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noncombativednd · 3 years

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What Does a good D&D game.. look like?

“Those Lost Shall Not Be Forgotten” is what the flag says. That’s the Flag to the city of New Hope. It’s written in Infernal, and it’s about the previous city “Last Hope” that was destroyed by a powerful ritual that wasn’t stopped in time. Last Hope was the only Tiefling run city and when it was destroyed, the survivors were kicked off their “borrowed” Elven lands and forced to create a new city on new lands.

The flames and the colors on the “compass“ represent the 8 major families and the common colors of their houses. Those families are suppose to be direct bloodlines from powerful devils who’s powers they used to help keep the city in control. Those houses where not spared from the powerful ritual that destroyed most of the old city; and new young upstarts to these houses are starting to learn the powers their bloodline has, as they struggle to built up a whole new city on foreign lands.

Now here’s the kicker. That’s not Lore. That was the GAME. What started up as a joke with all three of us saying “Ha! Let’s all just play Tieflings! Oh, they have high Charisma? Why not make them all part of a traveling Band!” turned into a powerful story about a tiny nation struggling to survive against those who would rather see it destroyed; with us, the players, at the center of it. Each of us started as just children of the leaders of a powerful Tiefling house, but due to our own incompetence and inability to see the real threat.. We went from wanting to run away from home.. to being 3 of the 8 council members of the only Tiefling Nation! We would die to keep this nation afloat.

We would not forget those the died that day.

Now I’m not saying a game is only good if your players decide to make a fricken flag! Or even (and yes we DID do this,too) write a song to inspire the survivors of a tragedy... but it goes to show how engaged with the game we were by the fact that we did all this because we cared. We were invested! Now, how did we do this? How did we get so invested in the game we were taking time out of our life to slap together flags, songs, and business plans for our game? I’ll tell you how. We, the players, helped create everything.

The DM didn’t write a whole lore dump we had to create our characters against, she worked with us on the spot to write up the whole things about Us, our powerful bloodline families, and what it meant for us, why the city was the way it was. We, the players, were creating it; she just helped glue all the pieces together so it all made sense. It wasn’t just that though. Last Hope, the old city. We started there!

That’s right, we started level 1 in Last Hope. We were kids of the powerful adults, just starting to grow up enough to want to get the hell out of that city and out of the shadows of our parents we didn’t like. We wanted to, but.. then we heard rumors. That whole Ritual? We are the ones that failed to stop it in time. We were distracted, we were misunderstood, and not trusted. One of our parents died and we couldn’t figure out if the Half-Elf that told us that something worse would go down meant “assassinate all the powerful families” at the funeral, or “do some strange ritual” at the park that would damage the city. We split up, and failed to think that the ritual itself was what would kill our parents, our people, our... city. Half the city was erased from the world in a moment. Then the game kept going.

See, this was why it was so good. Everything was just part of the game. Our rolls, our choices, our story. We decided to get boats, and take all the survivors away when the Elves, who’s “land” the city was built on, decided that the giant explosion was our fault. Fuck em! We’d rebuild the city elsewhere, and we’d use the help of their enemies, a Dragon/Dragonborn empire. We took whatever we could and found a new island that wasn’t on the charts. There, we started to rebuild. More rolls, using an updated kingdom system to build a city, setting up defense armies using an updated army warfare system, and setting up a council of the 8 houses that made up the strongest and.. well richest of the Tieflings choose what resources would be spent on what. Our rolls, our choices, our story. The DM had never planned on this, she just.. changed things after every roll.

Now if not obvious enough, there was plenty of combat. We fought to stop the ritual, as my character who is affectionately called “En”, the fighter of the group, was knocked out in the fight, only to be woken up by Chant, the bard of our group, that had finished the fight, but too late to stop the ritual. Monsters poured out of the portal, and our parents arrived in time to tell us to help evacuate the city. Beaten, but not broken, we decided to do just that. As we fought monsters to buy time for the citizens to get to safety, En lost consciousness again as she once again jumped in the way of the blow targeting another, and was impaled by it’s horns. Tresse, the sorceress of the group, was able to finish off the monster, but En was in no shape to wake up anymore. En would have to be told what the explosion that left a giant crater in the city looked like.

En would have to be told what she had failed to stop.

The combat was just the backdrop, though. Our decision to not leave the city, our decision to investigate our cities problems, our decision to try and stop a dangerous ritual on our own; That was the story. It all added up to our story, where we now are trying to help our flegling new city grow and thrive on a large island that we found out once was home to a large empire once before. Nothing was prewritten problems, nothing was just about one player’s character, nothing was about our long elaborate backgrounds, and nothing was about the NPCs. It was all about us.

So when I talk about the game, I talk about what we all did together at the table. Not our character’s backgrounds. Not the grand lore of the world. Not just one small moment in the battle where ZOMG I Crit. No, the game was good because the DM let the players help guide the story. She took our ideas and built on them, not around them. It still ongoing, too. We had to take a break, but we’re in the middle of a tense situation as we later found the “old” empire actually still existed on the island. They had their own “magical” problems hundreds of years ago, and they had finally recovered enough to try and reclaim their old lands... our lands. Needless to say, we are not giving them up. We’ve learned what horrible things they did that killed off their own people, and we’re not letting them get back that horrible power. We will not let a tragedy like that happen again. We will not lose hope again.

We will not lose our city again.

TLDR; The DM of the game asked me to add this. At the end of the day, this is the player's game. They improvise and deliver lines for the main cast of characters, decide who they are, where they go, and what they do. They make up a majority of the game even! The campaign doesn't belong to the DM, though their job is important. They still have to manage background characters, keeping the pacing right, throw problems at the players, but the editor doesn't write the book, the authors do. The Players are the Author, the DM is the Editor.

#D&D #DnD #Dungeons and Dragons #5e #ttrpg #ttrpgs #Those lost shall not be forgotten #Are you? Are you? Fleeing this city? They murdered our own in a great conspiracy.#Strange things did happen here but not stranger would it be #If we fought for our own in Last Hope our city.

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criticalrolefanficsarttheroys · 3 years

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Lucian Stone & DeRollos Death Theroy & The Cerbus Assembly’s vendettas against three great Clerical Families, an their relationship with the Betrayer Gods through the Briarwoods

Spoilers discussing information up through C2 ep141

Ok so it may be obvious from the title but I’ve been think a lot since the Finale about how many open path an questions there are left open (which As a theorist I love no complaints) but if we draw those thread close we can see some interesting links

Since campaign one in the Whitestone arc, an since we learned of the family go dust clay and stone,for me at least, the question had been what did Briarwood find that lead her too WhiteStone? On the PC side we know only that Caduceus Clay has had the dreams about Whitestone an it properties I believe that to Malora it may be seen a Hall of the House of stone, an the De Rolo family of the family go stone, but what was their origin in perusing Vecna? It was in a state of dispear an death that Deilhla sloughs a way to bring Silas back, an at least while living did not seem the servant type, what if the voices an dreams where the Somnovuam? What if Vecna is an earlier form of a Cognosa consumed wizard who also came as the Nonagon, the original writer of the journal maybe, it would explain the corrupting power of his hand, then watching campain two the party I believe was at the Dust family forge an they learned about the activity via Bos memories that Briarwood was chased out of the Empire for out lawed Necro practices, we know from campain one that this was done to bring back her husband an ultimately Vecna but what if her ritual was the reason for the corruptions (I.E the book) release, it would have been 25 years before the Nien an if Lucian was between 5-7 at the time an was used as a key for its release, that is what if in order to inact the rights of Vampirism one of the components was the soul energy of a blood mage from a specific family’s blood Line that was tied to both the Abyss an Malora with dedications to the Moon weiver? What if Lucian is from the family of stone also an the reason The somnovaum goes so far as to bring his pieces back together is that his “gift” is what allowed Vecna to discover that what he needed was in Whitestone by using Lucians connections? An after he is shattered he is put back together because he was ritually sacrificed to them as a child an is the closest connection that Therisdun now has to a physical form? (Which Molly accually mentions pieces of, an why he doesn’t like looking back) An this is where Vessdrogna comes in when we learn about her we are told that she is the Mage of Antiquities or historical magic at the time of the Nien. I don’t think it a coincidence that that was also Briarwoods title before she had to flee to Tal Dori, an personally I think they (Vess an Delihla) along with Trent an the Martinet where all present for the rights of sacrifice that Lucians family an he himself where put through, this is where they first experience the straight energy of Necro Soul Syphing magic, an I’m reach here, but such magic seems like it would be pre calamity magic, an something someone with far more exsp would have to cast because one wizard would have to pull the energy an then at least one other would have to preform the second cast to use it as a component of a separate spell, I believe only someone of the Martinets or Yusas level would be enough to preform a single cast an enchant, the place also had to be specific that where I think the Shady grove comes in it the place “Lucians half” an the “Molly/Kingsley” half were separated an the dominate (adult) Lucian being became the conscious mind an was connect to Vecnas “god hood” but wait WHAT. IF. This god hood is Thurisdun? an. There’s a running higher archy in his cult which we know that The Martinet would be at the top of casting wise the assembly would be gathering children with talent, bloodlines and potential to further the cults power victor (Ithink) had placed the devices at the will of the Martinet or Vess possibly both. but this would exsplain also Trents instant pick up on Yasha possibly knew Lucien from the sacrifice and knew Caleb had been fighting beside them an a member of the Kobalt Soul an I bet money the whisper spell he put on Yasha in the Taveren where they met was a tracking spell an he had put an order to the Slavers telling them the direction they where heading an that’s why she Fjord an Jester where their targets, an why Caleb was so upset with Molly death he suspected Trent had a part in the abduct

