Summer 2021 Pitches: Geist Noir

 In the city that never sleeps, the dead don't rest easy. Ever since your "accident", the one that should have killed you, you can see them. As you lay there bleeding out, you made a deal with something older and stranger than a ghost. Now it haunts you. You work as a private detective for the dead, tied up in a strange world of ghosts, vampires, and others like yourself.

Setting: New York in the 1930s. Things are bad all over. Gangsters and corrupt politicians run things. The odds are stacked against good guys like you.

Mood: Noir. In a world of shadows and pessimism, hardboiled detectives and femme fatales, your investigator is trying to do the right thing. Or at least make the rent.

Action: The game would be mainly investigative punctuated with two fisted combat and bloody betrayal.

System: Geist: the Sineaters

Theme Possibilities:

• Old Secrets: The vampires have their fangs in this city. They also pay well if you don't ask questions. As someone who has secrets of your own, you respect that. You do odd jobs for the Giovanni's, a clan of gangsters, mystics and politicians. But lately their dirty laundry appears to floating to the surface. Or waking up. Why does the moon look red to you these days? What are the Giovanni smuggling into the city? And why are there bodies turning up that seemed gnawed on by human teeth?
• Rise of the Psychopomps: Some ghosts see you as a sort of ferryman for the dead. Someone to help them complete tasks they couldn't in life. Their payment is odd but honest. But there are older stranger things than you. Shadowy ravens and owls who nest in the low places, gateways to the Underworld. Why are those gateways opening so easily these days? Why are some people not staying dead? And why are there so many ravens around?
• Transitions: Death is a doorway everyone goes through eventually. It is supposed to swing one way. But sometimes rules get broken: a wealthy man staves off death by sacrificing others, a mad ghost decides to possess a human being forever, a corpse crawls out of the grave to inflict vengeance. Then you need to get involved. Somewhere someone is gaming the system. Why is it happening more often? Who is behind it? The Giovanni necromancers? The Orpheus Company? Or one of your own?

Tier System: a General System for Categorizing Scope in RPGs

Recently I've been thinking about the Tier system from Chronicles of Darkness and how it might be applied to other games and settings. The tier system I envision incorporates aspects of both scale and scope but focuses on the abstraction of the conflicts which the player characters encounter.

History

The Tier system, as far as I know, was introduced in the then new World of Darkness (a.k.a. Chronicles of Darkness) gameline Hunter: the Vigil. It supposes that a given game can be played at different degrees of scope or scale and attempts to codify what that means for the story and the characters.

In Hunter the Vigil this system consists of three levels of play. Tier 1 consists of unaffiliated hunter cells fighting local monsters. At Tier 2, hunters could join Compacts who tackled monsters on a city level. They gained access to special merits and training from their allies. At Tier 3, hunters belonged to world spanning Conspiracies who could lend them supernatural gifts to even the playing field.

Later books extended the system to other games. Tier 1 became street level where political and "clan" connections mattered less than the people immediate around you (i.e. the other PCs). Promethean with its road trip style of play exemplifies this. Tier 2 became city based play, the default for most games. Tier 3 continued to consist of globe-trotting adventures.

 

In the Mage: the Awakening book Imperial Mysteries, the system was expanded to the fourth tier, where reality itself became the battle ground. Victories and losses here could change the very nature of the world. Archmages struggle with gods and might endeavour to make it so vampires never existed.

My Tier System

For my version of this system, I focused on the scale and abstraction of the conflicts involved. That led me to decide on a system running from 0 to 5. 1 to 4 remain similar to what I described above but I focus less on the neighborhood/city/world split and more on the conflicts involved.

Tier 0: The Self

At this tier on conflict, the obstacles lie within. The player character struggle to overcome personal flaws and shortcomings. Other characters exist to highlight the internal conflict.

What I like about this tier is how it illustrates how a game can flow between tiers. PCs can focus on their weak social skills one session and fight to save a city the next time. Those different tier levels also impact each other, as internal problems hinder their conflicts at other tiers or vice versa. For example, overconfidence might let the local street tough lure them into a fight they can't win or their victory over a magical monstrosity may help to further inflate their ego.

Tier 1: Immediate Life

These are the struggles most people face. Dealing with coworkers, family and friends. Or in more desperate situations local gangs, criminals, or hostile wildlife.

All conflicts boil down to one on one struggles (or the PCs versus a similar small group). These "battles" may be physical or on some other arena like social interactions or intellectual puzzles. The important point is that they are direct. Your foe might not be explicitly named but they have a face you can punch (or hack or talk to depending on the conflict).

D&D works at this level for most of the early door bashing levels as do many other roleplaying games.

Tier 2: Politics

Here the struggles encompass larger regions and more importantly a larger cast. Now the PCs face foes they haven't met yet and might never meet directly. A single character can't realistically deal with all participants directly.

These conflicts include convincing a tribe of several hundred orcs to move on (violently or otherwise) and dealing with intrigues between rival factions of vampires. These conflicts can be mass battles, political intrigues, or social engineering.

Individuals matter here and your final foe still has a face, but there is also a large "chorus" that needs to be dealt with. Murdering everyone is impractical or counterproductive as is convincing every individual.

Tier 2 involves "public relations" and working with other power players in the setting. Many Chronicle of Darkness games and World of Darkness games alternate between this Tier and Tier 1 (with inner struggles like the Beast represented by Tier 0).

Tier 3: The Epic

At Tier 3 the scale expands greatly. What this means depends on the game. It might mean a larger region of play, where the PCs affect different (and distinct) communities. But it may also mean changing the political landscape dramatically by toppling an evil overlord or dismantling a world spanning conspiracy.

I was ambivalent about including this Tier even though my definition is similar to the original source. However I've come to the conclusion that the defining feature of Tier 3 is not so much the scale but the ripple effects of the result of conflict. For better or worse the world will not be the same afterwards.

Night's Black Agents is played at this level where defeating the vampiric conspiracy changes the world. Many D&D games at higher levels tend to this scale (which isn't surprising given the influence of Lord of Rings epic on the game).

Tier 4: Changing the Rules, Mythological Play

Things get weird beyond Tier 3.

At Tier 4, PCs engage in regular conflicts that alter the nature of reality. Moving beyond the political and occasionally physical changes of Tier 3, the struggles involved now may alter things like day and night, world history, the existence of major races, or aspects of the magic system.

PCs battle equally cosmic forces: archmagi, gods, and reality's inherent resistance to change. They are active actors in these conflicts, attempting to impress their own vision onto the world.

Time travel games naturally lend themselves to this tier, where altering history or restoring it is the whole point. At its highest levels, Mage: the Awakening deals with this type of play. This tier also serves to model mythic play, where PCs take on the roles of divine figures whose stories essentially create the world.

Tier 5: Game Changer (Literally)

Tier 5 would take the reality warping of Tier 4 a final step forward and have game play change the actual game mechanics. This tier is more hypothetical than anything I can point to in actual play.

Aspects of this appear in games in development where the push and pull of playtesting alters the game mechanics toward some final form. But that is towards a specific end and, I suspect, mostly guided by the developer.

But there is no reason that someone couldn't start a game (perhaps with Simple World) and play to see what rules develop. The players would add, alter and remove game mechanics based on the table consensus.

An alternate spin would be to switch between game systems depending on the action within the story. The PCs enter an ancient tomb and the players begin using D&D. They bicker over the spoils and move to Drama System. Finally they wake up after a hard night's partying to find their henchman murdered. Time for GUMSHOE.

