[WIR] Chicago by Night 5th Edition

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

Is it clearly stated where was she a slave before being embraced?

South Carolina.

... before being thrown through the top floor window by Kevin Jackson.

He can fly! Straight down while screaming! Into the roof of a parked car!

[CTPhipps]

I am looking forward to Maxwell more than any other character write-up in LTSRR.

In my campaign, I make it that Jean Baptiste Ponte DuSable (i.e. the founder of Chicago) is actually Maxwell's mortal identity.

Also, that Dusable is a descendant of him.

[Baaldam]

South Carolina.

Yeah, that pretty much confirms that tweaking her time of birth to sometime between 1820s-1840s would be advisable....

He can fly! Straight down while screaming! Into the roof of a parked car!

As a bat out of hell (he has Protean 4)!

[CTPhipps]

I always wondered who the guy in the chair was.

Another option is Joseph Peterson.

[CTPhipps]

Bobby Weatherbottom

Type: NPC

Synopsis: Hacker

Review: Bobby has always been a Ventrue with the worst feeding restriction of all time. He can only feed off one specific person in the whole world. Honestly, I'm genuinely confused how he's not managed to frenzy and kill her. I had it as the "True Love" merit in my gamnes. In this entry, it's a much more dark and sinister take. His lover is now permanently hooked up to a bunch of IV blood transfusions as well as being ghouled.

I actually asked The Gentleman Gamer r about an alternate solution here that the best option here would be for Bobby to arrange for her to be Embraced by a Thin Blood or 13th generation. That way his lover could feed off of animal blood or bagged blood and then he could feed off of her. Better still, she'd never have any frenzies or has rotschrek unless it's induced by starvation.

He gave the good answer to that as bad as Bobby is, presently, keeping her in a medically induced coma--turning her into a vampire and damning her is even worse. Even so, it's a answer that isn't woking well because he can't keep her like Sleeping Beauty forever. His Feeding Restriction might drift, eventually, to "Women who remind me of my girlfriend" but that's something a Ventrue has no real control over.

Bobby is stated to have more or less fully joined the Anarch Movement but still believes he's keeping it a secret. This is a bad thing because the only thing that Kevin Jackson hates more than an Anarch is a Ventrue Anarch. Given the fact Bobby's particular expertise is now banned by the Camarilla and he's not supposed to do anything related to computers, it was possibly inevitable.

One of the most interesting elements of this is the fact that Bobby has started his own investigation into the Second Inquisition in order to "prove" his worth and mae up for the fact computers helped the NSA track down so many vampires across the world. Really, as the world's greatest non-Virtual Adept Hacker (and possibly Glass Walker), he's someone who could very well be the guy who uncovers the whole of the Second Inquisition's information. Who knows what and what agents are "in the loop."

Which Jackson is likely to screw up by sending a hot squad after him and his girl.

[CTPhipps]

And DONE WITH THE NPCS!

[False Epiphany]

This is my only issue with the character - how do you integrate him into a story?

I'd drop him into the game, ideally with some previous history with the PCs (positive or negative), and let them decide where to take things. He might end up a recurring villain, a recurring ally, or just dinner, depending on their goals and tactics.

Of my current PCs, I think two would sell him out to Kevin Jackson, one would sell him out to the Tremere, one would want to stop him from harming any more Eleanors by probably killing him, one would torture him for his secrets before diablerizing him, and one would feel sorry for him and want to listen to his stories about the good old nights.

I think, anyways. They've surprised me before. It'd be really fun to just drop him in their laps and see what they choose to do.

[False Epiphany]

Dumb un-deletable double posts.

[Undead rabbit]

How to get Lodin back into a chronicle?

A montage of him working out, shouting at underlings, walking into and out of metro trains at Chicago stations wearing better and better outfits each time, and marching in through the automatic doors of a skyscraper...

... before being thrown through the top floor window by Kevin Jackson.