#critical role #dnd thoughts #matt mercer

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iturbide · 4 years

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One of the things that upsets me about 3h’s writing is the existence of Edelgard’s siblings is actually dubious. She said she only became heir because all her other siblings were dead or insane. She wasn’t the heir or the spare yet no one else talks about her siblings. When an heir disappears, people talk. And it’s not like all the kids were the same age, there would’ve been several pregnancies. The only proof the kids exist is because Edelgard said it and she’s not above lying to others.

Okay, I have seen that theory before, and for as much as I take issue with Edelgard, I personally think that theory is complete bullshit.

[[MORE]]

Edelgard is a woman of remarkable composure. Even before the timeskip, she is very cool, very guarded, showing minimal emotion (most of which seems to be for show, providing the expected response for the benefit of those around her). There are only a handful of occasions where we see her slip, see her truly and deeply shaken -- and one of those times is associated with her speaking about her family. I’m not going to deny that Edelgard is a very capable liar, but she was very obviously disturbed by the dream that brought on the conversation, and I don’t think even she could cobble together a lie that fast under those circumstances.

Also, let’s talk for a moment about just how Edelgard lies. Her lies are primarily comprised of minor changes to information (”The Church used forbidden magic to destroy Arianrhod” only replaces the perpetrator, not the details), denials of knowledge (she says she has no knowledge of where Flayn is when she does), or omission of information (not telling Byleth that she’s the Flame Emperor despite having several opportunities to do so). She’s not stupid: lies fabricated whole-cloth require careful construction, often require the same amount of repetition and practice a trained actor would require for a stage role, and in general are really hard to maintain. Tailoring a lie from truth is much easier and caries significantly less risk. Under the circumstances, I don’t think Edelgard could have concocted such a lie, and especially not such a powerful one.

It’s also worth mentioning that Lysithea describes an almost identical series of events taking place in Ordelia territory after House Hrym’s revolt:

Eighteen years ago, House Ordelia was involved in a civil conflict within the Empire. All we did was respond to a call for aid. We weren't involved politically. But once the rebellion was crushed, my family was held responsible for the aid we gave, and the Empire gained some sway over us as a result. At the time, the noble houses of the Alliance took a passive stance. No one lent aid to my family. As a result, some key officials within the family were killed, and people from the Empire were sent to replace them. Among those people were some mysterious mages. They were...unsettling, in a word. Skin pale as death. One after another, they captured and imprisoned the children of our household. They began performing terrible rituals on the children... Though it's probably more accurate to call them experiments.

With the Empire monitoring our every move, my parents could do nothing but watch in horror as all of this unfolded. One after another, the children died, until the only one left...was me. You know, my hair wasn't always this color. During their experiments, they'd been doing things with my blood. One morning, I awoke like this — a shock of white hair, all trace of pigment, gone. Upon seeing me, the mages were delighted. They realized that their experiments had finally succeeded. Sure enough, they ran a test and saw that two Crests coexisted within me. Losing pigment from my hair wasn't the only loss. The mages informed me that my lifespan was now greatly shortened. Five more years at most. Perhaps less.

Shortly thereafter, the mages lost interest in me, and we never saw them in the Ordelia household again.

This is pretty much exactly what happened to Edelgard: young members of the household taken captive and experimented on by a mysterious group of masked mages, no aid from outside, parents forced to bear witness as their children died en masse. Nobody calls bullshit on Lysithea’s story -- so why are people trying to call Edelgard a liar? Lysithea and Edelgard’s B support doesn’t unlock until after Byleth makes the choice to side with Edelgard, and their C support makes no mention at all of the experiments, so Edelgard couldn’t have learned it from Lysithea and used it for herself. The experiments on House Ordelia were the precursor to the experiments in Adrestia, and their loss of interest very likely ties in with them moving on to bigger things -- namely the Imperial lineage and their attempts to imbue the Crest of Flames within a Hresvelg heir.

And this ties into the next point: why nobody talks about it. And that boils down to propaganda.

Propaganda relies very heavily on control of information. And empires in general have an ongoing propaganda campaign related to their ruling families: that these are immensely powerful people blessed by gods, goddesses, saints, what have you, and ruling by divine right. This is especially true in the Empire, where their imperial lineage traces its roots back to Wilhelm von Hresvelg, who forged a pact with Seiros. Now, in the Empire, an absolute premium is placed on the presence of a Crest -- to the detriment of all else, including human life. Hanneman’s sister lost her life and Mercedes’ family was ripped apart all because of the extreme Crest bias present in the Imperial territories. But with Ionius, there was an even bigger issue: his ‘Divine Right to Rule’ is intrinsically linked to the Crest of Seiros, the physical proof of his bloodline’s pact with the Saint.

And that bloodline is fading fast.

In Edelgard’s B+ support with Byleth, she says this:

My siblings and I were...we were imprisoned underground, beneath the palace. The objective was to endow our bodies with the power of a Major Crest. I have always possessed the Crest of Seiros, inherited through the Hresvelg bloodline. But it was only a Minor Crest, and most of my siblings bore no Crest at all. In order to create a peerless emperor to rule Fódlan, they violated our bodies by cutting open our very flesh. Now here I stand, the fruit of that endeavor: Edelgard von Hresvelg! But that came at too high a price...the others were sacrificed. Ours weren’t the only lives devastated by that terrible process. Innocents died as well, without even knowing what they were dying for. And there you have it, the truth of the Hresvelg’s Empire.

Out of eleven children Ionius IX sired, only a few bore any kind of Crest (and we don’t know if they were even the Crest of Seiros). The fact that Edelgard’s Crest was a Minor one rather than a Major one also seems to have been a point of contention. Which makes sense: in a territory that relies so heavily on Crests as signs of legitimacy, having a Crest appear so infrequently in the Emperor’s progeny would be a frankly alarming sign of weakness. So I would not be at all surprised if Ionius had been carefully controlling the information moving from the Imperial household to the wider Empire...such that they didn’t know how many kids he really had.

Unlike the Kingdom, where Lambert only had one wife at any given time and whose pregnancies would therefore be talk of the Kingdom since she’s a public figure, the Empire allows (and perhaps even encourages) the use of consorts. And immediately after being crowned, Ionius started seeking out suitable ones -- but their identities were not required to be public knowledge. Sure, the wider Imperial household would have been aware, and it’s likely that the heads of some major noble houses with a presence in the palace knew, as well -- though even they may have been tight-lipped about it with their families to control the spread of information (and this has in-game precedence, given that Ferdinand von Aegir has no idea what happened with Hrym or why people hate his dad so much). But the only Empire-wide announcements came with the birth of children who actually possessed Crests. And even then, it’s entirely likely that Edelgard’s place in the line of succession might have been superseded had one of her younger siblings borne a Major Crest of Seiros.

