The Ugallu and The Invincible

[ArcaneArts]

Nazarites are very rare in modern Jewish practice, as many of the major Talmudic scholars disliked the practice as a form of extremism. It's also impossible to follow the Biblical vows because they require Temple sacrifices.. and there hasn't been a Temple for those in a very long time. Since the Rabbinic era never established a standard method of taking the vows that replaces those sacrifices (one of the reasons it became unpopular), anyone that chooses to take those vows has to accept that they're reconstructing a practice rather than continuing one.

The Nazirite vows are more strongly associated with Rastafarianism now. Though saying that I can see that don't necessarily fix any concerns in that direction.

I'll try to get to the other stuff, but focusing hasn't been going well the last few days (for me, which is bad enough anyway).

Fair enough. Thanks much!

[Heavy Arms]

Nazarites are very rare in modern Jewish practice, as many of the major Talmudic scholars disliked the practice as a form of extremism. It's also impossible to follow the Biblical vows because they require Temple sacrifices.. and there hasn't been a Temple for those in a very long time. Since the Rabbinic era never established a standard method of taking the vows that replaces those sacrifices (one of the reasons it became unpopular), anyone that chooses to take those vows has to accept that they're reconstructing a practice rather than continuing one.

The Nazirite vows are more strongly associated with Rastafarianism now. Though saying that I can see that don't necessarily fix any concerns in that direction.

I'll try to get to the other stuff, but focusing hasn't been going well the last few days (for me, which is bad enough anyway).

[ArcaneArts]

So... specific thoughts for now:

Hebrew is a tough language for the Victorious. Torah traditions like to stress that victory (esp, in battle) is a linked more to piousness and dedication to serving. The entire book of Judges can be summed up as, "Jews are faithful to their covenant and listen to the warning of prophets, and they're victorious, but when they get lax about that religious stuff, their enemies gain victory over them." There's an obvious narrative message there, but it has a cultural impact on Hebrew and naming. If victory itself is a somewhat passive result of other things, heroic figures are associated with those other things.

A fairly on the nose example would be "gibborim" which in modern Hebrew is frequently translated as heroes. Though in the Torah/Biblical usage it's a bit more nuanced (the Nephilim and some wild animals were also described as such in the older meaning of "mighty"). Nimrod the hunter was described with this word for his prowess (way before Bugs Bunny's sarcastoc use of Nimrod completely changed how people think about the name).

So finding a god/hero/name that has some hook to it from a Hebrew source, is hard because it's most likely going to have a strong connotation towards one of the other Forsworn. Samson was one of the nazirim, and his victories (and loses) came from his keeping to his nazir vows, which fits in a bit more with The Plain or The Priests (even if Samson himself isn't a bad example of the Victorious' tendencies to overestimate themselves). The Shoftim in general, as judges in very different sense than the current meaning of the word judge, ranged a lot in terms of what made them victorious over their enemies (besides again, trying to guide the Israelites back into the service of their religion). They also highlight a preference for "clever" heroes over ones with lots of bravado that makes it hard to find a good Hebrew sourced fit for the Victorious as designed so far.

Now, if we're not being too picky, Nazirim could work simply because most people have no idea what being a nazir beyond the reason why Samson's hair is important,and Samson himself is a pretty good reference (also Simsonim would be weird sounding). The most famous nazir being a guy that bragged about how many enemies he could beat up with the jawbone of a donkey certainly has enough connections to have a good feel to it, it's saying something that that's probably one of the closest things you'll find.

I'm feeling the lean towards Nazirim, but it does lead to the question of nazir vows being a thing that's still in practice with Jewish communities. It's one thing to keep things in the family by pairing to Anakim through linguistic ties and all the benefits that come with that, but it's another to have a seventh of the main antagonist the line is inclined to take issue with be identified as a group of people taking on an elevated covenant in a community frequently demonized, and while my brief google-fu indicates they are still taken on to some degree, it's not giving quite a clear enough perspective on how prevalent it is.

Also, because I value your opinion a lot, even on not Jewish things, opinions on the rest? Names are fiddly things make handy distractions from Heroic Satiety Roadblocks, and more input helps to spin the knob.

