[WIR] Chicago by Night 5th Edition

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

Ultimately, as much as I love Lovecraftian horrors and wrote a post-apocalypse Call of Cthulhu trilogy (see my signature), I feel like they don't work for vampire as I play it. My games are very much focused on sin, redemption, and self-loathing. Alien monsters just don't work as well when I incorporate the Fallen.

Vampires - Cainites at least - are not Lovecraftian. But there are Lovecraftian things out and about in the same world. The analogy I use is Cainites are sharks (small sharks for neonates, great whites for the methusulas). But they are in the same ocean as squid, cuttlefish, swordfish and so forth. There is always a bigger fish - and it might not be another shark (i.e. Cainite) or even a vertebrate.

And Tzimisce after the deal with Kupula are kind of a marginal case.

[CTPhipps]

Kathy Glens

Type: NPC

Synopsis: Indian American Rock goddess.

Review: Race lifts are something of a controversial subject in fandom regarding fictional characters. Generally, I don't mind them as media tends to be a more lily-white than it is in the real world and additions of color can enrich stories rather than weaken them. In the original Chicago by Night, Kathy Glens description was of a "normal looking woman with brown hair and hazel eyes." What is normal?

Now she is an Indian American woman is a "light brown complexion and black eyes." And you know what, I'm fine with that. Chicago by Night 1st Edition was originally one of the most diverse gaming supplements ever published up to that point and it's nice to see its sequels carry on the tradition of what as one of my friends described it, "What America really looks like."

Kathy Glens benefits from the expansion on her heritage as it's not just a minor detail but something that now expands on what was previously a somewhat one-dimensional character. Kathy Glens is now spiritual as well as being really-really good with guitar rifs. She's interested in learning about Golconda and sees music as a way to expand on her consciousness.

(I choose to believe she was once lovers with a passing through Salubri)

We also have her rather tragic encounter with her brother when she attempted to make contact with him, only to be rejected as a monster. This led to her frenzying but, thankfully, not her murder of the man as might have been the case with so many other vampires. She's also learned some blood sorcery and mysticism from Garwood Marshall. Kathy is an excellent example of a "humane" vampire as she's become better and better as the years have gone by rather than worse. However, the story isn't made saccharine or trite because the author of her write-up clearly understands that this is about to make her life harder and worse than easier.

Kathy has rejoined Baby Chorus after its reformation by Damien with the Prince's blessing but she now has a spiritual higher understanding as her goal rather than simply playing music. Damien is not going to be able to be a part of that as he's taken to murdering Thin Bloods, Caitiff, and presumably former friends of Kathy (she's never been an Anarch but she's never NOT been an Anarch either). One gets the impression she's turning a willing blind eye to the changes that have happened to her friend.

An easy plot with Kathy is eventually someone is going to record her music or steal her copies of it to release them--and it will become apparent she's the greatest guitar player in the world. Mind you, an interesting fact is that Kathy's use of Celerity means that what was normally something impossible unless with supernatural powers is actually now possible with sound-mixing.

Neal Pert once did an amazing drum solo that was based on one done by Phil Collins and Genesis. Phil then informed them, "Neil, we sped the recording up."

FYI - In my games, AC/DC studied with Baby Chorus and the song "If you want Blood" is one of Kathy's.

[CTPhipps]

Erzulie

Type: NPC

Synopsis: Blood goddess...of DISCO!

Review: Erzulie is a character I very much would like to have my characters try to win over to the Anarch cause. In fact, I think that may well be my next adventure after we finish our break. I have to figure out how the player characters "betrayal" of the Anarchs by helping the Lasombra join the Camarilla will fallout for them even as they are also owed big favors and will try to use those to pressure a truce in the city.

So far, my inclination is the PCs will have burned a lot of bridges with the mainstream Anarchs so their only solution is they have to recruit a NEW bunch of friends with the Blood Disco being an obvious choice. It should be fun given that Erzulie is a genuine believer in Lilith (apparently having created her version of the Ba'hari path by herself) while at least one of the PCs is a hardcore Cainite Noddist.

