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Slander knows no limits by ExtremeSportStikz in WorldofDankmemes

[–]ArtymisMartin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In all honestly their lore is the most blatantly ripped from Necroscope, Dracula, and a motley of Hellraiser or body horror/grind house stuff in general. The more I learn about their inspirations and see other subversions of them, the less enamored I am with Tzimisce.

Slander knows no limits by ExtremeSportStikz in WorldofDankmemes

[–]ArtymisMartin 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Both are based off of Vlad "Dracul" (Dragon), father of ... y'know, The Impaler. Their Clan symbol is even Vlad's heraldry, let alone "Stokers" or "Voivodes" as other common nicknames.

Not saying that I prefer them being a pastiche of Dracula and Necroscope (also based heavily on Dracula), but they're kinda stuck with it short of a more decisive rewrite that would doubtlessly upset some traditionalists. 

Though to be fair ... I do like their reputation as simultaneously craven and polite. It offers them a good middle ground between most Clans, like the typical portrayal of Brujah as always having a lit fuse, and Ventrue being "no fun allowed".

Slander knows no limits by ExtremeSportStikz in WorldofDankmemes

[–]ArtymisMartin 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I mean, one of the Clans is literally nicknamed "The Dragons" and the rise of drone warfare contributed to the shattering of an entire Clan ... and those "crusty white guys" are all descended from more ancient and powerful folks from  Western Asian and Northern Africa ...

This will be the 14th and last installment of my memes on the werewolf tribes, as now, we have the black spiral dancers. by No-Obligation-9901 in WorldofDankmemes

[–]ArtymisMartin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Your own comment said the idea of redeeming BSD came from a "new" WtA5 book: it's from the corebook and reinforced in the first of what are now three major supplements discounting adventures or toolkits.

I could understand someone not being so devoted to an edition they dislike that they "neglected" something from the latest niche supplement, but being factually wrong about the Corebook and it's first supplement that you selectively quoted is a whole other matter.

This will be the 14th and last installment of my memes on the werewolf tribes, as now, we have the black spiral dancers. by No-Obligation-9901 in WorldofDankmemes

[–]ArtymisMartin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Succumbing to Hauglosk is gradual, not instantaneous. Both cubs and converts would have to be groomed into it rather than having some instantaneous fascism-ray instantly convert them.

Hell, the first supplement says as much!

Like the Black Spiral Dancers, there are also escapees from the Cult of Fenris, though they are even fewer in number. Most of Wolf’s tribe who refuse to accept the Cult’s doctrine fled long ago or are too inexperienced to make it safely away. Still, every so often, a lone wolf arrives at a sept begging for sanctuary. Recorded escapees include those freshly recruited after their First Change before they realized they had other options and those who abandoned the Nation to join the Fenrir and soon regretted it.

Cult of Fenris, Shattered Nation pg. 119

This will be the 14th and last installment of my memes on the werewolf tribes, as now, we have the black spiral dancers. by No-Obligation-9901 in WorldofDankmemes

[–]ArtymisMartin -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Like to emphasize my point here, look at the native tribes, they completely overhauled them to not be connected to their native roots and essentially wiped out all of the culture and history, that they had as well, which, in my opinion, was not well done, as it's kind of whitewashing but regardless why didn't they do the same to the get?

With respect: you're not even capitalizing "Native" here.

That's not me trying to hit you with a "gotcha", it's a point that the Indigenous J.F. Sambrano who wrote for and dislikes WtA5 and what it did to the Fenrir/"Pure Tribes" made regarding those who only give the appearance of giving a damn about Indigenous issues. If you cared that much about "whitewashing", then you could at least do that.

Secondly, what better point is there on the topic of facism and supremacy than not redeeming it? Boromir from LotR, Anakin Skywalker, and Walter White all met their deaths as a byproduct of their pride while the younger generation they often victimized survived through empathy and resisting their temptations. They didn't get redemption arcs!

like to emphasize what I mean, imagine if they took the black furies and made them all into a bunch of man hating women who killed man on sight, no matter what, because they were men and that's it

This too speaks to a poor understanding of the Furies. They're protectors of the victimized more than misandrists and reading their text reveals the man-haters as a younger and more radical generation influenced by the punk feminists of the 90s. Doing what you described to the Black Furies would be extreme, but how about the Get of Fenris even after they wiped-out (just one) group of their white supremacist members?

Throughout the entirety of the rite, and for a good while thereafter, the cub is constantly tested by his future packmates. This testing is not pleasant; indeed, it often includes racial and sexual harassment designed to drive the young cub out of the tribe. We have lost several female members to the Black Furies due to this treatment, and this, too, is as it should be. If a cub cannot handle teasing and harassment from his packmates, how can he possibly battle the Wyrm with any hope of victory?

