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As usual, I'll be riding Gatz's coattails for this LP. In the Redemption thread, you might have seen a lot of posts from me in the form of walls of text. That's because I am a HUGE WoD fanboy and read a crapton about it. Cainite lore is specialty, so I'll be filling in some of the blanks where the game tends to fall short. If you got questions, odds are good that I got answers.
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Nov 11, 2013 01:19
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Feinne posted:Right, wasn't the Week of Nightmares when a certain friendly fellow got himself nuked and took most of his clan with him? Sort of. That point number 1 above was off in a few particulars. I'll elaborate when I get home in an hour.
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Nov 12, 2013 03:07
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Vicissitude posted:Sort of. That point number 1 above was off in a few particulars. I'll elaborate when I get home in an hour. Alright, elaboration now that I remembered that I had to elaborate  The whole Camarilla-Sabbat war IS an ongoing thing in V:tM, but it's not what caused the Week of Nightmares. The Ravnos clan had been fighting their own turf war in the Indian subcontinent against the Cathayans, the Kindred of the East. They're almost like Caineite vampires, but not. More on them when the time comes. Anyway, things had not being going well for them over the recent decades, so they had taken to using Sabbat-like tactics of mass embracing mortals and sending them at their enemies like cannon fodder. The trouble is, with all this Ravnos blood being spilled and passed on in a seeming endless cycle, it caused something to resonate in the bloodline. Because of that, Ravnos itself woke up. It had become a near god in its blood potency and mastery of Chimeristry, the Ravnos' signature discipline. Now, at low levels, a vampire can use the discipline to create simple illusions. At higher levels, they're no longer illusions; they reshape reality itself. So picture that: A 3rd generation Antediluvian with the power to rewrite everything it sees to its own desires. Scary, right? Well, what's scarier is its goals. The thing is, it wasn't too happy with what had been going on. So, in order to punish its clan, or to start from scratch, or who knows what else, it sent out a kind of signal through the blood. From the time it awoke, for an entire week, the Ravnos clan fell upon each other in a fratricidal frenzy. Some were completely broken and lay catatonic as their cousins devoured them. Others saw visions and spouted prophecies that nobody could hear or even understand. Most just went mad for a time, seeking out any other Ravnos they could find to drink their heart's blood and consume their souls. Personally, I think the endgame was to just consume whoever was left to have the whole power of the clan in one being, but I also like the idea of an Etch-a-Sketch-style genocide. It amuses me. The whole affair also rippled out into the other game systems, as noted above. In Mummy: the Resurrection, it was the great spirit storm that swept away the Kingdom of the Dead in the underworld. It was the genesis of Demon: the Fallen, as Ravenna cracked open the gates of Hell as a consequence of its awakening. In the end, it was a combination of things that caused its downfall. Prophecy had stated that it could only be killed in the "light of four suns", a seemingly impossible task. But not so! cried the Technocracy! While a trio of ancient Cathayan elders, the Dragon, the Tiger, and the Crane, battled Ravenna for an entire week under the artificial monsoon it created to block out the sun, the science-mages went to work deploying one of their new wonder weapons. They were three spirit-nukes, bombs with the destructive capability of an h-bomb, but on a spiritual level rather than the physical. They fired off the bombs on the mountain where the Antediluvian fought the Bodhisattvas, cracking the mountain in half, killing the Cathayans, and severely weakening the Caineite. Now, this was unable to kill Ravenna, but it was enough to cause it to lose control of the monsoon. Sadly, it was the dead of night when the clouds dispersed. But the Technocracy had an answer to that, too. Calling in a few favors, they redirected a few mirrored satellites. The reflected sunlight from the other side of the world poured down on the shattered mountain and finally destroyed Ravenna. It was killed by the light of four suns, 3 artificial and one natural. ----------------------------- As for point 2: The less said about the Tal'mahe'Ra, the better... VICISSITUDE IS NOT AN ALIEN PARASITE INFECTION, drat IT! I WOULD KNOW!  ----------------------------- I'll admit that I don't know much about Mage. I'll have to bow out on that one. As I said, my PhD is in Vampire Studies. Vicissitude fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Nov 12, 2013 |
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Nov 12, 2013 06:23
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Well, why soak Aggravated damage when you don't have to, right? Oh, that brings up damage types! There are 3 kinds that we'll deal with in this game. Bashing, Lethal, and Aggravated. You can resist the damage with a 'soak' roll, basically absorbing the damage rather than sustaining it. Base pool for soaking damage is Stamina + Fortitude (if you have it). Bashing: Basically, blunt force trauma. Impacts and some various and sundry other means cause Bashing damage to vampires. Due to their undead nature and lack of organ function, vampires halve the amount of Bashing damage they take from any given source, rounding down, after soak. For Caineites, even electrical shocks are considered bashing as you can't stop a heart that doesn't beat. But they still can take damage from it, since eventually that voltage starts to cause burns and tissue damage. Lethal: Lethal damage is just that, lethal. Ordinarily, anyway. We're talking the walking dead who feed on the vital juices of their mortal victims. Again, vampires are pretty resilient. Unlike a human, a gunshot or a sword slash is a minor inconvenience. They can soak Lethal damage which would severely wound or kill a mortal. Vampires can also spend vitae to heal themselves of Lethal damage, as they can Bashing. Mortals have to wait for time and medical attention to take its course. Aggravated: Ooh, now we're getting into some nasty business. Some things are the antithesis of a vampire's existence. Sunlight, naturally, and fire are both sources that deal out Aggravated damage. Mage Spells, the claws and fangs of other vampires or werewolves, some magical relics, all of these can dole out the harshness, and harsh it is. While lesser damage can be healed with blood on a one-for-one basis, Aggravated damage takes a full night of rest and FIVE blood points (standard 13th-generation characters