Erzulie is a fabulous Toreador maven with a Nosferatu lover, a large power base, and an adoring fanbase. It's fascinating because she really is the first time in Chicago's history that Annabelle could have a serious rival. Bronwyn is capable of fighting Annabelle but she's also smart enough to NOT fight Annabelle. Erzulie, by contrast, could very easily become Primogen and Clan Head of the Toreador. Helena might not allow it but, honestly, it's not like she couldn't just switch pawns overnight.

One thing I do note about Erzulie is that she has Humanity 5 and is a great deal more "evil" than many of the other vampires in this setting. It's kind of surprising given we have the relatively humane Annabelle to contrast and her group is portrayed very sympathetically. My inclination is Erzulie is one of those individuals who, having suffered a VERY harsh life, has precious little empathy for others.

Erzulie is also a post-Protean (Vicissitude alternate power) transsexual that I think was an interesting take to the character. One thing I've always disliked is that we've never gotten people that want to make practical use of Vicissitude. One of my player characters was "Lucita the Younger" who was a Lasombra transexual Embraced by Lucita who used Vicissitude to make herself look like she was "always meant to be."

I've also had Nagaraja with Vicissitude (who use it to feed without killing people) and plastic surgeons. I've also debated it as a very useful power for surgeon PCs period but I suppose that may be an impossible job to have with so much blood unless you somehow turn off a vampire's Beast for a few hours. Maybe only Thin Bloods can have it.

I should note that Erzulie's possession of "Protean" is the first sign that Vicissitude is probably an alternate power of Protean and is being combined with it the way Serpentis is. I personally approve of this as Protean was always meant to be a signature power of Dracula and it seems weird his clan doesn't possess it as a Clan Discipline. I'm hoping that the Tzimisce will end up with Animalism, Blood Sorcery, and Protean as their base powers. The alternative of Animalism, Auspex, and Protean is also there but I think the former is better.

In any case, I think she's a wonderful and beautiful character that gives Annabelle a rival in the city and works well. I also think she's this character from the art.

[Tubect]

Hard not to be nervous about a TG character in a WoD sourcebook given recent history. Hopefully trans creators were involved.

[CTPhipps]

Hard not to be nervous about a TG character in a WoD sourcebook given recent history. Hopefully trans creators were involved.

I think this may be our third in this book.

[CTPhipps]

Helena

Type: NPC

Synopsis: Helen of Troy is a vampire!

Review: There's no way to screw up Helena because Helena is one of the best characters V:TM ever created. She's been in literally dozens of games I've either STed or played in and she's always been one of the most interesting ones. Hell, when I played a Highlander WOD game, Helena showed up. So, really, the developers of this game didn't have to do much to change Helena but merely inform us of how she was reacting to events.

The premise for Helena's revamp is that she and Menele both suffered the Beckoning. However, on the way to the Middle East (I make it more clear that the undead are being summoned to Saudi Arabis'a "Empty Quarter" desert), Helena found herself surrounded by Ashirra vampires trying to attend the Vermillion Wedding (Victoria Ash marrying Tegyrius of the Banu Haqim). Helena gobbled these up and this helped her resist the Beckoning.

Helena being a rampant diablerist was something established in Chicago by Night 2nd Edition but it's established here even more clearly. Now she believes it's what's keeping her from being Beckoned back. Personally, I believe that this has doomed Helena as there's no way she's going to be able to avoid wassail if she keeps acting like an Antediluvian as even if you don't believe diablerie is something that can polish off that last Humanity of 1 (and if not diablerie--what?) then those TINY little soul shards are going to fuck with even millennia old self-control.

