World of Darkness Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 from Hardsuit Labs

[EvilWolf]

This power level stuff is fun. Who would win, Cain or Goku? Cain or Alucard from the Hellsing anime?

I feel Cain (in VTM) and Alucard are on an even playing field. Throwing Goku into the mix isn't fair, he could blow up the Earth and win.

 

[Caim]

Also DtF is contradicted by most of the other games. WtA has its triat, MtA has consensus reality, WtO has only pagan underworld kingdoms, CtD has only pagan fairies, and Mummy is based on Ancient Egyptian mythology.

And if you read into all of that, it all does fit together. Roughly, but it does.

Demon, Vampire, Wraith, Hunter and Mummy all fit together just fine. Mage can be slotted in quite easily. Changeling can be explained away with the parts of paradise that were severed from the rest when God delivered His almight bitchslap against reality (and Glamour seems like a specialized type of Faith). Werewolf has claims that Gaia is an aspect of Ziana, the mightiest of the angels of the wild, and that the Garou and their ilk are the descendants of the Malhim, bestial warrior angels of yore. But a good chunk of the rest of the lore, like the Triat and all the various Umbral Realms, are a bit more tricky.

Why would the biblical God give Cain any powers in the first place?

God didn't, it was Lilith who taught him everything. God just cursed him to wander the earth, and the whole "tenfold" thing IIRC, although correct me if I'm wrong.

Going by the exact wording of the Book of Nod, Caine was cursed by the angels and not God:

- Michael cursed him with Rötschrek
- Raphael cursed him with weakness to the sun
- Uriel cursed him with unaging undeath and the need to drink blood
- Gabriel told him about Golconda

There is one important detail about this scene: right before these visitations Lilith helped him Awaken by offering him her blood, after which he falls into (quoted verbatum) the deepest darkness. There's an author's note with the theory that Lilith is in fact one of the original Mages, and she warns Caine that to Awaken him might have unforseen consequences. Afterwards the darkness is lifted and he had Awakened. So there's a very good chance that the "curses" were actually one hell of a Paradox backlash resulting of a forceful Awakening.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Demon, Vampire, Wraith, Hunter and Mummy all fit together just fine. Mage can be slotted in quite easily. Changeling can be explained away with the parts of paradise that were severed from the rest when God delivered His almight bitchslap against reality (and Glamour seems like a specialized type of Faith). Werewolf has claims that Gaia is an aspect of Ziana, the mightiest of the angels of the wild, and that the Garou and their ilk are the descendants of the Malhim, bestial warrior angels of yore. But a good chunk of the rest of the lore, like the Triat and all the various Umbral Realms, are a bit more tricky.

Yeah, I pointed out that WtA says the Christian God is actually just a moderately powerful spirit called "The Patriarch" (real creative!) that serves the cosmic spider triat.

This "fractured cosmos" even has a wiki page. As I said, one of the ToJ books outright states that these don't actually take place in the same universe but in a multiverse. DTF says this too, but phrases it as "reality existing on multiple layers of understanding" to reconcile modern science with biblical literalism. For that matter, in DTF all the fallen refer to God with exclusively female pronouns just to fuck with Christian readers.

These settings don't fit together. The books literally say so. So any attempt to make them fit is doomed to failure. Chaos Factor tried and got retconned away. Not that this has stopped both fans and writers alike from trying anyway, nor stopped Paradox from making their "one world of darkness" by retconning away everything they don't like.

Also, a lot of fans at the time hated DTF for trying to force everything into a pseudo-Christian theological framework using nonsensical magical explanations. A lot of them still do. It completely goes against the in-character beliefs/observations of werewolves, fairies and most mages, who would probably be very angry to hear it too.

It is extremely inconsistent. A good example of this is the clusterfuck that is how the books handle India. One of the old vampire books claims that Hindu myth was inspired by some really old feuding vamps. DTF says that Hindu gods are actually all ancient demons bound to reliquaries who were summoned by people Lucifer shared their true names with. The Indian mages, shifters and fairies don't believe that, obviously.

I don't mind if it doesn't make sense. But I don't get fans' obsession with trying to rationalize it when it's clearly a clusterfuck of contradictory motivations by dozens of writers over around a decade of development. Like the endless lore arguments about Cain's backstory and whereabouts, I feel that's a distraction from actually important issues like WW's game design being shit for three decades straight, the generally atrocious pretentious writing in these books, the nonsense jargon (e.g. the Lestat type is called bullfighter in gratuitous Spanish, the Lost Boy type is called a witch in gratuitous Spanish), or Activision's blatant false advertising by focusing excessively on Jeanette when she only appears for a relatively short time before her subplot is exhausted.

