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Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer


The moon rides high in the ink black cloudless sky with only the myraid stars for company. Warm sea wind carresses your cheek as the brig cuts silently through the water towards its prey. Bare feet scuff the decks and ropes are pulled, the sails are furled in, reducing speed as Captain Shark steps out of his cabin and onto the deck.

He smiles, lips stretching back across grey skinned face all the way to his neck, his teeth are rows and rows of jagged yellow daggers that you've seen bite the head off of more than one brave man. Still silent, he raises a clawed hand and twirls it twice in a clockwise circle, the ghouls harness the power of their borrowed vitae and dive into the deeps, gills claws and flippers already forming before they slice into blackend depths.

In just minutes they'll be on the deck of the galleon ahead of The Sanguine Dream, shortly after that the lookouts will dead and then the real fun begins. There were riches to be had tonight, gold, jewels, silks and sugar.

But also blood. Always blood.


Welcome to The Sanguine Dream: Terror on the Caribbean a Vampire: The Requiem game set during the golden age of piracy (roughly the late 1600's to early 1700's). Characters, and I'll be taking only 4, will be pirates sailing with Captain Shark and Black Betty on their ships, The Sanguine Dream and The Red Tide. The game will be about about the freedom of the seas, no worrying about the Masquerade, taking what you want and living out your desires free from the false morality of those stuck on the land. The Caribbean is vast and mysterious, explore the island fortress of a necromancer cult and their skeleton army. Raid the home isle of feral beastmen to steal their priceless crystal idol. Navigate the tiresome political squabbles of the land based kindred who's ports you visit to sell your booty and resupply. The nighttime sea is home to monsters.


This is more of an interest check at the moment as I'm at least 2 weeks and probably closer to a month from having an actual plot and story worked out, but don't let that slow you down. Post what you want to see from a pirate based game. I'll be designing some custom merits and switching some skills around to account for the setting not being modern day. I'm shooting for high adventure with an undertone of horror. You're bad guys, but it's by choice. You're not fated to devolve into a mindless beast unless you willingly go down that path, but without the niceties of civilization and the charade of the Masquerade, that path is wide and going downhill is always easier than climbing back up.


Okay, Rules for creation are as follows:

XP: +20

Blood Potency: start at 2 dot, cannot buy up with XP. This is free, but justify your power.

Covenent: The Brotherhood of the Sea. A covenent in only the loosest sense, the Brotherhood consists of Captian Shark, Black Betty and other vampires like them who have thrown off the safties and intrigues of land for the danger and challenge of the open sea. Unlike other covenents, not all members are kindred. Wizards, lupines, other, stranger things, as well as knowledgeable mortals have also succumed to the lure of the tides.

Benefits of membership: You may purchase dots in allies, contacts, mentor or retainer that represent another type of supernatural being. You also get one "weird" discipline dot free at creation and can purchase it at in clan costs. Weird disciplines are those from the Translation Guide or bloodline disciplines. The main and common disciplines as well as the signature disciplines of Mekhet, Ventrue, Gangral, Deava and Nosferatu cannot be selected. We will work together on converting the discipline to Blood & Smoke standards. Praestantia, Cruac or the Coils of the Dragon count as being "weird".

Free Skill dots: 1 in crafts, 1 in Sailing (replaces driving), and 1 in occult.

Background requirements: I need to know *why* you're a pirate. Is it by choice? Were you exiled from land? Are you searching for something?

Where did you pick up your "weird" discipline and how did you come to be a member of the Brotherhood? Alternatly, why are you a member of some other covenent and still a pirate? How do you communicate, what duties do you have and how do you discharge them?

How did you meet Cpt Shark? Or did you run into Black Betty first? What's your opinions of the pirates? Of unlife on the seas?

Every pirate has heard of a treasure or a lost isle of wonders, what's your seaman's tale? Where is the X on your treasure map and how serious are you about pursuing it?

Who's your worst enemy? Who is your closest ally?
New merits:

Sea Legs *-***

*: you've been on a boat, penalties for actions taken while on the sea or during a storm are reduced by 1
**: You know not to call a ship a boat, penalties for actions taken while on the sea or during a storm are reduced by 2
***: You are at home on the sea, penalties for actions taken while on the sea or during a storm are reduced by 3

Gunner *-****

You are able to use your firearm skill to reload and fire a ship's cannons without penalty, when commanding a cannon crew instead of the crew's. Firing more than 1 cannon adds the burst fire property for 2-5 cannons, auto fire for 6-10 and autofire +9 again for 10+ cannons. For every two cannons fired, an additional die is rolled to fire.

Firing a cannon is a wits+firearm roll. Reloading is an extended action needing 10 successes to purge and load the cannon. 0-2 cannons :-0 dice 3-5: -1 die 5-7: -2 dice 8-10: -3 dice 10+ cannons: -4 dice. Each roll takes one round.

Navigator * or **
* you can navigate by the stars at no penalty to survival rolls. Penalties for staying on course in rough seas are reduced by 1
** You know the sea lanes. Judging by the winds and currents, you can track ships as long as you know their heading as of 24 hours prior. Penalties for staying on course in rough seas are reduced by 2

Crow's nest *
All perception checks made while high above the surface gain the 9 again property and viewing distance before penelties activate is doubled. If Auspex is activated, this increases to 8 again.

Barnacle *** or ****
*** You can use level 1 of protean to merge with the hull of the ship instead of earth for no cost. Merging with earth costs 1 BP
****You can merge with the ship or with the earth for no cost.
NPCS:

Captain Shark

No one knows where the nosferatu calling himself Captain Shark came from, but for the past twenty years he has roamed the Caribbean, preying on the trade ships that seek to exploit the riches of the Americas. Horrific, even for one of his clan, Shark has the rough, grey skin of his namesake along with a mouth that can open wide enough to engulf a man's head. When making use of his protean discipline, which is often, Shark's mouth sprouts rows of seratted, triangular teeth that can bite clean through bone, leaving wounds that even vampires find difficult to heal.

Captain Shark is a man of great passions, he loves his crew with all his cold, unbeating, black heart and has faced sun and flame to rescue imprisoned crew memebrs. Those that reward his love (reinforced by his vitae suffused with the rum barrels) with loyalty are protected and taken care of. Those that betray him are usually punsihed by being the main course in one of Shark's cannible feasts. Unlike most kindred, Shark loves to eat solid food. Every full moon, he trusses up a slave, prisoner or tratior after the fashion of a roast pig and eats the poor soul alive. The kindred members of the crew are all invited to this meal, but they are only provided blood, spiked with rum or opium, if they wish. The bloody writhing meat is all for the Captain.

