[OWoD] Werewolves and Mages

[Jeivar]

I'm going to run a Hunter: The Reckoning campaign soon. While I've played Vampire: The Masquerade a fair bit and understand the vampires, and how they can serve as antagonists, I have never were Werewolf or Mage. I can't just have my players fighting nothing but bloodsuckers, or Jason-style zombies, so can someone explain those two to me?

I know that werewolves are the warriors of Gaia, and all about spirits and whatever, and that mages are opposed by the Technocracy, who don't want the "rules" of reality broken, but how might Hunters come into conflict with members of either group? Under what circumstances are they antagonistic to innocent people?

[LibraryOgre]

Werewolves: First of all, there are the evil werewolves, the Black Spiral Dancers. The Red Talons are also anti-human, pro-culling werewolves. Get of Fenris tend to have a lot of racists, and get associated with Neo-nazis, and you might find a Shadow Lord at the center of a plot. You could also have some sort of development threatening a werewolf sacred space, leading to some of them getting violent.

Mages: Mages tend to break things, usually reality. So, they might "accidentally" start changing things that Hunters might want unchanged, or find ways to push reality's backlash onto other people. And, of course, Technomancers are themselves mages, who might object to Hunters if they're Reality Deviants of any sort, and there's the Marauders, who are crazy, and the Nephandi, who are ooo spooky evil.

[Jeivar]

Werewolves: First of all, there are the evil werewolves, the Black Spiral Dancers. The Red Talons are also anti-human, pro-culling werewolves. Get of Fenris tend to have a lot of racists, and get associated with Neo-nazis, and you might find a Shadow Lord at the center of a plot. You could also have some sort of development threatening a werewolf sacred space, leading to some of them getting violent.

So I can do werewolves that are straight-up villains? It wouldn't be entirely out of character for a few of them to be a skinhead gang?


Mages: Mages tend to break things, usually reality. So, they might "accidentally" start changing things that Hunters might want unchanged, or find ways to push reality's backlash onto other people. And, of course, Technomancers are themselves mages, who might object to Hunters if they're Reality Deviants of any sort, and there's the Marauders, who are crazy, and the Nephandi, who are ooo spooky evil.

Can you tell me a little bit more about this?

[LibraryOgre]

So I can do werewolves that are straight-up villains? It wouldn't be entirely out of character for a few of them to be a skinhead gang?

Not especially. The Get of Fenris is known to have a lot of racists; the Fianna spent a fair bit of time during the Troubles engaged in terrorism. The Shadow Lords tend towards organized crime. And, of course, the Black Spiral Dancers are wyrm-tainted.


Can you tell me a little bit more about this?

Basically, Mage is about altering reality to what you want. The problem for the Tradition mages is that they've lost... the Technocracy has more or less defined reality to conform to scientific theory. While Technocrats can do some impressive reality-bending, they do it through a medium of "pushing the boundaries of science", while the Sons of Ether do it through "SCIENCE!" So, members of the Technocracy ARE mages.

For Tradition Mages, bucking reality like they do has drawbacks, called Paradox. Make a little change that can have another explanation, no paradox. Make a big change that might have another explanation, less Paradox. Start turning people into frogs, and you've got lots of Paradox. Paradox generally manifests as breaks with reality... sometimes, the mage becomes delusional. Sometimes, the mage starts farting flames, or summons a spirit related to whatever they broke.

[Kish]

In the context of Werewolf, the world is on the brink of destruction. That's kind of true to all the WoD games, but Werewolf is the one that most directly positions the vast majority of humanity as part of the problem. Accordingly, there are quite a few werewolves who think (quite possibly accurately) that the only way to save the world is to forcibly reduce the human population by a few billion.

Mages fight over the nature of reality. The Traditions (the protagonist group) are, explicitly, repeated multiple times across the line, the good guys, but that doesn't mean Hunters will see it that way. If you want your protagonists to be unambiguously in the right, there are always renegades, members of all the Traditions who would rather use their magic for personal gain than try to help others.

Finally, and what I would probably go with, if you want antagonists but also want to treat both full lines as accurate rather than handwaving "some extremely violent shapeshifters and wild-eyed fanatics with magic are trying to commit mass murder and warp the entire world because they delusionally think it's the right thing to do; stop them," is: there are always both game's antagonists. Mages who actively want the world to come to an end, technomages who want a world of perfect order with no place in it for anything supernatural except those technomages (and they're most likely going to classify Hunters with the Tradition mages by default), evil spirits who possess hapless people and twist them into monsters, twisted werewolves who also want the world to come to an end...

[awa]

Of course werewolves also spend a lot of time killing formori (possessed things) and not all of them can be identified as monsters at a glance so that could give hunters a good reason to go after a werewolf. Particularly if the formori had a bunch of human guards the werewolf considered acceptable collateral damage.

[the OOD]

Promethean: the Created and Beast: the Primordial are both good options for a Hunter game.

[EDIT: oops, OWoD, my bad.]

[Mr Blobby]

Nearly all the supernatural critters are bad from a human point of view - it's simply shades of badness. Black Spiral Dancers are almost utterly evil, yes; but so are the other Garou. The commit crimes by the score, keep 'their' humans [aka Kinfolk] under so close control it can blur into slavery, do not overly care about the death of bystanders etc. Camarilla Kindred are still parasitic organisms who play around with humans, using them like puppets, food and/or tools. Tradition Mages are snooty, elitist people who often don't care about the humans around them much and continue to dabble in Things Man Should Not Do.

I always remember the line from the Glass Walker book where an elder is doing a 'last briefing' to some young un's; 'We do what we have to for Gaia. Humanity will not thank us for this; in fact they will despise us for this. To them, we are nothing more than extremist, violent terrorists, killing, destroying things and breaking laws with religious fanaticism.' [paraphrased].

I've played this type of game before; I'd say the key thing is to keep the mystery. To all but the all the most experienced Hunter, they don't know about the Triat, or the Antediluvians, or whatever. Feel free to blur the lines; let them track down 'a werewolf' and discover [perhaps] that instead it's a Gangrel. Those 'zombies' are in fact a group of Nosferatu. Then you've got the critters which don't get much play; Reverents, Ratkin, drones etc.

Next, you've got the option of simply saying to yourself 'it's my game, dammit!' - junking most of the other canon. This is particularly useful if you've got a group who know WoD very well and just can't help but metagame a little. Tweak things around; give different vampires different disciplines, use werewolves from Forsaken etc. In fact, there's a splat for nWoD called 'Night Terrors: Wicked Dead' which has a group of several odd critters which could get even that old fart who's memorised every single splat since 1994 scratching their head.

I'd also say this; what is the overarching theme for the Hunter game? Learning what's hiding behind humanity? Trying to set them free from control of said groups? An all-out war? Or the old 'he who fights monsters?'

[Berenger]

...Reverents...

Revenants? :smalltongue:

[iceman10058]

Revenants? :smalltongue:

No, undead priests

[JeenLeen]

One relevant thing is to decide, in your setting, who runs the world. In each oWoD setting (besides Hunter and some of the later 'race' books), one of the antagonists basically rules the world. In Werewolf, the evil mega-corp Pentex has its tendrils literally and figuratively in all aspects of society. In Mage, the Technocracy runs all major governments. In Vampire, vamps really run the show. Usually if one is running a given game, you take its assumptions as the truth, so in a Werewolf game the Technocracy are less-major players and less influential than in a Mage game. So, decide your setting and probably don't tell the players. As noted above, Hunters know almost nothing about the higher-levels of influence. I can see a strong-Technocracy game being good for Hunter.

Some advice on mages (partially redundant with the above, but trying for new info), assuming they are as pervasive as in a Mage book:
The Technocracy would probably leave Hunters alone as long as they don't draw attention to themselves or get exposed to the public. In effect, Hunters are doing the Technocracy's job for them. Heck, some Technocrats are even potential allies.
However, Technocrats are (generally) under mental conditioning to hate the supernatural, so they would likely turn on Hunters who start showing too much supernatural power, like a flaming sword or healing. But a guy who is just good at tracking and killing zombies is a resource, and some might turn a blind eye to a few questionable things. However, any news report or non-secure internet posting would likely draw the attention of the Technocracy.
Also, note that most Technocrats would scoff at being called mages. They are, to themselves, scientists and hate magic. (This is in part mental conditioning and brain-washing.) Also note that their supertech, since it is magic, doesn't work if handled by a non-mage, like if a Hunter gets a cool laser gun or medkit. (There are exceptions, but, well, probably better to ignore those.)

Tradition mages are those who believe in non-technology magic. Basically any other magical tradition (including major religions, pagan religions, ancient Greek mysticism and magic, runes, etc.), plus mad science and super-hacking. Some good antagonists for Hunters could be the Euthanatos, who are based on death cults and believe that killing those who need killing helps Karma and reincarnation cycle on. (They do tend to research their targets and use magic to divine if they should die, but, well, that sounds insane to most.) Some Euthanatos go crazy and just start killing who they can, too.
Many mages consider mundane humans as lesser, so they wouldn't care about exploiting them. This is probably not true for the majority, but still makes some good foes.

There are also marauders, mages who are insane and, when they do magic, instead of them suffering the negative effects others nearby suffer them. Some marauders warp reality around them. Generally, hunters (if not using that power to protect their mind) would need to make a Willpower save to not think the new reality is always the case. For example, a marauder or group of them who thinks it is medeval Europe and they are fighting dragons (instead of bombing cars in New York) could potentially make all the normal people around them think that is the case and that they are just peasants. Supernaturals get a save to resist the mental influence. Note that this means your Hunter's guns would probably turn into crossbows or something like that. (Not all marauders warp reality.)

Then there's the Nephandi, evil mages who worship dark gods, demons, and Cthulu-like beings, and are generally about bringing the ruin of all. They can be from any school of magic, even Technocracy-stuff, and many are spies in the Traditions or Technocracy.

There are also Orphans, basically non-Technocrat mages who haven't joined or aren't let into the Traditions. You can probably ignore those, but they could be useful if you want a mage the players can fight without antagonizing the mage's allies.

[Mr Blobby]

Thought it was more likely that in a Werewolf/Fera game they'd more likely make the Technocracy a simple outpost of the Weaver; perhaps even making them the spidery counterpart to Pentex.

I'll also pose a possible situation if the Hunters got discovered by the Technocracy; they may observe, and if they feel they're suitable might attempt to recruit them as Extraordinary Citizens. After all, by simply knowing there's Things That Should Not Exist and *actually doing something about it* does say they're a cut above the usual Proles. There's other groups who may be interested in them; the Special Affairs Department of the FBI, the Arcanium etc. Then there's the less than honest 'support' they could get; from an elder Kindred manipulating them into attacking their undead rivals to Glass Walkers manipulating them into attacking Wyrm-tainted things.

One thing I'll mention is that not all Tradition Mages hate/dislike technology. There are a group called technomancers who are in effect renegade Technocrats [originally] who accept the type of 'Science' they use but not the political indoctrination or goals which went with it. [In a nutshell]

[GungHo]

Basically, Mage is about altering reality to what you want. The problem for the Tradition mages is that they've lost... the Technocracy has more or less defined reality to conform to scientific theory. While Technocrats can do some impressive reality-bending, they do it through a medium of "pushing the boundaries of science", while the Sons of Ether do it through "SCIENCE!" So, members of the Technocracy ARE mages.

For Tradition Mages, bucking reality like they do has drawbacks, called Paradox. Make a little change that can have another explanation, no paradox. Make a big change that might have another explanation, less Paradox. Start turning people into frogs, and you've got lots of Paradox. Paradox generally manifests as breaks with reality... sometimes, the mage becomes delusional. Sometimes, the mage starts farting flames, or summons a spirit related to whatever they broke.
For Tradition Mages, you might not have a need to interact with them in the confines of a Hunter or anything unless the Tradition mages start nutting up... however, unless the SoE are trying to do an experiment on a werewolf in front of you, the Technocracy will likely get to Traditional mages before you do... think of an alternate set of feebs showing up when the guys on Supernatural show up and then they have it out... an a Tradition mage playing two physically enemies off of each other is absolutely in theme.

Also on the Technocracy front, they might show up if you basically screw up while fighting with werewolves and are witnessed in sufficient detail, and they'd send the MiB to investigate and censor you (with bullets).

To expand on Mark Hall's example... the SoE might use Buck Rogers ray guns or a Ghostbuster particle accelerator (well, dumb SoE, anyway). The Technocracy (if you ever interact with them... they mostly go through intermediaries, and would rather have LEO or mercenaries commit atrocities over being noticed) are basically Agent Smith... you can't hit them, and they don't miss. The craziest they might go for would be something bleeding edge like a functional coilgun or gyrojet, but even they can encounter Paradox, and it scares them to death.

[Braininthejar2]

The Mage and Werewolf settings are also connected by the three forces of the universe.

The Dynamic (the force of wild creation, needed for anything to exist) the Static (the force of order, needed for anything specific to exist) and Entropy (needed for things to die and make way for new creations.)

In The Mage, these designate the typical antagonists:
* The Marauders are mages who lost contact with reality - they are crazy, and force their delusions on the world around them. - they are mages warped by the Dynamic.
* The Technocracy started as "mages protecting humans from supernatural *******s" and evolved into "soulsless, evil mega-corp trying to control the world" - they are mages shifted towards the Static.
* The Nephandi are worshippers of horrible and alien beings bent on destroying creation - they are mages corrupted by Entropy.

In Werewolf, the three forces are considered actual beings who shape reality (the Wyrd, the Weaver, and the Wyrm), and contribute to the current state of the world by being out of balance:
* The hypotheses on what is going on differ from book to book. The two most prelevant theories are either:
- something went horribly wrong at the beginning of history, causing both the Waver and the Wyrm to go crazy.
- the humans developed too much, and their ordering the world made the Weaver too strong, and the Wyrm went crazy trying to keep up.
* whatever the reason, the Wyrm has turned from a neutral force of decay into a malevolent force of corruption - it tries to destroy all life by sending evil spirits into the world, as well as sponsoring all sort of evil, from monsters and serial killers, to evil corporations that deliberately produce environmental disasters or wyrm-tainted GMO.

