Vampire: Bloodlines

As far as I know, Jack didn't have any complex motive for doing. He just wanted to fuck over LaCroix because he hates the Camarilla and the Ventrue.

Jack's an Anarch. He wants Sebastian gone, and C4 in an "Antediluvian's" coffin fits his sense of humor.

But how did he even know Lacroix would steal it? He might have only ended up blowing the Giovanni or Nosferatu or Kuei-jin up. Or any number of other people considering everyone was talking about the sarcophagus.

It's possible that Jack's plan wasn't specifically going after LaCroix, so much as just generally intending on stirring up in-fighting. Jack is known for doing a lot of random, destabilising crap, not always with a specific, long-term goal in mind. He'll Embrace a bunch of people in Ventrue domains without permission because he knows it'll create trouble for the person in charge.

As Jack says: "Hey, it happened just like you said. [...] Threw that sarcophagus out there and they just tore each other up tryin' to get to it." If Jack knew about the Kuei-jin / LaCroix alliance, that's a factor — neither Ming or Sebastian care a fig for each other and are eyeing the other up for a backstab.

It's unlikely Jack knew that Gary specifically would betray LaCroix, that the Prince would then specifically choose to do X, etc. He just knew that it'd cause a lot of conflict among the factions he doesn't like, and if any of them did open it, hey, that's them gone. Vampires backstab each other too easily, and are a bit too prone to paranoia. Notably, the Anarchs (the only faction Jack is sort of in leagues with), while probably not in on the plan, never really express an interest in the Sarcophagus.

Edited by Lavaeolus on Apr 20th 2019 at 9:41:43 AM

to answer the question about werewolves.

Yes. In lore, The Garou are basically supernaturally empowered soldiers built for a war against the metaphysical embodiment of entropy thats gone wildly out of control.

As such, theyre built to be utter combat machines, and the 10 ft tall thing is a form they can assume called Crinos (or gauru in the new wod version), either way it is literally a war form, it offers ginormous boosts to basically all physical traits and makes even a bookish, quiet, nerdy girl werewolf whose role in her pack is to keep abreast of lore or deal with the spirit world into something capable of ripping a human or vampire limb from limb one on one.

Werewolves, or Lupines, as the Vampires call them, are something to be feared and fucking avoided unless you're very prepared for a fight to the death.

Edited by Midgetsnowman on Apr 20th 2019 at 7:51:16 AM

Yeah, unless you're a Tzimisce and have the resources to create Vozhds most Kindred who have the poor judgment or bad luck to go against a Werewolf are likely to die horribly.

Nines apparently beat one from what I read online. I thought he was super dead given how he was wetting himself about the werewolves and then got jumped by one.

Gotta admit, I've never been a big werewolf fan but they seem quite unique in Wo D.

A lot of people say the "metaphysics" of at least old World of Darkness don't work with each other and so the different groups or beings or whatever don't interact much. But werewolves and vamps hate each other seems to be consistent?

In any event, I just wanna say I thought the Plaguebearer quests were some of the best in the game. Downtown is probably the highlight of Bloodlines to me in general. Also I never thought about it until reading speculation online but some thing the Brotherhood were part of the Sabbat, or at least Vick was

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2600/discussions/0/133261907142002141/

Edited by Nikkolas on Apr 21st 2019 at 8:56:03 AM

I think the Plaguebearers being Sabbat is implausible, the Sabbat is about ruling humanity not wiping it out. If anything the Plaguebearers are the kind of heretical cult that the Sabbat Inquisition would probably love to burn out.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Apr 21st 2019 at 5:58:06 AM

Fair enough. Although there are those True Black Hand folks who want the end of the world, right?

And on the way to fight Vick, you fight passed hordes of what people call zombies. I thought they were just humans who were diseased and mutilated to an extreme point. But that is the hallmark of Clan,....whatever Andrei was, right?

So if they were actual zombies, isn't Necromancy a very rare talent among vampires?

Edited by Nikkolas on Apr 21st 2019 at 5:48:28 AM

Andrei is a Tzimisce. They're not necromancers, they're flesh-crafters. They turn living people into fucked up abominations. The Giovanni and Nagaraja are necromancers.

It would be unlikely for Vick to be using necromancy since he's a Toreador. I assumed the zombies there were more infected and brainwashed people, but I don't recall the game really explaining it.

