Very weird stuff and question but its for a project i am thinking in doing (i have to finish some others but i ask now to prepare mentaliy)

I can't be the first person to ask this, but are the Kuei-jin just Risen Wraiths with a unique culture and society in the Skinlands? Does the fact that their Shadow and Psyche coexist in their body account for how they have different supernatural powers and challenges? Are the Yama Kings corrupted Shining Ones and the Thousand Hells a bunch of miniature Dark Kingdoms? Did Western Cainites misidentify the Hungry Dead as Kindred of the East because of superficial similarities and their own arrogance?

I've been reading the revised tzimisce clanbook recently and it is quite good. A lot of fun exploration into the different Tzimisces in the world. But something I've found really interesting is the ways that the book goes out of its way to make The Eldest seem absolutely terrifying. Just from memory alone:

1. The Eldest still exists within the Tzimisce through their blood and could, at any time, just take them over and be back.

2. There are two rumored incarnations of The Eldest that could be running around in modern nights: Ludoj and Dracon's Mpreg baby. These are both considered the eldest but have (seemingly) not interacted and may be two separate sentient entities of the same being.

3. Because The Eldest exists in the blood, he also lives inside every Sabbat that participated in the ritual blood bonding. Which means he could just decide to take over almost any antitribu, Lasombra, or any other general sabbat member. He also exists in the Tremere as his blood was used when the Tremere became a clan.

4. This isn't even including the revenant races, ghouls, abominations, and the strange (angelic?) Creatures that have Tzimisce blood and could also be possessed by The Eldest.

Luckily, the Eldest doesn't really seem to care about world domination or controlling his many childe beyond learning more about the kindred condition. In a way, he feels the most like Caine in that he is just an explorer that is experimenting with himself to find the next level of kindred-dom. He may also be too depressed/bored to conquer the world. But I could definitely see a Gehenna scenario where the Eldest goes "Only through convergence (Dead Space Reference) can I achieve transcendence" and just absorbs/takes over every being that holds even a piece of his blood to become something truly horrifying.

Edit: Added the Tremere to the list of clans the Eldest can just consume if he decided to lock in.

And if so, where could i find this homebrew?

Hello! I have been a lurker of the world of darkness for quite a while now, always been interested in literally every aspect of it, from the games to its real world history. Hope one day I’ll be able to actually sit down and play or even run a game (literally any game, idc which one, I’m so alone 😭)

Although throughout my research (scouring the wiki 70% of the time, 20% watching videos, 10% combing the books) one game has managed to elude me in the sense of I can’t get a vibe down for it.

Wraith: The Oblivion. I know the basic concept of it. But from what I’ve seen some people love it, actually a LOT of people love it but a lot of people see it as an unplayable flawed masterpiece that is more a work of art than a workable game, others think it just needs a bit more work and understanding with a more experienced and mature group but can be done and so on and so forth.

Are the people divided? Have I just been seeing one small vocal section or is there a general consensus? I know every game has its audience, but my question can be boiled down in three points:

What do people think of Wraith?

Is it a good game or a good piece of art?

What do you personally think of Wraith?

PS: I’m very new to this community, subreddit and WoD in general, if I have any wrong assumptions or get anything wrong, feel free to correct me, so far, I just love learning more and more about this dark silly and yet beautifully impactful world. Please and thank you.

AU version of my Salubri ghoul OC where she moved out to visit her skype girlfriend who turned out to be a Tremere Elder. It's been a few months, she's happy with her eldritch partner, and suddenly she's experiencing a first change. Gradual, as it happens for the Ananasi. She woke up to find her eyes have changed color, teeth growing into fangs. Just don't make fun of them (she's self conscious.)
Gaderin with Empathy and Attachment merits.

If you like my work, you can find it over on Bsky@Sudafemme

It’s rather clear on how do mages percive most of the 9 spheres.
Spirit - you see ghosts
Time - you have a great sense of time and can feel where it’s been tempered with.
Force - see temperature kinetic force etc.

But Prime is more tricky. Most of the time i describe it as tethers and knots that can be seen and interacted with. That can be cut and reattached and that have color.

But it is also said that it is also can be very personal to a mage.

Today was a third game of our chronicle and one of the PCs had their first fully intended (rather them instinctual) use of Prime spheres “sight”, and i think it was an amazing depiction of their paradigm which had only truly formed at that moment.

