After Sundown Expansion Material

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After Sundown Expansion Material

Post by Username17 »

So someone suggested that I should get off my ass and actually post some of these instead of just studying for my USMLEs. So sure.

For After Sundown, 2nd edition, one of the things that is going to happen is that there will be more stuff. More creatures, more spells, more denizens of the nightmare worlds. For Vampires, Lycanthropes, and Leviathans, I'm pretty happy adding three to each. Which means you get one new Astral, Infernal, and Orphic option.

Vampires
Vampires are immortals who gain power by consuming the blood of living humans. So long as their heart is not punctured with wood, they can recover from any injury. Even mortal wounds need not be the end for these creatures, as power to restore a Vampire's body can be infused into even a severed body part, and a wooden stake can always be removed. Vampires lose their powers in sunlight, but do not burst into flame or turn to dust.

Strigoi
Steeped in tradition and nobility, the Strigoi are vampires with rulership in their blood. Possessed of powers over the mind, the Strigoi once ruled most of Eurasia from China to Europe. And if you give them a few nights, they'll tell you all about it.

Nosferatu
Hideous or unnerving to behold, Nosferatu do not put people at ease in face to face meetings. Nosferatu skulk in shadows and steal secrets and blood to power their endless schemes. Nosferatu excel as spies because they can see through the eyes of vermin and become invisible to onlookers.

Daeva
Blessed with an infernal beauty and the power of flight, these fire proof vampires seem more demon than undead. They have bat traits such as little wings that do nothing to alleviate the confusion. Originally from the Americas, the Daeva are still more common than other Vampire types in the United States.
New Vampires
Sagbata
Bringers of the plague wind, the Sagbata can pull the blood and health out of people at a distance. These vampires bring sickness, weakness, and storms. Unique among Vampires, the Sagbata do not actually have fangs, and drink the blood of their victims as it flies through the air.

Endala
Probably the oldest supernatural creatures still extant, these vampires claim to remember a time before man had fire. Possessed of spider traits, the Endala drain blood from victims caught in their metaphorical webs. Or their literal webs.

Penanggalan
These vampires can and do detach body parts, fly them arround, and reattach them later. Their eyes can be floated around as spies, their hearts can be hidden in safety, and most famously their heads can be sent to find victims and entangle them in viscera.
Lycanthropes
Lycanthropes
Lycanthropy is a curse that is transmitted like a disease. Once cursed, the victim transforms into a rampaging beast when the moon is full or they are very stressed. When the rampaging beast savages but doesn't quite kill a Luminary, the Luminary becomes a Lycanthrope themselves on the next full moon. All Lycanthropes heal at amazing speeds, presumably any Lycanthropes that did not would not survive having the curse transmitted to them. Non-Luminaries do not survive the process. Lycanthropes are vulnerable to silver.

Werewolf
The most common of the Lycanthropes, sometimes people use the word “Lycanthropes” to mean just Werewolves. Werewolves can transform into a wolf or a giant man-wolf monster. The war form of a Werewolf is the archetypical avatar of rage and destruction.

Bagheera
Hated by natural animals, those cursed as Bagheera find themselves transforming into great ghostly cats. Whether they are best described as jaguars or tigers is debatable, as they are black as night and no stripes or spots can be discerned. Bagheera are incredibly destructive in beast form but are still a stealthy predator.

Nezumi
Unusual among Lycanthropes, the “beast” form of a Nezumi is a large rat. They are possessed of magical powers, and carry plagues. While stealthy and useful, their beast form is of little threat in physical combat, sometimes making their lycanthropic fury as dangerous to themselves as those around them. Nezumi can speak to and command the obedience of animals, but have difficulty with human social structures.
New Lycanthropes
Zhu
Those infected with the demonic boar have their eyes turn red and flames leak from their body. In bestial form they are sulfurous black hogs with wicked tusks and crawling skin. The hooves of a Zhu leave marks that are blackened by flames and decomposed by neglect.

Nanuuk
Possessed of a great stillness, the Nanuuk transform into monstrous white bears. They are defined not just by an absence of color, but by a void in all things. The Nanuuk can take away sound, heat, and even your ability to care. The bestial form of a Nanuuk is indefatigable, cold, and relentless. They are heralded by nothing, and leave nothing behind.

