Ghost Council Tribe Preview for W5

[Ulbrecht]

At first I was just disappointed with the preview, and fearing what will happen to the SL - my personal favorite tribe.

But those art problems are just bizarre. I was already not a fan of this "Human: the Outcasts" vibe before, but there's just no defense anymore. And if that doesn't kill the 5E, I'm afraid the bar will just get lower and lower.

[11twiggins]

Oh to be clear when I say "might have some legs" in my previous post, I don't mean in terms of being an accurate assessment, I mean in terms of convincing people online.

[MyWifeIsScary]

I really loved the art of the old editions. The black and white stuff, especially when it got twisted, weird and wyrmy. V20's style was different and i've got some reservations (Klaives are way too big, crinos forms maybe a little over-heroic, my friends and I all laughing about the legendary Lasombra side-boob) but it also had some great stuff too.


Ironically the one picture I really loved from V5 was the one with a werewolf slashing someone in half. You'd think werewolf'd be doing a good job here.

I wanna see crinos, lupus or hispo with beautiful tribe fur, graciously ornamented with tribe-typical fetishes. Is that so much to ask?

[Knightingale]

I'm really curious about the art for the Red Talons now. Are even those four humans/weird-looking one who is in Glabro presumably...?

But I think one reason we get humans for the most part is that this version of W5 the focus is on Homids and the game really wants you to play Homids. And I guess, maybe the artist got directions to emphasize humans. Or he just read the archetypes. I mean... none of them were wolf-born thus far, right? Even though it supposedly is still a player-option to be wolf-born.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

I'm really curious about the art for the Red Talons now. Are even those four humans/weird-looking one who is in Glabro presumably...?

But I think one reason we get humans for the most part is that this version of W5 the focus is on Homids and the game really wants you to play Homids. And I guess, maybe the artist got directions to emphasize humans. Or he just read the archetypes. I mean... none of them were wolf-born thus far, right? Even though it supposedly is still a player-option to be wolf-born.

They'll probably just have pictures of extra-shaggy and unkempt people for the Talons, some of whom are wearing only deer furs.

[Ragged Robin]

I really loved the art of the old editions. The black and white stuff, especially when it got twisted, weird and wyrmy. V20's style was different and i've got some reservations (Klaives are way too big, crinos forms maybe a little over-heroic, my friends and I all laughing about the legendary Lasombra side-boob) but it also had some great stuff too.


Ironically the one picture I really loved from V5 was the one with a werewolf slashing someone in half. You'd think werewolf'd be doing a good job here.

I wanna see crinos, lupus or hispo with beautiful tribe fur, graciously ornamented with tribe-typical fetishes. Is that so much to ask?

One of things the classic character arts do is 'sell' the idea of the group. Lasombra side boob aside she tells you a lot about the clan is her look. Some do a really do a good job of this like w20 get of fenris. 5th ed is really bad at this even with easy slam dunks like the nosferatu lineup and werewolf seems to follow this trend, you could easily swap a lot of w5 tribe art around and it would not make a difference. For example one of them is just a slightly creepy monk another a generic soldier, neither tell us anything distinct.

[Ana Mizuki]

They'll probably just have pictures of extra-shaggy and unkempt people for the Talons, some of whom are wearing only deer furs.

Or GSDs in wolf coats, if they actually commit to the wolf bit XD

[Saur Ops Specialist]

Or GSDs in wolf coats, if they actually commit to the wolf bit XD

Or someone traces San from Princess Mononoke. I doubt that would happen, though; it would probably give us too good of an idea of the human-born Garou that join the tribe.

[MyWifeIsScary]

Red Talons should go Naked. Since virtually all werewolves are fit it's not a bad choice. Wearing hides is humanish enough to be a negative thing for RT but simultaneously it won't let them fit in with humans much so they might as well just grab some human clothes. IDK say something like "It's 100% natural materials" or "I killed a human and stole his clothes" and it'll be fine.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

It's not like you'd be able to tell if Red Talons in Homid are fit at a distance, given that they're unlikely to wax or shave but are likely to have a carpet of hair all around, which tends to obscure muscle mass. Unless, like, there's a Camp of the Wild Scouring that ritualistically shaves each other to achieve perfect swimwear zones.

("I killed a human and took their stuff" is probably the most sensible case, but since this is W5, we can't have anything like that.)

[Ana Mizuki]

That is all assuming they just wear a bit torn clothes and matted hair.

[Lunar Falcon]

Holy crap. The art is worse than I thought. Maria Franz's headdress pasted onto a direct trace of another woman, the "reindeer herder" race bending. The artist needs to be fired, blacklisted, and all art of theirs stripped from the book as suspect.

My sister is an artist and I shared this with her. To quote her, "With "artists" like this, who needs AI to rip off the rest of us?"

[Nyremne]

There's a weird part in the witch description about her worldview.

"Gaia is a metaphor, and so are spirits. It's all in the way the individual sees the world, which eyes they choose."

Whaaaaaaat? Did you put that just to looks mystical? This is werewolf the apocalypse and she's clearly a theurge. I can accept that, in a edition where gaia is dying/dead, young garou might see her as metaphor, but spirits? They are as concrete to garou as are humans.

"-spirits are metaphor, it's all in the way glargblarah *wet, strangled noise as the witch has her throat cutted by the "metaphorical" bane*

[AnubisXy]

Maybe they meant personification or representation? But yeah, I see a snarky Ragabash saying, "Congrats. I've heard of people wrestling with metaphors before, but you're the first person to ever get their ass kicked by one."

[Knightingale]

There's a weird part in the witch description about her worldview.

"Gaia is a metaphor, and so are spirits. It's all in the way the individual sees the world, which eyes they choose."

Whaaaaaaat? Did you put that just to looks mystical? This is werewolf the apocalypse and she's clearly a theurge. I can accept that, in a edition where gaia is dying/dead, young garou might see her as metaphor, but spirits? They are as concrete to garou as are humans.

"-spirits are metaphor, it's all in the way glargblarah *wet, strangled noise as the witch has her throat cutted by the "metaphorical" bane*

In the same vein, the way it ends is also weird: "They are blind, whereas the Witch can see, and Witch’s packmates would do well to remember the elective ignorance in which human society chooses to cloak itself." What are they talking about...? They're all Garou and one thing that does unite them is their animistic worldview that they also know is very real since they can travel through the Umbra and interact with spirits. I guess, with the mid-Apocalypse-setting you could kinda imagine young Garou running around who don't really know what's going on but the introduction we've gotten in the previews really sets it up as a "truth" that Garou know about spirits. Oh, and this bit also seems weird: "It’s not parlor tricks — the way so many charlatans try to pass off the Gift — it’s a genuine relationship with the world beyond the boundary of the one most humans can perceive." I mean, "charlatans try to pass off the Gift"... and it's even capital-G Gift... In this context, the capital-G Gift of this splat is being a werewolf/Garou, so that's a weird way to talk about it. What it's obviously getting at is some sort of "true magic vs parlor tricks"-distinction but... this is WtA...

The write-up just feels so weird.

But the majority of the archetypes that we've seen up to this point have had this problem of either not really giving off the vibe of either being a Garou and/or a werewolf.