Werewolf/Vampire Abominations?

[Silent Wayfarer]

Are they as awesome as they sound (Vamp disciplines + Werewolf shapeshifting + gifts)?

[Username17]

Are they as awesome as they sound (Vamp disciplines + Werewolf shapeshifting + gifts)?

The rules for Werewolf/Vampire Abominations are incoherent. First of all, you have to combine rules from Vampire and Werewolf, two games that don't actually play nicely together. Fundamental assumptions like "how hard is it to kick people?" aren't the same in the two books, so taking numbers from one and porting it into the other is pretty much gibberish. The vampire stat lines in Werewolf don't look like th evampire statlines in Vampire, and the werewolf statlines in Vampire don't look like the werewolf statlines in Werewolf. When you mix-n-match, what do you get? No one fucking knows!

That being said, if you take the rules from each game at face value, it is literally a one dot thaumaturgy spell to make an Abomination (Evil Eye from Spirit Thaum). In order to become an Abomination, the embraced Werewolf has to botch a Gnosis test, and Evil Eye lets you force a cursed target to botch one test of your choice. The end.

However, such is the massive power differential between Werewolves and Vampires that I'm not sure you'd even want to be an Abomination. Vampire powers aren't really that good, and taking aggravated damage from sunlight is a really big problem. Werewolf regeneration is so much better than Vampire healing that even though one reading gives an Abomination a free blood point every combat round, you just don't care very much. Dominate is pretty sweet, but if you save up for some third rank Gifts those can be pretty nice too.

-Username17

[OgreBattle]

Who at White Wolf decided that Werewolf should have very similar yet different rules than Vampire even though they have the same setting.

[hyzmarca]

Who at White Wolf decided that Werewolf should have very similar yet different rules than Vampire even though they have the same setting.

They weren't supposed to be the same setting, they were supposed to be very different settings, that had different monsters.

Werewolf: the Apocalypse doesn't have Cainites. It has leeches. A similar, but different type of vampire. Leeches don't have the globe-spanning conspiracies that Cainites have, they're just semi-organized predators.

Vampire: the Masquarade doesn't have Garou, it has Lupines, a similar but very different type of werewolf. Lupines don't have the spirituality or spirit powers of the Garou, they're just big and powerful murder machines.

All of different World of Darkness gamelines were means to be alternate universes, with the only thing in common being a crapsack modern setting. Which is why the cosmologies are different.

In Vampire, vampires were cursed by God and the whole thing runs on Christian morality.

In Werewolf, God doesn't exist, Christianity is objectively wrong, and the ultimate creators of reality are the Triat, the Weaver, Wyld, and Wyrm.

Mage, likewise, posits that reality is just a construct of collective human belief, in which case God, if he exists, is just a figment of our imaginations.

And then there is the metaplot. In Vampire, ancient Vampire princes secretly control the world. In Mage, the Technocracy secretly controls the world. These things are incompatible.


The game lines were never meant to be compatible. Their metaplots are incompatible. And their ultimate truths are incompatible. Mechanical incompatibility just reinforces this.




The idea of crossovers came later, because people were actually doing crossovers in their games, because it was cool.

[Username17]

Who at White Wolf decided that Werewolf should have very similar yet different rules than Vampire even though they have the same setting.

Probably Rein*Hagen or Robert Hatch. I mean, to the extent that there was a conscious decision at all.

Early White Wolf books just sorta do things. There's not really any sort of rules design in the conscious sense. Vampire: the Masquerade was very much an "ad hoc" product as far as rules go. It started as a new edition of Ars Magica (single d10 + mods against a TN), and at the last minute was converted into a dicepool system, but still with d10s because why the fuck not? So the main author and all contributors to the original Masquerade had no idea what they were doing and the numbers were basically Whose Line is it Anyway.

Subsequent books incremented things in a fumbling, unconscious way. I have no way of knowing whether any particular rule change was intentional or not, because the methodology was to just write things and not bother to go back and check previous works. Partly this was an institutional culture of flippant disregard for basically everything, but partly this was that the rules were seen as being both a questionably necessary evil and being in a state of flux. When one author wrote down the difficulty for kicking a dude, that was probably the difficulty they were assigning at their table at that moment. But there's no guaranty that that was the difficulty they were using the day before or the day after they wrote that.

So each book is kind of like a snapshot of a moment in time. Rules are being changed constantly and only the written versions of them remain unchanged. But as the design teams got bigger, you're also seeing a glimpse into the torrent of cacophony. Every person on the team had different ideas of what the rules "were" and the rules they wrote were often incompatible with the rules written by other members of the team even when working on the same book.

