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

youtube.com/watch?v=a9M84OUXbRY
Le meme villain

Personally I'm thinking a mortal with a sloth 'demon' in him from Inferno.

I had a Day Court NPC who was a himalayan aghori ascetic, who, after performing the correct austerities and imbibing the correct elixirs, and then going to a specific place, fulfilled all the clauses of an ancient contract and was taken away by Ravana to be taught raksha-yoga, and came back a changeling, for the ascetic training was his Durance.

How ok is it? How possible will that be to represent in 2e?

Werewolves are too kill-em-all for noir. Mages are probably too strong since noir normally implies a distinctly human element. I don't think Geist fits the tone right; even though it's about death I think it has that second chance thing going on that doesn't really work for noir. I don't care about Mummy or Beast.

So I guess Vampire, Changeling, Promethean, Hunter, or Demon would work, although the very obvious answer is just using plain mortals.

>implying anyone plays mortals

No idea, but what was his seeming and Kith?

>implying I implied that

Judging by the last couple of threads, that concept is BadWrong and you should be ashamed, because it doesn't involve him seeing it as horrible traumatic abuse that's permanently fucked up his psyche.

Ogre Daitya/Gristlegrinder.

>bringing this argument to the new thread
pls

>How ok is it? How possible will that be to represent in 2e?

Sounds fantastic. How does he escape? Does he view his durance as enlightening or was it false and hollow?

I'd give him one of the Kiths that were traditionally associated with the Wizened.

>Did you miss the like fifty 1e merits that turn part of the Hedge into your own personal fairy wonderland fortress? Complete with a magic fruit garden? I say again: reread the books.
And do you know *why* you need those merits?

I'm literally looking at the section on the Hedge. Page 210. Hell, end of the main section, right before The Nature of the Hedge:
>Of course, once someone has entered the Hedge, whether mortal or changeling, her life is in danger. Getting out of the Hedge is often much more difficult than getting in.
And later
>[...] Amidst the Brambles, a changeling cannot help but feel exposed, vulnerable and even trapped, and those feelings are not without merit.
>Finally, and related to the last concern, changelings in the Hedge attracted notice. [...] The strange creatures native to the Hedge find changelings fascinating. Even when these creatures are neutral or even well-disposed toward the changeling, they can inadvertently act as beacons for a being with decidedly unpleasant plans for him.
In fact, in 1e it wasn't pain that shaped the Hedge, it was a different emotion:
>A traveler who starts to run develops a feeling that he is being chased, whether or not he actually is. A traveler who stops walking has a hard time starting again; the feeling of danger becomes paralyzing, and the hapless visitor believes that the dangerous creatures "out there in the forest" cannot see or will not harm him as long as he stays still. For non-changelings in the Hedge, this kind of "feedback loop," wherein fear amplifies the terrifying effects of the place, is the limit of their ability to shape the Hedge.

He just finished the terms of his studies and the time of teaching was up. His challenge in leaving was to show he was a worthy student, and to show wisdom and martial might. Then he was let free, in a sort of "front-loaded" escape.

>Does he view his durance as enlightening or was it false and hollow?

Both. He understands the world as Maya, ultimately a false and hollow illusion, thus his durance was a false and hollow stepping stone to Nirvana. Albeit a useful one, inasmuch usefullness and meaning exist and can be ascribed to things.

"Fear of being trapped in the unknown" is a hell of a lot more thematic for the base emotion of the Hedge than "it literally turns into the belt your dad used to beat you with as a child".

Honestly, with how much discontent Hill's direction generates, I will probably strip out the workable mechanics from the Changeling we'll get and write about 100-150 pages of non-stupid around it. If, of course, anyone except me needs that.

I would like to note that if you market Changeling glamour harvesting as a beat generation engine ("We're using proprietary learning techniques and smart drugs to make you less emotional and learn better but the program takes a year) you can easily make people have 1-2 5-dot skills by the time their year is up. A lot of people would trade a year of emotions for a completely mundane (and not pledge-based) skill within the top 1% of the population which can feed them for the rest of their days.

What would be the best covenant for a "Vampire vs Hunter" setting like Nosgoth?

I wouldn't mind seeing it, once you're done.

I was planning to do a Changeling 1.5 anyways. Not cause of the dev or anything, I don't mind that stuff, but because I always do a 1.5 hack of the lines to suit my needs.

It's thematic for 1e, sure, but 2e isn't 1e. My point isn't that pain was there in 1e, my point is that the Hedge was not the wondrous magical honeytrap that people were calling it. It was always an dangerous and scary place, where anything beautiful was likely to kill you.

>implying user is going to write 150 pages of "non-stupid"

Some people actually finish their work.

...

Yeah. They don't post on Veeky Forums.

Engine Heart's right there, user.

