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Aoi
Sep 12, 2017

Perpetually a Pain.

WINNERSH TRIANGLE posted:

Weren't dogs in nWoD unbelievably powerful combat monsters?

Them and the Avatar Of Cops, yeah.

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Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



The game for playing a non-angsty monster is literally any of them. Even that supposed value to Beast is both redundant and bad.

It's very very easy to ignore those themes and just play spooky superheroes or rear end in a top hat vamps. It's a pretty limited mode in some ways, but it's easy to do.

Or play Geist. Which afaict is not angsty.

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


Joe Slowboat posted:

Or play Geist. Which afaict is not angsty.

You do have this total weirdo in your head with strong opinions about the oddest things, though.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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Werewolves are also easy to not angst over.

Like, sure, you killed some folks. You didn’t eat ‘em, so what’s the problem?

Oh, you ate them? Try not to do it again.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



wiegieman posted:

You do have this total weirdo in your head with strong opinions about the oddest things, though.

So does every PC, really.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



The Lone Badger posted:

They also have a Poochie Aura that makes all other splats instinctively think they're cool and want to hang out with them.
Absent that, and with accurate knowledge of what the deal is with Beasts, like, almost every splat would want them dead as hell

rodbeard posted:

I don't know with how overwrought and angsty ever other WoD book is I'm glad there's one that's just gently caress it I'm going to eat this guy and call it an ironic punishment. I would love to be running around as a slasher movie villian while everyone else is trying out their Anne Rice rollplay.
you want Slasher, which is literally rules for slasher movie villians (I may have gotten the name wrong)

Beast is the one where you use real-life abuser tactics to abuse people (there's at least one example of a Beast doing exactly this in the book as an example of How Beasts Work)

Froghammer
Sep 8, 2012

Khajit has wares
if you have coin

WINNERSH TRIANGLE posted:

Weren't dogs in nWoD unbelievably powerful combat monsters?
To be fair, dogs are unbelievably powerful combat monsters in real life too

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 11 hours!

Zereth posted:

you want Slasher, which is literally rules for slasher movie villians (I may have gotten the name wrong)

Yep, this splat for hunter contains rules for 8 types of slasher: from the Jason/Michael Myers like Masks to the hypnotic criminal mastermind who can get completely ordinary people to do their killing.

DAD LOST MY IPOD
Feb 3, 2012

Fats Dominar is on the case


slasher is the coolest CoD splatbook by a lot

Froghammer
Sep 8, 2012

Khajit has wares
if you have coin
Also worth noting is that Mask Slashers are probably the most terrifying combatant you can theoretically encounter in nWoD if you don't know how they work. I could easily see a Mask taking an Ochemata the gently caress apart.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Froghammer posted:

Also worth noting is that Mask Slashers are probably the most terrifying combatant you can theoretically encounter in nWoD if you don't know how they work. I could easily see a Mask taking an Ochemata the gently caress apart.

I'd be surprised, mostly because every Ochemata can run away with Rote Quality.

Also an Ochemata of the General vs. a Mask would be a fascinating confrontation. Absolute command of violence as a means to power vs. Being A Horror Monster.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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I'm fairly certain that ochemata are capable of causing environmental damage.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Mors Rattus posted:

I'm fairly certain that ochemata are capable of causing environmental damage.

For those of us who only remember Slasher mechanics vaguely insofar as we ever knew them, what's the Mask deal? I thought they just only ever took one level of damage from any source at a time, which wouldn't really prevent an Ochemata from pulling all sorts of tricks (or pummeling one into the ground slowly with Rote quality combat abilities).

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
The Mask ability has an exception for environmental damage. It encourages you to deal with them by luring them into a place where they can be burned, drowned, poisoned, etc. instead of trying to fight them.

gourdcaptain
Nov 16, 2012

Out of curiosity given I haven't noticed it showing up in these review posts, have any White Wolf/Onyx Path books used singular they/them for non-binary pronouns?

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


Yeah Masks can be impressive but ultimately an Ochema can just like banish them to an extradimensional oubliette or outright unmake them backwards in time with a wave of whatever appendage it happens to have.

That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Sep 18, 2019

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


What's an Ochema? Mage monster?

Dave Brookshaw
Jun 27, 2012

No Regrets

wiegieman posted:

What's an Ochema? Mage monster?