I've always felt that Helena was a more interesting character than Menele. The original game set it up as a Good vs. Evil struggle but Menele didn't come off as any better than Helena. While Helena was allied with conquistidors, Menele destroyed Pompey with a fire demon. While Helena destroyed Carthage by betraying it to the Ventrue, Carthage wasn't exactly the world's most innocent den of vampire love (that was before we knew about the Baali).

In my game, I made the corruption of Carthage to be a plot point to further enrich the dynamic between Helena and Menele. The way I did it, Menele was neck deep in the seduction of Troile by Moloch and his followers. He needed to learn his Spirit Thaumaturgy 5 somewhere after all. However, Menele's memories are either not very good or he's been dominated to forget the worst parts of it. Helena, by contrast, remembers Carthage going from a paradise of human and vampire interaction to a demonic child-sacrificing hellhole. It makes the fact Menele later became a vampire saint all the more fascinating even as she's assumed Menele is a Path of Evil Revelations diabolist.

They seem to have given Helena a bit of Blood Sorcery and implied that she was involved wih the Baali in Carthage, which I think isn't a great way to handle it. Personally, I always prefer grayer and more, "Everyone is the antihero of their own story in vampire--even the worst of the worst." However, that may well work for player characters as demons remain one of the best and most beloved foes of the undead for a quick game.

It's interesting that Helena's biggest problem right now is she's titanically bored without Menele to plot against. She's keeping both Annabelle and Brett Stryker as sex slaves while NOT dominating Kevin Jackson in hopes someone will emerge as a sufficient enemy for her in the Jyhad. That's really tragic as it shows there's not much worth saving than Helena since the very act of fighting has apparently become her life. It's also noteworthy that she's not at all worried about the Second Inquisition or the rise of the ancients in the Middle East (at least as she resists the call). It's kind of sad really.

There is one interesting note in discussing her resisting the Beckoning: "As she fought, she felt her potency withering and the suddenly the call ceased." [Note: There's a typo there and it should be "and then suddenly"]. The potency withering line is the first real sign that there has been a diminishing of the Non-Beckoned Elders in-universe. I find that a very fascinating and interesting possibility for allowing PCs to deal with Ancients without having them instantly squish our protagonists.

Interestingly, Helena does have a Touchstone in one of Priam's descendants. Priam was a character I always liked since I felt he was a character made specifically for female players to have a love interest. He's the brooding tragic antihero who knows he has to kill his ex-love and I always felt it was a problem they killed him instead of Embracing him (it's why he's an immensely powerful wraith in my games). It says he has a "distant descendant" in Chicago but I'm inclined to believe it's someone he sired in the past century as being a ghoul that's perfectly plausible and it's not like most of Greece isn't probably descended from his mortal days.

[CTPhipps]

The The Gentleman Gamer has a Patreon Page I've signed up for.

https://www.patreon.com/matthewdawkins/overview

Hopefully we can get him to do videos on Chicago by Night and other things we love.

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

Helena It says he has a "distant descendant" in Chicago but I'm inclined to believe it's someone he sired in the past century as being a ghoul that's perfectly plausible and it's not like most of Greece isn't probably descended from his mortal days.

Well, she was in torpor for almost two centuries and he was a handsome, dashing type the entire time - so he could easily have some descendants around. In any case, he was an interesting character. While the text reads that Helena has not fully recovered from his death, it does not feel that way - it feels like she has not been impacted by his death at all. Also, Chicago does feel somewhat out of balance with only her around. Although a methusula that is bored, inhumane, and powerful, offers story possibilities.

[CTPhipps]

Well, she was in torpor for almost two centuries and he was a handsome, dashing type the entire time - so he could easily have some descendants around. In any case, he was an interesting character. While the text reads that Helena has not fully recovered from his death, it does not feel that way - it feels like she has not been impacted by his death at all. Also, Chicago does feel somewhat out of balance with only her around. Although a methusula that is bored, inhumane, and powerful, offers story possibilities.

Yeah, Helena seems to have kind of brushed off the death of her companion for millennia.

