General World of Darkness Discussion Thread QQ Edition

[shadowdice]

The thought popped in my head of a guy embraced by the Setites or a bloodline of them (the South African ones are noted to be distant from the main clan and having trouble with their new neonates not believing the elders/dhamballans have outright fights with them) who hates that he got embraced into the clan that is weak to strong electric torches and bright lights before learning he is in the Rule 34 clan of Every Fetish

Guy: we are only not the worst because the Tzimisce and Baali exist

Most people presume he is a weird malkavian or toreador. He has to make frenzy checks when people talk about Setites

Anarchs: actually they are called the ministry

Guy: Have you heard of the children of Judas? Rebranding doesn't change the intent when it's the same people

 

[shadowdice]

I had been looking at the Ebony Kingdom book because I remembered a forum post claiming there was reference to Setites making Revenants in the book

There actually is a paragraph about the sub Saharan setites's use of breeding pens where they use normal humans, ghouls, and blood sorcery to make shock troops for the return of Set. The few successes are super hairy…which is an odd one for setites. Most revenants have a different kind of weakness outside of the one that is all albinos that burn in light

Laibon are interesting as the dominance of some clans (Guruhi, Nagloper, Osebo which seem to be nosferatu, Tzimisce, and Brujah) can be used to try and understand some of the migration of vampires.

Saulot went east, everyone knows that. But it seems that Ventrue also went east given the Danava. There is also an 8th generation Ventrue that was Native American so Ventrue MIGHT have crossed the ancient land bridge. Ennoia/Gangrel seems to have gone to India with or chasing Ravnos and gone further east with the Anda coming from that and maybe the Noiad, she also likely crossed the land bridge or went through the water.

Set might have moved south further down Africa but as setites migrate further from their origin they tend to change and eventually drop Set entirely. The daitya in India no longer have serpentis and instead have blood sorcery while the Serpents of Light loosely came from the Children of Dhamballa (that dropped obfuscate for auspex) that loosely came from sub Sahara setites

The Tlacique have the weakness of Setites but have protean which can point to the "set is a diablerist or had changed disciplines after messing with Apep" theory though there is the Gangrel theory and debate on if Drowned Legacies are a separate species. I don't like that last one with how messy Kuei Jin got. Them being the result of vampires that migrated with humanity or other antediluvians sound better to me.

I don't dislike the laibon. Ashirra and Camarilla are better seen as the result of geographic distances combining with The Old vampires siring people that end up banding over shared culture. The geographic distances and barriers make it so there being a sub Saharan faction makes sense.

Especially when a lot of places Burn easily and attempts to prevent the vampire populace from being dragged out of their havens into the sun/burned inside was a major factor for the formation of the Camarilla.

The Guruhi (Nosferatu with a different weakness and presence instead of obfuscate. You could make a Nictuku descent argument or point to Lucien in fair is foul Gehenna scenario for ancestry) need their weakness reworked since I can't remember any mechanical demerit to their appearance changing with emotion. I'd likely go with a frenzy or self control fail dropping their appearance for a time similar to Gangrel animal features

That the Ventrue are regulated to Heart of Darkness references with foreign hunters shooting elephants is boring though.

The Giovanni influence with the Ghiberti is a bit odd as the images used tends to be Africans while being referenced as an Italian family. I chalk that up to Adoption/intermarriage over generations.

Osebo are a Brujah bloodline with auspex instead of presence which can get weirder as Laibon Auspex is more focused on spirits and can take one into the spirit realm physically/teleport which has interesting applications in addition to their general concept of finding others to work for so they can have structure that helps deal with their Frenzy issues

I vaguely remember v5 referencing the Impudulu (necromancer bodyguards) so they seem to have walked back that bloodline being destroyed. Which is one of the few times I can say v5 made a good decision

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

On the gang culture part. VTM seems to just be incredibly bad at characterizing Anarchs as anything other than Gang Culture.

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Missed this somehow.

All the various vamp sects are basically some organized crime derivative. Given that the Cam and the Hecata corner the market on corporate conspiracy and the mob respectively, with the Sabbat having the cultist angle...

Should some of the Anarchs be 'activist groups that are basically gangs?' Yes, not just street gangs. Should some be 'well-to-do' gangs that are kinda like 'street level mafia.' Yes. I'm sure there are other options too. (The Anarchs are the most street level though, so I can kinda see why...)

Do you think that the devs -who I'm going to guess are overwhelmingly middle class white people that are somehow diverse, raised in the suburbs, went to college, and have never committed a crime that wasn't directly related to some sort of activism that they probably got paid to do- actually understand the different or nuanced versions of crime culture?

No, they totally only understand the various factions, to include the Anarchs, maybe if they've seen a movie or watched a TV show.

 

[shadowdice]

Missed this somehow.

All the various vamp sects are basically some organized crime derivative. Given that the Cam and the Hecata corner the market on corporate conspiracy and the mob respectively, with the Sabbat having the cultist angle...

Should some of the Anarchs be 'activist groups that are basically gangs?' Yes, not just street gangs. Should some be 'well-to-do' gangs that are kinda like 'street level mafia.' Yes. I'm sure there are other options too. (The Anarchs are the most street level though, so I can kinda see why...)

Do you think that the devs -who I'm going to guess are overwhelmingly middle class white people that are somehow diverse, raised in the suburbs, went to college, and have never committed a crime that wasn't directly related to some sort of activism that they probably got paid to do- actually understand the different or nuanced versions of crime culture?

No, they totally only understand the various factions, to include the Anarchs, maybe if they've seen a movie or watched a TV show.