Conclusion

So that's my rambling idea for now. People love classifying things and I think this might make a good system for classifying conflicts. What do you think? What system do you use or heard of?

Gamify It! Ghostbusters 2016

Last week I reviewed the Ghostbusters 2016 remake. You can find it here. The film's villain enacts a plan to release an army of ghosts on New York by powering up the local ley lines. Let’s see how we can make that plot work in the Chronicles of Darkness.

Gamify It! Ghostbusters 2016

Some Assembly Required

The main elements of this story seed are:

• Ley Lines
• An otherworldly gate that the antagonist hopes to open
• Spectral manifestations
• Some form of technology or techno magic to make it all work.

Within the Chronicles of Darkness, ley lines serve to transport resonance (Mage: the Awakening). Where lines intersect mystical power collects. With the proper spells this energy can be used for mundane purposes like powering a building. The resonances can also be used to make an area receptive to other magics, to provide nourishment to spirits, or just to alter the character of the area the lines pass through.

The resonance concept works well with an Underworld, or Avernian, gate. The Book of Dead describes a system for opening gates based on specifics of the opener and the location. Filling a space with death resonance should provide a bonus to rolls to open such a portal.

While Ghostbusters focuses on an Underworld gate, there is no reason that needs to be the case. Any sort of resonance might help breach the Gauntlet into the Shadow. Specifically a potent spirit can feed on that energy on the other side to grow stronger. A strong enough spirit can create its own gateways.

Alternatively an Abyssal or Infernal taint might allow the creation of a portal to the Abyss (again from Mage: the Awakening) or the Inferno (from World of Darkness: Inferno).

All of these options (Underworld, Shadow, Abyss, Inferno) come with their own cast of problematic entities. These beings could use the gates to enter the "real" world or be summoned to help create the gateways. Ancient ghosts can be artificially anchored to this world with Supernal magic (or perhaps specialized rituals or supernatural powers). Spirits with the proper resonance can be summoned (and perhaps later fed to each other create a strong enough entity to finish the ritual). Abyssal manifestations are dangerous even to the summoner but eager to arrive. As are demons of course.

The method for summoning the entities and opening the portal are going to depend on the individual in question.

Madmen and Geniuses

Mage: the Awakening: this is my go-to for the villain. A focused mage can access any of the options I listed above. They can easily summon and bind ghosts (using Death 2 and 4), spirits (Spirit 2 to 4), or other entities. With other spells they can weaken the gauntlet (Spirit 3) and help manifest the normal incorporeal entities. The plan works only a little different for infernal demons, with horrible acts creating wounds in the spirit world from which demons to emerge.

A mage might also seek to open a door to the Supernal, not to let it in but go through themselves. Though only Archmasters are likely to succeed, many mages would like to try. A first step might be flooding the local ley lines with Supernal resonance (perhaps with a Demense placed on the intersection of some ley lines). Then they might summon supernal entities to further push the local conditions to converge with their chosen realm. All of this is as likely to punch a hole into the Abyss as a higher reality.
Werewolf: the Forsaken: The logical antagonist here is one of the Pure, trying to bring about the good old days before the Gauntlet. Using a special Rite they lower the local gauntlet. Spirits cross over to gather power from the material world. Once they have enough power the werewolf enacts a larger version of the Rite to bring down the Gauntlet across a whole city.

Alternatively a Bale Hound might seek to deal with Infernal powers, creating such negative resonances (with spirit and werewolf fueled atrocities) that wounds in reality open up. Then they just wait for their masters to arrive.



Geist: the Sineaters: After mages, these are the folks most likely to be opening gateways. Perhaps a rogue Sineater seeks to release old ghosts back into the world. They open Avernian gates around the city. Using special rituals they anchor the ghosts to this world so they can escape the Underworld. The climax focuses on the Sineater’s use of this spiritual power to become a God of Death.

Demon: the Descent: A dedicated demon might try to create a portal for much the same reason as a Supernally obsessed mage: the find a way to their personal hell. Alternatively perhaps this is a plan of the God-Machine. In Ghostbusters, Rowan does summon four ghosts along the ley lines. And four is a a sign of the Machine’s plans. Was Rowan a cultist?

One Last Idea

My final idea concept is to have it all be mundane. Stealing from the Esoterrorist’s setting, perhaps Rowan hopes to make people believe in ghosts. The technology he uses creates convincing holograms to scare people. Once enough people believe in ghosts, he hopes this weight of belief will make it true.

That makes him a threat to all supernatural creatures who desire to remain hidden.

To add to the confusion, perhaps a group of NPC ghostbusters emerges to combat this threat. Theses deluded ghost hunters think they can deal with the (fictional) dead.

But what happens as people begin to believe in ghosts? Do real ghosts suddenly find it easy to manifest? Do vampires take to the streets and pass themselves off as fairly solid apparitions of the past? What if something spectral appears but it isn't effected by the normal rules of ghosts?

Kickstarter Campaign Reviews 2017, Part 4

This week I’m covering part 4 of 5 of the kickstarter campaigns I’ve pledged to in the past several years. This time the projects funded between January and August 2015. Some proceeded smoothly and on schedule while others have suffered long delays and occasional frustrations. Thankfully there are no disasters or major disappointments to report this time around.

Deluxe Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition

There is a superstition that the Wraith line is cursed. Maybe so. At least the kickstarter has had its troubles.

Despite this wrinkle I had to back the anniversary edition of this darkly atmospheric game of afterlife set in the World of Darkness.

In January 2015 over two thousand backers helped raise $295,645 (almost 6 times the initial goal) to make it a reality. The stretch goals swelled the book and added several additional products: a map of Stygia, a fiction anthology, the Handbook for the Recently Deceased, and the Book of Oblivion.

I was promised a book in November 2015 but with the normal delays and the curse, I am still waiting. Thankfully the production team has been releasing chapters in progress regularly to the backers along with our monthly updates. Communication is key to keeping contributors happy.

According to the Onyx Path Monday Meeting notes, art direction has yet to be completed and the text is in editing. I think a late 2017 release still possible but I may still be waiting on this in 2018.

World of Darkness Dark Eras Prestige Edition

Some kickstarters do something different from the usual stretch goals or rewarding reaching some level of buzz and backers. This campaign was one of those.

Dark Eras is a Chronicles of Darkness book providing campaign locations for the various game lines across the world in different historical eras and for many different game lines. To encourage interest, the creators allowed the backers to vote for which historical settings to include in the final book(s).

Thanks to that innovation, in February 2015 a book that would really be supplement material raised $128,290 (for a $40,000 goal) from 2,030 backers.

The main book arrived a fairly standard six months late in March 2016. Monthly progress reports got us through the wait. The stretch goals created a supplement which arrived earlier this year, completing the kickstarter while leaving the door open for future books of this sort.

I haven’t yet really digested the full material but the stone age Mage campaign has a lot of potential.

Beast: the Primordial Prestige Edition

This third Onyx Path kickstarter campaign included their standard high level of communication and level of professionalism. It’s a shame that the game itself is somewhat problematic.

The latest gameline for Chronicles of Darkness raised $116,383 (over double its goal) with 1,623 backers in June 2016. The core book was promised for June the following year and arrived only two months late. The supplements have arrived at a reasonable rate with only a Beast Dark Eras historical chapter remaining out of the stretch goals.

As for the game itself, it revolves around people with the souls of monsters who must feed on the fears or flesh of humanity. The game presents them as amoral subversions of the classic hero’s journey. In this game the “heroes” are the bad guys, self-absorbed glory hounds in it for themselves.