The two interconnect in other ways:
For a werewolf, a Nephandi mage will be a Wyrm cultist.
PENTEX, the evil mega-corp responsible for hundreds of smaller Wyrm-related companies all over the world is actually a corrupted Technocracy enterprise that went rogue.
They come in conflicts with each other too. The most common source of conflict (beyond the usual "wizards vs monsters" thing) is energy sites - for a mage, a point where natural energy focuses, is a valuable place to recharge his resources (he can cast on will alone, but requires some juice if he wants to push it, especially to maintain ongoing effects that keep generating paradox), while for a werewolf this will be a holy site where nature's spirits gather.

[JeenLeen]

It just occurred to me that a Tradition mage could be a good supplier for hunters. Depending on how you decide supernatural rules work, a mage might be able to mask their aura with Spirit and/or Prime magicks in order to fool some hunter senses into thinking they are a normal human. (I never read the formal rules on how powers interact, but I think it's reasonable DM jurisdiction since oWoD.) Mages also can harvest things like werewolf pelts or fangs for magical energy (Quintessence). They can do the same with vamp blood, but it's corrupting so most avoid it.

I could see a mage pose as a mundane, and offer to sell the hunters weaponry and gear in exchange for money and, if they can get it, remains of supernaturals. They pose as an eccentric rich dude who is into the occult, but is actually an Order of Hermes mage with old money. If you like, they use their magick to scry on potential targets in order to point the Hunters to who they want dead (Technocrats, rival mages, werewolves, etc.). Or, for a twist, they are a Nephandi using the Hunters to attack relatively good vamps and/or garou so that Baali (demon-worshipping vampires) or Black Spiral Dancer allies can take over.

[Braininthejar2]

Sources of conflict, and plot hooks:

1 The party may find out they have competition - technocracy sometimes covertly sponsors mundane hunters, hijacking some government initiative to arm agents with relevant knowledge and mundane but cutting-edge equipment.
2 Detect Wyrm - among the magical gifts that the werewolves get from the spirits, there is a power to detect wyrm taint in people and objects. While they are taught not to over-rely on it, some of them can get quite judgemental (and werewolves are short-tempered by nature). Does your player carry any evil magic items? Has he been seriously injured by an evil monster recently? If he pings as tainted, and then uses visible super powers, many garou will not wait for further confirmation.
3 Primal fear - before the proper civilisation emerged, the shapeshifters would hunt humans for thousands of years, keeping their population in check. So much that they are ingrained in human genetic memory - seeing a transformed werewolf will cause a normal human's fight or flight instinct to go haywire, sending him into blind panic he'll remember little from (and want to remember less) While it helps the werewolves stay hidden, it doesn't help them maintain good reputation.
4 Painful awakening - between their violent temper and their tendency to intimidate normal people without even trying, most werewolves suck at maintaining healthy relationships. Since their rules require them to interbreed with normals ( a werewold with two werewolf parents turns out inbred, not to mention stuck in hybrid form till puberty) there are many young werewolves who don't know their parentage - until a cruel high school prank causes them to flip out and rip someone's head off. As the kid wakes up naked and covered in blood in some alley, trying to find out what just happened, the adventure becomes a race between the group of hunters trying to put down a monster, a pack of garou trying to rescue a freshly awakened cub, and a pack of Black Spiral Dancers trying to capture a new recruit.

[KillingAScarab]

They come in conflicts with each other too. The most common source of conflict (beyond the usual "wizards vs monsters" thing) is energy sites - for a mage, a point where natural energy focuses, is a valuable place to recharge his resources (he can cast on will alone, but requires some juice if he wants to push it, especially to maintain ongoing effects that keep generating paradox), while for a werewolf this will be a holy site where nature's spirits gather.The part of this which brings them into conflict is not just who has access to a caern (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Caern)/node (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Node_%28MTAs%29), but the fact that a mage might want to drain it of its power (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Quintessence_%28MTAs%29) in order to work stronger magic. So, if you're looking for a way to incorporate both werewolves and mages into a Hunter game, but you don't want to use Pentex (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Pentex), you can have a fight break out in Central Park (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Sept_of_the_Green), or a similar urban site. Wards fail, mundanes get hurt, and that's the party's introduction to something strange in the neighborhood.

[Braininthejar2]

A battle for the Central Park caern is not something you want to throw a party into as an introduction, even if they're just bystanders.

[druid91]

In the context of Werewolf, the world is on the brink of destruction. That's kind of true to all the WoD games, but Werewolf is the one that most directly positions the vast majority of humanity as part of the problem. Accordingly, there are quite a few werewolves who think (quite possibly accurately) that the only way to save the world is to forcibly reduce the human population by a few billion.

Mages fight over the nature of reality. The Traditions (the protagonist group) are, explicitly, repeated multiple times across the line, the good guys, but that doesn't mean Hunters will see it that way. If you want your protagonists to be unambiguously in the right, there are always renegades, members of all the Traditions who would rather use their magic for personal gain than try to help others.

Finally, and what I would probably go with, if you want antagonists but also want to treat both full lines as accurate rather than handwaving "some extremely violent shapeshifters and wild-eyed fanatics with magic are trying to commit mass murder and warp the entire world because they delusionally think it's the right thing to do; stop them," is: there are always both game's antagonists. Mages who actively want the world to come to an end, technomages who want a world of perfect order with no place in it for anything supernatural except those technomages (and they're most likely going to classify Hunters with the Tradition mages by default), evil spirits who possess hapless people and twist them into monsters, twisted werewolves who also want the world to come to an end...

Honestly, the Traditions are the "Designated Hero" at best. And Villain Protagonists at worst. Given they want to crash human society just to win their war.

The Technocrats may be bad guys, but that doesn't mean the traditions are good guys.

[Braininthejar2]

There are actually options for playing as technocrats.

And traditions are as varied as they look.

[druid91]

There are actually options for playing as technocrats.

And traditions are as varied as they look.

There are, but that doesn't change the fact that the Technocrats are still pretty bad. Even if there are genuine idealists in there, the organization has a very much "Utopia justifies the means" attitude.

[Jeivar]

I'd also say this; what is the overarching theme for the Hunter game? Learning what's hiding behind humanity? Trying to set them free from control of said groups? An all-out war? Or the old 'he who fights monsters?'

I'm going to play a starter adventure, featuring a serial-killing ghost affiliated with no-one, to feel out the characters my players make before making long-term plans. Though since one player has said he wants to play a self-righteous fundamentalist priest and has a general fondness for 'he who fights monsters', I think that will prove to be our thing.



* The Nephandi are worshippers of horrible and alien beings bent on destroying creation - they are mages corrupted by Entropy.


Those sound like my guys.


One relevant thing is to decide, in your setting, who runs the world. In each oWoD setting (besides Hunter and some of the later 'race' books), one of the antagonists basically rules the world. In Werewolf, the evil mega-corp Pentex has its tendrils literally and figuratively in all aspects of society. In Mage, the Technocracy runs all major governments. In Vampire, vamps really run the show. Usually if one is running a given game, you take its assumptions as the truth, so in a Werewolf game the Technocracy are less-major players and less influential than in a Mage game. So, decide your setting and probably don't tell the players. As noted above, Hunters know almost nothing about the higher-levels of influence. I can see a strong-Technocracy game being good for Hunter.

It would probably be wisest for me to go with the vampires, since I know the most about them, but having the players realise that the new mayor is in fact a Nephandi sound like it would be fun.



Depending on how you decide supernatural rules work, a mage might be able to mask their aura with Spirit and/or Prime magicks in order to fool some hunter senses into thinking they are a normal human. (I never read the formal rules on how powers interact, but I think it's reasonable DM jurisdiction since oWoD.)

Can someone chime in on whether that would in fact work? Doesn't Second Sight pierce EVERYTHING?


Mages also can harvest things like werewolf pelts or fangs for magical energy (Quintessence). They can do the same with vamp blood, but it's corrupting so most avoid it.


Could a non-mage use an artefact like that?



4 Painful awakening - between their violent temper and their tendency to intimidate normal people without even trying, most werewolves suck at maintaining healthy relationships. Since their rules require them to interbreed with normals ( a werewold with two werewolf parents turns out inbred, not to mention stuck in hybrid form till puberty) there are many young werewolves who don't know their parentage - until a cruel high school prank causes them to flip out and rip someone's head off. As the kid wakes up naked and covered in blood in some alley, trying to find out what just happened, the adventure becomes a race between the group of hunters trying to put down a monster, a pack of garou trying to rescue a freshly awakened cub, and a pack of Black Spiral Dancers trying to capture a new recruit.

Hm. That sounds like a good setup for a non-black and white game.

[Braininthejar2]

Could a non-mage use an artefact like that?

I think there was a vile ritual somewhere that allowed a human with some blood ties to werewolves to transform by wearing a werewolf pelt. Such things only last as long as he can hide the Wyrm taint, but every now and then there is a guy who thinks "It's unfair that my brother is a werewolf and I'm not. I'm sick of being treated as a disposible sidekick."

If you want nephandi, you might consider actual fallen angels too. (with the "all mythologies are simultaneously true" these guys are around as well)

If you have any more questions about specific races (both fluff, and a short explanation of how they work mechanically) I love writing stuff like that.

[KillingAScarab]

I think there was a vile ritual somewhere that allowed a human with some blood ties to werewolves to transform by wearing a werewolf pelt. Such things only last as long as he can hide the Wyrm taint, but every now and then there is a guy who thinks "It's unfair that my brother is a werewolf and I'm not. I'm sick of being treated as a disposible sidekick."Ah, Samuel Haight (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Samuel_Haight) and your crazy backstory. You will never leave our minds. You're thinking of the ritual of sacred rebirth (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Ritual_of_Sacred_Rebirth), the path to which definitely makes you unpopular and the end result is that you're a part of the skin dancers (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Skin_Dancer).

[Braininthejar2]

This reminds me. humans might want to experiment with vampire blood as well.

A blood point of vampire blood is an equivalent "energy point" for a mage. For a human, drinking it gives all the normal benefits of being a ghul. A single vial of magically preserved elder blood might be a good thing to be kept for a rainy day - a gulp turning a weak, schemer villain into a boss fight.

Of course, drinking a vampire's blood will get you bound to him - but if the blood is from a vampire dusted by hunters, that is not an issue.

Also, an unconscious vampire can't give orders - you'd still be bound to him, but obsessing over a dead guy you keep staked in a casket in your basement is a small price to pay for immortality... you just need to keep replenishing his blood so you can keep leeching him.

There are stories of particularly old ghuls who kept whole collections of feedbag vampires in their basements, using the mixed blood to develop varied discipline affinities (this is one of the many explanations for Rasputin)

Plot hooks:
1 There is a new gang in town, rapidly growing in power. They seem to be ghouls, but there is no sign of the vampire responsible. Interrogated captives speak of the boss giving his underlings "some kind of super-drug".
2 An eccentric millionaire learns about the group of hunters. He backs them up with money, and tells them about his own quest to eradicate vampires. In return he asks them to catch him a live vampire... for research.

[Braininthejar2]

Can someone chime in on whether that would in fact work? Doesn't Second Sight pierce EVERYTHING?

The answer to this one depends on the metaplot. It boils down to where the Hunters' power really comes from.

If their abilities are sponsored by one of the many supernatural/spirit factions in the World of Darkness, then it's ability against ability - compare whichever stats and power levels seem relevant.

If however the Demon ending is canon, and the one sponsoring the hunters is Lucifer, then there is no rolling - it's an honest-to-God True Sight.

[LibraryOgre]

Ah, Samuel Haight (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Samuel_Haight) and your crazy backstory. You will never leave our minds. You're thinking of the ritual of sacred rebirth (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Ritual_of_Sacred_Rebirth), the path to which definitely makes you unpopular and the end result is that you're a part of the skin dancers (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Skin_Dancer).

Gods, I'd forgotten how gloriously ridiculous that guy was...

[Max_Killjoy]

One relevant thing is to decide, in your setting, who runs the world. In each oWoD setting (besides Hunter and some of the later 'race' books), one of the antagonists basically rules the world. In Werewolf, the evil mega-corp Pentex has its tendrils literally and figuratively in all aspects of society. In Mage, the Technocracy runs all major governments. In Vampire, vamps really run the show. Usually if one is running a given game, you take its assumptions as the truth, so in a Werewolf game the Technocracy are less-major players and less influential than in a Mage game. So, decide your setting and probably don't tell the players. As noted above, Hunters know almost nothing about the higher-levels of influence. I can see a strong-Technocracy game being good for Hunter.



Or, in your game, decide that the whole "vast unified world controlling conspiracy" thing is nonsense.

[Jeivar]

Plot hooks:
1 There is a new gang in town, rapidly growing in power. They seem to be ghouls, but there is no sign of the vampire responsible. Interrogated captives speak of the boss giving his underlings "some kind of super-drug".
2 An eccentric millionaire learns about the group of hunters. He backs them up with money, and tells them about his own quest to eradicate vampires. In return he asks them to catch him a live vampire... for research.

Ohhh, I like these. :)

[KillianHawkeye]

In Werewolf, the three forces are considered actual beings who shape reality (the Wyrd, the Weaver, and the Wyrm), and contribute to the current state of the world by being out of balance:
* The hypotheses on what is going on differ from book to book. The two most prelevant theories are either:
- something went horribly wrong at the beginning of history, causing both the Waver and the Wyrm to go crazy.
- the humans developed too much, and their ordering the world made the Weaver too strong, and the Wyrm went crazy trying to keep up.
* whatever the reason, the Wyrm has turned from a neutral force of decay into a malevolent force of corruption - it tries to destroy all life by sending evil spirits into the world, as well as sponsoring all sort of evil, from monsters and serial killers, to evil corporations that deliberately produce environmental disasters or wyrm-tainted GMO.

