General World of Darkness Discussion Thread QQ Edition

[shadowdice]

4 point merit, page 114 of V20 Wild West

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I unfortunately don't have that one

 

[heralding_bubble]

I unfortunately don't have that one

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oh right, I could have just

Spoiler

sorry

 

[shadowdice]

oh right, I could have just
sorry

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I feel like without house ruling something like ignoring dot limits cost doesn't make sense unless you lean into the fame aspect since you could just have 5 dots in resources (as you need to have resources one to have it)

 

[Maragas]

Crossposting from SB
So apparently V5 Core got a japanese version...with actually good art cover.

Spoiler

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/vtm/comments/1sogb1d/v5_just_officially_launched_in_japan_wanted_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Now, I don't know if they redo the horrible art and layout inside the V5 Core, but if they did, I am willing to get a paper copy imported. Even if I never plan to play V5 again.

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Unfortunately from what I hear insides are the same.
You had one job Paradox!

 

[heralding_bubble]

on one hand VtM/WoD in japan, I hope it gets popular for what it could inspire outside of tabletalk circles
on the other hand V5/5e in japan, I kinda hope it crashes and burns because 5e

 

[shadowdice]

Crossposting from SB
So apparently V5 Core got a japanese version...with actually good art cover.

Spoiler

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/vtm/comments/1sogb1d/v5_just_officially_launched_in_japan_wanted_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Now, I don't know if they redo the horrible art and layout inside the V5 Core, but if they did, I am willing to get a paper copy imported. Even if I never plan to play V5 again.

---

Unfortunately from what I hear insides are the same.
You had one job Paradox!

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This is one of the few books for V5 with actually appealing art

Art direction for V5 is all over the place

 

[Maragas]

Crossposting from SB.

We got Hunter...ugh "The Reckoning" game Deathwish dev diary with some gameplay.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC15DkOQwWQ

It looks better than Bloodlines 2 and would fit perfectly as a Hunters Hunted game...even if it isn't actual HTR game in my eyes. Looks good though.



(Speaking of better than Bloodlines 2, another game by the publisher of this game is Dracula: The Disciple. And it looks interesting!)

Spoiler: D: The Discipline

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFr1zHxJTCk

We also got, Werewolf the Apocalypse - Rageborn trailer. It is based on W5, it looks...fine I suppose but gameplay makes me want to play Earthblood. Not really excited for this, even if it wasn't W5.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyxU4RqD0G0

 

[shadowdice]

Having come back from looking through different WoD lore channels, I get irritated with people who go "Fascism" when describing the Sabbat and Camarilla. Something that even several WOD writers fall into.

I have encountered, like, one WoD channel that goes "No, the factions of vampires made in late 1400s are not based around a 20th century ideology. The ancillae and neonates packs might ascribe to it but the founders, if they recognize that word, at most opportunistically made use of them for their own goals. We are monsters with our own ideologies which vastly predate the ideas of 20th century Axis Powers because we people who founded it are Over 500 years old."

In universe, I understand a Neonate using the word. I understand an Anarch using the word as an insult against the camarilla. I am highly irritated the v5 camarilla book unironically using it when it is supposed to be written in-character.

The Camarilla are largely based on feudalism and manorialism due to them being vampires that divide up land which they use to "Farm" the "Kine" and guard their territories from what they consider to be poachers. The Sabbat have a huge amount of Catholic Church imagery in-universe because of how heavily influenced they were by the Lasombra which had a large amount of their members be southern European catholics in their time alive and had often infiltrated communities that used much of the same terminology such as Priest, Bishop, Archbishop, and Inquisitor.

Gerontocracy, Tribalism, and other terms far more accurately describe those factions and someone can turn the word back on the Anarchs if they felt like it using the same ideological theories and critiques that the writers very poorly reference.

Crossposting from SB.

We got Hunter...ugh "The Reckoning" game Deathwish dev diary with some gameplay.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC15DkOQwWQ

It looks better than Bloodlines 2 and would fit perfectly as a Hunters Hunted game...even if it isn't actual HTR game in my eyes. Looks good though.



(Speaking of better than Bloodlines 2, another game by the publisher of this game is Dracula: The Disciple. And it looks interesting!)