The pirate does not seem to have any over arching goal aside from securing enough mortal chattle to keep well fed and enough loot to keep his crew paid. Some whisper that his endless rambling across the waters is in search of some lost artifact, whether it be the foutnatin of youth, the lance of Longius or one of the fabled crystal skulls of the Aztecs. If there are truth to these rumors only Shark and Black Betty know for certain.

What is known, is that despite having contacts in many ports and a haven (and childe) on Tortuga, Captain Shark never stays on land longer than it takes to sell his booty ot repair his ship.
Black Betty

A gangrel of quiet ferocity, Black Betty has been with Captain Shark the longest of his inner circle. Betty is the child of a Tlaxcalan woman and a conquistador born in the 1520's. Her embrace came at a young age, one of the last remaining Aztec vampires kidnapped and then embraced her and left her to run wild on a newly arrived camp of Spainish settlers. The waif of a girl tore through the camp killing human and animal alike in her frenzy. When the rising sun began to burn her skin, something within her found the placidity of the dawn sea comforting and the fledgling vanished into the surf.

She spent years haunting the shorelines of South America, as content to feed on the cold blood of fish and sea mammals as humans befores she came across her first pirate vessel. Again there was an instant kinship felt with these men of sea, a respect they returned after she beat four of them into a bloody pulp when they fell upon what they thought was a skinny young woman hardly out of childhood. Sleeping safe, merged with the ship's hull, Betty became known as Black Betty for the blood soaked hood she had taken to wearing during raids, fighting in a controlled frenzy and tearing apart the opposing crew with her claws. Eventually, the captain of the ship began to fear Betty more than he valued her combat prowess. Having learned her weaknesses over the years of raiding, the Captain and his cronies were able to overwhelm the vampire, stake her and tossed her over the side, tide in chain for the sharks to eat as she was trawled behind.

That was when Captian Shark, on the lookout for this newest terror of the seas arrived in the Sanguine Dream, boarded the other pirate ship and unstaked Betty, offering her the quartermaster position on his ship and, eventually, awarding her a ship of her own.

Some say that Betty and Shark are betrothed, that both are under viniculum to each other. The trust shared by the two kindred does seem oddly solid. For her part Betty values the trust placed in her and enjoys having a partner who revels in the freedom of teh waves as much as she does. On land, Betty is quiet and surly, only showing any sort of kindness (or even interest) when she needs something from a mortal. On the sea, even on her docked ship, she is outgoing and vivacious. Eager to prove what she and her new ship can do, Betty may be even more aggressive than Shark when it comes to hunting down and attacking ships and convoys.

Soonmot fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Oct 6, 2014

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Arashiofordo3
Nov 5, 2010

Warning, Internet
may prove lethal.
Never played Requiem before, but this sounds like too much fun to pass up. Posting interest.

Any suggestions of what books would make for good insperation? Both pirate wise and also camp wise.

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer
The last page or so in the general World of Darkness thread has some book suggestions. I've ordered Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly on their advice. Make sure you're looking at the Blood & Smoke version of Requiem.

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell
You already know I'm interested as Viking Pirate Lawyer-Occultist. Kveldulf Sigurdson seems an appropriate name.

EDIT: Black or beige?

Loomer fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Sep 25, 2014

Luminous Obscurity
Jan 10, 2007

"The instrument you know as a piano was once called a pianoforte, because it can play both loud and quiet notes."
Likewise, you know I'm already into this idea. :dance:

Josef bugman
Nov 17, 2011

Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund
I am definitely interested. Is it okay if I play as a reasonable vampire who still likes humans?

Toph Bei Fong
Feb 29, 2008



Hell yes, I'm interested. Would a Barbary coast Assamite pirate be cool?

Toph Bei Fong fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Sep 25, 2014

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell
Third discipline is always an interesting one to pick. It's a shame carrefou is so voodoo-oriented because gouging out an eye for magic power is right up the alley of a terrifying viking anachronism.

Luminous Obscurity
Jan 10, 2007

"The instrument you know as a piano was once called a pianoforte, because it can play both loud and quiet notes."
I can't decide between a Norvegi porcupirate or a Khaibit navigator who uses Ancient Egyptian star-knowledge to plot the ship's courses.

Okay so maybe her charts are a little out of date...


Edit: VVV Okay, that settles it. :getin: VVV

Luminous Obscurity fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Sep 25, 2014

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell

Luminous Obscurity posted:

I can't decide between a Norvegi porcupirate or a Khaibit navigator who uses Ancient Egyptian star-knowledge to plot the ship's courses.

Okay so maybe her charts are a little out of date...

I foresee many arguments between this damned southron and the angry viking. If icelandic spar was good enough for him, it should be good enough for her, dagnabbit!

EDIT: Say, wasn't this the age of combining pistols with swords and axes? Suddenly, the viking love of shield and axe just became viable again. Pistol-axe! :pirate:

Loomer fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Sep 25, 2014

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer

Spoilers Below posted:

Hell yes, I'm interested. Would a Barbary coast Assamite pirate be cool?

Josef bugman posted:

I am definitely interested. Is it okay if I play as a reasonable vampire who still likes humans?

Yes to both of these. The majority of the crew are humans, so lording your vampireness over the kine herds will probably not win you many friends. To put it in perspective, the Sanguine Dream and Red Tide are both brigs which can have a crew compliment of 120 people. Out of 240 possible crew, only 9 are vampires (Cap Shark, Black Betty and 3 NPC I am figuring out) and only about 15 ghouls (outside of any the PCs might start with). That leave 216 mortal members over two ships and mutiny is as much a problem for vampire pirates as it is for mortal pirates, they just have more tools for dealing with it.

The PC's will be on Black Betty's ship, the Red Tide and, aside from her, will be the only vamps there. The two ships work in tandem to isolate and take down other ships using wolfpack tactics and communication is done with cell phones magical conch shells.

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell
Fortunately, Kveldulf is built as a lawspeaker, not a berserker, so keeping the crew from mutiny will be right up his alley.