From what I remember of the old Werewolf mythology, the Wyld, the Weaver, and the Wyrm started out in a perfect balance. The Wyld was the force of creation and change, always spewing out new things and transforming existing things into other things. The Weaver was obsessed with order, and took the creations of the Wyld and solidified them so that they could actually exist for more than an instant. The Wyrm was the embodiment of entropy, and it was his job to destroy the Weaver's works to make room for new things.

Things started to go downhill when the Weaver got sick of the Wyrm always wrecking his stuff, and tried to stop it by using his webs to trap the Wyrm. I can't remember exactly what happened, but the situation couldn't last long and the Wyrm escaped at least enough to influence the world again.

But the damage had been done, and the Wyrm had been driven mad by his imprisonment and became a spirit of corruption and evil. He began to use minions to further his agenda, perverting the spirits of Gaia to be harmful and spread their corruption to others, his ultimate goal being the absolute destruction of everything, everywhere. The Black Spiral Dancers were an entire tribe of werewolves who discovered a Cthulhu-esque Wyrm-beast of such terrible madness that they were mutated into horrible mockeries of the proud warriors they had once been. Evil bane spirits possess humans and animals, warping their minds and bodies. Hazardous waste and other forms of pollution literally poison the land and the spiritual world that's connected to it, giving rise to even more of the Wyrm's warped progeny, while chemicals and pesticides and pharmaceutical drugs do the same to humanity itself. Vampires are likewise considered to be unwitting servants of the Wyrm's malevolent designs.

The conflict set up in Werewolf: the Apocalypse is a very spiritual one, both literally as it deals with the actual spirit world, but also figuratively as the three W's compete for the hearts and minds of every living thing on Earth. So while the Garou paint themselves as the heroes of the Wyld and the protectors of Gaia, and their stories most often pit them against the vile monsters aligned with the Wyrm (at least when they aren't busy getting mixed up with humans or squabbling amongst each other), the Weaver and the spider-like spirits who work for him are just as much of a problem and are ultimately the cause of most of the world being so messed up.

It always struck me as interesting that no matter how badass an individual werewolf could be or how many actual super powers they had at their disposal, they were the faction in the World of Darkness that most seemed to be losing the war and approaching their own extinction. How could something so powerful also be so desperate? It was poignant.

[JeenLeen]

Can someone chime in on whether that would in fact work? Doesn't Second Sight pierce EVERYTHING?

No clue myself, but I like the answer given above.
Also, note that, according to some splatbook a demon can possess a Hunter under certain circumstances and become profoundly more powerful. I don't know the details, but a friend of mine read about it in my old oWoD gaming group. Basically, it's probably not a good idea to have demons (by which I mean the Demon 'race' book demons, not Nephandi demons or Wyrm demons) be allies. Or just ignore that part of why they'd want to exploit the PCs



Could a non-mage use an artefact like that?

From my understanding of the rules -- and the rules are... unclear to contradictory at times, even in the same book -- mages can make a few types of items. Some can only be used by mages, and some can be used by anyone. There may be some in-between that can only be used by corrupted mortals, such as for Nephandi minions, but I don't know about those. I know Nephandi can make things that corrupt people, like books that corrupt one as they read it.

Generally, mages make magic items called talismans. These are effectively spells-in-a-device, that use Quintessence (the energy from nodes and some other sources) to cast the spell. For a mortal, they are useless.
There are some talismans that can be made so that mundanes can use them. These are generally more expensive to make, so probably rarer. And the user might have to believe they work to be able to work it--not sure. But note that it can give the user Paradox, even if the user is mortal.
Once out of Quintessence, the item can't do the magic again until is it recharged.
Both creation and refueling generally requires Prime magic.

Mages can also make superior equipment, like boots that naturally reduce sound. These seem like really good design (supertech basing as mundane tech) or, well, magically-good stuff, and generally avoid Paradox by looking like they could just be good mundane stuff. In our game, the DM let this give us things like -1 difficulty to Stealth rolls or similar skill bonuses. A normal human could use such.

There are also fetishes, which are like talismans but made by bonding a spirit into an item (similar end result to werewolf fetishes, but different means and possibly different mechanics to use.) Done via Spirit magic. I'm unclear on whether or not a fetish can be recharged, or if once it's energy is used up, the spirit is freed and it becomes a normal object. Like talismans, mortals can't use it, although maybe a special one could be made (just more expensive) that a mortal can use.

A mage using Entropy and Spirit could possibly create a fetish by bonding a ghost to an item. Not sure how that works or if the name for such is different.

Note: werewolves and other fera can make fetishes like the above, as well as special fetishes called talens. Talens are generally one-use items, for a single magical effect. I think mortals can use them. Some we encountered in our mage game included an item that rendered us invisible to banes (evil Wyrm spirits) and a healing item.

[ahenobarbi]

Others seem to know much more about systems you asked about but I want to advise you to start with something familiar to you and as close to human as possible.

That will let players (and you) to learn their characters without having to learn about a new system at the same time (I've been in a few games where we tried to start with a lot of new stuff at once and every time we massively screwed up which usually resulted in game being canceled).

So my sugestion would be something like an abandomed ghoul going amok (possibly getting some vampire blood right before final confrontation(to spice it up + potential plot hook)).

[KillingAScarab]

There are also fetishes, which are like talismans but made by bonding a spirit into an item (similar end result to werewolf fetishes, but different means and possibly different mechanics to use.) Done via Spirit magic. I'm unclear on whether or not a fetish can be recharged, or if once it's energy is used up, the spirit is freed and it becomes a normal object. Like talismans, mortals can't use it, although maybe a special one could be made (just more expensive) that a mortal can use.

A mage using Entropy and Spirit could possibly create a fetish by bonding a ghost to an item. Not sure how that works or if the name for such is different.

Note: werewolves and other fera can make fetishes like the above, as well as special fetishes called talens. Talens are generally one-use items, for a single magical effect. I think mortals can use them. Some we encountered in our mage game included an item that rendered us invisible to banes (evil Wyrm spirits) and a healing item.Within the context of Werewolf: the Apocalypse, there were Kinfolk (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Kinfolk) which were capable of using talens and fetishes. Both would require a significant spiritual awakening on the part of the kinfolk, though; their use required an attribute called gnosis, which the majority did not have. This was detailed in Kinfolk: Unsung Heroes, but that would also have larger implications. Kinfolk without gnosis had some ability to learn gifts which didn't require it, but a sufficiently spiritual Kinfolk was also able to learn any level one gift which didn't require the rage attribute. That book (published in 1997) also went into things like True Faith and Hedge Magic, which were concepts which I believe were largely outdated by the time Hunter was published (1999), or I wouldn't expect to find within a Hunter game.

The thing about bringing over devices from one rules system into another is that you can't easily try to meld the systems. It's best to realize if you want it within your Hunter game, it's going to be an adaptation, at best, using Hunter's rules. You can't have one system with edges and gnosis and rage and arete and quintessence and blood points and... you get the idea. The Storyteller needs time set the story, not just adjudicate the rules. Maybe there's a creed which is better suited towards using the supernatural's weapons against them. Maybe there isn't.

[redwizard007]

I feel like a lot of these posts are way to detailed in WoD lore and terminology for a hunter campaign.

Vamps = shadowy predators or "boss level" bad guys with an army of minions and dozens of strings to pull. Small packs of young vamps may look more like social clubs or street gangs, while older vamps use mayors, mob bosses and CEO's as puppets, and the oldest are so out of touch with humanity that they are nearly unfathomable.

Werewolves = neigh unstoppable killing machines in small groups with human support. Eco-terrorists, biker clubs, street gangs, militia groups, etc. Sprinkle some cool, cultured, social manipulators in as behind the scenes power brokers for a break from vamps in that role, but do so sparingly.

Mages = leave that **** alone! For real these dudes are for when you want to run "Dr Strange." Splash one in now and then to keep things fresh, but mortals just aren't meant to deal with reality being optional. If you want to make mages a focus then ignore this and see any other post, but I feel these fellas need to be a center piece, or left out entirely.

Fae (Changeling) = nice change of pace for hunters. Can be solo source of weird magic, baby stealers, nightmare monsters, cute new age girl, punk gang, guardians of ancient lore, or unearthly muses, plus so much more.

Famori = Werewolf foes that are mutated humans, sometimes the mutations are concealable, other times they look like monsters. These guys are usually guards or hired thugs at evil mega-Corp sites that are actively destroying the environment.

The other WoD stuff I haven't had much access to.

For a real world mash up, look at the pipeline protests from North Dakota as a WoD setting...
The big bad corporation is run by a vampire who uses humans, lesser vamps, famori and possibly a few corrupted werewolves, as muscle to beat up or kill protestors. The protesters are mostly humans, some of them loyal to a few werewolves in the mix, but mostly clueless mundanes, a handful of werewolves, a changeling or two, a mage (shaman?) If you feel like it, even a few vamps could be there feeding on protesters. The mundanes might gravitate towards supernatural groups or feel uncomfortable around them, and there is certainly tension between different supernatural groups.

This is an extreme example, usually you won't want to mix as many types of supernaturals together like that. They don't tend to play nice.

[Jeivar]

Fae (Changeling) = nice change of pace for hunters. Can be solo source of weird magic, baby stealers, nightmare monsters, cute new age girl, punk gang, guardians of ancient lore, or unearthly muses, plus so much more.

Hm. I guess I should ask about Fae as well, as I know absolutely nothing about them, what they do, what their powers are, or how they might interact with Hunters.


Famori = Werewolf foes that are mutated humans, sometimes the mutations are concealable, other times they look like monsters. These guys are usually guards or hired thugs at evil mega-Corp sites that are actively destroying the environment.

Can someone give me a basic description of these guys, and their abilities? Are they the thing to use for a Jason-style killer?

[Braininthejar2]

Changelings are fantasy creatures who have mostly moved to the land of dreams, because they are even more vulnerable to human disbelief than mages.

Those who live on Earth, do so by bonding to a mortal host - basically they are born as humans. They have their elven courts and stuff, but to most people they are just human teenagers doing weird stuff - unless they invest magic into fully manifesting, they are only "real" to each other.

Watch "Pan's Labirynth" to see how this works.

[KillingAScarab]

Can someone give me a basic description of these guys, and their abilities? Are they the thing to use for a Jason-style killer?The really simple version for Hunter is probably that a fomor (fomori (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Fomori) is the plural form) is created when an evil spirit possesses a person, slowly corrupting them. If the corrupt spirit (a bane (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Bane_%28WTA%29)) is very powerful, then the fomor will gain greater power. They're probably better to use as a way to show how insidious a threat the supernatural can be, since they can operate openly and only occasionally be revealed by their grotesque powers. If you aren't capable of exorcising the spirit from them, you'll be hunting what was a normal person before the bane came along. Although, looking through Book of the Wyrm, there were certainly cases of fomori who were grateful for what Pentex did to them. I'm going to guess that fewer of those were the ones with, for example, the power which lets you swallow a dog whole or extra limbs, rather than just rad claws or mega-strength.

[Braininthejar2]

Fomori (singular "fomor") are humans possessed by banes (Wyrm spirits)

Evil spirits are attracted by darkness, so a fomor candidate must have been horribly wicked, or horribly unhappy to have attracted one. Early stages are curable, but once the bane is fully bonded, it can't be exorcised without killing the host.

Their level of control varies. a fomor could be a tragic figure ( "I don't want to, but the voices are telling me to kill you") struggling to resist, or a monster that sees no difference between his mind and that of his bane.

Stat-wise, they are humans with a bunch extra abilities. A fomor might be tough enough to soak lethal damage, have an ability to grow claws, vomit acid, or have a vertical mouth full of teeth underneath his shirt. The most dangerous ones have a pool of 1-5 rage points that can be spent on extra actions.

Many have some small deformities that hint at their nature, or at the very least they 'feel wrong', like Nosferatu ghouls.

Since this kind of magic tends to give you violent psychosis and/or cancer, most fomori don't live long. However, the PENTEX corporation has the technology to stabilise them - a fact they ofen use in their recruitment drives.

[KillingAScarab]

Since this kind of magic tends to give you violent psychosis and/or cancer, most fomori don't live long. However, the PENTEX corporation has the technology to stabilise them - a fact they ofen use in their recruitment drives.That's true, if you weren't completely morally bankrupted in the process of working for Pentex, they can still be dangling a "cure" over your head.

Oh, another use for banes besides fomori is to be the bigger evil which gets unleashed. After they have been introduced to evil spirits corrupting things, including werewolves, your hunters could come across an obviously sickly and mad werewolf which turns out to be one of the guardians at the site where a major bane was sealed. The corruption suffered had been that werewolf's sacrifice to keep an elder evil in check. Banes can be so important that they can shape an entire setting - this was the case with Werewolf: the Wild West, where the Storm Eater (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Storm_Eater) bane was unleashed as part of the background story. Obviously, a Hunter game wouldn't have that at the center, this is just an example of how big these things get.

[JeenLeen]

I'll second the notation earlier that oWoD 'races' don't mesh well. I'd recommend simplifying the other supernatural groups. Probably best to say that either hunters can't use their magical stuff, except for things made particularly to corrupt mortals (i.e., vamp blood creating ghouls, Nephandi corruptive things).
I do realize, though, that a mage would probably cover up putting a 'buff' on a hunter via a device. They say the magical charm (or supertech) gives the buff, but it's really the mage's magic.



Stat-wise, they are humans with a bunch extra abilities. A fomor might be tough enough to soak lethal damage, have an ability to grow claws, vomit acid, or have a vertical mouth full of teeth underneath his shirt. The most dangerous ones have a pool of 1-5 rage points that can be spent on extra actions.

This reminds me: the beings the Nephandi work for can give investments (I think that's the technical term) to mortals, granting them power in exchange (possibly) for corruption and/or their souls. Mechanics-wise, I think it's pretty similar to Fomori. The mortal gets a slight boost in some way or a minor supernatural power, similar to a how a ghoul might get Potence 1 or Celerity 1, or just bonus soak due to supernaturally hard skin, claws, something like that.

