Lets hope this will be the second of many general threads relating to the World of Darkness setting.Here is the first General Thread: #1: Assemble.
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Lets hope this will be the second of many general threads relating to the World of Darkness setting.Here is the first General Thread: #1: Assemble.
Continuing from the OWoD is the aftermath of Exalted conversation... it was also implied that Exalted was the result of Divis Mal's universe creation in the Aeonverse.
Of all the oWoD gamelines, I think it was Hunter: the Reckoning that was most influenced by the "Creation is WoD's past" conceit. The Imbued were supposed to be heirs to Solars somehow. I'm not sure how that was supposed to work.
Mind you, while I haven't read Imperial Mysteries, I choose to ignore the idea that each splat has a superpowered being or class of beings looking out for it. I prefer my nWoD without godlike beings playing it like chess.
Considering that was the worst part of OWoD IMO, I tend to agree with you.
I agree...conditionally. The worst part of oWoD's setup was that those almighty cosmic chessmasters were omnipresent, incapable of ever missing information, and constantly meddling in global affairs on an absurdly personal level. Part of nWoD's great victory - an appeal - is its large emphasis on local affairs. Certainly, travel games are possible and fun! But the important bit is that what a character does in their home town or city is not only important, but significant, you know?
Once you start screwing around with Archmage level play, though, you've entered into a new genre of horror entirely (Lovecraftian, not gothic) and left 'local' behind about as definitively as it can get left. Cosmic chessmasters make perfect sense as enemies in such a setup, and the glory of it is this - unlike in oWoD, THESE chessmasters don't/can't/won't compromise free will on a massive, unstoppable scale. Chances are high that your character and their local problems mean precisely bubkis to them, y'know? They've got bigger fish to fry - mostly the ones that cause various kinds of apocalypse - which means that you can justify using them as much, or as little, as your group likes without totally re-writing the meta-plot.
I agree completely. Anything that makes the players in a roleplaying game insignificant is, to me, a bad thing. Stories where the main characters are helpless to control their own destinies might be interesting, but if the players have no agency, why even bother with the dice? Just spend an hour or three telling your players how badly their characters fail at everything they set out to do (or succeed, but if it's not due to anything they've done, it's just as pointless).
Now, I admit, sometimes tragedy is entertaining (for lack of a better word), but one of the key parts of tragedy is that the tragic hero is in some way responsible for their fate. If they really don't have any chance for a happy ending, or at least to avert the catastrophe, then it's just a really depressing shaggy dog story.
Portraying epic level magic users as Wizard Cthulhu is probably the most sensible use of them I've heard. I prefer reading cosmic horror to playing it, but at least the players have some freedom in this scenario, even if it's only the freedom not to meddle in Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. Of course, they will meddle because there's no game if they don't, and if Wizardthulhu notices at all, they're doomed. So it still feels like curtailing player freedom to me, but I admit this is a matter of taste. A lot of people like Call of Cthulhu, after all. :smallcool:
Well, there's still room to vary things. I, personally, am a big fan of handing my players enough rope with which to hang themselves. Sure, they can go screw with Wizardthulu. Maybe they even win. But now that they're in charge of reality...they have to run it. And if they thought being the monarchs of one, tiny, insignificant little Freehold was a headache....
Don't forget the "Red Lady" and ""Black Dragon", which were obviously the Scarlet Empress and Ebon Dragon.
Speaking of an Exalted/NWoD crossover, I've seen several comments sayibg that the description of the Abyss in Imperial Mysteries is disturbingly similar to the Wyld. What if they actually were the same thing?
(And what would this mean for the rumor that Vampirism is an abyssal plague?)
So, end-of-the-world scenarios aren't too uncommon. It's all but directly implied that they happen on a semi regular basis, or would if not for the distant intervention of eldritch mage horrors and the like. But does anyone have experience with running a genuine Judeo-Christian Apocalypse?
I'm experimenting with one in my game. Basically, the premise is that the Rapture has been on hold for a few hundred years now. Every few decades, a potential messiah is born... and the Lucifuge makes sure that it doesn't survive to maturity, buying humanity a few more years of life in the meantime. The occasional groups of self-appointed bodyguards has been so far ineffective at keeping the kid alive, in the rare cases that they find him/her before the Lucifuge does.
So I'm kind of curious about which team my PCs side with. Prevent the end of the world by killing a kid, or save the kid and kill billions?
Not quite. A ton of them are prevented by Wizardthulu, it's true, but the wonderful nature of the nWoD is that it is, in many ways, self-policing. Second Sight, for example, has a whole chapter dedicated to how ordinary mortals prevent this kind of thing on a regular basis themselves. Hunters obviously have a tie into it, Mages constantly fight the Abyss, that kind of deal. Part of the reason the whole world is going to hell, though, is everyone's so busy preventing the apocalypse that no one's doing the 'maintenance work', as it were, or sometimes even actively contributing to the problem.
WizardThulu handles the Thulu level issues, but there's plenty of others, y'know?
Indeed, but I do think that's the key, really. Much like Hunter reminded storytellers that the existence of T3 Conspiracies is as much a shining beacon of hope as it is a messed-up set of psychotic murderers, the mere fact that the nWoD still exists is a sign that positive change is possible, and that lasting good can happen.
Speaking of psychotic murderers, an idea for a Hunter conspiracy crossed my mind recently.
I don't have a name yet, but they would believe that the heroes of myth - Heracles, Achilles, Beowulf, Siegfried, Cuchulain, Ilya Muromets, what have you - were Hunters, who fought the monsters openly and protected humanity from them. However, humans grew complacent, so the monsters were able to corrupt them from within and make it so humanity was no longer capable of producing such mighty heroes. Which reduced the world to the sorry state it is in now. The members of the Conspiracy would think it's up to them to recapture the glory of the ancients and beat the monsters back. Their method of accomplishing it would be to become like the heroes of old and fighting monsters, then swaying the masses.
Their Endowment would consist of special techniques of training, purification and meditation that would allow them to perform specific superhuman feats - possibly they'd be tied to particular mythic heroes, but given the sheer number of such individuals, it may not be possible.
Not sure about the recruitment process. Perhaps they'd seek out individuals they deem worthy of becoming heroes, by the virtue of their skill, prowess and, although they'd never admit it, being crazy enough. Then they'd test them both secretly and openly.
