/cofd/&/wodg/ Chronicles of Darkness and World of Darkness General

Their kind of a out of context enemy.

youtu.be/DkeGMaq0O98

Silver Ladder or Seers of the Throne theme song I'm not sure which.

Far too much information on an annoying powerful and ultimately unnecessary enemy.

I like requiem Vampires. I like that clans are much less relevant and have no real "canon". I like the lack of unifying myth, and the possibility that Vampire is merely a much larger class of many, many types of bloodsucker who over time became a lot more similar.

I don't like their strange connection to these weird shadow-owls who are both simultaneously a dire threat no Vampire wants to mess with, while also being provided with ludicrously powerful stats and an extensive write up.
Which includes a description of their ability to actually create Vampires, and fuse with them.

Vampire doesn't need an external enemy. They're the internal conflict splat. No other faction does it better, and to diminish that with a "united enemy" is a bit annoying.

Far too hopeful to be a Seer theme song.
Also "WE'RE the Princes of the Universe".
When have the Seers ever acknowledged another's right to power?

Good point.

youtu.be/BfuWXRZe9yA
Guardians of the Veil (possible mastigos)

>So obviously the Strix represent the unknowable enemy and the enemy from without. Both positions that are filled better with either a) Other supernaturals or b) Enemy factions (like Belials brood).
Can you elaborate on why you think so? I always felt that vampires where the most concrete of the supernaturals and needed an enemy that was not tied to spirits, angels and stuff... with more paranoia fuel to match the vampire social game than simply other vampires/vampires factions.

>As an idea it feels weird to use this pretty obscure greek myth when the setting as whole is kind of religion-free. Of all the myths and creatures why this particular one is the one that gets to be "true"?
There are many culture that have owls as myths, why do you focus on a single one? I don't remember the 2e book mentioning a greek myth, also considering that the owl was the sacred anymal of Athena, associated with wisdom, military strategy and protection... not very strix-like, unless i missed something.

>Can you elaborate on why you think so?

Because Requiem was always about YOUR requiem, it was always a personal game unlike the other 2 main splats. Is the same reason VII felt flat on its face, it lack the personal component that is lost in an alien enemy. Same reason the Sabbat works so well in Masquerade they are either the dark mirror or the alien enemy. But both VII and the Strix are just the alien enemy, i never felt the paranoia of the strix while reading them the same way i feel it with Belial brood. The owls are just an monster with monster motivations and, unless the DM really wanna do something with it, nothing more. They are tricky sure but the same paranoia and can be fueled by not knowing who is a diabolist in a city.

If vampire really REALLY needed an external enemy outside of vampires, which i think it doesnt, then the stix are too similar and too impersonal for that.

>why do you focus on a single one? I don't remember the 2e book mentioning a greek myth, also considering that the owl was the sacred anymal of Athena, associated with wisdom, military strategy and protection... not very strix-like, unless i missed something.

Remember that the Strix first appeared in Requiem for Rome.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strix_(mythology)

If as you said they wanted to raise the paranoia to match the vampire social game than simply Vampire/Vampire factions then they should have gone full measure. There are example of vampire-like beings (like a japanesse blob of blood that barely forms itself), the antagonist could have being this new "Vamps-creatures" that start to form and become a battle for resources kinda like the kue-jin but not shit.

Stolze's take on VII, the Akhud, are really flavorful and add a lot to the setting. What's the issue?

They show the Kindred what being solely governed by the Beast really looks like and give a reason for the debilitating paranoia that vampires have to actually exist, because the enemy is invisible and among you. They're also profoundly easy to ignore, should you dislike them.

The rare elusive WoD question: does anyone think a dying crusader Embraced by an uncharacteristically merciful Assamite would be an interesting Dark Ages character? I'm on a DA kick and I'm trying to think of a character I can really sink my teeth into.

>tfw DA: Wraith never

>The rare elusive WoD question: does anyone think a dying crusader Embraced by an uncharacteristically merciful Assamite would be an interesting Dark Ages character? I'm on a DA kick and I'm trying to think of a character I can really sink my teeth into.

