Obtenebration or Oblivion?

[Pleiades]

With her age and experience, she easily can join Camarilla's Inner Circle.

as if age mattered in V5,
the Prince of New York is a neonate, the Prince of Mexico is a fledgeling, and the first Lasombra Primogen is a year old...a year old

Why wouldn't it be? As we have said, time and again, V5 does NOT retcon large swathes of the game lore. It really only ignores the Gehenna material, which was already optional.

V5 and BJD

the Mexico story got retconed, Nahualli, Ravnos and kuei-jin have disappeared,
it's enough retcon to mess me up, since the wiki is not fully updated

[MyWifeIsScary]

Why wouldn't it be? As we have said, time and again, V5 does NOT retcon large swathes of the game lore. It really only ignores the Gehenna material, which was already optional.

It does though. Things Somewhat Relevant to this thread:

-The Lasombra are completely different vampires. Different weakness, different disciplines, no paths of enlightenment which were ever so popular with the clan.
-The Abyss now has a concrete location. All those Abyss mystics yawning for a realm outside of creation, all those fears of unkowable horror, all that fear of infernalism that the darkness may be? Utter wank; Those fools were playing the game wrong. Delving into Abyss mysticism in V5 would strip you of humanity lickety split.
-Age matters not-at-all and low generation comes with just as much flaw as merit.
-The Lasombra somehow got half their number into the camarilla despite the Viniculum that they were all subject to. The Viniculum, by the way, is a ritual that provides a multi-way diluted blood bond that ensures loyalty to the others in the Vauldrie. That's like, the primary reason why the sabbat have the viniculum (Yes, it pushes off conventional blood bonds, but that's not why the Sabbat do it every week)
-The Brujah were meant to be loyal, their thing was always "yeah it seems like we might give up membership because all the anarch neonates but we'd never do that because we're not all children and we're used to disagreeing with ourselves and some of us will not screw things up for all of us". The Brujah leaving and the Lasombra taking their place is... shortsighted to say the least; A gross misunderstanding of both clans to approach what I want to say

And with this cavalier attitude to the game's lore, can you really blame anyone for fearing more "large swathes of the game lore' getting retconed?

[Matt the Bruins fan]

With her age and experience, she easily can join Camarilla's Inner Circle.

Maybe if Montano is in torpor. He's been a member of the Camarilla since its founding, hasn't he? I'm pretty sure that if he's not an official member of the Inner Circle, they at least pay a LOT of careful attention to anything he says about sect policy, particularly regarding his own clan.

[Kammerer]

We know Montano is not in torpor because you can write fanmail to him. There's a whole loresheet about it
That said, Montano doesn't strike me as a guy who'd want to be part of the Camarilla's Inner Circle anyway. Lasombra's children both one-upped their father. Gratiano was as ambitious as [Lasombra], but he knew when to quit and retire a winner. Montano is doggedly loyal and just not ambitious at all. It's just [Lasombra] who always overplays his hand and ends up a fool.

[trueann]

Maybe if Montano is in torpor. He's been a member of the Camarilla since its founding, hasn't he? I'm pretty sure that if he's not an official member of the Inner Circle, they at least pay a LOT of careful attention to anything he says about sect policy, particularly regarding his own clan.

Oh, I forgot about Montano, because he disappeared after events of Lasombra Trilogy in my headcanon

[trueann]

By the way, Gratiano haven't been mentioned in V5 yet, right? And Vitel (or someone who pretends to be him) still 'Emperor of D.C.' but what about his sect? Is he the anarch now?

[trueann]

Just remembered about Zarathustra. Interesting, what he thinks about current clan's position.

[MyWifeIsScary]

I wanna just transplant this here from the book of Nod thread because it fits better here

So goes the argument of V5; oblivion is bad.

But I would argue that's an argument of ineptitude. A discipline pumping you full of evil juice to make you evil is far less compelling than one that drives you to evil through realistic sociological principles. Abyss mysticism literally marks you as a deviant; your blood and skin blacken, you've got an aura of creep, and you spend hours every night praying to nebulous gods (or demons?) while giving your all into hiding in the shadows rather than... going out and meeting people? Only very strange people would do that kind of thing. This goes equally for necromancy: The Giovanni weren't fucked up because oblivion causes stains upon their morality, they were fucked up because they wanted to play with dead people and rewarded that kind of behaviour. Your way of life is a far more interesting and engaging character flaw than that power you have.

Imagine if swinging axes made you evil. Nevermind that you belong to an extreme religion, or that you build those axes from bones, or that you use those axes inappropriately; the act of swinging axes is what makes you evil. Slicing your fruit with axes makes you evil.

That's what 'oblivion is evil because entropic forces...' sounds like.

On the flipside, Obtenebration and Abyss mysticism was something you could get religious about. Exposing yourself to the presence of absolute evil and a world outside creation is just something that's going to make you find religion. Not just as a hollow, empty, doom religion as you would experience with Oblivion, though that too must often happen with Obtenebration, but genuinely you might actually take a radical turn towards the light; Whatever the Abyss is, it could bring with it a newfound appreciation of reality and the light. It's not an accident that Zoroastrianism heavily influenced the discipline's nomenclature or that the clan has notably attached itself to faiths even when it's not often a good option. Juxtaposing light and dark was an effective device for compelling Lasombra characters. Now, according to Oblivion's rullsets, they're all just emptying themselves with entropy... That denies them quite a lot of character variety.

[KarlB]

Oblivion. More open ended and has a wider variety of powers, especially with the upcoming Blood Gods sourcebook. I also find powers synergize much better with each other. It's also WAY more balanced now. Old Arms of the Abyss was crazy broken and a nightmare for GMs to balance fights around. Much like old Celerity. New Oblivion also has more utility compared to old Obtenebration. All this being said, old Obtenebration was definitely stronger for very combat oriented characters.

Flavor wise, I also prefer it since it's now officially canon that it draws from THE Oblivion aka Great devouring void of death. It's even stated in the discipline description that abusing these powers will slowly drain away someone's soul due to where the powers draw from. And presents the mechanics for this.

P.S: all this being said, I'm not super keen on Oblivion powers giving a 1 in 5 chance of causing stains. I like the idea in concept but it seems a bit punitive. I might house rule so that it can only cause a stain once per scene at most.

[Shakanaka]

What a laughable retcon. There is no ENERGY in Oblivion, its Oblivion- aka the net null. How the hell can anything draw power from it? Spectres don't even do that, instead using their natural Angst. And again as I posted here 2 months ago on the first page of this thread, the Lasombra always drew their power from the Middle-Umbra via the Abyss Shadow-Realm (key word realm, a realm you can go to unlike Oblivion.. where y'know, you're zapped into non-existence if you even reach a hand out to it at the ledge of the Well of Oblivion). That's where actual ephemeral energy is to fuel their shadow abilities; another plothole- the Abyss is semi-sentient and aware, while Oblivion is simply just static nothingness. How can they forget basic metaphysics of their own game? Because Obtenebration was a Discipline learned while being DIRECTLY inside the Abyss- which is completely impossible to do with Oblivion. Honestly they should've just completely stuck with VTM and leave other lines alone.

Does NO ONE find it even bizarre that they made this idiotic merger? Since when did the Lasombra dealt with Necromancy or the aforementioned Low-Umbra in ANY previous edition? Also why give them the same powers as the Necromancers in the first place? It makes no goddamn sense since using Obtenebration was and IS something Lasombra used as a second-nature... now they will get "drained" from using it apparently soul-wise? Another plothole. I've also heard that they apparently made it where both the Lasombra and Necromancers have "Oblivion", but they're separate into two different power sets? Wut? If that case, just name them separately, why do they bare the same name?

[Resplendent Fire]

I keep seeing this and it bugs me, and I seem to recall this has come up on other occasions, but:

The Lasombra, Tzimisce, etc. were introduced along with their disciplines in the Player's Guide to the Sabbat in 1992, an early supplement for V:tM second edition
The Storyteller's Handbook to the Sabbat was a second edition sourcebook published in 1993, and was intended as a companion to the PGttS. It didn't repeat material from the PG, but added more stuff such as bloodlines, material on infernalists, and so on.

They were never introduced as "Storyteller only clans" that needed correcting to make them viable for PCs, they were always intended to be playable.

RPGGeek lists its publication date as 1993: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product...-Sabbat-WW2225

And PGttS as 1992: https://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/44483/players-guide-sabbat

The preview for the STHttS on dtrpg also says copyright 1993, but the player's guide to the sabbat is from a later printing (1997) Steven Brown wrote both, however and his last work for Vampire was in 1994, Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Steven_C._Brown

That page dates Freak Legion at 1999 and that doesn't right to me, but the page for Freak Legion says 1995, which does.

This leaves me trying to figure out who was developing Vampire between Dirty Secrets and Vampire Revised, as my impression was Greenberg's last developed product was that. Edit: Rob Hatch developed during the interim

[Shakanaka]

Yeah its really bizarre argument people conjured up to justify their "distaste" for certain clans by claiming they were only meant to be "ST only clans"... Like what? It never made sense to me when people would mention that at all because its not as if a player couldn't choose that particular clan right when they were introduced - as you noted - in a Players Guide of all things.

[Resplendent Fire]

I don't want to conjecture too much as to anyone's motives but I assume everyone's acting in good faith. I don't remember where I first saw it or from whom, and I just assume people got the sourcebook order reversed.

[CTPhipps]

What a laughable retcon. There is no ENERGY in Oblivion, its Oblivion- aka the net null.

If you don't have anything positive to contribute to the thread, please leave. Criticism is fine. Bashing is not.

[CTPhipps]

Re: Oblivion and Abyssal Mysticism

Given that I've always supported the combination of the Abyss, the Underworld, and Demon the Fallen....no.

The Abyss is where demons are imprisoned.

The Abyss is at the bottom of the Underworld.

The Lasombra contact demons through the Abyss.

The Neverborn/Demons are the same thing.

Oblivion is a force of destruction as anyone who knows anything about Wraith will tell you. It's not nothing, it's a force that CAUSES nothingness. It is the ultimate in Entropy as people wouldn't become Specters or howling winds of destruction if not for it.

Since the Abyss is in the Underworld, merging the Lasombra's Discipline and Necromancy makes sense.