Too Hot to Handle: On Removing Slaanesh (RANT WARNING)

Art by the ever awesome TD-Vice, who draws pretty well for a Nazi.

So, this is going to be less of a reasoned article, and more of me just yelling my frustration into the ether, so rant warning, this is going to be somewhat less concise than most of my other articles. I know I should just stay out of the debates of Warhammer fans, because, well, I know it would usually just irritate me. All my favorite elements of the the Warhammer 40k setting (I have not really gotten into Fantasy, but I've heard it's very good) have been slowly bled away from it. I loved the Necrons being unimaginable alien horrors being controlled by the star gods, but, we can't have that, so now they're just a bunch of robot skeletons who nicked the play book from the Goa'uld from Stargate and have made their gods into Pokemon. I really like the Eldar Harlequins when they were just a mysterious third faction of the Eldar, and not as an entire fucking army, but whatever. Most of all, I love, love, love the Chaos god Slaanesh, and I seem to be the only one who does, given that most of the very vocal fanbase seem to have some massive problem with the character. Games Workshop sure does, as I've now recently heard that Warhammer Fantasy has been turned into Age of Sigmar, something that would take an entire article to properly lambast, but to be sure, has not been met with a lot of love from the fanbase. One big thing that has been changed is that Slaanesh has been effectively removed from the setting (getting kidnapped. How that fucking works is beyond me, given that it's one of the four supremely powerful chaos gods and it just ate a shit ton of elf souls but whatever.) and I've heard rumors (I don't know if they're true, but they seem pretty fucking likely) that they're going to be getting rid of him/her in 40k as well.

Sigh
Let's take a look at Games Workshop and Warhammer 40k as a setting, and you'll truly see exactly why Slaanesh gets the company head's knickers in a twist. 40k, at least initially, started out as an adult setting. It's violent as fuck. It contains more ways to kill someone then I have ever seen in a work of fiction, and creatively too, in ways that make Mortal Kombat drool. Chaos gods embodied very family unfriendly things, like hatred, warfare, decay and disease, mutation and body horror, and of course (gasp) sex and depravity. Now, in its inception, Fantasy and 40k had a lot of flavor, but this wonderful company Games Workshop, this bunch of fucking idiots even their fans hate, who drag their IP through the goddamn mud every time anyone looks at it funny, who tries to copyright the term Space Marine of all fucking things (Starship Troopers and Doom oughta be fucking insulted if they weren't too busy rolling on the floor laughing) has slowly, and surely whittled away every sharp, objectionable edge to the hobby until it's bland and as mass appealing as it can be. Slaanesh has been getting neutered in terms of flavor for decades. First, they refuse to mention sex, then they mention it's the weakest chaos god (because I'm sure the desire to fuck is much less than the desire to make bloody warfare, sink into despair or go schizophrenic) and then they even made it's formerly really hot and creepy daemons into backup dancers for Lordi. So now, Slaanesh in Age of Sigmar has been removed in a SIDEBAR of all fucking things, and replaced with the Horned Rat, because the emotion of being a backstabbing shitstain wasn't already covered by Tzeentch, and I dunno, maybe being eaten by rats and the bubonic plague is a very deep intrinsic emotion for the people of Warhammer Fantasy. I don't know, I'm not a fucking psychologist.

Hand me my flamer, naked, parchment wearing masochist, so I can burn more minorities. You know, for Kids!

 Grimdark and PG-13
40k is often credited with coining the phrase 'grimdark', as 'In the Grim Darkness of the 41st Millennium, there is only War'. Now, I would agree, 40k is an exceedingly dark and visceral setting. The main protagonists are a theocratic dictatorship based on torturing, murdering and killing anyone who looks different or thinks differently from you. One of the main antagonists, the chaos god Khorne (There are three others but Khorne gets the most screentime because his fanboys want to assure you that their dicks are indeed tiny) is all about the brutal murder and slaughter of your enemies in an endless bloodbath to feed his intense hatred. Blah, blah something something honorable combat. Wait, that's too much character? Fine. Remove it. There are guns that flay their victims alive, chainsaw swords, viruses that make their victims explode into gorey puddles, guns that shoot little bugs that eat their victims alive, my personal favorite, a hypersonic whip that's injected into a person and liquifies their organs and blades  that drain moisture out of the victim and turn them into piles of dust.

