W5 to be Released August 31. Pre ordens open. Preview coming this Thursday

[Saur Ops Specialist]

Fair point, in such a case the vampiric detective will have to find the shadow lords by finding other pack members, and then investigate until hopefully finding that one member that seems to not register a specific aura.

Which means finding a full shadow lords setts will be nightmarish, but that's expected

And they'll probably notice you doing it; Thunder's brood is sneaky like that, and Stormcrows can always be hired to lend a hand.

I'm not sure lf that first part, don't they go to the astral umbra instead?

You're not on the Vampire forum right now, so...

The thing to remember is that such a spy could follow the garou day and night, so indeed, the garous are out of vampiric sight in the umbra, but garous do meet each others, and more importantly, they meet their loved ones, which then become blackmail materual.

You're going to get a rude awakening trying this with the Theurge, whose loved ones are, in large part, spirits. Spirits that quite possibly don't like or even actively hate vampires (they said that Garou might not be out for vampires, but they've not mentioned anything about spirits changing their tack...)

My bad, I was applying non W5 logic

Howether, it may work by replacing kinfolks with "non garou friends and family"

It's still up in the air if they can actually have those. At the very least, there's a high probability that they don't meet them anywhere near often enough for you to find out, or have easy to pickup connections due to the effects of Rage on humans. And if they're lupus, they flat out likely won't have the ties that you're looking for. In fact, lupus are going to pick up on your suspicious body language very quickly; they grew up being shadowed and chased constantly for years, they know how to deal with that.

Indeed, it will be dangerous, but it's achievable, and it certainly beat the "don't go into the wood and be paralysed of terror at the though of a lupine going in the city" behavior described in vtm fluff.

Even more achievable is a random lightning strike just popping a snoopy vampire when they're not paying attention to the gathering clouds over head. Bonus: likely Masquerade breach whether you survive or not!

[Nyremne]

That actually sounds incredible time intensive and it seems like whoever is doing that would need to spend a fairly significant portion of their time hunting for werewolves

Well, it's time well spent when the reward is the elimination of one of the greatest threat to you and the other kindred of your city/region.

And vampires are know to dedicate a lot of their tie to specific pursuits, be it politics, thaumaturgical research, or, accordingly spying on others.

. An Elder who spends most of his nights hunting for werewolves is probably neglecting a lot of issues elsewhere.

An elder would not be the detective, but rather the coordinator, or merely the boss of the detective.
In fact, this task is pretty much the type of thing a prince would demand from a neonate coterie, or a reason to embrace sneaky individuals.

Not to mention that a vampire who spends a significant portion of time in topor (because his soul is off possessing animals or people) risks turning himself into a snack for another vampire.

Only if their body is exposed. With, say, auspex 5, you can leave your body from inside your secure haven, and leave by going through the walls/ceilling.

It's also mainly a risk if you're alone and in cities/regions with a lack of ruling against diablerie.

Such a spy could have ghouls, be protected by their sire which would have groomed them specifically to map the local werewolves, be part of a chantry, assamite cell or sabbat pack.

It's also rarely a problem when you're projecting/possessing during the day, when most vampires are asleep, and then you have as much risk as, well, any vampire since they sleep during the day.

And that's not even getting into the risks of being noticed by a werewolf you're tailing, who ends up using a spirit to tail you back to your body and then kill you

Now that's the actual risk, but then, it's similar to a human undercover cop spying mafioso. There's an unavoidable risk of being noticed and to meet a certain end while going back home. But it's a necessary risk.

or the fact that the bright aura isn't unique to werewolves so a vampire could easily end up tailing some other sort of supernatural being instead.

Indeed,. And that's why I precised, after seeing the aura, that the spy should follow the individual to confirm or infirm that they are a werewolf.

And itf they aren't? It's not a loss, since you identified another supernatural being, making yourself and your boss more knowledgable on what lives or unlives in your city/region.

In fact, such spying tactic should indeed be used by any vampiric factions or even basically thoughfull vampire individual to map the supernatural around them. Because when you're so focused on survival, you cannot allow yourself to ignore the unknown things around you.

