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

I don't have a link, but they did release a little bit on the Integrity system for hunters. Is that what you're talking about?

Also a local cancer cell that used chained, brain warped vampires as hunting dogs would be an amazing end-antagonist for a conspiracy cell.

I vaguely remember reading something about making "The Code" which is part of the optional morality rules in 1e more important, back when Hunter 2e was announced on OPP's website. Unless it's something mechanical though, I doubt it'll matter much. Most people I know that played Hunter did their own house-rules for Integrity (Invariably with the rules of "killing a monster isn't murder unless they were essentially innocent" and "get a bonus to breaking points if what you did was for the right reasons")

And why stop with just vampire attack dogs? Their whole shitck could be using monsters to kill monsters. They could have caged werewolves, pact-bound demons, and all sorts of other shady dealings.

If you discount the alien board of directors, I think that's what happened to the Cheiron Group.

theonyxpath.com/revisiting-the-code-hunter-the-vigil/

This was what I was talking about, so I'm guessing it's what you've seen.

Yep, that's what I saw. And I like the Cheiron Group, especially as antagonists (Ashwood Abbey are also great Hunter antagonists), although they're a bit too high brow.

Aside from Hunter.net, anything else from HtR you think could be incorporated into HtV without much issue?

Maybe the Hunter's Code. Again, low integrity, something like 3-4: You find yourself able to understand it, write it. From then on, even if your integrity goes up, you can still comprehend it, but other, saner hunters can't.

Possibly have low integrity hunters again start to manifest hallucinations fitting for the character with a central theme - messengers. No edges, no virtues though. A Cheiron Group hunter's banality worm starts having a literal heart to heart on the idea of why he really should kill more, or Malleus hunters find themselves visited while praying by Michael and Gabriel. Have the character's endowments warp a little towards the distinctly 'angelic', maybe, to suggest that they're becoming something not quite right - glowing eyes on an Ascending One tripping balls, that sort of thing. Gives plenty of room for arrogant behaviour and further descent as well as a warning sign for the clever ones.

"Force other humans to suffer to empower yourself" does feel pretty Exarch-y. I imagine the Seers might strike a lot of profitable bargains with Vamps without losing much sleep. Priests of the Psychopomp probably look on with a mixture of disgust and envy at those who are promised the possibility of eternal mastery of this world without hope of salvation in the next.

More interesting than creating vampires specifically, though, is the built-in tendency of humanity towards vampirism. It's just... A thing that happens. A person dies in the right way and they just tend to end up becoming something like a vampire and, eventually, may even start becoming a vampire properly. THAT feels more like an Exarch-scale curse.

In 1e I considered a rule that Morality 0 turns a human into a draugr, which is more or less where slashers come from (this was before Slasher). The gift of the embrace is not vampirism, anybody can catch that. It's vampirism with a human mind. The Embrace is the gentle, there's-still-hope version of hitting rock bottom.

Never ran the game that way though. Wouldn't have told the players up front if I had, either — let them find out the fun way.

>More interesting than creating vampires specifically, though, is the built-in tendency of humanity towards vampirism. It's just... A thing that happens. A person dies in the right way and they just tend to end up becoming something like a vampire and, eventually, may even start becoming a vampire properly. THAT feels more like an Exarch-scale curse.
I hadn't considered this....its brilliant!

All that's left to figure out would be Nemesis. Her role among the Exarchs is simple, she keeps humanity ignorant of the nature of the Shadow so the masses are comfortable in the depths of the Lie, this done by killing people who can tap into the Shadow and fostering the growth of spirits of Ignorance and Obedience that will better serve the Exarchs goals.

It's unclear what connections Nemesis has to Luna, Helios, the Maejin and the Idigam...but Luna probably isn't a fan of her because the whole "kill people who can tap into the Shadow." thing probably extends to the Woofs and other Shifters(Also Nemesis might have arranged the Apollo Missions through her agents, but that's pure speculation on my part.).

Well I listened to your recommendations and told the player that they can't play as a kitsune. Surprising me not the least she threw a fucking hissy fit and is complaining and crying about it. She is complaining that I am stunting her creativity and being a tyrant. She also complained that if one of the guys wanted to play a kitsune I would of let them. I want to boot her ass but the other guys like her for what ever reason.

This is the part where you boot her anyway. Otherwise prepare to not have any fun at all as she acts all passive-aggressive with you as she basks in the attention of the guys. Seriously, just go mad with power and tell them to find another ST if they wanna cry. It's not like you won't get other players begging to be in your game if you advertise it.