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this reminds me of other issues

For the anarchs. Despite the fact that the modern anarchs are framed largely through ties to generally American social movements, their issues with the camarilla outside of "neonates don't get the freedoms we want" and such almost never gets into the fact that its not just that several hundred year old elders have the power, but that Several Hundred Year Old European Elders have the power in cities that are usually North/Latin American. In part because White Wolf really does not want to focus on the Native American vampires/drowned legacies outside of "There are some left and they are all mysterious and esoteric." Like, I can't think of a city where an old Native American vampire is the ruler despite the fact that you could easily have that even if you go with "The Camarilla killed most of them"

Even the Anarch Movement is generally tied to European Elders. Juggler, from the Gary series is like Italian or Spanish (I forget if Modius is American or not), Salvador Garcia is from Spain (which gets into some weirdness with his influence in the Latin American community as I have met a lot who really hate Spain), Jeremy MacNeil is from Britain. I can easily see an Anarch from the 1700s whose opposition to the Camarilla is based upon the fact that it makes them subject to a distant European power as a "colony" which makes it really weird that the one time I can think of this being involved is in Boston...which is Camarilla versus Camarilla (loosely as this is tied to Mithras where the Camarilla part is nominal as he predates it and was more of a "yes I already did all of this already you just formalized what we already do")

Then there is the mess with the Anarch Soviet Council which, I don't think the writers realized what they were doing there.

And I don't really want to get into V5 in how it deals with the Sabbat with a lens very much tied to modern USA human viewpoint as "right wing death cult" or whatever while adding in Thin Bloods as a faction at the same time that they go "Oh, the Caitiff who discovered a ritual to remove clan ties and demanded the rights of a clan. Oh, they are called Panders as an insult because Pandering, ignore that ritual and how the guy who made it had the actual Name Joseph Pander. Which is an actual name originating from a word that meant pot."

Sabbat in general not liking the concept of clans fit them, but the retcon with their caitiff (which make up a good number of them because of mass embrace tactics) was annoying as hell.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

See, like most modern 'activists,' the Devs don't actually understand social issues. They're about five calls deep in a game of telephone and are basically LARPing as people who are politically aware.

Convincing them of this fact is, of course, basically impossible. As such, writing a game where social issues are very prominent is pretty difficult.

So figuring out things like 'European Anarchs being different from American Anarchs' is hard for them.

Don't even dare ask them to actually take historical perspective into consideration, most of them are likely postmodernists. History starts with WWII, which is the Age of Myths, and nothing before that matters (and probably should be destroyed).

And you really nail it with the 'human American lens.' That could be specified a bit more, however, it works as is. I don't think they gave a lot of things any real thought, but that's not entirely new.

Ultimately, V5 is a Millennial game the same way the older editions are Gen X. It really shows in some cases.

 

[shadowdice]

See, like most modern 'activists,' the Devs don't actually understand social issues. They're about five calls deep in a game of telephone and are basically LARPing as people who are politically aware.

Convincing them of this fact is, of course, basically impossible. As such, writing a game where social issues are very prominent is pretty difficult.

So figuring out things like 'European Anarchs being different from American Anarchs' is hard for them.

Don't even dare ask them to actually take historical perspective into consideration, most of them are likely postmodernists. History starts with WWII, which is the Age of Myths, and nothing before that matters (and probably should be destroyed).

And you really nail it with the 'human American lens.' That could be specified a bit more, however, it works as is. I don't think they gave a lot of things any real thought, but that's not entirely new.

Ultimately, V5 is a Millennial game the same way the older editions are Gen X. It really shows in some cases.

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There isn't even much variety in pop culture gangs even in the new stuff. Like, not even a vampire Fast and Furious gang of vampire road racers

I facepalmed when the Gehenna war book had vampire fight club. And not even an entertaining one. They also retroactively fucked the Dark Ages Courts of Love with the shitty ERP book….which reminds me that even peak 90s WoD doesn't really have that despite their absurd Art

Edit

Like, one attempt by me to make an interesting Anarch Baron is a Gangrel embraced when he was practically elderly that raises and trains dogs (and other animals) who has high enough animalism and auspex that the vampire community is under a near police state in how well monitored his territory is.

Not because he is authoritarian but due to having experienced enough of WoD's absurdity that he is on constant alert to people starting shit. He also isn't even a gangster, he is just an American from the late 1800s early 1900s who complains about Europe being constantly at war or doing weird shit so he applies that to the camarilla

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

Yeah, but like, all of that would take thought, effort, and understanding.

Don't you know every Anarch is a punk rocker or antifa communist? Nothing else exists, soooooooo.

Probably because they think Anarch can only mean 'anarchist.' And not a more nuanced or general 'I don't particularly want to live under the rules or thumb of my elders.'

 

[shadowdice]

Yeah, but like, all of that would take thought, effort, and understanding.

Don't you know every Anarch is a punk rocker or antifa communist? Nothing else exists, soooooooo.

Probably because they think Anarch can only mean 'anarchist.' And not a more nuanced or general 'I don't particularly want to live under the rules or thumb of my elders.'

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When it isn't that it tends to be Basically Camarilla but those guys are there as obligatory bad guys like that Callihan from New York (who was embraced by the Sabbat for extra This Is The Bad Guy energy) or well, Soviets

New Orleans. The Anarchs are primarily punk gangsters or the Phoenix Institute which wants something like the absolute destruction of all the elders

L.A the ones that aren't gangsters or punks are more like crime bosses (very loosely) or terrorists (Salvador, Smiling Jack) and the Stalinist Japanese guy

Chicago I went over (and has the odd addition that the actual gangsters in early editions were Camarilla Ventrue)

I don't remember the Anarchs in the Washington DC book

It is strange to me that early WoD put more effort into the background of the dark ages books (outside of how railroady they are) than Anarchs

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

I really think it comes down to 'I understand this' vs 'I pretend I understand this' vs 'I'm convinced I understand this.'