Here's a preliminary build, assuming the 15XP and free dots in craft/sailing are still in play:
Intelligence ** Wits *** Resolve **
Strength ** Dexterity ** Stamina **
Presence **** Manipulation *** Composure ***

Academics **** (History, and Law specialty from Professional Training)
Crafts **
Occult **

Athletics **
Brawl *
Sail **
Weaponry (Axe-and-Shield) **

Animal Ken *
Empathy *
Expression **
Persuasion **** * (4 base, +1 from Professional Training 4, Orator specialty, Rhetoric specialty from Professional Training)
Socialize *
Subterfuge **

Protean *
Animalism *
Majesty *
Dominate *


Multilingual (French/Danish/Dutch/German) **
Status (Rotgrafen) **
Lineage *
Touchstone ***
Language ** (English, Latin. Default language is of course Old Norse, which means he can talk reasonably well with Icelandics and Faroese but that's it)
Contacts ** (Lawyers and pirate 'judges'; from Professional Training 1)
Professional Training **** (Lawspeaker. Academics, Expression, Persuasion as asset skills.
Retainer * (Two useless ghoul parrots)
Library * (Law)
Kindred Dueling *

Humanity 6
Touchstone 6. Huginn, his left parrot.
Touchstone 5 (from merit) Karl, the Icelandic chap on board.
Touchstone 4. His brother's scramasax, still stained with his blood.

Blood Potency *

XP expenditure breakdown:
1 points for multilingual
3 points in Professional training
4 points for 1 dot in composure
2 points for 1 dot in weaponry
2 points for 1 dot in sail
3 points for 1 dot in Protean

Humanity trade-off:
1 point into Touchstone, moving Huginn from 7 to 6.
1 point into Language (French)
1 point into Kindred Dueling. While Kveldulf still isn't intended to be a combat beast, he is a former viking and a veteran of the Rotgrafen's war for the Baltic. Fighting other Kindred was the order of the day then so it stands to reason he'd have picked up a few tricks. If we're not down with fighting styles, no problem. It'll go towards a bigger library or to speaking conversational Italian and Spanish.

Loomer fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Oct 3, 2014

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer
Just a heads up, I'd prefer to keep bloodline based characters to a minimum. Also, don't you need Blood Potency 2 to claim bloodline membership, or was that done away with in B&S?

INH5
Dec 17, 2012
Error: file not found.
Like I said in the thread, I'm definitely interested in this, assuming there's still space.

I'm still working out the details, but I'm interested in playing a Nosferatu former Spanish Conquistador. My current idea of the backstory is that he was Embraced by a Tlaxcalan* vampire after being mortally wounded during the Noche Triste, then went on to help conquer the Aztec civilization and slay several Aztec Kindred, including a Gangrel whom he diablerized and obtained the Protean Discipline from.** After the conquest, he built up some power in New Spain, but he was later deposed by his rivals and ended up trapped in Torpor for about a century. He recently woke up to find both his material and supernatural power mostly gone, and he left to become a pirate, hoping to eventually build up enough power to return and take revenge on his enemies.

Yes, I have recently been reading a book about the Spanish conquest of Mexico, why do you ask?

* If you aren't familiar with that particular period of history, the Tlaxcalans were a Mesoamerican civilization that allied with Cortez and helped him overthrow the Aztecs.

** Because the idea of gliding/swimming/wall-crawling over to a ship to board it is just too cool for me to be left out.

INH5 fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Sep 25, 2014

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell

Soonmot posted:

Just a heads up, I'd prefer to keep bloodline based characters to a minimum. Also, don't you need Blood Potency 2 to claim bloodline membership, or was that done away with in B&S?

Done away with so long as your sire did it, per p. 98. So long as it's acceptable, I was going for Sigurdsson for a reason.

EDIT: Likewise, I can go Ventrue. The big advantage of Rotgrafen is that Protean is a clan discipline and they happen to provide a pitch perfect reason for a walking, talking Viking anachronism in the Caribbean Golden Age of Piracy.

Loomer fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Sep 25, 2014

Luminous Obscurity
Jan 10, 2007

"The instrument you know as a piano was once called a pianoforte, because it can play both loud and quiet notes."

Soonmot posted:

Just a heads up, I'd prefer to keep bloodline based characters to a minimum. Also, don't you need Blood Potency 2 to claim bloodline membership, or was that done away with in B&S?

In B&S you can be whatever your sire's bloodline was at BP 1, but if you want to get a bloodline (or change one) you need more points.

Also I can just go with quasi-mystic regular ol' Egyptian Mekhet, if you're trying to keep bloodlines from getting out of control.

E: Beaten on the first bit.

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer
Okay, so everyone knows what I like to see in character backgrounds:

-Enemies and allies: While I will have a main plot, I don't like rail roading, give me stuff to make the plot revolve around your characters.

-Linked backgrounds: No one likes a special snowflake that refuses to associate with the rest of the PCs. Having a linked background, even as recent as when your characters came on board the ship helps alleviate that fear.

-Specialized: Not minmaxed, but your character's stats, skills, disciplines and specialties make sense for their personality.

-World building: Make something cool, an island, a ship, a pirate, a port, whatever, help build this world and you get XP from it.


Things I don't like:

-5s: Okay, you're one of the best in the world? Why? What is it that makes you special? You can have a five, but it better be justified.

-1s in attributes: That always reeks of minmaxing to me. Why is your character so deficient in this stat?

-Special Snowflakes: Oh, so you just *have* to be this totally badassed bloodline that is so rare. Justify that poo poo!

Loomer I haven't read the bloodline write up yet, but from what you've said in the other thread, I'm cool with it because it seems to be in character for what you want to play. The dual social beat down disciplines on one character gives me pause, but I like everything else you've written so far.


XP: Play by Post suuuuuuuuuuuucks for developing characters, so I award XPs like candy along with free poo poo based on roleplay. You'll probably each get a free custom merit based on your character backgrounds anyways. In play, each character accumulates beats as normal, but when a character cashes in their 5 beats for an XP, everyone gets an experience point.

Those who have posted, let me know what type of game you want to play so I know how to tailor things.

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell

Soonmot posted:

Okay, so everyone knows what I like to see in character backgrounds:

-Enemies and allies: While I will have a main plot, I don't like rail roading, give me stuff to make the plot revolve around your characters.

I was actually planning on having Kveldulf's brother's seax act as a dual-sided anchor. It's not only a physical remembrance of who he used to be, it's a reminder of what he needs to accomplish. Someone's vampire-dad killed his brother. Said someone is now in the Caribbean, and while he can't quite remember who it was due to the fog of ages, he's got clues and he wants blood. Cue the feud!

quote:

-Linked backgrounds: No one likes a special snowflake that refuses to associate with the rest of the PCs. Having a linked background, even as recent as when your characters came on board the ship helps alleviate that fear.

