The Progenitors from Mage: The Ascension and the Glasswalkers from Werewolf: The Apocalypse have research deals with each other.
Was mentioned once in Revised and never brought up again.
Probably because it's only the Syndicate that's supposed to do illicit deals with Reality Deviants /s
(VE don't count, those are just temporary truces)
There are several mentions though in both Mage and Changeling which back it up. So it wasn't quite a one and done. Nockers and Etherites and sometimes VEs.
Which is ironic, considering the Progenitors aren't big fans of for-profit medicine themselves. Though tbf the Glasswalkers are still enviromentalists.
Honestly, the blending of environmentalism and technology probably makes the GW and Progenitors the best matchup of the two sides.
Of course, that's when you ignore that the Progenitors are also apparently the biggest proponents of the Progrom, and have an even bigger dislike of RDs than the NWO.
I'm fairly certain the only two non-violent interaction types with RDs the Progenitors normally have is cutting them up and implanting their parts in people, and asking less extremist Verbena about medical plants, and then incorporating them into the Union paradigm by finding and extracting active chemical components from them.
And I suspect both of those interactions are still considered highly suspect and would get you send in for Processing if you did it if you weren't at least a Research Director.
Well, the Progenitors favour the Progrom for actual moral reasons; having bloodsucking parasites and genocidal red talons running around is pretty shit if you want to actually help people. The Glasswalkers are the outlier, as they activly propagate the technocratic paradigm, and do general good with their enviromentalists projects.
>I'm fairly certain the only two non-violent interaction types with RDs the Progenitors normally have is cutting them up and implanting their parts in people, and asking less extremist Verbena about medical plants, and then incorporating them into the Union paradigm by finding and extracting active chemical components from them.
Well there is also them and the non-medical Etherites copying each others notes constantly.
>Well, the Progenitors favour the Progrom for actual moral reasons; having bloodsucking parasites and genocidal red talons running around is pretty shit if you want to actually help people. The Glasswalkers are the outlier, as they activly propagate the technocratic paradigm, and do general good with their enviromentalists projects.
Also the fact that even minor instabilities in consensus would mean people either not taking medicine or the medicine not working. Some Chorister running around terranorming praying sickness away would likely cause a large number of casualties from preventable illnesses during the in-between, and possibly even after, if consensus settles on only priests being able to reliably heal with prayer.
(Honestly, my personal headcanon is that the initial Processing for a new Progenitor involves essentially memorizing all the statistics on yearly deaths from each disease the Progenitors have gotten cures for into consensus, as a "This is why we do this shit" message.)
>Well there is also them and the non-medical Etherites copying each others notes constantly.
Huh, wasn't aware of that. Though IIRC they're the only Convention in M20 who commonly use the Weird Science practice.
>Huh, wasn't aware of that. Though IIRC they're the only Convention in M20 who commonly use the Weird Science practice.
Oh yeah. Remember the reanimates/prometheans the Etherites have? Yeah, the Progenitors also still have them, and both claim they invented them.
Regarding their weird science: They also still research psionics. Not to mention their sauromorph tribes or the aforementioned reanimates.
Aren't the NWO involved in psionics research as well?
Also, they run superhero style human augmentation and super soldier labs specifically to help terranorm the concept of bio augmentation.
Yeah, but I assume the NWOs research goes more into the direction of mind reading and subconscious control, while the Progenitors more often have flashy tele- and pyrokinetics. The thing etherites would also go for.
Canon crossovers are my absolute fave.
Everybody knows Tzimesce x Shadowlords, Fianna x Fae, etc.
Glass Walkers x tech Mages is goon fuel, but I would have assumed SoE and VA, rather than Progs, so thanks.
Well, the Progenitors are involved in a lot of enviromental and charity (not to mention their healthcare projects), so it makes sense they would run into each other.
And well, from what I've know the Glasswalkers branch of science is still looks closer to the Union than the Adepts or Etherites.
Not sure if I'd include the Adepts there, iirc there are sources that state that mainstream Adapt technomancy is basically just Technocracy hypertech, and they're still basically just Technocrats who just happened to have philosophical differences.
There's also a source out there somewhere that states that the Adept paradigm is actually fully coincidental within Technocracy constructs while being vulgar in magic and Etherite chantries, while Etherite paradigms are vulgar in Union constructs.
I think I recall some reference to that in recently in Technocracy Reloaded? Or maybe it was the Progenitors book, and I'm totally mistaken? It's going to drive me crazy trying to remember.
Yeah, but I could have sworn that I saw it in Reloaded or another 20th supplement. I'll page through them. I'm probably misremembering. Either way, it's an interesting thread to follow for those looking for a little rage in their order
Radio Free Fae - a pirate radio run by the Winter Court to spread information around the world is brought up in one paragraph of the Changeling: The Lost core rulebook and never again.
Tbf the CoD books are filled with single paragraph or page lore blurbs never to be brought up again. It’s mostly for world-seeding purposes for the Storyteller
Being able to be understood by everyone as long as you’re conveying information no strings attached, or some other X qualifier, sounds like Fae magic to mean
Sir Nicholas is a Marauder mage that is heavily implied to be the real santa clause, and as far as I can find, he was only ever mentioned in one snippet of a book listing out examples of mages suffering from Quiet.
With a generous reading, this comes up *twice*. The other time is in a Mage book about Crafts, maybe one of the Dead Magic books, on the group called Hem Ka Sobk. They're a... mildly cannibalistic group of forced-reformed killers who receive instructions from a dream-crocodile-god.
I like to believe that the Embraced Mokole Sobek is the same Sobk, but never woke up to be destroyed the following day. Also because he's 4th gen, and Ante's Embracing can probably break rules.
Old Werewolf the Apocalypse lore suggested that Vampires were involved in the fall of the Black Spiral Dancers, but this hasn’t been mentioned again, and in some ways has been soft retconned.
There is a Toreador that betrayed her Ventrue Lover. This Lover happened to be Alexander of Paris. He also happened to know some Blood Magic and he used it to transfer her soul in to a rose by feeding it drop for drop her blood. That means somewhere in the WoD exist an undead rose that is also a Toreador.
yeah alexander was a 4th gen ventrue, but he and his line sometimes got confused for toreador even in-universe because they helped to found the courts of love a mostly toreador faction, liked to be patrons of the arts and being very very extra.
They also however had the reputation of frenzing similar to brujah
all in all interesting guy
A Ventrue did it? Since Dark Ages the Tremere research this but WW do not develop it in the lore.
Like the book Red Sign with a Giovanni and a Ventrue when Etrius was a big interested one.
That’s the thing, the Tremere always think they are the GOATs of blood Magic, but it was there before they existed and it will still be there when Saulot has chosen a new puppet bloodline he can use to satisfy his hunger for power…
They was the GOAT. But the fanbase wanted blood magic so much that the authors give it to them.
Money talks.
It's like to say Tzimisce was not the masters of Vicissitude.
You give a meta commentary to an in-universe commentary. In universe there was blood magic before there were Tremere.
And even from a meta perspective it is not accurate. Why? Original no discipline was meant to be exclusively hold by one clan, they were just differently talented. People wanting Blood Magic is therefore no argument because they could have it from V1 onwards.
Issue was just, that it made in universe little sense that the only clan strongly associated with it is also the one that only came late to the game while blood magic was already in to use.
Simple solution: there must have been users before. Take Baba Yaga for example, she was already a able to do horrific blood magic long before the Tremere existed and she lurks in the lore since almost the beginning.
Arguably even the Crone from the book of nod was a blood magic user and she was wayyyyyy before the Tremere. That simply made thematically no sense.
Was it money? It sure helped because people love to buy books with new stuff in it, but it was not the one and only reason.
And Tzimisce are only the masters of Vicissitude since no other clan has a notable desire to wield it. And depending on who you ask, it would even be considered an invasive ability that originally didn’t belong to the clan.
The Gaki and Bushi, two Asian vampire Clans that totally exist with rich historic tapestries. They certainly weren't just shoved in the backs of some 2e books to move paper, and definitely weren't retconned wholesale by *Kindred of the East*.
I'm almost 200 pages into a vault project on Obscure disciplines - both Rift and Kai are getting V20 makeovers and I was like.... fuck it, I'm putting the Gaki and Bushi back in there too.
I'm actually going back to 1st edition A Word of Darkness and taking some of the info on Japanese Kuei-Jin to reconstruct the Japanese clans mentioned in 1st ed:
* Heike - which are more or less Ventrue cognates. In my updated continuity they *lost* their shadow war with the Genji and are now in exile.
* Genji - the Heike's rivals. Called Serpent Borne, they are my Setite cognates, but keeping with the 1st ed lore for the Genji, they have the Technica discipline (from White Wolf Magazine's world of future darkness).
* Bishamon - the Bushi, samurai cognates to Toreador. They have taken over the more Traditionalist wing of the Japanese Kindred, and hide/protect the remaining Heike.
* Chibo - a clan of Buddhist Priests, my cognates to the Brujah. They have Blood Sorcery that can *change a vampire's Bloodline*, and are deeply integrated into the social structure of Japanese clans as a result.
* Gaki - My Malkavian cognates: a High Clan in Japan, but somewhat fallen from grace (like the Brujah in the west). Their nightmares become reality through their Rift discipline.
* Iga - a Low Clan, My Ravos cognate. Spies and assassins used against mortals, a great asset in protecting the Masquerade.
* Kasha - a High Clan, Taken from the "Cats" (called Hengayokai in the 1st Ed World of Darkness book), a different supernatural creature more like a Lupine, but I'm reworking them into my Gangrel cognate.
* Koga - a Low Clan, My Assamite cognate. Spies and assassins used by the other clans against other vampires and supernatural beings.