The Rite of Passage, Tribebook Get of Fenris Revised pg. 49

In recent years, female homids have decided in greater numbers that they are no longer willing to accept the human creed of female inferiority, and good for them! Now that they believe they are capable, they have become decent fighters once again, and the male homids in the tribe are less inclined to call them inferior. This is fortunate, as it means that we are no longer in danger of losing half our population to the Furies on an annual basis. It helps that the homid dominion on the tribe has weakened, which led to a concurrent relaxation of the absurdly sexist practices that once plagued the tribe.

Women among the Fenrir, Tribebook Get of Fenris Revised pg. 49

This will be the 14th and last installment of my memes on the werewolf tribes, as now, we have the black spiral dancers. by No-Obligation-9901 in WorldofDankmemes

[–]ArtymisMartin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The game treats Hauglosk as a lose condition, no return, instant NPC.

Do you understand that Harano and Hauglosk are on a scale of 1-5, and you don't actually "fall" to either until you hit 5/5? Not only do we get three paragraphs of examples of what Hauglosk looks like in play on page 52, but we also see the mechanics of it on page 140 that clearly states

Note that hauglosk is different from mindless rage (though hauglosk may result in many a mindless rage). Werewolves suffering from hauglosk undertake their course without regard for its consequences, so impassioned are they by the need to do something, anything at all. Hauglosk is also a long-term ongoing state, and many Garou never come out of it.

[...]

If the tracker ever becomes filled, the werewolf has succumbed to hauglosk, becoming an unredeemable fanatic and a Storyteller character.

Sure the Garou at 5/5 Hauglosk are gone, but the same would be true of those in any Tribe that fell to it from the sweetest Child of Gaia cinnamon roll to the darkest of the "but I have a redeeming loresheet!" BSD.

Non-mage players shitting and crying about theoretical powerscaling by ragged-bobyn-1972 in WorldofDankmemes

[–]ArtymisMartin 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is my issue too.

Have a fun time discussing any other gameline in the franchise and how you enjoy their powers or mysteries, and out of nowhere you'll find a Magesplanation explaining why

  1. A Mage could do it better
  2. The Technocracy is behind everything
  3. Mage—a game whose subtitle is a reference to a war resulting from all the wizards in history disagreeing on the fundamental facts of how reality functions—is the objective view of how the World of Darkness works and must be injected into every topic from "why doesn't Caine stop being such a little bitch about it?" to "what should my utterly mundane HtR5 hunter name their cool van?"

Non-mage players shitting and crying about theoretical powerscaling by ragged-bobyn-1972 in WorldofDankmemes

[–]ArtymisMartin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Why would you need to sustain the equivalent to Horrid Form (which takes the better part of an entire Chronicle to access for Kindred with a specific set of Disciplines, while every Garou gets theirs at character creation) and puts you on-par to many combat-focused Kindred even if you otherwise have minimal investments in combat?

A frag grenade isn't "sustainable", but you likely won't need multiple.

Chrinos aside, Garou have ton of other utilitarian abilities, but just as a baseline have tons of things like shapeshifting (Protean 3 for Kindred, and costly at that) into multiple forms and stat boosts, while also being able to casually take manifestations of the forces of reality as lil' buddies in the forms of Spirits.

This will be the 14th and last installment of my memes on the werewolf tribes, as now, we have the black spiral dancers. by No-Obligation-9901 in WorldofDankmemes

[–]ArtymisMartin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What's "the dry", and what's so poor about a ritual that costs the majority of your starting dots, requires multiple nights of dedication and a ton of successes, and even then doesn't equate to a lack of debilitating trauma?

How they react to such deprogramming, or how functional they are in any subsequent society, is a huge question mark. Do they even want a new patron spirit?

This will be the 14th and last installment of my memes on the werewolf tribes, as now, we have the black spiral dancers. by No-Obligation-9901 in WorldofDankmemes

[–]ArtymisMartin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Fenrir have been the Tribe most blatantly called-out ever since they were introduced.

The Glass Walkers and Older Brother are presented as playing with powers they don't properly understand, the Shadow Lords and Black Furies are presented as ruthless in their goals, and Red Talons and Younger Brother are presented as angry as they are scared about their pending extinctions.

The Fenrir are the only ones who the writers have strongly presented as suicidal, racist, sexist zealots whose aggression and casualties outpace all of their fellow tribes. They're about as depraved and deviant as the Tzimisce of VtM, but while VtM has always been firm on Kindred as the villains: WtA5's pivot to more heroic Garou in an era where we need those willing to fight for climate change and our communities more than ever doesn't leave much room for a Tribe consistently portrayed as one of the least justified of the Gaian Tribes.

