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theonyxpath · 6 years

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Here’s a selection from the recently-released Beast Player’s Guide.

Beyond the Nightmares a Beast can learn from her kin or by exploring the Primordial Dream, other members of the supernatural community spread their own brands of terror. As she spends time with other creatures, and especially if she creates Family Ties with others, her Horror begins to reflect the company she keeps. A Beast among a coterie of vampires learns precisely how to sow seeds of betrayal and mistrust to feed her Ravager Horror. A Whisper learns from the same group how far the power of silence goes to keep others talking, and just how much people will reveal to avoid silence. As the Beast learns from her companions and witnesses them using their own power, she expands her understanding of what fear truly is, drawing her closer to her Horror and the other members of her supernatural family.

Nightmares

This section presents a plethora of new Kinship Nightmares, followed by a discussion of how a Beast can use Family Ties to a supernatural being to create custom Nightmares.

Kinship Nightmares

The Kinship Nightmares presented below include more possible examples of the sort of abilities a Beast may develop with Family Ties.

Checking It Twice (Wizened Changeling)

You know that you assembled it perfectly. This is absolutely the way to put this together, but you still feel like something could have gone wrong. What if something came loose while your back was turned? What if somebody ruined your masterpiece? You just need to check it to be sure. Just one more time.

Dice Pool: Presence + Satiety vs. Composure + Supernatural Tolerance

Normal: The victim becomes consumed with the need to perfect her craft. The victim gains the Obsession Condition for an object they can toy with, repair, or are even planning to create in the future.

High Satiety: The victim is consumed with the need to double check her work to make sure it’s absolutely immaculate. Any action the victim takes other than rechecking what she’s previously done requires a reflexive Resolve + Composure roll. If this roll fails, the victim can’t do anything as she goes back to just making sure everything was running smoothly. In combat, the victim loses her Defense for the turn she fails her roll.

Satiety Expenditure: The victim knows something is wrong and she needs to fix it right now because if she doesn’t do it, nobody will. The character becomes utterly monomaniacal in her focus on the object of her perfectionism. The Obsession Condition remains even after the Nightmare expires. The victim can only cure herself of the Obsession by finally perfecting the object or being forcibly separated from her project. The Beast can cure the Condition with a touch as well.

Exceptional Success: The victim gains a +2 bonus to any roll that furthers their obsession, but a –2 on all rolls to notice or focus on anything else.

Everything You Know Is a Lie (Mage)

Your eyes have been opened to the profound truth. Nothing you have ever experienced is true. This world is a simulation and others are just pawns in some cosmic play. How can you love if you don’t know what love truly is? How can you eat if you’ve never felt true hunger?

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Satiety vs. Resolve + Supernatural Tolerance

Normal: The victim comes to the terrible realization that his life experience is based off a false paradigm or incorrect assumptions. The victim loses access to Specialties and 10-again for the duration of the Nightmare.

High Satiety: The character is plagued by doubt — every action feels false and guided by some principle that simply doesn’t apply to the situation. While the Nightmare is active, the victim’s player must reroll any dice that come up successes when using any Skill in which the victim has a Specialty. The victim keeps the results of this reroll.

Satiety Expenditure: The Beast chooses a Skill category (Mental, Social, or Physical). Within that category, the victim treats all Skills as untrained (meaning the character loses access to any dots in that Skill and suffers a –1 or –3 penalty as appropriate). If this would affect a supernatural being using a power or ability, it provokes a Clash of Wills.

Exceptional Success: The victim’s threshold for exceptional success in any Skill that lost a Specialty is raised to seven successes. For Storyteller characters, who might not have Specialties, the player can specify one Skill that suffers from this effect.

Evil Doll (Unfleshed Promethean)

You just saw it. Somewhere out of the corner of your eye you saw it, with those mechanical hands and blank, beady eyes. You saw that monstrosity somewhere right when you got into the room, but now you can’t find it. That monster is hiding from you, waiting for you to look away long enough to get you.

Dice Pool: Presence + Satiety vs. Composure + Supernatural Tolerance

Normal: The victim becomes convinced that some inanimate object in the room is actually a monster in disguise, just waiting for her to lower her guard. As long as the object remains in the room the character has the Spooked Condition, unless they prove without a shadow of a doubt that the object actually isn’t alive (perhaps by burning it).

High Satiety: If the victim destroys the object, she believes that another object in the room has become possessed by the same malevolent force.

