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Prak
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Post by Prak » Mon Jun 15, 2009 6:41 am

> CatharzGodfoot wrote:So how fucking twisted is it if the Sabbat are the ones with a major lockdown on resurrecting people and the torturing them for information? Makes a lot of sense why they'd all be wearing amulets depicting torture devices, anyway.

heh, that works.

> As for humanity and the deadly venom, it would probably just mean that most Ventrue don't bite to get blood. Which is kinda sad, actually.

Actually that kinda adds to the image of decadence, if Ventrue are drinking blood from goblets...
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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Mon Jun 15, 2009 4:56 pm

> CatharzGodfoot wrote:So how fucking twisted is it if the Sabbat are the ones with a major lockdown on resurrecting people and the torturing them for information? Makes a lot of sense why they'd all be wearing amulets depicting torture devices, anyway.

With the Sabbat being a covenant, I don't see how they could have a lockdown on much of anything power-wise. While they could certainly have more necromancers than other covenants by having some sort of regional distribution where more Khaibit and Golems happened to live in areas that were under Sabbat domination than other places - nothing is going to stop the Carthians or the World Crime League from having staff necromancers.
The Cult that gives out easy Necromancy access is the Giovanni. And while they can have a predilection for dealing with the Sabbat, and they certainly originate in a Sabbat dominated area, they are now a world cult and have members in the New World Order. We don't have to throw in anything as crazy as the Mlliners and Li Weng, but their interests seem very much in line with the World Crime League, so it's hard to think that they would restrict themselves to one Covenant.

> As for humanity and the deadly venom, it would probably just mean that most Ventrue don't bite to get blood. Which is kinda sad, actually.

First of all, I could see having a humanity stat. But frankly it would have to look absolutely nothing like the oWoD or nWoD path/humanity trait. So it would probably be easier to just drop the whole concept and move on. nWoD's attempt to impose universal morality was a failure, and oWoD's experiment with subjective morality was just fucking useless.
Now as for having deadly venom, that's just not in the cards at all. The whole point is to bite people in the neck and drink their blood. If you can't do that, I don't want to talk to you as a "vampire." Furthermore, since Daeva get vampire bat mouths, they also have poison fangs. Because vampire bats also have poison and fangs. The real question is what a Nosferatu mouth looks like, because their mouths are classically required simply to be monstrous in some general way. I could see anything up to and including crazy shit like leech or lamprey mouths.
As for the specifics of blending the genteel draculesque vampire and the snake vampire - I suggest Lair of the White Worm because that movie seamlessly integrates the concepts. It really doesn't even seem like a stretch.
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Prak
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Post by Prak » Mon Jun 15, 2009 9:51 pm

> FrankTrollman wrote:Now as for having deadly venom, that's just not in the cards at all. The whole point is to bite people in the neck and drink their blood. If you can't do that, I don't want to talk to you as a "vampire." Furthermore, since Daeva get vampire bat mouths, they also have poison fangs. Because vampire bats also have poison and fangs. The real question is what a Nosferatu mouth looks like, because their mouths are classically required simply to be monstrous in some general way. I could see anything up to and including crazy shit like leech or lamprey mouths.

Well, the traditional nosferatu mouth set up is the vampire bat like two front teeth fangs that don't pierce, but rather cut the skin, such that they then lap the blood up. But if Daeva are going to get that (why?) then I suppose the Nos can't.
However, the Nos are the clan I could seriously see ripping their prey open to get at the blood, whether they pull twilight shit and rip their prey apart, or have shark teeth that tear big holes to let the blood flow, I think both fit them very well.
(Yes, I know it seems odd that in this case I'm actually favouring a twilight aspect, but since these are the ugly-vamps, I'm perfectly fine with it, as in my mind it's an actual insult to twilight)
I think that a leech/lamprey thing, while it could be interesting, I'm kinda... meh on it... if Nos just manifest "a" haemavoric animal mouth and it kinda differs (but is purely flavour, of course) then I think it works fine... some have vampire bat mouths, some have lamprey/leech mouths, some have spider fangs hidden in their mouths, and some fucking have vampire squid beaks in their mouths, and there are of course other possibilities. It could also be conceivable to link nosferatu to, say, spiders, since they live fairly similarly, and I think the wall climbing abilities of vamps kinda started with Nos. style vamps, did it not? This makes our other bug type a bit easier to figure out, I suppose, since then we'd have spider people and could make the people that are supposed to be all about bugs be about beetles, with out worrying too much about throwing out one of the biggest arthropod symbols in myth.
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Post by Username17 » Mon Jun 15, 2009 10:28 pm

> Prak wrote: Well, the traditional nosferatu mouth set up is the vampire bat like two front teeth fangs that don't pierce, but rather cut the skin, such that they then lap the blood up. But if Daeva are going to get that (why?) then I suppose the Nos can't.