I played the same character just as a Ravnos (the DA version) pretty interesting to play. His chosen exaggerated trait was devotion. It was pretty good.

Ok, i can get behind the reasoning of the first answer.
I didn't remember about the strix creature, but strix is just a name given by vampires in camarilla times... the owls could be anything.

And for what you said about what made belial interesting you have them and also draugr themselves as "inner enemies". Giving them an outside enemy purely driven by self serving emotions (mirroring the beast as an autonomous force) that is not just "vampire but X" feels ok to me...

All in all i understand what you say but i don't agree. Than you for being so exaustive.

>Stolze's take on VII, the Akhud, are really flavorful and add a lot to the setting. What's the issue?

They are "plot convenience" the clan. Their weakness is barely a weakness and just a convenient plot armor.

>They show the Kindred what being solely governed by the Beast really looks like and give a reason for the debilitating paranoia that vampires have to actually exist, because the enemy is invisible and among you.

Again i can do that better with the belials brood.

>They're also profoundly easy to ignore, should you dislike them.

Well of course i can, but the thread was what shit we dislike of Chrod not what shit we dislike of Chrod but we cant get rid off because is intrinsically connected to the game.

Truth be told, I never saw the Brood as being anything but the Diet Sabbat. What do they do so well that you like?

I'm fond of the Strix because they make perfect infiltrators, which the Brood never struck me as.

To be fair the Gentleman Gamer really sold me on then.

The idea of this vampire who get rid of humanity because they find communion with the beast reaching as close as possible 0 while at the same time their elder never reach quite that point because they are "too important" so they rile neonates along to the self-destructive path while they themselves just watch.

The brood to me function as any kind of diabolist one can think off, from the burn everything to the sly elder that is just this intrinsic part of the local vampire society while he moves the strings of young broods. For infiltration the the roaring serpent could work.

A question for CofD Storytellers:

Do you ever find these games difficult to run?

I've run two successful CofD games now (Geist & Hunter), but both involved a decent amount of hand-waving and glossing over inconvenient rules. I found the fluff for the game lines inspiring, but sometimes felt like I had to work around the crunch to still have a game that flowed smoothly.

I had the chance to play in a Mage 2E campaign recently, and I thought the system was pretty awesome, but the game ultimately fizzled out in part because I think the mechanics of it were a little overwhelming for the Storyteller (who had never run CofD before) and the other players (who had never played CofD before).

Do you guys ever struggle with running these systems? And what're some ways you've made your games run better?

The more I play tabletop games, the more I find myself throwing rules out the window except when absolutely necessary. CofD has a functional system, but not one I'd call amazing, and I'd kill to see FATE conversions for them all.

Clanbooks are the thing most people seemed to like. Also, I strongly disagree. I love the morality meters. No one ever argues that Call of Cthulhu shouldn't have Sanity...

How are the games less noob friendly? Also, there *is* a sidebar suggesting experience levels for more experienced characters.
I guess I can see where you're coming, but at the same time I think most players would prefer to start out not so new that they can't do anything. There are actually a few rules for just-changed-in-play characters, though.

>First the best enemies vampire have are other vampires from within and without.
That's basically what the Strix are, though. More than that, they're meant to be a boss level out-of-context entity, which normally Vampire can't really have. I mean, the Idigam are terrifying space alien spirits. Strix tie into one of the potential origins of vampires, and are essentially something that throws a wrench into the typical vampire scheming and turns it into The Thing. That's why I like them. They are still an internal enemy. They're the embodiment of an internal entity in a very literal sense.

They're also not THE Antagonist for Requiem. They're essentially the God-Machine for vampires.

>If as you said they wanted to raise the paranoia to match the vampire social game than simply Vampire/Vampire factions then they should have gone full measure. There are example of vampire-like beings (like a japanesse blob of blood that barely forms itself), the antagonist could have being this new "Vamps-creatures" that start to form and become a battle for resources kinda like the kue-jin but not shit.
That's what they did, though. I feel like we'd still be having this conversation if they'd chosen the Pijavica.

I actually love Mage's mechanics. In fact, unlike , CofD is my go-to system, because Fate doesn't have enough crunch.

