Moments of funny from Chronicles of Darkness.
Official Gamelines
- Beast: The Primordial
- Changeling: The Lost
- Demon: The Descent
- Geist: The Sin-Eaters
- Hunter: The Vigil
- Mage: The Awakening
- Mummy: The Curse
- Vampire: The Requiem
- Werewolf: The Forsaken
Fan-made Gamelines
In General:
- The first edition corebook gives us this gem when describing the setting:"Superficially, most people in this fictional world live the same lives we do. They eat the same food, wear the same clothes, and waste time watching the same stupid TV shows."
- Antagonists gives up this nice little jab when describing how many amateur hunters can fall into Arbitrary Skepticism:Many potential alliances never happen because hunters either don’t believe each other, or miss references because they don’t fit in their personal views of the supernatural: “I saw a vampire drinking someone’s blood. What? Werewolves? No, that’s stupid. I’ll be some vampires can turn into wolves, though. (If you don’t believe people are this tunnel-visioned or arrogant, spend an hour on an unmoderated forum anywhere on the Internet).
- Two hunters are discussing a new mission they have been given. One complains that it seems like a wild goose chase, to which the other replies "Yeah, well, you know what else they said was a wild goose chase? Finding Bigfoot. But where is he now? In federal prison because he never paid his taxes."
- From World Of Darkness: Skinchangers, the intro to "Spirit-Skinner":
"There's a tree in my basement.""So?""It gives me magic powers.""Yer nuts. Gimme another beer." - Reliquary (the book discussing Relics and other artifacts) provides this line while discussing how apples can mean trouble:"An apple could be the logo of a company (like an electronic company, just to pull an example out of nowhere) which is the front for some smug, overconfident villain."
- In the same vein, there is this bit about what churches are ready to do to protect their relics:
"while kung-fu albino monks are the province of badly-written blockbuster novels..." - For all the horrifying things given in the God-Machine Chronicles, some of the sample Angels provided here have downright hilarious weaknesses. Highlight include:
- An angel disguised as a cop who is vulnerable to donuts (as in, they cause him Aggravated damages when he touches them). This is apparently because "they represent the comical, absurd perception of law enforcement" and are therefore capable of damaging his Infrastructure. For the record, Infrastructures are occult machines or processes made for arguably one of the most powerful beings in the entire setting.
- One disguised as a night waitress in a diner who cannot refuse a (polite) request for a cup of coffee. The Ban explicitly states that this includes during combat.
- One who has to subtly reveal his true nature when spoken to in Spanish... which wouldn't be that bad if not for the fact his human form looks Hispanic, has a Spanish accent and doesn't speak Spanish, not to mention the God-Machine's main enemies are all natural Omniglots.
- Then you have the Lady in Red, an Angel whose task is to ensure two specific people will end up forming a couple, even if she has to ruin their already existing relationships in order to succeed. In other word, her entire role consists in re-enacting your typical Fan-Preferred Couple fanfic plot.
- Similarly, some of the God-Machine Chronicles sample situations described to show how humans occasionally interact with the supernatural are hilarious in how casual they are:
- A woman comes to deliver a pizza in an appartment finds out her "client" is a man with the head of a fly who is using said pizzas for... something with his larvae. Instead of killing her, the fly-man just takes the pizza, shoves money in her hand and closes the door, as if this was a perfectly normal situation.
- A drunken student trying to drive his way back home gets assaulted by a being of light, who... knocks him unconscious and temporarily takes away his keys so he won't kill himself on the road. Talk about an unusual way to avoid traffic accidents.
- A woman is taking the elevator, when a cyborg-like creature walks in, waits next to her saying nothing, then leave as if nothing weird happened.
- Hurt Locker introduces a Fighting Style Merit known as Avoidance, best-described as the fighting style of of a Dirty Coward- which is as funny as it sounds. Moves include looking so unthreatening people will neglect attacking you, tricking your opponent into hurting themselves (or your allies) or flat-out Playing Possum.
- The House That Hates, a monster which is essentially every haunted house trope rolled into the shape of a fixer-upper, has the Captain Obvious weakness of huge dice penalties to "anything but being a house".
- In the otherwise frightful World of Darkness: Inferno, the authors stop to note that, in what may be a nod to the hysteria surrounding tabletop gaming and demon worship
, no, the demon summoning rituals do not work.This chapter presents descriptions of “demon-summoning rituals.” No, they don’t actually work. They don’t work because demons aren’t real. Most especially the ones in this work of fiction. Carry on.
