World of Darkness (New & Old) - General Discussion Thread

If these Einherjar are of the right age and thus see service in the Varangian Guard as something righteous, then they ought to see parallels in serving a Camarilla Prince. Interestingly enough, the same applies if they happen to be among the very oldest, embraced as far back as the 4th or 5th centuries. Then they could have served in the Western Roman military.

It would make a lot of sense for an organization like the Camarilla to keep tabs on the fields of archeology and history. Officially, it would be a way of keeping an eye open for potential torpid elders, who might need a helping hand when awake. Unofficially, it would be a good way to keep an eye open for the very old ones, which propaganda claims not to exist but the elders are still afraid of.

With the Einherjar I'm leaning towards them accepting Camarilla membership for pragmatic reasons, but with the long-term goal to strike rich elsewhere. They'll probably feel drawn towards the Anarchs, perhaps with a goal to use these malcontents in the future to create a free kingdom of savage Odin-worshippers. If we're going with the story-idea of the Gangrel leaving the Camarilla, the Einherjar might follow, as the vast majority of Norse vampires were Gangrel, with the rest being either Brujah or Malkavian.

There are also a few events in late-20th century Scandinavia that would be of interest to them. The mightiest of their leaders, the high-priest called Odin the All-high, is rumoured to have escaped Final Death and now awoken from a long torpor. His grandsire Brunhilde has also surprisingly returned, together with her own bloodline of all-female Gangrel known as Waelkyrige. These ladies have made it very clear they don't care for sectarian politics and refuse to follow anybody else than their own faith. If our hypothetical Einherjar were working for the Camarilla, then the powers that be would want to keep them ignorant of these events.

Until, of course, the other shoe— err, elk-furred boot drops.

This conversation really reminds me of the classic dilemma of the "headstrong with notes of curse vampire who can't or won't adapt with the times", constantly making them an anachronism unstuck from the present. Cam elders throw money and ghouls at the problem, and are content to unlive insulated. Sabbat want to change the world to suit them via burninating. Anarchs basically Take a Third Option and want the freedom to adapt to the world... and sometimes adapt it to suit them.

The "use the Anarchs to create our own society" plan sounds interesting, but they'd probably have to shop around for an Anarch city / prince willing to put up with them and give them logistical masquerade cover. However, the catch we've operating under is that the Einherjar are only an anachronism in civilized society of the 21st century. If and when the End times re-re-surface, they'd likely be one of the best groups able to fit into the new paradigm for however long it lasts. These hypothetical Einherjar would just absolutely love if they woke up in one of the end times scenarios where society collapses. Or just a general post-apocalypse, really.

They could offer a group of mortals safety in exchange for worshipping Odin, and bring back riches and supplies from raiding the rapidly collapsing cities of western civilization. Good times, good times.

Alternately, starting some kind of neo-pagan revivalism to return to the old ways might be in the cards if they can link up with their awakened faction leaders. After playing way too much Crusader Kings 2, taking a waning pagan tribe and going on to reform it into a massive empire across Scandinavia / the Rus would be such a huge and fun thing for them to try.

I think this is the biggest challenge for players whenever they want to portray vampires whose lifetime would have been very different from their own. Trying to get into a very ancient midset is already very difficult, but I suspect many Storytellers dread for someone to do it too well and make a character that will sabotage the game by being too true to character. For instance, I could portray a Medieval aristocratic landowner suddenly appearing in modern times as accurately as possible, but the problem is that even if he wasn't an undead being with crippling change aversion, he'd still cause too much trouble for everybody. If the Camarilla's enforcers don't discreetly drag him away to ash him, then his fellow P Cs might.

I'm mainly picturing that these guys would end up in a Camarilla city similar to my friend's homebrew, which he created to get the freedom to ignore the details set up for real cities in the various SPLAT-books. In his Camarilla city there was a large Anarch district which existed both as a buffer against any Sabbat attacks (or by werewolves), while it doubled as a place for rebellious childer to vent steam and then come crawling back to their sire after a few years.

That's the type of place I picture the Einherjar crew ending up in. I imagine that the Camarilla allows them to spend downtime there, because a little bit more rowdiness in the bad part of town won't raise too much suspicion among mortals. There is of course the risk that the Einerjar might more or less take over the Anarch district, because their love for freedom and ancient hatred of overlords such as Tzimisce would probably start to sound appealing. Only later on would they try to turn the place into an Odin-cult, once they've set up a base there and especially after Brunhilde contacts them.