Damn right!

I don't think it would work in 2e as it did in 1e.

Share it when you finish. Although I think that like 30 pages would be enough to fix most of the bad stuff.

If you raise the rank of your familiar past 2 with magic it'll no longer count as a familiar until the spell wears off right?

I don't think it would work in 1e. It doesn't fit any of the Seemings (except maybe Fairest, since their schtick was literally just "they're attractive I guess") and goes against how Changeling works.

But pointing out that something doesn't fit the game is just calling things "badwrongfun".

Yup. I'm not even sure if it'll come back when the spell wears off.

Going to Rank 3 snaps the Familiar bond. I'm pretty sure you'd have to cast the spell again to get your Familiar back.

Of course, thanks to Sanctity of Merits you can turn your Familiar merit into Allies (My Former Familiar).

Self-abuse and enlightenment through self-destruction is quite in-theme for Changeling, no?

How did he balance the eating of people with the ascetic yogi mindset of peace and balance with the universe. Aren't Yogi's by doctrine and principal of belief vegetarian so that they don't have to harm any animals?

I think you might have some holes in your story. I would consider a minor rewrite so that after his escape from his slave master where he was forced to be a cannibal (to dispose of dead servants, enemies, hunted victims, run-a-ways) he took up a path of vigorous meditation, and ascetic life and was made a pupil of a Yogi living in the hedge.

Otherwise your story works for a Fae touched instead of a changeling.

>How did he balance the eating of people with the ascetic yogi mindset of peace and balance with the universe. Aren't Yogi's by doctrine and principal of belief vegetarian so that they don't have to harm any animals?

That's darshana, the right-handed paths to enlightenment. He was an aghori, one of those guys that eat shit, have sex with menstruating prostitutes, and meditate on corpses to achieve the full understanding of non-duality.

Wow, I don't know which is worse. Tell me more about the difference in theological logic going on here, user.

>thanks to Sanctity of Merits you can turn your Familiar merit into Allies (My Former Familiar)

A Rank 3+ spirit as an Allies 4 merit is a pretty good trade-off, at least assuming it's a spirit of something interesting or useful.

A Rank 3 Helion or spirit of justice, very good, but a spirit of cute, fluffy bunnies, that'll just make you the laughing stock of the consilium.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aghori

The darshana-marga ways to enlightenment, broadly, come to enlightenment through contemplation, "proper" and "good" things, self-limitation, and such.

The vama-marga ways to enlightenment, broadly, come to enlightenment through destruction, tribulation, and suffering, and realising through them that there is no real difference between shit, a Buddha, and three pounds of flax.

Thus he had no real problem with eating people. He probably did that to some corpses as a human, while meditating on the nature of death and cessation of existence.

Incidentally, this is why I _hate_ the moniker Left-Handed Paths attached to "evil" paths in Mage. A lot of what completely Right-Hand Path thyrsoi and mastigoi do is of the vama-marga. A lot of mastigoi Pride and associated tropes are vama marga, etc.

The left-handed path is a valid path to enlightenment, not something inherently evil.

This is why in my games the Left-Hand Path practitioners of Abyssal Legacies and such are only called Nefandi, or their specific type of thing (Scelesti/Reapers/etc).

There are various possibilities which would suit character like that. Some such kiths: Antiquarian, Di-Cang, Oracle, Riddleseeker, I guess some kind of Ogre could easily represent physical proficiency gained from practising that kind of yoga.

>That's darshana, the right-handed paths to enlightenment. He was an aghori, one of those guys that eat shit, have sex with menstruating prostitutes, and meditate on corpses to achieve the full understanding of non-duality.
That widens possibilities even more.

Well, as I said, he was an NPC. I just didn't read the Changeling playtests yet and they are fairly contentious judging by these threads, so I decided to ask.

Ah sorry, I was reacting to claim it wasn't possible even in 1e and that there was no suitable seeming.
In 2e according to RAW it doesn't seem possible. Changelings are defined by how they escaped Arcadia, and none of those escapes encompasses: "I finished my training so I went home"

There are plenty of kiths that fit, sure, but even in 1e your Durance wasn't going to be a willing thing where you complete your training and get to go home. And Ogres in 1e are all about suffering and abuse and continuing the cycle of abuse, more so than any other Changeling; the example write up even describes an Ogre who escapes only to take his Keeper's place:
>One day, the troll came into the workshop and he leaned over the boy's shoulder as the boy carved the knife handle, and the boy pointed out a detail of the carving, and the troll craned closer to look, and quick as lightning the boy turned his hand and stabbed the troll in the eye. And that was the end of the troll. The boy wanted to run away, but he turned back and saw the workshop was now empty. And he didn't leave. He ate the troll's food and slept in the troll's bed. And now he dines on human flesh and carves handles from the bones. And business is good. One day soon, he will need assistance.
Also, Di-Cang?

