#World of Darkness

1 messages · Page 54 of 1

nimble gale
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I will neither confirm nor deny any personal investment in accurate printings of the cookbook, but I will say that these days it's also varying levels of obsolete in a lot of places anyway. We don't really do phone phreaking anymore.

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treat it sa curiousity, not a guidebook

daring hazel
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I know vaguely that in Masquerade lore the Madness Network is some sort of Malkavian thing with telepathy style stuff. But how does it work in the server

vast blaze
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Just a Malkavian-only channel they can talk in

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...or, well, it was Malkavian only

open roost
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Realized pretty recently that one of the best characters you can draw inspo for your anarch ventrue from is sisko from ds9

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You are already going to be shouting "I just want to know what the HELL is going on" might as well take some pointers from the best

frank atlas
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This is fantastic

grave gulch
nimble gale
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Yes but this is a large public discord server and I don't want to get it in trouble with the feds, so I'm specifying as deeply as possible I am not suggesting it for any real use in any real way

radiant marsh
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"You hit me! Picard never hit me!"
"I'm not Picard."

open roost
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EXACTLY

grave gulch
grave gulch
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majiiIcant i didnt actually look any of that up, i got scared

grave gulch
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i was looking at stranger things and the small town thing looked cool...could it be a good source of inspiration for hunter? i never actually watched it

clear delta
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Yes

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Just know many people think the quality falls off

grave gulch
clear delta
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I think the big fall off is the season with vecna, in my opinion
Even if the use of running up that hill is good

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First season is rather good and self contained

grave gulch
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fuck

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i think i know what i wanna do

fathom haven
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👀

grave gulch
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i think i wanna base a game on roadside picnic for hunter

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have some weird alien anomalies as the monsters for the game

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have a zone like area where i can involve some orgs from the lore

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just have to pick a place!

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having a big zone like area and a big org in some random town gives opportunity for plenty of weird stuff to happen

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monsters could be things that come out of the "zone"

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i would like them to be very weird alien things like in the book

clear delta
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Maybe make a weird subway that the tunnels brush against other dimensions

grave gulch
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gotta be weirder vicksyHeck

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like...a big thing about the book is like

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some of the objects the aliens left behind, we have use for them

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but we are never really sure about their real purpose

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we can use this thing to power our cars and our cellphones

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but for all we know we could be using a microscope as a hammer

fathom haven
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That's a hard af line

grave gulch
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its my favorite line from the book haha

fathom haven
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I've never read the book tbh

grave gulch
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its an amazing read! i do recommend vicksyAww

fathom haven
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I shall have to give it a read then, my friend :]

pure mauve
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I've never read Roadside Picnic but I have read the indirectly inspired Otherside Picnic; does that count?

grave gulch
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idk vicksyDerp never heard of that one

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oh its manga vicksyLUL idk since i havent read that one haha

pure mauve
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The light novel is better than the manga tbh. It has some... interesting stuff. ...probably closest to Mage out of any of the splats, honestly? Although Deviant might also fit, actually.

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Actually, now that I think of it, there's probably a strong argument for specifically CofD Changeling.

strong bronze
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Hry uh

I am like

Somewhat knowable about mage. How is cloning handled in there?

clear delta
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Old mage had a whole organization doing cloning and genetic engineering

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New mage I don't think mentions it much. I only know of an evil guy who makes clone sons to inherit his calling, then kills them when they fail to be fascist enough, and messed up his wife's memory

mighty zephyr
strong bronze
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I had planned to have a npc that is secretly a mage

That just uses cloning to work at like,9 jobs at once

So they would come across her in every other store they go to. Mostly as a gag.

mighty zephyr
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So

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You cannot clone an additional Mage

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But you can definitely clone a copy of yourself that is in all other ways identical

clear delta
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You can multi locate and act differently in all locations, but share physical conditions

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In old mage, it is correspondence life mind
In new mage, space mind

mighty zephyr
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however doing so is:

  1. Wildly Vulgar
  2. Requires mastery in at least two spheres
  3. Very easy to track
clear delta
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Also again, new or old world

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I an assuming old, as most people seem to use it, specially the ones who don't know there are two

strong bronze
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I know there are two,I just

Never really found a way to remember the difference in a easy way

clear delta
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Okay
Explain the setting you are using

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Or give the names of the books

strong bronze
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I am using hunter 5 but

Apart from that it's probably all from 20th

mighty zephyr
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Then yes, old mage

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Ascension is Old, Awakening is New

clear delta
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Old mage is consensus reality, belief shapes things

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Dunno if they cut down on the conjunctionals required for spells

mighty zephyr
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Conjuctionals?

clear delta
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A lot of stuff needing to combo spheres

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Like, needing correspondence and life to move living being, or correspondence and matter to move objects

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Anyway, straight up clones in body and thought is life and mind, they won't be mages
Colocation should be correspondence life and mind

mighty zephyr
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Old Mage is worse in that regard

strong bronze
high current
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Yeah nMage doesn't typically require conjunctive arcana unless the effect itself builds off the additional arcana, if that makes sense
(Eg, life 4 to transform someone into something else, add matter/forces/spirit/etc also at 4 to turn them into something under that arcanum)

strong bronze
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Less sci Fi cloning more

Simulacrum or shadow clones

Or whatever

high current
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If the mind in question already exists it's significantly easier

clear delta
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Meat puppets at least won't give tiredness or damage to your main body

strong bronze
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update:the player decided she didnt like the concept after i helped her make it and now decided to rip nellyshu instead

So now the cell is

a escaped ex-ghoul secretary of a ventrue businessman

a defense attorney

and a british maid of japanese descent running around in full french maid outfit and a katana

....one of these is gonna be real hard to hide

grave gulch
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neat

high current
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I feel like the maid may opt for loud stealth
As in "no witnesses means no survivors" vvvBap

fathom haven
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I should probably make a hunter sometime, it's the last splat of what I'm willing to play, and the only one I haven't made a character for

nimble gale
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Today in vampire the dark ages: the group finishes itnerrogating a nosferatu and gets introduced to the local setite, who seduced the prince (one of the PCs) by the power of having beer that vampires can actuallyd rink.

fathom haven
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Nosferatu need to be left alone 😤

marble sorrel
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This one is being left alone with the Tremere.

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She has Ideas.

fathom haven
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:[

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I think people often forget that a Nosferatu could tear you to shreds incredibly easy

viscid stratus
fathom haven
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Big talk from a gal with her IP address out in the open like that

viscid stratus
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See, this is what I mean. Minding my own business, loyally serving the camarilla, as all who live under the pyramid do, and suddenly, unprovoked threats 🙁

fathom haven
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Oh a TREMERE, blech

viscid stratus
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I am always either a Tremere or a Toreador :v

fathom haven
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Toreador I can accept 😤 even as a Nosferatu

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Brujah, Gangrel, or Nosferatu for me

viscid stratus
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though my current PC has like... "Tremere*.**" on her character sheet
-# also she never did anything bad ever, and must be protected at all cost

marble sorrel
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To be fair, this Nosferatu is a Baali

fathom haven
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There was one time a played a Gargoyle tho

fathom haven
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My favorite Nosferatu character? My Nosferatu pirate from Dark Ages

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Good Ol Long Shanks

nimble gale
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The non-baali nosferatu are definitely on the PCs side right now. Their leader is pissed about the baali infiltrating her ranks.

viscid stratus
fathom haven
fathom haven
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How do you guys feel about aging Nosferatu getting more and more monsterous

nimble gale
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varies nosferatu to nosferatu, but it's common enough to be a stereotype

spice abyss
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Technically most vampires start acting more and more monstrous as they get older anyways. 😛

fathom haven
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I meant physically

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I'm a sucker for it, but I also love playing as freaks

strong bronze
velvet sparrow
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Does "This does not fit the vibe of the game" not work?

grave gulch
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Hi Ophelia vicksyWave

vast blaze
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Cool idea I got

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A Mummy with the Powerful Ally merit, and it's a 6-8 pointer version where his group of allies are a gaggle of the Children of Osiris that follow him around

heady kestrel
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Two changelings come back

Their fetches are dating

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“That’s um. That’s because of normal fetch deviation stuff right”
“Yeah. Let’s go with that.”

fathom haven
keen bluff
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finally started watching Hunter the Parenting and I don't totally know what I was expecting but I do actually quite like it

fathom haven
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YEAH THAT SHIT SLAPS

keen bluff
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I've been in sort of a monster-hunting game kick, returning back to my roots as mostly DG person, but also vaguely considering Hunter and/or Yokai Hunter Society as things to try Soon™

strong bronze
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i am considering ditching h5 and try hunters hunted instead

mighty zephyr
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Ehhhhhhhhhh

vast blaze
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It's good shit

limpid shoal
vast blaze
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Diabolical

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...also what kind of moron doesn't guard their coffin

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At that point you were kinda asking to get a stake in the heart

pure mauve
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And how are you guarding your coffin without creating some kind of paper trail? Ghouls? But then that begs the question of why a bunch of people are guarding something without getting paid for it. It leaves less of a paper trail, but still leaves a paper trail.