I can also imagine them slowly adapting to some aspects of modern life, because their love for the sea will still be strong. They might want to learn how to use motor-boats, if they want to be as fast as during their old raids. Maybe they'll become the Camarilla's "coast-guard", to keep watch against water-borne attacks? They might already have learned some value in hiding their vampiric nature, because back in the 11th century their kind was almost driven to extinction by their own mortal followers and kin. Especially as most of them are likely Gangrel and have probably frenzied many times, they might understand the value of keeping a lower profile than they are used to. Originally they held open courts in long-houses and joined in Norse everyday life, but had the constant problem of not being able to openly rule or join in public festivities in the daytime.

Edited by Mara999 on Sep 29th 2020 at 3:25:36 PM

That's an interesting point about coast guarding. While the technology has changed, with some training in motorboats and guns, they can probably reapply a lot of their raiding strategies to "simple" kindred movement logistics, in addition to defense and attack via ocean or water. I hadn't quite clicked for me that they had to basically sail with a human daytime crew, otherwise they'd have to travel really slow with landings every night.

They can probably make a mint by providing transport and protection to whoever can fork over the gold.

Your friend's homebrew sounds like a fun city, it makes me think that these Einherjar probably run through a gamut of emotions as (assuming they were on their way back from a raid and it was their home base) they see landmarks, features, and maybe even far along descendants retelling stories of their ancestor's exploits.

It's an odd thought, but they could probably win quite a bit of reputation by becoming storytellers of their exploits and common(ish) heritage with modern kindred in an effort to start building fame and recruiting.

Definitely. Storytelling was very important in Norse society, as were ritualistic boasting and poetry slams, that were akin to rap battles. It's also stated in the rulebook "Wolves of the Sea" that in Medieval times non-Scandinavian Brujah were intrigued by Norse vampire society, because the strong connection to mortal kin and society reminded them of their own romanticised views of Carthage. While the Einherjar were a motley mix of clans, most of them Gangrel, they might get on really well with the city's Brujah population. The Einherjar come from a society that valued cultured warriors, while the older Brujah want to connect with their clan's past as great philosophers.

They might also be popular with younger kindred chafing under the often loveless domination of their distant sires. The Einherjar would be something quite shocking to many, as they are by all accounts Elders, but they are also quite approachable. These guys would love the attention they could get by hanging around with the kids, as well as those unhappy with the way the Camarilla functions. Could you imagine an 8th generation Elder who's bellowing drinking songs, while carrying a horn full of mead and blood?

Yeah, their approachability and rowdy bar good humor would probably be a huge threat to the status quo in its own way. That, and the idea that elders aren't allowed to have fun. While more traditional elders might only cluck their tongues at first, in its own way it's an incredibly seditious act since it demystifies a lot of the "elders are above us" rhetoric. Granted, these Einherjar probably are above most neonates and ancilla in terms of physical power and skill, but still, they'd potentially be incredibly interesting mouthpieces for an Anarch domain, assuming they agreed to such a role.

Way back, I did a fan splat for Mesoamerican Covenants for Requiem. It included a small ruleset for playing "The Ball Game". Long story short, one of the key differences between the natives and invading kindred was that the ritualistic form of the ball game allowed and encouraged elders to play (sans discipline use, monitored with the local blood sorcery) as a way to showcase bravery, skill and good sportsmanship. In fact, being able to control your powers and play at the level of a neonate or mortal was seen as a high refinement of temperament. To the invaders however, the idea that an elder or Prince and his court might get off their thrones and compete like plebs was just scandalous.

Edited by Earnest on Oct 1st 2020 at 4:54:46 AM

These guys would probably be very similar in mentality to the ex-pirate Brujah Smiling Jack, except quite a bit older. Back in norse society the Einherjar were mainly used to lording over mortals, while being roughly on equal footing amongst each other. The typical sire-childer relationship wasn't very pronounced, as the Embrace was seen as a gift to be given to people worthy of great respect. Just because of that I feel that they would gravitate towards the Anarchs, because that society might seem the most familiar to them.

When you've played Vt M, when is your game set? In present time or the past? Back when I played actively the oWoD had been abandoned and the 20th anniversary edition wouldn't be published for a few more years, so we played 3rd edition. My storyteller originally ran a campaign heavily inspired by Bloodlines and was set in late-90's L.A., so we didn't have to take into account technological advancements or the official Gehenna storyline. Then he created a homebrew set in a city of his own creation, a micronation like Monaco or Luxembourg, but also a mishmash of many real European cities. That campaign was set from New Years Eve 2000 onward, so that we could keep ignoring smart-phones and such things.

I've read a brief summary about the updates made to the setting through V5. While many of the events and changes in political affiliations post-2004 are quite interesting, but I think I'd want to return to playing the game at a time-period before the Second Inquisition and Twitter. Either the late-90's, with its outsider fashions, or the decadent 80's.

