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

Previous thread: >Pastebin:
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>News
theonyxpath.com/now-available-v20-becketts-jyhad-diary/
>This week's Monday Meeting Notes:
theonyxpath.com/a-midwintering-we-shall-go-monday-meeting-notes/
>Question:
Technocracy vs Pentex, who wins?
>New Geist preview
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>New Deviant preview
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First for Geist.

Second for Lasombra.

Third for Tremere.

(from last thread)

>I was under the impression that the demons from Devil's Due were disconnected from the Fallen (from Demon the Fallen) and were not meant to represent the same thing but a totally different spin/take on the theme, their origin story is completely different.

Same origin actually. They are definitely the same things (the fallen) just from a different perspective and with a different system. Notably, this perspective is used in v20 as well, so I think when demons get revamped as playable in owod again, they will be at least somewhat similar to Devil's Due take mechanically.

It talks a little bit about why some things are different in DD vs DtF (for example, higher background faith level).

I suppose my biggest pet peeve with that is that it trashes most of the things established in Demon the Fallen, Demons/Lucifer portrayed as being all bad when that wasn't the case, they no longer have Houses but embody particular sins, vampires can be enthralled in DD whereas not in DtF. Things become so distorted one might wonder if they're the same thing and then it even tries to tie it back with Demon the Fallen where the Ritual of the Sundered Soul is described, which in turn defaults things back to how things in Demon the Fallen works.

Risen aren't all that great, but they have an endless potential for hilarity.

>Under no circumstances will the target be aware that she is in fact being pulled towards a rendezvous, and the very idea will seem ludicrous to her.

"Man, why do I keep running into angry werewolves/technocrats/earthbound/etc?"

DtF has a lot of unreliable narration going on from the getgo; for example, DtF core portraying the Fallen as largely blameless and pure originally and generally having a sympathetic take, while other DtF books portray the Slayers as having hungered to kill humans from the getgo and of course Damned and Deceived having an almost entirely negative view on demons. So I'd just take value judgments with a grain of salt.

I do think DtF not allowing demons to enthrall vampires was a blatant mistake considering demons were introduced to the WoD primarily in terms of converting vampires into infernalists; DtF probably went with the assumption that its vision of demons would not be integrated into the greater WoD, and as of Devil's Due and the v20 fluff on demons it seems clear they're trying to make it so that, yeah, most demons are those demons.

>Technocracy vs Pentex, who wins?

Probably Bentex :DDDD

Pentex largely understands the Technocracy (and in general, understands the rest of the WoD) while the Technocracy doesn't even understand itself and most Technocrats don't seem to know they're mages, that paradox is a thing, etc. Likewise, the Technocracy is portrayed as frequently lashing out at anyone who would even try and use DimSci to combat otherworldly horrors and its very likely that, in a Technocracy vs Pentex conflict, both would unite to curb stomp the Void Engineers as best as they could, who are "obviously insane" for thinking that beers and card games and so forth have demons/aliens in them.

>DtF has a lot of unreliable narration going on from the getgo; for example, DtF core portraying the Fallen as largely blameless and pure originally and generally having a sympathetic take
But a lot of the unreliable narration is confirmed by facts given out through reliable instances, for example in the Time of Judgement scenarios for Demon the Fallen where Lucifer helps mankind and other demons against the Earthbound. By parts of the books which mention what each Faction is up to once they're free from the Abyss (Senival's Faustians for example, still enlightening mankind). Or even how starting characters begin with low Torment and the official guidelines pretty much paint them in good light.

>I do think DtF not allowing demons to enthrall vampires was a blatant mistake considering demons were introduced to the WoD primarily in terms of converting vampires into infernalists;
It had always been stipulated/set apart that the "angels and demons" vampires and mages associated with in earlier editions were not True Demons but in fact Umbral ones (Order of Hermes Tradition book, Book of Madness, Infinity Tapestries & Infernalism: Path of Screams, which mentioned the Demonic Investments, and has the Baali being able to reap benefits of enthralling, all the demons here have Gnosis and are of Umbral nature)

It's perfectly fine that vampires can associate with Umbral demons as it's been so since the earlier editions (and why there's a clear distinction between Demonic investments widely propagated in Vampire and Mage books and the enhancements from Demon the Fallen)

Where does it stipulate that the demons that vampires made deals with weren't real demons? Vampire sources only, please.

