Tch, and I completely forgot despite reminding myself twice - tagging @Maugan Ra, since I know you mentioned interest. It's not quite canon rules, but the structure remains.
White Wolf's World of Darkness
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think making Beast crossover reliant really just contributes to the feeling of being spread too thin, pulled in too many directions. I mean I'm probably more tolerant of the idea than most, just 'cause I like the idea of a fractious society in the shadows, all these monsters like little islands in a vast, vast ocean, but shoving your edgy Sonic OC in a perfectly good setting does neither you (general "you"), nor the setting any favors. And it sorta pays not to piss off people who might enjoy the gamelines that Beasts are defined as being hugely patronizing towards. Re: all of them.
Honestly something I was mulling over (shower-thoughts best thoughts) was like...
Idk.
The modern world can't sustain the massive souls of Beasts or true Heroes anymore. There are no more Beowulfs, no more Herculeses anymore than there are any Grendels or Hydras. But both still exist just kinda...broken and maimed. All the fragments of their being, their souls, split up between however many hundreds of heirs.
So when you're playing a Beast you're basically playing some shred of an ancient monster, recently awoken and alone. And you're keyed to the concept of their mind or their claws or their heart or whatever and embody some facet of their being. And through your actions you can help determine the character of the whole. And then the antagonist splats would basically be like these doomsday cults that want to enact a mass sacrifice of Beasts keyed to a certain type to resurrect the creature proper as a Typhon or Seven Macaw type god-thing that can make reality its bitch.
Sorta cribbing one part from the Yozis and one part from the Hosts in nWuff.
The idea I guess is that every Beast, every Hero, is born alone. For every one of them there's this hollow part, this ache, this need to be complete and so they bind themselves into Broods or whatever to fill that emptiness and survive. And as you interact with each other and try to grow your maimed chunk of legend and draw the, like, modern day devolved and diluted spawn of the Beasts (Wargs that have gone the way of bulldogs maybe, idk) to your service you have a choice in influencing how the greater whole of the Progenitor is characterized. Inserting stories like viruses into the greater part. The shared well where they draw their powers.
(Obv the masquerade is upheld when you turn into a Nemean Lion-dude and chase an investment banker with Herc's soul down because in stories bystanders don't matter, so it's all editted out. Unless one leaps forward to become a Hero too so, y'know.
)Tl;dr Beast Voltron with themes about community and belonging.
It's easy to look good when the enemy consists of pedo Priests, straw-packed feminists, and a dude who tonguefuckes people to death and at any moment you might be murdered like a Hannibal extra for stiffing someone on a tip.
So what I'm saying is #Seers2016
I'm not sure how fun a game where your main driving motivations are "I'm torn between removing my PC from play or just sticking around to be a titanic asshole" would be.
Last edited:
- Location
- London, England
I am very highly interested. I've been looking to play Mage for a while.
Is there a thread or something where I can sign up and review the house rules?
Beast Thematics
Your made-up 'mathematical elegance' doesn't actually mean anything at all. It's an arbitrary thing you've declared to favour your overcomplicated solution. Meanwhile, my one has actual elegance because it efficiently and effectively patches the rules exploit with a minimum knock-on effect.
As for your "spend vitae to heal mortals", well, yes, if people write stupid and athematic vampire powers that let them not be parasites upon the world, I can't do shit to stop that. Any vampire power for healing mortals would, at minimum, have to cost at least 2 vitae per lhl healed - so the vampire is always by their presence making the world a worse place.
Still runs into the X-Men issue. Namely "woe is poor, disenfranchised me; I have nothing going for me but the soul of a Primordial godbeast and the ability to spirit nuke an entire city" doesn't really work. Part of being systematically, like, shunned and excluded and ostracized is the fact that you're rendered powerless and the metaphor sort of falls apart when you start implying that the gays are in the same boat as a dude who's literally the Kraken on steroids.