Spoiler: D: The Discipline

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFr1zHxJTCk

We also got, Werewolf the Apocalypse - Rageborn trailer. It is based on W5, it looks...fine I suppose but gameplay makes me want to play Earthblood. Not really excited for this, even if it wasn't W5.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyxU4RqD0G0

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NuWoD tries to ignore a lot of their early editions. Hunter really should have gone by a new name even if I prefer Vaguely Winchester Brothers and Numina (Witch-Hunters) to the Imbued. The Dracula game makes me think of Amnesia the Dark Descent for some reason.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

Having come back from looking through different WoD lore channels, I get irritated with people who go "Fascism" when describing the Sabbat and Camarilla. Something that even several WOD writers fall into.

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That's because most of those people have the following understanding in politics: 'Everything political I don't like is Fascism.' And then they give it no further thought. No further research.

They have absolutely no idea what Fascism actually is. The closest they get is the absolute dogwater Ur-Fascism essay that's so vague, general, and pro-extreme left I've seen it used, and seen all 14 points apply to, Equestria. From MLP: FiM. The only way they understand Fascism is from the 'Fascism coded' stuff they've been told is 'Fascism coded.'

They're playing 'All of my politics comes from vaguely hearing about it from nine other people' telephone. And not from reading foundational documents or historical accounts.

To use a word from Karl Marx, they are lumpenproletariat with 'class consciousness' aka 'useful idiots.'

Then they take that utter garbage understanding of society and political systems and apply it to TTRPGs, WoD in this case.

 

[Repentant_Dragos]

That's because most of those people have the following understanding in politics: 'Everything political I don't like is Fascism.' And then they give it no further thought. No further research.

They have absolutely no idea what Fascism actually is. The closest they get is the absolute dogwater Ur-Fascism essay that's so vague, general, and pro-extreme left I've seen it used, and seen all 14 points apply to, Equestria. From MLP: FiM. The only way they understand Fascism is from the 'Fascism coded' stuff they've been told is 'Fascism coded.'

They're playing 'All of my politics comes from vaguely hearing about it from nine other people' telephone. And not from reading foundational documents or historical accounts.

To use a word from Karl Marx, they are lumpenproletariat with 'class consciousness' aka 'useful idiots.'

Then they take that utter garbage understanding of society and political systems and apply it to TTRPGs, WoD in this case.

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May I be blunt? I am not a fan of the right wing myself, nor VtM 5e or HtR 5e, which I heard contains some subtext I find dubious, so I will request a clarification:

If the take was more accurate, yet the politics are roughly the same, will you still be ranting?

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

If the take was more accurate, yet the politics are roughly the same, will you still be ranting?

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It's still a little early. So I'm not full on understanding. Also I'm super wordy so I'm not necessarily ranting because there's a lot of words.

The post is mostly me complaining about how the devs of WoD5 don't understand politics, not about them being left-wing. Well, at least that's what I think I was doing.

Most people don't know what Socialism or Communism is either, if that helps? And I have, in the past, complained or ranted going that way too. Just less often on the internet. On the internet, it's usually this way for me. Most of the 'you don't really know what Socialism/Communism is' discussions I have had happened in fleshspaces.

They understand those ideologies about as much as they understand Fascism. Which is to say they have a very surface level, mythologicalized understanding of it. (I'll also be the first to admit that my understanding is like 'solid but basic' and just enough to know that most people don't have even that and know enough to know that there's a lot I don't know about a lot of these socio-political systems and ideologies)

For some people 'anything that I don't like is Communism' is just as true.

I'm not saying that the Cam or the Sabbat aren't more right wing or conservative than the Anarchs or whatever (Because they are very much more right wing in a political sense from our PoV. Like legitmately and properly conservative in some ways, but overwhelmingly liberal in others. Vampire society is a Kratocracy at it's core, and power doesn't care about what protected categories you are or aren't), but what the devs V5 did was basically slap 'everything I don't like, politically, is Fascist' and slather it all over V5 with some very occasional 'oh we have to soften this so people will play it' bits. Like they did for the Lasombra in core by calling the Sabbat Fascist and then in the Chicago book where they were toned 'down' to mere right-wing protestors and libertarians.

Then, yeah, in typical White Wolf fashion, despite being dev'd by a lot of other people since WW fumbled the bag by being WW in the then 'current year,' WoD5 will occasionally have fucked up shit in it that's randomly 'this doesn't fit' fashion. Because they're still trying to capture some of the magic of earlier editions. And WW was Gen X edgy and Gen X tryhard edgy in turns.