Their approach to monsters would be very simple - everything unhuman and/or using supernatural powers is an impurity which must be cleansed. Beowulf didn't think too much about ripping off Grendel's arm and neither do the members of this conspiracy. However, their Vigil would be defined by following in the footsteps of ancient heroes. They'd obsessively search for any evidence of them or even new twists in the myths. What's more, when hunting they'd try to follow the patterns, believing that this way they can get closer to their legendary progenitors. A hunter of this conspiracy preparing to fight a warlock would seek parallels between their mission and any legendary figures who also faced evil magic-users.
As for the general attitude of their members... there would be a very strong elitist vibe to them. After all, they're heroes - better than the teeming masses. There would be a number of people with Nazi-like or outright Nazi ideas about "blood purity" among them. And apart from that, well, they're people who want to be Heracles. It doesn't cry "sanity".
That's what I have so far. Details are still missing, obviously - their history, mostly - but I wanted to hear your thoughts. One thing I'm not too sure about is whether they'd recruit anyone or just those they decide have the blood of the heroes in their veins... however they'd determine that.
That is awesome, but throw in a mix of "he who fights monsters" and let that take off.
Maybe have meditative abilities that allow characters to enhance their abilities, but they require a willpower roll when you come down to prevent a derangement like effect. Have the abilities cost 2+ willpower to use, but if your vice matches the dominant vice of the power the cost is reduced by 1 willpower, but the willpower roll to avoid the backlash is at -2.
Strength of the gods (0000) - Wrath dominant. Spend 2 willpower points. For the remainder of the scene, on all strength based rolls you act as if you had spent willpower to increase the die pool of that roll. Spending additional willpower will not increase the die pool further, but you may risk willpower, but any extra die gained from that do not stack. You may release this effect at any time, but the effect continues until you calm down. Calming down requires an extended action (1 roll per round, roll willpower, requires one success per roll that benefited from Strength of the Gods). Any turn that you do not gain any successes on the calming roll you attack the nearest target, friend or foe.
Mirrors has rules for both extraordinary mortals (which you could use) and a full fledged major template designed to emulate the likes of Heracles et al. It's quite a bit more powerful than Hunter endowments, but it'd probably work unless you really wanted intra-Hunter crossovers.
Now, I come bearing something I promised at the beginning of the last thread. Some changes to vampires: designed to be slightly closer to folklore in some respects, and just a bit more crossover friendly in others. I figured I'd share given that some of you were complaining about vampires not being crossover-compatible on account of their being extremely flammable. Where not mentioned otherwise, the rules are as described in the actual Vampire book (e.g., vampires still have to try to stay awake during the daytime even though the sun no longer sets them on fire.
So, without further adieu...
Damnation and the Embrace:
SpoilerThe vast majority of vampires are Embraced as described in Vampire: the Requiem. However, it is not unknown for certain mortals to simply not die when they should, instead simply "waking up" an evening or two after death as one of the Undead. Maybe they were hideously evil, maybe they were cursed, or maybe they were just so pissed off that they don't mind damnation if it comes with the opportunity for sweet, sweet vengeance. Whatever the reason, these vampires are the Damned.
The Damned have clans just like any other Kindred; in this variant, the clans are more like different vampire subspecies and don't imply an unbroken chain of Embraces going back to the first member of the clan, although vampires of a given clan are generally similar enough to form alliances based on their common ground. However, the Damned are always the founder of a new bloodline, which always has some sort of symbolic value regarding their mortal life and reason for being Damned. This is how new bloodlines are created in almost all cases. You can either create new bloodlines for PC Damned or just refluff a bloodline that wasn't going to show up in your chronicle anyway. Or use an official bloodline as a starting point and switch a few things around; it's hardly impossible that the same (or a similar) discipline has shown up more than once in the long history of vampirism.
Bloodlines Are Thicker Than Water:
SpoilerAll vampires have the option of starting with a bloodline at character creation. In the case of most vampires, this is passed down to them by their sire along with their clan, although a vampire who doesn't want to take on her sire's bloodline can reject it during the process of being embraced, begin unlife with no bloodline, and later be initiated into a bloodline compatible with her clan as described in the default rules.
Bloodlines work as follows. Vampires who are part of a bloodline gain another in-clan discipline and an additional weakness beyond the one typical for their clan. The bloodline may also swap out one of the parent clan's disciplines for another. Typically speaking, the swapped discipline should be broadly similar in function to the one replacing it (e.g., physical disciplines should be replaced by other physical disciplines, and mental by mental) but the Storyteller may elect to waive this requirement if the character gains yet another weakness, the bloodline weakness is especially severe, or if s/he simply decides that the bloodline's in-clan disciplines don't give it an unfair advantage over more "typical" bloodlines.
Tasty, Tasty Blood:
SpoilerVampires are not required to drink vampire blood after reaching a certain Blood Potency level. That goes against the entire point of vampire folklore (that they are parasites that plague humanity) and is quite frankly contrary to everything we know about the food chain. However, older vampires do require more vitae to awaken each evening as their connection to the primordial forces of entropy and death becomes stronger. Vampires who don't have enough vitae in their systems to awaken go into topor and lose Blood Potency as described in Vampire: the Requiem.
Blood Potency - Vitae Consumed per Night:
0 - 1
1 - 1
2 - 1
3 - 2
4 - 2
5 - 3
6 - 4
7 - 5
8 - 6
9 - 7
10 - 8
Torpor:
SpoilerVampires who have their health boxes filled with lethal can remain active until the end of the Scene before collapsing into torpor, and if they can clear at least (5 - Stamina, minimum of one) health box(es) of all damage before the Scene ends, do not fall into torpor at all. Vampires continue healing normally in torpor, and once the torpored vampire has cleared at least the minimum number of health boxes they would have needed to avoid torpor in the first place, they can start making a Resolve + Composure roll once each evening (immediately upon healing sufficient damage, and each night at sunset afterwards); success means the torpor ends.
If the vampire doesn't have the vitae to heal sufficiently, use the system as written on page 175 (and probably roll up a new character). Voluntary torpor also works as written (V:tR, p.176).
Mirror, Mirror:
SpoilerLong story short, vampires are seriously inconvenienced by mirrors and cameras. However, the nature of this weakness is slightly different from what the majority of vampire hunters (and new vampires) expect. Barring a few oddities (Lasombra, hollow Mekhet, etc...) vampires show up just fine in mirrors and on camera. They show up better than fine, in fact. They show up perfectly. While this isn't typically enough to prove that the vampire is a walking corpse by itself (except in the case of ultra-low humanity vampires and some Nosferatu), it is enough to trigger the instinctive sense that the vampire is a predator, and for humans that pay close attention, the true appearance of the vampire (somehow both sickly and hideously predatory) gives the human a good idea of what they're seeing.