Satiety Expenditure: The victim lets her guard down for just a moment and is attacked by the creature in a flurry of motion, biting her leg or lodging a steak knife in her shin as it skitters by. In reality, the only damage dealt to the victim is caused by their nervous handling of the object causing it to go off, fall, or otherwise cause injury. The victim suffers the object’s equipment bonus in lethal damage. This deals a minimum of one damage; even with the most harmless objects the victim finds a way to stumble into a suitably horrible accident.

Exceptional Success: As long as the victim has the Spooked Condition, she may not perform extended actions or other time-consuming activities that might let the monster get the drop on her.

Family is Forever (Vampire)

You know what they say about blood being thicker than water. You also know that just because you have to be polite doesn’t mean you have to particularly like this asshole. Something about them drives you up the wall but you can’t just put them out.

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Satiety vs. Resolve + Supernatural Tolerance

Normal: The victim becomes convinced that they’re in some way distantly related to the Beast. No matter how vague the details are, the victim’s subconscious fills in the gaps to make the cover story seem true. The victim gains the Leveraged Condition.

High Satiety: The Beast gains access to a number of the victim’s Social Merit dots equal to the Beast’s Satiety at the activation of the Nightmare. She cannot partially access flat-rate Social Merits (such as True Friend) if she doesn’t have the requisite number of dots, but may partially access scaling Merits like Resources. For example, a Beast with 7 Satiety using the Nightmare on a victim with Contacts 5, Resources 4, and True Friend could gain access to Contacts 5 and use the remaining dots to access two of the victim��s Resources, but not True Friend. She could, however, use Contacts 2, Resources 2, and True Friend.

Satiety Expenditure: The Beast may make requests of her “family” that would normally require blackmail or weeks of cajoling. The Beast may spend multiple points of Satiety while this Nightmare is active — for every point of Satiety spent, open one additional Door against the victim.

Exceptional Success: The victim may be irritated by the distant “family” member, or even hate them, but them but turning them away seems unthinkable. The victim gains the Guilty Condition if they refuse a request of the Beast.

The Water Won’t Last Forever (Hunter in Darkness Werewolf)

You can’t help but think about it. How long has it been since it’s rained? Aren’t those earthquakes just a little too frequent for this part of the world? Sure, the government has done a good job of keeping it covered up, but the truth is obvious. This world is dying and you’re not going let it take you with it.

Dice Pool: Presence + Satiety vs. Composure + Supernatural Tolerance

Normal: The victim is “clued in” to an impending environmental or economic apocalypse that he’s certain will happen in the immediate future. The victim gains the Paranoid Condition, feeling compelled to hoard material resources to ensure his own survival from the impending end of all things.

High Satiety: The victim only respects the rule of might and all other law is just a weakness of society. As long as the victim is under the effect of the Nightmare, he is treated as hostile for all Social Maneuvering actions short of hard leverage. Attempting to bargain for resources instead of just taking them for himself fails outright without a roll.

Satiety Expenditure: In a world without law, only survival of the fittest matters. The Beast may spend multiple Satiety on this effect. For each Satiety spent, the Nightmare persists for another day. Additionally, the Beast may indicate one object in these Nightmares that the victim simply can’t be without if they have any hope of surviving. The victim gains the Obsessed Condition for acquiring this object.

Exceptional Success: The Paranoid Condition persists for a day after the end of the Nightmare.

You Have Foreseen This (Acanthus Mage)

There’s no chance they’re going to stop it in time. You already know exactly how it’s going to happen and how much they’re going to suffer, but nobody will believe you. So all you can do is watch it play out exactly as you saw it coming.

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Satiety vs. Resolve + Supernatural Tolerance

Normal: The victim falls under the delusion they are in some way able to foresee or plan for all future outcomes. The victim gains the Delusional Condition (the Beast outlines the delusion in general terms), and any attempt to stray from the vision of the future the Beast left in their head requires a reflexive Resolve + Composure roll. The Beast may resolve the Delusional Condition prematurely by touching the victim of the Nightmare.

High Satiety: The player may select a number of rolls equal to the successes rolled on the Nightmare activation roll that the victim knows are destined to fail. No matter how many successes the victim’s player achieves, these rolls are treated as though they only show one success.

Satiety Expenditure: The victim walks through the world a helpless tool of capricious destiny. As long as the victim has the Delusional Condition, her threshold for exceptional successes is three successes instead of five — as long as she follows the vision’s narrative. When the Delusional Condition is resolved, the Beast regains one Willpower for each exceptional success that the victim achieved. After the Delusional Condition is resolved, the victim loses 10-again for the scene.