But I've never had a problem ignoring, changing, or not even bothering with certain rules. Usually it's things dealing with time and it's progression, but I've also got a tendency to ignore initiative, and too many times to count I've made something up that might not fit the rules or setting as written (a poison that can kill Sin-eaters, an Unfettered Geist doing magic rituals, the characters getting 'pulled' into the Underworld reflection of a hospital, Silent Hill style). But if you read the suggestions and plot hooks, or even the SAS books, you'll see that the developers and writers are the same way. Do what works.

Although if things like Creative Thaumaturgy are too complex, then, yeah, that's a problem for the group (though personally I find it the best spell-working system out there).

Oh, I also secretly make shit up and sometimes I don't even roll, or I roll a few times. It's also never actually come up, but I won't let a player die (unless they're in the Underworld and going to get spat back out). My whole thing is making a good story for my players. A good experience.

The Pijavica is Slavic. And for what it's worth, the Strix aren't just Strix. They're also Tengu, for instance. There also are strange not-quite-vampires in Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, in the form of the Jiangshi.

Don't get me wrong, I thought Mage was super cool too. It was actually a lot of fun when you got into a stressful situation, trying to figure out how best to work your spells within the constraints of the moment—how much can you reach, how much potency do you need, can you afford to buy off the paradox, etc.?

More than any other magic system, it made me feel like I was actually an (inexperienced) wizard trying to get the most out of my power under pressure, and it lead to some great creativity.

e.g. One time I asked the Storyteller if I could use my reaches on that one Space 1 spell that lets you learn a target's sympathetic connections in order to turn it into a "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" spell, revealing the most direct chain of sympathetic connections between two seemingly unconnected targets.

But the downside of Mage's magic system is that there is A LOT of math. And I didn't have much trouble with it 'cause I was just one player—who had read the whole rule book, written out shorthand notes on all of my spells, and photoshopped together a cheat-sheet of all the relevant spellcasting tables from the book.

But I know the other players struggled with it, and I can't imagine trying to be a Storyteller for Mage and having to be familiar enough with all the Arcana, do the math for potentially multiple NPC mages, etc. Seems like a lot of mental work that would distract from, you know, trying to run a fun game.

I love mage, but at the same time. It's not the first splat/system you throw at players and gms. The mystery the exploration and the scrawling world is cool. The arcane system allows you the tools to at least tackle any situation. but if your players are more DnD than shadow run, you may have to ease in the more spy thriller aspects.

I find Vamp and Changeling easier sells to new players. The modes and themes of vamp are easy to recognize, changelings is like adventure time, so people buy into it easier. I tend to run changeling as psychic vampires. So I can run both of the as run by their fuel stat. A lot of the time is made to position and maneuver to get the best watering holes, while butting rivals out of them. And then the one off side adventures of crazy are fun.

players that do their homework are glorious

I usually give new players more leeway by letting them start off as murder-hobo nameless and slowly ween them into more thematically correct play as they get a hang of the system.

Yeah, don't get me wrong, you don't run Mage for first timers. There's a reason I suggest nothing but the Chronicles of Darkness corebook whenever someone asks for how to get into this.

Equally appreciated are players who read and ask questions.

>Equally appreciated are players who read and ask questions
Agreed, it demonstrates a desire to learn and improve, while also respecting the work you put into things

If only more players were willing to put in that little bit of effort up front to learn the system and engage with the game.

I mean, yeah, maybe taking notes and printing out cheat-sheets is going a bit above and beyond—but I think even a little effort on the part of good players goes a long way to easing GM burnout.

Hypothetically, could a Tzimisce fleshcraft, say, a synthetic arm, on to a vampire?

Has to be flesh is how I'd rule it.

You don't think that their fleshcrafting could place the nerve connections to the machine-y bits, even with maybe a bit of extra surgery?

It's supernatural shenanigans mate. Logic's got no place here.

Is it called "flesh and also some chrome" crafting?

Necrons?

Just finished up a Mage game for some new players. It's a nice and simple murder mystery with some Time shenanigans involved. However...