Nanaue
In human form, the Nanaue has a ravenous shark mouth which migrates around their body, usually coming to rest on the back. When the shark mouth covers their human mouth, they transform into a terrifying beast that is neither shark nor man. Nanaue are supernaturally attractive in human form and can breathe water in any shape.
Leviathans
Leviathans
Leviathans are those who carry within them the powerful but cursed blood of ancient inhuman monsters in their veins. Most Leviathans inherit the power from their ancestors, where it may yet well up unexpectedly in families where the blood has grown thin (or expectedly where the blood has remained strong in certain monstrous inbred families). But the blood can also be acquired by feasting on the flesh of a Leviathan. All Leviathans are immensely long lived, and may never die of old age. As they grow in age and power, the inhuman traits of the ancients become more and more apparent, until they are unrecognizable as having been members of the human species. Non-luminaries who show or acquire the taint become hideous mutants. Leviathans are cthonic creatures that do not belong in the modern world, and are weak to iron.

Deep One
Deep Ones are descended from a benthic monster fish. They breathe water and gradually become more fishlike over time. Even before puberty they have queer narrow faces with flat noses and bulging stary eyes, and this gradually transforms into a fully icthyous countenance. The mere presence of Deep Ones has a corrosive effect on the sanity and morals of humans, a fact that Deep Ones can use to read and dominate minds.

Mi-Go
Mi-Go are descended from a writhing mass of crawling bugs possessed of a hive mind wholly alien to human thought. As a Mi-Go ages, the insides of their bodies are hollowed out and filled with grubs and flying insects. They can release these worms and vermin through their skin, and retain a consistent “self” with them. They can send out individual vermin as scouts or swarms of insects as a weapon.

Troglodyte
Troglodytes are descended from a pale, tunnel crawling mole beast. They are pale and have dark eyes. Their nails become long and claw-like and their incisors grow ceaselessly, becoming rodentlike. Troglodytes can burrow through history, sifting through time to see important events around things they touch. They can also burrow through the ground and create tunnels in which to nest.
New Leviathans
Wendigo
Wendigo are descended from a titanic man-eating snow-ape. They become shaggy and gaunt, their feet and hands growing large for their bodies even as they become tall. Wendigo are horrendously strong and by feasting on human flesh can become even stronger. They can call upon their power to increase in size, becoming giants for periods of time.

Tengu
Tengu are descended from a horrible crow-like monster. Possessed of long, beak-like noses even as children, Tengu gradually become more bird-like as they age. Eventually, they sprout black feathers and wings. Tengu can command winds and fly, as well as being able to create illusions.

Naga
Naga are descended from a great, multi-headed snake. As a Naga grows in age and power, they develop reptilian traits. Forked tongues, slit pupils, and patches of scales are not uncommon. Naga have poisonous bites, hypnotic eyes, and can transform into serpents.
Now, the Witches are not getting extra types. But the traditions of Witchcraft are getting opened up. Witches simply get much fewer fixed powers and the opportunity to select magical sorceries in their field. So they are pretty much a "build your own splat" splat now. As long as the splat you want to build is basically a sorcerer of some kind.

I do not think that there is any great call to add more types of Transhumans, so I don't think I'm going to.

New Animates?
Animates are a bit of an odd case. The three basic types (Frankensteins, Androids, and Golems) represent more than just Flesh, Clay, and Iron constructs, they represent betrayals of the social contract. The Frankenstein is a rejected child, the Android is a jilted lover, and the Golem is a castoff worker. These are iconic bonds of trust which when broken can be expressed effectively in the terms of monster fiction. It is possible to add additional types of Animates, but not by the simple D&D expedient of adding more materials (Pinocchios, Calzone Golems, etc.). There's nothing stopping an Android from being made out of stone, or a Frankenstein from being made out of wood. New Animate types would have to come with new relationships to have fundamentally go wrong.

The most obvious place to add one is also the worst and isn't going to happen: Friendship. Having an Animate who has lost their friends and longs for simple camaraderie that is eternally denied would make a pretty good story. You could do something based on children's toys set aside or imaginary friends no longer spoken to. It could be tragic and effective and fit perfectly in the genre. But it can't fit into the game. In the game, you get a team of friends who are in your coterie represented by the other player characters. There is no "forever alone" possible on that scale for player characters. The limits of the medium mean that there cannot and will not be a Velveteen Rabbit or Raggamoffyn.