Well, I only ever played oWoD in 2003, and the setting was up to date. So one player was a higher gen computer hacker. Most of my gaming was as player and ST of also up to the present games of nWoD VtR. I did do some flashbacks with players to their pre-embrace backstories centuries past, but never really got to play in or run campaigns in other decades or centuries.

There's a pretty nifty supplement for the 80s for Requiem, for example, and of course all the Dark Ages vampire books.

It's kind of redundant to say I ran a home-brew setting in Requiem since there's very little overarching canon. I ended up running a standard New Orleans chronicle for a few months and home-brewed a new city "Savannah", with a very unique problem. There's this variant of feeding called "Breath Drinking", and I tinkered with it a bit to make it a perilously easy to learn discipline. So it caught on in Savannah, and the problem is it also works on other kindred when elders inevitably start suffering feeding restrictions... and when they suffer vitae addiction. So it spiraled out of control into a diablerie zombie apocalypse and turned the entire city into a ghost town (from a vampire POV) with a single hyper powerful elder sleeping it off in the sewers. So a second campaign started with a bunch of torpor time-displaced kindred setting up shop and deciding not to kill said elder and go sliding down the humanity scale.

That sounds like an interesting twist on the typical zombie-apocalypse. It reminds me of stories like "The Stuff", where a fantastical addiction causes societal upheaval.

I joined the campaign in early 2008 and we played regularly for almost two years. Besides the two longer campaigns the ST also ran a few one-off chapters in Dark Ages, as well as a really weird post-apocalyptic one, where a Sabbat pack wakes up in the far future after several centuries of torpor. Another fun three-parter featured a coterie surviving through the centuries after the Anarch revolt, trying (and failing) to create a Kindred paradise in the New World, free from the machinations of the Elders.

Yeah, I've read that one and would gladly use ideas from it if I were to ST a Vampire-campaign. I feel that the 1980's would be the hey-day for modern vampires, with all the decadence and excess, with greed being practically worshipped. It would also be a fun excuse to feature lots of 80's sounding mood-music, like the soundtrack to Stranger Things.

I also really liked the splat-book for the vampires of Rome. Overall I'm very interested in the potential with stories that feature vampires in historical settings, as much as featuring vampires of very anachronistic mentalities in modern settings. With both varieties I find it especially fun to work with actual history as much as possible and trying to figure out what makes a person tick when they come from a certain era, and then must try to adapt to the world making less sense each time they look around.

I might be planning a Vampire: The Requiem game using the first edition rules and a homebrew setting of mine very soon.

I'm contemplating including Changeling: The Lost, Hunter: The Vigil, Werewolf: The Forsaken, and Princess: The Hopeful too. All First Edition rules, of course.

Don't really care for the mechanical changes of Second Edition or the setting changes either but the real issue is mechanical since I can always invoke Rule Zero.

I've never played Requiem, but I like some of the fluff for that version of Vampire. From what I've read of Werewolf and Changeling, those two games sound more to my liking than their oWoD counterparts, more like grim 80's horror-flicks. IIRC the entirety of nWoD had less inconsistencies between games than the oWoD did, right? Then it ought to be easier to make a homebrew combining all those games. There is a book I browsed through ages ago, one featuring templates and rules for various horror-archetypes, such as slashers. The book was meant as a tool in case the ST wanted to ignore the lore concerning various species, and instead wanted to have Hunters fight more generic movie vampires and werewolves.

I personally like second edition Changeling: The Lost more than the first edition. I liked how Kiths weren't limited by Seeming anymore and how the Contracts are themed after Regalia. I also really like the Huntsmen as antagonists; they're the right blend of horrifying and tragic.

First edition Changeling: The Lost still has a special place in my heart because it was the game that got me interested in Chronicles of Darkness in the first place, but I feel second edition was a major improvement.

On the subject of second edition Hunter: The Vigil, I backed it on Kickstarter and got to read the book preview. One addition I'm very happy they added is the new compact called the Strong Warriors Of all Red Nations, a group founded by Native Americans to protect their communities from any monsters or humans that would do them harm. It's nice to have representation for minority groups, and I like how the newer editions of Chronicles of Darkness is making a greater effort to be inclusive.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Oct 20th 2020 at 9:14:07 AM

I just don't like Second Edition Chronicles of Darkness in general. The fluff isn't my cup of tea and I think the mechanics are largely a case of trying to fix something that wasn't broke.

The less said about Beast: The Primordial or Demon: The Descent, the better.

