Gehenna is not dead and gone after all!

[Haquim]

This is an extrapolation from the recent WoD video in which Justin Achilli explains the design philosophy behind the new Companion and the Tzimisce, Ravnos and Salubri clans/bloodlines.

HERE YOU GO

At a certain point Justin explains how he's actually writing the new Sabbat book right now and then he mentions that the Final Nights are here... for those who believe that kind of stuff.
As everyone here knows the people most ardently believing into the Final Nights prophecy are the Sabbat true believers. Since Justin is the lead designer behind the new Sabbat book (and W5 btw) it seems Gehenna could very well be one of the prevalent themes of the new book. Personally I like this because in my opinion the noddist angle was one of the most interesting aspects of the Sabbat in previous editions. This is an aspect of the game V5 toned down a lot but I feel it very appropriate and thematic for Sabbat games giving the sect an unique aspect differentiating it from the Camarilla and the Anarchs which is something I hope happens so we may avoid the Sabbat yet again supplanting the Anarchs instead of being a third unique Sect.

[Undead rabbit]

Undead rabbit

In 5th Vitel and Mithras will not be the unstoppable force they once were so humans being a threat makes sense.

True, but that is not a problem of consistency of the lore and the setting, it's a problem of the consistency of Vampire 5th edition with everything that came before.

[Vamps Like Us]

Undead rabbit

In 5th Vitel and Mithras will not be the unstoppable force they once were so humans being a threat makes sense.

For me Gehenna was and is a silly idea lifted from Queen of the Damned, I've never played or talked to in real life anyone who thought it was a good idea to blow up everything in the middle of a long running campaign. Power creep happens to any game played long enough, and when players stay alive progress and build up they usually retire a character/game rather than want the GM to just kill them all off on a whim.

Personally, I have Gehenna happen in year 0 A.D. with the birth of Jesus removing the first through fifth generation vampires from the world giving humanity a more level playing field, not the other way around. In a way the Beckoning is a pale reflection of my take that tries to have it's cake and eat it too, keeping the popular NPC's that should be gone, around.

[Undead rabbit]

Under, right, whatever. To go completely under... despite being "The Guy"...
So did he claim domain over all these agencies and absolutely everybody respected this domain? And when the SI came knocking nobody thought to to change things up? How many methuselah are in the capitol supporting him? It's gotta be a league right?

Vitel is a 2000 years old 5th gen Lasombra, with the secret backing of his sire, an ancient 4th gen Lasombra. He was/is one of the most powerful princes in the world, and the most powerful Prince in the United States.
He has 54 dots in Disciplines and 15 in Thauma's paths, and crazy stats all over the sheet, plus his backgrounds were Influence 8, Resource 6, Allies 6, Contacts 8, Status 6 and so on.
It's not like you could choose not to respect his domain and it's not like others had a saying in what he did*, for the same reason nobody in London had a say in what Mithras could do.


*The only exception being the Camarilla as a whole and Peter Dorfman, who was one of the most powerful Tremere Pontifex of the New World.

[MyWifeIsScary]

Under, right, whatever. To go completely under... despite being "The Guy"...
So did he claim domain over all these agencies and absolutely everybody respected this domain? And when the SI came knocking nobody thought to to change things up? How many methuselah are in the capitol supporting him? It's gotta be a league right?

Maybe I didn't get enough sleep last night but all the thoughts that come into my head concerning this matter can be summarised as groans of annoyance. Maybe it ties into my 'SI is artificial and just the elders killing the neonates' theory but it's still so.... lame. Those organizations are huge and I don't think a 5th gen can really manage such things so effectively without considerable devolution.

[El Barto]

Under, not on the radar. He's got a chapter in BJD, and several mentions in Chicago by night saying he's still there so, yeah... canon v5, not really news. Also, 5th gen lasombra. And roman praetorian

[Pleiades]

I don't know what you're talking about because I generally don't read city books but it seems silly. This Vitel guy owns the place where the goverment, pentagon and half the ABC agencies are? That sounds silly. And he's on the SI's radar? Also silly. And he might not actually be the guy? Yeah, Ok, I'm not going to refute that, but just because a book says something does not make it reasonable. Are you saying the vampires of washington allowed one vampire to hold all the important eggs in his one basket, who presumably isn't some kind of heaven-defying methuselah?

