In oWoD, what "class" of characters could you play?

[thorr-kan]

I was never White Wolf's target demographic. But over the years, I've developed a little curiosity about what characters a person could play. Specifically oWoD for now's questions. I'm interested in the weird cousins, lesser servants, things like that.

There's the Big Three: Vampire, Werewolf, Mage.

There's the Not-So-Big Ones: Changeling, Wraith, Mummy, Demon, Hunter.

There's also Not-So-Well-Known Ones: Sorcerer, Gypsy.

What else was there available to play?

ETA: The table's gonna be messy. Clarification and expansion welcome.


Primary Class
"Sub" Class
Sources


Vampire
Dhamphirs (thin-blooded vampires?)
?


Vampire
Ghoul
?


Vampire
Revenants (hereditary ghouls)
?


Werewolf
Kinfolk
?


Mage
Cyborg/Genetic Super-soldiers
Guide to the Technocracy


Mage
Hedge Wizard
?


Mage
Lich
?


Mage
Sorcerer
?


Wraith
Risen
?


Wraith
Mediums
?


Wraith
Spectres
?


Wraith
Variant Wraiths
?


Kindred of the East
Dhampyres
?


Kindred of the East
Keui-Jin
?


?

?


?
Faithful
?


?
Faithful
?


?
Gypsy
?


?
?
Year of the Hunter (1995)


?
?
The Quick and the Dead


?
?
The Autumn People

[Anonymouswizard]

First off you've got the 'sub' splats, Ghouls for Vampires, Kinfolk for Werewolves, Risen for Wraiths. Oh, and Sorcerers for Mages, but they're a bit more weird. Not every splat has one, and some later ones like humans in demonic Pacts aren't technically PC options.

Then you have things like Faithful characters, which can cross over with other character types but normally don't. As well as Hedge Magicians, which are basically Sorcerers, but older and without an explicit connection to Mage.

Also Keui-Jin, which are 'Asian vampires' that are a mess of a whole lot of things and while an interesting splat potentially problematic. Actually Asia didn't exactly get the best treatment in oWoD, which I suspect has links to every splat having a choice which funnels back to 'associated with this geographical area' (Vampire is the best because things like 'Brujah ruled Cathage' are significantly less important in the modern day).

And good luck sorting out a party that uses more than one splat, they're all heavily imbalanced and have enough differences in basic rules to get you pulling your hair out.


As a side note, CofD (nWoD) 1e was much better on pretty much every front when it came to character types. Mortals were dealt with first and formed the basis of the system, and everything than altered mortals so that the rules were consistent between every game. This made crossovers much easier, although by late 1e the idea of balancing all the gamelines was completely abandoned and instead moved towards character options that borrowed theming from other gamelines.

On splats. Each character splat apart from humans got three subsplats: one innate, one social, and an optional specialised form of one of the first two. Although they also started playing around this this idea pretty quickly when Changelings got four supsplats. Minor splats are also a lot more common, and 2e made several of them a lot more playable in mixed groups (and even added some new ones in). Then there are again some 'one book and done' splats, like Inferno Demons.

[Tyrrell]

There were the year of the hunter books of 1995 where you could play either 1 an agent of an order of academic scholars studying the super natural, 2 an agent of the modern Catholic Inquisition, dealing with supernatural creatures or 3 an agent of the US federal government.

Year of the hunter also had two books I never read, The Quick and the Dead, and the Autumn people. Which look like they supported other mundane people messing about with supernatural monsters.

[druid91]

There's also the Drones, Fomori, and whatever Gaian possessed were called. And Guide to the Technocracy brought in the option of playing cyborg/genetically engineered super soldiers who weren't actually mages themselves and in many cases, didn't even have an Avatar and couldn't be mages at all.

Then Forged in Dragons Fire brought in the idea of playing Bygones, so you could play a Dragon or any other sort of fanciful creature, if you truly wanted. Or more robots, or undead. And there's Lich's in that one splatbook for Mage that covered Greek and Aztec magic. Though they're more of just uber powerful undead mages then they are a new splat.

[Yanagi]

In addition to what's already mentioned...

Werewolf included rules and splatbooks for other were-creatures:

Cats
Coyotes
Bear
Ravens
Sharks
Hyenas
Rats
Snakes
Lizards
Foxes
Spiders

Wraith created splatbooks for:

Mediums
Spectres
Risen
Wraiths from different Dark Kingdoms (with slightly different rules)

Vampire materials included:

Revenants (hereditary ghouls)

[comicshorse]

'Kindred of the East' had Dhampyres. The children of a sufficiently Yang aspected Kue-Jin and a mortal. But they are very rare

[LibraryOgre]

'Kindred of the East' had Dhampyres. The children of a sufficiently Yang aspected Kue-Jin and a mortal. But they are very rare

Which meant every player group had three.


Errr... responding to subscribe. :smallbiggrin:

[Anonymouswizard]

Meanwhile Masquerade has dhamphirs, children of 15th Generation Kindred who managed to get alive enough to sprog, they basically act like traitless Revenants. They're very rare.

Although I'm not 100% sure if that's canon anymore. 5e changed quite a bit about how Thin Bloods work, and I'm not sure if they can have children like humans anymore (they're still all Caitiff, but now have more traits and can in theory embrace indefinitely). But 5e changed a lot, bringing in some cool new things and a lot of knock-off Requiem (oh, and wrote out the Sabbat before making the Anarchs into Sabbat-lite). It's pretty much what turned me off oWoD and into CofD permanently.

[Tyrrell]

The Mummy Player's guide had a few groups of non-Egyptian mummy. Also, the mummies in WoD: Mummy and its revision were significantly different than the ones in Mummy: the Resurrection.

[thorr-kan]

Also Keui-Jin, which are 'Asian vampires' that are a mess of a whole lot of things and while an interesting splat potentially problematic. Actually Asia didn't exactly get the best treatment in oWoD, which I suspect has links to every splat having a choice which funnels back to 'associated with this geographical area' (Vampire is the best because things like 'Brujah ruled Cathage' are significantly less important in the modern day).
Are these setup as Asian-mythology-based vampires and planned on being the main PCs, or are they meant to be NPC sidekicks?


The Mummy Player's guide had a few groups of non-Egyptian mummy. Also, the mummies in WoD: Mummy and its revision were significantly different than the ones in Mummy: the Resurrection.
I think variants of existing main categories is enough material for a different post. But thanks!

[thorr-kan]

I've edited the main post with a table for clarity's sake. Anybody who could fill in blanks would be greatly appreciated.

ETA: Did the original Changeling have any "sub" classes?

[comicshorse]

Are these setup as Asian-mythology-based vampires and planned on being the main PCs, or are they meant to be NPC sidekicks?


Originally they were just set up as NPC opponents to standard Western Kindred but they got there own game-line in the end.

Rules for P.C. Kue-Jin and Dhampyres can be found in the 'Kindred of the East' book

https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Kindred_of_the_East_Rulebook

P.S
Oh Dhampyrs got there own book 'Half Damned : Dhampyr'

[Anonymouswizard]

Are these setup as Asian-mythology-based vampires and planned on being the main PCs, or are they meant to be NPC sidekicks?

Kuei-Jin are the main PC type of Kindred of the East, an annoying name because they aren't Kindred. They are likely no longer canon in their current form, 5e bringing in Blood Potency and Duskborn might mean they're a different type of Kindred like the Duskborn (14th+ gen Cainites) are. They're the reason there's 'no kindred' in East Asia, although West ?Asia and South Asia have their own bloodlines (including a recognised Clan or two for West Asia).


I've edited the main post with a table for clarity's sake. Anybody who could fill in blanks would be greatly appreciated.

ETA: Did the original Changeling have any "sub" classes?

Side note, race or splat would be better than class, although each is a gameline in itself they are in concept and use much closer to D&D classes than races. Some splats do have race equivalent's (such as a Garou's Auspice), others don't.

You've included Kuei-Jin but not Cainites/Kindred or Garou, is there a reason for this?

I don't know enough about old Changeling, there were geographical groupings of Kith but I don't know how much they changed it up.

This is somewhat easier for CofD due to the lack of metaplot making entirely new types rare. But then again CofD also tried to make minor templates work in mixed groups, I'd actually like to play a Requiem ghoul (which get a more flexible power boost and higher cieling than Masquerade's ghouls, with IIRC no increase in downsides beyond 'not excepted everywhere).

[raygun goth]

Werewolf the Apocalypse had

Kinfolk - of all the Fera

Ajaba - werehyenas

Ananasi - werespiders with three aspects: Weaver, Wyld, and Wyrm

Bastet - werecats with variants: tiger, cougar, lynx, lion, caracal, jaguar, leopard, cheetah

Corax - werecrows/ravens

Gurahl - werebears: black, polar, grizzly, and brown

Kitsune - werefoxes

Mokolé - weredinosaurs. Seriously. Their animal forms were monitor lizards like komodo dragons, crocodiles, or alligators, but their "hybrid" form is a freakin dinosaur made of random parts, it was stupid easy to build a winged dragon

Nagah - weresnakes

Nuwisha - werecoyotes

Rokea - SHARKS

Ratkin - rats

[comicshorse]

Simba- Were Lions

[Anonymouswizard]

The werebats, werebats, and werebulls were all driven to extinction by the Garou.


Oh Demon has Demons, split into the normal 'possessing people' kind and the 'possessing objects' Earthbound. And I'm addition to the faithful and hedge mages from Hunters Hunted and the like Hunter has the Imbued, who are organised similar to human hunters but are different because they're supernatural with a bunch of tricks based on Virtues and Creeds and the ability to see through supernatural illusions and resist supernatural mind control. The late-lifecycle mythology of oWoD got a bit confusing which is why 5th edition is a soft reboot.

Which is also why CofD vampire has no definitive mythology and CofD Werewolf has to competing variations on its mythology which both might be fairly incorrect (the Pure have definitely got one detail wrong). Plus an almost purely reactive metaplot, things will change but only if it's because something is nearly impossible to ignore.

[thorr-kan]

Are Werewolf's Kinfolk other weres, or are they a separate race?

[Anonymouswizard]

Kinfolk are humans with Fera... 'genetics'. What causes Fera isn't clear, early Werewolf talks about genetics, I believe in late Werewolf it's meant to be related to the spirit/soul, WW changed more than that up between 1e and Revised.

Oh, Fera are shapeshifters/were-Xs.

So yeah, Kinfolk are related to Fera, but never underwent the First Change. Fera-Kinfolk pairings are the best way to produce more Fera, I don't think that Fera-human makes anything other than Kinfolk while Kinfolk-Kinfolk has only a small chance of creating Fera. Fera-Fera are a mixed bag, vary between the various races of Fera, and the resulting kids have to be kept in the sept sir to being in constant warform until the First Change. That's if the baby doesn't explode on birth due to not having had the chance to dream up their warform. Or a parent doesn't undergo spontaneous werefox combustion. Or just plain don't exist for a couple of Fera.

Urgh, so yeah, think of Kinfolk as half-weres (and roughly quarter spirit, because this is WoD).

If you think that this leads to a lot of problems with inbreeding among the Fera, yeah you're right. It's a weird thing where what's meant to keep Garou linked to human society actually acts as a buffer against it, as most Tribes only associate with their Kinfolk.

Apocalypse has great ideas but a lot of problems.

Oh, and we've forgotten an important splat.

Abominations.

What happens when you Embrace a Fera? Well they get a Willpower roll. On a success they die peacefully, but on a failure they die painfully. However on a notch they become an Abomination, a Fera vampire. Basically you get all the Vampire abilities and your Clan (unless Caitiff), and keep your shapeshifting and any Gifts you've learnt. Most Abominations are Garou. You've got a big raw power boost on top of your vampirism, but vampires hate you, Fera hate you, spirits who aren't of the Wyrm hate you, and you basically can't learn any new gifts that aren't of the Wyrm. You munchkin.