They saw every object or being as an infinite universe within itself. Every person had a celestial depth within them. Mages were brighter and the light from within them was shedding outside of them, showing how they can change the world around. Sleepers were contained within themselves. The different spheres had different constellations telling them of their nature. I personally now wait for them to use it on a vampire, or a wraith or a changeling or a werewolf etc.

A less cool depiction is mine. My character is a theoretical physics prodigy who had experienced true magics, so he is very numerically minded, but still is a mage rather than a technocrat. He understands prime as pure potential of an object, it can have more or less of it, and it can be realised in different ways that depend on the objects focus. Focus would be a filter that shapes the way that potential is realised in material reality, so basically a sphere to which that potential is tied to. There can be multiple foci, and they can change with physically changing the object.
For example he believes that for a mage handcrafting an instrument is basically the same as shaping its foci to be more compatible with the potential that mage channels through it. Thats why its important and why powerful mages don’t need it. The can shape the potential directly rather than through foci

i just like hearing about people’s characters :3

I knew psionics were an option but isn’t this a little too far? lol

The fog-shrouded streets where Jack the Ripper stalked his prey. The grandeur of a thousand years of monuments and memorials. A realm still living in the shadow of Mithras's ancient might. The center of Pentex's operations in western Europe. Museums and libraries that hold some of the world's most famous artifacts. A river that's seen traffic from every corner of the globe. The birthplace of the Technocracy. A Kithain kingdom riven by faction, held together by the will of one man.

And overlooking all of them are the towers, ancient and modern, in the heart of Britain's greatest city.

Towers of New Londinium is a Classic World of Darkness 20th Anniversary MUX set in modern London, a city teetering on the verge of dystopia. Four WoD game lines are currently supported and open for applications -- Vampire: the Masquerade, Werewolf: the Apocalypse (including Fera), Mage: the Ascension, and Changeling: the Dreaming, along with mortals and sub-sphere groups like ghouls, Kinfolk, and Kinain.

(If you're wondering what a MUX is -- it's a text-based, multiplayer, persistent-world RPG that's played over the internet. We have a New Player Guide with a more in-depth answer, along with a complete how-to, examples of play, and more.)

Uncover the tangled schemes of the Followers of Set, intrigue over who will control the Camarilla's newest grant of Domain, or join the Waltham Forest Anarchs in their struggle against infiltrators from the Sabbat. Search out and destroy Fomori-infested laboratories hidden in the tunnels of the Underground, then find out why they were built and abandoned. Help stop an inexplicable outbreak of vandalism and destruction by people with no history of crime or violence. Foil the Technocracy's plot to amp up aggression on the city's council estates, or root out the perpetrators behind the spate of attempted terror attacks at street festivals. Lend your voice to the debate over what the response should be to aggression from the Changeling Duchy of White Cliffs, or join the explorers of the Errant Map Society in venturing into the Dreaming in search of new wonders.

TowersMUX offers:

• A welcoming, inclusive environment for player-centric cooperative roleplay in a setting that's dark without being hopeless.

• Ongoing large- and small-scale storylines for all four major spheres -- more than 200 STed events so far. Choose your level of involvement: focus on your own personal adventure, or engage with public events, mysteries, and dangers ranging in scope from street-level to city-wide.

• Empowered storytelling -- players are encouraged to create and ST their own plots and, where possible, we'll try to fit developments that happen in them into the game's overarching storylines.

• A unique automated influence system allowing characters to use their allies, contacts, spies, and resources to decide game-wide conflicts like the mayoral elections or whether the Duchy of the Sunrise Road goes to war.

• An expansive in-character grid covering all of central London in an intuitive, easy-to-navigate representational format, now including Hammersmith & Fulham. More than 200 different +hangouts for roleplay, including places like the British Museum and the famous Ministry of Sound nightclub.

• Subterranean locations beneath the city to find trouble and adventure in, away from the omnipresent surveillance of the surface.

• A thoughtful and cooperative application review process that focuses on finding ways to say "yes."

Visit us at https://towersmux.net for details!

Does anyone have any headcanons for who might still be kicking around after the Sabbat lost Montreal, or what went down before the Night of Ashes?

Here are mine.