Humans who get a good look at a vampire in a mirror or on camera roll Wits + Occult, with success indicating that they realize they're dealing with something inhuman, although they may not know what. In this day and age though, the word "vampire" should spring to mind quite quickly. Even if it doesn't, the vampire's mental disciplines suffer from the Humanity cap on social interactions for the rest of the Scene when used on the person who saw through their glammer, as her instinctive revulsion limits the effectiveness of the creature's supernatural powers. After the Scene ends, she doesn't necessarily forget what she saw, but the horror is no longer immediate enough to have a fortifying effect.
It's worth noting that seeing the vampire casually walking past a security camera isn't enough to give this roll, in most such cases the camera isn't going to be getting a close enough look at the monster to give anyone watching the footage more than a brief twinge of wrongness. People who already know that vampires exist (and thus what to look for) however, can actively look for vampires on such footage by rolling Intelligence + Occult.
The Accursed Daystar:
SpoilerWhile they don't burn up in sunlight, vampires are weakened by it, and the sun burns away much of the illusion that allows them to pass for human. Whenever a vampire goes out in sunlight, use the sunlight damage chart on page 173 (plus clan weakness if applicable) to figure out how much damage the vampire would be taking a turn. Apply that number as a penalty to all physical ability rolls and reduce the vampire's effective level in all disciplines by that number until his level of exposure changes. This rule replaces the Humanity cap on daytime actions described on page 184 of Vampire: the Requiem.
In addition, any vampire taking a sunlight penalty of three or more cannot feign life with vitae, and the effect of any vitae spent to augment physical attributes is halved (one vitae provides only one additional die to physical dice pools). If the vampire had already spent vitae to activate the blush of life prior to taking the sunlight penalty, he loses its benefits gradually over the course of about ten minutes.
(Note: Out of deference to the movie, I've been considering having the Nosferatu still be burned by sunlight, or at least have that as a weakness of some bloodlines. However, this gives me two problems. One, they'd have to have a pretty substantial advantage to counterbalance that, and two, I'd have to redo the Mekhet clan weakness, since increased sunlight vulnerability would become the Nosferatu's other thing. Maybe I'll just have it be a bloodline weakness particular to Orlok or something like that.)
I'll have to give some thought to their Endowments. I haven't really decided how they'd look like except in very general terms.
I'm aware of those rules, but I don't have Mirrors, unfortunately. I might buy it sometime in the future, but it's not certain. Either way, this Conspiracy wouldn't be real heroes - just normal mortals who really want to be heroes. So while I could use those rules for inspiration, they wouldn't work as they are.
Interesting. I prefer the rules as written in Requiem, but this looks like a good variant. I've never been particularily interested in bringing the Kindred close to the vampiric folklore, though.Quote:
Now, I come bearing something I promised at the beginning of the last thread. Some changes to vampires: designed to be slightly closer to folklore in some respects, and just a bit more crossover friendly in others. I figured I'd share given that some of you were complaining about vampires not being crossover-compatible on account of their being extremely flammable. Where not mentioned otherwise, the rules are as described in the actual Vampire book (e.g., vampires still have to try to stay awake during the daytime even though the sun no longer sets them on fire.
So, without further adieu...
Damnation and the Embrace:
SpoilerThe vast majority of vampires are Embraced as described in Vampire: the Requiem. However, it is not unknown for certain mortals to simply not die when they should, instead simply "waking up" an evening or two after death as one of the Undead. Maybe they were hideously evil, maybe they were cursed, or maybe they were just so pissed off that they don't mind damnation if it comes with the opportunity for sweet, sweet vengeance. Whatever the reason, these vampires are the Damned.
The Damned have clans just like any other Kindred; in this variant, the clans are more like different vampire subspecies and don't imply an unbroken chain of Embraces going back to the first member of the clan, although vampires of a given clan are generally similar enough to form alliances based on their common ground. However, the Damned are always the founder of a new bloodline, which always has some sort of symbolic value regarding their mortal life and reason for being Damned. This is how new bloodlines are created in almost all cases. You can either create new bloodlines for PC Damned or just refluff a bloodline that wasn't going to show up in your chronicle anyway. Or use an official bloodline as a starting point and switch a few things around; it's hardly impossible that the same (or a similar) discipline has shown up more than once in the long history of vampirism.
Bloodlines Are Thicker Than Water:
SpoilerAll vampires have the option of starting with a bloodline at character creation. In the case of most vampires, this is passed down to them by their sire along with their clan, although a vampire who doesn't want to take on her sire's bloodline can reject it during the process of being embraced, begin unlife with no bloodline, and later be initiated into a bloodline compatible with her clan as described in the default rules.
Bloodlines work as follows. Vampires who are part of a bloodline gain another in-clan discipline and an additional weakness beyond the one typical for their clan. The bloodline may also swap out one of the parent clan's disciplines for another. Typically speaking, the swapped discipline should be broadly similar in function to the one replacing it (e.g., physical disciplines should be replaced by other physical disciplines, and mental by mental) but the Storyteller may elect to waive this requirement if the character gains yet another weakness, the bloodline weakness is especially severe, or if s/he simply decides that the bloodline's in-clan disciplines don't give it an unfair advantage over more "typical" bloodlines.
Tasty, Tasty Blood:
SpoilerVampires are not required to drink vampire blood after reaching a certain Blood Potency level. That goes against the entire point of vampire folklore (that they are parasites that plague humanity) and is quite frankly contrary to everything we know about the food chain. However, older vampires do require more vitae to awaken each evening as their connection to the primordial forces of entropy and death becomes stronger. Vampires who don't have enough vitae in their systems to awaken go into topor and lose Blood Potency as described in Vampire: the Requiem.
Blood Potency - Vitae Consumed per Night:
0 - 1
1 - 1
2 - 1
3 - 2
4 - 2
5 - 3
6 - 4
7 - 5
8 - 6
9 - 7
10 - 8
Torpor:
SpoilerVampires who have their health boxes filled with lethal can remain active until the end of the Scene before collapsing into torpor, and if they can clear at least (5 - Stamina, minimum of one) health box(es) of all damage before the Scene ends, do not fall into torpor at all. Vampires continue healing normally in torpor, and once the torpored vampire has cleared at least the minimum number of health boxes they would have needed to avoid torpor in the first place, they can start making a Resolve + Composure roll once each evening (immediately upon healing sufficient damage, and each night at sunset afterwards); success means the torpor ends.