The devs understand their counter culture. Which is why the old VtM got 'punk' and 'edgy' but doesn't get 'principled rebellion' and V5 gets 'activism' but not 'punk.' And so on.

A surface level of understanding of anything but anarchists, street gangs, activists, and soviets undermines doing anything really cool or interesting with Anarchs.

When it comes to something like the Dark Ages, there are reams and reams and reams of material to work with to be creative around the Dark Ages. But they aren't AltHist people so the stuff from the Dark Ages is kinda on point but super railroady because they struggle to predict how things will change as things are done while maintaining continuity to modern nights.

So, yeah.

You or your ST are going to have make the Anarchs interesting beyond what the devs have in the book.

 

[Lorsïthrorung]

Having been disappointing before on the areas World of Darkness seemed to have miss(Asena the wolf-mother of Turks), has there ever been any play on Fenrisian werewolves and their relationship with the World Serpent/weresnakes/European Nagas?

Edit:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOkF_mF50pQ
After watching this series on the Fianna I wonder if the majority of black American Garou are of the aforementioned heritage given the paternal lineage from Scot-Irish biological fathers. if they've been absorbed into other tribes due to completely understandable circumstances, or the periods of inter-mirage in the north-east which can be summarized with the name Tyrone and last names that start with O'. If that's ever been explored or I'm putting it on the list next to Asena and the lack of turkish werewolves.

 

[shadowdice]

So a rant on V5, outside of the lore issues, disciplines are a major point of contention for me. Specifically, all the times where it changed disciplines. A lot of unique disciplines have been turned into outright variants of others (Fusing Obtenebration and Necromancy into one thing. Serpentis is either alternate Protean or an amalgam with other disciplines) which fails to really make them that unique as Amalgam Disciplines include powers that don't fit those either so it is more like the Combination Disciplines from before, but with it replacing powers you'd otherwise get. I am not going to get into Clan Compulsions either because I have not seen v5 players deal with it that often and it really does feel like it ruins a part of the game with "The reason you are an asshole is because you are required to be one" when the Beast is already around as a violent urge one has to control.

Ravnos: They changed all but animalism. Before they were Chimerstry, Animalism, Fortitude which relates to their history with the Gangrel. That has more or less been dropped and the Amalgam system makes it so they have Animalism, Presence, and Obfuscate. This drastically lowers their survivability and makes it so the only discipline that they keep is Animalism. If they kept fortitude they could still use Amalgams for illusions by saying it gives more Solidity to Presence or Obfuscate. Then there is their clan weakness being "I can't stay in the same place too long without spontaneous combustion" which just feels more funny to me than anything else.

Assamite: Outside of the Banu Haqim part (which I don't particularly like and feel like the clan should have their internal factions claiming different names, especially those who left Alamut) they made Quietus into Blood Sorcery (because V5 uses Blood and Red like the Space Wolves use the word Wolf). That is not that much of an issue as it was generally a manipulation of the blood. But the willingness to do this makes issues in other places. Its benefit is bringing forth the rivalry between Assamites and Tremere to make it clear to newbies that don't get deep into the lore of the long battles between them.

Salubri: I want to call them one of the most egregious examples of v5. Their weakness of being incapable of feeding on an unwilling participant is removed (despite all the role-play opportunities including someone who is an asshole who has to act in ways to get someone to submit to them willingly) in favor of "You are super tasty. More tasty than other vampires." Which gets into mechanical issues and the possibility of causing inter-party issues by using any of your powers.

Tzimisce: Vicissitude is reduced to protean. Which along with the Setites (I refuse to call them ministry) makes it so there are three clans that have Protean. I can accept that. What makes absolutely no goddamn sense however is that they switched Auspex out for Dominate. The explanation is that the special Vicissitude powers are Amalgams with Dominate by "Dominating the flesh) when they could have just as easily said that it was Auspex to allow fine tune manipulation. Yes, Old Clan Tzimisce had dominate instead of Vicissitude, but they still had Auspex. They also haven't really done much with the Tzimisce in v5 despite like a decade passing.

Malkavians: No real issue, Dementation has been rolled in with Dominate a lot previously. One lore issue is that I have seen what I think are semi-official live-plays (which, I don't enjoy most of them) have people use dementation powers that aren't malkavians without having gained forms of insanity, which is honestly one of the Best parts of Dementation in my view. It is a cool power but if you obtain it you will receive a major downside even without the possibility that you get connected to the madness network.

Lasombra: Their major chance is Oblivion being a thing now. Which yes, Obtenebration had plenty of rituals, but that was with Abyss Mysticism which was explicitly a form of Thaumaturgy. It also feels like with their Rome and later Spanish influence, and their presence in Latin America, we would have a bunch of Lasombra Necromancers from the Sabbat. But that is a consequence of this which V5 does not touch outside of the Lasombra seeing ghosts as Oblivion gets a bit of pseudo-auspex.

Hecata/Giovanni:

• I will say it here. On some level, the stuff with them can be explained because most have a relationship with each other, have alienated other groups, and are all prepared to backstab each other when they are done stealing information and necromancy from the other families.
• The "Base" Disciplines are Auspex, Fortitude, Oblivion. I honestly believe that a good part of this spread is because they rolled Obtenebration in with Necromancy for Oblivion. This makes it so the classical Giovanni spread of Dominate, Potence, Necromancy would be Dominate, Potence, Oblivion....which would be the same spread as the Lasombra.
• Part of the issue with this new spread is that Oblivion gets a power and rituals to see ghosts anyways so in the Optional discipline spreads for the family, it tends to be "Drop Auspex, pick one of the powers from the previous edition" outside of the Harbingers and Nagaraja.
• That spread also gets into issues with the Giovanni's minor families as they all have the same spread, when the previous editions had them vary to emphasize their breaking away from Giovanni methods (instead they get Loresheets which. Loresheets have mechanical issues in implementation before getting into v5 merit and flaw system where you are required to take flaws without getting points for them)
• Not all members of the bloodlines joined Hecata which still opens up stuff for players.
• Man my issues with this one is long, I ended up with this as bulletpoints because it became a big block of text

