Well, so the Order does not change how they behave at all considering the importance of carefull study and laying the laws of magic down and abuse the loopholes in them.
Honestly I am surpised that you got no Metis so far.
White Wolf's World of Darkness
- Location
- Mausheim, USA
The Lupus was almost a Metis.
But after reading up on them and realizing it didnt mesh well with his charavter concept he droppes that to be a Lupus.
Oh, some snippets of the characters;
The Fianna always wears a kilt and never pants.
The Iron Rider named his kinfolk (that he bought with background points) after this picture;
.jpg)
The Lupus took the Huge Size Merit and has Strength 5. He was also facinated with his homid form and did stupid shit that got him shipped to the Australian penal colony where the spirits cornered him after several months of leading a prison gang and moom bridged him back to England.
The Tomboy always wears pants and never dresses.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Currently I think that the Order of Hermes ends baasically like SEELE from NGE with their science based on individuality and ego, and probably calling themselves Illuminati. They'll highly likely be very psychology/biology, compared to NWO's Social Science package.
They'll also use something like Warframes for their HITMark equivalent.
I'm struggling for Methodologies mainly.
I can tell that one Methodology would descend from the Quaesitores/Mercere and be an internal investigation unit as well as messengers and relays from the Inner Circle, one would descend from Flambeau/Tytalus and be the mailed fist of the Illuminati (has a nice ring to it), while the last one would be descended from Bonisagus/Criamon/Verditius and be research and development.
They'll have a huge friendship (meaning: huge "friendly" rivalry) with the NWO due to their symbolism and psychology thing, likewise the Syndicate will love them as well. The Progenitors will be on good footing with them (but think they're weird) while the Iteration X will think they're waaaay too "up in the air" and very much too conspiratorial. The Void Engineers hate them because they constantly use EDEs and RNEs in their research which the Void Engineers have to go clean up after.
They'll provide the Union with a much easier time during the Week of Nightmares due to having access to many of the old archives on vampires. They will then go on and fund Ragnarok Command with a shitton of money and resources.
They will introduce stuff into the consensus such as beneficial brainwashing actually working and humans souls being consensual.
EDIT: Oh right, and Tremere are extinct by 1665, after they have been "Massassa war with the resources of the Union"-ed out of existence.
Last edited:
Generalissimo
Generalissimo of SufficientVelocity
- Location
- Tropico, Tropico
Supernatural Romance crowd have apparently taken over the World of Darkness too.
90% of World of Darkness FanFiction ends up being Supernatural Romance.
There is just no escape from the Supernatural Romance crowd.
Resistance is futile as they'll eventually takeover and completely assimilate your supernatural fandom.
- Location
- Mausheim, USA
Little late to the party aint ya Generalissimo?
Though Wi'se wasnt far off.
YA fiction has become garbage and its influence has spread too far.
More people know about Hunger Games then the Films and Books that inspired it; Battle Royale, The Running Man, etc.
Give those poor bastards a book with a fleshed out protagonist they were never meant to project themselves onto and theyd burn the book and call you a sick fuck for reccomending it.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Broseph. Wow.
The World of Darkness was built on the supernatural romance genre. Masquerade is baaaaaaaaaasically an Anne Rice fangame. The entire oWoD setting is fundamentally built on brooding handsome vampires being sexual predators. The "Supernatural Romance crowd" can't take over the WoD, because they owned it from the start. The fact that Masquerade was like that was basically the reason it managed to attract a much larger female fanbase than other RPGs of its time. The people who these days are writing Supernatural smutfics on AO3? Twenty years ago, they'd have been playing WoD.
(And then Apocalypse offered eco-warrior furry supernatural romance, and Ascension offered "I'm an arts student and I hate the Man!" power fantasies, and Dreaming... well, the less said about the fantasies that involved, the better. Oh, and Wraith: the Oblivion offered clinical depression and disempowerment fantasies.)
- Pronouns
- They/Them
You will regret doubting them or insulting them when, as @MJ12 Commando has foretold, Congress eventually passes the 69th Amendment and makes Hot Dickings a constitutional right.
At which point insulting their supernatural romance with Vampire Fabio will be a constitutional violation!
