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White Wolf's World of Darkness

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EarthScorpion said:
(the "must know their real name" paradigm limitation for sympathetic magic is really useful in a superhero universe, because it means all the superheroes are unknowingly protecting themselves with their costumed names. And New Wave are idiots who've compromised that defence.)
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Well, I combined the universes by taking all the parahumans, and making them mages. Protectorate heroes become technocrats, indie heroes become normal mages, and villains become mauraders/nephrandi/ascension warriors. There's more to it than that, but that's the main idea.

EarthScorpion said:
That actually just comes down to normal paradigm limitations. Adding a new sphere is a... not inconsiderable step, when there are easier ways to limit the range of Corr via paradigms and what you have to actually do to get the sym-link.
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Part of the reason that I want to make a new sphere is that I'm doing several new spheres, partly inspired by the (revised storytellers handbook?) where they have an example Fire sphere, which has increased access to the fire parts of Forces in exchange for not having anything else. I'm already doing a 'bugs' sphere, and I've been tossing around ideas for some others.
The Laurent said:
How does one be *obsessively* normal?
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Worm Interlude 18 said:
The boy gave them wary looks as he stood from the armchair and crossed the length of their hotel room. Dorothy had laid out a veritable feast: bacon, eggs, english muffins, toast, french toast, a bowl of strawberries, a bowl of blueberries, and a bowl of fruit salad. There was orange juice and pots of both coffee and tea. She was just setting down a plate of bacon, leaving barely enough room for anyone's plates.

It would have been too much for eight people to eat, but she didn't seem to realize that. She smiled as Justin ushered Theo to the table and sat down. Her clothes were more fit for a job interview than for a fugitive, with a knee-length dress, heels, earrings and makeup. Geoff, like his wife, was too well dressed for the occasion, wearing a button-up shirt beneath a tan blazer, his hair oiled and combed back neatly.

They can't act, Justin thought. They follow their routines like bad actors following a script. A housewife preparing a meal for her family, the husband at the table.

He'd known that the pair started every day with the same routine, like clockwork. Wake, don bathrobe, and collect a newspaper. Geoff would step into the shower as Dorothy stepped out, and she would be done grooming by the time he was through. Once they were both dressed, they'd head to the kitchen, and Geoff would read the paper while Dorothy cooked.

But always, the details would be off. Things any ordinary person would take for granted were forgotten or exaggerated. Dorothy inevitably prepared too much, because it washarder for her to consider how hungry everyone was and adjust accordingly. Only two days ago, Justin had noted that Geoff would take a few minutes to read the front page of the paper, turn the page, and stop.

Now he couldn't help but notice. It was the same thing every day. For the twenty or thirty minutes it took Dorothy to put everything together and set it on the table, Geoff would stare at the second and third pages of the newspaper.

Justin had asked about the headlines and the articles. Geoff never remembered, because he wasn't reading. He could read, but he didn't. He spent nearly forty minutes in total, every day, like clockwork, doing little more than staring into space, pretending to read.

Put the paper away, it's time to eat, Justin thought. Yes dear. Mmm. Smells delicious.

"Put the paper away, it's time to eat," Dorothy said. She was holding the coffee pot, stepped behind Geoff, putting a hand on his shoulder, and bent down to kiss him on the top of his head. Automatic, without affection.

"Yes, dear. " Geoff said, smiling up at his wife. "Mmm. Smells delicious."
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notanautomaton said:
Well, I combined the universes by taking all the parahumans, and making them mages. Protectorate heroes become technocrats, indie heroes become normal mages, and villains become mauraders/nephrandi/ascension warriors. There's more to it than that, but that's the main idea.
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Paradox and the sort of public superheroics Worm gets up to play about as well together as matter and antimatter.

Like, Worm in general plays really badly with old Mage on a whole number of levels, but still.
 
NonSequtur said:
Paradox and the sort of public superheroics Worm gets up to play about as well together as matter and antimatter.

