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

It's a bit more Clark Ashton Smith than pure Lovecraft, but your point stands.

Intruders - Encounters with the Abyss covers this pretty thoroughly.

Is this thread going to turn into just another mage supremacist movement?

The more you talk about it, the more likely it is that it will.

Yeah. They worked a lot together.

But if one manages to look beyond the ideas that Derleth focused on in Lovecraft's Mythos, one really ends up closest to Mummy.

Though Mage is obviously inspired by Lovecraft, the themes are different.
I mean, the Temenos is basically a cross between Jung's collective unconscious and Lovecrafts dreamworld.

IGNORE THE MAGEFAGS

I think it's better to say "ignore the shitposters", because that would include both the Mage Supremacy idiots, and people who whine about it.

I want to play in a Vampire the Requiem or Changeling the Lost game so hard I bought hard copies of both books despite not having anyone to play with. I'm trying to register on the Onyx Path forums to see about finding an online group but for some reason it won't let me. Anyone here running either one of these lines looking for a new player?

You sound like a closet magefag

Isn't that the High Speech rune for "vampire lawn chair?"

We're having a nice discussion about lovecraft and WoD stop bringing up mage supremacy and it will stop happening.

Doesn't Mummy literally have a set of utterances that basically just make you a Black Pharaoh expy?

Yes

>Doesn't Mummy literally have a set of utterances that basically just make you a Black Pharaoh expy?

Yeah. Pretty much. And Sybaris is a perfect example of "humans losing their minds because they see something they aren't equipped to handle."
It has a pantheon of incomprehensible, and utterly inhuman gods who see humanity as nothing but tools.
Also, Lovecraft loved digging into the weirdness of the middle east.
Imprisoned with the Pharaohs is one of the best Mummy-inspiration stories I know.

There is also one short story about an explorer who crawls through a city built by pre-human lizard-people somewhere in Rub al'Khali. Though that one is probably more Mage. Despite the city being Irem...

There's an Utterance that lets you turn into an unholy meat Voltron that has you summon totally-not-Nyarlathotep as an incidental side effect, and then an Ochre-Masked King got mentioned in a web supplement.

Far more interesting are the black angels who orbit dead stars and eat Sekhem, rather than referential silliness.

Brilliant

So where do I start with Mummy? I like it and its themes well enough but how exactly do I run a group game made up of actual Mummies as opposed to one Mummy and his merry band of mortal meat shields?

>Far more interesting are the black angels who orbit dead stars and eat Sekhem, rather than referential silliness.

Is that...the Judges?

Easy answer: set it during a Sothic Turn, where everyone wakes up at the same time with no clear goal and lots of phenomenal cosmic power coursing through their dusty veins. If you need a little bit more guidance than that, I'm big on the easy excuse of a shared Cult; something goes wrong, the puny mortals get together and awaken their pantheon of unholy protectors, rather than everyone having their own Cults. Remember that judicious flashbacks are your friends and that you can bullshit almost everything because starting Memory means the player characters don't know any better,

The Black Huriyah, in the Deceived book.

...

Let's talk about Changeling the lost!
What kind of stuff is happening in your CTL game? What are you looking forward too in 2E

>What kind of stuff is happening in your CTL game?
Someone got turned into a chair.
Not by a Mage, by a normal, mundane serial killer.

>What are you looking forward too in 2E
2E dumped all the fun stuff of 1E and changed things around.

If it's not broke don't fix it.

If I ever play CtL again (my favorite 1e line), it won't be 2e.

Thanks for the advice, I'm currently running a nascent Mage chronicle but i'll probably run a Mummy campaign as soon as I get done with that. Any general advice, pitfalls I should avoid or resources that I should be aware of, and which supplements do you recommend reading first?

Mummy is an interesting game. I really don't like the mechanics, and I don't like how it plays. But I *love* the stories the game tells. It expands on the setting in such wonderful ways.