To a viking and a Rotgrafen, the men of the ship are not just people around you, but people you must rely on and cultivate relationships with. I'll tailor some things to the others in the full write-up.

quote:

-World building: Make something cool, an island, a ship, a pirate, a port, whatever, help build this world and you get XP from it.
Oh, I'm all aboard if we can do this poo poo. Gonna write a novel about Karl the Icelandic Ship's Cook.

quote:

Things I don't like:

-5s: Okay, you're one of the best in the world? Why? What is it that makes you special? You can have a five, but it better be justified.

Can do. I'll go into more detail in the full write-up, but Kvelduf is a former lawspeaker of the Icelandic Republic and then a chief orator for the Scandinavian Ventrue for a couple of centuries prior to his unfortunate fall into torpor.

quote:


Loomer I haven't read the bloodline write up yet, but from what you've said in the other thread, I'm cool with it because it seems to be in character for what you want to play. The dual social beat down disciplines on one character gives me pause, but I like everything else you've written so far.

Majesty is actually an out-of-clan discipline, taken as the third dot. I can scrap it, if you like, but I felt it more appropriate to who Kvelduf is than than dominate would be. He prefers to genuinely sway a crowd, rather than just order them to do poo poo.

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer
EDIT:/\/\/\ DO what you feel is right for the character. If I like the character but have problems with the mechanics, I will let you know and we'll work something out. It also doesn't mean that you won't have an opportunity to learn it during play!

Loomer posted:

a couple of centuries prior to his unfortunate fall into torpor.


This is one of the reasons I love Blood Potency so much more than Generation. We can have a vampire who's hundreds of years old without being either so much more powerful than all the other characters or immersion breakingly weak.

Soonmot fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Sep 25, 2014

Deep State of Mind
Jul 30, 2006

"It was a busy day. I do not remember it all. In the morning, I thought I had lost my wallet. Then we went swimming and either overthrew a government or started a pro-American radio station. I can't really remember."
Fun Shoe
Pietro Tremonti was born Israel Azria in the shadow of the Venetian Ghetto's Scuola Spagnola. The Azrias were wealthy facilitators of trade at the end of the 16th century, via the scattered Ladino communities from the crypto-Jews of Spain to the Netherlands, to the Balkans and beyond. It was a prolific family, with Israel being the fifth of eleven children of the family patriarch, Abraham Azria. He didn't much like being in the middle. He didn't much like that his eldest brother, Abraham the Lesser, was by right and tradition the heir to all his family's fortunes, with the sole authority to divide up the wealth created by Israel and his six other brothers. Israel was an ambitious man. Thus when Abraham the Elder called for the family's network of trade contacts to be expanded to the Ladinos of the New World, Israel jumped at the chance to prove himself.

23 years old, with no formal or modern education outside of a Ladino yeshiva or Sarajevo custom house, Israel Azria set out for Santo Domingo on the island of Hispaniola. But he boarded the vessel not as Israel Azria the Jew, rather as Pietro Tremonti the proud Catholic Venetian trader. Learning from the crypto-Jews of Spain, he would hide his and beliefs and his background from the gentiles, especially the Spanish, in order to improve his standing among the people of the New World. Unlike the rest of his family, Israel would do business not only with the Ladinos, but with everyone who had coin for him to pocket.

Pietro found the New World to be a very double-edged sword. On the one hand, it was beautiful, new and interesting. It was exotic, with plants, animals and people he had never seen before. He tasted new foods (most of them unkosher), learned new languages, and began to amass a good bit of coin. Silks, ivory, slaves, sugar, tobacco went every which way around the world, organized by Pietro's complex logistical network. By the time he was 30, Tremonti Traders was well established in a handsome townhouse in Havana. Pietro's older brother Isaac, going by Giorgio and younger brother Ezra, under the name Mario, had moved to the Caribbean to help expand the family's fortunes. Everything was going well, Pietro was on top, had the respect of Jews and gentiles alike, and had won his father's favor away from Abraham the Lesser.

It is said that all good things must come to an end. A barque carrying a a king's ransom's worth of spices for Tremonti Traders was captured by pirates. Then a brig full of refined sugar. Then a slave ship bound for Port Royal. It wasn't a mere uptick in piracy. Ships contracted by Tremonti Traders were being targeted. Finally, at enormous expense, Pietro baited out the pirates and captured one of their sloops with his own privateers. Under interrogation, the pirate captain revealed that he had been contracted by a wealthy Dutch merchant named Johan van der Venne. It was a name Pietro had never heard before. In fact, it took some very expensive digging before he found anyone who had heard the name before, all while more and more traders refused to carry Tremonti cargo. Pietro's fortunes were declining both literally and figuratively.

After selling the last of his land holdings, Pietro finally found Johan van der Venne. The small Ladino community in Willemstad knew him to be a reclusive trade broker, living in a well-guarded mansion on the island, from which he never emerged. With little left to lose, Pietro went directly to the home of the Dutchman who had ruined his life and announced himself at the gate. After delivering his introduction to the house itself, the gate guard told Pietro that Johan would see him, but only after dark. Confused, but determined to find his answers, Pietro spent the day in Willemstad practicing his Dutch before returning to the manor.

Pietro was shown in to a warm sitting room where Johan, a surprisingly young and handsome, if round, red-haired Dutchman awaited him. A much slimmer and more venerable attendant stood at his side, an interpreter, fluent in Venetian, through whom they spoke. Johan said he was pleased to meet his rival face-to-face, while Pietro lashed out in frustration, demanding to know why Johan, a man he had never met, had so aggressively and directly destroyed his life's work. "I didn't build all of this," he said through the interpreter, gesturing to his well-appointed home, "by sitting back while young upstarts gain strength. Better to strangle an infant in the crib than wait until it's grown enough to fight back." Pietro balked, insisting that he would have been happy to work with Johan, demanding that trade is not a zero sum game.

"Work with me? That would imply we are peers, which is certainly not the case." Johan waved away his interpreter, "You speak some Dutch, yes? You are the first person, first of my rivals, to track me down. I do not know if you are the first to try, but you are the first to arrive at my home. Because of this, you deserve something special. Understand? Speciale." Johan stood up and turned his back, fiddling with some items on a small desk, Pietro's view obscured from this angle, "You may work for me. Per me. Comprendere?" Being a servant to the man who tore him down from the heights of success to the deepest depths of failure was an idea that disgusted Pietro,

"Bedanken... But I will go my own way. Maybe go back home to Europe..." Pietro shrugged, honestly not knowing where he would go after leaving this manor, "Thank you for your time. Good luck with your business." He offered a resigned handshake to Johan's back. In the next moment, faster than the blink of an eye, Pietro was dead.