Just be careful when embracing Fera. There is a chance of spontaneous werefox combustion.

[LibraryOgre]

So yeah, Kinfolk are related to Fera, but never underwent the First Change. Fera-Kinfolk pairings are the best way to produce more Fera, I don't think that Fera-human makes anything other than Kinfolk while Kinfolk-Kinfolk has only a small chance of creating Fera.

Kinfolk/Human (or Kinfolk/animal, for animal kinfolk) dilutes to non-Kinfolk, eventually, but they can still, eventually, manifest as Fera somewhere down the line.

[Anonymouswizard]

Kinfolk/Human (or Kinfolk/animal, for animal kinfolk) dilutes to non-Kinfolk, eventually, but they can still, eventually, manifest as Fera somewhere down the line.

I believe each generation that includes a normal human reduces the chance of being kinfolk somewhat? I mean, this isn't really something that came up in game and served to define what your family was like. It's why I prefer Forsaken to Apocalypse, Wolf Blooded are now a larger group who might be completely unrelated to Uratha, and after a couple of generations just kind of blend into the population so that a new Uratha could be born to almost anybody.

[LibraryOgre]

I believe each generation that includes a normal human reduces the chance of being kinfolk somewhat? I mean, this isn't really something that came up in game and served to define what your family was like. It's why I prefer Forsaken to Apocalypse, Wolf Blooded are now a larger group who might be completely unrelated to Uratha, and after a couple of generations just kind of blend into the population so that a new Uratha could be born to almost anybody.

Yeah, I have no idea about numbers, which were never White Wolf's strong point, anyway. I think it more or less boils down to "In theory, pretty much anyone might become a werewolf, because there's a touch of kinfolk in almost everyone's bloodline, but it's a lot more likely if their garou ancestor is recent."

[raygun goth]

Simba- Were Lions

That's a group of Bastet.

[Tyrrell]

I see you've made a chart. For the year of the hunter stuff I'd do the following sub-spats and books:
Arcanum Scholar, Halls of the Arcanum
Inquisitor, The Inquisition
Government agent, Project Twilight
Autumn Person, Autumn People

I really don't know what's in the quick and the dead

For the older mummy books I'd do:
Amenti, Mummy:A World of Darkness & World of Darkness: Mummy Second Edition

[LibraryOgre]

Werewolf includes a lot of different kinds of werecreatures... weresharks, werespiders, werecoyotes, werecats (many varieties), werehyenas.

I just got a bundle (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/288401/The-Savage-Age-Intro-Bundle---BUNDLE?affiliate_id=315505) that includes weresaber-tooth tigers and were dire wolves, too.

[Turgin]

I was never White Wolf's target demographic. But over the years, I've developed a little curiosity about what characters a person could play. Specifically oWoD for now's questions. I'm interested in the weird cousins, lesser servants, things like that.

There's the Big Three: Vampire, Werewolf, Mage.

There's the Not-So-Big Ones: Changeling, Wraith, Mummy, Demon, Hunter.

There's also Not-So-Well-Known Ones: Sorcerer, Gypsy.

What else was there available to play?

ETA: The table's gonna be messy. Clarification and expansion welcome.


Primary Class
"Sub" Class
Sources


Vampire
Dhamphirs (thin-blooded vampires?)
?


Vampire
Ghoul
?


Vampire
Revenants (hereditary ghouls)
?


Werewolf
Kinfolk
?


Mage
Cyborg/Genetic Super-soldiers
Guide to the Technocracy


Mage
Hedge Wizard
?


Mage
Lich
?


Mage
Sorcerer
?


Wraith
Risen
?


Wraith
Mediums
?


Wraith
Spectres
?


Wraith
Variant Wraiths
?


Kindred of the East
Dhampyres
?