If the vampire doesn't have the vitae to heal sufficiently, use the system as written on page 175 (and probably roll up a new character). Voluntary torpor also works as written (V:tR, p.176).
Mirror, Mirror:
SpoilerLong story short, vampires are seriously inconvenienced by mirrors and cameras. However, the nature of this weakness is slightly different from what the majority of vampire hunters (and new vampires) expect. Barring a few oddities (Lasombra, hollow Mekhet, etc...) vampires show up just fine in mirrors and on camera. They show up better than fine, in fact. They show up perfectly. While this isn't typically enough to prove that the vampire is a walking corpse by itself (except in the case of ultra-low humanity vampires and some Nosferatu), it is enough to trigger the instinctive sense that the vampire is a predator, and for humans that pay close attention, the true appearance of the vampire (somehow both sickly and hideously predatory) gives the human a good idea of what they're seeing.
Humans who get a good look at a vampire in a mirror or on camera roll Wits + Occult, with success indicating that they realize they're dealing with something inhuman, although they may not know what. In this day and age though, the word "vampire" should spring to mind quite quickly. Even if it doesn't, the vampire's mental disciplines suffer from the Humanity cap on social interactions for the rest of the Scene when used on the person who saw through their glammer, as her instinctive revulsion limits the effectiveness of the creature's supernatural powers. After the Scene ends, she doesn't necessarily forget what she saw, but the horror is no longer immediate enough to have a fortifying effect.
It's worth noting that seeing the vampire casually walking past a security camera isn't enough to give this roll, in most such cases the camera isn't going to be getting a close enough look at the monster to give anyone watching the footage more than a brief twinge of wrongness. People who already know that vampires exist (and thus what to look for) however, can actively look for vampires on such footage by rolling Intelligence + Occult.
The Accursed Daystar:
SpoilerWhile they don't burn up in sunlight, vampires are weakened by it, and the sun burns away much of the illusion that allows them to pass for human. Whenever a vampire goes out in sunlight, use the sunlight damage chart on page 173 (plus clan weakness if applicable) to figure out how much damage the vampire would be taking a turn. Apply that number as a penalty to all physical ability rolls and reduce the vampire's effective level in all disciplines by that number until his level of exposure changes. This rule replaces the Humanity cap on daytime actions described on page 184 of Vampire: the Requiem.
In addition, any vampire taking a sunlight penalty of three or more cannot feign life with vitae, and the effect of any vitae spent to augment physical attributes is halved (one vitae provides only one additional die to physical dice pools). If the vampire had already spent vitae to activate the blush of life prior to taking the sunlight penalty, he loses its benefits gradually over the course of about ten minutes.
(Note: Out of deference to the movie, I've been considering having the Nosferatu still be burned by sunlight, or at least have that as a weakness of some bloodlines. However, this gives me two problems. One, they'd have to have a pretty substantial advantage to counterbalance that, and two, I'd have to redo the Mekhet clan weakness, since increased sunlight vulnerability would become the Nosferatu's other thing. Maybe I'll just have it be a bloodline weakness particular to Orlok or something like that.)
So the primary change to bloodlines is that you can start with one at BP1 instead of BP2, if it's your sire's bloodline?
Pretty much. I never saw what the big deal was with restricting them in the first place, given that they come with an additional weakness to counterbalance their additional in-clan discipline, and some of those new weaknesses are pretty severe.
It also (hopefully) puts a little bit more emphasis on bloodline as opposed to clan; NWoD clans in my mind being broad, nebulous things that give vampires of the same clan some common ground but don't really work as the basis for an organization. I just think that conspiracies based on heritage are something a smaller, more restricted bloodline would be better at, and wanted to make bloodlines a more prominent part of the game.
I think it's because the 'default' starting characters are assumed to be BP1, freshly embraced newbie neonates. It lets you spend Merit dots on extra BP, but does subtly discourage it; increasing BP in-game makes it a milestone other than 'stepping stone to BP 3' by connecting it to the awakening of your blood's innate powers more deeply.
That's a good point, but it really does depend on what sort of vampire you're looking to play. For me, I'm perpetually stuck STing, and I'll probably always be playing with my girlfriend, who was playing Masquerade before I knew what a White Wolf was. And she admits that while the fluff of some of the clans was awesome and all (she's a Sabbat player, and for the Requiem game I'm setting I've had to convince her that no, Belial's Brood does not an appropriate PC make), she was in it for the tone. That is, she unapologetically enjoyed Masquerade's whole "undead superhero" thing.
Now, I'm big into the personal horror, the creepiness inherent in becoming a monster and trying to find out how low you're willing to sink, and in emphasizing the vampiric condition as a curse, but I sort of see her point. Part of the appeal of roleplaying (or reading, or watching...) vampires for a lot of people is the fact that while they've more or less sold their souls, they've got some neat (albeit occasionally horrifying) things in return.
The other part of roleplaying a vampire that interests me (and her as well) is the immortality... And not just the potential immortality, but being able to get into the mindset of someone who's seen things that no one alive has, someone who measures life in decades or centuries rather than years. Starting as people who were just Embraced last night creates a very different sort of chronicle. Not a bad chronicle at all; there's a lot of interesting possiblities in RPing someone just starting to work his way through the stages of monster grief, it's just not the chronicle I want to run all the time.
I...disapprove of these house rules, severely. In particular, the alteration to the 'prey list' of blood potency. Vampires need increasingly dangerous prey to hunt for a few reasons, but the biggest two are this: first, it helps reinforce the Sleep of Ages theme. Second, it really hits home when you become a monster so foul that even your own kind revile you.
You're certainly allowed to disapprove, but I stand firm on changing the "must eat vampires" thing to simply requiring more vitae for two reasons.
First, IRL, it's much more efficient to eat herbivores than carnivores, because each link between you and the source of your energy had to expend a bit more of that energy in keeping itself alive. Since all vampires require blood from some source, it's obvious that the source of their animating energy isn't in them. It comes from living things, and any vampire drinking vampiric vitae is just drinking what his victim took from a mortal (or his victim's victim... somewhere down the line it came from a living source.