>Surprising me not the least she threw a fucking hissy fit and is complaining and crying about it. She is complaining that I am stunting her creativity and being a tyrant.
As I was not here for any of this, can you give us a recap?

user got some weeb chick wanting to play a foxgirl in his Forsaken game.

I can't remember, did the Gift that lets a Werewolf shift into an Urhan form of the player's choosing as long as it's related to the wolf make it to 2e? You could always hand that off to her to make a large fox as her Urhan as compromise. If that doesn't work:

You'll pretty much gotta do this. I don't know about getting other players begging, even if it's an internet table, but if the problem can't be resolved and the other players take her side, just dissolve the group or offer another game if you really want to keep playing with this group.

I thought that Forsaken already had Kitsune, the Inari Seha and the Inari Kihar.

Granted they are Spirit Claimed and about half of them were hated by Father Wolf so I don't think they would work very well.

The nemesis might be the one who's responsible for the absence of gaia.

Without mother earth to guide and balance the shadow you might get the predatory hell scape.

haha get fucked. No girls allowed. Seriously thou that game is dead in the water. Goodluck with the salvage operation

I gotta say, I'm liking the outline of the upcoming Beckett's Jyhad Diary. I like that they took time to make it actually look like a wandering archaeologist's jounral, filled with old letters and stuff.

Here's hoping the writing is at least as nice as the design...

>Wanting a back pedaling of Metaplot
It's not going to the holy grail user

I always like the Exarchs as the subtle guiding hands of the universe; the things that make it hard to win an absolute victory. Things like death curses that keep people from finding peace and which perpetuate the suffering at the moment of a person's expiration, for example.

For the Nemesis, it seems obvious to connect them to the Gauntlet, but... They aren't, really. The Gauntlet wasn't always A Thing; it came into existence because of Urfarrah's dying howl.

Or is it? Because if you read Sundered World, there's a note that the Bordermarches evaporate around areas of prolonged human settlement, just as the Gauntlet is thicker in areas with dense human populations, especially areas that are associated with thoughts that veer towards the material, rather than the spiritual. Graveyards where people meditate on the ephemeral have thinner Gauntlets than the nearby street, for example.

Humanity is different somehow. Almost corrosive to the very nature of the Shadow. Yet also masterfully shapes essence. One cannot help but wonder why.

>It's not going to the holy grail user

I prefer a story with a shitty metaplot over a story with no metaplot at all.

So, I'm hoping it'll clear up some questions I've got about the metaplot (which going by the previews, it will), and give me some nice storyhooks I can use for future "maybe!Gehenna" scenarios and such.

That's dumb. You mean to tell me in the countless billions of years the universe existed humans were the first and only species to ascend?

14. 14 billion, user.

It's a rough estimate.

Ascend to the Supernal? I can't remember exactly where I read this, but I think part of Awakened myth is that dragons were the predecessors to human mages, and that they Ascended to the Supernal to pass magic onto humans or something. Hence why dragons are present in the Diamond Precept's terminology. Adamantine Arrow are the Talons of the Dragon, Guardians the Eye, Mysterium the Wings, and Silver Ladder the Voice, or something. It's also why pre-Fall Mages meditated at dragon bones to Awaken. Take this all with a grain of salt though.

If that's how the Exarchs wanted it, yeah. They predate the universe, and they're very human symbols of dominion.

I always thought Gehenna was lame. Although I typically hate apocalypse stories in nearly all of their forms.

The dragon terminology comes primarily from the Tremere and their mythology.

And what's that?

That's in a few books, yeah. There's mention of it in the Tarot book, but I'm sure that's not where it's from.

>I always like the Exarchs as the subtle guiding hands of the universe; the things that make it hard to win an absolute victory.
What's kind of Ironic is that the ones who represent the Arcana of the Supernal have more obvious effects on the worlds adjacent to the Fallen.

>Nemesis: is probably responsible for the way Humanity affects the connection between the Shadow and the Materiel
>Pyscho: cursed the Sleepers to not move on to the afterlife, and even to come back as monsters.

Honestly not sure what Ruin, Father or Unity had an appendage in.

From when they were part of the Pentacle as the seventh order. Basically: There are five dragons who betrayed their brother and took one of the subtle arcana, a sixth one who is kind of a dick (of blood) and a final dragon, the hollow dragon, the Final Watchtower. The sixth one screwed over the original tremere, but managed to accidentally lead them to the final one.

It's an anthropocentric cosmos, yo.