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And it leaves a suspicious absence.

strong bronze
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"getting so good at covering your tracks you create a mirror-polished path to you at all times"

spice abyss
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One of the PC's had this as their skillset

nimble gale
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Never underestimate the power of an accounting major to make someone's life hell, especially if they have contacts in the IRS.

radiant marsh
fathom haven
mighty zephyr
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What are these from

grave gulch
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idk

hybrid dock
hybrid dock
grave gulch
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in roadside picnic you have a group called "Institute for Extraterrestrial Cultures" that investigate the zone

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is there any Org in WOD that does something similar? no mage stuff please since the game is for hunter

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they serve as a big research group basically

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there's also army personnel that basically shoots anyone trying to enter it illegally

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i could just have these military folk be replaced by some wod org instead

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i kinda just wanna have an org from wod haha

strong bronze
valid merlin
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(Voy is making a joke, he is one of the writers for HtP)

strong bronze
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oh

mighty zephyr
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Though in Chronicles there is one

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Called RD13

keen bluff
mighty zephyr
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Which are guys that managed to make technological portals into the Shadow

keen bluff
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what is FIRSTLIGHT under again? isn't it technically FBI?

mighty zephyr
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FIRSTLIGHT is the alliance between several national intelligence agencies

grave gulch
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i`ll look up this group then, thanks Voy

viscid stratus
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"No mage stuff" really does cut out most of the research groups 😄

keen bluff
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gotcha. in that case it probably depends where the zone is

grave gulch
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guess you could thrown in mages, its just that i dont really want to have actual fricking mages as antagonists lethenIcant

grave gulch
keen bluff
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also blegh, wanna read the Hunter book that I own but it's a bit of a chunky pdf so it's a pain

viscid stratus
strong bronze
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How much stronger than a person is a werewolf on average

They tend to be shown as unstoppable murder machines to anything below the higher tiers of supernaturals or specialized hunters but

I wanna know specifics

viscid stratus
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The Hecata V5e chronicle I played in had the technocracy as antagonists for a majority of the chronicle

marble sorrel
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It is funny that 'the technocracy' is one of the major antagonists for changeling games.

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As being the guys trying to bring hope and dreams back to the world rankles the guys in suits who send people to loony bins

heady kestrel
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I am thinking about it

and I think it would be very cool in a game with hunters as an antagonist type to have a big hunter conspiracy send 1 Guy to arm all the local cells

Like some super well equipped freak handing out Dragons Breath Shotguns and White Phosphorus Grenades and Blessed Holy Symbols to all the local hunter cells

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make the local vampires go "Where the hell did they even get that!?!?"

grave gulch
viscid stratus
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I mean, they try to look normal wherever possible

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even most of their magic is meant to fit in the consensus and just seem like a really advanced commercial drone, or a really blinged out rifle, or a really cool cutting edge gadget

strong bronze
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it took then a few centuries to make smartphones part of the consensus

viscid stratus
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-# however their g-men kept coming back in body bags, and they quarantined the whole little city and sent in terminators with hazmat suits

strong bronze
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they are gonna need a bit more time to make stargates and cloning vats available

clear delta
viscid stratus
limpid shoal
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(At some point I gotta redo Iris's mage character sheet, and maybe make one for Isabelle maybe)

hybrid dock
velvet sparrow
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I say, having seen the AU Pyotr

keen bluff
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I'd been meaning to look at those again now that I have greater context

worthy sundial
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i do think pyotr is as far as monsters go conventionally attractive

limpid shoal
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Wild question: Are form fillable PDFs still used for working out characters?

heady kestrel
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I've used them before

hybrid dock
limpid shoal
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I just wasn't sure if there was anything more modern or not

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Honestly I'm not sure how I'd even build Isabelle anyway.....

limpid shoal
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Oh huh, I didn't realise they codified some more exotic stuff in one of the later M20 books

mighty zephyr
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Like what

limpid shoal
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Like Soak Aggravated as a trait

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M20 Gods & Monsters is the source

viscid stratus
mighty zephyr
pure mauve
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I think most Sin-Eaters would still consider themselves fully human. They're half-living and half-dead, but the sort of Sin-Eater thesis, especially for Necropolitans, is that "living" and "ghost" are different kinds of human people, or different states that you can be, but are fundamentally the same person and the same kind of thing, and drawing a sharp absolute distinction between them is bad.

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I say this because I'm trying to figure out which splat they'd like least, and it might be vampires because vampires hunt humans? But it plausibly might also be Mages, because if a Sin-Eater encounters a Mage, either that Mage has wandered into the Underworld like a boorish tourist and is bumbling around out of their depth, or they're a necromancer (we all hate necromancers).

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Yes, there are many Mages who don't have Death as a sphere at all, but those are also much less likely to end up interacting with a Sin-Eater.

heady kestrel
pure mauve
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True, but I'm not really sure if any splat besides Demons knows that Angels exist.

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Unless Qashmillim are secretly Angels, I guess.

heady kestrel
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Probably not, but like, if they met they might have beef

heady kestrel
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which probably looks sick as fuck tbh

pure mauve
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...maybe, and this is based on absolutely no evidence but would be incredibly cool, Qashmillim are to Angels as Prometheans are to humans — an inherently inferior, lesser substitute, inherently incorrect. Or maybe they're like... the first draft of Angels or something.

heady kestrel
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very possible!

My theory has been that the Angels are based on Qashmillim, like the God Machine saw them and riffed a bit to make The ANgels

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but I never considdered the reversse

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A lot of my reading of the god machine is based on the idea that it isn't a cosmic force, but is so fundamentally integrated into earth and the sorounding solar system thatt we read it like one

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so it taking inspiration from an Actual Cosmic Force fit into that nicely

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but idk

pure mauve
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We don't have any idea where the first Prometheans came from, right? Like, that's a Major Cosmic Mystery in the kind of way that CofD doesn't usually like to answer because then you have Antediluvians looking over people's shoulders?

heady kestrel
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yea

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I don't think so at leaast

worthy sundial
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each type (forget the term in promethean) has its own myth for it ala vtr yeag

pure mauve
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I mean. We know the invention of nukes created a new type of Promethean. So I can't help but wonder if "the first human who was intentionally burned to death" became the first fire Promethean or something.

heady kestrel
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@hybrid dock cooked with a weirdly possible god machine theory recently for an Integrator demon

hybrid dock
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Oh?

heady kestrel
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Essentially the god machine is a fragment of god, which should normally be unified to the supernal realms and higher realities.
But it has been clouded and broken, disconnected from other realities.

It’s a weird headcanon but-
Essentially, the fact that the god machine is only connected to earth rn is what I think is making it so flawed
…which you could connect to the abyss
Those fuckin mages-
“The abyss cut the god machine off from itself so it’s just been operating on standby and slowly breaking down reality and itself”
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  • Quoting Karen, Angelic And Radiant
pure mauve
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iiiinteresting.

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And making me remember my idea for a hypothetical Interlock which I might want to try to go for if I ever played Demon.

hybrid dock
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Oh wait me

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Right yeah

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This is my new flavor of integrator cope for the day

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It’s my favorite one cus it is incredible compatible with working with other demons and fighting angels

heady kestrel
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There is like

Some weird stuff, especially in contagion chronicles, that does coborate aa relationship between the degradation of the god machine and the abyss

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notably tthe Paradox Children story seed

pure mauve
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A lot of CofD splats have "the world used to work in a certain way and then it irreparably broke and we're still feeling the consequences" so why not include Demon too?

hybrid dock
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This one can link to the way a lot of others broke

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And I do find the fact that the god machine is kinda in ä standby state that is slowly decaying interesting

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If it was all powerful these mistakes shouldn’t be happening. Or at least, should be inconsequential

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But they kinda aren’t

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For something responsible for managing time, space, physics, even maybe language and probability, it has been…
breaking

heady kestrel
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in... it was either the storyteller guide or the core book

but the Demonic Mythos for (who tthe first demons were) is that originally the god machine ran a utopic colony on earth(Eden)

and then one day out of nowhere the god machine ordered all the angels that lived there to kill their friends and families, the first demons fell for refusing thaat order

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it also provides rules for running a Sword and Sorcery Demon Game set in that era

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which would be wild

pure mauve
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I mean, the possibilities are:

  • All of reality has been orchestrated by a malevolent god who is actively making things worse on purpose.
  • Reality is breaking for no reason. There is no higher intelligence making everything break. There is no grand plan.
    And both of those are horrifying but in different ways.
pure mauve
heady kestrel
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I really like the idea of having an Angel show up as a werewolf antagonist

Because they are close enough to spirits for you to mistake them for one

D o n ' t

heady kestrel
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thatt alt seetting is jusst weird

mighty zephyr
heady kestrel
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ooo

mighty zephyr
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First one in the post

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Yuck 6 year old writing ptueh

spice abyss
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I still stand with Great Mountain theory for the God Machine

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In that it's a Pangean trapped on our side of the gauntlet that adapted

vast blaze
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...I hate myself for writing that

limpid shoal
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Huh, I can't even find Iris's sheet again for mage this is weird...

vast blaze
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Have you lot ever been in/ran any post-Gehenna/Apocalypse chronicles?

