General World of Darkness Discussion Thread QQ Edition

[shadowdice]

Oh I also had the fun of the Gangrel Escobar (nephew of Pablo Escobar) looking around a non profit (The Eastern European Heritage society. A front organization run by Revenants to find lost relatives, do experiments, eugenics, and launder money for the Sabbat) realizing how much money were in Non Profits and calling up the Ventrue player to say "We need to start a non profit"

All while the Gangrel and the Revenant are unsure what the other is and what they are about because the Revenant is confused by why a random vampire called him trying to get information to a Sabbat Head Inquisitor (the gangrel's sire) and who he is while the Gangrel isn't sure if he is talking to a human, ghoul, or what until they both reveal what they are to each other, that it involves demons and agree to work together so long as Gangrel hands any dhabi revenants to him (with the players learning that deals with demons of various kinds can allow vampires to conceive children due to the players researching more on demons and the players wondering if some revenants are the result of eugenic breeding of dhampirs along with the ancient dhampirs that hunted vampires being because their vampiric parents were infernalists and the dhampirs may have presumed all vampires were)

Edit

Ventrue is also trying to learn Thaumaturgy for Lure of flames and having on command fire against buildings/ demons

 

[shadowdice]

In other bits about the Chinese room game

The dialogue system does the shittiest stuff when it comes to giving you only a hint of what you are about to say

I pick "my favorite memory is defending my homeland" the game believes that is the like 500 year old vaguely Eastern European vampire talking about fighting the Tsar

Lou then talks about me fighting The communists with me not being sure if she is talking about the same event and confusing pre 1920 Russia with the Soviet era, if the writers fucked up, or she is talking about a completely different event that I did not hear about until that point

 

[Imabot]

In other bits about the Chinese room game

The dialogue system does the shittiest stuff when it comes to giving you only a hint of what you are about to say

I pick "my favorite memory is defending my homeland" the game believes that is the like 500 year old vaguely Eastern European vampire talking about fighting the Tsar

Lou then talks about me fighting The communists with me not being sure if she is talking about the same event and confusing pre 1920 Russia with the Soviet era, if the writers fucked up, or she is talking about a completely different event that I did not hear about until that point

Click to shrink...

From what I saw about this game writing, I think fuck up and lack of research have 95% of being the case here.

 

[heralding_bubble]

Someone posted an apparent breakdown of the whole plot of Bloodlines 2 on SB, almost coped it here but I'd figure I'd ask if y'all be fine with it since some are still playing through it and might not want to be tempted by spoilers or something.

 

[Imabot]

Someone posted an apparent breakdown of the whole plot of Bloodlines 2 on SB, almost coped it here but I'd figure I'd ask if y'all be fine with it since some are still playing through it and might not want to be tempted by spoilers or something.

Click to shrink...

Can't you just post a link?

 

[heralding_bubble]

Can't you just post a link?

Click to shrink...

that makes sense, which of course means it never even occurred to me.
here

 

[Maragas]

TLDR: There is a reason why in the past Princes were mostly Elders. Young ones fuck things up. Like Lou did.

 

[Imabot]

TLDR: There is a reason why in the past Princes were mostly Elders. Young ones fuck things up. Like Lou did.

Click to shrink...

You know that in past Princes were, well, young ones back whe they were in charge?
Also ALL vampiries eventually fuck up. Its in thier nature to turn against eachother at some point. Even when they do it with best intentions inthe world.
Elders going into sleep just helps them reduce amout of fuck ups they commit over centuries compared to when they would be awake all the time. It averages out you know.

 

[Rakdos92]

I'm sorry, why are Baali so hated and feared that they have to be killed on sight?

 

[Maragas]

I'm sorry, why are Baali so hated and feared that they have to be killed on sight?

Click to shrink...

Little things like their tendencies to re-embrace other Clans vampires*, leave infernal temples everywhere made out of corpses, blood and gore** and their constant attempt to summon demonic hordes to lay waste to earth***.

You know, small stuff. Like how one of the penultimate ability of their Methuselahs is to kill themselves to let Satan in.****

*

Spoiler

**

Spoiler

***

Spoiler

****

Spoiler: Call The Great Beast-Spew Wide the Pit

 

[Imabot]

I'm sorry, why are Baali so hated and feared that they have to be killed on sight?

Click to shrink...

They are the most unholy of all Vampire bloodlines. So much so that they are more vulnerable to holy symbols, true faith, and other sacred and sanctified things. You can imagine just how inhumane, demonic, or monstrous they have to be to cause that side effect to manifest.
They are basically a Vampiric demon cult.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

I'm sorry, why are Baali so hated and feared that they have to be killed on sight?

Click to shrink...

They're infernalists. Summon demons and shit.

They also subvert the other clans, re-embracing (weird magic) various kindred into the Baali.

It was also because of the Baali trying to become the top dogs that caused the Second City and Carthage, IIRC, to be destroyed and salted.