(If this seems far-fetched, I think Alexei Romanov makes a striking point of comparison here: the youngest child and only son of the Romanov Dynasty, he was set to become the next Tsar of Russia -- because his hemophilia was a closely guarded state secret. It might be common knowledge now, but the Russian public had no idea what was really wrong with him.)

Now, we don’t know a lot of details for this particular time period. We know Edelgard had ten siblings, but we don’t know if Ionius kept trying to sire heirs and had no success (issues with impotency, miscarriages, etc) or stopped trying and took a different tack. What we do know is that he instigated a series of reforms meant to concentrate the Emperor’s power. We don’t know why he did it, but it’s entirely possible that he was trying to look out for his kids and pave the way for more radical reforms that would do away with the Crest bias as a form of choosing ‘legitimate’ heirs to the throne. But whatever his plan might have been, it backfired terribly on him and led to the Insurrection of the Seven, where the Emperor was stripped of all power and his kids were subjected to Twisted experiments, likely initiated when they replaced Lord Arundel and had him float the idea to Duke Aegir -- and once again, that control of information even within families is out in force, because the nobles now controlling the empire probably don’t want it to be common knowledge that they’re committing atrocities for the sake of making a perfect figurehead.

In the end, every one of Edelgard’s siblings died. And because the people of the Empire didn’t know about them? She can’t even mourn them publicly. The Empire has no inkling of the great tragedy that occurred within House Hresvelg, and that only further fuels the lone survivor’s desire to make sure that nothing like this can ever happen again.

#answered #anonymous #fire emblem: three houses #fe:3h spoilers #headcanon #look i have thought a lot about this #and while i might not really like edelgard for what she does #there's a frankly shocking amount of evidence supporting her #once you start putting the pieces together it's a really ugly picture #edelcourse

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geek-patient-zero · 5 years

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Prologue (Part 2)

Or: Your Clan Sucks

Blood War: Masquerade of the Red Dead Trilogy Volume 1

Father Naples claims that the Methuselahs were the ones who instituted the Masquerade. Not really true in canon, but let’s go with it for now. The Kindred realized that if humanity continued knowing that they existed, they’ll overwhelm them with sheer numbers and wipe them out. Under the Masquerade, Kindred had to hide their true natures and the existence of vampires in general from humans, on penalty of death. And it worked. Despite being fed on by them for over two thousand years, humanity forgot the existence of vampires after a few centuries, remembering them only as myths and legends. Now relatively safe, the Methuselahs sired more vampires, who sired more and so on, and in secret, apparently gained control of the world from the shadows.

Since one vampire could in theory create infinite more vampires, Reuben asks why, if all this is true, the earth isn’t overrun with vampires. Father Naples tells him about the Six Traditions, which the Masquerade is one of. He doesn’t go into detail, so here’s a link if you’re curious. The relevant Tradition is the third one, which says a vampire can’t sire another vampire unless daddy an elder vampire gives permission. If you played Bloodlines, this may sound familiar. Father Naples claims that the elder vampires keep the number of vampires low. Apparently the rule is one vampire for “tens of thousands of humans.” Given the different vampire factions this probably isn’t followed exactly worldwide. The point is vampires control their populations so they don’t overpopulate and wipe out their main food source. Keeping populations low also means that newer kindred generations can’t grow more numerous than the older ones and, well, you know. That’s left unsaid by the third Tradition.

Reuben’s next question is how kindred maintain their influence over the world when they can’t do anything when the sun’s up. Father Naples explains ghouls to him, and here there might be some divergence from modern canon.

You know Renfield from Dracula? A ghoul’s basically that. They’re humans that a vampire regularly feeds their own blood to, but whose blood isn’t drained out first so they don’t turn into vampires themselves. They stop aging and gets some enhanced strength, survivability, and other goodies as long as they get their fix. In exchange for their free will, that is. A ghoul becomes utterly devoted to their master, doing anything for them even if the ghoul hates their master, like an unholy combination of a stalker, junkie, and slave. It’s a really shitty thing to do to someone.

Father Naples doesn’t mention that bit about losing their free will. He just thinks they’re traitors and devil worshipers. Thing is, I don’t think it’s just Naples being an unreliable narrator. Throughout the book, except for maybe one instance, it isn’t brought up, and ghouls come across more like regular people who just knowingly work for vampires in exchange for their blood. There’s some mention of possession, like his ghoul or her ghoul, but if they’re still stalker-junkie-slaves in this story it doesn’t come across. The writing is very expository even after the prologue, so believe me, you’d notice if that was how ghouls were supposed to work here.

Reuben then asks about the Camarilla and the Sabbat. Now we get to talk about everyone’s favorite V:TM subject: factions and clans. First he discusses the Camarilla, and the seven clans (at the time) that makes up the bulk of it. Father Naples seems to define the sects more by their opinion on the Antediluvians as a threat than their structure or how they operate.

“The Camarilla believe that the Antediluvians met the Final Death when the Second City was destroyed. They feel that the basic threat to the Kindred comes from the possibility that mankind someday might learn that vampires are real. The Masquerade governs their actions. They are the traditionalists among Caine’s decendants.”

He goes on to define the clans in the Camarilla.

“The Ventrue are power mongers, the unofficial leaders of the sect.”

Eat the rich before the rich eat you. Naples summed it up well enough: they’re old money aristocratic fucks who believe they’re meant to be leaders of vampirekind, and thus are most likely to be Princes, the guys in charge of a city. They’re famous for the Dominate discipline, a group of powers that allow them to force others to obey their commands.

One interesting thing about the Ventrue that doesn’t get covered in this book is their clan curse. They can only drink the blood of certain kinds of people. In Bloodlines, this translated to a Ventrue character being unable to feed from hobos and prostitutes without barfing it back up half the time. Think of some snooty rich New Englander turning his nose up at a Happy Meal. In the tabletop, this preference tends to be more specific. Sometimes very specific, like that same snooty rich New Englander absolutely loving Burger King but not being able to eat anything else. Sometimes, a little too specific.

There’s this Ventrue guy in the lore, Jan Pieterzoon... I’m probably gonna get shit for this since he’s a character in the popular Clan Wars novels. Janny Boy here can only drink the blood of rape victims.

Uh huh. Wasn’t kidding when I said that this franchise can get try-hard edgy.

TVtropes’ V:TM character page lists Jan as a Nice Guy, but also mentions under Kick the Dog that he once had to arrange for someone to get raped in order to survive. This might be more on TVtropes being full of fucked up contributors, but still. In the recent V5 of the tabletop, a change was made that Ventrue can feed from people other than their preference, though they won’t get as much “nourishment” from it. Sounds like it helps avoid situations like Jan. Who’s dead now, by the way. Final Death dead. That helps.

“The Toreador are involved in the arts.”

Father Naples doesn’t seem to be all that interested in the Toreador as that’s all he says about them. Commonly rich socialite types, if the Prince of a city isn’t a Ventrue, chances are they’re a Toreador. They’re big into art, yeah, but they’re also the clan that works the closest with humans and are obsessed with beauty. So obsessed that they can be distracted by something they find beautiful, ignoring anything else until they can either muster the willpower to tear their eyes away or, more likely, one of their friends drags their pretty ass away from the shiny thing.

Their art, by the way? Fucking sucks. Toreador are terrible artists. There’s a neat reason for this; when they’re Embraced, become vampires, they’re said to lose much of their passion and creative spark. That, and they’re emotionally and artistically stunted to the era they were Embraced in no matter how long they live; something that’s apparently inspired by Anne Rice vampires. Their love and obsession with what they find beautiful is a way for them to hold on to their humanity, and art is in service to that. It’s beautifully tragic.

Not that your character is going to care when they have to deal with Vampire Squidward showing off Bold and Brash Belongs in the Trash. You can’t say anything about it either, because that Toreador is probably powerful enough that they can have either you or someone you love killed. You’re not even safe if you’re playing a Toreador because even Toreador don’t like other Toreador art. As with humans, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and what’s considered beautiful varies from one Toreador to another. So they shit on each other’s work and call each other poseurs.

There’s maybe three Toreador in the book, and they’re all background characters. Only one of them gets a line or two of dialogue. I get the feeling Robert Weinberg wasn’t a big Toreador fan.

“The Tremere are a line of vampire wizards...”

