History TabletopGame / ChroniclesOfDarkness

* [[GodIsEvil God Is an Amoral Supercomputer with Little Regard for Humans]] [[GodIsInept with Even Less Ability to Make Effective Plans]]: It is unknown if the God-Machine is either a DitzyGenius with regular bad intel from glitches and errors in its Infrastructure, a [[XanatosSpeedChess master of the backup plan]] which doesn't care if a scheme fails if it has more in the oven, or both. Either way, Mr. DeusEstMachina is not your friend, and probably not the worst enemy in the divine realm you could have in a horror setting (though it's still damned scary).
* GoodIsDumb: For spirits of negative emotions, even the stupidest ones cause downward spirals in their victims that exacerbate the spirit's emotion and feed it more and more. For spirits of positive emotions, they're so stupid, shortsighted, and ignorant of human culture and morality that they're just as likely to cause horrible tragedies which only end up starving the spirit. No wonder positive spirits are so rare and weak.
** For example, a toy spirit in an abandoned toymaker's store only wants children to have fun playing with handmade toys, so instead of teaching people about keeping traditions alive or a lesson in anti-commercialism, it teaches children to ''murder'' anyone who tries to bulldoze the store.

* MugglesDoItBetter: {{Subverted}}. While there ''are'' advantages to technology like it being easier to use and more reliable, the sheer power of [[RealityWarper Atlantean Sorcery]] eclipses almost anything mortals can accomplish. Adept mages can already turn lead to gold, observe anyone from a distance, give themselves a GenderBender, see the future and cure cancer. Later on Master Mages can trap souls in ashtrays, move between dimensions, make themselves [[WindsOfDestinyChange supernaturally lucky]] or '''time travel''' amongst many other things. Also this can be done without needing equipment. Mages use tools like magic wands and staffs or incantations spoken in the Atlantean language to focus their power, but in an emergency can use magic even while BoundAndGagged. In the end this gets {{Reconstructed}}. The [[LaResistance Pentacle Order]] (who make up the majority of Mages) are the 'good' Mage faction because they want to share magic with mortals by making them Mages to. Their just split on whether they should give magic only to those who prove their worthy (Adamantine Order), give it to everyone but with themselves getting high positions in the new Awakened Society (Silver Ladder) or give it to everyone period (Free Council).

* WitchSpecies: [[LaResistence The]] [[Diamond Orders]] claim that all humans naturally can use magic and accuse the [[EvilSorcerer Seers of the Throne]] and their godlike masters of breaking reality to stop most humans from doing so.

There's also a gameline for [[TabletopGame/HunterTheVigil humans who hunt monsters]]. Normally in ''Chronicles of Darkness'', a group of humans has little chance of survival when going toe-to-toe with just ''one'' supernatural creature. But most creatures agree that humanity as a whole is dangerous and should be kept ignorant of their existence. The handful of small-time [[HunterOfMonsters monster hunter]] societies in ''TabletopGame/HunterTheVigil'' show just how effective an organized group of humans can be. And how bad it would be to have a [[HumanityIsAdvanced technologically advanced]] and [[HumansAreWarriors warlike species]] numbering in the [[WeHaveReserves billions]] declaring open season, on ''much'' smaller populations of supernaturals. The authors even covered this scenario in ''Mirrors'', where [[TheUnmasquedWorld humanity discovers that vampires exist]].

* GothicPunk: Toned down significantly from the original. The constant grimdark angst is gone, and even the bleakest gamelines have hope for their protagonists. Humans are also every bit as dangerous as the supernatural creatures that feed on them.

* WarIsHell: 2E takes a ''very'' cynical view of violence and people who resort to it as a first option. ''Hurt Locker'' is all about how hurting people weaker than you ends up creating more problems than it solves, and the fundamentally self-destructive nature of hate. [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing It does admit up front that violence is still pretty cool to watch, though]].

** Several of [[TabletopGames/HunterTheVigil Taskforce:]] [[MenInBlack VALKYRIE's]] Endowments are specialized rounds made to [[AvertedTrope avert]] this, ranging from silver bullets, to bullets made of wood that splinter to act like stakes, to bullets that can hurt ghosts, and bullets that have a little bit of everything in them, allowing them to be more effective against all threats but not as effective as the specialized rounds.

