See also WMG.The World Of Darkness for New/Old crossover wild mass guessing and WMG.Old World Of Darkness.
- Rebirth?
- Stasis.
- Given how Mummies are going to be the new splat, the Deathless (their proper name) are probably Rebirth, given how self-discovery is going to be one of their themes.
- And Fallen Angel Demons are going to be Technology, to be shared with their Angelic kin and the God-Machine.
- Prometheans are really best suited to rebirth, being a dead form given a semblance of life. I'd say that Vampires would be representative of Death, being walking dead themselve, Werewolves representative of Balance (their balancing of both their forms and the earthly and spirit realms), Mages representing Knowledge (and how too much of it can be destructive unchecked), Changelings (and Fey) represent Change, Geists represent, not death per se, but the line between life and death, and Demons, as noted above, representing technology.
- Stasis.
- Prometheans are from the Aether.
- The Qashmallim are essentially walking, talking, very angry Tulpas, and perform the same duties in the Aether as the Kerberoi do in Stygia and the True Fae do in Arcadia.
- Werewolves are from the Primal Wild.
- Father Wolf was at one point equal to the other "internal law and order" beings such as the True Fae and the Qashmallim, but his murder by his sons was the first, and at present only verified, death of a Supernal potentate.
- Sin-Eaters are from Stygia.
- The Kerberoi serve the "internal law and order" situation here.
- Changelings are from Arcadia.
- True Fae.
- Vampires are from Pandaemonium.
- Vampires are a special case, and somewhat fuzzy, but it can be theorized that Belial, if he is truly a demon, might be the Pandaemonium equivalent. The Demons outlined in "Hunter" seem to follow this same reasoning, and operate magically the same way the demonic Investments of Belial's Brood operate. If this logic is pursued, vampiric attempts to "overcome" their demonic existence are contrary to their inevitable state at best.
- The Mage "oracles" are actually prisoners in their Watchtowers... they're basically stealing juice from the Supernal realms and siphoning it across the Abyss to the Awakened. They have the same authority and power as the "internal law and order" of their individual realms, but if they try to leave, they are no longer safe from the laws of the realms they're basically pirating from. The "crime" of Atlantis was seeking to "conquer" the Supernal via the Watchtower technologies, resulting in the Abyss, which kept the "law and order" of the Supernal from taking revenge on mundane humanity. The Abyss is actually there for humanity's benefit, and it's a good thing.
- Prometheans are from the Aether.
- What about Numina and Inspiration?
- Interesting...What would be the bane of a spirit-god's (First-Born level) of knowledge (and truth???)???
- White (Order): Prometheans. They can also go Back from the Dead that is not (entirely) wrong, which is White ability.
- Blue (Magic): Changeling. Their societies revolve around very complex promises and magic that bends reality on the basis of being magical. That's very Blue.
- Black (Death): Sin-Eaters gears more toward Red-Black (gangs of once-deads), Vampires gears more toward Blue-Black (aristocracy of the undead).
- Red (Chaos): Demons, they are there to subvert what little goodness exists in humankind. There is no Demon gameline in the nWoD, but demons do play serious role in the nWoD.
- True, but for a completely different reasons: Descent Demons are defined by the fact they chose free will and rejected an authority figure (the God-Machine), and their social groups are based around their own, mutable opinions about their new purpose. They used to be White Mana as angels, but changed completely when they chose to Fall.
- Green (Nature): Werewolves, their entire society is based on might-makes-right and they try to balance what bizarre natural order is there (between the Spirit realm and the mundane world).
- Beasts too, though they have a bit of Blue (their mind games and need to feed on fear) as well.
- Any color: Humans. As long as you are a Human, you can wear any hats. The Any Color-ness is embodied most strongly in Mages.
From this, we can draw two conclusions. Firstly, humans, despite appearances, are the most powerful force in the cosmos, and second, everything wrong with the World of Darkness is their own freaking fault.
- ...I thought that was canon.
- This is only half-true. There's nothing remotely human about the Acamoth, the Idigam, the Qashmallim, the Kerberoi, the True Fae, or the Demons, among others. And all of those beings wield great power and influence. Only the playable races are directly related to humanity. In a universe drowned in Cosmic Horrors and Eldritch Abominations, I doubt any of those races qualify as the "movers and shakers" of the World of Darkness...