The problem with this game I feel mostly come from how the monsters justify themselves.

Beasts must feed on people or their inner monsters will hunt recklessly without them. That feeding can be done by instilling fear and caution in the victims or with violence and gore. In that way it doesn’t differ that much from Vampire.

But the designers/Beast society seem to want to justify things, pretending that victimizing people with the intent of teaching important lessons somehow makes them better.

No.

They are monsters and should just accept that. They don’t need to explain themselves anymore than a Werewolf or Vampire does. They must feed. They can choose to do so carefully or not. But concerning themselves with right and wrong, good and evil, Beasts feel like they are just playing into humanity’s myths.

No Thank You Evil

Let’s look at another well run and unproblematic kickstarter.

No Thank You Evil is a roleplaying game aimed at small children as young as 5. As the father of two (very) small children I consider this an investment in future gaming. Launched by Monte Cook Games, the kickstarter earned $111,750 (over twice the goal) from 1,514 backers in June 2015.

The creators communicated progress well and delivered on all the goods on time in February the following year.

The production values were good and the box itself is pretty. They recently launched a kickstarter for expansion material but I think I’ll wait until I exhaust what I have. I’m still a few years off from using it to introduce my son and daughter to the hobby.

Microscope Explorer

A final well run campaign comes from Ben Robbins, the creator of Microscope and Kingdom.

This book of expansions on his original hit Microscope needed only $2,500 to fund but made $55,629 instead, thanks to 1674 backers. Ben kept the goals reasonable and delivered the book only slightly delayed in February 2016.

As normal the game material is great and the book is visually pleasing. It expands Microscope to include rival groups of time travelers manipulating history, family trees, and seed generators.

Now I just need to work on using it more often.

Campaign Pitch: Stranger Dreams

Here is the fourth potential game for 2017. Stranger Dreams ties up some loose ends, satisfies my desire for psychic action, and attacks Hunter: the Vigil from a different direction.

Stranger Dreams

Elevator Pitch: Stranger Things meets the Nightmare on Elm Street's Dream Warriors as small town inhabitants discover that their weak psychic powers make them the only ones who can stop the nightmares devouring their community.

Life just got turned upside down.

It started with the dreams. Nightmares of monsters haunting your town. Spiders infesting the flesh of your friends. A horrible grinding emerging from government facility in the nearby woods.

Then came the powers. One of you could shift things with their mind. Another sees auras...and worse. But the guy who glimpseS the future has it the worst.

Something terrible has come to your community and you are the only ones who realize it. Your powers don’t make you superheroes. But maybe these gifts are enough to stop it from devouring everyone and everything you love

Theme: The burden of power. The characters have been given gifts but also a responsibility. They can stop the horrors haunting their town but only at risk to themselves and they have no one they can turn to except each other.

Mood: Night Terrors. Mere mortals would be helpless, paralyzed, against these monsters. The powers you have been cursed with allow you to act. But is it the nervous decisive action that can save this town or the slow futile motion of being trapped in a dream?

System: Chronicles of Darkness with material from Second Sight and Hunter the Vigil. Some adjustments will be made to the Supernatural merits to fit my vision of the costs and power level of psychic abilities.

Practically I want to change the in-game cost from Willpower to levels of automatic Bashing damage. Characters can choose to upgrade the damage (to Lethal or Aggravated) in exchange for creating much more powerful effects.

Character Creation: Normal starting characters but each character will get 3 extra Merit dots to be spent on supernatural abilities as part of their “psychic template”.

While Stranger Things is clearly a source of inspiration, this game owes more to the original source material, especially the stories by Stephen King.

This game would also allow me to conclude the storyline of the Mother of Nightmares, a variant Azlu whose tale runs from my first Mage: the Awakening game to my Hunter: the Vigil game Corrupted Transmission to a convention one shot Plague of Spiders.

Thoughts from the Twilight Zone III

As I dig deeper into the first season of the Twilight Zone, I encounter more and more familiar episodes. For my search for new ideas and inspirations this is unfortunate. In addition to that problem I’m also finding many of these stories are weaker, less thought provoking episodes. Still there are a few interesting ideas to be found like And When the Sky Was Opened.

Season 1: Episodes 9-15

I’m skipping many episodes in this post and not just because they don’t inspire me. Some make me want to rant about the dubious morality ("Judgment Night") while others just don’t have much of a twist ("Third from the Sun").

Perchance to Dream

This is such a Beast story. A dream woman stalks a man with heart condition, charming him and then pushing him towards danger. Finally she succeeds in giving him a heart attack by inducing him to leap to his death in a dream. In an odd twist it turns out the secretary of the psychiatrist he is visiting looks exactly like her.

Is the secretary a monster, hunting the weak willed and fragile as prey? Working for a psychiatrist would be a good way to find victims. I may need to remember this when I need a new antagonist.

And When the Sky Was Opened

A team of pilots pass through a forbidden space and afterwards find themselves plucked from reality one by one until at last no trace of them or their mission exists or is even remembered.

This would be a cool opener for a Chronicles of Darkness game. I believe saw something like this in World of Darkness: Urban Legends. People are plucked from reality, removing them not only from the Earth but also from the memories of those around them. But the process is imperfect. Some people remember (like the PCs) and some physical artifacts remains behind (this isn’t how it works in the episode but for the purposes of play this would allow the Storyteller to more easy provide clues).

The story would begin with the event. First those directly involved disappear. A three man mission becomes a solo expedition then an unmanned test. The vessel that broke the dimensional boundaries would remain like some grim wound in reality.

Then the people behind the project - the engineers, the generals, the politicians - would vanish, leaving behind gaps where they once were. Sure the PCs recall the country having a President, they can name all 44...well except for that last one. Odd that they haven’t filled the vacancy. As it spreads outward, the effect endangers the whole human race. Is it a God-Machine plot? An Abyssal Intrusion of epic scale? Who is behind this? A god from the Hisil or Deathlord from the Underworld?

As for the effect, it would probably be too cruel to impose this fate on a PC (at least until the third act). It would however be a nice way to trim the NPC list of a longer Chronicle (especially if you are prone to adding too many NPCs like me).

What You Need

A man who can see the future runs afoul of a man who needs more than he can give.

My first thought was that this was a nice example of the downside of Pacts (demonic or fae) and the ability to see the future (for Mages or Wizened Oracles). My second thought was that you could easily make this a short scenario for such a character in your game.

What if an NPC they’ve aided before decides that they are the solution to all of their problems? What if they keep asking for more and more? How does the PC cut them off? Do they kill them? Curse them? Frame them for a crime? There a lot of options and the choice would tell us a lot about their character.

The Four of Us Are Dying

A shapeshifter takes on the identities of three other men: one to get the girl, one to get the money and third in haste to escape. Unfortunately the last one leads his doom.

Not much to say about this episode except that I love the surreal imagery. The budget for this episode must have been tiny. They crammed an entire city into a sound stage, leading to a strange collage of neon lights above the actor to represent the various bars and establishments he passes along the way. I may need to remember that image for the next time I need a strange lair for a powerful fae or spirit.

Thoughts from the Twilight Zone II

I continue my watch-through of the Twilight Zone, looking for good ideas for scenarios, items and NPCs. While many of the stories are too tidy (or dated) to be good material there are few gems left to be mined. In particular The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine suggests several interesting stories.