But that doesn't mean that there can't be more Animates. Parents as well as children can be rejected, and there is a great deal of source material of evil holograms who are innately maternal yet objectively and tragically horribly bad at the duties of caretaking. There are also built things such as statues and homes that have been abandoned and left to the elements, and one could imagine doing some sort of Gargoyles / Happy Prince type deal off of that. But of course, that's two rather than three, and also it rather has the problem that neither of those concepts especially meshes with the Origin Story game because those aren't really things that start as humans. But that might be OK because...
One of the things that is being added is provisionally playable types. Creatures which might be playable, but only in specific types of games. So for example: you can play an Asura in an In Media Res game, but you can't play one in an Origin Story game. They have magic powers all the time and never even transiently believe that they are humans, so if all the players are makin monsters you can play one and if they are all making human Luminaries who are going to become monsters you can't. In keeping with that notion, there's going to be the Beast splat, which is all provisionally playable types.

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Post by Lokathor »

Gargoyle, Satyr / Moonclan, and Nephilim. There's the three kinds of "beast" we were looking for. There's probably a non-European beast-human creature that could fit better than Nephilim that I've never heard of. I mean depending on where you wanna split out Demons and Fey and all that, Oni (for example) could be a third instead of Nephilim.
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Post by Prak »

I don't know about non-european beasts, but I think something could be done with the "broken social contracts" animates thing and tsukumogami-- objects which have been used for a hundred years and become animate and sapient. Maybe it folds into the abandoned house/gargoyles thing.

Actually, hell, that could be a thing. The usual tsukumogami are the "spawn" monsters because no one wants to play an animate sandal, but a statue “that has reached (its) 100th birthday and thus become alive and self-aware,” and subsequently been abandoned (or reached it's 100th birthday after being abandoned) is totally a thing I could see people wanting to play. Hell, you could even do a thing where the splat can shapeshift into a "mundane item form" to lie in wait, then turn back into a playable monster form after their quarry trips over them.
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Post by darkmaster »

So, like tanuki, not not so much racoon in your vision will they also have massive balls?
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darkmaster wrote:Tgdmb.moe, like the gaming den, but we all yell at eachother about wich lucky star character is the cutest.
Fuck you Haruhi is clearly the best moe anime, and we will argue about how Haruhi and Nagato are OP and um... that girl with blond hair? is for shitters.

If you like Lucky Star then I will explain in great detail why Lucky Star is the a shitty shitty anime for shitty shitty people, and how the characters have no interesting abilities at all, and everything is poorly designed especially the skill challenges.
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Post by Prak »

It could be a special version of Giant Size, I suppose... (though Tanuki are spearate from tsukumogami)
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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 darkmaster »

Well, but I mean, he specifically called out transforming into a mundane form all you'd need is to add putting a leaf on head to make it happen.
Kaelik wrote:
darkmaster wrote:Tgdmb.moe, like the gaming den, but we all yell at eachother about wich lucky star character is the cutest.
Fuck you Haruhi is clearly the best moe anime, and we will argue about how Haruhi and Nagato are OP and um... that girl with blond hair? is for shitters.

If you like Lucky Star then I will explain in great detail why Lucky Star is the a shitty shitty anime for shitty shitty people, and how the characters have no interesting abilities at all, and everything is poorly designed especially the skill challenges.
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Post by Prak »

Except Tanuki are a Beast by this stuff, where as tsukumogami are animates.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
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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 Maxus »

I'd be interested in seeing how the Sidhe/fae fit into Limbo. I mean, Charred Hellscape vs. Bright Shiny Fairyland is going to take some reconciling.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

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Post by Lokathor »

Gargoyles were the original beast creature, and then stuffed into animate when there weren't enough beasts. The starting idea was to have more like the Disney's Gargoyles type of gargoyle though, where possible, so they'd have eggs and a life cycle and all that as a beast.

