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[Bluecho]

If it's not too late to give suggestions, try having one of the mages be an Etherite, either in the mold of the pulp era Action Scientist, or channeling Herbert West, Reanimator. The latter being a scientist who, like Doctor Frankenstein before him, sought to defeat Death. With Science!

An Etherite also helps to maintain a measure of mystery. In a Hunter game, you never quite know what you're up against, until it's staring you in the face. Put the Etherite out front, and it might lead the players to think they're tackling a mostly mundane enemy at first. A mad scientist also has more...

[Bluecho]

My personal headcanon is that the Tlacique were embraced by full Setites, but the ones embraced were native Sorcerers, who were proficient in Shapeshifting. And they managed to learn Protean because of their prior skill with that mortal Sorcery Path. (See also World of Darkness: Sorcerer, and its entire section on how powers from one splat could transfer to another)....

[Bluecho]

Hence why, regardless of what culture they pretend to slot into, the Followers of Set are at their core a Conan-style snake cult. Which is why I referred to "proto-Typhonism". The Typhonic, Set, or other imagery and practices are appropriations of mortal religions and symbolism, used to obfuscate the primeval serpent-faith that "Set" built up around himself. Although at that point, we can just call it a personality cult, that grew out of control....

[Bluecho]

I mean, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina was originally a comic book before it was (loosely) adapted to TV. And that comic was based on...well, the Sabrina the Teenage Witch comics put out by Archie for years now. If BJD was cribbing from anything Sabrina, it's more likely to be the original comics, not even the horror one. Which I doubt. "White haired lady" is hardly a novel concept.

[Bluecho]

Indeed, I've long thought of the Disciplines in the context of them being constructed. The various Clan or Bloodline founders discovered a nugget of new power, and proceeded to develop into a framework of ability over time. The three physical Disciplines are so simple because they are the earliest expressions of vampiric power. The most primeval "trick" the undead learned, likely a development of the innate capacity of all Cainites to pump their stats by expending blood.

As time went on, the Disciplines became so used that their most elementary powers - those of ranks 1-5...

[Bluecho]

I'd rather a simpler explanation: the True Brujah have it backwards (what a surprise, since they're time travelers). Celerity is not a degeneration of Temporis. Temporis is an expansion of Celerity. A Discipline that takes the basic time manipulation powers of Celerity and takes it further beyond.

This would first explain why a whole bunch of Clans have Celerity, but only a small bloodline has Temporis. Celerity came first - probably invented by one of the Second Generation, or even by Caine himself - and then the True Brujah founder started pushing at the limits of what it could...

[Bluecho]

CTPhipps is right on the money. First, the Tremere Antitribu do or can exist, either as a whole faction of the Sabbat or in small numbers. Even if they were purged, some of them could have survived (possibly by refusing to go to "Goratrix's" little meeting) or new ones could have defected. As the Storyteller, you have the final say about what the state of the Tremere Antitribu is in your game.

Second, there are plenty of ways to justify having or gaining Sorcery. I'd go with the idea that the PC was an occultist in life, or even a full-blown mortal Sorcerer, and their blood...

[Bluecho]

I considered that as well.

A Vicissitude + Celerity power that allows for the rapid formation and reverting of some natural weapon, like a tendril, spike, bone-blade, or even just extending one's limb to hit farther. The power enacts the transformation for the duration of a single attack, before turning back to normal. You know, for when you want to do something Masquerade-breaking so quickly, no one can notice you did it.

A Vicissitude + Fortitude power that can rearrange the vampire's internal organs, specifically the brain and heart. It's now far more difficult - if...

[Bluecho]

I don't remember what I original idea was for levels (if I even pinned down exact values), but I'd probably say Chimestry 3 (to create moving illusions of all senses) and Auspex 1 (to give sufficient sensory ability to the user to "capture" the scene they are recording). Just potent enough that it requires the Ravnos to be mildly experienced, but not so much that such messengers couldn't be relatively common.

For this Combination Discipline to work, it assumes that the messengers were of a bloodline variant that has Auspex in-Clan, as some Ravnos do. Though the power has...

[Bluecho]

This, I agree with. I imagine most Salubri - including those Elders that survived since the Diablerie of Saulot - consider the Seven to be extremists. Regardless of whether a Salubri thinks the Seven "have a point", they go farther in service to their philosophy than most Salubri are willing to. They just aren't ready to commit to the kind of Jyhad Win Condition that involves killing oneself.

Though I suppose it's "worked" for multiple Antedeluvians, so maybe the Seven are onto something. Most Salubri, understandably, are hesitant to find out.

Hardly...

[Bluecho]

There's a lot of talk over on the V5 side about the Tzimisce gaining greater numbers in the Anarch Movement. Thereby raising questions over how their signature Discipline - Vicissitude - would function in that social context. (V5, obviously, subsumed Vicissitude into Protean, but that's neither here nor there). Even without V5, V20 already maintained that the Tzimisce maintained a presence among the Anarchs. Regardless of editions, the question of how it's used in the Anarchs must be addressed.

In another thread, I proposed that Anarch Tzimisce would engage with their Discipline in...

[Bluecho]

I don't as much like what I'm hearing, vis a vis the sharp categorization of Vicissitude as all bad, all the time. And the idea that if the Tzimisce are going to be player options, that they cannot have Vicissitude. Yes, Sabbat Tzimisce tend to go way overboard with it, but I still think there's a middle ground between All Vicissitude and No Vicissitude.

For one thing, I rankle at the very idea of depriving players of choices, all else being equal. For another, labeling the Discipline that allows a vampire to tailor their body to their desires as Always Evil has some...unfortunate...

[Bluecho]

One of the ideas I came up with a while back was for a Ravnos Combination Discipline power (Chimestry + Auspex) that can "record" what the user sees and "play it back" on command. A tool that would be used by Ravnos messengers, in the era before technology would be used to record messages. Because sometimes, a Kindred absolutely, positively MUST be able to tell another Kindred "in person" that they suck (or for more "practical" reasons, I guess).

And with that idea, you could have a plot development where a Prince is visited in her court by...

[Bluecho]

I think the idea has plenty of merit. If nothing else, it can be a source of hilarity, when you remember one thing: just because the Malkavian thinks he's a Neonate does not make him a Neonate.

By which I mean, old Kindred are out of touch with humanity at the best of times, let alone what modern humanity is like or how they think. Having multiple personalities doesn't change what the character knows, or their lived experiences. Their knowledge base is the same, and likely terribly out of date. Unconsciously or not, the Malkavian's young personality does not act like a recently Embraced...

[Bluecho]

RE: Illias

I prefer the idea that the Eldest absorbed him, during his "death" in the Dark Ages, and kept Illias rattling around in their collective consciousness. Then, when recent events caused the Eldest to "consider some things" and confer with their "siblings", they detached the Illias part of themself and placed that fragment into a newly flesh-crafted body. The Eldest is still connected with "Illias" (whether it's literally the old consciousness or a recreation of the man's personality is anyone's guess), in the sense that everyone who...

[Bluecho]

Normally I don't do this "hey, check this out!" stuff. But after seeing this, I just had to share.

It's an Arena video by CovertGoBlue, showing what he describes as a "Golgari Prison Land Destruction" deck.



The first game is just "meh", nothing special.

The second game is a non-stop roller coaster. A constant back and forth, as two Control players try to out-Control each other. It's totally classic MtG.

And the third game is just...it's hilarious and heart-breaking at the same time.

...

[Bluecho]

Ken Ashcorp - Take Me Home



It's always a treat, to hear Ken Ashcorp put out a new single. This one was a while coming, but I immediately enjoyed it.

Plus, the world can always use race-themed jams. I'd love to see an AMV of this song over footage from 2007's anime film Redline....

[Bluecho]

115) Riptide Glub'bouth [Water Genasi, Beast Conclave Ranger (Revised)]:
Born on the fringes of undersea civilization, Riptide (or "Rip" for short) grew up in a nomadic tribe of Cetacean Herders - shepherds who follow around migrating groups of whales, dolphins, and other aquatic mammels, protecting them from harm and culling them (for meat and other valuable products) when the time is right. Because of his knowledge of the ocean wilderness and its many currents, he was hired to act as a guide and protector for a group of Merfolk scholars, in their quest to find and study the ruins...

[Bluecho]

114) Florian, Falconer Knight [Wood Elf, Beast Conclave Ranger (Revised)]:
A member of the illustrious Falconer Knights, a company of mercenary falconers who served nobles both on the battlefield and with their falcons. Florian served with distinction for years, as all good Falcon Knights should. His great accomplishment was in capturing a clutch of blood hawk eggs, and hand-rearing them. Intent on establishing his own tower, from which he could train and deploy his own Falcon Knights and their trusty hawks.

That is, until a mad Beholder (redundant, yes) decided, in its twisted...

[Bluecho]

^This, absolutely. DMs who have a lot of time on their hands will theorycraft and worldbuild DnD into oblivion, simply to do it. Regardless of whether it enhances DnD as a game that people play to have fun.

Is it really a problem that spears do less damage than longswords? No. Is it really a problem that languages are often simplified to "Common" and "X Racial Language"? No. Is it a problem that the economy in DnD makes no real-world sense? No.

I myself have theory-crafted myself to conniptions over all those things, but trying to "fix" them...