Exceptional Success: If the Delusional Condition is resolved by the victim during the duration of the Nightmare, it counts as fulfilling the Beast’s Hunger.

You Should Fade Away (Silent Sin-Eater)

You’re so tired but you don’t want to impose on anyone. What kind of needy and desperate thing would you be if you couldn’t take care of yourself in this situation? You’re an adult. Surely you can get through this yourself instead of bothering somebody else with your problems. Maybe someone will just notice you when they have the time to spare.

Dice Pool: Presence + Satiety vs. Resolve + Supernatural Tolerance

Normal: The victim seeks to avoid being a problem for those around him, subconsciously aware that his needs are a drain and annoyance on those around them. The victim must make a Resolve + Composure roll to ask somebody else for something he needs, even if his life is at stake.

High Satiety: The victim is grateful for any attention. He gains the Swooning Condition with whomever chooses to directly address him.

Satiety Expenditure: The victim becomes part of the background noise of the environment, a barely noticeable footnote on the occurrences of daily life. To try and get someone’s attention, the victim rolls Presence + Resolve if human, or Presence + Supernatural Tolerance if not. Success for the victim means the observer doesn’t even notice there was anyone there at all.

Exceptional Success: The victim’s body grows heavy and the will to continue to participate in the world with others bleeds away. The victim gains the Lethargic Condition.

Breaking Down a Character

Creating a Kinship Nightmare based on another character can be difficult for both player and Storyteller characters. A neonate vampire, originally a faceless pawn sent to hunt the brood, is unexpectedly adopted after the Beasts take a liking to him. A werewolf whose original concept was a remorseless berserker has a change of heart after several stories, embracing a different way of life before a Beast gets around to creating a Kinship Nightmare. Here are a few ways to break down a character into that essential fear needed to create Nightmares. Remember there is no one right answer to what makes a member of the supernatural community terrifying, as long as the table agrees it makes for an interesting part of the story.

Describe the character to someone else at the table without bringing up their supernatural species, profession, or affiliation with a supernatural order. What traits most strongly define them? What most differentiates them from the presumptions of the setting?

Discuss with the character’s player or the Storyteller a single defining event that happened, either at the table or in the character’s backstory. How did it alter them? What was the worst possible outcome of that event? Why is it terrifying?

Define a single area where the character has unparalleled power. What is the worst possible thing they could do with that control? What is the character most afraid of becoming with that sort of control?

Consider what sort of predation the character is capable of that would cause a Chamber to form. How does that Chamber resonate with the Legend of the Beast? How did they perform such an act? What sort of Lair Traits tie the two together?

#Onyx Path Publishing

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tesshoundi · 1 year

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I know I will regret this but I've been thinking about it for awhile since Viiz Canonically has a leather fetish and a thing going on with Malo and Aloise. That is all I will say on the matter for now

#promethean the created #ptc unfleshed #Promethean the created unfleshed #leather #digital art #regret

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tesshoundi · 11 months

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Viiz's rarely draw human disguise. I drew this as a reference for art fight and realized I didn't upload it anywhere else

#digital art #oc #world of darkness #promethean the created #promethean the created unfleshed #vtm

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tesshoundi · 1 year

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A collection of Outfit drawings of Viiz ordered by when they were drawn

#digital art #promethean the created #world of darkness #ptc unfleshed #promethean the created unfleshed #oc #wod

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tesshoundi · 1 year

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Viiz thinks his mother's friends are weird.

#digital art #oc #world of darkness #wod #promethean the created #ptc unfleshed #promethean the created unfleshed #Boggan #boggart #changeling the dreaming #ctd

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tesshoundi · 1 year

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(These were made using bases from https://www.deviantart.com/nukababe who you should go check out)

I’ve been working on writing a story set in world of darkness with character’s from most of the game lines (some excluded based on personal preference) and I had made VIIZ (unfleshed) awhile back but I got to thinking before they got wrapped up in (spoilers for plot) they probably had a throng at some point so I came up with some ideas as I was fleshing out the Unfleshed’s backstory (Pun intended) more info under the read more if you’re interested. Also It’d been awhile since I'd done any chibi base drawings and this was a convenient excuse to do some.