That said, would you be okay with playing a First Edition New World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness game. It'll be using a homebrew setting of sorts (so we're not going to be fully adhering to the canon fluff of the later books) and I'm using the toolkit approach of the early 1E NWOD/COFD books to its fullest extent.

Most of the homebrewing is related to the fluff, but I also am working on some homebrew compacts and conspiracies for Hunter and the RP will likely take place in a fictional city of my own creation

Edited by NinjaGoth on Oct 20th 2020 at 12:36:11 PM

I guess I'm the opposite of you; I like both Beast: The Primordial and Demon: The Descent. The latter was a little surprising to me when I first read the premise, but it grew on me as I read the book.

For the former, I like how it allows for a lot of creativity when creating monsters. I've always been a fan of mythological monsters, so it's fun trying to figure out what sort of Begotten a certain mythological monster would end up creating.

I also like creating more humorous monsters like an Ugallu Nemesis whose Horror is known as Darkwing Duck.

But in general, I think I like the second edition books more than the first. I don't think there's a book where I preferred the first edition to the second, though that's not to say I disliked the first edition books. I just prefer how second edition handles things.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Oct 20th 2020 at 9:42:16 AM

New Werewolf game out, Visual Novel in this case.

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2020/10/werewolf-heart-of-forest-review.html

LET THE STREETS RUN RED (Vampire supplement) should be out in a week or two.

If I ran a first edition game, would you be okay with playing it?

Sorry if I'm butting in, but if it's an open invitation I'd be interested in playing.

What game line (s) would it be?

Edited by Earnest on Oct 21st 2020 at 1:32:35 PM

It's primarily focused on Vampire: The Requiem but I will allow Changeling: The Lost, Hunter: The Vigil, and Mage: The Awakening. I'm considering allowing Werewolf and some of the fan games as well (namely Princess and Genius)

Of course, this will be 1st Edition and there will be some Rule Zero and homebrew elements to it. No Strix, no God-Machine, no Idigam, no Beast: The Primordial, and no Demon: The Descent

Edited by NinjaGoth on Oct 21st 2020 at 9:27:10 AM

It sounds sounds fun, count me in.

The home-brew exclusions are fine, that was imho part of the fun of the nWoD. The base fundamentals of the world could be completely different even while keeping most of the current game lines mechanically the same. Like snake-based vampires (sssnakepires! ) from the Mythologies sourcebook.

Edited by Earnest on Oct 21st 2020 at 10:06:34 AM

I've only ever played games in oWoD, where we used the revised 3rd edition rules for Vt M and Hunter. The closest I've gotten to the nWoD rules were the more streamlined system in White Wolf's Adventure!, which I've understood to be in the middle of oWoD and nWoD. I liked how that game played out mechanically, so I'd use something similar if I were to run a campaign or one-shot. I like most of the lore and concepts in Vt M over Vt R, but there are plenty of bits in Requiem that I also really like, so I'd try to adapt much of the lore from each game for a homebrew.

Many years ago I did toy around with an idea for a oneshot, which would mainly be inspired by the movie The Warriors. Like that movie, my idea is for the story to be a long chase-sequence, as the players are subjected to a Blood Hunt. They are framed for a crime, possibly at an Elysium, and then have to escape through the entire city to the safety of their Haven before dawn. At the same time they might try to plead and buy themselves more time to figure out who framed them, to prove their innosence.

You know, having watching to dawn to dusk, the rodriguez-tarantino movie about vampires and is netflix adaptation i must said im surprise we never see a bunch of mexican setties, it seen like logical choices.

Justin Achilli has announced the V5 companion will contain Tzimisce, Ravnos, and Salubri.

http://www.geek-pride.co.uk/tabletop/all-change-for-world-of-darkness/

yeah, Mesoamerican Setites worshiping a bastardized take on Quetzalcoatl would make sense. Could be made into a custom bloodline, with a backstory that the Setites could have arrived with the conquistadors and then abused the natives' plight, corrupting the half-remembered local religion into something that fits their plans better.

Curious to see how they will be updated to the V5 lore.

Quetzalcoatl is probably not a good choice for a localized Setite cult, considering Quetzalcoatl is generally a good guy in all his incarnation across mesoamerican mythology and religion. His literal (evil?) twin brother Xolotl on the other hand, is associated with the dead, monsters, chaos, deformities, and is a dude with a dog head, similar to the traditional Set of Egyptian mythology.

...

Which, admittedly, loses on the cool serpent vampire imagery. (sighs)

Hmm. Then again, if this were home-brewed, I think going with your idea of having the Setites take advantage of newly oppressed natives while explicitly misunderstanding the myths they're using would make a twisted sort of tragedy and Dramatic Irony. Plus, their use of Presence probably lets them sneak by mistakes.