oh, got it

Okay I thought you meant he was of the fifth generation and I was about to say

[mighty zephyr]

7th is still a low methuselah high elder

[vast blaze]

But yeah it would probably be better to throw the idea away and think of something else

[marble sorrel]

Oh, 100%. He's got a comically high generation that is mostly held back by the fact he's A) Dumb as a Post B) Not super well built otherwise.

[mighty zephyr]

I think if a character is built average in a wod game that person has built better than anyone going for 4s and 5s

Basically no one has peak human capability after all

[clear delta]

W corp adventure
The local subway system is surprisingly fast, but trips are always a strange and at times scary dream
The stations are weird and haunted
The party ends up stuck and realize trains cut through dimensions, perhaps the shadow/underworld/hedge/astral or any other realm you want to do for the story
Could even have the party learn to ise similar shortcuts, or blackmail the subway owners into giving better services for them
Hm actually. Imagine a game about running/working a subway service that takes shortcuts in other realms

[marble sorrel]

Sure but on a more objectively true level: 4s and 5s are better built from a 'spending stats to get the most effect' way, which is what I'm talking about.

[mighty zephyr]

Oh this is how the subway worked in my mage game

Theres an entire order in NYC built around architecture and infrastructure

[marble sorrel]

Honestly, run it by your group. See what others are building. If nobody at all is going for a combat monkey for example, then the guy who can blood boost himself to big stats and punch things in half is 'Oh we like that this guy can solve combat problems', rather than 'he's stepping on our toes'.

[clear delta]

Oh sounds very cool

[nimble gale]

I will note generation only unlocks sixth dots in things in the dark ages, in modern nights (at least in v20 and prior) you'll still have human caps even at generation 5

it's still a powerful pick though

[clear delta]

Are you willing to share more on this Voy?

[mighty zephyr]

I mean there isnt too much to share

The subways and sewers are contested by Nosferatu, werewolves, and a near infinite supply of Beshilu

Mages use special subway cars that let them skip through the astral to teleport to the Pentacle's main headquarters

[clear delta]

I see

[high current]

the last time i actually got to play a V20 game, i went Generation 5(8th gen) on my Tremere purely for the sake of having enough blood and being able to spend enough to actually use Thaumaturgy

having enough blood to use Thaumaturgy without having to feed every scene*

[vast blaze]

That kicks ass as a concept

[clear delta]

Ah, the fucked up rats along fear inducing vampires?
I feel bad for people who work in the sewers and subways, or take the normal trains

[mighty zephyr]

The Union has a big presence in keeping sewer and subway workers alive

[clear delta]

Cool

[mighty zephyr]

and the Hunters in Darkness do a lot to keep the numbers in check

[vast blaze]

It would be cool to be the Aura Farmer that just goes ham with a sword and dices the group's foes up to bits

...assuming I don't get instagibbed by a random 9mm anyway

[clear delta]

Union hunter: Never thought I might die fighting alongside one of you wolves
Hunter in darkness: How about alongside a friend?

[marble sorrel]

To be fair, in 20th, a pistol is not a worry for most vampires. They do bashing, which you halve and you soak with full stamina.

[vast blaze]

True

A random shotgun then

[mighty zephyr]

Unless it has an incedinary round

then you die

[vast blaze]

But like

Who the fuck shoots incendiaries from a fucking pistol

Point stands though, I might want to do gunslinging rather than swordsmanship

[mighty zephyr]

A person who knows they're up against a vampire

[vast blaze]

At that point surely you'd just bring a shotgun or something more sensible though

[clear delta]

The train has workers to keep entities away from the facilities and trains, and from time to time clear the rails in the other realm
Oh, instead of getting stuck, could have the memory loss/dreaming state to not work anymore on the player party, leading them seeing the other realm

[marble sorrel]

Mind you, attempting ot make incindary rounds is also a quick way to have no fingers and dragon breath shotgun rounds are very low power. So like, you won't be soaking the dragon breath but it also won't be doing much base damage.

[vast blaze]

Ooooooooooooooooooo yes

What's the other realm like?

[marble sorrel]

Dragon Breath Rounds are less 'I have a flamethrower' and more 'I can shoot a firework out of my shotgun'.