Even in terms of the wider universe it is awesome. It gives us a brief glimpse of what kind of horrors lurk in the lower depths, horrors that even give the abyss pause.

But 2e's not out yet, is it? Do the released WIP rules look that bad?

Don't listen to that user, 2e looks like a massive improvement. The naysayers complain about one-true-wayism, but I think it's smart to drill down and focus on the best parts of the game as it was. All of the complaints I've seen are from folks who are just afraid of change.

Look for yourself: theonyxpath.com/changeling-the-lost-tinkering-and-toying/

They changed how you get Seemings. Some people are REALLY angry about that.

Make heavy use of flashbacks: it's silly to run a game about immortals and then only focus on the present. I'm big on at least one scene in the past but ideally a full session or even mini plot arc of them whenever Memory goes up. Be patient with the terminology, as it's easy to lose people in the ocean of Ba and Sheut and Sekhem and Temakh and Uter and other such nonsense. Remember that death is not a huge setback for the Arisen, player characters and baddies alike; they can usually come back after a scene or two.

Book of the Deceived is the most fun to read, but I'd probably say Sothis Ascends is the most useful.

Here's hoping an eventual 2e will be easier to get folks into and have me writing on it.

Dude, don't even. You're the one that bitches for hours and hours about how your way is the right way and all the people left behind by the changes are wrong.

I see that. So instead of "who took you" it's "how did you escape?" I can understand why people might be upset.

Is the Mummy DC book any good?

None of which contradicts what I just said there: 2e is focusing on the best parts of 1e, and I think that's the right decision on the David's part.

You're more than welcome to use the 2e mechanics and still do whatever you were doing in 1e.

>I see that. So instead of "who took you" it's "how did you escape?" I can understand why people might be upset.

Yes. And because now you can be any kith with any seeming, the game is unplayable.

It's pretty okay, I wasn't in love with it. I feel like a Mummy setting book should be somewhere suitably ancient, so DC and Rio still feel like weird picks.

What? In what way does it become unplayable?

SO!
I found a copy of the Vampire: Undeath core rulebook.

Holy shit this is comedy GOLD.

>Here's hoping an eventual 2e will be easier to get folks into and have me writing on it.

There are a few core problems that will keep me from ever playing it:
1) Limited pool of character archetypes. (You have to be from the Nameless Empire)
2) Limited time of activity. (Sure, it can last years, but you can never build for anything on a large scale. Everything fades between times of wakefulness.)
3) I really dislike the idea of getting weaker. It punishes players for staying with the character, rather than reward them.
4) Thousands of years old, yet still a starting character.

I recall having had 7 reasons that I don't like Mummy, but I only remember four now.

I have no idea, I like the more customisation it gives! You'll have to ask here.

Contrary to the other assholes, the real issue is that the central theme of "beautiful madness," which caused a lot of people to fall in love with the line, has been removed in order to double-down on the "trauma survivor with PTSD" angle.

So while people like are thrilled that they get to focus on the only aspect of the game they ever cared about, those of us that enjoyed the whimsy and dark storybook nature of Changeling are screwed.

What? Have you seen how much the Hedge has been expanded on, even in just the previews?

The expansion of the storybook feel is why I LIKE 2e.

>1) Limited pool of character archetypes. (You have to be from the Nameless Empire)

Irem was 5000 years ago. You've had a good long while to build up an archetype for yourself, which can be literally anything from history. I've got Deceived who've been kung fu masters in southern China for a thousand years!

>2) Limited time of activity. (Sure, it can last years, but you can never build for anything on a large scale. Everything fades between times of wakefulness.)

People always say this, but how often has a chronicle ever spanned multiple in-game years? There's also nothing stopping you from getting woken up again. One of the chronicles on the forums had a Prologue set in the 1960s that established facts about the 2012 chronicle proper, and there's nothing stopping you from doing the same.