have a max capacity of 10). If you spend a Willpower point, basically a supreme dedication of effort towards healing, and another 5 blood points, the vampire can heal a second level of Aggravated damage that day. As a vampire takes more and more damage, it begins to wrap around into a more severe level. Enough Bashing damage and eventually you start to cause severe tissue damage, turning to Lethal. Keep going, and you can start to pulp the flesh, completely taking out large chunks of meat. A source of Lethal damage can eventually just cut away pieces of the body, turning to Aggravated. ----------------------------- Back to the point, sunlight is ugly to vampires. You take more or less depending on the strength of the sunlight and how much you're covered, but it'll hurt regardless. In the case of our Antediluvian monster, he was just caught in the blast of 3 nukes. Even if they were more damaging to spirits than to the physical world, it was enough to crack a mountain in two. So we can assume that any clothing Ravenna wore was burned away. Then, it was caught the direct, if reflected, rays of the sun. So, no cover and full exposure to the sun. By the rulebook, that's Difficulty 10 to soak (you have to roll a 10 for a success), and you take 3 Aggravated damage per turn. Every success negates one level of damage taken. So, even with Fortitude 10, that's an average of 1 soak per turn, or every 3-6 seconds. That leaves 2 Aggravated damage per turn. A vampire only has 7 health levels total. So after 4 turns, less than 30 seconds, Ravenna was nothing but ash in the artificial dawn. EDIT: Captain Oblivious posted:Is...is that ACTUALLY what happened to the Weresharks in OWoD? I had heard that they were MIA for kind of hazy reasons, but holy poo poo that's hilarious if so. Not all of the Rokea were at Turna'a, but many of them were. Only 20 survived the detonation of one of the 'small wounds', the Rokea term for nuclear weapons. The weresharks were never known for breeding quickly, so even now their numbers are few. Vicissitude fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Nov 12, 2013 |
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Nov 12, 2013 07:20
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Tehan posted:Yeah, gunshots are bashing damage for vampires. Considering vampires are basically sentient, magical blood piloting a corpse like a mecha suit, anything that relies on organ trauma is barking up the wrong tree entirely. Ah, yes. Sorry. I was going back and forth between V:tM and V20 to contrast and compare changes and I seem to have gotten lost in the shuffle Yes, vampires only take Bashing from firearms, though incendiary ammo or close range tracer rounds can cause aggravated damage from the burning phosphorus.
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Nov 12, 2013 16:10
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The Camarilla has a number of positions of authority. Ostensibly, supreme power in any given city under Cam control is given to the Prince. This is a formal title for either gender, though some come up with their own fancy monikers for the position. The Prince can, and often does, lay down the law for their territory. Some are lenient, others are tyrannical. But it all comes down to the Prince and the city. New York, for instance, was under Sabbat control for a very, very long time. The Camarilla wrested control from them in 1999, but they've had to be extremely vigilant every since, and very strict when it comes to law enforcement. Behind (occasionally), beside (usually), or (very rarely) above the Prince is the Council of Primogen. This is a group of advisers, each representative of a clan or group in the city. Usually, individuals on the council are members of the clan or group they represent, but in some cases, a better allied spokesman/woman can be found. As advisers do, they advise the prince on the state of his/her territory. Usually it's for the better good, but there's always a certain amount of political maneuvering going on. Sometimes the Ventrue want to push into Toreador holdings to buy them out, the Malkavians have some bizarre plan that they believe will benefit all, and of course the Nosferatu have information they can trade for a small favor somewhere down the road... The next step up is the Justicar. As the Primogen do in a single city, the Justicars represent their entire Clan in Camarilla politics. From night to night, they generally go about Cam territory to address issues that have arisen in the interest of the health of the Sect. But since they represent their clan as well as the sect, they usually bend their ears in that direction as issues come up. The Justicars are the public face of the Inner Circle, the mysterious elders who actually run the sect and choose the course of its actions. Little is known about them, except that they meet every 13 years. There are other positions of authority, but I'll go over them as we meet them. One, we've already met, but we'll see how he rolls in just a bit. :shh:
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Nov 13, 2013 01:45
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DeusExMachinima posted:Wasn't Mexico City a big Sabbat hangout in one of the sourcebooks? You'd think the hidden world wouldn't stay hidden for long with those lunatics running the asylum. Uh, Mexico City is THE Sabbat hangout in the wWoD. The only place of more political importance was in Spain, and that tanked with the death of Cardinal Moncada at the hands of his childe, Lucita.
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Nov 13, 2013 03:43
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Vander posted:That sounds like a pretty good story there. Care to elaborate? Not much to elaborate on. Lucita hated him, and he was a very powerful political animal. While a Sabbat Bishop is the equivalent to a Camarilla Prince, a Cardinal is sort of between a Prince and a Justicar. They control entire regions, though generally not entire countries or continents. I think Moncada was an exception, and his control was largely over most of Spain and Portugal. There were other Bishops below him, but he was pretty much the one in charge. Anyway, Lucita killed him, with the aid of her on-again, off-again lover, the Assamite Fatima al-Faquadi. The Sabbat was quite pissed at her for a while, putting bounties on her head, until a few years later when they sort of accepted she'd be a better ally than enemy (considering she's an assassin on par with Fatima). They offered her the Cardinalship she had 'vacated' in Spain. There's a novel trilogy that explains that story, whereas the actual death of Moncada happens in the 13-book Clan novel series. I think you can get the compiled volumes online for cheap if you're interested. Some are hit or miss, but largely, they're pretty good. The Malkavian book is especially good, since it shows you how a Malk actually sees the world around him.