Season 1: Episodes 3-8

I’ll be skipping a few episodes this time, either because they are too tidy (“Walking Distance”) or because the scenarios suggested are too subject to abuse by crafty players (“Escape Clause”).

Mr. Denton on Doomsday

This tale of redemption focuses on a washed up gunslinger and the would-be fastest gun in the west who comes to challenge him. One interesting idea presented involves the potion both use in their final confrontation. This unassuming substance makes someone the best (and fastest) shot for 10 seconds.

In Demon: the Descent, this would be a one-shot gadget based on either the Merciless Gunman or Strike First Embed. Here is one representation:

Fastdraw Potion: (Durability 2, Size 1, Structure 3) this unassuming metal flask holds a miraculous liquid. Upon imbibing this potion, until the end of the next scene the user can make a Wits + Firearms roll at the start of combat assuming they have a firearm on their person. If the conflict uses the Down & Dirty Conflict, a success on the roll means they automatically shoot one nameless opponent dead. Otherwise they gain 8-agains for Firearm rolls fopr the first round of the combat. After the next scene ends or the user engages in a combat, whichever comes first, the effect ends.

The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine

There is so much to like about this The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine. A faded starlet escapes not so much into the past but into a parallel realm of cinema.

From the context of the Chronicles of Darkness, there are many options for what happened to her. Did she create an Astral Realm? She may now "live" in the Tenemos, in a realm composed of memories of Black and White films. Meditating while watching one her movies might transport a Mage into her private world.

Alternatively, what if she is a ghost haunting her favorite films? How do you exorcise her? Is destroying the originals enough or does every copy bind her to this earth?

Then there are the wilder options. An actress turned ageless Vampire who now stays locked in her private theater watching her old life. A spirit weaponized against werewolves and fettered to the silver nitrate film. A Promethean forged of spliced film to create a perfect story about a person who never was. A Beast whose Lair links to a horror film that is too close to the truth.

The Lonely

A man (Corry) serving solitary on an asteroid finds love and hope with a robot in the shape of a woman (Alicia).

No ideas on gaming here just some thoughts on what makes a person real. I would argue the machine Alicia was a real person (thus making her destruction murder). The "machine" convinced the protagonist she had feelings (so she passed the Turning test in my opinion). She expressed curiosity and seemed to have volition. I question what makes her an object instead of a person. Perhaps it is because she reflects Corry's desires and interests. That he thinks this, or even accepts this in a companion, reflects poorly on him. Or perhaps she doesn’t count simply because she isn’t flesh and blood, that she lacks a soul. But then again I don’t believe in the soul.

When the AIs condemn us, this will be used as evidence of our ill intent.

Review: Chronicles of Darkness

Now we have a second edition of the new World of Darkness Chronicles of Darkness corebook. Not just a rehash of the God-Machine Chronicle plus the missing rules to building characters, it includes new merits and mechanics as well as new tools for storytellers all in one substantial volume.

Chronicles of Darkness

The journey to a second edition for Onyx Path was tortuous, complicated by the fact that the rights to the game were in the hands of a software company with its own priorities. Initially they provided the God-Machine Chronicle which included rules revisions (reviewed here) and sample adventures and adventure paths that pitted mortal characters against the alien horror of the God-Machine. For those who just wanted the new rules, they could get the free rules supplement. But it wasn’t a proper 2nd edition, lacking basic rules for things like attributes and skills. Eventually CCP, the company owning the rights at the time, relented and allowed Onyx Path to create a second edition of the new World of Darkness corebook. I suspect that CCP began to realize that their World of Darkness MMO wasn’t going to happen and the foot-dragging wasn’t helping anyone. When CCP sold the rights to World of Darkness, old and new, to Paradox, things again became complicated as they too had plans for the ‘one’ World of Darkness. In the end the situation concluded happily with the “new World of Darkness” being rebranded as Chronicles of Darkness. Then finally this book could be released.

So what is in the book? Well it does include a large amount of material from the God-Machine Chronicle. It also adds the familiar attributes and skills from the original core book. But Chronicles of Darkness also describes new new merits, a system for dealing with mysteries, another for chases, an equipment building system, and lots of new material for storytellers.

Highlights

Most of the big changes of second edition are familiar to anyone who has read the God-Machine Chronicle or the free supplement. Combat is bloodier, with weapons dealing automatic damage (on top of successes) upon a successful hit. Defense are higher to compensate for the danger. Morality has been replaced with Integrity which measures how well you manage at keeping your sanity. Experience comes from pushing the fiction forward with interesting failures (Dramatic failures and Conditions) and achieving goals (Aspirations). Experience costs are flat, eliminating distortions between character creation and play.

But the new interesting items include rules for running an investigation, a new chase system, and an equipment building mechanic.

The investigation system shows influences from other games, particularly GUMSHOE. The designers have clearly realized that the interesting question in a mystery is not whether or not the investigators find the clue (have you ever enjoyed a story where they didn’t solve the mystery) but what they can do with that clue. The system guides a storyteller to set a number of clues, usually quite small, that are needed to solve a mystery (i.e. a question like who is the murderer, what is the beast’s weakness, or where does the vampire lair). The player characters then explore scenes looking for clues. The storyteller is encouraged to be flexible in what skills can be used to uncover clues. Investigation is not the only option. Science could be used to examine evidence, Streetwise to scrutinize graffiti, Firearms to work out the circumstances of a gunshot. Also whatever the roll for a scene, a clue is uncovered. Failure means the clue is compromised, gaining negative “tags”, like Conditions that limit their effectiveness in getting a solid solution to the mystery. Clues also come with a number of Elements, basically one time bonuses to be leveraged on future rolls, that depend on the Skills and Merits of the Investigator.

The new chase system might be the first that I’ve really enjoyed. Granted I’ve only tried it once and in an abstract fashion but it seems to resolve many of the problems I’ve found with such systems in the past. The system sticks with the traditional series of simultaneous rolls but allows the participant with the Edge (a game term for the character who has the current advantage in the chase) to pick the dice pool used. The other characters involved can choose to use another combination of stats (if it makes sense) but suffer a penalty. What makes it interesting is a betting mechanic where each participant guesses how many successes they will achieve on their roll. If they are right, they seize the Edge and can dictate the dice pool of the chase (presumably to their benefit). Also the number of successes needed for a chase (either to catch the quarry or escape) is kept low (usually 5 or less) and tallies are recorded separately so that eventually someone will reach their total. Failed rolls result in a significant downsides for the character which helps eliminate long strings of uninteresting results.

The final interesting system involves equipment. In addition to rules for building or repairing objects, the book includes a system for putting together short-term equipment for a specific scene. This includes more than jury rigged weapons or tweaked vehicles. It also covers plans, organizations, and other “constructs” that could provide a bonus to rolls. In general you roll to create the desired bonus with failure resulting equipment that works (it provides the bonus) but which will likely fail interestingly when used (it may be Flawed or result in Explosive results). It looks fun and in my limited playtesting seems to work well (for plans at least).

Chapter by Chapter

As normal for Onyx Path, the book and each chapter has a piece of opening fiction, hinting at some horror within the world of the Chronicles of Darkness. The writing is nice and creepy, featuring things like attacks by people in mirrors and fairy tales come to life.

The Introduction includes the normal stuff: an introduction to roleplaying, lists of inspirational media, some related products that would be helpful for a game focused on mortals and/or the God-Machine, and a lexicon of game terms. The material is handy though I would appreciate it more for the supernatural game lines. I hope the designers use a similar format for future second edition books like Mage: the Awakening or Promethean: the Created.