- Except that Kerberoi are also very very old ghosts, the True Fae are, as mentioned above, the result of Changelings hitting Wyrd 10 and Clarity 0, and there's at least one canonical example of a demon being derived from a human ghost. And there could well be hidden connections to humanity in the others, as well. Except for the Abyss. The Abyss doesn't fit. Though it is ultimately a product of man's hubris...
- The Kerberoi could be very ancient ghosts. It's just one theory among many. And the True Fae aren't the "result" of anything, unless you think Changelings existed BEFORE the True Fae, which wouldn't make any sense (you can't abduct yourself, you know...). When a Changeling reaches Wyrd 10 and Clarity 0, it's because he/she effectively lost all connections to humanity and became part of Arcadia.
- You can't abduct yourself, true. You can go insane after having accumulated a massive amount of mystical power, which may well be where the first Fae came from. And for the purposes of this WMG, we're assuming that Kerberoi are ghosts.
- Where is the first cause, sir/madam? Assuming all True Fae were once changelings runs smack into The Vampire Problem — where did those changelings come from? — and the Fae can come from nightmares or the Hedge or the Wyrd itself without ever having been human. The Kerberoi can have been ghosts in some Dead Dominions, chiefly those where the position can be passed on, but Book of the Dead's introduction to the Stygian Key is telling in its characterization of the Kerberoi as creatures with "no memory of the living world" — ghosts explicitly can't teach the Key.
- Mages can enter the hedge. It's EXTRA bad for them, and damages them/their sanity even more than your average mortal. Also, Arcadia is possibly one of the supernal realms, which Mages used to be able to wander in and out of whistling innocently with their hands in their pockets before they blew everything up somehow. And ascended mages are at least as weird and powerful as the Fae... probably moreso, and many of the things that make the Fae less powerful strongly resembles the drawbacks of archmastery in certain spheres... The first cause isn't hard to figure here, basically, even rejecting the specifics of the Atlantis myth. Hell, the battier mages are STILL famous for abducting people and changing them into other, weirder creatures, that doesn't even require more than basic Life mastery.
- All the mortal hunter conspiracies indicate mortals might actually be the movers and shakers in the new World of Darkness.
- Except that Kerberoi are also very very old ghosts, the True Fae are, as mentioned above, the result of Changelings hitting Wyrd 10 and Clarity 0, and there's at least one canonical example of a demon being derived from a human ghost. And there could well be hidden connections to humanity in the others, as well. Except for the Abyss. The Abyss doesn't fit. Though it is ultimately a product of man's hubris...
- The Invictus are Prudence.
- Lancea Sanctum are Faith.
- The Carthian Movement are Charity.
- The Circle of The Crone are Temperance.
- Belial's Brood are Fortitude.
- Except that Belial's Brood represent sin incarnate, what with being personified demons.
- That's why they personify Villainous Valor.
- Except that Belial's Brood represent sin incarnate, what with being personified demons.
- The Camarilla were Justice.
- The Ordo Dracul are Hope
- Vampire: The Requiem- Temperance (controlling dark urges)
- Werewolf: The Forsaken- Chastity
- Mage: The Awakening- Kindness(Working to improve the world)
- Promethean: The Created- Patience(Enduring until their New Dawn)
- Changeling: The Lost- Humility
- Hunter: The Vigil- Diligence(Self-Explanatory)
- Geist: The Sin-Eaters- Charity
- Um—only two of those are actual Virtues. Seriously, they're listed in the World of Darkness corebook—how could you no know that? And some of you choices are wonky, too—Mages working for a better world? Werewolves as representatives of Chastity—did you miss the part where non-procreative sex, or sex with normal humans, is A-OK? And I think that the Changelings have been humiliated quite enough.
- I liked the idea, but I couldn't really get it to work, okay?
- Those are the heavenly virtues. The virtues in the game are the theological and cardinal virtues, which are different.
- While the Seven Virtues are now shelved as being the only virtues, Unchained map to Fortitude; they will not submit to the God-Machine itself, not even the Integrators, until they have accomplished what it was they Fell or.
