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

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First for the Red Talons are right

RED TALONS PUREST
YIFF STRONG
YIFF FAST
YIFF GOOD
YIFF YIFF YIFF KILL HOOMAN YIFF

Red Talons kill mankind the cancer and get rid of the Masquerade for vampires plz

So i am homebrewing Pure Gifts for Forsaken 2nd. Anyone interested in chiming in?

Check out the Forsaken discord. Chris Allen is on there regularly.

What can a mage realistically do against Auspex 8's Psychic Assault? A single good use of this would already make him able to only access Sphere ratings/Arete at 5; two/three good uses of this power literally mind-rapes the mage from permanent Willpower 10 to 0 and makes him unable to cast any magick further/caps the access of Sphere ratings to his permanent Willpower, which is 0

...

My third favorite tribe, based and badass af.

Now do Kuro!

Set up mental defenses preemptively using the Mind Sphere: if I'm not mistaken I believe you can create "mind shields" with only one or two dots. Alternatively they could decide to go full keikaku and so in addition to that obvious step use Mind 5 to create multiple personalities/minds identical to their own that lie dormant within them acting as decoys and shields for any would-be psychic trauma or probing.

>My third favorite tribe
Which ones are you first and second favorites?

>Set up mental defenses preemptively using the Mind Sphere: if I'm not mistaken I believe you can create "mind shields" with only one or two dots.
Elder Disciplines can bypass archmaster-levels of Mind shields but cannot bypass a one/two level Mind shield, seems legit

>Mind 5 to create multiple personalities/minds identical to their own that lie dormant within them acting as decoys and shields for any would-be psychic trauma or probing
assuming there wouldn't be a way to find the original one which is tied to the avatar or disregarding there's nothing in Auspex 8 suggests it would single out a single "mind" rather than overwhelm all of them with the sheer force of the elder because all of the minds are part of the target

Or even an Elder with Presence 8's Ironclad Command, if he has Willpower 9/10 then the mage cannot ever resist being enslaved, affecting all minds the mage could have, simultaneously

Mage powers don't directly scale to Vampire powers and vice versa. That's the way it works for all splats. Masters of the Art has "rules" for point-for-point counterplay, but it just doesn't work out because of the different scales the powers operate on and their different focuses.

All that being said though, I don't think you really understand how Mages work. It's not a "one/two level Mind shield" in the way you understand it because the amount of dots you have in a Sphere only reflects what sort of things you can do with your magick and your current limits. It doesn't define the power or quality of the actual effect used and operate as a consistent gauge you can use to compare it to other supernatural abilities -- what would determine the potency of the Mind shield in question is the number of successes and time that go into achieving the effect (which you'd roll Arete for and can accomplish through an extended ritual as opposed to one singular roll), not the amount of dots you need in the respective Sphere to be able to cast it.

>but it just doesn't work out because of the different scales the powers operate
just because you think it doesn't work it doesn't mean they aren't the main system to sort disputes when high-level powers are used and that it'd allow for what I said

>It's not a "one/two level Mind shield" in the way you understand it because the amount of dots you have in a Sphere only reflects what sort of things you can do with your magick and your current limits.
This is only partially true, a similar system to the MoTA one for counterplay is presented in the Mage Storyteller's Hand, where the heigher rating ultimately trumps the number of successes;

>what would determine the potency of the Mind shield in question is the number of successes and time that go into achieving the effect (which you'd roll Arete for and can accomplish through an extended ritual as opposed to one singular roll)
This is addressed in the Mage Storyteller book, using a system different than the one I described above, Mind shields specifically are mentioned as eroding under ablative successes; suffering attacks at a rate of one-success per success inflicted by other powers

Even in this scenario a mind shield with +30 successes that took weeks to months to years to be casted could be quickly eroded by the Elder's massive dicepools and ability to use use their powers repeatedly in the span of turns as opposed to days/weeks that take for strong rituals

I need help with something absolutely nutso that resulted from me and my group laughing at these threads. We might even relay it here.

