WIR 5E Anarchs

[MyWifeIsScary]

Is that Cannon? Or head cannon?

Doesn't it sound like actual canon though?

Guest doesn't care for the Elders being portrayed as short-sighted idiots and prefers them to be incredibly brilliant 3 dimensional chessmasters that are playing the long game.

on the suspicion that this might be sarcastic...
1 If i thought of it, it can't be that complicated right? Seems like it would be pretty simple from their points of view.
2 you know a lot of elders had intellegence ratings of 6 and above, right? I'm not saying they're all geniuses, but there's enough if those to make the plan work.

[CTPhipps]

Doesn't it sound like actual canon though?

on the suspicion that this might be sarcastic...
1 If i thought of it, it can't be that complicated right? Seems like it would be pretty simple from their points of view.
2 you know a lot of elders had intellegence ratings of 6 and above, right? I'm not saying they're all geniuses, but there's enough if those to make the plan work.

Actually, it's weird because multiple people wrote me assuming it was sarcastic.

It was not.

I had a little :sincere: underneath it too but removed it because I assumed that it would be obvious I was sincere. I also gave you a compliment that it actually showed an improved relationship to V5 and appreciated your attempt to try to reconcile it to your playstyle.

:thumbs up:

[MyWifeIsScary]

I had a little :sincere: underneath it too but removed it because I assumed that it would be obvious I was sincere. I also gave you a compliment that it actually showed an improved relationship to V5 and appreciated your attempt to try to reconcile it to your playstyle.

:thumbs up:

You say this, but I still can't come to grips with v5's mechanics; The Metaplot? Salvagable, potentially even good. Mechanics? Given prior editions, Some of it is subjectively bad, some of it is objectively bad insofar as it interacts with the story but I suppose if you don't care for a coherent story it's not really that big of an issue, and some of it is just terrible in all aspects unless you become willfully ignorant. When I talk about V5 metaplot, I'm thinking under the assumption of the mechanics of the prior editions, because if I did think about any metaplot with V5 mechanics, I'd be destracted by thoughts like "Why isn't suicide more common? Why do lasombra exist now? Shouldn't the average humanity rating be 3 now since it's way to expensive to buy back up? Shouldn't golconda take ten thousand years? Should I take the fact that armour doesn't work for vampires as a purely mechanical oversight or is it a mystical thing and I should delete all my dark-age imagination concerning vampire knights? Can Vampires really be blamed for their beasts acting up when there's much less they can do to mitigate things. Why did the elders fear diablerie when it's a really bad idea unless you're a saint and thus unlikely to diablerise? how.... how does vampire society come to even remotely resemble what it is?

Metaplot good
Mechanics bad

Anyhow, I whacked up this political compass, of course I couldn't do every detail (like sabbat factions) without it becoming a mess.

Some notes
-Anarchs could totally take anyone else's spot on that compass.
-This concerns vampires and their direct servants; If we concerned ourselves with mortal politics , being vampires, they'd all be in the blue corner, because that's the best place to feed in.

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

2 you know a lot of elders had intellegence ratings of 6 and above, right? I'm not saying they're all geniuses, but there's enough if those to make the plan work.

For one thing, an intelligence of 6 is a specific designation for a particular ability - it does not automatically translate into surpassing competence in other areas. It just means they can pass the written portion of a driving test with flying colors, but they might still crash into a telephone pole before leaving the parking lot.

For another, unless the PCs are playing elders the game is not about elders. It is about the PC vampires dealing with (among other things) elders. A high level of intelligence on paper for and NPC does not mean the elder automatically wins at everything the ST has them do with tangling with the PCs. It does not allow a ST to hand wave away any time the PCs performed well in their own dice rolls or just out maneuvered the ST.

[Spencer from The Hills]

Anyhow, I whacked up this political compass, of course I couldn't do every detail (like sabbat factions) without it becoming a mess.

In what sort of ways do you think Bahari are that authoritarian?

[MyWifeIsScary]

In what sort of ways do you think Bahari are that authoritarian?

I'm glad you asked: Literal chains. (I might've put them that high as a joke)

In seriousness , they do have several concerning authoritarian tendancies:

Groupthink
Demands of like-minded behaviour
Acceptance of dogma; questions are punishable.
plentiful self sacrifice for a higher purpose
A long list of external enemies to be mad at.
Belief in a conspiracy against them (or lilith)
Assertions of superiority over other 'cainites'
Owing to the amount of time you spend with the group in torture and the push for "knowledge" rather than material power, you are unlikely to have any really holdings of your own, and so Ostracism should you speak out would be a terrifying prospect.