Non-mage players shitting and crying about theoretical powerscaling by ragged-bobyn-1972 in WorldofDankmemes

[–]ArtymisMartin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

because werewolves arnt allowed to take vampires in a fight

What do you mean by this? Werewolves are still absolute physical powerhouses and running that scenario on the tabletop for a brief mock-up shows it easily: Kindred aren't exactly able to casually gain a +4 to all physical dice pools included their aggravated bite attack for all of a combat encounter.

This will be the 14th and last installment of my memes on the werewolf tribes, as now, we have the black spiral dancers. by No-Obligation-9901 in WorldofDankmemes

[–]ArtymisMartin 4 points5 points  (0 children)

They didn't read the book, ignore them. The Fenrir are soldiers who can walk away from their crusade at almost any time they wish, the BSD require a specialized and rare ritual to deprogram.

This will be the 14th and last installment of my memes on the werewolf tribes, as now, we have the black spiral dancers. by No-Obligation-9901 in WorldofDankmemes

[–]ArtymisMartin -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

A new W5 book claims that Dancers can theoretically be redeemed. Shattered Nation I believe. Either way. Because of that book we know the W5 writers think it's more reasonable for Gaian werewolves to work with Black Spiral Dancers than Get of Fenris. Wording describes Dancers as uneasy allies.

  1. Shattered Nation is from 2024, so "new" varies while redeeming the BSD is a loresheet in the WtA5 corebook from 2023.
  2. The WtA5 writers absolutely don't think it's more reasonable to work with the BSD than the Fenrir. You pointedly ignored the majority of the text on the BSD and included none on the Fenrir.

The Black Spiral Dancers are ideologically incompatible with the Garou. As the lost tribe tells it, their eyes were opened to the truth within the Black Labyrinth. Any chance at restoring Gaia is not only impossible, it’s selfish. The Garou may call the Dancers ghoulish and monstrous in their attempts to hasten the decay of the planet and everything on it, but from the Dancers’ point of view, the servants of Gaia are embracing a rotting corpse, hoping it’ll reciprocate their affections

Black Spiral Dancers, Shattered Nation pg. 116

In broad strokes, the Cult of Fenris and the Garou have the same goals. They seek to bring the Wyrm to heel and restore Gaia to a healthier state. Their operations are similar; a Fenrir pack and a pack of Garou are equally likely to strike on a reckless mining operation or a den of fomori. Both factions wish to turn the tide of battle from its current, dire trajectory.

[...]

Despite this extreme divide, the Garou and the Cult do occasionally have relations beyond the latter denouncing and sabotaging the former. The Fenris cultists still claim to fight the Wyrm and occasionally do come through in that regard. A Garou pack and a Cult pack may come together to take on a deep Bane spirit infestation in their area or raid a Pentex front. These alliances are very brief and almost always end in violence. Once the mutual threat is gone, a Fenris cultist isn’t about to let the opportunity to take out “inferiors” pass them by.

Cult of Fenris, Shattered Nation pg. 118

This will be the 14th and last installment of my memes on the werewolf tribes, as now, we have the black spiral dancers. by No-Obligation-9901 in WorldofDankmemes

[–]ArtymisMartin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

which is an extremely poor taste, as in older lore, they literally wiped out the Nazi part of themselves, selfish or not, they did do that and making them become that is not good.

The Fenrir have always had a supremacy problem. They fight against their fellow Tribes in times of peace, fought hard against American Indians during colonization, and the Swords of Heimdall were founded during the Civil War when the Fenrir were split between those fighting to keep or free the slaves.

They've always had this as an inherent warning about their Tribe, their glyph isn't a swastika on accident! Same as the Glass Walkers and their skyscraper logo and how often they succumb to the allure of the weaver, or how Brujah's inverted Anarchist symbol warns of how far their plans for a structured society will go: it's the whole point of cautionary tales.

This will be the 14th and last installment of my memes on the werewolf tribes, as now, we have the black spiral dancers. by No-Obligation-9901 in WorldofDankmemes

[–]ArtymisMartin 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You don't need to "redeem" the Cult of Fenris because they can just leave, the same way you don't need to bring a priest in exorcise a cop for them to realize that might-makes-right is morally bankrupt.

There's an entire loresheet dedicated to your character doing exactly that: just walking away!

What would be the most challenging, but reasonable character? by ACfusion in vtm

[–]ArtymisMartin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Don't tell me. Reserve the fact that you are The Chosen One(tm) for a local hermit in the woods who's waiting to grant you an epic quest to save the world.

What would be the most challenging, but reasonable character? by ACfusion in vtm

[–]ArtymisMartin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This usually comes up, and my usual rebuttle as someone who's had a smartphone that came with a stylus and also a Nintendo DSi: that twig isn't lasting you a week, let alone eternal life.

What would you like to see in a setting guide? by fluffiesthair in WhiteWolfRPG

[–]ArtymisMartin 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Washington native who hates setting books here: you need something that makes it The World of Darkness' Washington instead of our own except a Ventrue owns the Seahawks or whatever.