Like, Worm in general plays really badly with old Mage on a whole number of levels, but still.
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That's because they don't do public superheroics. It's just oMage with the characters replaced with Worm characters. (and some other things)
 
So, speaking of Quest ideas, I have been making ideas just in case Rose from Kansas City Shuffle (ongoing, updated recently, link is in the siggy, yada yada), well, shuffles the mortal coil. So figured I'd share a few of them here, these are the newest ones, rather than the older ideas.


What Hath God Wrought: Innocents Abroad (Vampire)

In August 1858, a transatlantic cable was laid down from America to England. It lasted only a month and was a total disaster, but in that time, it sent through a message to a Childer, left for a land of opportunity, who had thought that they'd only ever have access to their Sire again through the written letter. And the Sire asked, no pleaded for them to come here, that something horrible had happened.

Call the vampire a sap, but they cared for their sire, and so off they went, back across the ocean they had crossed some time ago, to a Europe far different than the one they had (briefly) known. To say anything else would be a spoiler!

A Vampire: The Requiem Quest of Cultural Differences, Vampire Aristocracy, and Travel.


What Hath God Wrought: A European in America (Vampire)

The inverse of this. You are a powerful near-elder when you get a message that your childer in America has disappeared. You care enough about them that you decide, on a whim, to go there and find them. Maybe not the best idea, but they roll with it! And now they are in America. A Quest of gunfights at high midnight, desperate fleeing, politics, yokels, and more exploration.

Fugitive (Mage or Vampire)

The Antebellum South is a pretty damn bad place to be if you're a black slave, as your character is! But something has happened, something big and world-changing, that has allowed them to escape using their newfound power. And now they're on the run, trying to make their way north and make a new life amid racism and new powers. A fugitive, and perhaps hunted by far more than their old owners.

Mage's escape is obvious, and Vampires have their own ways to get away…

A Quest of Racism, Magical Powers, and Escape!


Thug'ee (Hunter)

Historically, the eradication of the Thug'ee bandits in the 1830s was complete, rather total, and despite rumors, the religious motive, the worship of Kali, wasn't that important. But what if it were. What if the Thug'ee war had taken a very...dark turn. Strange powers, mysterious and brutal leaders and some strange ability to turn people into cultists. The Hunters of the John Company, yours in particular, amid a foreign land against dangerous and strange enemies, trying to bring them to justice!

A Mage: The Awakening Quest of Slashers, Magic, Investigation, Cults, and Dark Goddesses. And murder.


Changing History (Mage, various)

This is a bit of a vague one, but the idea is to start in a doomed position and see whether a Mage can 'change' history, or rather avert the way things 'should' have gone. Like an Incan* trying to stop the conquest of their Empire, or a Native American Mage fighting to (covertly) maintain their ancestral lands. Or even the struggle of a crumbling empire (like the Roman) to maintain relevance.

love history stuff like this, sue me. I'm a historian.


Living Macguffin (Mage)

This one's going to be a bit more vague in order to preserve mystery, but it comes from a friend's idea of a 'living Macguffin' a person who possesses an ability that makes them one of a kind, potentially world-changing, but has to be protected. In this case a young (early teens) Sleepwalker boy that your character sives. Here's where it gets difficult. I can't give away the trick, but for instance, the Changeling version of this had them able to make anyone in their presence invisible to the True Fae's 'sight' allowing raids into Arcadia to be far less dangerous, in addition to having glamour that is twice as nourishing and also being a Pledgebound. So, let that be a comparasion to the level of 'omg, this could change the world' you'd be dealing with.

A Mage: The Awakening Quest of 'This is Sorta Like Princess Maker', and Family Ties.


