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White Wolf's World of Darkness

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SolipsistSerpent said:
It's actually kind of weird. Until I knew the Septemi were a thing, I just assumed the mainline Christian vampires were found in all the sects except Longinus and the Order of the Crone. You'd think at the very least a sizable contingent of Carthians would be Christians and probably lots of Invictus, too. It'd be strange if all vampires almost immediately dropped their religious beliefs upon transformation (though I can definitely see it forcing them to amend their beliefs somewhat).
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I mean, having read it, I actually can see how a mainline Christian could be seduced by the Lancea et Sanctum, and its beliefs. But the idea that it'd, like, encompass even the full scope of Christian-related belief is a bit weird.

But yeah, the Lancea do have ways to seduce and convince newly-Embraced Christians to embrace their weird version of Christianity, but that would probably just leave them with the large majority of Christians (plus non-Christians or non-believers who suddenly search for a purpose to their predation), rather than, y'know, all except this one rare secret Bloodline that was skeptical about all of that.
 
I mean, when you think about it sensibly, for most of history in the West, most vampires will have been deceased Christians - and so given the Lance did not rule everything forever, it's obvious that most deceased Christians do not join the Lancea et Sanctum. And that it is, in most contexts, a religious body that serves a church for vampires of other covenants, but the members of the secular covenants who go to church there are not clergy.

(this is one of the ways the RfR set-up is better realised - the Cult of Augurs is much more clearly a specific religious body that ministers to the rest of the Camarilla, and you can go to temples and sacrifice for luck in an enterprise without being an Augur yourself)
 
Isn't there an Ordo Dracul bloodline that's just "Orthodox monks, literally they're Orthodox monks who are vampires, that's their deal" ?
 
if there is one thing I'm sensitive to, it's religion. I have a deep interest in it in all things, real life and fiction. So I got a few new books this month and one of them is Devil's Due, a sort of DTF supplement to Dark Ages: Vampire, which is not to be confused with Vampire: The Dark Ages. Yeah...anyway

But while God did not act directly against the demons and their cults, He did do so indirectly, by inspiring and aiding humans who took up arms to resist the demons. He sent angels to guide and protect a Semitic tribe, the Hebrews, and to teach them of His holy truth. Armed with this wisdom, the Hebrews began to prosper and grow, and to pose a threat to the power of the demons. When the archduke Abaddon became aware of them, he attempted to destroy them, using the power of the Egyptian empire that worshipped him in the guise of their gods. To defend the Hebrews, God imparted further wisdom and teaching to Moses, who learned to use the divine spark within himself to work miracles. It was Moses who struck down the demon lord ling Baal, whose reliquary was a statue of a golden ca lf; and it was Moses, drawing on God's teachings, who warned his people against the power of demons, forbidd ing th em to worsh ip the graven idols that were the re liquaries of the unholy monsters.
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Now the Ancient Egyptians aren't around to be offended but these folks wrote Mage, they were well aware of Neopagans. How about some respect for the handful of modern Kemetics?

Seriously, just feels kinda shitty and dumb to say all the non-Abrahamic gods were demons in disguise. Like I said earlier, I guess the idea "oWoD was too Christian" is perhaps a fair criticism.

I guess everybody has their part of the canon they just quietly tuck under a rug. I haven't made an extensive list of things I just ignore but this is on that list.
 
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SolipsistSerpent said:
Yeah, I agree that that's distasteful. It also feels like it actively limits the stories you can tell in the setting.
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So I don't think I've mentioned on here but I pretty much always use text-to-speech if it's available. Some older books aren't scanned right and it doesn't but my point is, for this book, it does work.

Except for siebars. Those are iffy - sometimes it will read them and otehr times it won't.

This time it didn't and somebody brought the sidebar in this book to my attention. The page after the quote I posted has this:


So my apologies. I'm just tired and grumpy and rushed to conclusions.
 
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The Laurent said:
I do have an idea for it. Well, not exactly it. But imagine a modified version of Invictus Oath-stuff, where instead everyone (who actually is there, and takes part in whatever non-hierarchial ritual of state, and who doesn't find a way to weasel out of it) is party to particular oaths/ritualistic pledges to uphold this or that specific law (which they can immediately scheme to get around), and the Invictus go, "Wait, wait... this looks oddly familiar" since of course plenty of the first Carthians and so on were in fact angry, disillusioned Invictus back in the 18th century. But even that's just an idea (might be a bad one), and perhaps you dislike Invictus' style oaths as well, since they might hit some of the same problems/complaints as Carthian Law, though at least they require (with some exceptions) both parties to actually do shit for it to work, and can include loopholes and etc.