You could argue that the older vampires need their vitae to be concentrated in another vampire's system first, maybe reduce human vitae to the efficacy of animal vitae rather than make it totally ineffective, but that doesn't address my second reason for the change. Vampires are supposed to be unholy monsters. They're supposed to hurt innocents, or at least mortals who haven't been actively Damned by whatever force is in charge of their world. From my point of view, putting another step between them and the humans they victimize deemphasizes the fact that no matter how you try to pretty it up, a vampire is a moving, slightly decayed corpse that eats people. Eating other monsters is inconvenient due to the vinculum, but it could be morally justified, and nothing about a vampire's condition should be morally justified. Under these rules, a vampire could try to eat only bad people, but that's still more in keeping with the theme I'm going for than a monster that only eats other monsters.
If you're worried about a world filled with ancient elder vampires manipulating everyone, I don't see that being a huge problem here. One, eight vitae is more than the average human has in his body. BP10 vampires under my rules are either going to be constantly looking for victims to take a little bit of vitae from each (and not doing much else... and still probably killing victims on a quasi-regular basis), or they're going to be killing a person a night (and are probably going to be killed either by hunters or younger vampires who don't want mortal attention drawn to them).
Of course there will be the occasional Methuselah who does well despite the odds, but having such creatures exist was never my problem with OWoD fluff. It was the fact that they controlled absolutely everything that I didn't like, and between them having to constantly refill their hemorrhaging vitae pools and the fact that 6 to 9 dot disciplines no longer exist for them to beat the rest of undead society over the head with, I think that problem is greatly lessened.
Is it, really? :smallconfused:
From my understanding, since you don't quite "track" Vitae on a mortal character, it's translated into a point of lethal damage.
If they only have so much blood that they're completely out of it when you've filled up their health track with lethal damage from feeding, then you very easily have the possibility of a human who can be saved from complete exsanguination, since you only die when your rightmost health box is filled with aggravated damage... :smallconfused:
Here's what the Red Book says:Quote:
Is it, really?
From my understanding, since you don't quite "track" Vitae on a mortal character, it's translated into a point of lethal damage.
If they only have so much blood that they're completely out of it when you've filled up their health track with lethal damage from feeding, then you very easily have the possibility of a human who can be saved from complete exsanguination, since you only die when your rightmost health box is filled with aggravated damage...
Quote:
A vessel has a number of Vitae equal to its Health dots. In
game terms, an average adult human contains seven points
worth of Vitae. When a vampire feeds from a vessel, each
Vitae taken inflicts one point of lethal damage on that vessel.
And the Black Book:Quote:
Remember that a mortal character reduced to zero
Health points goes into a coma when her last Health box is
crossed off. She isn’t actually “bleeding to death,” as the vampire
has already taken all her blood, but the state represents
her remaining will to survive.
So yeah, that completely exsanguinated mortal can be saved...if he gets more blood in 7 minutes.Quote:
A mortal being who has lethal
marks in all of his Health boxes is utterly overwhelmed and dying. Maybe heŐs bleeding internally, his lungs are
punctured and he canŐt breathe, or he has suffered burns
over most of his body Ń whatever is appropriate for the
kinds of injuries sustained. Each minute thereafter in which
your character receives no medical attention Ń mundane
or supernatural Ń he suffers one more injury. One Health
box currently marked with an X is upgraded to as asterisk
for aggravated damage, from left to right on your characterŐs
Health chart. Once all boxes are filled with asterisks, heŐs
dead.
V:tR, page 164: "A vessel has a number of Vitae equal to its Health dots. In game terms, an average adult human contains seven points worth of Vitae."
Taking a point of Vitae does inflict a point of lethal damage (so you could fill a person's track with aggravated damage by drinking from them when they were already wounded and gain Vitae for doing so), but Vitae =/= maximum amount of lethal damage a human could possibly take. At the point where a mortal's Health track is filled with lethal, they start upgrading one point of lethal to aggravated per minute until they die or get medical care appropriate to their injuries, whichever comes first, so a vampire that takes even the seven that they do have probably kills his victims unless he feeds just a few feet away from someone who's going to call an ambulance as soon as the vampire is done.
Not that you don't know it, since you've been making WoD related posts on this board for longer than I've been playing the game, but it bears emphasis: NWoD mortals are really fragile.
ETA: What's the vampiric equivalent of a ninja?
I have Internet Celerity 5.:smallbiggrin:
Small question concerning V:tR!
Here's the situation:
A and B are vampires, and B is wearing the Mask of Tranquility. They briefly notice each other at a night club which they both now is frequented by vampires; A triggers a frenzy roll in B (who succeeds), but they don't pay attention long enough for them (or their Beasts) to become familiar with each other.
Later, B goes spend some time meditating in a quiet place, still wearing the Mask of Tranquility. A goes in that place, and being naturally silent, B, who's still meditating, doesn't notice him.
Problem: I was playing B.
A's player tells me that although B doesn't have to roll against frenzy, because the two vampires' Beasts are not familiar with each other yet, B should still get the urge to attack/flee, and have sensed A's presence.
I don't remember reading that in the core book (which doesn't mean much, admittedly, having had the book for a short while and being likely to have skipped important paragraphs). It doesn't seem to make much sense to me; I know vampires tend to dislike each other, but I did not know they were supposed to have those urges past their first encounter, or that one could sense the other in those circumstances.
The roleplay situation was resolved OOC as, even though A's player couldn't give me a reference, he said he's played V:tR for years and has always done things that way. It's minor and doesn't disadvantage me, so I accepted playing things this way.
I'm, however, still confused.
Who's right? A's player? Me? Nobody?
Predator's Taint, page 168:
On the other hand, it does say the flare of Beasts only occurs if you're aware of the other person, and you get no special vampire detection abilities...so I think A was wrong here specifically, but would have been right if you hadn't been meditating.Quote:
Even if a vampire has met another Kindred
before, the initial “surge” of the Beast takes place every time
the two make contact, though it is far more manageable than the
initial contact of the unknown.
You're missing a few things here.
First and foremost: the whole herbivore/carnivore thing is bringing science into something that operates under magical/narrative laws. The comparison is actively unhelpful at best and a Stephenie Meyer-class genre breach at worst.
Second: An elder vampire that needs to feed on his own kind is unlikely to just stalk and attack random vampires. The reason for this is simple: your average vampire is dangerous as all hell. And yet, they also need to ensure a steady supply of blood (oh, hey, incidentally - once a vampire becomes old enough to require vampire blood for sustenance, they're immune to any vinculums they don't already have. Check the core book) in order to fuel their powers and/or existence. How to do this? Well, the obvious answer is this - establish a herd.
