The Eshmaki and the Enlightened

[ArcaneArts]

Thank you for the in depth answer. I also like how you are making the main theme "of you don't choose your family" less reliant on other gamelines (of course it's THE crossover game, but you are making it stand on its own now)

Yep. We do still want to keep crossover a major feature of Beast by keeping connection to other monsters desirable and essential towards Beast's central pole of Building Your Lair and What That Means, but it has become clear over time that an over-reliance on that was a problem with first takes on Beast, and in future Beast stands a lot to benefit by allowing itself to exist on it's own, with doing a lot more with the internal family dynamics, getting into how Astral/Dreaming Gods fuck around with all three of them (as the foremost actors of the Astral/Dreaming), and taking a broader and murkier approach akin to how Vigil First Edition did mixed in with the Horror Creation System from the Chronicles Core book for it's own core approach (which is to say, not necessairly for supplemental). It also helps to maintain the spirit of adventure, discovery, and connection for people who only get Beast, while people who know more can get into fun of how that core suggests Beast would cut into other gamelines (and I have an outline I need to get to about how the Astral/Dreaming and the Dark Mother alone, sans Beasts, Heroes, and Insatiable, do just that).

THat's not to say overt discussion of crossover and family dynamics with other gamelines is out of place-a hypothetical Brood book would gain a lot from being direct about it, both for Beast and the gamelines, and if anyone says no to a Night Horrors book that address the antagonists of other gamelines as it affects Beast (and visa versa) I'd be surprised-but Beast needs to prove it can play around with it's own themes on it's own terms if it's really gonna actually act as a pillar to swing crossover activity on.

Beasts still seek out and connect with Family because it's what ya do-but not all vampires they befriend need to be the Kindred.

[Primordial newcomer]

Sure. One thing that emerged from all the bemoaning about a lack of organizations in Beast (which is bullshit, but I've beaten that dead horse) is that Beast needs to increase the vector on the subject of Family Drama, which is one of a lot of factors that led to the angle of Heroes as another set of Children of the Dark Mother.

One of the advantages of both that angle of conception as well as Family Drama came the conception of the Three Children, not only as Actual Children Lines, but also that they represented three major strains of thoughts at work within the Dark Mother's family. Sometimes, you take sides in familiar squabbling. So this means that not only are there Insatiables, Beasts, and Heroes, but that the Children can be Insatiable, Beastial, or Heroic as well.

THis also helps with another (obnoxious) problem that creeps up every once in a while-where someone asks Why their Beasts can't just be assholes who don't wanna have to care about any deep and heavy stuff and just be a cartoon villain. Answer: Sure you can. There'll be Insatiable (and Insatiable Beasts and Heroes) happy to get you in on their argument with open arms. And sure, that probably won't stop them from devouring yoru Lair, but if you're the sort of person who feels they have the right to be assholes because nothing fucking matters, that Lair probably they eat is probably fair cost to belong.

Beasts are the most likely to swing either way, because their nature is the most wide in terms of acceptance of the three (and can be as prone to assholish nihilism or self-centered aggrandizement), but sometimes Heroes realize something's missing and will join Beasts in their quests for self-transcendence or wrestle with their own unimprotance by going with the Insatiable, and the Insatiable can, for whatever reason, come to jive and work for either a Beastial or Heroic conception of world and meaning.

None of this has mechanical benefits-the Insatiable still cause Schism and eat Lair, Heroes still can't form Kinship bonds with Beasts or Insatiable-but families are messy and lines aren't neatly cut, and the point is that they're all siblings regardless of that. It wouldn't be Primordial if the idea of factionalization itself wasn't rattled and semi-broken apart. None of which is to say that there's no one taking sides between Uncles Joey's and Tom's ongoing argument over bowling technique, because there is a true and proper way to bowl, damnit.

Oh, if you really want to start a fight at the dinner table, ask who came first and who came last and why the Dark Mother did it that way. Potatoes and cranberry sauce everywhere.

EDIT: that said, the central seat of contention is still Beasts against Heroes, with their starkly opposite stances on meaningful meaning, and the heart of Beast's themes and conflicts-but No Neat Boxes is still a thing.

Thank you for the in depth answer. I also like how you are making the main theme "of you don't choose your family" less reliant on other gamelines (of course it's THE crossover game, but you are making it stand on its own now)

[ArcaneArts]

Sorry if there's a specific thread where more broad questions for this are to be asked but...

Do you plan, or have a concept of the plan for if you could get this stuff canon, for Beasts AND Heroes to be able to subvert each other's general philosophies and triumph ideologically in a way that isn't simply "I killed him, therefore I'm right". Sorry if that's unclear

Also, I remember you saying you'd like to switch hungers and Familes in terms of X and Y splat (something like that). While I'm personally against this, are you still planning to do that? Just wondering since it seems you are keeping the families in order to have the forsworn.

Sure. One thing that emerged from all the bemoaning about a lack of organizations in Beast (which is bullshit, but I've beaten that dead horse) is that Beast needs to increase the vector on the subject of Family Drama, which is one of a lot of factors that led to the angle of Heroes as another set of Children of the Dark Mother.

One of the advantages of both that angle of conception as well as Family Drama came the conception of the Three Children, not only as Actual Children Lines, but also that they represented three major strains of thoughts at work within the Dark Mother's family. Sometimes, you take sides in familiar squabbling. So this means that not only are there Insatiables, Beasts, and Heroes, but that the Children can be Insatiable, Beastial, or Heroic as well.

THis also helps with another (obnoxious) problem that creeps up every once in a while-where someone asks Why their Beasts can't just be assholes who don't wanna have to care about any deep and heavy stuff and just be a cartoon villain. Answer: Sure you can. There'll be Insatiable (and Insatiable Beasts and Heroes) happy to get you in on their argument with open arms. And sure, that probably won't stop them from devouring yoru Lair, but if you're the sort of person who feels they have the right to be assholes because nothing fucking matters, that Lair probably they eat is probably fair cost to belong.

Beasts are the most likely to swing either way, because their nature is the most wide in terms of acceptance of the three (and can be as prone to assholish nihilism or self-centered aggrandizement), but sometimes Heroes realize something's missing and will join Beasts in their quests for self-transcendence or wrestle with their own unimprotance by going with the Insatiable, and the Insatiable can, for whatever reason, come to jive and work for either a Beastial or Heroic conception of world and meaning.

None of this has mechanical benefits-the Insatiable still cause Schism and eat Lair, Heroes still can't form Kinship bonds with Beasts or Insatiable-but families are messy and lines aren't neatly cut, and the point is that they're all siblings regardless of that. It wouldn't be Primordial if the idea of factionalization itself wasn't rattled and semi-broken apart. None of which is to say that there's no one taking sides between Uncles Joey's and Tom's ongoing argument over bowling technique, because there is a true and proper way to bowl, damnit.

Oh, if you really want to start a fight at the dinner table, ask who came first and who came last and why the Dark Mother did it that way. Potatoes and cranberry sauce everywhere.

EDIT: that said, the central seat of contention is still Beasts against Heroes, with their starkly opposite stances on meaningful meaning, and the heart of Beast's themes and conflicts-but No Neat Boxes is still a thing.

[Primordial newcomer]

Sorry if there's a specific thread where more broad questions for this are to be asked but...

Do you plan, or have a concept of the plan for if you could get this stuff canon, for Beasts AND Heroes to be able to subvert each other's general philosophies and triumph ideologically in a way that isn't simply "I killed him, therefore I'm right". Sorry if that's unclear

Also, I remember you saying you'd like to switch hungers and Familes in terms of X and Y splat (something like that). While I'm personally against this, are you still planning to do that? Just wondering since it seems you are keeping the families in order to have the forsworn.

[ArcaneArts]

A thought - if the Eshmaki are all about being inscrutable and unpredictable, then their Hero counterparts are the masterminds. The people who obsessively plan ahead, thinking of answers for all contingencies; who move people around like chess pieces, and discard them if they don't act according to spec. They're like the Plain in responding badly to those who don't match their expectations, but unlike them because the Enlightened don't reject complexity - they revel in it. Also, the Plain won't try to control or manipulate people, while the Enlightened often do. They're scalpels, versus the Plain's cudgels.

While it's not so much about being inscrutable and unpredictable (though it can definitely look like that from the outside) so much as about rapid adaptability and precedented reputation(more so than Beasts in general), this explanation of the Enlightened is not only spot on, I actively like it better than how I went at it.