Insert What We Do In the Shadows quote here.

“...who rose to prominence in the Middle Ages.”

Unlike the most of the other clans, the Tremere didn’t originate from an Antediluvian. The original ones were mages, members of the now technically extinct House Tremere led by Lord Tremere, who turned themselves into vampires with magic in order to obtain immortality. They lost all their cool powers in the change, so they had to invent blood magic, which they call Thaumatergy. It’s both a specific Discipline (vampire power) and a general term for blood magic.

You might be wondering, if they became vampires via magic and didn’t come from an Antediluvian, wouldn’t that mean there are fourteen clans, not thirteen? Well, one of he original thirteen clans were the Salubri. They were the healer class among vampires and were dedicated to finding a certain kind of enlightenment. Y’know, to make the Tremere look like extra big pricks for what they’re about to do to them. Lord Tremere, now a vampire, finds and diablerizes (more on that another time) the Salubri Antediluvian, and then Clan Tremere wiped out most of the Salubri. So now they’re one of the thirteen clans.

While they never wiped out another clan, this screwing over of the Salubri was part of a trend with the Tremere. The magic potion, spell, or whatever they used that turned them into vampires in the first place? Made by experimenting on vampires. They also created Gargoyles by performing blood magic rituals on unwilling vampires from other clans. So, despite a propaganda campaign advertising that no, really, the Salubri had it coming, and the fact that they gained legitimacy as a clan and became a part of the Camarilla, other vampires generally hate the shit out of the Tremere and don’t trust them even remotely.

We’ll be seeing the Tremere in more depth later in the story, including this book’s interpetation of the ritual that turned them into vampires.

“The Nosferatu are monstrously ugly because their leader was cursed by Caine. A few of their fourth-generation progeny are rumored to be grotesque monsters, known as the Nictuku.”

Ah, the Nosferatu. Everyone loves the Nosferatu. Like Father Naples says, they’re all horribly deformed; so ugly that even being seen by humans risks breaking the Masquerade since they’re obviously not human. That curse Naples mentioned? The Nosferatu Antediluvian was a vain pretty boy to rival a Toreador, so for his part in killing the Second Generation and destroying Enoch, Caine cursed him and all future Nosferatu generations with ugliness.

(He actually cursed all thirteen Antediluvians for what they did, hence the clan curses.)

Why does everyone love the Nosferatu? Couple of reasons from what I’ve seen. They’re ugly as hell and generally have to live in the sewers, and while they’ve learned to live with that they’re not really happy about it. On top of that other clans find them repulsive and don’t like being around them. Loneliness, pathos, angst; this is crack to fandom.

I imagine they’re also fun to design. The standard look for them is Orlok-like, but lore says that each Nosferatu’s deformity is unique. I haven’t tried designing one, but as a wannabe artist I can see the appeal. Just don’t wuss out and make “hot” Nosferatu.

Speaking of, there’s the monster fuckers in fandom. In this post-Shape of Water world, it’ll take more than looking like Count Orlok and a few lumps to make someone unfuckably ugly. And even if they are, I’ve seen people lust over werewolves, the deathclaws from the Fallout games, all kinds of weird crap. There’s surely someone out there for your lonely Nosferatu.

Oh, and they’re the smart guy of the vampire clans. You know how when people talk about playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Ghostbusters on the playground as kids, and which characters they’d play as? And how there’s always those people who’d say they always picked Donatello or Egon because they were the smart gadget guys who made all their toyetic gear, unlike their dumber friends who stuck with boring old Leonardo and Venkman? That’s the Nosferatu. They don’t really invent anything, but some of them are hackers. They’re also spymasters, using their hacker skills and Obfuscate discipline (turning invisible, mostly) to obtain information others can’t, making them an indispensible part of the Camarilla, or whatever group a Nosferatu is part of.

Finally, as a culture, Nosferatu are the most likely to stick together and look out for each other, united by their shared experiences of having to hide in the shadows and pisswater in order to not break the masquerade and being direspected by the other clans. Nosferatu can scheme and plot like every other vampire in the setting, but at least for survival’s sake, if you’re playing a Nosferatu, you don’t have to worry about your fellow uglies stabbing you in the back (most of the time). Outside the clan, I imagine this trait can easily transfer over to a coterie (V:TM’s word for party) or an OC’s friends.

Yeah, Nosferatu are these angsty, fun to draw, unconventional looking but bangable hackermen that know the Meaning of Friendship and who you can feel sorry for. But there’s another side to the Nosferatu. Fandom looks at these appealing traits, maybe a bit too shallowly, and risk over-glorifying them and missing out on their darker side.

Like I’ve said several times, Nosferatu are ugly, deformed. A lot of them develop a complex over this, along with a strong hatred and jealousy of beautiful people. One thing Nosferatu like to do is find mortals who are stuck up and egotistical about their looks, turn them into Nosferatu, and let their newly grotesque appearance serve as an eternal karmic life lesson. Whether the formerly pretty person was actually a stuck up jerk guilty of vanity or if their sire imagined it is a matter of opinion. Hell, some don’t care about teaching a lesson, embracing beautiful people purely out of jealousy and spite. They have a word for these victims: Cleopatras, named after the villain from Freaks, not the Egyptian queen. It’s like their version of “Chad”, except as the name implies, these poor newly deformed people are usually women.

Am I implying what I think I’m implying? Yep! Your favorite clan is made up partly of proto-incels!

On a lighter note, their differing opinions on beauty make the Nosferatu and Toreador natural enemies... if they’re NPCs. Player characters will be BFFs.

“The Malkavians are tricksters, seemingly mad, but probably more cunning than most imagine.”

The V:TM fandom’s other favorite clan. I don’t have to explain Malkavians to you, do I? Even if you’ve never played Bloodlines I bet you’ve heard people talking about the Malkavian playthrough of the game. At least the part where you can yell at a stop sign?

Malkavians are the “crazy” clan. Said in a more respectful way, they’re the clan whose embrace gives them a form of mental illness, either a real one or a more supernatural one, if they didn’t have one already. These guys are probably the hardest to roleplay well, because there’s a thin line between a respectful portrayal of a mentally ill person living their unlife the best they can and a character Jhonen Vasquez would create if he was phoning it in. You’d better do your homework if you want to roleplay a Malkavian or else you’re gonna annoy your friends and look like an insensitive dick.

There’s a term for a Malkavian character who acts in an early 2000′s monkey cheese lol random humor way, but c’mon, you already know what it is. That’s it for Malkavians for now. There’s only one Malkavian side character in this book so I don’t feel like going too in depth with them. Besides, I already wasted too many words on the incels. Just keep the “more cunning than most imagine” bit in mind. Oh, and they have a power that can make people around them go mad, usually in the Malkavian’s favor. That’s pretty rad.

Now that the fan favorites are out of the way, let’s get to the boring clans.

“The Brujah are rebellious in nature...”

That’s all Naples says about the Brujah. Even the writer can’t think of anything interesting to say about them.

Alright, seriously, Brujah tend to be rebels and activists, very passionate about their beliefs and strive for social change. I’m not sure whether becoming vampires makes them that way. The White Wolf wiki says that they’re compelled to go against the status quo, but I’ve heard people argue that’s just the kind of person a Brujah tends to embrace. Either way, they do develop very short tempers. Gameplay-wise in both the tabletop and Bloodlines, they tend to “frenzy” more easily than other clans, meaning they lose control of their vampiric urges and try to kill/drain the closest person available, masquerade and consequences be damned.

I feel a little bad about calling the Brujah boring. Especially nowadays with fascism on the rise and climate change about to kill us all, it’s easy to empathize with rebellious activist characters and find them relatable, even if they aren’t as flashy as the pretty people, the ugly people, and the crazy people. It’s their powers that’re a little dull. Ventrue have Dominate. Nosferatu have Obfuscate. Tremere have blood fucking magic. But despite their clan name, Brujah aren’t magic. Their powers just enhance their physical abilities, allowing them to boost their strength and move faster. You know that RPG joke about how wizards get more god-like power when they level up but warriors just hit harder? That’s the Brujah. Okay, they also have Presence, which makes them more charismatic, scarier, more convincing, and other things that helps with roleplaying a street justice dispensing rebel. And one other power I can mention, but we’ll leave that for later...