The Hunt for Unit 29 (Mage):

WWII in Europe has ended, but for some the war never ends. During the war, an infamous unit of German Mages used the Third Reich as breeding ground for their experiments in a number of areas. Cultural manipulation and greater ways to allow the Awakened to influence the world of the Sleepers, many experiments into the 'science' of eugenics, as well as a number of even more esoteric fields that turned up dangerous secrets indeed. And now the Diamond Orders wishes to recover both them and their notes, before they can get into the hands of the Seers. The main character is an experienced Mage backed with as many allies as they can to sneak into crumbling Germany, past Russian lines, on the hunt for clues about Unit 29. For all of the assets, it is a lonely and dangerous battle in the darkness of the descending Iron Curtain, and can they survive and triumph?

A Mage: The Awakening Quest of Guilt, Nazi Scientists, Spycraft and the Price of Power.


Internment (Hunter):

During WWII, almost 120,000 Japanese people, most of them Japanese American and legal citizens, were imprisoned without trial at 'internment camps', their property and old lives' destroyed and the whims of a nation they sought to live in. This is the story of one such internee, and what they notice happening, when slowly strange things happen. People disappear. Something is wrong at this camp, and it is up to them to get to the bottom of it, amid powerlessness and racism, can they hunt the evil that haunts this camp?

A Hunter: The Vigil Quest of Isolation, Racism, and Cunning.



*Here is an authentic Incan song. :p More seriously I'd of course do tons of research to agument what I know for something like this.

A/N: Also, feel free to comment on these ideas, help me brainstorm, that sort of thing.
 
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notanautomaton said:
That's because they don't do public superheroics. It's just oMage with the characters replaced with Worm characters. (and some other things)
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I feel like this is the logical and depressing end result of the deathgrip Worm has.

'Hey, I want to do a quest based on Mage: the Ascension, but not many people are interested.'

'I know: I'll say it's a Worm crossover! People love Worm crossovers.'

'Oh shit, basically nothing about Worm meshes with Mage. I guess I'll just leave the names on so that people don't realize until they're already invested.'

'Perfect.'
 
NonSequtur said:
I feel like this is the logical and depressing end result of the deathgrip Worm has.

'Hey, I want to do a quest based on Mage: the Ascension, but not many people are interested.'

'I know: I'll say it's a Worm crossover! People love Worm crossovers.'

'Oh shit, basically nothing about Worm meshes with Mage. I guess I'll just leave the names on so that people don't realize until they're already invested.'

'Perfect.'
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My thought process was: what if Taylor was a mage in oMage? What would she be like? Then I spent a lot of time working on potential paradigms builds, and such, then I had some ideas as to what the other capes would look like, so I decided that I'd like to write a story. Then I realized that oMage fiction is less interesting than oMage quests, because half the fun is coming up with cool tricks with your spheres and paradigm.
 
notanautomaton said:
My thought process was: what if Taylor was a mage in oMage? What would she be like? Then I spent a lot of time working on potential paradigms builds, and such, then I had some ideas as to what the other capes would look like, so I decided that I'd like to write a story. Then I realized that oMage fiction is less interesting than oMage quests, because half the fun is coming up with cool tricks with your spheres and paradigm.
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She'd be whoever found her first, because she was so fucking desperate for anyone to associate with at the start of Worm that she started hanging out with criminals with a paper-thin excuse and required almost no effort to be talked into doing a bank robbery. Therefore, any faction you care to mention could talk her into joining up with just the slightest bit of effort.
 
EarthScorpion said:
She'd be whoever found her first, because she was so fucking desperate for anyone to associate with at the start of Worm that she started hanging out with criminals with a paper-thin excuse and required almost no effort to be talked into doing a bank robbery. Therefore, any faction you care to mention could talk her into joining up with just the slightest bit of effort.
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Nephandi: (big hungry grins)
 
NonSequtur said:
Well, in theory.

But it's basically a quintessential Technomancer view of Ascension. And much like most views of Ascension, the practice of getting everyone to join together is much, much harder than the theory.