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Nov 13, 2013 16:33
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Vander posted:Oh I see now. See, when you said Bishops and Cardinals, I thought that meant the Sabbat was running the Church in the Iberian Peninsula. That'd Be wild... Oh, no. The Sabbat are pretty much just dickbags who co-opted the terms from the Catholic church. Very few vampires work in that circle, since the Inquisition is still pretty much alive and well in the form of the Society of Leopold, mortal religious fanatics and monster hunters. Thesaya posted:You are only responsible for a childe for so long. It is your duty to teach them the masquerade and in the beginning you are responsible for their every action. Our Sire is quite obviously past that point. I've always seen it as him/her planning to ask permission, but getting carried away. And any Sire, if they're Camarilla, would be ashamed of their Childe for embracing without permission. Yes, in the Camarilla, the childe basically gets a few years (2-5) to come to grips with their new state of undeath, settle affairs from life, and get an idea of how Kindred society works. They generally get a 'coming out' party where their sire presents them in Elysium (neutral political ground) to the rest of the vampires in the city, or at least whoever would usually show up to such a gathering. Above all, though, are the Traditions that make up the Masquerade, the whole veil that vampires put up to hide their presence from the mortals. The Third Tradition is Progeny, which states that you have to "seek permission from thine Elder" when you wish to create a childe. In this day and age, it means the Prince or other authority figure, but presumably back in ye olde thymes, it meant your sire. But since you have to be more careful in the Final Nights, the Prince gets the final say since it's his/her city that'll have another potential Masquerade breach if your childe screws up. And yes, vampires can do the sex. They can spend blood to get their respective organs working again, but since there's no payoff from the act (they can't climax v  v ), there's really no point unless they're using it as a cover to feed from a mortal.More on the Anarchs later, once we meet them. They really are the third party of Kindred politics, neither Camarilla nor Sabbat, and get about as much respect as any other third party in US politics
Vicissitude fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Nov 14, 2013 |
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Nov 13, 2013 23:53
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Okay, for what it's worth, this is what the tabletop Obfuscate powers are: 1 - Cloak of Shadows - You're invisible, as long as there are shadows, you remain quiet and motionless, and the person looking for you doesn't have Auspex 2+. 2 - Unseen Presence - You're invisible, unless you speak, attack, or otherwise draw attention to yourself. Auspex 3+ pierces the cloak. Roll Wits + Stealth if you could potentially draw attention to yourself, like stepping on a creaky floorboard or something, otherwise you get detected. 3 - Mask of a Thousand Faces - Create an illusory visage. Roll Manipulation + Performance (difficulty 7). The successes you get, ie the number of dice that read 7 or higher, determine how complete the illusion is. You can even mask yourself as someone specific, or someone more attractive than you are. Each point of Appearance difference between you and the illusion costs an extra Blood Point. 4 - Vanish From the Mind's Eye - You can disappear from right in front of someone. Roll Charisma + Stealth vs the target's Perception + Alertness. If you succeed, you disappear from their view, even if you're in the open. 5 - Cloak the Gathering - You can apply any lesser Obfuscate power you know to a group of people equal to or less than your Stealth rating at no extra cost in blood or willpower. All members must adhere to the rules of the lesser power or be revealed.
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Nov 14, 2013 05:33
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Gantolandon posted:Yes. Sabbat actually does that with entire packs - they mix their blood in the same container and drink it. Three ceremonies and everyone is Blood Bounded with each other. This makes spying on them a really difficult task. Yes, the Vaulderie. Back in the Burning Times, the height of the Inquisition, the younger vampires were being left behind as cannon fodder so their elders could escape from Final Death at the hands of the Inquisitors. Since way back in the early days of vampire society, the Blood Bond was usually foisted on the young as punishment or just a matter of course to ensure obedience. When those younger vampires decided that, hey, they'd like to survive to see another night just like their elders, they had to come up with a way to break the blood bond. The ritual was pretty simple, and became the foundation of the Sabbat's loyalty to each other and their sect. The Vaulderie works a lot like a blood bond, but the mingling of the entire pack in a single vessel (usually about 4-12 vampires) dilutes the mystical hold of vitae. Where the Blood Bond is measured in 3 levels, the Vaulderie is a scale of 1-10, 1 being you couldn't care less about the guy and 10 being not slavish devotion, but more of a comrade in arms you would die to save. The Sabbat sees this as an acceptable compromise to prevent any of their members from being controlled by any enemy of the sect and becoming a spy. Also, every Sabbat is expected to find their way to Mexico City for the big party they have once a year, during which they hold a sect-wide Vaulderie.
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Nov 14, 2013 22:02
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Caustic Soda posted:While that is true, for a melee build the sewers are merely an annoyance up until the end the part with the multi-limbed ghouls. Are they supposed to be vozhd?. Oh, no. You'd know if it was one of those. That would be a boss fight in and of itself. The ones you mention are probably just war ghouls. They're fleshcrafted and bonecrafted for efficiency in combat. A Tzimisce would probably add in extra limbs if the creature can manage them.
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Nov 15, 2013 19:24
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MJ12 posted:Amusingly enough, firearms being kinda poo poo in Bloodlines is a reasonable simulation of the actual state of using guns in oWoD. Your starting pistol, a lovely .38 revolver, does approximately 5L damage in the oWoD, which will maybe kill someone if you shoot them three or four times on average. With really low starting stats, you'd be barely grazing and require all those shots. To be fair, in the tabletop there are only so many abilities (a dozen or so) in each category. Your Talents are the category where you have some kind of natural aptitude like Expression or Athletics. Skills are just that, skills you've learned and practiced like Drive and Crafts. Knowledges are scholastic learnings along the lines of Lore and Politics. Some skills can have subsets. If you put a point into Crafts, you need to explain what kind of craftsman you are. A teenage stoner might spend all his time in shop class and have Craft (woodworking). Beyond that, one you reach 4 dots in a skill you get a free specialty. This gives you the 10-again rule on any skill roll involving your specialty, allowing you to roll any dice that show a 10 a second time to try for additional successes. You get another specialty at 5 dots, but that represents a world-renowned master of that field. Some of the other skills you mentioned were introduced as secondary abilities, though I've never met any Storyteller who allowed more than one. Personally, I rolled a lot of them into specialties for existing skills. Vamp is really just a seduction specialty of either Manipulation or Empathy. Newspeak is just a kind of Expression. Style is a Charisma or Manipulation specialty. No need to make secondary abilities for those.