First up is Viiz (Unfleshed) Current Refinement: Argentum Role: Envoy Prior Refinements Cuprum ‘ role Hermit complete, Stannum role Vigilante incomplete. Viiz was the creation of a Changeling (CTD) specifically a goblin. And once he left his mother’s care it seemed to eventually draw him to the refinement of silver once he realized that him mother wasn’t human that is. He originally after being separated from his mother followed the refinement of copper as he was unused to other people, but one fateful day when he was taking shelter from a storm what he thought was just another person unfortunate enough to be stuck outside during the downpour was another variety of changeling (Weeping Wight to be specific) The two had a brief fight with neither being victorious but that sparked Viiz’s interest in the supernatural and his switch to Argentum. A few years later after joining up with his throng (more on that later) he found out what had happened to his mother once they had been separated. She’d been murdered by a banal Changeling. Filled with an indescribable rage he’d never felt before he temporarily switched refinements to tin and quite brutally beat the man to death. He spent a few more weeks as a fury working out his anger before switching back to Silver.

Next is Mouse (Zeka) Current refinement: Aurum Role: Companion Prior Refinements: none. Mouse was left with no instructions from his creator and had to figure everything out for himself. For several months he’s been wandering throughout the city he awoke in occasionally taking part in various raves or going out to nightclubs a hobby he’s kept up even to this day. But he was unaware of the wasteland he was creating in the process. Eventually he triggered a massive firestorm and ended up wiping out the city’s population in the process but he also made our next character’s dream come true but more on that in a minute. He met Viiz soon after who was investigating the city because he believed that the radiation spikes in the area were due to balefires caused by black spiral dancer werewolves not knowing of the Zeka within the city. Mouse now knowing that their were other’s like him joined up with the Unfleshed starting a more focused approach to his pilgrimage.

Next is Dualette (Extempore) Current Refinement: Aes role Servant Prior Refinements: Aurum Role: Follower complete , Centimani. Do you remember ‘the pilgrim’ from the second edition core rulebook? If so you should know that her belief that she could become a true promethean which is suggested to be possible in Night Horrors the tormented was her entire goal. Dualette is her dream and now she aspires to be more than Promethean she aspires to be human. That massive radioactive firestorm Mouse triggered caused a lot of damage to buildings and such and The Pilgrim was caught partially under the debris as the firestorm flayed her (and everyone else) alive. This firestorm lasted absurdly long (a full 24 hours) but when it finally ceased the Pilgrim had gotten their wish Pyros was able to partially hide their disfigurements when needed and they no longer felt the need to tear into prometheans for now she was one herself. Now as Dualette she had sought out others so she could learn from them eventually stumbling upon Viiz, Mouse and Viiz’s only throngmate at the time Suitor ‘more on him later’ She joined their throng overjoyed that she had finally gotten her wish but when Viiz and Suitor started talking about being human she when lightheaded as she couldn’t believe the possibility put before her. He was on the refinment of flux temporarily as she had just crossed from pandorian to promethean but quickly switched to Aurum quickly meeting her milestones after a few years she switched to Aes wanting to help those who’d helped her, inadvertent as some of it may have been. She has two humors Ectoplasm from her ulgan creator and Radiation from Mouse’s firestorm and her wastelands embody both together but each half is only about half as bad a a firestorm of that level from either lineage if you were to separated out the effects from each humor. For example people in her wasteland only take half as much radiation damage as from a Zeka wasteland of the same rating.

Lastly is Suitor ( Galateid ) Current Refinement: Stannum role Savage Prior Refinements: none. Suitor was created to be the perfect romantic partner to his creator but he’s actually repulsed by romantic and sexual affection and quickly went his own way. He’s one of the few Galatea who are created from multiple bodies with his main one still bearing autopsy scars (not visible here) The parts that came from a separate donor are his eyes and his arms just below the shoulder. His scalp is a wig cap that was sewn on with the sole purpose of giving his creator the ability switch out his hair as they saw fit. He does usually wear wigs usually switching them out to avoid being recognized when he doesn’t want to. He loves picking fights with others and isn’t above using his puppy like brown eyes to figuratively disarm those who fight him. He met Viiz after deciding to pick a fight with a Brujah not that he knew of course. Viiz saved his life but staking them allowing a bloodied and beaten Suitor to lick his wounds so to speak. He decided that in case any of his fights pit him against supernaturals again having Viiz around would come in handy. He’s the only member of the throng who wasn’t appalled at Viiz beating his mother’s killer to death and instead agreed with the action though Viiz’s rampage afterwards was so unlike him that Suitor was glad when he returned to silver like the rest of the throng.