The Unity is responsible for human tendencies to tribalism; suffocating the individual in service to the whole. The entire possibility of egregores might be because of it.

Thats what the lie says, its actually only a week old.

Unity should also subtly control the Astral, arranging for the deaths of Astral realms which might inspire Sleepers to something great and promoting realms of suffering, discord and conflict.

I'm trying to figure out whether Ruin would have fiddled with the Hedge or Arcadia.

If you like crossover, sure he could have. You could also see Arcadia as a prison for formely-Supernal gods, which became True Fae after the fall.

To be honest, the very Temenos itself might be Unity's doing. The very fact that individuality is a Lie is turned into a weapon in service of the Sleep. The only way Sleepers get to see past the Lie is in throwing themselves into service to a higher ideal, instead of letting themselves define themselves by which ideals they choose to hold. This makes for an innately combative view of reality, because whatever threatens that idea threatens the Sleeper's connection to a higher reality.

That's the Unity at work; turning coming together and uniting for a cause into a weapon to enslave humanity.

Alright so I tried to compromise with the chick by allowing her to have the gift that can make her forms foxes instead. She said fuck that and now wants to play a sin eater that has a kitsune for a geist. I said fuck that but she brought out a forsaken supplement that says that non uratha can be in a wolf pack. Now I don't know what to do.

>Now I don't know what to do.
Kick her.

Boot her, or if it'll make it easier, just cancel the campaign. Try again some other time with a new group if possible.

Boot her. Yes, non Uratha can be a part of a pack, but they're mostly there for support in the hunt. If she's a Sin-Eater, what would she be doing when the rest of the party ducks into the Shadow? If she doesn't want to play the game on the table, she can find another table.

Pretty much. You gave a compromise and she shoved it back in your face.

Now you have every reason to shove her out of the group...preferably through a first floor window.

What's the best book to read to learn about spirits? Forsaken core?

Tell her it is not appropriate for the game, and then help her make a character that will work in it. Alternatively say thank you for your time but I don't think our play styles mix well,good luck in finding future games.
And if your other players leave find new ones.

Just boot her. This isn't kind of shit ST should tolerate. Game is about werewolves - play the fucking werewolves.

This is WoD. Humans are automatically the center of everything. Even if it makes little to no sense.
The former human wizard kings (AKA Exarchs) defined the universe as a whole.

It's even worse in OWoD, where actual aliens exist but are still crap compared to humans.

>What's kind of Ironic is that the ones who represent the Arcana of the Supernal have more obvious effects on the worlds adjacent to the Fallen.

The Exarchs DO represent the Arcana.

Forsaken and Awakening both.

Wait, I thought the Greys were only figments of mortal imagination in oWoD? And the rzzgratch, whatever the lizard people were called, were only shit because they'd popped in from two dimensions over to borrow a cup of ALL THE MAGIC, rendering reality a static construct rather than consensual?

Doesn't matter because "Humanity fuck yeah!"

Aliens can't win.

The egregore came about because of the merging of the Pancryptiates and the Keepers of the Word to make the modern mysterium. The Pancryptiates were a bit of a gnostic cult who sought to internalise magic as much as possible to protect it, among other things. It's one of the results of meshing two fairly disparate orders from when the Corpus Author said "Okay fuckers, I've got my reality lego set, let's do this." and ascended.

I knew that, what I was trying to say was that the Exarchs of the Arcana that aren't directly present in the Fallen World don't have as much of a direct influence.

General, Chancellor, Eye, Prophet and Raptor on the other hand do have a more direct influence on the lives of the Sleepers.

Which is pretty neat as I feel it adds a sort of council setup to the Exarchs...Except for Gate, she's just doing her own thing in the Tellurian.

This of it like this, Chancellor, General, Eye, Prophet and Raptor are the ones doing the wetwork of keeping the Lie up, Occasionally one of the other 5 might step in but mostly they work in the background making it so there is less chance of someone getting through by other means.

Also it adds something of a new lens to the requirements of Awakening, especially if you look at what each Path entails relative to the Exarchs that preside over the Ruling and Inferior Arcana symbolised by that Realm.

I'm hoping the new endowments making thing is easier to scale up and down as far as power goes, since different people seem to want many different things out of hunter.
[Spoiler]I mean I personally would have them as a full splat, like with a power stat and a separate pool to activate powers with and different types, but I also wholeheartedly accept that I'm in the minority

Listen.