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Nov 17, 2013 20:51
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Tehan posted:Considering how many different playable critters there are under the oWoD umbrella, ability bloat is better than the alternative, where, for instance, the same skill a Tzimisce vampire used to twist living people into hideous works of art would be the same skill a Child of Gaia werewolf uses to craft enchanted dream catchers. Craft (body) and Craft (chotchke) are two completely different skills, like Expression (oratory) and Expression (fart jokes)
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Nov 17, 2013 22:55
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Also, in regards to the 'shovelhead' comment from Jack. The Sabbat recruits new blood very simply. They blindside the unfortunate victim, Embrace him/her, and bury them. The ones strong enough to claw their way out are strong enough to act as cannon fodder, and maybe even become True Sabbat and partake in the sect's rites and rituals. Only after they've survived and been embraced (lowercase E) as a brother or sister in arms, THEN they get the full lowdown. Beforehand, they're usually told, in their traumatized state, that they're pretty much invincible and they can kill anything. Bottom line: cracked in the head with a shovel and fed the blood of the damned.
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Nov 18, 2013 04:31
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Yes, all vampires have a Beast within them, the feral Id that just wants to indulge itself and go nuts. The more affirmed in your Humanity you are, the better you can compose yourself and keep the Beast at bay. Humanity is your base starting point, as you would imagine. It's the general idea of being decent to fellow people, the moral path that we all follow. You know, don't steal, don't kill, and pretty much don't be a dick. The followers of the Paths of Enlightenment abandon the tenets of being human for another ideal that doesn't necessarily share the same beliefs. In doing so they become both more and less human. Overall, the goal is to transcend the vampiric state and reach a mystical enlightenment called Golconda. Upon reaching it, you remain undead but the curse of Caine is largely reduced. You need to spend blood to awaken, but only once every week or two, you can bear the light of the sun, if for a little while, and the Beast is effectively silenced. Every Path tries to reach a pinnacle of this kind. The Ravnos strive for Mayaparasatya through the path of Paradox, and the Tzimisce keep on altering themselves and studying the change to try and achieve Metamorphosis like a horrible butterfly climbing out of a flesh cocoon. To even try to start on a path of enlightenment has a few requirements. First, you need to have a Willpower score of at least 5. Second, you can't create a character with a Path score of higher than 5, even if you would ordinarily start higher based on your Virtues. Next, you need to shed your Humanity. Now, you could just go out and wantonly slaughter until you drop down to a miserable sack of Bestial crap. But ideally, you'll just begin by adhering to the tenets of your new Path and dropping naturally as you follow a course of action that would be an anathema to Humanity. At each point, it's typical for a vampire to spend Willpower points to drive home his/her conviction to follow something so alien to everything they've known. It's up to the Storyteller to determine how much Willpower needs to be spent over how long. At some point, it all comes to a head for the vampire. Either their new Path 'clicks' for them, or the slide further into depravity. This takes the form of a Willpower roll dependent on your remaining Humanity, starting at 3. The lower the Humanity is, the easier it is to abandon in favor of the new Path. If the roll succeeds, the vampire switches over to the new path with a rating of 1 in the relevant Virtues. The default virtues for Humanity are Conscience and Self-Control. Other paths rely on Conviction instead of Conscience, and/or Instinct over Self-Control. From there, the vampire can spend XP to raise their new Virtues and Path rating as normal. Some of the paths were touched on earlier, but I can elaborate if anyone likes.
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Nov 18, 2013 18:05
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mortons stork posted:Please do. No. No he didn't. He kind of got to a lesser step of Enlightenment, and was a pretty chill dude, but apparently that's why the Kuei Jin are so pissed at him. He ran off before his understanding of their ways was complete, and began to spread imperfect teachings to his clan. Bobbin Threadbare posted:Darker, anyways. Most of the bad word against Saulot was spread by the Tremere to justify diablerizing him, and the rest was left ambiguous so that the Storyteller could be the final arbiter;. Again, Saulot was a pretty chill dude, but the part about the Salubri being able to pull your soul out was completely true. It's actually part of a Kuei Jin vampiric Discipline. As with Valeren/Obeah, there are two 'paths' to it. The idea is that you can draw out the soul of a spiritually damaged person and you could spend your Willpower to heal them, removing derangements and such. Or, you could throw it to your own personal demons as a chew toy. So back to Paths. Which path you want to hear about first? 