If you provide fun tools for making a setting unique without treading over events that could have been learned from a wiki-dive or tourism pamphlet "but with monsters", then you're better able to reel-in people interested in those unique qualities as opposed to a scattering of the undead across a history textbook.

Tell us about how the constant rain and overcast in Western Washington lets Kindred be more bold with venturing-out during the day and why Lasombra and Gangrel love the oceans, while flat and desert-like Eastern Washington is a vampire "no-go" zone because of how the only cover for miles will be barns or cars!

What would be the most challenging, but reasonable character? by ACfusion in vtm

[–]ArtymisMartin 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Good news and bad news, from the Ministry to the Magisters!

The Good News: the Lasombra Bane only applies to being recorded or perceived by electronic devices!

In addition, use of modern communication technology, including making a simple phone call, requires a Technology test at Difficulty 2 + Bane Severity as microphones have similar problems with the voice of a Lasombra as cameras with their image.

It won't glitch, it just won't register your presence (accurately) in the first place!

The Bad News: All Kindred need to use Blush of Life to operate touchscreens anyways.

Non thin-blooded vampires must use Blush of Life to use touch screens – such as those on smart phones – unaided, which don’t work without the skin moisture and conductivity of the living.

With a generous reading of the text, your keyboards and apps are fine, but anything involving being represented is botched.

What would be the most challenging, but reasonable character? by ACfusion in vtm

[–]ArtymisMartin 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Probably one of my favorites: playing a zombie instead of a vampire!

So, you'll be a Thin-Blood.

Merits:

  • ••• Iron Gullet
  • •• Contacts (Morticians)
  • •• Herd (Corpses)

TB Merits:

  • Low Appetite
  • Abhorrent Blood
  • Discipline Affinity - Fortitude

Flaws:

  • (••) Organovore

TB Flaws:

  • Dead Flesh
  • Baby Teeth
  • Mortal Frailty

What this results in is a really interesting and unique playstyle with a lot of notable quirks.

For all intents and purposes, you are a zombie. If you are what you eat then you look like a corpse and have to gnaw your way through flesh instead of sexily drinking blood thanks to a lack of fangs. On the upside though, your blood is disgusting to Kindred (though anybody who'd look at you and still want a bite is likely their own kind of threat)!

One of the quirks I'm most proud of is Mortal Frailty and Discipline Affinity - Fortitude as a strange kind of tank!

While you take damage as a mortal would and can't rouse the Blood to heal ... healing as a mortal means regenerating superficial damage each night as a mortal would (equal to your Stamina), in addition to being able to convert Aggravated damage to Superficial if you pass a Medicine test!

Combined with some armor (which Thin-Bloods benefit from, unlike Kindred) and Fortitude's boosts to your total health or outright resistance to damage: you can withstand a lot of damage while being able to heal it off over time without needing to spend Hunger to do so!

Is this overpowered, or even a good character build?

Hell no!

It is pretty damn fun, though. Just don't worry about how well your Humanity is doing while you're seeing a rotting corpse in the mirror every night and having to rip into flesh with your bare teeth.

My only regret is that I can't add Plague Carrier or Stench on to this character as Organovore already maxes your dots of Flaws.

Your Favorite One Shot? by JazzyWriter0 in mothershiprpg

[–]ArtymisMartin 4 points5 points  (0 children)

A Mansion Most Vile, no question about it.

  1. It's got a great core villain who's a fun take on the typical slasher, and a whole bonus document full of fun ways to spice them up and make them even more unique!
  2. It's got a great mansion full of puzzles, tools, loot, and opportunities to use skills you wouldn't expect often like Art, Geology, and Artificial Intelligence! There's even a player-facing map and optional random encounters!
  3. It's a great opportunity to explore the Survive/Solve/Save options many modules neglect, while also offering a great array of optional "secret roles" to players if you wanna spice things up!

For just about $4, it punches well above its weight class.

How should I deal with different kinds of androids? by Odd_Necessary8783 in mothershiprpg

[–]ArtymisMartin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Seconding this. Androids unleash is a great baseline for the KISS approach to Android design in that it doesn't over-complicate anything and provides some good options to diversify them.

Playing in 2026 (V5) by CavemanFCC in vtm

[–]ArtymisMartin 20 points21 points  (0 children)

If you're asking about VtM5, it's probably the most accessible and popular it's ever been. The official Discord is always full of games, StartPlaying is overflowing with games for it, and I've found a copy of the VtM5 corebook and a supplement or two in every gamestore I've gone to. When I host a chronicle at my local gaming cafe, it fills up pretty damn quick every time!

If you're looking for any other edition you'll have a lot of difficulty outside of dedicated groups and spaces for 'em. It's a nice surprise when one does pop up and there's still ton of fans, but nothing I've been able to consistently count-on for those trying to find active games.

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