I don't think that WW hated the Romani despite putting out a 'Gypsy' splat and magic book. Mostly because overwhelmingly most Americans didn't know gypsy was a slur until like 2014. I'm pretty sure even Disney used the word gypsy in Hunchback, as if it was just a normal word for the Romani people. Or hated gays because of their hilariously awful take on the fucking terrible happenings in Chechnya involving the LGBTQ+ people there. The former was ignorance, almost 100% certain, and the latter was trying much too hard to be edgy.

Trust me tho, any game or edition with Rudi as a prime loresheet, is way more interested in being about Rudi type characters, than being about anything pro-Confederate that they probably accidented themselves into. Because I don't know what you're talking about? So I can't say for sure. I did stop reading every book after like the Sabbat book in V5 and haven't gone back in years. I only read through the corebook for Hunter like once when I got it in a WoD5 bundle. I assume they probably portray some Confederate Kindred or rural American from the South who is pro-Confederate in a positive or not entirely negative light. That's usually enough for some people to start screeching that the devs are crypto confederates or some shit.

 

[Repentant_Dragos]

Trust me tho, any game or edition with Rudi as a prime loresheet, is way more interested in being about Rudi type characters, than being about anything pro-Confederate that they probably accidented themselves into. Because I don't know what you're talking about? So I can't say for sure. I did stop reading every book after like the Sabbat book in V5 and haven't gone back in years. I only read through the corebook for Hunter like once when I got it in a WoD5 bundle. I assume they probably portray some Confederate Kindred or rural American from the South who is pro-Confederate in a positive or not entirely negative light. That's usually enough for some people to start screeching that the devs are crypto confederates or some shit.

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It was something I heard on SB about HtR 5e having as one antagonist a Ghost that attacks people wearing Confederate memorabillia.

Which is quite frankly, comedic.

As for the rest of what you said... yes.

Heck, I only found out this year that Marx in the 19th Century considered Capitalism a necessary stage towards Socialism and Communism as it improved technology and productivity, and that's all I want to say about that.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

Which is quite frankly, comedic.

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... That's it? That's what they use to justify H5 being 'pro-Confederate?'

I would seriously consider putting those people in the 'cannot separate fiction from reality and thus interaction should be minimized' box.

Heck, I only found out this year that Marx in the 19th Century considered Capitalism a necessary stage towards Socialism and Communism as it improved technology and productivity, and that's all I want to say about that.

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I'd known that Benny the Moose thought that Hitler was ruining Fascism by bringing race into it and that Fascist Italy was overwhelmingly no more racist than other contemporary Western states.

But then I heard the little blackface song this year and did a little more research into the Italian liberation of Ethiopia and uh. The song is pretty clearly implying that the pretty Ethiopian women should be brought back to Rome for the victory parades, most likely as a war bride. And Italian officers in Ethiopia were apparently rather notorious for having Ethiopian wives and mistresses during the occupation, until Benny was more or less forced to bow from political pressure from Berlin (He alleged said that he hated signing the race laws into law to someone who complained about the laws behind closed doors).

 

[Repentant_Dragos]

... That's it? That's what they use to justify H5 being 'pro-Confederate?'

I would seriously consider putting those people in the 'cannot separate fiction from reality and thus interaction should be minimized' box.

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Technically there is another instance but I don't recall it. And to be honest, I do think it can be legitimately seen as 'Pro-Confederate' as it's not just one example... but it's a ridiculous detail that's headbangingly-stupid either way.

I'd known that Benny the Moose thought that Hitler was ruining Fascism by bringing race into it and that Fascist Italy was overwhelmingly no more racist than other contemporary Western states.

But then I heard the little blackface song this year and did a little more research into the Italian liberation of Ethiopia and uh. The song is pretty clearly implying that the pretty Ethiopian women should be brought back to Rome for the victory parades, most likely as a war bride. And Italian officers in Ethiopia were apparently rather notorious for having Ethiopian wives and mistresses during the occupation, until Benny was more or less forced to bow from political pressure from Berlin (He alleged said that he hated signing the race laws into law to someone who complained about the laws behind closed doors).

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I did not know that until now... But I don't think that's a concrete sign that Fascist Italy wasn't extra racist.

Now if Italian women were allowed to have Ethiopian husbands and paramours....

But that's a disgression; back to WoD.

Like they did for the Lasombra in core by calling the Sabbat Fascist and then in the Chicago book where they were toned 'down' to mere right-wing protestors and libertarians.