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Nov 18, 2013 21:54
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Alright, first come first serve. The Path of the Feral Heart This is a sub-path, actually. The Path of the Beast is the pinnacle of the phrase "a beast I am, lest a beast I become". A vampire is a predator, a hunter. Bestials forego the trappings of society for the purity of a stalking cat, or a lone wolf. The Beast Within is their true instincts coming to the forefront, so they feed it, they stoke it and help it come become as one with them. But they don't let it off the leash. You accept it as part of yourself, but you cannot let it take you. From it, you learn strength, resilience and survival. Hell, you might even find some sort of primal insights from what it teaches. But the core of the path is simple survival. Feed when hungry, but don't indulge. Hunt your prey, but don't let the rest of the herd see the body or they'll spook. Practitioners of the path are very straightforward and not easily swayed by promises of rewards to come. Words are just noise in the wind. Show them what IS, what's in the NOW. As such, you won't find many of them in the Camarilla. None of the angst and ennui of the rest of Kindred society. They exist, they hunt, and give no second thought to moral quandries and degeneration of their humanity. They are hunters, first and foremost. They simply exist. The Path of the Feral Heart is, along with the Path of Harmony, the result of a dogmatic schism among the followers of the Bestial Path. Ferals don't prioritize the lone wolf aspect of the primary Path, they focus on the pack. It's a very Sabbat slant on an old idea, all the better to stand against the Antediluvians. Where a single vampire might be easily killed, a pack might have a better chance.(No they won't.) The Path of Harmony just focuses on vampires as part of the food chain, with humans at the top of a smaller one. There's a good deal of respect for prey in this Path that is absent in the main and other sub-Path. Path of Caine This is a very simple path. By studying the vampiric history of Caine, one can understand their nature and transcend it. Learn Caine's teachings, his ways, and you can be at peace. They're called Noddists for a reason, as many of them search out and pore over copies and excerpts from the Book of Nod, essentially a collection of new books of a bible dealing with vampires. All are about Caine, but one is supposedly written BY him. He is the beginning and ending of all vampires. By studying him you come to understand him, and he must be understood for a student to understand why they have also been the dark gifts. The cornerstone of the Path is accepting your curse. Yes, you have strengths and weaknesses, but the student has to come to terms with them being a part of their new unlife. Diablerie is not just allowed, but encouraged. Anything to get you closer to Caine. If nothing else, their experiences, their knowledges, pass to you. All the more reason to do so, so as to increase your own wisdom in the process. Btu vampires are not evil, in the eyes of Noddists. Another path that simply states that you are what you are, now you have to understand what that is. More to come tomorrow. I need to get to sleep. Early day tomorrow 
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Nov 19, 2013 05:14
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Potence actually has an activated ability these days. In the V:tM 20th anniversary edition, they errata'd and cleaned up a lot of things. Potence now only adds dice to your Strength-based dice pools. You can spend a blood point to turn those extra dice from the Discipline into automatic successes. Much more balanced, I think. More on Paths later. I'm enjoying the nice relaxing evening. Edit: vv Well, as I said, you HAVE to have a minimum of 5 Willpower to start on a path, and you can't have a rating higher than 5, since it takes decades to master a path that is so inhuman. Or maybe I didn't mention that part. I forget. Vicissitude fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Nov 20, 2013 |
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Nov 19, 2013 22:33
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Well, they CAN, they just can't get anything pleasurable out of it.
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Nov 20, 2013 15:18
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Alright, where was I...? The Path of Lilith Eve was not Adam's first wife. Adam was made from the earth, and so too did God create a mate for him. Because she was created equally, she wanted equal power to that of Adam. For her presumption, she was cast out of Eden. In the lands east of Eden, Nod, Lilith learned magic and grew powerful in its practices. But she faced many hardships from blasted earth, scorching sun, and cruelly edged rocks. The Path of Lilith teaches vampires to face such suffering and, in doing so, grow strong. Lilith made her own garden, a tribute to or mockery of Eden. The sharp barbs and stinging plants there are relived by Lilins, the followers of the path (also called Bahari), in metaphor. Lilith was treated viciously by God, by Adam, by Lucifer and the angels who came to her in Nod, and eventually by Caine himself. She taught him to endure his curse, his suffering, and still he cast her aside and left her. Lilins embrace this cruelty. The entire path is basically another form of survival, like the Path of the Beast. Except instead of overcoming adversity, they stoically endure and become stronger for it. There is no fear or hesitation for a Lilin. They face all challenges and dangers as they would anything, accepting that this is what has come to them and is something to weather no matter the cost. There is a scholastic slant to the path, in that it's a sin to not challenge "false" scriptures of mortal and kindred beliefs alike, but the core of the path is to endure, and share your pain so that others might learn to do the same.
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Nov 23, 2013 05:33
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Feinne posted:Yeah, and I'm pretty sure Caine loses no matter what, at which point Abel's ghost shows up (I think the intent is that Abel is the first Wraith?) and basically tells Caine all he ever had to do was say he was sorry for what he did. At which point Caine basically tells him he can cram it straight up his ghost rear end and Abel just sort of facepalms and leaves. The other option is to have Caine actually, FINALLY, accept his brother's forgiveness. In that case, Caine immediately dissolves into ash in Abel's arms. Lilith and her assembled Antediluvians just sort of stand around with the PCs awkwardly like "welp v v "
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Nov 23, 2013 07:17
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OAquinas posted:Getting into the Demon line here, but basically God created the world and the Angels administered it. Perfect concentric spheres, celestial clockwork, bountiful earth, etc etc... Not quite. The Angels were never jealous of humans. They were ordered to watch after Adam and Eve, also their tribe (they were the first, not the only humans in Eden). But God also commanded them the angels to fulfill all the humans needs, but to remain hidden from them. The angels, led by Lucifer, saw humanity in their ignorance and were too saddened by what they saw to let it continue. The revealed themselves to the humans and gave them knowledge. God sent Michael to punish Lucifer, but the Morningstar fought him off (using a simple wooden scythe against Michael's SWORD OF FIRE). The loyal angels withdrew and then God spoke. Sort of. The earth was smote with a great power. God had introduced entropy into Creation. Nothing would last forever anymore, and all things would eventually crumble. That was God's last confirmed interaction with his Creation. The war went on for decades, if not centuries, and eventually the fallen angels were cast into Hell. Hell was not the pit of fire and brimstone portrayed by popular media. It was a place entirely cut off from the presence of God, but where the angels bound within could still feel the birth pangs of human civilization with all its ups and downs. That torment drove most of the angels to become demons, but the biggest pain of all was not a presence, but an absence. Lucifer was not in hell with the rest of his loyal followers.
