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>Question
What was the oddest or least expected place your character ended up in during one of your chronicles?
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Beast Players' Guide thanks to a generous user back in sendspace.com
In a Requiem chronicle (actually a LARP, but...) a group of Nosferatu (one Ordo, one Crone, one Carthian) were independently investigating some things in the sewers, and crossed paths. Our investigations ended up leading us to what we affectionally termed the 'Sea of Shit,' which was a retired water treatment vat that had been abandoned. We ended up getting access purely by accident, but it led us to an old-ass, bricked up subway tunnel area. It became the Nosferatu Base of Operations for most of the rest of the chronicle, and was instrumental in my Ordo diablerizing (after a fashion) a leyline.
>Want your group to go to Hell
>All true magick is vulgar with witnesses
What the fuck? Why is it easier to go to Malfeas than it is to a High Umbra Hell?
I spent a considerable amount of time doing a rewrite of Beast to make it into a kind of story about playing a Lovecraftian horror, and this is basically 70-80% of my outline. I'm not sure how to feel about that.
Also, are we gonna talk about how, after getting so much wrong about characterizing Beasts as the Othered, we now have an entire class of Horror that is Fear of the Other?
I left out, we ended up IN the nasty water (not that any of us cared), and found a broken place in the wall that led to other areas, and we surfaced in a set of sealed-off old subway tunnels. We eventually created other entry points, but for months the 'Sea of Shit' was our entry to the Nosferatu secret base, more or less. The STs were amazed we did anything with it, but three experienced LARPers who embraced (no pun intended) the awfulness of Nosferatu and the simple fact of 'No one will follow us in THERE.'
I hate this form of writing. Like the DM/writer is jacking off under the table to his oh so clever cruelty.
>What was the oddest or least expected place your character ended up in during one of your chronicles?
In a basement on a cabin on the woods fighting a gimp lumberjack ghoul whose thick mustache went through his gimp mask.
>use Life to strengthen body's resistance and expand anal circumference
>tfw vampfag is subjected to anal vore
>world of /d/arkness
High Umbra is made of the mass awareness of mankidn (and whateverkind)
>Fear of the Other
Does that indicate OPP going further SJW insane, or going the OPPOSITE direction?
To be honest, "Sorry, buddy, this is hell" made me laugh. It's a cute gag.
It's cute. And I kinda picture Hell in MtAs working a bit like Gaiman's version in Sandman, where people are only there because they feel they need to be punished (or enough people believe they do). Is that close? I don't know much about MtAs but it'd be cool if that were the case.
>World of /d/arkness
>Mekhet can do anything they want in public via obfuscate
>cuz cults are only barely related to mages, and the mage cult thing is basically about being able to benefit from it while remaining almost totally separate
Mages are all about cults, with their Crytopolies, Labyrinths and whatnot. Mages are the quintessential cult leaders, for no other reason tham they're human and so powerful.
Sounds largely fitting
First for requesting Demon Enemy Action.
>Mages are the quintessential cult leaders, for no other reason tham they're human and so powerful.
Eh, probably more of a mummy, beast, or demon thing. Mages are more like the quintessential secret genesis for another cult.
No in canon Mage the 'hells' aren't afterlives.
Really Mages are more the people propping up those cults.
Having to actually devote a lot of time to personally running the day-to-day of a cult is no Mage's idea of a good time when they could instead pop in on occasion and then fuck off to chase Mysteries.
Which is why the Mystery Cult, and more importantly Mystery Cult Influence merits are so good for Mages, and little else is needed.
It is kind of funny, but it's also simultaneously lame that the rules are that harsh. Same with High Umbra Heaven and the "no matter who are you die when you attack heaven's gates" bullshit. A High Umbra Heaven should not have such power.
The Mage merit allows a mage to control an entire cult of his choosing, all behind the scenes with no accountability.
The nuts and bolts are irrelevant.
Mage Cult Supremacy!
It indicates them being completely tone deaf, is what it does. One of the examples is a homeless Beast who scares people with the fear of... The homeless. That's his big thing; he feeds on people's fear of him. Which... Ostensibly means he is incentivized to perpetuate that fear, rather than abate it.
It's an entire Family of Beasts whose biggest incentive is to increase, enhance, and confirm fearful prejudices and stereotypes.
It's every terrible idea they had before, revived.
Some people do go to the fake heavens and hells of mages and find largely what they expect.
If I were a mystery cult member in the CofD (which seems to be the norm), I'd definitely want to be in a Pentacle cult.
Serving the "nice" mages seems much better than the alternatives, and if the mystic shit hits the fan, they'll probably be the most suited to save your mortal ass.
>World of /d/arkness
Remember, vampires can't swallow without throwing up later. So be a nice little blood doll and cum on their faces instead.
>Remember, vampires can't swallow without throwing up later. So be a nice little blood doll and cum on their faces instead.
These are the moments when I'm glad no one on Veeky Forums has vast supernatural powers.
Beasts have always been primarily negative influences. Some justify it by that they usually let their victims go home. No one should be surprised by this anymore.
Is "Family Ties" the only thing preventing a vast Beast genocide by other supernaturals?
As a Vampfag I wouldn't mind going out this way
Also lack of personal interest.
Sure there's this big threat to a bunch of humans.
Is it a threat to your humans? Right now?
Even if it is, why go out of your way to hunt them all down?
Can you even? Don't they just spontaneously occur?
They don't HAVE to be, though. Beasts and their Horrors are ultimately part of the human psyche - they rise from the lowest layer of the Temenos - and that means they can be a potentially positive influence. You just need to find some way to reward and incentivize that, for both players AND their characters.
For example, Beasts regain Satiety by causing fear, but what if they gain Beats by teaching their Lesson? Consider, for example, one of these new Fear of the Outsider Beasts targeting people who are reacting with prejudice to a new neighbour. Perhaps they manifests as a kind of monster from the legends of the new neighbour's culture and haunt the prejudiced folks and drive them mad until the neighbour steps in and uses an old myth to "drive off" the Beast.
Or something. I dunno. I think teaching lessons through fear and pain is shitty, it's basically the justification of abusers, but it's something.
>A High Umbra Heaven should not have such power.
Why not? The High Umbra Heaven is the realm of the God Celestine, and he's up there as one of the most powerful Celestines in the Tellurian
Them being largely incomprehensible, having no real easy way to be discovered, extremely powerful, and walking WMDs that are best not provoked to their terrible wrath also help.
If they particularly wanted to, they can impose Lair Traits (killing absolutely everyone and everything) before arriving at a destination, for example.
Mildly creeping people out is very minor compared to what they do if they start getting nervous (such as "fucking murdering everyone in the town by imposing lair traits").
I would typically prefer to feed through Family Dinner whenever possible. I generally ignore the "teaching peoples lessons" and "heroes are usually unjustifiable" elements.
But I define ephemera usually as being more positive or negative, not really good or evil, but in terms of just plain how pleasant/unpleasant their influence is directly. They can of course have a NET positive effect, naturally.
It only takes one Master to ES Unmake a Beast
There's multiple Heavens though, so why
should one have a Celestine status entity?
And the 'God' Celestine in the High Umbra is speculated to begin with.
You can kill a beast with guns. That's not the point.
heh, corr 3 ban paradox
nothing personal, umbra
>previous thread consists nearly entirely of tremere obsessed vampfags upset over mage and changeling mechanics crapping on them
Let's not repeat this.
Beasts are difficult to root out, relatively few in number, and lack the kind of large scale social structure you find with vampires, wolves, mages, changelings, and so on. And they don't even do all that much damage to humanity on a macro or micro scale, especially when compared to, say, vampires.
While it might be worthwhile to hunt down and get rid of a single particularly bad beast, hunting them all down isn't feasible, and if it were, why would you ever use that kind of firepower and not get rid of vampires, the Pure, or mageposters?
At least we got over 20 posters. And somebody shared the damn Beast book, finally
>now entirely consists of NuWod beastfags talking about the most boring splat other than Hunter
Let's repeat this.
>Let's not repeat this.
We have no choice. Have you not fucking paid attention the past year?
Beasts largely serve to keep their horrors (truly awful goetia) calm and fed in mostly or entirely harmless fashions. Trying to kill all goetia of hurt feelings is a largely futile gesture.
>boring
If you can't figure out how to make these dudes exciting you have serious problems.
>NuWoD
>Otherkin
Yeah, I'm the one with serious problems...
Most Goetia can't wander into the phenomenal, and don't have manifestations.
I mean, they can still go into your Oneiros either way.
you forgot the werewolf's godlike imaginary friend
If you don't like being The Thing mixed with a Starburst commercial I don't know what to tell you bro.
What would one look like, anyway?
>Getting rid of the pure
What I don't understand is that there are five tribes of the moon, and three pure tribes- But the books say that the pure outnumber the other tribes?
Also the fact that you rarely hear about the pure in the other splats, despite them outnumbering normal werewolves.
probably like ditto (the pokemon)
The three pure tribes are very large. That's not too much an issue. What I don't get is how, since the Pure have to kidnap newly changed Ghost Wolves to rip their auspices out they are at a disadvantage since every werewolf at the start is technically Forsaken
>Also the fact that you rarely hear about the pure in the other splats, despite them outnumbering normal werewolves.
Yeah that always bugged me. You'd think the Predator Kings, as the ultimate violent, live in the wilderness and hunt whatever is strong wolf stereotype, would probably have the most friction with other splats.
Speculation backed up by tons of belief and FAITH fed throughout the entire Tellurian.