I might or might not actually try to have this be a thing at all[1], I'm just thinking about it right now. It feels like it'd make sense to have some minor leakage that way, in terms of Invictus Oaths, or low-level tidbits of other Covenants repurposed or refashioned.

[1] In the Quest I'm doing. I still have time to decide stuff like this.
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I've actually been thinking about that. I liked Invictus oaths, but they don't work for the Carthians because the Invictus are there to evoke knightly formality and the "gentleman vampire" and that kind of interpersonal, "feudal" system of government. An Invictus prince, when his domain is under attack, sends out the call for help, and the Primogens and the other power players who have sworn loyalty to him call up their own men (in theory) and they repel Belial's Brood (or w/e).

What are the Carthians? They're not that. They're power that (in theory) rises from the bottom up, and though they routinely fail at it it's still the basic idea. Even when they're a bunch of democratic centralists, they're claiming to rule in the name of the downtrodden masses.

Hence, Carthian benefits should be the small, hard-to-notice-when-you're-used-to-them benefits of the administrative state, which rely on individual vampires putting in more effort than they get out, but everyone benefits more.

So, one way to mechanise that would be for the concept of Carthian Officials to exist. An Official is someone who holds an Office with responsibility for an area of the covenant (or if the Prince is a Carthian, they can extend the benefits to the whole city). Members of the covenant pool Merit dots for the Office to exist, and someone is appointed to it. Then, as long as they put in the likely-onerous effort (it's like a full-time job), then there's a small magical benefit for everyone So, for example:
  • Office of Blood Supply - the official has responsibility for making sure everyone has a stable feeding supply. As long as they do that, every Carthian rolls 1 dice each evening. If they roll a success, they don't need to pay 1 vitae to wake that night.
  • Office of Financial Conduct - the official has responsibility of organising the covenant's finances and ensuring that the members have access to secure banking facilities that don't ask awkward questions about them being dead. As long as those duties are fulfilled, once a week all Carthians can make a "free" Resources 2 purchase as money mysteriously ends up in their accounts or systems fail to process their payment.
  • Office of Domestic Protection - the official has the responsibility of tracking all the havens of covenant members and ensuring that they're maintained safely. As longa s these duties are fulfilled, all Carthians treat their Haven (Security) rating as being one dot higher, to a maximum of 5.
And so on and so forth. Basically, think of it as being like the Nosferatu clanbook's Necropoli, where as long as everyone chips in a few merit dots, all the Nosferatu get to live in a sprawling underground place. But this requires vampires to a) trust their fellows with authority over them, and b) spend their unlives doing boring jobs to better the unlives of their fellow vampire. And the benefits are subtle enough that if an Official starts slacking, people won't instantly notice.
 
Speaking of neopaganism (rushed transitions, ho)...

docs.google.com

World of Brightening Dark

World of Brightening Dark A Chronicles of Darkness fan-project with No Masquerade Take the World of Darkness as you know it. A world of secrets and sorcery, where dark forces unknown to mankind plot its downfall. Terrible creatures lurk in the shadows, picking off innocent humans one by one, whil...
docs.google.com docs.google.com

Me and a couple buddies from the P:tH Discord Server made this.

This is a world-building fan-project asking the question "What if there was No Masquarade?" Consider it a blend of Alternate Universe and Alternate History. Here, humanity always knew about the supernatural and kept in touch with its neighbors. Its about exploring a new society and culture where vampires, werewolves, changelings, princesses, and even Leviathans are accepted members of the community. Obviously, we expected to run into some world-building dilemmas (Mage's Paradox, for one) but that's part of the fun.

I'd love and appreciate some observations and insights, and I figure this is the best place to start.
 
The-Fall-Guy said:
This is a world-building fan-project asking the question "What if there was No Masquarade?" Consider it a blend of Alternate Universe and Alternate History. Here, humanity always knew about the supernatural and kept in touch with its neighbors. Its about exploring a new society and culture where vampires, werewolves, changelings, princesses, and even Leviathans are accepted members of the community. Obviously, we expected to run into some world-building dilemmas (Mage's Paradox, for one) but that's part of the fun.
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First, I just want to say that I love the concept, and I am interested in where this is going.

To put my 2 cents on the plate about mage stuff.
At the top of my head, there are two ways that you could handle paradox/quiescence.

Way #1 is to leave it as it is. This is what the Sundered World setting does in Dark Eras. This is more in keeping with Mage is Themes of magic being a privilege of the 1% and outside of the Elect few, most people cannot access it.
In this version, Mage's supernal magic would probably be considered either a sacred thing that only the worthy may gaze upon lest they invoke the wrath of gods, or black magic to be shunned because it is inherently traumatic to witness/experience even before you risk summoning unspeakable horrors from beyond reality.