In a way, the Brujah are the closest V:TM has to a default clan. If you’re playing a game where you have no choice of which clan your character belonged to, you’d likely be a Brujah. Luckily, unlike the Ultramarines over in Warhammer 40K, the Brujah don’t really steal any of the spotlight from the other clans, so they’re not intolerable.

“...while the Gangrel, master shapechangers, maintain close ties with the gypsies and werewolves,”

Wolverine from X-Men, you know him? Give him shapeshifting powers and that’s a Gangrel. This Clan is for those who want to roleplay a werewolf but aren’t playing Werewolf: The Apocalypse for some reason. Their biggest claim to fame is that Beckett, one of the most popular recurring characters in the franchise, is one. Problem is, he’s supposed to be a subversion of how one of them typically acts, a wandering scholar instead of some guy who hangs with his pack in the woods, so he’s not doing them much favors. There's only one minor Gangrel character in Blood War, so I apologize for glossing over them.

You probably want me to talk about a certain word Naples just said here. I could say that it’s characterization, that since Naples is some old European prick he’s prejudiced against Roma and calls them whatever he wants. More of that unrelialbe narratorness. He also said Gangrel are close with werewolves when werewolves will attack them on sight like any other vampire, which helps with that interpretation. But this is the early 90′s, and V:TM had an entire clan that was based on negative Roma stereotypes. So...

Reuben sipped his Coke and said nothing. He had come to listen, not to comment.

I’m pointing this quote out because he comments two paragraphs later. Father Naples moves onto the Sabbat.

“The Sabbat are the rebels of the Kindred. My Order considers them the more dangerous of the two sects. Two major clans, the Lasombra and the Tzimisce rule the order. Most other clans are represented by small groups of rebels known as Antitribu.”

The franchise likes to point out that the Camarilla aren’t the “vampire good guys”, but the Sabbat are undoubtedly vampire bad guys. They believe that vampires shouldn’t have to hide behind a masquerade, that they should be the masters of the world with humans as their cattle and slaves. They usually ignore the Masquerade, and use big obvious Masquerade breaking as a tactic against the Camarilla, who have to clean up after their mess. Since the Masquerade exists because humans will curb stomp them if they ever found out they existed, this also makes the Sabbat the stupid sect in this case.

The Lasombra are like eviler Ventrue, but with cool shadow powers, a fetish for Catholic symbolism, and being the only clan to do the “having no reflections” thing. Oh, and they’re social darwinists. One of their methods for picking out potential new Lasombras is to utterly ruin a prospect’s life. Make their business fail, kill their family, frame them for something terrible, cancel their favorite shows. If they don’t break down after all that, congratulations, you’re now a vampire! If they’re not an utter sociopath and do, then the Lasombra just leave them in the ruins of their life without them ever knowing why the hell any of that happened. So yeah, they’re jerks.

And the Tzimisce? Quick, whose your favorite comic book villain? If you said “mid-2000′s Black Mask”, then congratulations! You’re a teenage boy, and also a potential Tzimisce player.

There is one “redeeming” thing about the Sabbat. While the Camarilla deny the existence and threat of the Antidiluvians...

“Leaders of the Sabbat firmly maintain that the third generation lives and that they are secretly manipulating their descendants for reasons of their own.” The priest’s voice sank very low. “They fear an approaching Armageddon that they call Gehenna. A time when the Antediluvians will rise to take control of the Kindred. The Sabbot suspect that the third generation plan to devour their descendants.”

Gehenna is an important part of the setting. It’s another thing I’ll explain more about later, but the Sabbat are right to worry about it. It almost makes up for their dumbass social policies and the whole “chaotic evil” thing.

Reuben comments (told you) about how the longer a vampire lives, the more potent the blood they drink has to be. Third and fourth generation Kindred would only be able to feed on other Kindred. This backs up the “third generation’s gonna wake up and eat everyone” theory. After Naples’ confirmation about this, Reuben immediately changes the subject and asks about the four remaining independent clans.

“There are the Ravnos, a society of outcasts and drifters,”

These guys are the Roma stereotypes I mentioned earlier. Their clan weakness is that they’re addicted to crime! Or at least some personal vice. Someone at White Wolf must have figured out how this looked, so they fixed it by, um, having their Antediluvian wake up and kill all but about a hundred of them... I mean, it worked for the Squats over in Warhammer 40K, but...

“Then the Assamites, an Order of Assassins, much feared even among their own kind, [sic] The Followers of Set worship a long-dormant third-generation Egyptian horror, the embodiment of that land’s ancient evil.”

I don’t know much about these two clans. There’s a couple of Assamite characters in this book, but no one from the Followers of Set.

“And last, we must not forget the Giovanni, another fairly new clan, who are preoccupied with two subjects - death and money.”

The Giovanni have a big part in this story so we’ll get to them when they show up. Also, wow, they sure made these last four the ethnic stereotype clans.

Satisfied with this new info on the Clans, though “unsure about their interactions”, Reuben moves on.

The young man’s bright blue eyes burned with an intense inner fire. “What is the Jyhad?” he asked.

Father Naples was feeling very strange. Yet he felt that he had to answer. It was extremely important to himself and the Society of Leopold that he answer Reuben’s every question. Extremely important.

Reuben may not be a vampire, but it looks like he pulled some sort of mind whammy on Father Naples. Not sure why he had to, though. I can’t think of a reason why Naples’ would explain all the other stuff of his own free will but not this subject.

The Jyhad’s a legend among Kindred, that the fourth generation is manipulating their descendants as pawns in a game where they play against each other for complete control of the world. Some say that the fourth generation is actually being manipulated by the Antediluvians, the true players of the game. The nature of Kindred society and politics makes finding the truth difficult.

“The world of the Kindred is filled with treachery and deceit. Remember, Lucifer (here he goes with the devil stuff again), their patron, is the Father of Lies. Wheels spin within wheels within wheels. None other than the Antediluvians, if they actually survive, know the truth.”

“On that subject,” said Reuben, “you might be mistaken.”

Signaling for the check, Reuben asks if there’s anything else he should know about the Kindred, such as “the Inconnu” and “the recent disturbances in Russia and Peru.” Father Naples doesn’t know about any of that, and when asked why he asks, Reuben says he was “Just confirming a few of [his] own suspicions.” Father Naples has told him everything he wanted to know, so Reuben pays the waiter and prepares to leave. Time for the prologue’s big finish.

“The young man rose to his feet. ‘No need to get up. I can see myself to the door. Thank you, for your time, Father Naples. I appreciate the information you have given me, though I think your views concerning the devil tint your narration slightly. That’s always been a problem with the Inquisition. You worry too much about demons and too little about evil. I’m sorry, but you can’t be permitted to describe our conversation to anyone. Especially to your superiors in the Society of Leopold. May God grant you peace.’

None of the five Society of Leopold agents stationed in the restaurant noticed Reuben leave. Nor could they remember anything at all about his appearance. When rewound, the audiotape from the directional microphone was found to be completely blank. And none of the technicians working the post could recall a word of the conversation they supposedly recorded.

Father Naples remained unmoving at the table until fifteen minutes passed and a curious waiter came over to see if anything was wrong. To his horror, he discovered that the priest was dead.

According to a secret report prepared by a team of investigators, Father Naples had died from a massive heart attack. One suffered by the priest a few minutes after sitting down at noon. No one could explain, nor even attempt to answer, how a dead man managed to drink two bottles of wine. The black attache case found beneath the table was empty.”

I hope Reuben at least didn’t take back the money he payed his bill with. Reality warping or no, he still ate there and should pay them.

Seriously though, this was a great prologue. It explains enough about the setting to help you follow along with the rest of the story, but doesn’t explain everything and ends on a great mystery. Rereading this helped me remember why I liked the setting so much as a kid, even if I poke fun at it now. Vampire societies might not seem like the most original idea, but back then when I thought of vampire stories, I thought of a single vampire with a cape and widow’s peak sneaking into peoples homes to drink their blood, and the closest thing to mystery, court intrigue, and games of thrones were the humans trying to figure out how to stop that one vampire. V:TM introduced me to a type of story and concepts I’d never read before, and not just about fictional monsters. That’s more a credit to the original tabletop than just Bloodwar, but this book was still my gateway to the setting. Sometimes even schlock can have meaning to someone, I guess.