[clear delta]

Could be an invented one, or an existing one
Shadow, underworld, hedge, astral and so on

[marble sorrel]

I'd 100% have them cause Red Fear in vampires though.

Just likely not kill them too well.

[vast blaze]

Tracks, I don't think dragon's breaths are particularly great irl either

[vast blaze]

Could be a nexus connecting a lot of WoD's alternate worlds

[marble sorrel]

They're likely very good for 'firing at a group of vampires to make a chunk of them run away'

[vast blaze]

Maybe even some openings into other settings entirely if you're down for Shenanigans

[marble sorrel]

But not so much for 'this is a big scary vampire I need to kill'

[vast blaze]

...god imagine a fucking space marine emerging from one of the subway tunnels

[clear delta]

Politely tell them they are trespassinh

[vast blaze]

Or worse, an ork

[marble sorrel]

Now if you want something that will scare vampires you go talk to your local Void Engineer and he can hook you up with a laser pistol. 😛

[vast blaze]

That would scare anyone I think

[vast blaze]

How would a WAAAAAAAAAGH field interact with Consensus, I wonder

[clear delta]

Also, this is basically the game Cassette Beasts
The Mer Line subway connects all dimensions and timelines
Part of it is below an island to which people across space time may get stranded

[vast blaze]

I need to play Cassette Beasts sometime

[vast blaze]

...wait, hang on, this is set in Stockholm, Sweden, there probably aren't many guns knocking about

Sword might not be as bad of an idea as I thought

[marble sorrel]

Vague Pondering: When you run WoD, do you allow people to look at Backgrounds or Advantages from Other WoD Splats? Like say, a Vampire that wants Everyman, to make it harder for them to be tracked down or a Glass Walker with Armoury to represent all their various gun tinkerings in the background.

I tend to go with 'Yes but it requires specific approval' on my end.

[vast blaze]

I'd say "yes but lemme look at it" too tbh

[marble sorrel]

Makes sense. Got pondering about it because Aininur has an advantage from Mage (One that Sorcerers can also have).

Natural Channel. Which makes spirits like the mage a little more than normal/allows you to feel out weak spots in the barrier between the Umbra and Reality.

Since she was a medium before she was a vampire.

[mighty zephyr]

"Yes if it's mundane and just didn't get printed"
"No if it's in any way supernatural"

[vast blaze]

Unless it could feasibly fit a vampire, like maybe some mage-specific ability that isn't hugely tied into the identity of being a mage that a Tremere could maybe sorta possibly feasibly have

[velvet sparrow]

Only in Dark Ages

In normal V20 Generation 5 puts you at 8th, not 7th

[vast blaze]

Question regarding concealment in 20th edition: Does Concealment N mean that you can't do anything to conceal the weapon, or does it just mean you can't conceal it without like a bag or a case or something?

[velvet sparrow]

The latter, I would assume

Bit silly to assume you can't hide a rifle in a bag if you have one big enough

N says 'Cannot be concealed on the person (emphasis mine)' so yeah I'd definitely say you could conceal it in a bag or something else

[vast blaze]

Right, right

Thinking I might nab an axe and reflavor it as a zweihander

[velvet sparrow]

Oooh

[vast blaze]

Carry it around in a guitar case or something, why I was concerned about concealment

[velvet sparrow]

Would have to be a big guitar case...

[vast blaze]

*cello case

Eh, something like a claymore would probably work better than a zweihander

Zweis are just too damn long

Anyway, thanks, sorry to ramble

[vast blaze]

...would an axe be a good idea, or am I better off just using a sword?

[mighty zephyr]

I mean both are incredibly difficult to just carry around in the modern day

[vast blaze]

True

Difficult to just whip out, but you can always get a bag for em

I have one for my fencing sword and nobody bats an eye at it, except when I have to find somewhere to put it if I pop by a restaurant or someplace with it

[nimble gale]

it depends on context; there are more contexts where an axe (generic) is acceptable in the modern day

perhaps you're a firefighter or a lumber jack

maybe you make most of your money by uploading short form videos on youtube of you shirtless chopping wood

[hybrid dock]

Oh did i miss voy mage game lore

[mighty zephyr]

No you didnt

https://tenor.com/view/men-in-black-mib-will-smith-u-saw-nothing-kharter-gif-12731469441707899432

[open roost]

Deciding to finally actually for real, for real this time run my wta5 chronicle by doing it as play by post

Fuck schedules

[mighty zephyr]

Nice nice

[hybrid dock]

WAUGH

Now I’m caught up(???)