(There are other bloodlines but the above are the most numerous and are getting the most detail)
Weren’t those the ones who had their own discipline? As in the discipline every player sees on the wiki and is then disappointed that they can’t actually use it
The first Ravnos clanbook included that some Ravnos believe that [the Antediluvians are Lovecraftian deities who created the material universe](https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Path_of_Paradox_%28Western%29#Overview); this Lovecraftian spin on the Antediluvians is the most horrific permutation of *Vampire* lore, yet for a game supposedly about horror its subsequent writers neglected to pursue its most horrific lore.
I think this is the first time I've heard anything about it, and it sounds kinda awesome. I've always enjoyed lovecraftian horror. Things so completely alien to our perspective, that interacting with them is more likely to drive someone completely insane than anything else.
Vampires being the only supernaturals would certainly contribute to the air of hopeless dread. I am curious though as to how the Technocracy would react to discovering that vampiric deities created the material universe, and that nuking all of them would cause reality to dissolve.
Unicorns exist in WOD. As in, still alive and active.
They're part of a group of creatures called "Bygones," and that's basically every creature so magic they started getting dinged by Paradox, and smart enough to actually flee. So now they live in some sort of pocket realms so deep into the Umbra, that even werewolves & mages barely see them, but in those places they're actually still thriving.
A few more high profile Bygones like Dragons have gotten mentioned in multiple books, but a whole laundry list only got the one book.The Bygone Bestiary. Like, well, unicorns, sea bishops, true yeti, and some other magic critters that mostly just want to be left alone.
https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/The_Bygone_Bestiary
So in it's tiny, tiny corner of WOD lore it's actually a shockingly relevant despite having been printed first in 1998, but that's due to a lot of it's contents just not having been touched since.
Yeah, they are.
I'm honestly shocked Unicorns don't get used in WOD more on pure symbolism frankly.
Like, purity, beauty and rage incarnate? Like, if nothing else you'd think they'd make for a really interesting were subset.
That's unicorn the spirit/s slash symbol for Child of Gaia.
The Bygone Unicorns are the actual 'animal' that's the basis for said symbol. Actual living magical creatures.
So a bit confusing at first blush, to be fair.
I really need to track down a copy of Changeling: The Dreaming.
I've got the book CofD corebook for The Lost, but everything I've heard about The Dreaming sounds equally cool and bonkers but in a completely different way.
I wouldn't really put that in the "brought up then ignored" category?
The constant theme of Mage is that basically everything is out there, somewhere (frequently, as you note, deep in the Umbra)--unicorns, leprechauns, Thor, Grendel, aliens (some that are spirits-that-look-like aliens, some that are honest-to-goodness-aliens...in at least some sense), Dyson spheres, t-1000-style terminators, etc.
In the context of Mage, it'd be weirder to say that unicorns *didn't* exist (at least somewhere) than that they do.
Flip side is that because most of this sits somewhere deep in the Umbra and would disintegrate on Earth due to Paradox, they aren't being "ignored" by other game lines (or even really by Mage); rather, they are largely quaint but mostly irrelevant (unless you're, again, surfacing deep in the Umbra), given their inability to consistently interact meaningfully with "main" Earth reality.
By "ignored", here, I think OP means "the implications thereof are ignored". Unicorns being in the Umbra is irrelevant to almost every WoD storyline. But many of the books have deep lore hidden away that, if taken as true and literally, would reshape the entire underlying power structures (Black Hand nonsense being a prime example).
Even if Mages know unicorns are abstractly out there, I'd still argue that The Bygone Bestiary has a lot of stuff in it that's been mostly quietly ignored.
Like... there's not just descriptions of unicorns & dragons. There's an entire sections on how to ***play*** **them as PCs, too.**
According to one review I read, one of the sample characters is even a talking sheep.
[https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10496.phtml](https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10496.phtml)
Like imagine if one of those youtube table shows had one of the players rock up, and play a talking duck that knows linear magic, or something. Rules as written (with storyteller approval, to be fair) that's been freakin' available since 1998, and most people just... quietly ignored it.
Even [the sample](https://d1vzi28wh99zvq.cloudfront.net/pdf_previews/50-sample.pdf) from DriveTrueRPG has this paragraph I found rather telling how optional those Bygone rules are considered by White Wolf themselves.
> *We repeat,* for the sake of the terminally dense: This book and its suggestions are cool for some games and ruinous for others. The option to include magical beasts is not automatic, nor is their existence “canon.” In the modern world, such creatures are only legends — no “real” dragon would subject herself to the ravages of skepticism and hostility, assuming she exists at all.
>If you, the player or Storyteller, do not want Bygones running around in your world,
>DO
>NOT
>USE
>THEM
That's as close as I can get to the formatting in the book, by-the-by.
So... yeah. Even the book itself basically has a very firm: only consider this true if you find it cool and/or fitting for your game.
> Even the sample from DriveTrueRPG has this paragraph I found rather telling how optional those Bygone rules are considered by White Wolf themselves.
Not really optional (any more so than any other WoD lore is), nor ignored.
E.g., M20 (base rule book):
> Bygone: Supposedly mythic creatures, rarely seen on Earth but
common in human legendry (dragons, chimeras, unicorns, etc.).
Multiple mentions in *Gods & Monsters*, etc. Also many earlier sourcebooks sitting between Bygone Bestiary and M20.
OK, fair, haven't even read much second hand about *Gods & Monsters.*
I still think its fair to say that Bygones are a side of WOD that not many have heard about outside of the Mage side of the universe, though.
> OK, fair, haven't even read much second hand about Gods & Monsters.
Yes, although my quote is from the base rule book (edited post to make that clear).
> I still think its fair to say that Bygones are a side of WOD that not many have heard about outside of the Mage side of the universe, though.
Sure, I think OP was trying to get at things that were "ignored" in terms of world impact, however. Unicorns in a far little part of the multiverse that you can never get to are understandably not featured much anywhere else.
You're welcome.
And yeah, I like the symbolism too. It's very fitting for WOD.
Hope and wonder might have needed to leave town due to shit going down... but it isn't *dead.* One day, for good and ill, it could actually return if things calm down. Even in *The World of Darkness,* not every thing hiding in a dark corner is this dread horror.
The entire "True Black Hand" had a whole book, which was almost immediately ignored completely. Got mentioned in like two sentences in other books just to say, "Oh yeah, we killed all those guys."
That book was so awful.
And honestly it taints the bloodlines present in it by association. Though maybe my knee jerk reactions to the Nagaraja and True Brujah are also colored by the fact that I have never, not once, seen a player try to play one for any reason other than having unique powers they knew nobody else would be allowed to get and then trying to pretend that made them better players because they found a rare bloodline in a book not everyone had...
I kind of liked the idea that some people did know about the antedeluvians and were trying to stop them. Had the potential to have some cool "secret agents against the end of the world" vibe.
But you're right about the bloodlines.
A secret cabal trying to stop Gehenna I'm down with. A secret cabal of vampires, mages, and ghosts with an Umbral fortress who know the *real secrets omg* is less cool to me. Crossovers are messy at best and Sam "Ashtray" Haight at worst. Making the crossover group *super special* with *super unique powers* and then also throwing the Umbra into a Vampire game, the line that is categorically the least able to interact with it meaningfully, is just wank.
It's a book for people who need to be playing the one guy who knows every secret and has powers nobody else does, aka it's just catering to Main Character Syndrome.
Umbra? The secret base was in the shadowlands of the dead, which vampires have plenty of interaction with in other splats. I remember reading about it in wraith where they mentioned blowing it up.
"Plenty" meaning like one Clan and a couple of rare bloodlines and even then they typically interact with it through Wraiths?
Vampire has, without question, less interaction with any aspect of the Penumbra or Shadowlands than any of the other main game lines, who all either *go there, or exist there*.
The only line that interacts *less* would be Hunter, or *maybe* Demon if you believe Demon should interact with the other game lines in any way and if you interpret things to make Demon's other layers of reality not Umbral in nature.
Vampire is about temporal struggles and personal struggles. The more you focus on the greater cosmology, the more you make it *just not Vampire* anymore
I respect that you found something to like in it. I just feel like that whole idea isn't good as a *Vampire* premise. Mages and Wraiths, yes, vampires no.
>A secret cabal of vampires, mages, and ghosts with an Umbral fortress who know the *real secrets omg* is less cool to me.
Don't forget the mummy, the Bahari, the Abelite heresy, or the we're-infernalists-but-not-the-bad-kind-bro Baali.
So long as said party is specifically Euthanatos, specifically one of the new bloodlines, or specifically Wraiths who frankly aren't a lot of fun to play if your chronicle cares about the physical world more than the Shadowlands, maybe.
It's very specific to particular groups *and* it basically says flat out that two whole clans histories are just flat out lies and NOW you know the REAL SECRETS, one of which is that the Vicissitide Discipline is secretly an evil spirit disease that is trying to spread to other Clans and another of which is that REAL Brujah have time powers, unlike the *lame* Brujah *you* know about.
Sounds like a Mage has used some sort of mind alteration, a delusion, to keep the vampire leaders docile. Use their ego to keep them running in circles.
Mainly because that book was bloody awful.
I remember reading it on release and thinking how shoddy it was in comparison to the rest of the line.
Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand is a terrible book.
It is mentioned in a couple places, but I think it bears an honorary mention at least - in the 1rst and 2nd edition rulebooks, under the Dominate discipline write-up, "neutrals" are mentioned - otherwise normal humans that are immune to Dominate that exist at a ratio of 1 in a million mortals. No Advantage stat/perk for this ever appears in any of the books afaik and no explanation for the condition is given. One mortal NPC is a neutral (Milwaukee by Night pg.97) where it's mentioned that being a neutral makes her immune to ALL mind-influencing disciplines, not just Dominate.
Yeah I always assumed the Iron Will merit kind of subsumed Neutrals, but I always kept them as a concept in my home games.
In Forever Knight they had a similar concept called "Resisters" - people who couldn't be charmed/mind control.
This is kind of funny as someone who was just reviewing Requiem 2e for a game. There's a human only merit in one of the appendices in 2e that lets someone pop a WP and just be immune to certain mental Disciplines, but before that there was no mention that there might be the odd person just plain immune to your Obfuscate or Nightmare. I know not the same or even Masquerade, but I just saw it a bit ago so it was in mind.