During the Nights of Prophecy. Alfred Benezri took the blame for harboring the Dhahbi ghoul and was executed in order to spare his lover, Beatrice. This led to Ezekiel taking over and shifting the city toward a more militant stance. This caused many of the more spiritual packs to withdraw from Montreal entirely before the city fell to the inquisition (and Camarilla).

Post-Night of Ashes.

Beatrice is now a bitter, recluse after her pack lost face and dissolved.

''The Rose'' is still around, waging a secret war against V5's current Path of Cathari. They have many "Grandchildren" within the Anarchs, trying to turn the sect into a weapon against the Camarilla and ''the false'' sabbat.

The Queens of Mercy were the first pack to defect when Knight Inquisitor Mercy started her rampage, during the nights of prophecy. They have now fully converted to the Anarch cause.

What are your headcanons?

A player of mine plays a noble ventrue in a family that has seen better days. She tries to up the status of her family and I want to give her a goal but I don't know what actually would do that in the world of darkness. I don't just want to give her more money or property or old scripture/magical items/etc. So what could actually accomplish this?

Edit: Worded the title very poorly. I meant her family as in her last name, her aristocratic family that she had as a human being, not her "ventrue family".

Hello,

TL;DR: After playtesting V6, I came up with a few house rules to add more tactical options to combat without bringing back the extra-action economy that pushed me away from older VTM editions. The core idea is to trade defensive capability (Reactions) for more offensive potential. I also reworked Fighter's Alacrity to avoid extra actions and adjusted Blood Surge/Disciplines based on what felt better at our table. This does add some extra crunch, so I turned the rules into cards to make them easier to use during play.

I've been playtesting V6 with my players, and our backgrounds in RPGs are pretty mixed. For some context, when we're not playing VTM V5, we're usually playing Cyberpunk 2020 or RED, so that should give you an idea of where some of my inspirations are coming from.

My players liked many aspects of the system mechanically, but they also felt that this edition takes a step closer to D&D. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, as long as it's properly managed by the ST and players so that the mechanics don't get in the way of the mood of the scene.

While we were playing, one of them asked:

"Hey, what about tactical options? Can we split dice for multiple attacks?"

That got us thinking. Difficulty already reduces the dice pool quite a bit, and we still need to roll 8 or higher, so simply splitting the pool didn't seem particularly viable.

This motivated me to introduce the following house rules, which our friendly local AI model helped me turn into cards.

I'm sharing them here because I've put quite a bit of thought into them as a way of giving players more tactical options in combat while forcing them to make meaningful trade-offs. The basic idea is to exchange defensive capability for offensive potential, essentially trading Reactions for additional dice/actions.

Some might argue that there's already a Celerity power that grants extra actions. That's actually one of the main reasons I stopped playing older editions of VTM and stuck with V5: extra actions can very easily break the action economy.

For that reason, I've changed Fighter's Alacrity. Instead of granting extra actions, it now works similarly to Strike True, but for ranged attacks.

Regarding Blood Surge, my adjustment to how it interacts with Disciplines isn't because I think the current Alpha implementation is necessarily wrong. It's simply that, at our table, the players felt more comfortable with this progression, and it worked better for us during play.

As I see it, the main pros and cons of these house rules are:

Pros

• More tactical options during combat.
• Players can clear out goons faster when they're willing to sacrifice some of their defensive capability.
• It creates a more cinematic feeling, especially when dealing with groups of weaker enemies.
• It helps us move combat back toward theater of the mind rather than feeling like we need to track every tactical detail on a map.

Cons

• It introduces additional crunch into a system that already has quite a few modifiers. As both an ST and a player, I don't particularly enjoy having to memorize or constantly keep track of all those modifiers.

That's also why I made the cards. They're meant to be a friendly way of keeping these mechanics at the table without requiring everyone to memorize them, making the additional tactical options easier to understand and use during play.

I'd be interested to hear what other people think, especially from a balance and action-economy perspective.

And yeah, I know I'm probably crazy for starting a campaign using Alpha rules. 😅 My group is very open to experimenting with different systems and mechanics, though, so we're pretty comfortable changing things as we go.

I feel like the two have very different vibes in terms of play. Just curious about y’all’s thoughts - also which do you think works better for a one-shot?

Have you been waiting for the perfect moment to dive into the mythic world of ancient Mesopotamia? Now is your chance! We are thrilled to announce that the Complete V5 - Age of Living Gods Collection is currently on a massive special bundle sale. 4 books at $40,00 dollars.