[Braininthejar2]

Which book is it from? It sounds a lot like what the earthbound fallen do to their minions.

(a lesser earthbound might be a good final boss for a nephandi-focused campaign.)

EDIT: with how the plot works between oWoD games, the earthbound might BE their masters.

[Braininthejar2]

Oh, another use for banes besides fomori is to be the bigger evil which gets unleashed. After they have been introduced to evil spirits corrupting things, including werewolves, your hunters could come across an obviously sickly and mad werewolf which turns out to be one of the guardians at the site where a major bane was sealed. The corruption suffered had been that werewolf's sacrifice to keep an elder evil in check. Banes can be so important that they can shape an entire setting - this was the case with Werewolf: the Wild West, where the Storm Eater bane was unleashed as part of the background story. Obviously, a Hunter game wouldn't have that at the center, this is just an example of how big these things get.

"We came at last, to a great hall... It was then I realised, my companion hadn't been gaining strength... he had been losing... what was left of his humanity..."

[JeenLeen]

Which book is it from? It sounds a lot like what the earthbound fallen do to their minions.

(a lesser earthbound might be a good final boss for a nephandi-focused campaign.)

EDIT: with how the plot works between oWoD games, the earthbound might BE their masters.

I'm not sure which book mentions Nephandi investitures/investments. I forget the name, but I think there was a book that went into details on the Nephandi and Marauders, or maybe there was a book for each. But, probably that one. I think it was <Something> of Madness, though that might be just marauders.

There's a list of fomori "gifts" in the core Werewolf: The Apocalypse book. Probably a better list in a splat book.

[Quertus]

The answer to this one depends on the metaplot. It boils down to where the Hunters' power really comes from.

If however the Demon ending is canon, and the one sponsoring the hunters is Lucifer, then there is no rolling - it's an honest-to-God True Sight.

I thought there was talk of various demons sponsoring hunters, even before the end games...


Others seem to know much more about systems you asked about but I want to advise you to start with something familiar to you and as close to human as possible.

That will let players (and you) to learn their characters without having to learn about a new system at the same time (I've been in a few games where we tried to start with a lot of new stuff at once and every time we massively screwed up which usually resulted in game being canceled).


The thing about bringing over devices from one rules system into another is that you can't easily try to meld the systems. It's best to realize if you want it within your Hunter game, it's going to be an adaptation, at best, using Hunter's rules. You can't have one system with edges and gnosis and rage and arete and quintessence and blood points and... you get the idea. The Storyteller needs time set the story, not just adjudicate the rules. Maybe there's a creed which is better suited towards using the supernatural's weapons against them. Maybe there isn't.


I'll second the notation earlier that oWoD 'races' don't mesh well. I'd recommend simplifying the other supernatural groups. Probably best to say that either hunters can't use their magical stuff, except for things made particularly to corrupt mortals (i.e., vamp blood creating ghouls, Nephandi corruptive things).
I do realize, though, that a mage would probably cover up putting a 'buff' on a hunter via a device. They say the magical charm (or supertech) gives the buff, but it's really the mage's magic.


Which book is it from? It sounds a lot like what the earthbound fallen do to their minions.

(a lesser earthbound might be a good final boss for a nephandi-focused campaign.)

EDIT: with how the plot works between oWoD games, the earthbound might BE their masters.

I may be misinterpreting things, but I want to propose a different idea. It is, admittedly, not easy, but I find the kitchen sink approach not only the best way, but also the only way to approach oWoD. Why do I say this? Many reasons, some particularly relevant to a Hunter game.

My first reason has pros and cons. The world of oWoD is a terrifying place for those whose eyes are open to the truth of reality. Just because you understand vampires... well, that knowledge won't help you with werewolves, because their powers operate on a completely different system. Converting everyone to the same system makes the world far too... understandable.

Worse, errors in the conversion process can have... unfortunate results. How are people supposed to notice that famori powers mirror daemon boons if you've mangled them into unrecognizable parodies of their former abilities when you "translated" them? So, I can see how a "make everything work according to the rules of a single system" game line would need to be put out of its misery, but not how one which stays true to all of the lines would ever need to be killed off for mistakes (What am I missing?). Because there are a lot of seemingly well thought out connections between the various game lines. Not that anyone will likely ever find them, of course - especially not hunters, who are the most deluded of all. But, on the off chance the players ever piece any of it together OOC, it can really help with the tone, letting them see at least one of the many ways in which they've been blindly playing the bad guys the whole time.

Speaking of missing, people seem to be missing out on the fact that the various game lines are just, to put it oddly, "the PC races" - there's entire "monster manuals" (figuratively or literally) of other things for hunters to encounter. And, here, I think the best hunter game would involve creating custom rules for each of them, rather than trying to shoehorn them in with rules from the existing lines.

But, other than the fact that mages can steal the raw "power" from any "charged" item, most every item should be as splat-specific as said splat indicates.

[awa]

Personally I think a trimmed down wod works best, may be my bias as a lapsed were wolf player, but I feel like the existence of the werewolf meta plot with the wyrm and looming end of the world kind of overshadows everything else. Not to mention if you include all the splat books and all the monsters included in them you either run into a situation where these various monsters must be incredibly limited in number or they collective outnumber all mankind.
So if I were doing it I might include werewolves but I would not include their metaplot or most of their antagonists and definitely not pentex the existence of such a grim dark captain planet villains is going to consume the plot.

[druid91]

No clue myself, but I like the answer given above.
Also, note that, according to some splatbook a demon can possess a Hunter under certain circumstances and become profoundly more powerful. I don't know the details, but a friend of mine read about it in my old oWoD gaming group. Basically, it's probably not a good idea to have demons (by which I mean the Demon 'race' book demons, not Nephandi demons or Wyrm demons) be allies. Or just ignore that part of why they'd want to exploit the PCs


From my understanding of the rules -- and the rules are... unclear to contradictory at times, even in the same book -- mages can make a few types of items. Some can only be used by mages, and some can be used by anyone. There may be some in-between that can only be used by corrupted mortals, such as for Nephandi minions, but I don't know about those. I know Nephandi can make things that corrupt people, like books that corrupt one as they read it.

Generally, mages make magic items called talismans. These are effectively spells-in-a-device, that use Quintessence (the energy from nodes and some other sources) to cast the spell. For a mortal, they are useless.
There are some talismans that can be made so that mundanes can use them. These are generally more expensive to make, so probably rarer. And the user might have to believe they work to be able to work it--not sure. But note that it can give the user Paradox, even if the user is mortal.
Once out of Quintessence, the item can't do the magic again until is it recharged.
Both creation and refueling generally requires Prime magic.

Mages can also make superior equipment, like boots that naturally reduce sound. These seem like really good design (supertech basing as mundane tech) or, well, magically-good stuff, and generally avoid Paradox by looking like they could just be good mundane stuff. In our game, the DM let this give us things like -1 difficulty to Stealth rolls or similar skill bonuses. A normal human could use such.

There are also fetishes, which are like talismans but made by bonding a spirit into an item (similar end result to werewolf fetishes, but different means and possibly different mechanics to use.) Done via Spirit magic. I'm unclear on whether or not a fetish can be recharged, or if once it's energy is used up, the spirit is freed and it becomes a normal object. Like talismans, mortals can't use it, although maybe a special one could be made (just more expensive) that a mortal can use.

A mage using Entropy and Spirit could possibly create a fetish by bonding a ghost to an item. Not sure how that works or if the name for such is different.

Note: werewolves and other fera can make fetishes like the above, as well as special fetishes called talens. Talens are generally one-use items, for a single magical effect. I think mortals can use them. Some we encountered in our mage game included an item that rendered us invisible to banes (evil Wyrm spirits) and a healing item.


As of Revised/M20, there are....


Talismans, Permanent Magical Items with their own Arete Score, that hold any number of specific effects. Can be used by anyone.
Devices, Talismans but with a technological bent. Don't cost willpower to make, but also don't do anything on their own without someone at the controls.
Wonders, Much like a Talisman but they lack their own Arete score, and thus need to piggyback off of the mages score. Can only be used by mages.
Trinkets, Relatively normal objects with a permanent spell effect on them. A sword that's on fire for example. Can be used by anyone.
Fetishes, Spirits in a jar, you got this one pretty well.
Periapts/Matrices, Batteries for quintessence.
Charms/Gadgets. Single Shot Talismans. You roll the Arete for the effect beforehand, and then cram it into a vessel to be broken later to release it.
Aaand, Relics. Any of the above, but rather than an inanimate object, the effect is stored in a living being.

[KillingAScarab]

I may be misinterpreting things, but I want to propose a different idea. It is, admittedly, not easy, but I find the kitchen sink approach not only the best way, but also the only way to approach oWoD. Why do I say this? Many reasons, some particularly relevant to a Hunter game.

My first reason has pros and cons. The world of oWoD is a terrifying place for those whose eyes are open to the truth of reality. Just because you understand vampires... well, that knowledge won't help you with werewolves, because their powers operate on a completely different system. Converting everyone to the same system makes the world far too... understandable.Keeping monsters distinct can be accomplished entirely with their actions in the story, and things like a weakness to silver bullets can work often enough to establish if something is or isn't a werewolf. I don't believe you need a five page character sheet for every random antagonist when you are only going to use less than half of it.


But, other than the fact that mages can steal the raw "power" from any "charged" item, most every item should be as splat-specific as said splat indicates.Given infinite resources, that might be possible, but Jeviar is only one person (as far as I know) with an interest in one game which probably doesn't extend to buying The Hunters Hunted (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/The_Hunters_Hunted) or Valkenburg Foundation (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Valkenburg_Foundation_%28book%29) or The Book of Madness (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/The_Book_of_Madness) for four pages of content to use. Accuracy to the rules from the source material doesn't serve the story, past a certain point.


So if I were doing it I might include werewolves but I would not include their metaplot or most of their antagonists and definitely not pentex the existence of such a grim dark captain planet villains is going to consume the plot.Right, Hunter has to have its own way of incorporating doom 'n gloom into the setting (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CrapsackWorld), if that's even the part you want to focus on in your campaign.

[SaurOps]

Not especially. The Get of Fenris is known to have a lot of racists; the Fianna spent a fair bit of time during the Troubles engaged in terrorism. The Shadow Lords tend towards organized crime. And, of course, the Black Spiral Dancers are wyrm-tainted.


That's from earlier design phases of the game, mostly. While the Get still had to deal with having the Swords of Heimdall around until the rest of the tribe killed them en masse for being racist tools, Fianna terrorist connections got rather downplayed in a retcon manner, and Shadow Lords have never been more connected to organized crime than the Glass Walkers, who have an entire camp dedicated to being a part of La Familia in addition to occasionally showing up with Yakuza ties in the game's early days.

It's also important to note that the Get, as of the Revised tribebook, became diehard enemies of the "Norse" pantheon. It kind of sensibly came with the territory of being cast in the roll of their enemy, really. All of the Camps named after Aesir or Vanir figures are treated as dangerous fringe groups in the Revised Tribebook. Unless it's about maiming them, such as in the case of the Hand of Tyr.


One relevant thing is to decide, in your setting, who runs the world. In each oWoD setting (besides Hunter and some of the later 'race' books), one of the antagonists basically rules the world. In Werewolf, the evil mega-corp Pentex has its tendrils literally and figuratively in all aspects of society.

That's not exactly what's going on. Pentex is a shell company of directors that gathers together a lot of diverse subsidiary corporations; in fact, few, if any, people outside of big business's higher echelons know about the name "Pentex". These subsidiaries, however, are firmly entrenched in the world's economy, such that getting rid of them would have devastating economic effects that would wreak havoc around the world. Their names have been noted as being jokes, but really, that's because they're Bland Name Product identifiers to indicate which real world corporation they're acting as a stand in for, the better to avoid legal action.




The conflict set up in Werewolf: the Apocalypse is a very spiritual one, both literally as it deals with the actual spirit world, but also figuratively as the three W's compete for the hearts and minds of every living thing on Earth. So while the Garou paint themselves as the heroes of the Wyld...

They don't. No one is a hero of the Wyld. Even the gorgons - which are like the Wyld's fomori, but never stemming from humans* - are more phenomena or sui generis monsters than champions. The Wyld is dangerous to have around, as it can form Thresholds from the Umbra that can cause extreme danger, with one of the examples from the Book of the Wyld being the sour ground from Pet Semetary. If a Threshold occurs in a caern, it's known as an Abcess, and there's a special rite kept by the Black Furies, the rite of abcission, to cut it off and send it packing that isn't a vital center of Gaia's well-being.

The Wyld is necessary and embattled, but it, alone, is not Gaia.

*Banes can also be possessed animals, but gorgons can be possessed rocks and trees or spirits that get turned into flesh. Drones are only ever humans. Kami are as diverse as gorgons, but lower key and rarer by far.


Personally I think a trimmed down wod works best, may be my bias as a lapsed were wolf player, but I feel like the existence of the werewolf meta plot with the wyrm and looming end of the world kind of overshadows everything else.

Werewolf's metaplot was historically incredibly light and gave PCs ample opportunity to be in the driver's seat. Even when major antagonists in the line were described as having been killed, the identity of the killers was typically left unknown for this exact reason. The heavy-handed approach of Vampire, where the coterie could only ineffectually witness the events unfolding before their eyes, was absent from Werewolf.



Not to mention if you include all the splat books and all the monsters included in them you either run into a situation where these various monsters must be incredibly limited in number or they collective outnumber all mankind.

That works as a joke, but not a serious analysis of the setting. All the different monsters are all very few in number among the teeming throngs of humans. Some partial exceptions might arise, such as Ratkin and Ananasi, who can reproduce with extremely prolific life cycles and hide in places that humans generally don't want to check in on. Adding up all of the monsters, if you leave out the rats, spiders, and sharks, as well as the ghosts, which have their own setting apart from the lands of the living, gives you a number that might get you to about two hundred thousand, maybe. Even with the Ananasi, Ratkin, and Rokea added in, you probably aren't breaking much past one million, and you're comparing not just surface area, but subterranean tunnels and deep ocean environments. Compared to seven billion humans and counting, that's still not a very big drop in the bucket at less than one in a thousand, assuming that humans lived in places that they don't.



