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[Bluecho]

145) A Caitiff, her life was that of a modern business woman, working in marketing firm. With her glasses and short hair, she had an attractive librarian-esque look. This and her social acumen apparently aroused the passion in her sire. During what was supposed to be a meeting to talk of an ad campaign for an art show, her sire was overcome by desire and drained her dry. Guilt motivated her to embrace the mortal, and then panic led to the pale woman fleeing. When the business woman awoke, the only sign of her assailant was a note tucked into her hand. "I'm sorry. You are a vampire now. Run,...

[Bluecho]

144) A promising Warrior Setite, who defended Setite temples since even before his embrace, and worked offensively to eliminate threats to the Clan. After completing a particular difficult and vital mission, he was rewarded by an elder with a potent honor: having his heart removed and left in his care. Immune to being staked and flush with honor, his future was looking bright.

It all went wrong when his haven was burgled, and his heart stolen. It lay in the possession of an ambitious Ventrue ancillae, who seeks any advantage in his rise to princedom. Now the Setite Warrior has a new...

[Bluecho]

98) Two separate sects of Warrior Setites are in conflict in the city.

On one side, members of the Cohort of Wepwawet, Setite extremists who, emboldened by rumors of their founder's revival (again), have teamed up with certain Anarch coteries to smash the ruling Camarilla power structure. Of course, the Cohort have a hatred for all other Clans - even the errant childer of same - and so plan betray their Anarch allies in turn once the Camarilla establishment has been destroyed. It doesn't matter how unlikely it is for the Cohort to pull this off. It only matters that they want to,...

[Bluecho]

97) A Brujah Rant ends on a sour note, when it's discovered that what was supposed to be an all-vampire (really all-Brujah) event was attended by a mortal. A mortal who listened quietly while an entire group of Brujah vented openly about their problems, up to and including the actions of the Prince and Primogen of the city. Since Auspex is not native to the Clan, it was only when a clanmate who knew it out-of-clan activated aura sense that they realized a mortal was in their midst. And only as the mortal was already slipping out the door. Despite the speed common to the event's participants, they...

[Bluecho]

As an aside, Mages - who are pretty supernatural by definition - "read" as mortal for most supernatural senses. A vampire looking at a mage's aura isn't going to see anything amiss, unless the mage happens to be casting spells at the time.

So, as it turns out, even a full splat can be "too mortal" to be picked up by senses. Being kin to shapeshifters, ergo, is not necessarily a guarantee that they're any easier to pick out of a crowd....

[Bluecho]

Well, just because European settlers didn't build it, doesn't mean there can't be ancient tunnels. Native Americans lived on the continent long before even the Vikings were aware of its existence. Some of those Native civilizations were bigger and more advanced than is commonly imagined, prior to European contact and the subsequent mass depopulation due to European diseases.

The World of Darkness is also much more pulp inspired than real life, and that means plenty of prehistoric ruins buried deep beneath the earth. The antedeluvian era could have played host to a number of civilizations...

[Bluecho]

483) Infinite Corkscrew Recursion [Realm]: A rare Paradox Realm, that can affect any mage for any reason, but is most frequently encountered by mathematically minded mages. Mathematics, of course, being often preoccupied with fractals and recursion. Mages get drawn into the Realm as the world around them begins to twist and curve, elongating until their surroundings become like the inside of a corkscrew. Except it's not JUST a huge, infinitely long corkscrew pattern. It's a corkscrew whose component spirals are, themselves, composed of yet another, smaller corkscrew pattern. Naturally, those are...

[Bluecho]

I've praised the Mage-ability of the band Muse before on this thread, but I'd like to point out the recent song, Thought Contagion. In addition to the awesomely 80s music video - with its electro vampire zombies that dance the Thriller - I just love the idea of a "Thought Contagion". It holds well to Mage's theme of memes-as-magic. The song also continues the band's running commentary on the abuses of shadowy governments, which is extremely Technocracy.

While we're on the topic of music, the band Savlonic also used the 80s retro aesthetic for their recent album (and accompanying...

[Bluecho]

104) It was only supposed to be a temporary assignment. A small bit of undercover work. A brief stint in infiltration. So why hasn't Command extracted him yet? Or given him any new orders?

Once upon a time, he was a New World Order agent. He cut his teeth on espionage by infiltrating cults and extremist cells. And when he became Enlightened, the Technocracy put him to work masquerading as a member of the most screwed-up religious group of all: the Cult of Ecstasy. The Union taught him the basics of Ecstatic doctrine and practices, and how to disguise Inspired Science as the mysticism...