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tesshoundi · 1 year

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Viiz's time as a fury

Fun fact Viiz's mother Waverly lined the bottom of his hand with cold iron because she knew the Seelie Court wanted her head. She meant for it to be used if he had to defend himself but looks like fate had other plans.

#promethean the created #ptc unfleshed #changeling the dreaming #CTD #PTC #CTD goblin #wraith the oblivion #WTO #world of darkness #WOD #Goblin #Wraith

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cameoappearance · 7 years

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“I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY A SUPERIOR MACHINE SUCH AS YOURSELF WOULD BE INTERESTED IN BECOMING A WEAK AND FRAGILE FLESHLING.”

“If I could stay the way I am without draining the life out of the world everywhere I go, I’d do it. I can’t just move to Shadow Puppet Island like you did.”

Aggie meets WX, sparks fly

(remember my theory about WX being something like an Unfleshed? it works even better if you suppose that what WX got out of the deal with Them/Maxwell was a place to go where they wouldn’t spread the Wasteland)

#don't starve #promethean the created #wx78 #detroit 'car friend' agate #camdraw #on the other hand maybe wx isn't an unfleshed and aggie is just jumping to conclusions #who can say

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cameoappearance · 7 years

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Promethean: the Created Cheat Sheet

This game has a lot of jargon and I am here to explain it to you so that both of us can keep it straight. Inspired by the enduring popularity of the Changeling one, which continues to get a slow but steady drip of notes to this day.

This cheat sheet is derived purely from Promethean 1e. I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible to 1e lore and mechanics, but if you’re using it with 2e there will be inaccuracies wherever I reference something that was changed between editions.

Athanor: Similar to a prestige class; an investment of Vitriol allowing a Promethean to gain a pool of special abilities and a unique perk by following a particular ethos, symbolised by a motif that is usually a real or fictional animal. Some of the benefits of an Athanor persist even after becoming human, although in a lessened form. Individual Athanors are associated with specific Lineages, and to learn one, a Promethean has to have at least three dots of Azoth and the assistance of another Promethean who already has an Athanor. (It doesn’t have to be the same one.) At four dots you can learn another Lineage’s Athanor, and at five you can make up your own. Athanors use Reagent points to power their abilities, which are generated and spent separately from Pyros. Finally, a Promethean can only ever have one Athanor.

Azoth: Refined, innate Pyros; how much of it you have determines how powerful you are. How much Pyros you can hold, and how much you can spend per turn, is determined by your Azoth. Increasing your Azoth to 5 or more, especially above 8, also makes it easier to become human at the end of the Pilgrimage. Walking around with a high Azoth has detrimental side effects; it awakens Pandorans at a greater distance (by Azoth 7 it wakes up every Pandoran within city limits), and it makes it harder for mortals to resist the onset of Disquiet, even other Prometheans’ Disquiet if there’s another one near you. A lot of miscellaneous Promethean things also have their intensity or duration determined by your Azoth, and as with World of Darkness magicalness stats in general, its potency affects your resistance to supernatural powers.

Azothic radiance: A Promethean’s aura, the size of which is determined by how high your Azoth is. As mentioned previously, it wakes up any Pandorans within its range. Other Prometheans can sense it too.

Bestowment: A medium-potency power granted to you as a product of your Lineage. Each of the five standard Lineages plus the Zeka has a few standard Bestowments available, although only one per Lineage is in the corebook. The Unfleshed can have any other Lineage’s Bestowment, or any two-dot Transmutation as a Bestowment. Custom Bestowments are also an option, especially for oddball Prometheans with strange Lineages (for instance, all Extempore).

Construct: A Promethean made out of inanimate materials such as wood or stone. Can belong to any Lineage, and the five standard Lineages each have a material that works best for creating Constructs. The material used to build them confers particular advantages and disadvantages, such as a wooden Promethean being even more vulnerable to fire but half as vulnerable to bashing damage. They also completely lack the illusory human form that other Prometheans (even the Unfleshed, who also aren’t made from human corpses) have. Being made of a solid mass of non-biological material means they don’t need to breathe or eat and have none of the vulnerabilities of internal organs, but they also don’t generate as much free Pyros since it’s being used to fuel themselves, and their Disquiet builds faster.