NOBODY FUCKING CARES ABOUT HUNTER

So as someone who's relatively new to oWoD mage(revised), which books should I read to get a good grasp on the various umbral realms and spirits? I need to be the very best pokemon/spirit master, like no one ever was.

but why

Honestly couldn't tell you.

I do know that there are at least a few fruitloop organisations in it.

Don't listen to him. Hunter is actually the best selling line, and the most popular.

Isn't that what reckoning was? Where they were more curaaaazy instead of guys against the odds?

>Hunter is actually the best selling line, and the most popular.

Don't you even try that, you monkey.

Depends what you want to use them for. Forsaken, mage, the core, and a hunter book all have the rules in depth.

Kill yourself. It's literally the only splat that my group likes and appreciates the variance of things you can hunt.
Hoping for a return of conviction from mirrors, benedictions being able to put old school melee hunters on par with supernatural foes like it could in 1e, exclusive Hunter merits, a better version of risking willpower, and for the endowments to be a bit better balanced to one another since things like benedictions are amazing, but most of the tfv stiff was very hit or miss

Haha Get FUCKED. Should have compromised way earlier now it'll only get more and more complicated. Feed her Princess the Hopeful next. Cave now or you'll go nowhere

It seems as thought the majority of WoDfags are actual fags. And by 'fag' I mean autists.

How do I find normal people to play normal games?

Was the formation of the mysterium the corpus author's imperial right?

Why didn't the exarchs have a fit of autistic rage like they did with merlin?

>mysterium
Is a secrete society with no political or real world power. The truth was hidden and the Lie survives
>Camalot
was a full kingdom out in the open. The lie would crumble. Therefore they had to recon it completely out of existence

What happened with Merlin?

And because they couldn't stop her, I guess. Like all the other Ascended. The Mysterium were two orders of vaguely similar but mostly not mission, and she came up as a Keeper, I think, then sealed Magic is Alive as her Noumenon which united the Orders. Or that was part of her noumenon. I don't know.

...

Honestly, just play D&D. Horror games that last longer than a one shot always bring some strange peoples.

Merlin was a pinnacle example of an Archmaster being the ultimate badass and flipping off the Exarchs. Cunning bastard he was.

Yeah, I thought there was something that had fucked him over, rather than 'working as designed'.

From the sounds of things, Merlin was too good to fuck up.

The Corpus Author played it subtle
Merlin butted heads with the prospect of angering the Exarchs.

I wonder how big a part Merlin will play in Dark Eras: Brittain.

He's canonically the big fish in that setting, but how big of a presence will he have? It might even annoy the Changeling players.

Touch football is a normal game.

>It might even annoy the Changeling players.
DE Brittain is a Changeling/Mage crossover piece. It's already going to irk Changeling whores.

Merlin is just the cherry on the icing on the cake.

Merlin should have been a wizened. Mage doesn't deserve it. I will stand by this even when it gets released. There's barely any lore surrounding it with mage while Changeling is all about this.

Merlin's story is basically Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Does that mean that Jojo's is also an ascension play?

> There's barely any lore surrounding it with mage while Changeling is all about this.

No?

...

So is Merlin seen as a hero or as an arrogant jackass by modern day mages?

Changeling players were already annoyed at Merlin (and by extension Camelot) being Mage fluff. Annoyed is putting it lightly. But in the Dark Eras, Merlin will at the very least be a prominent figure in the background. He created Camelot, after all. He's also going to be a cunning bastard. Iirc in his mythology he was tricked into being imprisoned in the crystal cave for a very long time, right? And Dave says that was his endgame the whole time. Changeling players won't like that either. When the poll was out they were speculating who might be Fae and how they might have duped him, but turns out he's the duper. Even as I was typing this another entitled Changeling player appeared.

I imagine his most well-known role as a wise guide to Arthur might be inverted. He appears as such but is actually tricking people into furthering his own agenda for him.

My rule has always been: Find a group and then play WOD, never find a WOD group.

So what do changelings generally think of kiasyd?

Merlin really was The Wizard Who Did It

A big "just as planned" slap to the face.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING AND WHY DOES IT REEK OF BANALITY AND GLAMOUR"

nWoD Kiasyd aren't widespread enough, but I imagine they'd be *really* confused.

What does Changeling have published that connects it to Camelot?

Don't respond to the fucking idiot.

The answer to your question is: A little.

I doubt anything from mirrors is getting a 're print' such as it were, since it was all optional to begin with.

I wanted to watch him flounder.

>but I imagine they'd be *really* confused.
Are we talking "Why is my bed full of aardvarks?" level of confused here?