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

I'd think outright lies would be a weaving level effect, but static and other shit sounds like veiling.

Well I say Veiling because it's not so much a change as it is an obfuscation, and an active effect on a subject with a Duration and all that jazz.

>More sci-fi stuff, like mages building space ships and doing space wizard stuff more often.

>Coolest faction in oMage was Etherites
>Get rid of them

I'm not saying to get rid of anything.

>Coolest faction in oMage was Etherites

>More sci-fi stuff, like mages building space ships and doing space wizard stuff more often
DaveB weighed into this on the Discord, basically saying that yes, Mages can teleport to the Moon, Mars, can built spaceships, travel for thousands of years in suspended animation, all that jazz.

But that Space is ultimately mostly empty, and bar some strange alien Spirits, or wanting to say that some weird supernatural stuff happens outside of the earth, Space is really pretty boring and devoid of Mysteries.

Of course, a Mars Sanctum would be pretty secure against non-Mage intrusion.
Better make sure all your protective spells are properly relinquished though.

Ascension Factions:

God Tier:
>Etherites, Void Engineers, Order of Hermes, Taftani

Good Tier:
>Akashic Brotherhood, Celestial Chorus, Technocracy [Other Conventions] Wu Lung, Ahl-i-Batin

Okay Tier:
>Verbena, Euthanatos, Dreamspeakers, Cult of Ecstacy

There are no Shit factions other then certain Crafts.

Virtual Adepts should be Good-tier. Also forgot to link

This user knows what's up.

The Nephandi has transitioned back and forth from God Tier to Okay Tier depending on the edition and relevant supplements.

That's fucking retarded and lazy on DaveBs part and only an excuse why there aren't any aliens or aliens that ascended before the Exarchs. You will not convince me that humans are the only sapient species in the galaxy let alone there are no mysteries in the cosmos.

I don't doubt that there aren't any aliens, just that humans for some reason are the only ones with access to the Supernal.

It was like this in OWoD as well. Humans were strange to the reptilians and greys, the former even trying to steal our magic.

Imperial magic is cosmic, its entirely possible the Exarchs erased all alien life when they ascended. The solution to the Fermi Paradox is "A wizard did it"

switch 'aren't to 'are', my bad.

So it's a case of HMFY

Nice

To me it's actually sensible. Not in the context of what's likely out in space, but in what it means for Awakening, and whether or not there should be outer space stuff in the game. I doubt that "space is empty" is Dave trying to establish what's out in space but rather saying in a roundabout way that outer space is by and large irrelevant to Awakening, and you shouldn't be expecting any canon material about it.

In my Ascension campaign the universe literally ends at heliopause and everything past that is reality entirely defined by the beliefs of those traveling out that far. You could encounter entirely Interstellar civilizations [if that fit your paradigm] that vanish like smoke when another traveler tries to find them in his spaceship.

It's by no means HFY. These are just theories, essentially headcanon.

To be fair, the Exarchs are hardly human.

Well, in terms of Awakening.

Why?

It's already like that. The Deep Umbra is literally infinite.

Well, the Exarchs were once the tyrannical wizard-kings of 'Atlantis'. Ascendants were once human, Supernal natives weren't.

Weren't dragons wizards before humans were?

The Exarchs are what happens when humans Ascend and interfere with things they're not supposed to.
Before the Fall the universe functioned based on Supernal Gods, now it functions based on Supernal 'Man'. Human oppression at that.

It's like the Olympian Gods throwing down the Primordial Titans, only in this case the humans usurped the gods.

Those Atlantean dragons may or may not have existed. Mages saw them in in a city, but that city was 'empty' when they actually got there.

Kind of spooky.

>t. Alienated

It was an island, I believe. They built the city once they arrived.

The dragons were probably a Supernal metaphor to get all the worlds Mages to unify in one place and build Atlantis.

