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OgreBattle
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Post by OgreBattle »

Other suggestions include...

Kemonozume (lit "Beast Claw")

It's about man-eating monsters blending into society and occasionally devouring folks while ancient monster hunter clans fight them. Every opening shows a "regular life" event of a
monster in disguise be they evil bastards or innocent children who didn't know what they truly are.
Animation buffs may notice the distinct style of director/designer Masaaki Yuasa of Mind Game and Tatami Galaxy, and so on.

first episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpfjhJ2d720

Here is an example of extreme violence in the show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08Cqhu_BRPc

"corruption" is a big part of the story.
----

The Eccentric Family
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVu8qiE7Yv4

Lighthearted comedy with some suspense and action. Haven't watched it yet, but it's about a Tanuki family living in Japan as humans. Others include a wizened Tengu and his human adopted daughter who now works with spooky humans.

----

Vampire Princess Miyu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxQ5LGg8Dy0

The last time I watched this was on a beta tape, I remember it having a somber atmosphere with spooky parts and really cool supernatural characters.

----

Doomed Megapolis / Teito Monogatari
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEIjVtjvwyU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2ABTiszSKg

Both of these are adaptions of a 20th century novel that was really influential on Japanese occult storytelling. It focuses on onmyudo ("the way of yin and yang"), magic based on Daoist principles with paper talismans and spirit summoning. It's more about humans with supernatural powers than supernatural species though.

----

To some degree Yu Yu Hakusho can also work, especially the first story arcs that about detective work in the human world than battling it out in the demon realm.

For a non-modern setting, the Muramasa: Demon Blade games are a good introduction to East Asian supernatural stuff. If you don't have a Wii or PSV (which is likely) you can just watch the stories compiled on youtube.

Arashimaru the Ninja encounters white snake deities, frog and slug ninjas, immortal sorcerers, and so on in his journey of betrayal and vengeance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R613W7LV6Tk

Okoi is a cat who can fly like a helicopter with her twin tails:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLPiV3mYXR8

and hotsprings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C430Cw-lHRk
Last edited by OgreBattle on Tue Mar 01, 2016 8:03 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Longes »

Prak wrote:I think we tend to flanderize the Garou a lot here. The Elders are pretty dickish, but younger Garou are a lot more progressive. Especially the Glass Walkers and Bone Gnawers. The Red Talons and Get are the worst of the worst, and Black Furies are maybe up there, since they're explicitly man-hating, literally amazonian rad fems, but on the other hand, the Talons hate all humans (somewhat justifiably...) and the Get are swaggering, macho types who are some of the worst of the Garou and the tribe I could see actually having rape vans.

The Shadow Lords and Silver Fangs are probably the next step down, being the ruling class of the Garou, but the SLs are starting to get the idea that they need to grow up, if the camp focused on rescuing Bat from the Wyrm is any indication. Unfortunately, SFs tend to be kind of inborn and aristocratic.

But the Fianna, Children of Gaia, Glass Walkers, Bone Gnawers and to some extent Silent Striders come off as a lot less terrible. The CoG are explicitly the hippies of the Garou, even taking in Metises. The Fianna are just irish werewolves who drink and party, and the Glass Walkers and Bone Gnawers are city werewolves who are very, very invested in humans doing well. I always got the sense that SSes are too busy doing their wandering hero thing to care much about oppressing humanity.
Black Furies are actually Greek, not amazonian. And their clanbook is craaaazy.
So, you know how Black Furies are hardcore feminists and how Women's Suffrage Movement was a big victory for women's rights? Well, they had nothing to do with it and overall it was met with a lukewarm "meh" from the Furies. Because Furies don't believe in democracy and think that Suffrage was a massive waste of time. The Black Fury government consists of a visible Outer Calix, and a secret Inner Calix.
The Outer Calix is the main governing body, and werewolves in it are chosen via lottery. But Luna works in mysterious ways so young low ranking werewolves are less likely to be chosen.
The Inner Calix have absolute power, live on a secret island somewhere in the mediteranean and their identities are also secret.

Also Black Furies are big on Law and Justice. Only they believe that all good laws must have exceptions to them, and their justice is always prefaced with "vigilante". They literally make up verdicts on the fly and execute them, and you don't get to defend yourself.