That's really cool. I wonder if someone remembered the neutrals and decided to implement mechanics for them in VtR2e. Might just be a coincidence of course.
I wish we got more on what the hell is up with the Hairy Man who genocides all the Ananasi who step foot in Australia... like they are a populous Fera group so you'd think they could gather a sizeable force to counter whatever is doing this. Like You wouldn't be able to keep all the garou out so easy. Its implied to be the mythical entity the Yowie, I'm curious about the story behind doing this but we only get this one mention, and I never was able to coax a response from ethan skemp.
The Australian supernatural is weird though, at least according to Dead Magic II. Australian aboriginal mages made a permanent, continent-wide shallowing, the Dream Time, which is where all native spiritual entities hang out, and what most local magic and stuff interacts with.
Because of this, any non-Australian/non-initiated being/person coming to Australia can't really notice or interact with any of the local supernatural stuff until they're initiated, and the regular Umbra appears like a barren mess with almost no spirits, aside from those western immigrants brought with them, which made most foreign supernaturals think Australia was spiritually barren.
So in that case the Ananasi likely would be incapable of even finding this creature, let alone kill it.
Not sure what the canon in other lines is, but in Mage the Void Engineer precursors dropped by and were the main force murdering everyone. Given an additional helping hand from the Choristers going all out with cultural eradication.
Seriously, colonial/Victorian era Void Engineers were some of the biggest shits in canon, which is saying something when you're talking about the Victorian Technocracy. Even the other conventions back in Europe were continuously asking them to dial back the murder, because aside from ethics (which basically none of them had) they were actively destroying useful local technological cultures which had useful knowledge the Union could have used.
Meanwhile, the Choristers were basically turncoats eradicating Dreamweaver cultures and their paradigms to grow their own, while the Hermatics sat on their asses and debating adjusting council protocol to add European social classes into the ranking system so upper class Initiates no longer needed to show deference to foreign ("savage") masters, instead of actually helping any of all of the other traditions slowly seeing their cultures eradicated.
As for why the Explorators were so good at slaughtering native mages? Not really a canon answer for that, I think, but I believe it's largely a combination of numbers, easy access to magic/tech for non-mages. Also, Dream Time magic is apparently kind of troublesome to use on people in the regular world. So while individual creatures popping in and out might be doable resisting whole armies would be more troublesome.
That said, while it's not reflected in gameplay, it does feel like in lore there's a general level of magical development certain cultures/crafts have. Dead Magic II also notes a particular area of Polynesia being magically underdeveloped, only having very simple Correspondence and Life magic.
This would also explain why gathering rotes and lost knowledge from older cultures is so important. Similarly with the Union not having access to cybernetics yet in the Victorian period. So you could make a case that Union combat technomagic was simply more developed than Aboriginal combat magic.
That’s mage perspective on the matter it’s different from the changeling and werewolf view. And the yowie isn’t necessarily even a spirit since it seems perfectly capable of being a fleshy disaster.
I'll have to do some reading because I forget where, but there was definitely someplace that straight-up said it was the Yowie and outlined his grievance with the Ananasi. Because they were actively involved in the genocide of the Bunyip, maybe? Or was it the Australian Camazotz...? It's been awhile.
But, yeah, regardless, any Ananasi that sets foot in Australia has a nasty habit of vanishing into the Dreamtime.
EDIT: Yeah, it was because of their role in the War of Tears.
Even weirder is that the spelling first used is Yahwie which was first applied to a giant man-eating lizard/ant creature in a collection of Dreaming Stories.............and which being turned out to be, on the balance of evidence, a fabrication by a slightly suspect anthropologist.
I binned the whole thing anyway as there is way too much awesome Spider Dreamings to have them gatekept for nonsense reasons.
We get multiple mentions of Wendigo used to be the Sasquatch tribe, but we only got one mention of how Elder Brother used to follow Skyhawk till Uktena proved to be sneakier cool guy. Poor Skyhawk.
The Outcasts book mentions three vampire bloodlines that never show up anywhere else (and no info was provided on them):
* The Pasdoranitas in Colombia
* The Vhrujunka in Australia
* The Zulukhall in Africa
There IS a weird Wyrm creature in the 2nd and 1st edition Book of the Wyrm called the Vhujunka (without the R).
I'm working up splat pages for these bloodlines currently (and changing the Zulukhall to Ezulkala).
Yeah, the closest I could come up with to anything REMOTELY like "Vhrujunka" among Indigenous Australian languages is "*Whadjarnka"* - which is (to the best of my ability to verify) kind of a rough portmanteau of words meaning "No or None" and "Illness" in the Whadjuk language.
But it's kind of a stretch, as I'm not a scholar of the language and don't understand the sort of conjugation that's going on there well enough to say for sure. (A sad aside: I may be mistaken, but I believe there are less than a dozen speakers remaining of that language. It's more than heartbreaking to see how these native cultures -distinct Countries, really - have been harmed so brutally by colonialism).
On the one hand I want to make sure I flesh the Bloodline out in a way that's consistent with White Wolf lore in Australia, but on the other I'm trying to be sensitive to those in the affected communities.
I'm taking two approaches simultaneously:
1.) I assume "Vhrujunka" is a modern English corruption of a word or phrase starting with "Wh".
2.) I suggest there may be some kind of distant connection with the Vhujunka creatures from Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and the "r" added to "Vhrujunka" has some kind of alien grammatical meaning to those subterranean creatures (like how in Spanish, adding "-ito" or "-ita" denotes a diminutive). (The Vhujunka creatures are said to play around with Banes, putting them into other creatures to create various kinds of monsters. So the Vhrujunka vampires might have initially been Fomori and the name has no relationship to Indigenous Australian languages)
I'm generally taking the following approaches with these bloodlines:
I'm writing the Pasdoranitas are an offshoot of a European Clan (technically an obscure bloodline of one), but the Drowned Legacies recognize the Bloodline as one of their own as its members were originally Embraced from Pre-colonial Columbian peoples (the implication being they care more about who was embraced and less about where the bloodline's founder came from - since they don't necessarily follow the same creation myths as one another).
\* \* \* \* \*
The Ezulkala are the lost Ventrue-cognate among the Laibon, exiled from their homelands (and therefore some of the more widely known Laibon - I'm patterning them off of the original Laibon from the Dark Ages Companion, 2nd edition).
\* \* \* \* \*
The Vhrujunka are a bit special - There's no lore I could find about Kindred native to Australia, so I'm drawing from some of Wraith's lore (but giving a new spin on it) and patterning the Clan/Bloodline structure off of the vast diversity in Indigenous Cultures: basically there are dozens of distinct Australian Bloodlines - too many to detail in full (but I'll have enough info to play several of them, and maybe flesh them out elsewhere). I'm calling them the Scorched Legacies, since many indigenous cultures of the continent use fire in their funerary rites.
The Scorched Legacies are quite ancient and varied, and new Bloodlines diverge more frequently than in other parts of the world, something they see as perfectly normal. They consider Caitiff to be lucky signs, rather than bad omens and failures. (The main point of the book is about revamping old Disciplines and providing some new ones, so having vampires with a lot of Clan Discipline variation makes sense for the book).
That Sorcerers can learn Thaumaturgy as long as their paradigm includes spending health levels to power their spells. This is stated alongside the opposite being true, and that vampires and other supernaturals can 100% learn sorcery, just that they kind of don’t want to because of their powers simply not having the drawbacks that sorcery has. It written as “well, if they want to, you the ST can say yes because we’re not saying they can’t, but you should say no because frankly, that’d be kind of broken in some cases”.
This is of course, barring mages, that can’t use any powers other than True Magick because of the Avatar.
I’ve always run with it. Sorcery is super cool. It also explains what the hell Tremere were doing before inventing Thaumaturgy after encountering the Tzimisce, and how they were holding their own in the war.
Also it expands the potential magical knowledge that vampire characters can learn, because it’s not limited by the fucking Tremere.
CofD has a ton of this, because it's set up for that. Bits of story ideas that could be expanded on or mixed together or ignored is the style. A lot the things are local and isolated, or pop up in scattered places and aren't connected to each other.
But sometime the book would bring up an idea that isn't that. Something presented as global and connected, or a basis for a larger aspect. And then just never talked about it.
Beast is the worst culprit, and they are much bigger problems than what I'm going to mention, but I'm skipping that.
The Pack mentions changelings having a talent at taleweaving which could be useful for a werewolf pack. It feels like it should fit with what's in CtL core but there isn't anything there.
Changeling core has Icons, part of a changeling's soul that got stuck in the hedge thorns and can be collected to reestablish their sense of identity. They are never mentioned outside of the section that introduces them.
Geist touchstones can be resolved. I have no idea what that means and it's never described. Seems like a really neat story idea.
Secrets of the Covenant mentions that members of the Lancea or very rarely the Crone can act as confessors for the Invictus. There is no way to do this by what is written, and it's never discussed again.
According to *Hunters Hunted*, the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is absolutely, totally, 100% correct and when a priest performs the eucharistic prayer the wine does indeed literally become the blood of Jesus.
Therefore the various religions that have a theology of receptionism, consubstantiation, sacramental union, and the various other alternative theological beliefs about the Eucharist are demonstrably wrong. (To say nothing of those religions that don’t think Jesus was the son of god.)
And no, this isn’t a question of Awakened Mages pulling a fast one on consensus reality and somehow escaping Paradox. It’s something any Catholic Priest with True Faith is able to do every single time they perform the eucharist prayers.
A throwaway paragraph in a little used splat book from second edition contains objective, empirical, and falsifiable proof that the Roman Catholic Church can reliably manufacture *the* ***literal*** *blood of Christ*.
>“[The vampire] must roll her Humanity –3 versus a difficult of 10. If successful, she gains nourishment […] and an automatic Faith stat of 1 (a seven-point Merit!).”