It's probably just a fan theory but I felt like Imperial Mysteries and that book about summoning were implying that the anthropocentric parts of the Supernal and maybe even the Abyss (less likely but not impossible) are just local and if you go far enough you will find parts of the fallen world connected to Old Gods dominated parts of the Supernal.

That's the implication from the Dragon-Bone Sarisas, the fact that Dragons are a potent Supernal symbol, the existence of a pre-atlantean society which uniformly ascended, and the fact that despite there being Draconic symbolism all across the world, there are no actual supernatural 'Dragons' (I think).

The Supernal is dominated by the Exarchs. There are small little areas where the Supernal natives managed to proclaim their own dominance called Dhatus.

Depends on what you think La Vouivre is, I don't remember if she is summoned like "Outer Spirits" or like a Supernal entity.

There was no single Atlantis. There were multiple. Only one of them became powerful enough to fuck over everything and pull the Abyss out of its ass.

Or maybe the Abyss always was.

>There was no single Atlantis
Impossible to determine, given that reality was broken and remade, with the concept of Alantis roughly excised, its shattered fragments falling to earth to manifest in various cultures all throughout the new world.

Archmasters have a limited travel range in the Supernal and it's explicitely said that they expect very inhuman symbols like the Old Gods of Thistle to be beyond what they can access.

I believe Dave labeled Arthurian Britain as an example of a lost civilization that never 'was'.

Not a full-blown Atlanteanesque culture mind you, but an example of a society no longer existent.

Not quite, guy. Mages are supposed to Ascend. It's something of a natural conclusion for them, to rejoin magic at its source, to be one with it. The Exarchs fucked shit up not by Ascending, but by Ascending forcefully and prematurely. The Fall was caused when they shattered the reality-pervasive spire they used to Ascend, violating reality on a fundamental level. The Gate supposedly negotiated with the Abyss to create the Lie, and the other Exarchs tried to wipe away as many traces of magic as they could, so they could hoard the Supernal to themselves. Iirc they became tyrannical symbols because of the nature of their Ascension, oppressing others and lording power over them, and so on.

There are Mages who have Ascended harmlessly. Or rather, their Ascension didn't cause harm per se. Merlin. Xeras, Phrygia. Other mentions are made to Ascended Mages throughout the books in a general sense.

Exactly. The Old Gods of the Thistle are actually an example of Supernal natives belonging to a Dhatu. They managed to hide from the Exarchs well enough.

>Xeras
>Phrygia

Who? Were they Archmages or Legacy savants?

Atlantis existed, reality was just too broken and the actual prosaic city was retconned hard, leaving only the symbol of a fallen city of magical wonder.
Ruins themselves are just manifestations of it, so while the supernal truth is the same, all mundane details will be unique and incomptatible with other ruins.

They're just Mages mentioned as being Ascended in 2e. No real details beyond that.

Yes, but those ruins aren't necessarily of the same origin/culture.

Don't forget the Corpus Author, who created the Mysterium as we know it, and Hyperion, who when he ascended in 1977, took the Unconquered Church with him, leaving Christianity to be retconned into taking up its role in world history.

What would a Vampire think to himself if he was in the midst of a lengthy and heated Mage philosophical discussion?

Interesting? Bored? Incomprehensible?

Incomprehensible.

Probably nervous once the sparks start flying.

"Jesus, what a bunch of entitled pricks"

In Ascension one of the books has just such an event happen, a Vampire finds himself in the company of a Void Engineer and some other supernaturals all just chilling around a campfire and the Void Engineer starts explaining all this Deep Umbral shit and the Vampire's response is to call bullshit and explain that he's centuries old and hasn't ever heard of something that ridiculous.

I assume Awakening would be slightly more comprehensible since its just one crazy worldview instead of 50 competing ones. If anything the moral that "The gods are giant green assholes" is probably something a Vampire could get behind.

I don't think the Corpus Author is mentioned as being Ascended. Just an Archmaster, possibly.