 

[Roguey]

I feel that's a distraction from actually important issues like WW's game design being shit for three decades straight, the generally atrocious pretentious writing in these books, the nonsense jargon (e.g. the Lestat type is called bullfighter in gratuitous Spanish, the Lost Boy type is called a witch in gratuitous Spanish), or Activision's blatant false advertising by focusing excessively on Jeanette when she only appears for a relatively short time before her subplot is exhausted.

Aside from game design, I don't believe most people would consider these important issues at all.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Aside from game design, I don't believe most people would consider these important issues at all.

I'm poking fun at typical skewed inconsistent nerd priorities.

 

[EvilWolf]

Demon, Vampire, Wraith, Hunter and Mummy all fit together just fine. Mage can be slotted in quite easily. Changeling can be explained away with the parts of paradise that were severed from the rest when God delivered His almight bitchslap against reality (and Glamour seems like a specialized type of Faith). Werewolf has claims that Gaia is an aspect of Ziana, the mightiest of the angels of the wild, and that the Garou and their ilk are the descendants of the Malhim, bestial warrior angels of yore. But a good chunk of the rest of the lore, like the Triat and all the various Umbral Realms, are a bit more tricky.

Yeah, I pointed out that WtA says the Christian God is actually just a moderately powerful spirit called "The Patriarch" (real creative!) that serves the cosmic spider triat.

This "fractured cosmos" even has a wiki page. As I said, one of the ToJ books outright states that these don't actually take place in the same universe but in a multiverse. DTF says this too, but phrases it as "reality existing on multiple layers of understanding" to reconcile modern science with biblical literalism. For that matter, in DTF all the fallen refer to God with exclusively female pronouns just to fuck with Christian readers.

These settings don't fit together. The books literally say so. So any attempt to make them fit is doomed to failure. Chaos Factor tried and got retconned away. Not that this has stopped both fans and writers alike from trying anyway, nor stopped Paradox from making their "one world of darkness" by retconning away everything they don't like.

Also, a lot of fans at the time hated DTF for trying to force everything into a pseudo-Christian theological framework using nonsensical magical explanations. A lot of them still do. It completely goes against the in-character beliefs/observations of werewolves, fairies and most mages, who would probably be very angry to hear it too.

It is extremely inconsistent. A good example of this is the clusterfuck that is how the books handle India. One of the old vampire books claims that Hindu myth was inspired by some really old feuding vamps. DTF says that Hindu gods are actually all ancient demons bound to reliquaries who were summoned by people Lucifer shared their true names with. The Indian mages, shifters and fairies don't believe that, obviously.

I don't mind if it doesn't make sense. But I don't get fans' obsession with trying to rationalize it when it's clearly a clusterfuck of contradictory motivations by dozens of writers over around a decade of development. Like the endless lore arguments about Cain's backstory and whereabouts, I feel that's a distraction from actually important issues like WW's game design being shit for three decades straight, the generally atrocious pretentious writing in these books, the nonsense jargon (e.g. the Lestat type is called bullfighter in gratuitous Spanish, the Lost Boy type is called a witch in gratuitous Spanish), or Activision's blatant false advertising by focusing excessively on Jeanette when she only appears for a relatively short time before her subplot is exhausted.

I had to wait 80 years for Wesp to patch in unused dialog for my Malkavian waifu when I visit her later in the game... at least it felt like 80 years.

 

[Delterius]

WtA

lol furballs they can't even read why would you listen to them

yeah if mage came up to me and said 'actually the world is greek mythology wrapped on yazidi-gnosticism' i'd be like ok maybe they are onto something but werewolf no way joseph

 

[RaggleFraggle]

WtA

lol furballs they can't even read why would you listen to them

yeah if mage came up to me and said 'actually the world is greek mythology wrapped on yazidi-gnosticism' i'd be like ok maybe they are onto something but werewolf no way joseph

According to the books they have their own language and histories going back… *checks notes* many millions of years according to the were-spiders and were-dinosaur/dragons. And they can talk to their gods whenever they want to get confirmation.

 

[Delterius]

WtA

lol furballs they can't even read why would you listen to them

yeah if mage came up to me and said 'actually the world is greek mythology wrapped on yazidi-gnosticism' i'd be like ok maybe they are onto something but werewolf no way joseph

According to the books they have their own language and histories going back… *checks notes* many millions of years according to the were-spiders and were-dinosaur/dragons. And they can talk to their gods whenever they want to get confirmation.

i have now decided - beyond memes that is - that within the great unified world of darkness the were-people are literally the only ones who are entirely wrong

 

[Vincente]

View attachment 34088

Codex should write their own VtM story, we can even send it for that jam thing they have!