Ultimately this seems like anything but "easy." Could it work? Sure, maybe. But it seems like there's also a very high chance you'd end up with a dead vampire.

It's easy as in it doesn't takes much ressources or strategy. Yes, the risks are non negligeable, but after all, it's the common fates of vampiric plans. Which often includes a few dead neonates.


In fact, such a plan could be put in place by a single elder or coterie/pack, embracing specific individuals such as ex cops, or private detectives. Or simply overly curious mortals. You then train them specifically toward the aforementioned disciplines and launch them toward distance spying werewolves.

You'll probably lose some, but let's not pretend it's a conundrum for elders, neonates can easily be replaced,. Especially if the local prince approves of your plan.


And the potential rewards is a bunch of werewolves either dead, blackmailed into backstabing each others, or simply forced to leave due to constant and suddent pressure from police, administration, criminal elements, or the poor kinfolk dominated into stabbing their garou wife in the bed with a silver knife before torching the caern with fire.



It's not saying that garou don't have the means to retaliates or spy back. But that even a moderatly populated and organised kindred city have all the means and motivation to at least try to eliminates the local garou. Which is always better than "don't go into the wood, and pray they don't huff and puff at the elysium's doors".

[Nyremne]

And they'll probably notice you doing it; Thunder's brood is sneaky like that, and Stormcrows can always be hired to lend a hand.

Probably, although I don't know if stormcrows can enter any umbra outqide of the middle one

You're not on the Vampire forum right now, so...

And I wasn't talking about vampire's rules. I also play werewolf and I genuinely don't remember such rules about vampires projecting into the dark umbra. Not saying, you're wrong, but it just seems weird to me, especially when mage's also mention that vampire projects into astral umbra.

You're going to get a rude awakening trying this with the Theurge, whose loved ones are, in large part, spirits. Spirits that quite possibly don't like or even actively hate vampires (they said that Garou might not be out for vampires, but they've not mentioned anything about spirits changing their tack...)

Theurges are no less likely to have flesh and blood loved ones.

It's still up in the air if they can actually have those. At the very least, there's a high probability that they don't meet them anywhere near often enough for you to find out, or have easy to pickup connections due to the effects of Rage on humans. And if they're lupus, they flat out likely won't have the ties that you're looking for. In fact, lupus are going to pick up on your suspicious body language very quickly; they grew up being shadowed and chased constantly for years, they know how to deal with that.

Fair enough for lupus, but it seems unlikely that W5 garou would not have non garou loved ones. Especially since the few W5 related material, such as the recent visual novel, have such people.

Plus, even if you indeed have a sept that as a strict "no relations with humans", it's members will have to interact in some way with humans, even if only to gather information, pay the gang member that stay silent when your pack reunite in the abandonned warehouse,etc people that can then potentially be weaponised against them. And neither of these will be a sept breaker in itself, having your now dominated landlord set fire to your appartement, the gang suddently firing at you when not expected and so on can make your life far more difficult

Even more achievable is a random lightning strike just popping a snoopy vampire when they're not paying attention to the gathering clouds over head. Bonus: likely Masquerade breach whether you survive or not!

Hardly. A vampire possessing a human or a crow taking enough damage for it's possessed body to die would only enter torpor. And one that is astrally projecting would only have a jumpscare from the sudden noise and light where they're merely spiritually present.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

Probably, although I don't know if stormcrows can enter any umbra outqide of the middle one

They can 1) frequently talk to Garou through the Umbra, and 2) pick out the ugly looking blot that is a vampire in the Umbra, though W5 may handle this differently. And probably way worse.

And I wasn't talking about vampire's rules. I also play werewolf and I genuinely don't remember such rules about vampires projecting into the dark umbra. Not saying, you're wrong, but it just seems weird to me, especially when mage's also mention that vampire projects into astral umbra.

Admittedly, it's legacy from the Revised ST Handbook, but that assumes that Vampires are skimming the Dark Umbra.

Theurges are no less likely to have flesh and blood loved ones.

Potentially/likely also guarded by spirits.