#vampire the masquerade #vtm #world of darkness #vtmb #vampire: the masquerade #blood war

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gamingnao · 7 years

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I’m actually still alive and made a piece of real art for once – this time I made a redesign for our favorite junior tactician! Morgan can’t inherit the Lord class even if Lucina is her mother and will instead be recruited in her base Tactician class. I was interested in what she might look like if her appearance was a bit more customized to her mother, so knowing what we do about the Future Past DLC (and Morgan’s heavily implied origins), I designed a slight AU and a unique class for her, called the Fell Lord!

I tried to imitate Kozaki’s style a bit to make it seem a bit more “official” for lack of a better word – I still have a long way to go, but I think she came out pretty well!

I put more details about the Fell Lord class and this particular Morgan’s backstory under the cut! It’s a bit long, but feel free to read if you’re interested:

Fell Lord

“A youth of noble and defiled blood. Wields swords and tomes.”

Like her Tactician class, the Fell Lord class can use both swords and tomes; however, her battle style is reflective of both parents. She shares Robin’s stance and animations like normal when she uses tomes, but her sword-wielding techniques are far more reflective of Lucina’s.

Similar to Olivia’s Dancer class and Walhart’s Conqueror class, the Fell Lord class cannot promote. As a tradeoff, the class has similar growths and stat caps to an advanced class, reaches Level 30 instead of Level 20, and can be brought back down to Level 1 without losing any stat gains through the use of a Second Seal at Level 30 (again like other unpromotable classes).

The class’s maximum stats are very similar to Lucina’s Great Lord class, boasting high Skill, Speed, and Luck; however, her growth rates in all three of these stats are very slightly lower than Lucina’s to make up for her increased Magic growth rate, which now parallels that of Strength for more equal offenses. Under the same special inheritance mechanic when Morgan is the child of one of the game’s Lords, Morgan always inherits Aether from Lucina regardless of what skill she has equipped in her last slot.

As to her unique origins, I also composed a little backstory based on an alternate version of the Future Past (one where she doesn’t fall under Grima’s control) to explain why she looks the way she does:

“In another timeline, the children of Ylisse’s elite force called upon a divine power to travel back through time and prevent the awakening of the Fell Dragon. They were led by Ylisse’s future princess, who used her foresight of events that would soon come to be to guide her father and his troops in an attempt to change the past. In this particular timeline however, the high priest of the Grimleal was not quite ready to begin the ritual to summon Grima back into their world following the defeat of the Conqueror, so there existed a brief period of peace after the campaign in Valm. It was during these years that Ylisse’s strategist and the future princess were wed, and together they bore a daughter named Morgan, who they raised with love and trained in the art of combat and self-defense in fear of the Fell Dragon conflict rising once again.

Sure enough, one day the Grimleal summoned the Ylisseans to Plegia and confiscated the Fire Emblem to complete their ritual. Though their ritual was foiled by a cunning plan devised by Ylisse’s strategist, the arrival of the future Fell Dragon, the one who had followed the princess back in time to stop her, could not have been planned for. Merging his strength with that of the present day Grima, the Fell Dragon rose once again. Despite a valiant last stand, not even the combined might of the Shepherds and their future children could defeat the beast at full strength, and each and every one lost their lives in the final battle.

With the loss of their Exalt, the people of Ylisse had no choice but to turn to the young royal heirs left behind for leadership. This included Morgan, as the Brand of the Exalt she bore proved she was a member of Ylissean royalty. The present-day children did their best to unify the people despite their inexperience, but as Grima’s reach spread, this became increasingly difficult.

The final straw that made the Ylissean people break into chaos was the discovery of Morgan’s other bloodline, which belonged to none other than the Fell Dragon himself. As if the relationship between the Ylissean royal family and the Ylissean people was already strained enough with memories of Exalt Emmeryn and her war-mongering father, conspiracy theories spread like wildfire that the young princess Morgan had betrayed them all and that the entire royal family was plotting to destroy them from within. Though their claims had no evidence, the mass hysteria did nothing but fuel these rumors and the people refused to unify under a leadership that Morgan was a part of.

The children of the future past were torn: some knew the rumors were false and wanted to continue sheltering Morgan because it was the morally right thing to do, while others began to adopt the viewpoints of the people and wanted to expel her from Ylisse to regain the support of the people, as without them they had no chance of defending the kingdom from Grima’s undead soldiers. Just as the conflict was beginning to turn the children against each other, Morgan realized what was best for her kingdom and people; gathering any mementos of her fallen parents she could, from her father’s torn robes to her mother’s sword, she disappeared in the middle of the night of her own accord.

Morgan decided to fight against the Fell Dragon’s oppression on her own, doing whatever she could to one day prove her loyalty to her people and to restore the disgraced honor and legacy of her parents. As years went by, it became clear that the timeline couldn’t be saved. As the world approached its end, the Divine Dragon Naga took pity on the fell lord left alone and used the last of her strength to send her back to a world where the future still had a chance to be saved and where she could see the faces of her parents once again.”

This is also an AU where I experimented with the possibility of Morgan not losing her memories and remembering both parents instead of just Robin. As such, this Morgan is a bit older and more mature than the one we’re used to, but she’s still quite capable of being her usual upbeat self at times (just with a bit more of Lucina’s stoic nature). Her outfit is an amalgamation of Robin and Lucina’s normal and promoted outfits (for example, her hood and scarf-like cape are ripped portions of Robin’s Tactician coat and her breastplate is from Lucina’s Great Lord armor) as well as elements from the Thief and Assassin classes, like her thigh pockets and her forearm armor. Her title of Fell Lord therefore not only reflects her being a Lord with Grima’s Fell Blood but also her status as a fallen or disgraced lord in her original timeline.

#fire emblem #fe13 #morgan #f!morgan #lucina!morgan #fell lord

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kayawagner · 6 years

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geek-patient-zero · 5 years

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Part 1, Chapter 12

Or: War and Humility

Blood War: Masquerade of the Red Death Trilogy Volume 1

We’ve reached the penultimate chapter of Part 1, and the last Dire McCann chapter until Part 3.

St. Louis—March 13, 1994

The Prince held his council of war in his office at the rear of Club Diabolique. Attending were Vargoss, Flavia, McCann, a ninth-generation Brujah named Darrow, and an eighth-generation Nosferatu known only as ‘Uglyface’ for obvious reasons.

“McCann, Flavia, the Sabbat have struck! This insult will not stand! Summon two other guys!”

Darrow is Vargoss’ policy adviser. He seems like your stereotypical Brujah; rides a Harley, black leather outfit, body covered in tattoos. In reality, we’re told, “Darrow was no rebel.”

He had spent most of his life serving as an officer in the British Army. He had participated in many of the major campaigns of the 19th century and was the veteran of a hundred battles. He was a calm voice of reason, not afraid to contradict the Prince when Vargoss was wrong.

He might not be a molotov-cocktail-throwing anarchist, but Darrow’s not that much of a subversion of Brujah Kindred. He’s what you’d imagine a Camarilla Brujah is like: the voice of reason and superego, not afraid to stand up to the authoritarian Ventrue or the “ooh, shiny!” Toreador. You ever wonder how the “rebel clan” fit in with the undead equivalent of The Man? There you go. ‘Course, as of v5, the Brujah have (violently) left the Camarilla, so the clan as a whole has its limits of how much of the Establishment they’re willing to take.

Uglyface, meanwhile, has the prestigious title of Minister of Intelligence to counter his less prestigious name.

No one in St. Louis knew much about Uglyface’s background.

“Uglyface” is a lazy and vague name to give a Nosferatu character. You ask around for a Nosferatu named Uglyface and you’ll be asked to be more specific. It’s like nicknaming a guy on a basketball team “Tallman” or a self-described gamer “Badperson”.

Nearly seven feet tall and thin as a rail, he had lived in the city longer than any vampire. His face came from a Gahan Wilson cartoon—wide, bulging eyes, tiny button nose, a wide mouth full of yellow teeth, and ears that stuck out like antennae from the sides of his head.

Gahan Wilson was a cartoonist who did work for Playboy, The New Yorker, and National Lampoon, among other things, for almost fifty years. Here’s his wiki page, for those interested.

