Princes and Hounds

If you were to ask the average kindred of Khallam, “who is the prince” you would probably get the reply, Byron, at least from those vampires familiar with the tradition of a Prince.  Khallam has no such position.  Instead it is ruled by three stewards, each of whom could make a claim to being the prince on some level.  Byron is the head of the Ordo Dracul of Khallam and it is he that the social life and politicking revolve around.  He absolutely does have clout as it is he who provides the muscle to the Invictus that allows them to run the city and the Sworn of the Axe could probably establish martial law if they wished to.  However, it is the Invictus who run the day to day administrative affairs of the city and it is the hounds that enforce the Traditions, answering to Tegen.

Tegen’s hounds are a range of brawn and brains whose only exceptional traits are their ability to work as a team and their dedication to interpreting the Tradition of the Masquerade broadly enough that they feel compelled to quiet any supernatural occurrence as that all too often leads to uncomfortable questions.  After all once the kine accept magic how long is it until they start asking about all the other old stories and could vampires be real too?  However, relics, tomes, wyrm nests, these are handed over to the Ordo Dracul.  Usually.  A few may … well, fall through the cracks of being handed over.  Since they aren’t claimed by the Sworn of the Axe in battle Byron is not obligated to give the Sworn first pick as is tradition among the Ordo Dracul.  All of this arrangement keeps both Tegen and Byron firmly centered as those capable of giving out substantial gifts.

Then, what of Istavan?  Istavan is a powerful figure among the Sworn of the Ordo Dracul in Khallam and has considerable influence among several factions but his official power has no Sworn of the Axe or Hounds.  Instead Istavan’s real power comes from two sources.  One, many truly admire him, even love him.  And that is a dangerous thing.  Secondly, often overlooked is that Istavan has been entrusted with the authority to break rules.  He can allow murder by diablerie for example or siring based on moral justifications.  Istavan is the least likely to be called prince but yet the one the least rules apply to.

Cthulhu Rules

I’m pretty much a gaming whore.  I love games.  However, as life has moved on and things have demanded my attention more and more like a responsible job and children I find myself less willing to learn new ones.  I used to buy games fully knowing I would never play them but now I at least want usable stuff from them.  In the last year I’ve bought Cthulhu Tech and Trail of Cthulhu for example for these purposes.  I really want the Call of Cthulhu 6th edition hardback too.  (See a theme?)

Oh, and I love some Cthulhu in my D&D and World of Darkness.  The fact that most Cthulhian gaming is as much pulp as Lovecraft doesn’t bother me in the least though I think I try to inject a bit more Lovecraft than is often the default.  Anyway, before this becomes a Cthulhu gaming blog (which has merit in it’s own right) I want to mention Pathfinder.

My lack of posting the last two weeks is mostly because the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game hardback came in the mail to me.  And yes, I love it.  It is everything that World of Darkness isn’t to me, a polar opposite and one of the few games along with Shadowrun and World of Darkness that I’m willing to invest in for gaming right now.  See, despite my fan boy like willingness to buy virtually everything with WoD on it my slavish devotion has limits.  I’m looking for boundaries in games at this point.  For example, Shadowrun.  I have in the hardbacks I now own for Shadowrun 4th edition everything I feel like I want to run Shadowrun and frankly I’m not particularly interested in buying any more.  I’m looking for something much the same in Pathfinder.  I have a love for D&D that isn’t rationale but based on childhood pleasures and to me Paizo’s Pathfinder is D&D in spirit far more than the actual D&D 4th Edition is.  This isn’t to slam 4th Edition.  I think its a fine game.  Its just not a game I’m personally interested in though if I had buddies that wanted to play I’d be glad to make a character and I’m sure I would enjoy playing with them.  WW has managed to continue to put out books that interest me in having them be part of a my ‘core’ collection.  A very large core at this point.

So, I am working on a blog for Pathfinder support tentatively called Paths in the Sand.  It will chronicle my obsession with mythic arabian fantasy gaming and I may make some world building project similar to Khallam for it.  I need to check terms of use again but I may need to get Paizo’s approval before using any branding elements and so on.  They have a community license.  I will post the link here when I’m ready and I will be back with more WoD posts very soon including some ideas for Cthulhu in the World of Darkness.

