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White Wolf's World of Darkness

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Rakaziel said:
tl;dr : They lifted Jewish mysticism more or less wholesale and used it as the basis for the metaphysics of their eldritch satanist mages (as opposed to their regular mages) - names included.
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I think there is a core misunderstanding at the heart of this part of the review. While Kabbalah is a Jewish practice, it has been thoroughly appropriated by occultism to the point of being two different things. The system Book of the Fallen is aping for the Nephandi has more in common with people like Crowley's notably with the association of the Qliphots with different gods and demons.

The bit about Thargirion is the biggest exemple. There is reference to the "Christ-self" because in Crowley's system, Tipheret the sixth sephira is associated with Jesus and the other rising god and your holy guardian angel (New Mage daimon)

And there is totally a discussion to have on how occultists basically appropriated Jewish mystical practice and reskinned it as their own. I mean I doubt kabbalists are fond of Crowley and co associating the sephiroth with pagan gods and goddesses. I know for a fact standard Kabbalah doesn't ascribe Qliphots to the three supernal sephiroth. But Brucato was not riffing Jewish mysticism there. He was riffing the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Crowley and if I'm uncharitable Alan Moore's work's notably Promethea.

Which is a shame because I agree with everything else in the review. Book of the Fallen is harmstrung between not being a player's guide and providing info that makes sense only if it's a player's guide as well as massive inconsistencies in tone.
 
Konradleijon said:
Oh that is racist. Like their portrayal of Aztec mystism as being entirely based on human sacrifice (it was not, not that it wasn't a part of their culture but it played a small part).
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I mean, there was still a lot of human sacrifice, but the Aztecs had a frankly fascinating and holistic cultural and religious framework to justify the process. Namely, they believed that life was fragile, humans were fallible, and that the bonds of community and duty were of paramount importance to counteract these unpleasant truths. People were sacrificed because otherwise the gods would weaken and die, and because the gods' own gifts to them as a people merited human offerings to repay.

Xipe Totec, the Aztec harvest god, literally flayed himself alive so the Mexica could survive a famine by eating his skin. Thus, it was only right that someone offer their own skin to him each harvest in acknowledgment of the god's sacrifice. Huitzilpoctli needed to be offered the hearts of warriors so that the warriors' souls could join his armies in protecting the world from the tzitzimime, who periodically descend from the stars and seek to devour him as a prelude to devouring everything else.

There was an Aztec god of being a gay wizard. There was an Aztec goddess of suicide, which was considered a perfectly honorable and acceptable thing to do should the pain of living become too much to bear. Witzob, the mountain on which the Mexica pantheon dwelled, was itself a divinity with its own rituals and will, and held in such high regard that the stepped pyramid design of the Aztec temples was meant to mimic Witzob itself.

The Aztecs were absolutely fascinating, and it's incredibly sad that so many fictional properties disregard all of that in favor of "they killed people with knives a lot".
 
GardenerBriareus said:
The Aztecs were absolutely fascinating, and it's incredibly sad that so many fictional properties disregard all of that in favor of "they killed people with knives a lot".
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Unlike Christians who never committed violence in the name of their religion /s/ . Before the conquest of the Mexica Spain inbarked on a campaign to forcibly covert, kill, or expel the Jews and Muslims to put the thing in perspective like most Aztec and mesoamerican rituals where animal sacrifice and non lethal blood letting. And not a human gore fest.
 
GardenerBriareus said:
I mean, there was still a lot of human sacrifice, but the Aztecs had a frankly fascinating and holistic cultural and religious framework to justify the process. Namely, they believed that life was fragile, humans were fallible, and that the bonds of community and duty were of paramount importance to counteract these unpleasant truths. People were sacrificed because otherwise the gods would weaken and die, and because the gods' own gifts to them as a people merited human offerings to repay.

Xipe Totec, the Aztec harvest god, literally flayed himself alive so the Mexica could survive a famine by eating his skin. Thus, it was only right that someone offer their own skin to him each harvest in acknowledgment of the god's sacrifice. Huitzilpoctli needed to be offered the hearts of warriors so that the warriors' souls could join his armies in protecting the world from the tzitzimime, who periodically descend from the stars and seek to devour him as a prelude to devouring everything else.

