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chiasaur11
Oct 22, 2012



Quick question about Hunter I might have missed. Is there any rule against putting dots in multiple conspiracies and compacts?

Just was wondering if someone being, say, a Task Force Valkyrie operative undercover in the Union, or a Lucifuge who sends video of their hunts to Network Zero would make sense within the rules.

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Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Strictly speaking, no. Practically speaking, you're gonna have some trouble getting into multiple conspiracies without pissing your GM off. But it's not exactly hard to infiltrate the Union or the Lucifuge as a conspiracy person. That'd be totally fine.

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.

chiasaur11 posted:

Quick question about Hunter I might have missed. Is there any rule against putting dots in multiple conspiracies and compacts?

Just was wondering if someone being, say, a Task Force Valkyrie operative undercover in the Union, or a Lucifuge who sends video of their hunts to Network Zero would make sense within the rules.

IIRC, you can only have 3 dots split between two or more organizations, due to the higher ups not trusting you completely. Or that might be in Requiem.

GimpInBlack
Sep 27, 2012

That's right, kids, take lots of drugs, leave the universe behind, and pilot Enlightenment Voltron out into the cosmos to meet Alien Jesus.

Mors Rattus posted:

Strictly speaking, no. Practically speaking, you're gonna have some trouble getting into multiple conspiracies without pissing your GM off. But it's not exactly hard to infiltrate the Union or the Lucifuge as a conspiracy person. That'd be totally fine.

There are a couple of limits as laid out in a sidebar on p. 73: Subsequent Compact/Conspiracy Merits after your "real" one are capped at two dots, and buying those dots cost (new dots x 4) XP. Endowment costs rise to (new dots x 6) for your second and on Conspiracy. Those rules seem more geared toward, like, "neighborhood priest who's in the Union but also knows secret Vatican prayer magic" than undercover agents, though.

Surprised you didn't mention one of the biggest editing gaffes in the book: the Bleeder, which causes Willpower loss, can't be made to cause Willpower loss. Oops.

Communist Zombie
Nov 1, 2011

Mors Rattus posted:

Strictly speaking, no. Practically speaking, you're gonna have some trouble getting into multiple conspiracies without pissing your GM off. But it's not exactly hard to infiltrate the Union or the Lucifuge as a conspiracy person. That'd be totally fine.

Actually Id more say that the low level ones could probably mix easily, the ones that get supernatural powers would be the ones thatd piss a gm off-except for the priests since they could just straight up say piety/faith and catholic rituals.


pkfan2004 posted:

the creators are currently working on making Leviathan God Machine Chronicles-compatible. Good luck with that, I mean it, maybe it'll make some of this game a lot...less clunky to deal with.

Ive peeked into the new Leviathan thread and they're also changing the theme of the game a bit. It will still have puberty themes, but will be more about old age. Like your old and past your prime but you have your kids (cults), who then get in trouble and come to you to fix it (which you cant always).

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

GimpInBlack posted:

There are a couple of limits as laid out in a sidebar on p. 73: Subsequent Compact/Conspiracy Merits after your "real" one are capped at two dots, and buying those dots cost (new dots x 4) XP. Endowment costs rise to (new dots x 6) for your second and on Conspiracy. Those rules seem more geared toward, like, "neighborhood priest who's in the Union but also knows secret Vatican prayer magic" than undercover agents, though.

Surprised you didn't mention one of the biggest editing gaffes in the book: the Bleeder, which causes Willpower loss, can't be made to cause Willpower loss. Oops.

Gonna be honest: I totally missed the gaffe, having focused more on the fluff. (Likewise, I didn't spot the sidebar in my quick scan back over that part of the book.)

Hunter: The Vigil

Now, it's obvious that players are going to want powers that don't always fit the limited selection their conspiracy offers - and unlike the other lines, they can get 'em. Hunter has an equation to let you determine the costs of a new Endowment merit. Features add positive cost, frailties add negative. You can get stuff like armor, damage, boosted stats or skills, meta-features like duration or lower cost, the ability to drive people mad or reroll dice, and so on. Frailties can be things like addictive feelings when used, pain, bad luck, limited potential targets or more. In-game, each faction has its own way of handling R&D, which requires rolls. I'm not so fond of this part - if you're gonna design new powers and spend XP on them, making you roll doesn't really seem to add much beyond annoyance. Some of the fluff is neat, though.

VALKYRIE has a few ways to get new gear. TAKOMA, aka the Takoma Park Asset Contracting Facility, aka T-PAC, is the organization that supervises VALYKRIE's weapons contractors. It started in '73 and those contractors are mostly ex-VALKYRIE operates handed startup funds and rigged contracts. TAKOMA itself actually has no weapons inside - nothing functional. It gets shipped directly from supplies to cell drop sites. That way, the worst anyone can steal is financial data and drop locations. On other hand, that means even if you know TAKOMA's location, you're still gonna wait for your drat package. Worse, they don't really have much in the way of the biggest guns. If you want to kitbash your own toys and have the knowhow, there's Forseti Manufacturing. It's a legit business, honestly, but VALKYRIE doesn't much like it, since it was founded by ex-TWILIGHT personnel who actively recruited from the Union. They've built a plant that makes totally legal stuff and is zoned properly, and they also redistribute electronic components. That's the problem - they service VALKYRIE personnel on DIY projects. It's good business, and a lot of agents do appreciate it, since they're faster than TAKOMA, as long as you can pay for the goods and know what you're doing to put it together. Your last option is the Black Book - a rumor. Some say it's a computer database. It has all the cases deemed too dangerous for normal VALKYRIE teams. That can mean a lot of things, but generally it means things that dismember, kill or drive mad anyone nearby. Haunted oil platforms with no returning agents, ghost trains on which all agents have gotten amnesia and a whole lot of new phobias, and more. The Black Book is saved for those who are the worst offenders in the agency - the criminals taken because no one will miss them, the insane, the guys facing court martial if they don't volunteer. But if you succeed and make it back alive, you can write your own check for R&D.

Benedictions work differently - the power is not from the Malleus' hands or their rituals. It is not the bell, book or candle. They are the trappings, not the power. The power is God's. Other organizations think they have miracles on demand - they're wrong. God gives His miracles because the Malleus do His work and because of the intercession of the saints. Still, the Malleus' rites incorporate stuff like Coptic traditions. They claim they don't rely on magic, tradition or even faith in the modern sense, but they document their history, and always make sure to train the proper forms. They have some skepticism about the modern Church and a lot of cynicism, so they don't really trust the idea of spontaneous miracles. Cell members who manifest new miracles frequently are to be investigated, perhaps even brought to ecclesiastical trial. Still, new miracles do get discovered. Sometimes, if you have a deep sympathy with a saint - not easily gathered, requiring pilgrimages and trials - you can get a little help figuring out a new ritual based on that saint. Mortification of the flesh is also helpful in discovering miracles, for some reason. However, the Malleus denounces these practices. They fight monsters that are physically superior to them and which can smell blood, after all. Still, it's not banned outright. Then, of course, there's the bitter argument over cryptotheology, raging since the 1700s. Apparent codes in the Bible, apocrypha and theological texts have yielded new rituals. The primary theory at the Offices of Cryptotheology in Boston and Philadelphia is that it's cryptorevelation - God's ongoing revelation of messages meant only for those who can decode them. The American northeast is the hart of the debate, and while the research involved is difficult, it can yield benefits. Doing good works doesn't improve your odds of getting a new miracle, but can reduce XP costs.

