The Gaming Den

[Whipstitch]

I've got a smattering of Werewolf books but the only corebook I still own is the Revised one. So, okay, lupus are out but I guess vamps aren't treated as wyrm spawn and we're attending night school or something? Is this basically a monster school or something or would there be mortals around?

[Prak_Anima]

I never treat vamps as wyrmspawn as the ST. The attitudes of garou are not necessarily informed by the reality of the game (though, strictly speaking, vamps are a mixture of wyrmish and weaverish, but the garou themselves are about as wyrmtainted as the average vamp).
It's a normal high school, so there are mortals, but there's also no night school. People who want to play vamps need to explain what they're doing to deal with sunlight, likely heavy clothing and some dots of Fortitude.
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[Prak_Anima]

So, I realized I left out a few splats I'm allowing.

• Thralls People who have been given powers by demons in exchange for providing demons with Faith, the mojo that powers them.
  
• Possessed People who have had their bodies hijacked by spirits, kind of like a demon, but with Gaian spirits, and the spirits cannot boot the original spirit like a demon does. As such, a possessed still retains their original personality, usually. There are four kinds:
  
  • Fomori- People possessed by wyrm-spirits. Lots of kinds, and not necessarily evil. Get powers and taints, and can purchase more powers with Autonomy or Taints.
    
  • Gorgons- Wyld spirits given bodies. Hard to justify in this game, because the wyld never uses humans, but if someone wants to play a fire elemental in a fabricated body, that could work. Get Power and taints, can purchase powers with taints or Autonomy.
    
  • Drones- People clarified by the Weaver. Not exactly directly possessed, but more melded with spirit stuff. However, it's kind of like being an only vaguely autonomous ai, whose superiors can take direct control of at anytime. No taints, can only purchase power with Autonomy.
    
  • Kami- Things possessed by spirits that directly serve Gaia, rather than a member of the triat. They have Geasa and Bans, things they must do or can't do, but no Autonomy, because the spirit and the host are pretty much the same. They can purchase new powers by taking taints.
  
  Possessed can also buy powers with experience points, but Drones get somewhat shafted because they get new powers by going in for upgrades. They can apply for what they actually want, but it's ultimately up to their superiors. However, since a drone is supposed to be part of the whole network, I'll say that their desires reflect the feelings of the network and you can get pretty much whatever upgrades you want, within reason.
  
• Ghouls- simple enough, and better than playing a vamp who always has to have a note for any PE class that goes outside.

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[Whipstitch]

[Prak_Anima]

Yeah. The actual nation does treat vamps as KoS wyrmspawn. Individual characters' attitudes will vary. But, yes, it'd be a bad idea for Sailor Luna to bring her anemic friend home to meet the family.
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[Whipstitch]

Interesting. With the Lupus option out* I was thinking about maybe going Glass Walker, Bone Gnawer or Child of Gaia anyway. I mean, they still kill vampires straight away--a CoG w/ Halo of the Sun Gift is basically trolling-- but they're a li'l less Fiddler On The Roof than the other tribes, so I can more easily imagine a Glass Walker mentor saying something along the lines of "Shut up, I'm blogging; you can tell me about your pale friend later."


*I liked Lupus mostly because your average anime/adventure cartoon youn male protagonists may as well have been raised by wolves anyway and this seemed as good a venue for low social skills as any.

[Prak_Anima]

All three comprise the most tolerant garou tribes that exist. Gnawers are pretty chill to anyone who doesn't hurt them or their's, similar to CoG, the way I understand them, the big hippies they are, and Glass Walkers are as much creatures of the city as the vamps themselves, so yeah, any of those three would work fine. The gnawers and glass walkers have some pretty fun spirit associates too. Of course I could see a 14 year old CoG girl with unicorns and pegasi all over her binders and crap.
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[Koumei]

I wasn't interested in the Werewolf thing, but when Prak pointed out other things are fine, I figured I'd go with a Demon. Yeah, Demonic Sailor Moon. I bet I can come up with an idea between a random anime playlist and a few cans of Bundy and Coke.
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[Korgan0]

So, after perusing the Werewolf book, I'm thinking of making Mr. Teacher a massive hippie who tries to be really friendly with his students who presented himself to the Children of Gaia. He was approached in his early teens by an environmental advocacy group that was a front for the Children of Gaia, and so that when he turned (becoming a Theurge, of course) there was someone watching, who quickly initiated him into the CoG.