>3) I really dislike the idea of getting weaker. It punishes players for staying with the character, rather than reward them.

Personal preference, but Mummy set out from day one to invert tropes: it had to, as the eighth gameline. Most games don't have you as immortal or running a giant organization, either. You can also do scummy things to raise Sekhem, or always just start a new Descent.

>4) Thousands of years old, yet still a starting character.

Subservient international cult and godlike powers aren't enough for you?

In what way? All I see are rules revisions with the barest hints of fluff applied.

It's lost a lot of the "beautiful" in favor of the "madness." CtL 1e had a very bittersweet feel to pretty much all of it. Now it's just bitter.

>I really dislike the idea of getting weaker. It punishes players for staying with the character, rather than reward them.

I really don't see a traditional power rise working with Mummy without serious changes to its themes and setting. I suppose there could be a compromise in having Sekhem rise to 10 slowly but automatically, a plateau at 10, and then tapering off back to 0 and slumber.

As for being a starting character, Mummy 1e does try to address this by granting free bonus XP. The 1e XP system makes this actually pretty miniscule, but an equivalent system in 2e might actually work really well, since 10 Experiences suddenly matters much, much more.

>beautiful madness

I know I sound like a broken record whenever this comes up, but this always felt more like a slick marketing phrase than anything with presence in CtL 1e. Then again, I've never been able to click with the game despite liking a whole lot of it, and 2e looks like it won't click with me either.

Mages are really good at Clash of Wills. Once you get turned into a lawn chair you're fucked for good.

You should play Mage, my good user! Best 2e conversion yet! Out of all the gamelines it goes the deepest when it comes to the dark recesses of the human psyche.

I love the power falling in Mummy because it works so well as an inverse to rising Memory; you're basically a demigod when you first wake up, but are little more than a meat robot who wants to kill intruders, but by the time you can remember what the fuck you wanted to do and who you are you're little more than a mortal with some fancy tricks. It's really solid tragedy, compounded by the fact that Memory gains aren't permanent.

If you're a powerful Mage, dealing with a less powerful Supernatural, sure.

However even then you've still got to get past their Withstand, put the duration long enough to keep them there, use probably 2+ reach fur advanced duration and sensory range.

And then you've got to get to Adept proficiency with 2+ Arcana.
And even then, the entire spell is just for show, there are MUCH easier ways to hard-counter another splat.

Why then? Because it's fucking hilarious if you can pull it off.

Like using Forces 4 to transform heat into kinetic energy, turning something into an exploding frozen statue.

>Nowhere in the rules does it say that anything can be a Yantra if it's symbolic.
>In a game about symbolism symbols mean nothing
k

>What are Praxis
>What are Rotes
>What are Yantras
You're making it sound far more difficult than it is. And it isn't that difficult.
>If you're a powerful Mage, dealing with a less powerful Supernatural, sure.
You have to remember that power has nothing to do with it after a certain point. High Gnosis Mages can eventually bypass Withstand relatively easily. Indeed, this was something that Dave mentioned on the topic of "white room battles". A High Gnosis Mage is going to curbstomp an equivalent High BP Vampire on a regular basis. Or at least take the majority of the odds in their favor.

Sorry that you couldn't find any rules to support your idiotic house rule, user, but that doesn't make it part of the rules.

Yeah but a high gnosis mage can't do shit to an equivalently leveled demon.

I disagree. A prepared Mage is capable of going toe-to-toe with a Loud Demon. But the key word is "prepared". I can agree otherwise.

Is he an Arcanthus?

And the mage circle jerk begins

More than likely. The Watchtowers have a particular bias towards certain individuals/personalities. He looks right up the Acanthus alley, or a possible Mastigos if I had to make a second guess.

What does 'prepared' constitute? How much forewarning do they need?

>Irem was 5000 years ago. You've had a good long while to build up an archetype for yourself, which can be literally anything from history. I've got Deceived who've been kung fu masters in southern China for a thousand years!