Sorry shit for brains (that better for you?), no storming Heaven. Even a theoretical one.
>The Thing mixed with a Starburst commercial
marvelous character concept
I totally ignore the Pure in my games and largely find the vagaries of preferred prey, flesh vs spirit, and what kind of totem spirit, possible spirit packmates, and locus they might frequent enough.
So what's the difference between the player's guide and the core-book?
>tons of belief and faith
>implying Mages don't daily fight against the tide of belief and faith, paradox
How much of a slaphead do you have to be, Phil?
Landscapes and spirits beings representing a shared consciousness autistic levels of belief having power in a game in which the PCs have power, in part... through autistic levels of belief and in part stemming from a shared consciousness and/or spirit beings seems like a good reason to have an area be pretty powerful.
I'd vaguely try to describe it as that Beest core is mostly about nightmares, location based and environmental based scenarios, and interactions between characters, while BPG is more about the unearthly cosmology and permutations of astral ephemera (including of course horrorspawn).
Isn't faith in God dying rapidly in the World of Darkness? Demon the Fallen at least seemed to imply that from what I remember.
What's it look like to a Sleeper when they see a mage with 6+ Gnosis
The idea is that though there are five tribes of Forsaken, they are smaller by total population than the Pure. The other splats in general don't draw a distinction between Forsaken and Pure - they are all sweaty, muscular homosexuals after all, their political ideologies don't matter.
I think when you read most splats stereotypes of werewolves, it's easy to reread them as if most anyone's interaction is actually with the Pure. The stereotype of being ultra violent furry terrorists who talk to tree ghosts is blanket enough to cover both.
I'd have definitely said Forsaken.
>pure waging genocidal war on mages
>mage books written from perspective that all werewolves are forsaken
>mfw Celestines are hinted to be the very first shards of the Pure Ones, greater and more pure than the splinters which humanity possesses
mages are not even special in that regard, they're paler, weaker and more mundane facsimiles, no wonder some powerful spirits have access to better magick and magefags are pissy about that
In what context?
Their nimbus would be astonishingly strong. And yes the sleepers would notice things like all the electronics in the area go on the fritz when the mage is present or that flowers burst into bloom in their presence.
But the mage would just look like some dude. Assuming they haven't yet gone off the deep end of Wisdom and turned themselves into like some kind of crab monster or whatever.
>completely irrelevant response
>directly targeted at magefags
I'm just going to assume you're still pissy from the last thread.
Depending on my PC's temperament, my favorite thing in owod, besides blood magic shenanigans, has got to be beelining for the (mind thingy realm??), lower umbra, or paradise.
The problem is many mages may suffer extreme pain while in paradise due to having to deal with a Chad Celestine.
>people actually pretend there's a Celestine splat
Eh I enjoy these little spoonfeedings of owod lore, God knows I will never bother to look through that stuff again (unless they release W20 merits)
He/she is trying to derail the thread again. Remind me why Mage fags are the ones constantly blamed for this?
It was meant to be a reply to this: an explanation of why mages couldn't just do what they wanted to the realms of more powerful entities
RUNDOWN OF BEAST PLAYERS' GUIDE:
>Table of Contents is five pages long because what is brevity
>Chapter 1: Being A Beast
>a dozen pages on the Devouring, Horror, Feeding, powers, the Lair, Anathema, Broods and other shit you know if you've read the core book
>Chapter 2: Families & Hungers
>descriptions of the seven families and hungers
>wait, seven instead of five?
>that's right user, there's two new of each
>but why are those described AFTER the short writeups on these things?
>because fuck you, that's why
>new Families are the Inguma, Nightmares of the Other, and Talassii, Nightmares of Confinement
>new Hungers are Whispers, Hunger for Secrets and Enablers, Hunger for Transgression
>Chapter 3: Unleashing the Horror
>three Atavisms for both new Families each, two new ones for each old one
>new Nightmares include The walls have eyes, They don't love you, They put something in your food, They walk among us, This is due tomorrow, We're going down!, You can't dig it out, You don't have a face, You're one of us, You were never right
>new Kinship nightmares for the other splats
>two alternate Birthrights for all Families
>new Merits including the magic phone calls to anything remotely resembling a phone, a customized vehicle with increased stats, the ability to give your Horror access to Numina and Influence but your Horror engages in shenanigans, access to a cult, a variety of Merits to upgrade your Lair and new Kinship Merits if you have a vampire/werewolf/mage/changeling/ghost friend
>magical rituals with a variety of effects
>Horrorspawn are critters that can help you, and have to either be made or obtained via a Merit, which makes them permanent
>you either have to produce them sexually or by losing part of yourself and trying to incubate that: the first works automatically and the second requires a Resolve + Composure - the Horrorspawn's Power roll, which can get difficult at higher levels
>once done you incubate the result for a time linked to your Lair rating: the higher the Lair the shorter the duration
>a Horrorspawn can be either an incorporeal creature limited to its Lair/Hive, but they tend to cause amok when done so
>you can give it a living or dead body for the Horrorspawn to inhabit, but they decay over a period of time from 1 month to 12 hours depending on its Potency (decide on that when you make one)
>Horrorspawn have simplified attributes (Power/Finesse/Resistance), lighter versions of the Beast's traits and no powers of its own: it gets to pick from a list of Dread Powers, which includes access to the Beast's Atavisms
>Family and Hunger do not grant bonuses
>Chapter 4: In The Company of Monsters
>worldbuilding for beasts and the nature of the Lessons they teach
>rules for Cults that are kind of limited in scope aside from Cults having Integrity on their own (not higher than 5) and Heralds, the Beasts' sidekicks who get a few bonuses
>more options for Lairs
>rules for messing around in the Primordial Dream and some more lore on the Dark Mother
It's funny. The closest thing to an actual Celestine: The God-ening is actually Ascension, per Masters of the Art.