So yeah, Bahari are quite the frightening collection of cults, even if they weren't turning themselves inside out on the regular. There might be nicer cults, but they probably don't last as long.

[Spencer from The Hills]

I'm glad you asked: Literal chains. (I might've put them that high as a joke)

In seriousness , they do have several concerning authoritarian tendancies:

Groupthink
Demands of like-minded behaviour
Acceptance of dogma; questions are punishable.
plentiful self sacrifice for a higher purpose
A long list of external enemies to be mad at.
Belief in a conspiracy against them (or lilith)
Assertions of superiority over other 'cainites'
Owing to the amount of time you spend with the group in torture and the push for "knowledge" rather than material power, you are unlikely to have any really holdings of your own, and so Ostracism should you speak out would be a terrifying prospect.


So yeah, Bahari are quite the frightening collection of cults, even if they weren't turning themselves inside out on the regular. There might be nicer cults, but they probably don't last as long.

Ah. I've been tempted to think of them as VtM's Circle of the Crone, which I think would be approaching the Setites' position, but this is more like how they're written, at least in V5.

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

The Reign of Terror

Vive la revolution!

Vive la terreur!

Agata "guillotine fangirl" Starek discusses vampire politics and trends during this stage of the French Revolution. She admits to not being present, but it is not clear if she was simply somewhere else or had not been born yet.

There are a lot factors going into the French Revolution, including large scale social changes across Europe, discontent in France itself but all the issues were exacerbated by a financial crisis. The system could no longer support the Ancien Regeme.

The Ancien Régime ("old rule") was the political and social system of the Kingdom of France from the Late Middle Ages until the French Revolution of 1789, which led to the abolition of hereditary monarchy and of the feudal system of the French nobility. The late Valois and Bourbon dynasties ruled during the Ancien Régime. As much as they could European nobility and the royal families of the time tended towards absolute power. The French, more so than most others, formalized it into law and into legal and moral philosophy. However, the system was always rotten for the general population, and in the end brittle and unsustainable. Naturally, it was heavily infested with vampires.

Francois “The weenie” Villon fled Paris when the city descended into the chaos of the revolution. And the revolution did fall into chaos, eating itself and eventually turning into a dictatorship under Napoleon. Some of the worst of the violence is called the Reign of Terror.

The Reign of Terror was a period of the French Revolution following the creation of the First French Republic, massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervor, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety.

There is disagreement among historians over when exactly "the Terror" began. However, there is a consensus that it ended with the fall of Robespierre in 1794. By then, 16,594 official death sentences had been dispensed throughout France, of which 2,639 were in Paris alone; and an additional 10,000 died without a trial.

Not everyone was executed with a guillotine – those were elaborate mechanisms. Many people were just killed with the usual tools of swords, guns, knives, bricks, baguettes, and so on. Even so, Starek writes.

I wish I could have just laid down right next to the guillotine and let the blood from each decapitation flow into my mouth.

During the chaos of the revolution – and the Terror in particular – Starek asserts…

“…dozens of Camarilla vampires who had lived among the aristocracy died, sometimes dragged out of their havens during the day by the new revolutionary authorities.

Wiping out dozens (as in multiple of 12, so anywhere from 12 to 148) of vampires would have really gutted the local Camarilla. This is probably why some of the more high minded reforms of the revolutionaries and the Anarchs were able to make it into law and become a part of society. These included equality before the law and due process – neither or which exist in Camarilla law.

Part of the take away here is that while the Anarchs had essentially been defeated and consumed by the Camarilla at Thorns, anarchs and other malcontents continued to exist. The system of the Camarilla created them, and every war and revolution gave them an opportunity to strike out and strike back. The French revolution was simply one such instance – albeit a more successful one.

First Digression: As an aside, a lot of modern ideas, or at least visual imagery, of the French revolution and the Terror comes from The Scarlet Pimpernel a novel by Baroness Orczy, published in 1905. Western Movies have a similar influence about our ideas about the American West. The Scarlet Pimpernel has been made into a movie a few times. The novel is a bit like someone in the 1% writing fan-fic about another person in the 1% saving yet other people in the 1% from BLM protestors.

Second Digression: My heuristic is that everything in the WoD is at least 10% worse than in the Real World. So, 18,254+ official death sentences had been dispensed throughout France since June 1793, of which 2,903+ were in Paris alone; and an additional 11,000+ executed without trial or prison. The Terror, depending on who you asked, ran from September of 1772 through July of 1794. That is 23 months, 92 week, or about 700 days. Which means on average 26 were being executed nationwide every day, and 4 every day in Paris.