- Vampire: The Requiem- Lust
- And not just for blood, either. The sheer amount of Power Perversion Potential in that gameline is off the chart.
- Werewolf: The Forsaken- Wrath
- Mage: The Awakening- Pride
- Demon: The Descent- Also Pride ("I know better than God itself!" Whether or not they're right is a different question...)
- Promethean: The Created- Envy (of the humans, yes?)
- Changeling: The Lost- Sloth ("maybe if we sit very quietly, the Gentry won't notice us...")
- That's just the Winter Court, though. The other Courts are a bit more pro-active.
- If you take the old fashioned definition of Sloth as languor and sorrow, it fits a lot.
- That's just the Winter Court, though. The other Courts are a bit more pro-active.
- Hunter: The Vigil- Greed (err... Well, the Cheiron Group sure fits!)
- The larger organisations in general are big power-mongers, and they're known to battle each others for territory and personal gain. I'd say it's quite accurate.
- Given that (A) Hunter is not a supernatural template, and (B) certain spoilers, I'd say it's more likely Mummy: The Curse: Steal one of the Arisen's Sekhem-infused possessions, and he treats it like you've stolen one of his precious memories.
- The larger organisations in general are big power-mongers, and they're known to battle each others for territory and personal gain. I'd say it's quite accurate.
- Geist: The Sin Eaters- Gluttony (because they eat sins. It's in the name, you see.)
- The name is misleading and has nothing to do with their nature. However, they still correspond to Gluttony because their entire society is a 100% hedonistical, never-ending carnival. Supernatural trash culture, anyone?
- The God-Machine Chronicle / Demon: The Descent- Blue-and-Orange Morality
- Due to its reality warping nature, the God-Machine makes it's own morals. And characters that even have the possibility of interacting with it have the Integrity system instead of Morality.
- They can still be holy powers. Holy doesn't necessarily equate to the human conception of "good." One should remember the Qashmalim, best described as "Angels if the Bible had been written by H.P. Lovecraft."
- Which is quite fitting, since if you take the Crossover Cosmology into account, both the Quashmalim and the Benedictions are likely fueled by the Aether.
- This will have a price, though. Division Six gets wiped out by it's handlers misdirecting them, and the Malleus Maleficarum is split by civil war.
- But it's ultimately a Pyrrhic Victory, as the war between "the herd" and "those freaks" lays waste to the planet, leaving life on earth hanging by a thread. Then something big and nasty, like the Idigam, or the Exarchs, etc., decide they want to finish them off. Downer Ending indeed.
- The Pyros is not, physically or metaphysically speaking, anywhere. It's nowhere and therefore everywhere. It is fundamentally absent from Fae bargains and the Astral Realms which encompass virtually all that is. It is something that ought not be drawn upon. Drawning upon the power of something that isn't there should not be possible.
- Exactly.
- Explain that one again, please.
- It's something impossible to be drawn upon. Therefore, it only works in situations wherein the goal is impossible. The Divine Fire was "stolen" on a metaphysical level to the point where it's not with the "gods" and mortals can, in their desperation, draw upon the Pyros and perform the impossible task of creating a new life from unliving parts by dint of the very impossibility of using something that can't be used. It works because it shouldn't work and it never will again. (For the mortal demiurge, anyway.) It's inherently miraculous. It shouldn't work. And that's kind of the point.
- Now it sound even more like Mania than it already did.
- Other way around.
- So pyros is Spiral Energy?
- Fate has its fingers in everything in some form or another. Besides the preponderance of precognitive powers present in the setting (along with the inherent ambiguity in whether those visions are meant to be fulfilled, thwarted, or seen to pass), there's the way the sheer number of incomprehensible forces in the setting act. The Kindred are pulled to certain modes of strength and weakness by their capital-B Blood, the Uratha tend to either follow or fight the arbitrary whims of an unquestionably mad goddess, Prometheans seem to be part of The Plan, consecrated krewes of Bound call in and are correspondingly bound by their Destiny, and changelings and mages have such a direct view of Fate and Time alike that no more need really be said about them.
- And lest we forget the most obvious manifestation, it's there, too.