If the Sabbat are the Vampires who embrace being a Vampire, the Baali are the Vampires who embrace being Evil.

 

[Ragura]

Baali NPCs are best with a few extra Disciplines (Presence, Obfuscation and Daimonion alone do not a fighter make). My favorites are Animism (because a Baali's lair canonically attracts vermin anyway) and Necromancy (Path of Bones - everybody gangsta until the Organ Pit starts walking). Or make them a Formor (some of them worship the Wyrm and vampires can get possessed).

 

[Gereh]

Okay other peoples have done it before but now that it is the weekend and I had some more time with looking up the game, and it's setting it is my turn to go on a rant about bloodlines 2.

So lets talk about the city of Seattle. From what we know prior Seattle was actually a pretty important city, serving as a strategical important point to fight the Anarch movement on the East Coast.

Article:

[...] Seattle is the last main Camarilla enclave in the Northwest, Seattle is a city on the brink. Anarchs from the Free States to the South have decided to enlarge their borders, and Seattle is one of their target cities. The Camarilla does not intend to lose the city, and they have positioned a powerful Justicar there.

Source: Dark Alliance: Vancouver

If we look at where Seattle lies geographically, we can also see that the major neighbouring city are Vancouver, famously an independent city and Portland, which at least for some time was in the hand of the Sabbat. So we can assume that Seattle has been on the forefront of conflicts for the duration of the 1980s - 2000s. Here are some mentions I could find from doing a quick search:

Article:

The Network known as the Crew stretches throughout the United States and parts of Europe. [...] The crew has managed to defeat a preliminary incursion by the Sabbat in Seattle, overrunning the heavens of Canties while they prepare for their second round of attacks.

Source: "Midnight Siege"

Article:

For the Free State Anarchs, this socialist-anarchist impulse saw its ultimate expression in December of 1999, when thousands of mortal protesters rioted in Seattle to protest the World Trade Organization during its annual ministerial conference. Anarchs across the Pacific Northwest used the protests as cover for an attempted coup against the Camarilla Prince. Although the coup was ultimately unsuccessful, several important Camarilla vampires were slain and the Prince only narrowly escaped assassination.

Source: "Anarchs Unbound"

Now you could use this to explain why the city is in a bad state, after years of being under attack many of the more powerful vampires may have been killed off and with the "Beckoning" going on and the global structures of Camarilla mostly being gone, the city isn't longer reinforced by powerful vampires (which they no doubt where to fend of the Anarchs after 1999) and left to fend on its own with the higher ups being gone or focusing on more pressing issues (like the Second Inquisition). Also, no SchreckNet in V5, which means city are a lot more isolated in general.

So there would have been "good" explanation for why the city is in the state it is. But they aren't used (at least from what I have seen).

Now let's see what else we know about the history of the city we know from the game.

So Lou killed off her sister in 1920 to become the sole prince (yes she somehow was co-Prince before despite being not even Vamp for 50 years, but then again this is only 30 years after the Seattle Fire which realistically would have killed a lot of Kindred) and has killed off all her rivals/enemies afterwards because she wanted all the powers. To do that, she made a fake story about a hunter that was doing all of that. Of course nobody thought it was her, even through all her enemies suddenly died, because she was seen in public when it happened... Because somehow nobody would think a Ventrue wouldn't do the dirty work on her own and have someone else finish the people off for her... This all happened before 1925, because 1925 is when Gideon figured out that something was wrong and came to Lou to tell her that he believes her Ghoul was the one behind it (guy deserves the Darwin Award for that alone).

From my understanding, he didn't do that because he was trying to extort her with the knowledge or anything, he genuinely thought that the Ventrue Prince didn't know anything about her ghoul going around killing her enemies and making it look like hunters did it... For unknown reason (aka the plot demands it) the prince didn't kill off Gideon, despite having no problem in doing so with all the other people that were a problem for her, and instead just incapacitated him and hit him away. There was literally no reason to keep him alive especially since they made everyone believe that Gideon was killed by the fake hunter. Just put him out in the sun somewhere and call it a day.

Also around the same time, Fabian solves the case and figures it out and gets mind-wiped... Because making him vanish or killing him off is of the table since he is such an important guy. Not really, he is just a newly embraced Fledgling. They could just make it look like he was killed together with his sire, aka Gideon, but then the story wouldn't work. I will be honest, nothing here makes senses. But the writer needed this to happen that way for their story to work. Now once again we don't know what the state of the project was when Chinese Room got the game, so we don't know if all of those "plotholes" are simply because they tried to work around stuff and cobble together a story from the pieces. But I fell that I had enough time (~6 years) that, trying to get the game in a state where it can be release doesn't serve as an excuse anymore.

Now fast forward to 1990's. Lou is the prince and apparently the main power in Seattle. When a rescued Gideon dementates her, causing Lou to step back and makes JJ Campbell, her former ghoul turned Childer into the Prince.