Now.....just from that brief overview, do you think this is a particularly good setting for 13-year-olds to be immersed in? I know that if it were a movie or a video game, it probably would be rated Mature at least. Case in point, in the country I'm in, Mortal Kombat 9 got banned temporarily because the Fatalities proved too problematic for any ickle impressionable children. I still can't buy a legal copy of Hotline Miami 2 because some people might be offended by a pixellated (and in universe SIMULATED) rape scene.

What I'm trying to get at, is that the setting of Warhammer 40k was never particularly family friendly. It tells the story of humanity's darkest hour, the last glimmer of light before its snuffed out by darkness FOREVER. Horrifying acts of murder, torture, depravity and other unpleasant things have been in the setting since its inception. To decry Slaanesh as too offensive, as too 'family unfriendly' for a setting like Warhammer 40k (or Fantasy for that matter) is so ludicrous that it's almost a weird commentary on society itself. Why are we so OK with horrifying violence, murder and torture but we draw the line if god-forbid someone wants to put a pare of boobs on something. I'm not endorsing rape or sexual violence in any way, but I'm equally not endorsing torture or mass murder. Why are acts of genocide, monstrosity, outright racism and religious persecution ok to portray? We all know they're bad. It's pretty unlikely that any of the millions of fans of the hobby are going to go out and gather some skulls for the skull throne because you let them buy miniature army men with axes. Chaos, and what makes Chaos a great antagonist, is that it exemplifies every part of the human psyche, and Slaanesh was arguably the best and most in-depth because s/he's the only one who lures victims in with what they want. What drives people more than the pleasure principle? What drives people more than feeling pleasure? be it sexual, perfectionistic or prideful? In fact, to shy away from portraying these things ignores such a fundamental part of the human psyche that it almost just takes away the flavor of Chaos as a faction, and makes it as arbitrary and boring as a list of the DnD Demon Princes.

No girls allowed. They are icky and have cooties.

Misogyny
Now, stop. I know what you're thinking, and I'm not saying that Slaanesh is a faction for girls specifically, because it's not. The thing is though, because of its hermaphroditic nature, there is a disproportionate amount of female daemons and symbols within the Slaaneshi faction that contrasts with the ridiculous testosterone poisoning of the rest of the setting. Now, Games Workshop is no stranger to misogyny (our genetically engineered space monks can only be from MANLY MEN, 'cause there's such a difference between men and women genetically, and obviously women can't truly embody the EMPRAH!) and Slaanesh's chosen colors, Pink, and her chosen daemons (usually females) contrast with this. Now, I know I'm getting into a tricky topic here, and I can just feel the hate mail about to pour in.  Normally, I hate it when women are presented as nothing but sex objects. Women are presented as sex objects in almost every other part of 40k (Sisters of Battle who have form-fitting power armor and sometimes whip themselves in battle wearing only parchments and Jesus Christ the Dark Eldar), but I would argue that being presented as a sex object is all about what Slaanesh is about. Even males should be portrayed as sex objects, and that's the point, because Slaanesh is about objectifying people. We as a society should know it's wrong. That's why it works and that's why it's part of an army of DEMONS. Seriously, everyone knows that mass murder, spreading diseases and burning people alive are wrong, and we have no problem selling Khorne, Nurgle and Tzeentch armies. But the instant the players hear about an army of succubi or pink-armored space marines, they head for the hills for fear of catching teh gay.

I'm tired and all ranted out, but in conclusion, I feel that removing Slaanesh is just one more example of Games Workshop caving into mass appeal and (surprise surprise) not having any respect for its IP or quite frankly, the intelligence of its players. Again, I don't know if Slaanesh will be removed from 40k, but the way things are, let's just say it wouldn't fucking surprise me for my favorite faction to go the way of the Squats and the Lost and the Damned. Hardly would be the first time Games Workshop screwed over a less popular demographic of players in chasing the almighty dollar. Once again, I know I should just keep my head out of this shit. Just play Dark Heresy and the other really good RPG's that Fantasy Flight makes, that kind of rise above the turd ocean that Warhammer 40k inevitably becomes, that expect maybe a glimmer of intelligence and (gasp) maturity from it's players. I mean, it's sure as fuck more than anything Games Workshop gives us. Right. Rant over. Hope you enjoyed it. I will return you to your regularly scheduled Mad Scrawlings soon.

- Kephn

Statless Wonders

Derail my game now, bitch.