EDIT: Unless you're talking about on a small scale, in which case it's a Mind/Corr effect of varying levels depending on how much you want it to do. High end would be Mind 5/Corr 4, I'd think.
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My idea was to create a smartphone that directly interfaces with the brain and has internet connectivity. Have Apple and other popular corporations under Technocracy control sell it for ridiculously low cost, operating at a loss to ensure market saturation, and then activate a backdoor built into the system to link everyone together into a single hive-mind.

The trick is getting people to believe in brain-machine interfaces.





The Laurent said:
How does one be *obsessively* normal?
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Well, when you want to go somewhere instead of teleporting you cast "Summon Taxi," A spell that uses a telephone and a credit card as ritual components, has a variable casting time, and requires you to know the "phone number" of a "taxi service."
 
BlueBiscuit said:
I think I remember seeing a Worm/nMage fic on SB, with Taylor as a sort-of Seer.

Edit: Yep, here it is. Not that great, and it didn't go far, but there's certainly merit to the concept.
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Nyeh, I read it and I didn't like it. Ochemata are not just things that go down and have a casual conversation with you, and an Ochema of one of the Exarchs, an Ochema of The General, the Exarch responsible for conflict and war should not just be an overweight man with a rather unpleasant way to say hello.

Besides, the Exarchs tend to communicate with Mystery Commands and way too many dots in the Dream Merit.
 
hyzmarca said:
My idea was to create a smartphone that directly interfaces with the brain and has internet connectivity. Have Apple and other popular corporations under Technocracy control sell it for ridiculously low cost, operating at a loss to ensure market saturation, and then activate a backdoor built into the system to link everyone together into a single hive-mind.

The trick is getting people to believe in brain-machine interfaces.
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They already do, apparently. Iteration X's Multi-Purpose Computer Implant is an Extraordinary Device i.e. consensual technology, at least in the urban First World. Also very expensive by Masses' standards, but consensual. Likewise for their Implant Radio.

The 'link everyone into a hive-mind' would still be a massive massive massive Correspondence 5/Mind 3 working, with literally everyone you're trying to network as a potential Vulgar witness, and that's for if you just want them to be able to communicate telepathically.
 
Taylor could also be interesting in a Changeling: The Lost setting. Or a 'Lost-ified' Worm, rather. Imagine happy go lucky Taylor is taken away, goes through hell but escapes, only to find that her mother's died, her father's a wreck, and her Fetch is being bullied by Sophia and her own best friend (who she definitely missed while in Arcadia.)

IF (and it's probably unlikely, but a thought) that Fetch could trigger, it'd be even more amusing. A new villain named Skitter...who she has reason to suspect is her Fetch...the whole thing could get weird in fun ways, IMO.

But maybe that's because I like Changeling.

Mage, well, Imago has proven that can be done well.

What other nwod settings might work partially crossed over? Well, Taylor as a vampire that tries to justify her existence by only hurting 'bad' people could be amusing. No clue about Werewolf.

And Taylor would be a hilariously misguided Hunter.
 
ManusDomine said:
Nyeh, I read it and I didn't like it. Ochemata are not just things that go down and have a casual conversation with you, and an Ochema of one of the Exarchs, an Ochema of The General, the Exarch responsible for conflict and war should not just be an overweight man with a rather unpleasant way to say hello.

Besides, the Exarchs tend to communicate with Mystery Commands and way too many dots in the Dream Merit.
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Indeed, when I said the concept was interesting I meant the "Awakened Taylor is recruited in the Iron Pyramid", not the "an Exarchs literally tells you what's what, face to face" part.

Then again, if I were to write such a thing, either as a Quest or story, I would just mostly ignore the Worm stuff (Scion, Endbringers, capes and shards et cetera). But then again I'm not really a Worm enthusiast.
 