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Considering trying my hand at running one and I'm hoping someone has insight on how I can make it work

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...I mean I'm not gonna launch into it immediately of course, gonna start with something more conventional

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But still

pure mauve
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How valuable is "has a gun and knows how to use it" for each of the splats in CofD? Because my general impression was that it was frequently quite useful.

marble sorrel
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Everyone likes a gun.

vast blaze
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This is true

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The ability to cap a motherfucker is always good to have

pure mauve
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I still have a vague idea for a Kindly Sin-Eater ex-cop (in more ways than one 🥁📀) who realized that being a cop was not actually reliably conducive to helping people, probably in conjunction with their death. So they understand logically that Standard Police Interaction Patterns are not in fact usually good, but also default to those patterns because that's how they were trained. And they would, logically, know how to use a gun.

vast blaze
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It's equally valuable across all splats tbh

pure mauve
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...who's that one robotic former officer in Questionable Content? Because she ended up loosely inspiring this character.

marble sorrel
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A big advantage of a gun for most splats is that guns are something anyone can use.

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If you rip a guy in half as a werewolf, people investigating go 'that was a fucking werewolf' if they know about the supernatural

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If you shoot a guy in the face, people go that was...a gun'

pure mauve
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Fair enough. Although, as one of the Kindly, I kind of suspect this character would very much want to avoid shooting people, on account of having done that enough before they died and regretting it immensely. (I get the impression they died in a firefight, and as they died they thought "this absolutely did not have to have escalated into a firefight".)

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However: they are good at it.

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...when a Sin-Eater first dies, how long does it take them to come back to life? I'm not entirely clear on that.

limpid shoal
marble sorrel
pure mauve
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Also I have some vague idea for a story involving a Thanatologist being reluctantly inducted into a Krewe, probably of Necropolitans. Just taking a stuck-up doctor and making him develop as a person by admitting that yes, he died, and yes, there is another entity attached to his mind, and understanding those things is less important than accepting them.

limpid shoal
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Well, I found a theoretical sheet for Iris, but its clearly not finished so I'll probably poke at it later

vast blaze
limpid shoal
vast blaze
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Lmao

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Happens to the best of us

orchid void
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you probably want at least one person who can just fucking shoot a guy

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if you're playing werewolf it is slightly less important to be able to cowboy people. because instead you just Wolf Out At Them

pure mauve
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Interestingly the "just attack someone" power in Geist (Rage) is exclusive to the Vengeful, but multiple other origins get either Caul (which allows you to warp your flesh into grotesque weapons or claws) or Marionette (which lets you fling random inanimate objects at them, which is also reasonably non-suspicious as a cause of death I think).

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Yeah, most of the Burdens have some form of attacking; Vengeful have Rage, Kindly have Marionette, Abiding have Caul, and Hungry have both. Only the Bereaved don't, and they seem very weird to me anyway.

marble sorrel
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I imagine it's because Geist 2.0 is kinda...retrofitted into place. So there isn't really as much of a planned 'X gets Y and Z because specific reasons'.

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Geist 1.0 had Rage/Caul etc but the way they fit together/the way you made them work was very different

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But they wanted a simpler one for 2.0

pure mauve
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No, I mean, the Bereaved in general are weird. All of the other Burdens are why you didn't want to die, and you get a Geist who's similar to you. But the Bereaved are searching for someone in the underworld and have a Geist who is very unlike them. It's like they wanted a character archetype who would play Orpheus, but it doesn't really work with the concepts.

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Like, if you're defined by overwhelming grief that someone dead is gone to you, why would that make you want to cling to life so desperately that you are offered the Bargain?

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Also, the Bereaved do technically have a power that can cause damage: Curse, shared with the Vengeful. Which is not necessarily particularly efficient for immediate combat, but if you want to kill someone non-suspiciously, it's hard to do better than "place a curse on someone, and later spend charges from it to inflict dangerous misfortune (up to inflicting lethal damage)".

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Curse 5 also has a very interesting potential effect that I'm glad they kept for Geist 2.0:

Spend a charge to force the subject to spend Willpower to be noticed.

radiant marsh
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Guy getting torn to pieces raises questions that getting shot does not.

fathom haven
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Like the local Iron Rider

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Or are we talking the Forsaken?

radiant marsh
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CofD, so Forsaken

fathom haven
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Ah, so the local Iron Master then

fathom haven
mighty zephyr
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I did run Werewolf Cowboys so I can inform that guns actually do quite a bit

strong bronze
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Trying to think of how to translate the calm heart merit to a human

mighty zephyr
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what's it do

strong bronze
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Makes frenzy rolls essier

vast blaze
craggy coyote
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What you've described would be closer to VTM's "Iron Willed" or Tempered mind where you inherently reist presence and dominate effects and can add extra dice to resist on occasion.

Calm Heart is more about you internally have good self control, and thus frenzy less.

limpid shoal
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Now that I've found various notes and things on Iris (as she was in Mage) I'm rebuilding her sheet + a little more

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(I also have to figureo ut how to codify Iris's ability be harmlessly dismembered)

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This is not Normal Mage Shenanigans™

creatorclay.png
vast blaze
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Perfectly average

limpid shoal
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"average"

iris2812.jpg
strong bronze
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Great art

strong bronze
limpid shoal
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Well, when you're made of clay permanently injuries are a bit different for you

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Guess what Iris's highest sphere was

strong bronze
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correspondence?

i am still very new to mage

limpid shoal
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Nah, Prime

limpid shoal
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One more of an actually magick using Iris

Iris3.png
vast blaze
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Man

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I wish Yeren weren't a Mockery Breed

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I wanna go Monke Mode on a fool

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I wanna pull up to the combat with the mf Rajang theme playing

pure mauve
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How do CofD Mages feel about the various types of magic used by other splatlines (like blood magic, or Changeling rituals which have a name which I've forgotten, or Sin-Eater Ceremonies)?

mighty zephyr
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They generally try to put them under the label of an Arcana

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They also, generally, get a little jealous because they love intimate knowledge of something while everyone else wants the versatility of being able to do what Mages can

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But Mages are, generally, basically Magical Colonizers

pure mauve
#

I randomly resurrected my interest in Geist and am now thinking about how incredibly irreverent a lot of their ceremonies are. And how incredibly much they are shaped by the specific culture of the krewe performing them. I suspect a lot of them do not look like the kind of things you would associate with "magic rituals".

#

And they can Just Do Things without having to worry about esoteric math.

limpid shoal
mighty zephyr
#

They show up, wreck shit in their curiosity, then bail to leave other people to clean up their mess

pure mauve
#

...there are Ceremonies named "DJ Amadeus's Sick Flow" and "My Twenty Dollar Cherubim".

#

...although it's interesting that the base Geist book's ceremonies seem to have more normal names and then the other books add stuff like "Extended Checkout"... at least mostly; the base book still has "Crow Girl Kiss".

limpid shoal
#

Part of me wonders what kind of shenanigans Iris could get up to if she took on an apprentice

#

Although I'd need to figure out what possible Tradition she'd really fitinto though

#

I think originally she was supposed to be a Hermetic Mage

#

But I'm not sure how well that would fit her now at this point

vast blaze
#

Or are all the Traditions just kind of shitheads like that

clear delta
#

The theme in new mage is you are terminally curious academics with dangerous amounts of power

#

And strong perspectives since you glimpsed cosmic truth

marble sorrel
vast blaze
#

Right

marble sorrel
#

Mages Think They Know What's Best and are infamously bad at being told 'no'

#

Or 'this is my house'

clear delta
#

Hubris is the theme

#

In old and new mage

mighty zephyr
#

The Traditions get hit less with the Horror of Being a Colonizer but that is specifically the vibe that they go with for Awakening

clear delta
#

There was gonna be a book about that and the ephemeral realms

marble sorrel
#

Part of it is that getting reliable Quintessence generally involves taking it from someone else. Other splats have it and they don't tend to trust mages to use responsibly.