Generalissimo
Generalissimo of SufficientVelocity
- Location
- Tropico, Tropico
It's not a party until I arrive
Like, seriously, when it comes down to it, for over a hundred years - and nearer to 200 - vampires have been about sex, romance, rape and other similar activities.
Male vampires are metaphorical rapists, forcing themselves on people. They defile your wives and daughters, penetrating them and victimising them - and often making them enjoy it. And that's just when they're violent, because they're also seducers and corrupters. They take good girls and turn them into bad girls. They steal your lover away by being better than you. And on top of that, there's that frisson of homophobia about them - because they're men who penetrate men. And they're corruptive too, because if they "bite" you, you'll enjoy it - and you'll become something like them. Notice that such persistent themes linger in modern films even to this day. How many male vampires preying on men as more than "bite, drain" prey-feeding is there where the vampire in question isn't depicted as a depraved bisexual or gay? Much fewer than male-on-female, female-on-male, and female-on-female?
And female vampires take similar themes, but they add the fear of the seductress and of the role reversal, because they're females who penetrate males (with their teeth). They're woman who take advantage of you and then victimise you. A female vampire can viscerally rape a man by penetrating him with her bite and feeding on him, leaving him behind in a pool of his own fluids (blood) as just a pile of meat to discard. And of course, since the very beginning that's been tied into the lesbianism of the female vampire - and oh, men, how we find the idea of one lady feeding on another to be so much less scary, so much more erotic than two men in the same position.
Oh my, yes, vampires are at the heart laden down with lots and lots of Victorian fears of sexuality and homophobia.
But of course, these themes are so pliable, so alluring to the romance with just a twist. The male vampire becomes the "bad boy", the corruptive influence made into a rebellion against boring, static society. Twilight is an excellent example of how the predator becomes desirable, because Edward's dark brooding nature and "I could hurt you so easily, but I don't want to" is contrasted to the boring and tedious town that Bella has been forced to move to and she doesn't want to. And for the same part, becoming a vampire is a form of empowerment for women when the female vampire stops being a monster and starts being a protagonist, because she's stronger, she's dominant, and she's in control.
So does the warning message of the Victorian tales turn in on itself; the snake eats its own tail. Suddenly the male vampire picks out a woman and makes her better, makes her stronger, makes her special in every way. It's hardly a surprise that a male vampire becomes a figure of desire, because he's now a special man who empowers you. But of course, themes don't mesh so easily, and so we end up with the disturbing mixed imagery where the Victorian horror roots and the empowerment romance modern aspects clash, and you get nasty implications like women wanting rapists, etc etc.
Anyway, the point is, trying to pretend that you can separate out vampires from "supernatural romance" is a delusion, and pretended snobbery (especially ridiculous things from people who pretend Alucard, say, is a "proper" vampire while Edward isn't) is basically a hallmark of the limited demographics of male-dominated places like this.
(Likewise, I'm of the opinion that Ginger Snaps! is one of the best werewolf movies I've seen, because it so perfectly uses the nature of the werewolf as a vessel and metaphor for exploring puberty.)
Male vampires are metaphorical rapists, forcing themselves on people. They defile your wives and daughters, penetrating them and victimising them - and often making them enjoy it. And that's just when they're violent, because they're also seducers and corrupters. They take good girls and turn them into bad girls. They steal your lover away by being better than you. And on top of that, there's that frisson of homophobia about them - because they're men who penetrate men. And they're corruptive too, because if they "bite" you, you'll enjoy it - and you'll become something like them. Notice that such persistent themes linger in modern films even to this day. How many male vampires preying on men as more than "bite, drain" prey-feeding is there where the vampire in question isn't depicted as a depraved bisexual or gay? Much fewer than male-on-female, female-on-male, and female-on-female?
And female vampires take similar themes, but they add the fear of the seductress and of the role reversal, because they're females who penetrate males (with their teeth). They're woman who take advantage of you and then victimise you. A female vampire can viscerally rape a man by penetrating him with her bite and feeding on him, leaving him behind in a pool of his own fluids (blood) as just a pile of meat to discard. And of course, since the very beginning that's been tied into the lesbianism of the female vampire - and oh, men, how we find the idea of one lady feeding on another to be so much less scary, so much more erotic than two men in the same position.