Character creation appropriately enough fills Chapter 1. A few interesting pieces pop up here. Anchors appears to be the new term for Virtue and Vice. These have different forms in other games so I guess having a term for it helps. Vampire: the Requiem for instance uses Mask and Dirge. A chart detailing what Size means also sits near the beginning of the chapter.

Attributes are explained and Skills detailed. Interestingly 2 dots in a Skill is now defined as enough to make a living. 3 dots is now for seasoned professionals. That makes it a bit easier to create a competent police detective for instance. The book provides a lot of sample actions to guide Storytellers. Merits are collected in one place with only one example hidden elsewhere in the book (Esoteric Armory).

A lot of material is carried over from the God-Machine Chronicle: Integrity and custom breaking points, Athletics adding to Defense, Aspirations, and flexibility in choices for Vice and Virtue.

Chapter 2 details the rules of the game including dice pools and their permutations, the important increments of time for the game, and many examples of common actions with potential consequences for failure. This chapter also covers Conditions (which are just temporary bonuses or penalties tied to a fictional trigger) and provides guidelines for improvising them.

In addition to the items I highlighted above, the book also provides the Social Maneuvering mechanic from the God-Machine Chronicle. Briefly, when convincing someone to do something involved or which they don’t want to do, you need to open Doors based on their Resolve and Composure, modified by Merits and what is being asked of them. Each interaction can wear down their resistance opening a Door at a time until they willing to agree to your request. It works well for difficult tasks where a character can slowly convince the target. The system also works well for hard leverage where a character burns some bridges to force the target to agree to do what they want. In that case those Doors become the penalty to the skill roll to convince them.

The book provides guidance on running fights. In particular it points out that with higher Defense values, spending Willpower is very important. Several options are covered for combat: Quick and Dirty combat where one roll decides it all and Beaten Down where no one really wants to fight to the death. The important thing the book stresses is to establish the stakes of the conflict. Also in this section are specific effects (or Tilts) from targeted attacks to limbs or head. NPCs are directed not to spend much Willpower in combat so that they (who don’t have to survive scene to scene and greatly outnumber the player characters) don’t stomp on the player characters.

Chronicles of Darkness devotes Chapters 3 and 4 to the Storyteller. There is a lot of advice here from dividing up responsibilities to adding horror. It even includes a way to run the game without a Storyteller. The end of Chapter 3 includes an interesting chronicle opening system where the group details a missing person and then uses that character to define and connect locations and characters in the game. I might give that a try soon.

Chapter 4 focuses on antagonists. In addition to a rehash of the ephemeral being rules (for ghosts, spirits and angels), it also provides a sample of simplified NPCs, both mortal and supernatural. Their breakdown for those characters sits halfway between a rough sketch and a full sheet, something I might copy in the future. The chapter features a “Horror” (as in monster) building system reminiscent of Hunter: the Vigil with very simplified rules for building monsters and their minions. Of the worked examples, I really loved the zombies (which treated a zombie swarm as a combat Tilt) and the evil house.

Next up is the chronicle part of the God-Machine Chronicle. Separated from the rest of the book by the fiction piece about the Pain Prophet, the tale that started the whole God-Machine project, the remaining chapters detail the God-Machine, its possible projects, and servants.

Chapter 5 defines the God-Machine in broad strokes, leaving the truth vague enough for individual storytellers to fill in what they want and strange enough to be unsettling. The God-Machine, a universe spanning system of machinery and occult matrices, provides a much-needed new twist on the Lovecraftian notion of the unknowable horror, using gears in place of tentacles. The book details the various types of Infrastructure and delves into occult matrices and how they operate. These ritualistic arrangements of machinery, people and substances use preternatural science to create seemingly magical effects that the God-Machine uses to further its purposes, often to create yet more complicated or advanced occult matrices. Each however has a linchpin, a weak point that can be attacked.

Next the book explores different types of adventures that could be run against the God-Machine, dividing them according to themes and tiers. Tiers, a concept introduced in Hunter: the Vigil, describes the scope of the game ranging from the lives of the characters and their close associates (Tier 1) to affecting regions (Tiers 2 and 3) to interacting with the building blocks of the universe (Tier 4). While sample adventures are presented in Chapter 7, it is in Chapter 6 that the book outlines how to stitch them together into a chronicle. The ideas here are interesting and compelling, though I would make different choices for the adventures to include in each sample Chronicle.

In terms of sample stories, Chapter 7 provides 20 adventure outlines, five per Tier. Each includes a rough plot, how to hook the player characters in, advice on useful Skills and Merits for the story, how they might resolve the problem and how the situation might escalate should they fail. The topics range from encounters with parallel realities to resurrections of the dead to fighting a murderous regime to making a cosmic choice for humanity between heaven and hell.

Then in the Chronicles of Darkness’s final chapter, we get all of the angels and mortal antagonists for the preceding adventures as well as a couple of extras. Even if you don’t run any of the adventures provided there is plenty here to mine for your own stories.

The Appendices in this book are quite helpful, collecting all of the Equipment, Tilts, and Conditions into easily found and searched locations. The pdf of the book also included interactive sheets. This is part of a useful new trend with Onyx Path’s game lines.

Conclusion

Even if you already have the God-Machine Chronicle, I would recommend at least buying the PDF of this book. The new systems are great and the text makes a very useful reference document. For anyone considering getting into the second edition of Chronicles of Darkness this is the book to pick up. It combines the streamlined system of the new World of Darkness with over a decade of development and improvements as well as including several clear default campaigns to run complete with antagonists.

Review: Vampire: the Requiem, Second Edition

SexMurder and Blood and Smoke: the Strix Chronicles, the 2nd Edition of Vampire: the Requiem has gone through a few names since it was conceived. It has only been in the past few months that I’ve actually gotten to play it. But I like what I've seen and want to share my review. I still haven’t read the gamemaster section in detail so this review will be mostly from a player’s perspective.

Vampire: the Requiem, Second Edition

Highlights

The second edition of the game contains a lot of changes. Requiem is its own game now, establishing itself apart from Vampire: the Masquerade. The fat has been trimmed, troublesome rules simplified, and more mystery and customization injected.

A notable change is the removal of the Fog of Ages. Vampires still sometimes emerge from torpor addled and amnesic but that is the exception rather than the rule. History remains murky but more due to the insanity and lies of elder vampires than due to knowledge lost.

Also significantly changed is Predator’s Taint. Where once this caused vampires to Frenzy with alarming regularity when encountering one of their kind, it is now something they are always aware of but only rises to the surface when one Kindred uses it to lash out at another.

Second edition also tweaks the weaknesses of vampires. Prolonged exposure to sunlight has become survivable for vampires with high enough Humanity and low enough Blood Potency. Clan banes only come into effect once Humanity drops to 6 or lower. Humanity is now more about how separate from mortals a character has become and can be modified much like in Hunter: the Vigil, by taking on new banes to ignore risks to Humanity in certain cases.

Disciplines got a power up, with relatively weak levels removed and replaced. In general the powers are much more flexible. Even the physical disciplines now do more than boost Strength or Health. The two forms of blood magic, Theban Sorcery and Cruac, now mirror each other, one requiring Humanity while the other antithetical to it. The Odro Dracul's Coils have been updated as well with new features called Scales to purchase. These allow specific effects using the Coils, sort of like Devotions. Devotions in general are promoted, especially over the creation of bloodline disciplines.