#

For woofs, those sites are holy. For Changelings, they're needed for life etc

mighty zephyr
#

I actually kinda hope in Mage 5 they include lore that Mages inherently drain nodes eventually. It would justify the cross splat conflict a bit more.

limpid shoal
#

I think I'd lean more towards it being a choice than not. There's something about it being intentional dickery that I like more

vast blaze
#

Agreed

#

You could prioritize the long-term and not completely drain a node, but it's easier and you get bigger bangs if you just suck it dry and move on

nimble gale
#

and it's real easy to go 'well we're on a war footing for the fate of all mankind, we can always rebuild the node later once we obtain ascension and quintessence flows freely again'

mighty zephyr
#

Well the thing is that there's no real easy way to do it, if it's an easy thing that basically every Mage does to the point where it's the main friction point between them and the majority of splats

#

It should be more important than a sometimes thing some people sometimes maybe do

high current
#

any Mage who wants to actually get things done needs Quintessence, and that means either draining a node or turning something else into Quintessence(living beings, spirits, etc), you're pissing someone off either way

nimble gale
#

well, nodes do naturally generate quintessence over time that can be safely used and stored. It's just, uh. a drip feed.

mighty zephyr
#

Yeah, and only a slim minority of Mages can drain it to death

#

and even then a slim minority of those would

#

And that slim minority are also the guys who can just make Nodes

#

My point is that it's such a mechanical aside that it barely registers in the rules, and yet it's presented as the main form of conflict in the fiction.

#

So it stands it should be made More Of A Problem if this is meant to justify cross-splat conflict

#

Like "Vampires and Werewolves hate each other because Vampires embody a spiritual rot by spreading fear, death, decay, and violence, and Werewolves react to most percieved threats with immediate and indiscriminate violence"

#

Very mechanically supported all the way through

high current
nimble gale
#

nnnno it's gonna take more than a week to reignite a freehold

#

it's a whole quest you have to do with transporting a spark of another freehold's flame to reignite an old one

vast blaze
#

The loudest minority of shitheads ruining everyone else's perception of the wizards?

#

Only a scant few can or will completely suck a node dry but they do it so often that it makes people think ALL wizards do that sort of thing constantly

mighty zephyr
#

Well like, Nodes are also quite important to Mages

#

so the combination of someone able to:

#
  1. Force out the occupants on their own
  2. Drain it dry
  3. Want to drain it dry
  4. Completely unwilling to engage in any diplomacy regarding it whatsoever
#

is like

vast blaze
#

Mmm, true

nimble gale
#

your stereotypical 'actually I'm glad we did pentex' syndicate member

mighty zephyr
#

And the only reason a Mage would be at crisis point to drain a node completely dry would be if they are in relatively immediate mortal peril, and why would you then attack a fortified group of other supernatural beings

nimble gale
#

and not many others

#

even inside teh technocracy

mighty zephyr
#

Yeah but other supernaturals can't really tell that Technocracy guys and the Traditions are the same guys

#

For most of them they'd seem radically different

vast blaze
#

I'm not sure they'd even be able to tell the Technocrats are supposed to be wizards at all tbh

#

Given how so much of their totally-not-magick is based around using hypertech

nimble gale
#

Changelings are aware of it, they consider Technocrats to be the same sort of prodigal as a Mage, just one fallen to Autumn

vast blaze
vast blaze
#

Though I guess if anyone could tell it would be a Changeling

nimble gale
#

changelings are kind of second only to Fallen in regards to like, deep knowledge of the multi-splat nature of the setting, but they have their own biases in it

vast blaze
#

Speaking of, what do you lot the deep knowledge of each splat is

#

I figure vampires know the least overall and fallen know the most, where do you lot reckon the other splats fall?

limpid shoal
#

I can't speak for 5ed stuff, but I know Mage explicitly states that outside of having specalized Lore, Mages know fuck all about any kind of detail

nimble gale
#

Mages know of other splats but mostly excuse them as bygones or just generic Weird Shit and tend to not go much deeper than that

mighty zephyr
#

Theres no 5th edition mage yet

#

So we dont know

nimble gale
#

Tehcnocrats know more but only in the sense of Know Thy Enemy

vast blaze
mighty zephyr
#

However Werewolf 5's write up of vampires and 5ths write up of werewolves and other splats are purposefully written with misinformation

vast blaze
#

That's such a good idea

mighty zephyr
#

Like werewolves commonly believe that the older a vampire gets the uglier they are

#

So they presume nosferatu are all elders

vast blaze
#

Reinforces that nobody really knows what the fuck is going on with each other

vast blaze
#

Since older vampires tend to be of lower humanity, and the lower your humanity is the uglier you seem

mighty zephyr
#

Its mostly untrue

#

For the vast majority of clans at least

vast blaze
#

They're not entirely wrong but they're not right for the reason they think they are

mighty zephyr
#

But also

#

I have found support that Changeling 5th could just add the Gentry as the new True Fae and it would be a solid lore continuation off existing plot threads

#

Which i am stoked about

vast blaze
#

Whomst

#

I'm unfamiliar with Changeling unfortunately

mighty zephyr
#

The Gentry are the True Fae of Changeling the Lost

vast blaze
#

Aaaaaaaaaah I see

#

I'd imagine it'd be a divide between Changelings and Gentry of like

#

One is a lot more inhuman than the other, though both remain fairies

mighty zephyr
#

Gentry are alien godlike beings

vast blaze
#

Since I don't think they'd change Changelings to be like NWoD's

mighty zephyr
#

They can have both

vast blaze
mighty zephyr
#

No, still fairies

#

But the scary kind

vast blaze
#

Right

#

...I really ought to get into Changeling more, it's so fucking interesting to read about

mighty zephyr
#

Lost 2e is insanely good

vast blaze
#

It's just I tend to favor kicking ass and taking names and Changeling doesn't really seem like the game for that

#

...granted, trolls exist, so maybe I'm just talking out of my ass

mighty zephyr
#

Yeah theres combatlings

nimble gale
#

hell there's at least two courts who are expressely 'I Am A Paladin Let's Fucking Go' in CtL

vast blaze
#

I mean I know combat is a fail state and all that, I just enjoy the thrill of a good fight

nimble gale
#

and CtD has a lot of GLORIOUS QUESTING AND VIOLENCE MAKING

vast blaze
#

You lot are convincing me more and more to look into it

mighty zephyr
#

I still do not think you would particularly find a game to your playstyle as wod does not particularly support being a guy with a sword in armor who goes around swording things

vast blaze
#

Mmm, yeah

#

...which makes a lot of the combat systems they have in place feel weird to me

#

Especially for fucking Mage, why do they get the supplement with all sorts of cool sword tricks when they're objectively the worst for it in a system where you aren't supposed to engage in combat at all

nimble gale
#

I mean, 'guy with a sword in armor who goes around swording things' is a good description of at least half of all Sidhe wildlings

#

and a lto of other kiths

#

Hell the redcap i've been working on is 'girl in armor who goes around swording things' as a character. It's not her day job because she's a grump and they can hold down day jobs without banality encroaching on them from it, but her day job is 'EOD tech'

#

(yes her EOD suit is enchanted to be her knightly armor)

mighty zephyr
#

While I do know theres mechanics that support the idea, I also think WoD in general is not very good at being a combat heavy game

limpid shoal
#

Yea normally combat is treated as a fail state in my experience

fathom haven
#

With one glaring exception most of the time

#

While combat isn't necessary in most WTA games, it's definitely the game built for it

mighty zephyr
#

Yeah but even then I dont think it works being combat heavy just because WoD combat is Not Very Good

fathom haven
#

This is very true

clear delta
#

When you make a combat character
videogames

mighty zephyr
#

Just make sure you are relatively well rounded and you should be good

fathom haven
#

I always have a character who is ready for combat, not built for combat, if that makes sense

mighty zephyr
#

Yeah

fathom haven
#

A Nosferatu who has a bit more potence, a Garou who has at least one battle fetish, etc

craggy coyote
# mighty zephyr While I do know theres mechanics that support the idea, I also think WoD in gene...