...Are you retarded or what?

>e why there aren't any aliens
I swear to fucking god, does nobody read Mummy?

It's not explicitly stated in the book, but the fact that she sends Ochemata in her place, and the fact that DaveB describes her revolution of the Mysterium as her Noumenon (which she achieved) all but confirms she Ascended.

However unlike that shitcunt Merlin, she actually cares about her old Order.

>mfw everything beyond Pluto is the Lower Depths

>does nobody read the most unpopular, confusing, and poorly laid out book of all of CofD?
Shocker, that.

A vampire observing a Consilium meeting would be fucking hilarious.

I don't get why it is so unpopular, the material in it is better a fair few of the other non-big 3 gamelines. The layout is garbage though yes.

Isn't modifying the Supernal itself impossible?

I hope Merlin makes an appearance in Dark Eras: Britain. I doubt it though. Imagine all the 'REEEEEEEEEE'ing over an Archmage in a Mage/Changeling crossover supplement.

>DaveB weighed into this on the Discord, basically saying that yes, Mages can teleport to the Moon, Mars, can built spaceships, travel for thousands of years in suspended animation, all that jazz.
How?

Well, for a spaceship, I guess you'd build yourself a big metal shell, cover it in runes and indefinite spells, lose a lot of willpower, maybe make some imbued items with esux to save willpower dots, then hang a big 'sleepers fuck off' sign on the back and go looking for the Czar of Terra.

I wonder why they never did things like that for the Free Council or more technomancy, kinda a staple of urban fantasy.

Well smart ass mummyfag enlighten us why there aren't any aliens

Probably because it's ludicrously difficult. And because you can find a shortcut on the astral. There's aspects of it in the techne merit, as well as things like that alienist cabal who kept capturing and 'transmitting' random 'aliens'. And so they can thematically break from cWoD.

There are aliens. They're dicks, and have a grudge with the shan'iatu so they enjoy fucking with mummies since the shan'iatu are long gone to a place they cannot follow.

There's even rules for a type of them as Immortals in the Dark Eras Companion chapter for Alexandrian mummy.

Ascension is literally re-writing, or writing new Supernal symbols.

DaveB said it's possible he might take a look down at what people are doing to his 'creation'

Uh... Using sympathy (or sensory/remote range) to teleport, or just building a spaceship, then using all kinds of magic to make it fly faster, and better?

No need to worry about travel time when you can put yourself in suspended animation, then write more time onto the timeline for your shapeship to travel in.

Don't forget that the Cheiron group board are all aliens too. Wheee!

>How would you fix/change Mage?

Ascension: Grab M20 and trim it down and purge the stupid rules. Grab "How do you do that?" and throw it into a fire.

Add a sidebar saying "yes, you can be technically by raw be a Virtual adept that cast magic with yoga pants. However the Dm can say no on the basis that your paradigm doesnt mesh with the tradition"

Black List Brucatto.

Awakening: Make archamges NPC only material. Nerf them or put a chronicle guide to nerf them as an optional material. Cancel Deviant and put that money to pay Dave for the FAQ.

>Black List Brucatto.
No, kidnap him, take him to a con, lock him in a room, tied to a chair. Offer people the chance to pay 20 bucks to spit on him.

>DaveB said it's possible he might take a look down at what people are doing to his 'creation'

Where did he say this?

Isn't the Anima Mundi and the Shadow a bit rebundant?

...

Not really. The Shadow is just a reflection of animistic world taken to 11 and severed thanks to early era fuckery, varying by splat. The Anima Mundi is the soul of the world and was always seperate.

Slightly, it's quite weird as Werewolves have some connection to the Anima Mundai.

Really though, the Anima Mundai is the soul of the world, the Shadow is the mystical shadow-dimension, which is empowered by, and influences reality.