They could be animates, if it's needed to make a set of 3 (monster subtypes are best when they come in 3s), but it might be better to have them be a beast if we can get a full set of 3 animates without them.
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Post by Dean »

If Asura eat or can be formed from souls you could start as a pretty blonde girl who dies in the opening episode but she stays around in some form in the creature formed from her soul or who has been unusually influenced by the last soul it gathered.
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Post by Whipstitch »

If you're going for gestalt/possessed entities rejiggering Asura hits me as a rather round about way of doing things compared to occasionally having dead luminaries becoming bound to a specific Extra, place or object when they die. Fetters are already a thing, after all, so taking things a step or to further isn't particularly weird.
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Post by Grek »

I like this lineup for the new Animates:

Hologram: Astral. A mind trapped in a device of some sort, often a mirror, book or jewel in the olden days, but more often a computer in the modern era. Its basic nature is that of a Parent who was rejected by its Child and is often controlling and manipulative. Basic disciplines are Supernatural Senses, Sensory Damper, Patience of the Mountains, Mesmerism, Poison Heart and Curse of Failure. Advanced are both devotions: Empty Body and Phantasmagoria. Ghost-like obsession ritual where it fusses over its current "charge" to regain power.

Eidolon: Infernal. When the Fey kidnap a child, they are said to work powerful magics to remove the child from the memory of those that love them. The Eidolon is that magic. As it makes others forget about its victim, it slowly insinuates itself into their life before replacing them entirely. The New Child the loved more than the Original Child. Basic Powers are: Basics are Attract, Repel, Deny the Gauntlet, Suggestion, Mask of a Thousand Faces and Patience of the Mountains. Advanced are Dismissal and Cloud Memory. Power ritual is to repeatedly insist to itself that it's the real child and the other one is a fake.

Homunculus: Orphic. Resentful self-healing torture victims/blood batteries created by Baali and vampires to prey upon. They usually want to kill their creators and Luminary homunculi often succeed. The Servant which betrays its Master. Basics are Gift of Health, Thaumaturgical Forensics, Vigor, Revive the Flesh, Hide From Notice and Patience of the Mountains. Advanced are Blood of Acid and Lost and Found. Power ritual involves acid, oil and other nasty chemicals.
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Post by TheNotoriousAMP »

It would be interesting to see if the demons of the more bureaucratic chinese hell (YaoGuai) could be worked into this setting. Would be scary as fuck to be on the run from someone who wants to make you suffer for someone else's sins that accidentally got placed on your balance sheet.
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Post by Grek »

TheNotoriousAMP wrote:It would be interesting to see if the demons of the more bureaucratic chinese hell (YaoGuai) could be worked into this setting. Would be scary as fuck to be on the run from someone who wants to make you suffer for someone else's sins that accidentally got placed on your balance sheet.
This can basically be handled by the Compulsive Behavior disadvantage. A Demon that feels compelled to hurt only "sinners" and refuses to feed on or harm those that it deems "innocent" enough.
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Post by Lokathor »

TheNotoriousAMP wrote:It would be interesting to see if the demons of the more bureaucratic chinese hell (YaoGuai) could be worked into this setting. Would be scary as fuck to be on the run from someone who wants to make you suffer for someone else's sins that accidentally got placed on your balance sheet.
Each hellplane is literally an entire planet big (at least). There's lots of space for an afterlife kingdom thing like that.
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Post by Prak »

Grek wrote:I like this lineup for the new Animates:

Hologram: Astral. A mind trapped in a device of some sort, often a mirror, book or jewel in the olden days, but more often a computer in the modern era. Its basic nature is that of a Parent who was rejected by its Child and is often controlling and manipulative. Basic disciplines are Supernatural Senses, Sensory Damper, Patience of the Mountains, Mesmerism, Poison Heart and Curse of Failure. Advanced are both devotions: Empty Body and Phantasmagoria. Ghost-like obsession ritual where it fusses over its current "charge" to regain power.
Holograms would, if faithful to the Horror source material, be intangible and bound to one place/object. This suggests they would be somewhat inappropriate as playable characters.
Eidolon: Infernal. When the Fey kidnap a child, they are said to work powerful magics to remove the child from the memory of those that love them. The Eidolon is that magic. As it makes others forget about its victim, it slowly insinuates itself into their life before replacing them entirely. The New Child the loved more than the Original Child. Basic Powers are: Basics are Attract, Repel, Deny the Gauntlet, Suggestion, Mask of a Thousand Faces and Patience of the Mountains. Advanced are Dismissal and Cloud Memory. Power ritual is to repeatedly insist to itself that it's the real child and the other one is a fake.
Workable, but not distinct enough from Frankensteins in impetus. Also, the ritual is too unintentionally hilarious.
Homunculus: Orphic. Resentful self-healing torture victims/blood batteries created by Baali and vampires to prey upon. They usually want to kill their creators and Luminary homunculi often succeed. The Servant which betrays its Master. Basics are Gift of Health, Thaumaturgical Forensics, Vigor, Revive the Flesh, Hide From Notice and Patience of the Mountains. Advanced are Blood of Acid and Lost and Found. Power ritual involves acid, oil and other nasty chemicals.
A homunculus is an artificial servant, ie, a golem.


Oh, also, Frank: spider vamps, penanggalan, were polar bears and sharks, wendigo, tengu and naga...
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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 Username17 »

So speaking of Lycanthropes: there are now two (well, three) different ways to turn into a big monster. War Form is the signature power of Werewolves and Nanaue. It lets you turn into a big clawed monster that has hands. Monstrous Self is the signature power of Bagheera, Nanuuk, and Zhu. It lets you turn into a big monster that does not have hands, but which might be mistaken for a large and dangerous animal. There's also still Giant Size, but none of the lycanthropes get that inherently. That's the thing where you just become yourself but much bigger - it's the signature trick of Wendigo and Spriggans.

This comes as part of a general power reorganization where the devotions are being taken away and most of them folded into extant domains. This means that we're also looking at more power choice within each magical domain. There are three basic and four advanced options in each domain.

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Post by A Man In Black »

Prak_Anima wrote:Workable, but not distinct enough from Frankensteins in impetus. Also, the ritual is too unintentionally hilarious.
Frankensteins are created in order to make a new person, and want to be real. Eidolons want to be someone specific that they are not. There's conceptual overlap in that they are both created creatures that are compelled to try to be something they aren't, but they diverge beyond that. Frankensteins aren't people because they're incomplete. Eidolons aren't people because they're just pretending. Their power ritual is to do a particular routine task suited to the life of the person they replaced.

I don't think holograms or homonculi have legs, though. Not only are holograms not playable, but they are ghosts. Evil bodiless spirit that haunts a thing it is obsessed with is what a ghost is. Homonculi are just golems, as noted.
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Post by Midnight_v »

All of what A man in black said.

...and also...

I'm pretty sure you guys will be like "STFU Midnight_v, $T%$#@% barrel of dicks blah blah." Nonetheless, I feel the idea of this portion of the edition is headed in the wrong way. I read after sundown quite a lot, and one of the biggest appeals of it to me was the exclusionary rule.

"A story is finite in length. To have anything in it, an infinite number of things must be excluded."

That idea right there had a large amount of resonance with me because it made a lot of sense. You had a consistent game world and out of 600,000 thousand or so out of 7.046 billion people, there was a lot of room for these specific types of supernaturals.

There was a whole other thread about the changes that need to be made to after sundown, real life kept me from posting but there were a lot of things that got brought up that I was firmly like :tsk:
(Like how they chopped up Patience of the Mountains, I hated the logic behind it because its a really interesting thing to have any random werewolf actually BE immortal, if not then there are no "elder werewolves" and conceptually there's not a lot of reason to NOT Break the Vow if you're an old werewolf who disagrees with it)

I didn't want to make a long post at first, but Frank, After Sundown, is one of my favorite RPGS so I feel strongly about the work you've created. So bear with me, here I go:

So, agreeing with everything A Man in black just said.

Overlap and Glut are my main problems with these changes:
New Animates
This isn't @ Frank but an commentary of the ideas suggest by Grek first.
One of the neat details of after sundown was the "Inspiration Movies" at
the end so I'd been keeping a mental tab for movies that fit certain supernatural types etc.
2 of the recent ones were about animates:
The Machine
Which is a movie about an Android with Master Passion rage
and of course
HER
Which is about Joaquin Phoenix falling in love with Scarlett Johannsson... except Scarlet is a helper computer program.

So she's an Android with empty body, in fact its the perfect story of "The Lover" when the love won't work, but its NOT a horror movie. I never even saw it, but I get the concept. In fact it could TURN into a horror movie when the mortal she loves finally dies.
Giving an android Empty Body and "The Smoking Mirror" Sorcery shouldn't designate a new type.
Hologram should not be added to the game.
Eidolon: Is nothing more than a Mirror Goblin with variant powers. Really they have attract and Mask of 1000 faces always on.
Homunculi are just Frankenstein. In fact exactly Frankenstein.
However, even all that being said I don't see like any source material for those things to individualize them in such a way that they need their own thing.
New Vampires
"Really, it'd be awesome if everyone just stopped reading the big book of vampires."
You know that "THE VAMPIRE BOOK" Frank mentioned that has a really huge (Over 9000!) page count, and contains more than a few "vampires?". Things that if we saw them in real life we would not go, OH SHIT A VAMPIRE!
Well that contains some things in it that really don't have any modern stories about them, and that's OK, but keeping the exclusionary rule in mind ADDING those thing to the game doesn't add much to the game.
Though it might add an element to the game of "I'm sorry, what are you, again?" which happened a lot in D&D because the 11 classes expanded into 70 classes.
The idea "NEW CONTENT, NEW CLASSES!" Is a thing that every rpg does, but when V:tM did that it wasn't that I couldn't keep up with all the clans it was more like... who cares.

Sagbata:
"What is "Theft of Vitae"? for 200 Alec."
Theft of Vitae is an Orphic Sorcery in After Sundown that does exactly What the Sagbata do. Here's an excerpt:
"The character draws blood and power directly out of a victim. Little spheres of blood fly out of the victim towards the character, who thence absorbs the droplets in some suitably dramatic fashion such as having them pop into the character's mouth or outstretched hand"
So really that not a thing vampires are, that's a thing some of them DO.

On of the MAIN things to do in my opinion is go and read:
Subtypes: Bloodlines, Strains, and Schools of Thought In the original document. Its the common theme that I see when I look at all of this.
Really go and read that and you'll see exactly what I mean.
Frank explicitly spells out to NOT create new classes to make things more distinct.
"It is tempting to write additional powers for such groups or to trade basic powers of their type for other powers in order to make them stand out and “feel unique”. This is a terrible plan, and you shouldn't do it. "
You shouldn't do it.

Endala: Superficially at least this seems to be stepping on the toes of a few people. Noseferatu are already doing the "Monstrous Vampire" and Mi-go are already doing the insect thing.
In fact that not superficial at all that's totally the case.
In almost every case this would fit better as being a type of Mi-go, or Nosferatu, but lets go with Nosferatu.
Ariadne is a member of the Endala Bloodline, she is named after the Progenitor the bloodline of whom she'd never even heard before she was inducted. Now she looks like this: http://lepas.deviantart.com/art/Wilde-L ... -377224414 just like the rest of her family and just like the rest them she has learned Mask of a Thousand faces and Play of Shadows: Solid Darkness "webs". They are enthralled in the politics of along the Anatolian Peninsula and consider themselves the "Web that holds the Makhzen together". The Mehtar, who brought her "out of the light" is old himself Claiming to be from Constantinople and further that the Ariadne the Elder is alive to this night and is "Only resting her eyes"
My point is that the things being considered for creation as New Vampire TYPES are really just "builds" of exiting supernatural types.
Sagbata: are Daeva with Theft of Vitae and Chasing the storm. Sure they rarely pop fangs but that's a cultural thing not a physiology thing.
The idea that they exist AT ALL in legend is because of the tradition of misdirection, as opposed to the newer Vow of Silence but still they shouldn't be something completely new.

Penanggalan Specifically
Penanggalan : uhhh... okay, you got me.
Its not ALL Glut or an overlap, and yet the body part thing that they do SOUNDS like something Necromancers, Revanents and, hell I don't know Animates might be doing too. I'm not exactly sure what "Thing" from the Addams family or Ash's Hand when it gets cut off is supposed to represent besides "body horror" as I'm not familiar with the source material of those things. I am familiar with "the Thing that could not die" a disembodied head movie. So I digress, yet what I THINK is that the Penaggalan is served best as 1 of 3 things. If you MUST have these creatures in the game.
1. Something attributed to the tradition of misdirection.
Vampires in that portion of the world were mostly Strigoi and being in a place where knowledge of supernaturals was pretty good for whatever reason so they started using things like Phantasmagoria, and Cloud Memory to throw them off.
2. That it describes a spell something the several supernatural types can learn a to detach parts and have them move about independently, for recon, intel, or (yes) feeding.
3. Demons. Long ago someone in the Philippines summoned an Ifrit, and that's where they get all most of their nightmares from. Being formless and needing to torture the fuck out of people for points. . . It found the most horrible ways of doing that. It would travel around the Philippines taking over people and making them kill their loved ones. He'd cover it up by using modify memory or Phantasmagoria on the area to cover it up, placing the blame the killer or other innocents (laughing all the while)
This led to all kinds of confusion about what the hell was going on. Even amongst supernaturals in the area. Still its a greater demon, ON EARTH, and this went on since for literally 1000 or more years. When the Spanish came it KEPT going on, but eventually it was discovered and a deal was struck that mounted to: Keep your ass on the islands, or we'll amass an army and destroy you." That's pretty much how its been for the last 300 years.
And... basically I've written too much. more than people are probably gonna even read but my rationals are pretty much the same over all.