That depends upon how far back you go. European and Asian vampires only had any vampire bat affectations relatively recently because Vampire Bats are a New World animal. So while there are Inca and Aztec legends of humans with vampire bat parts who drink blood going back thousands of years, those elements have only been incorporated into Eurasian lore in the last couple of centuries.
Classic Eurasian vamps have had serpent fangs, boar tusks, lamprey mouths, and mosquito tongues. But the vampire bat thing is an Aztec port.
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Prak
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Post by Prak » Mon Jun 15, 2009 10:39 pm

even more reason for the Nos. to have "non-standard" mouths. As I said, I personally prefer them not universally having lamprey mouths.
So, hell, Daeva (only) (specifically) having bat connections makes a lot of sense now that you point that out, and Ventrue can easily be snake themed, and nos are looking like this version of the game's furry vamps, so I like the idea of them having variable mouths.
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Post by Judging__Eagle » Tue Jun 16, 2009 12:17 am

Hmm.... New World Vamps: Vamp Bats; Calculating Genius Vamps: Snakes; Monster Vamps: Spiders/Lampreys/Mosquitos/Ticks....
I'd say to give Nossies free choice on their mouth parts; but they cannot have fangs like a snake, nor fangs like a vampire bat.
Putting Snakes, Vampire Bats, and Spiders as the vampire flavours. Damn, those are actually pretty creepy, all three of those creatures bug a lot of people.
Spiders and snakes I don't mind irl, but vampire bats can carry rabies, so I'm more apprehensive about them.
Now, bats are in general really cool, and fruit foxes are just most cuddly things and love getting skritches on their tummies and heads. Likewise, the insectivore bats that live around here are frankly awesome, when I was in boy scouts we didn't build bird houses, but bat hoses......
Maybe Nossies have the most variation b/c they're considered useful, so more of them survive. I'm not sure how to work that angle though. Maybe they're able to survive in conditions that would kill a Daeva or Ventrue?
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Post by Grek » Tue Jun 16, 2009 12:45 am

For the Venture have venom for blood thing that was going around, the same effect can be had by saying that Ventrue cannot bite someone without killing them or turning them into a vampire. If they don't want to kill someone, they have to cut them and make them bleed into a jar or a cup or get one of those blood drawing kits from a hospital and use that on someone, which is very very slow.

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Post by IB90 » Tue Jun 16, 2009 1:38 am

Vampire bat saliva is an anticoagulant, while snake venom (at least cobra venom, which I think is what we should go with) is a neurotoxin. I'd also like to point that a snake can easily bite you without injecting any venom. Snakes almost never use their venom on prey, but save it for threats.
I don't think having Ventrue bites kill people automatically is a good idea. Dracula fed on Lucy multiple times after all. However, drinking blood from goblets is a good thing.
Also, Nagas have historically been tied to water. Having Ventrue being given the ability to turn into mist, and maybe some water based taboos, could be based off of that. Of course, this could be venturing into territory best reserved for the fish men.
***
Nosferatu being based on Count Orlok, it may be a good idea to make them more vulnerable to sunlight than regular vampires. Also, they probably have more blood urges than the others. If someone pricks their thumb in a Nosferatu's presence, it is going to want to drink. A Nosferatu may get so caught up in the feeding process that they forget that the sun is about to rise.
***
One last thing, naming conventions. New vampires are probably going to pick some sort of stupid name to call themselves. Eventually they grow out of it after being ridiculed sufficiently. However, older, more powerful vampires will often come up with names for themselves. This is because they are able to kill just about anyone who refuses to call them "Baron von Badass" or "The Lotus of the Bloody Sunset" or whatever. A tougher vampire is still probably going to call them Melvin, though.
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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Wed Jun 17, 2009 4:17 pm

-baleted-
Last edited by Username17 on Wed Jun 17, 2009 8:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Manxome » Wed Jun 17, 2009 7:41 pm

> FrankTrollman wrote:The locations of truly epic firestorms have left certain portals that waive these restrictions for supernatural creatures of a Potency eq

Looks truncated.
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Post by Username17 » Wed Jun 17, 2009 8:55 pm

True. How's this:

