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

Any chance of seeing your take on the Pure Sovereign legacy when you update next?

Wisdom isn't morality. Remember, manslaughter is a worse sin than a planned, cold blooded killing.

I'll add it to the list.

Reading through the Mysterium book. I know it's 1e, but Gnosis 5 for the second Attainment of a Legacy seems... steep.

In 1e, Gnosis was assumed to be much higher on average.

A Mage out of his apprenticeship was Gnosis 3.

Why would you choose to join a legacy with a ruling arcana the same as one you already have?

Doesnt make sense.

A legacy is a defining statement of your view on magic and something you're so dedicated to as a life philosophy and magical principle you'll warp your soul to it. Not just "sweet stats". Also you get free xp in 2e.

There's more to Legacies than cutting down on Mana costs.

It really doesn't. It's especially silly with the Chrysalides, a Thyrus Legacy whose primary Arcanum is Life, and whose secondary Arcanum is freaking Mind.

Newb question:
In the latest iteration (CoD), how can other supernaturals (vamps in particular) defend themselves from the scry&die-like abilities of furries (umbra stepping)?
Average furry has much more leeway with attacking than the average vamp protecting.

They don't. Vampires don't have any real ways to deal with the twilight/shadow in 2e raw, aside from possibly a cruac/theban ritual I might have missed, and supernatural merits from the Coil of Ziva.

You're right...Ash is a much better choice!

He even took a bulldozer to his Integrity at one point and still came out relatively fine.

And I forget the fucking video!
youtube.com/watch?v=SOpcdJ_V5_M

I suspected so. Then, I'll just have to asspull a reason why there's no umbra&die.
Any suggestion? Thickening the gauntlet creates more problems than it solves.

Nobody cares enough, I suppose. It's not really cheap for a Werewolf to do it; they've got better things for their essence. Anyone important and paranoid can probably either learn/pay to have some sort of ward made, pick up some mortal occultism or just sleep in the earth and be immune to it.

Active vamps community may well be the biggest issue in the city.
Does these ward and occultism stuff exist in some manual?
Not evey guy's got protean. Changeling can't do shit. Mage can do everything, but at what cost?

They can bury themselves, I mean, not just protean. In 2e, the closest thing is Ordo Dracul developing some sort of warding faculty through the Coil of Ziva. That I know of. Seriously, though, werewolves have better things to spend their essence on and Vampires are habitually paranoid about their havens. Finding where one lives would be a massive hassle. If you're really concerned, give them some sort of bolt-on to their Haven merit that wards it from supernatural fuckery. 1-5 dots, spend dot rating in vitae/night to ward their haven in the twilight/shadow from anyone trying to come over.

Yeah why would Uratha give a fuck about some lame ass leeches?

I thought finding their havens was pretty easy with furries being the ultimate hunters and vamps being quite visible in umbra. Mages communities can put wards and I don't know which type of protection can changelings have.

>scry&die-like abilities
I don't understand.

Werewolf, even newly started can step in and step out umbra. Technically they can spy you using this, then pop up in your bedroom while you sleep and do what a pack of raging furries does.
In real games it's not so automatic, but you got the idea.

Ah. Well you could always just have a Cahalith be the werewolf ring leader and puts a hard no on that shit because it wouldn't make for a good story. Which is what they're all about. This is a CofD 2e game, right?

A horde of ghouls, or mass turned shock troopers.

Apparently, although Demons can rip through the Hedge to get inside of it thanks to an Exploit, they absolutely cannot get out of it without outside help, which kind of implies that there are some weird reactions from one kind of magic to the other. (If I recall, it also fucks up their Cover big time)
My best guess is that, since they're at the exact opposite of each other (dreams and fairy tales on one end and mechanical logic and rationality on the other), Changelings and Demons very rarely interact and would have some trouble communicating and cooperating.
Moreover, Changelings would naturally associate Demons with True Fae and Fetches, because of their ability to sign unfair pacts and snatch bodies and souls.
As for Demons, they might have more interest in Changelings, since, apparently, Angels can't perceive the Hedge and can't get inside of it. Some smart ones might try to make Changeling allies to benefit from safe getaways.
I'm mostly pulling this out of my ass and recollections of the Demon core book, so feel free to check.

Found the Exploit, there's a bit of stuff at the given page, but you can look it up for yourself.

Rip the Gates ●
Strength + Occult + Primum
Tear open a rift into or out of the Astral Realms, the Hedge, the Shadow or the Underworld.
DTD 174

More like a potential game, but yes.

Seems risky for the masquerade.

>I don't know which type of protection can changelings have
there's no umbra in the hedge

Vampires don't really leave smell trails, which means gifts, which are contested, blah blah. For a group of people who are terrified anyone, ever, will know where they live, the werewolves will take some penalties. Sure, dedicated effort, they can find it. But you can do th at for nearly anything.

I am not sure Forsaken can step in and out of Shadow like this. Don't they need loci for this?

Yes, but at harmony 3 or less you can enter the shadow from anywhere, at 8 or above you can enter the physical from the shadow from anywhere.

Makes sense. The embedded reality code doesn't exist in the Hedge.

But this kinda shits on umbradrop. You either can drop from Shadow, or retreat to it. And you need to collectively drop/raise Harmony to do that, and that would be even more harder.

So what's the problem? The Forsaken as ambush predators still works, they just can't say "fuck it, later" anymore.

Yeah, but that requires one level of Harmony across the pack. Isn't that kinda hard to achieve?

Sure. It doesn't mean that they can't still do it. Or that they can't be outside/nearby and come storming in once the target's distracted

Are older mage splat books usuable with mage 20th?

Kinda. Most of the Revised stuff checks out.

What arcana would I need to unmake the man of steel?

Just Life.

So according to The Pack, Spirit mages are valued and very useful allies to werewolves.

Could the same be said of Death mages and vampires?
What would a wizard-vizier look like in any given Domain?

V5 alpha playtest is avaliable from worldofdarkness.com. You have to register, log in, and it'll be in the inventory of your profile available for download. I haven't gone through it, but it's a good bit more comprehensive and they've upped the production quality and made it look nice where before it was just something someone threw on the word doc. Player's Packet is 75 pages and Storytellers Packet is 104 pages.

...

>Could the same be said of Death mages and vampires?
Absolutely. Vampires and Strix both fall under Death, as do their abilities. I could imagine at the very least a Prince paying out the ass for a ring or some other accessory imbued with a Death Shielding spell. Not necessarily paying with just cash, of course. Having a Moros be a kind of court wizard to a Prince would be neat, if done right. But if I were you I would brace myself for replies along the lines of "yeah lol but why would he bother with leeches" and suggestions as to how the Mage is puppeteering the Prince outright, etc.

That could work, absolutely. But vampire Danse Macabre and constant meaningless war for domination would mean that vizier would constantly be a target for other vampires. If this vizier have some ties in Awakened society - friends, lovers, cabalmates, this could end in vampire genocide after vizier gets what is coming.

You just know there's some apostate with a spirit mentor who ended up doing that because "easy money and my own squad of attack vampires". Or a Tremere who gained enough power that he stopped giving a fuck.

Well, why would an experienced Moros serve a vampire as "court wizard?"

A Moros might parlay, barter or ally with a vampire, but *serving* him would be odd indeed. It would be shocking in mage society and would limit his freedom to pursue mysteries.

Any mage would be considered a values or useful ally to werewolves or anyone else.

Spirit mages are just particularly advantageous to werewolves. However, I doubt they would complain if they benefited from the tracking ability of a Mastigos or raw combat potential of an Obrimos.

It would be no different for vampires, although Moros and Obrimos would be well suited to deal with Strix.

The issue is that mages have their own obsessions, and if a mage finds you "interesting" enough to hang around, it will almost certainly be more trouble than any benefits received after a short while.

>easy money and my own squad of attack vampires

Just as mages don't serve easily, neither do vampires, no less to those not of their kind, and they'l hardly tolerate be treated as disposable thugs.

The major splats are the A-listers of the supernatural world. Expect them to lead, no follow.

>A Moros might parlay, barter or ally with a vampire, but *serving* him would be odd indeed. It would be shocking in mage society and would limit his freedom to pursue mysteries.
Well of course there would be scheming. When is there ever not scheming? As for how he would find himself there at all, maybe he's left-handed, or otherwise on the run. Perhaps vampires, strix, and blood magic are Obsessions of his, and so on.

>they'l hardly tolerate be treated as disposable thugs.
Aren't all new vampires treated pretty much exactly like that?