[Baaldam]

In my game, I made the corruption of Carthage to be a plot point to further enrich the dynamic between Helena and Menele. The way I did it, Menele was neck deep in the seduction of Troile by Moloch and his followers. He needed to learn his Spirit Thaumaturgy 5 somewhere after all. However, Menele's memories are either not very good or he's been dominated to forget the worst parts of it. Helena, by contrast, remembers Carthage going from a paradise of human and vampire interaction to a demonic child-sacrificing hellhole. It makes the fact Menele later became a vampire saint all the more fascinating even as she's assumed Menele is a Path of Evil Revelations diabolist.

Well, it's your game and a pretty popular take of Menele since the Baali's connection to Carthage review, but one that doesn't pan out very well with his fluff in Chicago.

(I ignore the Humanity 10 bit as tacked on and ludricous crap - Pompeii and his Dominate-happy and pawn-sacrificing ways all too plainly put the lie to that)

1 - Both Menele and Critias were described as far more of globe-trotting diplomats/propagandists for "the Brujah Dream" going from domain to domain in search of allies & converts than active participants in the actual reality of the state. Even back then there was some implication that their view of it is idealistic, rosy-colored & skewed. They are pawns of a lie in their own way.

2 - Also and probably more directly relevant, Menele was already a methuselah and well versed in strange spirit magics by the time the Brujah Altamira came in contact with him and told of Carthage as burgeoning vampire & human Utopia. (In fact, did anyone notice Menele is mentioned as one of the kindred involved with the Thera eruption and the ruination of Shaitan/Nergal's labyrinth? It's in clanbook Baali, just sayin'...)

Not saying Menele is not bad - because he very much is, probably worse than Helena in a number of ways and a hypocrite to boot. But him as a major part of carthaginian society and connected with the Baali, at least directly, doesn't really mesh with the background. It looks more like "keep the mind-bending loose cannon far and wide, ignorant and messing people for our sake" scheme.

There's much about him that can seem quite strange and suspicious when you takes the time read on him and deconstruct the "Hummanity 10, good guy" thing.

- Maxwell, a childe of Altamira - the vampire that invited Menele to Carthage - being a pawn of Menele would seem to imply Menele sank Dominate hooks into Altamira itself back then, more than two millennia ago and before he ever met Helena, because inserting brain-washing triggers into a friendly clanmate "for future use, just in case" is such a nice guy thing to do.... Seriously, this guy has problems.

- Not to mention Ublo-Satha, whom he met in passing sometime in the middle ages - and whose dominate conditioning survived conversion into one of the original Gargoyles and centuries of little to no contact. Or letting Helena get Annabelle because he's certain of being able to reel her back in when the time is right. Just how really versed in Dominate Menele actually is? Because going by fluff he gives far more of a vibe of having Dominate 8 than Helena ever did....

- Critias - why the heck is he making such a point of hiding from his own childe, while at the same time using him as a pawn in the forefront of it all? To the point of manipulating Critias into entering a game that would make an open diablerist out of him, in one of the Succubus Club adventures?

Their whole dynamic is weird as heck, even without going into the question of how many of the pies Critias was involved - the social wars in Rome, Mithridates' rampage against Rome, the prometheans, the Codex of the Damned (a major noddist text off his authorship, cited by Aristotle DeLaurent), the american & french revolutions - were of his own initiative or being played by his sire. What is he hiding for?

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

Menele is as much a pawn as is Critias. Helene is at least a pawn of the Toreador Founder - who Menele is a pawn of is more uncertain, given the oddness of Triole's fate. But that he is pawn explains some of the oddness in his background. And as of V20, Menele had Entelechy at 10 rather than humanity.

[CTPhipps]

Honestly, I think the above is a bit strange as it requires Menele to never fluctuate in his Humanity score (though, again, the Path of Entelecy is what they planned to manipulate him for). How I handled the oddities above was as followed:

+ I lowered Menele's Humanity to 5 and thus had it a contrast to Helena's Humanity 4. I.e there wasn't much difference between the two other than Menele tried not to kill humans and his fellow vampires as collateral damage.