EarthScorpion said:
That actually just comes down to normal paradigm limitations. Adding a new sphere is a... not inconsiderable step, when there are easier ways to limit the range of Corr via paradigms and what you have to actually do to get the sym-link.
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Non-default spheres are really useful for showing that there is a core difference in philosophy, but are somewhat hard to balance. The general guide to making a new sphere or a custom sphere is that you take half of the ability of one sphere and the half of the other. And even then this is a hugely problematic 'feel' thing. The main advice I give for making a new sphere is:

1. What philosophy does it come from? The Purple Paradigm is basically western/hermetic magic. A Technocratic sphere will generally be more grounded in modern understandings (people are just complex machines, for example) than in mystic symbolism, a mystic sphere will be created from the paradigm it sprouts from. You could make a strong case that Iterators would learn "Hyper-Engineering" and "Hyper-Chemistry," while some Void Engineers might learn "Relativity" which combines Time and Correspondence but has the cost of making all effects much less straightforward. The default nine spheres aren't quite paradigm-neutral but they try fairly hard to be. A synthetic sphere will not be paradigm-neutral, and will necessarily favor certain paradigms. I made Data specifically so it favored Technocratic paradigms, or at least technomages. This also explains why they're not particularly common outside of a certain fashion-they're tied intimately into a certain worldview.

2. What is it going to do? What does Hyper-Engineering do? I might say it basically lets the Iterator treat Matter as Life, but doesn't give the ability to transmute matter-so the Iterator can 'heal' complex machines at HE 3 and create things like knives (simple machines) at HE2 with a source of matter, but the Iterator can't create simple life at 2 dots because he considers life to be complex nanotechnology. So the scale might be:
-Hyperengineering 2: Create simple machines, repair self
-Hyperengineering 3: Create complex machines (from guns to laptops), repair others/repair machines, self-augmentation
-Hyperengineering 4: Create large-scale complex machines (tanks, cars, etc), optimize others, transform machine
-Hyperengineering 5: Develop nanotechnology (includes biological machinery, i.e. life), perfect transformations, cyberize

The thing to keep in mind here is that you want to make sure that major game-changer effects don't get moved up too early in the scale. For example, you don't want to just have "Life is treated as Matter" because then someone will use Matter 2 and turn your heart into stone and go around massacring everyone. There are generally some game-changing effects that define a sphere. Life has the ability to create life at 5, and the ability to improve your physical attributes at 3. You don't want to have a sphere which lets you do either earlier than that. Matter has the ability to change or create bulk matter at 2, which you probably don't want to top. Some effects are put fairly high but can probably be put lower without huge problems, like Matter 4's ability to make a gun out of thin air. What people consider critical to leave at a high level and what people consider interesting but not particularly overpowered is probably up to the group.

3. Can you get a similar effect by simply allowing earlier access to an effect or switching it around? Instead of making a new sphere, it might be far simpler and just as effective to move things around. I do this in Panopticon-Progenitors (and Technocrats in general) don't need Spirit for resurrections or to create sapient life with potential Avatars. The Verbena can get access to shapeshifting effects earlier than Life 4. So on and so forth.
 
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The Laurent said:
What other nwod settings might work partially crossed over? Well, Taylor as a vampire that tries to justify her existence by only hurting 'bad' people could be amusing. No clue about Werewolf.
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Ventrue!Taylor is bestest Taylor. Taylor as a Sin-Eater could be very interesting too, if she actually died in the locker (Probably from doing something stupid like panicking and ending up dead).

As a Werewolf, Taylor's Tribe is so Storm Lord that it hurts, and her Auspice is clearly a Rahu focused on tactics.

She favors the Gift of Dominance and the Gift of Evasion.

I could also see her as an Iron Master, in which case she favors either the Gift of Knowledge or the Gift of Technology, because who doesn't like Gift of Technology?
 
The Laurent said:
Taylor could also be interesting in a Changeling: The Lost setting. Or a 'Lost-ified' Worm, rather. Imagine happy go lucky Taylor is taken away, goes through hell but escapes, only to find that her mother's died, her father's a wreck, and her Fetch is being bullied by Sophia and her own best friend (who she definitely missed while in Arcadia.)