Given the abnormous power gap Lodin had with most Kindreds in the setting and with every Ventrue in the city it really seems an unlikely scenario.
Lodin getting back from the dead should be something that should shake the city no less than Vitel return in D.C.

Lodin had Dominate 6, Protean 4,Presence 4,Fortitude 4,Auspex 3,Celerity 2,Obfuscate 1, Potence 1,Animalism 1.


The only elders more powerful than him (with the obvious exception of the Meth) were Inyanga and Khalid

Kevin Jackson had...dominate 4, presence 2, fortitude 2...

If they meet it should be Jackson that flies out of the window.


It would require a monumental suspension of disbelief to think that Jackson, a 34 years old neonate of the 8th generation has even the slightest chance against a 7th gen Ventrue, 5 time his age and that was feared by the Black Hand and considered the most powerful and dread prince of the United States along with Marcus Vitel.

Even now with V5 the only vampires with higher Blood Potency are Critia,Nerissa and Helena.
So basically you must take a 3 methuselah more ancient than dirt to have a stronger elder in the city.

[The Gentleman Gamer]

Given the abnormous power gap Lodin had with most Kindreds in the setting and with every Ventrue in the city it really seems an unlikely scenario.
Lodin getting back from the dead should be something that should shake the city no less than Vitel return in D.C.

Lodin had Dominate 6, Protean 4,Presence 4,Fortitude 4,Auspex 3,Celerity 2,Obfuscate 1, Potence 1,Animalism 1.


The only elders more powerful than him (with the obvious exception of the Meth) were Inyanga and Khalid

Kevin Jackson had...dominate 4, presence 2, fortitude 2...

If they meet it should be Jackson that flies out of the window.


It would require a monumental suspension of disbelief to think that Jackson, a 34 years old neonate of the 8th generation has even the slightest chance against a 7th gen Ventrue, 5 time his age and that was feared by the Black Hand and considered the most powerful and dread prince of the United States along with Marcus Vitel.

Even now with V5 the only vampires with higher Blood Potency are Critia,Nerissa and Helena.
So basically you must take a 3 methuselah more ancient than dirt to have a stronger elder in the city.

Nah, I prefer my montage idea.

[CTPhipps]

Nah, I prefer my montage idea.

Classy response.

[CTPhipps]

Given the abnormous power gap Lodin had with most Kindreds in the setting and with every Ventrue in the city it really seems an unlikely scenario.
Lodin getting back from the dead should be something that should shake the city no less than Vitel return in D.C.

Lodin had Dominate 6, Protean 4,Presence 4,Fortitude 4,Auspex 3,Celerity 2,Obfuscate 1, Potence 1,Animalism 1.


The only elders more powerful than him (with the obvious exception of the Meth) were Inyanga and Khalid

Kevin Jackson had...dominate 4, presence 2, fortitude 2...

If they meet it should be Jackson that flies out of the window.


It would require a monumental suspension of disbelief to think that Jackson, a 34 years old neonate of the 8th generation has even the slightest chance against a 7th gen Ventrue, 5 time his age and that was feared by the Black Hand and considered the most powerful and dread prince of the United States along with Marcus Vitel.

Even now with V5 the only vampires with higher Blood Potency are Critia,Nerissa and Helena.
So basically you must take a 3 methuselah more ancient than dirt to have a stronger elder in the city.

While what you say is all very dramatic and convincing, it actually reminds me of an incident from one of my games where I stupidly decided to go kill the Prince of one of my games. I was still a sixteen year old teenager and my gamemaster had been having the Prince boss, beat, and abuse the PCs in a way that made me assume this was the only way my PC could ever deal with it.

Later, I found out he was just a bad ST because all of his players were humiliated by his NPCs and didn't much care for his games.

BUT this time, the event turned out hilarious as he decided he would have his Prince use his awesome Dominate of 6 to force my character to degrae himself before killing him.

He botched.

Then I blew said Prince's head off with a dragonsbreath shotgun shell to the face.

He failed his soak.

Because even in V:TM, things don't always go the way of the Elders.