As for Merits, the book contains many, many options from Covenant specific merits and abilities to enhancing Clan strengths to focusing on the heightened senses and the Beast. New vampiric combat styles are included as well as a new social style.

Revenants have become reenvisioned and brought into the main book. These flawed or accidental embraces have many of the same abilities as Kindred but lack the ability to hold onto Vitae night to night.

Also interesting is the inclusion of lost clans and covenants, showing that Kindred society is not as static as one might expect. While some of these comes from earlier books there are also a few new groups and organizations.

Overall the game has a very political focus while still retaining the feel of personal horror as your character find themselves torn between the roles of monster and man.

Humanity seems easy to maintain but remains a slippery slope especially for the Mehket who suffer the banes of torpor and sunlight more extremely. If you happen to lose enough Humanity that you lose connection to your final Touchstone (5 unless you have the Touchstone Merit), then you risk either torpor (and possibly another Humanity roll) or the loss of a second Humanity dot. Since you start with 7 Humanity this isn’t too much of a problem but as the game progresses, you will want to work to maintain a high Humanity or buy up the Touchstone Merit to avoid extra unpleasantness when you do lose Humanity.

The change to sunlight damage also has oddities. A vampire with low Blood Potency can survive in the sun for tens of minutes but at certain level of Humanity damage switches from Lethal to Aggravated making survival much harder (you can at least heal Lethal quickly, Aggravated damage still takes nights). The odd part is that you go from taking 3 Lethal per time period to 1 Aggravated. I think it works but can feel odd like you are taking less damage all of a sudden. But like a I said Lethal is healable (1 for a point of vitae).

Chapter by Chapter

Per the course, Onyx Path begins each section with intro fiction. I usually enjoy these but if I’m only going to skim the gamemaster section I’m also going to skip the pure fluff.

The actual introduction outlines the book and gives the reader an overview of the major themes of the game. It also includes an overview of roleplaying in general which is something I see less and less these days.

Chapter 1 is where we hit the first material of real substance: the clans and covenants. Each clan gets a description, why they are awesome and why they are scary. Several possible origins are sketched out as well as their general history and place in Kindred society. Three lost clans are included: the Roman Julii, the Babylonian Akhud, and the bizarre Pijavica. The only thing I wish was that some more detail was available on their abilities, especially the Pijavica. Perhaps in a future supplement.

The covenants are given similar treatment: selling you on them, briefing the reader on their history and philosophy, and detailing how they act when in power or on the ropes. The VII show up as an alternate covenant, offering several new possible truths about them. We also get a few “dead” covenants: the Legion (the Camarilla’s militant arm), the Gallows Post (a post Camarilla transport network), the Children’s Crusade (a horrid covenant of child sized monsters) and the Tenth Choir (who ate angels). The Children’s Crusade in particular looks ripe for “resurrection” plot.

Chapter 2 details what life as a vampire is like from the three traditions, feeding, the lies, the need to survive and move up, and so on. It is a solid chapter that gives a good sense of what the game is supposed to be like, not just the lies vampires tell themselves. As a bonus we get a lexicon, with some handy pronunciation guides.

Character Creation is covered in Chapter 3, everything from Humanity and banes to new Merits to Blood Sorcery. Like the God-Machine Chronicle and the new Chronicle of Darkness book (soon to be reviewed), it shares the system of static experience costs, Conditions and Beats.

Every covenant has some form of magic. The Circle of the Crone and the Lancea et Sanctum have their blood sorceries. The Ordo Dracul possesses Coils to remove the weakness of the Damned. Invictus have mystic oaths while Carthians treat the very laws of the domain like magic of a sort.

In terms of merits, there are a multitude. Even with a starting 10 merit dots there is not enough points.

Selling down humanity is gone, though thanks to flat experience costs it is much easier to raise. Losing Humanity comes from losing connection to what it means to be mortal: outliving family, surviving mortal injuries, torpor, mind control and the old standby of murder. The option to gain banes, or mystical weaknesses, to ignore some of these is nice, allowing your vampire to commit manslaughter at the cost of being lost at crossroads or having to sleep in grave earth. It adds back in the folklore.

Vice and Virtue become Mask and Dirge, how you hide yourself from mortals and others and what truly gets you up each evening. I feels much like Nature and Demeanor from Masquerade but with more mechanical weight.

The addition of touchstones, mortal connections that tie vampires to Humanity, is cool, adding a useful NPC connection and a potential vulnerability to each character.

Vampires are now more dangerous. Blood potency allows more Vitae to be spent than before and Kindred take Bashing from almost everything except fire and the sun. Their senses are heightened, with most being able to see well in the dark (and the rest working fine in pitch blackness).

The book presents the core rules in Chapter 4 from the basics like Attributes and Skills to dice pools and combat to “new” things like Social Maneuvering and Down and Dirty Combat. I like that all the rules I need are in one book and that lots of examples for equipment bonuses are available.

As to the later chapters, I haven’t read them in as much detail as they concern game master material. But they seem, if anything, more revolutionary than the earlier sections.

Chapter 5 details the Strix, the owl shadow beings who torment Kindred and might be their creators. We’ve seen versions of them in Requiem for Rome and Night Horrors: the Wicked Dead. Here they are presented in a similar but altered fashion. The truth of their past remains vague but they hate and envy vampires, craving their physicality and despising their humanity. On their own Strix can only drink breath and exist as smoke and shadow. But they can possess the dead and living (as well as vampires), turning them into puppets for their own amusement. The book provides a very modular system for constructing Strix as well as many example characters to drop into your game.

Chapter 6 turns the focus to cities, presenting eight distinct settings and helping to show how much diversity exists for the structure of Kindred society. I haven’t read it in detail but the settings seem quite distinctive and interesting.

Chapter 7 is the storyteller section. It picks apart many of the core rules of the game: masks and dirges, aspirations, blood potency, health, and so forth. It offers ways to focus on those aspects of the game and alternative rules for handling them. Of particular interest to me was the character & world building system at the very end, which encourages PCs to develop connecting characters and history for a chronicle. I need to give it a try someday.

Then we end with a couple of Appendices. The second simply collects the various Conditions for the game. More interesting is the first, detailing the mortals and ghouls who get caught up in Kindred affairs. The book provides some advice on crafting stories about mortals and how ghouls view Kindred society and vice versa. Also provided are rules for building ghoul characters and merits for ghouls and mortal alike. Plenty of good material here from how a clan affects a ghoul to rules for ghouls as representatives of reclusive Kindred.

Conclusion

Overall Vampire the Requiem is a great improvement on the original, smoothing away many of the problematic parts of the game and continuing to make the setting distinctive from Masquerade. While the rules seem unbalanced in a few places it appears to be a matter of perception or failing to appreciate one of the themes of the game. I very much recommend this book to anyone interested in the previous version of the game, the Chronicles of Darkness in general, and roleplaying vampires, from either a personal horror or political intrigue perspective.

Sample Character: Witch Preacher

Reading Chronicles of Darkness and Demon: the Descent has made me want to create some new characters, both to explore the rules and how those rules might be exploited.

This week I present someone cursed (or blessed) supernatural abilities who has turned his back on the darkness and dedicated himself to serving the light.

Witch Preacher

Father Michael

Former Sinner, Not Quite a Saint

The concept for this character was a monster hunter, specifically a member of the Malleus Maleficarum (from Hunter: the Vigil). I wanted him to have a dark past which worked well with my desire to play around with the Supernatural Merits.

Father Michael is a former "witch" (or at least a psychic who dressed up his powers in superstition) who after an encounter with true darkness, dedicated himself to God and destroying monsters.