+ Menele very much wanting to leave Chicago behind and join the Inconnu. He'd spent years studying abroad in the Far East and had gained some measure of enlightenment from studying with the Kuei-jin but couldn't rid himself of his rivalry with Helena.

+ Menele was similar to Khalid in the respect that while he wanted to achieve Golconda and had the willpower as well as technical knowledge to do it, he really-really wanted to kill Helena before he went off to do it.

+ Menele was, in my games, directly a pawn of Troile and her former (as if that matters to immortals) lover. When he was Beckoned, it was directly to Carthage versus the Middle East and he's been digging her and Moloch up the entire time--which should scare everyone.

+ Menele's past as a Baali corrupted vampire was one where he believed he was on the path to some great wisdom or godhood. It also was a place where he has blocked out, erased, or misremembered quite a bit of his actions. The human sacrifices and offering of children being something he despises about himself. His humanity was about 1 or 2 back then.

It's an old shame that required a lot of meditation, blood fasting, and cleansing to overcome.

+ Menele at one point studied with the Salubri antediluvian, though its very possible he did this in the centuries before Carthage and perhaps renewed the acquiantence in dreams or astral projection later. As such, he's dealt with one of the few people that could remove demonic taint of the level that he experienced.

+ Critias in my games is one of the immortals who never actually spent that much time in Carthage and forwards a lot of the academic, "They never practiced infant sacrifice!" narratives.

Non-Canon

+ I actually made Menele's war with Helena in Europe last a good deal longer with him taking the role of Michael in my setting. My Menele is responsible for the Fall of the Latin Roman Empire and its re-establishment as a Greek one with the help of the Tzimisce Dracon as well as Antonius the Gaul.

Obviously, Menele/Michael survives by fleeing to the New World. It strengthens the Baali/Menele connection. Mary the Black also has shown up in our games still seeking revenge on him as Menele's ghoul in Carthage.

[CTPhipps]

Reposted from the V6 thread because I think it discusses an element of V5 I've felt is underrated--Touchstones.

I dislike Touchstones as they seem to be used exclusively to screw the players. There is no upside to having them and I don't even mean entirely mechanically. To utilize them correctly I have to keep putting the PC's touchstones front and center in the story's narrative or they become pointless.

Allow me to use the universal language of Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines to show how you're wrong.

The Player (as I call the PC in my games) has a Touchstone who plays a front and center role in the game without drowning out the storyline. She was introduced in the chronicles, helps underline what sort of person the Player is, and also helps them maintain their humanity even when they're utterly abusive.

The Player Character's Touchstone is Heather Poe.

Heather Poe the Touchstone is created by an act of Humanity on the player character's part. She's dying of injuries sustained in a car crash and there's no chance anyone is going to save her life because someone with a better HMO is being treated first (or maybe it's just that bad of a neighborhood). Either way, the player character has established a measurable connection with a human being.

However, as a ghoul, the relationship is inherently fucked up. There's many shades of the fact that Heather can (and even wants to be, thanks to the Blood Bond) the Player's sex slave. She dresses up however the Player wants her to and gladly gives her blood to them. She's abandoning college, leaving her grandmother (among other family), and is fully prepared to grab a guy off the street for the player character to murder.

If you are a Humane vampire then you will now have a face to your victims. The whole point of a Touchstone being that you know someone other than "B-positive", "AIDs victim", "Alcoholic", and "Does spinning classes so her blood is extra oxygenated." You are ultimately given the choice of letting Heather go and gaining some more Humanity, getting her murdered by the Sabbat, or (with mods) keeping her as your connection to Humanity--however abusive that relationship is.

Ghouls are the best Touchstones and you can roleplay how much or how little your player character cares for them.