Followers of Set: I refuse to call them the Ministry. Moving on, their widespread acceptance into the anarchs is....a point of me looking at the anarchs and wondering "How little about ANYTHING do the Anarchs know about EVERYTHING" because the Setites are basically obligatory Judases. It also does not help the Anarchs are essentially all gangs aspect as the outright stereotype of the Setites are used car salesmen that also give you one dose of a super high purity drug for free before calling in tons of favors since they know you will be hooked. Protean as Serpentis is not that much of an issue as it follows what a lot of people suspect when it comes to Pre-Snake Set. From my perspective though, they kind of fucked that up as Heart of Darkness, the ability to remove their heart is now an amalgam with an Out of Clan discipline Fortitude. They could have easily leaned even more into the cult/conan influence by letting them have Blood Sorcery instead of protean or putting a bunch of Serpentis powers as Blood Sorcery abilities they can take out of clan. Which would help explain why the Anarchs embraced the Setites (They are in greater conflict with the Camarilla which now has two clans of blood sorcerers, and the anarchs generally get less supplied more experimental tremere outcasts or schismatic Assamites who don't have support networks).

Thinbloods:....Apparently v5 wanted everyone to play thinbloods but got pushback in-house. I can see the influence with how much they have pushed out the caitiff in what support they get from the books (caitiff rarely show up as a thing or are mentioned while there is talk about thin blood primogen in some cities while we never really see that for caitiff in v5). Thinbloods are by far the most V5 is Made for Millennials aspect of the game with them taking selfies with hashtags while having blood in cups/smoothies that they pot online with not even thinly veiled references to what they are doing. Which goes against V5s claims that the vampires are under major pressure from mortal intelligence agencies to the point that even a lot of their codewords are compromised. Which only JUSTIFIES the culling of thin bloods in lore before getting into the new lore of people who have kids even years after being fed on giving birth to weird babies that have visible bloodsucking abominations floating out of their mouths when they are asleep. Thinblood Alchemy is an okay idea executed poorly as previous editions already had it be that caitiff and thin bloods were more likely to be Inceptors.

 

[Kalem_Lee]

Hey did anyone make a WoD thread for the NSFW section for fics and ideas?

 

[Gedou_Meta]

There is/was. The person that started the has since essentially left via scrubbing everything so it isn't easy to look for.

 

[shadowdice]

I hate that Nsfw and VTM reminded me of G5's cursed ERP book that has an NPC love interest with a fuck couch that hasn't been cleaned since before the sixties and considers it "romantic" for the stains of all the previous lovers mixing together

Cuck chairs seem vanilla compared to that

edit

how cursed would a readthrough of that be?

 

[Maragas]

how cursed would a readthrough of that be?

Click to shrink...

That sounds F.A.T.A.L., meaning you should go for it and roll anal circumference.

 

[shadowdice]

That sounds F.A.T.A.L., meaning you should go for it and roll anal circumference.

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BSL is a very bad book

bloodstained love: "There are romantics too, among the Kindred. For them, the wedding (between Victoria Ash and Teygrius) represents the triumph of lover over the ennui of centuries, an example of how power politics can coexist with the most delicate intimate emotions"

also BSL: "We're gonna give you a bunch of letters from victoria ash about how she likes to deceive and play around with people while deceiving them into loving her and how she doesn't think that's bad"

 

[Lorsïthrorung]

World of Darkness/Trench Crusade, exploring a world where the masquerade/Veil has long since broken.

I guess the most interesting thing to explore would be vampires since they're more-or-less theologically tied to the Abrihamic faiths.

Not sure what most werewolves would do but all I have is my Lupus Dei concept which is a fully original thing separate from WoD's werewolf games since the whole concept is werewolves who either want to usurp humanity as God's chosen or came across some esoteric truth and went all-in, forgetting their original goals for why they infiltrating the early Catholic Church.

I honestly don't know what WoD's werewolves would do since they exist outside of the war between Heaven and Hell.

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Reposting here from the crossover thread if anyone else is interested in exploring it.

 

[shadowdice]

It has been over 5 years since V5 came out and it is only now that I realized Mawla was an arabic word for master/friend....why did they change the name from mentor to Foreign word for it in Arabic for V5? They haven't really done anything with the Ashirra in the half decade since release.

When the 90s books still manage to put more thought and effort into it....which describes most of the earlier editions in comparison to v5

 

[shadowdice]

since the old NSFW World of darkness thread got its title deleted, should we make a new one?

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

Do we really discuss WoD in a NSFW capacity? That thread isn't very alive, and this one is popping, relatively.

Though if one was made, I'd follow it.

 

[Repentant_Dragos]

Do we really discuss WoD in a NSFW capacity?

Click to shrink...

I don't know if we did or do, but to be honest, I'm Bi and male-preferring unlike most of QQ, so I may not get anything that interests me in that thread.

 

[heralding_bubble]

eh, maybe just ask to move this thread to NSFW section if you want?
the conversation's small enough that the splinter would probably either make that thread dead on arrival, kill both, or just move all discussion there and the lore threadmarks and other posted stuff would be left forgotten

 

[Repentant_Dragos]

eh, maybe just ask to move this thread to NSFW section if you want?
the conversation's small enough that the splinter would probably either make that thread dead on arrival, kill both, or just move all discussion there and the lore threadmarks and other posted stuff would be left forgotten

Click to shrink...