The World(s) of Darkness
Limbo: The Dark Reflection
“You can go to hell!”
“We can't. Not alone...”
A long time ago, some people fucked up really bad and parts of the human world started to fall into the fires of The Dark Reflection. Nobody's quite sure exactly when or what - some say that it was the cinders of the atomic fires of Oklo, while others say it is the ancient truth contained in the myth of Prometheus and the Scriptural references to Gehenna; some that men merely merely opened the doorway into the world of ashes; others say that it was men that started the unquenchable fire that begat The Dark Reflection.
Practically everything found in Limbo was first wrought by humans, and then destroyed by fire. Everywhere in the Dark Reflection there are always remnants of human habitation, and everywhere in the dark reflection, there are always smoke and ashes. Yet it is exceedingly rare to encounter men still living nor open flames still burning. The ground is littered with sooty broken glass: smashed bottles, shattered windows, and shards of obsidian lie on every surface. The dusty surfaces seem dull, and rarely cast a reflection. When they do, they seem more of a window back to the mortal realm, a cruel reminder of where the onlooker is and where they could be.
The Dark Reflection is home to what the unenlightened would call demons, ifrit and shinma. All of them endeavor merely to survive long enough to escape. Survival is a brutal matter of scavenging amongst the cinders and preying upon the weaker residents. Escape is more difficult, never more than a temporary respite: for each of the dwellers of The Dark Reflection carry the seed of the unquenchable fire within them, and any who escape are doomed to one day start a blaze which will drag another piece of the human world back into The Dark Reflection.
Getting to the Dark Reflection
“Fire doesn't cleanse, it blackens.”
Natural passage in and out of the Dark Reflection is almost always through fires or mirrored surfaces, and it is the latter possibility that gives it its name. Sometimes when something is burned, a rend between the mortal world and the Dark Reflection is left in its place. This is most likely to happen when the burnt thing in question was a source of security such as the wall of a family home or school, or a child's blanket. Once a character has been to the Dark Reflection even once, these portals appear far more commonly in their presence for the rest of their lives. Those who have been to the Dark Reflection often find themselves avoiding mirrors for fear that they will find the profane staring back at them.
Sorcerous means to enter and escape the Dark Reflection can be found in most Infernal paths. Leaving the Dark Reflection is difficult for magical creatures. Whether traveling by sorcery or through a gateway, moving from the Deep to the Shallow or from the Shallow to the Mortal World requires one to make a make a Resistance Test (Social if attempting to traverse a summoning, Mental if attempting to pass through a mirror gate, or Physical if attempting to navigate a burnt rend in space) with a Threshold equal to their own Potency. If returning to a known place, the storyteller may award a bonus of 1-5 dice to the escape attempt depending upon how familiar one is with the location. Summoning rituals and special gate preparations can add additional bonus dice in addition to allowing for an Escape Test at all. This can render the Dark Reflection a near inescapable prison for the very powerful. For example, The King With Three Shadows has a Potency of 10 and suffers from a name binding that further raises his escape threshold to 15. The locations of truly epic firestorms have left certain portals that waive these restrictions for supernatural creatures of a Potency equal to or less than their Rating.
Things to do in Limbo
“It's being invaded by the Otherworld. By a world of someone's nightmarish delusions come to life.”
The majority of natives of the Dark Reflection are Fey and Demons. These beings are generally pretty uncooperative and rarely are on good terms with any of the major covenants. The King of Three Shadows has a strong presence in Limbo, and his covenant has substantially more territory than any other there. World War II created copies virtually intact of several cities in Limbo, and many of them are used by one or more supernatural groups as bases of operation. The firestorms of Dresden created a dusty and scorched copy of that place in the Dark Reflection which is even now used by members of the Sabbat who refused to accept the defeat of the Axis as a base of operation to train a demon army to someday retake the human world. The Rape of Nanking left a level 5 portal to a reflection of the city of Nanjing that is mostly used as a smuggling port by the World Crime League.
Not everything in Limbo is a supernatural creature. There are some real humans there, and they are sad people. Food is scarce in the Dark Reflection, and the nightmarish imagery is usually enough to drive those who fall into Limbo to madness and depravity. Most become demonic pawns. However, demonic pawn or not, a human has no Potency and can pass through the narrowest of portals. All too often, by the time they reach an egress they are already committed to serving dark lords by kidnapping other humans from the mortal world and then returning to the land of their torment.
The Gloom
“Some people believe that when you die there is a wonderful light. As bright as the sun but it doesn't hurt to look into it. All the answers to all the questions you want to know are inside that light. Truth is... there is no light. Only darkness.”
The Gloom has been around forever. Some say that it is space itself and the big bang created the human world as a tiny mote within the gloom, while others say that the Gloom is the force of entropy to which all things shall return in The End. Whatever the case, The Gloom is supernaturally cold and dark. Nothing grows here and everything that lives within The Gloom is hungry all of the time. All the plants are carnivorous and all the insects are parasitic.
The Gloom is home to what the unenlightened would call ghosts, wendigos, and vampires. All of them endeavor to draw prey in from the human world where they may drain the blood, life, and warmth from it to feed their insatiable hungers. The true horror is that such victims do not rest in peace, but instead rise driven by the need to recover the blood, life and warmth that was taken from them - in an ever growing cycle of futility.