And it was allowed to be like this because the official party line was that it did not matter if the rules were contradictory and incomplete. Because they had an extreme 80s vision of the Storyteller as a tyrant who changed the rules at their whim. Every number they wrote down was just advisory, to set a tone. What was actually supposed to happen at your table was that the Storyteller would tell you to roll a pile of dice, and then they'd tell you what happened based on how the die roll made them feel rather than by any objective criteria whatsoever.

But if there was actually a moment where they said "You know, I think that Werewolf should be really stand-alone. A different rule set, a different genre of horror, minimal interaction of any kind, and plausible deniability of it even taking place in the same world - like X-Men and the Avengers." it would be when Mummy hit the market with a dull plonk and went absolutely nowhere. I could see the company deciding to differentiate the lines a bit when the book that didn't do that sold like t-shirts for head lice.

-Username17

[TheFlatline]

Are they as awesome as they sound (Vamp disciplines + Werewolf shapeshifting + gifts)?

By revised Abominations weren't that hot. And were almost impossible to "make" against the werewolf's will.

Frank's forgetting that by revised they included a rule where a werewolf could voluntarily spend a point of gnosis to die even if they botched their roll. I don't remember if 2nd ed or earlier had that rule though so it may have been a relatively late addition.

Courtesy of WOD Wiki, here are their limitations:

Abominations do not lose the ability to shift between forms. They are not able to regenerate, healing only by spending blood points (as with any other vampire). While they still remember the gifts and rites they possessed before their Embrace, they can only affect Wyrm rites, and can only learn new rites from Banes. Abominations cannot increase their Gnosis trait at all. Finally, they cannot spend points from different pools (Rage, Gnosis, or blood) in the same turn. Abominations can learn and use Disciplines as usual for a vampire of their clan or bloodline.

Abominations also suffer from constant depression and psychological erosion. Their dice pools are halved and they must spend a Willpower point to play any scene with a full dice pool. They can never spend a Willpower point to gain an automatic success on an action, and Abominations are never able to increase their Humanity, Virtues, or permanent Willpower with experience points.

Yeah. Not that awesome. Not to mention you could probably argue that you now have like Enemy 5: Garou Nation as a new trait.

[Prak]

I'm pretty sure that Abominations can't learn new gifts, or at least, can only learn gifts from Banes, which the WoD wiki quote above doesn't directly state.

Being an abomination sounds cool, but it's pretty shite because White Wolf was dead set against combining games like that. Also, I remember them getting modelocked, it was actually specifically referred to in the Corax breedbook because being a vampire with a beak would kind of suck, but that may have been changed in revised. On the other hand, whether your ST knew which version of that rule was being used in the edition you played is entirely up in the air.

Edit- ok, there are two versions of Abomination rules in Revised(?), those in the VtM Storyteller's book, which the Wiki references, and those in the WtA Player's Guide, which has a "1998, 1999, 2000" copyright date meaning it should be revised material, but also starts with "Legends of the Garou, which I seem to recall is a non-Revised thing. So... yeah.

VtM ST's Handbook says-

Kindred Lupines are literally things that should not be. The Embrace severs werewolves from the world's soul, their very reason for existing. As a result, the leading cause of Final Death among the dozen or so Abominations that exist at any given time is suicide.

Abominations are created in the same manner as other Kindred, except they have one last chance for a merciful death. A werewolf's player can make a Gnosis roll, difficulty 6, to die quietly. If the roll succeeds, he dies without pain and his spirit travels to its destined place. If the roll fails, he dies in torturous agony, but his spirit is free. If the roll botches, the werewolf becomes an Abomination. No Discipline, Gift, magic or any other power short of divine intervention can affect this roll, save one - the werewolf can spend a Willpower point for an automatic success and die peacefully (and is almost certain to do so).

An Abomination, unsurprisingly, is of the same clan as his sire, learns three dots of clan Disciplines and exhibits the clan weakness, just like any other Kindred. An Abomination may be Caitiff, as well. He may also spend blood points to increase his attributes or heal himself like any other vampire. That's where the benefits end. After that, things become really unpleasant.

The Embrace usually causes even mighty Lupine elders to fall from their former peers' esteem. Abominations also cannot increase their Gnosis Trait.

Upon the Embrace, the Lupine's connection with the spirit world begins to fray. This loss means that Abominations cannot regenerate their wounds as do other werewolves; Abominations may heal themselves only by spending blood points. Although Abominations usually remember the Gifts and rites they possessed before their Embrace, they cannot effect any rites other than Wyrm-rites; only vile and corrupt spirits ever answer a call made by a dead thing. Abominations also may never learn Gifts from any spirits other than Banes, and these spirits are spiteful, devious teachers.

Abominations may not spend blood points for any reason in the same turn that they spend Gnosis, make Gnosis rolls, spend Rage or make Rage rolls. The mystical properties of Rage, Gnosis and the Blood all interfere with one another. Abominations have blood pools according to their generation, as usual.