So now, with JJ Campbell as prince, the events mentioned above would all have happened. Nobody that actually played the game and seen "Prince JJ" can tell me they believe that "JJ" would have been able to keep Praxis with a Justicar staying in the city. Like this guy would probably lose his position in about a month, and they put someone else in charge. I know Justicar are supposed to not do "city politics" since they are above that, but that is only theory, in reality if a Justicar comes to the city and doesn't like you, you better have the whole city backing you up, to have a chance to stand up to them.

But our boy JJ somehow stays in power, somehow. Like just to remind us all, this is a guy who isn't even a century old staying in power in a city surrounded by enemies. Guy was literally a Neonate that played Prince seems making inexperienced people into Princes is a tradition in Seattle... and Lou, the power behind the throne, is only an Ancilla and is also Demented. And he somehow kept the leadership in a city that was important in the ongoing war.

Then the 1999's attack happened that killed of many powerful figures in the city and JJ was wounded. At least that is what the books says. For a guy that was almost killed by them and had to fight them multiple times he is very tolerant towards Anarchs in "his" city.

You would think someone mentioned that a big event, especially since 25 years ago isn't that long for you average kindred.

Meanwhile Safina, Gideon and their Sabbat friends continue plotting. You would think that they would use on of those events for their own, but nope they have an insane plan about having Gideon getting Diablarized by an Elder but in a way that Gideon takes over the Elder. Or maybe not because they probably aren't sure if that would even work and still doing their experiments on Thin-Bloods in the 2000s.

Now fast-forward 20 years again to the time the game happens: Somehow everyone forgot all their history with the Anarchs and also people can't spot that something is obviously Sabbat despite the city have a history with the Sabbat and being right next to a city that formerly was Sabbat territory (Portland is like a 3h drive from Seattle), guess everyone that had a clue died in the '99 attack. Like this is really my only explanation to how the city got here and in the state it is right now.

Also somehow news of a Lasombra Elder waking up in the city isn't enough to get them all into panic.

So why have I gone on this rant, because I have a theory, a lot of the stuff about the city makes sense if we assume the stuff in the books happened, while other stuff is just so out there that I'm just puzzled. My theory is that the story we play was not supposed to be like that, after all it's clear that at least in the Hard Suit Labs version the player wasn't an Elder, since one of the clans to choose was being a Thin Blood. So either Chinese Room came up with the new story or the story is made up from Side Stories that got combined into the new main story.

Think about it, the Fabian story about a Malkavian Detective that solves the same crime over and over again and always get dominated in to forgetting, also his supposeldy dead Sire is still alive, is a good and compelling story. It just doesn't make sense that it is done by the prince who has gotten away with murder like 2 minutes earlier and now decided "nah I will just not do that to solve the problem permanently". So I assume this is where Fabian, Gideon, and JJ come from. Also my theory is that in that version JJ sire was the lover of Gideon and that is why they only staked him, meanwhile Fabian was dominated to help give them an Alibi.

Also the plan to "take over an Elder" makes a lot more sense if you assume that Safina (and Gideon) came up with it during a time, a Justicar stayed in the city from tome to time, as well as whoever he had there to help with planing, because you really want the extra firepower of a 500+ year old Elder. Would make sense if that had been a Side Quest or even part of an original Main Quest. And then when the Justicar left they already saw process so they keep the plan going. If it isn't all about revenge it would make sense for them to lay low and wait to finish their plan and not use something like a chance in 1999 to finish of the Prince.

So yes, my theory is that this two story lines existed, etiher in Hard Suit Labs game, or Chinese Room came up with them (they are good writers after all, at least as far as I can tell from their other games) and it was at a later date combined to the main story and combined with the political intrigues. Because either the OG main story was bad or they had to change it because the story didn't work the game they were making anymore.

So it isn't that people sucked at writing or didn't do their research but somewhere down the line some executive decided that the game would have a different story and to do that had to combine storylines and just hoping that people don't see the parts where they duct tape them together.

Would be interesting if someone "datamines" the game and to see what they find there.

So now that I'm done with my "rant" (even if I didn't really talk that much about the game and more about my own theories what is going on). It's someone else time. So who wants to go next?

 

[shadowdice]

I also heard that JJ's wife was pregnant. He was a ghoul at the time so unless she was cheating then that is a very VERY rare event so I'm not entirely sure why she was put on a hit list instead of a "okay lock her up and see what comes out" situation as Ventrue do have a revenant line

 

[Gedou_Meta]

I think the simplest answer would be that somebody associated with the Ventrue revenant line or even just having a lot of power over/because of local ghouls was having a bit of an issue and decided that the trouble the hit listing/killing now might cause later down the line was less than letting a potential rival be created out of their control

 

[shadowdice]

I think the simplest answer would be that somebody associated with the Ventrue revenant line or even just having a lot of power over/because of local ghouls was having a bit of an issue and decided that the trouble the hit listing/killing now might cause later down the line was less than letting a potential rival be created out of their control

Click to shrink...

Rather I think the writers do not realize lore implications