What about "I studied so hard and fought so well my Master was impressed and let me be"?

>Some such kiths: Antiquarian, Di-Cang, Oracle, Riddleseeker, I guess some kind of Ogre could easily represent physical proficiency gained from practising that kind of yoga.

As I said, he was a Daitya/Gristlegrinder. But yes, a wizened kith would have not been amiss too.

I still don't really have a good handle on what a spirit can do to be honest.

>And Ogres in 1e are all about suffering and abuse and continuing the cycle of abuse, more so than any other Changeling; the example write up even describes an Ogre who escapes only to take his Keeper's place

Which is exactly what he did, because he, first, suffered abuse and hardship and tribulation during his Durance austerities, and then went on to be a guru to inflict lesser versions of such on any willing students.

Has any official material expanded on the 2e Coils of the Dragon?

expanded how there are two new ones in the new book but no more detail then what we already have

>Orge

That's because they represent one of the most straight forward forms. Physical. Beating slapping hitting maiming and the like don't require a huge set up. Just hit them

>Di-Cang
Iirc elemental kith. I think from Winter Masques.

Secret of the Covenants which just came out. Two new Coils, you can read their preview theonyxpath.com/ordo-dracul-merits-and-mysteries-the-rites-of-the-dragon-vampire-the-requiem/

How good is the final version of them?

bout as good as you english

That's a grammatically correct sentence, user...
"How good is the final version [of those Mysteries]".

No idea. I haven't read it yet. It will surely be shared by someone sooner or later.

The 2e Seeming is about how you escaped your endless eternal sate.
For you think about it as how you took your freedom. Ogres respond with brutal violence. lashing out.
Elementals become one with nature.
Beasts rely on their animal cunning and instinct.
Darklings use Stealth, cunning and Trickery
Fairest lead others out.
Wizended use their crafts to escape.

So using an old Ask a Ninja about Nin'ternship. Your training ended when you left. You were not told when to leave, you just felt that it was the time. How you escaped becomes your Seeming.

Is the V20 books not in the mega? I was looking for Cainite Conspiracies for cant even find any V20 books. Am I stupid or are they not in there?

Of course it should be noted that being seemingless is even more possible now, it just comes with a stigma AND makes things harder for you.

So "my keeper let me go" and "I escaped completely by accident/unintentionally" are viable in 2e?

Sounds like there's MORE support for less-horrible Durances in 2e.

IT JUST FUCKING CAME OUT IT'S NOT LIKE DRIVETHRU RPG UPLOADS SHIT TO THE MEGA. Stop being a cheapskate, buy it, remove the trivially-easy to clean watermark, then share it. For fuck's sake.

OPP products have watermarks now?

Why don't you buy it :^)

More or less, it's what happens when you make seeming tied to escaping, not anyone that doesn't escape can just be seemingless but still have their kith so they look fucking weird. Though you lose out on contract bonuses and Clarity gain/losses through your seeming.

Dude I was just asking chill a bit and I would still like to know if the V20 books are just not in the mega. That seems weird to me

The name and order # on the bottom of the pages, the DTRPG watermarks. THey're trivially easy to remove.

We've had people demanding that people buy, strip the watermark off of, and upload pdfs that came out literally yesterday since the minute they came out.

That user probably thought you were one of those assholes, back in here being demanding again.

Oh, no I dont assume or demand them. I was mostly wondering where the V20 books went? I culd have sworn they used to be in the mega. I have most of them do we need them uploaded?

Isn't Seemingless something different?

Looking at the copy a friend gave me, there isn't one. OPP doesn't watermark.

>Though you lose out on contract bonuses and Clarity gain/losses through your seeming.
The slow and inevitable slide down to Clarity 2 or so is half the fun of Changeling anyway.

I enjoy going bugfuck insane in CtL and completely losing sight of what's real in favour of smelling the colour blue and tasting the sound of my Keeper's voice over my shoulder, David Hill's concerns of offense toward the mentally-ill be damned.

Forgot to reply :S

OPP does watermark, it's just they only watermark AFTER it's been looked over by the fans for mistakes

Speaking about Drivethru, could someone who is registered there upload somewhere drivethrurpg.com/product_info.php?products_id=92564 ? I don't want to register there and give away my email just to download free pdf. Thanks.

What else would being seemingless be? It's the absence of a seeming man, ergo you don't get the mechanics for it.

>what is gmail/yahoo/any other email service to get a throwaway email?

What the shit are you afraid of?

I don't know. I don't even see that as an option in the playtest material, aside from a mention of "rare changelings without a seeming".

>THey're trivially easy to remove.
Legitimately how? I've got some books for other games I've tried to dewatermark but never got anywhere. All I wound up with was some fucked up formatting.

