LGBTQ+ in CofD games

[wyrdhamster]

I still think xenophobia, on basis, is the Unity kind of thing:

The Unity
The All Encompassing, the King of Obedience, the Indivisible

The Unity cleanses humanity of individuality. People are weak alone, but together, acting under one will, they might taste the divinity they lost when they Fell. They need only sacrifice freedom. He whispers of the joys of conformity and manifests through impersonal institutions such as banks and governments. Humans are cells of the leviathan. Her number is one. His Prelacy is Obligation. He is the patron of the Hegemonic Ministry and is said to rule over Seers’ use of the Mind Arcanum.

Making "Others" in the society is exactly what Unity would do. Also, she shackles the Freedom - like the Freedom to love who you want.

[MisterE]

I still think xenophobia, on basis, is the Unity kind of thing:



Making "Others" in the society is exactly what Unity would do. Also, she shackles the Freedom - like the Freedom to love who you want.

I see your point, wyrdhamster, there is definitely some crossover there between the Unity and my conception of the purity. But I think the difference lies in the Purity's insistence upon the nasty idea of purity and cleanliness as moral forces. I see the the Unity as potential embracing diversity quite easily, as the example of the diverse body of an organism, where all the very different organs and tissues are united in under a common authority. I could imagine an 'ideal' world for the Unity, a bureaucratic authoritarian nightmare police state that perfectly tolerates people of any sexual identity so long as they're part of the common unity and know their place. I think societies have attempted to define a 'correct' social order where people who we would categorize as LGBTQ have their proper place.

The difference in the Purity and where the Purity's central emphasis lies, is not upon rebelling against an authority and its commands, but rather with that all consuming hatred and fear of the different and diverse that seems to sicken those fear the 'other', where that other might be foreigners, migrants, the mentally deficient, different or 'impure' races, or people who are just unclean and 'unnatural'. It about deviancy as a crime against a pure and pristine natural order, deviancy as a moral crime and a corruption - a pollution. Its the sort of moral pollution that fires the anger of neo-Nazi white supremacists and Eugenicists, as well as the anger of every of homophobe.

So the central themes/oppositions would be: pure/impure, clean/unclean, healthy/deviant, pristine/corrupt. The Purity attempt to demonise and exclude and persecute the deviant and the unclean, so as to maintain the purity of whatever group is doing the exclusion. The Nazis and their template of racial purity are the archetypal basis for the Purity. It doesn't matter one jot whether Jews, homosexuals, gypsies or the mental deficient might follow or bow before the unifying authority of the Nazi state and obey its laws. The ideology of the state has already marked them out as ESSENTIALLY WRONG and a pollution of the moral natural order of the German people. Thus they only 'moral' solution for such an ideology is to "purge the unclean" and maintain purity. That's all that matters is Purity. Another example might be Victorian asylums and their treatments 'moral illnesses' like homosexuality being rated alongside their treatment of physical ailments. Aspects of this can also be seen in other exclusionary social orders, such as Old Testament purity laws (which also controls female purity), the Varna caste system of Vedic Law and its exclusion of the 'untouchables', eugenic views of human nature, etc.

But hey, that's just my feeling; you may prefer to lump this together under either the Unity or the General.

[LostLight]

I still think xenophobia, on basis, is the Unity kind of thing:



Making "Others" in the society is exactly what Unity would do. Also, she shackles the Freedom - like the Freedom to love who you want.

Actually, the way I understood the Unity is that he is seeking to eliminate the "others" be assimilation. He is the one to promise you you don't have to be different- that being different is wrong. We are all humans, and so we are all the same. Trying to be different harms that special harmony that mankind has- you should just stop be yourself and be like the rest. He is the one who wants you to stay in the closet, the one who hates Pride Parades because it shows that not all people are the same- it is the other side of homophobia. If the General is about others hating you for being different from them, the Unity is about you hating yourself for being different. He also represent the more "moderate homophob"- those who say that it is ok for gay people to exist, but why are they so loud? Why can't they just act like the rest? There must be some problem with them if they can't just accept that at least acting like everyone else is better.

This is the main difference between the General and the Unity- the first would admit to hate you, and she would never let you live in peace. The second would act as if he loves you, and would even offer you a way out- you just need to leave everything which makes you "you" behind.

[blackhatmatt]

Promethean 2nd Ed has a few references to non-straight/non-cis characters, but of course that game isn't out yet.

Opening fiction for Mythologies, the POV character is a gay man.

Likewise, opening fiction for Legacies: The Ancient, the POV character is...probably pansexual, although he thinks of himself as straight in the beginning of the story and discovers otherwise.

[LostLight]

and there's also one of the example Acanthus in 2nd edition's Preview about a straight man who starts his Awakening by sleeping for another man for the first time.

[The young man in the cafe]

Was planing to explore it more in mine games also, on Forsaken side - but how the Pure would call Luna's Embrace with their hate to Moon Goddess? Wolf's Drag?



I use Q as Queer in general - I could write all the alphabet of verious orientation or psychosexual identietis each times I mentione community as general, I just use five of them as short. In Poland our associations fighting for equal rights are using now LGBTQIA and I thing it is a bit tring to hard.

So anyone's identity not mention by me in discussion - I'm not limited, I know there are very much more variants of human sexuality and I support you all in your decent living and equality in eyes of law . I just will stick to five letters for abrive to ALL non-heteronormatives, for discussion simplisity.

As to Ivory Claws - would the explore the Luna's Embrace before last 50 decades where LGBTQ come in to global awareness? I think that Hindu Claws could explor this kind of things in the Hijra caste.

I Understand, I imagine any acronym that included ALL non-heteronormitives would be way too long and clunky.

Given that animistic/shamanistic religions generally seem to be more okay with non-cisgender folk, I would imagine that maybe the claws were okay with trans folk as long as they still reproduced with an opposite sex partner (using whatever the pure call luna's embrace to change their sex to match their gender first, of course). but same sex couples weren't approved of by the tribe until more recently.

[CatDoom]

Oh man, I could see the agents of the Unity running one of those "gay conversion therapy" camps (or whatever the preferred nomenclature is). With the aid of magic, the therapy could be frighteningly effective (though it would probably require regular treatments to overcome dissonance), while leaving the subject riddled with dysphoria.

[Rose Bailey]

There's also "Mrs. Robinson" from the Mission (page 259), who frequented the 1970's gay club scene as "Angelo Pascual." The entry on her is vague enough for you to draw your own conclusions, but if she's the creator of the "Mixtape" from the Daeva book, she had at least one romantic relationship with a mortal woman whom she embraced. I like to imagine that she looks like Annie Lennox, but maybe dresses like Bowie's Thin White Duke. :P

EDIT: Upon a quick review of the Mixtape, I don't think it's made explicit what gender "Em" identifies as. They are primarily sexually interested in men ("skinny, long-hair types"), and the creator of the tape suggests that they try to seduce married men, which to me implies that "Em" is most likely a woman, but that isn't necessarily the case. Also, I just noticed that the Mixtape mentions the web, so it's obviously not as old as I thought it might be, and may well not be one of Mrs. Robinson's.

I'm so glad somebody put together that Mrs. Robinson is the author of "Mixtape!" So, so glad. You'll also note that Mrs. Robinson is the Daeva signature character. Dressed classy for a release party or something in her splat portrait, but I like to imagine her with a more classic punk rock or new-wave-to-the-grave look when she's all casual.

There's also a trans man elsewhere in the cities chapter, but it seemed like he wouldn't want to talk about it, so the clue is very subtle.

[CatDoom]

Nice! It's cool to have a picture to attach to the name; not what I was imagining, but just as good.

I really liked the stuff on the Mission from the Daeva book, and I was super excited to see the setting make a return in Blood and Smoke. My personal version of the setting incorporates Xiao Jun Jie from Bloodlines: The Chosen and the story of John Carnon from Circle of the Crone as well. I find that the latter actually fits really well with the historical bits described in the Mission interview in Kiss of the Succubus; Carnon's rampage could very well have been the last straw that led to the Sanctified crackdown circa 1970.

[Rose Bailey]

Nice! It's cool to have a picture to attach to the name; not what I was imagining, but just as good.

Thanks. I honestly considered dressing her more the way I figure she dresses casually. but for the signature character piece, you want at least some level of classic. So I gave her a dress partly inspired by my favorite* Vampire cover: City of the Damned. Is the red silk or blood? Who can say?

* I think it's my favorite, I don't exactly keep a ranked list.

[Agentwestmer]

DtD has a lesbian couple dealing with sexual harassment... to the detriment of the harasser. In addition, there's the general fact for most demons gender is a sometimes thing.

[CatDoom]

I'm trying to guess who the other signature characters are supposed to be... I figure the Gangrel has to be Count F*cking Dracula... I'm tempted to think that the Mekhet is the compiler of the Mekhet book (blanking on her name at the moment). No idea on the other two...

[LostLight]

talking about DtD- isn't there a fiction in the book which presented a male-covered angel who Fell after falling in love with a man? I must say that one of the things I like the most about the way non-straight characters are presented in nWoD is that they aren't presented as regular people- their concept isn't revolved around their sexual orientation. You couldn't tell the angel's gender in that fiction until he actually Fell and the "it" turned to "he". I really appreciate that style, because it really shows that even non-straight people not only, but are regular human beings (or vampires. Or werewolves. or soul-stealing-reality-twisting-bio-mechanical-monster-escaped-from-a-mad-god-thingy)

[CatDoom]

Ah, here's one I almost forgot from Blood and Smoke: Cardinal Inglorious I, the founder of the Mission, took a lover from among the native Californian vampires he encountered in the San Francisco area, "a man called Hummingbird." Not just gay lovers, 18th century interracial gay lovers. I'd compliment the Cardinal on his progressiveness if it weren't for the whole creepy cult vibe surrounding the whole thing.

And suddenly I'm having visions of a really cheesy porno starring guys in powdered wigs called "18th Century Interracial Gay Lovers"...

[Rose Bailey]

I'm trying to guess who the other signature characters are supposed to be... I figure the Gangrel has to be Count F*cking Dracula... I'm tempted to think that the Mekhet is the compiler of the Mekhet book (blanking on her name at the moment). No idea on the other two...

The 2e signature characters are;

Daeva: Mrs. Robinson
Gangrel: Count Dracula
Mekhet: Frances Black
Nosferatu: Jenny Shakes
Ventrue: The Mogul