>An archmage achieves nine dots in Forces, Matter, Prime & Entropy and has remade the Tellurian into Dungeons & Dragons
>Each Antediluvian is forced the offer of becoming their chosen Class at 20th level and must play by the plot to 'win' their way 'out'
>Acquiring Epic levels (above 20) will result in the regaining of Disciplines at various intervals six dots and up finally reaching ten at twenty-five
>Lilith & Caine are both granted divine status as polar deities each having their respective Domains and followers

Which Antediluvian as which Class?
Currently we're(but willing to change) at:
>Tremere: Wizard
>Ravnos: Illusionist
>Malkav: Bard
>Lasombra: Rogue
>Ennoia: Druid
>Set: Cleric
>Absimiliard: Barbarian
Stumped on Tzimisce

How would they beat something that's essentially omnipotent as the 'final encounter' ? Or maybe just an avatar of the archmage instead.

Any ideas for what the Caine/Lilith Domains could be called? What they do? I'm open to new abilities.
We're running with the idea of lending Disciplines/Spheres to D&D-verse vampires/wizards like Stradd and Mordenkainen through open worship.

I realize mixing D&D(3.5) mechanics with oWoD Mechanics is insane, but this is what my group demanded.
Luckily most of us are experienced in the best of both worlds.

>just because you think it doesn't work it doesn't mean they aren't the main system to sort disputes when high-level powers are used and that it'd allow for what I said
Picture related. The "main system" for sorting it out openly acknowledges the point I made.

>Even in this scenario a mind shield with +30 successes that took weeks to months to years to be casted could be quickly eroded by the Elder's massive dicepools and ability to use use their powers repeatedly in the span of turns as opposed to days/weeks that take for strong rituals
Theoretically sure, but this is all just meaningless conjecture unless you specifically define the stats of the respective Elder and Archmaster. It also probably isn't THAT big of a gap in dicepools considering that the target gets to contest with a standard Willpower roll and that the Archmage likely has some countermagick up. A 5th Generation Elder has a max trait rating of 8 and the roll for the power is Manipulation + Intimidation, so a standard on-the-spot use of the power would be around 16 dice on the roll, meaning it'd take at least two rolls minimum just to cancel out a 30 succ Mind Shield.

>Picture related
>doesn't share file

I'm fucking retarded. lmfao

Samefag alert

Literally the next line: "An Archmaster of Mind may be skilled at all sorts of invasive mental tricks, but a vampire elder with six dots of Dominate and a few centuries of practice may be able to slip in unnoticed."

Then you come and say that Mind 1/2, from arguably a mage with much less experience than the Elder, could create a mind shield through a ritual and be effective at it

My point is that the system you speak of (which again is very vague and undefined in terms of specifics) acknowledges that the powers aren't comparable to the point where a dot-for-dot approach is necessarily rational. You're the one who insisted on using the system AFTER I made the initial point about Mind shields.

>Then you come and say that Mind 1/2, from arguably a mage with much less experience than the Elder, could create a mind shield through a ritual and be effective at it
Well, now you're just strawmanning me. I never said it was an inexperienced Mage. Elders sleep through significant chunks of their unlives out of sheer boredom and Mages at Arete 10 are still more than capable of using their "lesser" powers.

Is it just me or does it seem like there's surprisingly little options for a Werewolf: Dark Ages chronicle? I guess you could do "vampires vs. werewolves" games since the book seems to be pushing pretty hard for that, but other than that there don't seem to be as many options for conflict as there are in other timeframes like Wyld West or Modern Nights, at least if you go for a multi-tribal pack anyway.

Elf games suck even if you remove the elves.

Multi tribal packs have never been supported well by the lore. Same with Septs.

