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Spearhafoc — Undeath #3 Page 3
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Published: 2018-11-06 17:48:26 +0000 UTC; Views: 689; Favourites: 10; Downloads: 1
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Time to Rip n' Tear those Wyrm Tainted Leeches with my Crinos form while I slip to the Umbra in the name of Gaia...oh wait I forgot my Klaive.
(Yes I had to throw a Werewolf: the Apocalypse reference in there).
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Now we just have to work out if he's Get of Fenris, Silver Fang or Shadow Lord! (definitely seems to be Homid and I think we can agree the ability to avoid Rage-Monster Fury at all turns proves him to be a non-Ahroun).
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I always seen Werewolf: the Apocalypse actually being Werewolf: The Anger Issues or Werewolf: Anger Management which pretty much sums up the game in a nutshell hence the tagline "When will you Rage?".
At least James Tennyman here has much more of a cool head than your average Garou from W:tA at least....
Then again, vast majority of the denizens of the World of Darkness are pretty fucked up like for example it's Vampires have the Beast that constantly threatens to drag them into monstrosity and Werewolves have Rage issues since they're more like "foot soldiers" of the Earth itself and their anger reflects the state of the world around them (hence why Werewolves normally kill Vampires on sight because they're spawn of the Wyrm which the Wyrm is the spiritual corruption of the world), Also it's Mages are able to warp and define reality around them and they suffer from not only paradox backlashes where consensus reality fights back to "restore itself" but also they're on the run or being policed by a Illumanti type organization called the "Technocracy" which they're built on enlightenment principles and reinforcing natural materialism as the "default reality" hence they eradicate anything that they deem as a "reality deviant" all for the name of "keeping humanity safe" as they "guide them to a better future" even if it means turning the world into a dystopian novel, since after all the WoD is more of a darker reflection our world and even the Apex Society universe is more better off than the former....
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I'm mildly convinced that even OUR World is better off than the WORLD OF DARKNESS, but that might be just a touch optimistic; one should also admit to being rather fond of the setting, but definitely more inclined to the Garou than the Cainite (having said that, if one were forced into a game of VtM CLAN VENTRUE* all the way!).
In all honesty I do think WEREWOLF THE APOCALYPSE (and the setting as whole) works best with lashings of dark, Dark Humour - playing the setting Dead Straight, rather than bringing out the Saturday Morning Cartoon elements will just leave a gamer horribly, horribly depressed.
*AKA the "Christopher Lee knew what he was doing" Clan (don't even get me started on Count Dracula being a Tzimisce, that Clan are clearly FAR more Del Toro than Stoker).
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Also forgot to mention that Werewolf: the Apocalypse is also "Werewolf: Captain Planet" as well....
Besides the World of Darkness is pretty much a byproduct of the 1990s anyways which is pretty much dated these days other than the Nostalgia otherwords those who don't like bleak and especially boring settings where every Vampire comes from Caine, Every Werewolf is a Foot Soldier for Gaia, Christianity is the "True Religion/Mythology" and other Mythologies/Religions and even Science itself is "False" (as revealed with "Demon: The Fallen") and the rampant ever present Apocalypcism that existed in all of it's gamelines where World is about to end at any time (Gehenna, The Apocalypse, Ascension, etc) I'd say don't bother....
Of course lastly if I was going to place the WoD in the "Apex Society" universe then it obviously only exists inside Yahweh's head or maybe it's one of his universes he created that it's in the trash heap of the Multiverse where no one and nothing bothers to tread to besides inserting the World of Darkness gamelines into the Apex Society just doesn't work because alot of it's lore just overrides everything (like for example in VtM, Dracula is a Tzimisce, vast majority of Deities are actually 3rd Generation Vampires or Earthbound Demons, Caine is the "first vampire", etc).
Well it's just me but all of that sums of the many problems I have the WoD games pretty much.
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Well every setting has its teething problems and the World of Darkness - being absolutely rife with things that go CHOMP! in the Night is practically destined to have more than others!