What a time to be a vampire in France.

Third Digression: I hope Robespierre survived in the WoD as a vampire or a wraith.

[CTPhipps]

CT Phipps' opinion on the French Revolution

One of the things that V:TM runs into the problem of is the fact that it attempts to condense all of history into easily digestable bites that can sort of run into the problem of making it nonsensical. For example, there's "two" Anarch Revolts with the original one happening in the High Middle Ages and the 2nd one happening with the death of Prince Sebastian Juan Dominguez. You know, an entirely fictious revolt that only affects the state of California.

This, of course, ignores the following events that seem like they would be rather important to the Anarchs vs. Camarilla:

* The American Revolution
* The French Revolution
* The Haitian Revolution
* The Scottish Uprising
* The Mejii Revolution
* The Bolshevik Revolution

There's always a discussion over how much vampires should be involved in "real" world's history, I tend to view vampires always on the edge of it. They make things bloodier, nastier, and more violent while rarely changing the shape of history. For example, John Brown's Rebellion isn't going to have John Brown be a Brujah (albeit you can if that's going to be the focus of your game) but you might have some Brujah trying to help behind the scenes while Ventrue and Toreador try to stop it or blacken his name afterward.

I take the view that Anarchs are not "the good guys" but they're sometimes on the right side of history. During the Civil War, I can easily see Brujah fighting for the Union and the Underground Railroad while also a bunch of Brujah fighting for the Confederacy. Not because of "States' Rights" but because some Brujah are just racist fucks. I imagine there were Nazi, Soviet, Anarchist, and French Resistance Brujah too.

The French Revolution is a good setting for a Anarch revolt because it is the perfect place for a Brujah revolt against Toreador and Camarilla Elders before the usual problems happen: Brujah turning on each other, disagreeing on what sort of society to build after victory, and those getting bribed into betraying the cause. The Brujah are dominated by their rage and Beasts so they tend to "lose" whatever revolts they make because their rage never subsides.

Interestingly, Jason Carl canonized some interesting facts about the French Revolution for LA By Night that are a bit "Second Edition-esque" but are still fun:

* Francois Villon was living in Versailles as his haven.
* He ghouled Marie Antoinette.
* He and his guests openly did atrocities to amuse themselves.
* He helped himself liberally to the French purse despite starvation.
* Xelios built an elaborate underground complex underneath the place.
* The Anarchs were aided by the Sabbat (and it's implied the two groups were indistinguishable at the time).
* Lucita and Karsh were often his guests
* Francois would sometimes murder his ghouls for no reason.
* Francois claimed to have been a 2500 year old Carthagian vampire when he was, of course, just a 5th generation childe of Helena barely 200 years old at this time.

My view of the French Revolution is that I imagine that it was probably the center of another "hunter's paradise" where vampires got careless and arrogant in their power, only to result in hunters going on killing sprees and burning down the homes of wealthy undead or dragging them out into the sun. This decadent psychosis and Jason Carl's handling of things is also basically what happened in TRANSYLVANIA CHRONICLES.

I'm intrigued by also the idea the European Sabbat and Anarchs weren't necessarily distinguishable at this time because much of the "Modern Day" Sabbat as we know them are products of the American Revolution as well as the absortion of the culture there. Before the power base moved to Mexico City, European Sabbat are basically indistinguishable from "normal" Anarchs and Pre-Dark Age elders.

This is also when Madame Guile is Embraced and the French Revolution made a powerful impression on her of just how much Camarilla vampires Elders sucked. No pun intended. It might explain also how some Anarchs got away to fester since one of the most feared and hateful Justicars was on their side.

[MyWifeIsScary]

CT Phipps' opinion on the French Revolution
This, of course, ignores the following events that seem like they would be rather important to the Anarchs vs. Camarilla:

* The American Revolution -Might start off encouraging some Anarch stuff, but is primarily a Cam vs Cam affair. This war is far too idealized.
* The French Revolution - sure, it was a big enough clusterfuck. No doubt became Camarilla in the end.
* The Haitian Revolution - looking at the event; There's no way this was anarch
* The Scottish Uprising - not anarch, though more possible than Haiti.
* The Meijii Restoration - not anarch, namely because it was successful.
* The Bolshevik Revolution - Sure. But mortal opinion has so turned against this that maybe it's not a great idea to emphasize; Even if the USSR became a great place for vampires, the human reputation kinda spoils it.

The first anarch revolt occuring during the end of the medieval/early renaissance was a smart move. That was the first big cultural shift with huge leaps in technology in a long, long time.