Like this:
Nanaue: I live in Hawaii twice in my life. 3 years as kid/3years as an adult. Were-sharks is not a scary story anyone tells, there are ghost stories but that it. I do know the story of Nanaue the shark man, and frankly thats the story of a deep one. Its story of a guy whose dad comes out of the ocean, mates with a woman, and their kid grows up to become a deep one with master passion hunger.
In fact if for all the rest of this you say: Fuck you, Midnight_v we love obscure vampire types and we "Gotta catch'em all" please please I beg of you, do not have Deep ones, and Sharkthropes in the same story. It just seems silly as shit.

But because I'm tired I hope you'll forgive how shoddily written all of this is, I'm not Frank Trollman, hell I'm not even a Kaelik, but I hope some of what makes After Sundown great isn't lost in making new a lot of new stuff for the sake of "new".
Last edited by Midnight_v on Sat Feb 22, 2014 4:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Koumei »

Penanggalan sound like one of the Disciplines in Kindred of the Ag (I know I need to get back to that review), so I'll wager "We're talking about an Eastern vampire of some variety, perhaps from Indian myth". Come to think of it, more than a few anime touched on that kind of horror, sometimes even as actual vampires and not simply demons/magic/ninjutsu.
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Post by Midnight_v »

Koumei wrote:Penanggalan sound like one of the Disciplines in Kindred of the Ag (I know I need to get back to that review), so I'll wager "We're talking about an Eastern vampire of some variety, perhaps from Indian myth". Come to think of it, more than a few anime touched on that kind of horror, sometimes even as actual vampires and not simply demons/magic/ninjutsu.
I agree wholeheartedly, but MOST of the time we see vampires doing that like in Vampire hunter D fore example its just something they can do and NOT something all vampires of a certain type can do.

Also...
I do not think that there is any great call to add more types of Transhumans, so I don't think I'm going to.
I'm sorry I didn't say anything, this is where lurking bits you in the ass.

Transhumans have been the most important amoung the groups I've played with. I've pimped this game as much as possible and most people are MOST interested in playing Vampires, Witches, and Transhumans, (Followed closely by Mi-go). I've only done 4 games though, however I've talked to many people about it.

Reborn, Fallen, and Icarids are some of the most popular things in the book when I share it with people. Even when its at the FLGS, where people have never heard of "She" or even bothered to watch the Mummy. They ALL know bane and understand the Fallen pretty well. (One guy even goes "So green later finds the ring, it give him power and eats his soul, so basically "Power ring From Earth 2" which I'd never even heard of)
I think this is because half the people who I meet want to play "Buffy, the vampire slayer", and its basically 3-4 people choosing supernaturals without feeding schedules and joining the stellar oracles.

I think the best thing is to give Icarids "ANY" in the Advanced Powers section.
Though I understand that spiderman and deadpool does taunt his foes into despair frenzy. Norman Osborn does not.
I mean its pretty much written that every transhuman has to take sands of time or they get shot... with bullets. That has always irked me but I moved past that eventually Its a thing.

All that being said. . . Ultimately, what I'm HOPING for in this "edition?" is a world book, I guess.


All of the things described so far could be presented as Specific Groups of Supernaturals and what they're doing In the world. So you get the classes you've been mulling as bloodlines and houses and go on from there.

Also things about Maya, Limbo, and of course "Thinks to do in Mictlan, before your dead." because someone said "Wait. Why the fuck would we EVER go there?" I did not have a good enough answer.