Besides the World of Darkness is pretty much a byproduct of the 1990s anyways which is pretty much dated these days other than the Nostalgia otherwords those who don't like bleak and especially boring settings where every Vampire comes from Caine, Every Werewolf is a Foot Soldier for Gaia, Christianity is the "True Religion/Mythology" and other Mythologies/Religions and even Science itself is "False" (as revealed with "Demon: The Fallen") and the rampant ever present Apocalypcism that existed in all of it's gamelines where World is about to end at any time (Gehenna, The Apocalypse, Ascension, etc) I'd say don't bother....
Strictly speaking not EVERY Vampire comes from Cain - my understanding is that there is at least one strain of Asian vampires completely unassociated with the Kindred; I would also suggest that calling the World of Darkness "boring" is somewhat odd. It can definitely be more than a little insufferable, it is very definitely Dark to a degree that begs to be lampooned and it can definitely be frustrating but I'd argue there's far, far too many blissfully demented concepts thrown into this particular mix for it to be BORING! (One would also like to point out that calling Christianity the "True Religion" of this particular setting while mentioning the cheerfully heathen Gaian cosmology and alluding to the "Creation is whatever you can convince us it is" worldview of MAGE THE ASCENSION* is a little misleading).
*This doesn't even take into consideration the profoundly irreligious afterlife of WRAITH THE OBLIVION and the downright pagan underworld of MUMMY THE RESURRECTION; quite frankly trying to pin down the Old World of Darkness to a "True Religion/Mythology" is a losing game, since they threw just about every single myth in there (often in more than one form) and invented some more just to keep things interesting!
I definitely agree with you that the Old World of Darkness makes a far better source of entertaining comparisons with the APEX SOCIETY universe than it does an actual influence on (much less a component of) that setting; I am a little confused at your reference to the tetragrammaton as part of the Apex Society milieu as something other than a matter for local Theologians - could you please explain it?
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Well that's the thing, The OWoD had this weird "West vs East" dichotomy which "Kindred of the East" are rather based on rather Racist Orientalism than anything remotely resembling actual East Asian mythology mainly because the games were written by white dudes who have no direct experience with East Asian (well particularly Chinese and Japanese) cultures other than Hollywood movies and Hong Kong films especially they tend to mash them together as well for example even the word "Kuie-Jinn" is a example of this. I think you can read more here .
Sure the OWoD had other cosmologies that contradict with each other but if you looked into "Demon: The Fallen" however, it's actually the first game that unifies all the other gamelines cosmologies into a Abrahamic worldview (Like for example "Gaia" is really a Angel, God gave humans avatars, etc) and of course "Hell" in Demon the Fallen is just a prison for Demons and "Heaven" is just a fortress for God and his (or rather "her" as the game likes to call it) Angels never actual afterlives hence Wraith: The Oblivion and also they even hinted that the Lady of Fate who is actually Eve and Abel are the "first wraiths"....So yes the OWoD is rather Abrahamic centric to the core which is one of the things I found extremely problematic about those games hence why they become extremely boring in the end. Not to mention the guy who originally wrote "Vampire: the Masquerade" Mark Reign Hagen is a hardcore nazi appeasing liberal whose father was a Lutheran minister which he admitted influenced him while writing Vampire so yes it does explain alot there especially the fact the "WoD" or "Vampire" was Christian centric from the get go right down to the Caine or "Noddest" mytheos that games based themselves on.
Just like the fact that every Vampire (at least in the West) are predictably Cainites and the whole game is about Jyhad politics which makes the game into a huge yawn fest for me well compared to how diverse the Vampires in the Apex Society universe are which they have different powers and banes whilst Cainites/Kindred are pretty much the same universally.