Pentex. Not necessarily because they can beat the Technocracy, just moreso because Pentex's collapse would ironically enough work toward fulfilling the Wyrm's plans. They're an incredibly massive megacorporation and it's likely that their total failure would tank economies worldwide and start a global recession with myriad unknown economic consequences. Theoretically the Syndicate could contain the damage with enough time and effort, but it'd still be a massive blow dealt that would allow the Wyrm more time to spread its influence, and it'd overall serve as a distraction for the Technocrats in regard to the Ascension War. All that being said though, there are ways the Technocracy could still prevail. If they infiltrated the corporation from the inside and instigated a shadow coup to repurpose it then they could potentially succeed and start undoing the damage Pentex has caused. In an all-out war though? The Technocracy would shoot itself in the foot by dedicating their resources to fighting Pentex.

In W20 Book of Wyrm there are cases where Pentex already corrupted several Syndicate mages. And Pentex has a pretty clever structure where all reasonably important positions all have dozens of avaliable replacements. All in all, I agree with what you said here.

So where do I begin to look for some nerds if group finding websites in my city seem long dead?

I just want to pretend to be a vampire like the cool kids.

You could use Roll20 if you don't mind the risks accompanied by grouping up with randos or have a group of online friends interested in tabletop RPGs.

In nWoD are werewolves and vampires aware of each others mutual weakness/bane?

As a general rule they'd know as much as a normal person does (sun/silver).

Sabbat Player's Guide 2E (page 36) has a Demonic Investment called Journey to the Spirit Realm, which grants the infernalist the power to travel to the Umbra. True Demons cannot access the Umbra.

Baali Clanbook mentions Demonic Investment and directs the reader to Dark Ages Companion for information on Infernalism. On Dark Ages Companion the demons therein represented are shown to have Disciplines/blood pool just like older books stated Umbra spirits back then (i.e. Dark Colony), there are several mentions of the spirit world such as when Aerial Demons are described, or Terrestrial Demons.

Infernalism: Path of Screams has the exact same rules on making pacts with demons and Demonic Investments, mentions the Baali, learning Dark Thaumaturgy, refers to Dark Ages Companion for more details where Infernal Ranks are mentioned and presents the "demons" as Umbral beings, stated with Gnosis and appropriate traits.

The other books where Demonic Investments/Infernalism are mentioned (from other splats) only reinforce that the "demons" that grant these pacts are Umbral entities.

Just let it die.

What ways exist in nwod to analyze someone's Integrity rating?

Not at all. I'd say it's on the same level of joining strangers in a regular group. Thanks m8

Zero

>On Dark Ages Companion the demons therein represented are shown to have Disciplines/blood pool just like older books stated Umbra spirits back then (i.e. Dark Colony

As far as stats are concerned, umbral spirits are given mage magic in mage books, along with vampires and werewolves being given rotes; likewise, vampires are given gifts and wraiths are even given rage scores in werewolf books. Demons are even given archmage spheres in Masters of the Art.

Its likewise not clear that the umbra is supposed to be off limits to demons, the topic just doesn't come up. Demons can also grant powers they themselves don't have (e.g. Damned and Deceived indicating thralls can do full on resurrection). There's no particular reason to think they could not enter the spirit realm if they wanted or needed to, just the Abrahamic game setting usually doesn't touch too heavily on the Animist axis.

Stop making new threads

We need three threads again.

How does influencing spirits with Spirit work? Does compelling a spirit with Coaxing The Spirit to, say, make a mountain spirit cause a physical avalanche, require that mountain spirit to have the relevant numina? Do spirits need Influence dots in order to manipulate their physical manifestations? Does having Spirit 2 mean that I can ride any car by influencing the spirit of a vehicle into turning on or opening it's doors? The book says that spirits don't have control over specific things but all things that they symbolically represent, but it also says that all physical things have a specific spirit counterpart.

I'm just confused in general as to what spirit magic can and can't do.

Most skinworld stuff a spirit does is covered by Influence, and its extremely vague.

Frogposter pls

The example the book gives is
>A Rank 4 spirit of dogs, for example, might have Influence: Dogs ••• and Influence: Loyalty •
Like, what does that mean? A spirit can influence dogs to do what to what extent? And how does influencing loyalty work? Does that mean it can make people more or less loyal?

Influence is very vague.

1 is strengthen
2 is manipulate (minor changes)
3 is control (dramatic changes)
4 and 5 are create and mass create.

So the dog spirit can strengthen loyalty and can make dramatic changes to dogs, the example listed is in terms of an animal's behavior but they can also add their rank to a dog's health or defense.

As a general rule I would suggest, 2 is more "coincidental" and 3 is more "vulgar."