 

[RaggleFraggle]

WtA

lol furballs they can't even read why would you listen to them

yeah if mage came up to me and said 'actually the world is greek mythology wrapped on yazidi-gnosticism' i'd be like ok maybe they are onto something but werewolf no way joseph

According to the books they have their own language and histories going back… *checks notes* many millions of years according to the were-spiders and were-dinosaur/dragons. And they can talk to their gods whenever they want to get confirmation.

i have now decided - beyond memes that is - that within the great unified world of darkness the were-people are literally the only ones who are entirely wrong

I dont see the point with a faux Christian theology anyway. DTF takes so many liberties that it ceases to be actual Christian theology anyway. Also, Christianity is on the decline anyhow so it’s going to be instantly dated and inaccessible to the growing global population of atheists and muslims.

 

[Delterius]

inaccessible to the growing global population of atheists and muslims.

yeah if there's one thing you shouldn't write is fantasy, its an impossible genre. its gotta be accessible you know

 

[Tyranicon]

View attachment 34088

Codex should write their own VtM story, we can even send it for that jam thing they have!

As discussed, WoD as a setting is kind of borked, and while very interesting, is also in some ways hopelessly convoluted.

I'm staying as far away from it as possible with my vampire game.

 

[Storyfag]

- Gabriel told him about Golconda

What a dick.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

inaccessible to the growing global population of atheists and muslims.

yeah if there's one thing you shouldn't write is fantasy, its an impossible genre. its gotta be accessible you know

Ok, yeah, you’re right that’s the wrong tact.

it’s not secondary world fantasy like Arda where Tolkien took his Catholicism and changed enough details that it looks like something else while still staying true to the themes. It’s urban fantasy that takes place in our world and references our mythologies… in a very shallow way devoid of coherent themes.

Using a creation myth inspired by the Bible you’d think would involve Christian themes and theology, but it doesn’t. Not in the least. All the vampires claim to subscribe to Christianity but at the same time don’t live their undeath as though any of it matters. They aren’t worried about God’s judgment, or redemption, or anything. It’s just a costume that’s arbitrary given more weight in certain areas than the other myth-inspired costumes they’re using.

It’s just not well written or coherent. The old “it’s actually a distorted account of something else or whatever” implied by the Susano-o creation myth fits a lot better with the otherwise eclectic nature of what the pagan vampires believed.

If you want a genuinely Christian setting and not a shallow skinsuit then you need to incorporate Christian theology. Redemption, the Second Coming of Jesus, leaps of faith, basically the stuff you see on PureFlix but hopefully not as unwatchable and hypocritical gospel of prosperity shit. One of the ToJ scenarios actually did try to incorporate Christian theology involving redemption and leaps of faith… and fans almost universally hated it.

The Lancea+Sanctum from CoD incorporated more Christian Jewish influence. Their belief in God actually influences their behavior on a day to day basis. Basically they think God has chosen them to be Satans to tempt and punish mortals in the same way angels guide and reward. It’s such a simple way to incorporate Abrahamic influence in a way that isn’t cosmetic window dressing. WoD fans hated them too.

I don’t have a problem with using Christianity as an inspiration but the widespread hatred for such themes has completely killed my interest in using it beyond surface level references like “so and so is a direct descendant of Lilith herself”. I don’t like people calling me a bigot for writing about Christianity without depicting Christians as villains, and that’s constantly what happens. I’m tired.

And don’t even try to use Islam either. Salmon Rushdie learned that the hard way.

A pandeist cosmology or something sidesteps the problem. You can still have Christian trappings, good vs evil, and so on, but you can avoid pointless internet debates with militant anti-Christians. Or debates with the various Christian sects that hate each other.

I also just find it a lot more fun if I can write pagan deities without depicting them as false gods who quail before the one true Christian God. “The priest’s prayer summons a dominion archangel to fight Tezcatlipoca. The priest fails his sanity check upon seeing its thousand horrifying eyes, falling to the ground gibbering in terror as his faith is shredded along with the rest of his mind. After a brief scuffle of antimatter blasts and reality warping that reduces the church to spatially warped burning rubble, Tezcatlipoca catches the angel in his claws, brutally rips its wings off and then bites off its primary head. He turns to you and spits out the head at you. Silver angel’s blood drenches the pews. The angel’s thousand eyes glance at you for one last moment, expression unreadable, then frost over forever. Tezcatlipoca glances at you, freezing you in place. He says, “Enough of this! My spaceship is out of fuel. Where are your planet’s hydrocarbon deposits?!””

I'm staying as far away from it as possible with my vampire game.

An interesting attitude to take, especially since you’re writing an original setting anyway. Why would you be afraid of being too similar to WoD?