It might be best to keep this in the SFW section.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[Gereh]

Knowing WOD I assume that NSFW WOD thread will be super-cursed, so I personally have no interest in a NSFW one.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

why did they change the name from mentor to Foreign word for it in Arabic for V5?

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Missed this.

Damn my alerts.

Because they wanted to score imaginary points on an imaginary scoreboard that nobody but them notices or keeps track of.

Having Malwa actually be the word, and have it make sense for widespread usage, would take actual effort, instead of the 15s it took them to go 'Oh, hey it'd be cool!' and then google what the word is in Arabic. And, of course, actually care about representation instead of just going through the motions. Man, it's gotta suck to know the racist old version was actually better at representation than the current allegedly not racist version.

Between Ur-Shulgi awakening and the Gehenna War happening, if you want to play a Islamic Middle Eastern character, you're probably going to do that in Europe or the United States. Places where the very European/American Camarilla rule, and likely would use Latin, Greek, French, or German for the special position of mentor (Which I'm pretty sure is just Mentor but accented four times). Because the Ashirra are probably on their last legs.

That would maybe be an awesome campaign/source book. Say... Baghdad by Night? Covers one of the current Ashirra strongholds, you get to maybe do something involving a pre-Islam Elder or two, plus obvious Islamic characters. Maybe it's uncovering one of the Antediluvians (or one of their old hideouts for historical purposes) or a cult of Baali and dealing with the conspiracy of demon worshippers they've got going on. Really dig into the ways the Ashirra are different from the Cam, and the ways they are similar. Could even have a 'power is power' shrug kinda moment about why that female ancilla gets to go around with no veil for the 'yey feminism' angle. Then we could use the word Malwa, and contrast it to the Cam's Mentor, Anarch's Big Sibling, and Sabbat's Maestro. Or something along those lines. Worldbuilding~ And it would ostensibly give a reason why Malwa is in the book. Not so much why it's used by the very Western Cam, but at least why it's in the rules as a background.

But hey, I only gave it 30s of thought from an in universe PoV. Writing all of this took more time than the actual amount of thought I put into it.

As much as I actually like V5 (the first half at least), it has huge problems that keep coming back to the same reasons.

 

[shadowdice]

I read through Blood Stained Love due to remembering that cursed tome.

It is bad.

Spoiler: V5 why

I looked at storyteller's vault and discovered that someone had made an over 500 page book in an attempt to canon-weld a better version of the Sabbat into 5th edition VTM complete with some old lore such as Jurgen (Totally not Hardestadt the Younger) von Verdant's protege Lucretia von Hardtz having joined the anarchs and latter the Sabbath due to Hardestadt the Elder's (Who was totally never replaced by Hardestadt the Younger after being eaten by Tyler) assassination of her liege lord.

Meanwhile...Blood Stained Love exists

Which starts off with a letter written by Victoria Ash about love, VTM's face for the Toreador who got married to an ancient Macedonian vampire that knew Alexander the Great offscreen. I'm sure that will be relevant...no no it isn't

My Childe,

You have found your place among our Kindred, as I always knew you would. You are as safe and secure as any of us can be in these dire, difficult times. This means it's time to turn your attention to pursuits that make our existence worthwhile.
They say vampires are immortal. That's a lie. We can be burned the same as any mortal but we don't age. We have oceans of time as the cliche goes. What to do with it all?

My answer has always been love.

I've heard many of our kind say we don't feel love, not after the Embrace took our humanity away from us. That we just go through the motions, nostalgic for the emotions of our breathing days.

Maybe it's true. Who cares? What I'm saying is this: Romance is great fun. It fills the knights when everything has become stale and boring. Just when you thought you've seen everything. Some little fledgling will kidnap you and try to force you to love them. You humor them for a week or two just because you want to see where they're going with it.

Of course, you end up killing them in the end. These fledglings tend to become boring once they've used up the one idea they had.

Anyway. Romance! Such a lovely thing!

....(in regards to embracing for love)

That's one of the many ways we die for love (getting killed for embracing without permission) I've done it too, a few times. Or many times. It never works out unless you use the Blood Bond, and where's the fun in that?

I want you to make all these mistakes and more. If you manage to do it without getting executed, so much the better. If not, at least you were destroyed in a manner befitting my lineage.

Personally, I prefer lovers who are free to stab me in the back. The emotion is just so delicious.

Click to shrink...

This letter both exemplifies a lot of what this book is like and undermines it at every point that the book tries to not make romance be a shallow vapid abomination. It also has her admit that she mostly does it because she is bored.

I have a feeling she has gone way down from the humanity 7 she had in previous editions.

So for highlights from this book

Their idea of gifts from high humanity vampires include a werewolf fang in a silver ring, which, outside of the logistics of how garou turn back after death is a case of: If this person can kill a werewolf you want them on your side, forever, now.

A sexual love letter between a pope and a male lover....I am not going to go with any of the numerous jokes you can make there because of how low hanging that fruit is and how low effort that line is.

And the blood of Vatsyayan preserved with tremere blood magic. That is the guy who wrote the Kama Sutra....in the 100s. When tremere was born in at least 500 CE. The writers here spent the time on google to look up the authors name but not even glance at the timeline. Basically over 3/4ths of the stuff on this list would require a well connected or very old vampire as a lot of it is historical artifacts or magic

Their idea of High humanity vampire dates are Regency Era themed balls, parkour, trusting a Tzimisce to Tattoo you, stalking their relatives, and rat-catching tournaments....and an orgy in a brothel.

Now, Low Humanity Vampire Love Which is funny.

The skull of one of your ancestors inscribed with poetry, the severed fingers of a mortals that insulted you turned into a beaded curtain, sharing a meal (twin youths), a tied up thin blood that interfered in your territory to toruture together, a vial of blood from every member of your mortal family, a notebook made of human skin from people you knew, a potion that lets you have nightmares of people you lost, a stake that once stabbed an elder, a torture chair, the pickled head of one of your favorite mortals.

Most of this is more Outright Sabbat than low humanity.

As for dates. Which two of the above would count as date more than gift.


A burlesque show performed by dominated mortals (that is a lot of dominate when it could have been presence). Infiltrating a haunted house attraction to terrify the mortals. Fleshcrafted circus performers. A contest to see who can feed on the most important guy at a corporate retreat without using force (which is honestly one of the less horrifying things here) a living chess game with mortals that kill each other, blood-sampling a captured group of mortals (that is just any vampire social function after a certain point), a concert made up of human screams (I've read that in Elric books), hunting mortals that have been given stakes, mutual BDSM that involves mutilation and gore.

I honestly think they put more thought into the latter section and took most of the high humanity ones out of romance novels/dramas. The rat catching thing was like the most original.

Tables of Laws Against love which are totally bad.

Malkavians aren't allowed to be in blood weddings (mutual blood bond with a ceremony) because a Malkavian broke the prince's heart. So the Malks have them in secret.

This is the Malkavians. They would never have followed the law in the first place.

All romantic relationships with mortals need explicit permission from the prince..

No just no full stop. That is a masquerade breach in the making. Also, actual romance would require you to disclose vampirism. The book immediately says Local vampires had been doing it as game to compete for the love of mortals. Because that doesn't make you an asshole. The stated reason is the masquerade breaches, illegal embraces, and vendettas. And the response is having a Fake Lover to show the prince while you keep the real one at home.

I hate this. I hate V5 I hate these writers. That response is stupid and is clearly a "beard" allegory that doesn't work since the stated reason behind it was the masquerade breaches. This is the same problem only doubled because now you have two mortals people could fight over.

Blood Bonds are only allowed in-clan because it can easily be a source of strife in the domain or power play (Looking at the Toreador). Which results in people who see blood bonds as a tool of oppression (Brujah would say that or Anarchs or well Brujah. Maybe Damsel if the theory of her being a Toreador Harper) to an exciting thrill.

No sire may have romantic relations with their childe. This is one that points to the anarchs as the source, with the resistance being "Brave neonates" that point out how ancillae anarchs did it before them. Which doesn't get into the fact that the ancillae are likely saying "Hey, we did this. It was weird/abuseive/didn't work" and the fact that Anarchs are one of the groups that can most easily have a friend do the embrace for them.

Mortal lovers must be put down once the relationship is over. Okay, this is Because the people who keep having mortal lovers reveal vampirism. Which is a masquerade breach. And the resistance is based on sentimentality instead of "Because it is wrong you dumbass/I didn't tell them about vampire club"

Only the prince is allowed to love descendants of Helena. Goddamn.

If a Nosferatu wants to make a public appearance with a lover from another clan, they must first make a petition before the Keeper of Elysium. This is blamed on Toreador because Stereotypes. The resistance is ANARCH REVOLUTION VIVE LE RESISTANCE WE HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG

The Tremere Regent has the right to refuse romantic relationships between members of their own clan. Hahaha, I am remembering how House Tremre was one big thing of people hopping on the Founder's wizard dick for magic lessons.

Romance between kindred must always happen between Kindred numbering three or more. Because Anarch Ideologues have decided It's not your wife it is our wife. The actual text "Idealogues in this Anarch domain successfully argued that love between two vampires was a Camarilla holdover."

...

...

...

What.

Everyone in that domain who agreed that whoever said that made sense need to be staked. Not through the heart. But in the ass full Vlad Tepesh and left for the sun.

Blood bonds must be limited between a vampire and a ghoul. This is listed as Anarchs

Then we get into weird shit like Elders having a law that they need to vet their Childe's lover "Intimately" so the Childe starts sucking their sires. A lot of this is just "Elders bad" or "Camarilla bad" or Anarchs going to ideologically insane that they start having revolutions against the current anarch ideology because they have decided that this is the new revolution. I am not joking. they have "Anarchs think romancing ancillae and elders is revolutionary."


This is a very bad book

You exist in a world of danger but many of the fears ordinary mortals have to contend with are just not that important to you. Usually, you can be certain the most dangerous thing walking down a dark alley is you.

This freedom from ordinary fears is important in terms of how to play romance. It means you can take stupid risks, flirt with violent killers and still expect to return to your haven in one piece. Vampires have to fear many things, from the Second Inquisition to the sun, but a mortal ex-boyfriend turned stalker is usually not one of them. The Blood provides an arsenal of means to take care of such problems, especially if you're past caring whether you want to do it humanely.

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No, no this is wrong. A mortal stalker who figures out you are a vampire can easily A. Set the haven on fire. or B. Drive a stake in your heart in the day.

It also has lines about hitting on elders which presumes the elder will find them attractive and not "Begone foul Toreador. I shall not repeat the fall of Troile."

I've talked before about what should be a political shitshow which is the vermillion wedding due to the power differential between Victoria Ash and a Macedonian Assamite Methuselah, who Victoria does not mention at all in her letter to her sire despite the mutual blood bond, and has apparently still been fucking around.

Teygrius, who has 6 in charisma and manipulation as an Elder vampire with Auspex 8 and Presence 5. I.E He knows all of Victoria's tricks before she even does them.

I pretend to be a mortal or an unknown neonate and see how far I can get.

I remember one sweet anarch boy who found me out after we'd already spent months together in a simple and innocent relationship. Well, as innocent as it could be considering that he was teaching me how to hunt among the students in the city college. He was so proud of the tricks he'd come up with. It was really quite amusing.

But then one night, one of my clan came slumming to the bar we used to go to and recognized me.

My lover was aghast. "Why did you deceive me like this?" He kept asking.