Johan took his hand, and immediately tore open Pietro's wrist with the beautiful ivory dagger he had prepared on the desk. Adding some of his own Vitae to the rite, Pietro was dead, and Embraced, childe of the wicked Dutchman he hated more than anyone.

Pietro's first nights of undeath were even worse than his last months of miserable life. Not only was he seemingly enslaved to the last person he ever wanted to see, but he was a neonate learning to survive with lessons in a language he barely spoke.

It took a week. A week before Pietro fled the manor into the streets of Willemstad to try unlife on his own. He didn't know if his sire would attempt to hunt him down, but he kept a low profile just in case. His first step would be to escape Curaçao; he just had to find a ship that would take him somewhere else, for free, without expecting him to do anything during daylight hours.


There's the first part of a character thingy. I don't know how a vampire can be a pirate because boats need things done during daytime. I don't even know how a vampire can ride a boat with the whole not being able to get touched by sun thing. But once I figure that out I'll continue working on this character. Also I need to read more about Bloodlines because there are a lot more now since the last time I played VtR (6 years ago?).

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell
Sleep down in the Orlop like a filthy midshipman, that's how.

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer

Don't read about bloodlines, I dislike them on starting characters. How you character took to a life at sea is important though. How he manaaged to stay out of the sun is very important. Things like this come to define your character and how they look at their requiem. This is a wonderful start of a character.

ZiegeDame
Aug 21, 2005

YUKIMURAAAA!
Perhaps it wasn't clear in the viking rush from the WoD thread, but I am so loving in it hurts. Haven't nailed down a character concept quite yet, but it may involve hanging out in the crow's nest all night with Auspex 5. Chances of being a Caribbean native are high.

INH5
Dec 17, 2012
Error: file not found.
I just noticed something.


Loomer posted:

Intelligence ** Wits *** Resolve **
Strength ** Dexterity ** Stamina **
Presence *** Manipulation *** Composure **

----

4 points for 1 dot in strength

You seem to be short on dots here. You've got 5 dots in Social, 4 dots in Mental, and 3 dots in Physical. You should have two more dots, one in either Presence or Resolve from your clan, and one more Strength dot that you bought with XP.

Nyarai
Jul 19, 2012

Jenn here.
This sounds super-rad. Are non-Fish Malks okay? Also, how do you feel about the Vampire Translation Guide?

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer

Nyarai posted:

This sounds super-rad. Are non-Fish Malks okay? Also, how do you feel about the Vampire Translation Guide?

I'm running a facebook game that's a V:tM/V:tR mashup, so I wanna keep this one strictly V:tR

Arashiofordo3
Nov 5, 2010

Warning, Internet
may prove lethal.
I'm kinda struggling to know where to start with making a character. You want us to not pick bloodlines as starting characters, but are we free to plan towards joining any of them? Are the only clans the ones in the core book? Do we need a character sheet already or just a character concept?

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell

INH5 posted:

I just noticed something.


You seem to be short on dots here. You've got 5 dots in Social, 4 dots in Mental, and 3 dots in Physical. You should have two more dots, one in either Presence or Resolve from your clan, and one more Strength dot that you bought with XP.

Glorious. First time making a character under blood and smoke and I managed to miss the clan attribute bit.

EDIT: A first draft on Kveldulf's mortal life, and why he's not in any accounting of the Lawspeakers of Iceland. Also gives a nice little story-hook for if Þorgeir Þorkellsson is still alive somehow. Ancient vampire viking feud, anyone? Given the bloodiness of it, I think it might actually be better to start at humanity 6. Consequences for horrifying actions, etc.

Born 970 as Thorolf Yngvarsson to an Icelandic godi and his concubine, Kveldulf was raised to be three things: Learned, lethal, and pious. The stories of his Gods, of the Settlers, and of the lands further West filled his head from a young age; farmer's tools and axes filled his hands, and once a year, the heady thrills of the Althing filled his senses. His father sat on the Lögrétta each year, and Thorolf would sit and watch him from the crowd. Law would flow from the mouth of his father and the other goðar during the assembly, to be learned and disseminated by the Lawspeakers. There was the one man in the Commonwealth of universal respect and authority in his own right, the one man employed by the state. There was a man that Thorolf would become.

His great victory in his desire was not won by his father's campaigning alone, but by his fostering in 979 to the hus of Þorkell máni Þorsteinsson. One of the longest serving Lawspeakers, Þorkell nurtured the young Thorolf's taste and natural talent for learning and for law. He encouraged him to that lofty office while allowing him to attend him in his duties, aiding his aging memory alongside his own adult son, Þorgeir. When he retired from the office in 984, Þorgeir took the role and Thorolf joined him as an assistant. He accompanied the man in wandering, swore an oath of friendship, and ensured that his friend's recitations of the law were accurate. Two minds, keeping it in them, would serve better to preserve the laws and customs from degradation.

From time to time he left his unofficial duties to join his brothers' in raids on the coast of Ireland and England, going viking for the excitement and for the material wealth he would need for his eventual bid for the Lawspeakership. Unlike law, languages, and history, raiding was not his great strength. Competent with an axe, certainly - made so by his father's tutelage as a young boy, honed by daily life splitting wood, he could hardly not be. Strong, yes, but not exceptionally so. Instead, he took it on himself to learn the languages of the people they raided, to better extract wealth and information.

On his return to Iceland from a raid in 999, he found a vastly changed situation. The small Christian population of the island had grown louder and louder, and the failure of Þangbrandr had so aggravated King Olaf of Norway that invasion loomed on the horizon. The choice was offered: Christianize or die. His own brother stood as a hostage in King Olaf's bid, taken captive on a trade mission to Norway.

Þorgeir made his fateful choice in 1001. He sat alone, meditating on the matter, and chose Christianity for himself and for Iceland over their deaths. A betrayal of the highest order, in Thorolf's eyes. How could a godi abandon his Gods? How could the Lawspeaker lead his people to the White Christ without the slightest fighting? How could his brothers accept this, when they had fought so hard for so long to establish this place free of Kings? The association between Þorgeir and Thorolf ended in blood, the two coming to a violent brawl with drawn blades over the matter; though out of long friendship neither could bring themselves to kill the other that day or press the matter legally. Wounded, diminished in his commitment to his role, and mourning the loss of his Gods, Þorgeir left the office that same year, shortly after the bloody brawl. He sought to retire to his farm, and live out the rest of his days quietly, without politicking or the loss of any more old friends.

Unfortunately for Þorgeir, his wishes did not come to fruition. His bold action drew the eye of a Sanctified Norwegian Ventrue, and Þorgeir vanished from the pages of mortal history, embraced and entrusted with the role of converting the handful of other vampires on Iceland, and any who might pass through.