[Heavy Arms]

So... specific thoughts for now:

Hebrew is a tough language for the Victorious. Torah traditions like to stress that victory (esp, in battle) is a linked more to piousness and dedication to serving. The entire book of Judges can be summed up as, "Jews are faithful to their covenant and listen to the warning of prophets, and they're victorious, but when they get lax about that religious stuff, their enemies gain victory over them." There's an obvious narrative message there, but it has a cultural impact on Hebrew and naming. If victory itself is a somewhat passive result of other things, heroic figures are associated with those other things.

A fairly on the nose example would be "gibborim" which in modern Hebrew is frequently translated as heroes. Though in the Torah/Biblical usage it's a bit more nuanced (the Nephilim and some wild animals were also described as such in the older meaning of "mighty"). Nimrod the hunter was described with this word for his prowess (way before Bugs Bunny's sarcastoc use of Nimrod completely changed how people think about the name).

So finding a god/hero/name that has some hook to it from a Hebrew source, is hard because it's most likely going to have a strong connotation towards one of the other Forsworn. Samson was one of the nazirim, and his victories (and loses) came from his keeping to his nazir vows, which fits in a bit more with The Plain or The Priests (even if Samson himself isn't a bad example of the Victorious' tendencies to overestimate themselves). The Shoftim in general, as judges in very different sense than the current meaning of the word judge, ranged a lot in terms of what made them victorious over their enemies (besides again, trying to guide the Israelites back into the service of their religion). They also highlight a preference for "clever" heroes over ones with lots of bravado that makes it hard to find a good Hebrew sourced fit for the Victorious as designed so far.

Now, if we're not being too picky, Nazirim could work simply because most people have no idea what being a nazir beyond the reason why Samson's hair is important,and Samson himself is a pretty good reference (also Simsonim would be weird sounding). The most famous nazir being a guy that bragged about how many enemies he could beat up with the jawbone of a donkey certainly has enough connections to have a good feel to it, it's saying something that that's probably one of the closest things you'll find.

[ArcaneArts]

I release them when I get to them. Probably should hammer out Heroic Satiety.

Related, I have a tenative Forsworn set of names akin to the actual Family names, like Anakim, Eshmaki, Makara, the like. I'm not sold on them, per se-the principle was to find god/heroes/names that catch the idea or something adjacent in the same language as the original Family, and some of them are not quite the sound I would go for, but still. Let's see how y'all take to them.

The Daphna, The Victorious, Forsworn of Hopelessness
The Amiran*, The Enlightened, Forsworn of Darkness
The Balaram, The Plain, Forsworn of the Depths
The Ningizzida**, The Immortals, Forsworn of Revulsion
The Ishum***, the Invincible, Forsworn of Exposure
The Ehki, The Priests****, Forsworn of the Other
The Libertas, The Libertines****, Forsworn of Confinement

*Yes, I know the previous Fire Lineage of Promethean is also named the Amirani, but the best Georgian mythological figure to embody the idea of Enlightened Hero is their Prometheus figure, so I'm aiming at avoiding the confusion by dropping that last i and otherwise accepting that shit happens.
**I will also take the excuse to name them the Ishtari, but Ningizzida seems more appropriate for having actually gotten the root of life.
***Shockingly, Mesopotamians have a a lot of deities who serve the role of protection that could apply. I thought about one that specifically geared against demons (Sebutti), but Ishum had connotations that seemed very anti-Ugallu.
****Obviously subject to change if the writing hews for a better name, like the Enlightened and Invincible over the Bright and the Armored.

I invoke the grave names of Heavy Arms and proindrakenzol for a take on a Hebrew name for the Victorious, and otherwise general opinions.

[Satchel]

So, something that's obvious about Families is that they tie a class of fear to an aesthetic.

I've pointed out in my own brainstorming thread that aesthetic-based splats was a flaw of Geist 1e with Thresholds as well, and as in that line's shift to 2e the thing to do is lean away from objective/prosaic sorting categories and into the abstract. Certain forms of fear lend themselves better to functions expressed through bodily features represented by the Atavisms of that Family, but a Makara is not a sea monster because every sea monster is a Leviathan or vice versa.

Makara have uncertainty and aquatic environments. Ugallu have exposure and flight. What room does it leave for Horrors that don't fit those constraints? The examples of such are a sandworm Makara who inhabits a shifting desert, or one who haunts decrepid buildings, where ceilings and floors can collapse at any time. Another are a shadow-with-eyes Ugallu who looks into your soul, or a burning zombie that exposes you to unbearable heat but neither of them can fly. Is dismissing them a worthy tradeoff for maintaining a strong theme, or could every Family contain a wider breadth of expression? Another random thought that came to be is combining characteristics of multiple Families, like a Nephilim Anakiim-Inguma who represents inevitable coming of a younger generation that you won't understand, or amoeba Namtaru-Makara who represents contaminated material at the bottom of lakes.

I've said it elsewhere in bits and pieces but it bears emphasis here as well: Beast is the storied cryptid game. High-concept descriptions of what a monster symbolizes can be useful for figuring out how you want to develop a character further, but the important parts of Hunger and Family are "what does your Horror want and how does it get it?" more than "what is your soul-creature a a metaphor for?"

Anyway, I think I got slightly off track. You give a decent explanation what Beasts are, but it doesn't explain how they got there. I think it's best if I phrase my question as "what Beasts are before their Devouring". Are they tied to a specific Horror from birth, mirroring each other's lives until they finally meet? Do they "merely" have the Open Condition towards the Primordial Dream, so that any random Horror can take a shot at fusing with them? Is it the latter, but their life decisions and things that happen to them attracted the specific Horror's attention? This matters because depending on the difference, the protagonists were always larval monsters, made peace with being possessed, or invited something external into themselves. Was the Mother of Monsters always your mother, or did she adopt you? Does she love you, or the thing that lives inside of you?

As the line stands currently, a larval Horror instinctively seeks out the souls of people experiencing or dreaming out situations that will allow them to feed, Horrors tend to favor returning to the same prey unless steered away from the attempt, and the Devouring is a volitional act by the dreamer; a Beast recognizes herself in the monster that continues to haunt her nightmares for long enough that it becomes Familiar, a process helped by the shock of feeding being a resonant act that impresses itself upon the memory.

I understand now, and have no objections. The Begotten are a very specific category of beings, and whatever generic monster you want them to be, will still be funneled through unique Begotten experience. I do want to point out that this gameline is likely the best of all CofD lines for addressing what makes a monster in the first place. Thus, I think it should have tools to create generic monsters, so that players can create beings for Kinship without having to rely on other gamelines. Crossover is great, but it's important for a game to be self-sufficient.

Considering that this is something Kelly has said herself on at least one occasion, I don't think you'll find any disagreement from her about "the game about finding and connecting with and understanding monsters should include the tools for making custom non-gameline-level monsters."

[Teatime]

I'm not sure how firming up the relevance of Families might clash against "No Neat Boxes", mostly because in making it more important as an idiom allows for more vectors to get weird. On the mechanical front of things, though, the argument is more that family should probably color and express itself in more ways than just Atavisms. Stealing from Mage again, your path doesn't just determine your two primary Arcana, it flavors your Mage Sight, influences your summoning, directs your choice of yantras, so on and so forth. Beast is a little wibblier as that goes, since your Family a spine rather than a whole that Path is, and your individual idiom should also be colored by your Kinships, Chambers, Atavistic and Nightmarish self-expression and such-but with that said, allowing people to see a Giant as different from a Lurker through their Kinship, Nightmares, and other means.

What you describe sounds eminently workable. Still, my gut is trying to tell be something and I'm doing my best to translate it into English, even if it's an exercise in frustration. That's why, if you notice that I can't seem to get a grasp on my own point, this is why. So, something that's obvious about Families is that they tie a class of fear to an aesthetic. Makara have uncertainty and aquatic environments. Ugallu have exposure and flight. What room does it leave for Horrors that don't fit those constraints? The examples of such are a sandworm Makara who inhabits a shifting desert, or one who haunts decrepid buildings, where ceilings and floors can collapse at any time. Another are a shadow-with-eyes Ugallu who looks into your soul, or a burning zombie that exposes you to unbearable heat but neither of them can fly. Is dismissing them a worthy tradeoff for maintaining a strong theme, or could every Family contain a wider breadth of expression? Another random thought that came to be is combining characteristics of multiple Families, like a Nephilim Anakiim-Inguma who represents inevitable coming of a younger generation that you won't understand, or amoeba Namtaru-Makara who represents contaminated material at the bottom of lakes. I don't have a point with the last bit. I just want to throw it out there and see what you think.

I'm stewing on this, but I feel like I might also be mentally at odds with the consideration. What Beasts are and how they arrive at being Beasts is fairly clear-people who actualized into being idea monsters and Astral shamans-and how "no neat boxes" mostly applies to the fluidity of being warping with the injection of sympathetic connections to other things as a Beast rises in Lair. I do have thoughts on the implied spaces left over by The Devouring and what things might emerge from that, but that would lead mostly to splats of different scales differentiated from Beasts.

My approach to the "no neat boxes" principle are partially based on moral considerations - cruelty and kindness are on a complicated spectrum that encompasses every living being, so wherever we draw a line between one and the other, there will be human beings and monsters on either side (that includes Beasts and Heroes). I'd like the gameline to hold that as a guiding principle. It could help avoid the unintentionally hypocritical implications of the Corebook. All living experience consists of desire/need (including Hungers), suffering (including what Families and Kinship represent), and for sapient beings - ideas we get attached to (all of the Astral). I think this might be Buddhist. I'm not sure.

My other approach to "no neat boxes" is to make the wider world more unpredictable. As fans of the franchise we tend to think of the supernatural in terms of what was already published, so it would be neat to inject more "Blue Book Horrors" into the game. This leans on the conversation we had when you offered some semi-formed ideas for our consideration. One of them was defining concrete branches of monstrosity, which went against my sensibilities, and which you also ended up dismissing. All of this is compatible with what you described in the first quote box, so...

Anyway, I think I got slightly off track. You give a decent explanation what Beasts are, but it doesn't explain how they got there. I think it's best if I phrase my question as "what Beasts are before their Devouring". Are they tied to a specific Horror from birth, mirroring each other's lives until they finally meet? Do they "merely" have the Open Condition towards the Primordial Dream, so that any random Horror can take a shot at fusing with them? Is it the latter, but their life decisions and things that happen to them attracted the specific Horror's attention? This matters because depending on the difference, the protagonists were always larval monsters, made peace with being possessed, or invited something external into themselves. Was the Mother of Monsters always your mother, or did she adopt you? Does she love you, or the thing that lives inside of you?

"certain Monster: the Generic-ing reads". The "reads" is important.

In short, one of the problems about Beast that comes up once in a while is that Beast is regarded as the game you play if you want to play....not really anything in particular? The generic idea of a monster. With that comes a conception of Beast being the GURPS of the Chronicles gamelines.

Being vehemently against GURPS, that's a thing I'd like to work away from while not ruining the formless archetypal iconography of Beast.

I understand now, and have no objections. The Begotten are a very specific category of beings, and whatever generic monster you want them to be, will still be funneled through unique Begotten experience. I do want to point out that this gameline is likely the best of all CofD lines for addressing what makes a monster in the first place. Thus, I think it should have tools to create generic monsters, so that players can create beings for Kinship without having to rely on other gamelines. Crossover is great, but it's important for a game to be self-sufficient.

[Primordial newcomer]

Some of this I'm going to stew on, so if yer wondering why I'm not responding to parts, that's why.

I mostly just remember seeing the dissatisfaction at this point and when writing earlier, and so wasn't referring to anyone in particular.



I'm not sure how firming up the relevance of Families might clash against "No Neat Boxes", mostly because in making it more important as an idiom allows for more vectors to get weird. On the mechanical front of things, though, the argument is more that family should probably color and express itself in more ways than just Atavisms. Stealing from Mage again, your path doesn't just determine your two primary Arcana, it flavors your Mage Sight, influences your summoning, directs your choice of yantras, so on and so forth. Beast is a little wibblier as that goes, since your Family a spine rather than a whole that Path is, and your individual idiom should also be colored by your Kinships, Chambers, Atavistic and Nightmarish self-expression and such-but with that said, allowing people to see a Giant as different from a Lurker through their Kinship, Nightmares, and other means.


I'm stewing on this, but I feel like I might also be mentally at odds with the consideration. What Beasts are and how they arrive at being Beasts is fairly clear-people who actualized into being idea monsters and Astral shamans-and how "no neat boxes" mostly applies to the fluidity of being warping with the injection of sympathetic connections to other things as a Beast rises in Lair. I do have thoughts on the implied spaces left over by The Devouring and what things might emerge from that, but that would lead mostly to splats of different scales differentiated from Beasts.

but like I'm said, stewing.



"certain Monster: the Generic-ing reads". The "reads" is important.

In short, one of the problems about Beast that comes up once in a while is that Beast is regarded as the game you play if you want to play....not really anything in particular? The generic idea of a monster. With that comes a conception of Beast being the GURPS of the Chronicles gamelines.

Being vehemently against GURPS, that's a thing I'd like to work away from while not ruining the formless archetypal iconography of Beast.

On that last part with generic monsters, luckily Beast has everything it needs NOT to be that, it just has to dive into those aspects of the game. Really, the monsters of myth being thought forms that then enforce their existence onto the world in order to affirm their place from the abstract into the concrete is incredibly unique

[Satchel]

I'm not sure how firming up the relevance of Families might clash against "No Neat Boxes", mostly because in making it more important as an idiom allows for more vectors to get weird. On the mechanical front of things, though, the argument is more that family should probably color and express itself in more ways than just Atavisms. Stealing from Mage again, your path doesn't just determine your two primary Arcana, it flavors your Mage Sight, influences your summoning, directs your choice of yantras, so on and so forth. Beast is a little wibblier as that goes, since your Family a spine rather than a whole that Path is, and your individual idiom should also be colored by your Kinships, Chambers, Atavistic and Nightmarish self-expression and such-but with that said, allowing people to see a Giant as different from a Lurker through their Kinship, Nightmares, and other means.

For my part, this is part of why my spitballing has included making Family the Y-splat and turning Birthrights into something like conspiracy Icons or krewe Regalia, but yeah, "no neat little boxes" doesn't mean archetypes can't have consistent archetypal qualities, particularly since the line's already presented an optional rule for picking up additional Birthrights with higher Lair.

In short, one of the problems about Beast that comes up once in a while is that Beast is regarded as the game you play if you want to play....not really anything in particular? The generic idea of a monster. With that comes a conception of Beast being the GURPS of the Chronicles gamelines.

Adding to this: it's never been a particularly true or useful statement to see a ChroD line described as the line for "if you want to play any sort of monster," an assertion I have also seen applied to Changeling and Deviant. A beast is a beast, and expecting to be able to meaningfully use Beast to run a game where, for instance, you don't have to worry about other monsters or your reputation or the security of your place in the world is going to obviously run into issues, while if the degree to which you want to use Beast to play, say, a werewolf is purely aesthetic then you do not need a "play any monster" game in the first place.

[ArcaneArts]

Some of this I'm going to stew on, so if yer wondering why I'm not responding to parts, that's why.

I likely broached the topic before. Are you referring to me, or have you seen such dissatisfaction from other people?

I mostly just remember seeing the dissatisfaction at this point and when writing earlier, and so wasn't referring to anyone in particular.

Bringing more flavor to Families is a fair approach. I personally may struggle with it, because I see it as being in conflict with the "no neat boxes" approach. All I can do about our difference is to offer a respectful nod, and not be a whiner. Still, within the spirit of your approach, wouldn't Atavisms carry the essence of their respective Familes just as well as Birthrights do? As an aside, introducing a hypothetical Lore system may result it in swallowing Birthrights and many other mechanical widgets besides, so that would make most of what I have to say moot.

I'm not sure how firming up the relevance of Families might clash against "No Neat Boxes", mostly because in making it more important as an idiom allows for more vectors to get weird. On the mechanical front of things, though, the argument is more that family should probably color and express itself in more ways than just Atavisms. Stealing from Mage again, your path doesn't just determine your two primary Arcana, it flavors your Mage Sight, influences your summoning, directs your choice of yantras, so on and so forth. Beast is a little wibblier as that goes, since your Family a spine rather than a whole that Path is, and your individual idiom should also be colored by your Kinships, Chambers, Atavistic and Nightmarish self-expression and such-but with that said, allowing people to see a Giant as different from a Lurker through their Kinship, Nightmares, and other means.

I did notice that you left the latter half of my post unaddressed. Birthrights aside, what do you think about clarifying (or multiplying) the natures of the Begotten?