He just didn't get it. I didn't have any malign plans. I didn't wish him ill. I was just toying with him, that's all. Is that so wrong?

Victoria Ash

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This book is the only edition which has made me want to stake (not metaphorically) Victoria Ash.

Also, somewhere. There is an Ancient Greek Methuselah reading the news on wars in the world being told by one of his attendants that another young vampire burned themselves in the sun after being used and discarded by his wife.

Teygrius: My wife is the prime example of why we had been keeping them away from political power. Wait now I am remembering Alexander's mother. I should hunt her down to kill her one of these nights. I can hear her laughing in my ears. Damn that malkavian.

The section on preferences makes the note that players might have characters that don't have the same sexuality....and note that the GM might presume a player is gay and have pretty boys show up to feed on when the player is actually straight.

....Pretty much all the gay dudes that show up are pretty boys by the way.

We also get a bunch of in character quotes of inter-clan love

• Toreador want to seduce stoic Assamites,
• Nosferatu complain about Brujah bringing up exploitation when sharing blood,
• Ventrue don't comprehend how a caitiff doesn't appreciate being arm candy (because the ventrue are obligated to be assholes/unempathetic even in the book about what the author thinks is torrid romances),
• Caitiff are annoyed at being brought to meet their Gangrel lover's friends which SHOULD BE THE MOST NORMAL THING and the Caitiff is there because they want to know if the gangrel have "animalistic kinks." This person needs to go to the fire.
• Assamites like how "Dead" Hecata are. Why is this what they always go to with the necromancy clans? They couldn't even go to the extended mortal family they can interact with.
• The Lasombra spend their time going on about how great they are and how the passion/intimacy they can provide will please any clan....is this just the Latin lover stereotype?
• Salubri complain about Malkavians being high maintenance due to mental illness and moans about how they have depressive episodes. This is a salubri bitching about that. This edition is character assassination for the clan and I am someone who leans on the idea that Saulot was an asshole who made the Baali after attempting to go Devil Tiger
• Ravnos complain about Setites always wanting something from them. Because Setite.
• Tzimisce point out that Nosferatu really do want love.
• A tremere brags about fucking a Ravnos, that's it. They use the term "New" instead of rare which is goddamn hilarious as the Tremere are a usurper clan
• thin bloods want Golconda through a salubri
• A Brujah is paranoid about a thin blood they are fucking and are worried about what the thin blood is doing in the day while reassuring themselves that the thin blood isn't a "real vampire"
• A Setite gushes over a Toreador only to complain the acts of love were due to boredome
• Gangrel think the Tremere are kinky and use sex as pressure valves for their authoritarian lifestyle. I will presume the Neonate has not heard about how Gargoyles were made.
• Malkavian has a fetish for Fleshsculpting
• A Hecate talks about Ventrue politicking and how the two clans are similar enough that both often want escapes

Oddly, or not because this is clearly a fetish book, the book focuses almost entirely on blood weddings (with the blood bond) and does not once mention a normal wedding that two people might be in. Because it is a fetish book.

Lore gets weird with the book has a city where a Prince declared the Nosfaratu unwelcome in the camarilla. Which should almost immediately result in that prince being replaced either by a Nosferatu assassination or Literally ANYONE killing him with a lot of supporters for what was the exile of a Principle Clan of the Camarilla. Also "The camarilla have intensely repressive policies regarding romance."

Look, this book is some of the lowest common demoninator for "romance" concepts. The go to for camarilla view on love should be either "Not our business" or "Ew, we are vampires."


Now onto some of the more cursed stuff. The love interests they wrote

Layla Miller is the a Tremere Caitiff who somehow knows she is a tremere despite her sire not explaining things and abandoning her. A scholarship student that works at a cafe for cash. She is also a dork who is stressed about if she has to look cool as a vampire and fact that she lives in an apartment with roommates instead of anything goth.

The stuff listed for her is mostly normal. Terrified of her sire and asking to be a fake couple to keep them away, issues with roommates meeting the player/possible love triangles, and opposing ideals. One concept they have is that her skill in bureaucracy makes it so she becomes a trusted part of the local chantry which can have Issues/becoming more like a vampire and seeing the relation as transactional


Condor is called an Anarch Ventrue but has the Tzimisce symbol on the page they show up in and is a f-t-m trans artist that puts political messaging in all the artwork. The last part might as well not be said because it is VTM. The text calls Condor enigmatic, magnetic, and beautiful but the art just looks like a bored punk who wears a vest without a shirt, exposes their underwear, and has the front equivalent of a tramp stamp. Also the art is brunette and mentions top scars while the art has brown hair and doesn't. The description says Condor looks like a hippie with bright colors but the art is all blue. AND THE FUNNIEST PART IS THAT THE DESCRIPTION SAYS THEY DON"T HAVE TATTOOS when the art has the tramp stamp and a good section of the arm covered in them.

The twink ventrue is trying to get to Golconda while wrestling with his use of blood and disciplines on lovers who he fucks on a couch he has refused to clean since the sixties.

This vampire should be the source of an STD outbreak from ghoul fleas on that bed. And is described in-universe as a fuckboy. Also almost exclusively gay outside of BDSM dom women that will peg and humiliate him. I feel like this is a stereotype.

Also because Anarch one of the story ideas is the ideological rabbit hole of "Of course Saulot would be against me being in a relationship with another vampire. That would be immoral and acceptance of vampirism. I cannot give up my enlightenment for love!"


Ethan and Hamza are thin-blood college roommates that do threesomes and aren't sure what their relationship is. Because stereotype. The description lists Ethan as a stereotypical jock but the art has shorts far shorter than I'd associate with most jocks and is more wiry than muscular....because he is a Swimmer. When you think of Jocks you think of Swimmers right? Oh, and one has a lock tattooed to him and another has a key tattooed on him to let you know who is the pitcher.