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I... this is not opposition to Fascism (or 'Fascism') at all. If anything, this cheapening of Fascism seems like a backhanded attempt to make actual Fascism (the 30s kind) sound cooler.

Which is... ugh.

 

[throwjoe]

.
I... this is not opposition to Fascism (or 'Fascism') at all. If anything, this cheapening of Fascism seems like a backhanded attempt to make actual Fascism (the 30s kind) sound cooler.

Which is... ugh.

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Bad writing in V5? Must be a day that ends in Y

 

[shadowdice]

It was something I heard on SB about HtR 5e having as one antagonist a Ghost that attacks people wearing Confederate memorabillia.

Which is quite frankly, comedic.

Click to shrink...

The ghost is wearing confederate memorabilia or the ghost attacks people who have confederate memorabilia?

That's because most of those people have the following understanding in politics: 'Everything political I don't like is Fascism.' And then they give it no further thought. No further research.

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basically my point. Which is Really Weird for people who say they love Vampire, the game which is often about political maneuvering

Benny the Moose

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This may be the best nickname for that guy in all of history.

It's still a little early. So I'm not full on understanding. Also I'm super wordy so I'm not necessarily ranting because there's a lot of words.

The post is mostly me complaining about how the devs of WoD5 don't understand politics, not about them being left-wing. Well, at least that's what I think I was doing.

Most people don't know what Socialism or Communism is either, if that helps? And I have, in the past, complained or ranted going that way too. Just less often on the internet. On the internet, it's usually this way for me. Most of the 'you don't really know what Socialism/Communism is' discussions I have had happened in fleshspaces.

They understand those ideologies about as much as they understand Fascism. Which is to say they have a very surface level, mythologicalized understanding of it. (I'll also be the first to admit that my understanding is like 'solid but basic' and just enough to know that most people don't have even that and know enough to know that there's a lot I don't know about a lot of these socio-political systems and ideologies)

For some people 'anything that I don't like is Communism' is just as true.

I'm not saying that the Cam or the Sabbat aren't more right wing or conservative than the Anarchs or whatever (Because they are very much more right wing in a political sense from our PoV. Like legitmately and properly conservative in some ways, but overwhelmingly liberal in others. Vampire society is a Kratocracy at it's core, and power doesn't care about what protected categories you are or aren't), but what the devs V5 did was basically slap 'everything I don't like, politically, is Fascist' and slather it all over V5 with some very occasional 'oh we have to soften this so people will play it' bits. Like they did for the Lasombra in core by calling the Sabbat Fascist and then in the Chicago book where they were toned 'down' to mere right-wing protestors and libertarians.

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A thing which irritates me about it for the official books is that they do not tend to actually analyze things when it comes to this stuff. We have like three USSR style soviet vampires I can think of off the top of my head in the Chicago and L.A books off the top of my head and Chicago has multiple entire coteries of socialists where a big emphasis is put on it and I look at it going "Okay and what do they plan on doing?" Chicago second edition has the political battle to become prince as the focus with the intent being that the players will support somebody but they didn't really give any of the groups Planks for their platform.

Modius, the literal first Prince they put in VTM for all he lacks power is said to be an old style socialist tied to workers unions but that isn't really a focus of his character so much as him being a decrepit vampire clinging to what little power he has with what he has falling apart around him. The others in the Chicago are intended to be the "Good guys" or at least compared to the literal stereotypes of corporate fat cats Ballard, greedy banker Alan Sovereign, and Kevin Jackson whose entire thing in the original book was being a gangster with an atrocious hair style because the game has and still does often bank on Anarchs versus Camarilla with the common intent being that the Anarchs will be the friendly/less asshole faction.

This is without getting into the implications of trying to apply ideologies to the logical conclusions of When You Are A Vampire.

Mark Decker in the newer books dealing with Milwaukee gets called a Fascist when it is A, describing generic authoritarianism at worst or war time measures at best on account of B, the city is surrounded by angry werewolves, Sabbat, and hunters that want to kill the vampires and Mark is trying to prevent that.

One of the best comparisons for the Camarilla is manorialism in which the domain or even city is the manor in which the owner of the domain, or prince (nominally) gives other vampires protection to use the land and 'farm' the kine (humans). With this getting subdivided downwards with singular vampires or coteries having control of subdomains. This itself does not get into the fact that the prince may often be subject to the desires of the Primogen which are effectively a modern equivalent to a Tribal Elder who is nominally supposed to represent the interests of their clan, though that is when the Primogen are clan representatives rather than Any Vampire with the ability to say they are a primogen even if there are multiple people of the same clan taking the title. Things get closer to proper feudalism when the city is under actual or political attack by Anarchs/Sabbat/Lupines.