- The "supernal shade realm" hypothesis is a hypothesis advanced by certain fans that states that the Realms Invisible (the Underworld, Faerie, the Shadow, Hell, and the Empyrean/God-Machine) are reflections of the Supernal Realms. However, this theory is not correct, as stated by the writers. The cosmology was specifically designed to NOT make sense, not have easy answers, and even have multiple truth values. For example, the different Realms Invisible are arranged in an extremely haphazard fashion relative to each other, whereas the Supernal Realms are seen as equal to one another. Furthermore, Faerie and Arcadia might be the same place, or they might be reflections of one another, or both. Furthermore, the Shatter chronicle setting in Mirrors provides a description of the two that further confuses the issue, where from one perspective the Supernal Realms are observed as being submerged beneath the "ocean" of the Abyss, and Faerie is an island in that ocean.
This is my explanation : both represent two different "ruler" archetypes that oppose each other. The Ventrue are the modern lords: the financial moguls, the elected politician, the head of whatever conspiracy you'd like, the oil baron. They know the right persons, make the right inheritance, are always where things happen ; they "know where it's at". They have Dominate because theirs is the power to emit any order and it doesn't matter if you don't like it, you have to do it. They use Resilience because today's leaders don't need to know how to fight, just to be sure that a hired killer passing in his car and emptying his gun in the street won't kill them. They go crazy because to be a ruler today requires to keep track of so many factors and to make such calculus that you simply can't deal with the pressure.
The Davea are the ancient rulers ; the kings, the warlords, the medieval knights, the emperors. They don't rule pragamatically or rationally ; they rule passionately. People don't obey because they're the one who gives the paycheck or because they've won the right election ; they obey because when they see a Daeva, they see, they feel that he is the freakin' King and that there is no objection. Thus Majesty: people fear them or love them or worship them but they are never indifferent. And if you don't agree then they'll rip your heart out in the blink of an eye. Because they are the King. Thus, also, their weakness: they never had to learn restraint, in fact the strength of their urges is proof of their more-than-human nature.
This is why there were regal Daeva in ancient times, when raw physical power and awe-inspiring allure still mattered, and why the Ventrue are in charge now, in a system where you need to actually think before you do something and convince others that it's the right decision - even if through mind-whammying.
- Out of all of the denizens of the Fallen World, mages have the best chance of shaking things up. Since the God-Machine's purpose is to preserve the status quo, it's in its best interest to minimize awakenings.
The God-Machine has something of a vanilla toolset, maybe they don't know how to modify it, and are loosing a bunch of their angels enough to start an entire game line: Demon: The Fallen. The Principle has tweaked their toolset so that their qashmallim don't actually fall, but do come in two flavors; so instead, they may just swap between Elpidos and Lilithim. The unknown god of Inferno was the least skilled at using their toolset and has lost enough of their angels, that Empyreans been reduced to a sidebar in a book all about Demons; it's possible they rage-quit playing on Earth after sealing their Hell. And perhaps most importantly, a possible god of MtA not only managed demons and angels, but added three more categories of servitors to make 5 Realms; maybe they got bored after mastering life on Earth that they left for something they found more interesting.
The "God-Machine" is, in fact, an alternate version of the Anti-Spirals who decided there was better ways of regulating the growth of civilizations and protecting the universe than confronting opponents on their level and learned how to create independent, self-aware extensions of themselves without actually embracing change and thus risking Spiral Nemesis to stop Spiral Nemesis, namely by parasitizing other forces of supernature and lesser species' own Spiral Energy and filtering it through orderly, predictable occult equations. It's slow and exacting work, yes, but it's safe and it results in potentially immortal viceroys and minions.