If the Eshamki is learning to accept being blinded and developing strengths in accordance with that, the Enlightened want to see as far ahead of the curve as possible.

[Michael Brazier]

A thought - if the Eshmaki are all about being inscrutable and unpredictable, then their Hero counterparts are the masterminds. The people who obsessively plan ahead, thinking of answers for all contingencies; who move people around like chess pieces, and discard them if they don't act according to spec. They're like the Plain in responding badly to those who don't match their expectations, but unlike them because the Enlightened don't reject complexity - they revel in it. Also, the Plain won't try to control or manipulate people, while the Enlightened often do. They're scalpels, versus the Plain's cudgels.

[ArcaneArts]

The Enlightened: [walk into the room]
Me: Oh hai, self!

Heh, damn. Since this thread is a month and a half old, I guess I need to say something more than just a self-deprecating meme to justify its revival.

Hmm. The last paragraph made me wonder about making Skin Deep an Eshmaki Atavism, or creating a new Atavism that just makes you more adaptable somehow when you can't be seen.

EDIT: despite reading about it in the Makara/Plain thread, I am not yet confident I understand the difference between the Eshmaki and the Makara in this conception, though I am confident I get the difference between the Plain and the Enlightened. So I will make a glib sentence or two (a nicer word for a model or a lie) to describe my conception of the difference. I'd appreciate it if other people tell me where it could be improved.

The Eshmaki say: " The World is mysterious. Remember this and accept it."
The Makara say: "The world is more complex than one mind can every comprehend. Remember this and accept it."

Maybe it's just because I wrote it and have thought about it for years, but for me, it's easy. Let me see if can express.

So, a lot of it is right there in the names-the Eshamki are the Fear of the Darkness, the Makara are the Fear of the Depths.

With what the Eshmaki embody, you can't see. Like, that's it, that's all she wrote. You can't see. You have one of the most vital tool for surviving in the world. And it's terrifying. Everything magnifies and becomes that much more extreme and large and threatening. A mild prick is a stab, but a bit of fluff is a comfort to cling to-unless it's some kind of poison bristle that you'd know was poison bristle if you could just see it. It's being handicapped, in that way. So, when you lose your main ability to verify what something is, you have two things you have to do-learn to trust in yourself in your ability to react and adapt, learn how to treat the world both kindly and supremely harshly, and pick up every other way you have to make that distinction as quickly and precisely as possible-because when you're blind, and the world has both bears and teddy bears, you don't want you lack of knowledge to get in the way of you doing right.

While the Depths can be Dark (and there is much fun to be had in letting an Eshmaki and a Makara work together), the first thing about the water isn't that you can't see-it's that you can't breathe. It's that moving in the water is different from moving on land, and engages all of your muscles in a very different way. You have to unlearn a lot of what you've learnt if you're going to adapt to the Depths-and adapt, you'll have to, because it's an alien world down there, with eldritch monsters, arcane rules, a familiarty to it's way of things that can be as hostile non-natives as their world is to them only oops they forget life on land is scary you. It's an alien world, complete with a rich and dynamic set of rules. That can be overwhelming for a lot of people, and in fact it often is-a lot of people never learn how to swim, and even those who do may take a long time to get out of the floaties, and even those who start will never bother to learn all they need to really get at in the world below. But for those who do, there's a rich, weird, beautiful, and wholly different biodiversity to be found>

Or, another way of putting it: The Eshmaki embody the fear of having one of major ways to learn being taken from it, the Makara embody a fear of overload of learning, of being intimidated by the sheer density of learning they'd have to do.

For a sex and sexuality example, because I've been thinking about it, some asexual can come across Eshamki fears when they recognize just how damn hung up the world is on sex and, intellectually try as much as they can, they just can't actually connect to that same thing-but that's fine, if they can't see what everyone else does, they can know as much as they can regardless, and learn to react quickly in ways their peers will understand all the same. They don't need to "get" sex, like some of those assholes say when they say they just haven't been with the right partner or what not-they got themselves to be, and it's more than enough to get through this world.. Meanwhile, a questioning youth might feel there's something of themselves in the queer world-but it has so many letters and expectations and does this mean I have to get into camp and drag and I just don't understand this whole deal and so, as that Makara fear begins to flood in, they close that closet door-until that mermaid with the absolutely adorable pixie cut comes knocking.

[Master Aquatosic]

The Enlightened: [walk into the room]
Me: Oh hai, self!