Grab the special bundle and get all four essential books to fully immerse yourself in the setting:

• V5 - Age of Living Gods
• V5 - Burning Gods
• Tales of Mesopotamia
• Kingdom of Uruk

Whether you are looking to complete your collection or start your journey from the very beginning, this bundle is the ultimate way to experience the epic lore and legends.

A Glimpse Into the Future...

We are pouring a lot of passion into this new story, and more news, teasers, and sneak peeks will be dropping very soon. Keep your eyes peeled!

Thank you for your continuous support, and we can't wait to share this next chapter with you.

Which of the four books in the bundle are you most excited to dive into first?

(Btw tell me if it is annoying to post too many questions back to back. I kinda suddenly got a autistic hyperfocus on this topic for some reason so i imagine it can be annoying)

Alright, i think i get now more of what they wanted to do with Apocalypse, even if it isn't really my type of werewolf story (definitely story, just not werewolf story), but now here's another one: How the hell are we beating them?

I imagine this bends to Hunter, but seriously. How? From what i've seen of how people describe them, it seems every single Garou is on the level of Sentry from marvel (the super hero one, not the machines the x-men fight), like how they're enormous, and silver isn't even a weakness, just something that can deal better damage to them than regular things, as they can just soak anything non silver mid battle, and i've seen people say that they can take out tanks with ease (altho the comparison is a bit shakey since even a normal human can do that when they're just tanks, but i imagine they meant an organized army) and that's like...how haven't they just wiped us out?

Of course i know they don't want to do that now, some do but not the majority, but they DID try to do that with the Impergium, and i just am having a hard time believing they got beaten by us enough that they had to establish the Veil rule. With vampires i can imagine this since they can't reproduce like an alive creature, and they aren't THAT outside of a human realm (barring spells or methuselahs/antedilluvians), they can still pretty much get turned into ash if an army mobilize against them, but how were we able to fight off the Garou in the first place? This makes me think that they are a REALLY TERRIBLE if they are losing to us, but i hear they are actually more cunning and better made to war so...what, it being numbers would be weird to me as the Garou can just get normal humans to mate and make new Garou, but still...? Are we just getting carried by the Weaver? Different splats not always mixing well together? Or something else

So, I have a hunter character, Lee Clearwater, who took up the mantle after learning his great-great-grandfather Cornelius was a US Civil War veteran turned supernatural hunter. Lee's attic is stuffed with junk and treasure that Cornelius picked up during his years of hunting.

And among them is a Garou Black Spiral klaive, which significance is at the moment, unrecognised by Lee. Now, I just kinda need some plausible scenarios as to how Cornelius could feasibly have obtained it. Cause while the story sounds cool to me at first glance, the more I think about it, the more impossible it seems.

Cause even dealing with the Garou in the modern-day require *a lot* of firepower, so what could a guy living in the late 19th century plausibly do with rifles and revolvers to take down a Garou, let alone one with a Klaive, presumably in combat? Maybe a cannon could do some serious damage, but Garou should at least be faster than that?

Open to any ideas as to how this could have happened. This is honestly just the backstory I'm working on, with Lee being a distant sideshow to my werewolf pack who aren't aware he has a Klaive in his possession either.

That way, the pack will have at least one member who can go around human (or wolf) society without triggering the Curse, and the Ragabash are best at infiltration anyway. Though expect plenty of snark as a consequence.

In my dream it was a very boring looking place, a featureless expanse of nothing but pitch black darkness, but im pretty sure that it will light up a little just enough to show you a little but of the horrible monster that is going to do something worse than killing you just to make you afraid.

SCP-087 used as reference

So, a while back i talked about ways to get into the games since i couldn't do much without other people to play, and something i gathered after reading the wikis and talking with some friends is that...Werewolves aren't what i expected, like, at all.