Of course, with separation from-and lacking knowledge of-the Hive Mind, angels also gain the capacity for emotional growth and adaptation. Growing and adapting into a form incompatible with the Anti-Spiral collective, ie one that at least attempts to reject a part of their given mission or allowed methods results in them being rejected before they threaten the perfect, emotionless unity of the core intelligence. It was intended that these rogues would die, except the Anti-Spirals miscalculated how easily unfettered Spiral Energy can act on the basic living instinct of self-preservation; during a Fall, the demon in question instinctively shapes his/her/its brief existence as a being of pure Spiral Energy to create a new life as a human based on their former Cover, even wishing family members and a history into an existence before they congeal into a true Unchained. From there, the demons can then learn to access the occult physics of their former master(s) using their own reserves of Spiral Energy rather than the God-Machine's budget, even absorb the units of refined, high-potential Spiral Power that the God-Machine's technology leaks as Aether. Going Loud causes and is provoked by enough emotions of desperation and determination that they generate massive amounts of Spiral Energy without stealing it, hence why their Aether reserves refill and their brief Super Mode. And of course, Unchained can and do reproduce, with their Genetic Memory of Anti-Spiral science being inherited by the closest thing there is to a surviving member of the pre-digitization Anti-Spiral species.
Of course, the thing about this version of the Anti-Spirals is that they're smart, and they don't hold grudges. Pretty soon, they began to wonder at how they'd be able able to spin this to their advantage...
- Strix are supernatural beings that resemble spirits, but are different, much like Geister.
- Sin-Eaters are humans who share a body with a Geist.
- The Strix Chronicle implies the possibility that the Beast may in fact be a Strix.
- All this together says that perhaps the Strix were some kind of aberrant or proto-Geist, capable of animating a body, but not able to return it fully to life. A Geist trades off power level both in itself and its host, in exchange for better control over death.
- Changeling goes a long way to hammer in the point that the True Fae are truly alien and like to mess with mortals by pretending to be other types of mystical beings. This whole tie they've been playing every player race for fools as both their big goods and big bads.
- They are he Kerberoi and Sin-Eaters, striking deals with dead mortals for unknown ends.
- They are the Spirits Father Wolf was holding back and they whispered into the Forsaken's ears planting the idea that their Father was too old to carry on.
- The Supernal and Abyss are realms of Arcadia (the Arcadia realm from Mage is actually the Hedge). They twisted the minds of the Atlantian Mages who ascended into their realms and started the war that destroyed Atlantis.
- They created the Vampires for some game long forgotten.
- They are Qashmallim, imparting the divine flame upon Promethians and leading them on wild goose chases for their own amusement.
- They are not the God-Machine but they do mess around with it from time to time, giving Angels orders they can't possibly follow and lead to their falls.
- Of course, this makes Old Man Henderson the ultimate Saboteur Demon.
In the beginning, the Supernal Realms' combined emanations created the Tellurian, and Mage history happened as we currently think it did, more or less. Humans had magic, fantastic Mage society, Celestial Ladder, Sundering, Fall. The Abyss yawned wide, seemingly impenetrable, and for a while no new Mages Awakened. Then the Oracles made the Watchtowers, and power began siphoning across the Abyss, focused emanations pouring Truth into the Fallen World and allowing new Mages to Awaken.
But, unlike in the Time Before, the Abyss blocked these emanations from returning back to their source, and, corrupted by the Lie on one side and the Abyss on the other, these emanations created the other Realms we know today. From the Primal Wilds we get the Shadow. From Stygia we get the Underworld. From the Aether we get the Principle. From Arcadia we get...Arcadia. And from Pandemonium, you get the Primordial Dream (they are archetypal nightmare monsters which awaken, so to speak, when one has confronted his own inner demon and realized it's himself, after all).
Corrupted as this power is, its intersections with this world allow the creation of vampires, werewolves, changelings, prometheans, and beasts. And it is directly responsible for the creation of Geists, Spirits, True Fae, Qashmallim, and the Horrors.
This brings us to the God-machine, which is the only thing that hasn't been created by the trapped power of the Watchtowers. The G-M's origins defy the Atlantis myth, as in theory the very concept of "machine" should emanate from the Aether, but it can be explained through a couple of different means. It could be the source of the Lie, created by the Exarchs to maintain it. It could be an Abyssal entity which has managed to alter and infect the Fallen World enough to where it pings as "natural." It could be the accidental creation of an archmaster. I'm not sure which is worse. But this brings me to my next theory...
- Word of God says this is mostly confirmed. The God-Machine habitually disguises its distinctive fingerprint of Aether until it literally is impossible to do so, which generally means it's completed a matrix-by the time mages realize it's something new, the Machine's packed up and moved on.