The Sabbat are shockingly prescient in that they are similar to terrorist cells in structure with the various packs often having no idea what the other ones are doing unless an archbishop or bishop tries to direct them to do something with various doctrinal differences between each pack. To call them a death cult as v5 likes to call it is also a misnomer as unlike IRL doomsday cults, the Sabbat have actual evidence of the apocalypse and importantly (even in V5 for the most part) are correct about pretty much all of it as the Antediluvians are real things that are waking up and can do utterly batshit insane stuff (this is without getting into other splats which vary in canon and are often stuff they have no reason to understand, though in the case of werewolf they are then even more correct that the Apocalypse is Currently Happening).

In the case of the Sabbat, you could loosely say they are a Patriarchy in the most literal sense as they worship Caine as their Father (which he is, though he would likely beat them up for worshipping him as a god). Otherwise, that term is laughable on account of the Tzimisce influence and how you will probably offend a Tzimisce with the implication that it has only one set of genitals if it has any at all or if they are even vaguely humanoid (Vagina mouths, Berserk hallucination esque actual snake down there). More realistically, they are the result of a bunch of often ex Catholic and ex Orthodox Christians making a model of what they think society should be like for vampires while saying they aren't human at the same time that they crib terms as as Archbishop, Bishop, Priest, and Inquisition while making an incredibly fancy cross.

Incredibly loosely you might describe some of the independent clans with the term, but they are mostly Cults (Assamites, Giovanni, Setites, Cappadocians, and Salubri despite the last one's protests) centered around their antediluvians. The one which might be most fitting is maybe the Giovanni if you get into some of the very weird esoteric religious stuff that came out of Italy in that time period where the State was a Leviathan-esque God made out of the various people that made it up and defined reality.

One can, by actually understanding a cultural or political system, make a chronicle/story dealing with people who have to live in it or at least encounter it in a vampire setting

• I had a chronicle where a Tzimisce Elder woke up an went to war through the Great Lakes region to unite the vampires there and then proceed to attempt to build up Michael's Dream in a context of Gehenna actively happening and her attempting to outright force people into being habitually moral from a human perspective with her major flaws being that A she is forcing it and B she uses so many authoritarian tactics with there being a joke in that she missed out on the past 100 years and has no idea why people make comparisons to 20th century germans and Russians when the only 'modern' thing she cribbed was the Reservation Schools used in America where she is applying it to werewolves
• I've had a chronicle set in L.A where you have what are essentially warlords forming coalitions with agreements to have a group that can go between them for the sake of hunting demons
• I've written a Siberian vampire that applies socialism to humans but not vampires because he believes he can make it work on the incredibly small scale which is Siberia's population while being critical of the Soviet Union and looking at vampires that suggest applying it to vampires and saying "What does seizing the means of production mean for vampires?" (the logical conclusion of that would be an incredibly horrific oppression of humans)

That vampire often relies on people to fill in the gaps is often why things become Generic Authoritarianism/Warlordism with while matters like Michael's Dream in Constantinople being very loose in terms of specifics outside of the factions inside of it and being "He wants heaven on earth, then went batshit insane and suicidal."

Trust me tho, any game or edition with Rudi as a prime loresheet, is way more interested in being about Rudi type characters, than being about anything pro-Confederate that they probably accidented themselves into. Because I don't know what you're talking about?

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Rudy is a thing where I look at it and wonder if someone in the Dev team was looking around the room and thinking "What if I make the most ridiculous thing I possibly can? They wouldn't green light it. We have quality control right?" Because that gives me some hope, not because I think it was likely is. The Southern Lost Causer Brujah in the second edition Brujah Clanbook was less cartoonish and he was made as an example of how Weird and insane Brujah political positions can be.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

This is without getting into the implications of trying to apply ideologies to the logical conclusions of When You Are A Vampire.

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Right. They barely think about it. Slap words they think they know the definitions of in places they think is apropos. Then they don't think any further about it through the lens of the game or setting they're writing.

WW, for all of it's many faults, at least used to sometimes think about things through the lens of what they were actually doing. I'm convinced the new devs are incapable of actually connecting dots.

