So, Forsaken Paths

[CajunKhan]

They did invent the Paths, Honorable Accord being a Path of the Road of Chivalry, (DA V20 having each road have multiple paths explains both the terms and the method, and was a good way to retcon)

Yeah, they invented an extrapolation of older roads changed to make followers loyal to the Sabbat. They took the road of the beast and redesigned it from an individualistic road into a social path that considered protecting your allies to be vital. They took the road of chivalry and redesigned it from something that was almost a cultural variant on humanity and turned it into a soldier's code that valued ruthless loyalty and cultural conformity. In short, they redesigned the roads from a set of individualistic beliefs passed down from sire to childe, to a set of social beliefs taught by priests designed to unify a nation.

[MarkK]

Just to note for a minute, as this vibe of "honourable accord was designed/adapted as a tool by manipulative Sabbat elders to enslave/fool/whatever other vampires" that I'm starting to get from some of these discussions (there was a comment in another one of these discussions where the path came up to that tune), we get, in revised edition, a look at one of the Sabbat noted as central to bringing honourable accord into the sect, Vincent Day. He didn't both go onto and encourage that path as a means of controlling others or what all have you, or as some effort of decaying plagiarism, or etc. he helped it along in an effort to hold onto his ideals and pursue them as part of a group he believed in, in the face of what he felt to be a corrupt world. And he's not, as far as the context of him at the time, portrayed as some witless, thick headed dupe, instead as a figure the entire sect holds in a certain respectful regard and a guy who has somehow survived centuries with a rating of 9 on a fairly demanding path (you can certainly yourself think he is/was a witless, thick headed dupe, but the game doesn't treat or present him that way, unless he shows up post CotN in something I missed to otherwise refer to him as such a thing. Maybe in the clan novels or whatever?) It's a point worth considering.

I mean, the people that were in the Sabbat teaching honourable accord, are themselves, on honourable accord.

Obviously this all flies out the window in V5 redos, but you know, lots of things did.

(I suppose you could hold it against him that he didn't know what Strathcona was doing as far as pre v5 things? But almost dead no one in the sect right into the highest echelons of power had figured out what Strathcona was doing as far as the depths of his plotting despite even close proximity to him. That's not exactly a knock against ol Vick Day there. Strathcona managed to pull one over on Mithras at one point.)

[CTPhipps]

I mean, the people that were in the Sabbat teaching honourable accord, are themselves, on honourable accord

Which is probably why they were thrown under the bus once the sect became, "Use the soldiers on the ground as endless waves of cannon fodder."

[AnubisXy]

Just to note for a minute, as this vibe of "honourable accord was designed/adapted as a tool by manipulative Sabbat elders to enslave/fool/whatever other vampires" that I'm starting to get from some of these discussions (there was a comment in another one of these discussions where the path came up to that tune), we get, in revised edition, a look at one of the Sabbat noted as central to bringing honourable accord into the sect, Vincent Day.

This is why I don't think it was necessarily intentional on the part of the creators of the Path, some grand Machiavellian scheme to control the Sabbat. Rather, it was simply a case of natural selection. Individual vampires make Paths for their own reasons. Then the Paths that function within the Sabbat are allowed to exist and propagate. The Paths that hold to beliefs that don't work within the Sabbat because they threaten to pull the Sabbat apart, are destroyed. At this point in the gameline we have something a "confirmation bias" because most of the Paths that we are going to see are the successful Paths that were deemed by the Sabbat to be acceptable and allowed to flourish (that's changed in 5e because some Paths are no longer considered acceptable and have been stamped out). But that more or less just makes sense since obviously the game wouldn't want to waste wordcount describing Paths that were wiped out a century ago and never had more than a half-dozen adherents.

[MarkK]

This is why I don't think it was necessarily intentional on the part of the creators of the Path, some grand Machiavellian scheme to control the Sabbat.

That's kind of my point. The game itself at any number of points rolled with that it was specifically not some Machiavellian scheme to control the Sabbat. Whether they created it in one take, or adapted it in another, the people on honourable accord were/are on honourable accord because they believed in it, believed it had a place in their conception of what the Sabbat is, and shaped/innovated on it because that was how they pursued their ideals, and they promoted it for those reasons.

I'm not sure why that path particularly seems to get singled out around these parts in ways seemingly every other path doesn't as far as people harshing on it. I've not really run into that in VtM discourse before.

Pre V5 doing its dance on paths in general, it was a path, it had its adherents, it worked like being on a path worked, and in the Sabbat they ranged up and down the ranks of the sect in full enough spread. Vampires lived by it in the overall flawed way vampires lived by anything they try to believe in in some meaningful way. They certainly found ways to exist on it without being witless, blind, pliable goobers, or omni-suicidal zealot golems, or what all ever. There was at least some occasional effort at depth and nuance. Anything else feels often more like what people want to project onto the game for what they need said game to be than was necessarily actually there in it (at least as far as I can recall at this point).