But a herd of vampires is a very different beast from a herd of humans. A herd of humans is a group of unsuspecting mooks or blood dolls. A herd of vampires is an industry built on violence. Each of those vampires (and having more than one is ideal, of course, especially given the amount of vitae you may need to refresh each night) has their own feeding needs, which they inflict upon humans. But then they also need to feed you, which means attacking two or even three times the number of people each night in a spreading wave of callously planned malice. Even at blood potency 6 or 7 creating such a thing means deliberately planning (or at least accepting) a campaign of assault (possibly murderous assault) upon the unsuspecting innocent.
Does that sound like it's taking the edge off the moral consequences to you?
Oh hey, you appear to be correct (page 158 of the Red Book, "Elders, Addiction, and Diablerie"). Good thing I haven't had the chance to screw that one up in a game I'm running yet >.>
However, the presence of (likely mutual) Vinculums does not actually change the whole 'industry of violence' dynamic.
Lord Gareth: Before I even get started, let me say that it's really, really unlikely we're going to convince each other of anything. If I liked Requiem exactly as written, I wouldn't be making changes to it. I only posted my changes to this thread so that people could catch anything I did that screwed up the mechanics too badly (I already know that I'll have to rework the Coils, so aside from that), or point out fluff consequences of my changes I wasn't thinking about (such as Glyphstone's noting that newbies starting out with a bloodline gets rid of the whole "learning to unlock your true vampiric potential" stage. I'll probably stick with what I've got for characters that were Embraced prior to a chronicle's start, but it's something to consider for a chronicle centered around a neonate). But we're not going to get anywhere arguing over taste.
That said, I feel compelled to explain my rationale behind certain decisions, so here I sit, writing this, knowing that I might as well be typing to a wall. It's probably some sort of really depressing metaphor for my life in general. Anyway:
That's subjective. Vampires are a metaphor for predation, disease, rape, and possibly serial murder, and I like them to fit with that theme. I also dislike arbitrary systems of magic.
Also, throwing the name "Stephanie Meyer" around like some sort of Your Vampires Suck trump card needs to stop. Not just from you, from everyone. Because the people I hear using it are generally defending Anne Rice style vamps that have about as much in common with vampire folklore (or even the Victorian horror fiction that codified the modern vampire) as Twilight's sparklepires. Not that there's anything redeeming about Meyer's writing, but you can't criticize her on fidelity to the original mythology when you're playing a game that involves vampires who get together in their vampire courts to discuss vampire politics. You've already left the genre, or at least the bits of it that interest me, long behind at that point.
How is a herd of vampires even going to become a thing? This isn't Masquerade, where vampires of BP 6 or higher (Generation 7 or lower, I know) have access to super-awesome secret elder only powers that the new kids can't compete with. That new kid could have as many dots in Dominate, Auspex, etc... as the elder trying to eat him. I mean, it's possible to get together a flock of wolves, sure, but it's not exactly a stable situation. That's the actual, metagame reason for the feeding on vampires thing; the elders need to sleep to keep them from railroading the new kids. Which sort of happens anyway with the large number of older (but not elder!) vampires that have pretentious Latin titles, but meh.Quote:
Second: An elder vampire that needs to feed on his own kind is unlikely to just stalk and attack random vampires. The reason for this is simple: your average vampire is dangerous as all hell. And yet, they also need to ensure a steady supply of blood (oh, hey, incidentally - once a vampire becomes old enough to require vampire blood for sustenance, they're immune to any vinculums they don't already have. Check the core book) in order to fuel their powers and/or existence. How to do this? Well, the obvious answer is this - establish a herd.
In my case, I like having a few crazy elder vampires around, but I don't want them to be all over the place, taking control of vampire society, so I wanted something that would hopefully result in a middle ground between Masquerade's "elders everywhere, in charge of everything!"and Requiem's "almost no vampire makes it longer than a century!" That's not the only reason for the change, of course, which leads me to...
Do I look like the sort of person who answers sarcasm-laden rhetorical questions?Quote:
But a herd of vampires is a very different beast from a herd of humans. A herd of humans is a group of unsuspecting mooks or blood dolls. A herd of vampires is an industry built on violence. Each of those vampires (and having more than one is ideal, of course, especially given the amount of vitae you may need to refresh each night) has their own feeding needs, which they inflict upon humans. But then they also need to feed you, which means attacking two or even three times the number of people each night in a spreading wave of callously planned malice. Even at blood potency 6 or 7 creating such a thing means deliberately planning (or at least accepting) a campaign of assault (possibly murderous assault) upon the unsuspecting innocent.
Does that sound like it's taking the edge off the moral consequences to you?
Regardless of the total amount of vitae taken, it's putting another degree of separation between the elder and his ultimate victim, and allows the vampire (and his player, if he's a PC) to put the ultimate mortal victims out of sight and out of mind. Making the elder having to directly harm his mortals makes the harm he does an immediate thing. Something he can't avoid thinking about, because he's doing it personally.
And believe it or not, I did consider that elder vampires should have a harder time maintaining their unlives, and that they should do more harm to the world around them. That's why I've written a BP 10 elder as needing eight times the amount of vitae that a BP 1 neonate does. He's still causing a lot of suffering. At sustenance-level feeding he's actually causing more harm than an elder under the default rules; a vampire only needs two vitae to heal the point of lethal damage that an elder who's drinking just enough to keep animate does to him, for a total of three lethal damage to (a) mortal(s) per night, versus eight damage per night under my changes. I just want the suffering inflicted to be up close and personal. Of course, as the elder needs more vampire blood to replace extra vitae spent healing and using powers, the default rules start pulling ahead in "total lethal damage done to mortals," but if your Methuselahs are active to the point where they regularly burn that much vitae on Discipline use and fighting things that seriously threaten them, you might actually be playing Masquerade. :smalltongue:
Fragile, they may be; I just find it odd that they can survive several minutes after being completely exsanguinated, and can even be saved from death at that point. :smalleek:
That's not why her vamps suck, though - it's that she keeps trying to say, "Oh, but it's not magic - look at all this science, which, by the way, I didn't actually research before writing this stuff."
If it bothers you, think of it as them having a bit more blood, but they can't provide the vampire with any more of the delicious life energy that she craves, and they've lost enough blood so that they'll be dead soon regardless.