Fair enough for lupus, but it seems unlikely that W5 garou would not have non garou loved ones. Especially since the few W5 related material, such as the recent visual novel, have such people.

I didn't say that they wouldn't have any. I said that your stakeout might not be nearly long-term enough to catch them meeting someone they might only see once every few months or per year.

Plus, even if you indeed have a sept that as a strict "no relations with humans", it's members will have to interact in some way with humans, even if only to gather information, pay the gang member that stay silent when your pack reunite in the abandonned warehouse,etc people that can then potentially be weaponised against them. And neither of these will be a sept breaker in itself, having your now dominated landlord set fire to your appartement, the gang suddently firing at you when not expected and so on can make your life far more difficult

Those are also dead giveaways that someone is lazily reading from the Vampire Operations Handbook.

Hardly. A vampire possessing a human or a crow taking enough damage for it's possessed body to die would only enter torpor. And one that is astrally projecting would only have a jumpscare from the sudden noise and light where they're merely spiritually present.

There are metaphorical dimensions to that, but I'm not sure how W5 is going to ruin them.

[Damian May]

The One thing I love about Kindred succeeding in wiping out the local Garou population is that it means that they just royally screwed themselves over. Without pressure from Garou the Bane and Fomori populations explode, Pentex Subsidiaries start muscling in on all the Ventrue holdings, peoples blood starts tasting worse due to the influences on them, the Nosferatu stop responding to messages because something far worse just took over their Warren.....and why did Geoff's butler just vomit up all his internal organs?

[Shakanaka]

Garou population numbers in urban areas aren't high to begin with. The few that are there are either Bone Gnawers or Glass Walkers. If the Kindred hedged up enough resources and manpower to succeed in a campaign of wiping out the local Garou in the countryside, nothing really noticeable would prop up in the cities itself.

Maybe the suburban areas, and definitely the rural ones, but urban areas? Again, not that much effect will take place.

Even if things DO go bad with Banes in Kindred controlled territory, the local prince who had enough power to wipe out the local Garou, can probably comfortably deal with that problem as well. They'd either have Tremere in the city to deal with the Spirits, or any of the other sorcerous bloodlines or clans on contract to help with the matter if no Tremere are present (either Giovanni, even though they frequently specialize with Wraiths from the Low Umbra than Spirits from the Middle Umbra/Spirit Wilds; or maybe the Nagaraja.. but they're very rare; or as a very last resort, the Followers of Set.. but those guys are much more likely to support and entice the growth of Banes to begin with.. so very unreliable for a job on that).

Fomori would be easier to fight against than Banes, since they are in a physical form and/or has possessed a former mortal. Just either have a Brujah, Gangrel, or Assamite handle them. Venture can pitch in for the fighting (their Fortitude would sure help the war effort) even though they usually dislike getting their hands dirty (but if its antitribu Sabbat Venture, they sure like to fight, don't they? lol). Tzimisce out of all of the aforementioned clans would be the greatest advantage for either a Prince or Archbishop to have (and concerning the former, Tzimisce usually are the Archbishops) to fight against both Banes and Fomori.

[Ragged Robin]

Personally I see it as academic If a vampire is of the wyrm or not. You're talking about an immortal predator which 90 out of a 100 is a complete bastard and of those remaining 10, 9 either have been a murdering scumbag or will degenerate into one. Humans, regular humans have very little reason to tolerate their presence outside of personal interests with werewolves less so.

[Ana Mizuki]

This came up in a chat with some buddies; W5's text really doesn't give nature space. The focus is solely on suburbs or urban areas, with very little focus on just outright wilderness.

[MyWifeIsScary]

The One thing I love about Kindred succeeding in wiping out the local Garou population is that it means that they just royally screwed themselves over. Without pressure from Garou the Bane and Fomori populations explode, Pentex Subsidiaries start muscling in on all the Ventrue holdings, peoples blood starts tasting worse due to the influences on them, the Nosferatu stop responding to messages because something far worse just took over their Warren.....and why did Geoff's butler just vomit up all his internal organs?

