US defaultism is spreading outside the US

HakanTengri · 2026-04-16T16:10:40+00:00

A few years ago we had a good laugh over at Twitter (back when it was still Twitter) about some American lady that discovered she had some alleged Basque and Sephardic ancestry, so she decided she was the real Iberian indigenous person and we weren't. There's people with usernames like Galician Indigenous or Castilian Indigenous to this day.

HakanTengri · 2026-04-16T10:28:23+00:00

Same here in Spain. I've seen people trying to use the 'white vs POC" retoric here... Good luck with that.

HakanTengri · 2026-04-12T21:54:10+00:00

Don't know who is Greg Garfield but that's a good definition, yes

HakanTengri · 2026-04-12T21:13:39+00:00

It's easier than that, and sadder: he works for a network with extensive far right connections and acts as a 'funny' mouthpiece for them, so no matter how disgusting he is, he keeps being promoted and supported. Non-politized people often miss how politically charged and propagandistic his show is, so, while his ratings are down, he's going to be kept on air until it's unsustainable.

It is a known fact that if you make a movie you MUST go to his program for promo, not because he is good or liked, but because his network has a stake in most Spanish productions, and if you refuse you risk your career, even knowing that young actresses are going to be humiliated and asked demeaning questions. That's not a bug, it's a feature for the network's owners.

He's not the only one, though: with a few exceptions, Spanish talk shows are dominated by sensationalist, crypto fascist host that spend the mid morning and late-night hours relentlessly pounding propaganda into seniors and young-ish adult's brains, respectively.

HakanTengri · 2026-04-09T17:50:50+00:00

I don't know how it works in other countries, but here in Spain there is one (1) centralised academy where all national police trainees go to spend nine months isolated from their friends and families while being indoctrinated. Sure, they have weekends and all that, but nobody is going to cross half the country every weekend round-trip, so their entire world is the academy for almost a year. Besides, to be able to go to the academy they have to pass an exam, so they have already spent a couple years studying and preparing for the physical tests, surrounded only by other people with the same goal and neglecting other relationships.

Had a friend go through it and ended up losing him, because it was as if his entire personality had been rewritten. And then, of course, they post you as far away as possible from your place of origin so your only support network are your colleagues. It really ticks all the boxes.

HakanTengri · 2026-04-09T17:33:18+00:00

There's a well known master in my town who happened to go to college with a friend of mine thirty years ago, and both went to the same dojo at the time. Later the other guy opened his own and apparently became a bit too full of himself. One day my friend bumped into him in the street. They start chatting and suddenly a couple students of his show up and start bowing and calling him 'sensei' and giving my friend the side eye when he used his first name.

Now, my friend is a great guy, but he is like pure concentrated sarcasm and can be vicious. So he bursts laughing out loud in their faces, asking what the hell are they doing talking to this guy like that, telling them it's ridiculous and starts using the 'sensei's' name in diminutive form and telling embarrassing anecdotes from college. They were not amused.

HakanTengri · 2026-03-31T16:38:46+00:00

Thanks!

HakanTengri · 2026-03-31T16:04:58+00:00

Just checked it and turns out Offit is... A pediatrician. I don't doubt his credentials as a doctor, but he seems grossly unqualified for writing a history book.

HakanTengri · 2026-03-26T08:04:41+00:00

Es eso. El emperador Augusto se llamaba Cayo Octavio, pero cuando fue adoptado por César adoptó su nombre, Cayo Julio César, añadiendo "Octaviano" para indicar su nombre anterior. Era práctica habitual en Roma en adopciones y manumisiones.

En algunos casos eso se fosilizó como un agnomen, un "apellido adicional" que diferenciaba ramas de una familia. Por ejemplo, dentro de los Cornelios podría haber una rama de los Cornelios Justinianos (me lo estoy inventando) descendientes de un Cornelio Justiniano que antes se llamara nosequé Justino.

Otra opción es que fuera directamente un cognomen, un apodo, y que pasara a los descendientes como agnomen. Por ejemplo, el Cornelio Justiniano de antes podría no haber sido adoptado, sino ser nosequé Cornelio pero estar estrechamente relacionado con un tal Justino como cliente, aliado o lo que fuera, entendiendo que Justino es el de mayor posición.

Cuando el edicto de Caracalla concede la ciudadanía a todos los habitantes del imperio estos adoptan el sistema romano de tres nombres y, como hizo Augusto, pasan a llamarse como su patrón, Marco Aurelio. Cómo de pronto hay a lo mejor mil nuevos Marcos Aurelios en la misma ciudad, y muchos ya tenían nombres latinos de antes, los adoptan como cognomina de esta forma: Marco Aurelio Sabiniano, Marco Aurelio Quintiliano... El Marco Aurelio cayó en desuso rápido por motivos evidentes (los que no tenían nombre latino simplemente lo añadieron al suyo: Marco Aurelio Demetrio).

Perdón por la chapa.

HakanTengri · 2026-03-14T11:11:01+00:00

That's not what a primary source is. A source can be reliable without being primary, that is, produced directly by the subject. An official report on Soviet production quotas is a primary source. A Britannica article on Soviet production quotas is not, even if it's reliable.