Abominations exist in a state of permanent, crippling depression. They cannot escape their dolor with Willpower rolls and cannot lift the curse while they "live." In effect, an Abomination must expend a Willpower point to play a scene with his dice pool at full. Additionally, Abominations may never spend Willpower points to gain automatic successes on any dice rolls.

Abominations' Humanity Traits often spiral downward quickly, hurling them into either the jaws of the Beast or merciful oblivion. They may never increase their Humanity, Willpower or Virtues with experience points, as they instead suffer incessant psychological erosion.

So, you get three dots of disciplines, as well as your clan weakness, and get the basic vampire Blood Points for healing/attribute increase. But you can't increase your gnosis (suck, because a number of gifts and rituals you may still have require gnosis use), you can't regenerate like a werewolf, and get to bargain with spirits who are explicitly dickish evil ghosts to learn any new gifts or rites, and good luck with that with the typical ST. And you have severe werewolf depression. Oh, and you can't buy auto-successes.

WtA Player's Guide says mostly the same thing, but has some extra game-specific consequences, like loss of the social currency that allows you to increase in Rank in werewolf society and thus learn higher gifts and rites, and an abomination cannot gain more renown or rank unless they go over to the "Explicitly Rapist Werewolves" tribe, the Black Spiral Dancers. But even then, your renown rewards are reduced to one-quarter because even the evil, wyrm-worshipping werewolves think you're a red-headed step child, or something.

"only the most corrupt spirits ever answer a call made by a dead thing"
*sigh* there is so much problematic with that. Apparently when you die, your canonical wolf spirit can't talk to other spirits. Or your spirit is not considered dead, even though it's the spirit of a dead werewolf. These are both dumb. And then there's the whole "all of the spirits of the universal force of death and rot are corrupted. All of them. Final destination." Which leaves me wondering what the fuck pain and war and death spirits are, as I'm pretty sure all of those (pain and war, certain, death pretty sure) are canonically used in Werewolf magic items.
Goddamnit, White Wolf why are you stupid?

Also, you lose all dedications (the thing that lets you keep clothes when you change shape/go into the umbra) and attunements (the thing that allows you to use werewolf magic items) when you're embraced. You can't re-dedicate stuff, because that's a non-Bane ritual, and you can reattune non-bane magic items, but it's now Diff 10 and botching makes you lose permanent gnosis.

The WtA Player's Guide specifically says you get super-vicious Werewolf Depression called Harano which has it's own mechanics and basically makes you intensely suicidal. It also says you don't get Humanity, you use your Gnosis, and the "No, they're not wyrm-creatures, they just smell of death and have a tendency to be used by the wyrm and attract wyrm spirits, seriously guys" vampriric embrace plants a seed of the wyrm in you. Because fuck consistency. But you use your Gnosis in place of Humanity for all purposes, except you check for frenzy with Rage. I'm not super familiar with Humanity and Paths, but Abominations get to use a Hierarchy of Wyrm Taint as a sin chart to check for gnosis loss. If you were a starting Lupus with 5 gnosis and got embraced, destroying a natural place or causing a "Blight" to grow or fester is cause for checking for gnosis loss. If you're a Homid who didn't increase their 1 gnosis before embrace, you check if you destroy or help to destroy a caern (werewolf holy village). If you have 10 Gnosis and allow yourself to be embraced, accidental breaking of werewolf law (The Litany) is enough for a check. A werewolf can get around this by offering themselves to the Wyrm, but then they're not playable.

Other changing breeds suck even more after embrace- werecats automatically lose permanent gnosis at an unstated rate after the embrace and cannot recover it. Werecoyotes literally cannot be embraced, at all. Weresaurians (it's complicated) and werecrows (the aforementioned Corax) are inherently tied to the sun, and die a day after embrace because they lose that connection. Weresaurians apparently automatically frenzy after embrace lasting until they die. This could make a good living bomb sort of tactic, except that the time for the embrace to take hold is not, to my knowledge, defined in VTM, and so it could take a round, or several minutes. Who the fuck knows.

No mention of modelocking, though, so that must be an older rule.

[hyzmarca]

There's also the fact that they have to take Heirarchy of Wyrm Taint, instead of humanity. And Allying with Vampires is an Ego 4 Sin.

So simply joining a coterie drops them down to Ego 3. The halfed diepools for everything unless you spend willpower is a dealbreaker, though. An abomonation is pretty much useless, in addition to being kill on sight for most Garou and Vampires.

They're pretty much written to be completely unplayable.

[Lokey]

Granted that isn't too much different from anything else. You make 2 rolls to become an npc instead of one when putting on your shoes