Castigation, now, Castigation is all about discovering the power in your own body. Everything about you traces back, eventually, to a demon. Learning new Castigation rites means tapping into dark powers, and often resemvles devil worship, though it really isn't. Sometimes, guided meditation can allow the Lucifuge to tap into their unnatural DNA, unlocking memories of dark and terrible visions - the War in Heaven, perhaps. Doing this often helps discover the lost secrets of the Devil. Of course, demonology is perhaps a safer method. The Lucifuge refer to their documents as the apocrypha, and they chase down every scrap they can, from all over the world. It allows them to understand both themselves and their foes. However, proper research means proper materials - the Devil's Library, generally rare, single-print books that cannot be reproduced by any means and which contain strange wisdom on God and the Devil. These books are very hard to find, but very valuable - they make new Castigation rites easier, but also cheaper. And, well, there's the other way. The Lucifuge has a big rule: no deals with demons. Compromises occasionally, but never make a bargain. Never serve them. It's not a good idea. But...well, it is effective. Demons can reveal much about you, and usually they don't ask too much - but what they ask is always loathsome.



Elixirs, of course, are produced via alchemy. Depending on who you ask, it's a mystical gift via Egyptian alchemy or the works of Hermes Tresmegistus, or it's divine wisdom passed to alchemists of early Islam by Allah. Developing a new Elixir means knowing a proper recipe, then testing it so that your body-crucible is able to convert it into something useful rather than poison. Recreating a discovered Exliri is rather easier. But a new one...well, that takes work. The Ascending Ones keep track of the Golden Tablets - a liast of every name of the world's alchemical masters, dead or alive. Anyone with sufficient status can read it, but lower than STatus 3 means you need to work at getting a peek. The AScending Ones aren't the alchemists, see - they're the end users. They need suppliers, whether that means finding journals of long-dead masters or making friends with a living one. Earning the favor of an alchemist, though, is always work, and often strange work. Ancient entities beyond the ken of man can help, too - djinn, demons, qashmallim. They can teach you, either willingly or by being taken apart and studied from the inside. (Some Ascending Ones even claim to have eaten these creatures for wisdom.) And, of course, there's the hard way: you can, in fact, become enlightened via hallucinogens and toxic reactions. Narcotic use to gain new elixirs is frowned on by some as untraditional and embraced by others. Sometimes, it works amazingly. But it does take its toll on your body.

Relics...well, you don't make new relics. Or, at least, the Aegis has no idea how to do it. What they do is find them, or awaken inert ones. You might do research to find out how in many ways - provoking or activating a relic takes time and experimentation. Artifact dealers sometimes do business with the Aegis - but you need good knowledge to spot the fakes. After all, even most genuine artifacts have no powers. But if someone can demonstrate a power, or point to historical demonstrations, that helps. The Antikythera Warhead's never been activated, and neither has the Hauser Clock, but historical natural disasters suggest their provenance is genuine. Dealers care, because provenance means they can charge much, much better - Relics aren't any good without a lot of information, and the Aegis will pay dearly to get that. And then, of course, there's going warehouse-diving. The Aegis has many warehouses, caches and caves, and no one is ever really sure if what's in them are true Relics. No one knows what they do. They're all suspected to have hidden power, sure, but no one's made 'em work yet. If you want a specific Relic, you might find it if you play your cards right and do your homework in researching it. This doesn't make getting a Relic easier, but if it succeeds, you're getting a lot of respect. And...well, there's adventuring. Go tomb-diving, fight monster Nazis, steal ancient tools from rich men. Spend time on it and hey, you might be able to seize a relic from the undeserving. Some say that these relics know you've done the work - and will only operate for those that'll put in the blood and sweat needed to obtain them.

Thaumatechnology implants given to Cheiron agents are either very experimental or are failures - the Group wants marketable medical tech for consumer healthcare. Sure, there's defense projects, but they're not nearly as lucrative as the open market. Farming werewolves to treat cancer is the big budget project, not giving operatives acid blood. The reason that Thaumatech happens is the synergy - acid-blooded dudes are better at catching werewolves. So, Hunters are testbeds for defense projects and also field agents. So far as anyone knows, Cheiron has never mass produced any of these implants, allowing operatives to get personal relationships with their surgeons to help find and make new implants. Official line is that Fcheiron does not use black market organs, limbs, blood or anything. IT's a lie, of course - they use clandestine funds and unofficial networks to purchase from hunters who buy and sell gross medical goods. These agents often have a bit of street thaumatech of their own - crappy stuff, but it keeps them loyal. Most agents don't know about the harvest markets, or if they do, don't trust it. But if you ask the right questions, grease the right palms, you can get into the market - and once you're in, you're in. No questions asked about why you want wraith-plasm or zombie bits. Just pay up front. And, of course, the Group will reward heavily any new creatures - something inspiring. The surgeons see themselves as artists, often. A tree made of human faces that weeps sap? That'd be great. A true fairy, a yeti? Bring 'em on in! You get a discount on your next implant! Or go the other way - use the scraps. Get creative. Use the bits no one's really good at working with. If you're willing, your bosses are happy to open R&D to someone who's willing to work on the cheap. The problem is, these things always come with a big cost to you - their flaws are why they aren't in real usage, after all. Your last hope is the Peleus Guild, taking its name from the hero once saved by Cheiron. The surgeons of the Peleus Guild are the best of the best - and they owe Cheiron their lives. Some were addicts, others crippled, but the company stepped in to save them, sometimes with top-grade thaumatech. All of them believe themselves to be permanently indebted to the corporation, and for a price, they'll help you develop whatever you want. They're unofficial and secret, and their number is small - no one knows quite how many, but even the most generous estimate is under two dozen. You need to know one personally as a mentor, is the real catch.

Beyond homebrewing Endowments, the book also provides adivce on homebrewing organizations, new compacts and conspiracies. How big is it, how old? Why do they work together? All orgs have a shared purpose - it's why they work. What's their origin? What do they focus on fighting and how? Where do they get their members from, and what sort of factions or philosophies do they hold? How do they feel about other groups, and how much of what they know is all wrong? What do you get out of belonging to them, and if they're a conspiracy, what powers do they grant?

Next time: Tactics.

Tulul
Oct 23, 2013

THAT SOUND WILL FOLLOW ME TO HELL.

Mors Rattus posted:

Strictly speaking, no. Practically speaking, you're gonna have some trouble getting into multiple conspiracies without pissing your GM off. But it's not exactly hard to infiltrate the Union or the Lucifuge as a conspiracy person. That'd be totally fine.

The Lucifuge, which requires you to be one of 666 random people by birth to join? :confused:

I imagine Network 0 is infiltrated by pretty much everyone, considering that the threshold of entry is somewhere around "has a Youtube account". Same probably goes for the Null Mysteriis, if anyone's aware that they're more than a bunch of cranks.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
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#1 Builder
2014-2018

Imagine I typed Network Zero because it's midnight and I got up at rear end o'clock this morning.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
It bears mentioning that the United Worlds of Warlock get a lot more detail in Dimension Book 9.

... Which was never actually written or printed. But it's still part of the series, so now that they're up to Dimension Book 14, there's this odd gap. Of course, it's certainly something that Rifts has trouble landing a writer that can deliver a book about space wizards.

Also, geez, another greater rune weapon. For those who have forgotten, it takes the soul of a major supernatural creature - like, an ancient dragon, godling, or angel at the very least, if not a god or demon lord - to be sacrificed to make one. Yet the books throw them around on major supernatural NPCs regularly, and there are even "standard models" like the Impaler or Sword of Atlantis, which show up all the time. I can't help but think Rifts' prehistory must have had a good number of ragnaroks to fuel their magical arms industry.

chiasaur11
Oct 22, 2012



GimpInBlack posted:

There are a couple of limits as laid out in a sidebar on p. 73: Subsequent Compact/Conspiracy Merits after your "real" one are capped at two dots, and buying those dots cost (new dots x 4) XP. Endowment costs rise to (new dots x 6) for your second and on Conspiracy. Those rules seem more geared toward, like, "neighborhood priest who's in the Union but also knows secret Vatican prayer magic" than undercover agents, though.