I'm thinking that he's a new hire, to explain the lack of influence and connections, and that a CoG elder sent him to teach at the school to watch over someone or something- maybe another PC, I'm not sure yet. Prak, do you have any ideas?

Of course, he happens to come from an incredibly WASPish, uber-conservative family who highly disapprove of his lifestyle, even without knowing that he's a werewolf.

[Koumei]

His family is this?


(I'm guessing by the capitalisation it's an acronym, but I have no idea what.)
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[Prak_Anima]

Welcome aboard, Koumei.

Korgan, the chances of his family not knowing he's a werewolf are slim, but there. Werewolfism is basically a recessive trait, so it can lie dormant a long time. Hm... the CoG Elder could have sent you there for general concern as to what could happen, all signs pointing to the site being a possible threshold of some sort.

WASP= White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Basically, rich Christians from New England.
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[Korgan0]

Huh. Okay, maybe his family are all Silver Fangs, and it was the Silver Fangs that were keeping a track of him and gave the whole "you're a werewolf, now what?" talk. He gave them the metaphorical finger (along with a whole "environment, dude" speech, and joined the CoG, who were happy to have a cub with such a prestigious bloodline join the clan.

[Whipstitch]

Actually, if you are adopted your parents probably aren't even technically Kinfolk and may still even be susceptible to the Delirium, so that's a possibility. Between the unreliability of kin-fetches, the garou's many enemies and the potential for werewolf one night stands it isn't that implausible that a few kids could slip between the cracks.


Also, looking into all of this has only impressed upon me further how carefully White Wolf ensured that mixing supernatural types is as much of a pain in the ass thematically as possible.

[Chamomile]

[Whipstitch]

[Chamomile]

Yeah, that's specifically what I need to know about, since my ability to play the game at all kind of hinges on it.

[Prak_Anima]

I checked out roll20 a bit yesterday, and I'm willing to try running on there.
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[Chamomile]

Excellent! Since I'm limited by necessity to vampires (don't have any of the other books), I've been thinking of running a sort of Tuxedo Mask/Char Clone character. The concept so far (most of which is basically just Char's backstory hastily converted into the setting) is that his family was murdered by a vampire who was a semi-important Wyrm guy in the city. This vampire then embraced Tuxedo Char, planning on grooming him into being his sinister minion. However, at night he secretly dons a red coat and mask and fights Bane monsters in defiance of his Sire's wishes.

The concept, in addition to obviously requiring a new villain be worked into the plot, still has a few logical snags, though. Firstly, if this guy is going to be as young as the others (and while I think Tuxedo Mask was, like, one year ahead of Sailor Moon, that's not really a big difference), then he can't have been a vampire for very long, which is bad since you need to have been a vampire for at least, like, a hundred years to be even worth noticing. So it'd be cool if that could just be handwaved away and vampires are superpowerful within like a month of being turned. And also if it was possible for vampires to continue aging after they're turned, so that he can have been turned at the age of 8 or 9, just to put some distance between the murder of his family and the present.

Second and more important, this guy's surrogate family is supervillains. Where is his incentive to go to high school?

[Prak_Anima]

On the limitation to vampires, there are torrents of these things out there, fairly easy to find, if you really want to play something else.

On the background: First, it is exceedingly rare for vampires, outside of big wigs at Pentex, to even know what the wyrm is, let alone work for him, but it wouldn't be too out there for your sire to be some executive at a local Pentex subsidiary. Take your pick. (that's only a few though. I'm also going to figure out which one or ones I specifically want in the area.

