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What an odd artifact of its time. Thank you for the review.
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Jun 28, 2021 02:56
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Yeah, thanks for covering it, illhousen. It was definitely a trip and there was a fair bit to unpack there.
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Jun 28, 2021 02:58
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Yeah, it was a very well done review of a genuinely interesting bit of weirdness.
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Jun 28, 2021 03:08
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That was good!
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Jun 28, 2021 03:30
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It's probably one of the first "Christian version of popular sci-fi/fantasy thing" settings out there.
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Jun 28, 2021 03:32
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Josef bugman posted:This does seem to be a continual theme. Has there ever been a fun WoD game? Wraith maybe for old WW WoD? The post WW "CoD" games (apart from Beast) seem to range from fine to fantastic based on what I've heard. Promethean and NuDemon are games I would dearly like to play one day
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Jun 28, 2021 03:46
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PoontifexMacksimus posted:Wraith maybe for old WW WoD? The post WW "CoD" games (apart from Beast) seem to range from fine to fantastic based on what I've heard. Promethean and NuDemon are games I would dearly like to play one day Mage the Awakening is quite crunchy but the crunch does all generally add to the game (if your players enjoy that kind of focused, mechanically structured character widget play). The only thing my group dropped was we the Nimbus Tilt, which was a little fiddlier than we wanted to pay attention to. But if you really go in on the system, it encourages you to act like a weird sorcerer, and that's great.
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Jun 28, 2021 05:11
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Great review of Dragonraid. It's interesting that the book doesn't bother actually bringing in C.S. Lewis or anyone intelligent who can actually make a case for God, and just resorts to mindlessly bleating Bible phrases at strawmen. There is a lot of actual thought that goes into theology, and even in the Bible itself you have people like Doubting Thomas who struggle to believe until Jesus shows up with real proof. It's very much a product of a very insular subculture that has no good answer to "we know who Jesus is, and we don't care" or even to Nietzsche's criticism that the Christian believes not because he thought about it but because he's scared of his neighbors. The Lightraiders are never actually asked to choose for themselves or exercise free will, they just blindly go where the talking animals say to and mindlessly recite Bible verses out of context. The Good Samaritan is a bigger hero than all these Lightraiders can ever be.
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Jun 28, 2021 22:32
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It comes out of the fact that that specific flavor of evangelical views bible verses and prayer (and honestly, salvation period) very much like the game does: As magic spells. Clearly if someone just hears the right spell they'll convert. Similarly, if you just say the right words, you're saved! No need to be a better person, no need to engage with faith, just the right sorcery and God lets you right in. Instead of 'there is no divine balance book because humans are all flawed beings, salvation isn't something based on points totals, do your best and try to believe and it'll be okay' these traditions kinda delete the 'do your best' part.
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Jun 28, 2021 22:53
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I also think that the point of the book isn't to make a case for God or Christianity. The people who are playing the game are already going to be evangelical Christians. It's to reinforce their beliefs and use peer pressure on them to maintain them. So, of course Christianity/the faith of the Lightbringers is right, and the people who don't believe/dragonslaves don't have real reasons not to believe. Either they're ignorant, in which case, once they know the truth, they'll gladly embrace the faith, or they're so caught up in sinful habits and a sinful lifestyle, they know the truth but are rejecting it, because they know they'd have to give that up. Thats the attitude that the players are coming into the game with....the Bible is self evidently true, so anyone studying it with an open mind will convert, and if you don't, its because you're lying to yourself for selfish reasons.
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Jun 28, 2021 23:04
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Night10194 posted:Every WW game has a 'strong elevator pitch'. Beast? 
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Jun 29, 2021 05:09
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JcDent posted:Beast? "You are an ancient creature of legend forced to live in the modern world." Its elevator pitch is strong, it just fails miserably at literally everything else. There's a reason that so many people have tried to "fix" it, because the idea is neat. There's just not enough worth saving in the actual implementation.
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Jun 29, 2021 05:54
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Well yeah, the actual implementation jumped all the way up its own rear end to wedge in the idea that Beasts are teaching people harsh lessons. That concept just doesn't really work for monsters, even if it makes some amount of literary sense. The monsters that teach lessons in stories aren't the protagonists. You can't make the monsters protagonists and still keep the original, un-flipped script.
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Jun 29, 2021 07:05
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I've thought for awhile there's narrative room for characters who claim to be some sort of bearer of judgement but are just assholes out to hurt people. Beast is not the way to do it. Its kinda like the Nazi clause where there is no real valid way to interact with them besides punching/killing them and any attempt at determining interior motives ultimately makes shitheads sympathize with the monsters.
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Jun 29, 2021 07:42
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Also feels like it's hard to seperate Beast's fundamental concepts from how it was written by a woke rapist.
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Jun 29, 2021 09:15
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Epicurius posted:I also think that the point of the book isn't to make a case for God or Christianity. The people who are playing the game are already going to be evangelical Christians. It's to reinforce their beliefs and use peer pressure on them to maintain them. So, of course Christianity/the faith of the Lightbringers is right, and the people who don't believe/dragonslaves don't have real reasons not to believe. Either they're ignorant, in which case, once they know the truth, they'll gladly embrace the faith, or they're so caught up in sinful habits and a sinful lifestyle, they know the truth but are rejecting it, because they know they'd have to give that up. Ngl a Christian fantasy game where you're pseudo-pacifist warriors for Jesus trying to rescue slaves and other persecuted people from tyrannical dragon-kings is a pretty cool concept. But they need at least a cultural consultant from a non-Christian background to understand how people of different faiths think. Or even Christian writers who aren't conservative evangelicals/Catholics/Mormons. The Romans 9:20 verse is the absolute worst thing you can quote to someone suffering under a dictatorship and is going through the painful process of having the wool pulled from their eyes for the first time. It's kind of like how the vast majority of ex-Mormons become irreligious rather than joining another Christian branch; they don't want any part of something that reminds them of their former abusers, even if the alternative offered is nicer. There is also another weak point in Dragonraid: the paper-thin worldbuilding doesn't really detail the Liberated Lands or the subjugated ones that well. So even if we're fighting for Jesus that's really just an ephemeral concept. What about the world the PCs are living in right now? What kind of place are the Liberated Lands and are they worth fighting for? Libertad! fucked around with this message at 09:32 on Jun 29, 2021 |
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Jun 29, 2021 09:27
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For some reason I now crave an amalgamation of DragonRaid and Kult of all things. You're on a mission to awaken everyone else and also your self who are trapped in a self perpetuating false reality but actually acting like a common murderhobo would only set you back, it's hearts and minds kind of general strategy and you must cooperate with people with very different belief systems because peeling back the Lie to see the true shape of things has never been accomplished. Would probably work best on a PBTA base as personal truth and interpersonal relationships would be the paint on this canvas.
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Jun 29, 2021 10:18
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By popular demand posted:For some reason I now crave an amalgamation of DragonRaid and Kult of all things. You know, I kept thinking that a big thing that would fix Kult was if the Lie wasn't just a prison, but intended to rehabilitate humans, by turning them into fragile, ephemeral mortals, so that they might, over time, come to understand those struggles and why what they did in the past as multiversal conquerors was loving awful. That it was never intended to be some sort of permanent stalemate to keep them away, but a hope that they could be better, but then the Demiurge, the big jailer in charge of the project, vanished, and it got taken over by humanity's old enemies and the demiurge's lieutenants who either didn't understand, or didn't care, and just thought humanity needed permanent go-away, or wanted to torture them for revenge. But the old ways out are still there, and it turns out the way to reclaim part, or all of your power, isn't to "go super-insane" but instead to display exemplerary empathy and care for both fellow humans and any sapient non-humans you come across. With the jailers trying to seduce you into being a lovely person, perhaps with some temporary power on loan, some old sorceries and such, to keep you locked up, maybe even making a deal with you that you can get to torture other humans if you switch to siding with the jailers, after all, everyone has someone they've got a grudge against... and of course the jailers would also very much try to obfuscate that RAW POWER wasn't the way to break out, setting up cults to misguide people thta would just mire them deeper into imprisonment, etc. ALTERNATELY Portray humanity as a fundamental, irredeemable danger to the universe... and then don't let players play them. Let them play refugees in Achlys or Lictors or whatever, out to take down the big threats that might allow humanity to break out(sorcerous cults, hypertech science, etc.), but without giving away that there's an occult underbelly so no one else gets the idea that there's anything to escape from.
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Jun 29, 2021 10:28
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Those are two very good ideas that could be run on the same system I'm proposing, how the party and GM would get to agree on the cosmology is a whole nother problem. I had an idea a while ago about God creating everything and then the Demiurg, who promptly after attacks and splits God into myriad souls that he traps in the Lie forced to experience lives apart. This would lead to some interesting factions among the awakened: some would want to reunite to single entity while others would want to keep their new individuality and some may well decide that humanity must remain asleep to maintain reality going but in a more positive way.
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Jun 29, 2021 10:42
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Ronwayne posted:I've thought for awhile there's narrative room for characters who claim to be some sort of bearer of judgement but are just assholes out to hurt people. Beast is not the way to do it. "Beasts ain't got no humanity. They're the foot-soldiers of a Jew-hatin', mass-murderin' manic and they need to be dee-stroyed."
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Jun 29, 2021 14:06
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Ronwayne posted:I've thought for awhile there's narrative room for characters who claim to be some sort of bearer of judgement but are just assholes out to hurt people. Beast is not the way to do it. In the words of my biblefight double cross game: "Descend, with fire, into the cop-hive." (They discovered dark fae like to pose as American police, because it's a great way to make people follow lots of complex unspoken rules of conduct and then find excuses to hurt them, so they had to burn a hive of fairy insect-cops at one point)
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Jun 29, 2021 14:19
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JcDent posted:Beast? Nonetheless, it seems like Beast is basically the result of someone getting in at the right time to get "White Wolf," whatever legal entity that is, actually release their half-baked fangame a la Genius, Princess, and Leviathan.
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Jun 29, 2021 14:24
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Night10194 posted:In the words of my biblefight double cross game: "Descend, with fire, into the cop-hive." You give us all a lot to aspire to.  
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Jun 29, 2021 14:50
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Night10194 posted:In the words of my biblefight double cross game: "Descend, with fire, into the cop-hive." I would 100% play your game.
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Jun 29, 2021 14:54
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Night10194 posted:In the words of my biblefight double cross game: "Descend, with fire, into the cop-hive." I am so stealing this idea.
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Jun 29, 2021 16:02
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Age of Sigmar: Sylvaneth Seeds of Hate  Winterleaf Glade were, in the Age of Myth, known as Springleaf. They were widespread, with many enclaves, and were based out of the largest and most beautiful of the Sylvaneth forts, Dappelloren. Its queen, the Bough-Mother, maintained the Hanging Gardens of Shimmervale, one of the great wonders of Ghyran. Life magic poured from it in waves, and it was one of the first major targets of Nurgle in the Age of Chaos. The Springleaf suffered terribly, and Dappelloren was eventually destroyed by festerbark pox. The Nurglites took the Bough-Mother captive, and none can say what happened to her. Dark rumor suggests she was dragged into Nurgle's Garden and transformed. Over three fourths of the Springleaf Sylvaneth were destroyed by Nurgle's onslaught. Only one enclave managed to survive intact - Rimewald, in the frost-forests of King Scrioshal, who rallied the survivors to his banner. Scrioshal failed. The Battle of Frozen Grief was a tragedy, destroying Rimewald and sending the survivors into the wastelands to escape Nurgle's forces. That was the last time they ever named themself Springleaf. The new glade was one of melancholy and caprice, establishing new enclaves in the barrens and ice fields. They changed their colors, their foliage growing in white and blue, retaining green only in their blazing markings. These are now the Winterleaf, the wielders of rage and grief. They are the Sylvaneth of the blizzard and the cold snap, certain that their spring will never come again. They fight to defeat Nurgle and to bring harm to Chaos, though even now, they believe their cause is ultimately doomed. Victory is no longer their goal - blood is. They want to make Nurgle pay for every inch he takes, they want to make him suffer for every death they have felt. The Winterleaf are empowered by their own despair, and it has become their strength against the Chaos God that normally feeds on such things.  Hatred, meanwhile, powers the Dreadwood. They are the dark Sylvaneth, grown in the deep woods, where sunlight rarely touches. They are the hunters in the shadows, ambushing travellers both to protect their deep wild places and for the sheer joy of brutality. They are ambushers and illusionists of great skill, and they use it towards terrible ends. Few other glades trust them, for the Dreadwood clans are well known for their spite, cruelty and malice. Even in the Age of Myth, they were never kind, and the Age of Chaos destroyed any that might have lived within them. Dreadwood Sylvaneth are tricksters, excelling at stealth and spycraft. The other Sylvaneth whisper that they had something to do with the Shrouded Time, a period of history which has been wiped from the spirit-song memories of the species. All that anyone is sure of is that the first Outcasts were formed during the Shrouded Time, and that the Dreadwood have far more Outcasts in their ranks than any other glade. The Dreadwood thrive across the Mortal Realms, often in places other Sylvaneth have trouble. They have notable enclaves in Ulgu and Shyish, which other glades have had great difficulty doing. Dreadwood Sylvaneth appear in dark colors and pale markings, similar to the play of moonlight in a dark forest. Their sigils tend to glow red rather than green, marking the rage they bear for all non-Sylvaneth. Their xenophobia has made it hard for others to get close, and they've even gone so far as to attack their erstwhile allies in the Order alliance. Alarielle allows it, but many other glades are unsure why.  Heartwood Glade is famously the bravest of the Sylvaneth, those who are always first into the fray. Since the return of Alarielle, they've been all the more eager to dive into battle. While they can be found throughout Ghyran, their spiritual homeland is Hol'leath, the old capital of the lands of Kurnotheal. While it was a frequent target of Nurgle's forces, the Heartwood defenders always drove back the invasions and refused to allow their inner forests to be touched. It has long become a point of pride with them that they never gave ground in the holy lands of fallen Kurnoth. The Heartwood are old allies of the Oakenbrow and recent supporters of the aggressive Harvestboon. They've traditionally been some of the most outgoing alliance-seekers of the Sylvaneth, though they have been leery of reaching out to the aelves again after betrayals by the Idoneth and Khainites. They also hate the Dreadwood nearly as much as they do Chaos, seeing them as nearly as bad for Ghyran as Nurgle. It is only Alarielle that has kept them from open war against their dark-hearted cousins. They used to worship Kurnoth as the spirit-consort of Alarielle, until his death fighting Chaos, and it was they who fought and died en masse at the Battle of Tears to retrieve Kurnoth's spear. The Heartwood are the most eager in Ghyran to celebrate the Hunter's Moon festival, the old holiday that celebrated Kurnoth's battles, and they flock to any Wild Hunt that is called in his honor. Many Kurnoth Hunters and Arch-Revenants visit their groves, and the Heartwood go out of their way to assist these Free Spirits whenever possible. Free Spirit hunting parties frequently join and lead Heartwood armies and even bear their colors. Those would be brilliant green foliage and sky-blue sigils. Next time: Alarielle and the Noble Spirits
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Jun 29, 2021 17:38
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Cythereal posted:I am so stealing this idea. SkyeAuroline posted:I would 100% play your game. By popular demand posted:You give us all a lot to aspire to. Their boss was basically a cross between teen movie toxic masculinity and Revolutionary Girl Utena toxic masculinity, and we stormed his creepy 1950's suburbia fairy realm and kicked his rear end for trying to love potion my changeling knight's fetch. Turns out you actually can kill a fairy if you try hard enough.
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Jun 29, 2021 19:46
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Cold iron bullets for a cold hearted ironic death?
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Jun 29, 2021 20:11
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Leraika posted:Their boss was basically a cross between teen movie toxic masculinity and Revolutionary Girl Utena toxic masculinity, and we stormed his creepy 1950's suburbia fairy realm and kicked his rear end for trying to love potion my changeling knight's fetch. Turns out you actually can kill a fairy if you try hard enough. He kinda set himself up for it because after losing the first boss fight he was so angry and ashamed that he swore he'd kill the PCs or die trying, so he had to fulfill that oath. Double Cross is good for a variety of action shonen possibilities! E: Fairies and their bullshit are just really fun to write about sometimes. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Jun 29, 2021 |
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Jun 29, 2021 20:12
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Exalted Vs The World of Darkness The city does matter, it can be any city in America or Canada. A bunch of rich old white men and women (and the occasional PoC) are in their ballroom or back door meetings, the only thing really different about them is while they are nearly to a person ancient, none of them are decrepit. While many of them retain the bodies of people in their twenties or thirties, some of them came over here on the Mayflower; some are much older than that applies. They've feasted on the blood, literally and figuratively, of humans, whose humanity and agency they don't recognize and call 'kine', collectively for millennium. They've brought misery and hardship not only to continue their immoral ageless existence, but to politic against their peers and for the fun of it. They only treat each other slightly better. They need each other, even if nearly all of them hate the others in some shape or form, for the collective "Masquerade" or how they hid their existence over their prey since time time immemorial, likewise to further their own plays of power and wealth in both 'Kindred' and 'kine' societies. Deep underneath it all, most importantly though, they all go to Elysium to collectively provide solace and engagement in something larger than themselves, and pull themselves out of their timeless inertia. After all, they lose the ability to eat, drink or see sunsets or rises, and in most cases gently caress, like the supposedly lesser "kine" have. Something has to keep them occupied to continue going on with their unlives. That bitch who makes you want to puke your guts out every time you see her provokes feelings that have mostly withered away after all; that sexist Elder who told you he didn't know women could become doctors, is someone you can plot and act against, instead of just moping about and going through the motions. Group Co-Dependency at it's finest, until the rare thing comes along and shakes them out of their funk. The curiosity bursts through the large ornate doors to their little secret salon right as the evening reaches it's most tiresome. Well, more specifically, the two ex-swat members the Keeper ghouled, burst through the door, unconscious. The curiosity is a 5'10 shirtless man, with a scrawny-fit nerd physique, and wearing a cheap rubber Halloween mask carrying a gym who beat the ever loving gently caress out of them somehow and strolled in like he owned the place. No one rushes to stop him, nearly all of them are paralyzed by an oncoming wave of gut bursting laughter, even when he pulls out a lovely mall katana from said gym bag, and maybe partly because of it. This is easily the funniest and most amusing thing that has happened to any of them, and it still ranks in the top two or three for those who it doesn't. This was the kind of entertainment most of them continue to exist for after all, and everyone is happy to see a boring Elysium end up like this. This is going to be a story everyone swaps at other cities big social events for Vampires for centuries. The first two Elders die by the time the first of the giggling starts. The room fills with the glow of light most remember when they last saw it, but have long forgotten it's touch. A powerful shine, it's illumination far greater than the candle lights or florescent lighting they've made due with every since they became what they are. The dork isn't just radiating with the power of the Sun, he is it's entirety even if they aren't bursting into flames like they should be. Worse, he reminding them of what they really are. Monsters. Mockeries of life. Less than Human. The worst thing however, is they can't kill him for doing that or stop him from slaughtering their fellows, at least not easily. He's human, there is no doubting that, but he's faster, stronger, tougher, and just plain more skilled than any of them, despite being powered by the Vitae, and long decades or even centuries of honing mastery of Disciplines and mundane talents and abilities. Whoever this Solar powered killer was, he was no buffoon, he knew what he was getting into and his confidence of escaping this lion's den was well-placed. He leaves unnoticed into the shadows of the alleyways before the sound of police sirens reach the building. There will be witnesses of a masked man going on a mass killing rampage, but the only bodies there will be mummies or ash at this point. Tonight the Masquerade is safe, and the Mages, and Werewolves, and the other Night People will breathe a sigh of relief that their world will continue spinning and continue on as normal. Nearly all of them have some prophesy or belief that the end of the world or apocalypse is coming soon, but their mostly human and no one wants to or can rock the boat. Better to kick that particular can down the road. Except that isn't going to happen anymore. The Exalted are back; Demi-Gods and righteous champions of mankind marked by destiny and fate to both save and rule the world. It doesn't matter how or wide the Night People have hid themselves, their time is done. It doesn't matter the End-Times are here, fated by both reason and mysticism, because averting cosmos leveling catastrophes aren't new to them and frankly doing the impossible is second nature to them. Going to quote the opening post of Night10194 review of Hunter: The Reckoning here because this unofficial "fan" supplement by former Exalted 3rd edition Eric Holder (more on that later) of an Exalted and Old World of Darkness is intimately connected with that game, both in fluff and it's elevator pitch. quote:
It's basically this, right up until that last line. I'll get into this more, but as the world (ours I guess) is weakened and less magical the Exalted are "weaker" most flavors of them start off as stronger as lower end power-players of the various splats and as the campaign goes on become nigh-immortal beings that can go toe to toe with the Super-Special Story-Teller Meta NPCs. With Charms such as Ghost Eating Technique they can permanently kill spirits or entities that can't be killed or Charms make random people into Mages, lift the various Banes of the Kindred or just outright cure them of their Vampire nature. Most importantly they have no idea what's going on (for the most part) and no incentivizes or restrictions to maintain the fiction that the Supernatural doesn't exist (for the most part, Sidereals benefit and are compelled to either covering up or exposing this stuff to the public) and most importantly have the means to do so if they choose. This is NOT a game about a bunch of ordinary people who lucked or were cursed into a bunch of weak magic powers, and know just enough to stumble into danger and maybe get themselves out of it. This a game about bunch of underdogs who who fight the good fight, and wring small victories in the backdrop of an incoming tragedy. That game is Hunter: The Reckoning; this is the game it advertised and promised at the end of it's core book: Exalted, just with the modern setting. This is the game that made Swed-Dracula piss his pants in rage because it's Conan-Hawkmoon-Animu setting clashed with WoD, and even the IDEA that it ONCE and SHORTLY existed in his teary eyed Goth-Theater Kid Serious Storytelling Roleplaying Game world was too much to bear. What's the difference? Everything around them dies or suffers a massive extensional crisis, not just the various splats of the World of Darkness, but ordinary people who made up their lives before they got Exalted but also were in their way. It's a story about "ordinary" people who others might qualify as "extraordinary" or outsiders or people who frankly just had luck (good or bad), eventful lives seeing something they shouldn't, stumbling onto power that marks them as a divine being, and having to deal with the world suddenly revolving around them and their actions, without any training or even reason given why, with the exception of a certain breed of Solars who get a robocall phone recording in their brain to save the world, and frankly little ability to gain any concrete answers when they go looking for them despite their insane supernatural abilities to do so. It's a game becoming a main character or protagonist of world where they should be none, while also being about one where you can remove all the insurmountable evils and problems in the world that seems so implacable. It's about the good guys winning and what that looks like when no one really believes that can happen. Sure it's unoffical and barely loving words, but that ironically puts above most Exalted editions and Classic World of Darkness in general. I love it. Just going to quote this second story Intro in it's entirety because I like it and boy it sets a mood. Exalted vs World of Darkness Revised posted:Holding Out
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Jun 30, 2021 05:11
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From Hell pt. 20: Pheromancers Degenesis Rebirth Katharsys Chapter 10: From Hell PHEROMANCERS  Beehive It’s a story about Gaelle. Gaelle is a Pheromancer drone who experiences a They Live moment, seeing the pretty people and shining minarets as the bug-surrounded wretches and termite vents that they are. She also sees a floating young Pheromancer lady. quote:Glands inflate at the throat, under the breasts, and at the inner thighs, only to deflate flappingly and to finally be reduced to wrinkled volcanoes. First of all, I don’t get what the “wrinkled volcanoes” are supposed to mean.  Second, the glands have to be in sex places, because of course. In a better book, I’d make the connection between the location and the intoxicating effect of the Pheromancers, but here? Naw.Gaelle thinks that she’s free, but then the Pheromancer touches her lips and she’s back to being immersed in the Kool-Aid. Strengthening A Pheromancer overloading CHA looks real cool, OK? Functionally, this means they have 8D in CHA skills and get +1D per point of overload. It lasts an hour. As you can guess, the dominant attribute is CHA. Primal quote:They squeeze fragrances from their glands that engulf the human brainstem and captivate people. This sounds silly, but maybe Marko isn’t too wrong in this case. I don’t know enough about pheromones to say that they absolutely can’t be classed as just weird funky smells.  On the other hand, I dunno if smells can be transformed into literal mind control and illusion magic like in the intro fiction depicts it. On the other other hand that a Biokinectic just sprouted, sense-overriding mind control is annoyingly common in fiction. Maybe I’m just saying that because 7E Genestealer Cults Codex wrote that Stealer-infected parents see the Purestrains and/or the hybrids as the most beautiful human babies instead of seeing them as they are and considering that to be the peak of baby beauty.   quote:They unite body and soul, mediate between male and female, between the individual and the many. Every creature has its position in their collective, tunes in to the web of pheromone markers that they create. The air is their medium, oily peace their weapon, social fusion their message. Yes, Pheromancers are the worst enemies of humanity: hippies.  And their Chakra is in Souffrance, the crater and surrounding city in Massif Central.  Here's a Pheromancer as never described in the book as he has some hive-like growths on him instead of glands for days. Someone seriously did not communicate with the artists. Focus Pheromancers see humanity as a whole, and the scale of their endeavour makes individual slights unimportant. quote:They don’t bear a grudge against humans, not even against Spitalians or Anabaptists. Does that mean that resurrected Markurant is gonna be “OK, fair game?” He better be, because everyone involved in his killing is probably already dead. quote:For creatures who conciliate and promise love, de-spored Pheromancers are unusually emotionless. Unity is a tool for them, the only one they know. Without their Rapture, they lose their elegance, charisma, and power; underneath, they are just seducers and frauds. So do they believe in unity of the humanity, or is that merely a trick for them?  I bet the answer is, like in so much reactionary media, a “yes.” Symbiosis Pheromancers “see themselves as a swarm,” so they control bugs that live in swarms. I am preparing myself for disappointment if their powers don’t include sending human wave attacks against you. KNOWN PHENOMENA Lord of the Third Plague - Level 0 Bugs build nests for Pheromancers and climb on their bodies to spread pheromones to the swarm. This leads to a sort of automatic and instant control of the bugs, as they feel what the Pheromancer does. This means that even a despored Pheromancer can control bugs because there’s always ants on a trail to get high on his taint sweat. I think this would work more realistic if the Pheromancer was emanating pheromone puffs instead of relying on word-of-mandible, but w/e. The Pheromancer doesn’t need an action to activate this, and the swarm grows by 1 per round as long as there are enough bugs around (another argument for starting any conflict in Degenesis by dropping three Chlorine gas grenades). A young Pheromancer can have a level 3 swarm, a Queen goes up to 10. Swarm only reacts when aggroed (the rules are vague to non-existent) and the targets of the swarm get q penalty equal to swarm strength. Reduce it with area weapons. quote:Nothing else helps against a Queen. Pretty sure that “Trailblazer” is the answer to any question in Degenesis, but we’ll see.  Hive Mind - Level 3 Oh God, it’s another trash garbage narrative power that shouldn’t be in the combat rules. :byodood” Remember the huge bug swarms that Spitalians and the Resistance redirect with lures and poo poo? Well, this power allows a young Pheromancer to Scrooge McDuck dive into the bug swarm and direct it. quote:The great swarm cannot be expressed in rules. There’s literally no rule component to this outside of the level, which is useless because there are no rules on how and when a Pheromancer activates this. Unity - Level 4 quote:The Pheromancers mediate between man and woman, between the individual and the community. Their pheromones latch onto the human brain, lead it to believe that it experiences peace and relaxation. This power makes it morally OK for Richard Rahl to murder you without a second thought. Anyways, succeed at a PSY+Faith/Willpower (overload) roll or “perceive the Pheromancer as a divine being” and lay down your weapons. You can test to free yourself once every hour. Also, this funk covers an area with a diameter of 20 paces - hey, I thought we were using meters! Saturation - Level 4 quote:Threads of ichor hang from the ceiling; foamy mucus accumulates in a hollow. It is humid in this dark appendix of the warren, and it smells of musk. This is the low protein porridge room that makes you more susceptible to Pheromancer influences. If you spend more than 1 hour in it, you get -(overload) to resist Pheromancer powers for 2 days. I don’t know why “having a freaky room” is a power, and why the GM has to determine how much overload the Pheromancer spent when they established it. Sure, the book says “Those who are exposed to these pheromones for more than 1 hour,” which you could argue that this implies that you don’t need a room, but there are no rules for deployment, duration or anything else. Acid - Level 5 One of the zits on Pheromancer’s body shoots a jet of corrosive methane up to 5 meters away, you can only dodge with active defense (so by sacrificing an action). Armor without a closed helmet doesn’t help. If hit, you get -(Overload+Triggers)D “to any role[sic] requiring sight.” Only washing your eyes can make the blinding effects of corrosive farts go away.  Fear - Level 6 The fluff text on this is made flesh:quote:No one can approach the Pheromancer without suddenly being terribly afraid. Fail the usual Faith/Willpower roll and you’ll “panic and can only think of fleeing.” This goes away if you run 20 paces away. So is the range of this power 20 paces? Is it an AoE effect? Shouldn’t this and the Peace-For-At-Least-An-Hour switch places, since that one is a lot more powerful?  Those gland volcanoes look like something that would immediately get gunked up in a swam, leading to death via the largest bacterial infection known to man. Mark Side-section! Mark of the Pheromancer is the stinkiest drop of ichor that you’ll ever encounter, as one is enough “that every Pheromancer can recognize over hundreds of meters” - hey, how many paces is that? The Mark is used to send messages like “kill him” or “let him pass.” This is how Solar Wind Flock gets access to the spore fields, because Apocalyptics are the worst. quote:Some Pheromancers mark their hangmen immediately before their death. Turns out, the mark is so pungent, you’re marked as a killer for weeks. Notably absent? Any mention of what soap and vigorous scrubbing does to Marks. Drone - Level 10 quote:People gather around the Pheromancer, bask in his perspirations, are hopelessly Finally, Marko takes a swing at the worst group of people: fetishist replyguys! quote:The Pheromancer presses an ichor from his glands and spreads it throughout the settlement. Stone steles covered in fist-sized golden drops are erected at hubs Seriously, how much juice does a Pheromancer produce at once? Do they have to hydrate? Back to the poo poo at hand: these things form the “pheromone marker web,” controlling person and bug alike. If you enter a settlement like this, you roll the regular save (hope the GM noted the overload) or be overcome with the desire to work for the community. Much like with regular communism, sealed armor doesn’t prevent it, only helps resist it. You can test to escape once a day, though there’s no mention of how long your immunity lasts. And if your friend keeps failing the test, just drag him out of the colony and he’ll snap out… eventually. Heartburn Side-section! quote:Two souls fuse into one without the possibility to ever really blend. They will hunt Pheromancers in Borgiawe do this and keep one part of the pair at the base so that the other always returns. Man, they’d have such an increase in efficiency if they discovered polygamy… Variant: Expatriate These dinguses travel in groups of up to six, only use body language, pheromones, and limited SepsisNet for communication. They’re the ones driving the swarms “through the Routing Hubs of Franka and deep into Borca.” They’re the Pheromancer equivalent of a trucker. pre:P R O F I L E : E X PA T R I A T E INITIATIVE: 5D / 6 Ego Points | SPORE INFESTATION: max 16, currently 12 SPECIALTY: Swarm strength 3, CHA+Leadership 14D ATTACK: Stinger application at the fingers, 7D, damage 6, range 1 m, smooth-running (2T); Acid jet, 6D, see “Acid” Phenomenon DEFENSE: Passive 1 Melee active (Dodge), Mobility 6D Ranged combat active (Looking for cover), Mobility 6D Mental 6D (no effect in the primal phase) MOVEMENT: 9D ARMOR: None, Armor 0 CONDITION: 14 (Trauma: 8)  Other than that, if the Swarm and the Acid don’t work out, an Expatriate will die faster than a Dushani. They can only hope that their five friends are at hand. Hey, remember how enemies in this sector were supposed to be region-shaking campaign end-bosses…? Variant: Midwife A Midwife either Pied Piper’s away kids, or just collects future Pheromancers. The only hint that it’s the latter is the mention that the kids “emit rudimentary pheromones, make their parents stagger back in disgust.” pre:E INITIATIVE: 6D / 6 Ego Points | SPORE INFESTATION: max 16, currently 12 SPECIALTY: Swarm strength 6, CHA+Leadership 12D ATTACK: Wasp staff, 5D, range 2 m, damage special: Wasps surround the nest at the top of the staff and sting anyone who gets close: 1D damage; only “Sealed” armor protects; acid jet, 6D, see “Acid” Phenomenon DEFENSE: Passive 1 Melee active (Block), Melee 5D (successful block with the wasp staff causes 1D wasp damage even without enough Triggers for a counterstrike) Ranged combat active (nimble), Mobility 7D Mental 9D (no effect in primal phase) MOVEMENT: 7D ARMOR: None, Armor 0 CONDITION: 14 (Trauma: 8)  Variant: Queen This is the scariest creature on Earth: a fat lady. quote:Deep within the vent warrens and clay cusps, they form a hollow with their massive bodies <...