I think the bsae systems can work for it, but my POV is it could benefit from some rule changes gleaned from of all things the Fantasy Flight Star wars rpg -

For example, range bands instead of having to worry about general distance, and using taht for most weapons helps keep things easy to track.

and maybe clearer "common manouvers" rules like dirty tricks or obstacle and terrain rules, but that might be getting too war gamey

nimble gale
#

Technically the Tzimisce i'm playing in a sabbat game is a combat character but I have no dots of celerity so i'm not REALLY a combat c haracter

craggy coyote
#

If you're v20, yeah you either have celerity or you don't for combat

#

Extra turns is... kinda op

nimble gale
#

The trick of course is that instead she has zulo form and loads of fortitude

#

as long as she's not fihgting a source of agg damage, she can generally pull through and then crush them like tiny grape.

fathom haven
#

That's why rage is better in my opinion

nimble gale
#

And if she is fighting a source of agg, she considers a fair fight to be a fail state.

fathom haven
#

And if you're a Gurahl, you don't need extra attacks :]

mighty zephyr
#

Well you kinda do

#

Because remember they arent just extra attacks, theyre also extra actions

#

Including movement

#

Or item manipulation

fathom haven
#

Well yeah but that's not how rage works on a Gurahl unfortunately

mighty zephyr
#

Yeah I know

#

I'm just saying less actions is always bad

fathom haven
#

But the strength boost is better in my opinion (I'm used to absolutely turning things into paste)

#

This is fair

#

I've always had work arounds for movement, like the one time our flying Mokole air dropped me into a fight like Beorn in the Hobbit

vast blaze
#

I get it's meant to be more lethal and higher-stakes but it just kinda doesn't feel great

craggy coyote
#

Because those tend to mean the person who gets to injured first is probably gonna lose, and they are gonna lose hard

vast blaze
#

Aye

craggy coyote
#

So while it reinforces why people don't want to risk fighting, the inherent swinginess makes it less enjoyable as a "war game"

vast blaze
#

I'm vaguely tempted to try my hand at homebrewing something more fun? But idk if I could actually make something good.

craggy coyote
#

Range bands, maybe adjust the health system

vast blaze
#

I've had the thought of introducing a Lancer-esque health system before, where you've got your four health bars and then losing one bar has varying consequences that get worse the more bars you lose.

craggy coyote
#

That'd basically just be WOD but you gave people more health

#

Which is a way to fix the system

#

at least if your goal is less lethal combat off rip

marble sorrel
#

And then people make characters engaging with the game under it's own 'hey, this is a mainline option' premice and run into 'oh, the rules for this are not good'

craggy coyote
#

Yeah, tso you kinda need to decide what combat should feel like first, and then make rules toward it

#

I think if you're going to increase health my other change would be that Dice rolls to dodge and to hit aren't winner take all

#

So everyone has a lot more health, but you're still taking chip damage

#

and somethng that deels agg damage being able to cut through it is still a massive threat

vast blaze
craggy coyote
#

The best way to fight as a Brujah isn't a duel, its Celerity 5, lightning strike, fist of caine, dead

#

repeat

#

or take brutal feed lightning strike and turn into a blender

limpid shoal
#

Something something, if you're in a fair fight you've already lost.

craggy coyote
#

Which while true, the wod combat systems struggle to allow dirty tricks in combat

#

and a combat build character whoc an win a fair fight is still a political nightmare

#

Because the moment you upset them you are going into a locker

marble sorrel
nimble gale
#

M20 came out first but also was written mostly by brucato, who

#

well okay it was headed by brucato

#

but regardless

#

M20 is the way it is for a reason lol

limpid shoal
#

Oh yea?

craggy coyote
#

You say this like I'm expected to know who "Brucato" is as if he doesn't sound like a nickname for a mobster

mighty zephyr
#

Phil "Satyr" Brucato

marble sorrel
mighty zephyr
#

he is a guy who is an actual occultist and is the main reason why M20 is Like That because he did the initial writing for Mage 1 , then stepped out, then didn't like how the direction went, then came back for M20

craggy coyote
nimble gale
#

mobster skaven sounds badass

worthy sundial
#

hes mainly infamous for putting "weird stuff" in wod, a thing ive largely grown irksome over

craggy coyote
nimble gale
#

but back to the discussion at hand--Voy has the nail on the head

mighty zephyr
#

Yeah basically

worthy sundial
mighty zephyr
#

He has actually done ayahuasca and shit in magical rituals

nimble gale
#

I'm not a fan of him because I think he's too,... like, not reactionary in the poltiical sense, but in the 'I don't like what they did to MY BABY so I'm gonna make them look like stupid heads' sense

mighty zephyr
#

But also he's the reason a lot of M20 is genuinely just relitigating forum arguments

nimble gale
#

'I get to writ ethe book and that means I'm right'

craggy coyote
#

... Ok next question. Does he have allegations pending, because that seems like it happens a lot with "auteurs".

The ayahausca + rituals sounds kind of balling though

mighty zephyr
#

Not really

nimble gale
#

also he's the reason the M20 core book is seven hundred pages of meandering what-ifs and if-thens

mighty zephyr
#

He's not a terrible person, just like

#

annoying lol

nimble gale
#

yeah

craggy coyote
#

Ok we chilling

nimble gale
#

not an evil person (as far as we know), just kinda an annoying dick about some things

mighty zephyr
#

The reason the Book of the Fallen is like that because he knew people who sacrificed animals in dark rituals for power

#

and shit

craggy coyote
#

There's no RPG designer who doesn't have their pet peeves

nimble gale
#

what he really needed was an editor with power over him because, look, like

#

I'm a huge mage fan

#

it's my faovrite owod line bar none

marble sorrel
nimble gale
#

it was my first urban fantasy rpg, my first non-DnD RPG

#

I will never, EVER, willingly throw M20 at someone interested in playing mage for the first time

#

I'll probably crack open Revised for that

#

M20 is for people who have been playing mage for a decade already

mighty zephyr
#

The worst part about Norfolk Wizard Game is me emphatically shaking people and telling them to not start with M20

#

and to go with 2nd or Revised

nimble gale
#

and I just--don't think the first new edition of a game line in 15 years should be new player unfriendly

#

it was a Choice and it was a bad one

mighty zephyr
#

Well 20th is not a good edition

#

largely

#

other than it's stated purpose of being a fan-servicey compilation edition

craggy coyote
#

I mean

#

that's good at its purpose at least

marble sorrel
#

I think it's a very good edition for some things. Like C20 is genuinely so much better than any other version of changeling mechanically and thematically.

nimble gale
#

It has a few gems in it spread across the books, at least, and I appreciate it's... easier? to do more gonzo-y stuff in it than revised while not being quite as We Don't KNow Game Dev Well Yet as 2e

#

oh, a lot of the 20s are great

#

M20 is...

#

probably the standout not so great

mighty zephyr
#

V20 and C20 are fine but W20 and M20 are bad

craggy coyote
#

I'm in law school and I think the mage book is obtuse

#

take that as you will

nimble gale
#

Wr20 is really good too

#

We20 is serviceable if you're willing to beat some things into shape

#

M20 you need some mind alteration going on and to already know ad ecade or more of Mage esoterica

mighty zephyr
#

Werewolf 20 is specifically bad because the writing is bad

#

the mechanics are more or less fine

marble sorrel
#

C20 is sorta my gold standard of what the 20 line could be. Where it's a love letter to the game but one that goes 'Hey, this needs Some Fixing, we can't keep the same problems going forward just because they're sacred cows'.

mighty zephyr
#

Mage the mechanics and the writing are fucked

craggy coyote
#

Also voy you've more experience running VTM than me. Opinions on what I said here, #1161696306100715550 message as a type of systems change to make combat more of an option that is generally less swingy and allows more room for tactics?

marble sorrel
#

Which VTM are you tinkering with?

mighty zephyr
#

Depends on what edition you're talking about

#

yea

craggy coyote
#

Thinking 5th

#

20th maybe

mighty zephyr
#

I actually think 5th combat is fine

#

It doesn't get in the way

marble sorrel
#

Ah, I'm less a 5th person I can't super comment on fine mechanical adjustments for that one

limpid shoal
#

Is there even a rough ETA for M5 at this point?

nimble gale
#

Soon, but like, valve time soon

limpid shoal
#

So never got it.

nimble gale
#

valve time when they were producing half life 2 episodes

mighty zephyr
#

I would guess probably not this year but next year

#

But that's me spitballing with no real knowledge

limpid shoal
#

Which basically means my options are M20 or Revised until the end of time as I see it.

mighty zephyr
#

or Awakening

limpid shoal
#

I have practically no experience with Awakening

mighty zephyr
#

Of the Mage editions and games Awakening 2e is by far the best designed game of the lot

limpid shoal
#

Mostly because my local group completely shunned Chronicles

nimble gale
#

between those two, REvised. Awakening is fun but it is a very different game, like all the nwod/chronicles games are

#

it's not as different as say, the changeling games or wraith into geist, but

marble sorrel
#

I think it depends on if you want to play 'Mage of any sort' or you want to play 'A version of ascension'.

limpid shoal
#

I think I might be too mentally attached to Ascension

#

(Even though I'm a huge mark for anything that has the word Atlantis in it)

mighty zephyr
#

Then just use Awakening mechanics and Ascension lore

#

Euthantoi are now the Seat of Death and the Hollow Ones are the Seat of Fate, buh buh bam

#

Everything's basically the same

#

I see a lot of people doing it

craggy coyote
#

^

There's nothing taht stops you from setting a V5 game pre Hardestadt being blown to Smithereens

#

in fact i think a lot of WOD games can benefit from the players realizing
"Canon event occurs soon. SHIT."

mighty zephyr
#

Like very genuinely, as someone who has played both

#

people think that Awakening giving some answers about the mechanics of magic somehow removes character archetypes or types of play

#

it really genuinely doesn't

#

You can do everything you could do in Ascension still, just quicker, easier, more thoroughly, and with more defined rules

limpid shoal
#

That does sound really nice

craggy coyote
mighty zephyr
#

Basically yeah

#

It's why it's infinitely easier to homebrew for CofD

craggy coyote
#

I maintain v5 should have imported CofD's vampire magicsystem in some capacity

#

I liked the 3 weird magic options being sect related

mighty zephyr
#

Oh 100% V5 should have the weird ass sect merits

#

Though I guess actually they did with Loresheets

craggy coyote
#

Kinda but also they gave things like Blood Magic rituals to sects

#

and I kinda love that

#

Helps distinguish magic as a thing you learn, instead of a discipline you have in the blood

marble sorrel
#

It's interesting but might have been a bit awkward for the setting when you have multiple clans for whom blood magic is a major part of their thing.