I suppose this was the moment that I became an eternal Anarch supporter.

[False Epiphany]

I am looking forward to Maxwell more than any other character write-up in LTSRR.

In my campaign, I make it that Jean Baptiste Ponte DuSable (i.e. the founder of Chicago) is actually Maxwell's mortal identity.

Also, that Dusable is a descendant of him.

That's... pretty awesome. Vampire Julius Caesars have never been my cup of tea, but I think history is rife with lesser-known figures who make excellent candidates for the Embrace and can add a lot of color to local settings.

Did you push his Embrace date a few decades later, so that DuSable actually "was" a living man, or was it an alias he adopted after his Embrace?

[Baaldam]

As an aside, i would take most stats in Chicago by Night, much like those from the Gary NPCs, with a grain of salt, due to how early in the game they came, specially those of the elders or leading kindred.

A bunch of times they are described doing things they don't really have the stats or disciplines to make happen - or in some cases, struggling with situations they should actually breeze through with the disciplines given. Personally, i would say outside of the methuselahs Nicolai and Son are the only NPCs in the book that actually merit Dominate 4+, that is a serious game-changer/breaker when it comes to layered plots & manipulations. Lodin and all others should have Dominate 3 at most, imho. Most of the canon Chicago NPCs, specially the Ventrue, would benefit characterization-wise from switching their Dominate levels to Presence or Fortitude.

Just my two cents of thought.

[CTPhipps]

That's... pretty awesome. Vampire Julius Caesars have never been my cup of tea, but I think history is rife with lesser-known figures who make excellent candidates for the Embrace and can add a lot of color to local settings.

Did you push his Embrace date a few decades later, so that DuSable actually "was" a living man, or was it an alias he adopted after his Embrace?

It was his original name in my campaign so I'm splitting the difference. He just was a vampire when he came to Chicago and set things up, inviting his mortal family.

While it's obviously not actual history, this version of Chicago was founded by Maxwell after becoming a Kindred and having a lot more resources at his beck and call at the start. His efforts being what attracted Menele rather than the reverse. He was essentially a Kindred that had the view of, "if I'm going to have a good honest civilization like Carthage then I'll make it myself." Mind you, the PCs heard this from Maxwell himself or about him so they took it with a grain of sault.

But in my games American Princes very often are people who had their communities build up around them as they were vampires who sat down and declared themselves Princes before making their own homesteads. By the Modern Era, only a few of these Princes haven't been overthrown but they tend to be the few Camarilla types who have something of a flexible attitude towards Anarchs and independents as they usually were ones who'd left the Camarilla because of their own distaste for it.

Only to come back.

I said Vannever Thomas was another one and a major architect of San Fransisco. Which is why the Anarchs in his community were ambivalent about overthrowing him.

As an aside, i would take most stats in Chicago by Night, much like those from the Gary NPCs, with a grain of salt,, due to how early in the game they came, specially those of the elders or leading kindred.

A bunch of times they are described doing things they don't really have the stats or disciplines to make happen - or in some cases, struggling with situations they should actually breeze through with the disciplines given. Personally, i would say outside of the methuselahs Nicolai and Son are the only NPCs in the book that actually merit Dominate 4+, that is a serious game-changer/breaker when it comes to layered plots & manipulations. Lodin and all others should have Dominate 3 at most, imho. Most of the canon Chicago NPCs, specially the Ventrue, would benefit characterization-wise from switching their Dominate levels to Presence or Fortitude.

Just my two cents of thought.

I generally rule that some vampires are ridiculously overpowered for their age because some are just extra-powerful. It's a way of excusing the way PCs can rise to incredible power in a very short amount of time (or the PC from Bloodlines). That also justifies some vampire prodigies like, ironically enough, both Lodin and Maldavis who are both those kind of "super powerful vampires for their age."

Even so I actually did seriously lower Lodin's power level. I made it 4 though because a Prince is obviously going to want to ave Conditioning as a basic Dominate power.

People you want permanently under your control.