Getting to Mictlan
“Have you ever been killed before? I'll be back in a minute.”
Portals to The Gloom are called “wells” and each one is filled with darkness. The most effective portals are holes in the ground filled with shadow and water – literal wells. However in some cases a well will appear which is just a hole filled with water or shadow. In addition, pretty much everyone goes to Mictlan just by dying. Upon death, a person becomes a ghost, but n most cases they don't seem to last very long. While some ghosts (especially the ghosts of Luminaries) kick around pretty much indefinitely, this being the World of Darkness it seems most likely that ghosts simply unravel and fade into oblivion. The land of the dead is indeed a super depressing place. Sorcerous means of entering The Gloom are found in Orphic magic paths.
While in the Deeper Gloom, all Ghosts are solid, able to be seen and to exert force upon objects. In the Shallow Gloom and to an even greater extent in the mortal world this is not reliably true. So it is that many Ghosts essentially cannot get anything done in the mortal world even if they escape Mictlan through a Well. So while there is no barrier to exit The Gloom as there is for the Dark Reflection, the primary residents mostly do not leave even when they can.
Things to do in the Gloom
“It was their hands that built this city of ours, Father. But where do the hands belong in your scheme? ”
“In their proper place, the depths.”
Soulless bodies sink into Mictlan fairly regularly, whereupon they are animated by the hungry energies of The Gloom and become wandering zombies. The dusty plains of Mictlan are pretty dangerous for travelers because of this. The Gloom has been around for a long time, and walls erected don't seem to fall down often in the cold stillness of the land of eternal night. Over the millennia many people have found time to erect buildings and even cities. Many of these stand vacant, mute testament to the fact that long ago someone cared enough to build them. However, some are still in use. The Shattered Empire has several such cities, usually corresponding to places where no city or even point of interest stands in the Mortal World. Others are less ambitious, where the Giovanni have a castle in the Gloom Shadow of Venice.
There does not appear to be any specific fixed limit to how long a Ghost can persist in The Gloom. So even though most last only very short amounts of time, it is entirely possible that any particular historical figure still exists somewhere in Mictlan. Some Ghosts, unhappy with the idea of wandering through a frozen desert for all eternity have taken the time to put up buildings and even societies. The largest such Ancestor City is at about the same place as Beijing.
Maya: The Dreamlands
“Everybody's got to dream, young girl. If you don't dream, ya go crazy.”
“Go crazy? Don't mind if I do!”
The Dreamlands are a wild and inhospitable place filled with fetid jungles and monstrous beasts. Overgrown with dreadful, implacable, and nightmarish life in all world correspondences – even those in the far north and south of the planet (though it still gets wicked cold at extreme latitudes). No one really knows if Maya is a construct of subconscious thought or the manifestation of a distant world that exists independently of our own. What is clear is that Maya is connected to the dreams of the frightened and the suffering. The goings on in this world seem somewhat unreal even for those who have traveled to it in the flesh, and the native inhabitants are strange and otherworldly even by the standards set by other supernatural creatures.
The Deep Maya does not even have climactic similarities with its Mortal World correspondences. It boasts floating rocks and sideways waterfalls. And monstrous beasts. And psychic plants. There are few reasons for the sane to want to go to the Deep Maya even though it is wondrous and beautiful in its alien and unforgiving fashion.
Getting to Maya
“If you die in your dreams, you make me a sandwich.”
Perhaps the easiest way to get to The Dreamlands is to go to sleep. While not even a small fraction of dreamers are transported across the barrier, it is nonetheless possible for virtually anyone to make the passage while they are sleeping. A dreamer's physical body remains where it is while the consciousness projects into Maya. If the person dies in the Dreamlands, the body dies as well. If the body dies, the dreamer is lost in Maya indefinitely and becomes a Jalus. There are places where the barrier between Maya and the sleeping mind is weaker. Generally speaking, places with horrible personal murders are more conducive to slipping people across into the nightmare realm. Impersonal deaths, such as natural disasters and battles make the barrier more difficult to cross. Physical gateways, though rare, also exist. They are always circles of something, and one crosses the boundary by entering and then exiting the circle. Circles of mushrooms or trees are fairly common as gateways go, but theoretically it could be a circle of anything. In any case, these gateways only function when the moon is visible. Sorcerous means of entering the Dreamlands are found in Astral Sorceries.
Things to do in The Dreamlands
“We shall build a tower that shall reach to the stars.”
The majority of inhabitants of Maya are neither human nor derived from human stock. Massive monsters stalk the lands and even the plants themselves chitter with an otherworldly malevolence. The Evil Plants mostly don't speak to travelers in Maya. They can speak telepathically, but they mostly choose not to do so. The Giant Animals mostly simply attempt to devour anything they come across. While delicious fruit and clearish water are available year round and in great quantity, The Dreamlands have the least expatriot civilization from the Mortal world of all the other worlds.
Not everything in this dimension is from another world however. Sometimes tribes of Jalus congregate together. And for reasons unknown The Marduk Society has been growing an Arcanotower in the Brasil Correspondence for some time. They patrol that area and keep it mostly clear of Giant Animals, but the Evil Plants seem to be allowed free reign to enter the compound.