I'm stewing on this, but I feel like I might also be mentally at odds with the consideration. What Beasts are and how they arrive at being Beasts is fairly clear-people who actualized into being idea monsters and Astral shamans-and how "no neat boxes" mostly applies to the fluidity of being warping with the injection of sympathetic connections to other things as a Beast rises in Lair. I do have thoughts on the implied spaces left over by The Devouring and what things might emerge from that, but that would lead mostly to splats of different scales differentiated from Beasts.

but like I'm said, stewing.

Arc, I barely keep up with your references when they're Googleable. What is "certain Monster: The Generic-ing" referring to?

"certain Monster: the Generic-ing reads". The "reads" is important.

In short, one of the problems about Beast that comes up once in a while is that Beast is regarded as the game you play if you want to play....not really anything in particular? The generic idea of a monster. With that comes a conception of Beast being the GURPS of the Chronicles gamelines.

Being vehemently against GURPS, that's a thing I'd like to work away from while not ruining the formless archetypal iconography of Beast.

[TerrorCooper]

Arc, I barely keep up with your references when they're Googleable. What is "certain Monster: The Generic-ing" referring to?

I think that they’re referring to the complaint that the game-lines, at least to some people, seem to have the General format of taking a certain type of monster (such as Vampires, Werewolves, Mages, Mummies, etc, etc) and making them somewhat ‘generic’. At least, that’s what I think ArcaneArts means? I dunno’, what do you say fella’?

[Teatime]

I seem to recall having seen some of this dissatisfaction before.

I likely broached the topic before. Are you referring to me, or have you seen such dissatisfaction from other people?

For me, I've yet to really Chesterton's Fence it, but what I've got on the off hand is that they're generally smaller but more definite than Atavisms, a guarenteed bit of something working that provides helps to direct a players gameplay style to be evocative of the Families, that's comparable to the little tricks that Auspices in Werewolf provide, which I don't recall anyone taking issue with.

This seems like a fair assessment of Birthrights' purpose. My complaints may stem from the prosaic fact, that the more widgets a given gameline has, the easier it is for players to lose track of some of them. If something can be elegantly represented as a Merit/Atavism/Nightmare, then it's preferable to do so. The lack of complaints towards Auspice benefits likely stems from the fact that they're neat, but also from the fact that people forget they're there. They're not listed in the corebook's character sheet, and neither are Birthrights. Does it mean I could be satisfied with minor tweaks to the character sheets? Maybe, but the more widgets a template has, the more cluttered the page becomes.

For me, the main thing I get from that is actually not directly about Birthrights and more an important thing to keep in mind, that Families need to maintain and present their idiom rather than simply being particular bags of Atavisms. In the same way an Acanthus is not a Time Mage or a Fate Mage, or even just a Time-And-Fate Mage, but are Witches and Enchanters, the Anakim are not the Looming Presence or Mimir's Wisdom Beast, they are the Hopelessness Beast, they are Giants in meaning and action, not just form. It's a thing that has to be considered when angling on their relationship to Lair, Kinship, Nightmares, that every Family has their language of textures and approaches, that might be expressed by having particular meta-Nightmares attached to them, passing particulars traits through Kinship, and other such ideas.

Bringing more flavor to Families is a fair approach. I personally may struggle with it, because I see it as being in conflict with the "no neat boxes" approach. All I can do about our difference is to offer a respectful nod, and not be a whiner. Still, within the spirit of your approach, wouldn't Atavisms carry the essence of their respective Familes just as well as Birthrights do? As an aside, introducing a hypothetical Lore system may result it in swallowing Birthrights and many other mechanical widgets besides, so that would make most of what I have to say moot.

Anyhow, bringing it back to the original question, Birthrights haven't been a thing pertinent enough to land on my list of considerations*, and a precursory glance at them alongside how to think about Atavisms yields that I do like them(in particular, the fact that they basically have a guarenteed working at this small scale is effective for letting Beast's be nightmarish in their particular ways), though some of the packaging needs to be considered. Even if I were to be negative about them, I would still have to regard them as pointing the way to keeping Families relevant instead of having Beast eventually devolve into a "why do we even need Paths-I mean Families anyways?" mechanical quagmire.

All in all, they're obvious priorities, considering their greater importance for the gameline. If I were mean, I could point out this proves how tacked on Birthrights are.* I did notice that you left the latter half of my post unaddressed. Birthrights aside, what do you think about clarifying (or multiplying) the natures of the Begotten?