Good to know.

...Now I kind of want to run someone with one dot in every single compact, if only for the image of a Null Mysteriis academic and a member of the Long Night meeting and realizing that they're both complaining about the same xXxDRACULASkillERZ99xXx.

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

Communist Zombie posted:

Ive peeked into the new Leviathan thread and they're also changing the theme of the game a bit. It will still have puberty themes, but will be more about old age. Like your old and past your prime but you have your kids (cults), who then get in trouble and come to you to fix it (which you cant always).
Yeah, they also want to change the different splats so they're less species and more of an approach to godhood. Which I think is cool! I think that's honestly cool. But I will be focusing on the first iteration for now. Maybe I'll do a thing about the differences.

Also, Tactics. Tactics are one of the things I never fully understood about the nWoD in general and I've also noticed that a lot of fangames do absolutely nothing to include them into their projects because I don't think they like or understand those either.

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib
I remember Tactics causing a lot of consternation for people on RPGnet when Hunter first came out of the "why do I need to spend XP to do this thing I could already attempt to do?" variety.

Count Chocula
Dec 25, 2011

WE HAVE TO CONTROL OUR ENVIRONMENT
IF YOU SEE ME POSTING OUTSIDE OF THE AUSPOL THREAD PLEASE TELL ME THAT I'M MISSED AND TO START POSTING AGAIN

Cythereal posted:

And the funny thing is, they're relatively good guys set against the whole of the World of Darkness. Demons are lovely customers and entities from the Abyss do bad things to property values. I've always thought Cheiron could make a great antagonist for a vampire or werewolf campaign: you think you're king poo poo of the world? These humans don't give a crap about you, and see you only as raw resources. You think yourself a predator, but you have nothing on this human corporation (excising or ignoring the truth about the Board).

I could imagine running Chieron like Monsanto - lots of people think they're evil and run propaganda campaigns against them, but the medicine they make from monsters actually does help lots of people.
Task Force Valkyrie sounds kinda skeevy to me, but government agencies like that usually are in this kind of fiction. I can't see much joy out of playing government thugs, though I admit they're needed in WoD.

How much did Supernatural take from Hunter, or vice-versa? 'Cause on that show they're always talking about being capital-H Hunters like its a calling and a job, and in the later seasons you even see more Hunter style conspiracies and cults.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I really enjoy the concept that the supersoldier poo poo is all the board trying to wring some use out of failed treatments by making soldiers who can go toe to toe with monsters, in hopes of bringing in creatures to use for better projects.

It feels like a lot of the Hunter groups are the monsters' own fears personified. Task Force Valkyrie is the fear of someone who actually doesn't think you're a big deal, just an ordinary problem to solve. The Lucifuge are people who had supernatural powers and devil blood, but didn't turn into pieces of poo poo who prey on the weak, the fear that maybe the monsters are just kind of fuckups. Cheiron is the fear of someone doing to the monsters what they do to people. Malleus the fear that maybe all this religion crap they tell themselves has no power really does work on them after all, etc.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


Kai Tave posted:

I remember Tactics causing a lot of consternation for people on RPGnet when Hunter first came out of the "why do I need to spend XP to do this thing I could already attempt to do?" variety.

Tactics are part of the the confused nature of combat in the nWoD. The rest of the system is supposed to be pretty fluid about character actions and capabilities, but stuff like fighting styles and tactics drive it back towards more granular D&D style combat. I think they originally were conceived as a way to make Werewolf packs truly scary, but that book may have come out after Hunter.

Kavak fucked around with this message at 06:49 on May 29, 2015

Count Chocula
Dec 25, 2011

WE HAVE TO CONTROL OUR ENVIRONMENT
IF YOU SEE ME POSTING OUTSIDE OF THE AUSPOL THREAD PLEASE TELL ME THAT I'M MISSED AND TO START POSTING AGAIN
I love that this thread is writing up Unknown Armies again. I was thinking of doing it, but I loved that game so much it broke my brain for awhile. I played in a few UA campaigns, and I started seeing UA in everything. I wanted to write up my favorite songs as Unknown Armies adventures. It had so many concepts that mapped onto reality.
I did lead to one of my most uncomfortable role playing experiences, when our GM flashbacked us into the 9/11 style scenario from one of the sourcebooks without warning. I know it was written pre-9/11, but I didn't expect to encounter it.

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib

Night10194 posted:

It feels like a lot of the Hunter groups are the monsters' own fears personified. Task Force Valkyrie is the fear of someone who actually doesn't think you're a big deal, just an ordinary problem to solve. The Lucifuge are people who had supernatural powers and devil blood, but didn't turn into pieces of poo poo who prey on the weak, the fear that maybe the monsters are just kind of fuckups. Cheiron is the fear of someone doing to the monsters what they do to people. Malleus the fear that maybe all this religion crap they tell themselves has no power really does work on them after all, etc.

That's actually pretty clever.

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

LEVIATHAN: THE TEMPEST

Let's talk origin stories. The Tribe, as they call themselves, don't actually know the complete story of their origins. The blood of Leviathans has some measure of genetic memory, and it has a way for them to tap into the great unconsciousness of their race, but it's not reliable or coherent in the slightest. It's amateur archaeology performed by a group of beings desperate for answers, inferring information from the things they find and the stories they uncover. The story they do tell is rooted in ancient mythology and mirrors a lot of creation myths told from early civilizations, cribbing heavily from ancient Mesopotamian and Babylonian tales.

Once upon a time, there was no world. There was only the Primordial Waters, an endless sea with no borders. There was no sun, there was no moon, there was only water. And from the water came Tiamat, the Mother of All Things. She formed the sun and moon from her own body and placed them in the sky and used her scales to make the stars. She made islands and atolls, rocks and sand and clay and silt. She made fish and kelp, coral and clams. The greatest thing Tiamat ever made were her seven children, impregnating herself and birthing each of them. These seven children were the Progenitors, and Tiamat created mankind to serve them. The Progenitors were great seaborne creatures like their mother, and mankind was confined to the sparse lands at the mercy of their masters. Humans were used as prey and food and lovers, and from their union the Progenitors created lesser members of the Tribe. These mixed children ruled as kings and demigods, fought as conquerors and heroes and kept man in check, and sometimes even they had enough potential to become a Progenitor.

Thing is, you can probably guess how this is going to go.

Some men created new gods to replace Tiamat, carving idols they kept hidden. There was dissent borne from fear and hate of their masters. They were not content to serve perfect masters in a perfect world.

From dissent came Marduk.

The Tribe will probably never know if Marduk was one man, or a group of men, or a resistance movement. Some of them believe he could conjure lightning and wield it. Others believe that the lightning was symbolic, the embodiment of man's resourcefulness and inventiveness. What is known is that Marduk slew Tiamat.

And here's where everything breaks down.

The death of Tiamat was the beginning of the decline for the Tribe and in the panic and chaos, a lot was lost. Nobody knows why the oceans receded and made more land for men to live on. Nobody knows what happened to the seven Progenitors. Nobody knows what happens to a creation goddess when you kill her. Here's what they do know:
  • The Progenitors are gone. Nobody knows how or why.
  • Their children (the kings and demigods and heroes and monsters), as a whole, are gone. Nobody knows what happened to them or why. Some think they were hunted down and killed for blurring the lines between their hated masters and treasured siblings, others think the most human were the ones who survived whatever purges mankind created. Others still think their most devout, most human servants turned against themselves to protect some of their kind.
  • All of mankind is related, somehow, and sometimes the line between man and the Tribe blur. This is how the majority of new Leviathans are born. The fertility and birth rate of Leviathans between each other is very, very low and unreliable, but the blood is tenacious. Even if every single living member of the Tribe was to die, there's always a chance of one being born from a roll of genetic dice.
  • The blood of Leviathans carries access to a great ocean of memory, and it is a literal ocean. It was once easily accessible by any member of the Tribe and they could learn and experience anything their kind has known. The death-throes of Tiamat created a storm, a terrible, wicked storm full of lightning and thunder, and that storm is the Tempest. It churns the waters and destroys or loses memories and things and it has thrown their collective memory into permanent chaos and disarray.
  • Lightning hurts. It really, really hurts. Hell, electricity in general hurts.
  • Mankind is the undisputed master of the world and what the Tribe exists as today could never hope to challenge that.
  • Marduk is still around, in a way, and is still protecting mankind.
And nobody is sure just how true most of the story they tell themselves is.

Next time: the Schools of the Tribe (or Fish God Philosophy 101)

Hostile V fucked around with this message at 07:54 on May 29, 2015

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.

Count Chocula posted:

I could imagine running Chieron like Monsanto - lots of people think they're evil and run propaganda campaigns against them, but the medicine they make from monsters actually does help lots of people.

That's kind of a weird comparison, considering how terrible Monsanto is. I mean, they're not anywhere near the top of the worst list, but Agent Orange and screwing farmers out of their crops is kind of hosed up.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Are the mechanics in New World of Darkness any better than the old storyteller system? Because I've been telling my group some of the stuff from the Hunter review and they're pretty excited about this fluff (as am I), and I need to know if I'm going to need to get to work on a unisystem hack or if I can get away with just buying the Hunter books.

This will be the second setting Mors' reviews have sold me on, the first being Feng Shui.

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!


Unknown Armies, part 2: Character Creation



So, you and your group have worked out why you're together and generally what you're trying to accomplish...so next you've got to make your individual character. At the Street Level there's no real magic or powers to speak of (that's saved for at least Global games) so your character is more or less going to be an ordinary person. They might have exceptional training, minor unusual talents or be just plain crazy but you won't be able to go up to James Randi, blow his tiny little mind and collect 1 million dollars.

The first step is to pick your Trigger Event, what happened that convinced you the world was not as it seems and ultimately drove you to poke and prod the dark corners of reality. The Trigger Even has no mechanical effect, it's merely part of your character's individual origin story and might be used by the GM as a tie-in to larger plots. What does have a mechanical effect is your Obsession, which may or may not be related. Your Obsession is whatever really defines your existence and which you focus on to an unhealthy degree (even the most stable UA characters are a little unhinged). Obsessions could be things like being a kleptomaniac, understanding what makes people tick, accumulating knowledge, music, physical improvement, sex, religious dedication, etc. This is tied to an Obsession Skill which will be defined a bit later on.

quote:

The penis of John Dillinger in the Smithsonian’s secret vault is a fake. The genuine article has dark magickal properties and has been grafted onto a chimpanzee which can be controlled via ULF radio waves by the fiendish Brazos brothers, two gifted technological adepts, in the service of darker powers.

Closely related to your obsession is your Passions. Your Obsession is the thing that fills your days and that you think about all the time. Your Passions are things that you don't necessarily fixate on but serve as "buttons" right to your gut. When your Passions are triggered logical thought and reason goes right out of the window. When you're in a situation where one of your Passions is involved you can choose to trigger it and get a bonus for a single roll (either reversing the numbers on the d100 or re-rolling). You can only do this once per session per Passion. There are three:

*Fear This is something that just makes you scared. It could be a phobia, a scar from some past trauma or even just a concept that makes you particularly jittery for no good reason. Either way when you're exposed to your Fear passion you get a bonus to all attempts to get away from it: breaking down doors, running fast, climbing over stuff, etc. However, you also have to make a madness Stress Check (described later)

*Rage Like fear, this is something that just sets you off. But it's your "fight" button instead of flight. You might have a special, seething hatred of those who hurt women or children, people looking down on you, politicians and even seemingly mundane things like being impolite or a bad driver (see Lost Highway for a great example of the latter). When your Rage is triggered you can call upon a bonus to lash out violently. It has to be violent retribution (even if it's not directly aimed at the source of the passion). No careful plans or schemes, just flipping out.

*Noble This is the thing that speaks to your conscience. No matter how hosed up you are you've got something other than sleaze and poo poo in your veins and that's what this is. It might be respect for the elderly...it might even be respect just for your gram-gram. It could be helping people in the third world or preserving history for future generations. You can trigger it to do something immediate and selfless to help pursue your Noble Passion.

quote:

The interstate highway system was actually laid out as a giant magickal glyph to enable the summoning of a demonic legion in case of a Soviet attack.

After your Passions and Obsessions you need to come up with a short description for the rest of your Personality. You're encouraged to draw upon simple personality summaries such as role models (like "renegade cop"), zodiac signs, pop culture icons, etc. This is just a shorthand for the GM and other players when interacting with your character.

Next we get into the nuts and bolts: your Stats and Skills. There are 4 Stats which are rated on a percentile scale:

*Body Health, strength and vigor. This determines how much damage you can take as well.
*Speed Agility, coordination and literal speed.
*Mind Your raw intellect and willpower. It's closely tied with the sanity mechanic.
*Soul Your emotions, social skills and charisma. If you've got magical abilities they're linked to your Soul stat.

You have a certain number of points which can be poured into your Stats, which varies depending on the game level. Street level characters get 220 points, Global get 240 and Cosmic get 260. These points can be spent, 1-for-1 on stat points. So a Street character who wanted to be solidly average could drop 55 points into each Stat. 30-70 is the typical range for adult humans.

After that you must assign your Skills. Each Stat gives you a number of points equal to your Stat rating to assign to Skills related to the Stat. Each skill has a maximum rating depending on the game level (55% for Street Level) and can never be raised higher than the related Stat. Each character also gets a small section of bonus points (again based on game level) to distribute among skills of any stat (for Street that's 15 bonus points).

There's a small selection of "free" skills that everyone gets at 15% (or their Stat, whichever is lower...but you really don't want a Stat that low). These represent the absolute basics of human ability:

*Body General Athletics (climbing stuff, lifting things, etc); Struggle (fighting hand to hand)
*Speed Dodge, Drive, Initiative (used to determine initiative order).
*Mind General Education (stuff anyone might know), Notice, Conceal (hiding stuff or people where they won't be found)
*Soul Charm, Lying.

These skills can be renamed at the player's option, for instance you might call your Struggle skill Boxing or Muy Thai, or refer to your Charm skill as Silver Tongue that sort of thing.

However, most skills are player determined. Pick a name or concept for a skill and assign a value for it. Want to have a Body Skill like "Too Sexy For My Shirt" or a Speed Skill like "Can't Follow My Hands" that's totally fine. Each skill has a Penumbra which determines the "umbrella" your skill applies to. Generally speaking, having a skill not only covers practical uses of the skill but related knowledge. For instance a skill like "Dolling Myself Up" would not only cover the skill of applying cosmetics and makeup but could also be used to recognize a shade of makeup, a certain perfume scents and knowledge of different brands and fashions related to cosmetics. Those of you who read my PDQ Fatal And Friends review might think these concepts sound familiar and it should come as no surprise because Chad Underkoffler (the creator of PDQ) is one of the writers behind Unknown Armies.

One of your Skills must be an Obsession Skill which is tied to your character's obsession. So a character obsessed with "Being The Toughest Mother Fucker" might make their Struggle skill their Obsession. You get a bonus whenever you use your obsession skill.

There are several example skills, including a few that play around with the rules slightly like Do Two Things At Once which lets you take a second action whenever you succeed at a Speed Skill with a roll lower than your Do Two Things At Once Skill...but the second roll fails if it's higher than your Do Two Things At Once Skill. Or Double-think a Mind skill which lets you briefly convince yourself that something you know to be a lie is actually true, meaning you don't actually need to make a Lying roll to convince someone of it at the cost of a mental Stress check.

There are also Paradigm skills which are a special type of Mind skill which refer to deeply held personal truths or philosophies which protect you from some forms of mental Stress while making you more vulnerable to others. For instance, the Military Paradigm skill helps to protect against Violence based Stress and makes you more vulnerable to Isolation based Stress. Other paradigms are things like religious beliefs, superstitions and scientific thought (which both protects against and makes you more vulnerable to Unnatural stress).

There are a small selection of extremely minor supernatural skills in the examples such as Aura Sight or the Hunch skill (both linked to Soul).

quote:

Germ Theory is a lie. Sickness is caused by invisible rays nobody can explain but are expected to be of alien origin.

Now, you've got skills, how are they used? Well, there are three types of skill checks: Minor, Significant and Major.

*Minor skill checks involve minimal risk, no time crunch and no significant consequences for failure. You automatically succeed if your skill is 15% or higher (a skill below 15% means the roll is at least Significant).
*Significant skill checks involve pressure but not life-or-death pressure. Generally cases where nothing is immediately trying to kill you...but you also probably aren't getting a second shot at what you're doing. This would be things like tailing someone, most forms of social interaction, hacking a computer, etc. You succeed if you roll lower than your Skill, but even if you roll higher you get a "weak success" so long as the roll was lower than your linked Stat.
*Major skill checks involve life or death situations. This includes all checks made in combat. You only succeed if you roll below your skill rating.

It gets a little fancier than that however, because there are circumstances which allow you to fiddle with the roll result. The first is flip-flopping, which allows you to swap the numerals in your d% roll. So, for instance if you flip-flop a roll of 81 you can turn it into an 18 (turning it from an almost certain failure to an almost certain success). You can flip flop any roll on your Obsession Skill or by triggering one of your Passions (magical effects might also allow, or force, flip-flopping). The second mechanic is simply re-rolling (which you can do through magic or triggering a Passion). In most cases you simply reroll the dice and must take the newest result (better or worse) but some situations might let you re-roll only one of the two dice.

If you manage to get a matched roll then the result is exceptional, either exceptional success or failure. For one thing you automatically add 1% to your skill rating (success or failure) the first time this happens in a session. In combat (or magic) there's a variety of special effects which may occur on a matched roll.

quote:

Aliens from Proxima Centauri have been living among us now for years, but in the last few months they’ve all started leaving.

Next we'll get into combat.

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


Night10194 posted:

Are the mechanics in New World of Darkness any better than the old storyteller system? Because I've been telling my group some of the stuff from the Hunter review and they're pretty excited about this fluff (as am I), and I need to know if I'm going to need to get to work on a unisystem hack or if I can get away with just buying the Hunter books.

This will be the second setting Mors' reviews have sold me on, the first being Feng Shui.

I would say they are significantly better, but still not great. The GMC update (basically nWoD 2e core errata with ideas applicable to lines that haven't gotten their own 2e yet) is a mixed bag in my opinion. It's still good enough that I'm willing to run or play either edition largely as-is.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Count Chocula posted:

Task Force Valkyrie sounds kinda skeevy to me, but government agencies like that usually are in this kind of fiction. I can't see much joy out of playing government thugs, though I admit they're needed in WoD.

My tabletop gaming group runs a Task Force Valkyrie game, but I've mentioned before that we run it as a light-hearted beer and pizza game. More X-COM than X-Files. Personally I love the Advanced Armory thematically versus any of the others: no magic, no mysticism, no fighting the supernatural with the supernatural, just an R&D department with a budget of "yes," a scientific understanding of how the monsters tick and how to use their own altered biology against them, and raw firepower.

hyphz
Aug 5, 2003

Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.
Unlockable Ben

Count Chocula posted:

I love that this thread is writing up Unknown Armies again. I was thinking of doing it, but I loved that game so much it broke my brain for awhile. I played in a few UA campaigns, and I started seeing UA in everything. I wanted to write up my favorite songs as Unknown Armies adventures. It had so many concepts that mapped onto reality.
I did lead to one of my most uncomfortable role playing experiences, when our GM flashbacked us into the 9/11 style scenario from one of the sourcebooks without warning. I know it was written pre-9/11, but I didn't expect to encounter it.

Ah, yes. Fly to Heaven from the One Shots sourcebook. That adventure has probably gotten more attention than many of the other, better UA adventures..

Count Chocula
Dec 25, 2011

WE HAVE TO CONTROL OUR ENVIRONMENT
IF YOU SEE ME POSTING OUTSIDE OF THE AUSPOL THREAD PLEASE TELL ME THAT I'M MISSED AND TO START POSTING AGAIN

Cythereal posted:

My tabletop gaming group runs a Task Force Valkyrie game, but I've mentioned before that we run it as a light-hearted beer and pizza game. More X-COM than X-Files. Personally I love the Advanced Armory thematically versus any of the others: no magic, no mysticism, no fighting the supernatural with the supernatural, just an R&D department with a budget of "yes," a scientific understanding of how the monsters tick and how to use their own altered biology against them, and raw firepower.

I loved oMage enough that I assumed the Advanced Armory was just like Technocracy 'technology'.
I don't know why, but since I've been sick your 'beer & pretzels' game is running through my head and I'm seeing SWAT style no-knock raids against dotty old witches and whacky Changelings. I'm sure that's not how you run it though.

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!


Count Chocula posted:

I love that this thread is writing up Unknown Armies again. I was thinking of doing it, but I loved that game so much it broke my brain for awhile. I played in a few UA campaigns, and I started seeing UA in everything. I wanted to write up my favorite songs as Unknown Armies adventures. It had so many concepts that mapped onto reality.
I did lead to one of my most uncomfortable role playing experiences, when our GM flashbacked us into the 9/11 style scenario from one of the sourcebooks without warning. I know it was written pre-9/11, but I didn't expect to encounter it.

Yeah, my experience the main reactions to Unknown armies are "this is all really neat and weird but I have no clue how to run/play it." or it snaps perfectly and you are through the looking glass and everything becomes inspiration for bizarre events and plots.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Count Chocula posted:

I don't know why, but since I've been sick your 'beer & pretzels' game is running through my head and I'm seeing SWAT style no-knock raids against dotty old witches and whacky Changelings. I'm sure that's not how you run it though.

We've had a couple of sessions like that, but I sold the first session as "The president has been kidnapped by vampires. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?"

One of the most fun moments was calling in the IRS to set up a new regional branch headquarters to serve as the lock on a True Fey's prison. They feed on empathy and creativity as I run it, so the IRS is serving as an unwitting seal and first line of defense.

Though it hasn't been without ugly parts. Like investigating werewolf-run human trafficking and sexual slavery of Wolf-Blooded people.

quote:

I loved oMage enough that I assumed the Advanced Armory was just like Technocracy 'technology'.

You're free to play it that way, but it's not my group's style. We're partial to "gently caress this supernatural nonsense, this is our world, and we don't need magic to rule it."

Gerund
Sep 12, 2007

He push a man


Cythereal posted:

One of the most fun moments was calling in the IRS to set up a new regional branch headquarters to serve as the lock on a True Fey's prison. They feed on empathy and creativity as I run it, so the IRS is serving as an unwitting seal and first line of defense.

This sounds like it was really cool and good for your game, and I like your take on True Fae. But I personally wouldn't have used the IRS, as tax returns are some of the greatest works of fiction in the American canon :v:

DigitalRaven
Oct 9, 2012




Kavak posted:

Tactics are part of the the confused nature of combat in the nWoD. The rest of the system is supposed to be pretty fluid about character actions and capabilities, but stuff like fighting styles and tactics drive it back towards more granular D&D style combat. I think they originally were conceived as a way to make Werewolf packs truly scary, but that book may have come out after Hunter.

Pack Tactics showed up in The Rage (which was a fair bit before Hunter), but they were more an inspiration for Hunter's Tactics than a direct antecedent.

Serf
May 5, 2011


Cythereal posted:

We've had a couple of sessions like that, but I sold the first session as "The president has been kidnapped by vampires. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?"

One of the most fun moments was calling in the IRS to set up a new regional branch headquarters to serve as the lock on a True Fey's prison. They feed on empathy and creativity as I run it, so the IRS is serving as an unwitting seal and first line of defense.

Your game sounds fantastic.

But this so much potential for later if you ever wanted to revisit it. The next great American novelist/painter/photographer is transferred to that IRS branch and is working on their masterpiece on the side in the office, giving the True Fey something to feed on, maybe even breaking free.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Cythereal posted:

We've had a couple of sessions like that, but I sold the first session as "The president has been kidnapped by vampires. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?"

One of the most fun moments was calling in the IRS to set up a new regional branch headquarters to serve as the lock on a True Fey's prison. They feed on empathy and creativity as I run it, so the IRS is serving as an unwitting seal and first line of defense.
This is fantastic.

quote:

Though it hasn't been without ugly parts. Like investigating werewolf-run human trafficking and sexual slavery of Wolf-Blooded people.

This is... less so, but definitely in line with first ed Forsaken.

GimpInBlack
Sep 27, 2012

That's right, kids, take lots of drugs, leave the universe behind, and pilot Enlightenment Voltron out into the cosmos to meet Alien Jesus.

Mors Rattus posted:

Gonna be honest: I totally missed the gaffe, having focused more on the fluff. (Likewise, I didn't spot the sidebar in my quick scan back over that part of the book.)

Fair enough. It just irks me because it's in my section. :)

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Kurieg posted:

This is... less so, but definitely in line with first ed Forsaken.

I have only a cursory familiarity with werewolf, but their treatment of the Wolf-Blooded is one of the things that jumped out at me as "Are you SURE these are the good guys?"

Sorry for all the derails about my game, I'll shut up about that now and get to work on another Genius update in a bit. The Clockstoppers aren't a terrible idea in theory, but in practice... who the gently caress thought most of their high-dot abilities were a good idea?

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Cythereal posted:

I have only a cursory familiarity with werewolf, but their treatment of the Wolf-Blooded is one of the things that jumped out at me as "Are you SURE these are the good guys?"

It's one of the things that sort of got pushed to the wayside now that ghost-children are no-longer a thing in 2nd ed forsaken. "The Wolf Shall Cleave To the Human" is now just "Hey, maintain your human relationships, within reason. Turning into a spirit crazed monster is just as bad as turning into a flesh crazed one." rather than "Only have sex with humans, Preferably wolf bloods, whichever ones are handy is fine."

hyphz
Aug 5, 2003

Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.
Unlockable Ben

oriongates posted:

Yeah, my experience the main reactions to Unknown armies are "this is all really neat and weird but I have no clue how to run/play it." or it snaps perfectly and you are through the looking glass and everything becomes inspiration for bizarre events and plots.

In my case it was a hybrid of both: I got lots of bizarre ideas and plots but no clue how to get PCs involved in them. I think some of the published adventures reflect that as well. The aformentioned Fly To Heaven, and also To Go, both have to make Ascension way too easy in order to justify basing the plot on it. Some others, like Bill In Three Persons end up fudging the PCs into critical situations in terrible ways (that adventure literally has them teleported into the middle of things at random), or even just being like the starting adventure of Weep in which the PCs can't actually do anything for the entire adventure.

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!


hyphz posted:

In my case it was a hybrid of both: I got lots of bizarre ideas and plots but no clue how to get PCs involved in them. I think some of the published adventures reflect that as well. The aformentioned Fly To Heaven, and also To Go, both have to make Ascension way too easy in order to justify basing the plot on it. Some others, like Bill In Three Persons end up fudging the PCs into critical situations in terrible ways (that adventure literally has them teleported into the middle of things at random), or even just being like the starting adventure of Weep in which the PCs can't actually do anything for the entire adventure.

Yeah, that's sort of where I am too. It gets harder at higher power levels too since everyone wants to play the neat adepts and avatars but the fact of the matter is that a lot of them do not play well together.

Like I mentioned I actually really like the concept behind Legacy so when I start a game like Unknown Armies with a new group (or really any urban fantasy game like Dresden Files) I use a variation on it, basically some magical kook has pissed off a lot of people and knows that he's about to be taken down...so he arranges to get the PCs (and maybe a few innocent bystanders) tagged with his mojo to throw off curses and tracking spells. It's a good way to throw "mundane" characters feet first into the setting and force them to bond together as they dodge cult assassins and hit squads while trying to figure out what the gently caress is going on.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.
Genius: The Transgression, Clockstoppers

Clockstoppers are functionally a gameline within a gameline, a breed of supernatural human with their own power stat and abilities that come in one to five dots variety. They are, essentially, anti-Inspired. The Inspired are filled with creative energy, an unstoppable vision of creativity and imagination. Clockstoppers, the Hollow Men, have only emptiness inside, a suffocating void that devours light and artifice. Most Clockstoppers are only a threat to the Inspired, but powerful ones tear down mortal technology as well. The greatest of the Hollow Men would plunge humanity into worse than the Stone Age, for even clubs and stone axes are nature repurposed to human design.

How human Clockstoppers are is debatable. Some seem to be perfectly ordinary humans for the most part, just ones with a grudge against [mad] science who have developed a preternatural gift for opposing it and its makers. Others seem to be some form of supernatural being in their own right, a dark, empty counterpart to the Illuminated.

The power of Clockstoppers is measured by their own power stat called Acedia, and it works like any other super's power stat. In addition to powering a Clockstopper's own abilities, called Voids, Acedia lets Clockstoppers detect Mania and all things of mad science like an Inspired can, and projects a field equal to ten feet for every dot of Acedia. There is no turning off the Acedia field short of the Clockstopper's death, no reducing its size, and within the Acedia it's impossible to transfer or gain Mania by any means.

Beings of mad science, be they Inspired, manes or anything else connected to Mania, are immediately and viscerally aware of what's happening when they enter an Acedia field. They may or may not know what an Acedia field is or who's projecting it if they're aware of Clockstoppers, but they can feel the void's razor kiss on their soul, cutting away and bleeding the Mania and Inspiration at their heart.

Brotherhood of Righteousness is the first Void, and it's the ability to call up an angry mob with torches and pitchforks. Unlike most Voids, Brotherhood of Righteousness doesn't grow in power with a Clockstopper's Acedia, a higher Acedia just makes it more likely to work and work better. On an exceptional success, the target of this Void has an angry mob hellbent on killing them.

Corrupt the Hated Enemy is another roll-based Void, and it lets a Clockstopper subvert a genius' own wonders, turning them feral and orphan or even converting them to the Clockstopper's side. A Clockstopper can potentially come well equipped with subverted wonders, a number equal to the Clockstopper's dots in Acedia + Corrupt the Hated Enemy. Clockstoppers do trigger Havoc checks like mortals when using wonders, though.

Hungry Emptiness amplifies the Clockstopper's internal void into a black hole that devours thought and reason, and it's the first of the passive abilities that gets horrifying even to mortals very quickly.

Genius posted:

Hungry Emptiness ●: Anyone or anything that possesses Mania loses one point of Mania per minute. Any use
of Mania costs one additional point of Mania. All Mental Skill checks suffer a -1 penalty.

Hungry Emptiness ●●: Anyone or anything that possesses Mania loses two points of Mania per minute. Any
use of Mania costs two additional points of Mania. All Mental Skill checks suffer a -2 penalty. Mathematical
equations become meaningless and incomprehensible.

Hungry Emptiness ●●●: Anyone or anything that possesses Mania loses three points of Mania per minute.
Any use of Mania costs three additional points of Mania. All Mental Skill checks suffer a -3 penalty. Art and
music become meaningless and incomprehensible.

Hungry Emptiness ●●●●: Anyone or anything that possesses Mania loses four points of Mania per minute.
Any use of Mania costs four additional points of Mania. All Mental Skill checks suffer a -4 penalty. Written
communication becomes impossible to understand or create.

Hungry Emptiness ●●●●●: Anyone or anything that possesses Mania loses five points of Mania per minute.
Any use of Mania costs five additional points of Mania. All Mental Skill checks suffer a -5 penalty. Verbal
communication becomes impossible.

Natural Body proofs a Clockstopper against unnatural attack. At first only wonders fail to harm the Clockstopper. Then guns and explosives stop working. Then any form of technology whatsoever down to stone axes that tries to influence, move, or impede the Clockstopper in any way breaks down. Might want to be calling in werewolves or something at this point, because even wooden clubs aren't going to leave a mark on a Clockstopper with five dots in this...

Purify the Wounded Earth turns the Clockstopper's Acedia into a technological dead zone, and like Natural Body its effects grow more severe with increasing dots. First technology made after 1990 or so fails, then 1950, then 1850, then the Dark Ages, then fire, stone axes, seeded crops, irrigation, and domesticated animals. Advanced materials retain their structural integrity, so skyscrapers won't collapse right away, but they become no more than tinfoil or simple wood against attack. And by spending Willpower, the Clockstopper can utterly destroy any item of mundane technology that's failed in their presence with a considerable (and lethal) blast radius.


Next time, miscellaneous bad guys and critters.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Hunter: The Vigil

We're into the Tactics section. The ST is instructed to hand out Practical Experience, a communal XP pool, whenever the party faces off in combat against a monster. There's a list of things the party might do that add to or remove Practical XP - for example, seeing new powers you didn't know about in use adds XP, getting people hurt or killed removes it. Practical Experience can be spent to regain Willpower, increase Skills or Merits (but not Attributes) or to purchase Tactics for a team. The party must agree on all expenditures. So, what are Tactics? Tactics are basically when the party develops a technique practiced until they can do it by muscle memory, allowing them to get more benefits than they would if they just tried to do it out of the blue. They take practice and discipline to use properly, and they're not magical - they're just strategies where everyone relies on each other to do their jobs properly. Each Tactic has stat and skill requirements for the entire team, and often larger requirements for one or two people who will be the main actors in the tactic. Tactics have no supernatural powers, again, and some monsters are going to be able to easily counter them - you can't exactly tie up a monster that can melt into a puddle and reform.

Tactics must be invented and practiced, and that means, again, spend XP and then make some dice rolls because spending XP isn't enough. I feel this is dumb, but it's here. Hopefully Hunter 2e will not have it, if it does Tactics at all. Tactics are also difficult to use the first time in the field, so you get penalties the first time you try 'em out against an actual monster instead of a practice dummy. You can only use a Tactice once per day without penalty - any further use of Tactics in the same 12-hour period gets penalized. What sort of things do Tactics do?

Well, Controlled Immolation is a Tactic where some of the Hunters surround a monster, forcing it into an area via long, pointy sticks. Then someone sets the thing on fire somehow. The point is it keeps the flames from spreading while also keeping the creature from escaping. Cripple Claws focuses on goading a monster into attacking with its claws, allowing someone else to chop or shoot off the hand involved. Deprogramming is a tactic for breaking mind control via breakdown of someone's self-esteem, then building it back up, while everyone else just hangs around and goes 'yeah, that's right.' Harvest is a Tactic for physically restraining a critter and then viisecting it so you can get something out of it before it crumbles to ash or turns back human or whatever. That's the kind of thing Tactics do, and the mechanics of them are essentially cooperative rolls from the World of Darkness core, except that the dicepools are usually different between the secondary actors and the main actor.

After that, we get a long list of equipment. This is one of Hunter 1e's big flaws and one I hope goes away in 2e - we really don't need long, D&D-esque equipment lists, especially when they include stuff like duct tape or glowsticks or EMF readers. We do, however, get reminded the Ouija boards work - any kind, even cheap cardboard. No one knows why. Lets you talk to ghosts!


Sidebar: DRUG VAMPIRES

On to the ST section! We get a brief discussion of how fragile Hunters are and what it means to be the lone light in the dark, horror, etc. It notes that horror's not the same as terror - fear and disgust doesn't mean you have to scare everyone into running away all the time, and it's easy to overdo. That kind of thing. It talks about the reasons people go Hunting - loss, revenge, hope, etc., and different ways to run the game. Pretty handy, but not super interesting. After that, we get a list of Dread Powers - basically, a build-a-monster power kit that covers just about anything most monsters might do. Hitting stuff, mind control, setting things on fire, sneaking around. From there, we move on to a recognition guide.

Demons are monsters made of iniquity, sin and vice. Most claim to be servants of Lucifer or foes of Heaven, but not all - others say that's a lie, and claim to be old gods or trapped spirits. But most demons say that long ago, there was a war between wonderful beings. No one really knows why - the ones that claim to are known for being liars and manipulators. Many things were destroyed, beautiful things, and their creators were put to the sword by their brethren. The leader of the losers was banished to the void, where he created form. His soldiers forever fall between Earth and this void - Hell. After that, it gets hazy. Most demons claim they were brought to Earth by humanity, and stay there because Hell is worse than here. Others, though, say that this is the world of punishment and they're just doing their jobs. The prevailing theory is that the demons on Earth are bought a fraction of those that exist outside Earth, wherever they come from. Some people can summon them, but most seem to just show up via mysterious means. Demons come in three tiers, Lesser, Greater and Elder. They all have a True Name, which grants power over them. They all have certain things they must or cannot do, which vary by demon. The more potent they are, the stricter those rules are. The more powerful kind have evil auras that taint the world around them - heat tt up, make things wilt, make electronics go haywire, smell like brimstone, whatever. The most potent demons need not be people - they can be places, too.

Cults come in two types - one type serves a monster of some kind, while the other is purely human. Monser-servants do something for their ruler - feed it, worship it, whatever. Rarely, the monster gives them magic powers. The purely human kind make up their own insane beliefs - this is Jonestown or Aum Shinrikyo. They don't tend to get magic powers...but, rarely, some will develop them by sheer madness. These powers are never too strong, however.

Slashers are humans who are compelled to kill. They come in many varieties, but what happens is they kill and kill and kill and never stop until they're dead. Sometimes they only have to kill one person brutally enough to leave a mark forever, other times it's a murder spree, but they kill. Some are driven mad by being crippled or disfigured or isolated, others seek revenge. Occasionally, their twisted forms give them strange powers. Others are driven to kill by circumstance - medical testing by Cheiron or the CIA, the death of a loved one, drugs and madness. Still, Slashers are human, except for their peculiar need to kill. Some of them used to be Hunters. They can be superhumanly strong or resistant to damage. Others have no powers at all. Some of the weirdest ones are the ones that can come back from death - no longer human, but revenants of some kind.