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Nov 23, 2013 17:01
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Feinne posted:Also Caine and Lilith having it out is pretty much a giant epic battle where Lilith sends a loving army of monsters at Caine, who is defended by several Antediluvians all there for their own ends (and because if Caine dies his curse ends and every vampire will cease to be within moments). Lilith is defended by seven Antediluvians in that scenario, none of which (except one) are willing to deal the deathblow to Caine for fear of the curse/blessing God laid upon him. You know, 'whosoever shall harm him shall receive seven times harm in return' or something like that. And since we're on the topic, here's the Antediluvians who showed up in that scenario: Lucian: Perfect and beautiful. He's got a hefty dose of Obfuscate and Animalism, with a bit of Potence on the side. The implication is that he is somehow related to the Nosferatu Clan, though it's up to the Storyteller to determine how. Could be he and Absimiliard were brothers in the blood, or even mortal brothers embraced by the 2nd generation. Maybe he IS the true Nosferatu Antediluvian. If he is, he certainly doesn't share the same drawbacks as the clan he's tied to. He is so strikingly handsome that anyone who sees him without the protection of magic or Merits suffers from the effects of the Presence power of Entrancement (warp the target's emotions to the point they become your willing slaves). Erinye: More fearsome than beautiful, but in the way a hunting predator is beautiful. Skilled in Celerity, Potence and Necromancy, though no actual clan ties are listed. She is NOT Troile, the usurper of the Brujah Clan. As her name suggests, she may be the inspiration for the Greek Erinyes, the Furies. Mekhet: Picture what a Tremere with a few hundred years under their belt can accomplish with blood magic. Now imagine that you had several THOUSAND years to practice and study and research. That's Mekhet, in a nutshell. Tremere himself might have access to level 10 Thaumaturgy, but this guy learned that long ago and has refined it to an art over the millenia. Mekhet is proficient at all forms of Blood Magic, including the clan-specific ones like Assamite and Setite Sorcery. Lilith treats him like an adviser in such matters. Physically, Mekhet is brittle. The curse of Caine has made him a walking cadaver, even worse than the Samedi bloodline (would you like to know more? Then ask, you dumb gently caress! :p ). He is little more than a skeleton kept together with a bit of flesh and bandages. Honestly, one stout blow could probably knock him to pieces like a skeleton in one of those old Disney Halloween cartoons. Ikopabe: If any being could be said to personify the Beast, it's this guy. Even more than Erinye he's a primal animal, to the point where he barely even speaks a recognizable language anymore. Ikopabe is a master of the shapeshifting Disciplines, Protean and Abombwe (African kindred spin-off of Protean). He's also topped out in Fortitude and Animalism. While not simple, he's pretty straightforward. Lilith uses him as a tracker or scout. Despite the obvious similarities, he will not speak of any siring he's done. Clearly there are ties to both the Gangrel and the Laibon of Africa, but Ikopabe is silent on the matter. Ilyes: The REAL Brujah Antediluvian. When Troile attacked him, he used Temporis to hurl himself forward to save himself. The problem is, time is a very fickle thing and does not like to be toyed with. Ilyes screwed up the subjective time. While he may have dropped out of the time warp after several thousand years, something like a HUNDRED thousand years had passed for him personally. So despite the True Brujah loss of emotion over time, Ilyes had plenty of time to stew over the betrayal of his favored childe and joined Lilith. Malakai: The twin sister of Malkav, the famed founder of the Malkavian clan. Sadly, she was not as strong as her brother and when he suffered the clan curse at the hands of Caine, she bore the lion's share of the madness due to her close blood ties with her brother (by birth and by Embrace, a double-whammy). With him gone to who knows where, Malakai has fallen into the depths of paranoia, despair and occasional violence. On the flipside of the coin, she is incredibly powerful when the madness waxes her way. Unfortunately, that's only when she is beset with distress. Malakai's madness is so potent that she can not only warp minds, but physical bodies and objects. (Malakai is the only Apostate willing to take Caine out since it would end her suffering.) Eikos: loving Eikos... Lilith wasn't the only being that Caine met in his travels in Nod. He also came across an old crone, who taught him the ways of the blood bond when she tricked him into tasting her blood three times. After that, she ordered him to Embrace her. If Eikos is, in fact, the Crone, she's more powerful than the other Antediluvians. She would be a fourth member of the 2nd generation begat from Caine himself. But Caine eventually slipped free of the blood bond and drove a wooden stake through the heart of the Crone. He left her for the sun and she was destroyed. ...Right?
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Nov 24, 2013 07:47
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Olesh posted:Working from my vaguely fuzzy memories, later editions attempted to balance Celerity by requiring more blood to activate it - multiple actions requiring multiple blood points to be spent - but the advantage of having more actions than your opponent is very difficult to overcome in the short term, and combats involving Celerity tend not to last more than one or two rounds. In V20, Celerity was actually improved slightly over the original Masquerade printing. Just having Celerity added a die per rank to every Dexterity-based skill roll you made. By spending a BP in a turn, you could trade in those dice for extra actions on a 1 for 1 basis. So with Celerity 4, you could get 2 extra actions with 2 bonus Dex dice. Those actions can only be physical, so no using Dominate over and over until it succeeds. :p In Requiem, the New WoD Vampire line, Celerity was very much a defensive power. When activated with a BP, you subtract your Celerity rating from all dice pools to attack you. Second, add your Celerity rating to your Initiative for that turn. Finally, your Speed is multiplied by Celerity+1 (remember to double that final speed if you run in that turn  ).
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Nov 25, 2013 21:25
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LeJackal posted:There is even a Covenant-specific Devotion (special Disciple derivative) that turns the Speed bonus from 1 vitae/turn to 1 vitae/hour. So you could run your little Obfuscated heart out alllllllll night. The Assamites have a Fortitude/Celerity combo discipline like that too. Costs a point of blood and lasts for one hour per Celerity but only applies to overland movement. And no stops either. If you stop for more than 10 minutes, the power ends.