What? No. From a vampire prespective, Wyrm corporations are exactly the same as regular corporations, they're about as competitive, you don't need the wyrm to have psycho management, and vampires can invest in them just as easily as other corporations. As for blood? In some instances the wyrm will make them taste better, but generally speaking there won't be any significant changes. You should also recognize that Vampires do some environmental engineering of their own for security purposes which encourages the wyrm but vampires in the WoD aren't the virgin hunters in other vampire media and have only been discriminate about blood quality in a few extreme cases (and V5 I guess).
As for Nosferatu being pushed out of their warrens? fat chance. Broadly speaking vampires > Formor, and honestly the Wyld is a bigger threat when it comes to the Ratkin who generally avoid the nos but would be a massive threat if they changed their mind.

This came up in a chat with some buddies; W5's text really doesn't give nature space. The focus is solely on suburbs or urban areas, with very little focus on just outright wilderness.

This is a common issue with many of today's writers, they all come from highly cosmopolitan cities and don't really realize that's not how the rest of the world is. Cities (or at least the ones they're thinking of) are home to all kinds of interesting and diverse people worth celebrating while the country is filled with backwards, racist hicks and isn't important in any way, shape or form.

[Shadeprowler]

The One thing I love about Kindred succeeding in wiping out the local Garou population is that it means that they just royally screwed themselves over. Without pressure from Garou the Bane and Fomori populations explode, Pentex Subsidiaries start muscling in on all the Ventrue holdings, peoples blood starts tasting worse due to the influences on them, the Nosferatu stop responding to messages because something far worse just took over their Warren.....and why did Geoff's butler just vomit up all his internal organs?

I'm not sure that woudl ever happen
Let's face it, the Garou of pre WW5 not really cleared any city from the Wyrm, not even minimized its effects on the greater scale
Arguably the biggest thing the Garou achieved was the Covenant but even that was Siegfried's, the Ventrue Prince of Vancouver idea; a peace treaty between the local Kindred and the Lupines (In exchange for aiding in reforestation attempts and fighting against resource exploitation, the Lupines would guard his domain from any unwanted intruders and would refrain from unprovoked violence against vampires under Siegfried's protection)
I mean that was HUGE and quite effective while it lasted - aside this the Garou pack's were basically just bio-terrorist, mild anoyance in the grand scheme of things

The Nosferatu Warrens are fortified underground fortresses not just to provide home to the local Nosferatu but the main line of deffense against the Nictuku and more often than not have their own spawning pools, where vitae is pooled and Animalism utilized to create grotesquely overgrown, fiercely loyal ghoul guardians from subterranean animals – or from animals that are not traditionally found beneath the city streets, such as crocodiles and other "surprises"
Even the BSD and the Ratkin awoid the Nosferatu warrens

[Saur Ops Specialist]

What? No. From a vampire prespective, Wyrm corporations are exactly the same as regular corporations, they're about as competitive, you don't need the wyrm to have psycho management, and vampires can invest in them just as easily as other corporations. As for blood? In some instances the wyrm will make them taste better, but generally speaking there won't be any significant changes. You should also recognize that Vampires do some environmental engineering of their own for security purposes which encourages the wyrm but vampires in the WoD aren't the virgin hunters in other vampire media and have only been discriminate about blood quality in a few extreme cases (and V5 I guess).
As for Nosferatu being pushed out of their warrens? fat chance. Broadly speaking vampires > Formor, and honestly the Wyld is a bigger threat when it comes to the Ratkin who generally avoid the nos but would be a massive threat if they changed their mind.

Broadly speaking, fomori are also typically no match for Garou. But every so often, you get one that's turbo-charged, and while Garou are typically resilient enough to deal with that... well, fomori have a track record of throwing agg around like water just like the werewolves, which vampires don't do so well with, to say the least. Combine that with unexpected psychic powers or being perpetually on fire, and you get a combatant that's an outside context problem, with the outside context creating a situation where the fomor basically just one-shots whatever vampire comes across, because there aren't any ludicrously resilient elders around.