Hello again internet. Today I want to talk about a topic that's a bit contentious among roleplayers, and for once, I can kind of see where both sides are coming from. So, before we start, I'm going to throw out a few famous characters from RPG's, and see if you can find a common thread among them. Caine from Vampire: The Masquerade. The Lady of Pain from Planescape. The Harlequin from Shadowrun. Now, that's a pretty disparate group, but they're all linked by one thing. In all the editions of their RPG's and in all their appearances, they're unkillable. Not unkillable like the gods of DnD or the Tarrasque, where they're just given absurdly high stats essentially to taunt anyone who would try, but in some, ridiculously small circumstance with utterly, stupidly overwhelming odds, they could be taken down. No. These characters are not really characters so much as plot devices, meant to usher the story along, and they're what I call the Statless (I'm actually not sure if the Harlequin ever did get statted. It's been a long time since I've looked at Shadowrun but last I checked, he has a handwaved reason to survive a briefcase nuke, so I'm going to guess no). What that means is that these characters aren't given statistics. It's just kind of assumed that if you're stupid enough to challenge them, they're going to wreck you, because you don't have a hope in hell. Now, for obvious reasons, because players don't like being told what to do, these characters are one of the oldest points of arguments among roleplayers vs rollplayers.  Some think that it gives the story consistency, because there legitimately should be threats too big for one person to handle, but others argue that it takes agency away from the player. So I'm here to talk about this, maybe provide the for and against arguments and show how I've use characters like this in games.

Why these characters make sense
Now, even when I do use a Statless Wonder, I tend to use them very sparingly, and almost never directly adversarial toward the players, because, obviously there's no game there. An invincible enemy is a boring enemy, and if someone is directly opposing the player, even if they've made that enemy themselves by being idiots, I will always give them some way to get out of it. Now, one of the reasons I do use characters like this, is to preserve the setting. For example, the entire point of the Lady of Pain in Planescape is that she is powerful enough to keep the Gods themselves from setting foot in Sigil, the city between planes. Think about how powerful a being has to be to do that. If a player character can just take her down, they are, by implication, more powerful than any god that has ever lived in ANY DnD setting, and they've basically 'won' the game, as absolutely nothing can challenge them.

Characters like this, that preserve the setting, I think have a good reason to be invulnerable because it just wouldn't make sense story-wise if they weren't. If Caine, the first vampire could just be taken down by any random chump who put enough points in say, Thaumaturgy, then why haven't one of the other thousands of terrifying and nasty vampires out there done it already? A lot of these characters are only really challenged by players who want to disrupt the game and the story, and I like to keep those types nipped in the bud before they shank a plot-important NPC and wreck my storyline. It sounds railroadey, but there's a certain level of control that you need to maintain or else why be the storyteller? I'm a fan of player freedom as much as the next person, but someone who wants to personally be the one to take out an Antediluvian itself is trying to mess with you. They're trying to derail your game and make it all about them, probably just for bragging rights.

Now, here's the thing. I'm not inherently against the idea of changing the setting. If some person genuinely has a decades long campaign to use every possible advantage to find Caine and find out his weaknesses and diablerize him, becoming the new lord of all vampires on earth, I'm not inherently against him succeeding. The thing is, there's no story after that. Congratulations, you're Caine. You can splinter skyscrapers into powder with your pinky finger. You can blot the sun out with your godlike obtenebration and embrace all humans and animals at once and eat them. An invincible enemy is boring, but by the same token, so is an invincible player character. If someone legitimately amassed enough power to destroy the Lady of Pain, they have surpassed literally every being in any cosmology of Dungeons and Dragons, and it can be said that genuinely nothing can stand against them that they can't kill just by thinking about it for a moment. How do you challenge a character like that? How can you make a story, which depends on conflict in some way, about a character like that? I'm not against a character taking down a supposedly 'invincible' piece of the setting, but once they've done that, they're retired, because there's no point playing them any more.

Why people who want to kill them are right.
The place where a lot of players have a point about how annoying these characters are, and the place where the GM fails to use them right, I find, is when the GM uses them to 'bully' the players. I've mentioned this before, but there are GM's out there who don't like players getting 'too powerful' for fear of breaking the game, as if games aren't playtested or anything and can be broken that easily. There are GM's who fall in love with their little pet characters and can't bear to see the players take their toys away from them.

