History TabletopGame / PrometheanTheCreated

* DeadpanSnarker: Ulgan are prone to it.

** 2nd Edition ramps this UpToEleven: Promethean Disquiet, and Wastelands, are effectively ''Azothic radiation poisoning''. They're ''literally'' humanoid health hazards.

'''The Refinements:''' The chosen {{Splat}}s of the Prometheans. Unlike other species in the World of Darkness, Refinements aren’t social constructs so much as philosophies. There are so few Created in the world that a given Promethean may live out his entire pseudo-life without ever meeting another of his kind, let alone one following the same Refinement. Refinements are divided into simple and complex; a Promethean must always start their journey on a simple Refinement, and cannot have completed more complex Refinements than simple ones.

* TakenForGranite: One of the lineages was descended from Galatea, and some have worked out how to turn back into stone. Other Prometheans can learn the trick as well.

->''We know we're not real. It's like playing house, like befriending shadow puppets. It becomes frustrating, then maddening. No one wants the company of monsters, not for long.''
->''Not even other monsters.''

* TheStoic: Osirans tend to be this way, particularly when in Torment.

** Possibly the king of this: Bin Gereh. Even Great-Grandfather Crow can find a chance at redemption, though it might not be a form he likes. Bin Gereh (and the other Extempores) ''may never be able to''. (He was "created" by a natural disaster, and every attempt he's made at creating progeny - a required step for Redemption - has failed.)

* RobotWizard: The Unfleshed are a kind of Promethian (a pseudo-living creature usually created from human corpses subjected to a specific ritual) arisen from broken machines rather than dead people. These can still use magic-like Refinements, using the Divine Fire imbued into their beings, in an effort to cure their PinocchioSyndrome.

Notable perhaps because a viable group of characters in the game consists of Frankenstein's Monster, a marble statue imbued with life, a hypertech nanite colony in the shape of a man, a mummy, and a golem complete with the name of God on his forehead, and they can go beat up a radioactive zombie-making (and also radioactive-zombie making) thing brought to life by a nuclear bomb and guarded by living cancers, because you were told to by a blood-drenched angel with a flaming sword and six wings. And despite that description, it's actually a rather deep game of personal horror and on the nature of what makes a man. Possibly the strangest of the new World of Darkness games, ''Promethean'' requires more investment between Storyteller and player than the norm, and is thus recommended for smaller groups.

* BlessedWithSuck: Quite possibly the worst in the [[TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness nWoD]].

* MurderIsTheBestSolution: Most lineages have no problem obtaining corpses to use in the generative act. Even the Ulgan, who require supernaturally-touched bodies, live in the '''TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness''', after all. But Galateids, who require relatively young, unmarred corpses? Well, there are only so many ways young people can die without a mark on them, and it's ''so'' easy to just take a lover and smother or poison 'em or something...

* GeneticMemory: Prometheans with the Residual Memories Merit possess traces of the skills their former bodies had. Unfortunately, these skills come with a chance to express a Derangement their former body had as well.

** To expand on the point above, with enough damage, you will start to take penalties on your rolls. If you take Bashing damage, you will need to roll to stay conscious. Take Lethal damage or get Bashed hard enough, and you will start to bleed to death - [[CaptainObvious and you die.]] Further damage would turn into Aggravated damage, in essence mutilating the body. Prometheans take no roll penalty, do not need to roll to stay conscious, and will not bleed to death. The only way to kill them is to deal enough Aggravated damage - either by mutilating the body beyond recognition (easier said than done, given the body in question is most likely still moving and actively resisting), [[KillItWithFire or by fire]].

* '''Unfleshed:''' The Unfleshed are Prometheans made inanimate objects: as simple as a mannequin or collection of prosthetic devices, or as complicated as a factory machine or android. The Unfleshed originally appeared in ''Saturnine Night'', but the second edition promoted them to a full-fledged Lineage, complete with their own humour, oil. They have inherited the slave-like nature of the Tammuz, originally made as tools only to serve a purpose. Unlike a thoughtless device, Unfleshed recognize their own sentience and demand respect accordingly, even if they don't quite understand why. Unused to emotion, they alternate between cold logic and uncontrolled outbursts.

* '''Extempore''': The Matchless are not so much a Lineage as a collection of unique Lineages that don't match any others, born when sheer random chance causes the spontaneous formation of a Promethean. It may happen in the wake of a natural disaster (the sample Extempore, Bin Gereh, was born from a powerful earthquake), out of extreme emotion or need, or even during a regular Linage creation rite that goes just wrong enough to make an aberrant Extempore, but not quite wrong enough to create a Pandoran. They may have the same humours as a regular Promethean or something altogether unique, such as lava or seawater. There may not even be a body involved, their physical form coming from an unknown source of matter. They often feel the most lost among the Created since, unlike the other Lineages, they have no examples to follow and are truly on their own.
* In addition to those, there are the various optional ways to create a Promethean, such as Constructs[[note]]As of second edition, Constructs are part of the Unfleshed.[[/note]], when a Promethean from a standard Lineage decides to create another using inanimate materials and succeeds; Prometheans created using an animal rather than a human body, with most of the limitations that come with such those forms; the Prometheans created when a demiurge dreams so long and clear the dream becomes real; and the Prometheans created by demiurges from the other supernatural races of the World of Darkness and partaking of their nature. There are also lost Promethean lines that have died out, usually by their method of creation being lost or forgotten, or the circumstances that allowed them to be born no longer existing. For example, another Lineage based on the Fire-element existed before the Frankensteins, but their name has been lost to time.