What I'd do is burn the idea that Beasts are in any way subliminal or hidden. They're not. They're superliminal. They're so real that the worlds humans know is just figment of the imagination. A Beast can open their eyes and leave the imaginary world of the mortals in their true form. They stride down the street, setting off car alarms and the like - and the wispy dream-mortals just bemoan the way all the car alarms have gone off.
(This is the precise opposite of making it crossover friendly. Look, this is a game where a starting PC can be a three metre tall giant who can toss boulders around. The limit is how much power they can effectively use within the dream world without tearing the world. Pulling out too much power means you shed the imaginary world and get booted into the real world of the monsters.)
The monsters never went away. The world humans know is just a pale dream, the Imaginary World, and the real world is where the dragons and the hydra and the other monsters still live. Humans walk through their world, so pale and weak and pathetic - and when two titans clash within their city, destroying the entire city... well, the humans who lived there are forgotten by the dream. They're not real. They never existed.
Thus, the conflict in Beast is that you are the Leviathan - both as a monster, but also as Hobbes' Leviathan. You're like a nationstate to mortals, because you can snuff out their lives and twist their whole world without noticing. You can do whatever you feel like to them. There's nothing stopping you from killing a mortal - only your own Humanity. It's easy to kill mortals. It's less easy to kill supernaturals, because they aren't represented in the real world - they're creatures of the Imaginary World or other stranger places and that means you have to go in with your chained powers and your chained form and not accidentally tear yourself out of the Imaginary World by letting too much hang out.
And as your Humanity falls, you find it harder and harder to return to the Imaginary World of the mortals. Eventually, you wind up as one of the monsters, forgetting the last remnants of the caterpillar you thought you were and becoming the monster in full. And the inhuman ones aren't chained by their human ties, so that's where the 60m long dragons come from.
So, therefore, how are Beasts good protagonist material? Well, for one, ones who still have Humanity left have attachments to the world. That's kind of a big deal. The idea that your wife or husband might just be crushed by a 60m tall dragon and no one apart from you will even remember them is sort of upsetting to a lot of people. So what do a lot of Beasts do? Claim a territory in the real world to keep an area of the Imaginary World safe from other monsters. Fight like fuck to stop some asshole from wrecking the place you're attached to. And of course, you're a monster, and the human world is a dream - but it's a comfortable one. It's very, very easy to play imperialist in the Imaginary World, chaining the anthropomorphic personification of a corporation and suddenly the Imaginary World changes so you've been CEO for five years.
Sure, it's a Humanity sin to casually warp the Imaginary World, but it's not like it's really bad, right? It's so easy. And you wouldn't have those powers if they weren't meant to be used.
Heroes? They're the Beast minor template. They're mortals with some powers who can see the real world, enter the place with the monsters and seize their weapons and gain their powers. In the past, Heroes told tales of their exploits. Now, many Heroes rant and rave on the subway. But the same realisation of the real world within them twists their form when they leave the Imaginary World. They start off as the heroes of legend, which is why a tramp looks like Hercules to someone who knows what to look for. But they become creatures of the lands of monsters too, and some day they'll become a Beast.
You either die a Hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
ganonso
Compulsive Quest Starter
- Location
- PACA France
A manner of making Beast less creepy, in my mind, is ironically to emphasize the cross-over nature of the game. Hungers tend to devolve in creepfest when they target humans. When they target Prodigals though, people have less a problem with them. Here are what I deem non-creepy hungers
Hunger for Punishment : Punish sins against Humanity/Wisdom/Harmony, Punish Prodigals breaking their own laws. Enforce a largely agreed cultural taboo (incest, cannibalism, kinslaying...)
Hunger for Ruin: Ravage the careful society of the night. Destroy the Masquerade. Break the stranglehold of the Seers on culture.
Hunger for Prey: Seriously the most creepiest when it comes to human becomes the easiest to decreepify when it comes to supernatural creatures: Hunt the hunters, the Huntsman, Vampires and Werewolves who makes prey of humanity;
Hunger for Hoard: Accumulate forbidden lore, destroy Abyss-tainted cults to be the only one to possess their secrets (and not use them), Hoard Relics of Irem or cursed items to remove them from the world.