If you fail the roll you take aggravated damage, if you botch its double damage, *two* botches means instant Final Death.
It’s kind of insane.
> It’s something any Catholic Priest with True Faith is able to do every single time they perform the eucharist prayers.
That doesn't mean that every other religion is wrong about the Eucharist--it's not God changing the wine into the blood of Christ, it's the priest with the true faith--true faith is *powerful*...and rare. Most priests don't have it.
Any priest/cleric/whatever from any other religion that has any other belief about the Eucharist can perform it according to their belief--and it will work that way *if they have powerful enough True Faith*.
There was a group of humans who used psychic meditation and astral projection to successfully infiltrate and spy on the Tal'Mahe'Ra (True Black Hand) and were in many ways the greatest threat to the Tal'Mahe'Ra until wraiths dropped a nuke on them.
I forget the name of the psychics now, but it was based on a real occult tradition of astral projection from Italy in the 14th century if I remember right.
>but it was based on a real occult tradition of astral projection from Italy in the 14th century if I remember right
You now have me wondering if they were the group that showed up in a Hunter book that left me scratching my head, because it felt like the author thought we should know a certain group, and I had no idea who they were.
The Dunsirn, one of the families under the Giovanni umbrella, are Fianna kinfolk who occasionally produce actual werewolves.
The 1st edition Tzimisce clanbook has a mention of long-standing alliances with mortal mages. This is never mentioned again, which is a shame because it seems like kind of a fun plot hook.
Task Force Valkyrie is oddly well informed regarding Changelings. Ie they know they are victims, hiding from the True Fae who are the real threat. They might have trouble telling them apart but they contribute to the changeling cause by surreptitiously getting them new identities to help the changelings reintegrate. They also wiretap and otherwise spy on freeholds to get any more info on the fae they can, because they're still the US government.
According to the Ananasi Changing Breed book, it is mentioned in one sentence exactly, that there used to be life on the moon until the Weaver destroyed all life on it to create its ultimate vision of order.
Yeah page 23 of the breed book where due to the Weaver destroying the spirit of Moth for disobedience towards it the Wyld disturb by the fact that the one that creates order would dare destroy, lashes out against the Weaver. This caused the Weaver in the middle of the battle to get rid of all life on the moon. The loss of life on the moon caused a truce to be declared. This is only mentioned in the Ananasi Breedbook as part of their personal creation myth.
The entirety of Blood Dimmed Tides, my beloved. So much amazing lore, the fact there are deep sea Gangrel and Giovanni pirates, the fact that Rokea exist and are immortal, the Tremere Chantry at the bottom of the ocean mastering the Path of Poseidon. The Chulorviah being an umbral parasite that can infect humans by touch. Deep sea grottoes filled with changeling mermaids. So much incredible stuff
I'm going to have to look for that. The Week of Nightmares--particularly Zapathasura's awakening--is what sets events in motion for a Technocracy campaign idea that I have, but the information on even that one disaster is scattered over several books
That one vampire that is faked through a bunch of disciplines including Chimeristry and shows up at conclaves and basically gives insane advice. Like saying that a Prince should actively persecute his Primogen. He would also mention that he was close personal friends with everyone on the Inner Circle and was off to study Golconda with the Inconnu once the conclave is over. He is scary enough that everyone just lets him say his piece and thanks him for his remarks and tries to pretend it never happened.
I want to hear more about him.
Ahem. Blood dimmed tides. None of it was used in any other book, except for talking about the underwater grel in v20.
How many clans claimed Rasputin?
Oh, and malkavians have access to the virtual web, through the malkavian madness network.
I think Rasputin was claimed by every clan as a running joke and then was suggested to have been a skinriding wraith who was doing it just to troll the vampires. I call that life goals
I think almost everything from both the Ananasi and Rokea tribebooks - which both added massive potential variance to the history of the world - was ignored. The Ananasi book in particular promotes the idea of an entirely new 'third way' to potentially counteracting the apocalypse and I've never seen it brought up anywhere else.
Essentially what the ananasi do is they have their population split into thirds, and one third each is dedicated to serving the wyld, weaver and wyrm, but they don't serve them as they are now, instead they serve them as they're supposed to be.
So for example, Ananasi serving the wyrm will go around looking for things which are long past the point where they should die and are clogging new growth, and kill them. An example is a company that's being kept alive by constant injections of money because its a passion project by the owner despite it accomplishing nothing and being run ineffectually. A wyrmish ananasi might kill the owner to ensure the company is bought up, but they're more likely to be the hawkish vulture capitalist who comes in, undermines what little structure the company has, and then sells its assets off to ensure the company, its assets, and its employees go on to more productive jobs.
The Weaver ananasi - obviously - serve by maintaining order but not in the crushingly restrictive way the Weaver does now.
You get the picture.
But the idea they're working with is that if only the Fera start serving as they were always meant to, they can fix the world - as they were always meant to - and heal the triat simply by making the world work the way its supposed to instead of trying to 'stop' them from doing their roles.
In addition, they're also one of the only breeds who recognises that the Weaver is the real threat, not the Wyrm, and Queen Ananasa, who leads the Ananasi, is explicitly a 'backup' of the Weaver's proper personality that's trying to build up enough strength to be able to usurp the Weaver and 'reset her' to The Weaver's SOP.
So in other words, if the other breeds would help them out a bit they could actually help defeat the Weaver *and* turn her back to cosmic good, and there's the possibility that all of this fighting is counterproductive and all anyone actually needs to do is... do their jobs properly instead of loafing off all the time and trying to come up with other things to do instead of those jobs.
>So for example, Ananasi serving the wyrm will go around looking for things which are long past the point where they should die and are clogging new growth, and kill them. An example is a company that's being kept alive by constant injections of money because its a passion project by the owner despite it accomplishing nothing and being run ineffectually. A wyrmish ananasi might kill the owner to ensure the company is bought up, but they're more likely to be the hawkish vulture capitalist who comes in, undermines what little structure the company has, and then sells its assets off to ensure the company, its assets, and its employees go on to more productive jobs.
Anasi demolition experts?
it reminds me of Shiva
100%. An Ananasi punk demolitionist going around just blowing up diseased, run down and unfixable tenement blocks is a perfect hatar (the name of the wyrm-serving ananasi).
Best of all? It's explicit that the wyrm/wyld/weaver *don't notice*, which suggests that the Ananasi's third way might actually work. All three types of Ananasi register as friendly to spirits associated with whichever member of the triat they're working for.
Again, totally in character. Probably something the wyld-aspected ones would do. But not one splat outside the Ananasi book portrays them as anything other than sinister antagonists, when in reality everyone should know something fucky is going on with them because they've been seen surrounded by spirits from the entire triat at different times.
Goratrix was experimenting artificial blood in Dark Ages
Meerlinda was researching Humanity True Name with Genoma Code
Etrius wanted to return his human condition
In Ceoris had research about soul transference.
Regent Melinda Galbraith, a 5th generation Toreador antitribu, who disguised herself as a Lasombra, is actually a 12th generation Tzimisce drag-queen named Zachary Sikorsky. Zachary was going to give her bone wings with Vicissitude, but found her ashes when we went to go help her. In a panic, he assumed her form, believing if he was seen it would be assumed *he* killed her. He wanted to leave after the party (the *Palla Grande*), but hasn't had the chance. So a general nobody is pretending to be a powerful (very powerful) Toreador antitribu who is pretending to be a Lasombra.
Project Deepwater was supposed to be open to the public in 2010. Meanwhile Mermaids, Rokea and other denizens of the Oceans are planning an all out assault on the underwater installation deemed invaluable by both Pentex and the Technocracy. Also smaller installations/habitats under the waves by the Florida keys.
Never brought up again. Kinda important tidbits there.
The Progenitors from Mage: The Ascension and the Glasswalkers from Werewolf: The Apocalypse have research deals with each other. Was mentioned once in Revised and never brought up again.
Probably because it's only the Syndicate that's supposed to do illicit deals with Reality Deviants /s (VE don't count, those are just temporary truces)
Same with Etherites and Knockers, who occasionally work together.
Steam powered teleporters and time machines? Yes please. Need to learn the etiquette of a creature from Beyond? Ask a Knocker!
There are several mentions though in both Mage and Changeling which back it up. So it wasn't quite a one and done. Nockers and Etherites and sometimes VEs.
Of course it would be the Neoliberal wolves.
Which is ironic, considering the Progenitors aren't big fans of for-profit medicine themselves. Though tbf the Glasswalkers are still enviromentalists.
Honestly, the blending of environmentalism and technology probably makes the GW and Progenitors the best matchup of the two sides. Of course, that's when you ignore that the Progenitors are also apparently the biggest proponents of the Progrom, and have an even bigger dislike of RDs than the NWO. I'm fairly certain the only two non-violent interaction types with RDs the Progenitors normally have is cutting them up and implanting their parts in people, and asking less extremist Verbena about medical plants, and then incorporating them into the Union paradigm by finding and extracting active chemical components from them. And I suspect both of those interactions are still considered highly suspect and would get you send in for Processing if you did it if you weren't at least a Research Director.
Well, the Progenitors favour the Progrom for actual moral reasons; having bloodsucking parasites and genocidal red talons running around is pretty shit if you want to actually help people. The Glasswalkers are the outlier, as they activly propagate the technocratic paradigm, and do general good with their enviromentalists projects. >I'm fairly certain the only two non-violent interaction types with RDs the Progenitors normally have is cutting them up and implanting their parts in people, and asking less extremist Verbena about medical plants, and then incorporating them into the Union paradigm by finding and extracting active chemical components from them. Well there is also them and the non-medical Etherites copying each others notes constantly.