>vulnerable to magic in canon

>Aren't all new vampires treated pretty much exactly like that?

Not always, and then only to other vampires, not humans, mage or otherwise.

I asked before, but never received an answer.

Is Changeling Arcadia part of the Fallen World? Dave earlier indicated that the Hedge, just like the Shadow, Underworld, and Astral, are part of the Fallen World. However, I don't recall if he ever mentioned the status of Changeling Arcadia other than it's not the same as Supernal Arcadia.

Arcadia is Disneyland

Acting too good for the Domain's court wizard sounds like a good way to get yourself staked.

Demons are gayer tho

Nope

>Arcadia is Disneyland

It's more like Disneyland for sexual predators and other deviants.

Still sounds like just Disneyland.

>Still sounds like just Disneyland.

CofD Disneyland is probably a very scary place.

I assume is conceals numerous portals to places that should not be and hides wondrous and terrible cryptids that view human children as a tasty snack.

Disneylands are unerringly built on Supernal Verges, and contain many powerful Bound hidden away from the crowds.

I'm sure Walt knew a few Left-Handed practices.

>I'm sure Walt knew a few Left-Handed practices.

Walt wants the sleeping masses to believe he's dead, but we know the Truth.

Is Walt a vampire, liche or something much, much worse?

Walt is the Goetia of childhood possessing a mortal man. I assume. Can Goetia possess people?

>Can Goetia possess people?

I believe that's the entire hook of Mage Los Angeles.

Are vampires territorial with other supernaturals? What happens when a cabal of mages moves into a domain?

The cabal spent a good deal of the 24 hours trying to find out what the Seers ritual causing the blackout in Philadelphia actually meant. The Seers were actively cleaning the places they'd used as conduits for the ritual, but they apparently didn't have anyone proficient with the Time arcanum at hand, so we could analyze it after they had cleaned it. We had just happened to blow something up when their ritual triggered, so the damaged or destroyed landscape offered my Acanthus a ton of very good sympathetic connections to that very moment, but it still wasn't easy, especially because their main ritual spot had apparently been the Seers headquarter at 1 Liberty Plaza, a heavily warded and defended place we weren't dumb or reckless enough to try and break into. But we could piece together that the whole thing had not just intentionally blacked out the city, it had at the same time unveiled a specific place that the blackout couldn't touch, and then hit that spot with a Dispel hard enough to destroy anything but the toughest wards.

This didn't help us find what the Seers were after though - we needed a little help. Luckily, Hollow Men started to appear all over the city, drawing the Pentacle to defend their territory, like parts of the Mysterium's Oblique Library (which is hidden within other Libraries in the city, and only visible and accessible via the powerful Arcane Index, an artifact that can do a few tricks Dewey didn't know about) and the Sanctums of Veil Agents.

It took the Mastigos to figure out that this was all a distraction, and if so, that there ought to be a sympathetic Fate-connection between the distraction and the real object of the Seers' desire. The help had arrived, and it was the means by which the Seers had hoped to hinder us.

A rather complicated sequence of Fate spells later, and withstanding more attempts to throw uss off track, we arrived at some housing block containing a weird back street untouched by the last centuries.

I think it depends on what they want out of their city. There are some plot hooks that talk about other supernaturals causing problems, but ultimately that's more of a world-building exercise than something defined by the splats themselves.

>What happens when a cabal of mages moves into a domain?

They avoid them as best they can and try not to seem "interesting" or "mysterious."

There's no inherent reason for there to be hostilities, and acting adversarial to mages minding their own business is a great way to get yourself incinerated or worse.

Just as an example, the Mekhet Clanbook contains a situation where the "protagonist" through whose eyes you see the clan meets someone who she doesn't know is a Mage. She tries to mindfuck the Mage, which doesn't quite work out like she expected, but the Mage doesn't take it personal, and the encounter ends up kind of mutually benficial.

You get a 1 experience discount on advancing your double-ruling Arcanum, which means you can advance it cheaper.

So if you're specialising, it's the way to go.

I don't know how the hell that didn't work on Lucy for the record. She's an Acanthus and has no Mind to my knowledge, but is good at Fate. You'd think they'd use a Mastigos for that. Isn't her friend Catesby that anyway, or did I read him wrong and he's a douchey Obrimos or something?