There's some great posts on the WW forums


>But what about hunters there iproof humans are the craftyist things humen 2ed best mage beast in my opinion

>Im i that perse

>Monster have so much weekness that a smart human can beet any monster plus i just feel great to be human We're all human what can i say

What's the best book to read to learn more about spirits? I'm planning on playing as a Spirit mage but the 2e book is so vague that I don't think I even have a basic grasp of how the spells actually work. Everytime it even talks about spirits it usually does it in the same sentence as ghosts, goetia and supernal beings and i'm just getting confused. Not that there is much of anything at all in the book in the first place.

The first ed book of spirits perhaps?

1e book of spirits by far gave me the biggest appreciation and understanding of nwod spirits around.

Influence is so subjective, however, that you should probably ask your ST whether he or you will be rolling for influence and determining the effects.

Ow my brain

Go call them retards. Just make sure its not in relation to being stupid.

Thanks.I've played a Death mage before and ghosts are just way easier to understand.

Oh god. OPP. Please. Just release something.

Would a couple dots in Occult mean they'd know more than what's "common knowledge".

That's funny I've always felt the opposite. Probably because I also play a lot of werewolf. I get Spirits I have a hard time with ghosts and the underworld.

>>As far as stats are concerned, umbral spirits are given mage magic in mage books,

Yes, but it's not the case in all books, these stats are given like that to simplify mechanics where it isn't assumed the reader will have access to books pertaining different splats. It doesn't mean a Umbral spirit isn't an Umbral spirit etc, regardless of power template used.

Order of Hermes Tradition book, Infinite Tapestries, Patho of Screams and Book of Madness are books where infernalism/Demonic Investment are present and the very same thralling rules are shared (with even Baali clanbook/Dark Ages Companion/Path of Screams crossreferencing and pointing to each other), are namely Mage books, and still treat spirits properly using Umbral spirits rules. If you read the examples of "demons" presented on said books it's very clear they're nothing like True Demons, with some of them such as Infinite Tapestries even pointing out the distinction explicitly.

afew dots in occult might mean that they know vampires /woofs have different types, maybe even have come across various terms like prince or woofblood. They'd have to roll it in a research test though to get this info in the first place though.

They'd be familiar with a wider range of legends resembling the thing in front of them with little further indication of what parts could be true.

Anybody available for an online game on Mondays? I don't care which game, I just want to play in any variant of the WoD setting, its been so long.

Overall, how much must you know of an ephemeral being to begin research of it, would you say?

For example, as soon as a demon realizes a hunting angel is after him, would it be reasonable for him to begin research in his bolthole, or would he have to have seen it and escaped (somehow) first?

Reason I ask is because angels and qashmal, for example, are likely to only briefly exist at all, and are then likely to fuck your face (or steal one sock from your house causing a chain reaction that will result in a nuclear explosion or whatever).

Maybe that's why the God Machine cycles through angels so fast, it doesn't give its enemies enough time to research and catalog them.

If a angel only briefly exists and its purpose it to kick your ass, Just how are you going to do any research on it?

Unless the GM fucks up and places the info in the world aswell there wont be any info on it.

Returned from a bit of a hiatus. OPP forums are dead as fuck. Anything happening in general?

Nothing much. Some Requiem books came out. That's about it.

Don't even ask that question

Are werewolf form abilities considered aura abilities and/or do they apply a condition? e.g. 'sheeps clothing' or 'badass mother fucker'

>Don't even ask that question
Speaking of questions one shouldn't ask: Aspel still around?

...How long have you been away?

More than a year

You just dodged a nuke

How’s that?

Read the archives

An entire year of Mage supremacy, Mage faggery, Daveposting, Cainewanking, Archmagewanking, Phil hating, no content, splat wars, edition wars and downright autism.

Not him. Dare I ask, what exactly is "Daveposting?"

Magefags have a habit of posting comments made by Dave(Mage developer) to prove their point.

Dave is god

Any good play by posts around? Vampire if possible

I think we all would prefer the sam haight imitation thing going on last thread to that stuff.

Nope.

So in owod, why are klaives, which appear to be about the same damage as claws or a mundane silver sword, hyped as these awesome kick ass warrior's weapons that justify taking a gnosis penalty for keeping, while fang daggers, which deal zomgwtf amounts of damage, largely ignored?

Because they can sell klaives as merch.

It's a cultural thing rooted in tradition. Real Garou fight with their claws.

Because they are a silver sword that wont break and give you -1 difficulty to attack?

Grand Klaives can have an extra spirit bound other than the War spirit that gives it some other powers.

It's the weapon of mighty heros. Let us not forget Wind-Howl and her pack's sacrifice!

I SAID REAL GAROU FIGHT WITH THEIR CLAWS!

Go lick your own balls you uncultured Red Talon.

bad doggy

So, anything new for CoFD since Hurt Locker? I've been avoiding these threads for a while.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

when will ragelets learn?