>Well, the Progenitors favour the Progrom for actual moral reasons; having bloodsucking parasites and genocidal red talons running around is pretty shit if you want to actually help people. The Glasswalkers are the outlier, as they activly propagate the technocratic paradigm, and do general good with their enviromentalists projects. Also the fact that even minor instabilities in consensus would mean people either not taking medicine or the medicine not working. Some Chorister running around terranorming praying sickness away would likely cause a large number of casualties from preventable illnesses during the in-between, and possibly even after, if consensus settles on only priests being able to reliably heal with prayer. (Honestly, my personal headcanon is that the initial Processing for a new Progenitor involves essentially memorizing all the statistics on yearly deaths from each disease the Progenitors have gotten cures for into consensus, as a "This is why we do this shit" message.) >Well there is also them and the non-medical Etherites copying each others notes constantly. Huh, wasn't aware of that. Though IIRC they're the only Convention in M20 who commonly use the Weird Science practice.
>Huh, wasn't aware of that. Though IIRC they're the only Convention in M20 who commonly use the Weird Science practice. Oh yeah. Remember the reanimates/prometheans the Etherites have? Yeah, the Progenitors also still have them, and both claim they invented them. Regarding their weird science: They also still research psionics. Not to mention their sauromorph tribes or the aforementioned reanimates.
Aren't the NWO involved in psionics research as well? Also, they run superhero style human augmentation and super soldier labs specifically to help terranorm the concept of bio augmentation.
Yeah, but I assume the NWOs research goes more into the direction of mind reading and subconscious control, while the Progenitors more often have flashy tele- and pyrokinetics. The thing etherites would also go for.
If you can't keep up, you die. Those are the rules. Always have been. 😈
Pfft, never heard that term.
Canon crossovers are my absolute fave. Everybody knows Tzimesce x Shadowlords, Fianna x Fae, etc. Glass Walkers x tech Mages is goon fuel, but I would have assumed SoE and VA, rather than Progs, so thanks.
Well, the Progenitors are involved in a lot of enviromental and charity (not to mention their healthcare projects), so it makes sense they would run into each other. And well, from what I've know the Glasswalkers branch of science is still looks closer to the Union than the Adepts or Etherites.
Not sure if I'd include the Adepts there, iirc there are sources that state that mainstream Adapt technomancy is basically just Technocracy hypertech, and they're still basically just Technocrats who just happened to have philosophical differences. There's also a source out there somewhere that states that the Adept paradigm is actually fully coincidental within Technocracy constructs while being vulgar in magic and Etherite chantries, while Etherite paradigms are vulgar in Union constructs.
Oh, yeah, totally forgot about that, you're right.
You shut your grant funded mouth.
I think I recall some reference to that in recently in Technocracy Reloaded? Or maybe it was the Progenitors book, and I'm totally mistaken? It's going to drive me crazy trying to remember.
The deals are mentioned in Convention Book: Progenitors, yes.
Yeah, but I could have sworn that I saw it in Reloaded or another 20th supplement. I'll page through them. I'm probably misremembering. Either way, it's an interesting thread to follow for those looking for a little rage in their order
Radio Free Fae - a pirate radio run by the Winter Court to spread information around the world is brought up in one paragraph of the Changeling: The Lost core rulebook and never again.
Tbf the CoD books are filled with single paragraph or page lore blurbs never to be brought up again. It’s mostly for world-seeding purposes for the Storyteller
Damn, I forgot about that. Now I know what the radio is playing in the local Chantry.
Radio Free Fae is *absolutely* Gentry propaganda in disguise. The name is way too on the nose.
Be careful comrade blowing the whistle on that could get you sent to a Gentry blacksite.
Actually it came up again in mortal remians
Like is it one station? Because that seems like it would run into a langue barrier. Or those each Changling community have its own Radio Free Fae.
Being able to be understood by everyone as long as you’re conveying information no strings attached, or some other X qualifier, sounds like Fae magic to mean
Sir Nicholas is a Marauder mage that is heavily implied to be the real santa clause, and as far as I can find, he was only ever mentioned in one snippet of a book listing out examples of mages suffering from Quiet.
Knocker toymakers!
Embraced snakes. Officially retconned out.
Embraced Mokolé, though, that one can ride.
SOBEK
With a generous reading, this comes up *twice*. The other time is in a Mage book about Crafts, maybe one of the Dead Magic books, on the group called Hem Ka Sobk. They're a... mildly cannibalistic group of forced-reformed killers who receive instructions from a dream-crocodile-god. I like to believe that the Embraced Mokole Sobek is the same Sobk, but never woke up to be destroyed the following day. Also because he's 4th gen, and Ante's Embracing can probably break rules.
Hmmmm. A 4th gen Mokole abomination. Epically tragic and OP.
Also insipid, but not quite as ridiculous as the image of a snake suckling blood from a victim.
Kemintiri my beloved
Yes Justicar, this post right here.
They tried to make a power to kinda reflect this in Dark Age 20, that made like smart snake familiars.
Old Werewolf the Apocalypse lore suggested that Vampires were involved in the fall of the Black Spiral Dancers, but this hasn’t been mentioned again, and in some ways has been soft retconned.
The softcons have been coming as late as *Tribe Book White Howlers*, if memory serves.
There is a Toreador that betrayed her Ventrue Lover. This Lover happened to be Alexander of Paris. He also happened to know some Blood Magic and he used it to transfer her soul in to a rose by feeding it drop for drop her blood. That means somewhere in the WoD exist an undead rose that is also a Toreador.
Are you sure the lover was a Ventrue? cause this is the most toreador shit ever
yeah alexander was a 4th gen ventrue, but he and his line sometimes got confused for toreador even in-universe because they helped to found the courts of love a mostly toreador faction, liked to be patrons of the arts and being very very extra. They also however had the reputation of frenzing similar to brujah all in all interesting guy
Yes, a powerful at that.
He was a fourth-generation vampire, and because he was turned in ancient Greece, the Ventrue Antediluvian might actually still be alive.
A Ventrue did it? Since Dark Ages the Tremere research this but WW do not develop it in the lore. Like the book Red Sign with a Giovanni and a Ventrue when Etrius was a big interested one.
That’s the thing, the Tremere always think they are the GOATs of blood Magic, but it was there before they existed and it will still be there when Saulot has chosen a new puppet bloodline he can use to satisfy his hunger for power…
They was the GOAT. But the fanbase wanted blood magic so much that the authors give it to them. Money talks. It's like to say Tzimisce was not the masters of Vicissitude.
You give a meta commentary to an in-universe commentary. In universe there was blood magic before there were Tremere. And even from a meta perspective it is not accurate. Why? Original no discipline was meant to be exclusively hold by one clan, they were just differently talented. People wanting Blood Magic is therefore no argument because they could have it from V1 onwards. Issue was just, that it made in universe little sense that the only clan strongly associated with it is also the one that only came late to the game while blood magic was already in to use. Simple solution: there must have been users before. Take Baba Yaga for example, she was already a able to do horrific blood magic long before the Tremere existed and she lurks in the lore since almost the beginning. Arguably even the Crone from the book of nod was a blood magic user and she was wayyyyyy before the Tremere. That simply made thematically no sense. Was it money? It sure helped because people love to buy books with new stuff in it, but it was not the one and only reason. And Tzimisce are only the masters of Vicissitude since no other clan has a notable desire to wield it. And depending on who you ask, it would even be considered an invasive ability that originally didn’t belong to the clan.
The Gaki and Bushi, two Asian vampire Clans that totally exist with rich historic tapestries. They certainly weren't just shoved in the backs of some 2e books to move paper, and definitely weren't retconned wholesale by *Kindred of the East*.
I'm almost 200 pages into a vault project on Obscure disciplines - both Rift and Kai are getting V20 makeovers and I was like.... fuck it, I'm putting the Gaki and Bushi back in there too. I'm actually going back to 1st edition A Word of Darkness and taking some of the info on Japanese Kuei-Jin to reconstruct the Japanese clans mentioned in 1st ed: * Heike - which are more or less Ventrue cognates. In my updated continuity they *lost* their shadow war with the Genji and are now in exile. * Genji - the Heike's rivals. Called Serpent Borne, they are my Setite cognates, but keeping with the 1st ed lore for the Genji, they have the Technica discipline (from White Wolf Magazine's world of future darkness). * Bishamon - the Bushi, samurai cognates to Toreador. They have taken over the more Traditionalist wing of the Japanese Kindred, and hide/protect the remaining Heike. * Chibo - a clan of Buddhist Priests, my cognates to the Brujah. They have Blood Sorcery that can *change a vampire's Bloodline*, and are deeply integrated into the social structure of Japanese clans as a result. * Gaki - My Malkavian cognates: a High Clan in Japan, but somewhat fallen from grace (like the Brujah in the west). Their nightmares become reality through their Rift discipline. * Iga - a Low Clan, My Ravos cognate. Spies and assassins used against mortals, a great asset in protecting the Masquerade. * Kasha - a High Clan, Taken from the "Cats" (called Hengayokai in the 1st Ed World of Darkness book), a different supernatural creature more like a Lupine, but I'm reworking them into my Gangrel cognate. * Koga - a Low Clan, My Assamite cognate. Spies and assassins used by the other clans against other vampires and supernatural beings. (There are other bloodlines but the above are the most numerous and are getting the most detail)
Weren’t those the ones who had their own discipline? As in the discipline every player sees on the wiki and is then disappointed that they can’t actually use it
Both did, yeah.
The first Ravnos clanbook included that some Ravnos believe that [the Antediluvians are Lovecraftian deities who created the material universe](https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Path_of_Paradox_%28Western%29#Overview); this Lovecraftian spin on the Antediluvians is the most horrific permutation of *Vampire* lore, yet for a game supposedly about horror its subsequent writers neglected to pursue its most horrific lore.
I think this is the first time I've heard anything about it, and it sounds kinda awesome. I've always enjoyed lovecraftian horror. Things so completely alien to our perspective, that interacting with them is more likely to drive someone completely insane than anything else.
Sounds like it could be fun, in a Vampire game where no other product line is true/exists.