Hunger for Command: Take control of cults devoted to the supernatural, help the Guardians of the Veil in their Labyrinths, take control of a tainted site and regulate passage, turn cults against their masters.
Hunger for Punishment : Punish sins against Humanity/Wisdom/Harmony, Punish Prodigals breaking their own laws. Enforce a largely agreed cultural taboo (incest, cannibalism, kinslaying...)
Hunger for Ruin: Ravage the careful society of the night. Destroy the Masquerade. Break the stranglehold of the Seers on culture.
Hunger for Prey: Seriously the most creepiest when it comes to human becomes the easiest to decreepify when it comes to supernatural creatures: Hunt the hunters, the Huntsman, Vampires and Werewolves who makes prey of humanity;
Hunger for Hoard: Accumulate forbidden lore, destroy Abyss-tainted cults to be the only one to possess their secrets (and not use them), Hoard Relics of Irem or cursed items to remove them from the world.
Hunger for Command: Take control of cults devoted to the supernatural, help the Guardians of the Veil in their Labyrinths, take control of a tainted site and regulate passage, turn cults against their masters.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
That's similar to the way I'm handling it. Beasts live in the Primordial Dream, and normal people can only see misinterpreted flashes of it. So if a Beast has claws, someone might see them holding a knife.
By the same token, the more monstrous you are the less you impact the real world. If you toss the Statue of Liberties head, it only effects the local Primordial Dream. If you kill someone they still die though, but it typically appears to be from other causes, like a car crash.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[ANSWER REDACTED BY THE WILL OF THE UNITY.]
Walker of the Yellow Path
Ho There!
- Location
- The Land of Memes
I'm interested. I'll admit, I've never played OMage, but I kinda want to try.
- Location
- London, England
OK, I think I get that. I mean I'll probably go slow and make a few mistakes, because this would be my first time playing Mage at all let alone with house rules, but I should be pretty good for this.
For the record, I'm totally going to play a member of the New World Order, because their style and philosophy appeals to me and that means I can do proper philosophical knife-fights. With actual knives and everything.
I have never played Mage, and my main question is if you're willing to guide someone who has been scared to try joining games because he knows he'd have trouble coming up with rotes. If you are, I would love to join, because I'm fairly certain a game of people from this forum will at least leave me feeling like i'm contributing something while I'm learning how to mage.
That really steps on Changeling's toes.
What about people that want to escape normality?
Make Escapism the theme.
They can give in entirely and throw away their lives as a normal human, reject the Fantasy and retreat back into their Mundane existence, or try to maintain a balance between the two.
ganonso
Compulsive Quest Starter
- Location
- PACA France
So speaking of Beast, that trotted in my mind for some time.
"Come, Come warm yourself to our fire. We were waiting for you.
Don't make this face, and don't be so surprised. You knew you were called, there was a restlessness in you, an urge of leaving your hunting grounds and come here in the ass-end of Massachusetts. There were restless dreams, images of horrors even beyond those you committed or commit when you're hungry. You saw the dances, the revels, the feasts, the prostrations and the venerations. You heard names screamed in languages not of this world and had the feeling terrible things were about to happen. Perhaps you consulted your friends, described the symbols. Perhaps one of the sorcerers told you of the meaning of Nemean Lion, perhaps a wolf shuddered at the thought of the anti-wendigo. Or perhaps you simply followed your instinct to come here where you needed.
Fear not! We're on your side. We are kin. Indeed, it is we who sent the message through the Dream. A sort of signal like when wolves howl when they see a juicy prey for the pack, or a threat for their safety. Each of us here is like you. We know what you are. We know the pitiless hunger that gnaws at your bones, we know the sins we must commit to avoid our souls to feed without discrimination, we know the struggle with what we are.
We don't know why we were created, why the things inside us were created. We bleat about teaching humanity a lesson and for some of us their needs suit themselves to this goal, but in truth we feed on what diet our souls requires, be it innocent blood or guilty flesh. Sometimes we go too far but gain the freedom to not have to feed for a longer time than usual. Gorge yourself too often though and the universe breeds champions to make your gluttony ends. It's the way of thing spanning from the beginning and continuing until the world ends.
