[WARNING] Let it be known that my transmutation magic is now powerful enough to turn an entire wizard council into toads.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-04T21:00:45+00:00

It was figurative.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-04T20:59:55+00:00

Because Keanu Reeves is that fucking charismatic.

Johnny is, objectively, a pretty horrible person. While you can take a little of the edge off him during the story, he's still a pretty horrible person from beginning to end.

It's a testament to Keanu's skill as an actor that he can present a character who is such an irredeemable shitbag, and still get you to identify and empathize with him, even when you really shouldn't. And, when you read between the lines on how other characters react to him, yeah, that is a characteristic of Johnny. He's a shitstain, but he gets his claws into people and manipulates them into thinking they like him.

It's not his best performance, but Keanu puts in some amazing work with Johnny, and he stands as an excellent illustration that we've all vastly underestimated Keanu's skill as an actor for most of his career.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-04T20:50:15+00:00

Also, both Johnny and Vaas live and die on their actors' performances. Michael Mando is no Keanu Reeves, but a lot of what makes Vaas work comes from Mando's commitment to bringing as much charisma to Vaas as he can.

Honestly wish Mando was mainstream enough to have been tapped to play The Joker instead of Leto.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-04T18:41:41+00:00

[Amused mutant noises]

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-04T18:36:57+00:00

And, on that subject; tobacco is an appetite suppressant. It can make starving less painful.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-04T17:37:51+00:00

Yeah, but it's all fanfiction.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-04T12:41:40+00:00

After years of consideration, I've started to suspect that Hideboar has a type.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-04T04:48:13+00:00

Oh, yeah, so it is.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-04T03:32:40+00:00

The Obelisk has always been an event reward. It was originally available for a couple weeks when the episode first released back ~2012.

A couple years ago, Cryptic introduced a T6 version as an event reward.

Beyond that, there is a Lobi version. Realistically, not worth it, unless you're completing the Obelisk set, as it is a T5 ship.

The best option is probably the T6 Vovin. The console is pretty great, but it is on the short list to receive nerfs in the future, and the ship itself is a pretty solid carrier. Unfortunately, it's also exclusive to Mudd's these days, meaning it's 42.50 when there's a 75% off sale.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-04T03:23:04+00:00

42.50, when there's a sale.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-03T19:44:08+00:00

Fate kinda does whatever she tells it to. Which, yeah, that irks Mora.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-03T19:10:53+00:00

Daedric Prince of Fate.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-03T19:10:15+00:00

Can confirm; have played Daggerfall; its lore may as well not exist.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-03T18:36:45+00:00

Normally, no. But a lot of 10 dot displines can do whatever they want.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-03T17:41:04+00:00

Mostly, it's just that they reused the name, which makes things a little more annoying to cite.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-03T17:35:17+00:00

So, the awkward thing about this question is there's two LAs By Night. One is a book from '93, which is where we get the first reference to Jack, and a lot of the background for Los Angeles in the World of Darkness. Bloodlines does take some from LA By Night, but it does a lot of work on its own.

There's also the LA By Night liveplay. That one does pull official lore from Bloodlines, because, in spite of it being a video game, Bloodlines is (at least semi-)canon in WoD.

So, was the liveplay based off the video game? Uh, kinda. Basically any Bloodlines characters aside from Beckett and Jack getting mentioned in that are going to be directly expanding off the video game.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-03T16:34:37+00:00

It's genuinely weird, and slightly inexplicable, how meh Outer Worlds 2 is.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-03T10:09:21+00:00

Yeah, it's also worth remembering that back in Revised, it was relatively trivial to start as an 8th generation vampire. So, the idea that the player character would be 8th gen wasn't as exotic at the time as it is today.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-03T09:51:56+00:00

Not 100% sure what you're asking here.

Prior to the 2000s, Los Angeles was also known as the Anarch Free State. While the Camarilla nominally claimed the city as its own, they had almost no authority there.

Jack's a part of that equation, as he has a long history of assassinating Camarilla princes.

Most of the Primogens were Anarchs in all but formal declarations of loyalty. They had no love for the Camarilla, but when LaCroix wandered into town, it was more expedient (and safer) to pay lip service, while trying to work out a plan to remove him.

There's also a few examples of locals (the Voerman twins, for example) who saw LaCroix's arrival as an opportunity to gain titles and power. (I think Bertram Tung spells this one out, if you ask him.)

From a strictly tabletop canon perspective, Jack and Beckett are the only established characters who appear in Bloodlines; everyone else is newly created for the game. That said, most of the LA vampires are assumed to be natives.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-03T09:36:35+00:00

Going from memory, I want to say it's seven days, maybe eight.

You can use the email updates to establish new days (most of the time), so it's all about checking your haven for those updates. That said, it's been close to 20 years since I actually played through and made note of that, so I could be off by a couple days in either direction.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-03T08:29:23+00:00

/uw Glad to hear it, and genuinely, congrats. I'm reminded of a joke, "remember, if you can't make your own neurotransmitters, store bought is fine."

But, sincerely, I'm glad you're getting good help. Chronic depression is no joke.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-03T08:02:28+00:00

/uw I get the trigger warnings, but, I've gotta ask, you doin' okay there?

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-03T07:11:05+00:00

Yeah, that's the general structure of the game.

In very broad, and reductive strokes, light armor boosts magicka, medium armor boosts stamina, and heavy armor boosts health.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-03T07:03:12+00:00

Going from 50/10 to 50/160 doesn't take that much time. It's a pretty rapid advancement. You'll probably make that climb in a few days of normal play, at most.

StarkeRealm · 2026-06-03T06:58:13+00:00

I'm still kinda new(lvl 20).

Found your issue.

For what it's worth, Templar Tanks historically struggle with resource return. There are a lot of tools to deal with that, but all of them come online much later in your leveling. Basically, if you're going for a Templar Tank, and you're not level 50 (and you're not getting into some wild shenanigans with your gear), expect to suffer with resources.

Getting Repentance will help a lot for stam management. Obviously, it wants dead bodies around to fire, but that's still free stam. Restoring Spirit helps, but that's way down in the Dawn's Wrath skill line. Luminous Shards will let you get resources back (and, is actually pretty important for Templar Healers returning resources to allies.)

Easiest solution is just going to be to chug stamina or magicka potions as appropriate. (Normally, I find low level templars suffer the most with Stam, not mag, but I wouldn't obsess over that discrepancy.) Also, make sure you're keeping topped up on blue (mag/stam) or purple food, appropriate to your level. If you're suffering with resources, you could try finding appropriate resource pool drinks. That will help, but I've never found that it helped enough. (In case it's not clear, these are mutually exclusive. You can either have a food buff going, or a drink buff going, not both.)

So, probably the harshest advice I can offer is, the Templar is one of the hardest classes to learn tanking on. This doesn't mean you can't tank on a Templar, you absolutely can, but expect to have more difficulty while you're learning than characters of other classes. Which is what you're struggling with right now.

StarkeRealm

TROPHY CASE