>Well, now you're just strawmanning me. I never said it was an inexperienced Mage.
I didn't say you did, I specifically stated it as being arguably less experienced than the Elder which is different from being inexperienced. Which is a fair assumption assuming quite a few of them predate the Flood and are between 8000-10000 years old

>Arete 10 are still more than capable of using their "lesser" powers.
What does this change? Sure, a mage with Arete 10 could use Mind 2 to shield himself but it doesn't detract or invalidate the suggested mechanics in play here

On a side note since practice/experience seems to be a matter of consideration then the higher and more ancient spirits would seem to blow archmages and vampires out of the window rather easily; Celestines/Incarnae have existed for millions of years some of which are arguably as old as the Elohim; the Elohim (true demons - particularly the Archdukes for power's considerations and angels alike) have been kicking around since before the universe's Creation.

Of the still existing have-been-mortals then there is Lilith, Crone, Eve, Caine in that order

Your logic is a bit sad

>assumig quite a few of them predate the Flood and are between 8000-10000 years old
>8000-10000

Not him, but Elders (and even the vast majority of Methuselahs for that matter) are nowhere near that up there in age; most are a couple of centuries old total. Hell, the Toreador Antediluvian is only around 10,017 years old, just barely over the range you specified.

uh antediluvian means from before the flood. so yes the antediluvian would be from that time period.

Yeah it was of shifting the goalpost, initially I was talking about Elders but when user there mentioned Arete 10 I meant to refer then to the Antediluvians and Methuselah such as Baba Yaga, Ur-Shulgi, etc, which are all within that period range

Spirits don't really get experience.

How many years did he spend not in a magic coma?

most mages are under 40. im pretty sure a few hundred years is a bit longer than 40 years.

Uh... no shit? My point was that Elders (and generally Methuselahs) aren't.

Attaining Arete 10 is nowhere near equivalent to being an Antediluvian in either time or mechanical aptitude. Assuming you spent no freebie dots on Arete at character creation then you'd need to spend 360 EXP to get to it. Such a dramatic scale upwards in power on the vampire side seems unwarranted with that in mind... and if we're dealing with an Antediluvian then I don't see why it'd bother trying to attack the mage with what amounts to parlor tricks at its level of Discipline mastery.

>Attaining Arete 10 is nowhere near equivalent to being an Antediluvian in either time or mechanical aptitude.
thats true. its basically impossible to ever get arete 10. there arent even npcs that have that. we know there are at least 13 antediluvians and all the effort they put out was being bitten by someone else.

>360 EXP = 1000/Infinite EXP

>Such a dramatic scale upwards in power on the vampire side seems unwarranted with that in mind...
The Unnamed, in Ascension, is described to have been the first Awakened mage to EVER exist, it was only in a direct response to chthonic entites of the Outer Darkness granting him an Avatar that the Pure Ones started to imbue and Awaken other mortals. He's also confirmed to have been around since before the Flood.

Yet, his Avatar was "only" 9.

It's just after he eats the Avatar of thousands of Nephandi, consumes the World Tree, drains scores of nodes worldwide, hunts all the remaining Archmages and Oracles that still live and consume their Avatar and becomes the sole Ruler of Creation that he gets Arete 10.

And yet V20 makes the claim that Lilith was the first mage, or Caine.

Medea was at Arete 10. She was insane enough to completely disregard the Consensus and has been hailed as Oracle of the Marauders.

But when it comes to actual PCs the requirements are 360 EXP and doing Seekings. It's almost as if White Wolf is bad at making lore and mechanics mesh up accurately.

WoD, old or new(to a lesser extent), isn't consistent within itself. Trying to approach it otherwise is a fatal error.

>And yet V20 makes the claim that Lilith was the first mage, or Caine.

That's not the claim it makes, they stress it very strongly that she is something "other", supposedly the first supernatural being, which could ----roughly---- translate to the template of a proto-vampire angel archmage. V20 Guide to the Black Hand has her even directly associating with the Pure Ones before the first mages were created, which already puts her as something separate altogether.

>Guide to the Black Hand

Right. Proto-mage. And Caine is credited as using the first Focus in human history.