His successor as lawspeaker was quickly done away with. Grimur, an old, old man, lacked the strength of voice to perform his duties... and Thorolf stepped up. Campaigning with gifts, eloquent speeches, and a claim of legitimacy derived from his assistance to Þorkell and Þorgeir, he was made the Lawspeaker in 1004, and served the better part of four successful and respected terms. But his name does not appear in the records, and his successor, Skafti, is instead given the longest term of any Lawspeaker - a term that absorbed not only Thorolf's time, but his greatest achievement: the groundwork of the Fimmtardómur.

The reason for this is simple. Thorolf vanished in 1011; the same year that Sigrun Ericsdottir was sentenced to death by the same Norwegian Sanctified that took Þorgeir into the long night. Sigrun, exiled and struggling to build a power base, had decided she needed someone who could enforce her claims not just with brute force - a measure that won the respect of the Gangrel but few others - but with words, laws, and procedures. Of all the peoples of the world, there were few better suited to this than the great Icelandic jurists, and Thorolf was already known for his opposition to Christianity (and, if he had known of them, presumably the Sanctified). She sailed to Iceland one winter, taking full advantage of the long polar night. Thorolf, as Þorgeir before him, was taken into that long night.

The blood of Sigrun seared his body, wracking it with chills and aches and terrible changes as the Vampiric curse fundamentally altered him. In these early days, the terrible sea-queen yet had the time to explain matters. She told him what he was now, who he was now, why the blood burned, what it really was - not just the blood of a vampire, so common and base, but blood blessed by Loki. Blood mingled with that of Fenrir, with the venom of Jormungadr, and the spit of Hel. Blood that demanded vengeance against the followers of the White Christ, the Sanctified, who had so wronged not only Sigrun, but Thorolf, no, the Icelandic Commonwealth itself.

That night, swayed by Sigrun's words and a judicious application of her mental powers, Thorolf took a new and terrible name. Thinking back to the Sagas, he chose it for himself. He would be Kveldulf, the Evening Wolf, Sigrunsson. Reborn into the Blood, he would restore the Aesir to their position of rightful prominence in Iceland and Scandinavia, however long it might take. And why rush, now with his immortality and his new-found weakness? Sigrun had made it clear that as a newly made vampire - of the Rotgrafen, as she called herself - he was but a weak, flimsy distraction to many of the creatures prowling the Night. He left Iceland with her the next week, though not before carrying out the terrible deeds that saw him erased from the history.

Those goðar who had freely abandoned their faith found a nocturnal visitor demanding entrance. They gave it, of course - custom and law demanded it, and Thorolf's was a familiar face. They didn't - couldn't - realize that beneath the familiar beard, the balding pate with its stubborn handful of wispy locks, Thorolf had been replaced so thoroughly and quickly by the terrible Kveldulf. A raging hunger burned in his breast, and the blood of the traitor goðar satisfied it... Briefly. Drinking them dry, he left a survivor in each hus - the youngest child capable of speech - to tell who and what he had saw before he moved on to the next, and the next. With the sun never rising, he never stopped, never took pause in his hunger for vengeance.

By the time he left, he had killed seven of the Commonwealth's most respected men and butchered their households. This, in and of itself, did not trouble him. They were traitors to the people, to the Aesir. But there was a nagging doubt in the back of his mind. What he had done was wrong, because he had not done it openly at first. He had hidden behind guest right to gain entrance, pretended to be a friend, done a terrible thing in the doing. Torn between embracing the terrible vengeance of Kveldulf - a desire planted as much through his sire's domination as grown from his own heart - and the things that had made Thorolf who he was, Kveldulf reaffirmed his commitment to the laws and customs. Through eternal service to them, he would remove the stain on his honour that his secret-murders had left.

After he left Iceland, Þorgeir went among the people, using his own powers of domination and control to remove any memory of Thorolf Yngvarsson - and of the terrible stain he had left in his wake. A handful of unfortunates were chosen as the scapegoats for the murders, declared full outlaws, hunted down and mercilessly slaughtered. Þorgeir, whose love for his young 'brother' had continued even into undeath despite their bloody quarrel, would not allow Thorolf to so disgrace himself and his memory. He would find Thorolf and the sea-bitch who brought him into the Night. He would make his old friend see reason - or destroy him.

They sailed to Northern Norway while the polar night remained, and Kveldulf received his first introduction to the rest of the vampiric world. The Rotgrafen were still few in number - a handful of Ventrue brought in from other lineages, few bearing the blood of Loki's children - and unwelcome sights through the increasingly Sanctified dominated Scandinavian courts. Tensions were high in the small band of outlaws, hastened to no small degree by the presence of Germans and Finns among them. Only the charisma and supernatural magnetism of Sigrun prevented bloody skirmishes from being a nightly affair, and as her childe, Kveldulf quickly improved his oratory. In Iceland, it had been comparatively low stakes: Legal office stood as the only prize. In the small band, survival was its own prize. Blood was scarce, between the hostility of the local population - even small fishing villages and farms often hosting a resident Gangrel or Ventrue, or visited on a rotating schedule by some more powerful, thirsty creature - and the competition of the small band.

This competition grew more and more heated, culminating in the final death of the Lappish Gangrel, Dorste. Surprising everyone, Kveldulf stepped in to preserve Dorste's murderer from a retaliatory murder by the other Lapp of the band, Niillas. Making an argument drawn from the Gragas and the shared customs of the bulk of the Band (excepting, unfortunately for Niillas, the Sami), he persuaded the others to take a different tack. Why kill another of Loki's chosen sons when there was a precedent that could be readily adapted to the situation? Sigmund, Dorste's killer, would instead pay Niillas compensation for the death of his blood-brother. Gold would not suffice, nor cattle, but there was one medium of currency still acceptable: Thralls. This first settlement was of a low cost, in the blood-poor camp of the band, consisting as it did of but a single thrall. But this thrall became Niillas's alone to drink from; an outcome endorsed by Sigrun. Loki's will was that the Rotgrafen spread and grow strong in preparation for Ragnarok, and the preservation of a brother was a desirable thing to this end.

Blood slowly began to run fearfully low. Thralls died of disease and weakness from repeated feedings, and the creation of ghouled outlaws to keep watch in the day further depleted the supply of vitae. In his second month among the band of Rotgrafen, Sigrun revealed the source of their thralls. Rather than taking them by ambushing travellers and raiding defenseless towns, as Kveldulf had assumed, she took them in a more daring manner. Where Sanctified princes held dominion, the Rotgrafen would strike in the night. The preferred herds of Sanctified were in turn their preferred targets on these brutal raids. The first raid of Kveldulf's career as Rotgrafen was on Tønsberg. Under the cover of mist and cloud, their longship drifted in on the tide.