[Bluecho]

How do you define "control", though? Because if you mean "the Sabbat gives orders, and New York obeys", they don't. Vampires love to think otherwise, but they don't actually control mortal institutions or regions. They influence. They have individual mortals - the ones with the actual official power and information - bought, extorted, ghouled, dominated, seduced, or otherwise manipulated. Through these pawns - and the quiet acquisition of financial resources - vampires can indirectly effect change in a city. The apparatus of government and the shifts in the community are largely...

[Bluecho]

I don't know if there would be any actual behavioral differences between a with and without a soul. The soul is quite vague, which I think is a good thing for the World of Darkness, at least by default. Individual Storytellers are free with settle on whatever they feel like.

What I do think is that a creature created with a soul is going to be spiritually hollow, and therefore vacant. It would be staggeringly easy for them to be possessed by spirits. Perhaps not so much ghosts - since the body has its own mind, and would fight a possession - but rather non-ghost spirits, since many...

[Bluecho]

50) Severity Praise-Gods Plainscloth [Tiefling, Lore Bard]:
Yes, that is his actual name (he usually goes by "Sever"). Severity's family were part of a community of Puritan-esque Tieflings, who focused themselves on simple, austere living and religious devotion. They trace the infernal taint in their blood to a formerly wealthy trade city, that became so decadent its inhabitants graduated from "mundane" indulgence, into outright devil summoning and infernal masses. In the generations since the fall of this city, the transgressions of their ancestors are worn on their...

[Bluecho]

Don't forget the Order of St. Blase, the Lasombra Kings and Queen of Shadows, and the Tzimisce Revanant families. They all do roughly the same thing: being the arm of the Sabbat that interacts with mortals and mortal systems, patches up Masquerade breeches, and generally keeps the cash flowing. While the Revanants are their own kettle of fish, the former two groups have to deal heavily with humans on a personal level. For that reason, they must generally maintain a higher Humanity rating than most Sabbat (which, when they aren't on a Path, hover around Humanity 3 or 4, if they want to not spiral...

[Bluecho]

Moreover, the element of surprise was a probable factor. That there was a rebellion AT ALL was unprecedented among Caine's progeny. The three top Generations comprised a group less than 20 people total. Everybody knew everybody else. They were all "family", after a fashion. And ALL of them knew Caine personally, and thus were personally under his watchful eye.

For centuries. For millennia.

A younger vampire killing an older one had never happened before. Only when the third generation came into existence was there vampires that COULD kill those above them, since...

[Bluecho]

482) Out The Airlock [Realm]: The perpetual fear of any space-based Void Engineer is to have their bubble of habitability opened or ruptured, and the decompression sucking them out into the airless void. So potent is this fear that Void Engineers can invite it upon themselves with Paradox, no matter where they happen to be. If they are in an indoor environment, the nearest door, window, or other threshold opens up (where applicable), revealing a sucking vacuum and a view of an infinite sea of stars. If there isn't such an opening in close proximity, the walls will rupture, a hole being formed....

[Bluecho]

When sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, it becomes impossible to prove that magic wasn't just tech, or vice versa....

[Bluecho]

While all true, I don't think it's going to be ALL artificial sunshine and LED rainbows for the Technocracy.

Sure, their stuff is more coincidental than ever. But, by that same token, it also widens the space of what is possible in people's minds. Which, in turn, makes it easier for even non-technomancer mystics to disguise their arcane powers.

We have wrist-mounted flame throwers now. The more advanced ones are apparently even smaller than they were in 2014, when that whole meme got started. It's getting to the point where an average person might see a guy shoot fire...

[Bluecho]

99) A Virtual Adept who experienced his Awakening when an unknown person - or, rather, an automated AI - sent him a link in an email. Basic caution and computer literacy would tell him to not click on unsolicited links from internet strangers. But he'd been going through a great deal of personal problems at the time, and wasn't in the right frame of mind to bother with caution. True to form, the link infected his computer with a virus. Except the virus didn't break the computer, swamp it with spam/other malware, or hijack the machine to use as a stage for DDOS attacks on different systems. Not,...

[Bluecho]

Agreed. The inherent concept of Destiny is that it's what WILL happen. It is, in the purest sense of the word, what is PREDESTINED.

Which means, by nature of definition, you cannot defy Destiny. Whatever you do is what you were always meant to do, whatever someone else does is what they were always meant to do, and whatever happens was always meant to happen. You can't NOT adhere to Destiny.

This is why the vanilla Path of Paradox eschews the concept, in favor of Dharma. Not "what you WILL do", but "what you SHOULD do". At least according to your role...

[Bluecho]

Not sure if there's any point to jumping onto a new Path, if you're so attached to Humanity that you want several of its sins anyway.

Have you considered looking at other Paths from the Road of Humanity, described in the Dark Ages books? Perhaps, if vanilla Humanity isn't doing it for the player, but they still like it in principle, they might find a variant of Humanity more appealing.