Way #2 is to declare that everybody is a sleepwalker. This removes quiescence and makes the main source of paradox overreaching. (Which is more or less how it is now, but mages can work out in the open). This is more in line with the concept of "Masquerade less world", but significantly more setting warping.

Way #1.5 would be to screw the sleeper/sleepwalker ratio in such a way that sleepers are the minority. In this case, mages can still practice somewhat openly, but there is still quiescence meaning you can't go full Magitech because there is a significant part of the population who destroys magic by witnessing it.

If I had to point out a part of the Mage setting that would be the hardest to integrate into the "World of Brightening Dark", I would point to Mage's in setting reason for the Masquerade: the Exarchs.

In case #1, they require little change, they can still be there as the gnostic demiurge caging humanity, only their grasp is significantly weaker.
in case #2 the Exarchs as presented in the default setting don't work. Well, more as looking at their goal of keeping humanity asleep, this world is an obvious failure state. One would need to either remove them outright or depower them enough that they can't just throw imperium at this problem or send ochemata to reshape society in their image.
Another way to salvage them would be to change their goals. It might risk stepping on the toes of the Judges of Duat, but one could reframe them as embodiments of cosmic laws.
The important question if you are keeping the Exarchs is "What the Demiurges command their servant to do, and what causes them to send their dread angels to smite the uppity mage?"

Need to go, but may comment on other gamelines or expand on this latter.
 
The-Fall-Guy said:
I'd love and appreciate some observations and insights, and I figure this is the best place to start.
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I would like to give some ideas.

I am however, a terrible writer and my ideas are even worse, so I'll just throw some spitballs at the wall and see what sticks.

- First thing that came to mind was what to do about the monster organizations now that everyone knows they exist, since most of them don't give a rat's ass about following mortal laws. the way I see it, there are a couple ways to handle it:

1. The monsters are known, but the actual organizations are much more secretive and underground. Their membership is smaller, and they act in subtle ways to not attract the attention of the world at large - basically they become secret conspiracies even among the monsters.

2. The monster organizations moderate themselves to appeal to the masses and remain functional. In this setting they look more like something you'd see irl, with the werewolf Tribes and Great Orders basically becoming religions unto themselves, or something like that.

3. Due to alternate history shenanigans, the monster organizations are both recognized and apart from mortal society, essentially separate societies entirely

- Secondly, the impacts this has on the development of religion are going to be massive. Christianity is going to be heavily affected by the Lancea's testament of Longinus and things like Inferno or the Lucifuge, the widespread knowledge of the shadow is going to lead to a massive upswing in animism (and maybe more werewolf worshipping cults), the objective existence of the underworld and the confusing nature of souls as explained by different splats is going to make spiritual matters very concerning and no one laughs at fairy tales anymore.

- Thirdly, my easily amused and juvenile self thought brainstorming for more than ten minutes was hard so instead I started to imagine random things I could see in this setting shard.

1. There are continuous theological debates as to whether the testament of Longinus should be made canon, and the existence of Theban Sorcery is not helping

2. There is a vibrant market for self-help books when dealing with the supernatural, with titles like "Wolf Children: Caring for a Wolf-Blooded child", "Dealing with Fetches in your Family", "Trauma or Predation? Pinpointing Primordial Nightmares" and "Ceremonies for the aspiring Krewe-Member"

3. Nothing has changed for Demons, they're still just as paranoid, but they like to pretend to be something else these days

4. The legal code has to be updated to account for god knows how many different supernatural powers, and eventually someone has to deal with the headache that is trying to find an unbiased jury to try a Promethean

(Christ, what drivel)
 
Kalzky said:
Begotten would work. Which does lead to my point of disliking the presentation of Begotten in this.
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How so? Realistically, the Beasts would very much dislike the idea of peaceful coexistence of monsters and humans, or at least that is how I interpreted it. They are creatures of conflict and physical representations of monstrousness itself, with an instinctual need to cause trauma in order to feed themselves. It's very unlikely they can be integrated into society as whole save for a few exceptions. They have it even worse then the Prometheans.
 
Beasts and Heroes exist to remind people that things go bump in the night. A world where the masquerade is non existent makes them even more pointless than they are in cannon. The Lesson Culture exists solely to give Beasts that still have a conscience a reason to exist. Imagine how desperate they'd get in this setting. Their instincts tell them to spread fear and terror but there is clearly no benefit to this other than pure survival. They don't even have Heroes to fight as few people would reach low enough integrity for a Hero to snap and become obsessed with Beasts. On the plus side all of those high integrity Heroes would do great things for society.
 