While it did, those of the Rotgrafen without Sigrun's ability to blend with the mist crept along the shore towards the town, eyes glowing red in the dark, axes and swords in hand. At the sound of screaming from the docks as the living mist drifted out from the ship and onto the curious watchers, they burst from the shadows and stormed the town. Cutting a bloody swathe towards the Jarl's hall, Kveldulf made a fatal error. He allowed his face to be seen clearly, without care or concern for for who saw it, and the ghouled retainers of the Sanctified lord took note. New faces among the Rotgrafen were always news to be shared. The raid itself, as all before, was a success. Slaves were carried back to the boat and rowed away in ropes as food, the childe of the Jarl lay dead and slowly rotting, and another blow had been struck against the servants of the White Christ.

Unbeknownst to Kveldulf, the Jarl took notice of him. He had known a man of his description in life, an Icelandic jurist with whom he had raided. This Sanctified, the Ventrue Floki Magnusson, reached out to Þorgeir with the next trade ship departing for Iceland. Weeks later, an envoy found the Rotgrafen, human, sent by Floki Magnusson. He carried with him a sack, which he silently emptied out before them. The head of Steinolf Yngvarsson, Kveldulf's mortal brother, tumbled out with his blood-stained seax, the instrument of his execution.

Gutting the envoy then and there, Kveldulf roared and demanded vengeance of his new brothers. The remnants of Thorolf would have demanded blood for such a crime, and the increasingly dominant beast, Kveldulf, was more than happy to pretend it really cared about Steinolf rather than just hungering for more bloodshed, more control, more anger. Only at the urging of Sigrun did he calm, and agree to wait. Revenge could be had when the band was stronger, when it could do more than rely on surprise and fear in its raids on the Sanctified. That night, they set out for the open sea once again, to safety. Few of the Sanctified Princes and Jarls would risk the open sea for long in their pursuit.

Weeks at sea took a heavy toll on their thralls. Between the limited diet, the weakness from the constant feedings, and the casual brutality of some of the band's older members, two-thirds of their herd died within the first month. Fortunately, however, the spring traders were sailing throughout the Baltic, and offered ready food when they could be caught. By the end of the season, not only had the band fed surprisingly well, they no longer numbered a single ship. One of the trade ships they'd taken had been a longship of such exquisite lines and seakeeping that the Vikings among the band could not bear to burn it, as they had with the other ships they captured. The band split in half, one lead by Sigrun herself, the other by her eldest childe, Kalfi Jotunbani. Both sailed to the southern shores of the Baltic to avoid the summer, but parted ways to improve their hunting chances in the sparsely populated areas.

Sigrun's ship sailed to Scalovia, and the usual cycle of raid-camp-raid resumed. During the raiding, the local 'Prince' - in reality little more than a half-feral Ventrue offcast exiled from the Novgorod Rus, ruling through sheer terror - reacted at first with furious anger to the intrusion; then with curiosity, and finally, with friendship. Olaf the Scalovian, while no believer in Loki (adhering instead to the heathenism of the Eastern Baltic), saw the value in allies who actively took the fight to the Sanctified who threatened Pagan power-bases across Europe. Gifts of blood were made freely to the new arrivals as they camped, and by the next Autumn, the band had grown fat from them, swelling with ghouls and thralls.

With the nights lengthening again, they set sail North oncemore, reuniting with Kalfi's band to resume their raiding of Sanctified territories. First came the lightly defended small-holdings of petty vampires, regardless of their Covenant or belief. Certain domains were spared out of blood kinship by one member of the band or other, but these preparatory raids were little more than ritualized practice for the techniques used on their real targets. Only when the Polar Night returned in the farthest north did their real raids begin against the Sanctified lords of Norway and Sweden; even in the southern extents where day still came, the long hours of the night were vital for the mobility, fluidity and savagery that characterized the Rotgrafen raids.

This came to be the rhythm for over a decade. North in the Winter to raid and terrorize, to sea in the Spring to raid merchants, Scalovia and Lithuanian safe-havens in the Summer, and indiscriminate terror-raids in the Autumn. The bands grew, slowly and steadily, with new Embraces and with outlawed pagans from Sanctified domains joining the cause. From two there were soon three, and then four. Through the combination of circumstance and her raw charisma, Sigrun was perfectly placed to build an army out of the displaced Norse vampires exiled from Christianized lands by increasingly powerful, but young-blooded, Sanctified. Old vikings who had raided the Baltic centuries earlier came into the fold, some full-fledged vampires, some but ghouls. The bloodline spread more slowly, but the childer of Sigrun took on new roles among the Rotgrafen 'affiliates'. Kalfi enforced order with an iron fist; Kveldulf with legal customs. Disputes between bands were settled legally, be it by holmgang or by the exchange of blood-thralls in what came to be known, informally, as the 'wereblot'.

Their growing numbers did not escape notice, and the Sanctified lords and Princes grew increasingly paranoid and concerned, fearful that their domain would be next. They began to look south, to the established and old Sanctified for help, and even to the Invictus among them for further aid; their stories of ghost-ships filled with mist drifting into dock and slaughtering entire retinues were dismissed as alarmism and exaggeration of nothing more than the long-established practice among the Scandinavian undead of going a-viking, even with the majority of the attacks striking only at Sanctified land. Just stubborn pagan remnants taking out their frustations, but certainly not a threat.

In the winter of 1055, as the Viking Age began to draw to a close for the rest of Europe, it instead began to near its zenith for the Scandinavian undead. During those long nights, it was decided that the Rotgrafen would no longer operate in partial secret, hiding under the cover of mist and shadow, but would instead make an open statement. Their target was Tønsberg again, steered by Kveldulf. They would seize the town, kill the Prince, and send his ghouls to spread the word: Sigrun Ericsdottir would rid Scandinavia of the Lancea et Sanctum, purging them from it with blood and fire, and reclaim the North for the Norse (and also the Lapps, Niilas insisted.)