Which brings us to the town near us. Howard's Rock it is called. One of these little hamlets with a dreadful history. Which will end in a few days after we crash the place. Before the week ends, this place will exist no more or we will be all in the ground. In either case we'll have done our duty.
You don't understand yet. Let me explain: There are things more awful than us in this vast world we share with bloodsuckers, werewolves, sorcerers and many other things. There are things who make our little predations or even our large ones seem like children's games. This town is one of them. To be more precise they worship one of them. They are a cult. A cannibal cult who believe their grotesque meals will actually bring a universe where their sickness is the norm.
Is this so surprising we would object to such a thing? We who called you encountered members of this cult and tracked them here. Some were polite enough to answer all our questions while some of our contacts explained the rest.
If you want proof, we're still preparing ourselves. You can read the texts we uncovered, the items we found. You can even go to Boston and ask the sorcerers here about the Scribe of Blasphemy, about the Red Word and the Prince of the 100 000 Leaves. Some will even answer to you truthfully. They don't know what we discovered here. They believe the cult extinct but have only exterminated the brazen and idiot ones.
The rest is here, the whole town worship anti-history and seek to replace the timeline with one more to their liking. At least it's what their cultists bleated when we interrogated them.
What we will be doing is a monstrous thing, don't get me wrong. We will slaughter everyone to toothless old men to toothless infants. We'll burn their libraries, smash their idols and salt the ashes when we're done. We'll find a way to cast down the towers of their temple or at least we'll be its guardians and protectors until the sorcerers can figure something to do.
We'll teach humanity to stay outside the tainted zone, to not investigate and risk being exposed to the taint. In the worst case they'll come to kill us, bring back the riches of our Lairs and not push the matter further.
And if we fail in our attack? Well at least we'll teach these cultists they still can know fear. That their master can't protect them and even their greatest temple is not safe from attack.
You asked before why were we created. I think it's for cases like that. When wounds are dealt to the world that must be cleansed by sword and fire. When comes the need for monsters to hunt monsters without remorse or pity.
No rest, no mercy, no matter what.
Another manner to decreepify Beast: Race of Alucards.
"Come, Come warm yourself to our fire. We were waiting for you.
Don't make this face, and don't be so surprised. You knew you were called, there was a restlessness in you, an urge of leaving your hunting grounds and come here in the ass-end of Massachusetts. There were restless dreams, images of horrors even beyond those you committed or commit when you're hungry. You saw the dances, the revels, the feasts, the prostrations and the venerations. You heard names screamed in languages not of this world and had the feeling terrible things were about to happen. Perhaps you consulted your friends, described the symbols. Perhaps one of the sorcerers told you of the meaning of Nemean Lion, perhaps a wolf shuddered at the thought of the anti-wendigo. Or perhaps you simply followed your instinct to come here where you needed.
Fear not! We're on your side. We are kin. Indeed, it is we who sent the message through the Dream. A sort of signal like when wolves howl when they see a juicy prey for the pack, or a threat for their safety. Each of us here is like you. We know what you are. We know the pitiless hunger that gnaws at your bones, we know the sins we must commit to avoid our souls to feed without discrimination, we know the struggle with what we are.
We don't know why we were created, why the things inside us were created. We bleat about teaching humanity a lesson and for some of us their needs suit themselves to this goal, but in truth we feed on what diet our souls requires, be it innocent blood or guilty flesh. Sometimes we go too far but gain the freedom to not have to feed for a longer time than usual. Gorge yourself too often though and the universe breeds champions to make your gluttony ends. It's the way of thing spanning from the beginning and continuing until the world ends.
Which brings us to the town near us. Howard's Rock it is called. One of these little hamlets with a dreadful history. Which will end in a few days after we crash the place. Before the week ends, this place will exist no more or we will be all in the ground. In either case we'll have done our duty.