(Also, the Wyld isn't the greater threat to anyone. It's on the back foot; a few breakthroughs via Thresholds in caerns make it more threatening to Garou and Fera than to vampires.)

This is a common issue with many of today's writers, they all come from highly cosmopolitan cities and don't really realize that's not how the rest of the world is. Cities (or at least the ones they're thinking of) are home to all kinds of interesting and diverse people worth celebrating while the country is filled with backwards, racist hicks and isn't important in any way, shape or form.

I think it's just that they got way too many people who thought that they were writing for Vampire. The entire project, from start to finish, is just an attempt to make Werewolf more like Vampire, because there's some notion that if they make it more like Vampire, it'll be more popular and therefore garner more money, resulting in a project successful by the only metric that a big company cares about.

It's doomed to fail, of course. This isn't the 90s anymore; Vampire has a pittance of the market share compared to D&D. Hasbro and WotC long ago conspired to get All of The Money in this industry, and they were successful because no one cared about the meager amount of money that's in it, compared to other industries. I doubt that even Hasbro actually cares, but damned if it's not going to try to milk that stone dry of blood even so with the effective monopoly that it enjoys over rpgs.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

I'm not sure that woudl ever happen
Let's face it, the Garou of pre WW5 not really cleared any city from the Wyrm, not even minimized its effects on the greater scale
Arguably the biggest thing the Garou achieved was the Covenant but even that was Siegfried's, the Ventrue Prince of Vancouver idea; a peace treaty between the local Kindred and the Lupines (In exchange for aiding in reforestation attempts and fighting against resource exploitation, the Lupines would guard his domain from any unwanted intruders and would refrain from unprovoked violence against vampires under Siegfried's protection)
I mean that was HUGE and quite effective while it lasted - aside this the Garou pack's were basically just bio-terrorist, mild anoyance in the grand scheme of things

The Nosferatu Warrens are fortified underground fortresses not just to provide home to the local Nosferatu but the main line of deffense against the Nictuku and more often than not have their own spawning pools, where vitae is pooled and Animalism utilized to create grotesquely overgrown, fiercely loyal ghoul guardians from subterranean animals – or from animals that are not traditionally found beneath the city streets, such as crocodiles and other "surprises"
Even the BSD and the Ratkin awoid the Nosferatu warrens

Yes, because the Nosferatu are so good at defending against Nictuku. Just ask Baba Yaga, 4th gen and over-statted elder!... oh, wait. You can't. A Nictuku killer her.

[Nyremne]

Yes, because the Nosferatu are so good at defending against Nictuku. Just ask Baba Yaga, 4th gen and over-statted elder!... oh, wait. You can't. A Nictuku killer her.

they're indeed good, since after millenias of being hunted by their nemesises, the clan is still there and thriving.

Baba Yaga was isolated and running from the emss she made in USSR, and the scenario in which she died describe clearly that she wasn't prepared for such a confrontation.

While the clan as a whole is doing hardly anything but prepare

[Damian May]

Ok, looks like the prevailing opinion is that Garou and associated Gaian Spirit presence in a city has zero effect on the Wyrms presence or ability to operate. And that vampire operations are unaffected by the presence of BSDs, Fomori, Banes or Pentex acrivities. I'm just going to agree to disagree.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

they're indeed good, since after millenias of being hunted by their nemesises, the clan is still there and thriving.

Baba Yaga was isolated and running from the emss she made in USSR, and the scenario in which she died describe clearly that she wasn't prepared for such a confrontation.

While the clan as a whole is doing hardly anything but prepare

She had an Earthbound on retainer via a ghouled Choirister, an immense amount of personal power, reasonably could have backup plans due to pulling Thaumaturgy out of her ass, and still went down. Most Nosferatu are probably surviving because of a low profile, not because they have incredible defenses and a fortified position. Since the Nictuku are all lower generation than the vampires that they're going after, they can probably out-possess all of of a warren's guardian ghoul critterswith Animalism and just Dominate their quarry into standing still and becoming another anticlimax in the annals of the Vampire metaplot.

And somehow, emulating this setup is supposed to make Werewolf more popular. Go figure.