[DrHappyAngry]

The American Revolution would have concerned the Sabbat a lot more at the time, but the Revised Anarchs book does put emphasis on the French Revolution which was influenced by the American Revolution. The French Revolution is pretty much the first event after the anarch revolt the book mentions. There's some mention of the American Revolution, but it seems like it wasn't influenced by kindred and more influenced vampires with it's writings by mortals like Jefferson, Franklin and the Brit Thomas Payne.

The Haitian revolution seems like it'd offer a lot of good material. It is the only time in history that slaves managed to actually overthrow their masters and start governing themselves. Maybe some anarchs decided to ride the wave, but it'd seem like the locals were the main instigators and movers. You could have a lot of fun with various factions of Setites, Samedi, Brujah instigators, Cam plantation owners and anarch pirates taking advantage of the situation, though. Hmm, now I kind of want to run a game in the setting.

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

* He helped himself liberally to the French purse despite starvation.
* Xelios built an elaborate underground complex underneath the place.

In game the complex is probably still under Versailles. That is a bit amusing.

In terms of vampires controlling things, it is worth reiterating vampires can control - through Dominate, Presence and the blood bond - individuals and small groups of people. They cannot directly control masses of people and situations. Villon, in the WoD, probably influenced the selection of the finance ministers running up to the Revolution (and the decisions they made), this did not mean he was in real control of the French economy. Just that he made it all worse, which contributed to the French Revolution and the destruction of the Ancien Régime and his own power base for decdes. This is the difference between having a 6 in intelligence on the character sheet and actually knowing what you are doing.

[Guest]

CTPhipps in my opinion, the Jacobite Rebellion was a Toreador-backed uprising against the Ventrue power structure controlled by Mithras.

Btw I love Outlander 💕.

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

‘68

Beginning in May 1968, a period of civil unrest occurred throughout France, lasting some seven weeks and punctuated by demonstrations, general strikes, and the occupation of universities and factories. At the height of events, which have since become known as May 68, the economy of France came to a halt. The protests reached such a point that political leaders feared civil war or revolution; the national government briefly ceased to function after President Charles de Gaulle secretly fled France to Germany at one point. The protests spurred movements worldwide, with songs, imaginative graffiti, posters, and slogans.

Agata "the problem" Starek missed the Revolution proper but was around for the May 68 protests.

And you know what? It was pretty great. This is one of those classic uprisings that people remember, and the first one I'm old enough to have participated in.
-Sterek

I take it from that she has only been a vampire for 60 years or so. In any case, the May 68 riots in France drew many Anarchs (the vampires) and anarchs (the humans) from all over the place. She says she spent a night with Tyler, but that again may be a case of personifying Tyler in every hard ass independent woman who is unidentified. Vampires might be identifying Sterek as Tyler if they do not know who Sterek is and she doesn’t name herself.

So the Camarilla retreated and Villon again went into hiding. Sterek apparently diablerized a Camarilla vampire and generally enjoyed herself immensely.

As with the Camarilla book, Anarchs is composed of multiple in-character discussions of one thing or another. Sterek’s voice seems the most clearly developed, in her bouncing back and forth morally and ethically. She has moments of considerable violence and considerable insight – she notes the riots did not last long enough for the Anarchs to poison the events and what happened later. Few other vampires seem to have that level of insight into what they are and what they do.

A takeaway here is the cyclical nature of these things. An established order becomes unsupportable. There is a revolution and riots that thrash things out, and often settle into becoming the new established order. Which becomes unsupportable…

A digression: And again, history does not repeat so much as it rhymes. Currently in America the economy has been massively slowed, if not stopped (albeit by a pandemic rather than protests) while schools and universities are closed, protests are ongoing, with supporting protests appearing in other nations. And so on…

In the WoD version of the demonstrations of the summer 2020, Sterek is probably involved a throwing flaming cars at people who irritate her.

[CTPhipps]

In game the complex is probably still under Versailles. That is a bit amusing.

In terms of vampires controlling things, it is worth reiterating vampires can control - through Dominate, Presence and the blood bond - individuals and small groups of people. They cannot directly control masses of people and situations. Villon, in the WoD, probably influenced the selection of the finance ministers running up to the Revolution (and the decisions they made), this did not mean he was in real control of the French economy. Just that he made it all worse, which contributed to the French Revolution and the destruction of the Ancien Régime and his own power base for decdes. This is the difference between having a 6 in intelligence on the character sheet and actually knowing what you are doing.

As one of my players said, "A man with Intelligence 6 can fake being as good as a Intelligence 3 and Finance 3 financer. But he's got nothing on the actual experts."