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In all honesty any Grand Unifying Cosmology for the Old World of Darkness is very definitely product of a (probably-misconceived) effort to weld together separate game lines which effectively amount to settings unique to themselves (if memory serves this was a major reason the Chronicles of Darkness setting was created in the first place, to help ensure everything fitted together more neatly); quite frankly I much prefer to regard VAMPIRE THE MASQUERADE, WEREWOLF THE APOCALYPSE, MAGE THE ASCENSION et al playing out on parallel worlds within the same multiverse rather than in a single world (to help avoid the clash of tones & power levels and themes inherent to such a jumble of the mutually-contradictory).
I also believe that the separate approaches to the Vampiric condition employed by APEX SOCIETY and VAMPIRE THE MASQUERADE each have their place (though clearly not in the same setting!); on the one hand diversity is the spice of life, but on the other it's much easier to focus on the differing personalities & personal philosophies of various Vampires when "Vampire" means something specific, rather than acting as something of an "umbrella" label for a variety of creatures that don't really resemble each other (it does seem a trifle odd to accuse Cainites of lacking variety in terms of their powers, given there are entire sourcebooks devoted to adding more and more peculiar abilities to the Kindred "Spellbook").
One should also admit that I rather like the structure the Jyhad gives to The Masquerade (if nothing else it helps explain what Vampires DO to keep busy with an indefinite period of existence ahead of them); I do tend to think of VAMPIRE THE MASQUERADE as "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Vampire" though, so that might affect my willingness to embrace the idea of Immortal Existence as one long game of power-plays.
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Although the major downside of the Jyhad is that every single Vampire even the ones who think they've escaped it are nothing more than pawns of much more powerful Elders who in turn pawns of the Methuselahs who in turn are pawns of the Antediluvians in a large pyramid scheme hence makes the setting rather bleak when you're nothing more than a puppet dancing to their tune....
Also Vampires in VtM like the Methuselahs and Antediluvians can get god-like powerful till the point of plot device especially in the Gehenna scenarios in much older editions but too bad the PCs can't wield them even Elder powers unless you play Dark Ages of course I heard hence the games are designed to make you not only feel powerless but also taking a backseat in someone elses story and you're just a bystander effecting nothing which is another example how bleak the WoD games are.
Not to mention you can't even beat Caine the "First Vampire" which the only rules that follows is "You Fucking Loose" which is another example deeply invested the writers were with Abrahamic mythology....
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Well in all fairness he IS Big Daddy Vampire - if he couldn't tear his more insolent descendants to pieces he wouldn't be very much of an Ultimate Progenitor, eh?
I also agree that it must be frustrating for gamers to accept that they are NOT the Biggest Bad----- in a setting, though to my mind it's quite important for a Horror Setting where the players are the monsters to drive home the fact that there's ALWAYS something more Horrifying and Horrifyingly Powerful than you are (otherwise how can one maintain the proper sense of caution and incipient dread in PCs?).
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Well he's the "Big Daddy Vampire"...only to that particular strain of course which in the WoD, Kindred are the only strain that exists apparently which makes the setting rather boringly predictable is where I'm getting at which then again given the context where it came from, Diversity is the antithesis of Monotheistic Abrahamic worldviews that VtM is based on.
Well if you're going to insert the VtM or the entire WoD into the Apex Universe, it might become overly crowded or rather VtM vampires are too huge of a population that might dwarf the size of the other strains but then again I guess only heavy reworking might do the trick though.
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Well he's the "Big Daddy Vampire"...only to that particular strain of course which in the WoD, Kindred are the only strain that exists apparently which makes the setting rather boringly predictable is where I'm getting at which then again given the context where it came from, Diversity is the antithesis of Monotheistic Abrahamic worldviews that VtM is based on.
Well I'm sure the Orthodox & Reform Jewish congregations, the Samaritans, the Catholic & Orthodox Churches, Sunnis & Shia, the Baptist & Episcopalian & Methodist & disparate other Protestant denominations and all those other Children of Abraham would DEFINITELY agree that there is absolutely nothing diverse associated with Monotheism!
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