The name/order#? VeryPDF PDF Text Replacer. It lets you pick by 'position' so you just click on the area, it'll grab the text, though you have to do it as one-word per entry, but you can do multiple entires at once.

Thanks to the fact I don't share my personal data, I'm actually not afraid of being tracked. And I would like to keep it like that. If you are curious, I don't use any social networks either, I use private browsing, proxy and that all from VM. In future I would like to improve it by using free wifi and spoofing MAC. Better safe than sorry.

>This level of paranoia...

I'm going to go with you do know that while companies will sell out your email address, no one's really going to track you down or anything?

I mean, yeah, Snowden, we should all be extra careful with our digital information, but there comes a point where avoiding the fringe possibility of something untoward becomes unworth the hassle.

After all, you can still be stalked physically.

Are you one of those guys who just games over IRC, or do you show up at the local game store in a trench coat, fedora, and face mask like an old time super hero just in case anybody tries to identify you for playing Vampire sex games?

Please don't shame the way I dress when I go out in public, thank you.

So WoDG.

I want to do a mindscrew game. I have been rewatching the anime Utena and, while not as obtuse as that, I want to do something mindscrewy. Would Changeling the Lost be a good way to do crazy architecture and landscapes and such?

Changeling, Werewolf, Mage and -maybe- Geist are good for non-euclidean geomtry, due to all of them having some interaction with places that don't really work like 'reality'.

whenever i sign up to sites i just make a throwaway mail accoutn or use something like 10minutemail.com/10MinuteMail/index.html

keeping your privacy is fine
crippling yourself needlessly is unnecessary

I was thinking Changeling because it's more actual realm, where Mage you don't go there 'physically' a lot of it's stuff like the Astral. Plus a sealed-away True Fae trying to get out through manipulated hobs and 'lings sounds interesting, if a little cliche.

So what if i wanna play a social ogre? Or a legolas (fairest) who fights with bow and arrows but is pretty and agile? I am shit out of luck then?

I mean a fairest can only be a leader type now and in their durance?

No of course not, seemings don't fucking matter man it's the kith that matters, it's what defines your abilities. Seeming is literally jus, "This is how I escaped/broke down and went aginst my morals to get out of my abuse, even if it meant making others suffer more."

Kiths aren't tied to seeming so legolas would be fine. Ogre might be a bit fucky but you could fudge it so your otherwise meek social character was isolated to the point where violence towards their keeper and it's minions felt like the only option to escape. Big and buff because the narrative of arcadia said so, not so much because it fits the character.

Legolas was a prince. So if you lead your fellows out. Congrats your a fairest. You are a natural at being a leader but that doesn't mean you HAVE to be the leader 100% of the time or lead the motley.

Ogres can be social, but a hulking brute likely uses their fists the moment "negations broke down"

Question for some one new to wod
Will the hurt locker work with v20?

Demon seems like the best fit honestly.

I think a bit of hassle is worth the privacy. It's hard to imagine what all can be discovered from "anonymised" data. Web of Trust being recent example.

Firstly I don't think we have here any specialised game stores here, secondly in RL I employ strategy of not drawing attention. I have quite a few friends who have no idea how paranoid I am. Also I'm not degenerate, if I wanted get rid of sexual tension, I would watch porn not roleplay some Aspel fantasy.

I usually prefer not using one time use registrations, because when I need to later something else, I register again and then feel little bad for needlessly creating another account (I know, stupid), but fuck them it's their own fault.

Except Vampire and Prommie everything works. Mage or some God-Machine's mindfuck would be probably best.

No. Hurt Locker is CofD, v20 WoD - different rules.

What happened to one of the megas with all the old wod content. I went to download them to my new computer and the mega is gone. Anyone have a new copy?

It's in the pastebin.

Unfortunately not, It says the folder you are trying to access is no longer available

First off, you should stop thinking of the Seemings as being the same way they are in 1e. Drop the associations you have with the terms "Ogre" and "Fairest".

If you want to be a Social Ogre, you can, but the theme of Ogres is violence or the threat of violence, so that colours their actions.
If you want to be a pretty agile fighter Fairest, you can be, but they're leaders and shining symbols regardless.

Pick your Seeming based on what kind of character you want to be, not based on what the connotations of those Seemings were in 1e.

I was upset that my Fairest from 1e didn't fit, but then I realized that being a Beast fits perfectly and he can still be a beautiful hobo succubus type.

Seeming does matter, it just doesn't matter in the same way as 1e.

A Social Ogre could also be that kind of person who is small and unassuming, but you get the impression you wouldn't want to make him angry.

But you're missing out on quite a lot. It's not even what can be discovered from anonymized data, it's about whether there's a reasonable risk to you personally.