Oh my, yes, vampires are at the heart laden down with lots and lots of Victorian fears of sexuality and homophobia.
But of course, these themes are so pliable, so alluring to the romance with just a twist. The male vampire becomes the "bad boy", the corruptive influence made into a rebellion against boring, static society. Twilight is an excellent example of how the predator becomes desirable, because Edward's dark brooding nature and "I could hurt you so easily, but I don't want to" is contrasted to the boring and tedious town that Bella has been forced to move to and she doesn't want to. And for the same part, becoming a vampire is a form of empowerment for women when the female vampire stops being a monster and starts being a protagonist, because she's stronger, she's dominant, and she's in control.
So does the warning message of the Victorian tales turn in on itself; the snake eats its own tail. Suddenly the male vampire picks out a woman and makes her better, makes her stronger, makes her special in every way. It's hardly a surprise that a male vampire becomes a figure of desire, because he's now a special man who empowers you. But of course, themes don't mesh so easily, and so we end up with the disturbing mixed imagery where the Victorian horror roots and the empowerment romance modern aspects clash, and you get nasty implications like women wanting rapists, etc etc.
Anyway, the point is, trying to pretend that you can separate out vampires from "supernatural romance" is a delusion, and pretended snobbery (especially ridiculous things from people who pretend Alucard, say, is a "proper" vampire while Edward isn't) is basically a hallmark of the limited demographics of male-dominated places like this.
(Likewise, I'm of the opinion that Ginger Snaps! is one of the best werewolf movies I've seen, because it so perfectly uses the nature of the werewolf as a vessel and metaphor for exploring puberty.)
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You totally can separate vampires from the sexual metaphor.
But they'll look extremely radically different from the modern popular image of a vampire.
(I'd say Dracula but that would be a lie. Dracula is totally part of the metaphor.)
But they'll look extremely radically different from the modern popular image of a vampire.
(I'd say Dracula but that would be a lie. Dracula is totally part of the metaphor.)
- Pronouns
- They/Them
You have to go older than Dracula to get to it, and emphasize the dead part. Like, really emphasize it, because I'm pretty sure the Nosferatu or whatnot were meant to be, like, ugly, but then you learn they're really the Hunchback of Notre Dame and then didn't you feel bad for not loving them?
Or at least, that's the...*waves hands* general vibe, I'd imagine, if we fit oVamp into it?
Found some cool Prelacy thing.
Teen Wolf does the same just from the different direction. Where Ginger Snaps has puberty being a horrible alienating thing that will permanently turn you into a monster if you don't stop it with drugs, Teen Wolf has puberty as a ticket to being popular, where a massive growth spurt suddenly lets you dunk a basketball without effort.
grommile
nasty-minded old cynic
- Location
- NERV-Mercia
- Pronouns
- Traditional/Animate
Sure.
Because in both print and film, The Hunger Games (US: PG-13; UK: 12A in the cinema, 12 or 15 on video depending on version) is considered suitable for a much broader audience than Battle Royale (US: not rated; UK: 18) or The Running Man (US: R; UK: 18). BR was never even submitted to the MPAA for rating, since the US distributor took one look at it and went "yeah, no way are we getting an 'R' for this".
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hrm, I think the thing to consider is that like. Strictly speaking the NWO is actually pretty young compared to the other Conventions. It was formed after the Ksirafai went off the reservation and the new foundations were drawn from the Lightkeepers (the loyalist remnants of the Cabal of Pure Thought iirc) and Basil Rathbone's Skeleton Keys. And as it stands I think that the OoH is sorta mixing in with their thematic space a fair bit. So in a timeline where the Order of Hermes goes Union I think it's more likely than not that the NWO would emerge as a part of them or...hm.
NWO is social sciences, arts, culture. ItX is mechanical/electrical engineering, armed forces, and heavy industry. Progenitors are biology, pharmacology, and genetic engineering. Void Engineers are exploration/cartography and they have that whole sorta-colonist thing going on. Syndicate is just dosh for days.
