Question about Dark Ages Roads and Auras

[Vulcan7200]

Everyone on a Road has an aura, and Auspex can read auras. However neither section has addressed whether or not using Auspex can sense what Road someone is on, that I've seen.

Are you able to see someone's Road Aura when using Rank 2 Auspex?

[Penelope]

I think the answer is yes.

[MyWifeIsScary]

No, they're different things. Your road might influence your emotions, but aura perception is mostly about emotions and such, not 'road effects'. There are a few exceptions; Some bahari fuck up their aura through weird rituals, and assaku vicissitude things have weird auras, but those are more the product of weird-shit than road. Perhaps you could think of it as Road auras are more Beast related and regular auras perceptable with aura perception are all bout that human side... that's just me specuating, take it with a grain of salt. You'd think, after four relatively consistent editions plus dark ages, they'd have mentioned you can see road auras when using aura perception, but they haven't so it's probably deliberate.

[James_Willoughby]

A very good rule to have in game design is not to use the same word for different and unrelated features of your game.

(See also Apostates and Apostates; one is a follower of a particular Road, and the other is a person who no longer follows that Road. Confusing, obviously.)

In rule terms, the answer is probably no, you can't view Road auras with Auspex. Given that Road auras have only been covered in two books with relatively weak development (Dark Ages: Vampire, and DAV20), it's not too surprising that this has been missed. The confusion of the two aura types was raised during the development of DAV20, though nothing was done to resolve the matter...

[Vulcan7200]

Thanks for the answers! I agree that they shouldn't have used the same wording for both, so I think I'll lean towards Auspex not reading Road Auras