>People always say this, but how often has a chronicle ever spanned multiple in-game years? There's also nothing stopping you from getting woken up again. One of the chronicles on the forums had a Prologue set in the 1960s that established facts about the 2012 chronicle proper, and there's nothing stopping you from doing the same.

Um.. Four out of the last six have lasted more than 10 years.
I suppose I'm just one for long games.

>Personal preference, but Mummy set out from day one to invert tropes: it had to, as the eighth gameline. Most games don't have you as immortal or running a giant organization, either. You can also do scummy things to raise Sekhem, or always just start a new Descent.

Yeah. I know. But it feels as if one is punished for playing it more than a few weeks at the time.
I know it isn't so, but it's hard to shake that feeling.

>Subservient international cult and godlike powers aren't enough for you?
The cult eats up merit dots. And you still will be completely inept in one of the three skill areas.

There is no fucking R in Acanthus.

>Each mage maintains at least a handful of magical tools, mundane items that have symbolic link to specific kinds of magic.

Hey I'm not the one stifling creativity over a 1(one), read one, as in the numeral number one die bonus. not my problem you can't RAI and have no creativity

The extra R stands for "really lucky"

Damn it. Failed to expand on my main point. I'm an idiot at times.

>Irem was 5000 years ago. You've had a good long while to build up an archetype for yourself, which can be literally anything from history. I've got Deceived who've been kung fu masters in southern China for a thousand years!
When you make a Mummy, you have to make a character whose core concept is "Mummy who does X".
The fact that they are Iremites is an inherent part of the concept. Practically all non-Deceived will have at most a dozen years of active time since the Rite was performed.
And most of THAT time they have been amnesiac monsters. Of course Irem is the important part of their personality.

Unless of course they are of the villain splat.

>tfw the archaic plurals from To The Strongest will never be default even though they sound better
>DaveB shot you down for mentioning it

I just really like saying Acanthoi...

Allowing anything symbolic to count as Yantra makes the Shadow Name merit, Legacy Tools, and the Techne merit all worthless.

Not to mention that this is one of the most basic lessons in logic. All Yantra have symbolic connections, but not all symbols are Yantra.

All A = B, but not all B = A.

This isn't RAW or RAI.

It's just your gods-awful house rule.

Running a game in my native tongue. Practically have to use the Greek plurals, because my native tongue fucks up BADLY when trying to nativise it.

Speaking of Awakening history.
Does anyone have good Latin translations of the Order names?

What do you speak user?

The Arisen barely remember Irem until high Memory. The artificial personalities they build up for themselves to make up for that are based more on Guild philosophy than Iremite history, and if "scholar, priest, spy, merchant, and builder" are just as broad if not moreso than the clans in Requiem.

And those Guilds are at the core of their Irem personalities.
Which is exactly what I'm talking about.

With low Memory, they are just stereotypes of their Guild memberships. All formed in Irem.
With high Memory, they realize anything since Irem is fleeting.

That is the ONLY relevant point of anchoring.

Does it matter? Swedish.

It really depends on the Mage. They're ridiculously good at preparing though. They're effectively invincible if they know you inside-and-out and have the right Arcana.

Best way to deal with a Mage is to ambush them.

>With low Memory, they are just stereotypes of their Guild memberships. All formed in Irem.

I played my Arisen at low memory as basically unable to keep anything in his past straight but very different than the Maa-Kep standard since he still recalled jumbled past events to inform his present personality. You can do something different than 'quiet, polite Maa-Kep' and 'Arrogant Mesen-Nebu' even at memory 3.

Why not seduce them? They won't kill you if you give them the knot.

My problem with Mummy characters is that all are the same.
Not the Irem shit. But all are guardians of old relics, woken by cults in time of need, with no real agency, but struggling to get some.

Every single Mummy character will be like that.
And that's boring.