I was not aware that it really took vampires any particular length of time to grow to full strength, certainly not one measured in decades or centuries, so that's fine handwaved away, I'll say it takes, at most, like a few years to figure out the whole vampire thing after being turned.

The aging thing is hard to justify, and I was going to look for a flaw or something, but then I realized, there's a much simpler solution, your sire fucking told the school you were older than you appear.

As for why you'd still be going to school, watching Kick Ass may help there.
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[Chamomile]

While I know the basic premise of Kick Ass, I've never seen the whole thing. What exactly are you talking about?

Also, I get the feeling that url was supposed to lead to some list of things from which I would be taking my pick. So. Would be cool if that was fixed.

[Whipstitch]

I've been leafing through my old back stock of tribe books and was reminded that the Shadow Lords have that Bringers of Light sub-faction which eschews personal glory and actively seeks out and cooperate with vampires and other badwrong stuff for the greater good and to test themselves. So that's an interesting option that I hadn't remotely considered at all--I can't even type the words "Shadow Lord" without feeling kind of like a tool, after all.

Otherwise I'm still leaning towards Glass Walkers since they have a tradition of "fast tracking" promising cubs and getting them started on what they need to know even before they're officially initiated. Also, because I could choose a completely retarded deed name like Old Meme and still be in character.

[Quantumboost]

DO WANT. Will have more written up once I can get my concepts safely within the bounds of the mechanical parameters. With SCIENCE.
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[Prak_Anima]

link is fixed, but it's only a small portion.

The reference to Kick Ass is that the villain of it is some kind of mafia crime boss, who still sends his kid to school.

So, I'm going to say there is an Avalon factory and FAO Schwarz style mega-store in the area. Avalon is the Toys and Games company under Pentex's megacorp. Avalon also, itself, owns Tellus Games and Black Dog, Tellus making video games, and Black Dog making TTRPGs, every single one of which is a parody of a White Wolf game. The local grocery store is Herrick's, also owned by Pentex. These are the major corporate places around Marv Wolfman High, along with the cosmetics counter at the local department store having lots of Siren Cosmetics products.

Garou presence in the city itself will be somewhat minimal, what with it being fairly urbanized and all. But there will be a Glass Walker sept, and something approximating a Bone Gnawer sept in town.

The demons have a night club, very exclusive, big badass bouncer out front and everything, where they meet, do business, talk about the way, all that.

Vampires have decent numbers, but prefer the city proper to the suburbs around Marv Wolfman High.
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[Koumei]

Okay, so here is my Demon character:

Name: Megan Cartwright (Sailor Radiance, Aphrael)
Age: 14
Sex: Female
Player: Koumei
Campaign: Pretty Soldier Sailor Luna
House: Nereid/Defiler/Lammasu
Faction: Faustian
Nature: Visionary
Demeanour: Gallant
Hobbies: painting, karaoke, bike riding, dancing, drawing,
Likes: helping her friends, softball, sleeping in, comedy TV
Dislikes: pushy guys, claw-grabber machines, animal cruelty
Favourite Food: Ice Cream
Favourite Subject: Art
Least Favourite Subject: History
Blood Type: O-
Birthdate: 27th of August (Virgo)
Favourite Colour: Bright Green

Attributes:

Strength	*	Intelligence	**	Charisma	****
Dexterity	***	Wits	***	Manipulation	***
Stamina	**	Perception	***	Appearance	****

Abilities:

Alertness	-	Animal Ken	-	Academics	**
Athletics	**	Crafts	-	Computer	**
Awareness	*	Demolitions	-	Finance	-
Brawl	-	Drive	-	Investigation	*
Dodge	**	Etiquette	-	Law	-
Empathy	***	Firearms	-	Linguistics	-
Expression	*	Melee	**	Medicine	-
Intimidation	-	Performance	**	Occult	-
Intuition	***	Security	-	Politics	*
Leadership	**	Stealth	-	Religion	-
Streetwise	-	Survival	*	Research	***
Subterfuge	*	Technology	-	Science	-

Backgrounds:

Pacts	***
Eminence	**
Legacy	*

Lore:

Primary: Lore of Longing	****
Lore of Storms	-
Lore of Transfiguration	-
Lore of The Fundament	-
Lore of Humanity	-

Read Emotion (6 dice)
Empathic Response (6 dice, 7 in Apocalyptic)
Manipulate Senses (5 dice)
Obsession (1 Faith Point, 6 dice, 7 in Apocalyptic)

Apocalyptic Form: Ishhara (Custom)
Sea's Beauty: +2 Cha +1 Man +2 App (3)
Lyrical Voice: -2 Difficulty to Leadership/Subterfuge (1)
Improved Dexterity: +2 Dexterity (2)
Enhanced Intuition: -2 Difficulty to Intuition (1)
Claws: Claws deal Strength+2 Agg (1)
Venom: Deal Bashing dice = Torment (3)
Shark Hide: +4 dice of Soak against all attacks (3)
Increased Size: +2 Strength, +1 Stamina, +1 Bruised Level (2)

Virtues:

Conscience	****
Conviction	*
Courage	***

Merits:
Approachable -1 (-1 Difficulty to Empathy with Mortals/Demons)
Enchanting Voice -2 (-2 Difficulty to talk: Persuade/Seduce/Charm/Order)

Flaws:
Short +1 (Half speed, trouble reaching things on high shelfs)
Youthful Appearance +3 (Carded, treated like a teenager, has a curfew etc.)
Needy Friends +1 (Plot Hooks ahoy?)
Absent-Minded +2 (1/session, Difficulty 6 Willpower or not have an item I thought I had)

Faith: 3 [3 Temporary] (gain 3/day)
Torment: 3 [0 Temporary]
Willpower: 7 [7 Temporary]
Initiative: +6 (+8 in Apocalyptic)

Gear:
Accommodation: Bedroom in parents' house (furnished)
Clothes (Many)
TV with Bluray Player (no access to cable though)
Collection of "Stuff" (Teddy bears, DVDs, jewelry box, art supplies etc.)
Make-Up
Schoolbooks etc.
Very little money
Bicycle

Health Levels:

Healthy	X	+0
Bruised	-	+0
Hurt	-	-1
Injured	-	-1
Wounded	-	-2
Maimed	-	-2
Crippled	-	-5
Incapacitated	-	-

(15+7 Freebies, spent: 5 on Attributes, 2 on Abilities, 4 on Virtues, 3 on Merits, 1 on Backgrounds, 7 on Lores)
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[Quantumboost]

Here’s my shot. Expect conjured fire ants, low-profile SR4 bioware, and magic computer scans.

Name: Amelia Kino (Sailor Correspondence, V3sp1_4rmer)
Age: 14
Sex: Female
Player: Quantumboost
Campaign: Pretty Soldier Sailor Luna
Concept: Techno-Magical Girl
Tradition: Virtual Adept
Alt: Reality Coder
Nature: Caregiver
Demeanor: Pedagogue
Essence: Pattern
Hobbies: programming, singing, tai chi, chess
Likes: plants, technology, information, doing well in school
Dislikes: authoritarianism, pollution, snakes
Favorite Food: Blueberries
Favorite Subject: SCIENCE!!!
Least Favorite Subject: Mathematics
Blood Type: A+
Birthdate: 10th of September (Virgo)
Favourite Colour: Cyan (#00FFFF)

Attributes:

Strength	**	Intelligence	*****	Charisma	***
Dexterity	***(**)	Wits	**	Manipulation	*
Stamina	***(**)	Perception	***	Appearance	**(***)

Abilities:

Alertness	*	Crafts	-	Academics	*
Athletics	*	Drive	-	Computer	***
Awareness	-	Etiquette	**	Cosmology	*
Brawl	-	Firearms	-	Enigmas	*
Dodge	-	Meditation	**	Investigation	-
Expression	***	Melee	**	Law	-
Intimidation	-	Performance	-	Linguistics	*
Leadership	-	Stealth	-	Medicine	***
Streetwise	-	Survival	-	Occult	-
Subterfuge	-	Technology	***	Science	***