So if I were doing it I might include werewolves but I would not include their metaplot or most of their antagonists and definitely not pentex the existence of such a grim dark captain planet villains is going to consume the plot.

That's not actually how Pentex operates. Subsidiaries are out to make money, and don't care about regulations. Even when there's a fine, if it's less than the cost of compliance, they go ahead and violate regulations and still end up making more money. Besides, the most over the top stuff that gets into their docket nowadays involves human meat accidentally getting into the McDonalds expy's burgers, and that's way more Upton Sinclair than Ted Turner on a bender.

Bizarre occult schemes are generally left to cults. Some of them occasionally work alongside subsidiaries of Pentex or other Wyrm-influenced corporations (not all of them are under Pentex), Black Spiral Dancers or other enemy groups, but they are a distinct branch of antagonists. Corporate probably finds them hopelessly unprofessional, and the BSDs that can form coherent thoughts scoff at their rivals.

[Kurald Galain]

I agree that a setting with a multitude of supernaturals works well, although of course I wouldn't include every single splatbook in that.

Some things that I haven't seen mentioned yet...

Werewolves hunt in packs, it's one of their shticks. If you're in trouble with one garou, expect three or four more around the corner. Common garou abilities include

Shapeshift. They can take shift into battle form ("crinos") at-will, which is basically a three- or four-meter tall clawed monstrosity that is highly resistant to any damage that isn't silver or supernatural; regular humans will fly into a blind panic when they see one, and be unable to rationally process or remember this later.
Rage. If sufficiently provoked (and many of them have a VERY short fuse) they will automatically shift into crinos and start messily eviscerating everyone nearby that isn't a pack member. Raging garou take multiple actions per turn.
Senses. Garou can automatically and instantly sense anything wyrm-tainted, which includes any and all banes and fomori, as well as most vampires. They will generally proceed to shift into crinos and slaughter it.
Code of honor. Garou have a complicated code of honor called the Litany. On the one hand, this means that most of them can be reasoned with. On the other hand, in their eyes this has justified any number of atrocities to non-garou, up to and including genocide (of most non-wolf lycanthropes, as well as one of their own tribes). Do NOT provoke.
Step sideways. Using any reflective surface, garou can vanish into the umbra, or spirit world. They can travel through the umbra and exit anywhere else, although the umbra isn't necessarily safe to garou.
Spirit powers. Even low-ranking garou can pull off weird things including opening locks more-or-less at will, causing technology to stop functioning, summoning small elementals, and physical stuff like jumping extreme heights. Garou can learn a lot of what's going on in the world by communing with spirits.
Interestingly, some werewolves are not humans that turn into wolves, but wolves that turn into humans. This gives them a very different outlook on things.

[Braininthejar2]

Actually, they can get into umbra anywhere - it's just that a mirror makes it easier, especially for human-born werewolves, who aren't very spiritual.

They can also exit umbra anywhere, but they will usually exit through a mirror, to make sure they have a way out if things turn sour. An important note - they can do it by virtue of being half-spirits. So they can't take normal people with them. Also, they can only take equipment that is ritually bound to them, everything else stays.

Being a pack gives werewolves two more benefits. The first is a totem spirit that can serve as an advisor, and can pass messages between pack members. The other is an empatic link that prevents them from hitting each other if they frenzy.

[awa]

you might say theirs only a million supernaturals but if you actually look at how many factions and sub-factions their are for ever group and for their antagonist you will see that either these factions are implausibly small or that their are way to many supernaturals.

[Braininthejar2]

One relevant thing is to decide, in your setting, who runs the world. In each oWoD setting (besides Hunter and some of the later 'race' books), one of the antagonists basically rules the world. In Werewolf, the evil mega-corp Pentex has its tendrils literally and figuratively in all aspects of society.

It seems to be more "each antagonist tries to rule the world, and they cancel each other out". If a vampire charms some stock brokers to buy and sell in his favour, a mage uses supernatural calculations to find the best way to invest, and a werewolf summons a net spirit to mess with the system... the stock market will work as usual.

[KillingAScarab]

It seems to be more "each antagonist tries to rule the world, and they cancel each other out". If a vampire charms some stock brokers to buy and sell in his favour, a mage uses supernatural calculations to find the best way to invest, and a werewolf summons a net spirit to mess with the system... the stock market will work as usual.I don't know that I would consider stock markets an effective measure of normality. Just there, you were trying to find something which doesn't rely upon deceit, arcane formulae and lucky charms in its daily operation. :smallsmile:

[Kurald Galain]

It seems to be more "each antagonist tries to rule the world, and they cancel each other out". If a vampire charms some stock brokers to buy and sell in his favour, a mage uses supernatural calculations to find the best way to invest, and a werewolf summons a net spirit to mess with the system... the stock market will work as usual.

The stock market is clearly (and canonically) something created by the Technocracy. Not that that should stop the other factions from interfering, though.

But while it may cancel out, this balance is a fragile one. In a slightly longer campaign, expect it to topple one way or the other, with horrendous consequences. This is the World of Darkness, after all.


you might say theirs only a million supernaturals but if you actually look at how many factions and sub-factions their are for ever group and for their antagonist you will see that either these factions are implausibly small or that their are way to many supernaturals.
Most factions are very small, yes. That's the point; the worst enemy of supernaturals is other supernaturals. The Technocracy is the main exception, which is why they have been winning for a while.

[awa]

For your numbers to work global organizations would need to have less then a dozen members you would have entire species with a single member. Their are to many factions, antagonists and supporting supernaturals like kinfolk for those numbers to work.

lets look at a werewolf camp "Corporate Wolves, who insert themselves strongly in the corporate world and strive to keep Wyrm-influenced corporations like Pentex in check"
how many were wolves would it take to run an organization like that they can affect play on a global scale without being a joke? 20? 50? 100? There are dozens of camps like this for the various tribes each with large scale goals. Then what about all the were wolves not in camps which should be even greater in number. Then consider how many kin folk do they have?

Now consider there are over a dozen non were wolf shape shifters all of whom also have kinfolk. then their are fomori and black spiral dancers and weird stuff.

there are over a dozen clans of vampires each with their own subfactions not to mention ghouls and entire lineages of revanants. I could go on and on every splat book introduces dozens of groups which would need to have multiple members or their not groups. The numbers just don't add up to something as small as a million not if they have enough members to be actual organizations with global reach.



either the world is a joke of supernaturals tripping over each other or its a joke of secret "organizations" that consist of one guy in his basement with delusions of grandeur.

[Kurald Galain]

For your numbers to work global organizations would need to have less then a dozen members you would have entire species with a single member.

Riiiiight. :smallbiggrin:

You are aware that "over a dozen clans of vampires" can each have thousands of members and you'll still be not even close to a million, yes?

[awa]

First i would estimate most clans as having substantially more then a few thousand members but lets go with that. Ghouls are going to significantly out number vampires right? So we have what tens of thousands of vampires and hundreds of thousands of ghouls?

And in asia there are whole different types of vampire and shape shifters so their are thousands of them to right?

And their are armies of were lions and were hyenas fighting over africa. Every individual group is relatively small but their are hundreds of groups across all the various games, and various lesser supernaturals as well. How many kinfolk and fomori for every werewolf and so on.

[Kurald Galain]

Ghouls are going to significantly out number vampires right?
No, in fact. Most vampires don't have ghouls (and most that do, have only one or two).

More importantly, the point you're missing is that ghouls are not an organization or a faction or anything like that. Neither are kinfolk or fomori. If you start counting that, you might as well count every single employee in an organization run by Glass Walkers or Ventrue.

The supernatural are low in numbers but high in influence. They run many countries and corporations not because there are so many of them (there aren't) but because they seek power and have the means to get it.


And their are armies of were lions and were hyenas fighting over africa.
There were. Have you heard of the War of Rage?

In total, there are thirteen Werewolf tribes (and a handful of Changing Breeds that are near-extinct), nine Mage traditions, and about twelve big Vampire clans (and a handful of others that are near-extinct). 13 + 9 + 12 is not hundreds, not even close.

[Mr Blobby]

You don't need that many members to have some serious clout in the mortal world. Let's for the sake of argument look at Clan Giovanni.

At the top, you've got let's say no more than 5 elder Giovanni, calling the shots and formulating the strategic plans.

Below them, some 15 - 30 lessers; they're aware of the general concept of the plan, perhaps a little bit of the details too. But their main role is the tactical decisions.

Let's say each Kindred has one ghoul, also working on this. These 20 - 35 are the public face; to be the de jure leaders while they take the real orders from their owners. That's enough people to assume the critical positions in even the largest company; perhaps more than one.

Below this are the leading Kine working within the organisation[s]. A combination of mortal Giovanni and regular Kine co-opted through various tactics [bribery, Dominate, employment etc]. Unwittingly, they do their master's bidding and run the organisation itself.

Then you've got the huge mass of everyday people who simply do their jobs. They know nothing.

With the de facto control of a serious company, the influence spreads. Lobbyists can ply their trade on politicians to get what they want. Other companies will watch them carefully, often following their lead.

If said concern was say a leading bank etc, their power would be greater. All with less total numbers which would fit on a bus.

[redwizard007]

Um, I don't really think population density was the point of the thread. While realistic, low density numbers might be fun for one game, many gamers seem to prefer a larger percentage of the population to be active players in supernatural conflicts. Both concepts can be supported by various published works, and aren't really worth arguing about.

[awa]

you forget that every tribe, every clan and what not has multiple factions within it like the glass walker faction i mentioned earlier each of which has a "culture" and traditions indicating it must have enough members to maintain that, 5 guys don't have a culture.

the were lions were never wiped out in the war of rage and have enough numbers to have separate political factions
http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Simba

It doesn't matter if a ghoul or a kinfolk is part of the organization just that they are in the know. If you use every source book you are almost guaranteed to have a couple supernaturals of some degree in every crowd. changelings, fomori, ghouls, kinfolk, mummies, demons, various types of zombie something.

I doubt i will convince you and you certainly wont convince me and this is off topic so i think im done either way.

[SaurOps]

I agree that a setting with a multitude of supernaturals works well, although of course I wouldn't include every single splatbook in that.

Some things that I haven't seen mentioned yet...

Werewolves hunt in packs, it's one of their shticks. If you're in trouble with one garou, expect three or four more around the corner. Common garou abilities include
Shapeshift. They can take shift into battle form ("crinos") at-will, which is basically a three- or four-meter tall clawed monstrosity that is highly resistant to any damage that isn't silver or supernatural; regular humans will fly into a blind panic when they see one, and be unable to rationally process or remember this later.
Rage. If sufficiently provoked (and many of them have a VERY short fuse) they will automatically shift into crinos and start messily eviscerating everyone nearby that isn't a pack member. Raging garou take multiple actions per turn.

What's more, Rage makes dealing with non-kin humans very difficult, and sometimes, anyone. Having it very high means a social penalty, and having it over a human's Willpower adds a separate penalty onto that. This, of course, doesn't not count against intimidation, and, in fact, they can typically terrify lower-Willpower humans without needing to roll at all.

Having even one dot in Rage, incidentally, means that a werewolf is angrier than humanly possible, all the time. It was a half joke from rpg.net that for every dot of Rage, a character is ten times angrier than Henry Rollins, all the time.



Senses. Garou can automatically and instantly sense anything wyrm-tainted, which includes any and all banes and fomori, as well as most vampires. They will generally proceed to shift into crinos and slaughter it.

They're not that brazen unless they're in the wilderness or some other locale where there aren't a lot of witnesses. Also, the sense in question is a Gift, and has to be learned from spirits.



Code of honor. Garou have a complicated code of honor called the Litany. On the one hand, this means that most of them can be reasoned with. On the other hand, in their eyes this has justified any number of atrocities to non-garou, up to and including genocide (of most non-wolf lycanthropes, as well as one of their own tribes). Do NOT provoke.

Not quite. The Litany is largely bent out of shape in a number of ways to make life easier, as is the actual creed of honor they have, which falls under Renown. The only tenets that are universally taken seriously as a matter of life and death are the directives to guard caerns and keep up the Veil. The first tenet, Garou shall not mate with Garou, is also typically held up strongly, with harsh punishments for charachs who flaunt their relationships.



Step sideways. Using any reflective surface, garou can vanish into the umbra, or spirit world. They can travel through the umbra and exit anywhere else, although the umbra isn't necessarily safe to garou.
Spirit powers. Even low-ranking garou can pull off weird things including opening locks more-or-less at will, causing technology to stop functioning, summoning small elementals, and physical stuff like jumping extreme heights. Garou can learn a lot of what's going on in the world by communing with spirits.
Interestingly, some werewolves are not humans that turn into wolves, but wolves that turn into humans. This gives them a very different outlook on things.


Some werewolves were also born in Crinos and have some kind of disability or feature that can't be found among humans or wolves. They tend to get a lot of undeserved flak for their very existence, as products of breaking that first tenet.


Actually, they can get into umbra anywhere - it's just that a mirror makes it easier, especially for human-born werewolves, who aren't very spiritual.

In Revised, yes. W20, along with earlier editions, assumes that you need one.



They can also exit umbra anywhere, but they will usually exit through a mirror, to make sure they have a way out if things turn sour. An important note - they can do it by virtue of being half-spirits. So they can't take normal people with them. Also, they can only take equipment that is ritually bound to them, everything else stays.

Being a pack gives werewolves two more benefits. The first is a totem spirit that can serve as an advisor, and can pass messages between pack members. The other is an empatic link that prevents them from hitting each other if they frenzy.

Provided you don't get a Thrall of the Wyrm frenzy, of course.


you might say theirs only a million supernaturals but if you actually look at how many factions and sub-factions their are for ever group and for their antagonist you will see that either these factions are implausibly small or that their are way to many supernaturals.