You don't understand yet. Let me explain: There are things more awful than us in this vast world we share with bloodsuckers, werewolves, sorcerers and many other things. There are things who make our little predations or even our large ones seem like children's games. This town is one of them. To be more precise they worship one of them. They are a cult. A cannibal cult who believe their grotesque meals will actually bring a universe where their sickness is the norm.
Is this so surprising we would object to such a thing? We who called you encountered members of this cult and tracked them here. Some were polite enough to answer all our questions while some of our contacts explained the rest.
If you want proof, we're still preparing ourselves. You can read the texts we uncovered, the items we found. You can even go to Boston and ask the sorcerers here about the Scribe of Blasphemy, about the Red Word and the Prince of the 100 000 Leaves. Some will even answer to you truthfully. They don't know what we discovered here. They believe the cult extinct but have only exterminated the brazen and idiot ones.
The rest is here, the whole town worship anti-history and seek to replace the timeline with one more to their liking. At least it's what their cultists bleated when we interrogated them.
What we will be doing is a monstrous thing, don't get me wrong. We will slaughter everyone to toothless old men to toothless infants. We'll burn their libraries, smash their idols and salt the ashes when we're done. We'll find a way to cast down the towers of their temple or at least we'll be its guardians and protectors until the sorcerers can figure something to do.
We'll teach humanity to stay outside the tainted zone, to not investigate and risk being exposed to the taint. In the worst case they'll come to kill us, bring back the riches of our Lairs and not push the matter further.
And if we fail in our attack? Well at least we'll teach these cultists they still can know fear. That their master can't protect them and even their greatest temple is not safe from attack.
You asked before why were we created. I think it's for cases like that. When wounds are dealt to the world that must be cleansed by sword and fire. When comes the need for monsters to hunt monsters without remorse or pity.
No rest, no mercy, no matter what.
Another manner to decreepify Beast: Race of Alucards.
vicky_molokh
Posthuman spidery thingy.
- Location
- Kyïv, Ukraine
I have the impression that at least half of that is already covered by the original Changeling too. (Not all of it, of course!)
I'm not good at Changeling lore, but this whole Beast thing seems like it can be quite close to the Unseelie Court.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
...Oh god, Beast as oChangeling. o.o
Exactly, you can use the parts of OChangeling that NChangeling doesn't.
And then there are the Thallain...
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- They/Them
You could slather yourself in honey and then run naked and throw yourself upon a mound of fire ants too.
Doesn't mean you should.
vicky_molokh
Posthuman spidery thingy.
- Location
- Kyïv, Ukraine
What is it with you and hissing hate of Changeling?
I didn't meant "copy it exactly", just use the parts that were good.You could slather yourself in honey and then run naked and throw yourself upon a mound of fire ants too.
Doesn't mean you should.
Even Earthscorpion's idea has some vague similarities to it.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Because the very fact that you can say the word 'Changeling' and possibly think of the infinitely inferior version in the old world of darkness or even judge the superior version in relation to the inferior version ('oh, this is Changeling, isn't that like that stupid game with Banality? Not even gonna bother reading, then.') is a (very minor, I'm playing it up slightly because it's an internet forum) affront.
Edit: As for the idea, trying to give it the most honest appraisal I can...I'm not sure about Escapism as a theme. It seems to tread too close to 'And then it's called the God Machine because we're clever, huh?' Like, not that it has to be that way, but a tabletop game about escapism seems a bit recursive.
Not sure.
Last edited:
That's hilarious, I really need to get my hands on a copy.If you mean OChangeling, I believe it's disliked because of things like this:
Indeed. I mean, its not a change you'd want to make if you weren't rebuilding the entire system from the ground up and for a computer game.
Well, a quick check shows that they actually made a ritual that heals [sucesses] lethal damage in the target mortal and only costs 1 vitae, so thats, um... an incredibly efficient way to feed.
There's also one discipline that lets you do the opposite of the normal vampire thing, and heal injured mortals by biting them, getting 1 point of vitae per health level healed this way. Which is A) More broken, and B) also works on vampires. Though it costs a willpower point to activate.
Last edited: