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Age of Sigmar: Soulblight Gravelords POWERWOLF  The Vyrkos Dynasty hail from the forests of Shyish, and they may put the lie to all Dynasties being descended from Neferata and Mannfred. Ther homelands are a cold and frozen land of snow, frost and pine, full of savage wolves and other monstrous beasts that hunt any meat they can find. The vampires live among these beasts, undeniable masters of the frozen woods. They are the Blood of the Wolf, and their unique Soulblight curse is even stranger than most, granting them a truly bestial and animal nature. Ancieny legend claims that their founder, Belladamma Volga, was not turned by any other vampire. Rather, she made a bragain with an undead godbeast, Hrunspuul, the Hound of the Cairns. In return for the bone wolf's gifts, Belladamma and all her line were cursed to reflect the totemic beasts that their people worshipped. The most sacred of these was the wolf. Certain groups in vampiric scholarship believe that the legends of vampiric shapeshifting derive from witnessing the Vrykos Dynasty in action. Many they turn are overwhelmed by their curse and descend into an animal state in which they delusionally believe themselves to be beasts and nothing more. Elder Vyrkos learn to control their animal side, though it is impossible to fully suppress it. Most don't try to, but rather channel the beast into their human lives. It is said that the oldest Vyrkos are as much wolf as person, and even those who hide their nature behind a mask of aristocracy tend to become all the more bestial when they do unleash their innate self. The Vyrkos prefer the tactics of predator packs and love the chase, though it would be foolish to consider them brutish butchers. Rather, they prefer to balance their human and animal sides, channeling either as they become appropriate. The Vyrkos derive from nomadic tribes for the most part, and most of them remain nomads even after the Blood Kiss, but they hunger for conquest as their more human cousins do. Several times, Vyrkos lords have conquered sedentary holdings, most infamously the city of Ulfenkarn. They can raise up undead armies and assemble courts as well as any vampire, and many are quite capable of playing the role of the Soulblight aristocrat, though the closer they are to the Belladamma, the more wolf-like and martial they tend to come off. Even the most noble is never without the beast within, though, and their blood hunger and animal nature come through in their leadership. Their halls are typically full of Dire Wolves and their lands are often haunted by those among their ranks who could not control their hunger. (It should be noted - not all Vyrkos have the nature of the wolf. It is predominant among them, but individual vampires may channel the nature of other animals, such as the rat, the bat, or even the mosquito.) Ulfenkarn, notably, was not conquered by arms, quite. It was once of the proudest mortal cities, certainly the greaetst of the island of Szargorond. In those days, it was Mournhold, though few alive now tend to have time to think much of that. Long have the living cowared in their homes and feared the ghouls and skeletons that watched over them as guards, for they sold their city to Radukar the Wolf, Vyrkos lord. It has been said that he could sense seditious thoughts no matter how deeply hidden - and to some extent this was true, for the Vyrkos spymasters tended to be those of a rodent-like nature, able to command and control rats to spy on their people. The Vyrkos vampires adored oppressing the people, led by the example of Radukar and his Thirsting Court. This was deliberate - Radukar knew that by creating an atmosphere of hopelessness and despair, he would draw the island closer and closer to the Nadir, thus increasing his own power by channeling the potent magic drawn in. In the Age of Chaos, Mournhold was about to be destroyed by Khornate Daemon Prince Slaughn the Ravager. Radukar appeared then at the head of a dark fleet, flying the wolf's head banner. He and his ogor mercenaries hailed from the frozen underworld Kosarg, and they attacked the Khornate armies with the fury of death's winter. They scattered the Khornates, and the Grand Princes of Mournhold accepted Radukar as one of their own at his request - not least because he was by far the most powerful military leader anywhere nearby. For a time, Radukar played at being a noble leader, and he only rarely turned the nobles of Mournhold into vampires. He, his ogors and his vampire allies held out against the forces of Chaos and kept Mournhold free. All of this, however, was a smokescreen. Radukar's true aim was to pursue prophecy, for he had learned of the future from the shamans serving the Vyrkos elders. He heard that one day, a deathstorm would come to Shyish, and that Mournhold would sit near to its eye, a place of great power. And eventually, that day did come - the Necroquake reached out across the Prime Innerlands, and Radukar was ready to feast on its arcane power. Aided by traitors within the noble houses of Mournhold and the vampires he turned into his Bloodborn, Radukar seized control of the city completely and performed a grand ritual that sacrificed hundreds of mortal lives. The survivors learned quickly to fear the vampires in their streets, the roaming Deadwalkers, and the now-undead Kosargi Nightguard ogors who guarded the Wolf's Ebon Citadel. His chamberlain, Torgillius, mastered the art of creating grave-sand artifacts that ensured that should Radukar or any of his key lieutenants be slain, they would return to life quickly by stealing away the souls of those within the city. Thus was Mournhold renamed Ulfenkarn - the Wolf's Feast, in the native tongue of the Vyrkos. Still, ther e were heroes in Ulfenkarn, rebels determined to free their home from the clutch of the Wolf and the terror of the Nadir. With the aid of the Kharadron blockade runner Adamant, they fought against Radukar, reclaimed lost treasures and made great weapons to defeat the tyrant vampires. By their courageous action, they even got into the Ebon Citadel and dealt a terrible wound to the Wolf, forcing him to flee. They assumed he died, though unfortunately, that's not the case. Ulfenkarn is now host to a small but growing haven of living people who have declared it a new Free City. They have sworn that they will drive out the rest of the vampires, purge the corruption that Radukar planted, and return Mournhold to its ancient glory. Of course, many Vyrkos nobles remain in positions of power within the city, and Radukar now stalks the shadows, his animal rage having consumed him and transformed him. He brutally slaughters any mortal he finds, and so far none have been able to trap or stop him. It is unclear how much of his mind remains intact, but vengeance is clearly his goal - against the heroic rebel leaders and the city itself. Next time: Blood Dragons - two kinds.
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Sep 1, 2021 17:47
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dwarf74 posted:This cover art is I love my tiny hosed up werewolf
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Sep 1, 2021 18:01
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I non-ironically love this game and ran a campaign of it that lasted about five years.
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Sep 1, 2021 19:55
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Halloween Jack posted:I have so many questions, but I'll stick to one for now: did you dungeoncrawl in the Wormholes a lot? Always wondered how that aspect of the game butted up against the "Being cool in a nightclub" aspect. The PCs wanted to play a bounty hunter campaign, where they were the ones policing kin that ran the risk of revealing 'The Secret'. One of the last jobs was going after a Daemon Lord that was trying to take over New York and had an army of some really bizarre creatures. It turned out he was hiding out in the Wormholes so I got to drag in a lot of Lovecraftian horrors as they went down after him.
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Sep 1, 2021 21:04
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SCENIC DUNNSMOUTH PART 3: CREATING THE MAP Welcome to another update of Scenic Dunnsmouth. Last post, we learned the map building rules. This post, we put them into practice, to lay down the foundations of our village. The game specifies ten D6s (I almost had enough to make them all the same color), a D4, a D8, and two D12s of different colors. As I mentioned last update, we’re using a red and a blue D6 and adding 6 to each result instead of using D12s, to guarantee that we spawn two unique “kicker” locations. We roll the dice on the page, and get this result.  We write down the die sizes and numbers rolled. We use some of the rules in the step by step process to place Ivanovik and Magda. Ivanovik starts at the farthest die from the time cube, Magda starts at the farthest die from Ivanovik. We use the D6+6 results to get our “D12” results for the kickers, getting us an Inn and a Noble’s Mansion.  Our infection level (denoted by the D4 we used to roll the time cube) is a whopping four, the highest possible level. However, most of the values we rolled are actually above that, so not many households are infected. Notably, both Ivanovik and Magda are. We draw a little spider by the infected houses.  Now, for each normal house (generated by a D6 and not inhabited by Magda or Ivanovik) we draw a card from a normal deck of playing cards. The game instructs you to clean the deck of jokers, rules cards, advertisements, etc before dealing.  It has joke results for each of these, so I might include them if we do a second village build. For now, we’ll stick to the script.  Each of these cards corresponds to a named NPC or family of NPCs, which we place on the map in the little houses. The four suits represent the four clans of swamp dwellers that inhabit Dunnsmouth. We also draw the boathouse at the bottom of the map, and populate it with the same clan as the nearest house.  The village is mostly Duncasters and Samsons, with only a single Dunlop and Van Kaus household each. Who are these people? We’ll meet them next update. We place the original spider based on a series of if/then statements that accompany the generation rules, which drops it in the inn.  Now that we’ve created the DM facing map, we can use that as a template for a player facing map, cleaned of information like spider infestations and the time cube’s location. If the players got a map of the area from an NPC, it would look something like this:  I realized at this point that I actually hosed up and drew a card with a family for Ivanovik’s house, which you aren’t supposed to do. This was a blessing in disguise, though. As we’ll see in the next update, the rolled result for Ivanovik’s house is full of bodies, and now we know whose they are. Our village has now been built and populated with NPCs and points of interest. In the next update, we’ll meet the four families of Dunnsmouth, and learn what’s going on in some of these special locations.
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Sep 1, 2021 22:29
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This seems fun, I'm looking forward to the next update. I might actually run something like this for some friends if I can get them for a weekend, with my own modifications of course.
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Sep 2, 2021 02:52
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Mors Rattus posted:Age of Sigmar: Soulblight Gravelords I love the Image of Vyrkos Dynasty Family tree in the book.  And all of the Ulfenkarn stuff is relevant to Soulbound as we are getting a Ulfenkarn sourcebook early next year.
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Sep 2, 2021 04:13
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Too bad it became irrelevant to Warhammer Quest almost as soon as it appeared 
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Sep 2, 2021 05:00
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JcDent posted:Too bad it became irrelevant to Warhammer Quest almost as soon as it appeared I am one of the lucky ones who own it, but yes it was a really weird situation.
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Sep 2, 2021 06:06
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I also own it and I'm losing my mind that it's still being pushed so much. What happened???
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Sep 2, 2021 10:00
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COVID and Brexit, presumably.
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Sep 2, 2021 10:35
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yeahbut--
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Sep 2, 2021 10:54
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I'm still about sad how fast the support for Blackstone ended E: I mean, it got some good expansions, but all of those are now OOP lostech outside the one heretics being sold separately.
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Sep 2, 2021 11:33
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 But it's better for it to exist as a sourcebook for Soulbound than be forgotten I feel.
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Sep 2, 2021 11:45
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 Part Nine: Too Queer for Schuntertissen! With our story concluded, it's time to move on and look at how you, too, can create pilots as dashing and cool as Gunther, Genivee, and Wilbur, and start discussing the playbooks available to Flying Circus PCs. The game calls its playbooks "backgrounds," and as the name suggests they give a lot of attention to where you came from, why you left, and how that shaped you as a person in addition to all the stuff you'd expect from a PbtA playbook like starting moves, gear, and relationships with the other PCs. Like a lot of PbtA games, Flying Circus puts most of the actual character creation rules on the playbook sheets available as a separate download, with the backgrounds' write-ups in the actual book devoted to frank and very helpful discussions of their themes and metaphors, plus some additional clarifications and explanations of their moves' rules that wouldn't fit on the character sheet. This isn't something that bothers me personally, but I know "not everything you actually need to play is contained within the book" is a common complaint about PbtA games in general, so I'm pointing it out here. I mentioned before that backgrounds are very focused on where you came from and how that shaped you, and that really shows in one of the first set of choices you'll make. See, lots of PbtA games, going all the way back to Apocalypse World itself, have a section where you define your character's look: You know the ones, things like "kind eyes, hard eyes, dead eyes" or "scrounge wear, grease-stained coveralls, fetish wear" or whatever. Flying Circus, by contrast, asks you to define the expectations about your character: what do other people think a "typical" farmer looks like, and what do farmers themselves think is "normal" vs. "weird" or "stands out?" Notably, while most of the other questions you're asked to answer in character creation say "choose or write your own," you're very much expected to stick with the options presented on these lists. Yes, they are often sharply and unfairly restrictive, especially when it comes to gender expression and identity. But remember that these are expectations the world might have about you (or at least people like you). How much you conform to or defy those expectations is the part that is up to you. The expectations section is one of those subtle but really excellent little tweaks Flying Circus makes to the PbtA formula--combined with the questions about "why you fly" and "why you left home," it really does a great job of driving home the idea that pilots are people who didn't fit in in their home community and are looking for a place they can belong. On the topic of those character history questions, while almost all the backgrounds list "too queer" as one of the answers to "I left home because I was..." I also appreciate that the book takes a moment to make it very clear that you don't have to choose that option to play a queer character--choosing it just means that your queer identity was a factor in you leaving home to join the circus. (I would also personally add that choosing it doesn't even necessarily mean that you experienced bigotry in your hometown, and could just as easily represent something like "I grew up in a really small town and there was nobody of a compatible gender and orientation in my age group," for example.) Each individual background also gives you the typical gear/possessions (divided here into "assets" and "baggage," and what gets categorized as which does a lot of good work showing how your character likely perceives the world), which other PCs you Trust or don't, and, of course, a plane. One small criticism I have here is that I wish there was a small description of the plane options on the sheet. Pretty much all the other choices you're making in character creation are self-evident (e.g. you have the full text of your Moves printed on the playbook sheet, the character questions are purely narrative), but to choose a plane you pretty much have to bust open the Aircraft Catalogue and page through it. Now granted, you'd need the catalogue to fill out your dashboard before play anyways, and the aircraft catalogue does have a handy little info box for each plane with a tiny description of its role, strengths, and weaknesses, and the catalogue's planes are grouped together by which playbooks can start with them, but I still kind of wish the playbooks themselves gave a little bit beyond just the model name. On the other hand, the playbook sheets are already jam-packed, so I recognize that there's not really physical space for such a thing. Oh well. We went over the mechanics of Stress, Vices, and the Vent move back in an earlier update, and each background also has a list of Stress Triggers that inflict Stress if they happen during a mission, some options for Familiar Vices, and a list of suggested ways someone of this background might Vent. And finally, of course, each playbook has a collection of moves, including one "core move" that you get by default. Contrary to what you might expect, this move is not usually a signature special ability, rather it's a core flaw your character is going to grapple with, like a Farmer's naivete or a Soldier's inability to open up emotionally. Some of them have triggers that let you eventually overcome them, but some are just facts of your life that will always be with you. Farmers are probably the most straightforward background in the game: they're country folk with a prodigious natural talent behind the stick, your classic protagonist types. They're also mechanically pretty simple, so they're a good choice for new players or people who might already be a little overwhelmed by the complexity of the air combat system. The background also includes some subtle references to a certain pop-culture franchise, but they're pretty subtle, so don't worry if you don't pick them up.  NB: Literally every Farmer move's name is a Star Wars quote. They get a lot of moves that directly help them in flight, and their intimacy move is direct and really powerful: As long as the person you were intimate with continues to Trust you, your Help gives them double Advantage: They roll 4d10 and keep the two best dice. (If they're an NPC, you get that perk any time you roll to help them or do something for them in the fiction). Also, in the air, you only share the bad consequences of the move if both extra dice show 1. Note that there is no limit to the number of characters this can apply to. However, if you ever choose to Break Trust with a person you've been intimate with, you suffer an immediate 5 Stress. Yes, this means Farmers are strongly disincentivized from cutting people out of their lives, and yes, that can end up looking like Farmers putting their loved ones on a pedestal, which can get really ugly, so make sure to have that conversation about boundaries and safety tools with the group. Their core move is Naive: You can't try to relieve Stress with an unfamiliar Vice without another, familiar PC, to show you a good time. This doesn't count as Help (so no Advantage), and you have to use the other PC's Daring, which could be good or very, very bad. They also get a unique "Destiny Move," because all Farmers are (at least potentially) secretly the long-lost heirs of some significant figure. If you discover your true heritage, you can either accept it and jump over to the Scion playbook or reject it for a lump sum of 15 XP. Farmers are literally the Hero's Journey incarnate. Their other moves are roughly-evenly split between fancy flying tricks and hot-rodding their planes. Of particular note are One in a Million, which gives you 1 hold per routine which you can spend for a perfect shot (in combat, this is an automatic Crit and you choose the part you hit, on a bombing run it means you automatically hit the weak point and destroy the target, and in social situations it basically hits on exactly their insecurities and generally gets them to do what you want) and You Came in That Thing, which lets you roll for a Used Plane penalty on your plane and, in exchange, choose a different Used penalty and apply the inverse (so, for example, adding 10% Handling instead of subtracting it). Soldiers grew up in a community that sprung up in the wake of the Great War, after the cities died and armies in the field were cut off with no orders and had to survive. Usually their communities center around a fortress of some kind, and over the generation since they settled into a sort of feudal arrangement, with the soldiers as the aristocracy providing security and defense and support staff and civilians providing for the soldiers' needs. As you might expect, soldiers are the deadliest playbook in the game--thematically they act as a symbol of the Old World and the nationalistic and militaristic fervor that ultimately killed it. That can be some pretty dark poo poo, so it's important to remember this is your background, not your present--a Soldier PC has left that life behind, hopefully to find a better way to live in the world than as part of a machinery of killing and dying to advance the interests of rich old men. Their intimacy move is another simple but powerful one, and it's also one of the rare moves they get that lets them transcend the coldness and detached violence of a lot of their other moves: When you're intimate with someone, you hold 1, which you can spend at any time to arrive at their side when they're in danger, ignoring any limits of time, distance, or plausibility. You're just there. If you're in the air when you spend the hold, your next move is also an automatic full hit, no dice required (unfortunately the text doesn't say whether "full hit" includes the extra results some moves have on a 20+ or just the 16+ result). By contrast, their core move directly reinforces that cold, detached nature drilled into them by their superiors: Any attempt to Get Real with you automatically misses unless you're currently Stressed, and you cannot initiate the Get Real move at all. That's pretty harsh, but there's a way out: the second time you Burn Out, you lose this move. So after a couple of traumatic emotional breakdowns, you can finally figure out that opening up to people isn't a weakness. Soldier moves are a mix of command and strategy, including moves that can buff the entire group in ground engagements or cross-train to share moves on a less-permanent basis than a move exchange, and moves that really highlight how violence is drilled into them to an almost instinctual level: They get a move that gives you +3 to Press the Issue if you hold someone at gunpoint, but if the move misses you automatically shoot the other person. Another lets you take 1 Stress and hold 1 if you're being suspicious and keeping an eye on somebody shady--if that somebody then tries to hurt you or your friends, spend that hold and you just... loving kill them. No roll, no damage calculation, they're just dead and smash cut to your smoking pistol or bloody sword or whatever. Soldiers can be goddamn scary. Next Time: Class Warfare! 
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Sep 2, 2021 17:26
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  Part 1: Character Creation Player characters in Nightlife have several kinds of stats. Abilities are your basic ability scores, and Skills are skills. Edges are supernatural powers and Flaws are supernatural vulnerabilities. Humanity is very important for several reasons; it acts as a kind of XP and throttles how much your Flaws affect you. Connections are contacts. The most important is the race of monster you want to play. But I’ll get Abilities out of the way first. You generate your PC’s Abilities by rolling 4d10 for each ability, giving you a score from 4-40. To give you a frame of reference from the “bestiary,” your average beat cop or gangster will have stats in the 10-15 range, with heavily armed SWAT troopers and special forces having 20s across the board. Very rarely, a human could have one or two Abilities as high as 40. So even before you get into racial bonuses and supernatural powers, Kin are usually much more powerful than any human they come across. The Abilities are: Strength (STR) Dexterity (DEX) Fitness (FIT) Intellect (INT) Will (WILL) Perception (PER) Attractiveness (ATT) Luck (LUCK) It’s basically the D&D stats, but with Charisma broken up into Will and Attractiveness. Like most versions of D&D, these Abilities aren’t well-balanced--this is a percentile skill roll game, and some Abilities have way more skills based on them than others. (Like almost every version of D&D, it would be better if Strength and Fitness were merged.) Luck is the odd one out--unlike other Abilities, it automatically increases by 1d10 after every session. Similar to Karma in Shadowrun, Luck functions as a sort of non-level leveling system. It factors into your Survival Points, and similar to the Luck roll in Call of Cthulhu, it can be rolled to see if you get a lucky break when the City Planner* doesn’t know what else to roll. Your Luck/5 is also your unskilled skill roll, to a maximum of 20. Speaking of Survival Points (SP), that’s one of the two derived stats. They’re your hit points, made up of the total of your Fitness and Luck. The other derived stat is your base Hand-to-Hand Damage (HTH), which is your Strength/5. Strength doesn’t get used for much else! And I don’t like it when a game has a few derived stats and one of them is “default punching damage.” There’s gotta be a more elegant way to handle that in the combat rules! Before we get to the fun stuff, a brief note on Humanity. Like everything else, it’s rated 00-100, and PCs start with 50. When your Humanity is above 50, you take less damage from your vulnerabilities and you’re less likely to accidentally Infect mortals. When Humanity is below 50, the reverse is true. You spend Humanity to buy and use Edges, so it’s a kind of supernatural XP. *Yes, the GM in this game is called the City Planner. Races of the Kin There are actually many different “species” of monster living in (and under) New York City, and all are referred to as Kin. But there are seven kinds of playable Kin; the rest are mostly too violent or too inhuman looking to be a part of Kin society. Different types of Kin vary in their strengths and weaknesses, their unique racial Edges and Flaws, and how they feed on humans. But all Kin have certain powers in common that aren’t considered edges. The first is longevity: all Kin are functionally immortal. Permanently killing a Kin requires special methods that vary from Kin to Kin, or killing them a number of times equal to their FIT score. That seems pointless to even measure, but in a dungeoncrawl-heavy game--and Nightlife absolutely allows you to play it that way--a PC could conceivably die 30 times over a long campaign. Besides immortality, the most important common thread binding the Kin is Draining. All Kin can Drain vitality from humans in order to sustain and heal themselves, though not all of them have to. Those too-monstrous Kin I mention tend to feed on other monsters. Most Kin can also use the Infection Edge to make people into monsters like themselves--sometimes by accident. Another universal ability is resistance to disease. The only disease that affects Kin is Nerve Rot, which becomes a plot point in at least one of the supplements. All Kin are also impossible to photograph, which is not really explained. There’s also a list of Common Edges that any type of Kin can learn.  Our old friend Samantha X. Vampyres are vampires, and one of the more complicated Kin. Like D&D, they felt like they needed to give them all the strengths and weaknesses of classic Hammer Horror vampires. Vampyres are possibly the oldest race of Kin and one of the most common, divided more or less evenly among the political factions in NYC. The book mentions that there are different types of vampires from all over the world, but they don’t get different stats or complicated backstories. Vampyres get a +20 bonus to STR and a +5 bonus to DEX, FIT, and ATT. They start with the Mesmerism Edge, and their other Racial Edges include controlling animals and transforming into bats, rats, wolves, and mist. The tradeoff for this is a long list of vulnerabilities: sunlight and running water will kill them quickly, they take extra damage from fire and wood, and they’re repulsed by garlic and holy relics, which can also harm them. They also have to sleep most of the day away on a bed of the earth they were buried in. They feed on human or animal blood, and need 10SP a day to stay healthy. (Yes, Draining is as simple as taking hit points.) That seems like a lot, considering your average mook will only have about 20SP. But the book doesn’t say anything to imply that taking half of someone’s SP means you’re taking half the blood in their body, so presumably they’ll recover as long as you don’t drain them to death. Most Vampyres will prefer to cultivate some willing vampire groupies anyway. Like some other races, Vampyre feeding can cause addiction in mortals. Vampyres look more and more sickly and undead as their Humanity drops. As I mentioned above, low Humanity also causes you to take more damage from sunlight, fire, etc. and increases the likelihood of accidental Infection, while high Humanity has the opposite effect. Vampyres can deliberately Infect mortals by Draining their victim near to death and then feeding the mortal their own blood.  Werewolves are werewolves, you know the drill. They have a human form, a wolf form, and a wolf-person form. They don’t reproduce naturally, nor do they get their powers from black magic; they reproduce through Infection like Vampyres. Werewolves have been around at least since the Paleolithic Era, but they’re concentrated in North America and Europe. (I see no reason you couldn’t play similar monsters, like the nagual and bultungin, with the exact same stats.) In human form Werewolves get small bonuses to STR and FIT and a small penalty to ATT. That’s right, the excessive body hair makes Werewolves less attractive than most Kin! This was 1990, before “sexy werewolves” was an entire genre of porn. Their wolf-man form gets similar bonuses to Vampyres, and their wolf form is even stronger. Both inhuman forms also get big PER bonuses. I like this from a game balance point of view--werewolves can easily pass for human at the cost of low stats, and give up their human appearance and even ability to use tools to get progressively better stats. As for Flaws, Werewolves only have to worry about fire and silver. However, they have very few unique Edges besides their shapeshifting powers: just Fear Projection and Sense Acuity. In fact, they only start with Lupine Form; you have to buy the wolf-man form separately. Werewolves don’t need to Drain to live; they’re alive and can eat normal food. But they can Drain by mauling a victim, feeding on their fear and agony. Needless to say, this isn’t addictive. When their Humanity is low, this has a chance to Infect humans--they don’t have a guaranteed way of doing it like Vampyres do. Speaking of which, problems like going berserk and being stuck in beast form are only problems for Werewolves with low Humanity.  Ghosts are the spirits of humans who died violently or with unresolved issues. They’re the most common type of Kin, and tend to side with the pro-human factions. Stat-wise, they get a +10 bonus to WILL and a +10 bonus to maximum Humanity. By default, Ghosts are semi-transparent and incorporeal. They can’t touch or be touched by anything but their vulnerabilities: fire and "cold-wrought iron." They have a unique starting Edge, Corporeality, that allows them to form a solid ectoplasmic body. Ghosts have some other scary Flaws: they hae to spend 8 hours a day near their Relic, some important object from their mortal life. They can be banished to the Twisted Dimensions-basically Hell--if their Relic is destroyed or used in an exorcism ritual. To make up for their lack of physical stat boosts, they have a lot of unique Racial Edges, most of which don’t even require a physical body: Flight, Invisibility, Telekinesis, and several more. Ghosts don’t need to Drain, but they can do it by passing through a victim, feeding on the fear instilled by their icy psychic touch. Of course, they don’t Infect people and make them into Ghosts. If you want some ghostly friends, I guess you could always just kill people!  Hey baby, wanna help me kill all the humans? Daemons are refugees from the Twisted Dimensions, where they were slaves ruled by infernal masters. Two hundred of them escaped to the mortal world around 5,000 BC, so most Daemons today are their descendants. Daemons don’t Infect, and can reproduce naturally. They must do so very slowly, or the world would be overrun with Daemons by now--as aliens with no human origins, Daemons are less human than most Kin and many are quite eager to dominate mortals. Daemons get +5 DEX, WILL, and ATT, and +10 PER. They also take a -10 penalty to Humanity. Daemons can shift between a mortal disguise and their true form, which is a human with tinted skin, bat wings, and little horns on their forehead. As their Humanity drops, their wings and horns become larger, their skin more red-purplish, and their features more goatlike. Daemons can use their wings to fly--Flight is one of their starting Edges, along with Travel (short range teleportation). They get a good arsenal of Racial Edges, including the ability to breathe fire(!) and possess mortals. Daemons are vulnerable to flint, holy symbols, and fire. (Yes, fire. All Kin are vulnerable to fire.) They’re also vulnerable to mind control by those who know the “Majestic Daemonic” language of their ancient masters. Fortunately, elder evils don’t crawl out of the Twisted Dimensions very often and aren’t offering language classes at the local community college. Like Vampyres, Daemons need to Drain 10 SP from mortals each day, but they do it simply by touching victims and stealing their life force. Not only can this be addictive, many mortals don’t even realize they’ve been Drained.  Yo, ho, yo, ho, a pirate Wyght for me Now this is interesting! Like Daemons, Wyghts are originally natives of the Twisted Dimensions. They were summoned here as tomb guardians. Unlike all the other playable monsters, Wyghts don’t have an obvious connection to folklore. It’s true that Tolkien’s “barrow-wights” were inspired by Norse legends, but Wyghts are pretty much exactly Dungeons & Dragons wights, down to the pale, mummified skin and life-draining touch. (In his Street Velocity supplement, McDevitt gave them a complicated backstory wherein they were an alien race of slave-soldiers, cursed with undeath for rebelling against their masters.) If you’re familiar with Vampire, Wyghts are the “Nosferatu” of this game. They look like dried-out mummies with grayish skin and stark white hair, and can’t pass for human without a heavy disguise. Wyghts are the strongest Kin, with +30 STR and +10 DEX, FIT, and PER. They suffer ATT -15 for obvious reasons. Like Vampyres, Wyghts can be killed by sunlight, and they’re vulnerable to both silver and fire. They also get very very few Racial Edges--just Necropathy and Reanimate Dead (basically speak with dead and animate dead from D&D). Wyghts Drain in a similar manner to Daemons, though they only need 5 SP per day. Their Draining touch causes the victim to age rapidly, but this wears off when the victim recovers SP. They can deliberately Infect mortals by Draining them to death.  Oh no. Oh no. Oh no no no no no Oof. Gosh. Aw, jeez. I hate to...well, let’s just get it over with. Inuits are indigenous American nature spirits, native to the northern US and Canada all the way to Alaska. I really don’t know why they decided to use the name of an indigenous ethnic group (which just means “people”) to refer to a race of magical spirits. Nor why they don’t know that “Inuit” is already the plural form. For what it’s worth, McDevitt corrected this to “Manitou” in Street Velocity and I’m just going to go with that from here on out. Manitou get +5 FIT, +5 PER, and share the Ghosts’ +10 bonus to Humanity. In spite of that, they have a conflicted relationship with humanity, with a desire to preserve nature and animals from devastation. They’re a rowdy bunch, generally harmless but with a propensity to make mischief, and usually side with the Commune. Manitou are vulnerable to fire and repulsed by holy symbols. Every Manitou is tied to some patch of undisturbed nature, their “Power Source,” and must return to it at least once a month to avoid starvation. For most Manitou in NYC, this is Central Park. Another Flaw they all share is a compulsion to dress even more flamboyantly than most Kin...including feathers. Christ on a spike. Manitou start with the Invisibility Edge and get a pretty good arsenal of magic powers, including the ability to command animals, heal wounds, turn into birds, levitate, and...drive mortals crazy or cause heart attacks. It’s kind of all over the place. Along with Ghosts, they're sort of a "wizard class" as opposed to the brawny Wyghts. Like Werewolves, Manitou can eat food and don’t need to Drain. But they can do so by draining life force with a touch, like Daemons and Wyghts. They never Infect mortals accidentally, but they can do so on purpose. This causes a mortal to go berserk, apparently die, and rise as a Manitou.  Animates are the most diverse race of Kin. Reanimated corpses, golems, homunculi, evil knife-wielding dolls, and all that sort of thing are Animates, and they can be created in different ways. This is the only type of Kin that has subtypes with slightly different rules. Animates tend to be anti-human and revel in their superiority to mortals; more humane Animates are considered outcasts by their own kind. Animates get +5 STR and INT, +10 WILL and a -5 penalty to Humanity, and a +10 to add to any stat you want. They take damage from sunlight, provoke hostility from humans, and are compelled to keep their word once given. I get the Frankenstein references, but the sunlight vulnerability is odd. Animates start with the Domination (mind control) edge, and have just a few Racial Edges, which focus on controlling the minds and bodies of others. The focus on mind control powers also strikes me as odd. Like Daemons, they need to Drain 10 SP a day and do so by draining life force with a touch. Their Drain can cause addiction, but they never Infect. Like I said, there are several types of Animates. Flesh Animates are your classic Frankenstein monster, stitched together from multiple cadavers and animated by dark science. Homunculi are clones created by black magick, who always have one or two features slightly “off,” like mismatched eyes. Golems, Animated Dolls, and Living Statues are crafted from inanimate matter and brought to life by magic or possessing spirits. Depending on what they’re made of and how realistically they’re crafted, they may pass for human barring a close inspection. Human mages and mad scientists are covered in a supplement, so I don’t believe there are any rules for how to create Animates. There are modifiers for non-fleshy Animates--wooden ones take extra damage from fire, and plastic ones are similar but get a bonus to DEX. Metal or stone golems take less damage from fire and get bonuses to STR and FIT, are required to buy the Armor Edge, and weigh much more than fleshy people. These types aren’t exactly balanced (being made of wood just sucks) and it’s not a great tradeoff for being unable to pass as human. Next Chapter: Edges! And Flaws! White Wolf, eat your heart out. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Apr 29, 2022 |
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Sep 2, 2021 17:30
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Age of Sigmar: Soulblight Gravelords Knights of the Red Drop  The Kastelai Dynasty are obsessed with war and the chance to test their own skill against the greatest of foes in open battle. This, they argue, is the only true honorable path for an immortal. Honor is deeply important to the Kastelai - or, at least, the appearance of honor is. They claim they have true nobility, unlike most vampires, for they are committed to feeding only in open warfare, which is a fair and noble channel for their hunger. Certainly, they are glorious to see in the field, mounted on massed undead horses in full, gleaming armor. However, while they like to pretend at being true paragons of warrior nobility, they are as vulnerable to their curse as any lineage of vampires, and they are prone to allowing war to be an excuse to engage in horrible, violent excesses. The Kastelai are the subject of many tales and legends which often confuse outsiders. Some say they are nomads, always traveling, while others claim they are the castellans of the Crimson Keep, never abandoning their hold. Both are true, because the Crimson Keep is a strange and shifting place. It is a mystic castle, appearing in Shyishian myth as long as anyone can recall. It appears and vanishes across the Realms, always manifesting in broken ruins and fallen fortresses. When it appears, the sky darkens with bats, and the ruins around the site melt and flow into each other to form up the walls of the Keep. Then, the portcullis opens and the Kastelai ride out to smash into the enemy - whoever that may be. They don't tend to care all that much who they fight, as long as it's a good battle. The undisputed leader of the Kastelai is Prince Vordhrai, Saint of Slaughter, also called the Fist of Nagash. He is bound to the Keep and cannot leave it long for his crimes against his master, but this doesn't keep his dynasty from adoring him almost to a vampire. Many of the Kastelai are granted the Blood Kiss by him personally as a reward for unseating one of Vhordrai's lieutenants at a joust, and he frequently leads them into battle personally. When he doesn't, one of his Red Seneschals will lead in his stead. Regardless of who leads, though, the Kastelai respect strength above all, and their leaders thus rule by right of force, brooking no disobedience. They do not actually discriminate against those vampires not 'born' into the Dynasty, however. Any vampire may join the Kastelai by approaching Vhordrai and swearing an oath of loyalty, then passing a series of extremely difficult trials of martial skill. This is to ensure that the Dynasty continues to incorporate new martial traditions into their history and refine them. The Kastalai are extremely proud of thier martial knowledge and consider mastering it to be the best way to spend eternity. Very rarely, they may even spare a mortal foe in exchange for being taught a new martial technique or philosophy that impresses them. This and their tradition of adopting outside vampires means that many cultures and beliefs from across the Realms mix together in the Crimson Keep. The vampires within have formed a number of secretive cults, and the castle is home to several altars to martial death gods - a fact that would enrage Nagash if he knew. Vhordrai allows these religions to continue existing in his domain only as long as they are quiet enough to avoid notice. He may hate Nagash deeply, but he's not stupid enough to risk pissing off Nagash twice unless he can take Nagash down when he does. Kastelai forces are typically entirely cavalry - both because they like the imagery of knights and because they need to remain highly mobile for practical reasons. After all, Vhordrai doesn't actually control the movements of the Crimson Keep, and when it leaves, any vampire left behind is stranded at best. Those who have lived too long within the red halls actually wither into dust entirely if not within the Keep when it vanishes. Blood Knights form the core of the Kastelai doctrine, supported by packs of Dire Wolves - hounting hounds raised for viciousness, then turned into undead, in this case. They avoid using Deadwalkers and Deathrattle when they can, though they'll pull them from their graves as expendable forces when tactics require. Their target selection generally involves contacting any vampires in the region the Crimson Keep appears in and offering to sell their services as mercenaries if paid handsomely in blood, but they're not above picking fights with the strongest local army for no reason but the glory of combat.  The Avengorii Dynasty are monsters, through and through. They hail from the Sascathran Desert of Ghur originally, and they abandon even the pretense of humanity that the Vyrkos play at. They fly out in hordes of Vargheists and monstrous beasts to feast on mortal blood and flesh, embracing their predatory impulses in ways no other Dynasty dares. They usually don't see themselves as nobles or military leaders, but as hunters, and they prefer to make their homes in cavern networks under the sand. Their leaders are the monstrosities known as Vengorian Lords, beastly mergings of bat, lizard and man. Their homes are often full of zombie drakes and bat-derived beasts drawn to their blood's power. When the Avengorii head to war, the monsters follow instinctively, obeying the nature of the Soulblight curse to command. While anyone can see that there are links between the Avengorii and the abhorrants descended from Ushoran, the Avengorii take great offense at the comparison. They are often lucid if not strictly human in outlook, and most of them are fully aware of how monstrous they seem to others. Indeed, they tend to make a show of appreciating the disgust they cause, though for many it's a coping mechanism to deal with the consequences of casting aside their old lives. They claim that in embracing their primal nature, they master the nature of Ghur itself, and it's not wholly false. The Avengorii practice a number of rituals to draw out and empower their monstrous side. Untransformed vampires are seen as lesser beings, hated by most of the bloodline unless they take part in the mas'ranga rite, binding themselves in iron chains and hanging suspended over a pool of boiling blood until their thirst grows to a terrible frenzy. The chains keep them from feeding, accelerating their transformation into a Vargheist. To pass furhter into monstrosity is to pursue the korak'hor, where the vampire must spend ten full days and nights in isolation befor the Void Maw, a massive realmgate in the depths of the caves under the desert which constantly spews out massive amounts of amethyst magic. It is said to be linked to somewhere deep in Nagashizzar itself. Most of the time, the ritual ends with the supplicant disintegrated entirely by the power of the magic in the sealed chamber, but those who survive ascend to the status of Vengorian Lord. Other vampires tend to be disgusted and confused by the entire set of practices, but the Avengorii don't care. This, for them, is a holy pursuit, a true communion with the Soulblight within them and an ascension above the supposed curse. Avengorii armies are more hordes of violent beasts. Some of the nomadic Wight Kings of the Sascathran Desert see it as an honor to ride alongside the vampires derived from their ancient culture, but most avoid the Avengorii. The predators go alone, surrounded by their pets as they find victims to tear apart in a frenzy of violence. The Nightmare Broods, as these forces are often known, tend to reject the idea of planned strategy in favor of vrute force, and left to themselves they would probably be on the road to total extermination just because of their lack of planning. They have a savior, though, one which they never expected: their new queen, Lauka Vai, the Mother of Nightmares. Lauka Vai was once a vampiric knight renowned for her code of honor and high moral standards - a great rarity among the Soulblight. Even though she has been transformed into a Vengorian and cursed with a thirst for blood even beyond those of her fellow monsters, she retains much of her sense of honor and nobility. Lauka Vai rejects feeding on civilians entirely, seeing the harming of innocents and the defenseless to be beneath the honor of a true vampiric warrior. Instead, she and the Avengorii who have chosen to follow her target the great monsters of Ghur as their food, or other prey of worthy strength and violence. (Mostly; occasionally, the hunger overwhelms even Lauka Vai, though she always regrets what happens in her hunger fugues.) Most of the Avengorii acknowledge this restriction with as much grace as they can manage and have even become somewhat respected by their neighbors as a result, but a non-small minority reject Lauka's command, fall into blood-hungered madness or evade Lauka's notice long enough to attack mortal settlements. The rest have settled on picking fights with Chaos, the Orruks and the beasts. Next time: Heroic vampire biographies.
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Sep 2, 2021 18:21
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Nightlife's art is a treasure. Though I gotta admit, one thing it's got over Vampire is not having 100 sub-splats for each type of supernatural creature.
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Sep 2, 2021 18:59
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Halloween Jack posted:I really don’t know why they decided to use the name of an indigenous ethnic group (which just means “people”)
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Sep 2, 2021 19:19
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GimpInBlack posted:That can be some pretty dark poo poo, so it's important to remember this is your background, not your present--a Soldier PC has left that life behind, hopefully to find a better way to live in the world than as part of a machinery of killing and dying to advance the interests of rich old men. I've just recently started playing in a Flying Circus game myself, my first time playing the system, and I'm playing as a Soldier. I think it's a really well done class: in a mostly bright, colorful, optimistic cast, the Soldier is the cold, brooding, solitary killer who reacts to most situations with sudden and extreme violence. And here's the thing: in this setting, that doesn't make the Soldier a hard [wo]man who makes hard choices, or the pragmatist doing for the greater good what her soft-hearted companions won't, or a cigar-chomping badass. The Soldier is an intensely unstable time bomb who reacts with wildly disproportionate force, has a severely stunted sense of empathy, and has no concept of deescalation. That's not heroic, that's horrifying, and what's worse is that she came from a culture and society that made her that way on purpose. In the case of the character I'm playing as, I frame it as her sincerely meaning well. But she was raised and trained to understand the world only through the lens of us-or-them, black-and-white conformity and extremism. That which is Us is to be protected. That which is Them is to be opposed. And anything worth fighting is worth fighting to the death for, half measures are for cowards and compromisers. And that's wrong.
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Sep 2, 2021 19:30
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The Soldier has one of the most thematically perfect Moves in the game: Trigger Discipline. Soldiers are broken people, who only know how to interact with others through violence. Trigger Discipline is a move that sees you pull a gun on someone as part of negotiation. It gives you a huge bonus, but if you fail, you pull the trigger. It's a short, simple move that is incredibly evocative. Escalation without knowing how to de-escalate
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Sep 2, 2021 20:47
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Kaza42 posted:The Soldier has one of the most thematically perfect Moves in the game: Trigger Discipline. Soldiers are broken people, who only know how to interact with others through violence. Trigger Discipline is a move that sees you pull a gun on someone as part of negotiation. It gives you a huge bonus, but if you fail, you pull the trigger. It's a short, simple move that is incredibly evocative. Escalation without knowing how to de-escalate And, for my group, just as importantly is the larger implication: whenever a Soldier is around, there is almost always the risk that people are going to die. The very presence of a Soldier raises the stakes of a situation because of moves like that, and it's entirely sensible for the other PCs to in some ways be even more wary of the Soldier nominally on their side than they are of the enemy in front of them.
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Sep 2, 2021 21:14
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Kaza42 posted:The Soldier has one of the most thematically perfect Moves in the game: Trigger Discipline. Soldiers are broken people, who only know how to interact with others through violence. Trigger Discipline is a move that sees you pull a gun on someone as part of negotiation. It gives you a huge bonus, but if you fail, you pull the trigger. It's a short, simple move that is incredibly evocative. Escalation without knowing how to de-escalate One of the things that turned me off about AW 2e is that Go Aggro worked like this in 1e. It was a beautiful move for enforcing the intended atmosphere: "violence is a powerful tool, but if you think you can play games with it, you'd better be prepared for the consequences." In 2e, however, they changed it to let you back down -- I'm sure that feels better for many players, but I think it really de-fangs the move.
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Sep 2, 2021 21:23
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PurpleXVI posted:Nightlife's art is a treasure. There are a bunch of other types of creatures in the bestiary that are trivial to stat out; Ekimmu, Ghouls, and Goblynnes for example, all work very well as PCs.
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Sep 2, 2021 21:29
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Goblynnes Gobby E Lynne the Goblynne
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Sep 2, 2021 22:16
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There are also Trolles.
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Sep 2, 2021 22:21
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The Trolle problem.
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Sep 2, 2021 22:28
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You must pay the Tolle to the Bridge Trolle to pass. The Trolle Tolle.
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Sep 2, 2021 23:01
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If you want to get the boy’s holle, you gotta pay the troll tolle.
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Sep 2, 2021 23:10
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https://vimeo.com/83566286
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Sep 2, 2021 23:10
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Mors Rattus posted:The Kastalai are extremely proud of thier martial knowledge and consider mastering it to be the best way to spend eternity. Very rarely, they may even spare a mortal foe in exchange for being taught a new martial technique or philosophy that impresses them. Sure, this is just Blood Knights of WHFB spun off into their own silly subfaction BUT remember that professional warrior societies like Samurai have always embraced new knowledge and ways of war such as firearms Vampire dragoons!
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Sep 3, 2021 09:36
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Age of Sigmar: Soulblight Gravelords Blood In We're gonna skip the timeline and Nagash's bio again - we've seen that before. The only really new note is that vampires tend to be split between worshipping Nagash and hating him; the problem is that in his personal presence they are nearly unable to resist his commands. Some aspect of their curse instinctively obeys the Great Necromancer. Fortunately for most vampires, Nagash typically meets them only rarely and when he does he mostly just orders them to fight someone. Mannfred von Carstein rides into battle atop the dread abyssal Ashigaroth, commanding his armies from above. He wears the Armor of Templehof to protect himself from attack and prefers to strike quickly and decisively. His weapons are a long sickle-glaive and the sword Gheistvor, which tears out the souls of those it slays and channels them into Manny to empower him. He's also probably the second or third best necromancer that isn't also a deity, beaten only by Arkhan the Black and maybe Vokmortian. (That 'maybe' is a source of intense anger for Mannfred, who is constantly searching for new ways to get better at magic.) He is far from the first vampire to bear the Von Carstein name, but he is the only one that has returned from the World That Was, largely because Nagash decided he'd be good to have around and admired the deep sense of spite and anger in Mannfred. Mannfred obviously intends to overthrow Nagash and claim his power if he ever can, but he knows he'd never be able to outpower the guy. Instead, he plays at loyalty and keeps going based on intense disgust over his own slavery. He constantly plots ways to earn his freedom, but has yet to implement any true rebellion openly. Instead, he experiments with deliberate failure and malicious incompetence. Nagash is aware that Mannfred is not trustworthy - how could he not be aware? - but is more than willing to ignore it as long as his Mortarch gets results. For now, anyway. Neferata is the first and oldest of all vampires. She doesn't look it, maintaining a permanent youth and beauty, but she was around when Nagash was first mortal. Her desires and intellect were the driving force behind the creation of the Soulblight, having sought immortality in undeath. She likes to claim she is the ultimate sire of all Soulblight dynasties...but that's not really a viable claim, between the other first-turned vampires of the World That Was and the fact that she and Mannfred entered the Mortal Realms simultaneously. (She considers his claims to primacy to be funny.) Neferata's charisma and sheer weight of personality are as much weapons for her as her skill in battle, and few can stand against the full might of her attention long. Neferata's speed and power are immense, but her greatest weapon is her genius, and she is one of the finest strategists and plotters ever to live. She is able to track dozens upon dozens of plots and intrigues at once with no issue, and she has grown so bored of simple puzzles that she leaves her palace in Nulahmia only for the most sensitive and difficult efforts. Anything less can be left to a minion. In battle, she rides the dead abyssal Nagadron, hurling the sorcery of illusion and necromancy with equal skill. That said, she is a far better warrior than a wizard, armed with the ancient Dagger of Jet, Akmet-Har, and the Staff of Pain, Aken-Seth. Both are designed to cause hideous pain and torment to their victims, and she wields them both with a speed and precision that leaves even elder aelven warriors in awe. She prefers to fight as lazily as possible most of the time, though, unless her foe is an actual challenge. Effort would imply she was not able to casually win, after all. When she does meet someone she considers worthy of actually trying for, she attempts to destroy them utterly, aiming for death by a thousand cuts and the exploitation of any weakness she can find. By making their defeat as complete as possible, she ensures that all who witness her know that to defy the Mortarch of Blood is to commit suicide painfully and slowly.  Lauka Vai is the Mother of Nightmares and queen of the Avengorii, but she was not always such. Even now, she is more notable for having a conscience and sense of true honor than her appearance...though her appearance is definitely notable. Her soul remains that of the noble war-queen that she has always been, and before her current state, she was the greatest of the Askurga Renkai, a vampiric order of Ghurish knights who refused to feed on any weaker than themselves. When the Age of Chaos came to Ghur, the Askurga Renkai fight mightily against the Ruinous Powers, and Lauka did so more than any of them. She rode on a quest to the Realm's Edge against a terrible sorcerer of Tzeentch...and in doing so, she was doomed. She had trained long and hard to control her thirst, never falling entirely into her rage and hunger even in battle. However, the sorcerer hurled her into an ancient tarpit, a place of great Ghurish power. When she emerged, her body had transformed into a bestial monstrosity. Lauka defeated the sorcerer, but when she returned home, the Askura Renkai rejected their champion. They sought to slay her, convinced that any with the body of a draconic bat-beast must be inherently corrupt. Outraged and in hunger frenzy, Lauka Vai tore the order to bits. When she emerged from the battle fugue, she was horrified to see her brethren in arms dead at her claws, and she fled into the desert. She spent ages fighting monsters and warlords, trying to feed on them as exclusively as she could. When she met innocents and civilians, she often fled to keep them safe from her...though it was not always possible. When she found them and was deeply hungry, she sometimes descended into a fugue state and murdered them as she did the Askura Renkai, consuming them and awakening later to mourn her deeds. So it would remain until the Necroquake transformed the first Vengorian Lords into beasts like her. The newly ascended Avengorii sought out Lauka, sensing in her a similar monstrosity. Lauka Vai was offended by the Avengorii philosophy of embracing savagery, seeing it as a denial of her warrior way, but she could not deny that the Vengorians were the first beings who had embraced her as a comrade in centuries. They were coarse and monstrous, perhaps, but they could learn. They could change, and they deserved a champion that would change them into a truly noble force. And so, Lauka Vai became the Mother of Nightmares, the queen of the Avengorii. She leads them against the forces of Chaos and Destruction, for those she considers the best and most glorious enemies, the safest to target without harming the weak. Like all Vengorians, she is armed with naturally corrosive amethyst magic, and her mere presence can blacken and corrode metal in seconds. She can summon great blasts of black blood as well, wielding her innate magic skillfully. And yet, her greatest weapon is her willpower. In her presence, the beasts of the Avengorii gain control of themselves, fighting with total focus rather than pure savage instinct. Of course, there's a cost to Lauka. If her own self-control wavers, the monster within her can easily take control. When it does, she goes from a perfect knight and vampiric dragon-centaur hero to a creature of brutal violence and breathtaking viciousness. Every time this happens, she finds it harder and harder to return from the monstrous fugue with her mind intact. If she were ever to break and truly become the monster she appears to be, the local Ghurish villages and towns would likely be destroyed in a sea of blood. The Vengorian Lords are those vampires which resemble Lauka Vai, and not all of them are Avengorii. They are twisted, misshapen monsters, and those who do not belong to the Avengorii Dynasty tend to be filled with intense self-loathing and hatred of their monstrous state. They vent their fury on any who are foolish enough to look at their hideousness, and they refuse to admit that their change was caused by their own desire for power. See, the first Vengorians (besides Lauka, whose condition was caused by her Tzeentchian foe and a magic swamp) sensed the Necroquake shortly before it happened. They sought out its power, heading for Nagashizzar in hopes of harnessing the storm of magic that would be unleashed. They underestimated exactly how much necromantic energy there would be, and it overwhelmed them, giving them far more than they had wanted. From the waist down, their bodies transformed into a mixture of bat and lizard, with mismatched limbs, vicious claws and huge wings. The Vengorians tell themselves they mastered the Necroquake when they transformed, but in truth, most were unable to control their newly stronger urges and fled into the most dangerous places they could find to brood and obsess over their lost glory and newfound hideousness. Most Vengorian Lords, particularly those that do not embrace their nature as the Avengorii do, emerge from their lairs only to fight out of spite and vengeance against those who insult them. They project their self-hatred onto their foes, and while some claim to be the truest and most beautiful expression of the Soulblight curse, internally most see themselves as little better than the abhorrants of Ushoran. The effort to deny consciously recognizing this leads them to have their minions smash any mirrors they find and to order the creation of special ballroom masks and outfits in an effort to make themselves feel more attractive and majestic. Many even harness their own nature to render any reflective surface coated in rust and corrosion when it gets near them, and some go so far as to only consume scabby and clotted blood to avoid seeing their own reflection in it. Each one is able to harness the powerful magic that flows through their bodies to conjure forth dark storms of blood and gore or transmute the landscape into festering, rotting ooze, and their presence in a land tends to bring drought and desolation. But hey! At least that means the water gets all gross and brackish and no longer reflects their appearance at them, right? Next time: Lords of Blood
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Sep 3, 2021 12:14
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JcDent posted:Sure, this is just Blood Knights of WHFB spun off into their own silly subfaction BUT remember that professional warrior societies like Samurai have always embraced new knowledge and ways of war Honestly, pretty sure the main reason the Kastelai don't use guns frequently is that a bullet doesn't leverage their superhuman physical strength. I'd be surprised if there wasn't a faction among them that didn't think guns were the future of war and worth studying deeply to find a way to make them take advantage of vampiric physical abilities.
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Sep 3, 2021 12:15
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I imagine a vampire would be able to reload a musket twice as fast as a human could.
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Sep 3, 2021 12:26
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They're strong enough to heft a cannon as a handheld weapon, unfortunately they have superhuman strength not superhuman mass so the recoil sends them flying backwards in a thoroughly undignified fashion.
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Sep 3, 2021 14:25
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The Lone Badger posted:They're strong enough to heft a cannon as a handheld weapon, unfortunately they have superhuman strength not superhuman mass so the recoil sends them flying backwards in a thoroughly undignified fashion. So what you're saying is that Blood Dragons should carry cannons that they shoot backwards, so they can hit the enemy with their sword faster.
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Sep 3, 2021 15:54
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 Part 2: Edges & Claws Edges are what the Kin call their supernatural powers. Every type of Kin gets some starting Edges and has the option to buy more. There are quite a few Common Edges that anyone can buy, and each type has some Racial Edges, some of which are totally unique to that type. Like everything else in the rules, Edges have a 00-100 score, which is used to activate the Edge or use it to attack in combat. Your Base, or starting score, is usually based on an Ability. Edges cost Humanity. You spend 5-20 Humanity to acquire a new Edge. There’s also a “cost ratio,” the number of Humanity points you have to spend per Edge point. Edges also cost a few Humanity points to activate, usually just 1 or 2 points. Edges are also limited by target and range, and some allow an Escape Roll (basically a saving throw) to avoid or reduce the effect. Some of the Edges are really powerful, allowing you to instantly set people on fire, control their minds, or crush them to a pulp. However, Edges are much less effective on Kin than mortals, incurring a hefty -50 penalty. That doesn’t apply to the few hand-to-hand combat Edges like Claws. This penalty prevents the more wizardly Kin from save-or-dying anyone who looks at them funny, and in particular it prevents Ghosts from zapping everyone while remaining incorporeal. These spell-like Edges also tend to be expensive. Another thing I want to add is that Edges really showcase how STR isn’t very important. Even the ones that involve attacking in close combat are based on FIT, not STR! I’m going to do all the Common Edges first. Armor is expensive to buy (5 Humanity per point), but is always active and costs nothing to use. It flat-out reduces any damage you take by its rating, which is great in a game where actual body armour will mostly only be worn by your enemies. Damage from your Flaws ignores armor, as does certain other attacks, usually mental Edges. Aura Sight (PER) lets you see people’s auras. This lets you spot all kinds of things--telling Kin from mortals, low Humanity from high, general health, and if they’re under the effects of a mind-altering Edge. You can also identify individuals by their unique psychic signature and see invisible Kin. It’s a very cheap buy at 1 Humanity for 10 points. Claws (FIT) lets you grow claws to use in combat. You can attack using other melee combat skills or the Claws rating itself, and ⅕ of your Claws score adds to your base HTH damage. This is probably the cheapest combat Edge to buy at 1 Humanity per 5 points. Danger Sense (PER) is a Spidey-Sense that alerts you to danger and the general direction it’s coming from. However, you have to activate it to benefit from it, so it’s something you’d choose to turn on when you’re going down a dark alley or a sewer. Like most utility Edges, it’s cheap at 1 Humanity per 10 points.  Nightlife was the origin of Vampire’s legacy of face grabbing. Drain (FIT) is what you use to Drain SP from mortals. You can feed on other Kin, but you have to roll on the same table that you use when you get intoxicated by mortal drugs, and you risk getting addicted to Kin life force. Some very monstrous types of Kin feed exclusively on other Kin. Drain costs 1 Humanity per 2 points. There’s no cost to “activate” it, but feeding itself has various Humanity costs that are covered in that section of the book. Weirdly, there’s a listed cost to buy the Drain Edge even though every PC type gets it for free. Event Manipulation (WILL) is a weird annoying Edge that lets you rewrite recent events (from one or two combat turns up to 24 hours) so that they effectively didn’t happen. You can’t actually travel back in time, but you could erase the wounds you took in combat. I suppose you could use it to reverse the act of accidentally killing someone or having something stolen from you. This reminds me of Immortal, which would have concepts with setting-altering implications, like time manipulation and dream travel, packed into a single magic spell. I would never let anyone take this. Regardless, it’s expensive and has a chance to attract the ire of elementals and elder Kin from miles around. Locate Human (PER) lets you form a psychic connection with a human, after which you can sense how far away they are, and in what direction, by testing the Edge. It’s an automatic success if you’ve Drained them recently. It’s cheap to buy, and really great for players who like to exclaim “Sookeh!” in a hilarious Southern accent and scamper off. Mental Mapping (INT) is a built-in compass. By testing the Edge, you remember the way back to a location you’ve visited, with precise detail. It’s very cheap and costs nothing to use. Nocturnal Vision (PER) lets you see perfectly in the dark. In total darkness you have infrared vision! It’s very useful and very cheap to buy. Photogenics (WILL) allows you to be photographed and filmed when you want to be, by testing the Edge. It’s very cheap and costs nothing to use. Being unphotographable is often an advantage, but it can raise alarm bells if, say, you get arrested and your mugshot is blurry no matter how many pictures they take. Send Dream (WILL) lets you manipulate people’s dreams. The range is measured in tens of thousands of feet. If the dream is less than pleasant, the target might resist and initiate a dream battle. This is another one of those powers that introduces a whole subsystem for using it and it’s a headache and I’m not even going to get into it. Shunting (FIT) lets you Drain someone and pass on the energy to another Kin. This can be used to heal your friends, but the most important use is as a treatment for Nerve Rot, a Kin disease that fucks up Kin and prevents them from feeding themselves. The entry namedrops a later supplement that deals heavily with the Nerve Rot Epidemic, In the Musical Vein. Speed (DEX) adds to your movement speed and your combat initiative. Thankfully, it doesn’t break the action economy like Vampire’s Celerity. Speed doesn’t have any effect on your movement rate when you’ve shapeshifted into another form. Time Sense (PER) is another cheap utility edge that, with a successful test, gives you the exact time of day. I know, buy a watch--but this also gives you a perfect sense for the next sunrise, sunset, full moon, etc. Weather Control (WILL) lets you manipulate the weather in a circle with a diameter of [Edge score] yards. You can raise and lower the temperature, create fog, and summon a downpour of rain or hazardous weather like sleet and fierce winds. Of course, this affects you and any nearby allies too. You can also call down lightning bolts to strike a target for high damage. This Edge has a 25% chance to attract the local elemental to come figure out who’s loving with their poo poo. And now for the Racial Edges, which not just any Kin can buy. Animal Control (WILL, Vampyres and Werewolves) lets you summon and control a specific type of animal. You have to buy it separately for each type of animal (wolves and rats for Vampyres, just wolves for Werewolves). I don’t believe there are stats for wolves or rat swarms, and summoned animals are pretty limited in what they can do, so it doesn’t strike me as terribly useful. Animal Empathy (WILL, Manitou) lets you telepathically communicate with animals and make friends with them. This doesn’t give you control over them, but contacted animals are friendly by default and you can ask them questions or ask them to do stuff. It works on any kind of animal. All told, much more useful than Animal Control, and it only costs 5 Humanity to start and 1 point per 5 Edge points. Aviary (INT, Manitou) transforms you into a bird. You can’t use other Edges while in bird form. Your Edge score determines how big a bird you can turn into, but does that really matter? A small bird makes for a more effective infiltrator anyway. Aviary’s pretty expense, with an initial cost of 20 and 1-for-1 Humanity cost. Batform (WILL, Vampyres) transforms you into a bat. Bats are more versatile than birds, with superhuman hearing and the ability to bite people. You’re also harder to hit. It’s also less expensive than Aviary, with an initial cost of 4 Humanity and 1 point per 5 points of Edge. Body Control (INT, Animates, Daemons, Ghosts) lets you reshape someone else’s body according to your whims. This usually does horrific damage in addition to any practical effects, but it’s very hard to use. You have to fail a Humanity roll to use it, the victim gets a FIT Escape Roll for half damage, and of course, it’s hard to use on Kin. But if you succeed, you can force the victim’s body to squeeze, stretch, twist, or assume new features, all with their existing tissue. This doesn’t protect them from harm: the given example is squeezing someone into a doormat made of pulverized flesh.  When I said the flavour text is cringe, this was the kind of thing I was talking about. Burn (FIT) is an Edge that none of the PC races possess. It lets you set people on fire with a touch, and you have to fail a Humanity roll to use it. Fortunately, only one or two types of weirder Kin have it. Coronary (WILL, Manitou) allows you to give people heart attacks by touching them. It does huge (equal to Edge score) damage, but doesn’t work on targets with a higher FIT. It doesn’t say anything about undead being immune to it, so I guess that’s factored into the -50 Kin-on-Kin violence penalty. Corporeality (WILL, Ghosts) is what ghosts use to become solid, appearing as they did before their death. Ghosts can only spend [Edge score] minutes in corporeal form per day, and can’t “carry” any gear back into their intangible form. Being corporeal makes you vulnerable to all weapons, not just fire and iron. It costs 1 point of Humanity per 5 points of Edge. Crowd Control (WILL, Animates) allows you to control a number of people up to your Edge score. The command has to be simple and will be carried out immediately, though there are no other restrictions. So “kill each other” is fair game, while “go home and kill yourself” won’t work. Anyone with a higher WILL than yours won’t be affected, and you have to concentrate on the crowd to sustain the effect. It’s a costly edge: 15 Humanity to start, and 1-for-1 to increase it. Domination (WILL, Animates) is straight-up mind control, which can be maintained indefinitely and involve complex commands. Victims can break free with a WILL roll, but only get another shot each time a new command is given. It costs 1 Humanity point per 2 Edge points. Animates are scary! Empathy (PER, Ghosts) lets you read people’s emotions and detect lies. It costs 4 Humanity and 1 per 3 points of Edge. Fear Projection (WILL, Ghosts and Werewolves) forces your victim to roll on the Fear Table in the combat chapter, with a penalty based on your Edge score. Fear can make a victim take penalties, run away, freeze up, pass out, or even die from shock. It costs 8 Humanity plus 1 per 2 Edge points. Fiery Breath (FIT, Daemons) does what it says on the tin, with a range of a few feet. Victims make a DEX Escape Roll for half damage. This costs 10 Humanity plus 1 per 5 points. Seems very cheap for a fire attack, even if the range is short. Flight (FIT, Daemons and Ghosts) allows you to fly and hover. Daemons must be in their true form to fly, even though the flight is magical. Your Edge score determines how much you can carry and how fast you can go. Healing (FIT, Manitou) heals wounds and diseases with a touch. A successful roll heats your Edge score in SP or cures a disease, with penalties if it’s a severe one. (Nightlife recognizes the AIDS epidemic, but the implications of a Manitou Christ are not explored.) You can only heal a target once per day, and it only works on humans and animals. Infection (FIT, Manitou, Werewolves, Vampyres, Wyghts) is what you use when you want to deliberately transform a human into Kin. Every type of Kin has a different method, and it only works on humans. To Infect someone, you have to succeed on an Edge test and they have to fail a FIT test. Otherwise, they’ll feel sick but recover, unless you Drained them to death. Considering that it costs 10 Humanity plus 1 per Edge point, PCs aren’t likely to take this just to make new friends. Invisibility (WILL, Ghosts and Manitou) makes you invisible even to other Kin, unless they have Aura Sight on. If you fail the activation roll, your invisibility is flawed in a way that you don’t realize--like you still cast a shadow or you’re just translucent. Fighting an invisible foe incurs blind fighting penalties, though you have to make a WILL test to remain invisible in combat. It costs 5 Humanity plus 1 per 5 points of Edge. Levitation (WILL, Manitou) is a weaker form of flight, allowing you to hover around without moving very quickly. Lupine Form (WILL, Werewolves) is how Werewolves transform into wolves. Your clothing and gear don’t transform with you, which I understand, but seems tedious to keep track of. The Edge enhances your running speed, and you can attack and Drain in Lupine Form. You also use the Edge score to attack with a bite, which kind of sucks since it’s based on WILL and not STR. You have to make an INT roll to “remember” human skills, including basic things like how to open a door or turn on a television. Werewolves with low Humanity have to make a Humanity test (once per hour) to change back to human form. It costs 1 Humanity per 2 points of Edge. Lycanthropic Form (WILL, Werewolves) is the Werewolves’ man-wolf form. While in this form, you can attack using either your Lycanthropic Form score or your Claws or Combat Skills. However, this form imposes a -25 penalty on all skill rolls, including combat. Kind of a raw deal since, as with Lupine Form, this Edge is based on Will when you want to be using that +20 or +30 STR bonus! Unlike Lupine Form, they don’t start with this one for free; it costs 10 Humanity plus 1 per 2 points of Edge. Mask (WILL) is another Edge possessed by some of the Other Kin. It’s like Alter Form, but it only lets you mimic one single human appearance. Kin with this Edge tend to be extremely loving weird, like a swarm of bugs in a skin suit. Moving on… Mesmerize (INT, Vampyres) is the Edge Vampyres use to hypnotize people. You need to make eye contact and speak to the target, and they get a WILL Escape Roll to resist. If you succeed, you can issue a single command that will be followed to the letter. What’s more, when the effect wears off they won’t remember being Mesmerized. It costs 1 Humanity per 2 points of Edge. Mistform (WILL, Vampyres) allows Vampyres to transform into mist. Your clothing and gear dissolve along with you. Mistform allows you to fly and seep through any porous surface, but you can’t use any Edges that require movement, speech, eye contact, etc. Weapons do no damage. Your Edge score determines how invisible you are while in this form. It costs 7 Humanity plus 1 per 3 points of Edge. Necropathy (INT, Wyghts) lets you make telepathic contact with the dead by touching their remains. The dead aren’t compelled to answer you, but unlike the classic D&D spell, you can carry on a conversation. Necropathy becomes more difficult with long-dead bodies or prolonged contact. It costs 7 Humanity plus 1 per 2 points of Edge. Petrify (FIT) is another Edge for Other Kin, most notably Medusas. Yes, Medusas. Medusae? It’s a nasty loving save-or-die spell. Possession (WILL, Daemons) allows Daemons to enter and take over someone else’s body. If the victim fails their WILL Escape Roll, or is unconscious, they’re possessed for as long as the Daemon feels like hanging around. The Daemon can mimic the victim’s voice and mannerisms, and actually adds their Abilities to their own in combat, as if the victim was “stacked on top of” the Daemon. All damage goes to the victim first. It costs 10 Humanity plus 1 per 2 points of Edge. Psycho (INT, Manitou) drives people mad with a touch. They have a psychotic break, ranting incoherently and attacking anyone in sight. They get an INT Escape Roll to negate the effect, and if they fail the effect persists until they make a successful roll, with only one roll per day! Of course, the usefulness of driving a fellow monster into psychotic rage is questionable at best. It costs 2 Humanity plus 1 per 2 points of Edge. Ratform (WILL, Vampyres) is the power to transform into a rat. Like Mistform, your clothing and gear shifts with you. You can use your Ratform Edge to attack and dodge, getting a +20 bonus to defense, though rats can’t do much damage unless you’re Draining. It costs 4 Humanity plus 1 per 5 points of Edge. Reanimate Dead (WILL, Wyghts) raises a recently dead corpse as a Zombie, a weak sort of undead Kin, under the Wyght’s control. Zombies will survive for half your Edge score in days and follow simple commands. Sense Acuity (PER, Werewolves) sharpens all your senses except eyesight. You can roll this instead of your base PER for perception tests, and testing this Edge allows you to sense things that humans normally can’t--tracking people by scent, smelling blood on the wind, even hearing heartbeats. It costs 5 Humanity plus 1 per 5 points of Edge. Telekinesis (INT, Ghosts) lets you play poltergeist. You can lift your Edge score in pounds. Multiple objects require multiple tests. You can use it to throw objects people and attack them, using the Edge to attack and inflicting Edge/5 in damage. You can only use this on inanimate objects. Telepathy (INT, Animates and Daemons) creates a telepathic conversation with another person. With a willing partner, this works over your Edge score in miles. It costs 5 Humanity plus 1 per 2 points of Edge, which seems kind of expensive for what it does. Touch of Ice (FIT, Ghosts) allows you to damage targets by touching them with your ghostly form. It inflicts your Edge score in damage but the victim gets a FIT Escape roll to negate the effect. This doesn’t work on Kin. It costs 10 Humanity and 1 point per point of Edge. Costly for a combat Edge that doesn’t work on Kin, but remember that it can be used while incorporeal. Travel (WILL, Daemons and Ghosts) is a really useful Edge: it’s line-of-sight teleportation. It costs 10 Humanity plus 1 point per point of Edge. Weapon Immunity (Ghosts) protects Ghosts from ordinary damage. Anything doing less damage than the Edge score is negated, whereas any damage stronger than the Edge is not reduced at all. It costs 2 Humanity per point of Edge score. I’m confused about how this works--I take it that Ghosts are totally immune to damage while incorporeal, and this Edge works at the same time as Corporeality. Wolfform (WILL, Vampyres) is the Vampyres’ power to change into a wolf. You don’t get the same stat bonuses as a Werewolf, but your gear and clothing does transform with you. Other than that, it works the same as Lupine Form, enhancing your speed and allowing you to use the Edge score to attack with a bite.  Just say no. Flaws are the innate weaknesses of different types of Kin. Unlike Edges, there are no optional Flaws that you can “buy” to get extra points to spend on other stuff. Some of these are irrelevant to the PC Kin, but they apply to various Other Kin and can be used to create your own. Appearance flaws can vary from a Strange Appearance (like Wyghts) to Horrifying Appearance for Kin that could never pass for human, like the massive Ogres. Command means you must obey commands from people who know the right magic rituals, language, etc. You can resist with a WILL Escape roll. Compulsion, well, compels you to act a certain way, and you have to make a WILL roll to resist. Manitou are compelled to dress strangely, while some Other Kin are compelled to kill people! Diet Restriction is the Vampyres’ need for blood, the Wyghts’ need for life force, and so on. Some other Kin have extreme dietary requirements, like needing to eat people.  Environmental Harm means taking damage from things that are normally harmless, like sunlight or running water. Hostility provokes a subconscious dislike from some group of creatures, whether humans or animals. Affected people take an instant dislike to you, while animals may flee or become aggressive. Infection is the chance to accidentally Infect humans when your Humanity is below 50. Repulsion means that you can’t stand to be around the source of repulsion, and will avoid it. You can’t willingly touch it, and must make a WILL Escape Roll to approach someone near to it. Holy symbols and silver are common sources of Repulsion. (There’s a note that silver-sensitive Kin refuse to handle quarters, dimes, and nickels because they contain enough silver to trigger Repulsion. That would only be true of coins issued before 1965.) Substance Vulnerability is damage taken from a specifc substance, and extra damage taken from weapons made from that substance, like weapons made of silver or iron. Vulnerability and Repulsion often go hand in hand. Vow means that you cannot break a promise once given. Breaking the vow causes you to lose 10 FIT per day until you resume trying to make good on the promise. Besides this, there are unique Flaws like Vampyres needing to sleep on grave dirt, Werewolves going berserk, Manitou being tied to their Power Source, and so on. Next Chapter: Skills, easily the worst part of this game. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Sep 24, 2021 |
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Sep 3, 2021 16:03
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quote:THEY BLEW IT UP! OH YOU MANIACS!!!
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Sep 3, 2021 17:41
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Mors Rattus posted:Honestly, pretty sure the main reason the Kastelai don't use guns frequently is that a bullet doesn't leverage their superhuman physical strength. I'd be surprised if there wasn't a faction among them that didn't think guns were the future of war and worth studying deeply to find a way to make them take advantage of vampiric physical abilities. Something something, Hellsing. Get that bitch a cannon, bitches love cannons.
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Sep 3, 2021 18:08
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AoS is kinda lacking in autocannons though. Although a vampire with a magic (non-skaven) minigun would be hilarious and terrifying at the same time.
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Sep 3, 2021 18:15
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