An avatar of one of the Exarchs. Rank 6 Supernal Entity with archmage powers, rote factor on all nonmagic rolls, at-will shapeshifting and none of the normal supernal entity drawbacks.

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


wiegieman posted:

What's an Ochema? Mage monster?

Usually but not always the super-spirit lieutenants/avatars of the evil god-kings of the universe. In game traits, most ephemeral entities are Rank 1-5, and anything 6+ is basically just a plot device. The weakest Ochema start at Rank 5, and regardless of beefy ephemeral entity traits they all have crazy Supernal mage magic anyway.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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Night Horrors: The Tormented
Part 11: Give Me Your Answer Do


Driving Miss Daisy...to KILL

Daisy is a masterpiece, much as she'd prefer not to be. All she really wants is to flee the ghosts that haunt her memory and sing them away. A Frankenstein Centimanus named Edgar was a collector of Pandorans, using alchemy, surgery and more monstrous things to attend to them in the name of his twisted "science." One day, he fed his Pandorans Vitriol taken from a Galateid with a beautiful voice. Soon after, Daisy began to sing, and he realized something amazing had happened. She wasn't very smart, though she was still sublimatus, and she was timid and willing to serve. He gave her the name and figured she could sing as a side effect of her last meal. He wanted to understand why. And so, Edgar began to hunt humans with special talents in various fields, eating parts of them himself and then vomiting them up to feed to Daisy. She was able to recall entire lives from those she ate, though except for the Galateid's song she didn't seem to gain any of their skills - just their memories, which pained her and gave her hallucinatory waking nightmares. Edgar's work grew ever more sadistic as Daisy "forced" him to try again and again. It took him quite a while to realize she was actually producing Vitriol herself.

Daisy was also brighter than Edgar thought, and at the end of each day, she would hide the Vitriol that wept from her eyes as acidic tears. Edgar might keep her fed, but she hated the constant vivisections and the voices that came with her meals. When she eventually realized the ooze she produced was acidic enough to damage her cage, she waited for Edgar to head out and fled. It didn't take him long to realize what she'd done, and to decide that she must be a living Athanor. He has now started chasing her, to retrieve this most valuable specimen. Now, Daisy might be an Athanor...or she might not be. What happens to Promethean or Pandoran that consumes the Vitriol she produces is wholly up to the GM, and might not produce good results. Daisy's power to gain memories from her meals is not mechanized by default because...well, it doesn't really produce useful skills, just memories. It is also completely involuntary.

Daisy remembers every moment of her life...and every significant memory of her victims. The visions bring her constant pain, especially when she attempts to actively recall their contents. She doesn't understand what's happening to her or what Edgar wants from her. All she knows is she needs to get away from him and she needs to feed. When possible, she prefers to eat young children, as their inner lives are incomplete and innocent and bring her little pain. She still craves Vitriol, and when she tries to drink the stuff she produces it just makes her vomit. Physically, she appears to be a malnourished teenager with a wrinkled face. She wears whatever she can find in dumpsters and charity bins, favoring women's clothing. She attempts to pass herself off as a homeless busker, singing for spare change. Singing is one of the few things she actually enjoys. From a distance, her wrinkles can make her look old, but they don't actually resemble a natural aging pattern. The creases are nearly bone deep, more like cracks in her skin than folds, and they pool with Vitriol in hours after she eats a human or Promethean. Daisy's voice is striking, sounding trained. It is very feminine and potent, and she can hit nearly any register. This voice is identical to the Galateid she ate originally. When Dormant, she appears to be an oversized porcelain doll with a broken face.

Edgar is more social than most Centimani, and he'll do anything if he thinks it'll get Daisy back. He's gone as far as reaching out to less ethical alchemists with offers of great knowledge if they retrieve her for him. He has very little understanding of other people or obsessions outside his own, however, and his stories of what Daisy is are mostly getting him rivals, not helpers. A few desperate Prometheans, not quite Centimani yet but near falling, have also taken up the hunt for Daisy now, hoping she'll shortcut their Pilgrimages. Daisy has other problems, though - she ate part of a vampire once, when starving. He reminded her of Pyros when she felt his energies, and she bit off a chunk of his arm before he fought her off. She fled, and the energy tasted of ash, but his blood made her stronger than she'd ever been - for a few days. And that's when vampires and ghouls began stalking her, using powers much like those she had temporarily acquired, because the vampire she bit is very upset.

Edgar, incidentally, is less interested in Daisy's Vitriol than her memories. Daisy has a lot of trouble sorting through her memories and cannot always tell her own from those she has gained. She also cannot use any sophisticated knowledge she possesses besides her singing ability, but she does retain information even if she can't understand it. Edgar really, really wants to know what the Galateid he fed to Daisy knew or might have done to herself. He's certain that's what caused Daisy to gain her singing talents. Others may also wonder if Daisy knows something useful or interesting.

Daisy's a very weak Pandoran, especially by sublimatus standards. She's not even very strong-willed, all of her stats are within the human range, most of them on the lower end, and she can't even fight. (Which is probably another reason she preys mostly on kids.) Her main talents are sneaking around and singing, and the fact that her memory is perfect.


If I only had a heart...

Mortimer remembers the time when he was just a shrieking mass of wires and steel, fighting itself in an electronic womb. He remembers dreaming of stars, beautiful electric ones. He glimpsed the soul he could have had, wanted more than just to survive and subsist on Pyros. And then Flux set in and consumed all that, and Mortimer was born Pandoran, not Promethean. He knew he had lost something essential. He has always known this. At the time, he was just an unintelligent beast, however. His desperation shifted to hatred for his genitor, hunting his creator down and leaving a trail of corpses in his wake. He hated feeling incomplete, and he hunted with patience that most Pandorans never know. Eventually he found his creator, feasted on their flesh and pain. The ritual nature of the act awakening Mortimer's consciousness, bringing him to pained self-awareness while he bathed in his father's entrails.

Mortimer searched for the electronic stars he remembered, but his hunger consumed him. His only reprieve from the pains of starvation in his dreamless, dormant sleep was the memory of the Elpis (read: the great hope that drives Prometheans) in the Vitriol of his creator. Only by killing a Promethean could he dream of the stars and feel close to the soul he would never have. Without that, there was no redemption - and so he realized what he was meant to be. He was to be the thing that slew those Prometheans unworthy of their Pilgrimage. He embraced his role as a twisted adversary of karma, and so he hunts Prometheans to test them now. He envies them, he feels contempt for them because they have the chance at a soul, and he sets up vicious traps to judge if they are worthy of it. Those who fall short he consumes. Of course, he's sublimatus - he doesn't play fair.

Mortimer is a humanoid creature of wires, circuits, pistons and clockwork. His face is made to resemble the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz artwork, kind and understanding. He's not, though, and he's certain that his hunger for Pyros is a sign of a higher calling. When he finds a Promethean, he either pretends to be an Unfleshed or observes from stealth, trying to find the victim's vulnerabilities. Then he targets them ruthlessly, preferring to break his victims slowly. The kind, loving or soft-hearted rarely "pass" his tests, and he confronts directly most loners and zealots. He has never found a Promethean he considered worthy of the Pilgrimage, and only those who deny the Pilgrimage entirely as Centimani are safe from his wrath.

Mortimer's not just interested in feeding, and his hatred of Prometheans is not so much for what they are as for the fact that he was not allowed to be one. He is a slow, methodical predator that 'tests' his victims with care, slicing hope away bit by bit until his victims are as much a husk as he is. He allows those whom he breaks entirely to live, to spread his gospel of the Pilgrimage being a lie and that none are worthy of pursuing it. He is a sublimatus who creates Centimani. He reveals himself to his victims only when deep in his game. He does his research on his targets, learning who they care about, what they read on the internet, how they prefer to fight. He is exceptionally thorough, and he also tracks how well his victims pursue the Pilgrimage. Those who are slow learners or vacillators get attacked more quickly, and he usually has several targets in mind at a time. For many Prometheans, Mortimer is a bogeyman particularly for this reason - a monster that seeks to break them if they falter. Most of his victims are unaware that he's actually got reasons, and often they theorize that him showing up and "testing" them is part of the Pilgrimage itself.

Most of Mortimer's victims die, either at his hand or their own. Others get away and never look back. A rare few manage to fend him off in battle. However, the rarest handful, unknown to most, actually join his cause. They are broken by his philosophy and embrace his bizarre religion of worthiness, testing and cruelty. All of these poor creatures are Centimani, forming a cult that practically worships Mortimer. He guides them down a dark path, teaching the vicious secrets he has learned.

Mortimer is an exceptionally intelligent, cunning and strong Pandoran. He's superhumanly tough, and while he's not superhumanly fast, he doesn't need to be. He's heavily armored, has a giant healthbar, dodges poo poo like a madman despite his lower speed and Dexterity, and is superhumanly good at fighting. He's sneaky, too, and extremely good at social skills. Despite being an inhuman monster robot man. His arms can extend, he has buzzsaw blades and he can spit scalding oil.

Next time: That was longer than I'd planned, so the Robot Monster and the Fire in the Sky wait for next time.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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gourdcaptain posted:

Out of curiosity given I haven't noticed it showing up in these review posts, have any White Wolf/Onyx Path books used singular they/them for non-binary pronouns?

Scion, I believe. (Certainly Demigod will, because I've written some of that and my nonbinary characters have they/them.)

Lord_Hambrose
Nov 21, 2008

*a foul hooting fills the air*



gourdcaptain posted:

Out of curiosity given I haven't noticed it showing up in these review posts, have any White Wolf/Onyx Path books used singular they/them for non-binary pronouns?

I wish they would more, but Promethean has a lot of Zie/Zir stuff. It was honestly hard to read because I am not used to seeing it but the inclusivity was nice to see. Being an analogy for being Trans is definitely an easy way to read Promethean.

I hope they do start putting some They/Thems in other books though. Even the 40k book I am reading has a non binary character that they don't make a big deal about it. Very good to see.

tokenbrownguy
Apr 1, 2010

Has no-one covered Blades in the Dark in F&F? That blows my mind considering like, The Spire, a Blades-derivative, has an entry. Am I missing something?

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
Staging a fight between two types of antagonists seems pointless for anything other than playtesting the mechanics involved.

Dave Brookshaw
Jun 27, 2012

No Regrets

Lord_Hambrose posted:

I wish they would more, but Promethean has a lot of Zie/Zir stuff. It was honestly hard to read because I am not used to seeing it but the inclusivity was nice to see. Being an analogy for being Trans is definitely an easy way to read Promethean.

I hope they do start putting some They/Thems in other books though. Even the 40k book I am reading has a non binary character that they don't make a big deal about it. Very good to see.

IIRC, we weren't allowed to use singular They/Them for years, but WW changed their stance on it relatively recently. OPP-owned things don't answer to WW's corporate styles, so have been freer.

Lord_Hambrose
Nov 21, 2008

*a foul hooting fills the air*



Dave Brookshaw posted:

IIRC, we weren't allowed to use singular They/Them for years, but WW changed their stance on it relatively recently. OPP-owned things don't answer to WW's corporate styles, so have been freer.

Oh, that is great!

gourdcaptain
Nov 16, 2012

Dave Brookshaw posted:

IIRC, we weren't allowed to use singular They/Them for years, but WW changed their stance on it relatively recently. OPP-owned things don't answer to WW's corporate styles, so have been freer.

Ah, the "improper grammar" reason I'm guessing? (Hear that all the time IRL. -_-) Good to hear they've changed on it, though.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition

Post 7: The Old Old World Gods

The Gods are as the Gods are. Much of what makes Warhams religion fun to play with was already there from 1st edition; it's interesting to see how stable the cast of Gods and Goddesses is in both concept and flavor outside of Sigmar suddenly becoming increasingly important. Rhya is also less important in 1e, more important in 2e, and then made a fully separate cult with her own specific stuff in 4e, so she's one of the ones that changes the most; the original Rhya was explicitly the Goddess of the Old Faith. The original idea was to have Old Faith animistic druids running about as a PC type, who still worshiped the original form of Rhya, the spirits, and sacred places, while Clerics represented the more modernized pantheon of divinities. Which also makes for the amusing conclusion that Taal is kind of a sellout in 1e, since he's become a normal structured deity (albeit the deity of things beyond human structure) while she's mostly still followed as an abstract manifestation of the earth.

What's surprising is how much the Gods are similar to how they are in later editions. Since I went through the trouble of covering the entire Tome of Salvation, I don't think it's really necessary to go back and repeat everything about the Gods. It's a good cast of Gods! There's a reason they've stuck around. The other important thing to note is that the 'actually polytheistic' element was around from the beginning, too; the people of the Old World believe that denying the divinity of a God is one of the dumbest things you could do. The Gods are certainly real, and just because you follow one doesn't mean you spit on or deny the others; priests are still specialists who know the important rites and rituals necessary to bring about divine favor and keep the forces of the world working properly. Interestingly, this extends to 'evil' Gods; you certainly don't worship Chaos Gods or Khaine or whatever, but you do not deny their divinity or disrespect them openly. A God might be outlawed, but they're still a God and still due some level of respect for their power, even if that respect takes the form of urgency in trying to stop their designs.

In general, a God gets outlawed if their worship absolutely requires 'heavy anti-social elements', to quote the book. Things like regular human sacrifice. So Khaine is right out, but he's not as bad as Khorne. While Khaine is the God of Murder and wants his followers to commit murders, this is a little different than 'I want my followers to destroy the world and all life and beauty that exists within it', so Khaine doesn't get persecuted nearly as heavily as followers of the Chaos Gods. Once again: Chaos is not necessarily bad in 1st edition, but the Chaos Gods definitely are and represent the most destructive and evil aspects of Chaos. Similarly, 1st edition had Law Gods, though they don't get much play besides Solkan. Solkan is the God of Vengeance, and the God of bigotry and intolerance by extension. He's the guy who gets really excited when he talks about how you need capital punishment so people will 'know their place'. He's also the original patron of the Witch Hunters; they were kind of intended to be crazy Law cultists to serve as villains and hindrances to PCs in counterpart to the Chaos cults they fight, given their class entry talks about how if they aren't given official power to kill and terrorize as they wish they form secret cabals and cults to Law to try to take over the government and grant themselves secret police status.

An awful lot of Solkan's deal seems to have gotten rolled into Sigmar in later works, after the Law Gods were dropped from the setting. The negative or troubling aspects of Sigmarism seem to have their origins with the God of Bigotry and Vengeance. Which also makes it weird that the later fluff for Fantasy in the wargames and stuff tended to go hard into 'Actually Sigmar is the only important God' stuff, considering. As for Siggy himself, the Heldenhammer is a minor regional God who is more important as the patron of the Imperial family and government. More like an Imperial Cult than one of the larger major religions, with its power placed more in the fact that his priests are highly placed in the Imperial government rather than on divine miracles or acts of magic. He doesn't get a spell list and is thus not especially playable in the core book.

Lots of the bones of the later mechanics of religion exist here, too. You get extra skill access based on your cult, you have to follow Strictures or you'll gain divine disfavor, etc. There's a complex and mostly meaningless set of rules for praying for outright miraculous interventions that boil down to '1-5% chance if your GM feels like it' so eh. Cults define which of the generic spell lists you can use; for instance, Myrmidians can use all of the basic Battle Magic spells just like a non-specialized Wizard, while Taalites have Elementalism. Shallya gets a specific spell for curing anything short of outright losing a limb or getting murdered; the Shallyan schtick of 'heals status effects, especially insanely annoying and long-term ones' in 4e is a throwback to 1e as well. Though the 1e Shallyans could still heal base HP quite well, if not quite as well as 2e ones. She's a bit unique in getting her own unique spells, but they're there to make up for the fact that a Shallyan is disallowed from wearing armor, can only use a staff, and has no offensive magic unlike all the other Clerics. Also the only good way to cure Insanity; 1e had similar terrible Insanity rules to 2e.

Druidic religion also gets detailed, as opposed to the nebulous references to an 'Old Faith' that is no longer practiced in 2e. They don't worship specific deities; The Mother is as close as they come, and even that is a representation of fertility and life rather than an incarnate goddess. They follow the sacred and magical places of the world, tend to them, and generally try to keep the universe from ending. They're buddies with elves (sometimes they are elves) and elves and Rangers can do the same stuff Druids can in finding sacred sites and magic wells of power. There isn't a lot of detail on their thing, but there's more than there is in later editions, since this is the only one that treats them as an existing faith rather than something that existed in prehistory.

Much like all Hams RP, there isn't nearly as much on non-human Gods. I'm not entirely certain why Hams RP in general is so thoroughly focused on the humans; I really would have liked more material on Dwarfs, Elfs, and even Halflings (and Ogres.) You only get a small smattering of non-human Gods: Esmerelda the Halfling Goddess, Liadriel the Elf God of Song and Wine (who is explicitly genderfluid, as well), and Grungi, chief God of dorfs. The whole thing about other species seeing their gods very differently doesn't really come up in the 1e core, and I'd imagine it's a later addition to the line. Other species use divine magic the same way as humans do (though like all magic, Dwarfs and Halflings are half as good at it; by the way, Dwarrfs and Halflings could use magic but were lovely at it), because there's no real differentiation between Divine and Arcane magic in 1e. Grungi is as he always was, Liadriel is a fairly generic happy forest deity, but Esmerelda used to be a bigger deal in 1e. Also her sacred rites are basically cooking competitions and one of her strictures is to feed the hungry wherever you can, because the thought of letting people starve to death is anathema. Halfling priests considering it their sacred duty to feed the poor adds a nice extra touch to their characteristic gluttony by making it something they wish everyone could share in, I think.

We also get a little on the Chaos Gods: Khorne and Nurgle are as they always are, but Malal is new. He is the Lord of Getting Caught Up In Copyright Issues And Quietly Dropped From The Setting Chaos against Chaos, the God of Destruction who seeks to ensure Chaos itself doesn't get too comfortable being what it is and does that by murdering other Chaos. The other Law Gods besides Solkan are a lady Law Goddess named Arianka who gets no description of what she does, and Aluminas, the God of Light. Aluminas is just the God of Light. Not Light as like, a concept of goodness or enlightenment of illumination. No, he's just a big ole glowing ball of Light, who likes Light. All kinds of Light, really. Ultraviolet, visible, whatever. Nobody actually worships him because they like their retinas intact, I guess. Arianka's description is about how she's held under glass in Praag (Hey, it's the Woman in Glass from the opera!) and can be freed if someone finds the keys to do so, but, uh, there's nothing about what she actually does and the Law Gods are mostly presented as dicks so I'm not entirely sure releasing mysterious deities without any idea what they'll do is a good idea in Hams town.

And that's mostly it for religion. A lot of the stuff that makes Hams religion fun was already there from the beginning, which is a nice surprise. I'd be really curious to know what, exactly, sparked them to get rid of the Law Gods (though I think it was a good idea, because it reframes the conflict with Chaos as something the world itself does rather than making it a fight between two cosmic evils) and what caused the creation and addition of Slaanesh and Tzeentch later on. Given how important cult-hunting and mystery became to WHFRP, Slaanesh and Tzeentch being the two 'really good at making hidden cults' Gods and them being absent in the original version of the game is interesting to me.

Next Time: GMing

DAD LOST MY IPOD
Feb 3, 2012

Fats Dominar is on the case


do zeky exist in 2e promethean, or would they just be extempore?

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:

do zeky exist in 2e promethean, or would they just be extempore?

They have a chapter soon. It's, um.

It's...something.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
Aren't Zeky the ones powered by radiation?

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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Yeeeeeep.

DAD LOST MY IPOD
Feb 3, 2012

Fats Dominar is on the case


Kurieg posted:

Aren't Zeky the ones powered by radiation?

yeah, and their disquiet causes Cold War style paranoia while their Wasteland is basically a nuclear winter. they’re loving sweet

to expand, radiation is kind of a perfect metaphor for prometheans: something humans unleash but can’t control, something most people don’t understand, that hurts anyone exposed to it even without meaning to. it’s capable of tremendous destruction but also incredible good if harnessed properly. the tormented state of zeky and the fact that not one of them had ever reached new dawn as of 1e made them feel like incredibly relevant, as an experiment that the world is watching with bated breath: will they master their destructive power or be consumed by it? Add to that their extremely weird Junji Ito style Pandorans and unique power suite and they were a great addition to the game line

DAD LOST MY IPOD fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Sep 18, 2019

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
Are the Zeky based on that one Promethean from a bit of fiction in a Hunter supplement, who's a vory v zakone gangster who inflicts cancer on everyone he's around? That's fine, but I was fine with that guy being a sui generis horror.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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Halloween Jack posted:

Are the Zeky based on that one Promethean from a bit of fiction in a Hunter supplement, who's a vory v zakone gangster who inflicts cancer on everyone he's around? That's fine, but I was fine with that guy being a sui generis horror.

Other way around. That dude was a recurring villain in 1e Promethean before he showed up there.

e: 1e Zeky also had one rule that IMO was unforgivable: if they hit the New Dawn, they died immediately because they became human in the middle of their own giant radiation bursts, which were at lethal levels during the New Dawn. This undercuts the hopeful message of Promethean.

2e Zeky are even more hosed, which shocked me.

Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Sep 18, 2019

Jerik
Jun 24, 2019

I don't know what to write here.

Deptfordx posted:

This may be one of those 'varies by country' things because I'd say it that way too. :britain:

I don't know what to tell you, except that I checked with several dictionaries before posting to make sure it wasn't me who'd been assuming the wrong pronunciation (which has happened before for words I'd seen in writing but seldom heard spoken; for years I assumed the accent on "damask" was on the second syllable), and every dictionary I checked agreed that it was pronounced sa-TIE-uh-ti. Including the Oxford English Dictionary, which is published in the U.K., so it doesn't seem to be a varies-by-country thing, no. (The Oxford English Dictionary does give slightly different U.S. and U.K. pronunciations, but they only differ very subtly in the exact quality of the vowels and whether or not the second t gets turned into a /d/ sound; they're both four syllables with the accent on the second syllable.)

I mean... okay, so the fact that you say you'd say it that way too shows it's not just Matt McFarland, I guess, and I know languages evolve and dictionaries don't catch every nuance in usage and I'm certainly not going to tell you you're objectively wrong to pronounce it that way, but "SAY-shi-tee" is not a standard pronunciation according to any dictionary I looked at. Anyway, I just thought it was kind of funny that the author seemed to feel it necessary to tell the reader how to pronounce what isn't, after all, that rare a word, and then doesn't even give the standard pronunciation.

Tulul
Oct 23, 2013

THAT SOUND WILL FOLLOW ME TO HELL.

Mors Rattus posted:

e: 1e Zeky also had one rule that IMO was unforgivable: if they hit the New Dawn, they died immediately because they became human in the middle of their own giant radiation bursts, which were at lethal levels during the New Dawn. This undercuts the hopeful message of Promethean.

Not quite true. The rules in Saturnine Night were that the leftover radiation when a Zeky completes their Pilgrimage has an intensity (1 is an old nuclear test site, 5 is an unshielded reactor) equal to your Azoth and and a damage bonus equal to 10-Humanity. For radiation poisoning, you add the two together and roll for damage, with the intensity determining the type. In the worst-case scenario, a Zeky with Azoth 5 and Humanity 1 takes 14 dice of aggravated damage, which a healthy human has a decent chance of surviving, although they probably die of story consequences before too long. A Zeky with the inverse (Humanity 5, Azoth 1 via going to the wastes) takes a couple of levels of bashing damage and is at an increased risk of cancer in the future, which is bad but not a death sentence.

Not to say that being a Zeky doesn't suck, though.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



That Old Tree posted:

Yeah Masks can be impressive but ultimately an Ochema can just like banish them to an extradimensional oubliette or outright unmake them backwards in time with a wave of whatever appendage it happens to have.
That seems like the Ochema is setting itself up to have Jason Voorhees pop out of a hole in time with a chainsaw at the moment when the Ochema is weakest, perhaps from having been infused with distilled mage chat.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Nessus posted:

That seems like the Ochema is setting itself up to have Jason Voorhees pop out of a hole in time with a chainsaw at the moment when the Ochema is weakest, perhaps from having been infused with distilled mage chat.

Ochemata tend to last only as long as their task from the Exarch that created them. They're utterly subordinate beings, in a sense, and extensions of an Exarch.

Which does mean one could inspire Jason Voorhees to spend centuries slowly pursuing and attempting to kill Power Through Violent Coercion, because an Ochema of the General messed with him. Hunting Seers, becoming involved (horrifyingly) in peace talks and international nonviolent intervention protocols. A grateful humanity giving The Camp Teenagers Death Shadow a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on police reform is just a beautiful image to me.

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PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
I feel like one of my issues with the uh, in-splat ecology for Prometheans is that there's a lot of stuff about some of them or their villains(I've skipped a bit through the text, sorry), feeding off of Pyros and Vitriol, which only Prometheans and/or some of their broken variants produce. And it's like... do they either only need to eat very rarely or is it presumed that there's a metric fuckton of them around? I always felt like the "ecology" for, say, vampires was a bit easy to swallow(ha ha) because it consisted of feeding off normal people/animals, which you could justify as being reasonably present at all times.

Joe Slowboat posted:

becoming involved (horrifyingly) in peace talks and international nonviolent intervention protocols.

Jason Vorhees bursts through the floor of the UN general assembly, pulls himself up as diplomats scream and cramble to get out of the way, then just stands in front of the doors, menacingly, until everyone agrees that world peace would be a good idea. Every time a general or dictator starts pondering a territorial grab or border violation he hears a faint "ch ch ch ch, ha ha ha ha" in the background and decides that he doesn't want more land quite that badly.

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