Terminology: Prometheans each belong to a ''Lineage'' descended from a ''Progenitor'' created by a human ''Demiurge''. The five in the core claim descent from Frankenstein's Monster, Galatea, Osiris, Tammuz and Ulgan, but more exist; the Zeka are radioactive, the Unfleshed are made from robots and machines rather than human corpses, and there are other, rarer ones which can be created by freak occurrences. They travel in groups called ''throngs''. They follow one of ten ''Refinements'' to focus their Pilgrimages. Their powers are alchemical ''Transmutations'' fueled by their internal store of ''Pyros''; Pyros in turn is empowered by their ''Azoth''. Their KarmaMeter is ''Humanity'', their ability to comprehend and mimic human behavior and morals. All Prometheans follow an unknown ''Pilgrimage'' to find humanity; if they find their way successfully, they may achieve their Great Work, or ''Magnum Opus'', and become fully human.

* BishonenLine: Pandorans in 2E; the mindless variety is many-formed and always very short. When they become Sublimati, they always metamorphose into an invariably humanoid form with recognizable facial expressions that is as tall as the average human-and as a result, has as much Health. This also comes part and parcel with not only their [[ItCanThink minds]], but the ability to learn true Transmutations and devour [[ImAHumanitarian human flesh]] as a Pyros substitute, allowing them to remain awake indefinitely if they have enough hapless mortals.

* DarkIsNotEvil: The books explicitly mention that some Centimani are not evil, just selfish and tired of [[HatePlague Disquiet]]. Pandora's Book features a couple-an [[{{Mummy}} Osiran]] who thinks that understanding Flux is key to understanding humans, and a [[{{Golem}} Tammuz]] who simply has it as the first Refinement he learned. It even admits the Osiran has a point; the problem is his detachment from his work.

** 2E averts this for the Centimani-it's been clarified that is explicitly the Refinement that rejects the Pilgrimage and humanity altogether, instead focusing on chasing the nebulous goal of monster-hood for the sake of survival at all costs. It adds Phosphorum and Cobalus, though-the latter is all about learning to exploit human vices in the name of understanding them (so to later overcome them, natch), while the former's intellectual aspects have a distinct {{Necromancer}} bent.

* DePower: Prometheans can do this to themselves, willingly, in 2E-by internally damping their Azoth, they can also shed the downsides of high Azoth (worse Disquiet and Wastelands, attracting Pandorans). The downside is they have to wait for at least a day before returning to full potential-and they're weaker while it lasts.

** This trope was [[DefiedTrope shot in the skull and butchered to make a Frankenstein]] in 2nd Edition-during the New Dawn, a Promethean briefly becomes a full-scale RealityWarper that encodes a full legal identity, life, and history into the world for their new life that resembles Refinements. At ''worst'', the Redeemed is apparently as badly traumatized as a Promethean has every right to be (and no idea why), and most of ''those'' get better after about a month. It may be a somewhat ''off-kilter'' life (the less Refinements you mastered, the more of your Promethean and human memories you're missing), but it is perfectly adapted to wherever the Promethean achieved the New Dawn. A Redeemed has a BittersweetEnding at worst in the vast majority of cases, and in comparison it's usually heavy on the sweet.

* {{Metaplot}}: There's a free introductory scenario on [=DriveThruRPG=], and each of the books have a fully-fleshed out story module in the last appendix. Strung together, these form a narrative that describes the misadventures of a throng and at the end of the chronicle features a firestorm engulfing post-Katrina New Orleans.

* ProphecyTwist: [[spoiler: In the core book, Mr. Verney tells a psychologist a prophecy the Qashmallim gave him: that if he continued to hunt down Pandorans in what is implied to be Centralia, 'one of [his] own would return to [him] with precious knowledge'. During the interview, Verney recognizes the psychologist as one who sided with his Bride so long ago, and decides to force his Bride's whereabouts out of her. Unfortunately, he accidentally kills her instead, thinking she was still a Promethean. For Mr. Verney, who had abandoned his Pilgrimage, his quest to become human, who believed that it was impossible, the doctor's death indeed gives him precious knowledge - that the Pilgrimage is ''possible''.]]

** The first book has a framing story that demonstrates the differences between mortals and Prometheans on this concept. [[spoiler:A psychologist is interviewing a suspect in several disappearances who claims to be Frankenstein's monster. After much exposition, the subject of Frankenstein's Bride is raised and Mr. Verney talks about how she turned against him, becoming a Centimanus who created Pandorans, and that he dedicated his life to hunting her. The psychologist is troubled when he talks about her nightmares, her amnesia clouding memories of her youth. Eventually, Mr. Verney reveals he's been playing along with her. She's one of his former progeny, who left him for his Bride, becoming a vile Centimanus, and he wants revenge for what she did a century ago. What he doesn't realise is that she's become human - so when he strikes out at her, expecting a true Promethean, he instead kills her. The text ends abruptly but it's implied his final act is to return her to a Promethean existence.]]

* ThenLetMeBeEvil: Hi there, Furies! Subverted, however, in that Stannum is still a Pilgrimage Refinement-it's about the ''dark'' aspects of humanity, but its fundamental goal is learning to ''[[BadPowersGoodPeople control]]'' those feelings and turn them to productive ends.

* {{Transhumanism}}: Deconstructed with 2E's antagonistic alchemists-many of them want to become "more than human," but it's explicit that they do it at the cost of living beings (ie, Prometheans themselves) and it comes with untested and gruesome side effects. As a result, what they ''actually'' become is frequently deserving of the title "less than human."

** 2nd Edition spoilers ramp this UpToEleven: Promethean Disquiet, and Wastelands, are effectively ''Azothic radiation poisoning''. They're ''literally'' humanoid health hazards.

[[caption-width-right:350:Death did them part. They were reassembled.]]