Languages known: English, Japanese

Backgrounds:

Avatar	**
Familiar	*
Resources	* (after-school secretarial work at the local clinic)
Node	*
Sanctum	*
Wonder	*

Spheres:

Specialty Sphere: Correspondence (Specialty focus: network)	*
Life (specialty focus: DNA)	***
Prime (specialty focus: electricity)	**
Mind (specialty focus: ‘trodes)	*

Combat-Ready Reality Programs:
Stack Trace (Prime *, Correspondence *, Mind *, other Spheres as needed): Sets up a scan of magical patterns in an area. This allows the use of Countermagic and detailed understanding of Resonance – allowing detection of the various types and strengths of resonance, such as the presence of “wyrm-taint” and another Mage’s personal signature.
Covered in BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES (Life **, Prime **): Manifests a number of small, simple lifeforms, such as insects, bacteria, or fungi. These creatures are not necessarily hostile or friendly toward anyone in particular. However, since many ants and wasps are effectively hostile towards anything next to them not from the same hive...
MAKE UP (Life ***, Prime **, Mind *): Transfers the Adept's Icon from a pregenerated file into their physical body, creating a "Disguise Form". Each success after the first can be used to improve the Iconic form and increase Physical Attributes or Appearance, create mental shields, or suffuse the Adept's clothing with provided Quintessence as per the Enchant Weapon rote. The longer the transformation, the more powerful, and suitably dramatic transformations can take entire minutes of screen time.
Enchant Weapon (Prime **): As per Mage Revised
Spidersense (Correspondence *, Life *, Mind *): Avoiding damage just a mathematics problem, albeit a very difficult one. With Landscape of the Mind and No-Mind, the Adept determines the location of hostiles and likely firing arts, calculates the reverse kinematics of her body, and inject that information into her brain on an intuitive level. Dodge, Parry, and Block difficulties are reduced by the number of successes.

Merits:
Ability Aptitude: Computer -1 (-2 difficulty to Computer rolls)
Ability Aptitude: Science -1 (-2 difficulty to Science rolls)
Ability Aptitude: Technology -1 (-2 difficulty to Technology rolls)
Lightning Calculator -1 (can perform complex computations in her head at the speed of a computer)
Eidetic Memory -2 (remember everything that happens to her under normal conditions; diff 6 Perception + Alertness roll to memorize or recall pertinent information under difficult conditions)

Flaws:
Short +1 (Half speed, trouble reaching things on high shelfs)
Youthful Appearance +3 (Carded, treated like a teenager, has a curfew etc.)
Defective Sense (Sight) +1 (nearsighted, +2 penalty to rolls involving vision)
Shy +1 (+3 difficulty to Social rolls when interacting with strangers or the center of attention for 3+ people)
Deep Sleeper +1 (+2 difficulty to wake up, +1 difficulty on all further rolls that scene)

Arete: 3
Willpower: 6 [6 Temporary]
Quintessence: 2
Paradox: 0
Resonance: Static (Rational) *


Gear:
Accommodation: Bedroom in parents' house (furnished)
A heavily personalized workbench-closet filled with bits and pieces of technology
Mercury Computer (Talisman)
Enchanted Fencing Saber (1 year duration, Str+2 Aggravated)
Casual clothing
Elaborate sailor-style outfit, worn under clothes Superman-style
Prescription glasses with OLED display, multiple styles
School supplies
Various Cyberpunk manga
Cash and a bank card
Other paraphenalia
“Happens to have” various fresh vegetables, medical slap patches, and consensual biotech with a successful Arete roll

Health Levels:

Healthy	X	+0
Bruised	-	+0
Hurt	-	-1
Injured	-	-1
Wounded	-	-2
Mauled	-	-2
Crippled	-	-5
Incapacitated	-	-

(15+7 Freebies, spent: 8 on Arete, 7 on Spheres, 6 on Merits, 1 on Willpower)
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