Rudy is a thing where I look at it and wonder if someone in the Dev team was looking around the room and thinking "What if I make the most ridiculous thing I possibly can? They wouldn't green light it. We have quality control right?" Because that gives me some hope, not because I think it was likely is. The Southern Lost Causer Brujah in the second edition Brujah Clanbook was less cartoonish and he was made as an example of how Weird and insane Brujah political positions can be.

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For real.

 

[Repentant_Dragos]

Right. They barely think about it. Slap words they think they know the definitions of in places they think is apropos. Then they don't think any further about it through the lens of the game or setting they're writing.

WW, for all of it's many faults, at least used to sometimes think about things through the lens of what they were actually doing. I'm convinced the new devs are incapable of actually connecting dots.



For real.

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I wonder if that's actually a desire to hedge their bets/play both sides, so they can claim they were supporting whichever ideology 'wins'.

Like, they can easily claim they were supporting Fascism all along.

In other news, I am actually pondering playing a Mage the Ascension homebrew for 5e.

Which makes me realize that 5e Mechanics are not actually that bad... But the ones behind them would probably ruin Mage's themes and lore.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

Hunger dice translated to paradox die will probably be the peak of the mechanic ngl.

If they do the most blatant thing with them anyways.

 

[Repentant_Dragos]

Hunger dice translated to paradox die

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That's in the homebrew, yes.

 

[shadowdice]

On an earlier edition note, for all the hate Kindred of the Ebony Kingdom (which really should have been titled something like VTM: Laibon) gets, some of the mechanics are things which I feel Fit in the Secret Society of vampires which carry the curse of their predecessors setting.

Ex:

Ancestor Spirits:
-Fluff: Something about you attracts the attention of your ancestors from beyond the grave. You have earned their favor or fear or even reverence. The ancestor spirit who watches over you grants you the benefit of insight and experience it had in life, if you will learn to listen. Your ancestor spirit is the psychic remnant of a real person, so he or she will only be as helpful in a dialogue as any other overseeing relative with a lifetime of experience to hold over you.
-Mechanic: Roll your Ancestor Spirits trait against a difficulty of 8, every success you achieve grants you temporary dot in an ability. Alternatively contact them for direct advice, warnings, or research with difficulty of 10.

This works really really well in a methuselah or antediluvian cult where you are effectively using your blood as a conduit to contact vampires from prior in your bloodline or more generally members of the clan that have died but have a sort of connection to you (VTM kind of goes back and forth on that being a thing)

Reliquary:
-Fluff: You are part of a line, bound to your ancestors through blood. You have a duty to learn from them and respect them for giving you your place, and so do they help you as long as you have the reliquary. It is imprinted with or contains some part of an ancestor which acts as a source of wisdom, power, or unnatural perception. Commonly a mask, a votive sculpture, or a bit of ornamental jewelr. It might contain psychic remains of a mortal or vampiric ancestor.
-Mechanics: Choose when taking it on whether it grants an automatic success in two knowledges contained in the artifact or have it be an automatic success in Perception+Empathy tests. It might augment one of your bloodline's disciplines for one scene with extra dice. It functions off blood of which you can have blood points equal to your dots in it stored within. you can consume this blood later.

An entire Chronicle can be based around hunting down a Reliquary related to your specific lineage. Ex: It was stolen by an enemy or rival lineage generations ago and you are searching through records for it until one day you find a portrait a lasombra had made of himself where you can see the reliquary hooked to their belt as a trophy and then you go about figuring out where that Lasombra is, learn they were killed, who killed them, and go about hunting that person as a possible lead along with the Lasombra's childer to figure out where an item your PC is bound by honor, service, and pragmatism (it is a very useful artifact) to secure.

These two things are very great mechanics and plot points for a VTM game more focused on lineage or mysticism.

"Yeah, this necklace has the shrunken eyeball sealed in amber belonging to a 5th generation methuselah ancestor of mine. I'm not entirely sure if the voice speaking to me through it is a ghost or a living methuselah hidden somewhere in the world."

 

[LeftWaiting]

The ghost is wearing confederate memorabilia or the ghost attacks people who have confederate memorabilia?

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IIRC it's the ghost of a Union soldier from the American civil war, and he attacks anyone he interprets as a Confederate soldier or Confederate sympathizer.

 

[Repentant_Dragos]

IIRC it's the ghost of a Union soldier from the American civil war, and he attacks anyone he interprets as a Confederate soldier or Confederate sympathizer.

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Thanks for the clarification.