We're in LA, and I mentioned a lot of supernaturals have stuff going on in LA, so they'll run into all kinds of stuff if they walk down the wrong alley. This has inspired them to go hunt for Vampires.

Should I discourage this crossover nonsense? They're new players, so they won't be /mad/ if I say they're getting in over their heads, but I've been GMing for a while and with any other system I'd say, "Go for it, let me know how it goes for you." because that's what they decided they wanted to do.

tl;dr - New Mages want to go start shit with Vamps, should I tell them it won't end well?

(The party is an Acanthus with a lot of Life to become a plant Mage, a Moros who plans on shifting some metal rods into swords, and a Mastigos with a whip enhanced with Corridors of Time)

What's their gnosis/arcana breakdown? From your description it sounds like the game has gone on long enough for them to buy some dots.

With enough dots it's unlikely they'll get so overwhelmed that you'll see a tpk and you get to teach them a hard lesson about leaving some shit well enough alone.

The Thanatos are lethal and dangerous. Introduce a sympathetic vamp(one trying to just get by with a horrible condition) and evil vamp(who actively subverting and controlling people)

Highlight the fact they have no idea what the fuck they're doing

The Acanthus has been the longest-running, but the other two are only a couple sessions in.

Acanthus - Life 2 Fate 3
Moros - Matter 3 Death 2
Mastigos - Mind 2/3 or Space 2/3, I can't remember.

They're all pretty new, so rolling up is a pretty real danger for at least one of them.

They're all Gnosis 2, also

I ask in the most scientific manner possible...

But could a woman successfully mate with a materialised spirit in human form?
Do all the ah, parts? Work as normal?

It's fucking magic.
You wanna get knocked up by a spirit, that's probably possible.
Hell, it's probably possible to knock up a spirit.

>Luna?

What happened to the mega url?

By mate I assume you're referring to re-production. If its within the spirit's purview to reproduce or it's a spirit of babies or whatever, then sure - the shadow will find a way. If not, then probably not.

If your character just wants a spirit sex toy then they're better of buying a vibrator being ridden by a pleasure spirit.

If they were smart and planned things out they could ok. So, realistically certain death.

Personally I like to give my PC's enough rope to hang themselves with.

I'd have a relatively low stakes encounter with a group of vamps that is designed for them to fail. Perhaps a nightclub run by Daeva amused with the prospect of young mages to toy with before the Arrow finds out.

When things go south I'd have an NPC bail them out so they'd get the idea that there are some mysteries they're not ready to face yet.

At this point they have fair warning. If they decide to press the issue I'd have the next encounter end with them battered but nothing permanent. If they keep pressing play it straight and let them deal with the fallout/tpk.

>tfw you think you can successfully hunt vampires in Mage 2e without a skilled Obrimos

I once killed a bunch of Vampires by throwing them through a portal into Death Valley.

Why would a group of mages want or need to hunt vampires unless the vampires were specifically endangering or obstructing Awakened affairs?

First, hunting vampires is dangerous and rarely involves worthwhile Mysteries. Second, it risks starting a needless war with the local vampire population and would likely be promptly stopped by the local Consilium/Assembly/Ministry. Third, there are far more interesting and dangerous groups and entities around such as malevolent spirits, ghosts, cryptids, Abyssal creatures, etc. that are more suited to the attention of the Wise. And lastly, vampire victims generally consist of just Sleeper filth, many of whom quite willingly consort with the undead parasites. At worst, a few dead Sleepers are barely a statistic, at best, it's a public service.

Does anyone have the fiction anthology Tales of Dark Eras? Thanks.

Oh come on. Those cost basically nothing, you cheap bastard.

>you cheap bastard

Not cheap, but broke.

1. Vampires have a parasitic relationship with mankind. Every Vampire created is another potential Mage fucking murdered.
2. Vampires suffer a fascinating curse, one that's quite interesting and worth considering. Especially how their very blood has mystic properties.
3. Vampires can potentially wield significant social influence, something Mages might want to stop. Especially as they're likely beloved pawns of Seers.
4. Each Order (mostly) has their own reasons. Mysterium want to know their ancient secrets, Ladder fucking hates the blood sucking shits, Arrows don't like the threat they pose, Guardians... Probably wouldn't give a shit.
5. The Stryxis are also quite interesting, and the first step to getting to them is through Vampires.