I cannot say this enough. I hate this attitude. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

The game is about the players. Period. If you wanted a story focusing on your character, either write a book or be a player character and not the GM. RPG's are a collaborative experience, and there HAS  to be some level of give and take. It's a contract. Players give up control, allow their characters to interact with the story, and accept that their characters may not make it to the end. GM's give up the spotlight. It's the sacrifice that you have to make to be a good GM. If you get to define the story and just make it focus on your pet invincible NPC, you're just playing with yourself.  

I've seen GM's make invincible supervillain Mary Sues, loosely based on themselves. Probably the worst I've seen was run by this raging waste of space (not the author, the idiot who ran the game)
and that was about the saddest thing I've ever read. There's a difference between making a villain badass and making him a Mary Sue (and yes, that term can apply to villains as well). By making Statless Wonders outright oppositional to the PC's, the game becomes unfair, and ceases to be a game.

How I've used the Statless Wonder.
I've used this type of character very, very sparingly. I run Vampire: The Masquerade more than any other game (can you tell?) and even when I make methuselahs or ancients (or in one Sabbat game that sadly never took off, even Antediluvians) statted out so players can defeat them (see my previous post on Learos) if they so choose. The thing is, as I've repeated, the only time I've use an invincible character is when they are ABSOLUTELY critical to the integrity of the setting. I've had players decide they didn't like NPC's as much as I do, and decide to kill them, and even if some of those are my favorites, I've let them die. I've done that for two reasons. Firstly, I like a good story as much as anyone else, and sometimes I find that when a story is completely derailed, it makes for some good drama as both the PC's and NPC's scramble to fix things. Secondly, I am a firm supporter of killing your darlings. As I've mentioned above, I understand my role as a GM, and it's not as the star of the story. Player characters are the stars and they should feel like it.

One little compromise I've used that I actually find as a nice compromise is the idea of the 'Avatar', and not the airbending kind. Essentially, say someone wants to see if they can beat up great Cthulhu or some other stupidly suicidal course of action, and you don't just want to tell them to shut up and eat their salad. How I handle that is by using a statted version of Cthulhu, but then if they beat him, just say it was an avatar, a tiny fraction of Cthulhu's power. Another version of that is the resurrective immortal, the most famous example of that being the Tarrasque in DnD, which has stats, but just flat out, cannot be permanently be killed. Doing something like this gives the player a sense of accomplishment, especially if you establish that the entity notices and even if they aren't killed, may be slightly taken aback by a mere mortal wrecking even a small part of them, while not actually wrecking the setting or the campaign too much. The only other time I've used this type of character is when a player isn't supposed to beat them physically, but outsmart them, almost a puzzle that can hideously kill you. That's neither here nor there, but I'd say that if you used something like that, you make it very clear to the players that a straight up fight is a very, very bad idea.

- Kephn

Alignment, Humanity, and other Argument Starters

So this video inspired me today to come out of my hole and start writing a little bit. Now, I have GM'd and played in a lot of RPG's some good, and some bad, and alignment, humanity and how a character should act is one of the most divisive and beaten topics that ever gets brought up. The basic crux of it is this. Say you have a DnD character who is Lawful Good, or a Vampire on Humanity 2. How does the character act, what does it say about the character, does the GM have a right to say you're acting out of character, and how do deal with conflicting alignments. I'm attempting to write an article that will at least give my perspective and experience, both as a long time GM and player.

Alignment
Now, Alignment gets thrown around a lot, and essentially, it describes a character's moral outlook. There's a scale of Good and Evil and a scale of Law and Chaos, and already we've opened up something of a moral can of worms. Good characters tend to try to be nice and work to the betterment of the world around them, while evildoers tend to try to make the world work for them. Now, that's not to say that a good character cannot commit an evil act or an evil character cannot have a moment of kindness. They aren't robots programmed to act in a certain way. The way I see alignments is that it describes the character's outlook on life. Evil characters see the world as a brutal, cynical one where everyone is preying on someone else and they are no exception. Good characters see it through a more idealistic lens. Neutral (an alignment that always caused me some confusion) either don't see the world through any lens or have some kind of crazy dedication to maintaining a balance between good or evil, law and chaos (I'd argue that automatically puts them on the more Lawful side, but I digress).

Law and Chaos are actually the alignments that people seem to have the most trouble with, because, arguably more than good or evil, Law and Chaos are more subjective. If a person predictably breaks every law they come across, or deliberately acts out, then, well, they're not really chaotic are they? If a character has his own moral code that he thinks supersedes any code of law or justice in an area he's in, well, he's not being exactly Lawful is he? I'd argue that being truly chaotic is impossible, or at least very hard without being totally manic and insane, and a lot of bad players agree, playing characters that would make the most loony fishmalk cringe, and putting a lot of stigma on the alignment of Chaotic Neutral.