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CatharzGodfoot
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Post by CatharzGodfoot » Wed Jun 17, 2009 9:15 pm

Very very naiçe.
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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Wed Jun 17, 2009 9:44 pm

Tiered non-playables?
OK, here's a big question: is it more useful or more confusing for the non-playables to come in tiers? Because it is both useful and confusing. The first thing is good, the second bad.
Here's the logic: when you come across non-playables, some of them are the supernatural equivalent of cars full of cops or even packs of dogs; others are player character equivalents or even boss monsters. The ability to visually identify that you are dealing with a shambling horde of inept walking corpses versus dealing with a powerful wight is useful to the players and it is useful to the verisimilitude of accompanying scenes. On the other hand, the distinctions are one more fucking thing to remember.
The untiered version is that when you make a powerful version of something, you simply jack its powers and/or Potency up and give it an Edge stat and call it a day. Even though a zombie starts at the level of a normal human or even slightly lower than that, if you bumped its stats up and gave it a bunch of disciplines it could potentially be a boss monster all its own. And while that fits in the framework of the rest of the game easily, it may cause cognitive dissonance when you run through twenty zombies as chainsaw heroes only to fight boss fight against a single zombie.
So for example, one could have a two fold or threefold cut of categories. Amongst the Fey the Mirror Goblins are pretty much human-level (or less) with a discipline or three, so they can show up in substantial numbers and still get taken down en masse by the PCs. However, a Spriggan or Troll would have a lot more powers at its disposal and would be expected to be the equal or more of a normal supernatural. You could look at a Mirror Goblin and know you were dealing with something that was bullshit on the scale of supernatural badassery and look at a Spriggan ad know that you were not. Similarly when you look at a Zombie: the shambling groaning corpse is just chainsaw bait but the dude with burning glowing eyes has player-challenging levels of bad assery.
So, is that helpful enough to be worth doing or is it burdensome on conceptual space enough to not be worth doing?
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Post by virgil » Wed Jun 17, 2009 11:30 pm

Thoughts that pop into my head with those questions...
In the nontiered scenario, it would be really hard for me to not include burning eyes (or other non-type trait) to that zombie boss monster, or just look for a way to narratively elevate that upgraded monster. Thus, they're going to be able to pick the super-zombie out of a police lineup anyway.
When hostilities for an arc begin, there is a very real chance of them meeting a singular non-playable. Without tiers, there is an actual mystery as to whether this is just a single mook to get their teeth wet or a significant fight showing that they mean business, and they won't known until they start fighting.
Finally, there's a distinct desire for a decent number of antagonists, and they're already going to be split up by power source. Giving them a ranking will make them be listed in a non-alphabetical manner, but it will be an informative listing all the same. I would think it wouldn't add to conceptual space, but instead better organize what you'll already have.
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Post by Judging__Eagle » Thu Jun 18, 2009 12:34 am

I'm with Virgileso; in that adding abilities also adds cosmetic features to a creature.
With speed buffs, the creature looks blurred, all the time.
With strength buffs, the creature's skin is litearlly at the stretching point, and in some cases, the skin is even split from the muscles.
We want vivid, and even grotesque descriptions here. The hulking ultra zombie will be blurry, have arms as wide as telephone poles, claws like knives from its hands, and its eyes will glow green and give off green smoke.
That alone will tell the players "no average zombie."
I think that less monsters with different upgrades might be a better idea or, at least a way to allow for upgradable monsters.
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Post by Username17 » Thu Jun 18, 2009 1:50 am

For example, a "tiered" Zombie writeup might look something like this:

Zombies
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”
Zombies are physical bodies without the benefit of life or human spirit who nonetheless move about and hunger for the brains of the living. They are not respected members of the supernatural community, but are instead treated as servitors and disposable soldiers by those with necromantic powers and a social problem by most everyone else. Zombies are not traditionally considered playable, but are instead most likely to appear as tools or independent menaces in a World of Darkness campaign.
All Zombies, regardless of strength have an Orphic power source. When an extra becomes a Zombie, they become a Shambler or a Soulless depending upon the circumstances of their transformation. When a Luminary becomes a Zombie, they become a Revenant in all cases. Unlike many unplayable types, a Zombie is made out of a human being and they are templated onto a normal human statline.
Shamblers
“When the dead rise, civilization will fall.”
Shamblers are the classic “slow zombies” from zombie movies from the eighties. They hunger for brains, but they are basically walking corpses who shamble around – hence the name. Shamblers are not individually particularly dangerous. But they are implacable and they can come in fairly large numbers. Created by Orphic sorcery or by leakage of power from Mictlan, Shamblers will thoughtlessly move toward humans and attempt to eat their brains. The opening up of a major Well to Mictlan is often accompanied by the mass animation of large numbers of corpses as Shamblers, leading to potentially terrifying armies of the things even in the face of the relative incompetence of any solitary Shambler.
A Shambler has no Charisma or Logic score and automatically fails any test it would be called upon to make. Upon creation, a Shambler's Agility is reduced by one (to a minimum of 1), and their Strength is increased by 1. A Shambler loses all of their skills, even combat skills. When not controlled magically, they really will simply walk over and relentlessly and unskillfully claw and bite at potential victims with their substantial but undirected strength. Shamblers are not specifically slower than a normal person, but they always move at the rate of a Careful Walk even when ordered to do otherwise. Only their literally endless endurance and willingness to travel unceasingly to find brains gives their aggregate daily travels a frightening total of up to 50 kilometers a day.
A Shambler has an Orphic power source but no power schedule or Power attribute.