#

'Give me a tremere but hold the blood magic'
'Give me a tremere with nothing'

mighty zephyr
#

Well part of the V5 design philosophy was to make sure the Clans had more personality outside their Disciplines

craggy coyote
#

Thaumatogically Inept tremere go brr

#

But more seriosuly blood magic being sect bound (usually) still lets the tremere have the hat of "vampire wizard"

#

Just because anyone can get a PHD doesn't mean most of us are

mighty zephyr
#

The Warlock With An Enchanted Sword vs the Celerity+Auspex Unnering Aim Tremere

marble sorrel
#

Hey, they stopped treating the Banu Haqim like that 😛

craggy coyote
#

Yeah thank god

#

They're better for it

marble sorrel
#

There was strong moves that way towards it in V20 and I do disagree with some of the changes but being a lot less ARABIAN KNIIIGGGGHHHTTTS! is always good.

limpid shoal
#

God I wouldn't even know where to start with porting Iris over to Awakening

marble sorrel
#

I am enjoying Aininur in Dark Ages. She's...how would you describe Aininur @nimble gale?

vast blaze
marble sorrel
#

My hot take is they should have decoupled rituals from sorcery.

vast blaze
#

Less "You have X discipline that allows you to do Y thing" and more "You have X discipline and with enough creativity and investment you can do a wide variety of effects with it"

marble sorrel
#

Let tremere boil people's blood but any vampire can learn to Do A Ritual.

#

Sorta like how in V20 Anarchs had access to rituals but not full blood sorcery.

#

Just make that an Everyone Thing.

nimble gale
#

... who is a serial diablerist but that's not that bad of a thing in the dark ages especially for a banu haqim so

vast blaze
#

A Banu Haqim that isn't a serial diablerist is an outlier

#

Like a Tremere that isn't a scheming conniving rat fuck bastard

marble sorrel
#

We have one of those too!

vast blaze
#

Amusingly, I'm playing a Tremere that isn't a scheming conniving rat fuck bastard

nimble gale
#

she's not great at the conniving ratfuckery though

#

schemeing and bastardry she's got in the bag

vast blaze
#

He's also a brick shithouse and goddamn near onetapped some random Sabbat shovelhead with his walking cane when they burst into Elysium to assassinate the Prince

#

I find him endlessly amusing

marble sorrel
#

We also have a Tzimisce who...umm...well, there are two braincells in the group and neither of them belong to him.

nimble gale
#

it's also funny that i have two player characters who have decided that the via humanitas is for nerds they're gonna tera down their sense of self and recreate it into something better, stronger

mighty zephyr
#

Wait a minute

#

I need to check something

vast blaze
#

Cause you'd think he's a scheming conniving rat fuck bastard that slinks around the backlines and can't hold a sword to save his own life, but no, he's a spellblade that consistently ends up with the highest kill count of any encounter

#

Which is doubly amusing because one of my clanmates is a City Gangrel, the Killy Murdery Deathdealer Clan

marble sorrel
limpid shoal
#

Why is Wisdom a thing

vast blaze
#

God I really ought to play a Tzimisce someday, they seem fun

#

Or at the very least finally make that former Tzimisce Gargoyle with access to Vicissitude that I keep turning over in my head

mighty zephyr
# limpid shoal Why is Wisdom a thing

Because taking away people's free will with magic or teleporting when there's no actual need to makes you inherently removed from the human experience

marble sorrel
#

Counterpoint: The Human experiance is for dorks

#

-1 Wisdom

mighty zephyr
#

That's how you get Billionaires

nimble gale
#

also becuase nwod/cwod wanted to make sure everyone had a morality scale to push the personal-scale horror aspects of the gamelines more

mighty zephyr
#

ya

nimble gale
#

nwod is definitely the better horror experience

#

owod is kind of off doing it's own thing there, and I think the lack of morality meters for a lot of splats like. actually helps in some cases

#

a very 'you did it' sort of horror

vast blaze
#

OWoD's horror is less mechanically enforced

marble sorrel
#

Yeah. oWoD Changeling is by far my preferred game but it's types of horror is much more secondary than nWoD changeling. It's more 'urban adventure that swings widely between whimsy and depression' than 'horror'.

#

Not to say there isn't horror.

#

The Pray Away The Fae camps are very much horrifying/you could do a lot with that on the horror front

#

It's just not really Tied Inherantly To Changelingness

vast blaze
#

Aye

mighty zephyr
#

OWoD turned more general urban fantasy than horror

vast blaze
#

Also aye

nimble gale
#

different games, different systems, different themes

vast blaze
#

Urban fantasy with horror elements rather than just straight up horror

nimble gale
#

ye

craggy coyote
#

I've dabbled in homebrew sorcery "Powers"/irtuals for the brujah

#

I gave them gravity magic

vast blaze
craggy coyote
#

(Yes I believe the Brujah would love Magneto, next question)

vast blaze
#

Personal horror sure, but not much scares a vampire

mighty zephyr
#

shows up with a bigger and scarier vampire

marble sorrel
craggy coyote
#

I'd remove the time travel, but yeah

#

MEnele already somehow made a volcano explode

marble sorrel
#

Oh yeah, I meant more stuff like 'viewing the past' and 'freezing things in place' more than 'time travel'

vast blaze
#

But also good point

craggy coyote
#

If any clan should have some kind of weird sorcery its the ones that were running trade empires, buddy buddies with the Banu, and absolutely trying to get knowledge hoever they can between the frequent and angry revolutions

marble sorrel
#

Here is my Celerity Ritual that draws on some true brujah temporal stuff to View The Past through my mastery of Celerity.

vast blaze
#

I suppose it's more accurate to say that vampires can just sort of nope out of most conventional horror scenarios more easily than a human

limpid shoal
#

I'm trying to wrap my head around Awakening right now and I'm just not quite liking all of it

craggy coyote
#

(I am a fanboy, Sue me)

mighty zephyr
vast blaze
limpid shoal
#

I LIKE that Mana limits are tied to Gnosis

marble sorrel
#

Also: Vague Pondering - It would be really kinda cool when we get a new Changeling to make the Freeholds a much more central part of group chargen. Werewolves are tied to Cairnes but Changelings design their freehold.

You could do a really cool Blades In The Dark Base setup with freeholds.

#

Going 'oh yeah, my freehold is a Fort, so it's got upgrades that make our group better at combat-heavy stories'

#

vs 'our freehold is a social center, it helps with that sorta stuff'

vast blaze
#

That would be neato

limpid shoal
#

Also it seems what ever path you pick is a lot more limiting with what you can learn and how you do things

mighty zephyr
#

Not really

#

You have one inferior Arcana, that's it.

#

Your favored are slightly less expensive but all the other ones are normal cost.

marble sorrel
mighty zephyr
#

How you do things isn't even dictated by path, you can be an Acanthus witch or an Acanthus Dr. Who

marble sorrel
#

Funny pondering: You can stat up the Tardis as a freehold, though the GM shoudl slap you if you try to actually go time traveling without the game being About That.

nimble gale
#

🤔 gallifrey as arcadia...

limpid shoal
#

Huh, Gnosis just gives paradox?

marble sorrel
#

And those don't need to be linked

mighty zephyr
marble sorrel
#

You can have a freehold that's a phone box in normal reality but a whole complex in chimerical

mighty zephyr
#

And only if you over Reach.