> Their bodies are covered in bloating and deflating glands as big as children’s fists. Ichors run across their voluptuous bodies, threading as they drip down on the floor. A network of grooves crisscrosses the steps of the ziggurat in the corridors of the vent warrens. The Queen’s gland fluids flow through them. pre:P R O F I L E : Q U E E N INITIATIVE: 10D / 4 Ego Points | SPORE INFESTATION: max 24, currently 24 SPECIALTY: Swarm strength 15, CHA+Leadership 14D, CHA+Expression 12D ATTACK: Acid jet, 5D, see “Acid” Phenomenon DEFENSE: Passive 1 Melee active - Ranged combat active - Mental 8D (no effect in primal phase) MOVEMENT: 2D ARMOR: None, Armor 4 CONDITION: 16 (Trauma: 8) EQUIPMENT: 6 Burn cusps (+1D spore infestation per cusp, inhaling takes 1 Action) ALLIES: A Queen is always surrounded by drones or free agents who hope to gain some profit from her mark. 5-10 Leperos or inhabitants of the settlement subject to the “Drone” Phenomenon hang at her teats and will do anything to defend her. She also commands Apocalyptics who harvest Burn on her behalf; 2-4 of them guard her nest. Queens: the first magic user to realize that you can carry around mana potions with you to use in battle.  At least the Allies bit gives the Queen interesting encounter rules, unlike the other losers that are presented almost without context. Still, 16 Wounds and Armor 4 given to her by the magical properties of None (...why did the other entries have meticulous armor descriptions if you can just have armor for no reason?) don’t give her too much staying power once Trailblazers come into play. Machiaven  Boy, Scott Cramer really let himself go! quote:He is a giant amongst the Pheromancers, both in stature and in influence.  He must have somehow tailored the Pheromones to not affect Apocalyptics, as Solar Wind Flock are listed as the exception in this realm, taking the role of bodyguards “and his enormously long hand.”In conclusion: Pheromancers Well, the Pheromancers have a lot of smellomancy powers, even if three of them do something that happens off screen. The balance is all over the place, like always, and their peak power is one they can’t use in combat. In combat, a Pheromancer is getting shot from 21 paces (16 meters) away. Next time: peering into the future, sexily
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Jun 30, 2021 05:16
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I'm sold from the story alone on Exalted vs WoD. Very interested in more.
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Jun 30, 2021 05:23
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senrath posted:"You are an ancient creature of legend forced to live in the modern world." Fairly certain the elevator pitch was closer to "you're an ancient monster who has to keep teaching LESSONS in the modern world" is closer to what was sold rather than "POV: ur a dragon in New York, what do?"
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Jun 30, 2021 05:26
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SkyeAuroline posted:I'm sold from the story alone on Exalted vs WoD. Very interested in more. That's about it until the end for fiction, but uh, some very interesting world building stuff and how the other splats are going to react to the Exalted sudden appearance. Part 2 is explaining what the gently caress is happening here
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Jun 30, 2021 05:47
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This is dumb as hell. I love it.
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Jun 30, 2021 06:06
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It's worth noting, loudly, that EvWOD is a product by shitbird Holden Shearer, who unless something truly remarkable has happened that I'm not aware of, should really only be brought up in the context of loving off forever.
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Jun 30, 2021 06:07
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Tulul posted:by shitbird Holden Shearer, Got the two mixed up, but yeah. He's a massive shithead, big warning on that.
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Jun 30, 2021 06:27
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I'm actually working on editing and layout for the second edition of Exalted versus WoD right now, which includes a lot of rules fixes and spins in the new material for the Companion. Exalted 3e clearly burned Holden out, so this is kind of a return to the late 2e form where we actually see him having fun with the game again.
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Jun 30, 2021 07:42
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Rand Brittain posted:I'm actually working on editing and layout for the second edition of Exalted versus WoD right now, which includes a lot of rules fixes and spins in the new material for the Companion. It's a small world after all, especially in TG
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Jun 30, 2021 07:59
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1dWasp is one hell of a die, I presume you flip over a wasp and the result depends on whether or not it stings the poo poo out of you for your trouble.
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Jun 30, 2021 09:17
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