It could also be personal.

You proposed a list of why mages might want to DEAL with or STUDY vampires, not HUNT them. In fact, hunting them runs contrary to many of those goals and priorities.

Vampire hunting and other foolish, high risk, low reward, conduct by young, inexperienced and often dumb and brash mages are one of the reasons why Consilia exist.

Some people are just thrill seeking asshats.

There's a note in the Sundered World that some people claim lineage from the spirits of the rivers. I didn't put it as hard fact, but there's the hook there if someone wants to run with it.

Great, if the Wise in the Sundered World didn't have enough to do, they now need to provide spiritual birth control.

>no, i don't care HOW attracted you are to that spirit of famine, you are NOT TO BREED with its disgusting, emaciated form made flesh.

How do you think you got Uratha? Some crazy wild woman probably took Father Wolf for a ride.

Chris, are you currently an author on any upcoming WW books or projects?

Also, do you know the title of the next Forsaken supplement?

What do you mean it won't end well? What can vampires do to a bunch of mages?

Gonna rp for the first time ever this friday.,on a VtM one-shot.Got ''vengeful'' and me and the dm agreed the target could be 1 guy from my party,or somebody else from his clan (they are assamites).
Did I fuck up?

You can't stop love, even if it involves a person and a nightmarish monster of a spirit. Some things just can't be Practiced away.

Help me understand the Lancae Sanctum: how does their faith impact their nightly routine? What are considered religious works, for the average church going vampire?

Why do you feel the clanbooks are bad for people coming from Masquerade, out of curiousity? I figure anything that says 'THIS IS NOT THE MASQUERADE CLAN, GAIS' is a plus for people.

Nothing good. The Sanctified see themselves as God's monsters who exist to scare mortals straight, so basically they inflict suffering on them to make them more religious. The other half of what they do involves trying to hammer as many other Kindred into their covenant as possible.

None of the covenants are nice, as a rule, but the Lancea Sanctum is probably the most wholly villainous. It's not unakin to the Sabbat from Masquerade, but more discreet.

>FATE Conversions

You make me sick. I tried to read and grok FATE and the whole 'make and compel assets' and such is just, meh.

Did you just finish Season 1 of American Horror Story?

The Clanbooks are by far the most narrative heavy of the 1e Requiem books, to the point where they tell an overarching story.

Here's a thread with some commentary about the story: forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?464972-V-tR-Unravelling-the-Clanbooks-(Warning-very-long-and-spolierish!)

It's not hard to see how that could be seen as "playing in Masquerade territory", though I don't really agree there myself. It's either that or the poster read the histories of the Clans and didn't they they matched up to the way Masquerade does it.

Oh, I get that part of it. It's a narrative which I assume causes some of the typical Masquerade players screaming of 'they changed it, now it sucks' diatribe. Myself, I figured that a coherent narrative would have been one of the things that would've sold Masquerade players on Requiem, considering the OTHER thing they scream about is 'WHERE IS THE PLOT I CAN READ LIKE A NOVEL?!'

If there was any system worthy of taking on the CofD or the WoD, it could only be d20 or Cypher.

What I'm saying is: the time is right. We must conjure Monte Cooke's World of Darkness 2e into being.

Nah, that's an easy mistake to make. You sell someone on the changes they would like first, and then you bring up similarities to make them more comfortable with trying it out. If they're not interested in any of the changes from the get go, it's not happening at all.

The LS also demands its followers to cling on Humanity against the Beast, champions all vampires as equal before God, basically created the Traditions, defends mortal Christians where they are persecuted, weed out what they see as corruption in mortal churches and theoretically opposes embracing (and maybe ghouling) mortals. It is a complex entity, with often contradictory views. The Circle always seemed more villainous to me, since they actively encourage the Beast and practice human sacrifice.

I would love see a scene where a LS vampire attempts to terrorize a mortal, but not realizing the person is a particularly religious Obrimos mage who then flares her Nimbus.

Would it cause a crisis of or wholesale reaffirmation of faith?