The main thing I think to remember is that the characters are people first. Their alignments are two-word representations of their outlook. Even  most paladins aren't totally, one hundred percent squeaky clean, just as most villains aren't totally, out of their gourd child cannibals who worship Hitler-Satan. I have played many evil characters in my time, and I have always tried to make them work with the group. Now, that might seem contrary, but just because a person has a poor moral outlook doesn't mean they don't care about anything. It doesn't mean they don't have friends, or loved ones. Evil characters who take any excuse to betray the party, cause trouble, or sell out anyone who would trust them aren't evil, they're just fucking idiots and the people who play them are just looking for an excuse to make trouble, and would do so with any alignment, not just an evil one. One of my favorite character archetypes is the reluctant hero, a character with a poor, or outright amoral outlook, who is forced by circumstances to become do good, either because their loved ones are in danger or because it's in their own best interest.  My first DnD character was a Neutral Evil changeling rogue, who despite his alignment, actually sacrificed a massive horde of gold to save a group of orphans (admittedly by knocking them unconscious and dragging them away from danger). It's important to remember that good and evil aren't just a switch to flip. They're a scale. Just because the character was ok with stealing a person's wallet, or running scams that bankrupt organizations doesn't mean they're fine to let children die in agony.

Humanity and Paths of Enlightenment
Vampire: the Masquerade is unique among the Old World of Darkness games in that it had a morality system, namely how in touch a character was with their Humanity, represented by a rating of 1 to 10, where 10 was a living saint who could barely think selfish thoughts and 1 represented a barely-sentient monster who would slit their best friend's throat to jump ahead in line. Obviously, most characters fall somewhere in between those two extremes, and those who do actually try to hit either of those are probably not long for this world. Now, Humanity is quite strict, as a system, and vampires have to struggle to maintain it, and lower Humanity has penalties like an increased risk of Frenzy when hungry or scared and waking up later in the night. This all changed when the Sabbat book came out, and introduced probably one of my favorite, but also controversial aspects of the game: Paths of Enlightenment.

You see, when the Sabbat were in it's inception, they were just the generic baddies for the players to hunt down and kill. Their exceeding popularity allowed them to become a fully fleshed out faction in their own right, ala the Camarilla, and the developers had the conundrum that if Vampires indulged in most of the gorier pastimes in the Sabbat, they would be dropping their Humanity like a hot potato.

To counter this, White Wolf came up with Paths of Enlightenment, which is yet another great idea that gets ruined by asshole powergaming shits. The basic idea was that when a Vampire dropped to a low enough Huamnity (3 or lower), they could switch onto a Path, literally rewriting their morality into a new and alien philosophy, that quite literally turned them into inhuman, alien beings. Now, some of these paths were good ideas (Path of Honorable Accord, which emphasized honor and truthfullness and dignitas over being a particularly nice person, Path of Cathari, which emphasizes pleasure and indulgence and Path of Metamorphosis, which emphasizes transhumanism and study being my personal favorites) and some of them were not so good ideas (Path of Evil Revelations, which emphasizes selling your soul and being a douchebag and Path of Paradox, the path of being a stupid prick were my least) but I loved the concept. It made perfect sense for the Sabbat, an entire sect based around the rejection of base Humanity and the exploration of Vampirism in all its facets would realize that as they were no longer human, human morality was irrelevant.

Naturally, once again, many, many players have dragged this otherwise good idea through the shitter. Players started taking on Paths and trying to use them to justify consequence-free atrocity. The thing is, as far as I can remember, all the Paths were just as restrictive in their own way, as Humanity itself. A few may have had no compunctions against killing and torture, but if you were on Metamorphosis, you'd best be studying yourself and your condition. If you were on the Path of Honorable Accord, breaking your word is the equivalent sin of participating in a gang rape on Humanity. These are not just 'get out of jail free' cards, these are genuine alternate moralities, but because of a lack of understanding on the parts of the GM's and abusive players, Paths are soiled in the eyes of many GM's. I can only say that if you're using these systems, try to understand them and and actually enforce them, because ignoring them robs the game of so many of its themes.

Party Dynamics
Now, where all this is heading is how it makes the party dynamic. It's a complete myth that Good and Evil characters cannot work together for mutual benefit, or that people cannot find some kind of common ground. To use the example of my Changeling Rogue, he traveled with a Chaotic Good paladin and a party of other, mostly good guys, because, well, firstly, they mostly liked or tolerated each other, and secondly, they had bigger problems to take care of then a few snatched purses or backstabs here and there. As my character pointed out to a Lawful Good paladin who wanted to arrest him one day after detecting evil on him, merely being evil is not actually a crime. Characters, and good players, will find a reason to compromise, and some of the best roleplaying I got was playing a morally conflicted character who still managed to have friends and colleagues who were righteous, with genuine mutual respect and friendship.

Evil characters and characters with opposing alignments get a bad name because of the arguments they start, like the aforementioned Prisoner's Dilemma (eg. we come across a group of baby orcs. Kill the little bastards or don't and let them grow into evil orc raiders?), but I've always been of the opinion that if the players are mature enough to separate their characters from themselves, there's no problem with an in-character argument or moral dilemma. I've played in Black Crusade games (Alpha Legionnaire, for the record. Praise the Hydra) where my character has detested  every one of his teammates, but recognized that they were the only ones who would help him get the job done. Out of character, the other players were good friends of mine, but in character, the teeth-clenched teamwork was a fun dynamic, as every member of the party had their own reasons to dislike everyone else but had to stick together as something of an odd little family.

The point I'm trying to get across here is that it all comes down to the players. If someone new, who you don't trust arrives at your table, by all means, you have the right to veto any stupid idea he might have about playing a Chaotic Evil necromancer or a Path of Blood 10 Assamite (Don't EVER bring me the last one, because I'll be wondering why you're working with these scrubs instead of Diablerising literally everyone around you for the glory of Haqim, infidel), but don't let the idea get soiled in your head. Remember that even strangest sounding ideas can be played well, and can enhance the game instead of wrecking it. Much like alignment, humanity and other argument starters, it all comes down to your perspective. Any bad player can use any alignment, even Lawful Good, or Humanity 7 to troll your game, and any good player can make even a Chaotic Evil motherfucker work for the benefit of the same.

- Kephn

My Characters: Learos (Vampire: The Masquerade)

It's always a bit of a faux pas, I've found, putting true ancients in a game of Vampire: The Masquerade. The purpose of methuselahs usually gets relegated to the role of boogeymen and cautionary tales, with none of the characters ever actually meeting one. The following character is one that I've played a lot as an NPC, in almost every Vampire game I've ever run. As much of my games follow a solid timeline (something I've been trying to do more and more), Learos is probably my most re-occurring NPC, largely because his life spans the majority of the timeline. Learos is an ancient, a true methuselah, who was embraced by Tzimisce itself, and exists to provide a timeless and truly alien perspective. He'll serve different roles in my game, occasionally corrupting the PC's, more often then not, if they're polite, helping them. Learos is an alien predator, like every other ancient, however, unlike the others, he has one very uncommon trait that sets him apart. Other methuselahs have eons-spanning plots and roles in the eternal Jyhad, but Learos has long been abandoned by his sire and siblings, and now seeks nothing more than to wait out eternity. In other words, he's bored, and when the PC's come by, he'll nearly always find something interesting in them.

Now, despite all the Tremere love I've been throwing out there, let it be known now and forever, that the Tzimisce are far and away my favorite clan. Ancient, anachronistic monsters, with body-horror powers, crawling from stinking tombs and crumbling castles in Carpathia, Tzimisce tickle every one of my vampire G-spots. Learos is created as an archetypical Tzimisce, polite to a fault, honorable in his own way, but evil beyond all earthly measure. He was also one of my very first re-occurring NPC's, so he holds a special place in my heart, even if he is a bit overpowered. Learos never overshadows the players, however, as he exists to give an answer to that eternal question of whether or not humanity is worth clinging to. Take a guess what his answer is.

History
Learos' long and terrible life began as a healer, for a tribe of humans in a land that would later on become called Carpathia. Beyond almost all his tribesmen, Learos was the most virtuous, giving up honor and glory and even women in order to dedicate his life to helping his fellow men. In those ancient days, he mastered what healing arts he could, and while he was never held in the esteem of the warriors, there was always a certain respect that existed between him and his peers.