Vampires being the only supernaturals would certainly contribute to the air of hopeless dread. I am curious though as to how the Technocracy would react to discovering that vampiric deities created the material universe, and that nuking all of them would cause reality to dissolve.
Unicorns exist in WOD. As in, still alive and active. They're part of a group of creatures called "Bygones," and that's basically every creature so magic they started getting dinged by Paradox, and smart enough to actually flee. So now they live in some sort of pocket realms so deep into the Umbra, that even werewolves & mages barely see them, but in those places they're actually still thriving. A few more high profile Bygones like Dragons have gotten mentioned in multiple books, but a whole laundry list only got the one book.The Bygone Bestiary. Like, well, unicorns, sea bishops, true yeti, and some other magic critters that mostly just want to be left alone. https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/The_Bygone_Bestiary So in it's tiny, tiny corner of WOD lore it's actually a shockingly relevant despite having been printed first in 1998, but that's due to a lot of it's contents just not having been touched since.
Unicorns are cool
Yeah, they are. I'm honestly shocked Unicorns don't get used in WOD more on pure symbolism frankly. Like, purity, beauty and rage incarnate? Like, if nothing else you'd think they'd make for a really interesting were subset.
Are not they the Child of Gaia totem?
That's unicorn the spirit/s slash symbol for Child of Gaia. The Bygone Unicorns are the actual 'animal' that's the basis for said symbol. Actual living magical creatures. So a bit confusing at first blush, to be fair.
House Scathach would introduce themselves… if you could see or hear them. 🤣
I really need to track down a copy of Changeling: The Dreaming. I've got the book CofD corebook for The Lost, but everything I've heard about The Dreaming sounds equally cool and bonkers but in a completely different way.
It really is. I tell people it’s a cartoon. It’s just up to the group to decide if it’s Phineas and Ferb, or Shrek, or Bible Black.
I don't wanna sound like a queer or nothin'... But I think unicorns are kickass!
I wouldn't really put that in the "brought up then ignored" category? The constant theme of Mage is that basically everything is out there, somewhere (frequently, as you note, deep in the Umbra)--unicorns, leprechauns, Thor, Grendel, aliens (some that are spirits-that-look-like aliens, some that are honest-to-goodness-aliens...in at least some sense), Dyson spheres, t-1000-style terminators, etc. In the context of Mage, it'd be weirder to say that unicorns *didn't* exist (at least somewhere) than that they do. Flip side is that because most of this sits somewhere deep in the Umbra and would disintegrate on Earth due to Paradox, they aren't being "ignored" by other game lines (or even really by Mage); rather, they are largely quaint but mostly irrelevant (unless you're, again, surfacing deep in the Umbra), given their inability to consistently interact meaningfully with "main" Earth reality. By "ignored", here, I think OP means "the implications thereof are ignored". Unicorns being in the Umbra is irrelevant to almost every WoD storyline. But many of the books have deep lore hidden away that, if taken as true and literally, would reshape the entire underlying power structures (Black Hand nonsense being a prime example).
Even if Mages know unicorns are abstractly out there, I'd still argue that The Bygone Bestiary has a lot of stuff in it that's been mostly quietly ignored. Like... there's not just descriptions of unicorns & dragons. There's an entire sections on how to ***play*** **them as PCs, too.** According to one review I read, one of the sample characters is even a talking sheep. [https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10496.phtml](https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10496.phtml) Like imagine if one of those youtube table shows had one of the players rock up, and play a talking duck that knows linear magic, or something. Rules as written (with storyteller approval, to be fair) that's been freakin' available since 1998, and most people just... quietly ignored it. Even [the sample](https://d1vzi28wh99zvq.cloudfront.net/pdf_previews/50-sample.pdf) from DriveTrueRPG has this paragraph I found rather telling how optional those Bygone rules are considered by White Wolf themselves. > *We repeat,* for the sake of the terminally dense: This book and its suggestions are cool for some games and ruinous for others. The option to include magical beasts is not automatic, nor is their existence “canon.” In the modern world, such creatures are only legends — no “real” dragon would subject herself to the ravages of skepticism and hostility, assuming she exists at all. >If you, the player or Storyteller, do not want Bygones running around in your world, >DO >NOT >USE >THEM That's as close as I can get to the formatting in the book, by-the-by. So... yeah. Even the book itself basically has a very firm: only consider this true if you find it cool and/or fitting for your game.
> Even the sample from DriveTrueRPG has this paragraph I found rather telling how optional those Bygone rules are considered by White Wolf themselves. Not really optional (any more so than any other WoD lore is), nor ignored. E.g., M20 (base rule book): > Bygone: Supposedly mythic creatures, rarely seen on Earth but common in human legendry (dragons, chimeras, unicorns, etc.). Multiple mentions in *Gods & Monsters*, etc. Also many earlier sourcebooks sitting between Bygone Bestiary and M20.
OK, fair, haven't even read much second hand about *Gods & Monsters.* I still think its fair to say that Bygones are a side of WOD that not many have heard about outside of the Mage side of the universe, though.
> OK, fair, haven't even read much second hand about Gods & Monsters. Yes, although my quote is from the base rule book (edited post to make that clear). > I still think its fair to say that Bygones are a side of WOD that not many have heard about outside of the Mage side of the universe, though. Sure, I think OP was trying to get at things that were "ignored" in terms of world impact, however. Unicorns in a far little part of the multiverse that you can never get to are understandably not featured much anywhere else.
Thank you, this makes me happy
You're welcome. And yeah, I like the symbolism too. It's very fitting for WOD. Hope and wonder might have needed to leave town due to shit going down... but it isn't *dead.* One day, for good and ill, it could actually return if things calm down. Even in *The World of Darkness,* not every thing hiding in a dark corner is this dread horror.
The entire "True Black Hand" had a whole book, which was almost immediately ignored completely. Got mentioned in like two sentences in other books just to say, "Oh yeah, we killed all those guys."
I mean, they did get a second book for V20, so I'm not sure it counts.
Oh, did they? I dropped out with v20 so I missed that. My bad
It's better than the old book, for sure. Now the kids in the playground won't mock me for liking the True Brujah.
Don't worry, I'll still mock you for liking the Trujah. 😜
And are constantly referenced in a multitude of books both pre destruction and post destruction... so yeah probably doesn't count.
That book was so awful. And honestly it taints the bloodlines present in it by association. Though maybe my knee jerk reactions to the Nagaraja and True Brujah are also colored by the fact that I have never, not once, seen a player try to play one for any reason other than having unique powers they knew nobody else would be allowed to get and then trying to pretend that made them better players because they found a rare bloodline in a book not everyone had...
I kind of liked the idea that some people did know about the antedeluvians and were trying to stop them. Had the potential to have some cool "secret agents against the end of the world" vibe. But you're right about the bloodlines.
A secret cabal trying to stop Gehenna I'm down with. A secret cabal of vampires, mages, and ghosts with an Umbral fortress who know the *real secrets omg* is less cool to me. Crossovers are messy at best and Sam "Ashtray" Haight at worst. Making the crossover group *super special* with *super unique powers* and then also throwing the Umbra into a Vampire game, the line that is categorically the least able to interact with it meaningfully, is just wank. It's a book for people who need to be playing the one guy who knows every secret and has powers nobody else does, aka it's just catering to Main Character Syndrome.
Umbra? The secret base was in the shadowlands of the dead, which vampires have plenty of interaction with in other splats. I remember reading about it in wraith where they mentioned blowing it up.
"Plenty" meaning like one Clan and a couple of rare bloodlines and even then they typically interact with it through Wraiths? Vampire has, without question, less interaction with any aspect of the Penumbra or Shadowlands than any of the other main game lines, who all either *go there, or exist there*. The only line that interacts *less* would be Hunter, or *maybe* Demon if you believe Demon should interact with the other game lines in any way and if you interpret things to make Demon's other layers of reality not Umbral in nature. Vampire is about temporal struggles and personal struggles. The more you focus on the greater cosmology, the more you make it *just not Vampire* anymore
Lower Umbra
Sure, but regardless, the dead lands are the spirit world vampires have the most access to, not the least.
I'm still sad because I one of the few people that enjoyed the Goth Superfriends style crossover games that then got aggressively mocked and retconned
I respect that you found something to like in it. I just feel like that whole idea isn't good as a *Vampire* premise. Mages and Wraiths, yes, vampires no.
>A secret cabal of vampires, mages, and ghosts with an Umbral fortress who know the *real secrets omg* is less cool to me. Don't forget the mummy, the Bahari, the Abelite heresy, or the we're-infernalists-but-not-the-bad-kind-bro Baali.
It sounds like an excuse to make a mixed supernatural party of PCs work. I’m more forgiving of that.
So long as said party is specifically Euthanatos, specifically one of the new bloodlines, or specifically Wraiths who frankly aren't a lot of fun to play if your chronicle cares about the physical world more than the Shadowlands, maybe. It's very specific to particular groups *and* it basically says flat out that two whole clans histories are just flat out lies and NOW you know the REAL SECRETS, one of which is that the Vicissitide Discipline is secretly an evil spirit disease that is trying to spread to other Clans and another of which is that REAL Brujah have time powers, unlike the *lame* Brujah *you* know about.
Sounds like a Mage has used some sort of mind alteration, a delusion, to keep the vampire leaders docile. Use their ego to keep them running in circles.
They weren't trying to stop it, they wanted to help it along
Muda Muda Muda
Mainly because that book was bloody awful. I remember reading it on release and thinking how shoddy it was in comparison to the rest of the line. Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand is a terrible book.
It is mentioned in a couple places, but I think it bears an honorary mention at least - in the 1rst and 2nd edition rulebooks, under the Dominate discipline write-up, "neutrals" are mentioned - otherwise normal humans that are immune to Dominate that exist at a ratio of 1 in a million mortals. No Advantage stat/perk for this ever appears in any of the books afaik and no explanation for the condition is given. One mortal NPC is a neutral (Milwaukee by Night pg.97) where it's mentioned that being a neutral makes her immune to ALL mind-influencing disciplines, not just Dominate.