>Slightly, it's quite weird as Werewolves have some connection to the Anima Mundai.
I always thought a Werewolf/Mage game about a pack of Werewolves learning about that wellspring that causes people to Awaken in the Anima Mundi, looking for a way to reach it, and than exploring the ramifications of becoming a Magewolf could be really fun.

>Mixing splats

You sicken me. Crossover is one thing, this is another

How do you know if a shamanistic legacy has Spirit or Mind then?

Isn't there some rule that prevents this in COFD?

I think in cWoD it is possible to mix splats though.
I think a mage can become a garou using that skindancer rite, but IIRC that requires making a fursuit out of 5 werewolves.

You can't mix or alter Templates in CofD. Not without Archmastery.

...

Could be both, but it depends on how it deals with the spirits. Spirits for the 'gross' version, probably paired with something like fate to act as an ambassador to the spirits. Mind paired with.. life? Time? Something like that for the kind that's going through dreamquests in the Astral. The first one goes directly to the 'first level' of contact and is the more traditional Jap/Korean kind, with shrines to tend and offerings to burn. The second is bypassing that and bothering the things in the soul of the world for insight, the tribal who takes a shitload of mescaline and wanders into the desert, less concerned with worldly matters.

What happens after death?

If you're really, really attached to something you stay as a ghost. Otherwise, nobody knows.

Tell me, /wodg/, do you believe in things you cannot see?

youtube.com/watch?v=AG_0fna99p0

Thanks, I think it's a good way to think about it, what kind do you think woule have a legacy of "internet shamen"?

It can turn things from the Anima Mundi into Mages, but more importantly it could be a fun story.

Alright gentlemen, how do we fix 5th edition?

Free council, probably a mastigos or a thrysus. One with a mix of space/mind as secondary and forces as primary, focused entirely on using electronics as a method of peering through to determine intent of the user in the physical and trying to get at the 'source code' of the world out in the astral. The second with forces as primary again, spirit as a secondary based around using a computer to determine the local state of health in the Shadow and Sleepers through a 'shadow network' and seeking to correct it. One's paradigm would be the source code of reality, the other would be perfection of the 'front end'.

Everyone in your Okay tier is garbage. The Verbs are a shitty pagan pastiche that is the most like what Technocrat fags say all the Traditions are. The Euths are an actual death cult that gets more stupid when WW tried to walk them back from being a death cult, the CoX are DUDE WEED LMAO and their only redeeming feature is starting the Children's Crusade. You could replace them with the Solificati and nobody would notice. The Speakers are a conceptual mess, only saved by their Street Shaman Revised subfactions. If you wanted KANGZ Mages, you could replace them with the Ngoma and be less shitty.

Fuck the Akashics for leaving sick people to die and being chop socky socky five dollar Mages, too. And the Choristers for being too pussy to straight up be "Christian Theurgy" while implying Abrahamic religion is the only correct one. Their M20 example girl is hot in a trashy, alt chick sort of way, which puts them into Okay Tier.

Progs and Nu-woo are cooler than the VEs post Avatar Storm, with their Revised books. Threat Null is dumb.

How this should go is: Taftani > positive portrayal Technocracy > Ex-Crat Traditions >= AiB > negative portrayal Technocracy = Hermetics >= Street Shaman Drramspeakers > Hollow Ones that understand the fundamental mechanical truth of the game > shit > Hollow Ones that are only goth jokes > the other Traditions > anything Phil Brucato likes.

What is a street shaman?

But...
There's already a Legacy of Thyrus Libertine Mind users.

The Dreamspeakers.
They have weird powers like sending part of their mind off to Astral space while the rest works in the physical.
Imploring Goetia for mental enhancements or summoning them to the world.
And 'finally' projecting his Mind into Twilight.

...If I didn't already have a list of other Legacy requests I'm tentatively looking into, I'd work on them as well.
They're pretty fucking weird, and I'd have to try and reconcile them with the new uniform system of Ephemeral entities.