Progenitor (4 point merit)
Prerequisites: Vampire, Blood Potency 4

Effect: Some kindred are unsatisfied creating childer that will suffer the ravages of being babes among the wolves.  Indeed, legends are filled with stories of those who are embraced and not only are suffused with the power of the undead but are more powerful than their peers by virtue of being the childer of an elder.  Indeed, some elders do know how to pass on the thickness of their kindred vitae to childer.  Indeed, some take pride in this talent as they are appalled by the idea that all are created equal.  Some childer of elders are even given special accord rightly or not under the assumption that they might have some of this power.  Still, the increased vitae given by this power is significant but the lack of practical knowledge of the requiem and lack of disciplines to accompany it usually means that a progeny may get themselves into proportionate trouble.

Vampire created beyond Blood Potency 2 get increasingly rare so while a Blood Potency 5 neonate is possible with this power it is nearly unheard of due not only to the risk but the rarity of vampires powerful enough to do it.

The Progenitor talent allows for the creation of progeny of Blood Potencies 2, 3, 4 or 5 rather than 1.  Each blood potency requires a sire of a Blood Potency at least twice that they are creating, the investment of six points of vitae into the thickening of the childe’s per point of childe’s Blood Potency beyond the first, one dot of will power per point of Blood Potency and one aggravated wound per  point of Blood Potency beyond 1. So, for example, if an elder wants to create a childer with a Blood Potency of 3, this would require that the elder have Blood Potency 6, invest 12 points of Vitae, sacrifice 3 willpower dots and suffer 2 aggravated wounds.
The creation of such childer is dangerous to the elder but also can bring them great prestige.

Domains where this talent is known often have laws forbidding its use without the Prince’s explicit approval.  The knowledge of this talent is uncommon even among elders and is only in common knowledge at all in larger Ordo Dracul and Invictus domains.

The art above is from www.jasonchanart.com – I ran across his site while browsing Google images.  The cropped version here is a actually a wonderful larger piece.  Go check out his art and his prints for sale.

First, my thanks to Howlin, a poster on the White Wolf forums who posted his Coil of Progeny which I used as the basis of mine very closely.  His ideas were very close to my own (scarily so) and his write up was very strong.  So, why re-invent what has already been well made?  The Coil of Progeny you will see below has seen changes but not to ‘fix’ it but reflect what I wanted differently from it and limit to only four ranks.

In Khallam, Byron is the only master of this coil and even lower ranks are closely protected knowledge.  They are not secret at all, in fact knowledge of this coil grants great rank and puts kindred in a perilous position.  Dragons should never withhold knowledge of a coil but they do routinely.  That is the nature of the danse macabre.  If a Dragon exhibits knowledge of this coil others will also assume that they have a relationship with Byron.

First Tier: Will of the Blood
The vampire may create and maintain Ghouls without spending willpower.  Ghouls created by the vampire must still spend willpower to maintain themselves, but the vampire can maintain them with a mere thought, and no expenditure beyond the Ghoul’s blood requirements.

[no changes other than fixing spelling]

Second Tier: Strengthen the Bloodline
If the vampire is a member of a bloodline, he may optionally chose to embrace his childe directly into the bloodline, rather than the childe needing to willfully activate the bloodline at blood potency 2 with a willpower dot expenditure.

[no changes other than fixing spelling]

Third Tier: Infectious Soul
Reduces the cost of performing the Embrace from a willpower dot to a willpower point.

[no changes other than fixing spelling]

Fourth Tier: Beyond Clan
Vampire may embrace his Childer into any clan who’s blood he committed diablerie on recently enough that the death would still show on his aura (it doesn’t have to show if they have the ability to hide it, it simply has to be in that time frame].  Further, the effects of his blood in creating ghouls or mandragora can be likewise be revectored to work as though the vampire were a member of that clan (changing what is “in clan” for a ghoul, or what specific effects mandrake lacroma produces).  Such childer however often show an aptitude for joining bloodlines or developing disciplines that have affinities for their sire’s true clan.  So, for example, a a Gangrel who uses this power to create a Ventrue childer might find that the Ventrue has an affinity for joining the Adrestoi bloodline or developing the Protean discipline.