Also there's The Manslayer, which is an owl-shaped thing or group of things or something equally vague. It's a NPC in the book who is noteworthy for going on massive slaughter rampages against men with and without reason. Furies grumble because it's bad PR, but don't do anything because Pegasus officially recognizes it as a Black Fury.

Image

Like all WW groups, Black Furies have a bajillion subgroups and secret societies.
Amazons of Diana are blood knight Black Furies singlemindedly dedicated to killing Wyrm monsters. They are basically Warhammer Trollslayers.
Bacchanates enforce Gaia's laws and murder the offenders. Of course Gaia doesn't talk to them, so they are basically the Spanish Inquisition. Bacchanates hunt down rapists, domestic abusers, polluters, and those who clone humans. They do it with extreme prejudice and don't care for collateral damage.
Freeboters go around looking for Wyld cairns to claim and have two subfactions. One believes that the werewolves should move on permanent basis to Umbra and make a colony there. The other wants to steal cairns from other werewolves.
Moon Daughters are wiccans.
Order of Our Merciful Mother are werewolf nuns who juggle pagan believes of the Garou and RAGE!!! with being pious catholic nuns (yes, Catholic. Yes, Furies are still Greek).
Last edited by Longes on Tue Mar 01, 2016 8:49 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Prak »

Um.

Amazonian.
Image

Not "from the Amazon."
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
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Post by Whipstitch »

Prak wrote:I think we tend to flanderize the Garou a lot here. The Elders are pretty dickish, but younger Garou are a lot more progressive.
I'm late to this party, but I must say that the above is basically bullshit. It plays out that way in practice largely because the average player thinks tons of Garou culture is bullshit and the starting rules primarily support playing young and relatively low ranking werewolves. It's an example of simple out-group vs in-group bias, the inevitable result of characters eventually reflecting in some manner the preconceptions of the people who play them while the unplayable elders inevitably fill the need for antagonists. Read as just a text the rules often encourage you to be a raging dickhead for advancement purposes and the fluff largely assigns jackasses based on tribe, not on age. When they do describe common attitudes and factions they hedge things with weasel words and #NotAllStormLords rather than fully commit to some people being just plain wrong. Most importantly, younger factions are often contrasted with elders not in terms of progressive vs. regressive but rather radical vs. conservative, which is how you get young Red Talons who want reform as well as young Red Talons who fucking eat people. It's not an accident that when you tried starting a Werewolf game here most people ended up picking other splats. The fact of the matter is that Garou culture is a weird made up cult nobody would actually want to join if it weren't for the super powers.
Last edited by Whipstitch on Tue Mar 01, 2016 8:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Longes »

Yeah, the books don't really support younger Garou getting ready to go all October Revolution on the elders. Tribebooks are almost universally written with a young Garou being the IC voice, and they tend to be pretty up on the clan politics. For example, the last big shake-up Black Furies had was back in the middle ages when a camp of Catholic nuns was formed.
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Post by Longes »

Also speaking of Black Furies: US is their greatest enemy because Hollywood is making women feel bad about their bodies and because Catholics have sex taboos.
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Post by hyzmarca »

On the other hand, the books make it clear that Garou culture is the primary reason why they're losing and that anyone who actually wants to save the world absolutely must change it.
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Post by Whipstitch »

Yeah, but they can't though because doom. They're like Invader Zim but edge lordier.
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Post by hyzmarca »

Whipstitch wrote:Yeah, but they can't though because doom. They're like Invader Zim but edge lordier.
It depends on how heavily they min-max renown. There comes a point where every werewolf thinks your so awesome that they'll do whatever you say without question.
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Prak wrote:Um.

Amazonian.
img

Not "from the Amazon."
Seeing as how the name of the Amazon river came from conquistadors who saw the first nations inhabitants wearing long straw hats they confused for hair; they thought they were fighting women... I'd be really disappointed if any settings mythologic origin for Amazons is from the Amazon rainforest. Specifically because the Amazons were based on real people. What I'm more disappointed about is that they're fucking Greeks, and not Scythians, Parthians, or some other tribe of horseriders from Ayran (or Iran, w/e) who were both distance relatives of the early Aryan colonists into Hellespont; and were obstacles to Eurasian continental expansion from Europe.

The actual peoples the Amazon myths were based on were "barbarian" enemies of the Greeks; who happened to have no problems with any gender riding a horse and firing arrows. They were also constantly mythologized as a long-gone culture by the Greeks; even when their essential culture was a primary buffer for Macedonian, and later Roman, expansion and empire into the more mountainous territory to the north of the Ayran plains.

The Greeks were able to erase their enemies cultures so effectively; that mainstream culture in the 21st century has no idea what the reality of the Amazons really was.

Also, if Diana of Themiskyra was portrayed as an accurate depiction of historical Amazons; instead of being a poor portrayal of ancient Hellenic culture; the character would be a lot more interesting.
Last edited by Judging__Eagle on Thu Mar 03, 2016 7:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Prak »

Well, Diana of Themiskyra is probably about as authentically amazonian/grecian as the Black Furies...
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
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Post by Longes »

Prak wrote:Well, Diana of Themiskyra is probably about as authentically amazonian/grecian as the Black Furies...
Black Furies don't claim to be amazons though. There is a single faction of monster hunters called "Amazons of Diana" which is also one of the newer camps, so the misapplied name is justified (although almost certainly unintentionally).
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Post by Prak »

They don't claim it, but that's the idea with the warrior women and labrys thing
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
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Post by Longes »

Prak wrote:They don't claim it, but that's the idea with the warrior women and labrys thing
I don't really follow. Labrys is a greek axe and Black Furies are using it because they are a greek tribe. What's the connection between labrys and amazons?

(I've derailed this thread quite a bit, sorry)
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Post by Prak »

The major known female warriors from Greek myth are the amazons. If you show people an all-female hyper-militant culture that makes use of the labrys as their ritual weapon, they'll be called amazons.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

So, the Black Furies in WoD are wrong not only for reasons of sexism (the historic Amazons fought alongside men), but also of cultural mythologization (on the part of the Greeks), and mainstream cultural erasure (by the Romans and later Western cultures; because they obviously wouldn't want women who fight in wars to be more than a cool story, not inspired by reality).

That the labrys gets associated with the amazons (when really, a rabidly feminist group of Cretean werecows would be more appropriate); and not the sagaris is likely due to wikipedia not existing back in the 1990's. Although Herodotus does predate Wiki by a few centuries.

Which just goes to show that one could burn WW's shit all day long; and be unlikely to reach the bottom of the cesspit that is WoD.
Last edited by Judging__Eagle on Thu Mar 03, 2016 10:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Ancient History »

Having different werewolf tribes for different nationalities makes sense on only the most superficial levels when its combined with a grand "secret history" that doesn't jive with what we know about actual history and anthropology...or mythology. The Get of Fenris are probably a better example, since they're explicitly "Nordic" and based off of Viking Age mythology - but of course, there are cultures that predate the Nordic and Germanic cultures. And there were presumably werewolves for those groups - we just don't know their names, or totems or any of that shit. Hell, if you accept that humans evolved, then the fucking Neanderthal cultures had their own tribes, of which we know nothing except that they sure as fuck didn't include Glasswalkers and Wendigo and Children of Gaia, though they might have had some hypothetical precursor group...

...but of course, White Wolf never really thinks in terms of history and anthropology. They like things to be neat, where the same twelve tribes have been around forever and always. Never mind that history and people don't work like that. Werewolf tribes should adapt and evolve over time - as they patently have, because you couldn't have Glasswalkers back before you had glass - but that would make for a much messier and more complicated story than the gothic-fuck punks at White Wolf ever wanted to write.
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Post by Prak »

Before the modern era the glass walkers were called the iron riders, of something to that effect, so there is some idea that tribes might change over time.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
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Post by hyzmarca »

Would make a lot more sense to have many small regional tribes that have only recently began consolidating due to the rise of telecommunication and fast travel. So the Greek werewolves would be the werewolves who are born in and raised in Greece, for the most part.
Last edited by hyzmarca on Fri Mar 04, 2016 12:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Except that unlike Vampires; Werewolf generations have a fairly stead turnover of a new generation showing up every 20 years.