#

So witnesses won't extra dice, but if a Gnosis 1 Mage Reaches an extra time on a spell, it'll be 1 dice, while if a Gnosis 10 Archmage does, they'll get hit with 5 dots of Paradox.

fathom haven
#

Man I know

#

Absolutely nothing about mage

mighty zephyr
#

Well I'm actively explaining it right now

#

If you have questions

fathom haven
#

While I very much appreciate the offer, it's just a splat I never see myself touching, like wraith or demon

mighty zephyr
#

Oh, well I'm explaining Awakening

#

which is the Chronicles version

fathom haven
#

Hm, very fair, about how different from WoD mage is it, or is it pretty similar

mighty zephyr
#

Fairly similar

#

At least in the broad strokes

#

Instead of consensus reality and Avatars, you take your magic from a dimension of platonic forms called the Supernal.

fathom haven
#

Huh

#

Man maybe I do need to read mage

mighty zephyr
#

The reason Paradox exists is because to get from the Supernal to reality you have to drag the symbol of magic through a hell of anti-things called the Abyss which corrupts what it touches.

limpid shoal
#

I think the other thing I'd need to get use to is how different each dot of a given arcana means compared to its comparable sphere

mighty zephyr
#

Every Arcana can do bashing, lethal, and agg, you don't need Space to fill up a room, you don't need a targeting Sphere to affect human beings

#

etc etc

limpid shoal
#

So part of this is I'm also looking at this in the lense of converting Iris over to Awakening possibly, so I'm also looking at this mess.

image.png
vast blaze
#

Oh, Spheres are relatively simple

#

Ish

mighty zephyr
#

I mean you should probably not immediately try to make an extremely high leveled character in a new system

vast blaze
#

Seconded

#

ESPECIALLY NOT MAGE

mighty zephyr
#

Just go through character creation and think about how they were in the beginning of their journey

#

Things should flow naturally from there

limpid shoal
#

I think part of it is like, 1 dot in an Arcana is A LOT more flexible than 1 dot in a Sphere

mighty zephyr
#

Yar

limpid shoal
#

Which I think is a lot better

mighty zephyr
#

I agree

#

Prime still remains a light meta-magic engine but you can also just focus on Prime itself

#

and feel pretty sick about it

#

Creator knows Ascension

#

they don't know Awakening

vast blaze
#

Ah

#

I may be stupid

mighty zephyr
#

Largely all of that is the same, except Entropy is split into Fate and Death, and Prime is significantly different

vast blaze
#

Sorry

mighty zephyr
#

it's alright

limpid shoal
#

No need to be sorry, I don't mind!

#

Obviously the Big Problem with porting Iris is being a walking talking clay person.

#

That's part of her core identity.

mighty zephyr
#

So she's a Lich

#

You can just transmute your body into clay with Life and Matter fairly easy

#

there's an example spell where you can turn yourself into like

#

an email

limpid shoal
#

Not by her own hand, part of the origin is that due to A Mishap from her former Mentor (who died from this) she was irreversably made in to the clay person she is now.

vast blaze
#

That may be moderately unwise, given you have to stay on the down-low about being supernatural

mighty zephyr
#

I do not think "irreversably" is a thing

#

But like, Being a Clay Person definitely is

fathom haven
#

The Tammuz trying to figure out if they're one of them or something else:

mighty zephyr
#

I think the clay person vibes are SLIGHTLY different from the Tammuz

#

from my understanding it's more Clayface style of like

#

wet clay

limpid shoal
#

Yea she's more soft clay and such

creatorclay.png
mighty zephyr
#

But yeah like

fathom haven
#

Ah I see I see

mighty zephyr
#

While you can't go "I am like this forever and ever and there's nothing that can be done about it", you can just be that

#

Mage is a game about Never Say Nevers

fathom haven
limpid shoal
#

That's true, I more say irreversably in the sense that its not a spell or anything that she maintains

limpid shoal
mighty zephyr
#

The problem with both accounts to an extent is that mage spells wear off on death

#

So you would need the person who did it to be alive

fathom haven
limpid shoal
fathom haven
mighty zephyr
#

Former

#

Mages can cheap out of the latter a lot

mighty zephyr
fathom haven
#

So there could be a ghost/wraith/gheist etc

mighty zephyr
#

No

limpid shoal
#

Also because Iris is a character by my hand, she doesn't hate being made of clay at all and would prefer to stay that way.

mighty zephyr
#

Those only exist when the person dies

#

A mage however can upload their brain into a computer or become a spirit or freeze time and live in the second before their death perpetually

fathom haven
#

Man

#

I'll stick with my werewolves and vamps and changelings, because what the hell

limpid shoal
#

Mage is cool

mighty zephyr
#

Mage is indeed cool

barren vortex
#

a mage dying relinquishes control of their active spells, that ends them?

limpid shoal
limpid shoal
fathom haven
#

Seeing the clay where the bullets have grazed is really cool

limpid shoal
#

If I were to build Iris from scratch in Awakining her Path would LIKELY be Obrimos

pure mauve
#

...thinking about how in Changeling, most if not all of your enemies are victims as much as you are. Fetches didn't ask to be crude facsimiles of you, and Huntsmen are also Changelings most of the time.

mighty zephyr
#

Yup!

#

Well wait

#

No

#

On that last bit

#

Huntsman are not changelings

#

They are a seperate class of being entirely

#

They never were human

pure mauve
#

Oh, for some reason I thought they were former humans too.

fathom haven
#

There is like

mighty zephyr
#

They are the original inhabitants of Arcadia

fathom haven
#

Changeling bounty hunters

mighty zephyr
#

They were conquered by the Gentry

fathom haven
#

In a sense

mighty zephyr
#

Privateers

fathom haven
#

Yeah

pure mauve
#

Oh, that's also interesting.

limpid shoal
#

Thinking about it Iris would likely be member of the Mysterium?

#

Although she's a capable combatant, she was always more interested in knowledge

fathom haven
#

One of my Ogres was an ex privateer

mighty zephyr
#

My Beast ate a privateer over the course of a week from his feet to his head to get in good with the court of autumn

fathom haven
#

Extremely based

mighty zephyr
#

He also kept using changelings as bait so he could eat their huntsmen

#

Since Mages had him on a leash and he couldnt murder people like he wanted

marble sorrel
worthy sundial
mighty zephyr
#

No

#

Chewing

worthy sundial
#

the whole week

mighty zephyr
#

Yeah

worthy sundial
#

mealprepping my privateer

mighty zephyr
#

Breaks for coffee sometimes

#

More like painfully ripping apart and slicing miniscule pieces off one bit at a time with razor sharp teeth but like

#

Same difference

#

Connie was fun

worthy sundial
#

i mean the second half of that is just mealprep if u rly think abt it

mighty zephyr
#

Keeping the dude alive to torture whenever you want is meal prep for a beast

#

Really

worthy sundial
#

freal

mighty zephyr
#

God Beast is so good

#

Love my nasty bat dragon man

limpid shoal
#

Now lets see Iris bring down a bunch of paradox on her head.

Iris3.png
#

Honestly this one is probably more paradox

Irisfloat.png
fathom haven
limpid shoal
#

Sometimes you get so mad that you just don't care anymore

fathom haven
mighty zephyr
#

And u ask me that quastion......

fathom haven
#

Ogre is best seeming, is all I'm saying

limpid shoal
#

Also why is her clay purple? Because its noticable and not natural

fathom haven
#

Play-Doh wizard

mighty zephyr
#

As opposed to her being a normal clay person

#

Which is perfectly natural

limpid shoal
#

Absolutely

fathom haven
#

Or perhaps a clay corpse

#

Such as the Tammuz

limpid shoal
#

Oh I got a fun random question for you @mighty zephyr : What spheres (or arcanum) would you use to affect Iris?

fathom haven
#

I need to make another Promethean so bad

somber scarab
#

I would say either Life or Matter to affect her body, but which one works relies on a metaphysical question on how her body works

mighty zephyr
#

Ya basically

#

However any could fuck her up

#

Forces to freeze or cook her

#

The rest of em idk im tired

limpid shoal
#

That's fair, it is kinda late at this point for me

clear delta
clear delta
#

OKay, I also want hardblood powers from Project Moon

clear delta
# limpid shoal Why is Wisdom a thing

As voy explained, it shows you removal from human experience
I would also say it represents how much you ontrol your power vs being controlled by it
As you lsoe wisdom, your magic leaks more, your nimbus (aura) affects people connected to your magic identity, and eventually starts affecting your mundane life
At 0 wisdom, your soul breaks, now become a broken valve that magic power shoots out through, warping your existence and allowing things to crawl out of the supernal into this world

clear delta
clear delta
marble sorrel
#

Wisdom is overrated though 😛

clear delta
#

In these awakenings, something happens and you get a change to your situation or you due to the awakening

#

THat or archmage shenanigans, but then there's the wuestion of "how does that help teh archmages schemes?"