Okay guys actual campaign question semi-relevant to your stupid powerlevel discussions.. I'm running MtA and one of the antagonists I included early on was a Vampire Elder. A middle-aged mafia-esq Hispanic man in a white suit who controls a large cartel operation in California. The party rapidly outpaced him as a threat as they raised Arete and Spheres, and so I'm debating giving him a boost in the form of diablerie.

Or to put that into the form of a question, whats your favorite Antidiluvian and why should I include him/her/it in my campaign? Will also accept sufficiently interesting Methusaleh.

>But when it comes to actual PCs the requirements are 360 EXP and doing Seekings.
I don't see it as obligatorily contradictory. The Seekings are controlled by the Storytellers. Storytellers can make Seekings as difficulty a task as he wants to do; obviously he can be lenient and hand out Arete like candy in his game despite it having been stipulated canonically that reaching crazy levels of Arete is really, really hard.

>wanna nut on her face now
Goddammit, internet.

>Right. Proto-mage. And Caine is credited as using the first Focus in human history.
So? What's the issue herE?

Nothing. Should there be?

Replied to the wrong post

...

#notmycanon lul

>trying to argue canon in wod

lul

Is that Patton Oswalt

>Medea
What book(s) is she in?

despite you not liking the contents in that book it's definitely that exists in the oWOD universe

something that exists*

Yes, so does everything else. Especially that bit about Vicissitude being parasites. Joyous canon.

The canon contradicts itself. Ignore poorly written books.

The Book of Madness

Canonically speaking, the True Black Hand doesn't exist anymore and died horribly with no survivors. They also were deluded buffoons who believed the Aralu were Antediluvians. :^)

...so, all of them?

>with no survivors
Reference?

>the True Black Hand doesn't exist anymore
Sure, but if your game happens before the Sixth Great Maelstrom then it doesn't matter, also there's nothing stopping old characters from having smuggled/stolen/bought the knowledge before the cataclysm. A bigger consideration still is thae powers presented in V20 Guide to the Black Hand are canonically possible

>Finally, the Black Hand has a weird history in publication. It had different treatment across different editions. We can’t accommodate all those treatments. For example, in Vampire: The Masquerade Revised Edition, the Hand doesn’t exist. They fell victim to a spiritual nuclear weapon. Every last one of them gone forever. This book assumes that didn’t happen. After all, it’d be weird filling pages with information about a completely eliminated cult. Instead, we’re going to showcase the Hand, to give you the tools to use them and some hooks to make them work in your story in different ways.

>They fell victim to a spiritual nuclear weapon. Every last one of them gone forever.
V20 Guide to the Black Hand, PG 11

>They fell victim to a spiritual nuclear weapon. Every last one of them gone forever.
Got it, after the Sixth Great Maelstrom they're gone, that only leaves a non-True Black Hand vampire some few thousand years to steal/buy their occult knowledge before they're obliterated.

That's pretty good considering canonically the Reckoning/Avatar Storm raped most powerful mages, Oracles and Masters were obliterated, got trapped in their realms or just couldn't return to Earth. Ez for vampires

>gee I wonder what's going on in my favorite thread!

Tal'Mahe'Ra got BTFO'd by Stygia, not the maelstrom. Karma sure was a bitch to the Nagaraja -- all that Necromancy ended with them getting nuked into Oblivion. :^)

Bitch is lying about her age, Arikel was first of the thirds.

I am actually doing something somewhat very mildly relevant: planning on running a d20 modern game based off Gehenna, both because it seems like something I'd wanna do at some point, because it seems more fun if you're NOT a vampire, and that overall rioting vampires and The Thing are pretty good antagonists. Similarly, I wanna do a D&D setting in which The Thing is the basis for all organic life.

I wanna get back into Huwhyte Wolf RPGs but I already agreed long ago to do d20 and D&D campaigns; so I thought this would be a good intermediate step.

Does that detail change anything at all in regard to what I said? I don't really like the Tal'Mahe'Ra, I personally think they suck, I care for the powers that could be poached while they existed

Realistically speaking, most of their knowledge was probably lost with them, and those that it'd circulate around to wouldn't be able to make any use of it without a lot of work (e.g. enough diablerie to make even the entire Sabbat cringe in horror). If they managed to keep it and themselves secret for so long while playing puppeteer then I'm willing to bet that even their smallest scraps of knowledge'll be hell to find -- and I'm sure that any Kindred who survived the shitstorm to come has bigger concerns on their mind than digging up some old fart's memes down in the wreckage of the Shadowlands.

You could have any end game retardations the archmage suffers (ie. less than perfect gameplay) be caused by prolonged infection from contact with Malkav's diseased mind infecting his Mind 9 and Tzimisce's abhorrent essence infecting his Life 9 (if he has either).

Normally, it wouldn't be much of a threat to an archmage, but due to how the Tellurian is far more linked to him now than it was before, the prolonged contact and interaction could be warping him into something that is comprehensible enough to be directly contested in some fashion.

For Tzimisce, I would say Changeling dual specialist Illusionist/Transmuter (that's a thing), or if you like psionics, a Changeling Egoist (aka Psychometabolism). They can indeed do stuff like fleshcraft someone's body into the fetal position permanently so that their skin is basically a straitjacket.

Me personally, though, as the archmage isn't *completely* hostile, I think it could be interesting to have the PCs reach an accord with him (after facing and defeating certain partitions of him, perhaps in a dreamscape).

The Unnamed gets a metric *ton* of BS that an arete 10 PC wouldn't get.

My favorite concept for how a vampire coterie can bedevil mages is for him to create hosts of charmed and controlled flunkies that do not themselves have memories of him, but do have conditional contingencies of all sorts.

Optionally they could be ghouls, but as ghouls are sleepwalkers and if the mages are really smart might be able to extract vitae from their bodies for sympathetic casting, this would be less than helpful.

>pic

For what purpose

Essentially 100% of PCs would likely survive such an event, the only situation in which player characters would have been spirit nuked is if your game was primarily set in the underworld base, which... isn't gonna be the case unless you play wraith.

I personally just view it as one of those things like the Avatar Storm nixing the archmages -- I get what they're doing, but I doubt anyone will use it.

The question is: What sort of monstrosities did the surviving Archmages/Traditionalists within the Deep Umbra become after the Avatar Storm hit. Similar to Threat Null. We also have no word on the current status of Horizon.

That could be really interesting.

I find Threat Null vs the VEs to be probably the most artful case of "good vs bad Technocracy elements" since usually its handled too simplistically, but they actually do make Threat Null fairly interesting and distinct from just "Progenitors cast a spell to make meth bad for you xD"

>The Unnamed gets a metric *ton* of BS that an arete 10 PC wouldn't get.
Doesn't change the fact he'd already existed since before the Flood, was the first Awakened mage ever, and only had Arete 9 until he became the ruler of Creation. Or how Voormas, after he became the The Grand Harvester of Souls, only had Arete 9. I think it speaks for itself

Go back to the little murdertown, Bernkastel.

It means nothing in particular other than that they have issues with Seekings. I see no reason to think that the Unnamed or Voormas are people who inherently have their life together and who have conquered their personal demons and reached the pinnacle of self actualization, quite the opposite.

First question, Ascension or Awakening? That will color my response.

Not him but

>The party rapidly outpaced him as a threat as they raised Arete and Spheres

>I get what they're doing, but I doubt anyone will use it.

Much like the True Black Hand itself.

Hmmm... nice.

... that's what I get for skimming while eating. Thanks user.

So, Ascension-guy, let's see. If you haven't defined his clan yet, I could see this being easily a Ventrue (very stereotyped, but you get some intriguing options), a Brujah who is taking advantage of his background and upbringing, or a Setite (due to what he's doing, the cartel thing is a good Setite scheme).

If I were you, I'd go with a Setite. Having him have decreased his Generation via diablerie is a good start. If you're building him using VtM rules, I'd suggest looking into Setite Sorcey, their version of Thaumaturgy, for some choice stuff. Look into having him have maximum Presence (and if he's truly an elder/8th Generation or lower, perhaps an Elder Discipline like Love). That, or there are some choice combo powers that can both directly deal with, or subtly mess with, them as an enemy. Combo Powers like Espirit de Corps can be useful to rally lots of humans as a distraction, use One of Us to hide among their compatriots and friends to learn more about them, use Beneath Contempt to misdirect their anger towards him, all kinds of fun stuff. If you go Serpentis and he's a full Elder, you can get around a lot of stuff with Aspect of the God, get some powerful servants with Mother of Monsters, or you could make them do his own dirty work for him with Seed of Corruption.

Setites are also big on cult Herds of ineffectual minions who don't necessarily know they're a vampire's property. Classic villain shit.

Yeah, that trope's so common I didn't feel like bringing it up, since it's the easiest thing to turn the cartel's footsoldiers into. You also have the potential for the Setite to do some unusual things like sell out the Mages to other supernatural beings; trade up from a vampire to a Marauder?

Can Settite sorcery make a mage addicted to using magic?

I feel like the more snake thing would be to con players into thinking they're manipulating him against another enemy and don't want him dead.

I wouldn't see why not. Path of Corruption is a hell of a drug in and of itself, and there are some combo powers that Setites can take that manipulate people via Presence.

That's a good angle, honestly. Con the mages (and it'd be a good use for the Beneath Contempt power, since it's a big misdirection thing).

You misunderstood. The Elder is already built and been in game awhile, but the PCs have powerscaled right past him. I want an Antidiluvian or Methusaleh for him to devour, and wanted to know everyone's favorite canon ones.

I suggest having him diablerize some neonate minions of said elder or methuselah first, so he can wind up getting close to the full levels of the victim's disciplines instead of just half.

If he eats an Antediluvian then it's part of the Antediluvian's plan in some way most likely, as we can see with Saulot and Tremere. Methuselah is more feasible.

The campaign is edging toward the apocalyptic anyway, so including such a keikaku isn't a problem.

>I want an Antidiluvian or Methusaleh for him to devour, and wanted to know everyone's favorite canon ones.

Well my favorite is of course the Eldest, and being as it is that he can be anywhere (or everywhere) he is probably easy to find and diablerize if he wants to be.

It would be funny if someone diablerized Ravnos ahead of schedule and the (fairly dumb) frenzying ante that was nuked and sunburned was just a Chimerstry illusion.

Ah alright. That's fair. In that case, I personally like Malkav a lot, although that's likely due to liking Malkavians in general. In particular I like the interpretation that has him existing as the Madness Network that connects his childer -- normally it'd probably be impossible to diablerize an entity like that, but since it's a Mage game maybe you could have him get someone with enough dots in the relevant Spheres (probably Mind and Spirit?) to assist, or have him track down some sort of ancient Wonder that could aid him in the act. I could see it opening up a lot of doors for him as an antagonist given that MN connection such as him possessing the clan, subtly maneuvering them to carry out his will on a global scale, moving up to an abstract level that makes it more difficult for your players' cabal to directly combat him, etc.

Might as well have him diablerize a bit of the old shapeshifting too.

whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Sobek_(Abomination)

The current plan I'm considering has the Antidiluvian sealed in a church in Ethiopia with the Ark of the Covenant [which the PCs were already looking for] acting as a kind of dampening seal. Maybe Malkav has some kind of 'true form' there. Maybe his heart or something.
Can't, Werewolf isn't canon. Werewolves are, but I just made them up since I didn't know much about Apocalypse at the time.

>normally it'd probably be impossible to diablerize an entity like that

Of course, any antediluvian may play along with the charade of who overtook who for long enough for a chronicle.