That said, humans have survived some crazy ****, the brain can go without oxygen for four minutes before incurring permanent damage, and NWoD isn't much of a simulationist system anyway. Call it an approximation of reality and shrug at the potential weirdness, I suppose? :smallconfused:
Oh no, fidelity to the source material is a secondary concern for me. What's important is that whatever rules for the monster you use, they should make sense and facilitate the story being told. I just mean that saying that her material is a breach of genre is sort of meaningless. Portraying vampires as sentient is, to some extent, a genre-breach.Quote:
That's not why her vamps suck, though - it's that she keeps trying to say, "Oh, but it's not magic - look at all this science, which, by the way, I didn't actually research before writing this stuff."
From the little bit of her work I've looked through, the problem is that her writing is bad. Far be it from me to tell anyone that they're wrong to enjoy what they enjoy; if you want your vampires to activate their dread powers by singing showtunes (while dancing, where appropriate), that's cool. I'm going to roll my eyes a bit, but there's no disputing matters of taste. But bad writing is bad writing. :smallamused:
The human body is surprisingly resilient:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_death
You can survive with no blood flow for 3-4 minutes, sometimes up to 10 minutes, before suffering brain damage at body temperature. Your other organs can survive up to 30 minutes with no blood flow; severed limbs can be reattached after 6 hours and still function.
Obviously saw Dark Knight and Bane may be one of my favorite villains atm. Was trying to think of how to create a Bane type character to use in a WoD game setting. Maybe he's not a mortal? Maybe a different splat? Maybe he's an immortal? A veteran Rahu? A seasoned Gangrel? etc...
If he is a mortal, what would his attributes, merits, skills, etc...be?
I'm looking for any kind of input.
The tricky part is that a lot of Bane's character is about his backstory, methods, and motivations, not his "powers". Overall, he is just a very tough person with a lot of strength and pain relief, and some rough greco-roman wrestling training (from what I could tell).
His backstory seems similar to a Geist, or someone who has died and came back to live out life again. While I'm not as familiar with it, he also seems similar to a Promethean, at least for his body.
If I was more familiar with the systems (sadly, I am not) I would just make him a mortal with a few appropriate gifts and training in a few fighting styles. To use Vampire's disciplines, I'd give him Vigor, Resilience, and a few ranks in Dominate... for spoiler reasons below.
SpoilerA big part of Bane's character in the movie was his ability to speak at the people in Gotham and get them to either revolt or stay indoors. Bane's takeover of Gotham wasn't so much with strength of arms but with manipulating and convincing everyone to do what he wanted them to do.
Edit, and more spoilery bits below.
SpoilerTalia as a Vampire might actually work out really well for your purposes. She could easily possess Dominate and Majesty, using them to hold together the League of Shadows. Bane would be a ghoul, with the "Bane Juice" (not in the movie, but from the comic) being Talia's blood and granting him his discipline powers. Yes, it doesn't work out perfectly as Talia frequently wanders around in daylight, but could make an interesting idea if you want a Talia-ish and Bane-ish character for a game, rather than trying to reconstruct the existing characters.
The point you make in your second spoiler seems fairly accurate as a relationship analogy.
SpoilerBane does afterall act out of love and devotion to Talia pretty much from the get go, and while he acts as her enforcer he does seem to possess a formidable intellect and charisma of his own.
I think in each splat there is a Bane-ish template (why I mentioned Gangrel) but could easily be turned into a Nosferatu (hence the mask).
I'm not familiar with Geist so I'll take a look at it and see what it offers as well. A few of the immortal templates seemed like they could be used to create a Bane-type character as well due to many of them being very tough to kill.
Great Modthulhu: Spliced the Bane-build thread into the main WoD thread.
Burble.
Geist, as I mentioned, is all about characters who have died and came back to life. That is the whole point - the characters get their powers from having been dead and resurrected. This parallels Bane and
SpoilerThe Pit, which is basically a metaphorical death and resurrection. Getting out of the Pit is pretty much as close to having died and being reincarnated as you'd get to a non-magical setting.
Promethean was mentioned as well, as they are pieced-together creatures of unnatural toughness. Especially in Dark Knight Rises, Bane is very much a character that was taken apart and put back together in his new life; the parallel is what I first thought.
Note that both fit the theme of the Bane character, not necessarily the power set or capabilities. I mentioned Vampire because, beyond being most familiar with it, Vampires are well known for their ability to manipulate things. Bane (along with Joker) were primarily manipulators, so while a Bane-vampire or Joker-vampire may not make the most sense from a Vampire lore standpoint, the system does definitely grant them the most appropriate abilities.
(Resilience and Vigor, or Strength-boost and Soak-boost, are in most WoD systems that I know of. In that regard, it isn't difficult to build a strong toughman in almost any of them.)
Objection!
Sin-Eaters get their powers from sharing their souls with horrible ghost-gods, not from having died and come back.
If anything, Prometheans are the ones whose powers come from being resurrected - although they're not the same person as the person who owned the corpse they were made from.
( Because I love Changeling)
SpoilerBane is an Ogre ( with plenty of Contract of Stone) who was abducted by his Keeper and held in The Pit. There he remained until Talia ( Fairest) arrived and the two forged a friendship with Bane protecting her.
Eventually Talia escaped Arcadia and found friends and a adoptive father in a group of Bridge Burners. She lead them deep into Arcadia and in a daring raid they freed Bane and fled.
Now she and Bane are working on their greatest plan. Gotham is home to many Trods and if the world is to be saved from the true Fae they must be destroyed no matter what the cost. It has taken many years of planning but now they have a weapon powerful enough to take out all of Gotham's Trod's at once.
So, curiosity (and the possibility of crossover in a game I'm running) compels me to ask:what's the deal with NWoD werewolves? Maybe it becomes totally obvious on a thorough readthrough of their rules (I've got the book, but have only had time to look it over so far), but I've heard them compared unfavorably to hunters. So before I bother coming up with details for the werewolf-centric subplot I've been wanting to run for awhile, could someone tell me why they're apparently stuck at the bottom of NWoD's tier list, and what if anything can be done about that?
If so, you've heard wrongly.Quote:
but I've heard them compared unfavorably to hunters.
Werewolves have some weaknesses that make them certainly amongst the weaker supers. But they do have a lot of positives.
Weaknesses-
Gauru form is very fleeting. For most non-combat focussed wolves, it will only last 3 turns.
Silver weakness is something that basically any non-werewolf foe can quite easily exploit, and negates some of their biggest strenths
Shapeshifting relies on luck and takes, or becomes a big essence sink.