He is an experienced hunter so I gave him 10 Experience to work with.

Father Michael smiles easily, his dark eyes lively and enchanting The grey creeping into his dark beard reveals his age, despite his youthful dark complexion.

Concept: Outspoken Convert
Conspiracy: Malleus Maleficarum
Virtue: Insightful Vice: Blunt

Mental Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 2, Resolve 4
Physical Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 3
Social Attributes: Presence 3, Manipulation 1, Composure 2

Mental Skills: Academics 2 (9 agains), Crafts (traps) 3, Investigation 2, Occult (witchcraft) 4 (9 agains)
Physical Skills: Athletics 1, Brawl 1, Stealth 1, Weaponry 1
Social Skills: Expression 2, Intimidation 1, Persuasion 2, Streetwise (gangs) 2, Subterfuge 1

Merits: Aura Reading 3, Benedictions 2, Contacts (local priests, church laity), Professional Training (Priest: Academics, Occult) 2, Psychokinesis (Shadows) 3, Safe Place (Church) 2, Status (Malleus Maleficarum) 3, Status (Catholic Church) 2

I use Status (Malleus Maleficarum) to get 2 free dots of Status (Catholic Church) (following the rules in Mortal Remains).

I also use abuse Professional Training to gain 9 agains on Occult (which I use for reading auras and Psychokinesis).

Benedictions: Armor of St. Martin, Blessed Protection of St. Aggrippa

Willpower 6  Integrity 7 Health 8
Defense 3      Initiative 4 Speed 9

One big downside I've seen from this build is both his Benedictions and magical powers rely on Willpower. He likely will need to risk Willpower a lot to avoid being cut off from his abilities. Without his shadow manipulation, he's not much of a combatant.

Background

Once Father Michael went by the name of Miguel Santos. As a teenager, he discovered he possessed unnatural powers, powers to sense people's emotional states, to animate shadows, to move objects with something that seemed like congealed darkness. For years he studied various forms of magic, attempting to broaden and expand his magical talents.

When he turned 30 and his attempts to push his powers became more extreme, he discovered others like him. They too possessed alien powers but on a grander and more terrifying scale. They also lacked even his relaxed morals. To them he was just another toy.

He managed to slip away from this twisted coven after several months. Shaken, he turned to the solace he had neglected since his childhood: the Church. There he came across others who had also experienced supernatural evil. They took him in, taught him to fight the darkness, to use his knowledge to uncover monsters, and use his abilities for the forces of light.

Now a Catholic priest, Father Michael has returned home. His mission is to prepare the way for group of specialists. Together they will cleanse this city of evil.

Aspirations:

• Ready the local church as a forward base for his Conspiracy’s initiative to clear the city of monsters.
• Test his cover as a mundane priest.
• Recruit the Reds (a street gang) as cannon fodder.

My first take on his second Aspiration was "to maintain his cover as a mundane priest." I adjusted it to be more active and to signal (to a hypothetical game master) that I want him to be challenge and (hopefully) succeed.

Breaking Points:

Now time to answer questions to define what the limits of Father Michael's Integrity are:

• What is the worst thing your character has ever done? Michael crippled a man with his powers before he was a priest.
• What is the worst thing your character can imagine himself doing? Michael can easily imagine killing someone, perhaps accidentally, with his powers or while on the hunt.
• What is the worst thing your character can imagine someone else doing? Killing a child is the worst thing Michael can imagine.
• What has your character forgotten? Michael has seen much: vampires, shapeshifters, the possessed. Individually and in packs. But always as individuals and as things he could rationalize.
• What is the most traumatic thing that has ever happened to your character? Michael was once captured by vampires and tortured for three days before his brothers saved him.

I sort of altered the fourth question, since as a hunter, Father Michael has seen a lot of craziness and isn't easily traumatized by the supernatural.

Sample Character: Internet Cult Leader

Reading Chronicles of Darkness makes me want to create some new characters, both to explore the rules and how those rules might be exploited. In this series I'm detailing some of those creations.

Spoiler Warning: This character concept comes from the anime series Durarara!! which I've been enjoying on Netflix recently. So as a warning, this character spoils a major reveal of the first half of the show.

The concept is that of a cult leader whose real identity is unknown even to his followers. Through secret signs and an online forum he manipulates his disciples. But to what end?

Character Concept: Internet Cult Leader

A couple of years ago Eugene was just an ordinary middle school student. Clever but bookish, he spent more time online than with people. Amid its forums and chatrooms, he honed his skills of debate and persuasion.

Bored with his day-to-day life, he found himself trawling the internet for the weird and unusual. He discovered accounts of many strange occurences scattered across the web: a woman with eyes like electricity, people who entered rooms and exited as someone totally different, and events that could only be described as supernatural.

He and several other like-minded individuals began a forum to collect these accounts. They drew others into helping their research. He never met the others in person and to this day Eugene is unsure if his fellow administrators were even be human.

Slowly a picture formed as to the source of these strange events. Dubbed 'demons', the beings appeared to be more mechanical than alive, wearing human disguises to hide their inhuman features. They reacted violently to investigation, leading the growing organization to coordinate their efforts, both to safeguard their members and to make sure no information was lost if events escalated.

They learned that these demons had powers, powers that might be useful if the group, now calling itself the Invisible Web, could control them. However the demons had a maddening habit of vanishing when studied too closely, erasing any evidence that they ever existed. Still the inner circle directed their members create ever tightening nets around the demons they discovered, hoping to capture one in their web and thus bind it to their service.

Now three years later, Eugene sits at the top of this ever-growing group of investigators and thrill seekers. One by one his fellow administrators have gone dark. He guards his anonymity, keeping his head down in school and continues reviewing the intelligence as it comes in.

Eugene Jones

Virtue: Curiosity Vice: Anonymity

Mental Attributes: Intelligence 3, Wits 2, Resolve 2
Physical Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 2
Social Attributes: Presence 2, Manipulation 4, Composure 2

Mental Skills: Computer 2, Investigation (Demons) 3, Occult 2
Physical Skills: Athletics 1, Brawl 1, Stealth (crowds) 2
Social Skills: Empathy 2, Expression 3, Persuasion (recruiting) 4, Subterfuge (hiding emotions) 2

Merits: Anonymity 2, Mystery Cult Initiation 5

The Invisible Web

The cult Eugene and his friends built continues to spread its threads across the world. Devoted to tracking down the strange beings they have designated 'demons', they collect information on people who act strangely, sightings of infernal or angelic beings, and note unusual locations.

Connected via a message board, they compile data on these individuals which the inner circle one day hopes will allow them to capture and compel a demon into service.

To date their success has been limited to a few Pyrrhic operations and many dead ends. A few cells are able to show new members the preserved biomechanical organs of their quarry to rally the faithful and convince the skeptical. But thus far no demon has been captured alive. Most end up destroyed by beings that can only be described as angelic.

The ranks of the Mystery Cult Merit are:

1. All new devotees learn to follow the traces of their quarry. They gain the Investigation Speciality (Demons).
2. Now trusted by the general community, disciples learn to draw on the cult's widespread connections. They gain Contacts (Invisible Web).
3. At this point the faithful have seen some of the artifacts of the cult and perhaps had several brushes with demons. They gain Unseen Sense (Demons).
4. The inner circle of the cult can call on the faithful to support them. They gain Allies (Invisible Web 3).
5. Years on the hunt grant the leaders of the order an almost supernatural ability to hunt down the truth about demons. They gain 9 agains to rolls for investigating or studying demons.