[open roost]

we got players in arizona, we got players in belgium, we got players idek where. i just wanna see them bite things idc

[clear delta]

We just talked about supernatural subways
Actually the idea of subway workers shooing angels away is funny

Keep hitting the angels, spirits, ghosts that come in the subway

[orchid void]

you should be used to this you had to be exposed to Lucy

Woman Who You Can Trust

[hybrid dock]

llove you lucy!!!!!!!!

lucy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

❤️

explode and die!!!!

[vast blaze]

Seems trustworthy enough

[dawn wigeon]

i need to somehow come up with a stat block for a dragon for the changeling the lost 2e campaign im in

[mighty zephyr]

Use ephemeral stats

And make each stat like 6

[orchid void]

she should she should she should

[hybrid dock]

“I will sneak into your house and EXPLODE”

[orchid void]

lucy loves breaking and entering.

[hybrid dock]

So true

[frank atlas]

i wonder what a campaign that's about trying to unroot sabbat from a city could look like

[mighty zephyr]

https://tenor.com/view/left4dead2-gif-26266087

[frank atlas]

yeah i was listening to a lore video, and the idea of being Cammy Trouble Shooters trying to clear out the sabbat is enticing

especially if you're turned specifically to do it

[dawn wigeon]

tonight in changeling: WE MIGHT GO TO SPACE

[rapid glacier]

This is what my VtM game in Boston turned into with the fun twist of ‘everyone involved hates the Cam and are kind of blackmailed into being a Justicar’s wetworks team’

[vast blaze]

https://tenor.com/view/another-victory-commander-gif-13626552860289273131

[hybrid dock]

yeah

[marble sorrel]

My weird hot take about Mage: HIT Marks get less interesting as they go up in iteration. Hit Mark 5s are that perfect level of 'that's a terminator'.

HIT Mark 10s are basicly A Dude. A tough dude but they don't have that cool killer robot edge to them.

[mighty zephyr]

Isnt that sorta the point

Is that they become less vulgar

[marble sorrel]

Oh yes, it makes sense in-universe.

But from a 'things I want to include in a game' sense they become less cool and interesting as they increasingly become 'players might not even realize it's a HIT Mark'.

It makes sense the Technocracy would try to make them more subtle but that doesn't make it interesting. The Technocracy has no end of buff guys with guns already.

If that makes sense?

[heady kestrel]

Arent 6’s the terminators and 5’s are the weird cyborgs?

It seems non-linear in their power and vulgarity, 8 and 9 especially is called out as being very vulgar
(I am going off the wiki here which isn’t a reliable source)

[marble sorrel]

In terms of 'general usage', it went straight from 5 to 10. The others are offshoots, not mainline ones. 5s were the Mainline from the 90s, 10s are the mainline for the 2010s.

[heady kestrel]

🐛
🛌

(Inch resting)

[marble sorrel]

Aww, Dark Ages is like 1-2 hundred years too early to fight Hit Mark Mk 2s. XD

[heady kestrel]

Could have people encounter old Mk 1s if you wanted

Also that feels like an easy timeline to bend

[marble sorrel]

Yeah. Helps that Mk 2s are just...not that scary. So you can throw them against non-mages just fine.

They're very durable but otherwise not that scary

[heady kestrel]

Mk 9s do seem interesting

Apparently 8s were basically instantly discontinued for “superweapoms are kinda stupid” reasons and then the lessons were applied to the 9

Bipedal magic tank

[marble sorrel]

Mk9s exist to be Cool Boss Fights 😛

[heady kestrel]

I mean
Not a bad life

[vast blaze]

Consider: Time travel

Or some rando innovated hard enough to make Mk. 2s early

[marble sorrel]

Vague Pondering: With how V5 likes to shove disciplines together, you could likely shove all the 'non-necromancy spirit stuff' into the same discipline. So you get like Spiritus, Mytherceria, Koldunism and a chunk of the Dur-An-Ki thaumaturgical paths in a more general 'Spirit Stuff' discipline with some combo powers for specific aspects of it.