>three new Inheritances: Divergence, separating the Beast from the Horror
>Erasure, which has the Beast obtain a secondary soul from somewhere and attune to it, avoid merging with your Horror when entering your Lair, sneaking through while avoiding its effects and somehow killing your Horror in a single blow
>roll highest Finesse + Resistance - Lair VS the Horror's Power + Resistance - Satiety
>if you lose you die, if you win the secondary soul dies instead and you lose your Atavisms and can only build Satiety by consuming their flesh or blood, but they won't like you and Horrors will attack on sight. You can also never become any other supernatural
>Inversion, which has you figure out how to make your own Anathema and use it against your Horror to pin it in place and make it inert until a Hero (and only a Hero) pulls the Anathema out, which kills you immediately. If you lose the fight you might undergo the Retreat Inheritance instead
>so what do these all have in common? Not even Beast players want to play Beast
>also actual rules for the Incarnate Inheritance because those were missing last time
Overall? A good addition to Beast that, if included in the base game, would've made Beast quite a bit more interesting. Will this convince you to play Beast if you don't like it? No. Will you like this if you already like Beast? Oh yes.
>the one splat where the literal point is to become God tier
>people get mad when Mages try to reach for it
Thank yee for the rundown
how bout' them dick eggs
I give my vote, as always, on MotA Umbrood Archmages or Anakim/DtF crossovers as the most obvious big boys club.
Alternately, maybe some sort of WtA/CtL big boys club (with uber powerful Dreaming creatures being produced rather than necessarily common changelings).
Blood magic is probably my favorite element but it doesn't have any sort of obvious tie in with anything amicable.
Neato.
So when they give the horrorspawn a body in the material world, they mean something that will look like a humanoid zombie, not a materialized horrorspawn, right? And are there any particular rules you can tell for giving it a body already in use?
As someone who kind of likes Beast, I think it's a pretty good book.
But lord, did we really need Fear of Black People and Fear of Rape as families?
source on image?
>Thaumaturgical Path of Karma, Master of Samsara
>"set the circumstances of his own next incarnation..." "A sadhu who uses Master of Samsara often takes a rather casual attitude to the prospect of Final Death, since the sadhu has already selected a comfortable next incarnation."
>"I will reincarnate as a Celestine"
>celestine-splat
>Fear of Rape as families?
YES
Josef Fritzl simulator of the year
Yeah. Sure. I will also reincarnate as God too. That way he HAS to kill himself in order for me to reincarnate as him.
Both are extremely prominent. First was encountered even in places where people weren't even aware of negros' existence.
>Yeah. Sure. I will also reincarnate as God too. That way he HAS to kill himself in order for me to reincarnate as him.
Calm down buddy, it's completely fair to reincarnate as a spirit, many splats do (even canon vampires already did)
>Demon: I wonder how long I could keep one in my basement...
Wow, their Birthright really is rapey, they just plain ruin people they spend large quantities of time with.
Not really sure what productive use beyond long term child abuse, rape, etc. that'd have. It doesn't, say, help you keep them from breaking out (since that'd be power/finesse draining)
No. It's entirely valid. I could reincarnate as God per RAW of that spell.
Would it be difficult to turn The Weaver, The Wyld, and The Wurm into Maeljin in Werewolf the Forsaken 2nd edition? Also, what kind of things would Pentex be doing?
About as sensible as using Matter 5 to create the "God Substance", mhmm. Not saying you can't. But no ST is going to allow that, or the aforementioned Path do its thing.
There was a Spirit 5 / Entropy ? rote similar to this in 2e.
What would they add as Maeljin in Forsaken? Same with Pentex. The concepts of Forsaken revolve around the spirit world, which does reflect the Physical World, but doesn't have the same level of connections that it does in OWoD.