IF (and it's probably unlikely, but a thought) that Fetch could trigger, it'd be even more amusing. A new villain named Skitter...who she has reason to suspect is her Fetch...the whole thing could get weird in fun ways, IMO.

But maybe that's because I like Changeling.
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Oh, you can actually go far further than that - and it might be better to.

After all, how many times have superheroes been compared to play-acting fae who act nothing like real humans and who go through the motions of pointless, dumb conflict which will never, ever end?

So. Assume that "shards" are replaced by pledges to the abstract forces who Contracts are made with. In essence, they're sort of a middle ground between Contracts and Titles. Parahumans are a bit True Fae. Not all the way, but they act weird by human standards, and find themselves doing things for reasons that don't really make sense.

(So, you know, like most comic book characters. Like the superhero who simply cannot kill people, even when it totally makes sense for them to do so. It might have started off as a moral choice, but now it's a ban.)

Oh, and reality is breaking down as Faerie incurses and Faerie logic - ie, comic book logic - is starting to creep into the world. So sometimes the fights between parahumans will leave cities in ruins, but people won't care as much as they should. And if you're one of the people less affected, that should freak you the fuck out. Some people remember the Behemoth destroying New York, but the city's mostly back to normal and that means if you remember it actually happening and you were there, you've got PTSD and no one understands and they think you're crazy.
 
EarthScorpion said:
Oh, you can actually go far further than that - and it might be better to.

After all, how many times have superheroes been compared to play-acting fae who act nothing like real humans and who go through the motions of pointless, dumb conflict which will never, ever end?

So. Assume that "shards" are replaced by pledges to the abstract forces who Contracts are made with. In essence, they're sort of a middle ground between Contracts and Titles. Parahumans are a bit True Fae. Not all the way, but they act weird by human standards, and find themselves doing things for reasons that don't really make sense.

(So, you know, like most comic book characters. Like the superhero who simply cannot kill people, even when it totally makes sense for them to do so. It might have started off as a moral choice, but now it's a ban.)

Oh, and reality is breaking down as Faerie incurses and Faerie logic - ie, comic book logic - is starting to creep into the world. So sometimes the fights between parahumans will leave cities in ruins, but people won't care as much as they should. And if you're one of the people less affected, that should freak you the fuck out. Some people remember the Behemoth destroying New York, but the city's mostly back to normal and that means if you remember it actually happening and you were there, you've got PTSD and no one understands and they think you're crazy.
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Maybe, and there could perhaps be a way to canon-weld by looking at it like that, though I'm not sure where it'd put the protagonist. The way you say 'a bit True Fae' could be your way of saying 'Changelings' or you could be proposing some sort of thing where bits of True Fae become shards become stuck in people, or that Superheroes are some weird version of True Fae, or some fourth thing I can't think of.
 
Now here's an idea: An Awakened Mage whose paradigm is almost exactly identical to the Consensus, so that he can do anything that a Sleeper can do, using any means that a Sleeper could use.
 
The Laurent said:
Maybe, and there could perhaps be a way to canon-weld by looking at it like that, though I'm not sure where it'd put the protagonist. The way you say 'a bit True Fae' could be your way of saying 'Changelings' or you could be proposing some sort of thing where bits of True Fae become shards become stuck in people, or that Superheroes are some weird version of True Fae, or some fourth thing I can't think of.
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None of those exactly. The True Fae have Titles, which can be redefined into a number of different forms, and represent both personal power and a relationship with the forces that you form contracts with. What he's suggesting is that those forces start forming relationships with human, a step down from the "freedom" of the true fae, but a step above learning a contract like a Changeling does. Of course that one specific relationship, rather then the ability to learn many different ones like a Changeling can, but it's still a power too close to Arcadia to be good for anyone's soul and self.

Or at least that's how I'm reading it. And it's an awesome idea.
 
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