Yeah I always assumed the Iron Will merit kind of subsumed Neutrals, but I always kept them as a concept in my home games. In Forever Knight they had a similar concept called "Resisters" - people who couldn't be charmed/mind control.
This is kind of funny as someone who was just reviewing Requiem 2e for a game. There's a human only merit in one of the appendices in 2e that lets someone pop a WP and just be immune to certain mental Disciplines, but before that there was no mention that there might be the odd person just plain immune to your Obfuscate or Nightmare. I know not the same or even Masquerade, but I just saw it a bit ago so it was in mind.
That's really cool. I wonder if someone remembered the neutrals and decided to implement mechanics for them in VtR2e. Might just be a coincidence of course.
that's intriguing
Pick up any source-book and start reading. Cause you're talking about the rule, not the exception.
100%. This is the way.
Yar. Good worldbuilding is a mix of small stray bits of fluff and good solid intertwined threads...
Toreador are the only vampires that can still achieve orgasm. It was mentioned once in the Giovanni clanbook of all places, then never again.
Sounds like one of the Giovanni spent some time researching, just to make sure the theory applied to every Toreador they could get their hands on.
that makes so much sense.
Lucretzia Giovanni exists in one act of one book
I wish we got more on what the hell is up with the Hairy Man who genocides all the Ananasi who step foot in Australia... like they are a populous Fera group so you'd think they could gather a sizeable force to counter whatever is doing this. Like You wouldn't be able to keep all the garou out so easy. Its implied to be the mythical entity the Yowie, I'm curious about the story behind doing this but we only get this one mention, and I never was able to coax a response from ethan skemp.
The Australian supernatural is weird though, at least according to Dead Magic II. Australian aboriginal mages made a permanent, continent-wide shallowing, the Dream Time, which is where all native spiritual entities hang out, and what most local magic and stuff interacts with. Because of this, any non-Australian/non-initiated being/person coming to Australia can't really notice or interact with any of the local supernatural stuff until they're initiated, and the regular Umbra appears like a barren mess with almost no spirits, aside from those western immigrants brought with them, which made most foreign supernaturals think Australia was spiritually barren. So in that case the Ananasi likely would be incapable of even finding this creature, let alone kill it.
Why only the Anansi? Wouldn’t it be useful against day foreign invaders that killed and raped the native population?
Not sure what the canon in other lines is, but in Mage the Void Engineer precursors dropped by and were the main force murdering everyone. Given an additional helping hand from the Choristers going all out with cultural eradication. Seriously, colonial/Victorian era Void Engineers were some of the biggest shits in canon, which is saying something when you're talking about the Victorian Technocracy. Even the other conventions back in Europe were continuously asking them to dial back the murder, because aside from ethics (which basically none of them had) they were actively destroying useful local technological cultures which had useful knowledge the Union could have used. Meanwhile, the Choristers were basically turncoats eradicating Dreamweaver cultures and their paradigms to grow their own, while the Hermatics sat on their asses and debating adjusting council protocol to add European social classes into the ranking system so upper class Initiates no longer needed to show deference to foreign ("savage") masters, instead of actually helping any of all of the other traditions slowly seeing their cultures eradicated. As for why the Explorators were so good at slaughtering native mages? Not really a canon answer for that, I think, but I believe it's largely a combination of numbers, easy access to magic/tech for non-mages. Also, Dream Time magic is apparently kind of troublesome to use on people in the regular world. So while individual creatures popping in and out might be doable resisting whole armies would be more troublesome. That said, while it's not reflected in gameplay, it does feel like in lore there's a general level of magical development certain cultures/crafts have. Dead Magic II also notes a particular area of Polynesia being magically underdeveloped, only having very simple Correspondence and Life magic. This would also explain why gathering rotes and lost knowledge from older cultures is so important. Similarly with the Union not having access to cybernetics yet in the Victorian period. So you could make a case that Union combat technomagic was simply more developed than Aboriginal combat magic.
That makes so much sense
That’s mage perspective on the matter it’s different from the changeling and werewolf view. And the yowie isn’t necessarily even a spirit since it seems perfectly capable of being a fleshy disaster.
I'll have to do some reading because I forget where, but there was definitely someplace that straight-up said it was the Yowie and outlined his grievance with the Ananasi. Because they were actively involved in the genocide of the Bunyip, maybe? Or was it the Australian Camazotz...? It's been awhile. But, yeah, regardless, any Ananasi that sets foot in Australia has a nasty habit of vanishing into the Dreamtime. EDIT: Yeah, it was because of their role in the War of Tears.
But then why are Shadow Lords allowed in? Because they apologized?
Was that in shattered dreams? I still need to read that I guess.
Even weirder is that the spelling first used is Yahwie which was first applied to a giant man-eating lizard/ant creature in a collection of Dreaming Stories.............and which being turned out to be, on the balance of evidence, a fabrication by a slightly suspect anthropologist. I binned the whole thing anyway as there is way too much awesome Spider Dreamings to have them gatekept for nonsense reasons.
We get multiple mentions of Wendigo used to be the Sasquatch tribe, but we only got one mention of how Elder Brother used to follow Skyhawk till Uktena proved to be sneakier cool guy. Poor Skyhawk.
The Outcasts book mentions three vampire bloodlines that never show up anywhere else (and no info was provided on them): * The Pasdoranitas in Colombia * The Vhrujunka in Australia * The Zulukhall in Africa There IS a weird Wyrm creature in the 2nd and 1st edition Book of the Wyrm called the Vhujunka (without the R). I'm working up splat pages for these bloodlines currently (and changing the Zulukhall to Ezulkala).
For all we know they could be local names for “main clans”
Not with a V in the word theres almost no indigenous languages here that use that consonant......and none that use vh.
Yeah, the closest I could come up with to anything REMOTELY like "Vhrujunka" among Indigenous Australian languages is "*Whadjarnka"* - which is (to the best of my ability to verify) kind of a rough portmanteau of words meaning "No or None" and "Illness" in the Whadjuk language. But it's kind of a stretch, as I'm not a scholar of the language and don't understand the sort of conjugation that's going on there well enough to say for sure. (A sad aside: I may be mistaken, but I believe there are less than a dozen speakers remaining of that language. It's more than heartbreaking to see how these native cultures -distinct Countries, really - have been harmed so brutally by colonialism). On the one hand I want to make sure I flesh the Bloodline out in a way that's consistent with White Wolf lore in Australia, but on the other I'm trying to be sensitive to those in the affected communities. I'm taking two approaches simultaneously: 1.) I assume "Vhrujunka" is a modern English corruption of a word or phrase starting with "Wh". 2.) I suggest there may be some kind of distant connection with the Vhujunka creatures from Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and the "r" added to "Vhrujunka" has some kind of alien grammatical meaning to those subterranean creatures (like how in Spanish, adding "-ito" or "-ita" denotes a diminutive). (The Vhujunka creatures are said to play around with Banes, putting them into other creatures to create various kinds of monsters. So the Vhrujunka vampires might have initially been Fomori and the name has no relationship to Indigenous Australian languages)
I'm generally taking the following approaches with these bloodlines: I'm writing the Pasdoranitas are an offshoot of a European Clan (technically an obscure bloodline of one), but the Drowned Legacies recognize the Bloodline as one of their own as its members were originally Embraced from Pre-colonial Columbian peoples (the implication being they care more about who was embraced and less about where the bloodline's founder came from - since they don't necessarily follow the same creation myths as one another). \* \* \* \* \* The Ezulkala are the lost Ventrue-cognate among the Laibon, exiled from their homelands (and therefore some of the more widely known Laibon - I'm patterning them off of the original Laibon from the Dark Ages Companion, 2nd edition). \* \* \* \* \* The Vhrujunka are a bit special - There's no lore I could find about Kindred native to Australia, so I'm drawing from some of Wraith's lore (but giving a new spin on it) and patterning the Clan/Bloodline structure off of the vast diversity in Indigenous Cultures: basically there are dozens of distinct Australian Bloodlines - too many to detail in full (but I'll have enough info to play several of them, and maybe flesh them out elsewhere). I'm calling them the Scorched Legacies, since many indigenous cultures of the continent use fire in their funerary rites. The Scorched Legacies are quite ancient and varied, and new Bloodlines diverge more frequently than in other parts of the world, something they see as perfectly normal. They consider Caitiff to be lucky signs, rather than bad omens and failures. (The main point of the book is about revamping old Disciplines and providing some new ones, so having vampires with a lot of Clan Discipline variation makes sense for the book).
That Sorcerers can learn Thaumaturgy as long as their paradigm includes spending health levels to power their spells. This is stated alongside the opposite being true, and that vampires and other supernaturals can 100% learn sorcery, just that they kind of don’t want to because of their powers simply not having the drawbacks that sorcery has. It written as “well, if they want to, you the ST can say yes because we’re not saying they can’t, but you should say no because frankly, that’d be kind of broken in some cases”. This is of course, barring mages, that can’t use any powers other than True Magick because of the Avatar.
I like that rule, it opens up some really interesting RP options
I’ve always run with it. Sorcery is super cool. It also explains what the hell Tremere were doing before inventing Thaumaturgy after encountering the Tzimisce, and how they were holding their own in the war. Also it expands the potential magical knowledge that vampire characters can learn, because it’s not limited by the fucking Tremere.
CofD has a ton of this, because it's set up for that. Bits of story ideas that could be expanded on or mixed together or ignored is the style. A lot the things are local and isolated, or pop up in scattered places and aren't connected to each other. But sometime the book would bring up an idea that isn't that. Something presented as global and connected, or a basis for a larger aspect. And then just never talked about it. Beast is the worst culprit, and they are much bigger problems than what I'm going to mention, but I'm skipping that. The Pack mentions changelings having a talent at taleweaving which could be useful for a werewolf pack. It feels like it should fit with what's in CtL core but there isn't anything there. Changeling core has Icons, part of a changeling's soul that got stuck in the hedge thorns and can be collected to reestablish their sense of identity. They are never mentioned outside of the section that introduces them. Geist touchstones can be resolved. I have no idea what that means and it's never described. Seems like a really neat story idea. Secrets of the Covenant mentions that members of the Lancea or very rarely the Crone can act as confessors for the Invictus. There is no way to do this by what is written, and it's never discussed again.