[CTPhipps]

Tremere

The Tremere are one of the Clans most effected by the events of 5th Edition with their inherently stable Pyramid of Power. I've always felt being a Tremere was a bit of a challenge because they were organized like a military unit with very little personal freedom. That was both part of the appeal and part of the challenge. In the Tremere, if you were in Chicago, you had Nicolai and Dusable both riding your ass as well as potentially manipulating you.

This is for some a downside but it was also a benefit for others. A lot of people really enjoyed the challenge of playing a Tremere since it required you to play something else. The experience of playing a Tremere for more than the Thaumaturgy was worthwhile as well as distinct.

I think destroying the Council of Seven and shaking up the apple cart was a good thing but it also came with consequences. Consequences that include more than just House Carna but also the fact the Tremere have lost a lot of flavor. You can still play an old school Tremere loyalist with Karl Schrekt (notable diablerist of Lupines) but you could easily fall into a trap of it becoming just like all the rest.

The Tremere of Chicago aren't 100% what I would have done with them but my players took the lead with them in my campaign so I'm entirely cool with the results.

Abraham Dusable

Type: NPC

Synopsis: Traumatized Magician

Review: Dusable is a great character and one that I rank with others for, "guys you don't need to change too much to be awesome." The black lawyer turned into a wizard who is simultaneously stunted in his current role as well as aware he has gone farther than he might not have gone normally. It's an interesting contrast that benefited from him being Nicolai's surrogate father while leaving him open to new possibilities with his recently-acquired freedom.

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of the way Dusable has been developed. Dusable was a very interesting character in large part because of his relationship with Nicolai, Garwood Marshall, and Maldavis. Two out of those three are now dead. It's left Dusable without many people to play off against and he has been written as having become both reclusive as well as apolitical. Really, the vampire he's closest to in the Modern Nights is Gengis and that's sad since no one should be close to Gengis.

Indeed, Dusable is at a bit of a crossroads as he's a guy who has decided to give up seeking political power and focus on accumulating metaphysical power. The problem is he has no one to rule over in the chantry and "I read for 200 years" is pretty much the only use for such a character. At the very least Dusable should be seeking new mages to Embrace or occult students but even this is hurt because he hates mages.

I think a much more interesting use of Dusable's time would be to Embrace all of the mages from The Book of Chantries House of the Sepulcher. Mind you, all of those guys are now probably middle aged Hollow Ones who have either become Masters themselves or joined one of the other traditions. At the very least, Dusable should be working on getting new progeny and being annoyed that Kevin Jackson doesn't intend to let the Tremere Embrace anyone knew (since he's an established bigot in the clan). Really, as written Dusable is the ruler of a kingdom with no subjects and has no ambitions or plots that could involve him in the player character's machinations. Maybe I'm just reading it wrong but he is not in a good spot as an NPC.

One thing I do commend the writers for doing is that they've given a lot of attention to the Second Massasa War in the supplement Blood Treachery. I don't think anyone actually liked that volume because it was a conflict that didn't make much sense and was mostly an excuse for vampire-hunting rotes in a time when the Order of Hermes was at its weakest. Still, the effects it has had on Dusable and his vampire PTSD is well-handled in the text.

An area I don't agree with is the treatment of the character as having Humanity 3. Humanity 3 basically means a vampire is a sadistic serial killer who has fallen to the point they are going to eventually reach wassail. Son is Humanity 2 in this version after all. Nothing in Dusable's write-up indicates he is either sadistic or a mass murderer dominated by his hunger. Yes, he had Humanity 4 in previous editions but that was when Humanity 4 meant something a lot different than it did in Revised let alone 5th Edition. Dusable should probably have Humanity 5 even if he is a cold blooded consciousness killer.

I say this knowing he has a sick lust for his grand niece and his great great grandniece.

So, yeah, I'm not going to give an A-grade here. It's very well written but just doesn't fit my idea of the character.

[CTPhipps]

Well, for whatever reason I can't update the first post anymore. WE'RE IN UNCHARTED WATERS NOW, FRIENDS!