Secret societies. They're the stuff of conspiracy theories, and you can only have so many people in a conspiracy before it becomes rather difficult to keep secret. I tend to start from the assumption of setting integrity, which also plays in with numerous statements throughout the books that you're not likely to just run into a monster or their agents or family on the street.


For your numbers to work global organizations would need to have less then a dozen members you would have entire species with a single member. Their are to many factions, antagonists and supporting supernaturals like kinfolk for those numbers to work.

lets look at a werewolf camp "Corporate Wolves, who insert themselves strongly in the corporate world and strive to keep Wyrm-influenced corporations like Pentex in check"
how many were wolves would it take to run an organization like that they can affect play on a global scale without being a joke? 20? 50? 100?

Very few, since that particular camp usually has a lot of money to throw around and can, thus, affect markets very disproportionately.



There are dozens of camps like this for the various tribes each with large scale goals. Then what about all the were wolves not in camps which should be even greater in number. Then consider how many kin folk do they have?

Camps since Revised have been treated as fringe elements in the distinct minority of a tribe's numbers. This was particularly the case for the Get of Fenris, who killed the Swords of Heimdall off down to a very few scattered survivors and had nothing good to say about the other camps. Mjolinir's Thunder? It was basically just what happened to Fenrir who had lost all connections to the world and went around killing things until they got killed. Valkyria of Freya? Most joined the Furies. Glorious Fist of Wotan? A few dumb ones who named themselves a really, really dumb thing, given the tribe's progenitor and totem. And none of the writing guaranteed that you'd be meeting one very often.



Now consider there are over a dozen non were wolf shape shifters all of whom also have kinfolk. then their are fomori and black spiral dancers and weird stuff.

Lots of kin don't know they are kin, and the world is also often similarly ignorant of their relation to Garou or Fera (and Rokea don't even have significant amounts of human kin, while simultaneously not having proper kin among sharks, since any Rokea/shark union results in at least one Rokea). Fomori, along with most Triatic possessed, are flashes in the pan, for the most part; any that manage to survive and endure for longer than a year or two are vanishingly rare and keep a low profile. BSDs also have subterranean hives to hide a lot of their numbers, and travel in underground tunnels an awful lot.

Glass Walkers, incidentally, are the most populous tribe of Gaian Garou. Red Talons are the opposite, with perhaps five hundred members, what with being almost exclusively wolf-born and never stemming from humans, and they don't share territory with the Glass Walkers. What territory they do have is typically left unseen by living human eyes.



there are over a dozen clans of vampires each with their own subfactions not to mention ghouls and entire lineages of revanants. I could go on and on every splat book introduces dozens of groups which would need to have multiple members or their not groups. The numbers just don't add up to something as small as a million not if they have enough members to be actual organizations with global reach.


Mystical powers help to project reach an awful lot. They're also expensive to maintain, or require specific sites to operate. And those sites are noted as dwindling down heavily over the years, with few, if any, being gained and some being lost every year.



either the world is a joke of supernaturals tripping over each other or its a joke of secret "organizations" that consist of one guy in his basement with delusions of grandeur.

There's actually a pretty big excluded middle there. Driven, again, by mystic powers. A few in select places can exert mystical influence and manage feats far beyond humans in the same position. It is, in fact, kind of like being rich - people have no choice but to go along with you just because.


you forget that every tribe, every clan and what not has multiple factions within it like the glass walker faction i mentioned earlier each of which has a "culture" and traditions indicating it must have enough members to maintain that, 5 guys don't have a culture.

A few dozen might. Most camps tend to be at least a little extra secret society-ish, too, so they might not really be a culture so much as they are a club for like-minded Garou. After all, the Cyber Dogs didn't number very many, particularly after the business with the scandal involving forcibly implanting lupus Garou with wetware and the crackdown that followed.



the were lions were never wiped out in the war of rage and have enough numbers to have separate political factions
http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Simba


The Bastet collectively have perhaps half the numbers of the Garou, and are usually distributed in places where there aren't Garou. The Ajaba were also savaged unmerciful by Black Tooth, and it took massive efforts just to get a few hundred back.



It doesn't matter if a ghoul or a kinfolk is part of the organization just that they are in the know. If you use every source book you are almost guaranteed to have a couple supernaturals of some degree in every crowd. changelings, fomori, ghouls, kinfolk, mummies, demons, various types of zombie something.

No, again, many of these things live in places far away from human crowds where the environment can be pretty hostile to travelers. Like, say, a secret in an isolated town, or the thing that villagers aren't supposed to talk about. And there are, canonically, fewer small towns and other settlements in the WoD, with the numbers being shifted to larger, more crowded cities. Most Garou can be found in the wilderness, and they have way more room to hide than in the real world, to the effect of having secret wolf packs in places where wolves are extinct IRL (such as the Hakken).



I doubt i will convince you and you certainly wont convince me and this is off topic so i think im done either way.

Then why did you spend so much time typing it out?

[Quertus]

No, in fact. Most vampires don't have ghouls (and most that do, have only one or two).

More importantly, the point you're missing is that ghouls are not an organization or a faction or anything like that. Neither are kinfolk or fomori. If you start counting that, you might as well count every single employee in an organization run by Glass Walkers or Ventrue.

The supernatural are low in numbers but high in influence. They run many countries and corporations not because there are so many of them (there aren't) but because they seek power and have the means to get it.


There were. Have you heard of the War of Rage?

In total, there are thirteen Werewolf tribes (and a handful of Changing Breeds that are near-extinct), nine Mage traditions, and about twelve big Vampire clans (and a handful of others that are near-extinct). 13 + 9 + 12 is not hundreds, not even close.

I'm pretty sure Auspex, Awareness, and any other similar ability will ping ghouls as supernatural. I suspect, for the purposes of this discussion, the real question is, did the puppet masters who created the hunters give them an ability to detect supernatural "enemies", and, if so, what will it detect?

Of those it will detect... for all the vampires I've run (and I'm sad that I can make that statement, as I prefer to play Mage), I've never had a ghoul, or seen any PC with a ghoul, as far as I can remember. So I concur with the relative low ghoul population.

But the big question is the math on the supernaturals. Just looking at the main splats - not all the non-pc races, or even all the Ananasi - it's not just 13+9+12. Mage, for example, is... Traditions + Technocracy + Nephandi + Matauders + Orphans. So that's, what, 9+6+1+1+1, at the very least? Then, for a given Tradition, say, Order of Hermes, you've got sub groups, like House Flambe (and one for each of the 9 spheres, IIRC). So, to make the math easy, and rounding up to nice round numbers, in case I forgot anyone, assuming each of the groups was equally diverse (they aren't), that'd be nearly 20*10=200 groups of mages. If each of those groups of mages had just 50 members, we'd be talking 10,000 mages in the world.

So it's easy to estimate - correctly or not - the number of supernatural PC races fairly high, if you want to.

[JeenLeen]

On number of supernaturals:

I've heard Technocrats overnumber Traditions mages, I think at least 2:1. Note that the majority of both groups live off-world (in the spirit realms to Tradition reckoning, in outter space to Technocratic reckoning.) Not clear on numbers of Nephandi, Marauders, and Orphans. Some of the more organized Orphan organizations -- basically Tradition-like groups that didn't join the Traditions or weren't let in -- might be as large as a single Tradition. Nephandi numbers are inherently unclear since many pose as spies in the other groups.

For vampires, I've heard that that source materials are inconsistent/contradictory. In some book, it might say there are relatively few vamps worldwide. But if you look through just the list of named NPCs in each of the small factions, the number must be larger, at least if you don't want an entire Clan to consist of just 5 members or something like that. It might be realistic that some smaller clans number around 100 vamps or even less, though.

I don't know much about counts of fera and fey, except some fera hide their true counts from the garou (werewolves) to avoid persecution. They still have grudges from the War of Rage, when the werewolves tried to wipe out the other shifting races.

On marauders, Nephandi, and werewolves: I think in the marauder book, it implied that marauders can somewhat sense Nephandi and Wyrm-tainted things. At least, Nephandi can't infiltrate marauder groups, and marauders tend to attack Wyrm-related things or just happen to be there. Some speculate this is since marauders, as insane mages, are creatures of the Wyld, and thus drawn (even if 'subconsciously') to fight the Wyrm. Just a thought for tying things together.

[Mr Blobby]

*Knew* I remembered reading this discussion before...

https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?432709-World-of-Darkness-Supernatural-populations

This is perhaps the best guestimate I've seen so far:

http://rhodeislandbynight.darkbb.com/t375-gen-population-project

Though WoD was not the best for avoiding metaplot snarls...

[Kurald Galain]

This is perhaps the best guestimate I've seen so far:

http://rhodeislandbynight.darkbb.com/t375-gen-population-project

Very insightful.

So based on WW books, there are about 43000 vampires (with Brujah as the largest faction), about 13000 werewolves (with Bone Gnawers as the biggest group), about 34500 other shifters (the big ones being Ratkin and Ananasi), and about 11000 mages (predictably, the biggest group is Technocrats). With about 2 ghouls per kindred, 15 kinfolk per shifter, 47000 fomori, and some 260000 Pentex employees that are mostly regular humans.

That gives an approximate total of 250,000 supernaturals to a world population of 6,500,000,000. Yeah, they're not going to crowd out the mortals any time soon.

[Mr Blobby]

It's a vague guestimate at best, with some obvious holes [such as do animal Kinfolk come in the 'Kinfolk' stat?]

But I feel all ST's need to keep a track of the general numbers. For nearly all of the groups, the loss of even 20 of their clan / tribe / tradition from a smallish geographical area [UK / Germany / NE USA etc] may be a regional fatality rate of 20% - 50%.

To put it in human terms, that's equivalent to the UK fighting a war which cost 4.8 - 12 million dead [of military age], or Germany losing 4.9 - 14.75 million.

Not the kind of thing which could be forgotten about quickly.

[Jeivar]

You know, it occurs to me that my players are all familiar with Vampire, and most are more familiar with Werewolf and Mage than I am, so maybe I should throw a true curveball with a Kuei-Jin.

Can someone give me a basic rundown on their powers, and their durability compared to Kindred?

[SaurOps]

You know, it occurs to me that my players are all familiar with Vampire, and most are more familiar with Werewolf and Mage than I am, so maybe I should throw a true curveball with a Kuei-Jin.

Can someone give me a basic rundown on their powers, and their durability compared to Kindred?

They have more sources of agg gained more readily, and fewer ways to soak. One very dangerous curve ball is that Yang Prana 2 can make wooden weapons inflict aggravated damage - possibly even firing off a bolt of scarlet energy to do it - so any Kindred have to be extra-wary of wooden stakes or the like.

In general, their powers tend to look like warped Daoist alchemy. One core group of Disciplines is based entirely around a "corpse wu xing" of bone, blood, flesh, ghost-flame, and jade, instead of metal, water, wood, fire, and earth (respectively). They also have a category of Demon Arts, which is where one of their better ways to soak agg comes from (Iron Mountain, each dot allows you to use one dot of Stamina to soak agg), as well as a combination Celerity/Potence analog known as Black Wind (lower cost, at only one point of Demon Chi but you have to split dots between the two effects). They can assume demonic battle forms via Demon Shintai, which are customized in a fashion not unlike Mokole Archid forms, but typically they don't get nearly as large when they get really big.

Generally, if they have protection against damage, it tends to be in the form of ablative health levels. They also have effects that might seem to come from out of nowhere, mostly in Jade Shintai, as it can allow one of the Hungry Dead to fly at higher levels, and before that, it's lightfoot and immunity to knockback.

Also, they can continuously feed energy into an effect and then unleash it. When combined with spend for damage dice effects, such as Ghost-flame Shintai 4, this means that they can hit with all of their available Yin or Yang Chi in an effect, at three dice per point, so long as the target is sufficiently distracted not to notice the signs of energy building up (lightning and sparks or freezing cold and shadows, depending on which).

Something to keep in mind, they're reanimated corpses of deceased, particularly egregious sinners who clawed their way back from hell, rather than subjects of an embrace. They have two different sides of their beings, not unlike ghosts, and mind control effects have to overcome both sides. Additionally, their Shadow-equivalent can natively spend its Demon Chi, without any Discipline, to make the vampire stronger or faster in a manner similar to Rage (both Garou and Gurahl), while the Psyche-side can tap into enhanced spiritual senses, also without need for a Discipline, with an effectiveness rating equal to the vampire's measure of enlightenment on their Dharma.

Explaining those, however, is very complicated. They're philosophies of monstrous existence that can be difficult to grasp even for their practitioners. Most disciples on the Howl of the Devil-Tiger, for example, are full of their demonic side and keen on all manner of edgelord-approved behavior, when the core of their belief is actually closer to the Gene Wilder Willy Wonka. No, I'm not joking; it's so true that one of the NPCs in the splatbook is basically Willy Wonka as a vampire, complete with a partially-umbral candy factory with sorcerously-bound banes for oompa loompas. The actually articulate it, the Devil-Tigers are all about punishing mortal sinners while also tempting sinners to sin. Given the Willy Wonka reference, you can probably see where they prefer to go from there.

There are quite a few other Dharmas, with the "orthodox" ones of the greater body of devils numbering five and corresponding to various Daoist and otherwise Chinese cultural signposts, espousing an element (of the corpse type) and virtue, along with a number, color, and direction. "Heretical" dharmas often flip that script, such as the Face of the Gods, which posits that the Hungry Dead are not sinners meant to make amends, but rather infant deities meant to attain full godhood. They also have a Discipline that allows them to gain Chi from mortal worship. Another, the Flame of the Rising Phoenix, rejects most of their overt supernatural goings-on in order to return to the lives that the Hungry Dead left behind when they died.

Sometimes, you'll also get one without a particular system, but they usually don't last for long like that. In fact, upon rising from their graves or where their ashes were scattered, they tend to be difficult to distinguish from sun-vulnerable zombies.

[Braininthejar2]

Okay, so a quick rundown of Kuei-jin.