She could have been wearing an anti mind fuckery ring for all we know

I got no idea man, I'm not that deep into understanding who authorPCs are, I just thought it was a good scene - but yeah you'd assume she's a Mastigos in the scene cause all she does is Mind-related.

I mean the Vampire doesn't get too bad a scene in that regard.

>She isn’t really looking at me. She’s pressing buttons on the phone with her thumb, like she’s texting someone. Suddenly, out of nowhere, it occurs to me that she’s quite likable and reasonable. And sexy. My God. She’s so gorgeous. I didn’t see it. I develop an instant crush on her... and then the cold dead thing inside turns a wheel and my mind goes click and suddenly I’m cold and doll-like and empty and I smile like a dead woman smiles and cock my head to one side and I hear myself saying, >“You can’t force me to like you.”
>She looks up. “Oh. OK.” She puts the phone away. “Sorry. You understand.”

Lucy is one of those stupid mages that litter the fiction.

If you recall, she's such a shitty mage and has so few mage friends that she's dying of cancer. It's hardly surprising she's buddies with a whiny Mekhet.

>he's a douchey Obrimos

>Aether envy. So sad.

Mind and Death can protect from Dominate

Prime could too by being creative

Life too, arguably. Brain chemistry.

I don't have my books handy, what is Lucy's Arcana spread?

>
>Life too, arguably. Brain chemistry.

Suffice to say, mind fucking a mage is no easy task, and more likely than not will just piss off someone who treats reality as their bitch.

I recommend that Life can't do Mind shit just because the brain is organic, or you essentially just end up with everything being everything. Just like Fate can't tell you if someone's lieing, but COULD theoretically tell you if they're speaking a truth they don't know.

Some of the Arcana overlap with others. Life affecting hormones and brain chemistry is hardly bordering on the levels of Mind.

Affecting brain chemistry goes too deep into the purview of Mind for my taste. I also find Life-based rote learning questionable. I agree that you usually can take different arcana to get to the same result, but with an open system like Mage, you got to draw the line somewhere, and apparently I draw it way before you do, and in some cases also before the authors do.

I mean being a confrontational dick is a classic Mastigos stereotype, and he is kind of a dick.

Also, Lucy a shit but Francis is pure twee goth waifu. She's a better representative of her splat than Lucy 'Burn ALL The Bridges and Ignore This Spreading Mole When I Should See A Doctor' Sulfate is.

Seriously, she appears twice in the 2e mage anthology? Fuck her. I want another story of Rick or Garfield or something.

>I want another story of Rick or Garfield or something.

I want more of Hal from Premeditation.

It's a shame that one of the best mage representation, no less written by Dave, is stuck in the Beast Fiction Anthology.

Brain chemistry is a part of biology, so life should be able to fuck with it.

Really though that likely only means you can fuck with people's emotions, and trigger various biological reactions, like the flight/fight response, and fuck with people's emotions by entirely controlling the release of serotonin.

The more sophisticated stuff like shielding against thoughts and implanting thoughts though?
That's still just Mind.

I'm surprised Dave didn't have one fic in the anthology for the line he developed. I guess he was too busy working on the actual game to contribute there

For a guy who seems dismissive of crossover, particularly in Mage, he did a pretty darn good job of writing a crossover story featuring a mage, beast and changing breed(!). It *almost* made the beast seem marginally tolerable.

Your reasoning is scientifically sound but I'm pretty sure scientifically sound reasoning might also be able to convince me that you ought to be able to do everything with Forces that you can do with Matter, given your Forces is high enough. And that's why I do NOT go with scientifically sound reasoning and instead go purely by the question if the effect infringes too much on the purview of another Arcanum.

I'm of course not saying doing it differently is badwrong. It just saves me a lot of discussion-via-essentially-technobabble.

Sounds like a good mystery you guys have got going. Keep it coming.

>effect infringes too much on the purview of another Arcanum
That's precisely the kind of thing that 2e goes out of its way to disuade people from considering.

Life can indeed affect instincts, or other "primal" parts of a person's emotional make-up. Control Instincts is literally a Life spell example. You can also speak animal languages. As for Forces and Matter, the divide comes with whether or not the subject is "active" or not. You know, just consider if it's a form of energy and such. It's not rocket science.