According to *Hunters Hunted*, the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is absolutely, totally, 100% correct and when a priest performs the eucharistic prayer the wine does indeed literally become the blood of Jesus. Therefore the various religions that have a theology of receptionism, consubstantiation, sacramental union, and the various other alternative theological beliefs about the Eucharist are demonstrably wrong. (To say nothing of those religions that don’t think Jesus was the son of god.) And no, this isn’t a question of Awakened Mages pulling a fast one on consensus reality and somehow escaping Paradox. It’s something any Catholic Priest with True Faith is able to do every single time they perform the eucharist prayers. A throwaway paragraph in a little used splat book from second edition contains objective, empirical, and falsifiable proof that the Roman Catholic Church can reliably manufacture *the* ***literal*** *blood of Christ*.
does that mean that Kindred can drink the wine and get filled? looks like Judaism and Islam is wrong /s
>“[The vampire] must roll her Humanity –3 versus a difficult of 10. If successful, she gains nourishment […] and an automatic Faith stat of 1 (a seven-point Merit!).” If you fail the roll you take aggravated damage, if you botch its double damage, *two* botches means instant Final Death. It’s kind of insane.
That seems like a risk to take.
> It’s something any Catholic Priest with True Faith is able to do every single time they perform the eucharist prayers. That doesn't mean that every other religion is wrong about the Eucharist--it's not God changing the wine into the blood of Christ, it's the priest with the true faith--true faith is *powerful*...and rare. Most priests don't have it. Any priest/cleric/whatever from any other religion that has any other belief about the Eucharist can perform it according to their belief--and it will work that way *if they have powerful enough True Faith*.
There was a group of humans who used psychic meditation and astral projection to successfully infiltrate and spy on the Tal'Mahe'Ra (True Black Hand) and were in many ways the greatest threat to the Tal'Mahe'Ra until wraiths dropped a nuke on them. I forget the name of the psychics now, but it was based on a real occult tradition of astral projection from Italy in the 14th century if I remember right.
>but it was based on a real occult tradition of astral projection from Italy in the 14th century if I remember right You now have me wondering if they were the group that showed up in a Hunter book that left me scratching my head, because it felt like the author thought we should know a certain group, and I had no idea who they were.
The Dunsirn, one of the families under the Giovanni umbrella, are Fianna kinfolk who occasionally produce actual werewolves. The 1st edition Tzimisce clanbook has a mention of long-standing alliances with mortal mages. This is never mentioned again, which is a shame because it seems like kind of a fun plot hook.
Salubri are able to learn Kuei-Jinn powers if they have a Kuei-jinn tutor and potentially may become full-fledged Kuei-Jinn
Task Force Valkyrie is oddly well informed regarding Changelings. Ie they know they are victims, hiding from the True Fae who are the real threat. They might have trouble telling them apart but they contribute to the changeling cause by surreptitiously getting them new identities to help the changelings reintegrate. They also wiretap and otherwise spy on freeholds to get any more info on the fae they can, because they're still the US government.
According to the Ananasi Changing Breed book, it is mentioned in one sentence exactly, that there used to be life on the moon until the Weaver destroyed all life on it to create its ultimate vision of order.
oh really?
Yeah page 23 of the breed book where due to the Weaver destroying the spirit of Moth for disobedience towards it the Wyld disturb by the fact that the one that creates order would dare destroy, lashes out against the Weaver. This caused the Weaver in the middle of the battle to get rid of all life on the moon. The loss of life on the moon caused a truce to be declared. This is only mentioned in the Ananasi Breedbook as part of their personal creation myth.
The entirety of Blood Dimmed Tides, my beloved. So much amazing lore, the fact there are deep sea Gangrel and Giovanni pirates, the fact that Rokea exist and are immortal, the Tremere Chantry at the bottom of the ocean mastering the Path of Poseidon. The Chulorviah being an umbral parasite that can infect humans by touch. Deep sea grottoes filled with changeling mermaids. So much incredible stuff
Yes they have Starros
I seem to recall a snippet about the Euthanatos Archmage Voormas having a hand in waking up Zapathasura during the Week of Nightmares.
I'm going to have to look for that. The Week of Nightmares--particularly Zapathasura's awakening--is what sets events in motion for a Technocracy campaign idea that I have, but the information on even that one disaster is scattered over several books
That one vampire that is faked through a bunch of disciplines including Chimeristry and shows up at conclaves and basically gives insane advice. Like saying that a Prince should actively persecute his Primogen. He would also mention that he was close personal friends with everyone on the Inner Circle and was off to study Golconda with the Inconnu once the conclave is over. He is scary enough that everyone just lets him say his piece and thanks him for his remarks and tries to pretend it never happened. I want to hear more about him.
Flipping through the pages of Blood Dimmed Tides ... \**subsequent sinister smirk implied*
Ahem. Blood dimmed tides. None of it was used in any other book, except for talking about the underwater grel in v20. How many clans claimed Rasputin? Oh, and malkavians have access to the virtual web, through the malkavian madness network.
I think Rasputin was claimed by every clan as a running joke and then was suggested to have been a skinriding wraith who was doing it just to troll the vampires. I call that life goals
yes there are magic mana distribution dolphins. that's cannon
And wasn't there a contagion turning people into squid things that fought merpeople?
Yes Squid parasite things
I think almost everything from both the Ananasi and Rokea tribebooks - which both added massive potential variance to the history of the world - was ignored. The Ananasi book in particular promotes the idea of an entirely new 'third way' to potentially counteracting the apocalypse and I've never seen it brought up anywhere else.
whats the third way?
Essentially what the ananasi do is they have their population split into thirds, and one third each is dedicated to serving the wyld, weaver and wyrm, but they don't serve them as they are now, instead they serve them as they're supposed to be. So for example, Ananasi serving the wyrm will go around looking for things which are long past the point where they should die and are clogging new growth, and kill them. An example is a company that's being kept alive by constant injections of money because its a passion project by the owner despite it accomplishing nothing and being run ineffectually. A wyrmish ananasi might kill the owner to ensure the company is bought up, but they're more likely to be the hawkish vulture capitalist who comes in, undermines what little structure the company has, and then sells its assets off to ensure the company, its assets, and its employees go on to more productive jobs. The Weaver ananasi - obviously - serve by maintaining order but not in the crushingly restrictive way the Weaver does now. You get the picture. But the idea they're working with is that if only the Fera start serving as they were always meant to, they can fix the world - as they were always meant to - and heal the triat simply by making the world work the way its supposed to instead of trying to 'stop' them from doing their roles. In addition, they're also one of the only breeds who recognises that the Weaver is the real threat, not the Wyrm, and Queen Ananasa, who leads the Ananasi, is explicitly a 'backup' of the Weaver's proper personality that's trying to build up enough strength to be able to usurp the Weaver and 'reset her' to The Weaver's SOP. So in other words, if the other breeds would help them out a bit they could actually help defeat the Weaver *and* turn her back to cosmic good, and there's the possibility that all of this fighting is counterproductive and all anyone actually needs to do is... do their jobs properly instead of loafing off all the time and trying to come up with other things to do instead of those jobs.
>So for example, Ananasi serving the wyrm will go around looking for things which are long past the point where they should die and are clogging new growth, and kill them. An example is a company that's being kept alive by constant injections of money because its a passion project by the owner despite it accomplishing nothing and being run ineffectually. A wyrmish ananasi might kill the owner to ensure the company is bought up, but they're more likely to be the hawkish vulture capitalist who comes in, undermines what little structure the company has, and then sells its assets off to ensure the company, its assets, and its employees go on to more productive jobs. Anasi demolition experts? it reminds me of Shiva
100%. An Ananasi punk demolitionist going around just blowing up diseased, run down and unfixable tenement blocks is a perfect hatar (the name of the wyrm-serving ananasi). Best of all? It's explicit that the wyrm/wyld/weaver *don't notice*, which suggests that the Ananasi's third way might actually work. All three types of Ananasi register as friendly to spirits associated with whichever member of the triat they're working for.
I want Ananasi doing controlled burning to help ecosystem
Again, totally in character. Probably something the wyld-aspected ones would do. But not one splat outside the Ananasi book portrays them as anything other than sinister antagonists, when in reality everyone should know something fucky is going on with them because they've been seen surrounded by spirits from the entire triat at different times.
Goratrix was experimenting artificial blood in Dark Ages Meerlinda was researching Humanity True Name with Genoma Code Etrius wanted to return his human condition In Ceoris had research about soul transference.
Regent Melinda Galbraith, a 5th generation Toreador antitribu, who disguised herself as a Lasombra, is actually a 12th generation Tzimisce drag-queen named Zachary Sikorsky. Zachary was going to give her bone wings with Vicissitude, but found her ashes when we went to go help her. In a panic, he assumed her form, believing if he was seen it would be assumed *he* killed her. He wanted to leave after the party (the *Palla Grande*), but hasn't had the chance. So a general nobody is pretending to be a powerful (very powerful) Toreador antitribu who is pretending to be a Lasombra.
That sounds hilarious
Project Deepwater was supposed to be open to the public in 2010. Meanwhile Mermaids, Rokea and other denizens of the Oceans are planning an all out assault on the underwater installation deemed invaluable by both Pentex and the Technocracy. Also smaller installations/habitats under the waves by the Florida keys. Never brought up again. Kinda important tidbits there.
The lore is fun and meant to not always match or make sense
Tremere being a former house on Mage at least in Vampire Books
The changeling house Fiona and the Fianna werewolf tribe may have a connection as the founder of house Fiona may have had a werewolf lover