Heh, damn. Since this thread is a month and a half old, I guess I need to say something more than just a self-deprecating meme to justify its revival.

Hmm. The last paragraph made me wonder about making Skin Deep an Eshmaki Atavism, or creating a new Atavism that just makes you more adaptable somehow when you can't be seen.

EDIT: despite reading about it in the Makara/Plain thread, I am not yet confident I understand the difference between the Eshmaki and the Makara in this conception, though I am confident I get the difference between the Plain and the Enlightened. So I will make a glib sentence or two (a nicer word for a model or a lie) to describe my conception of the difference. I'd appreciate it if other people tell me where it could be improved.

The Eshmaki say: " The World is mysterious. Remember this and accept it."
The Makara say: "The world is more complex than one mind can every comprehend. Remember this and accept it."

[ArcaneArts]

Just a little joke that I remembered when reading this but I can't remember where I have seen it:

A man is upset about his irrational fear that there is a monster under his bed. He decides this needed to change so he starts going to a therapist. After months of therapy, his fear is still there, so he leaves the therapist to find someone who can cure him.

He tells a friend about his problem, the friend says "Oh, but this problem is so easy to solve: just cut off the legs of your bed!"

The next day the friend encounters the man, he clearly hasn't slept since then. Confused about his terrible state, he asks the man "Why are you like this? haven't you followed my advice?"

The man then replies: "I did, and it only made things so much worse. Now that the monster is not under the bed it could be anywhere!"

Very much accruate.

[DreadQueen]

Just a little joke that I remembered when reading this but I can't remember where I have seen it:

A man is upset about his irrational fear that there is a monster under his bed. He decides this needed to change so he starts going to a therapist. After months of therapy, his fear is still there, so he leaves the therapist to find someone who can cure him.

He tells a friend about his problem, the friend says "Oh, but this problem is so easy to solve: just cut off the legs of your bed!"

The next day the friend encounters the man, he clearly hasn't slept since then. Confused about his terrible state, he asks the man "Why are you like this? haven't you followed my advice?"

The man then replies: "I did, and it only made things so much worse. Now that the monster is not under the bed it could be anywhere!"

[Cinder]

I suppose the big thing is where you think the horror comes from. For me, while mystery is a huge part of the Chronicles world on the whole, I don't think horror is lost when you understand a thing. Going real world for an example here, the mechanisms of capitalism and ultranationalism are actually easy enough to understand, but it doesn't make the manifold forms of violence perpetrated in their pursuit any less horrifying. Similarly, Heroes being understandable doesn't take away their horror. It brings it in theme with the themes about family and complicated takes on reality, but Beasts and Heroes are still gonna go after each other in terrifyingly violent ways for very dark and disturbing reasons.

For me, the center of Beast's horror-not the whole of it, but the center that all things cross through and come back to-is fatalism, and a very naturalistic one at that (in contrast to fatalism as it might be expressed in Mage or Changeling). From the moment Beasts become through their Devouring, they are the sort of person who who gets killed by the Heroes-and if not them, society (societies, actually) will still follow up. From the moment you accept yourself as a monster, you are the sort of person who has a very shaky relationship with being someone the community can have. Everything about who you are and the sort of people you attract and the things you are just gonna do because you are you is inevitably gonna bring people to your door, ready to put you down. That why a lot of the game is about reconciling the innate problem of being who you are by finding, arguing over, and defending a way in which you, as a monster, still belong and are a vital part of the community-because otherwise, Heroes have the point.

The horror applies to Heroes as well though-the reason they will always be drawn into a spiral of blood and nightmare and their lives just slipping out of control isn't some curse, it's not the actions of others, it's not that Beasts keep intruding into their lives-it's that they're the sort of who can't accept a fundamental part of themselves and will basically be driven to cover up for that failure of recognition. They're not actually afraid, they'll show you they're not-could a person who was afraid of hopelessness kill This Giant or That Giant or Another Giant and Another Giant and Another Giant and another and another and another? Heroes can argue all they want about how and why Beasts need to die-and those points might even be right, but it's not the truth-the truth is that they fight against Beasts because there's something fundamentally wrong with them, and Beasts basically embody that very flaw, the antithesis to what they decided to do.

And it goes back around and sucks all over again for Beasts because, however much you deserve it (which is it's own gaming that that needs to be addressed and worked on), at the end of the day, as much as the world sings about you dying violently because you are the sort of person who should die violently....it's still not even about you. You died because someone else has a hole in their heart that they can't handle.

Beast's horror, to me, is that it has characters who really do have consequences for being the sort of people they are, that their acceptance of who they are is also damnation of themselves. Your fate is sealed the moment you admit yourself to yourself....unless you can really work against it (because I do believe in hope).

Beast's horror is how the thing that is standing in the way of your dreams is that the person having them is you. It's about how you can try and prove that's not true, maybe even succeed....but you are still who you are, and this is one of those rare cases where that has consequences.

That's my read, anyways. I think the familiarity of Heroes only helps to drive that home.

I'm emerging from the shadows to bless and 100% agree with this.

[ArcaneArts]

And now I’m imagining some sort of an Incarnate Hero, who knows exactly what she’s doing and is now drawing power from it…

Oh yeah. If Heroes are children of the Dark Mother, that means there ARE Inheritances for them. I imagine the comparative best of these is a Hero coming to terms and accepting their Horror-but nothing says they can't spin it the other way.

Sometimes you don't let the dog catch the car when the act is a metaphor for everything you ever.

[21C Hermit]

And now I’m imagining some sort of an Incarnate Hero, who knows exactly what she’s doing and is now drawing power from it…

[Paradim]

Good bit of food for thought there. Thank you for sharing that.

[ArcaneArts]

I suppose the big thing is where you think the horror comes from. For me, while mystery is a huge part of the Chronicles world on the whole, I don't think horror is lost when you understand a thing. Going real world for an example here, the mechanisms of capitalism and ultranationalism are actually easy enough to understand, but it doesn't make the manifold forms of violence perpetrated in their pursuit any less horrifying. Similarly, Heroes being understandable doesn't take away their horror. It brings it in theme with the themes about family and complicated takes on reality, but Beasts and Heroes are still gonna go after each other in terrifyingly violent ways for very dark and disturbing reasons.

For me, the center of Beast's horror-not the whole of it, but the center that all things cross through and come back to-is fatalism, and a very naturalistic one at that (in contrast to fatalism as it might be expressed in Mage or Changeling). From the moment Beasts become through their Devouring, they are the sort of person who who gets killed by the Heroes-and if not them, society (societies, actually) will still follow up. From the moment you accept yourself as a monster, you are the sort of person who has a very shaky relationship with being someone the community can have. Everything about who you are and the sort of people you attract and the things you are just gonna do because you are you is inevitably gonna bring people to your door, ready to put you down. That why a lot of the game is about reconciling the innate problem of being who you are by finding, arguing over, and defending a way in which you, as a monster, still belong and are a vital part of the community-because otherwise, Heroes have the point.

The horror applies to Heroes as well though-the reason they will always be drawn into a spiral of blood and nightmare and their lives just slipping out of control isn't some curse, it's not the actions of others, it's not that Beasts keep intruding into their lives-it's that they're the sort of who can't accept a fundamental part of themselves and will basically be driven to cover up for that failure of recognition. They're not actually afraid, they'll show you they're not-could a person who was afraid of hopelessness kill This Giant or That Giant or Another Giant and Another Giant and Another Giant and another and another and another? Heroes can argue all they want about how and why Beasts need to die-and those points might even be right, but it's not the truth-the truth is that they fight against Beasts because there's something fundamentally wrong with them, and Beasts basically embody that very flaw, the antithesis to what they decided to do.

And it goes back around and sucks all over again for Beasts because, however much you deserve it (which is it's own gaming that that needs to be addressed and worked on), at the end of the day, as much as the world sings about you dying violently because you are the sort of person who should die violently....it's still not even about you. You died because someone else has a hole in their heart that they can't handle.

Beast's horror, to me, is that it has characters who really do have consequences for being the sort of people they are, that their acceptance of who they are is also damnation of themselves. Your fate is sealed the moment you admit yourself to yourself....unless you can really work against it (because I do believe in hope).

Beast's horror is how the thing that is standing in the way of your dreams is that the person having them is you. It's about how you can try and prove that's not true, maybe even succeed....but you are still who you are, and this is one of those rare cases where that has consequences.

That's my read, anyways. I think the familiarity of Heroes only helps to drive that home.