>Circle always seemed more villainous to me

Indeed. For heaven's sake, Cruac lowers a vampire's Humanity cap, while Theban Sorcery has minimum Humanity requirements.

Any suggestions for how to handle pepper spray in an enclosed space with multiple people?

Say person X pepper sprays person Y. Y suffers the effects. But if they're in an enclosed space with others, surely the others would be affected by drift. So, say, they suffer -3?

>d20

Humanity's no comfort when the Sanctified embrace its worst attributes; they're orderly, but utterly lacking in compassion, and they exalt the suffering of mortals and damnation of Kindred. And they treat their ghouls worse than any other covenant. As for the Circle, while it has its heinous and evil cults, the Circle is very heterodox; you can have a cult more brutal than any the Sanctified can muster and a cult that's utterly benign. The Circle isn't even a unified faction, being an umbrella for any pagan vampire who wants a measure of protection from the Sanctified. As such, I couldn't really call the Circle itself inherently more villainous.

>while Theban Sorcery has minimum Humanity requirements.
A purely optional (and might I add, nonsensical) rule.

Pepper spray isn't tear gass

But Bruce, d20 can do anything!

>But Bruce, d20 can do anything!

d20 can cure cancer and usher in an age of racial and religious harmony.

Storyteller is the product of ignorance, and FATE is the Devil's rpg system.

The Lancea is just as heterodox as the Circle: it has known heresies, reforms and counter reforms in its 2000 years of history. The Crone is not a benign deity, nor is her cult. She wants vampires to get closer to the Beast. Humanity may have flaws, but it's certainly better than embracing the Beast.
>A purely optional (and might I add, nonsensical) rule.
It's not optional, and it makes sense, since their whole shtick is being a monster for the "greater good" while keeping the Beast under control. Check p 151 of VtR 2e.

The Circle doesn't embrace the Beast in that way; that's the Brood's shtick. And Cruac can only reduce Humanity to the level that most vampires fall to anyway (at maximum power).

And I admit that I'd forgotten about 2e, since it heinously shits on all of the covenants in both mechanics and fluff, and should not be paid any attention to in that regard. In my opinion.

Has anyone here played Requiem for Rome? I'd quite like to try it, in part because it'd make a game stretching over centuries far easier, in part because I'd be interested in seeing if history can be changed. Also, I want to try playing a Follower of Set in Rome, and I think they could be adapted to Requiem without too much trouble.

>I would love see a scene where a LS vampire attempts to terrorize a mortal, but not realizing the person is a particularly religious Obrimos mage who then flares her Nimbus.

Do non-mages actually see and witness a flared Nimbus or just suffer the applicable Tilts?

You have to see the nimbus to suffer the effects of it.

A mage can flare it so people can see it.

The Followers of Set are a cult/covenant in the Mekhet clan book. The Mekhet in general are very similar to the Setites (being Egyptian themed, having a rumored affinity for magic, and being weak to sunlight), but their main problem is that Serpentis doesn't exist in VtR. You can have a character that learns Protean as an out of clan discipline to emulate it, but it's costly.

The trouble is that the Mekhet clanbook cult really doesn't capture their flavor well at all; I feel like it'd need to be a Mekhet bloodline created via the translation guide (which, conveniently enough, also has rules for Serpentis).

Yeah, the VtR version is kind of meh. I think the Serpentis conversion is pretty underwhelming to be honest, but it works if you don't give them a big weakness to compensate

It'd need some fiddling to fit into 2e anyway, I think; aren't the Disciplines stronger there?

They are. It'll really need some serious fiddling if you're playing 2e. I'd seriously consider using Protean instead. It's 2nd level broadly covers most of Serpentis' powers with ST approval.

>You have to see the nimbus to suffer the effects of it.
>A mage can flare it so people can see it

I though only mages and supernal beings can see a Nimbus.

An "incidental flare" occurs when casting a spell and is only visible to active mage sight.

A deliberate flare happens when you deliberately burn a point of mana to show you're not a 'mere conjuror of cheap tricks' it also occurs as a defensive reflex to another supernatural aura. It's visible to everyone.