Kindred of the East
Keui-Jin
?


?

?


?
Faithful
?


?
Faithful
?


?
Gypsy
?


?
?
Year of the Hunter (1995)


?
?
The Quick and the Dead


?
?
The Autumn People



Mage did also offer "The Bygone Beastiary" and although it might be rare to find such a beast, one option that is possible is an angel of some sort, either male or female.

[thorr-kan]

I gotta get back to this at some point.

[Glimbur]

Don't forget Street Fighter and all its books. Also White Wolf, not sure if setting is WoD but same base mechanics. Plus combat system of course.

[fishyfishyfishy]

It's definitely a different system and setting. Similar combat and health systems but otherwise completely different.

[Anonymouswizard]

It's definitely a different system and setting. Similar combat and health systems but otherwise completely different.

Yeah, while we could count it we'd also have to count the Trinity Continuum, so Psions, Novas, and whatever you played in Adventure, as well as Scion and it's Divine Beings. Now both are great settings, and IMO run on the best version of Storyteller, but they aren't WoD.

Exalted is more complicated, 1e at some point was going to be the prehistory of WoD, hence the similarities between splats, and some Exalted characters maybe showed up in WoD, but there's no explicit links. Most Exaltations map pretty well to an existing splat anyway.

[JeenLeen]

Were Orpheans (like Orpheus, not a mispelling of mage Orphans) canonically part of oWoD?
I don't think I ever read the book, but it seemed in the same spirit/theme as oWoD and about... sorta like dream sorcerers, or something like that?

For Mage, you could play an acolyte (by which I mean, not a mage, but a human supporter of the Traditions who believes in magic and isn't a witness), but that'd be pretty dull unless you're also a sorcerer.
Could be fun to play a hanger-on of a Maruader who is swept up in their reality and gets super powers because the Maruader thinks they do... but that's not really something you can base a mechanical system on.
Nephandic imbuements/investments on a human are technically something that could make a PC, if an evil one.

[Anonymouswizard]

Were Orpheans (like Orpheus, not a mispelling of mage Orphans) canonically part of oWoD?
I don't think I ever read the book, but it seemed in the same spirit/theme as oWoD and about... sorta like dream sorcerers, or something like that?

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeees? I've never read the book, although I really want to, so the below is the results of my research into it a year or two ago.

I believe it wasn't part of the line, but it deals with the aftermath of the metaplot events that ended Wraith (which was one of my favourite games in concept, but I didn't like the execution). It was in essence Wraith with the perspective flipped to focus on the living rather than the dead, you worked for a corporation that dealt with hauntings and employed both psychics and ghosts, and I believe that later in the line you had to deal with other corporations dealing with the afterlife in a much less ethical fashion.

While I can't remember the names there was like two types of human (those who could astrally project on command ans those who needed to be frozen for it), normal ghosts, and a couple of kinds of special ghost. Changes from Wraith included Arcanoi being replaces with Horrors as ghostly abilities, and ghosts no longer having a Shadow in their heads but instead having an evil doppelgänger. Also Oblivion got changed, and I believe was focused on Grandmother rather than the Neverborn(? I forget if Wraith used Neverborn or Onceborn, or even both).


Now I'm trying to remember if Demon had any options other than demons. I don't think it did, both Hunter and Demon seem to have been more focused than the games which came before them.

[Satinavian]

One of the Dark Age Vampire books had playable Gargoyles.

[LibraryOgre]

One of the Dark Age Vampire books had playable Gargoyles.

The Player's guide did, as well. I loved their Flight power, just for giving a vampire wings. Their specialty power (whose name I forgot, because all of them are letter salad) was a mix of Protean and Obfuscate, IIRC.

[fishyfishyfishy]

Were Orpheans (like Orpheus, not a mispelling of mage Orphans) canonically part of oWoD?
I don't think I ever read the book, but it seemed in the same spirit/theme as oWoD and about... sorta like dream sorcerers, or something like that?


Wraith 20th Anniversary Edition includes Orpheus