Hamza cosplays, but it doesn't say what he cosplays as. Ethan also somehow still thinks he is straight despite fucking Hamza. I guess he says "No homo" or that it is a "bro job" with how deep in the closet he is.

Spoiler: Obligatory Ice T

When the person you regularly fuck and cosplay with goes to your swim meets, lives with you, goes to trips to meet your parents, and again, has constant sex with you, you are a couple.


Dmitra Thorn is has the sabbat symbol near her but isn't a sabbatical yet and is a ambiguously brown brujah lady in a dress who clearly does not have any underwear.

I am not joking about ambiguously brown

Dmitra is a statuesque golden skinned woman of indeterminate ethnicity

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She is a lesbian "romantic dominant top who prefers femme and nonbinary partners" the descriptions of some of these characters reads like a questionnaire.

Oh and she is obsessive/territorial but because brujah she tends to dump people due to resenting people or the whole Frenzy issue. She has a villa that she sometimes lets someone rent a room in.

Despite the preference for women she had originally wanted to grow old and have kids which results in often taking in strays. Not just animals but people. Which can result in a vampire coming home to learn their girlfriend has brought a pregnant woman or street kid into the house not just a puppy, only to have her think they will hurt the adopted human. Because Brujah.


Angelique Dutertre is a rich woman that is described as white but the art looks Latina (though that might be because they have her everything cast in red. She is a malkavian artist because she was a nymphomaniac as a human and got institutionalized for it. Her female lover got killed presumably due to a frenzy and she has been trying to learn necromancy to contact her ghost. Her preference is artists or women. Also she is an anarchic.

Viscount Claude d'Aspremont is a ventrue with the ventrue symbol unlike Condor who was clearly meant to be a tzimisce. He is the ONE camarilla love interest shown because V5 and is from the Napoleonic Empire as a soldier given nobility by the emperor. So he might know LaCroix. Because French he is indiscriminate in his tastes as a lover, partly to compete with others and prove his skill. Also if he falls in true love he can get angry due to having exposed a weakness.

He also enjoys committing Mindbreak to remind people he is a ventrue who sometimes enjoys inflicting "nonconsensual pain." because remember he is an evil Camarilla Ventrue. Look this is fifty shades of grey, aka twilight with suits. He also likes to test people into committing acts of cruelty/is likely to try to break up if he has feelings because he is a ventrue and is not supposed to have feelings.

I am going to say it here, the obvious and better romance would be his childer and lineage looking at their sire in love with a neonate and scream "Father no you've been blood bonded!"

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

Yeah. Sex positivity and kink in a cringe way, especially cause the devs probably remembered mid schlick that these are vamps/monsters.

And somehow Vampire love has to be... distinct? from normally abusive/toxic relationships for some reason.

 

[vighzs]

Reposting here from the crossover thread if anyone else is interested in exploring it.

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Okay here are my takes:

Werewolf faction tracker

Chritianity Factions - Hate as they aren't exactly eco-friendly with their 1000 years of millitary industry, and you know the whole "we opened the gates of hell" thing that might be killing Gaia faster then the OG timeline and might have already unchained/freed the Wyrm to an extent

Iron Sultenate - Distrust, their takwin might trigger them hard

Forces of Hell - various degrees of hate with one exception maybe

Heretic Legions - Hate, their industry is nightmarish to say the least
Court of the Seven Headed Serpent - HATE
Black Grail - HATE
Church of Metamorphosis - SO MUCH HATE
Path of the Beast - Maybe this one might get subverted/selectively ignored as werewolfs do have a hard on for turning humanity back to their Stone Age equivalent

Vampires

Considering the Church already employs bio-vampires in Transylvania the Camarilla might be already Church aligned, or if not are secretly supportive of them.

Anarchs might have been subverted by Hell. Sabbats definetely fell.

On the other hand TC Cain is actually active and is in charge of training the Death Commandos of Hell so they might be all corrupted to some extent.

Mages

The Technocracy would fit right in with the Christian Churches and their Science and Order style

The Council of Nine Mystic Traditions got probably absorbed by the Sultenate and their Alchemists.

---

I do not have enough knowledge on spirits, mummies and the fey to make a decision on them

 

[Lorsïthrorung]

Path of the Beast - Maybe this one might get subverted/selectively ignored as werewolfs do have a hard on for turning humanity back to their Stone Age equivalent

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I was thinking they see them as worse Black Spiral Dancers, based on appearance alone.

Chritianity Factions - Hate as they aren't exactly eco-friendly with their 1000 years of millitary industry, and you know the whole "we opened the gates of hell" thing that might be killing Gaia faster then the OG timeline and might have already unchained/freed the Wyrm to an extent

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Perhaps but there's also the fact most of said werewolves are still in Europe, with exception to those in the Beast Courts but they're kind of irrelivent and I have no idea what's the status of the Far East and New World in TC. Although if we're going with them blaming Christianity, they could double down in ditching Europe for the New World even if it means destroying/subsuming all of the New World tribes and flooding OTL-Canada with vikings.

 

[vighzs]

I was thinking they see them as worse Black Spiral Dancers, based on appearance alone.

Perhaps but there's also the fact most of said werewolves are still in Europe, with exception to those in the Beast Courts but they're kind of irrelivent and I have no idea what's the status of the Far East and New World in TC. Although if we're going with them blaming Christianity, they could double down in ditching Europe for the New World even if it means destroying/subsuming all of the New World tribes and flooding OTL-Canada with vikings.

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Fair point about the Black Spiral, and currently according to WOG the colonisation never happened/is up in the air if they ever want to explore it and if I remember right the last people that brought up the Far East and South America got the Ban Hammer on Discord. Don't quote me on that though as I haven't visited the server in a long time.