Other hunters can be your enemies too - turf wars between folks who don't want to share, allies who're worse than any monster could be when it comes to getting people killed, people who just won't listen. People who do things you can't morally agree with, even if they're willing to kill monsters. People who refuse all help but insist on getting in the way. People who've gne rogue. We also get, in here, a new relic: Kirkestede's Lenses (1 dot). They look more like a pair of monocles with a hinge between them, and they were made by Henry of Kirkestede in the 14th century out of bronze and quartz. They don't help vision - in fact, they obscure it a bit past reading distance - but they guide research, speeding it up and granting natural speed-reading and memorization abilities. Unfortunately, they also make perception rolls particularly difficult.

The worst kind of monsters, though, are the ones what pretend to be human. Changelings, for example - sometimes, people go missing. Sometimes they get found...and sometimes, they come back wrong. Hunters believe they've been replaced by things from the darkest stories. They look like humans, but they aren't. On a bad day, you might see the horns or the tail that their masters gave them. They are alien, mad creatures - and they have servants, fetches, who live their oredinary lives while the changelings do their insane work and festvals. No one really knows who they are or why they are - not even them. They're bound to emotions and can drain power from those emotions in others, as well as invade dreams and do just about anything they want in them. Now, the truth, of course, is that the masters of changelings aren't usually loved by those changelings. Many claim to have escaped from these fairies, but that seems unlikely. If they were as omnipotent as these changelings claim, this all seems like a lot of trouble for what amounts to alien abductions. They could be lying...or they could be telling the truth, and that just makes them unpredictable. Some of these changelings fight each other, and who's winning or losing is always hard to tell. They could be the first wave of an invasion force without knowing it. They look human, but they're not. They don't really work together, and tend to live on the bottom of society. They sometimes gather together to protect themselves - militant bands and dream-stealers. They submit to strange lords of the seasons and carve out their kingdoms like some weird global monarchy - so maybe they have a great king or queen ruling over them all. They die like humans do, but they're clever and good at hiding and making deals. They hate iron - it won't hurt them more than anything else, but they can't defend against it. The more powerful ones have bans, just like demons do, often tied to folklore.

Then you've got the reanimated. Sometimes, a corpse or corpses stitched together can be brought back to life - usually unhappy. It doesn't know who it is or where it came from, just that it's alive but has no soul. Hollow men and women, straight out of Frankenstein. They can eat anything. They never get tired. They are powered by a little reactor of hate and destruction, an inner fire that burns the world around them. They cause strange events nad live spiritual scars wherever they go. All you have to do is see them to feel it - the pity, the hate, the rage. They surely don't mean to make people hate them, but still...and worse, sometimes you see them for what they are - dead skin, sloppily stitched. Just for a moment. But it's there. Electricity heals them, and whenever they are healed or use their powers, their monstrous nature shows through. They are corpses, made by people or other corpses. Some are brutes, others broken succubi, and many of them seem to seek to gain a human soul. Maybe you pity them, maybe you're revolted, but they seem to be okay with letting the world rot around them. They wander, develop strange philosophies and messages, and some can raise terrible zombies, start riots just by staying around, cause terrible weather and decay. Hunting them is easier than you'd think, though - just about anyone's willing to help on the flimsiest of excuses. They're just so easy to hate, because they were never meant to be. They should be dead. Anything around them starts to decay. People get cancer, buildings go to rot. The hard part is putting them down. They're tough, strong and sneaky. Fire works well. Still, if you can hold back your hate, they can be decent informants. Just don't let them live nearby. Use 'em for information or distractions or patsies, but don't let them give your friends cancer.

Then, of course, you have witches. They think they're human. They don't suffer the hungers of hte undead. They're wrong. They seek power they don't have any right to. They claim to be serving human potential - as if there's anything human about twisting minds or turning people to toads. They use their powers to satisfy their base urges. Most speak of the pursuit of knowledge - and they steal secrets with the violence of any monster. Vampires hunt for food - witches hunt for power, and they're proud of it. Where doe smagic come from? One magician might say some lost civlization -Thule, Atlantis, Mu. Another claims to make deals with dragons or demons, and a third says he was given it by a watchtower made of bone. Some use strange and secret rituals. Sorcerers don't all use magic the same way, either. Their powers are incredibly diverse, too. You can generally divide them into five types - necromancers, who rule the dead and the matter of the earth, who live yet hate the living. Priests, who command physics and life itself, often claiming loyalty to a higher power yet being no better than any other witch. Psychics, who can see the past, speak to the dead and predict the future - or snap your bones with their mind. Ritualists, who steal magic with ritual, cults and tradition, forcing it out of the world in brutal ceremonies. And last, warlocks - nature wizards, commanders of beasts, red in tooth and claw, savage hunters. They can gether togetyher in occult groups and cabals, and they're good at infiltrating human organizations. They see ultimate power, and to take one down, you need surprise on your side. Witches need preparation to be at their best, and when they're prepared, they can do anything. Literally anything. Best to stick to crowds - for some reason, magic doesn't do so hot in public. Sometimes, it backfires. Not reliably, though. Negotiation can work - witches tend to be willing to make bragains if they get something out of it. But be careful when you do that sort of thing.

Vampires, now...well, they're the definitive monster, aren't they? They're human, or were, but they're killers, monsters that feed on human flesh and blood. They understand people, and the older they are, the more potent they get. Most drink blood, but some can consume other things - memory, dreams, flesh. They can heal themselves by consuming others, and bullets don't hurt them very much. They are often able to control minds. They hate each other and love each other. Once upon a time, there were seven dynasties of them, but nowadays it's harder to tell. You got the lovers, the tempters who'll take you out back and drain you dry. They're fast, faster than anything, good at getting physical. You've got your savages - thugs, wild men and beatdown artists. They run free and run wild, and if you see them, it's because they want you to. The bloodjackers - not dead men preserved, but corpses that walk past the point of decay, then spread to another when the body gives out. Even other vampires seem to fear them. The horrors, terrifying and disgusting, often deformed or grotesque, who reach right into the lizard brain and leave you a terrified mess of blood - not much blood, at that. And then ther'es the aristocrats - the bosses of 'em all, or so they claim. Imagine Gordon Gekko except he literally drinks blood. Some claim to serve some twisted Church, others a blood goddess, others still Dracula. You can fight them, but most weapons don't do so hot - it's not like they need organs. Stake 'em before they know you're there. While their hearts are pierced, they can't fight back. Dismemberment and fire work well. Fire even gets rid of evidence.

Werewolves, now, they've been around forever. They aren't truly man or wolf, but a monstrous killer in between. They are predators above all, hard to hurt and harder to put down. They regenerate from just about anything that's not silver. Many have strange abilities that help their hunting prowess. Not all of them are wolves - other animals happen, too. Most are born to their state but don't change until they get bitten. One group of them worships the moon and gains power from it. They're crazy, but more likely to compromise with you. The other kind are savage fanatics, balasphemous monsters who hunt and kill. They all travel in packs, both kinds. And they're no the only things out there that are werewolves. Still, most of 'em are like violent street gangswith bizarre belief systems.


Escher Girl vs Non-Euclidean Monster

Next time: Appendices

Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 16:49 on May 29, 2015

hyphz
Aug 5, 2003

Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.
Unlockable Ben
Good god, that girl is like a study in all the comic book errors drawing women..

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Xelkelvos
Dec 19, 2012
The latest Hunter book has rules updates for 2e and larger sections for Hunters versus the splats that aren't the main three

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