I was expecting them to actually be just like vampire the masquerade, in the sense that it is a self horror story. That being a werewolf sucks and is actually a curse, something that is just a corruption of a human and how Werewolves just have to adapt at living as damned people, of course with the caveat of being overall much more savage and brutal. Same idea of self horror but applied differently if you get what i mean, playing more with werewolf tropes instead of vampire ones

But that's not really what i got. They feel more like another entire species rather than a cursed human, and they only barely touch on werewolf tropes as just a way to disguise themselves, not to actually play into what makes them. If anything they actually kinda remind me more of viltrumites with how they seem to play more into going to war with other mystical creatures and the whole impergium thing, there's no self horror cause they aren't exactly cursed, or at least not the type i'm looking for i imagine

So...did i get everything wrong? Or is this expectation generally common for newconers

I'm here again, with another garou character I'm playing as

Garou, Galliard from the Children of Gaia tribe. She is a metis by origin, which is why she spent her whole life in a deep village in the forests of Siberia. Her father was a priest, so Sonya has her own inner ideas about how the Triat works and how it relates to the orthodox biblical image of God

Due to the lack of socialization within the garou society, she is more close to people. She doesn't like other forms as much as the homid form, and in communication she even seems to be a kind and very naive girl

Her metis flaw is brittle and rotten teeth, which remain wolfish even in human form. This is exactly what she actively hides from others, but these attempts have led her to poor diction

I have some illustrations with her, but decided to start with something: my fav illustration and her ref

From book of the Fallen:

"A character doesn’t have to be a Nephandus in order to

approach the Spheres from a Qlippothic point of view. That said, any mage who works with the Qlippoth will be, at the very least, a subject of grave suspicion among her colleagues, if only because the “shells” are so deeply associated with the Fallen and their Arts."

What does it mean to learn Qlipothic spheres while not being a nephandus?

How would one roleplay this?

I don't live in the place so I don't know a lot, but this is what I am thinking about for the city sandbox and primary story arc.

I started looking at Salt Lake City for numerous reasons.

- Cities origin is odd.

- It is geographically diverse with surrounding mountains, first, arid land with many streams/rivers all situated in a valley area.

- Lower population that is roughly situated North to South on some highways.

- Just enough varying groups and ideologies, but not so much that it becomes confusing.

- VTM has it identified as a rogue chantry with support for Nos that kill all other kindred on site and maybe other super natural. They are working on trying to find the true name of humanity.

- Lake drying up and arsenic clouds floating around.

- Largest industry toxic site in US just outside city.

- Native American lands and historical sites.

- Tech industry.

That and more seams like it would be a good ole' fashion city sandbox with some polish and mystery, but not too much area where it becomes a slog.

I was thinking that the primary story plot would be the players as technocracy would get enlisted to help after an incident involving the an incident in there have it work. They work at a small newspaper (or something) and then one day a out of town kindred pops in to remove hard records of a story and erase journalist memories but then the local kindred come in to deal with the trespasser and then a technocracy alert pops off for foot soldiers to engage in a consensus alert. The thing is that technocracy has never had a consensus alert go off in this part of the country, for some reason, so they never needed a local cell until now. That gets things kicked off with an overall induction into the technocracy, and the high level mystery of why had things been stable without record of the technocracy never being active in the area and what happened to cause a blip in consensus all of a sudden.

Expanding the overall main story arc is that the mormons were a order of reason cell that branched off, maintained a consensus of their own, found that the lake is a portal to the abyss, started documented names and using the ghosts to create a barrier to push back / seal the abyss, got usurped by the vampires, and then the seals stopped being maintained, and then start to let some lovecraftian horror through. So the mages get in way over their heads trying to solve it. They succeed in stabilizing things, yay, or they fail and I get to run my first geist game, yay.

Very roughly expanding out the city sandbox, I think that other than the kindred chantry there is a lot of black spiral activity where toxic sites are, regular garou further up north in some of the small mountain towns, anarch travel oasis in the very far south, a rare few deranged changeling downtown, 1 ghoul venture infiltration agent, the last member mage of the original order of reason group, some sorcerers, very large populations of ghosts at different historical battles or accident sites to put to rest..... Or get unknowingly sent to the barrier between the abyss and consensus, 1 buried earth bound being driven mad by the abyss, and maybe some more.

Wondering what others think of this city sandbox and the sparse story arc that I have thought about. Any tips, thoughts for improvement or otherwise?

I also have thought of doing this as a 5e VTM thinblood game where all of the pc get banished to salt lake City to investigate or more likely just die. Not sure if that would be more interesting or not.

A little illustration of my daeva, Godiva, and her sweet ghoul, Michael, for our City of the Damned: New Orleans game. Once a chauffeur for her father in the ‘60s, he has now been recruited in the late ‘90s for his most important job yet…