- Shambler Starting Disciplines
  - Basic Disciplines -
- Patience of the Mountain (Basic Fortitude)
  -Advanced Disciplines -
- Indomitably (Advanced Fortitude)

Soulless
“If you look at the whole life of the planet, we... you know, man, has only been around for a few blinks of an eye. So if the infection wipes us all out, that is a return to normality. ”
The Soulless are the lately fashionable “fast zombies” of more modern cinema such as 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake. Clearly distinct from Shamblers by their bright red eyes and relatively speedy disposition, the Soulless are neither plodding nor tireless. Possessed of more humanlike speeds and faculties, the Soulless are individually much more terrifying individually. While they are rarely spawned in the tremendous numbers of Shamblers, the fact that they can and do spread their affliction readily to the living means that their numbers can easily grow out of control if not checked by heroic intervention.
A Soulless loses their Charisma but not their Logic. Their Strength is increased by 1, but their Agility is unaffected. A Soulless is consumed by rage at all times to the point of complete irrationality, but they are not actually incapable of utilizing tools. While a Soulless will usually opt to empower a Feat of Strength to tear down a door rather than attempting to turn the knob, this is a result of their all consuming hatred rather than actual ineptitude on their part. The bite or even spit of the Soulless can corrupt and kill mortals, and the venom they are equipped with from their serpent's tongue ability is always a fatal one.
A Soulless has an Orphic power source and a Lunar power schedule.

- Soulless Starting Disciplines
  - Basic Disciplines -
- Feat of Strength (Basic Potence)
- Nimble Feet (Basic Celerity)
- Tongue of the Serpent (Basic Lure of Shadows)

Revenants
“The Living Dead and the dying living are all the same. Cut from the same cloth. But disposing of dead people is a public service, whereas you're in all sorts of trouble if you kill someone while they're still alive.”
The Revenant is the talkative wight from virtually every piece of fiction where a Zombie is a major character. Whether the lovely She from Cemetary Man, the creepy Shelly Winters from Scary Go Round or the villainous Dark Ash and Sheila from Army of Darkness, every Luminary who becomes a Zombie by whatever means becomes a Revenant. Revenancy is curable, as can be plainly seen from both Scary Go Round and Army of Darkness, and it is the only form of Zombieness that is. A Revenant appears much as it did in life, save for pale white skin and darkness around the eyes. Basically they look like someone who is wearing heavy goth makeup, save that there is something obviously unnatural about them that even the most casual observer can plainly see.
Revenants do not necessarily lose their reasoning faculties nor their personal moral compass. However, they do hunger for the brains of the living, and are doomed to gradually weaken and lose power until they devour such. Eating the brain of a human refreshes their Power batteries, but they don't have an unobtrusive or masquerade upholding alternative at their disposal. Sooner or later, they will be compelled to break open a human skull and feast on the morsels inside. It is for this reason that even the usually quite open minded supernatural societies generally want Revenants cured or destroyed – their mere presence endangers the masquerade more than most covenants are willing to condone.
A Revenant has their Strength, Intuition, and Willpower all increased by 1.
A Revenant has an Orphic power source and a Feeding power schedule.

- Revenant Starting Disciplines
  - Core Discipline: Fortitude -
- Patience of the Mountain (Basic Fortitude)
- Revive the Flesh (Basic Fortitude)
  - Basic Disciplines -
- Compel Spirits (Basic Necromancy)
- Nimble Feet (Basic Celerity)
- Abyss of the Body (Basic Descent of Entropy)
- Second Senses (Basic Auspex)
- Feat of Strength (Basic Potence)
  -Advanced Disciplines -
- Indomitably (Advanced Fortitude)

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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Thu Jun 18, 2009 6:09 am

And here would be the Fey, though I would flesh out the descriptions a bit more because they are so very inhuman.

The Fey
“I'll not rest till I have me gold. Curse this well that me soul shall dwell, till I find me magic that breaks me spell.”
Covetous and frightening, the Fey of the World of Darkness are a lot more like the Svartalfs than the pixies of a Disney cartoon. If they were from a Disney cartoon, it would probably be the Night on Bald Mountain segment from Fantasia.
Mirror Goblins
“Everything is a scam to you, isn't it?”
“Damn right it is.”
The Mirror Goblins are hideous and seemingly subhuman. They are small and mishapen, and they have hideous hooked teeth and claws. Mirror Goblins are a lot like the Black Isz from The Maxx or the Mumblers from Silent Hill. Left to their own devices, they mostly wander around Limbo gibbering and periodically eating each other. However, they are also oppressed by more powerful residents of the Dark Reflection. Whipped into shape by stronger creatures and groups they are used as disposable fodder and monsters of the week by The King With Three Shadows and other Infernal groups. Since they have always have a Potency of zero, a Mirror Goblin can pass through any portal to Limbo, which is where they get their name: literally goblins who come into the Mortal World through mirrors.
While Mirror Goblins have strange pacmanesque mouths and rarely stand much over a meter tall, their muppetlike visages seem to have little difficulty being understood in human languages. When combined with their ability to magically disguise themselves, Mirror Goblins can actually penetrate human society with tolerable ease. They dare not stay long in the Mortal World though, because their power ritual can only be performed in Limbo. Mirror Goblins are generally regarded as being less than fully trustworthy.
A Mirror Goblin was never human and has a nonstandard attribute array. They don't have a Potency rating, and their stats are:
S: 1/4 A: 2/7 I: 1/6 L: 1/5 W: 1/4 C: 1/6
A Mirror Goblin has an Infernal power source and a Ritual power schedule.