A Union-aligned Order is probably going to be all about infrastructure I think. The whole "as above, so below" mentality is going to persist. So I think they'd be big on, like, organizing cities. Carefully planning them out in Enlightened ways that gets the population to think a certain way and behave a certain way. Structuring the order of nations to manipulate the citizens. They're very big-scale guys and their stuff is probably based around knowing out to maneuver through/manipulate the greater mechanisms via influencing the lesser components or through EDE binding. Like that's straight up just too useful to stop I think.
So with that in mind you'd have like a division of diplomats and FSOs, a division of alien ambassadors, a division of city designers who can also "hack" into city-scapes, a division of people who work closely with the Syndicate and NWO to correct cities that have developed badly, and then a military wing that's basically about breaking the bones of people -> metropoles -> nations so that they can be set straight. And they're probably kinda weird and techno-angelic since they're heavily interfacing with EDE tissues and tech.
Generalissimo
Generalissimo of SufficientVelocity
- Location
- Tropico, Tropico
I was aware of this.
Hard to convey sarcasm online
Of course all of that World of Darkness romance fanfiction (Bloodlines withstanding) is mostly crossover stuff.
(I suspect you might disapprove based on your stance on crossovers?)
Apparently it's about 75% Werewolves x Vampires
Followed by Werewolves and/or Vampires x Anything Else
I still haven't regretted anything Laurent
Last edited:
Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'm not sure how much this would steal from the New World Order but maybe they could be the PoliSci/Law to NWO's psychology and sociology? That ties into infrastructure because they study the mechanisms and machinery of society as opposed to manipulating individual or group behavior.
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
So... what happens with Traditionalist in this ''verse? They never grouped together, or coalesced around some other Tradition?
ganonso
Compulsive Quest Starter
- Location
- PACA France
So I'm writing Nmage scenarios and use Beasts and Horrors as rare and powerful pets of the Nemesis and Raptor Ministry. Using an unbound Horror (with some tweaked stats) as the final boss of a Silent Hillesque one-shot was pretty well received by my players.
I still wonder if it's really thematic for the two Ministries in question. Giant spirits of horror and Claimed imitations of monsters of legends are nice but I have the feeling i'm missing something compared to the Hive-Souls or the Myrmidons.
I still wonder if it's really thematic for the two Ministries in question. Giant spirits of horror and Claimed imitations of monsters of legends are nice but I have the feeling i'm missing something compared to the Hive-Souls or the Myrmidons.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The Traditions are hunted individuals who flee from the might of the ascendant Union that controls the earth, with the exception of Asia where a reluctant alliance of necessity between the Chakravanti, Seers of Chronos and Akashayana Sangha wages a desperate guerilla war against the Technocratic Union's weaker assets, fighting with the courage of doomed men and women who know that they can't hold out forever. The Celestial Chorus was an early casualty of the war, as the combined infrastructure of the Order of Hermes combined with that of the Order of Reason (specifically the Cabal of Pure Thought), quickly crushed them and drove them out of their hiding places amongst religious congreations. The Verbena were likewise hunted with terrifying efficiency by the Union while the Dreamspeakers never even solidified as a Tradition. With nowhere to go, the Virtual Adepts never left the Union, as opposed to the Electrodyne Engineers who attempted a getaway but found themselves destroyed with no allies.
Oh yeah, and the British Empire never fell.
TL;DR: Basically Panopticon Quest's Control ending, except the Union is even more omnipresent and powerful.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I dunno. That feels even more Technocracy...what's the word for it, than canon. Even more than ES/MJ12 canon, which is when you know you're traveling into dangerous waters.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The players are Traditionalists.
They wanted this.
EDIT: To clarify, this is basically going full cycle from Demon: The Descent to Mage: The Ascension, where even a little working of magic may call the Union down on your head with their full force. Besides, I like Panopticon canon, so I don't see why I should see it as traveling in dangerous waters because you don't like it.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Why? I mean, canon is already an underdog campaign with victory being all but impossible, what's the point of putting a finger on the scales?
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Because they find it interesting I assume? Because they wanted to play a setting that looked different from normally? I mean, we've also played a game where the Chorus won the Ascension War as a sort of "this could have happened instead" scenario.
Like, it was their decision at the end of the campaign that the Order should totally join the Order of Reason.