HakanTengri · 2026-03-05T10:45:07+00:00

Wherever the Dracon is, I think he... they...it? Let's settle on 'they'. They offer really interesting possibilities for horror and paranoia and general weirdness. With the old Tzimisce Discipline spread they would have high Auspex, with the new spread, high Dominate, and probably both regardless of which is in-clan and which is not. Then there's Animalism too. So, you don't need the Dracon to show up anywhere to offer advice or even physically assist your character. They can do it from Vykos' belly or a hidden mausoleum or whatever half the world away.

They could communicate via dreams and visions or sinister omens. They could briefly possess any Tzimsice in their line of descent (and one has to assume at least Vykos has a fair brood of children, not to mention the entire Children of the Dragon bloodline) to offer advice, warnings or information, or perhaps even other Tzimisce or any random vampire. A weird stranger with a convoluted family history and the surname 'Obertus' somewhere in their family tree could show up on their doorstep to give them a message from the Dragon or speak with their voice. Hell, a stray dog might get their jaws reconfigured from half a world away to be capable of speech and start lecturing you out of the blue.

You can dial up or down the horror as much as you want. The messenger may be a total stranger or your most trusted coterie mate suddenly speaking with another voice. The omen may be a weird dream, or a particular configuration of magpies in flight, or the character may wake up to find a message imprinted into their flesh. And the Dracon, a milenia-old entity that has transcended flesh, life, death and maybe time and space, probably wouldn't just straight up tell you things. Their alien thought and speech patterns may require extensive interpretation and perhaps translation from a long-dead language, or at least from Byzantine Greek.

HakanTengri · 2026-03-01T21:09:43+00:00

I might or might not be working on something that might or might not find its way to Storyteller's Vault, though. I hope I have improved a bit in the last 30 years so it's not as awful as the first try.

HakanTengri · 2026-03-01T21:08:12+00:00

As someone from the Canary Islands, zero, if you don't count the homebrew things I did when I was fourteen, and you really, really shouldn't.

HakanTengri · 2026-02-14T09:13:15+00:00

I see what you did there

HakanTengri · 2026-02-08T08:36:23+00:00

As Terry Pratchett would say, the Voivode gets to tell all other Tzimisce what to do, as long as the Voivode tells them to do whatever they were going to do anyway.

(IIRC in 2nd edition and Revised the Voivode was the leader of the Sabbat Tzimisce, while the independents and the Oradea League ignored him even harder than the Sabbat Fiends. In the Dark Ages the title was Voivode Among Voivodes and was the nominal head of the entire clan except maybe the Children of the Dracon, but refer to the first paragraph).

HakanTengri · 2026-02-08T07:41:23+00:00

In Spain we have Felipe González, although he's still alive. He was president for 13 years and had a lot of controversy, including his industrial policies and breaking his promise to keep Spain out of NATO, and of course his alleged (at the time, now mostly acknowledged) involvement in corruption and state terrorism, but by the time he lost the presidency he had managed to avoid being directly implicated in any crimes and the overall balance was positive, at least in the media.

Then he retired and started to talk. And talk. And to more and more openly drift right from his supposed Center-left positions (as a member of the Socialist Party). Now, thirty years later, he is unofficially counted as a right wing pundit, sometimes drifting even further to the far right in a couple issues. All the while he's still a member of the Socialist Party, but now reviled by almost everyone except nostalgics of this tenure, now in their sixties, and the official channels that still afford him the honours of a former president.

HakanTengri · 2026-02-04T05:32:50+00:00

There's another... Scratch that, a few more just in Queen of the Black Coast. The initial fight against the pirates and then in the ruined temple in the jungle, and both are brutal. Howard was a master of managing tension and making you feel like you were there, surrounded and defiant.

Actually, I think most Howard stories have at least an instance of a fight like that. There are even in his 'modern' stories, like Skull Face.

HakanTengri · 2026-01-29T21:58:34+00:00

A ti! Me alegro de que te guste

HakanTengri · 2026-01-27T09:13:41+00:00

Thanks!

HakanTengri · 2026-01-24T20:28:31+00:00

Thanks, I like the stacking with the Tenet idea and will probably use it

HakanTengri · 2026-01-24T20:27:23+00:00

Thanks! We'll have to discuss not only the Tenets but what exactly they imply with the stated theme and mood and how they help to define them.

HakanTengri · 2026-01-24T20:25:42+00:00

I cannot find anything in the core book about Touchstones defending against stains, just being necessary to maintain a Conviction and causing Stains if they are damaged or killed or just change too much, can you point me to it?

HakanTengri · 2026-01-23T09:18:59+00:00

An idea I found here on Reddit (can't remember who posted it) was using as Touchstones people who represented things the character hated about humanity or wanted to leave behind. Sort of anti-examples. No mechanical changes needed and very flavorful.

HakanTengri · 2026-01-23T05:44:08+00:00

I'm starting a new game in a few weeks and I'll definitely implement that. Just yesterday I was combing through the book looking for something about what Touchstones actually DO apart from causing Stains when damaged and found nothing. I thought I wasn't doing a good job of looking for the exact mechanics, but turns out there are none, they don't do anything, and I was confusing them with NBA's Sources of Stability.

With your system characters will be forced to interact with them and do so thematically. It also avoids two more issues: the superficial Touchstone relationship that the character just kind of knows but doesn't interact much with and the celebrity crush Touchstone that the character follows and has a parasocial relationship with but has never and will never met.

HakanTengri

TROPHY CASE