Demiurge: The human (or, on much rarer occasion, other supernatural being such as vampire, werewolf, or changeling) who creates the first Promethean in a Lineage. For the five primary Lineages this happened anywhere from a couple hundred years to several millennia ago, but for the Zeka at least five people have done it independently during the 20th century and for the Unfleshed it’s actually more common to be created by a demiurge than another Unfleshed. The Extempore, by nature, do not have them.

Disfigurements: What a Promethean actually looks like, more specifically the features that couldn’t possibly be natural parts of a living human’s body, such as gashes that leak black ectoplasm or an obviously dead complexion. Usually not visible to anyone except other Prometheans, but they become visible for a brief flash when using transmutations or doing anything else that involves spending Pyros, for a longer time when you tap into electrical power to heal your wounds, and they stay visible when you’re dead. There are a couple other things that reveal them, like one Unfleshed-specific Merit.

Disquiet: A supernatural influence causing mortals and most other gamelines’ supernatural beings to distrust, dislike, and generally be assholes to Prometheans. It starts with troubling dreams and intrusive thoughts, and escalates from there over time into compulsive toxic behavior of various types, a fixation on the Promethean, and eventually the desire to kill them. Each Lineage has a different kind of detrimental effect on the reactions of others through their Disquiet; the Unfleshed and the Extempore either have their Disquiet take unique, personalized forms, or cause essentially the same Disquiet reactions as one of the other Lineages.

The Divine Fire: The metaphysical transformative force of nature that powers Prometheans and incidentally also Pandorans. Most other things in the world react poorly to it when it’s present in the concentrations necessary to run an entire creature off of it, although it is in fact abundant in nature at greatly lower concentrations. (”Pyros” is sometimes used as an alternate name for the Divine Fire in general, and “Azoth” is also used this way sometimes for Promethean-specific things.)

Elpis: An aspect of the Divine Fire that grants prophetic visions and spiritual guidance. To use Elpis, you have to purchase it as a Merit, with the number of dots determining how many clues it gives you when you use it. The term is also sometimes used for the helpful side of the Divine Fire in a more general sense.

Firestorms: Hurricane-like storms with extra fire, caused by Flux and wasted Pyros. This can happen as a result of multiple dramatic failures on rolls that involve spending Pyros, or just one dramatic failure if you have a high Azoth and were trying to spend a lot of Pyros. They also show up to accompany greater qashmallim, can be summoned on purpose if you don’t care about wrecking the place, and sometimes just appear near the end of a Pilgrimage. Weird shit can happen in a Firestorm, including temporary mutations or even Prometheans being briefly turned human (on a strictly physical level, not metaphysical).

Flux: The dark side of the Divine Fire; the destructive, entropic counterpart to Azoth. Pandorans run on Flux the way Prometheans run on Azoth, and Flux soaks into the local environment when they’re an active presence in the area. A Flux-tainted location can cause physical and mental degradation to humans, normal animals, and other supernaturals just by being there, although for the most part it’s reversible if you leave and stay away long enough.

Going to the Wastes: Going into the middle of nowhere and isolating yourself from contact or straight-up hibernating, without using any Transmutations there. This pauses the aging process and allows you to scrub the Torment out of your aura; it also causes Azoth to drop, by one dot for the first month and then twice as long for each successive dot. (The discarded Azoth escapes into the world and can potentially be eaten by Pandorans or consumed by Firestorms.) After you come back from the wastes, you get a bonus to resist Torment until you start raising your Azoth again.

Humanity: Your replacement for the Morality meter mortals have; it reflects how connected you are to human morals and your ability to pretend you’re human. It’s also used as a dice pool when resisting Torment, preventing a new Promethean from exploding into Pandorans when you create them, and attempting to turn into a human at the end of your Pilgrimage.

Kryptae: Animals or plants that absorbed a bunch of Flux out of their environment (for animals, this is basically always by eating a dead Pandoran) and turned into Pandoran-like vicious mutants. They seem normal until the first time they encounter a Promethean, which activates the Flux like it does with Pandorans.

Lacunae: Thefts of Vitriol from the body of a Promethean, as performed by a Pandoran or another Promethean. Because it’s horrible, this causes Prometheans performing it to automatically lose a Humanity point on top of the usual Humanity degeneration roll you make when you do horrible things. Unsurprisingly, having lacuna’d someone within the last year provides the biggest possible penalty to a roll for a Promethean to become mortal, and having done it more than once - often enough to get desensitized - may well prevent the perpetrator from ever becoming human.