There was an Aztec god of being a gay wizard. There was an Aztec goddess of suicide, which was considered a perfectly honorable and acceptable thing to do should the pain of living become too much to bear. Witzob, the mountain on which the Mexica pantheon dwelled, was itself a divinity with its own rituals and will, and held in such high regard that the stepped pyramid design of the Aztec temples was meant to mimic Witzob itself.

The Aztecs were absolutely fascinating, and it's incredibly sad that so many fictional properties disregard all of that in favor of "they killed people with knives a lot".
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Criticisms of the Aztecs also ignore the fact that execution of captured prisoners of war was standard practice in Europe (outside of nobles that could be ransomed and the like), and public executions were regular events that the entire community could enjoy. IIRC the number of public executions in London at the time was either comparable or greater than that of Tenochtitlan in both the number of deaths and the number of people attending.
 
ganonso said:
I think there is a core misunderstanding at the heart of this part of the review. While Kabbalah is a Jewish practice, it has been thoroughly appropriated by occultism to the point of being two different things. The system Book of the Fallen is aping for the Nephandi has more in common with people like Crowley's notably with the association of the Qliphots with different gods and demons.

The bit about Thargirion is the biggest exemple. There is reference to the "Christ-self" because in Crowley's system, Tipheret the sixth sephira is associated with Jesus and the other rising god and your holy guardian angel (New Mage daimon)

And there is totally a discussion to have on how occultists basically appropriated Jewish mystical practice and reskinned it as their own. I mean I doubt kabbalists are fond of Crowley and co associating the sephiroth with pagan gods and goddesses. I know for a fact standard Kabbalah doesn't ascribe Qliphots to the three supernal sephiroth. But Brucato was not riffing Jewish mysticism there. He was riffing the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Crowley and if I'm uncharitable Alan Moore's work's notably Promethea.

Which is a shame because I agree with everything else in the review. Book of the Fallen is harmstrung between not being a player's guide and providing info that makes sense only if it's a player's guide as well as massive inconsistencies in tone.
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It's kinda weird he'd associate Thelema stuff with the Nephandi since, in my experience and studies, it's a very chill religion.

Definitely not big on destroying the world or killing folks.

This reminds me I gotta get back to the book I was reading about goddess worship in Thelema, though.
 
Konradleijon said:
Unlike Christians who never committed violence in the name of their religion /s/ . Before the conquest of the Mexica Spain inbarked on a campaign to forcibly covert, kill, or expel the Jews and Muslims to put the thing in perspective like most Aztec and mesoamerican rituals where animal sacrifice and non lethal blood letting. And not a human gore fest.
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I mean, the conquistadores were RL Chaos Undivided raider bands, complete with grotesque and depraved torture and death being visited upon anyone they could lay hands on.

One of the things they came up with while genociding the Aztecs was, to quote from a priest who witnessed their doings in the New World and left written record of their atrocities:

They built a long gibbet, low enough for the toes to touch the ground and prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles. . . . Then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive."
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To fully describe what was happening in the above quote: (CW: Holy Fucking Shit) They came up with a long gibbet that was low enough for people hung on it to survive as long as they stood on tip-toes. They would then string up thirteen people at a time on said gibbets and watch them struggle to hold that position for hours or even days, occasionally whipping or beating or letting their dogs chew on the victims when the Spaniards felt things needed a little more spice. Once the thirteen were at the end of their strength and would clearly pass out and die before too much longer, the conquistadores would then wrap their victims in straw and burn them alive before they could suffocate.

One of the more tame horrors wrought by the conquistadores was that they deliberately trained their dogs to consider the natives food, and treated the resultant packs of flesh-eating murder hounds eating natives alive as free entertainment for their fellow Spaniards while they went about their day.

In nWoD, there's no possible way that Cortez wouldn't have left a single gargantuan Wound carved across his path through the New World. Your average Ventrue Prince is less of a monster, if only by virtue of not being able to get away with turning an entire nation into a 24/7 slaughter-carnival.
 
GardenerBriareus said:
I mean, the conquistadores were RL Chaos Undivided raider bands, complete with grotesque and depraved torture and death being visited upon anyone they could lay hands on.
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That describes almost all colonists see this genocide Black War - Wikipedia

Or what the Japanese did in world war 2. That shit was sick so Much a literally nazi becomes a hero in the event.
 