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Nov 26, 2013 01:22
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Actually, 14th and 15th Generation vampires HAVE to take the Thin Blood Flaw. There are a heap of other penalties on top of that, like 15th Gen vampires only have 6 effective blood points to use for anything other than waking up (out of their usual pool of 10 BP). On the plus side, they can take a little sunlight here and there. It only does Lethal damage to them, rather than Aggravated.
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Dec 2, 2013 05:59
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AnAnonymousIdiot posted:Seeing Heather ghouled I almost wonder if we're violating the Third Tradition here. Makes me wonder if LaCroix or the other Elders in LA consider ghouls part of that Tradition. No, it means childer. Ghouls are just mortal associates/pawns/tools who have vampire vitae in them to ensure loyalty and survivability.
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Dec 2, 2013 06:16
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Feinne posted:Yeah, Demon suggests that God basically took a divine bat to reality and broke it before completely disappearing, and that because of that everything will just get worse and worse until it falls apart completely. Yeah, when he died, the Ravnos clan fell on itself in a crazy frenzy. They pretty much took themselves out from their Clan founder's death spasm/psychic impulse. In the Gehenna scenarios, or at least the ones where their deaths are plot points, the other Antediluvians have similar effects to their descendants when they die.
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Dec 3, 2013 20:22
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Feinne posted:Because the Antediluvians who actually matter are basically not even vampires any more in all but the most technical sense. They're horrible things that shouldn't be and exert a terrible pressure on all those of their blood just by existing. Lasombra was a giant Abyssal shadow-demon thing at the end. Tzimisce had literally infiltrated the earth's biosphere on the microbial level thanks to its mastery of Vicissitude. Ravnos had become one of the Rakshasa demons of legend. Ennoia (Gangrel) BECAME THE EARTH thanks to Protean.
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Dec 4, 2013 04:35
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LeJackal posted:Tell me more, this sounds so crazy. Well, Tzimisce was not killed by its childer when they diablerized it. Instead, it took over Lugoj and decided to make Lambach its 'witness'. While it originally had Lugoj deposit it in the soily womb of the Carpathian Mountains to kind of gestate into a new form (where it absorbed a good amount of knowledge and power from the demon Kupala who pretty much fuels the clan's Koldunic Sorcery), eventually it was transported to the New World and was plopped down in the deepest sewers of New York City. Down there, it began to experiment with Metamorphosis. The fleshy hulk of the thing seemed to die, but soon mold began to appear. Then other plant life. All life produced was wholly new and unknown to anyone who saw it. Granted, they didn't get a chance to observe for long before Tzimisce caught and absorbed them into its mass, but if they did get a good long look, they'd have seen that it was developing a new ecosystem at a hyperfast rate. Tzimisce was trying to create new life, fleshy plants and plantlike flesh. Eventually, it had spread out through spores and other assorted bric-a-brac to basically disperse itself into the existing ecosystem on earth. When it did, its consciousness left and spread out among the entire planet. The dead hulk back in New York remained animate, but it was pretty much just a Vozhd at that point. So many people, animals and even vampires (a LOT of Nosferatu before they sealed up the entrances to its tunnels that they knew about) got absorbed into the old undead frame of the Antediluvian. So technically, Tzimisce is in two places at once. But the real mind and rotten soul of the thing is spread throughout the entire world. The rest is just the shell it left behind. Feinne posted:Yeah, some of the Antediluvians in that story just sort of die suddenly with no real obvious explanation, and generally good riddance because they were really bad news. I think only Lasombra does. It shows up as a shadow that wraps around the earth, but it only lasts 3 days. On the third day, blood rains from the sky and then the shadow disperses. No explanation was given. Other Antediluvians don't give two shits about most people. Haqim is pretty much involved in his own clan, destroying those who don't completely submit to him (except Fatima, who made a good case for her dual loyalty to her Clan and her god). Ennoia just sort of strikes at random by opening GIANT holes in the earth and swallowing cites. She eats Vienna, where the Tremere home base is. The Council of Seven is never heard from again. quote:There's actually a reasonably cool one who doesn't actually have a clan who seems to be eaten by Ennoia, but who actually manages to survive and help you again if you were cool with them. "The Shaper" was hinted at to be like Toreador Antediluvian, though the book says that she never sired any clan of her own. So perhaps they were closely related when they were embraced and Arikel was her sister or something. Vicissitude fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Dec 4, 2013 |
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Dec 4, 2013 15:42
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So who's interested in a little character swap?  Boone here was my go-to for Fuzz's game that kind of crapped out far too early on the forums. A Pacific Theater footslogger, he had the unfortunate luck to fall into a punji pit that was a bit deeper than most on one of those many, many unnamed islands out there in the middle of the ocean. And if he happened to run into a very foul creature that fell on him and embraced him so as to have a pliable lackey from whom it could wring out knowledge of the modern world, is there any doubt as to why he's such a dour guy?  pre:Name: Derrick Boone Clan: Nosferatu
Nature: Pedagogue Generation: 11th
Demeanor: Curmudgeon Sire: Shishi-do, Lion of the Undertown
Virtue/Vice: Resolve / Pride Concept: Grumpy Gus War Vet
<ATTRIBUTES>
Physical: Social: Mental:
Strength ●●●-- Charisma ●●--- Perception ●●●--
Dexterity ●●●●- Manipulation ●●●-- Intelligence ●●---
Stamina ●●●-- Appearance xxxxx Wits ●●●--
<ABILITIES>
Talents: Skills: [4] Knowledges:
Alertness ●●●-- Animal Ken ----- Academics -----
Athletics ●●--- Crafts ----- Computer -----
Awareness ●●--- Drive ●---- Finance ●----
Brawl ●●--- Etiquette ----- Investigation ●●---
Empathy ----- Firearms ●●--- Law ●----
Expression ----- Larceny ●●--- Medicine -----
Intimidation ●●--- Melee ●●--- Occult ●----
Leadership ----- Performance ●--- Politics ----
Streetwise ●●--- Stealth ●●●-- Science -----
Subterfuge ----- Survival ----- Technology -----
<ADVANTAGES>
Disciplines: [7] Backgrounds: [4] Virtues:
Potence ●●-- Contacts ●●--- Conscience ●●---
Obfuscate ●●--- Generation ●●--- Self-Control ●●●--
Celerity ●---- Resources ●●●-- Courage ●●●●-
Path: ● ● ● ● ● - - - - - ( ) Humanity
Willpower: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● - - - ( ) [3]
Specializations:
Dexterity (Nimble Fingers)
Performance (Acting)
Merits: Inoffensive to Animals [1], Acute Sense (Sight) [1]
Efficient Digestion [3], Language (Chinese) [1],
Language (Japanese) [1]
Flaws: Enemy (Emilio Giovanni) [-2], Haunted [-3],
Permanent Fangs [-3], Blood Hunted [-6]
Current Experience: 0
Experience to Date: 10
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Dec 5, 2013 00:12
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gatz posted:Wait, so Thinbloods can sire other vampires, but they can't ghoul anyone? Lily was the source of the blood in the clinic... Not necessarily. The Thin Blood flaw actually holds a chance of failing if you try to sire. First off, all blood costs for a thinblood to use vitae to heal, raise attributes (Blood Buff), or activate Disciplines, they're all doubled. Next, you can't sustain ghouls or create a blood bond. Finally, the Embrace only has a 20% chance to succeed. The 14th Generation and 15th Generation flaws, though it doesn't outright state that you must, imply that you should also be taking the Thin Blood Flaw. A 14th generation vampire has a blood pool of 10 BP, but only 8 can be used to heal, raise attributes or activate disciplines. The last 2 can only be used to sustain ghouls and blood bonds, or wake in the evening. Disciplines cannot be raised beyond level 4. A 15th Generation vampire drops their available pool to 6 (blood costs are doubled as above, remember!), though they CANNOT create or sustain ghouls, blood bond someone, or sire. So basically just blood buff and activate disciplines with 6 BP, the rest are only for waking in the evening. No discipline can go beyond 3. on the other hand, sunlight only does Lethal damage to the 15th generation. They can actually eat and drink, though they can only hold the food down for about an hour or so unless they also have the Eat Food merit (vampires can't really eat since their stomach organs are withered and ashy). Most important, they can actually knock up a human, or be knocked up themselves! Dhampirs are the children of 15th generation vampires. They're like revenants, but without the history of familial inbreeding and ghouldom that comes with the title. They produce 1 vitae/day naturally, can hold up to 10 BP and, being born into their state unlike their parents, can actually use all 10 BP for healing and disciplines. Being (super-)human, they can't form a blood bond or create ghouls with their half-vitae, though. They're limited to level 1 Disciplines, but generally, that's enough to allow them to excel at whatever they put themselves to in life. A Dhampir can frenzy, though it's easier for them to resist than their vampiric parent(s). Difficulties to resist are 1 lower.
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Dec 5, 2013 01:59
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Tehan posted:Apparently Vicissitude (the discipline, not the forums poster) was really an alien infection from another dimension Uh... yeah. Totally not me. 
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Dec 7, 2013 17:55
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This one, obviously. Definitely not Melmac.
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Dec 8, 2013 22:26
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Interview with the Vampire is a great book. The later books are what get really lovely, really quickly. As for WoD fiction, the Clan Novel series is actually pretty good. Some of them are a little weaker than others, but some are amazing. The Malkavian book, especially, which shows the world from Anatole's point of view a few times. It's interesting to see how a madman like that experiences his night to night activities.
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Dec 13, 2013 15:13
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LeJackal posted:You can kill humans all you want, just not by accident. That would be sloppy and un-evil. I think it's because you're supposed to be a master of your own evil. If you do anything, it should be with purpose. YOUR purpose.
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Dec 14, 2013 06:17
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Tehan posted:Actually, this happened. The Cyber Dogs were a faction within the Glass Walkers that came to prominence when they demonstrated in 1998 that cyborg werewolves wrecked poo poo about as thoroughly as you'd expect. They were on the verge of taking leadership when they fell from grace and were quickly and violently purged a year later when it was revealed that the huge strides in cybernetics came not just from being able to negotiate with the spirits of cybernetic implants, but also through extensive non-voluntary experimentation on lupus (wolf-born) Garou, which the Glass Walkers tend to venerate because they've got so drat few of them. There's still a few remnants kicking around - those that avoided the purges long enough to prove their ignorance of the experiments and rejoin the Glass Walkers proper, and those that quickly went into hiding. There's a Ronin werewolf in Kindred of the East or one of the supplements who's like that. He's got two bionic arms, so he can't change out of Crinos anymore or they'll fall off or something. On the upside, he's not bound by his Rage. He's completely Weaver-whipped and his heart is tranquil. Still, his physical stats and Weaver gifts make him a tough son of a bitch.
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Dec 14, 2013 20:49
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I also love the concept of Catches when using Fae bargains. Basically, using fae magic costs Glamour, the changeling equivalent of blood points. But they're contracts with the element or ideal that you're invoking. Contracts have loopholes. If you find yourself in a circumstance that falls into the Catch of a bargain, you can use it for free instead of spending Glamour to charge it. I haven't picked up Demon yet, but I'd like to think demonic bargains would have something similar, though with a darker bent.
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Dec 16, 2013 05:36
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Well, he's crazy and you're just a fledgling, so... Magic?
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Dec 22, 2013 20:53
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