Now I’m going to be straightforward here, and just state
flat out that I love the idea of an Abomination. For the uninitiated, an
Abomination is a werewolf that has survived the embrace, becoming a
blood-drinking, shapeshifting undead monstrosity, with the powers of both, and
hated by all. I think it’s a really cool expression of the idea of vampirism as
a disgusting, diseased curse, capable of infecting even the most spiritually
pure of beings, like one of the Garou. I think an Abomination is a great boogieman,
capable of scaring even werewolves, a fallen warrior of Gaia corrupted to the
Wyrm is a pretty powerful symbol, even more freakish than the most depraved
Black Spiral Dancer. Abominations live up their namesake very well, being
absolutely repulsive freaks that all of nature, the world, and even other
servants of the Wyrm recoil from.
Now, all of that said, it would take a fuck-ton of
convincing for me to allow a player to try one. Abominations are inherently really tricky
to play, and if you let one out of control, it can be disgustingly overpowered.
In a vampire game, an Abomination wrecks shit, and I really don’t recommend
allowing this sort of shit in any kind of group game. Doing so will basically
ensure that every other player is going to be sidelined in favor of the group’s
dead puppy, and even worse, kiss any kind of meaningful boss fight and combat
goodbye, because the Abomination player is going to tear through anything you
throw at him short of an Antediluvian. In a werewolf game, bizarrely, you
suffer the opposite problem. Most people don’t get this, but Abominations are
actually way, way weaker than your
average werewolf. I specifically enforce in my games that while an Abomination
may have the strength of both species, they also have the weaknesses of both.
In addition to that, their gnosis permanently drops slowly, effectively getting
rid of their spiritual powers altogether. Abominations also heal like vampires,
a less efficient way than werewolves, giving Garou an inherent advantage. Add
to that the problem of hiding from the Gaia-lovin’ Garou, our feisty little
Wyrm minion is going to be answering some very awkward questions like why he’s
never seen in daylight, and why he stinks of corruption.
The first part of putting an Abomination in one’s game, is
to define what it is. In classic White Wolf fashion, there’s a ton of
contradictory ideas spread out through the various sourcebooks as to how to
craft these beasts, and therefore, I’ll put forth my method. This write up isn’t
exactly canon, but I think it’s one of the few ways to make an Abomination
balanced.
So, start the character off in the normal way you would make
a werewolf character. No double freebie points for you, because that’s just
stupid. Pick a tribe, pick an auspice etc. etc. as normal. Now, once you’ve put
that together, level it up as normal to get it to the point in life at which it
was embraced. Now the fun starts. Apply the vampire template. Pick a clan,
generation, all the normal stuff. Your werewolf’s gnosis is now frozen, and can
never be increased. They keep the gifts that they had, but gifts that call
spirits always call Banes, who are somewhat pissed that the werewolf has
severed his spiritual side and weakened his connection with the Wyrm. In
addition, their Gnosis is capped at their humanity. Pick disciplines and apply
a blood pool as normal. The Abomination now has a blood pool and a rage score.
They can only spend from one of those scores a round, no spending rage and
blood in the same go, because they are intrinsically spiritually opposed and
don’t go well together. Abominations lose their werewolf regeneration and heal
like a vampire, by spending blood. They gain the vampire weakness to sunlight,
fire and their clan weakness, on top of their tribe weakness and the weakness
to silver. They retain their ability to shapeshift normally, but optionally,
their werewolf form looks decayed and hideous and obviously undead. Like any
other vampire, they need to drink blood and can be sent into torpor if their
blood pool empties out. They also instantly lose all renown, ‘cause Gaian
spirits aren’t going to accept any of your shit once you go leech. The Abomination now subscribes to humanity,
which, as mentioned above, caps their Gnosis, so their Gnosis score can’t be
higher than their humanity. Switching onto paths are fine, as always, but you
need to drop your humanity to 3 or lower, which means sacrificing quite a large
chunk of your spiritual power. Finally, unless they were Black Spiral Dancers
in life, they lose their pack bond and totem, and upon becoming an Abomination,
they automatically gain a derangement. This is how I like Abominations to
function, and for the most part, it neuters a large amount of their broken
reputation. It’s not perfect, but thus far, it’s the best I have.
Now, in terms of roleplay, nobody likes Abominations.
Kindred hate and fear them because they’re jealous of their power, and because
no elder wants their centuries of planning to be ended by a swipe of a neonate’s
claws. Abominations in kindred domains need to keep their heads down, unless
they want to end up blood hunted as a massive Masquerade breach, or if nothing
else, at very least, blood bonded to everyone even vaguely interested in not
being eviscerated. In werewolf games, this is even harder, because werewolves
can sniff out the Wyrm (something Abominations are just soaked in) and do a lot
of their stuff during the day, so it’s basically impossible to remain hidden
unless you’re of a ridiculously high rank and literally beyond reproach. All of
this makes for a really cool roleplaying challenge in my opinion. On one hand,
you’ve got a huge amount of power. In Vampire games, it’s really, really nice
to be able to take out elders with one flick of your aggravated damage claws,
and basically to outclass other neonates and ancillae a million to one. An
Abomination who survives to be an Elder is going to be a bloody dangerous
monster indeed, and can use its shapeshifting (even without Gnosis) as a nice
ace up their sleeve. Still, it’s even more dangerous than being a Baali, an
un-blood-bonded Tremere handing out Thaumaturgy like Halloween candy or even a
Camarilla Lasombra. You need to be way, way, way more paranoid than a regular
vampire, because all it takes is some random ghoul to see you transforming and
it’s curtains for you. Other vampires are also capable of using their politics
against you a lot easier, because whinging to an elder brings attention to you.
That doesn’t mean that you can’t transform ever, but you’re going to need to be
prepared to lay the smackdown on any kindred that gets too nosy.
A large inspiration for this page was a post on a WW forum
(I’ll link it below), that suggests some cool combinations. Here’s what I think
are probably the easiest and hardest to run.
- Lasombra/Shadow Lord: Pretty easy to merge philosophies, as both of them essentially boil down to being a backstabbing douche. Both are also very accustomed to being the power behind the throne.
- Malkavian or Nosferatu/Bone Gnawer: Pretty easy to meld, as these guys know what it’s like to be an outcast already.
- Red Talons/Gangrel: A pretty obvious one anyway, a Red Talon/Gangrel is really quickly going to be about embracing being the ultimate predator, but is going to have to handle the problem of their humanity and Gnosis dropping like a rock in a pond.
- Black Spiral Dancer/Anything: BSD’s are essentially the only tribe who will accept these freaks, and some really insane BSD’s may be tempted to truly become ‘one with the Wyrm.’
All in all, I don’t think Abominations deserve the kind of
hate they receive. White Wolf fucked up, yes, when they decided to create
Samuel Haight, their idiotic hybridized mage/werewolf/ghoul hybrid, but that
doesn’t mean that the idea of a freakish hybrid is necessarily a bad one. Just
please don’t go stacking a shit ton of templates on top of each other, like a
mage-Baali-BSD-changeling, because that is just ridiculous. That said, if
anyone manage to pull that off and make a good game out of it, they have won at
oWoD and need never play it again.
- Kephn
[EDIT: I can't actually find the post, and I have a musical to prepare for, so I'll link it when I find it.]
[EDIT: I can't actually find the post, and I have a musical to prepare for, so I'll link it when I find it.]
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