Dominate or Auspex + Spiritualism for Mytherceria Memory Stealing etc

Helps that Spiritus and Awakening of Steel actually share a very similar power that would make a great 'base path, not crossover' trick.

Where you commune with the spirit of a physical object and get a bonus to use that object.

[rapid glacier]

all the spirit stuff is already shoved together, in Oblivion

is there more spirit weirdness in a different book that's in blood sorcery?

[marble sorrel]

Oblivion is mostly just Necromancy and Shadow Stuff unless I'm misremembering.

It's not really spirits, it's Ghosts and Abyss Mysticism iirc?

It's not really got stuff like 'I want to ask the spirit of that tree if someone passed by recently' or 'I would like to commune with the spirit of my blade so we work together better'.

[rapid glacier]

Ah, well the latter is in as Pact of the Blade, which is a blood sorcery ritual iirc, but Vamps don't talk to spirits outside of ghosts and wraiths and they are uh not asking per se

[marble sorrel]

...I mean...that's sorta why I was mentioning the previous paths that are about talking to spirits outside of ghosts and wraiths. XD

[rapid glacier]

very different relationships and they're fraught with peril because ghosts and wraiths hate Kindred of all flavors and most go out of their way to clobber them when given opprotunity

[marble sorrel]

Mytherceria allowing one to call up Goblins and Pixies, Spiritus allowing sprits of nature to inhabit your body for a while, Koldunism being kinda out of place in V5's Blood Sorcery as it's so elemental.

[rapid glacier]

Kolduny feels like Vampires tapping into some linear magic and using vitae to get there

I just don't see a situation where a lick would try to interface with more Triat-style spirits over, say, commanding Kine or using some business front or some nonsense to get the same result

its uh

shit whats the word, there is a word for this

different paradigms?

Especially since V5 makes it all but explicitly clear that a Vampire getting into the Umbra or Abyss is the closest they'll get to a death sentence, its an extremely hostile environment to them for :reasons:

[marble sorrel]

...I mean...there's multiple clans/bloodlines historically that did do that. Dur-An-Ki calling up Djinn for effects, Ahrimanes being all about Nature Spirits etc.

[rapid glacier]

If I was a V5 vamp and needed a spirit, I'd start buttering up a Garou at arms length and hoping they weren't a silent strider

[rapid glacier]

but these guys don't exist in V5 anymore; you could house rule or homebrew them back but you've got some circles to square to get you there in the current revisions of the fiction

[marble sorrel]

Sure but...I mean, the starting point of this was 'Hey, you could likely fold these things that currently don't have v5 rules but do share a singular theme that doesn't overlap with existing disciplines into a single discipline to fit the v5 design ethos'

Obviously it would require homebrew, as it's making a new discipline.

[rapid glacier]

Could you make them just blood sorceries or BS rituals, instead?

some of them are amalgams, so you could even make prerequisites

[marble sorrel]

I feel like that would be kinda stretching blood sorcery's more focused v5 theme a fair bit.

Both BS and Oblivion have very focused themes that these don't really link up with.

And there is the concern of 'everything's going under BS again' that people had issues with in V20.

[marble sorrel]

Oh, it's very much not that. It's demon (the splat, not the general concept of evil spirits) magic that was taught by the earthbound Kupala. So it's weirdly enough divine magic (As demon magic and angel magic are the exact same thing).

But I'm not sure v5 would do much with that, as they seem really reluctant to remember Demon exists.

[marble sorrel]

On topics of lesser used splats: Has anyone ever actually played Wraith (Not counting playing a Harbinger of Skulls)? It's a game I appreciate existing but can't see ever playing.

[mighty zephyr]

Theres already Koldun rituals that do this with spirits already yeah

Likewise theyre doing demons with Aapilu, demons were already softly retconned by the time V5 came out

[marble sorrel]

That's sorta why I thought 'Putting Koldunism in with the other spirit stuff like Spiritus and a chunk of Dur-An-Ki path' would likely be part of it.