Here's a question. Mechanically, it doesn't matter if a new V:TR PC is a day old or a month old, they get a certain number of Discipline dots at base.

But narratively, how much of their Disciplines is it assumed they have at the start and just need to learn how to use, versus how much of it are tricks they pick up over the weeks and months of their first nights?
 
The Laurent said:
Here's a question. Mechanically, it doesn't matter if a new V:TR PC is a day old or a month old, they get a certain number of Discipline dots at base.

But narratively, how much of their Disciplines is it assumed they have at the start and just need to learn how to use, versus how much of it are tricks they pick up over the weeks and months of their first nights?
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I think personally it entirely depends on your preferences and what you want to see.

Myself, I'm inclined to "you open your eyes, freshly dead, and you have the dots on your sheet, but you don't necessarily know how to use non-physical Disciplines yet". The three physical ones - they're not "powers" IMO, they're just part of your undead condition. Some vampires move superhumanly fast when they exert themselves, some are very strong, some are tough. Meanwhile, it takes a bit of time to learn to control, say, Dominate 1, which means a vampire might accidentally use it when they just wanted someone to do what they said, or Nightmare 1 when they just wanted someone to leave them alone.

But then Requiem for Rome was far more interesting than the default gamist view anyway with the "yeah Roman vampires didn't think of these things as powers, they thought of them as 'just how vampires are'."
 
I was trying to think what'd be the closest thing in WoD to a Hellraiser Cenobite, since there's probably at least one shout-out to them. Off the top of my head, I was actually thinking the True Fae, given their love of torture and sensations, their own private domains, how they're not quite angels but not quite demons (though that's more from fairy lore in general), and how
they can eventually turn their victims into Fae themselves.

Only other thing I can think of would be a Cult of Ecstasy Marauder, though that's a bit of a stretch.
 
The Cenobites of the first film strike me as either particularly hardcore nMage Supernal Beings (of Pandemonium would be my first guess, but they could also be representatives from the more human aspects of the Primal Wilds), or Abyssal entities which superficially resemble such. They're self-described "explorers in the further regions of experience", they're only able to enter our world through a ritual which requires an enigmatic artifact, and they're terrifyingly powerful within the limits of their domain.
 
GardenerBriareus said:
The Cenobites of the first film strike me as either particularly hardcore nMage Supernal Beings (of Pandemonium would be my first guess, but they could also be representatives from the more human aspects of the Primal Wilds), or Abyssal entities which superficially resemble such. They're self-described "explorers in the further regions of experience", they're only able to enter our world through a ritual which requires an enigmatic artifact, and they're terrifyingly powerful within the limits of their domain.
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You know, if you include the second movie, their home is a giant maze. While that hardly rules out the idea of them being Fey (presumably in a domain of Dread Purpose), it also fits somewhat with Pandemonium.
 
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Krazyfan1 said:

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com www.reddit.com
Huh....
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I mean, on one hand, a battle royale is generally a hilariously bad fit for a storytelling game of gothic horror.

On the other hand, "the vamps flip their shit, go feral, and start eating each other in a cannibalistic death orgy" does sound like something that could absolutely if you were stupid enough to trap a hundred vampires in a small-ish region with few blood sources.
 
tzar1990 said:
I mean, on one hand, a battle royale is generally a hilariously bad fit for a storytelling game of gothic horror.

On the other hand, "the vamps flip their shit, go feral, and start eating each other in a cannibalistic death orgy" does sound like something that could absolutely if you were stupid enough to trap a hundred vampires in a small-ish region with few blood sources.
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Also the supernatural worldwide wrestling thing exists in canon, so a group of vampires deciding that beating each other up in an abandoned town for fun and glory isn't that far fetched...
 
Also, can't believe I forgot to link to my collab WoD homebrew here. I mean granted, there's already a link in my sig, but for some reason I doubt many people pay attention to those:

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

Let's Make A World of Darkness Homebrew - Slime: The Genesis

Hey, what's one movie monster the World of Darkness hasn't made a gameline about? That's right, blob monsters. Well I think they have shown up a couple of times, like a boss in V:tM Bloodlines and I think you could play as one in the upcoming Deviant: the Renegades, but definitely not...
forums.sufficientvelocity.com forums.sufficientvelocity.com

Slime: The Genesis is an attempt to make gameline around being the Blob basically, set in the nWoD most likely as per votes.

Edit: Yep, plain ol' set in the nWoD.
 
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