* HorrifyingHero: Due to playing as a horror monster, any PC from any gameline (with the ''possible'' exception of ''TabletopGame/HunterTheVigil'') is one of these. Yes, you may be working for good, but you`re still a supernatural murder machine MadeOfIron.

* TouchTheIntangible: Blessed objects can harm ghosts.

* BadassNormal: ''[[SerialKiller Slashers]]'' deserve a mention- most of them are ordinary humans who can be just as dangerous and terrifying, if not more, than inhuman horrors.

*** Changelings, however, don't have this; even though "Clarity" is supposed to be a SanityMeter, it still functions as a near-replica of Morality.

* BrokenMasquerade: Exemplified by at least three minor templates; "Ghouls" are humans who have been fed vampire blood to become super-powered minions to vampires, "Sleepwalkers" have partially Awakened enough they can interact with mages and magic without stuffing it up like humans do, and "Ensorcelled" have been granted the ability to see through the illusions shielding Changelings.

* {{Expy}}: The "Lost Boys" from Chronicles of Darkness are specifically, and rather unapologetically, inspired by [[DeusExHumanRevolution Adam Jensen from Deus Ex: Human Revolution]], being soldiers-forcibly-turned-cyborgs whose augmentations rely on regular intake of a particular chemical and whose arsenal contains several of his disntictive signature moves, like spraying tiny bombs around, his cloaking device, and his wrist blades.

* MonsterLord: Vampire bloodlines, or just plain elders above Blood Potency 6. Changelings with Entitlements, at least in the eyes of the Gentry.

* TouchedByVorlons: The origins of Changelings in ''Changeling: The Lost,'' Only they were touched in the ''[[MindRape worst]]'' [[MindRape way possible]]. Imagine experiencing a combination of kidnapping, sexual abuse, MindRape and some terrors humans don't even have words for. As a result of this, you are horribly mutated and in many ways no longer essentially human. The only plus side is that you MIGHT have enough power to keep yourself from getting taken back after you escape (if you even manage to escape; the escape rate is fairly abysmal).

* The main villain of the sample scenario "With A Song In My Heart" is John Clerk, an immortal serial killer driven by the need to amplify the music he hears in his head via murder. As such, singing is one of his Character Tics, but since he's the player characters' mild-mannered music teacher, nobody finds anything particularly unusual about this habit... right up until the characters find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere, at night, with the corpse of Mr Clerk's latest victim in front of them, and that song slowly closing in...
* The eponymous villain in the scenario "Mountain Mother" is also prone to this: an ancient subterranean being believed to be the last of her kind, she's taken to kidnapping children in an effort to raise them as her own, and her most recognizable lines are described as "eerie singing in a language that hasn't been spoken in tens of thousands of years" - an indication of just how lonely she's become over the eons.

* TokyoIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse: Thus far, Tokyo is the only city which has appeared as a sample chronicle location in all Chronicles of Darkness lines, and the generic expansion Hurt Locker even has a chapter dedicated to it. As a result, whereas other cities may appear to be only primarily occupied by a single type of unnatural phenomena, Tokyo is packed to the brim with vampires, werewolves, mages, agents of the God-Machine, and every other inhuman entity under the sky. Oddly enough, ''Beast: the Primordial'' establishes that the most supernaturally influential creature, or Apex, in the city is an ''independent [[TabletopRPG/VampireTheRequiem ghoul]]''.

* FunctionalMagic: Each supernatural has its own form of "magic" with its own rules and origins. Vampires have Disciplines, Werewolves have Gifts, Mages have... [[CaptainObvious well, magic]], Changelings have Contracts, Beasts have Nightmares.

** Some of the True Fae can possibly be seen as this. [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Baron Fairweather]], for example, personifies corperate greed.

* Many artifacts are also cursed, tempering the benefits with terrible drawbacks.

** The Second Edition seems to be trending this way compared to the first: