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[saibot]

1. If a mage contains a Paradox from a spell they cast in Astral Space, do they lose Dream Health or take Resistant Bashing on their real body as normal, or both? If they suffer a physical Paradox Condition, does it also manifest on their dream form?

2. If a mage releases a Paradox from a spell they cast in Astral Space, does the fallout manifest in the material or Astral, or both?

[saibot]

Party-pooping implies you ruin the fun, but clearly, when Paradox gets involved the fun is only just starting!...

[saibot]

Every spell that targets the subject's body and its abilities directly. As with contesting/resisting vampiric Disciplines, those that target emotions are Withstood by Composure and those that target the will are Withstood by Resolve. Noteworthy, those that target a character's fate are usually withstood with Composure, but rarely with Resolve if they would directly impact the subject's behavior (like a geas that would curse a subject if it acted a certain way)....

[saibot]

I think some of these effects could be possible before Archmastery, but as others have said, would at least be Patterning effects. The spells that should definitely be off limits are the ones that directly or indirectly influence Paradox (more Spell control, less Paradox per Reach, etc).

[saibot]

Do you mean what roll to use? Since the normal one is Strength + Resolve, I figure the Ash rolls Power + Resistance. Its Power, Finesse and Resistance are equal to the highest Attribute ratings of that type the vampire had at the time of (not-so) Final Death....

[saibot]

Normally, when you leave the Sanctum any new spells you cast do not benefit from your Sanctum spell control. To give an example:

You are Gnosis 3, with Sanctum 2.
You cast 5 spells while in your Sanctum, no additional Reach is necessary for exceeding your Spell control, as those five spells are exactly covered by your Gnosis and Sanctum.
Now you leave your Sanctum and cast a new spell, you are now over-Reaching by 3 (the 2 you cast in your Sanctum +1), as only your Gnosis still supplies spell control....

[saibot]

While in the Sanctum you can cast additional spells equal to your Sanctum dot above and beyond your Gnosis without needing any additional Reach for exceeding your spell control. If you leave your Sanctum and then cast a spell you now need to consider all spells as if they were only on your spell control, i. e. you will have to Reach harder as you significantly exceed your regular spell control now. So...

1. Yes, within the Sanctum in fact.
2. Yes. Spell control does not care for the subject of the spells. If you cast them (and have not relinquished them) they are on your spell...

[saibot]

It is an idea from Blood Sorcery. Essentially, when an experienced blood sorcerer is destroyed, there is a chance they come back as a semi-sentient cloud of ash. After a while, this cloud of ash gains some drive, leading it to diablerize their way back to corporality. Every successful diablerie gives it back a dot of Humanity and Blood Potency. Once it has reached its original values, the vampire is whole once more, ready to rock. Mechanically, while in this ash form it is essentially a peculiar kind of ghost....

[saibot]

One way I feel you can make Elder vampires (and by extension Methuselahs) more of a threat to powerful mages while staying thematic and only requiring a small bit of houseruling is by making it possible for all BP 6+ vampires to return as Ash That Devours (as per Blood Sorcery, p. 68), not just blood sorcerers. Make this mostly unknown among both Kindred and Awakened, more mysterious than the Revenant problem. Learned Kindred occultists or vampire experts among the Awakened might have an idea, but it should be relatively obscure and unknown. The ancient and powerful vampire that just won't stay...

[saibot]

In the case of Death, I would argue it depends on the exact spell. In the case of Rotting Flesh (p.132) and Withering (p. 133) you can make a case for them being downgraded or even dealing no damage at all. That being said, a Death mage should definitely be able to cause serious harm to a vampire, they would just need to build a different Imago. A subtle distinction that might matter in regards to the Praxes and Rote repertoire the Death mage in question has access to....

[saibot]

Alternatively, allow players interested in starting with lower Humanity a flashback session. Make them note down the most important Breaking Points they have suffered and play through those. Give them Beats for the Breaking Points as normal.

The player gets some Beats and some time to get a handle on their character while you could potentially get some delicious plot hooks.

[saibot]

Oh, I misunderstood the request. In that case the simple solution is just taking the old Vice/Virtue and turning them into their adjective forms. It is only for one story so I do not think that is too much of a problem.

[saibot]

Since the PCs are super fresh, I would do something slightly different: The characters get a Mask to replace their Virtue as normal. This Mask is directly based on their lost human lives. However, they still have their human Vice until the end of the first Story. At which point you may as well let the players decide. You could allow them to delay this switch for a bit longer too.

This could also be a nice bit of bringing in the psychological change via the character sheet. They are not quite proper vampires yet, which feeds well into 2e's theme of slowly growing into being a proper...

[saibot]

Spoilers for Three Shades of Night following:

The contagion in the book was the "muskegon virus" (which seems to be fictional) that was mainly transmitted by mosquitos, crows and ... vampires. Within the fiction, the regular version of the muskegon virus mostly affected the young and elderly but the big contagion they are fighting was supernaturally amplified, leading to almost certain death no matter the physical fitness of whoever caught it. I am a bit hazy on the details, but I think the cause for how the muskegon virus got out of hand was the shitty spiritual landscape

...

[saibot]

Today I realised what this reminded me of: Three Shades of Night. In that book too you had multiple supernaturals (vampires, werewolves, mages) dealing with a grave, near-cataclysmic situation together and a major part of it was a supernatural contagion. I wonder if the Contagion chronicles will reference this somehow and whether it was what brought up the initial idea for the Contagion Chronicle.