Learos would never know the true reason that the Tzimisce Antediluvian  attacked his tribe, though he would spend many centuries making educated guesses. Not the most communicative forefather in the best of circumstances, the Eldest Tzimisce seemed to go out of its way to avoid contact with Learos, effectively making him the very first Caitiff. It is said that Learos was the last of Tzimisce's childer, and unlike the rest, was nothing more than a passing whim, an experiment, to the ancient, who had heard of the mystery of vampiric enlightenment, or Golconda, and sought a truly pure soul to see if any of its blood could ever achieve such a blessed state. Regardless of its reasons, that fateful night, the antediluvian attacked the tribe, consuming men, women and children alike in a deluge of flesh, fangs and other appendages, digesting them down to their bones and marrow, leaving only the traumatized Learos, lying on the ground as the monster left it forever.

For centuries, Learos existed as a vampire, barely knowing anything about vampiric culture or lore. He met other Tzimisce, especially his 'siblings,' however, most of them like the Dracon, were such monsters that he cut contact with them. Learos traveled ancient Europe, using the power of Vicissitude to become something of an angel of mercy, passing through human civilizations, healing the wounded and the sick, and taking blood as a price. This lasted until he met the one person who would become his soulmate and most hated enemy, Alia.

Alia was a Ravnos, a childe of Zapathasura and a member of the fourth generation, like himself. Alia saw potential in the young Tzimisce, as she herself had cut ties with her main clan, and like many others, wandered the lands seeking Golconda. It is believed that the Tzimisce ancient engineered this meeting, if Learos was in fact the experiment he was claimed to be. Together, Alia and Learos blood bonded to each other, and supported the quest for enlightenment mutually. When the time came, they experienced the Suspire together, where Alia succeeded, but for reasons unknown, Learos failed.

Failure broke the Tzimisce, as the chance for Golconda can be experienced only once, Learos sank into depression, which soon turned into jealousy, then hatred for his lover Alia, who could now walk in the sunlight and subsist off the energy of the universe. He convinced himself that Alia had somehow sabotaged him, and while he could not bring himself to hurt her, as their blood bond was too strong, Learos resolved that since enlightenment and humanity had been denied to him, he would instead go the other direction, becoming the greatest monster the undead world would ever know.

Learos and Alia would always travel separately, however, would always meet every fifty years or so. In the times when they were apart, Learos made friendships with some of the ancient, primordial Baali that existed, who taught him the Road of the Devil, a path of sin that Learos took to heart as a true symbol of vampiric damnation. Learos aided the Baali in setting up nests in many parts of Europe, and re-established contact with some of his long forgotten siblings, having seen the error of his humane ways. At some point in history, he became the lord of the Greek city of Thebes, during which times he spent fleshcrafting beasts into bacchanalian abominations that mirrored Greek monsters, and outdid some of his most depraved and horrendous peers in both the Baali and the Tzimisce in atrocities committed as he tried to cut away the very last of his humanity.

At around the time of the fall of Greece to the expansionist empire of Rome, Learos had become bored with the world of mortals, convinced that he had committed every sin and evil that existed, and he became wary with his unlife. More to render him dormant and out of the way than anything else, Alia suggested he sleep, and he agreed, setting his retainers to earn money for him before crafting himself into a stone block and burying himself in the ruins of his old citadel in Greece. In the modern day, he has been unearthed.

Learos fits into any Camarilla or Sabbat city as a reclusive elder. He has been awake long enough to learn the intricacies of language and basic technology, but like a small child, the new world of the 21st Century has re-awoken the Tzimisce elder's sense of wonder. Learos refuses to take part in the Jyhad of the Camarilla or the Sabbat, literally becoming bored of committing evil, and now simply wants to enjoy the pleasures of this world, and perhaps pass down his teachings to the next generation.

Personality and Roleplaying Hints
Learos is the archetypical Tzimisce, having long accepted his clan and his heritage, and often takes the role of the likable old man. He is absolutely fascinated with almost every facet of the modern world, and has developed a strange love for computer games and the internet. The old Dragon is still very hospitable, and takes the laws of hospitality very seriously. He is kind and gentile, soft spoken and pleasant, and never raises his voice. To all outward appearances, he is the perfect host.