I do hope we some day get a v5 demon but I doubt it. They seem to really want to step back from Religious Horror.

[mighty zephyr]

They have explicitly said Demon is likely not being redone, but Demons might show up in other splats

[marble sorrel]

Well, they'll likely have demons but not Demons (God, I feel like I'm reading narnia and its animals/Animals divide trying to clarify how damn many things are called demons when there's a specific one being refered to). XD

...I wonder if a V5 Wraith is on the table. It's not really religious horror but it was also a very lesser used splat so might get avoided just for 'We likely won't make much profit on it and RPG profit margins are already pretty damn lean'.

[mighty zephyr]

Also like, if you just reflavor the Bind Aapilu ritual to Bind Spirits its essentially the entire discipline right there

[marble sorrel]

We know Wraiths exist (Oblivion can bind them/Harbingers of skulls have a loresheet for them) still but they might not end up a splat splat for 5.

[mighty zephyr]

I forget their statement on wraith

The only thing I know is that the order of operations rn is Mage into Changeling

[marble sorrel]

Bind Apilu can kinda replicate Spirit Manipulation but not the other disciplines (Spiritism was ironically pretty bad at summoning spirits, as it was more focused on the animistic idea that spirits area already all about us and communicating with them). But yeah, I think Koldunism could get an interesting revision to be sorta just 'part of a more general spirit-and-elemental-based discipline' so it's less 'HERE IS THE DISCIPLINE THAT ONLY A SMALL SUBSET OF A SINGLE CLAN GETS', as that's really not how V5 works with disciplines without losing the 'oh yeah, there's elemental spirit magic as an option' aspect.

I think I'd likely keep the 'Fuck this entire area' capstones of Koldunism but scrap the more targeted destruction options in favor of more interesting support tricks. Make it very 'sure, you can do a big destructive effect...but unless this guy is out in the middle of nowhere, you're gunna likely be causing horrible collateral damage. Good luck keeping that humanity up/avoiding masquerade breaches'.

Changeling 5 is something I'm super curious about.

As changelings don't really have an easy replacement for Hunger/Rage/Paradox dice. Banality is your big threat but it's not really a threat you constantly struggle with/you open yourself up to as you use your cantrips more.

[mighty zephyr]

I think any Changeling 5th edition is gonna get a big overhaul of how things work

I imagine something like Clarity or Banality would be the Special Dice

[marble sorrel]

I'm also curious about how they plan to incorporate Chimerical Reality in a 5 game. It was always a bit weird/tricky but it's also a cornerstone of what Changeling was.

That you were the human and the fey at the same time and those two things were overlaid each other.

With the physical able to affect the physical and the chimerical the chimerical (With the Changelings acting in both at once)

My big concern is that they'll draw more from CoD changeling than oWoD changeling, as CoD Changeling was the breakout hit.

I could see them maybe drawing a bit from Dark Ages Fey (Didn't have Changeling as a line in Dark Ages)

As those guys A) Were more able to directly affect reality B) Had Unleashing, which had them have a chance to lose control of the sheer power they had if they were not careful.

They also had a much more direct 'Hey, go involve yourself in the world instead of playing around with other changelings in courts all the time' with Oaths.

Pacts with humanity that gave them a place in reality/that kept them from needing to make the journey into the fae realms.

It basicly made you a Local Legend, where humans believed something about you and as long as you fulfilled your side of it, it helped keep you stable.

They were stuff like 'I'm a local witch in the forest. If a mother brings her sick child to me, I will heal it, as long as the mother cares enough to shed tears for them'. If you held up your end of the oath, you helped stay part of the nature of the world around you.

They were less 'off doing their own thing' than CtD changelings and more somewhere between Werewolf and Mage.

Where you were 100% a powerful factor in the world both physically and magically...but you also had major weaknesses that people could leverage against you. You had Echos, which were weaknesses you gained by fucking up and got made part of the human imagination of what you were.

Like if you tried to curse a human in a church and fucked it up, you might gain 'holy ground' as an echo.

Not becasue holy groud is innately a threat to you but because the humans now think holy ground is a threat to you.