 

[Delterius]

If you want a genuinely Christian setting

i don't really think thats the angle yea. the diagram between 'wants a a story heavily based around christian theology' and 'isn't the sort of intensely profound person who thinks harry potter was created by the devil' is not super encouraging

now let's not pretend somehow that 'muslims and atheists' can't write a 'vampires are a curse from god' story thats a bit silly.

 

[Storyfag]

This power level stuff is fun. Who would win, Cain or Goku? Cain or Alucard from the Hellsing anime?

You're not getting it. Caine's not playing the game the way that leads to direct confrontations. Some of his Grandchilder do. Caine will, at best, drive Goku or Alucard around in a cab.

felt inspired

Spoiler

Happy to have helped.

Now somebody post that pic of Cain, Kain, Kane, Caine and Khaine, it is inconvenient to do it on a phone.

 

[Storyfag]

RaggleFraggle, your propensity to build Men of Straw and then vigorously attack them will win you few friends here.

 

[Vincente]

Cain, Kain, Kane, Caine and Khaine,

 

[Harthwain]

I dont see the point with a faux Christian theology anyway. DTF takes so many liberties that it ceases to be actual Christian theology anyway. Also, Christianity is on the decline anyhow so it’s going to be instantly dated and inaccessible to the growing global population of atheists and muslims.

What a retarded take. And I say that as someone who is not exactly a very religious person. Someone who is an atheist (or agnostic, or whatever) can understand and relate to Christian theology on some level even if it is "faux", because it is part of the culture at this point, not just a religion you have to subscribe to.

Using a creation myth inspired by the Bible you’d think would involve Christian themes and theology, but it doesn’t. Not in the least. All the vampires claim to subscribe to Christianity but at the same time don’t live their undeath as though any of it matters. They aren’t worried about God’s judgment, or redemption, or anything. It’s just a costume that’s arbitrary given more weight in certain areas than the other myth-inspired costumes they’re using.

Even the vampires have little idea about what is true and what is not when it comes to their own creation myth. It should also come as no surprise that the further you get from the Dark Ages (not even mentioning anything older), the less religious and knowledgeable people are, meaning they show even less concern about Christian themes and theology, which translates to fresh vampires who do not exactly care about any of the Bible-related stuff (save for acknowledging Caine as father of all vampires).

So, yeah, it does make sense on some level. It would be a different matter entirely if we were actually encountering angels and demons. Or if god were as active as he once was. But we don't and he isn't.

 

[Tyranicon]

I'm staying as far away from it as possible with my vampire game.

An interesting attitude to take, especially since you’re writing an original setting anyway. Why would you be afraid of being too similar to WoD?

WoD has a very distinctive feel and style to it, and I want to keep my game entirely separate.

It's not that I don't want people to make comparisons, as that's inevitable, but I want that conversation to be one favorable to my game because it explores new ideas instead of retreading familiar ground.

 

[Storyfag]

I dont see the point with a faux Christian theology anyway. DTF takes so many liberties that it ceases to be actual Christian theology anyway. Also, Christianity is on the decline anyhow so it’s going to be instantly dated and inaccessible to the growing global population of atheists and muslims.

What a retarded take. And I say that as someone who is not exactly a very religious person. Someone who is an atheist (or agnostic, or whatever) can understand and relate to Christian theology on some level even if it is "faux", because it is part of the culture at this point, not just a religion you have to subscribe to.

As the Pope of Athe I heartily concur.

 

[Wesp5]

Even the vampires have little idea about what is true and what is not when it comes to their own creation myth. It should also come as no surprise that the further you get from the Dark Ages (not even mentioning anything older), the less religious and knowledgeable people are, meaning they show even less concern about Christian themes and theology, which translates to fresh vampires who do not exactly care about any of the Bible-related stuff (save for acknowledging Caine as father of all vampires).

I only know the WoD from the computer games, but isn't the first Vampire - The Masquerade game all about Redemption and much more grounded in Christianity? Also True Faith only works for hunters if they actually believe in their God, no?

 

[Storyfag]

Also True Faith only works for hunters if they actually believe in their God, no?

There are also relics charged with True Faith of generations. These will work also for non-believers, but only because enough other people believed they are holy things.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Also True Faith only works for hunters if they actually believe in their God, no?

Yeah, but vamp mythology is objective (inasmuch as the Christian or broadly Abrahamic mythos behind Caine is true) while true faith is subjective (i.e. true faith only works if you believe, but it doesn't matter what it is that you believe in; it's not the Christian God that bestows His powers upon Christian hunters, but the hunters' beliefs that they should manifest such powers for believing in whatever it is that particular hunters believe in - Christian God or not, i.e. it being the power of self-delusion changing reality to resemble one's beliefs).