A kuei jin is an asian vampire with a dual soul - the Hun (the conscious mind) and the Po' ( a bundle of basic instincts - in his case powerful enough that it escaped from hell) . The body usually rises from the ashes when it is possessed, but some kuei-jin return in different bodies.
The two souls can't really live without each other - without the Po' a vampire would be too weak-willed to even grow fangs. Without Hun, he would be a mindless monster feeding on corpses.

In the East, they form courts, much more formalised than the Western ones, but just as scheming (a bit less literal backstabbing, a bit more Chinese-Japanese racism, and venerable elders going ballistic over ettiquette blunders.) Their myths connect them to wan-xian, a race of immortals who were supposed to protect humanity from demons, but got themselves cursed for growing proud and trying to conquer the world. As such, their official philosophy boils down to "we protect humans from anything worse than ourselves, and for that we deserve to feed on them." As long as they actually do it, they are grudgingly tolerated by Asian werewolves, but in the west they'll be fair game. (also, Asian demons have serious problems appearing in the West, so kuei-jin can't really fight them there.)
All in all, they are much more spiritual than kainites - some of them actually communicate with spirits like werewolves do, though they don't get any gifts for it.

Stats compared to kainites:
1 doesn't get the 'half damage from bullets' thing. In fact, kuei-jin are so lifelike, they can eat food, and benefit from acupuncture.
2 can be staked with wood or metal, depending on whether he's in Yin or Yang mode.
3 rots in sunlight
4 can frenzy and rostshreck like a kainite, but also has a third state, 'shadow nature' - that means the violent moron inside his head takes the wheel for a scene and does things his way. (this is resolved with a Hun vs Po roll - as they share one will, it can't be used in this contest) when exactly this happens depends on the Po's nature (for example, the Po' might be a rebel, and get angry whenever the vampire gets scolded by his boss, or a fool who tries to take the path of least resistance when the player gets stuck)
5 can't be affected by, or create blood bonds. Can't have ghouls.
6 has three separate energy pools.
* the "blood pool" is split into Yin and Yang ('cold' and 'hot' lifeforce) - a vampire gets one, the other, or both, depending on how lively a person he feeds on. Making the pools uneven can hurt him on a botch, and making them permanently uneven (by levelling his energy capacity unevenly) puts him in imbalance - ice cold and light sensitive for Yin, or very lifelike and emotionally unstable for Yang. Kuei Jin disciplines often require specific energy, and some have different effects if different energy is used (for example, fire disciplines with Yang cause fire damage, with Yin, they burn the target's will reserve instead.)
A vampire can spend a Yin point to sustain himself - it makes him less lifelike in appearance, but it will keep him going for a week, literally cold-blooded.
* the demon chi pool is equal to the Po' rating (usually 1-5) it is used to power Po' related abilities, but while very useful, those create a risk of entering shadow nature.
7 No humanity rating, or generation. Instead of them both, a kuei-jin gets a 'dharma' - the philosophical way the vampire seeks enlightment by. (this is kind of important - humans are supposed to reincarnate, but kuei-jin messed that up and came back as undead. So for them the next death will be the last one: it's Buddha or bust from here.)

The rating starts at 1, goes up through self-discovery, and goes down for being a murderhobo. It takes a century at least to get it past 5, and if it goes to 0, the vampire becomes a mindless monster.

The 5 officially accepted dharmas are:

Resplendant Crane: "I have been cursed for failing at being a human. If I'm to reach enlightment, I need to make up for that, seeking perfection and proper order in everything I do."

Howl of the Devil Tiger: "The Heavens decided to make me a monster. That means it's my duty to try to be the best monster there ever was. Step aside, murderhobos. I'll show you how to tell a good villain story."

Dance of a trashing dragon: "I came back to life, and walk among the living again. That means the path to enlightment must be in life. I know I am not human anymore, but I will do my best to experience life to the fullest."

Song of shadow: "I now live as one of the dead. That means my enlightment must be in death. I will learn about death, and seek the wisdom of the departed ancestors."

Thousand whispers: "It takes many lives to find enlightment. I only have the one, but I can live many. I have been a yakuza for the last 20 years, so how about I star anew as a pizza guy now? This should teach me something new."

It is rare, but tradition dictates, that an auspicious party ( or 'wu' ) should have one of each.

Disciplines:

Generally there are two kinds:
1 the disciplines one learns from his masters, that require a lot of practice to master. These can't get higher than the character's dharma rating.
2 the demonic powers he gets from his Po'. These can't get past his Po' rating, (I think, he can't spend more dmon chi per turn than he has stamina too)

Typical powers.

Shintai: the five disciplines connected to five elements:
bone: (metal) hardening the body for ablative armor, reshaping one's skeleton to form weapons or tools.
flesh: (wood) reshaping one's body, to get reach, or disconnect body parts. The fifth dot makes you a doppleganger.
blood: (water) messing with blood flow, yours or other people's
ghost flame (fire) creating dazzling lights, that can misdirect or frighten, and at high levels, burn enemies.
jade: (earth) connecting to the earth in a way that allows you to run up walls, pass through stone, and do other kung fu stuff.

other abilities:
equilibrium - messing with people's chi flow to help or harm
cultivation - messing with people's Po' to cause other's to frenzy or to better control your own.
obligation - reading people by sensing their Hun, and commanding them with authority as a more enlightened being.
tapestry - messing with spirits by affecting the local energy flow.
Yin prana - messing with Yin energy - putting humans to sleep, charging metal weapons, getting friendly with spirits of the dead, and finally entering their world.
Yang prana - messing with Yang energy - giving yourself a physical boost, charging wooden weapons, getting friendly with humans and nature spirits, and finally entering the spirit world.
soul eye - a kuei jin grows a third eye that can see glimpses of the future, see and ward off spirits, and help others deal with their Po' and/or Wyrm taint... or really mess them up. at fifth dot it can eat souls, though only a devil tiger would do that.

Demon arts:
black wind - spending demon chi on damage boost or extra actions.
demon form - spend most of the demon chi pool on turning into a monster. Every dot gives a small increase in stats, and one extra bonus (a dice of armor, claws, wall-crawling, reach attack, etc)
iron mountain - passive, each dice decreases soak difficulty, and allows one dot of normal soak (without bonus) against aggreviated.

Iconic kuei jin power examples: ( I hope I remember the levels right)
- using bone shintai*** to saturate the body with Yin, becoming invisible. (it takes more power to affect equipment, so expect some naked assassins with bone blades)
- using Yang prana *** to kill people with kung fu (melee attacks get extra damage per success the same way firearms do)
- using flesh shintai** to break the head off the body and pull out the innards, leaving the body behind and crawling through ventillation ducts as a snake make of guts.
- using blood shintai**** to cut your wrist and make a whip that does aggreviated damage.
- using jade shintai*** to walk through a wall (with a dexterity+etiquette roll :) )

Dhampyr: while kuei-jin can't have ghouls, kuei-jin with severe Yang imbalance can sire children. Such a kid is a dishonor for his father, but you don't throw away a loyal daywalker servant, do you? They are physically humans with extended lifespan, though they can have an awakened Po' and might come back as kuei-jin if killed. Also, the sheer impossibility of their existence messes up their destiny, making them natural action heroes - they often get super lucky in a "survived the bomb in his room unscathed, by jumping out of the window and landing on the mafia boss' new car" way.

[Kurald Galain]

You know, it occurs to me that my players are all familiar with Vampire, and most are more familiar with Werewolf and Mage than I am, so maybe I should throw a true curveball with a Kuei-Jin.

I would go for the monster they're familiar with; it's more fun for them to have the recognition.

If the players say "Oh wow, it's a <foo> and it can do <bar>!" just smile enigmatically and take notes.

[GAZ]

Knowing all about the Changing Breeds and Weaver, Wyrm, and Wyld is super important for playing an Apocalypse game. Knowing all about Paradox and Nephandi is super important for playing an Ascension game. You said you were playing Reckoning. I think that in that case, the most important things to know are what do these things look like to people.

Keep things vague. The players don't need to know that it's actually a Red Talon Ahroun Metis who has been Wyrm tainted by a Pentex fomor. They just need to know that a giant, hairy rage monster is tearing apart innocent human beings. The intricacies of consensus, paradox, and quintessence don't really matter as much as what can we do to stop this MiB type who somehow has a working handheld laser weapon.

[Mr Blobby]

It does matter, from the ST's point of view; if you're the sort who wishes to at least keep the internal logic right. You don't have to tell your players that those odd 'people' are in fact Ratkin who are trying to destroy X because they feel it's the handmaid of the Weaver - but knowing that [for the ST] does mean you'll be able to add a few extra things if your players do incredibly well in their investigation rolls etc.

But you can simply invoke the old 'it's my game, damnit!' and do whatever you like. But ignoring the internal logic is one of my pet peeves.

[SaurOps]

Okay, so a quick rundown of Kuei-jin.
In the East, they form courts, much more formalised than the Western ones, but just as scheming (a bit less literal backstabbing, a bit more Chinese-Japanese racism, and venerable elders going ballistic over ettiquette blunders.) Their myths connect them to wan-xian, a race of immortals who were supposed to protect humanity from demons, but got themselves cursed for growing proud and trying to conquer the world. As such, their official philosophy boils down to "we protect humans from anything worse than ourselves, and for that we deserve to feed on them." As long as they actually do it, they are grudgingly tolerated by Asian werewolves

Werebeasts, though some are less tolerant than others of Hungry Dead, no matter what the Hungry Dead happen to be doing.



but in the west they'll be fair game. (also, Asian demons have serious problems appearing in the West, so kuei-jin can't really fight them there.)

Actually, Umbra Revised notes that Mikaboshi's Wicked City realm is uncomfortably close to having a CyberRealm annex. Boy are all the monsters on the flip-side going to be surprised when those Demons of Iron and Violence start popping up through broken mirrors outside of Asia!



All in all, they are much more spiritual than kainites - some of them actually communicate with spirits like werewolves do, though they don't get any gifts for it.

Not generally to the same spirits, or actually like werewolves, as nushi tend to be more demanding and don't have writeups like totems do, and there's a lot more cajoling that needs to be done to get a clean spirit to do something or partner with one of the Hungry Dead.



Stats compared to kainites:
1 doesn't get the 'half damage from bullets' thing. In fact, kuei-jin are so lifelike, they can eat food, and benefit from acupuncture.

They do if they're Yin-cycled, which also generally precludes those life-like simulacrums in turn.



4 can frenzy and rostshreck like a kainite, but also has a third state, 'shadow nature' - that means the violent moron inside his head takes the wheel for a scene and does things his way.

The P'o is at least as cunning as a Wraith's Shadow in what it does and how it shoots the Hun in the foot and screws it over.



5 can't be affected by, or create blood bonds. Can't have ghouls.

Obligation 5 allows them to set up something similar in lieu of being Dominate with a different name.



* the demon chi pool is equal to the Po' rating (usually 1-5) it is used to power Po' related abilities, but while very useful, those create a risk of entering shadow nature.

That usually has an interesting rider. Virtue pairs (Yin/Yang and Hun/P'o) have to sum to a value (10 for anyone with Dharma less than 5). They don't have to cap out at 5, and higher-Dharma characters can have both parts of a pair at obscene levels.




Disciplines:

Generally there are two kinds:
1 the disciplines one learns from his masters, that require a lot of practice to master. These can't get higher than the character's dharma rating.
2 the demonic powers he gets from his Po'. These can't get past his Po' rating, (I think, he can't spend more dmon chi per turn than he has stamina too)


There are a few more outside Trait-based restrictions beyond even those. The Prana Disciplines have minimum Attribute ratings, Internalize requires the Rituals knowledge, and using Obligation effectively generally calls for having a Hun higher than your target.



Dhampyr: while kuei-jin can't have ghouls, kuei-jin with severe Yang imbalance can sire children. Such a kid is a dishonor for his father, but you don't throw away a loyal daywalker servant, do you? They are physically humans with extended lifespan, though they can have an awakened Po' and might come back as kuei-jin if killed. Also, the sheer impossibility of their existence messes up their destiny, making them natural action heroes - they often get super lucky in a "survived the bomb in his room unscathed, by jumping out of the window and landing on the mafia boss' new car" way.

The most delicious part is that the higher the Dhampyr's Humanity, the more luck they have.

[Braininthejar2]

Well, I couldn't really type out the whole handbook here, could I?


The P'o is at least as cunning as a Wraith's Shadow in what it does and how it shoots the Hun in the foot and screws it over.

There is a diference between Po' and Shadow, at least in the "shoot you in the foot" department. A shadow is a self-destructive impulse given form. Po' is just your worst traits. Unless you're an eastern wraith, your Po' is not inmical to you by nature, just evil and twisted.

To put it another way - a Shadow hates the things you love, and wants you destroyed by the things you hate.

The Po' lusts after the things you love, and hates the things you dislike, which can screw you over just as much, but not purposefully.

[Jeivar]

Okay, I know I've been quiet for a while, but thought this thread was done with. I have a new question: Does Ward work on ghouls? Do they count as supernaturals?

[LibraryOgre]

Okay, I know I've been quiet for a while, but thought this thread was done with. I have a new question: Does Ward work on ghouls? Do they count as supernaturals?

IMO, Ghouls are supernaturals (they all have Potence 1, after all), but can become non-supernatural by expending all their blood. Now, they may still be blood bound, but that doesn't make them supernatural.

[Jeivar]

IMO, Ghouls are supernaturals (they all have Potence 1, after all), but can become non-supernatural by expending all their blood. Now, they may still be blood bound, but that doesn't make them supernatural.

So they're held back by Ward, and ping as "other" to Second Sight?

[Mr Blobby]

Personally, I rule ghouls are supernaturals [though a generally weak and uninformed version of]. Unless I'm remembering correctly, they're immune to the Garou/Fera's Delirium [though naturally can panic normally] - which is the classic sign of them being an 'other'.

[Braininthejar2]

I was to write a longer post about werewolves, but too lazy for that at the moment. So just a couple extra tidbits of information about various supernaturals for now.