[I fixed spelling and changed the rule for cross clan embrace from 'blood he has tasted' to the verbiage involving diablerie and added the last two sentences.]

Neverwhere.  City of Lost Children.  Diadem.  Perdido Street Station.  Buffy.

These are the things I’m thinking about as my wife brings me a cup of espresso and my almost three year old hangs onto my arm and Max and Ruby plays on the TV.

I’ve been pondering Justin Achilli’s post about his idea for a World of Darkness setting called Diadem.  Influences are things like Neverwhere, the City of Lost Children and Perdido Street Station.  And it brings what I’ve been doing with Khallam into doubt.  To be honest those things are strengths of mine, especially settings like the City of Lost Children where the absurd is sharp and thick like maple syrup on an antique knife.  And a setting like Perdido Street Station’s New Crobuzon … oh yeah.

But, this is a role playing game.  Its not literature.  The underworld of Neverwhere can have convienences that players would question too far, New Crobozun only has to have the streets the author knows the characters will walk down and the City of Lost Children doesn’t have the one player who breaks the poetic mood.  Still, I’m good at building mood and improvising is a definite strenth.

But more fundamental perhaps is the problem of expectation.  One reason I’ve never strayed far from the ‘our world on the surface’ standard of the WoD is that unlike characters players have to make choices that are their’s and aren’t part of that world, they need something to go on, some set of expected standards.  Sure, many role playing games throw these out the window but one reason I like the WoD is that they are there – you can empathize and put yourself in that scenario.

But, what about Buffy?  I love the prom night episode where it becomes clear that despite all the normal attempts of people to ignore the wierdness of the world that they really know what is going on.  Perhaps some element of that, a hidden type of City of Lost Children feeling, hidden, but close enough that people know something is wrong.  Hunters become inevitable there I think, something I’ve stayed away from in Khallam mostly because its hard to imagine Byron tolerating them.  Unless they could be made useful.  But that would be a dangerous game.

I definitely have more thinking to do.

http://www.justinachilli.com/blog/2009/7/9/world-of-darkness-diadem.html

I’m tempted to copy the whole thing here just in case anything were to happen to his blog.  I don’t think WW would produce this book as it doesn’t seem to fit into the cosmos they’re building but they should.

Have you ever been thinking about something, and thought about it, and thought about it and thought about it and it bugged you until it was almost comfortable being bugged by it?

Yeah, that was this post about the Ventrue.  Now, I have to admit I have had devious reasons.  I have an idea of sorts about the history of the Ventrue that fascinates me, a complex scheme for a small bloodline in ancient Italy to rise to status as a great clan and I was going to drop nuggets of it, a trail of blood if you will, here and build it up.  A major part of this was that secondary level of power at blood potency 7, a power of divination among the Ventrue.

So, what is the problem you ask?  Several.  The first is that I write this very casually with a very demanding job and a three very demanding children.  I have to be able to write quickly.  And I wanted a very particular feel of subtle effect to this power which turned out to be at odds with such a potent level of power.  Additionally, the idea I had for the potency 7 power for the Daeva turned out to be complicated for a different reason – it has proved difficult to disect mechanically while still being tasteful.  And the Nosferatu, well frankly their level potency four power has been hard to select in large part because they have gotten the short stick as bloodlines go.

So, a quick change of plans.  I will eventually present everything I discussed but for now I’ll get out the baseline changes and free myself up to also do some other posts that have been on my mind.

Warning: this post is in three parts: 1) Review (brief) 2) Thoughts about Bloodlines 3) Preview of the next five posts.

I’ve finished Ancient Mysteries and Ancient Bloodlines and while split into two books for a number of reasons (economic and logistic I’m sure) these books will be seen as one work by many and for decent reason.  They are certainly paired as their titles would indicate.

I was recently looking at my old copy of Guide to the Camarilla and it reminded me of how far the physical quality of the newer WW books has come though less stylized over all which I miss a bit at times.  I did like the photographs of the relics in Ancient Mysteries which was a nice twist.  The writing was strong but the hooks in Ancient Mysteries could have been stronger.