Aspel left exactly one year ago, and just posts on Twitter now. Now the current plague is power level posting, which started almost exactly after they stopped coming to the thread.

What are some cool objects for a DA spiritus user to weild? For use with spiritus 1 specifically.

I was thinking a grappeling hookmight be cool to use with it what do you guys think?

Blessed crossbow and bolt, so you get more damage from shooting the crossbow which translates to extra damage and more damage to the bolt itself. Bonus points if you have Thaumaturgy 2 and know the ritual Flaming Weapon. Which adds another extra pool to the bolt's damage and turns the damage into aggravated.

Thanks, I was thinking more of non combat thigns. Like a pair of lockpicks and stuff like that.

Awakening books before doing research.
Eyeglasses before investigating a crime scene.
A cloak before attempting to sneak across an area.

Thanks!

What Spheres would be required to transfer an unawakened human mind and their dormant Avatar into a mechanical body?

I think Mind (for their mind to remain intact), Spirit (since you want the avatar to go as well), and Life (since you are affecting a person.

I think you need 4 ranks in each, but I havent read up on the levels recently

Mind 5/Spirit 4 to displace a living person's mind, so it can be bound to the mechanical body (page 88 of HDYDT)

Probably Matter 5, Mind 5, Prime 5, Spirit 5 considering the Sphere prerequisites of similar stuff presented in M20 such as Reviving and Resurrection, and The Rebooter Self-Retrieval
Bio-Printer.

Any leak of Geist? Is it going well?

Deviant when?

What's a good tribe for a Rahu college professor? I'm thinking a Jekyll/Hyde type character. Mild mannered human extremely violent werewolf even by the normal standards of werewolf society.

>Mind 5/Spirit 4 to displace a living person's mind

More proof that Ascension sucks. You only need Mind for that in Awakening.

Anything that makes a mage less OP sucks, right? In my book that's something good.

And the full sentence is: "A mage can displace a living person’s mind and soul"

Nah, its unnecessary. I don't care about crossover whiners. You shouldn't need all those additional Spheres. Awakening fixed so much.

>Spirit
>covering souls
Ascension was gross

>extremely violent werewolf even by the normal standards of werewolf society
How do you intend to portray that? Your average Rahu is already pretty far removed from sunshine and rainbows.

War-form and death rage for little to no reason?

(from last thread)

>Unlikely. Mages are still mortal. The easiest method of killing one is through physical means. Unless the vampire knows not to attack, he more than likely will.
The Mage of your example, to have the ability to cast such a travelling Major Ward that Bans vampires and blocks mind control, has at the very least: Arete 4. Correspondence 4, Life 4, Mind 4, Matter 2, Prime 2 (Prime 4, if the ward permanent). You seem to want to toss the average brainless physical neonate mook/shovelhead against a near master Adept at 3 or 4 Spheres. Any vampire at a comparative power level knows better than to directly and personally attack the mage himself. You'll never see Ancilla/Elders doing things themselves when they can toss others at their problems.

>I don't think very many vampires are going to have lightning or fire at their disposal, barring blood sorcery and certain Disciplines. Molotov cocktails, perhaps?
Likewise not many mages will have access to the ridiculous amounts of Quintessence, time and Spheres necessary to pull such a feat off, you cannot rightly compare a mage that has the power to do so to neonate mooks. At comparative power levels either the vampire is a Thaumaturge himself or has contacts (Camarilla even has a special archon force called Quaesitor whose purpose is to tend to all the Camarilla sorcerous needs, whether its combating Sabbat's koldun, Setite sorcerers, mortal mages, or hunting rogue Tremere)

Even at the presented Sphere requirements the mage is still vulnerable to many things vampires could potentially throw at them, particularly the ones specialized in hunting sorcerers of all kinds: the Quaesitors. Thaumaturgical curses (which can slaughter mages from any distance through sympathetic links) unless Entropy 4 is added to the ward. The spirits several schools of blood sorcery have control over, unless you add Spirit 4. Fire, electricity and other natural elements countered at varying levels of Forces.

I wish you'd be mature enough to drop previous arguments for the sake of a thread.

You really are an insufferable maggot.

>my specific mage beats your specific vampire
>my specific vampire beats your specific mage
ok

I know these guys aren't fighters, but is it too much to ask to sneak into Elysium, do that sunlight breakdance ritual and walk out again?

By playing on
T H E E D G E
H
E
E
D
G
E

pretty much my point, magefags claimed mages can be untouchable with enough preparation when realistically it's just

we already know this, you brainlet. minmaxing mages are gods. don't use them.

>when realistically it's just