Konradleijon said:
You can be both Anti-American and anti-Semitic,see people that think America is a Jewish pawn of imperialism because The US Government supports Israel.
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Kinda? I will said white wolf tapped more the zeigest of the 80 and 90 anti goverment movement, the entire technocracy is pretty much based on big scary goverment organization: the syndicate is wall street and rampant capitalism, NWO is men of black and goverment spying on you, X iteration is somewhat industrial military complex and cyberpunk fears and progenitors in biopunk stuff, the exception is void engeneers based on nasa who mostly tag along for the fun, meanwhile the good guys are the odd balls, the conspiracy theories of the 90 were people wanted to find the truth and strike against the men!.

Is just reallity have other thing to said in this two decade: conspiracy theories have become less charming and more batshit insane, often spew by people who know what they are saying and want to casue as much harm as posible and while the goverment is still bad(I mean the 2008 look perfect example of syndicate go wrong and wiretapping and spying on US allys look like shady shit from NWO) today people want to be in charge and see if they can reform the system rather than endless fight it.

ganonso said:
And there is totally a discussion to have on how occultists basically appropriated Jewish mystical practice and reskinned it as their own. I mean I doubt kabbalists are fond of Crowley and co associating the sephiroth with pagan gods and goddesses. I know for a fact standard Kabbalah doesn't ascribe Qliphots to the three supernal sephiroth. But Brucato was not riffing Jewish mysticism there. He was riffing the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Crowley and if I'm uncharitable Alan Moore's work's notably Promethea.
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As general thing, occultism was always syncritize(or approatted depending on how you ask), diferent belief system in a general narrative, satanism for example like to mix and max diferent god and goddess as long they look evil or dark-ish enough like Hecate, tiamat, set or apophis(the draconist tradiction often to that, seen this as mofit of a beast they want to emulate, paganism often do this by mixing goddess and gods, in general occultist seen to have a form of "take what you can grab".

Konradleijon said:
Or what the Japanese did in world war 2. That shit was sick so Much a literally nazi becomes a hero in the event.
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It make you wonder the scar it leave in the shadowlands, I mean we got shoah shadowlands, imagine that in the east.
 
Razios said:
Kinda? I will said white wolf tapped more the zeigest of the 80 and 90 anti goverment movement, the entire technocracy is pretty much based on big scary goverment organization: the syndicate is wall street and rampant capitalism, NWO is men of black and goverment spying on you, X iteration is somewhat industrial military complex and cyberpunk fears and progenitors in biopunk stuff, the exception is void engeneers based on nasa who mostly tag along for the fun, meanwhile the good guys are the odd balls, the conspiracy theories of the 90 were people wanted to find the truth and strike against the men!.
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a lot of that was dog whistled antisemtism, see the modern ideas of Q-anon, a lot of mistrust of the government, which mistrusting the government is fully justified is just coded hate red of Jews and taxes.. like the ADL has a page on the new world order conspiracy theory
 
Speaking of conspiracies, I'm excited for the eventual release of the Devoted Companion for Deviant the Renegades, which seems like it will flesh out the Conspiracy rules a bit more.
 
Don Alverzo said:
How is Deviant? The premise looked interesting to me, but I'm a bit wary of new gamelines after Beast.
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I really like it, the Variations are neat, and the fact that they have to be balanced by scars really emphasizes how much being a deviant sucks. They are clearly not portrayed as the good guys, which compared to beast is a huge plus. Instead of a morality stat they have a few people that they are obsessed with protecting or destroying depending on the person, and protecting or harming those people are really the only way to keep their condition from worsening, and eventually becoming terminal. Also there are rules for what the Conspiracy can do during downtime, which seems cool and that system is flexible enough that it doesn't limit GMs too much.
 
notanautomaton said:
It also feels really skeevy to read after the whole Matt Mcfarland situation.
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I was not surprised about that in the slightest. He was waaay to emotionally invested into portraying them as the good guys. It undermined the entire work.

The other thing Beast lacks is a convincting antagonist. The "Heroes" are more of a speed bump, like the Clockstoppers in Genius: The Transgression. But Genius then has the Corrupt Time Police, the Lemurians and the Cold Ones - and Beast has NOTHING! I like to play them like Old World of Darkness Sabbat Vampires - and those have the Camarilla and the Antediluvians to worry about! The "Heroes" count as Lupines in comparison. The Twight Courts from Princess: The Hopeful make good mid-level antagonists for Beasts IMO. And the Darkness itself or the Wyrm (I put them into oWoD because they work really well as incarnated Umbral Spirits) make for a convincing Bigger Bad even they have to fight against. The Technocracy and various Hunter organizations work too, I guess, but I do not like Mage. JAGS Alice is better.
 