In order to learn higher level powers, werewolves need to pay a premium by first increasing renown. Massive XP sink and less choice. Comes with a roleplay restriction(you want Honour renown? You have to act exceptionally honourably.)
The totem mechanics as written, are kind of ludicrous. I think if WW was doing werewolf now, they would probably have created something similar to pledgecrafting.
In general, the Gifts and Rituals that werewolves have access to are on the lower end of the power curve of supernatural abilities. Not useless, but generally rather specific in function.
Social penalties and Rage checks mean it is very hard to function in mortal society for any werewolf not particularly socially adroit.
Positives-
Alternate forms provide even the weakest werewolf with basic combat competence akin to a fairly combat focussed mortal.
Lunacy means that mortal antagonists basically can't confront werewolves.
Harmony is easily one of the more flexible and forgiving of the Morality meters.
Regeneration against everything but silver(and other agg. damage) is quick and handy, with easy in combat healing.
Access to the spirit world gives a whole other angle for attack against all spirit blind foes. It also gives a source of allies and information that outclasses anything in the mortal world.
Werewolves operate as a society a lot more readily than most supernaturals, and will attempt to compensate for others weaknesses. Dedicated pack fighting is something werewolves actively learn.
Once the Renown requirement is done, Werewolves have free access to gift lists and can cherry pick gifts at any level without having to learn prerequisites.
I'd happily put Werewolves on a level with Vampires and Prometheans, and the only reason I'd put Changelings above them would be pledge crafting.
1.Alternate forms might be useless depending on the ST's interpretation of Harmony.
2.Lunacy can be ignored by spending willpower, and it doesn't outway the cons of Death-Rage.
3.How much of a problem Harmony is heavily depends on the ST's interpretation. Shapshifting can be seen as "revealing the existance of werewolves". Using any bite attack can be seen as "cunsuming the flesh of werewolves/humans/wolves". Something as small as smacking an irritating packmate in the head can be seen as "betraying the pack".
4.There are at least three methods to harm werewolves that exploit their regeneration, one is a crippling fighting style that anyone can learn.
5.Spirits all hate werewolves, except for Lunes that love you and drive you crazy by accident.
6.Werewolves operate in a society based on having a pissing-contest at the slightest hint of an argument and give the win to the physically strongest four times out of five.
7.Gifts are useless if you don't have enough xp for them or you can't use them due to role-play restrictions.
1. Care to elaborate? Shapeshifting is good for Harmony; not shapeshifting for 3 days is even a Harmony violation at Harmony 8 and above.
2. Again, care to explain? At best, you have ST fiat, but if the ST is granting every NPC that fiat, he may as well just remove Lunacy from the game entirely, since it clearly isn't doing its intended job. Also, I don't know how he expects the werewolves to do theirs.
3. Only if your ST has it out for werewolves, in which case I have to wonder why he's running WtF in the first place. The core book even explains that, no, none of what you said is accurate. The Lunacy protects the Uratha from revealing themselves. Using bite attacks is not consuming the flesh of human or wolf, it's standard practice for wolves and werewolves in forms with bite attacks. You bite, tear, and spit, not bite, tear, and swallow. Besides, even if some blood or chunks of meat do make it down your gullet, you're not hunting for food, you're not gaining essence from it, you're not even actually eating anything. And smacking a packmate upside the head is not betraying the pack. Dominance battles are a regular thing for werewolves.
4. Silver stops the regeneration, there's Darius' unique fighting style, but it only functions for someone in Dalu form, what are the others?
5. Spirits do not all hate werewolves, unless, again, your ST is vindictively opposed to werewolves. Yes, lots of them dislike werewolves, but the Firstborn and Lunes like werewolves, and other spirits are mostly ambivalent. You have heard of totems, right? You know, the spirits that act as patrons for a werewolf pack, and provide them benefits? Or spirit allies? Not all spirits hate werewolves.
6. Yes and no. "The Low Honor the High; the High Respect the Low." If a werewolf disagrees with his/her alpha, they can say so. They have to be respectful, but so does the alpha or elder. If the younger wolf has a serious beef with the alpha or elder, they can challenge the alpha for dominance, but that may not be a good idea. The High got to where they are by being quick, cunning, and yes, strong. Not every sign of disagreement or argument has to devolve into a "pissing contest," and in fact usually won't.
7. Care to explain? If you don't have the XP to purchase Renown or Gifts, then obviously you can't use gifts you haven't bought. Once you've bought them either via XP or Renown, however, you can use them as much as you like, as long as you can pay the essence or willpower cost. What RP restrictions do you mean?
I think he is talking about Renown.Quote:
Originally Posted by ToySoldierCPlus
Renown doesn't really ever prevent you from using *gifts*. It just pushes your character towards certain ways of acting. This isn't really a specific criticism of the tangible "Select whatever gifts you want" benefit, so much as a reiteration that renown can be restrictive.
Uh. Sure. If your ST is out to stop you from playing the game, then I guess werewolves are quite hard to play. :smallconfused:Quote:
Originally Posted by Sydonai
Sorry, I'm in a really bad mood. My grandfather died about a month ago, my grandmother died less than a year before that, and I just got kicked out of a house my family lived in for seventy years.
(There is a gift that makes healing make wounds worse rather than better, I think this includes regeneration. Pretty sure its a Fire-Eyes fever/plague gift.)
My sympathies. I lost my little brother about a month and a half ago, so I sympathize.
Mostly something the Pure use against the People. I'm trying to remember where it is... Wolfsbane, perhaps? I know I've read about it.
If it's a gift from a plague-spirit, you're probably right.
Actually, I think it's a thing Rabid Wolf gave his tribe. Because that's a thing he would do.
New Mummy blog on Cults, the equivalent of Lodges/Bloodlines.
Highlights: Mummies often have powerful mortal support systems. Being as they seem mostly to have been leaders of one sort or another before being mummified, this makes a lot of sense.
3 main types of cults: the occult cult (obviously), the conspiracy cult ("tell their followers they’re working for the CIA or the Bilderbergers"), and legitimate businesses ("it could be a profit-generating private equity firm, or an NGO, or a think tank, as far as the outsiders are concerned."), all of which basically give the mummy a different array of resources, retainers, allies, contacts, mooks, etc.
It's not as if WoD vampires are particularly close to any folklore, either - how many stories have you heard about vampires activating their special powers using the magical powers of blood? At best, vampires will heal by drinking blood, but often it's just food.