Lineage: What kind of Promethean you are, more or less. Essentially, it has two meanings: which specific Promethean Progenitor you descend from, and more generally what category of Promethean you belong to. The options are Frankenstein, Galateid, Osiran, Tammuz, Ulgan, Extempore, Unfleshed, and Zeka. The overwhelming majority of Prometheans from the first five Lineages go back to a common ancestor anywhere from a couple hundred years ago to several millennia in the past, whereas the Zeka have at least five unrelated Progenitors, the Unfleshed are more often created by demiurges than by others of their kind, and the Extempore appear spontaneously after massive natural disasters infused with the Divine Fire.

The Measure: An instinctive assessment of another Promethean based on their Azothic radiance. Past Torment is noticeable here if you haven’t gone to the wastes between then and now and removed the signs. Personality isn’t a factor in the Measure, it’s just a matter of whether your Azoth is compatible at that point in time.

Milestones: Significant life events or achievements that help a Promethean understand what it means to be human. In addition to character development, these also generate Vitriol.

Mockeries: Pandorans’ equivalent of Promethean Lineages, reflecting which type of Promethean spawned them. Each Lineage has one; the five core lineages produce the Torch-Born (Frankensteins), Ishtari (Tammuz), Renders (Ulgans), Sebek (Osirans), and the Silent (Galateids), as well as Gremlins from the Unfleshed and Carcinomas from the Zeka. The Extempore and other oddball Prometheans who aren’t part of a larger Lineage generate unique Mockeries patterned after themselves when they try and fail to create progeny.

Pandorans: Monsters that spawn from failed attempts to create a Promethean and try to steal Pyros and Vitriol from any Prometheans they later encounter. (By eating them. Many are smart enough to trap and/or incapacitate a Promethean and just nibble on them intermittently instead of devouring them all at once, too.) In the absence of nearby Prometheans they are forced into an inanimate state called Dormancy, and even when active, encountering a human can force them back into Dormancy for a short time.

Most are smaller than an adult human, and most are nonsapient creatures possessing only animal-level intelligence, but there are exceptions to both of these rules. They’re capable of fusing with other Pandorans if they’ve been eating plenty of Pyros lately, although the fusion doesn’t last long; the merged Pandorans are called Praecipitati, or a Praecipitatus if there’s just one. They do have a Vice, but never a Virtue or morality-type meter such as Humanity, because they’re naturally awful creatures that range from amoral and inconveniently hungry to actively sadistic and malicious.

Pilgrimage: A Promethean’s quest for mortality. The end result is known as the New Dawn or Redemption. The Pilgrimage is also known poetically as the Magnum Opus.

Pilgrim marks: Pictographs used to inform other Prometheans who pass through the area about any notable dangers or resources to be found, whether that’s “generous person who gives out food” or “keep out, severe Pandoran infestation”. Kind of like a cross between hobo signs and alchemical symbols. With the use of a particular Transmutation they can be made invisible to non-Prometheans; otherwise they look like weird graffiti.

Progenitor: The first Promethean in a Lineage, in the sense of having being created by a human demiurge instead of another Promethean. This makes no functional difference to the potency of the powers you get or the Transmutations you can learn -- you have to start at Azoth 1 just like everyone else -- although a unique, never-before-seen Bestowment is a possibility. Also it might attract both good and bad attention from other Prometheans if the news gets out, since this is a development so rare that many believe it to be impossible. (This is a plot point in one of the pregenerated stories; by default the character is a not-quite-Osiran created by a human, but the option is left open for him to be an actual Osiran created the usual way who just has an atypical Bestowment and a cloud of misinformation surrounding his origins.)

Pyros: The Divine Fire in the form of unrefined, fluid energy that can be collected and expended again as fuel for Promethean powers. (Basically mana, in other words.) All Prometheans can hold 10 points of Pyros; each dot of Azoth up to 6 allows them the ability to store one more point in total and spend one more point at a time, and at Azoth 7 your Pyros pool starts expanding even more for each level.