If pressed, I would say in its favour is that certainly compared to some paths that were more perhaps not well thought out on a game writing level for "okay, how does this work in a society" or "okay, how does this provide a meaningful set of ideologies and restrictions alike" it felt decently rigorous as far as the thought that went into it in an rpg gaming sense. It didn't feel like a so called "path of what I was going to do anyway" So that was nice?

And certainly there's some pathos and narrative oomph in the idea of the struggle to be honourable in a world that straight up is absolutely not, sure.

(Of course, that's also one of the interesting things about the road/path of chivalry in a DA game, and I do like that in DA the better editions makes time to note "many of the vampires on this route are self aware enough just fine to know people will try to take advantage of them for being on it. They've made the decision to tough it out anyway, because the ideals mean something to them. And just sometimes, that's enough.")

[Reasor]

To be fair, the core concept of chivalry back in the day was advancing your station and becoming a minor landholder in exchange for an obligation to do violence on your liege's behalf when called upon. It's questionable how far a social control interpretation of the Path would even stray from that.

[MarkK]

To be fair, the core concept of chivalry back in the day was advancing your station and becoming a minor landholder in exchange for an obligation to do violence on your liege's behalf when called upon. It's questionable how far a social control interpretation of the Path would even stray from that.

If you're going to look at a VtM path or road of morality and go "well based on the real world version...", you've already gone too far afield than the game will all that strongly bear you out, I would note.

But while we're there, real world chivalry, which as a distinct thing was never really all that thought out conceptually until a fair chunk into the medieval period (Dark Ages itself at one point explicitly cops to "this is not really that coherent an idea right now, but it's more interesting if it was, and honestly we're not doing historical accuracy too hard here guys"), had its origins as an idea in the ding dong unadhered to bundle of ideas that was the 10th century Peace of God as much as anything else. You're taking a single element of feudal obligation and going "chivalry was this". Chivalry was a lot of things, often entirely contradictory things.

[Taggie]

If you're going to look at a VtM path or road of morality and go "well based on the real world version...", you've already gone too far afield than the game will all that strongly bear you out, I would note.

But while we're there, real world chivalry, which as a distinct thing was never really all that thought out conceptually until a fair chunk into the medieval period (Dark Ages itself at one point explicitly cops to "this is not really that coherent an idea right now, but it's more interesting if it was, and honestly we're not doing historical accuracy too hard here guys"), had its origins as an idea in the ding dong unadhered to bundle of ideas that was the 10th century Peace of God as much as anything else. You're taking a single element of feudal obligation and going "chivalry was this". Chivalry was a lot of things, often entirely contradictory things.

The in universe Road was a fair attempt at making a fantasy version of parts of it, as an ideology, rather than an ideal, and from that, Honorable accord really doesn't stray all that far, and is as adapted to Crusade as the Road of Chivalry was, it refocused the reasons for that Crusade, but, HA is suited for a militant order of warrior fanatics, the creators of the Path held that as their ideal, and the political and military leadership of the Sabbat wanted, needed and had a use for that, so did nothing at all to oppose it.

[MarkK]

The in universe Road was a fair attempt at making a fantasy version of parts of it, as an ideology, rather than an ideal, and from that, Honorable accord really doesn't stray all that far, and is as adapted to Crusade as the Road of Chivalry was, it refocused the reasons for that Crusade, but, HA is suited for a militant order of warrior fanatics, the creators of the Path held that as their ideal, and the political and military leadership of the Sabbat wanted, needed and had a use for that, so did nothing at all to oppose it.

I'd like to stress that the in universe road was not an attempt at making a specifically unreal version of anything. In universe there was, in the mortal world, a developed thought of chivalric ethos considerably earlier than as happened in our own, which is something that helped encourage the development of the vampiric road. That's even at one point explicit canon. That's basically the entire premise of the Ashen Knight as far as its explorations of the road.

Again, the Chivalry or honourable accord guys or etc. were never deluded people making a thing up. The above post was me responding to the idea that in the real world the "core of chivalric thought" was that one very specific thing about feudal obligation and land.

[Taggie]

I'd like to stress that the in universe road was not an attempt at making a specifically unreal version of anything. In universe there was, in the mortal world, a developed thought of chivalric ethos considerably earlier than as happened in our own, which is something that helped encourage the development of the vampiric road. That's even at one point explicit canon. That's basically the entire premise of the Ashen Knight as far as its explorations of the road.