And you've used belief to tether yourself to reality, so you're vulnerable to human belief about what would work on you.

The Mage Comparison is about Unleashing. They had easy, simple magic in cantrips that was plenty safe but they also had areas of expertise like the seasons.

And could Unleash to basicly go 'hey, we're playing mage now. How many dots in these do I need to do X effect?'

But unleashing was risky, as it was bringing power beyond perfect control to bear. It was your power but your reach could sometimes exceed your grasp.

[marble sorrel]

Sorry, rambling

[rapid glacier]

They’re probably gonna draw more from CofD, based on how Hunter 5e came out; The Vigil was the more popular of the two by a mile, and the good things it did bled into every other product line so far, that’s a safe bet they’ll do the same with Changeling in some form or fashion

Still have no idea what the changes are gonna look like so I’d wait to speculate until after Mage drops

mage is gonna be the weird one 100%, Paradox doesn’t fit nearly as well into their resource dice mechanic as it sounds like it should but we’ll see

We can extrapolate from there what Changeling might look like with what mechanics they kind of sort of share if that makes sense

[patent talon]

I'm definitely interested in Mage 5e whenever that comes out, I bounce off how dense Ascension 20th

[rapid glacier]

Yeah that book is a cognito hazard

I let my dad hold it once and he asked me why it weighed ten pounds in a kind of panicked voice lmao

“Wait people play this?!”

[patent talon]

Listen we have to tell you about every single faction and all the lore immediately, character creation can come later

[rapid glacier]

Character creation is after the lore quiz

I’ve got two werewolf session zeros tonight

I’m stoked ya’ll

[mighty zephyr]

Character creation is so hellish in 20th

Bounces between 8 different book sections

[rapid glacier]

I thought it was terrible and then someone here did a read through of it earlier this year and said something along the lines of “this book makes you think like a Mage so you can play it” which is insane but on brand so I’ve come around on its godawful formatting

It’s still bad but now instead of frustrated it’s mostly just funny

[mighty zephyr]

See I really dislike this line of thinking because to me it just leads to people trying to make Mage deliberately obtuse so they can feel superior for "getting it"

[rapid glacier]

Jokes on them, then; I just assume anyone who ‘gets’ it didn’t read the book

[mighty zephyr]

You would be surprised how often this is the case

Either that or they play exclusively by skipping the entire early game

[rapid glacier]

Well hopefully M5 smoothes out the onboarding process

[high current]

i'd hope they go more with the V5 approach, vs W5
V5 tells you to make a mortal first, and then apply the vampire-specific stuff on top, whereas W5 starts off saying 'make a werewolf', which kind of makes sense given how the Garou work, but it also kinda leads to skipping over who you were before the First Change if you weren't already aware of the Garou(eg, a stray kin)

[rapid glacier]

First thing I crowbar’d in for my W5 games, “character creation starts before First Change and you need a touchstone from that period or a very good reason why not” has done wonders

I wish more games had more in depth ideas for chat gen backstories just built into their systems, the V5 one is decent enough just make more options or paths

[mighty zephyr]

I think its a bit harder for them to definitively say that in W5

Since you can just Be A Wolf

[marble sorrel]

I really hope not, as a fan of Dreaming. Mostly since Dreaming and Lost really don't have much overlap in themes.

[hybrid dock]

From what I’ve heard of dreaming it does sound really cool

At least in concept

Like as much as I like chronicles…

The idea of just unironically being fae creatures is so cool to me.

[marble sorrel]

'My character before fist change couldn't comprehend language and lived day to day hunting in the woods' IS tricky to make much with before first change.

[hybrid dock]

Touchstone - “this other wolf I was besties with”
…there’s potential but it puts a lot of work on the player to ask “what vast and interesting past life did you have as a literal animal”

[marble sorrel]

I don't dislike lost conceptually, it's just such a different game. If that makes sense?

[hybrid dock]

Exactly yeah

Chronicles is great, but it tends to…create a new type of supernatural creature that’s adjacent to the thing it’s naming.

Which isn’t a bad approach but it is completely different

From what I’ve heard of dreaming it sounds dope

[marble sorrel]

Also: Make an X, then apply the template could have a very fun inversion for 5