*Heroes, then The Astral/The Dreaming, then Kinship, then Nightmares, then cleaning up/repackaging everything else.
**Now am I actually worried about that? Eh, a bit-I don't think it's devolve into some of the Path-style soup collapse that was prevelant before Mage 2nd, but anything that helps to move Beast away from certain Monster: The Generic-ing reads should be encouraged.

Arc, I barely keep up with your references when they're Googleable. What is "certain Monster: The Generic-ing" referring to?

* I'm just being cute at this point.

[ArcaneArts]

While we're on the subject, what are your thoughts about Birthrights?

As I see them, they're merely diet Atavisms. Whatever wordcount they take would be better spent including more Atavisms in the book and giving each Beast: "Choose a single Family Atavism. If you don't have it on your character sheet, you still have access to its normal effect. If you do have it, you have access to its Starving effect regardless of your Satiety level."

Mind you, this hack is only meant streamline what we have now. I think Birthrights could be better used to model something other powers don't - like the relationship between the Human and the Horror. They could clarify whether a given Beast is more like a mental projector (like slavic zmora or germanic mara), a victim of a transformative curse (a classic movie werewolf), a witch with a "spirit" familiar etc. What Beasts are is metaphysically blurry, so it would be good totransform confusion into concrete options.

I seem to recall having seen some of this dissatisfaction before.

For me, I've yet to really Chesterton's Fence it, but what I've got on the off hand is that they're generally smaller but more definite than Atavisms, a guarenteed bit of something working that provides helps to direct a players gameplay style to be evocative of the Families, that's comparable to the little tricks that Auspices in Werewolf provide, which I don't recall anyone taking issue with.

For me, the main thing I get from that is actually not directly about Birthrights and more an important thing to keep in mind, that Families need to maintain and present their idiom rather than simply being particular bags of Atavisms. In the same way an Acanthus is not a Time Mage or a Fate Mage, or even just a Time-And-Fate Mage, but are Witches and Enchanters, the Anakim are not the Looming Presence or Mimir's Wisdom Beast, they are the Hopelessness Beast, they are Giants in meaning and action, not just form. It's a thing that has to be considered when angling on their relationship to Lair, Kinship, Nightmares, that every Family has their language of textures and approaches, that might be expressed by having particular meta-Nightmares attached to them, passing particulars traits through Kinship, and other such ideas.

Anyhow, bringing it back to the original question, Birthrights haven't been a thing pertinent enough to land on my list of considerations*, and a precursory glance at them alongside how to think about Atavisms yields that I do like them(in particular, the fact that they basically have a guarenteed working at this small scale is effective for letting Beast's be nightmarish in their particular ways), though some of the packaging needs to be considered. Even if I were to be negative about them, I would still have to regard them as pointing the way to keeping Families relevant instead of having Beast eventually devolve into a "why do we even need Paths-I mean Families anyways?" mechanical quagmire.**

*Heroes, then The Astral/The Dreaming, then Kinship, then Nightmares, then cleaning up/repackaging everything else.
**Now am I actually worried about that? Eh, a bit-I don't think it's devolve into some of the Path-style soup collapse that was prevelant before Mage 2nd, but anything that helps to move Beast away from certain Monster: The Generic-ing reads should be encouraged.

[Teatime]

While we're on the subject, what are your thoughts about Birthrights?

As I see them, they're merely diet Atavisms. Whatever wordcount they take would be better spent including more Atavisms in the book and giving each Beast: "Choose a single Family Atavism. If you don't have it on your character sheet, you still have access to its normal effect. If you do have it, you have access to its Starving effect regardless of your Satiety level."

Mind you, this hack is only meant streamline what we have now. I think Birthrights could be better used to model something other powers don't - like the relationship between the Human and the Horror. They could clarify whether a given Beast is more like a mental projector (like slavic zmora or germanic mara), a victim of a transformative curse (a classic movie werewolf), a witch with a "spirit" familiar etc. What Beasts are is metaphysically blurry, so it would be good totransform confusion into concrete options.

[Nicolas Milioni]

I'd honestly rather expand and otherwise make sexier Nightmares and Kinship than come up with another powerset.

sounds nice