- Mirror Goblin Starting Disciplines
  - Basic Disciplines -
- Body Weaponry (Basic Protean)*
- Quickness (Basic Celerity)
- Mask of a Thousand Faces (Basic Obfuscation)
  *: This Discipline is locked on and cannot be deactivated.

Spriggans
“Why there's nothing under this mask but a neck and some tendons!”
Spriggans are hideous worm eaten things scarcely larger than a Mirror Goblin who can draw upon Infernal power to become massive killing machines. These beings look like hunks of maggot infested meat in an only barely humanoid shape, and they are quite boneless until they invoke their Giant Size and War Form, which are always enacted together. At that point their worms and flesh are pulled tight over a scaffold of long wet bones that end in sharp points in many places.
A Spriggan was never human and has a nonstandard attribute array. Their stats are:
S: 1/4 A: 1/6 I: 2/7 L: 1/6 W: 1/6 C: 1/6
A Spiggan has an Infernal power source and a Ritual power schedule.

- Spriggan Starting Disciplines
  - Basic Disciplines -
- Feat of Strength (Basic Potence)
- Body Weaponry (Basic Protean)
- Small Witness (Basic Swarm Song)
  -Advanced Disciplines -
- Giant Size (Advanced Potence)
- War Form (Advanced Protean)

Trolls
“Skin... Graaaaah.... Tasty.... ”
Within the prison world that is the Deep Reflection, hideous ogres prowl and punish or even murder those unlucky enough to fall into their clutches. But while they are the jailers of this foul realm, they are also its prisoners. Trolls spend almost every moment of their existence in agony and dejection, and eagerly take out their pains on others.
Hulking brutes with bulging musculature and an inhuman appearance, Trolls cannot actually turn their Giant Size off. These tortured giants of Limbo appear in literature as Tartarians and Pyramid Head. While they do eat people, they don't actually get anything for it except a meal. They rip the skin from their victims simply because they find enjoyment in doing so, not for the advancement of any mystical agenda.
Trolls have a fairly multivarious appearance, varying from merely oversized humans to lumpy stone skinned oni with tremendous tusks. These changes are generally speaking purely cosmetic. Trolls have no difficulty recognizing different Trolls as being the same as themselves.
Trolls have a nonstandard attribute array because they were never humans. Before their Potency modifier and their constant Giant Size, their attribute ranges are:
S: 5/10 A: 1/5 I: 1/5 L: 1/3 W: 3/8 C: 1/6
A Troll has an Infernal power source and a Continuous power schedule.

- Troll Starting Disciplines
  - Core Discipline: Potence and Fortitude -
- Vigor (Basic Potence)
- Feat of Strength (Basic Potence)
- Revive the Flesh (Basic Fortitude)
- Patience of the Mountain (Basic Fortitude)
  - Basic Disciplines -
- Poison Heart (Basic Names of the Blasphemies)
- Dread Gaze (Basic Presence)
  -Advanced Disciplines -
- Giant Size (Advanced Potence)
- Devastation (Advanced Potence)
- Restoration (Advanced Fortitude)

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CatharzGodfoot
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Post by CatharzGodfoot » Thu Jun 18, 2009 6:25 am

Frank, I wouldn't call that "tiered". Tiered suggests something like 'advanced' creatures or levels in D&D, where each tier directly builds upon the previous. In this case, you seem to have a parallel list of thematically related monsters, some of which happen to start out more powerful than others (although the goblin king is probably at least a match for the average troll).
In any case, your non-tiered "tiered" system looks good
The law in its majestic equality forbids the rich as well as the poor from stealing bread, begging and sleeping under bridges.
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Mount Flamethrower on rear
Drive in reverse
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MartinHarper
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Post by MartinHarper » Thu Jun 18, 2009 12:44 pm

> FrankTrollman wrote:Nothing grows here .... All the plants are carnivorous.

Contradiction?
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Judging__Eagle
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Post by Judging__Eagle » Thu Jun 18, 2009 5:04 pm

I really, really like this.
I've got a friend who is a really big The Maxx fan, when she found out that I had some issues, she gave me a CD full of The Maxx series all scanned and able to be read.
The fact that -all- ogres, and trolls, and pyramid head are the -same- type of monster is fucking win. As a -GM- I don't want to have to worry about a million different monsters, and this sort of thing makes running a game easier.
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IB90
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Post by IB90 » Fri Jun 19, 2009 5:03 am

This is less iconic, but Dracula could control the weather. This, plus the ability to into mist enhances the water trait Ventrue could have. I see the vampire types as being
"The Hideous Stealthy Ones"
"The Good Looking Social Ones"
and "The Aristocratic Mind-Controlling Ones."
Giving Ventrue access to weather powers may be somewhat silly, but it is an idea if anyone wants to go that direction.
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Crissa
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Post by Crissa » Fri Jun 19, 2009 5:07 am

I would swap the titles of revenant and soulless, as those are swapped from how I'd imagine those names.
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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Fri Jun 19, 2009 11:20 pm

So... Backgrounds and Qualities. These have always been a major portion of the WoD and they've always been over-the-top broken as fuck. Perhaps the biggest offender is that traditionally a five point merit (or background) has been worth very much more than a 2 point and a 3 point one together. While possibly inevitable for any system of social resources that hopes to model characters who know "some sketchy characters from down by the docks" or possibly "Bill F. Gates" (the F. stands for fucking), it's not much of a bold claim that WoD has always gone way too far in that direction. Most damningly, there is so much overlap with these things that there is frankly little reason to split one's background dots between anything. Why buy a few points of Resources when for a few more points of Fame or Status you can just get paychecks that are six figures or more?
Many of the backgrounds are just broken on the face of it. Age (the background that gives you more points that in turn can be used to purchase other backgrounds), Retainer (for a few points you can have an assistant whose is worth more points than you are in classic Jeeves and Kato fashion), and the various "I have a higher power stat" ones (such as Avatar and Generation) are the most egregious. But really all of the Backgrounds tend to fall into the categories of "fucking useless" (like Haven) or "way too powerful" (like Status). Worse, the vast majority of Backgrounds seem to hop directly from the garbage pile to the gamebreaking pile after a certain amount is purchased. Resources, for example, go up exponentially and it is literally one dot standing between an amount of money so small that it has no real effect on the story and a warchest of such power that it wraps the game around its mass.
Further, there are way too fucking many of these things. Chantry? Legacy? Artifact? What the fuck!? Even if it weren't for the fact that splitting your backgrounds traditionally makes you suck ass, the fact is that there are so many around that you really can't even have them all. It's just not practical to have friends and a paycheck and a flat. And while maybe that's supposed to be some sort of deep insight into the frailty and unrealistic expectations of the supposedly normal life expected by modernity - frankly I think it's actually just the kind of bad design you get when you have stream of consciousness design by multiple authors who aren't talking to each other.
So step one is to divide things that are about you from things that are about resources you currently have. If you happen to be fom a prestigious line of vampires or have a set of memories gong back centuries or something, that's really unlikely to go away. If you go into torpor and wake up in a hundred years you'll still have all that. On the other hand, if you have some friends, a house, and a bank account, that could all go away if you fucked a corpse when the cameras were rolling. Things like Lineage make more sense as a merit or "positive quality" to use SR lingo. On the other hand, financial resources are only ever "yours" in the sense that they are real objects that you happen to have proximity to. Which brings me to the idea that everything like that should be called a "resource." And once play begins, resources of any kind are not bought with experience they are picked up and lost in play.
So here's an initial thought, Resources are things you have "access" to that can help you out in one or more areas of your investigations. They are divided based on how they help you:

- Financial Resources: Stock, property, piles of gems, kilograms of coke, or just plain piles of cash - Financial Resources are portable and usually fairly anonymous. Easily transferable, and good for bribery, they usually don't do anything much if you elect to not trade them to others.
- Social Resources: Contacts, friends, favors from powerful people, and even personal fame - Social Resources aren't anything tangible at all. They are the expectation that others will use their abilities and knowledge to help you.
- Magical Resources: Magical artifacts, special places, strange curses and the like - Magical Resources are things you can use to solve magical problems.

Does it need subdivisions?
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Draco_Argentum
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Post by Draco_Argentum » Fri Jun 19, 2009 11:42 pm

> CatharzGodfoot wrote:Frank, I wouldn't call that "tiered". Tiered suggests something like 'advanced' creatures or levels in D&D, where each tier directly builds upon the previous. In this case, you seem to have a parallel list of thematically related monsters, some of which happen to start out more powerful than others (although the goblin king is probably at least a match for the average troll).
> In any case, your non-tiered "tiered" system looks good

I agree with this actually. Its more a grouping of monsters than it is a single monster advancing in power. The Fey in particular are quite different.
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Manxome
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Post by Manxome » Fri Jun 19, 2009 11:57 pm

"Magic Resources" strikes me as an orthogonal category. It seems like a pile of gemstones and a pile of valuable minerals that can only be mined in the Wilds are both financial resources, while a powerful politician that owes you a favor and a powerful vampire that owes you a favor are both social resources, despite the fact that in each case one is mundane and the other would result in a masquerade break if you told anyone about it.
The third category should maybe be Instrumental Resources that are harder to liquidate but can actually be used to do something, like machines, libraries, and tanks (or magical artifacts).
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