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Rakaziel said:
It has cool ideas but is way too pretentious, self-righteous and whiny. That being said, if you play them as card-carrying supervillains they are a lot of fun! :)
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Nah, play them as super heroes with blue and orange morality. It's so much fun. I've mentioned before playing an Anakim that dressed up like the Juggernaut performing heroics around detroit.
 
Rakaziel said:
The other thing Beast lacks is a convincting antagonist. The "Heroes" are more of a speed bump, like the Clockstoppers in Genius: The Transgression.
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I think they expected you to use villains from other game lines considering how crossover-centric it was designed.

they added Insatiables which some people don't like because they feel like they where made to what the writers thought critics of the game thought beasts where like
 
Konradleijon said:
they added Insatiables which some people don't like
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I'm some people, and I hate Insatiables because I think they're honestly just poorly written.

They're a mass of purple prose that manages to be simultaneously overwrought and unable to explain what the Insatiables even are or how they're meaningfully distinct from beasts. Like there's a focus on the "relentless hunger" aspect, but Beasts already have a lot of hunger emphasis. Hell, the Insatiables have a Satiety meter too. Maybe it's that they can't control it and are constantly lashing out? No the game says they're not mindless beasts and are capable of long term planning. So uh, why not just make these like eeevil beasts? We already know that beasts are fundamentally amoral and have no problem hurting people, and that they can easily lose control in their hunger.

Plus there's this whole thing about how they have "Moments" instead of "Families" and represent fears that are fundamentally ancient and predate the existence of humanity. You know, things like supervolcano eruptions, or evolutionary pressure, or the pressure of plate tectonics, or the illimitable vastness of space - things which clearly no human mind has ever contemplated fearfully - and frankly this is really silly and weird because it ties into nothing else the Insatiables do, because they also explain how these things can affect modern people and it has overlap with some beast families.

The other thing about insatiables sometimes, or even concurrently, is how they apparently refer to "irrational fears." Which is a curveball and a half. Beasts have been representing irrational fears on and off since the corebook, and now you're making that the insatiable thing? Doesn't that contradict the previous section on Moments? One of the Insatiables is a literal goddamn internet troll called "Null Snyper." One of them is a killer clown monster. That sure puts a wrench in the gears of the whole "ancient fears older than man" thing.

it's just an excuse to have other Beasts with cool powers that will come to screw around with you for no good reason other than they feel like it, shoved into a book ostensibly about Heroes because they failed to make those compelling in any way.
 
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Amidatelion said:
I'm some people, and I hate Insatiables because I think they're honestly just poorly written.
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Insatiables are two or three ideas (or most likely writers) poorly stapled together, then painted over the cracks with way too many words.

There are two (somewhat mutually exclusive - unless you make two kinds of Insatiables) way to make them work:

Go the Ancient route and they could be the fears of beings vastly predating humanity, or even the material universe (Granted, this works better with oWoD, where they could be leftover terrors from Exalted, or the dark beings the Baali Vampires worship having eaten other universes and only the fears remain, or the fears of the Triat from Werewolf the Apocalypse, or, if you go a slightly heretical Abrahamic route, the fears of God after He realized that He messed up when creating the universe and no longer has the energy to fix it). Not sure how they work with nWoD'd God Machine.

Alternately they could be born from new, emergent fears of humanity, younger and thus wilder than the Beasts - which fits better to the Sample Characters.

Heroes get somewhat interesting when you give a bigger focus on their Vices and Hypocrisies (i.e. Virtures that they themselves are convinced they have, without having them) - they are both larger than life and flawed human beings, and their new obsession with "their" Beast might not fit seamlessly into their old life and personality - there is some crumpling and cracking, and some gaps left over where other weaknesses (and beings) can seep in. Alternately, you could give them some redeeming qualities, an echo of the heroes they were supposed to be in ancient times. Or Both, given that these ancient heroes themselves were flawed human beings, from Achilles in his tent to Hercules killing his own kids in a flash of madness (that might have been PTSD).
 
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