Again, the Chivalry or honourable accord guys or etc. were never deluded people making a thing up. The above post was me responding to the idea that in the real world the "core of chivalric thought" was that one very specific thing about feudal obligation and land.

Yea sorry, I was agreeing, and I can see how my words were unclear, the Road was a fantasy vision of real world Chivalry, but in universe it is real and what happened.

[MarkK]

Yea sorry, I was agreeing, and I can see how my words were unclear, the Road was a fantasy vision of real world Chivalry, but in universe it is real and what happened.

No worries, text intention is a whoooole thing in posting.

[Karos]

Okay, so there's always been an element of propaganda to the design of the various paths. It's a major sin to be disloyal to your allies for Feral Hearters. Honorable Accordists place great importance on holding to oaths, obeying your leaders, and participating in your society's rituals. That's a very specific version of honorable that isn't remotely humane, and would be indifferent to anything done to humans.

The reason these paths are designed in such a propagandistic way is because the various elders of the Sabbat wanted to keep the Sabbat together.

So why, oh why, would the V5 Sabbat elders design their version of the paths in a way that doesn't attempt to keep the Sabbat loyal to the sect?

If I were to guess why these paths are now forsaken, it has very little to do with the evolution of the Sabbat and what their elders think, and more to do with how the designers wanted to portray the Sabbat. Look at the other paths included in the V5 portrayal of the Sabbat, they've all been recast in their most violent, aggressive, and simplified forms. (E.g. all the scholarship, respecting other worthy Cainites has been stripped from the Path of Caine; Path of Cathari has none of the older religious overtones to it and is now nothing but a path of hedonism, etc.)

This same change doesn't really work for Honourable Accord, of all the Paths it's arguably the most 'humane' of any path. Outside of the Sabbat one could practice Honourable Accord and remain relatively humane. As such it's almost impossible to reduce Honourable Accord to a path followed by violent half-mindless monsters. A creature with restraint, a code, loyalty, isn't a violent half-mindless monster, it's a rational thinking creature.

The Path of the Feral Heart, by contrast, doesn't play nice with V5's conception of humanity. You could easily reduce it to a path of violent and mindless monsters, but that would be a betrayal of the path itself, which tempers the beast's impulses with notions of pack loyalty. However, in V5's portrayal of the Sabbat that would make an adherent of the Feral Heart little different to many other Sabbat (especially those on V5's Path of Caine).

(Hope this can be taken as intended, not looking to edition-war, but to outline how I believe the designers have altered the Sabbat in V5.)

[CTPhipps]

Interesting, Justin Achilli said that the simplification of the Paths was deliberate as the Elders are doing this to create as much mindless cannon fodder as possible while they bunker down through Gehenna.

[monteparnas]

(Hope this can be taken as intended, not looking to edition-war, but to outline how I believe the designers have altered the Sabbat in V5.)

I don't think this is edition war. It is a fact of this area of the lore.

The discussion on Paths and what makes them organically fly or be shot down in the setting is interesting. But the answer to the OP question itself is too straightforward: this is what the new design for the Sabbat needs. It has no basis in strategic thought, it is solely based on the fact that the Sabbat now is considered purely as an antagonist and irredeemably evil by default, without need or desire for deeper social or psychological exploration.

Paradox has no desire to explore the Sabbat deeper than that and the current Paths accomplish this effect, the elders of the Sabbat just followed the edicts of the Publisher.

[CTPhipps]

I don't think this is edition war. It is a fact of this area of the lore.

The discussion on Paths and what makes them organically fly or be shot down in the setting is interesting. But the answer to the OP question itself is too straightforward: this is what the new design for the Sabbat needs. It has no basis in strategic thought, it is solely based on the fact that the Sabbat now is considered purely as an antagonist and irredeemably evil by default, without need or desire for deeper social or psychological exploration.

Paradox has no desire to explore the Sabbat deeper than that and the current Paths accomplish this effect, the elders of the Sabbat just followed the edicts of the Publisher.

I think there's also a large issue where fans often ascribed nuance to the Sabbat where it wasn't as nuanced as they thought. The Sabbat were always a nihilist fascist death cult that employed mass brainwashing, religious indoctrination, conscription, and mass atrocities to turn its troopers into shock troopers. The "brainwashed mass of murderous terrorists" is 1st Edition Sabbat with UNDER A BLOOD RED MOON and the Clan Novels as well as Revised.

The fact the Sabbat are 80% a bunch of cannon fodder used and discarded by their Elders or insane is something that has been its canonical portrayal for the vast majority of its existence. Fans like the idea there's something deeper and more meaningful there and for some Elders that is absolutely true.

However, the important thing is to remember that for the majority of Sabbat, they are just tools and expendable ones like child soldiers.