Qashmallim: Angel-like beings (just one is a qashmal) made out of pure Pyros, which might be human-looking, or might be a bunch of abstract shapes that are actively on fire. They manifest with a specific purpose -- which can be anything, regardless of whether it’s moral or immoral, vast or trivial; even the qashmallim themselves are unaware of why they need to get these things done -- and are very literally single-minded in their dedication to it, popping into existence with exactly the knowledge and abilities that they need for their Mission and absolutely nothing else. Some of them have to complete their task by a certain time, others can keep trying until they run out of power. (Depending on power level and whether they’re given a way of refilling Pyros this can take anywhere from a week to several weeks, hastened by actively using their powers.) If one qashmal ultimately fails at its Mission, no other qashmallim will try to repeat it.

They have two factions, one of them distinctly more destructive and chaotic in the goals it promotes than the other, with discernible differences in aesthetic and powers. They’re both utterly unknowable and inhuman, and thus even the “good” faction can cause a lot of undeserved suffering and death to others in the pursuit of their Principle, but the Elpidos are more likely to be on your side than the Lilithim are if you don’t like entropy and destruction.

The Ramble: A sort of ritualized infodump about oneself and/or any other Prometheans you’ve met or heard of, conducted when two or more Prometheans meet. Serves as the primary vehicle for Promethean oral tradition.

Redeemed: A Promethean who successfully turned themself into a human. They may or may not remember being anything else. They are the same as regular mortals for almost all purposes, and can potentially be turned into some of the other NWoD gamelines’ formerly-human supernatural beings. (Embraced by vampires or kidnapped by the True Fae and turned into a changeling, for instance, but not turned into a werewolf because in this setting lycanthropy is strictly inborn.) Some of the Redeemed are immune to Disquiet, but you can’t count on that.

Refinement: The philosophy a Promethean chooses to follow. The main ones are Aurum (Gold), Cuprum (Copper), Ferrum (Iron), Mercurius (Quicksilver/Mercury), and Stannum (Tin); the expansions add Aes (Bronze), Argentum (Silver), Cobalus (Cobalt), and Plumbum (Lead). The names are mostly for aesthetic rather than informative purposes. For instance, Gold represents studying humans directly and trying to fit in with them, Iron represents trying to perfect your body, and Silver represents studying the other supernatural beings you can cross paths with in the World of Darkness. They also have names for their adherents, such as Furies for practitioners of Stannum or Mimics for practitioners of Aurum.

Finally there’s the Centimani, also known as the Refinement of Flux or the Hundred Handed, the only Refinement where achieving humanity is not a priority and often not on the agenda at all. They focus on embracing their monstrous nature and the power of Flux instead, and often learn to bend Pandorans to their will or use the same gross shapeshifting transmutations.

Sublimatus: A Pandoran who is a sapient being, created either when an attempt to create a Promethean goes especially badly, a Praecipitatus breaks apart just the right way, or a regular Pandoran feeds on Vitriol. They can sometimes learn Promethean Transmutations. They still have no moral compass whatsoever and are basically always huge jerks.

Throng: A party; a group of Promethean bros. Formally joining one (becoming a member of a branded throng through an alchemical pact) can allow access to unique Transmutations and slow the progression of your respective Wastelands.

Torment: A state of overwhelming emotion that leads to unreasonable, largely uncontrollable behaviour, and which all Prometheans are afflicted with at least occasionally. Different Lineages have different kinds, such as the Zeka’s frenzied and gratuitous Pyros-spending (on anything, the more destructive the better) or the Osirans abruptly losing all concern for emotional matters and remaining ruthlessly emotionless until the Torment wears off.

It primarily builds in response to major personal setbacks, seeing friends succumb to Torment, experiencing the many negative aspects of Promethean life such as someone being a jerk to you specifically because of Disquiet or being threatened with fire, or just from just going too many days without food. However, there are also supernatural means of inducing Torment.

Transmutation: The main, open-ended type of powers Prometheans have. It’s called that because it involves altering the Divine Fire within yourself to do your cool supernatural stuff; Pandorans can do it too, but theirs more often involve shapeshifting into something weird.

Vitriol: The physical manifestation of fulfilled Pilgrimage goals, which exists as a fluid inside the Promethean up until either they use it to improve themself, or someone or something rips it out of them. (It’s also essentially a physical manifestation of XP, but XP that can only be spent on Promethean things, not, say, skill dots or general-purpose Merits.)

Wasteland: The deleterious effect of a Promethean’s presence on any place they spend much time in, and the places so afflicted. It starts out as a minor effect over a small area and gradually both expands and gets worse.

#promethean the created #new world of darkness #dash stretcher #very long post #cam explains promethean #i would normally put a post of this length under a cut but i consider it more useful if it can be reblogged in full

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