clear delta
clear delta
clear delta
#

@mighty zephyr someone in another server is asking about starting adventures for forsaken 2e
Got good ones you'd share? Or converted 1e ones

mighty zephyr
clear delta
#

Ok
If you are willing to share one or another

#

I could link it there

#

It's the onyx path discord

mighty zephyr
#

I don't really have any lol

#

But like

#

all the books have plot threads

#

there's no real adventure modules for Chronicles ttbh

clear delta
#

Okay

#

The banished queen from mage kinda is

high current
#

there were some for 1e but 2e never got anything beyond story seeds afaik

#

there's a list of everything, and yeah its all from 1e books

limpid shoal
limpid shoal
mighty zephyr
#

Nah, Mage assumes a human base at all times

heady kestrel
#

Silver ladder voice “it our divine birthright, left to us by the Atlantean Dragons during the age of myth”

sour zephyr
#

the new d20 season is gonna be vtm, which is neat

clear delta
#

There's lossing disability, erasing your addiction such that it never happened, swapping elements of your life with another mage awakening at the same time (and becoming Connected sympathetically, so you are metaphysically one)

#

Getting hurled into another period of time

clear delta
#

Could also go for archmage or artifact as explanations

mighty zephyr
#

This is me thinking around the idea that this is a character that's meant to be played

#

but I feel like you should just have it be a spell

clear delta
#

I see

mighty zephyr
#

It's the least convoluted explaination.

clear delta
#

In that case, maybe an imbued item with the spell?

#

Life matter 3 or 4

mighty zephyr
#

I mean story-wise it can just a be a spell that was put on her

limpid shoal
#

A spell that was put on her that she has no intention of getting rid of, despite some of the disadvantages.

#

An item/artifact might be interesting for her, especially if it's something she doesn't have possession over?

#

Would also be a fun way for someone to exert control over Iris as well.

clear delta
#

Long term spells have this issue

#

Being able to recast it seems more convenient

limpid shoal
#

Could be that part of maintaining her form/the spell is a need to consume clay

mighty zephyr
#

She would probably need to do so if she got damaged yes

limpid shoal
#

Oh that's already part of Iris already. I more mean that instead of regular food Iris just needs to consume clay on a regular basis.

#

Originally her "situation" was such that she had to manually reconstruct her shape.

SPOILER_Iris2.png
mighty zephyr
#

I will admit 100% that she makes way more sense as a Deviant than a mage

limpid shoal
#

Iris is weeeeerd I know.

nimble gale
#

honestly you could probably make her in M20 (or revised? I believe revised had the rules too) using the rules for making an awakened technocratic construct, just reflavored. Some level of permanent paradox in exchange for various physical/metnal/social augments.

#

but, you know

#

M20

#

lmao

mighty zephyr
#

She is originally a Mage the Ascension character that is being translated

radiant marsh
#

It's not even any writing or lore crap I remember about that, it was how it just deliberately ignored every nWoD design rule.

#

Like "No multiple actions ever"

limpid shoal
mighty zephyr
#

She should logically have it yeah

nimble gale
#

we don't talk about changing breeds for a variety of reasons

fathom haven
#

The book or the changing breeds in general

nimble gale
#

mostly the book, but...

#

for nwod I should specify. Fera in owod are fine.

fathom haven
#

We talking about Chronicles NWOD or like
Werewolf v5

mighty zephyr
#

Chronicles

fathom haven
clear delta
#

Nwod is always used for chronicles

#

Hell, changing breeds didn't even need to be released
War against the pure already talks about non werewolf shifters

fathom haven
#

I didn't even know there was a book for it, I thought it was just from War Against The Pure

clear delta
#

Anyway, I prefer "reapply spell" as an option for clay woman
Because long term spells, while they can be safely released, will break over time from paradox such as from being seen by sleepers, and the spell will thus shift unpredictably and dangerously

high current
#

most people ignore nwod changing breeds because its Not Good

#

as noted, breaks a lot of the conventions nwod had set up to that point, but also, has mechanics that fully do not work and a merit for literally smearing shit on the walls to communicate for some reason

clear delta
high current
#

(main broken mechanic thing i remember is they get access to a merit that lets you cast spells like an Awakened Mage, but each dot you take in the merit gives you -1 to your powersupernatural resistance stat, and its available at character creation, so its entirely possible to immediately brick yourself out of the whole splat)

mighty zephyr
#

hilarious

clear delta
#

Also, the whole doing shifters from around the world but being bad st depicting other peoples

#

And being very horny

craggy coyote
#

https://youtu.be/g9BFE1YsOZM?si=G7C6nezMqONAmf0M
Dimension 20 revealed their homebrew changes for the VTM campaign.
Interestingly for V5 they're making it so that when your hunger exceeds your dice pool, you roll that many hunger dice, so if you have say, Str 1, brawl 0 but hunger 5, you've got 5 dice to beat on people.

YouTube
Dimension 20
Dimension 20: City Council of Darkness Game Mechanics Explainer

Dimension 20 lorekeeper Skye gives a rundown of the game system used in City Council Darkness.

Welcome to Dimension 20, Dropout.tv's anthology actualplay show! Enjoy watching every campaign, every behind-the-scenes, every one-shot, and every talkback, only on Dropout: https://dimension20.dropout.tv/

Sign up for the Dropout newsletter here: htt...

▶ Play video
limpid shoal
#

Honestly that's exciting to think about

#

(Also I'm finally watching Norfolk Wizard Game)

mighty zephyr
#

what's that

frank atlas
limpid shoal
#

Some silly actual play.

radiant marsh
frank atlas
#

And why is is Fierce Brosnand

vast blaze
limpid shoal
#

Initally it was going to be Parker, but uh Samson has been so great

vast blaze
#

I'm fond of Bill personally

#

And his monke

frank atlas
#

Call him by his govt name

#

FIERCE BROSNAND

vast blaze
#

TRUE

#

So sorry for misnaming Mr. Brosnand

frank atlas
#

God i love how oddly good speaker is at monkey noises

keen bluff
#

I should really revisit LA By Night

strong bronze
#

i am sure there are a lot but

what are the practical reasons for a vampire to not just

walk to other countries through the ocean

frank atlas
#

Masquerade Violation. Scarier things than you in the water (blood dimmed tides), can still be eaten by sealife in one big gulp, still vulnerable to water pressure

#

The list goes on

fathom haven
#

If you have fortitude the pressure isn't so bad

#

Good luck dealing with the Rokea tho

fathom haven
limpid shoal
#

Also that's a lot of time to spending walking

clear delta
#

In owod, you'd probably find pollution monsters in the sea

#

And mages who live full time as animals/monsters

limpid shoal
#

Also I had some mental whiplash last night when someone that I was intoducing Mage for the first time. She referred to the different traditions as classes.

mighty zephyr
#

It's not really a Masquerade violation as you'd VERY unlikely run into another group of people

#

But the main problems are that you would most likely starve to death or die to the sun due to a lack of particularly good cover

craggy coyote
# strong bronze i am sure there are a lot but what are the practical reasons for a vampire to n...

ike voy said. mostly food and starvation. you need to be capable of hunting underwater, going fast, and avoiding sunlight.

also the chance you get jumped by other vampires, or having to avoid government identification once you come to shore.

it's part of why the gangrel were so useful in the cam. fort + animalism meant they could act as messengers and survive chance attacks often taking the form of animals to travel between domains.

also because it's wod, were sharks exist and who knows what other creeps from the deep...

image0.jpg
strong bronze
mighty zephyr
nimble gale
craggy coyote
vast blaze
#

Idea for a weird Bane spirit

#

A type of Bane that like, propagates itself rather than remaining as a single entity, spreading through living beings and corrupting them into Fomori in a zombie virus-esque sequence

#

Call it Spiral Syndrome or some such, first signs are weird spiral-shaped boils that appear before you start turning into a zombini

high current
#

might be wrong but i think there is a type of Bane somewhere that is self-propogating like that, though i dont think the resulting fomori are zombie-like? been a minute since ive looked at Banes

fathom haven
#

Hmmm

#

Lemme look through my Book of the Wyrm rq

#

So Gray Mass Banes are the closest thing I could find (for 2nd edition WTA at least) but they're more fungal than viral

rapid glacier
#

This is not identical but Hollow Men fomori are kinda similar but not identical in practice; they try to make more of themselves with worms

strong bronze
#

What makes the garou so much tankier and deadlier than the other supernaturals

Like

On stats

mighty zephyr
marble sorrel
#

Being able to Soak Agg is one of the biggest things honestly even more than the regen.

#

As there's a lot of things that go 'well, agg is powerful and unsoakable so 5 agg is a terrifying amount of damage'

#

And then a Garou goes 'lol, lmao'

mighty zephyr
#

And also they deal agg

#

which almost no one by default can soak