All of this hides a monster of truly inhuman proportions. Learos is the near perfect example of a Retired Monster, as TvTropes would put it. He may not be wreaking havoc, sending Szchlacta to feast on the townsfolk, or making people into furniture (often) now, but that's only because it's old-hat for him. The Tzimisce elder has committed every possible crime or sin that there is a name for, and plenty more that there aren't.  To the elder, Sabbat Tzimisce who festoon their havens in the remains of their enemies and adorn their castles with grisly trophies aren't shocking or appalling, just boring. The other people in the city would love for the eccentric old Fiend to leave, but no one wants to be the one to make the trek to his mansion and tell him. Learos may be polite and honorable, but those who do not return their hosts hospitality end up in fates much, much worse than mere death.

Learos maintains a healthy practice of both Vicissitude and Koldunic magic, and is not afraid to use both to defend his sanctity, as any impolite guests find out, to their dismay. He creates scultpures of very alien beauty out of flesh, like living statues that weep vitae and other such oddities. He sees the Tremere as a vastly amusing phenomenon, and holds no great enmity toward them, seeing them as a bloodline of his own clan.

Beneath all the evil, however, Learos is depressed, truly, deeply and utterly unhappy. He knows well that, despite his enlightenment on the Road of the Devil and his vast personal power, he almost achieved his Golconda, but was found unworthy at the last second. This manifests as both cruel spite to those he sees who are high on the Path of Humanity, and he is eager to tempt them down the road to sin and depravity. On occasion, however, a small glimmer of decency will appear in his heart, and he will point someone in the right direction. It is a trait Learos himself would never admit, but it's there, the very last shred of decency in Learos' long, long dead heart.

Story Hooks

• Learos has just awoken in your city, and your Archbishop or Prince wants the allegiance of the methuselah. The elders of the city send the characters up to the Tzimisce's mansion to talk to him, to try to convince him to become a proper part of their faction, but the old Fiend is having none of it. Instead, he takes an interest in the characters, offering them sanctuary in his manor, and playing them against each other, hoping to make some, or better yet, all fall to corruption. Some of the player characters may impress him, however, and depending on their outlook, Learos may be more than happy to teach them some of the tricks he has learned during the years....firsthand.
• Learos tells the player characters that he will soon be receiving a guest, one he has not seen in a while. He asks them to pick her up from the airport, where her coffin is being shipped in, and implies that the reward for bringing her back will be power or wealth beyond the character's wildest dreams. When they get the coffin, however, it opens, and they meet Alia, Learos' old lover. The Ravnos in Golconda begs not to be taken to the Tzimisce, as he will try to diablerise her in a mad quest to 'steal' her blessing. The characters will have to decide who to side with in this conflict, and who is more dangerous to antagonize.
• Learos has decided that, as the Tremere are a Tzimisce bloodline, Thaumaturgy is the birthright of the clan, and one he is eager to reclaim. The regent of the Tremere in the city is understandably quite nervous about the methuselah, and decides to send an envoy of the player characters to attempt to negotiate. Both the regent and Learos want everything they can from each other, and if the players handle this badly, the results for the city, or the Masquerade in general, could be quite bad.

Stats (Using V20)
Learos is naturally very powerful, being an ancient vampire, and despite these stats, would probably benefit more from simply being an unstatted plot device. Still, if you must fight him, these are the last stats I used for him in one of my games.

Name: Learos
Sire: Tzimisce the Eldest
Clan: Tzimisce
Nature: Caregiver
Demeanor: Monster
Generation: 4th
Embrace: Primordial ancient times
Apparent Age: Varies, but usually 13-14
Physical: Strength 6, Dexterity 8, Stamina 7
Social: Charisma 8, Manipulation 8, Appearance 7
Mental: Perception 9, Intelligence 8, Wits 9
Talents: Alertness 7, Brawl 5, Dodge 7, Empathy 6, Intimidation 7, Leadership 8, Subterfuge 9
Skills: Animal Ken 4, Crafts 9, Etiquette 5, Melee 7
Knowledges: Medicine 8, Linguistics 8, Occult 8
Disciplines: Animalism 7, Auspex 8, Dominate 5, Fortitude 5, Koldunic Sorcery 6 (Path of Air), Potence 6, Presence 3, Vicissitude 9
Backgrounds: Allies 5 (Inconnu), Generation 9, Herd 5, Influence 2 (Old Money Families), Resources 5, Retainers 5 (War Ghouls)
Virtues: Conviction 4, Instinct 5, Courage 5
Morality: Road of the Devil 10
Willpower: 10
Derangements: Depression, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (Tidiness)
Notes: Failed Golconda, may never attempt it again. Also, Blood bound to Alia, hence immune to Blood Bonding.

- Kephn