Reading Ancient Bloodlines made me think about a couple of things.  One, the sheer proliferation of bloodlines.  This now makes the fourth book of nothing but bloodlines (Hidden, Legendary, Chosen and Ancient) as well as them being a staple of all five covenant and clan books.  What bothers me about this is one the idea that players can become overwhelmed by the sheer number of options and the clear need to make them manageable for a given campaign.  Several folks on the message boards have parralleled this to the prestige class arms race of D&D 3rd edition though I think the analogy would have some unfair points of comparison.  I’ll be outlining guidelines for bloodlines for Khallam at a future date for any Khallam based campaigns.

Ancient Bloodlines also made me kind of sad.  The definition of Ancient in the VtR is virtually modern by my definition.  Many of those bloodlines came into existence with in the last two or three hundred years which in the nWoD … well, that long discussion of how VtR creates a difference sense of the scale of time is pretty obvious for the more astute reader and beyond the scope of my comments here.  Suffice it to say that the ‘new’ torpor system makes dates of a thousand years ago virtually unknowable now (unless you’re Zagreus or another of his ilk).  In contrast in VtM there was a real sense of ancient days being open.  Now, there is good and bad.  For the tool kit approach this means that its up to players to explore, its more mysterious, and its more balanced but it also is less accessible and isn’t that part of what is cool about vampires?  Or am I just a history nerd that wants to be able to peer back the mists of history?  I want vampires to be able to be walking history and I want ancients to walk the earth from three thousand years ago.

While there are certainly tools in the Ancients books the flavor still isn’t there.  I will return to this at a future point.  For now, let’s jump ahead to my contribution inspired by Ancient Mysteries and Ancient Bloodlines.  I will call it Ancient Powers and it will be broken into five posts: Ancient Powers of the Ventrue, Ancient Powers of the Gangrel, Ancient Powers of the Daeva, Ancient Powers of the Nosferatu and Ancient Powers of the Mekhet (though not necessarily in that order).

In each one I will take a published bloodline with a special discipline and destroy it, regulating the bloodline to a non-mystical status and taking their special discipline and making it a clan discipline that is only learnable by those of blood potency 4 and above though only limited by their blood potency once they can learn it.  Similarly if torpor reduces their blood potency they can continue to advance the power only once they reach blood potency 4 again though they have any ranks in it one of their new blood potency would have.  I call these Elder Disciplines.

For example, lets say Bob has Blood Potency 4 and is clan Jones and his Elder Discipline is Bowling.  He can learn Bowling up to 5 ranks.  Once he reaches Blood Potency 6 he can learn 6 ranks of Bowling and so on.  Eventaully Bob reaches Blood Potency 7 but has never learned Bowling beyond its 4th rank.  If Bob goes into torpor and reduces to Blood Potency 2 he will awaken with Bowling at 4 but can not learn the fifth rank until he reaches Blood Potency 4 again.

The purpose of these is to build upon clan identity which I think has been diluted by bloodlines a bit and by building upon the central themes.  As a quick aside, and this is written without counting them, doesn’t it seem that the other clan disciplines are nearly common through bloodlines of other clans compared to Nightmare?  Anway….

Then I will list something for Blood Potency 7.  These are the ancient powers and aren’t just additional disciplines but secrets that each clan keeps tightly hidden.  Indeed, often individuals rediscover them as their blood thickens and they keep it secret not even knowing that the power is shared by the blood and not unique.  And they didn’t become elders by being unable to keep secrets.

I’m going to try to post these with some frequency.  Once a day?  It might be hard, there will be some meat in these but I’ll see what I can do.

I’ve been a bad blogger.  I really need to get back in the habit of regular writing.  As most writers can tell you, and you, and you, there is a sort of rhythm to regular writing, a pattern of thought and habit that leads into discipline.  I need to recover this.

I will begin tomorrow by posting a rewritten and improved version of the Highlander Killer, perhaps with content integrated (well, referenced anyway) from Slasher and Armory Reloaded.