>you can't cast with multiple yantras
You mad blacks can dunk over your lily white ass?

youtube.com/watch?v=adsqqQybvTE

>Literal symbol of the messenger
>can't use in travel magic
if you just want to play order of hermetic in nwod, go ahead, but don't pretend there is no other way to get alternative yantras to work for you

You can just as easily play a Su-Menent who thinks he's a risen saint akin to Lazarus as one who preaches Iremite orthodoxy. That's the whole point of low Memory; your character can be ten sorts of confused, doubly so with the possibility of being Twice Risen.

If you return from the dead on a bloody Aztec pyramid in a native body surrounded by people chanting in Nahuatl and you don't really remember anything, you bet your undead boots you're gonna think you're their murder god and not an amnesiac proto-Egyptian monstrosity.

WEREFAGS GET OUT

>If you return from the dead on a bloody Aztec pyramid in a native body surrounded by people chanting in Nahuatl and you don't really remember anything, you bet your undead boots you're gonna think you're their murder god and not an amnesiac proto-Egyptian monstrosity.

But any non-Middle-Eastern Mummy is going to be frowned upon like the worst kind of Snowflake, and you know it.

This is a perfect example of Mage shitposting. Aggressive, and with just enough of an understanding of Mage to get it completely wrong, and making it look idiotic to everyone,

>But any non-Middle-Eastern Mummy is going to be frowned upon like the worst kind of Snowflake, and you know it.
>explicitly called out and mentioned in the core rulebook

If you say "I want my Arisen to be a white guy," no shit people are going to be miffed. But if you actually have an interesting backstory in mind - original body destroyed in the sack of Constantinople and replaced with a loyal Templar, maybe - any sensible ST would allow it.

The books have enough of those kinds of character back stories to the point where it's kind of common. I've run Mummy for a while, and I wouldn't consider that kind of stuff as being a "Special Snowflake".

So your saying Mummy is anti diversity?

??????

The game assumes most characters are North African or Middle Eastern in origin, but has mechanics in place to allow you to swap that body out if yours has been destroyed at any point in five thousand years of being an undead monstrosity.

>If you say "I want my Arisen to be a white guy," no shit people are going to be miffed. But if you actually have an interesting backstory in mind - original body destroyed in the sack of Constantinople and replaced with a loyal Templar, maybe - any sensible ST would allow it.

But is it really any different?
Mummy characters are supposed to be Middle-easteners, with a tiny minority having grabbed new bodies.
Anyone who wants to play a member of that tiny minority to be different from the rest is per definition going for a snowflake character.

Not really. It's just based in a specific north-African culture.
It's not any less anti-diversity than a game set in 17th century Japan, or 8th century Norway.

Are you retarded?

It's not a 5000 year old character. It's a less than 20 year old character, with titanic leaps between hen he is active.
The time spent sleeping is irrelevant to character growth.

The option is there in the core rulebook and adds an interesting wrinkle in that this body both likely confuses their Memory and makes Apotheosis harder.

>20 year old

Your character has only been woken up sixteen times in fifty centuries? That means her Cult almost never wakes her up and her Tomb is almost never breached, neither of which make for very good storytelling.

I'm beginning to get the feeling I'll be able to play C20 before CTL2E

>, with titanic leaps between hen he is active.
I think most mummies are up at least a few times a decade assuming they don't have weird ass rules for the cult to wake them up. Most are probably still pretty old but not 6000 years awake old.

It's established as a potential event over the several millenia the characters have been alive. Just because it happened to a small group of Mummy NPCs doesn't mean playing a transplanted Mummy comes off as being a special snowflake.

Being an Arisen whose buddy buddy with a Decieved and their Judge is totally cool with it for reasons and that's why they know True Name Utterances? That's what being a Special Snowflake in Mummy would actually be like, not playing someone like Sledge.

Disgusting dogs are also not safe from Masters one-shotting them with an Avada Kedavra Unmaking spell. Even with their knots.