Uglyface’s grotesque features branded him an idiot. He was not. The Nosferatu vampire possessed an incredible memory for names, dates, and facts. Like many of his clan, he thrived on gathering and processing raw data into usable information.

There’re Brujah who aren’t rebels, Gangrels who live in cities, and Ventrue who don’t automatically think they have the divine right of kings, but do you ever see a Nosferatu who isn’t a huge nerd?

“The Red Death struck three times in America last night,” said Vargoss, resting his arms on his desk. He was obviously concerned. Troubled eyes stared at the trio facing him. To the rear, on guard as always, was Flavia. She was no longer in white leather but in black. And for the first time i decades, she stood alone.

It’s rare for a vampire to wear black out of genuine mourning, rather than just to be evil and goth.

Vargoss continues on saying he’s received reports about more attacks in Europe; the one at the Louvre, where five Kindred were killed (the number of ghoul deaths aren’t mentioned because Kindred are huge assholes), and one we didn’t see in Marseilles, where two died during a Ventrue clan meeting. Not very large numbers there, but in total there had been six attacks over the last twenty-four hours with a total of thirty-five Kindred killed, or “sent to their Final Deaths” because vamps are overly semantic about being undead.

McCann notes how fast Red D.’s moving in order to kill that many vampires around the world in a single day. Darrow voices his and McCann’s shared suspicion: that there may be more than one Red Death. Only he says it more Britishy.

“Are we positive it is the same bloke?” [...] “That bloody mockery of a face of ‘is was awfully distinctive. Maybe it was meant to attract attention, aye? Any Kindred adept at sculpting flesh could rearrange his features into that grotesque mask. Instead of dealing with a single Red Death, we may be faced with several. Maybe an entire Sabbat pack made a pact with a demon.”

“Sculpting flesh” is referencing- No, wait, screw it. We’ve got a lot to cover and I don’t feel like going on a Tzimisce tangent. Guvna.

“Following that same line of reasoning, are you convinced the Red Death was a vampire?” asked McCann. The detective was anxious to establish certain facts he already knew as truth.

“Are Gangrels just Brujah furries? Are the Followers of Set really sexier than the Toreador? Do we really hate Scrappy Doo or are we just repeating a forty-year-old meme? Does anyone else miss dodgeball?”

“The abomination belonged to the Kindred,” said Vargoss, angrily. “My will touched his when I commanded him to stop.”

It’s only gay if the wills touch.

“Blood called out to blood, McCann. The Red Death was definitely one of the Damned.”

McCann plays dumb, asking if there are any disciplines capable of turning a vampire into a being composed of living fire.

“None practiced among the Camarilla,” said Uglyface. His high-pitched voice squeaked like a cartoon character’s.

Alright, Clan Nosferatu fans. You guys are all “Oh I’d fall in love with a Nosferatu, I don’t care what they look like” but what if they’re confessing their bestial love for you in a Mickey Mouse voice? How committed are you to this monster-fucker image of yourselves?

Vargoss believes Darrow’s right about the Red Death being from the Sabbat. He claims they’re “demon lovers” who “mock the power of the flames” and cites a ritual of theirs called, creatively, the Fire Dance as proof. That’s where Sabbat pack members prove their loyalty and bravery, or just to psych themselves up before a battle, by dancing around and eventually jumping through a bonfire (though Vargoss says it’s a funeral pyre) without flipping out and running away. Any similarities between this evil Sabbat ritual and certain real-life cultures’ rituals are unintentional on White Wolf’s part. Hopefully.

“Sorry,” said McCann, “but I don’t accept those kinds of deductions. I’m a detective, remember? Let’s use a bit of logic. Leaping over a fire like Jack-Be-Nimble is a lot different than burning your footprints into the floor.”

Turn the condescension down a bit there, hoss. You may be the Dark Messiah but you’re no Beckett.

Tacktlessness aside, McCann’s got a point and starts poking holes in the Red Death’s cover story. He says while he doesn’t discount the Sabbat being responsible he wonders why, during the Sabbat’s five-century-long war with the Camarilla, they’ve never busted out these Red Death attacks until now. Darrow again sides with McCann and gives us a rundown on Sabbat invasion tactics.

“These friggin’ attacks make no sense. Usually the Sabbat spends years organizing a Crusade to take over a city. We all knows the procedures. First they send in the spies. Then they place traitors into the Kindred council of elders. Next comes their efforts to expose the Masquerade through carefully planned acts of murder and terrorism. And then, during the resulting chaos, they attack in overwhelming numbers, exterminating any vampires they cannot convert to their cause. There’s no place for the Red Death in such plans.”

Uglyface suggests maybe they’ve finally came up with a new strategy, using the Red Death to wipe out a city’s Camarilla elders in one night instead of spending time and resources on a Crusade. McCann counters, saying that’s not what happened, at least in their case. Vargoss isn’t dead (and remember when McCann noticed the Red Death hesitate to kill Vargoss until the twins could save him?), the Sabbat aren’t invading, and while he killed a few Kindred, they were mostly later-generation, weaker vampires. Aside from trimming the population and scaring the bejeezus out of everyone, nothing’s changed.

With a “Bloody hell” Darrow says that they’re missing the most important question: Why did the Red Death attack a little nothing city like St. Louis in the first place?

“No offense, my Prince, but St. Louis ain’t a major Sabbat target. Leastwise, not according to our intelligence reports.”

Good save, Darrow.

“They have their eyes on bigger, more important cities.”

Way to blow the save, Darrow.

“What made us so bloody special we warranted the friggin’ attention of this fire monster?”

The Red Death needs access to Monsanto. He’s got this hilarious idea for a prank involving Roundup and cancer.

“No offense taken, Darrow,” said Vargoss. “I value your honesty more than any flattery. And your point is well presented.”

Vargoss may be a dick at times, but after Bloodlines and L.A. by Night, it’s nice to see a Camarilla Prince who has his shit together.

Vargoss had been discussing the matter with other Camarilla elders and as far as they can tell, St. Louis was the first stop in the Red Death’s rampage. The question is why? McCann suspects Red D. came for him, but obviously he’s not going to say that. Instead he fingers the late Tyrus Benedict. This prompts Vargoss to pull out a several-page-long fax from the Tremere HQ in Vienna, written by “Etrius himself.” McCann’s not only a magic man and a secret Methuselah, but he’s also “a student of Tremere history and organization,” so he recognizes the name. Etrius is the head of the Tremere Inner Council of Seven.

Etrius served as the guardian of the founder of the clan of undead wizards, the powerful sorcerer known as Tremere. The vampire himself lay dormant in torpor in a stone sarcophagus in the catacombs beneath Vienna. Strange rumors swirled about regarding the condition of Tremere’s body. Rumors that Etrius refused to confirm or deny.

Etrius is both an established character in Vampire: The Masquerade and a viewpoint character we’ll see in Chapter 8 of Part 2.

Etrius, who Vargoss calls “a cold, merciless bastard like all of his clan” (like a Ventrue should talk about other clans being jerks), didn’t care much about Benedict’s death but was interested in the Red Death and his fire powers.

“No bloody surprise, that,” said Darrow. Like most Kindred, he feared and distrusted the Tremere. Though they protested that they were loyal members of the Camarilla, everyone knew that the wizards worked for their own ends. And those plans they kept to themselves. “What those devils would give to wield a power like the Red Death! They’d probably burn us all off the map. And laugh at us for providing the information while they did it!”

Yep, everyone hates the Tremere. So much so that their clan weakness in Bloodlines 2 is going to be taking more damage from Kindred enemies. Other vampires hate them so much they’re inspired to punch a Tremere just a little harder in the face than usual.

Vargoss nodded. What small trust he had in the Tremere vanished when his closest advisor, Mosfair, turned on him a few months ago. Only McCann’s intervention had saved the Prince from the ultimate betrayal. The detective had never revealed that Mosfair had actually been acting as an agent for the Sabbat, not his own clan. McCann disliked alliances between the major Kindred bloodlines. And he worked very hard to prevent them from succeeding.”

Considering the two biggest Kindred sects are alliances between major bloodlines, somewhere along the way McCann fucked up big time. And so much for the Sabbat having no interest in St. Louis.