Finally a restructuring of the powers and the such. I was super pissed when people were arguing to take Patience of the Mountains, out... people really do want the immortality power.

By the way, it just occurred to me Were-bears are another thing that Don't "SOUND" like they need to be distinct from Werewolves. I mean mechanically that is.
The idea that I turn into a giant wolf, and that guy turns into a Grizzly seems super miniscule, unless you're going to say Werebears are Werewolves big brother, or highly magical werewolves which is shitty for people who play werewolves
Also this from after sundown
"Not all Werewolves transform into an actual wolf when they become a mundane animal. For whatever reason, some become dogs, coyotes, foxes, or even hyenas."

So. A man who changes into a Hyena is a werewolf, a man who changes into a bear is not. :ugone2far: Profound sadness.

Anyway, man fuck what I'm talking about. Frank, you do good work so I'm sure it'll turn out good. Its just weird to me thinking about the things that were stated in the first book, and then seeing all this in the second.
Last edited by Midnight_v on Sat Feb 22, 2014 5:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Username17 »

The Penanggalan are one of the two or so standard legendary vampires in Southeast Asia and Polynesia. The other one being a fairly boring "person with white hair" who runs around sucking life and/or blood out of people. Flying heads with dangling viscera is just a normal monster in Philippine or Indonesian mythology.
Image
Image
Horror movies from Indonesia and Malaysia are different than those in the West. Or even those that come from China, Korea, or Japan.
Which comes down to the rationale here. It's been a few years, and there is space for expansion. Yeah, we don't need to pull a White Wolf style "we have always had 13 more bloodlines of crazy vampire" nor do we want to do a D&D style "Races of [Fu]." But there's room for expansion. Not all of the world was covered terribly well. The other worlds are dealt with very sketchily and I'd like to correct that. But I also didn't color in the map in the Southern Hemisphere or Pacific Rim much, and I'd like to correct that too.

Absolutely none of the additions I'm putting in come from Europe or the Middle East. The expansion Vampires come from Africa and Southeast Asia. The expansion Leviathans come from India, Japan, and the Pacific Northwest. The expansion Lycanthropes come from Siberia, Polynesia, and China. These are parts of the world that have been underdeveloped, and I would like to do something about that.

Now the Polynesian weresharks are an interesting case. I'm using the Hawaiian term because of the American bias of myself and the internets. If you image search "Nanaue" you get a bunch of pictures of sharkmen, something that doesn't happen if you plug in various Melanesian terms for people who turn into sharks. And of course, the difference between a sorcerer, a cursed human, and a natural born monster simply isn't firmly drawn in any body of folklore. Weirder still: Polynesian shark-man myths are a major inspiration for HP Lovecraft's original writeup of the Deep Ones. The idol of Dagon comes from Polynesia in Lovecraft's book (even if the name "Dagon" comes from the Middle East).

But Weresharks and Deep Ones are different. They were wildly divergent when Lovecraft first appropriated parts of the stories for his own, and they've been moving in different directions ever since.

-Username17
Last edited by Username17 on Sat Feb 22, 2014 6:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Grek »

A Man In Black wrote:I don't think holograms or homonculi have legs, though. Not only are holograms not playable, but they are ghosts. Evil bodiless spirit that haunts a thing it is obsessed with is what a ghost is. Homonculi are just golems, as noted.
Luminary Homunculi totally have legs. The extra versions can look like anything from a tumor to a fetus in a jar to a misshapen hunchback, but the luminary versions "come out right" and look like only slightly deformed clones of their creator's original mortal form.

But, yeah. I'm not really sure how you'd make a Hologram a playable type. I took a stab at it and it fell flat.
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Post by RadiantPhoenix »

I think that the thing about the difference between the types of animate being their purpose and not what they're physically made of is something that should be in the book. (If it already is in AS1, I didn't see it)
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Post by Prak »

This is totally "in my own limited experience" but there are two things I think a 2nd edition needs:
  • codified magic item creation rules
  • an alternate character advancement system which uses something like xp
If I'm writing a wishlist here, I'd also put down a "How to make a mad scientist" mini-essay/rant. I think we can also branch out on the weaknesses, a bit, at least so that a "guy what is made of stone, or coated in steel" isn't taken down by a sharp stick.
Last edited by Prak on Sat Feb 22, 2014 8:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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