All four ships converged on one town. They did not rely on the mist trickery of their first visit, nor on sneaking through the woods while the ships drew attention. With nearly a score of experienced vampires at her back and more than that number of ghouls, Sigrun saw no need. The message would be better served if they simply sailed in, ships lit with lanterns, and overwhelmed the Prince's followers and retainers with raw violence. Kveldulf was granted the right to lead the charge into the Prince's hall in recognition of his rightful claim to vengeance, and on landing, leapt first from the ships flanked by the two fiercest fighters of the Band. Almost immediately, the beast began to scream and snarl at him, the burning for vengeance intensified, filling him utterly, demanding blood. The Prince's blood, flowing down his face in a crimson tide, splattered on the walls, staining his beard, pouring down his throat. It was more than happy to pretend it only wanted this for revenge; to use Thorolf's honour and kin as its cover once again.

Not for the first time, frenzy overtook Kveldulf as he hacked down a mortal retainer. But, for the first time, he did not diminish to a feral beast. The red tide rose up over his vision, eyes burning red, but the remnants of the man Thorolf harnessed the increasingly dominant beast Kveldulf, set him to the purpose of vengeance against Floki Magnusson rather than allowing him to simply kill, to indiscriminately butcher as it had so often desired. Between the wave of Rotgrafen seething forward and the berserk strength filling many of them, the Kindred of Tønsberg fell back farther and farther, screaming out their final words as hungry fangs fastened on throats and essences were devoured. The wise stayed hidden, the secret sympathizers disappearing in the night to avoid their own deaths fighting for a cause they never truly believed in.

With terrible quickness, the band reached the Prince's hall. Kveldulf burst through the doors, roaring his fury, to find only an empty hall, the ashes gone cold. Floki Magnusson, forewarned by his watchmen, had fled before their ships had even put into shore. He had left most of his retainers, even his childer, to cover his escape and offer some token of resistance. Then and there, Thorolf lost what little grip left over Kveldulf and the beast turned on his companions, howling and laying about him with his axe. Kalfi, who had accompanied him from the first leap over the side, feinted and drew back, trying to reason with his blood brother, but saw no other choice. Kveldulf's frenzy refused to abate: the beast had been promised blood, and it would take it from someone, anyone. Kalfi's experience as a warrior beat Kveldulf back as soon as he stopped trying to reason with him, and only his regard for the wise law-man who had prevented so many feuds among the Rotgrafen kept him from ending his blood-brother. Instead, he seized a spear and plunged it through Kveldulf's heart, driving him into his first torpor.

Loomer fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Sep 28, 2014

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer

Arashiofordo3 posted:

I'm kinda struggling to know where to start with making a character. You want us to not pick bloodlines as starting characters, but are we free to plan towards joining any of them? Are the only clans the ones in the core book? Do we need a character sheet already or just a character concept?

As we're almost a month away from starting. a concept is fine enough. If you have a bloodline in mind, sure, start building towards that, but the five basic clans cover the majority of concepts well enough. If you do put a sheet together, you get 15 bonus XP and a free dot in sailing (replaces drive) and crafts.

While this sheet isn't set up for blood and smoke, it's easy enough to use and makes auditing sheets pretty simple for me: http://sheetgen.dalines.net/wiki/WikiStart

You have to make an account first, but that takes all of 2 minutes.

EDIT: If you want to start at humanity 6, take another 3 XP, no lower though!

Robodog
Oct 22, 2004

...how does that work?
Hi Soon!

You make fun games :)

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer
Hay robo! Now that I've learned not to overplan, they can even come to a natural conclusion!

Arashiofordo3
Nov 5, 2010

Warning, Internet
may prove lethal.
Right, I'm thinking of an ex-british navy sailor who got stranded on an island after pirates attacked his ship, and on the island is a navive tribe worshipping an exiled Elder Amara Havana bloodline Daeva as a god. Gets turned after begging for his life by worshiping her and from there is sent out to lure back new mortals to join the ever growing cult. Hasn't developed the unique Discipline the Amara Havana are known for yet, but it's only a matter of time.

I'm still trying to work out the details. But at least its a basic concept. Ex-Navy sailor, turned by horrible monster worshiped as a god by fearful tribesmen. Possibly throw in a map and a curse somewhere along the way and oh look its a plot for a new pirates film.

Robodog
Oct 22, 2004

...how does that work?

Soonmot posted:

Hay robo! Now that I've learned not to overplan, they can even come to a natural conclusion!

Taking a month to write up the game doesn't count as overplanning!?!

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer

Robodog posted:

Taking a month to write up the game doesn't count as overplanning!?!

Nope! Planning what's going to happen once the PCs get their own pirate ships and progress into the modern day as elders and blah blah blah is what I'd usually do, forgetting to actually make stuff for them to do at the start.

Arash: sounds good, but does it need to be a bloodline instead of just a deava?

Robodog
Oct 22, 2004

...how does that work?
Oh! That's probably time well spent, keeping the thread alive long enough to get to the fun later game stuff is always the tricky bit!

Deep State of Mind
Jul 30, 2006

"It was a busy day. I do not remember it all. In the morning, I thought I had lost my wallet. Then we went swimming and either overthrew a government or started a pro-American radio station. I can't really remember."
Fun Shoe
I disagree. It's very important to have a plan for what happens when the game reaches 10,000 posts somewhere in its sixth year. A lot of games get bogged down there if the rookie GM doesn't plan ahead.

Is Blood and Smoke like a whole new edition of VtR to the degree that using the book I bought in 2008 would be wrong?

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell

Bloodnose posted:

I disagree. It's very important to have a plan for what happens when the game reaches 10,000 posts somewhere in its sixth year. A lot of games get bogged down there if the rookie GM doesn't plan ahead.

Is Blood and Smoke like a whole new edition of VtR to the degree that using the book I bought in 2008 would be wrong?

Somewhat, yeah. You might get away with it if someone'll talk you through the big differences.

Soonmot
Dec 19, 2002

Entrapta fucking loves robots




Grimey Drawer
Everything onyx path has put out for world of darkness has been phenomenal.

Robodog
Oct 22, 2004

...how does that work?

Bloodnose posted:

I disagree. It's very important to have a plan for what happens when the game reaches 10,000 posts somewhere in its sixth year. A lot of games get bogged down there if the rookie GM doesn't plan ahead.

Is Blood and Smoke like a whole new edition of VtR to the degree that using the book I bought in 2008 would be wrong?

Hey man, the Sixth Year Slump is nothing to joke about.

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Arashiofordo3
Nov 5, 2010

Warning, Internet
may prove lethal.

Soonmot posted:

Arash: sounds good, but does it need to be a bloodline instead of just a deava?

Nah, that's just so you guys know what I would be building towards. Character is going to start out as a Deava and then over time grow into the bloodline. When I build it, it's going to be based more around 'met scary monster on remote island, now am scary monster, shouldn't have gone looking for the cursed treasure' that 'I am one of these things, but not yet, lol'

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