Werewolves hate Vampires in the Wo D for a very simple reason

The werewolves, ostensibly, are fighting a thing called "The Wyrm" it is the spiritual manifestation and embodiment of Entropy, but gone mad and now basically trying to plunge the universe into absolute entropy.

Vampires, being undead creatures that prey on humans and tend to inflict misery and suffering wherever they go, (which in turn feeds banes, the sort of spirits that feed on and encourage negative emotions or corruption) are viewed by the werewolves as wyrm-tainted creatures deserving of nothing but a quick and violent death.

Cuz from the werewolf's cultural lense, werewolves are the heroes fighting to save Gaia, and vampires are metaphorical and literal Leeches (thats the general nickname from non-vampire splats for vampires) killing her.

Edited by Midgetsnowman on Apr 22nd 2019 at 12:12:06 PM

How do demons fit into all this? They're the other, uh, group I'm most interested in.

Do werewolves hate demons?

They hate everyone who is not a werewolf

Well what a bunch of jerks.

Especially since they have to have sex with humans or wolves to make more werewolves.

"Well what a bunch of jerks" really does kinda simplify them outside of the "manwolf" and "fighting to save the universe" things.

Meh, the universe doesn't seem so holy or special now I know it's all run by an evil computer.

You talking about the God-Machine? Because that's new World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness. Not the same continuity as the old WoD, which includes Bloodlines.

Yes I was and I'm aware they are different universes. I thought Werewolves were the same in both continuities, though. Not sure why I thought that, admittedly.

Mostly I just wanted to reference this fact I just learned about the God-Machine The Fallen was pretty standard stuff but learning about these new Demons and their backstory was pretty interesting.

Edited by Nikkolas on Apr 22nd 2019 at 9:37:33 AM

X3 Looking at the series as a whole of the metaverse is prone to causing Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy, that's why even White Wolf encourages you to just focus on the small-scale things of your character's/party's personal plot, and outright ignore their canon if you don't like it, and if things end up getting metaphysical in the campaign, then it's just like "oh".

Heck, even Bloodlines kinda had the albatross around its neck that it was basically on the eve of Gehenna, so on the grand scheme of things, your fledgeling's personal struggles, allegiances and resolutions really wouldn't even be a blip on the global radar.

Edited by NaraNumas on Apr 23rd 2019 at 2:28:43 PM

Or you could just run a session of Princess: The Hopeful.

thats kind of supposed to be one of the big tragedies of werewolves as a species in old Wo D. Theyd be doing hella better in the war against the Wyrm if not for the fact /they/ massacred most of the other shapeshifters hundreds of years ago in their arrogance at the time, effectively dooming the current generation to fight the war alone while the other changing breeds avoid them.

The War of Rage essentially was their grandfathers grandfathers deciding that everyone should let the werewolves lead the fight and anyone who disagreed got a claw to the face, and now the other shapeshifters have basically decided the werewolves can go fuck themselves/

as for the God Machine, one, its new wod/Chronicles of daerkness as mentioned , and kind of an optional part of the setting.

Edited by Midgetsnowman on Apr 23rd 2019 at 12:43:51 PM

So they did a little live interview on Twitch a few minutes ago. I don't think there were too many specific new details, but they discussed some of the thinblood powers. I think they said they were going to reveal a clan next Thursday.

Anyway, the official website got updated with a page on thinbloods; they take up where the 'Bonus' slot was on the clan section.

Apparently, during a dev stream, it was revealed that the next Clan is going to be announced next Thursday.

So that's something to look forward to

In regards to the Thin Blood announcement, I'm most excited to use Nebulation. I think it fits the kind of inhuman and monstrous Kindred that I like to play as it's also a Classic Vampire ability which makes it even better

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Apr 24th 2019 at 11:17:47 AM

Count me up as eyeing up Nebulation as well. I think part of it is that I tended to play Bloodlines, at least when it dumped you into a mission that wasn't Hallowbrook Hotel, as a stealthy sort of game.

The other powers sound fun as well, though. I like the idea of some of the movement options going on; I don't know if they'll live up to their full potential, but I loved darting around a map and getting up real high in games like Dishonored. I admit, I also think Chiropteran sounds pretty funny: just swarming a bunch of bats out of nowhere and chucking them at people.

Apparently, in the stream both Brujah and Toreador have been revealed as playable Clans, so we'll probably get a trailer and page for them at some point.