1 Mages have an extra background feature called 'arcane' which helps them hide - they subconsciously affect reality to protect themselves. They roll the dots in arcane against attempts to track or follow them - cameras break down, documents get misplaced, and witnesses get distracted. A mage can't really turn it off - high arcane wizards are mysterious figures whether they like it or not, and have serious problems booking flights or getting credit for their achievements.

2 The biggest problem with facing werewolves isn't really their massive strength, or even the fact that they function in packs. It's that once you mess with them, they WILL find you. They can track by scent. Once they level up, they can track by 'spiritual scent'. A mid-rank werewolf can pretty much follow your trail at running speed, without really rolling. A shaman can send bird spirits after you, or awaken the spirit of a security camera and ask it what it saw. If they know your name, it's just a matter of waving a pendulum over a map.

3 While the werewolf gifts are many and varied, the most dangerous is the most straightforward one. Spirit of the Fray is a second rank arhoun (fighter class) gift, that gives the werewolf a flat +10 initiative bonus.

4 Quei Jin items usually require chi to function - and the most chi-conductive material short of living tissue is jade. An item of quei-jin making is very likely to be made of or incorporate jade: the color hints on the type of energy used (black is best for Yin, and red for Yang)

[SaurOps]

2 The biggest problem with facing werewolves isn't really their massive strength, or even the fact that they function in packs. It's that once you mess with them, they WILL find you. They can track by scent. Once they level up, they can track by 'spiritual scent'. A mid-rank werewolf can pretty much follow your trail at running speed, without really rolling. A shaman can send bird spirits after you, or awaken the spirit of a security camera and ask it what it saw. If they know your name, it's just a matter of waving a pendulum over a map.

And to add one more problem onto that, being able to track someone's heartbeat after you've tasted their blood, have something of theirs, or a piece of their body on hand is a first rank Wendigo Gift. Said Gift will tell you how far away you are from your quarry based on the volume of their heartbeat, no matter how far away they are.



4 Quei Jin

I think that "Kuei-jin" is perhaps the most typo-ed monster name in all of White Wolf-dom. They should have gone for the Pinyin... or perhaps the Yale. And not tried to make it two different languages, with the reading from the other language stemming from the first as essentially a type of loanword.

[Mr Blobby]

While Wolf have made a few howlers in their day - their use of 'Metis' perhaps most glaring...

1/ It's an actual RL group in N. America.

2/ They're listed as a 'possible human tribe' in the Wendigo tribe book, which is utterly wrong. They'd never accept those of European blood - and the Metis people are of mixed European - Native American ancestry.

[EDIT: Crap pun at start utterly unintentional, I swear!]

[Braininthejar2]

Not only is it an actual ethnic group, but apparently it was supposed to be derogatory. Which is entire;y in-character, but also cringe-inducing.

[Kurald Galain]

While Wolf have made a few howlers in their day - their use of 'Metis' perhaps most glaring...
I'm reasonably sure that the werewolf term is not named after that ethnic group, but that both of them are independently named after a (much older) term in French.

[Braininthejar2]

Yopu have my interest. Please elaborate

[Mr Blobby]

For point 1/, that is possible. But they should have say perhaps looked 'Metis' up in say an a few encyclopaedias etc before using it. It's only good sense. Point 2/ was a sign of WW employing some random editor or researcher who didn't actually know anything about WtA to 'get a list of all Native American tribes and put them here' and their proof reader obviously didn't notice the error.

[Jeivar]

Okay, one more thing: What are the basic rules for the non-vampiric walking dead? What abilities do they have? What does it take to kill them? How do they generally behave?

[Braininthejar2]

Aren't they the primary antagonists in the Hunter book? I thought the info was there...

[Jeivar]

Aren't they the primary antagonists in the Hunter book? I thought the info was there...

I don't actually own the book. One of my players does, and I'm going to ask him to bring it over. Just thought I'd get a little heads up, while planning.

[Kurald Galain]

Yopu have my interest. Please elaborate

"Metis" literally means "half-breed"; that's what the ethnic group is named after. Of course, such terms tend to get insulting really fast.

Related to dogs and cross-breeding them, it means "mongrel" which refers to an unintentional mismatched breed that's basically the opposite of "pure-breeding". This is what the werewolf breed is named after.

WOTC still should have picked a better term, of course.

[Braininthejar2]

No, it makes perfect sense.

Before the final days made garou too rare to be picky, metis would be killed, their very existence an insult to Gaia. The term was meant to be insulting.

[SaurOps]

While Wolf have made a few howlers in their day - their use of 'Metis' perhaps most glaring...

1/ It's an actual RL group in N. America.

2/ They're listed as a 'possible human tribe' in the Wendigo tribe book, which is utterly wrong. They'd never accept those of European blood - and the Metis people are of mixed European - Native American ancestry.

[EDIT: Crap pun at start utterly unintentional, I swear!]

There are actually a number of Wendigo characters other than Evan Heals the Past who are mixed - the Kachina twins in Rage: Warriors of the Apocalypse, for example - so it's not that they never do, especially since "purity" is a tricky line to cross with lineages spread all over. Now, they would almost certainly take a dim view on any cubs who weren't raised in a First Nations culture.




WOTC still should have picked a better term, of course.

Typos in a thread sub-topic about typos! Ha! (^VVVVVV^)


No, it makes perfect sense.

Before the final days made garou too rare to be picky, metis would be killed, their very existence an insult to Gaia. The term was meant to be insulting.

No, it never makes sense, even if you're going on the name actually being from the Greek titaness*, because they aren't half anything. All the changers that aren't the Kitsune and Nagah and have the capacity to breed among their own really need to have the name changed when it comes time to do another revision of what things are called. It's right up there with Pure Breed, which should be called Tribe Heritage or Garou Heritage, since it seems to only have something to do with a lineage of Garou, and its current name... suggests something else.

(Kitsune and Nagah have the Shinjuu and Ahi breeds as equivalents, respectively.)

* Metis, pronounced mee-teez, which is the pronunciation most consistent with how Werewolf's lexicon says to pronounce the breed.

[Braininthejar2]

It makes sense linguistically - associations cause a semantic shift.

It's the same as how you'd call someone a bastard, and nowadays it has nothing to do with their parentage.

[SaurOps]

It makes sense linguistically - associations cause a semantic shift.

It's the same as how you'd call someone a bastard, and nowadays it has nothing to do with their parentage.

Except that Garou change those cultural facets very slowly in comparison to most human cultures. Ultimately, bad research shouldn't be swept under the rug due to in-universe explanations. It should be retconned out and excised.

[LibraryOgre]

Okay, one more thing: What are the basic rules for the non-vampiric walking dead? What abilities do they have? What does it take to kill them? How do they generally behave?

Which sort? There's zombies, which in WOD are USUALLY referring to one of the more rotting clans, but there's also Mummies, who are more or less separate from it all.

[Jeivar]

Which sort? There's zombies, which in WOD are USUALLY referring to one of the more rotting clans, but there's also Mummies, who are more or less separate from it all.

Clans? Are you talking about the Zamedi bloodline? I'm asking about walking dead unrelated to to vampires. You know, zombies.

[LibraryOgre]

Clans? Are you talking about the Zamedi bloodline? I'm asking about walking dead unrelated to to vampires. You know, zombies.

Which would be why I asked, because, aside from some Giovanni Necromancy stuff, I don't know of explicit zombies in WOD... but also know I'm not an encyclopedia on WOD.

[Jeivar]

Which would be why I asked, because, aside from some Giovanni Necromancy stuff, I don't know of explicit zombies in WOD... but also know I'm not an encyclopedia on WOD.

Neither am I, but I do know that, in the fluff, Hunters encounter various kinds of ghosts and living dead.

[Ignimortis]

Which would be why I asked, because, aside from some Giovanni Necromancy stuff, I don't know of explicit zombies in WOD... but also know I'm not an encyclopedia on WOD.

Well, there are also Risen, which are more of the revenant zombie variety, but it's still a dead body returned to life and possessing of most zombie-like characteristics (unlike, say, vampires, who have a class of their own).

[SaurOps]

Well, there are also Risen, which are more of the revenant zombie variety, but it's still a dead body returned to life and possessing of most zombie-like characteristics (unlike, say, vampires, who have a class of their own).

Risen are specifically like characters from The Crow. They have a specific task to do, a limited window of time in which to accomplish said task, and no appetite for the flesh of the living. Newly risen Gui Ren/Hungry Dead, however, are called Flesh-Eaters and hit most of the marks of zombie territory, though they also rot rapidly in sunlight, as with most of their kind, unless one of them somehow rises with Courage that overshadows Self-Control, in which case the rotting is delayed for five minutes per dot of Stamina.

[Kish]

Which would be why I asked, because, aside from some Giovanni Necromancy stuff, I don't know of explicit zombies in WOD... but also know I'm not an encyclopedia on WOD.
The Hunter: the Reckoning game introduced large numbers of Walking Dead, supposedly the result of recent umbral events (along with mages suddenly finding it a lot more painful to enter or leave the Umbra). They're not creatures from any of the other lines; they were create to be Hunter antagonists, that line's equivalent of fomori. Hunters can easily confuse them with either vampires or Risen, but they're a separate type of creature, far more common than either of those.

[JeenLeen]

The Hunter: the Reckoning game introduced large numbers of Walking Dead, supposedly the result of recent umbral events (along with mages suddenly finding it a lot more painful to enter or leave the Umbra). They're not creatures from any of the other lines; they were create to be Hunter antagonists, that line's equivalent of fomori. Hunters can easily confuse them with either vampires or Risen, but they're a separate type of creature, far more common than either of those.

I think metaphysically Risen are very similar, if not the same as, wraiths. However, mechanically (including powers) they differ substantially.

From what I understand (which is a Mage-centric perspective), when the Ravnos antedeluvian woke up, the Technocracy responded by exploding some super-tech nukes both in the real world and in the spiritual world. (Not sure if it was in the underworld or not.) This caused a huge wave of chaos and entropy in the underworld, which led to several wraiths being either forced onto the material world or able to come to the material world and possess bodies. Hence, the Risen became more of a thing than before.

I think it was stated that they existed before, but in rather small numbers. After that event, they were very common. From a gameplay/meta-narrative perspective, since they are (except for rare cases, such as those that can pass as humans) relatively weak and also fairly stupid, they make good antagonists for hunters.

So: metaphysically similar to the Wraith 'race' you can play a game as, but mechanically a different supernatural type really meant just as NPCs.

[GAZ]

It does matter, from the ST's point of view; if you're the sort who wishes to at least keep the internal logic right. You don't have to tell your players that those odd 'people' are in fact Ratkin who are trying to destroy X because they feel it's the handmaid of the Weaver - but knowing that [for the ST] does mean you'll be able to add a few extra things if your players do incredibly well in their investigation rolls etc.

But you can simply invoke the old 'it's my game, damnit!' and do whatever you like. But ignoring the internal logic is one of my pet peeves.

You have to ignore at least some of the internal logic to run a crossover game. W:tA says that the Weaver, Wyrm, and Wyld are actual living super-powerful spirit beings who are literally at war with each other over reality. M:tA says that the Weaver, Wyrm, and Wyld are primitive superstitions people ascribe to the impersonal and cyclical forces of nature. V:tM says that kindred are the descendants of Caine cursed by the Abrahamic God with the Beast and a hunger for blood. C:tD says that vampires are the descendants of a redcap changeling who tore off his blood brother's head in a fit of jealousy. These things are mutually exclusive and cannot possibly all be true.

Playing H:tR you gotta buy into the Hunter worldview and go by the Hunter book and damn the rest or none of it makes any sense.

[Kurald Galain]

These things are mutually exclusive and cannot possibly all be true.

It's WOD: all of them are lying :smallamused:

[Mr Blobby]

What I mean as 'internal logic' is the one of *your* chronicle. As I said before, I hate with a passion stories [after all, isn't a chronicle nothing more than a interactive story?] that the *whys* of group X do what they do make no sense on any level. No, you don't have to show your players their plans, but I've seen otherwise good games fall apart when players finally got skilled enough to start understanding the *whys* of what happens and they are simply are stupid.

As for 'it's your game, dammit' - who says vampires come from Caine? It could simply be one idea amongst many, stemming from a bunch of old European vampires who were at one point reared in the world of Christianity [which is in effect a description of both Camarilla and Sabbat]. Perhaps the Triat only exists because enough Fera have believed in it for so long they have become true etc.

Lastly, every culture in RL comes up with their own stories about their creation, purpose etc. We don't know which one is true or not, do we?

[Braininthejar2]

From what I understand (which is a Mage-centric perspective), when the Ravnos antedeluvian woke up, the Technocracy responded by exploding some super-tech nukes both in the real world and in the spiritual world. (Not sure if it was in the underworld or not.) This caused a huge wave of chaos and entropy in the underworld, which led to several wraiths being either forced onto the material world or able to come to the material world and possess bodies. Hence, the Risen became more of a thing than before.

From what I understand, they dropped a modified nuke that killed targets both in the material and the spirit world (still didn't kill Ravnos - they finished him off with orbital mirrors)

Unfortunately, at the same time some other important NPC was experimenting deep in the spirit world, using what was basically a ghost of the Hiroshima nuke (objects can become relics in the land of the dead if they were important enough for the living)

The resultant explosion messed up the spirit world, killed lots of important NPCs, and even cracked open the gates of Hell - which is why the Fallen are also a thing now.

[Braininthejar2]

It's WOD: all of them are lying :smallamused:

It's metaplot. All of them say the truth - and the final battle will decide not just the future of the world, but also its past.

[Lapak]

These things are mutually exclusive and cannot possibly all be true.
Well, I suppose they could be if the cosmological view from Mage is accurate, in that the reality created by consensus can be (and has been) changed not only in the present but retroactively. It's possible that vampires were at one point spun off of the Redcaps, but as the dominant paradigm changed they instead became beings descended from the curse of Caine. And when that change happened, they always had been created that way - except possibly in the memory of the Fae who were living on another layer of 'reality' when things shifted.

Mage's cosmology can be messed up that way.