The erasure of the globe's regional cultures in the face of western hegemonic corporate culture would likely have been felt among the tribes not in the last decade of the 20th century; but for the last 500 years or so.

[Edit]

That would actually be pretty cool to have seen in WoD. While the fact that gaining powers meant you had to appeal to an elder who was "more traditional than thou"t was in there to some degree, I guess it wasn't as front and centre as it could have been. If doing things the "old" ways gave benefits the players actually cared about; then using a gun, or sticking with Crinos form claws/bite, would be more meaningful of a choice. Making the werewolves are so obsessed with tradition be because their tactics benefit from being traditional would also explain why elders are doing the same rituals from before the rise of man. Even in spite of the short lifespan of a Garou compared to some of their enemies; they still prefer natural weapons because that's the only thing that allows them to access their ancient powers that allows them to take them on a superior footing. It would also make klaives less likely to show up at a rate of 1/party; for the inevitable BSDs or dealing with rival Garou.

If that had been the case, players would have had a much larger incentive to be throat-ripping ecoterrorists; instead of "lol do wolf stuff and thwart Pentex sumtiemz".
Last edited by Judging__Eagle on Fri Mar 04, 2016 2:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Prak »

Yeah, even my "Red Talon Ahroun Who Got His Name For His Tendency to 'Wishbone' People" used the biggest machine guns the ST had a name for in Crinos. There's just no real incentive to use your natural weapons as a werewolf, unless you really need agg damage, but usually you can spend a few freebie points on Fetish to have a magic knife or gun that deals its damage as agg.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
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Post by hyzmarca »

Ancient History wrote:Keep going! I want to get to the merit/flaw where you can impregnate someone just by sharing a glass of water with them.
This is an old topic, I know, but since the review was never finished, I took the time to look this up. It doesn't let you impregnate anyone.

What it does is overwrites their reproductive DNA with your own, so that their children will look like you. Basically what Amanda Waller did to Terry McGinnis's dad when she decided that they needed a new Batman. But they still have to have sex with someone else.

It also makes them fertile if they were formerly sterile.

This is a flaw, and the entry is written in such a way as to suggest that it is meant to cause hilarious in-game misunderstandings involving jealous husbands and Maury Povich and whatnot. It's also much easier to set off than just sharing a glass. Just touching your clothes is sufficient to contaminate someone.

Also, only Zhong Lung can take it. So, in an American game, that means its going to make a lot of half-Asian bi-racial kids so its going to be pretty obvious.
Last edited by hyzmarca on Thu Mar 16, 2017 9:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

hyzmarca wrote:
Ancient History wrote:Keep going! I want to get to the merit/flaw where you can impregnate someone just by sharing a glass of water with them.
This is an old topic, I know, but since the review was never finished, I took the time to look this up. It doesn't let you impregnate anyone.

What it does is overwrites their reproductive DNA with your own, so that their children will look like you. Basically what Amanda Waller did to Terry McGinnis's dad when she decided that they needed a new Batman. But they still have to have sex with someone else.

It also makes them fertile if they were formerly sterile.

This is a flaw, and the entry is written in such a way as to suggest that it is meat to cause hilarious in-game misunderstandings involving jealous husbands and Maury Povich and whatnot. It's also much easier to set off than just sharing a glass. Just touching your clothes is sufficient to contaminate someone.

Also, only Zhong Lung can take it. So, in an American game, that means its going to make a lot of half-Asian bi-racial kids so its going to be pretty obvious.
The thing is, it doesn't get weird when there's one man with many offspring who are their genetic lineage; but when there's cross-gendered gene re-writing (e.g. man overwriting women's DNA; woman overwriting men's DNA; overwriting a partner's DNA in order to clone yourself) that leads to strange and wholly unique forms of cloning.
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Post by Prak »

Now I'm just envisioning a Mokole with this flaw (Fertile Essence) running a fertility clinic so that he can infect all his clients with his essence. Or an OB/GYN.

Or... fuck, what happens if a character with FE touches someone who's already pregnant?
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
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Post by Ancient History »

It's been a while since I read the book, so a few of the finer details obviously slipped my mind. Anyway, this is one of the oddball things that accumulate in the dingier corners of oWoD before they went full-porn, like those necromancy rites that required necrophilia.
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