But as untrustworthy and scheming as the Tremere are, Vargoss reveals the fax dropped a bombshell on them. Benedict had visited to warn about the total blackout, the Shadow Curtain, of Kindred activity in Russia, and show Vargoss the photos of the Niktuku Baba Yaga the Tremere obtained. But Etrius says he was only sent to St. Louis to personally apologize for Mosfair’s actions and be all “the actions of this employee do not represent the views of the company.” Benedict didn’t have any documents on him about Baba Yaga or Russia.

The Prince paused, obviously enjoying the astonished looks on his advisors’ faces. Vargoss possessed a strong sense of the dramatic.

A vampire with a strong sense of the dramatic. Imagine.

Etrius also said that while Benedict got the basic facts right, no one the Tremere sent into Russia ever returned, with or without photos. He didn’t know about any photos or Baba Yaga’s Army of Night.

Darrow suggests the obvious, that the “slimy wizard” is lying, but Vargoss believed the fax. Its tone suggested Etrius was deeply disturbed by the news and asked Vargoss to give him every detail Benedict said about Baba Yaga.

“According to the ancient legends of my clan,” said Uglyface, “the Iron Hag was the greatest sorceress in the world. She was one of the Niktuku, monsters created by Absimiliard, the first Nosferatu, in his days of madness.”

Father Naples in the prologue described the Niktuku as fourth generation Nosferatu. The book generally goes with that description and so have I so far, but there’s another theory about them, possibly hinted by Uglyface here. Niktuku aren’t just fourth generation Nosferatu, or even uniformly fourth generation, but a separate “minor” bloodline altogether. Absimiliard thinks that if he wipes out his progeny, the modern Nosferatu, Caine will forgive him and lift his curse, and Absimiliard’ll get his good looks back. So he created the Niktuku to serve him and kill Nosferatu. There could be Niktuku with generations higher then four, but they’re all low generation and very old.

But it’s just a theory, another one of those things kept deliberately vague in the setting, being true or not depending on what the storyteller desires. What is known is that sometime in the late 90′s another Niktuku killed Baba Yaga and ended the Shadow Curtain. Right now though, in 1994, Baba Yaga’s alive and a problem.

“Her powers rivaled those of Lameth, the Dark Messiah.”

“It sounds like someone tampered with Benedict’s thoughts during his journey here from Vienna,” said McCann hurriedly. He was anxious to shift subjects again.”

“Yes, yes, she sounds like a powerful but clearly inferior rival to Lameth the Handsome, but if we can get back to Benedict-”

“Actually as a Cappodocian Child of Asshur Lameth would have looked like stale cheese. He was also an incompetent boob when it came to Jyhad. And fighting. A child with a jumprope could take him.”

“Who said- Um, ahem, that’s nice, Uglyface, but about Benedict-”

“Yes, good Noferatu, they also say Lameth’s attempts at Jyhad were to compensate for—how should I say this in polite company?—having a ‘blunt fang.’”

“...Interesting, my Prince, but back to-”

“Blunt fang’s just a fancy way of saying ‘is willy didn’t work, innit?”

“Indeed, his penis was impotent and also small.”

“OH COME ON!”

“No wonder the notion upsets Etrius. Messing with the mind of a wizard is no job for a lightweight.”

“Oh I wouldn’t go that far, McCann. Remember when Darrow told you having a hand bigger than your face meant you had cancer?”

“Yeah, and yeh put yer ‘and up in front of yer wizard mug and I made yeh slap yerself!”

“My Prince, Darrow, I’m clearly talking about brainwashing, not childish pranks.”

“Childish pranks yeh walked right into, guv’.”

“Yes, McCann, your affable buffoonishness reminds me very much of Lameth the Dark Mes-”

“Stay on topic stay on topic STAY ON TOPIC!”

“I asked Uglyface earlier to backtrack Benedict’s trip,” said Vargoss. The Prince shifted his attention to the Nosferatu. “What did you learn?”

Uglyface gives three important details; that Benedict used “unconventional” methods of transportation, that he arrived in Washington, D.C. three nights ago, and that he couldn’t get in contact with his usual Washington source, a friend named Amos. None of his messages were answered.

The second detail catches McCann’s attention. If Benedict arrived in D.C. three nights ago, and arrived just last night, it leaves one unaccounted for night where he could have been mind whammied. Vargoss brings up the Sabbat again, since they have their eye on conquering Washington. Darrow says that D.C.’s still a Camarilla stronghold, and the Tremere are powerful there. He namedrops some more established characters and explains some of their politics that he knows about for some reason.

“Peter Dorfman is Pontifex (high-ranking Tremere who answers directly to a member of the Council of Seven) there, and he is very ambitious. For all we know, Benedict may have received new instructions from a member of his own bloodline there. There’s a bitter rivalry between Dorfman and other Tremere elders. Meerlinda, leader of the U.S. branch of the clan, plays one against the other in order to maintain absolute control of the bloodline. In turn, she and Etrius both scheme to take charge of the entire clan. It’s a frigging bloody mess, and anything’s possible.”

If some Brujah in another city can figure out your plans, you’re not exactly a subtle schemer.

So the two leading theories among the group about what happened to Benedict are Sabbat brainwashing or inter-clan Tremere bullshit. But what, if anything, does any of that have to do with the Red Death? Whatever’s true, Vargoss decides that the only way to learn what the hell’s going on is to send someone to Washington and do some snooping.

All eyes focused on McCann. The detective laughed.

“Why do I get the impression I’ve been elected?”

Vargoss smiled. “You are the obvious choice, McCann.”

Along with this being McCann’s job and everything, he can also work during the day while the Kindred are sleeping and helpless, so that’s a plus.

“Yeah, and I have my mage powers to protect me,” said McCann. “Not that they would do much good if I stumble upon the Red Death.”

Yeah, what could a reality-shaping World of Darkness mage do to a vampire? Make him explode only a little?

“I assume you’re willing to pay well for this scouting expedition?”

Vargoss laughed. “What I like about you, McCann, is that you’re so pleasantly frank. After listening to lies and half-truths, it amuses me to hear real, honest greed.”

“Am I chopped liver or wot? I’m supposed to be the honest one.”

“Yes, Darrow, but you’re not honestly greedy.”

“I can be honestly greedy. I ‘ave needs.”

“I already pay you in beer.”

“American beer.”

It seems like the matter’s settled, but then Flavia, remembering that she became a real character back in Chapter 5, whispers something in Vargoss’ ear. He excuses himself and leaves the office with his bodyguard. The three still in the office play some gin rummy until Vargoss and Flavia quickly return.

“The plans have been altered slightly,” announced the Prince, taking his seat. Flavia returned to her position at his right. “You are still traveling to Washington, McCann. But you are not going alone. Flavia is going to accompany you.”

“What?” said the detective. “What?”

[live studio audience laughter]

“Flavia argues convincingly that a lone human, even a mage, cannot stand against the concentrated attack of a Sabbat pack.”

There’s a molotov cocktail of a statement if there ever was one.

“Especially if the Red Death is involved. Besides which, Flavia has contacts with the important Camarilla leaders of the city. I am forced to agree. She is right. You need protection and introductions. And she is the one Kindred who is capable of providing you with both. Darrow will take her place at my side during her absence.”

“In addition, the large amount of tourists Washington attracts each year makes it very likely that the only hotel room you will be able to secure will be one with a single bed. Flavia convincingly argues she must be there in such a situation, in order to provide both sitcom hilarity and sexual tension.”

“I work on my own,” said McCann, feeling trapped.

“Not in this case,” said Vargoss, in a voice which brooked no denial. At his side, Flavia’s lips twitched in the slightest of smiles. “Do not anger me, McCann. You will discover the truth about Tyrus Benedict. And Flavia will guard your back.”

“And you will provide me with inspiration for the fanfiction I am writing about the two of you.”

“As you command,” said McCann, bowing to the inevitable. “It should be an interesting trip.”

Flavia nodded. Sensuously she licked her upper lip with her tongue. McCann grimaced. She winked.

McCann dry heaved. She blew a kiss. McCann projectile vomited. She pelvic thrusted victoriously.

#vampire the masquerade #vampire: the masquerade #vtm #vtmb #world of darkness #blood war

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kayawagner · 6 years

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