pre-Revised edition, this was pretty normal vampire stuff,

in Revised, vampire influence on mortal institutions were drastically reduced and rarely extended past city borders,
and Vitel was thus killed by Justicars for his excesses

now v5...I'm not sure what they're going for,
maybe they brought back Vitel taking over the government

[MyWifeIsScary]

I don't know what you're talking about because I generally don't read city books but it seems silly. This Vitel guy owns the place where the goverment, pentagon and half the ABC agencies are? That sounds silly. And he's on the SI's radar? Also silly. And he might not actually be the guy? Yeah, Ok, I'm not going to refute that, but just because a book says something does not make it reasonable. Are you saying the vampires of washington allowed one vampire to hold all the important eggs in his one basket, who presumably isn't some kind of heaven-defying methuselah?

Imagine for a moment, the European parliament, the USA, India, Russia and China are all actually controlled by the Rhodesia-born Prussian; Nguyen, a member of the Prussian Illuminati. When Nguyen's replaced by his not-at-all related countryman, also called Nguyen, The European Parliament, The USA, India, Russia and China all... start hunting Prussians... nah shit i'm having too much fun writing utter bullshit and this doesn't make any sense no more. The point is that vampires aren't going to let one middling Vitel have his fingers in all the explosive pies and not have a contingency plan. That's more insane than the nonsense I wrote prior. Let alone forming a contingency plan, who lets vitel have all this power in the first place? Do vampires lose reasoning upon the embrace? Did the Antedeluvians covertly Dominate this contrivance for shits and giggles?

[El Barto]

There's also the prospect that the middle east is a ruse and abandoning their prosperous lands for war-torn ones will just give the Antes and the Cam an unfathomable advantage when the antes rear there head elsewhere or the Cam decides to guide those missiles.

A reminder that Vitel, the guy who owns the place where the government, pentagon and half the ABC agencies are, and who's still under the SI radar, might not actually be Vitel.

[MyWifeIsScary]

If you're going to war in the middle east, it helps greatly to influence the mortal societies that are also interfering with the middle east. Giving up on the USA, A nation where the need to go to war is decided upon by weapons manufacturers, which uses million dollar missiles instead of cheap artillery, and which fires off guns because they have too much ammunition coming in... That's just fucking stupid.
There's also the prospect that the middle east is a ruse and abandoning their prosperous lands for war-torn ones will just give the Antes and the Cam an unfathomable advantage when the antes rear there head elsewhere or the Cam decides to guide those missiles.

[Dwight]

exactly,

now they go 180 and decide to leave their "permanent" powerbase they worked on for 200 years and go back to europe? makes no sense

Soliders go where the war is, problem is a lot of them never thought it would actually come.

[Pleiades]

They needed an area untouched by them to grow unchecked and establish a permanent power base.

exactly,

now they go 180 and decide to leave their "permanent" powerbase they worked on for 200 years and go back to europe? makes no sense

[Dwight]

if that's the case, why did the sabbat move to america when all antediluvians and meths were in europe/middle east?

They needed an area untouched by them to grow unchecked and establish a permanent power base.

[Pleiades]

The equivalent in the sabbat is that, since the ancients can reach them anywhere in the world, they should just take the fight to them and destroy them.

if that's the case, why did the sabbat move to america when all antediluvians and meths were in europe/middle east?

[El Barto]

Now, as for the peasants crusade...
Gonna go out on a limb here, but generally, vampires are above average people. The people selected, the shovelheads who survived, then the people who make it past the first few years and those high mortality rates... generally, they're above average types.

Vampires are above average people, but the threats they face are also above average threats. Their own existence is proof for them, stuff like the WoN shows how far the reach of the ancients is. They just had to be convinced that, no matter how much they had, the antediluvians would take everything from them.

The people who participated in the popular crusade didn't just think about gains. There was a sponsored fear that muslims would surge forward and kill non-believers, a sentiment that persisted for a long time in folk christian beliefs about judgement day. The equivalent in the sabbat is that, since the ancients can reach them anywhere in the world, they should just take the fight to them and destroy them.

With all that being said, I do hope they roll back how much the sabbat disappeared from north america. I always thought the GC should have been a 50/50 split solution to a civil war between the hand and the inquisition.