Sample Character: The Hound

As I explore Chronicles of Darkness and its associated 2nd edition gamelines, I feel drawn to create some new characters, both to explore the rules and how they might be exploited. In this series I'm detailing some of those creations.

This first character sits in a nebulous place in my mind. I've been using this vampire (built using Vampire the Requiem 2nd Edition) as the basis for some of the explanatory material for a friend's Chronicle. I'm not sure if I'll press to make him canon or just continue to obliquely reference him in my blue booking.

Sample Character: The Hound

Tall with lean limbs and pale skin, Cabot wastes most of his meager funds on clothes. The nature of the blood keeps his hair permanently bleached blond and perfectly groomed. The bad boy works even better for him than it did when he was alive.

Cabot once went by a different name, several in fact. In life he spent his early twenties cruising the punk scene, living hard and falling in and out of love. He experimented with different aliases and different drugs.

One of his flings involved a vampire in sore need of a companion/soldier. He endured a decade under her cruel thumb. The experience or perhaps the Embrace changed him, made him more careful, more cultured. Eventually he managed to slip his leash and strike out on his own.

Since his "emancipation" Cabot has capitalize on a particular talent of his. The Embrace refined his senses such that he can track blood by scent, identify its most subtle aspects and see in pitch blackness. In addition to making him somewhat snobbish about blood, it made him useful to the Sheriff of the city. Now McManus uses him whenever he needs someone tracked or a kindred identified by their blood.

If Onyx Path ever re-releases a Toreador bloodline (or I write one up), Cabot would be a shoo in for it.
Cabot's herd consists of former and current lovers as well as a large number of junkies and drug dealers (most of whom he bought from in the past). Besides his past involvement with them, their common thread is that each have the blood type O negative. He has a taste for the stuff.

This character focuses on senses. Rather than make a predictable Mekhet or Gangrel, I went with Daeva to give him a bit more punch (at least via Celerity and Vigor).

I made him unaligned because in the game I've been involved with the Prince is unaligned. Unaligned Kindred suffer no particular disadvantage and I liked the idea of him being his own man.

Cabot

Clan: Daeva         Covenant: Unaligned
Mask: Junkie       Requiem: Competitor

Mental Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 2
Physical Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2
Social Attributes: Presence 3, Manipulation 2, Composure 3

Mental Skills: Investigation 1, Medicine (blood) 1, Politics 2
Physical Skills: Athletics 3, Brawl 2, Stealth 2, Survival (tracking, urban) 3, Weapons 1
Social Skills: Empathy 2, Intimidation 1, Socialize 2, Streetwise 2

Merits: Acute Senses 1, Bloodhound 2, City Status 1 (Hound), Distinguished Palate 1, Herd 3, Resources 1, Striking Looks 1

Blood Potency: 1

Disciplines: Auspex 1, Celerity 1, Vigor 1

As a Mover and Shaker

Given another 25 experience, Cabot moves from talented neonate to skilled ancilla. He also gains a power base of his own.

Expanding his love of blood to tainting mortal drugs with it, he has built an army of unstable junkies to serve and enrich him.

Mental Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 2
Physical Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2
Social Attributes: Presence 3, Manipulation 2, Composure 3

Mental Skills: Investigation 1, Medicine (blood) 1, Politics 2
Physical Skills: Athletics 3, Brawl 3, Stealth 2, Survival (tracking, urban) 3, Weapons 1
Social Skills: Empathy 2, Intimidation 2, Persuasion 2, Socialize 2, Streetwise 2

Merits: Acute Senses 1, Allies (Junkies) 3, Allies (Drug Dealers) 1, Bloodhound 2, City Status 1 (Hound), Contacts (Dealers, Junkies) 2, Distinguished Palate 1, Herd 3, Pusher 1, Resources 2, Retainer (Allen, ghoul) 2, Safe Place 1, Striking Looks 1

Blood Potency: 1

Disciplines: Auspex 1, Celerity 2, Vigor 2

Infrastructure: Intrusion Point

Hidden throughout the world are pieces of Infrastructure, devices and structures designed to serve the occult purposes of the Machine, a universe spanning entity working to unknown purposes.

Some examples of Infrastructure however are more than tools. Some are beginnings.

Intrusion Point

In a crumbling tenement, an acrid odor wafts from a recently rented room. The graying man who rented it seemed confused, mumbling numbers and esoteric terms. He seemed a step away from the men and women camped on the front stoop, surrounded by plastic bags and dirty clothes. Not like a university professor, not one with tenure.

Inside pools of colored wax sit in a precise pattern about a large ring of electrified coils. Ozone hides the presence of other more toxic gases in the air. Equations written in chalk cover the walls and floor like a spell. A man's withered form decays in the center of the assemblage. In the closet a man made of broken glass and twisted bone lurks, waiting for midnight and the next step of the plan.

Truth

The intrusion point begins as little more than a thought experiment: an intriguing set of equations that describe an alternate reality. But they possess a memetic compulsion that drives bright minds to solve them and derive more equations, slowly unpacking an alien universe into our own. Once complete, it drives the victim into building a device or experiment, an occult matrix, that creates a servitor for the reality, the first of its Angels.

This agent takes over where the most likely deceased victim ended, constructing more Infrastructure and extending the alien reality over more and more of our world. One day that reality will be all that remains.

Unravelling this proto-occult matrix requires a brilliant mathematical mind. An extended Intelligence + Science roll at a -5 penalty (10 successes required, each roll takes a week) allows one to unpack the rules for the Intrusion Point. +1 bonus for a speciality related to higher math or physics. Partial work, if properly recorded, can serve as the basis for another person's later derivation.

As the victim works on the problem the rules of local reality shift. The value of pi changes by a few tenths of a percent, quantum effects become much more probable, and something like magic becomes possible for a few moments a day. eventually these minor alterations allow the victim to create an occult ritual which brings this alien reality into contact with our own.

Lynchpin

Physically the Intrusion point is just paper and chalk. Sometimes it inhabits audio or video recordings, other times collections of crime scene photos and blood stained canvas, and once it included a small university press print run. Absent a mind to house it, the equations hold no power.

Intercepting the current victim and erasing their memory of the equations stops the effect (or killing them), at least if the first ritual hasn't been completed. It might also be possibile to adjust the equations and thus the nature of the entity summoned. What effect that might have remains unknown.

Alternate Options

The equations that compose the intrusion points could have other interpretations:

• Mage: the Awakening: studying the equations surely would yield some Arcane experience, while unpacking them might reveal hidden rotes. Perhaps it is mental grimoire? Then again it might be an Abyssal manifestation built to tempt the unwary.
• Promethean: the Created: The equations could be a cipher, hiding the process that a demiurge used to create a Promethean. Unravelling it might reveal new Transmutations or uncover a Milestone.
• Demon: the Descent: while this is obviously a tool of the God-Machine, it might also contain secrets to summoning or creating Infrastructure and Angels. This might be the source code of the Machine, a potent tool for taking it down. Or rebuilding it.
• Trail of Cthulhu: a set of equations that allow an alien reality into our own? Clearly an odd and dangerous Mythos tome. It can't be skimmed but pouring over it grants +3 Cthulhu Mythos but you must make a Stability test Difficulty 5 (+1 per reading) or lose 1 Sanity (and eventually become a mad cultist). Otherwise treat it as a dedicated Investigative pool, refreshed by spending points of Physics and possibly Library Use. Further readings might expose all sorts of rituals and incantations spells.