Many praises be to the Omnissiah my son. How may I assist you in your quest for knowledge?
Ah, you seek knowledge into the most holy of orders to serve High Terra. I commend you for your intelligence in recognizing the Mechanicum as the most important part of the holy Imperium of Man. I shall attempt to enlighten you in any way I can, my son, though I warn you, the biological components of your cortex may have trouble containing or comprehending the knowledge I impart. Such is the weakness of the flesh.
Those new to our order, such as yourself may think of the Mechanicus as nothing more than the engineering wing of the Imperium. Outsiders may see us as heretics, perverting the teachings of the God Emperor, or debasing ourselves with technophiliac rituals. I tell you this, my son, that nothing could be further from the truth. The Mechanicus is here to preserve the most sacred treasure of the human race, that of knowledge.
Man is a weak and fragile animal, always has been. Even in the earliest days of Terra's history, we were outmatched in tooth and claw. But always, man has been the superior species, because we are capable of harnessing the most holy of forces, the divine inspiration of the Omnissiah. When the first proto-human took up the spear to fell his enemies? When the first men created the wheel, created machines to bear his burdens? These are the gifts of knowledge, my son, and this is what the Mechanicus was created as a chalice to hold. The holy men of high Terra focus on the wrong thing. They focus on the God Emperor's incorruptible form, while we focus on the spirit. Machine is as much an extension of the spirit as biomatter, my son, as you well know. Organic life is nothing more than a machine to house sentience, the true spirit of the Emperor. Perhaps the Ecclesiarchy in all its pious glory has forgotten that machines are the only thing that keep the great Emperor alive to this day. The Emperor was powerful, and a great man, yes, however, like all life, he was forsaken by the most fallible of materials, the flesh.
Despite that we maintain their weapons, forge their Titan engines, and even give spiritual council to the lost and weary, looking for purpose, we are reviled by many factions within the Imperium. The High Lords of Terra, The Inquisition, and even many noble houses believe us to be nothing more than freaks, concerned with nothing more than our own self-improvement. They view us as a cult, an accepted heresy, one that would drive the Imperium back into the dark age of technology. In truth, my acolyte, they fear us. The noble houses and the High Lords are incestuous politcians, concerned only with the material. The fools see no value in the intangible, and are concerned primarily with maintaining their position. The Inquisition? It's been a long time since something has triggered my humor, and I savor it. The Inquisition and the Ecclesiarchy waste their time worshiping the physical aspect of the God Emperor, while we worship his mind and soul. That is the Omnissiah, my son, the collective of human knowledge.
The Omnissiah, as you should well know, is the basis of our religion and the font of all our knowledge. For all his power and wisdom, the God Emperor of Mankind is merely the vessel, the physical avatar of the greater being within. He speaks to us through the code and the speaker, watches us with the view screen and the camera, protects us with the bolter and the grenade. Some see the God Emperor as an impotent corpse upon the throne, whereas we see him everywhere. The hum of a server quietly sings the Emperor's hymns. The roar of the blaster declares his ire and the whistling cry of the mortar his divine judgement pronounced. This is why innovation is anathema my son. In truth, while others may see us as heretics, we trust not the fallible human imagination, that invites chaos and disorder, we trust only the eternal wisdom of the Omnissiah, in his tried and true formulae. This is why machines are worthy of respect, nay, reverence, for each one houses an aspect of the Omnissiah, as holy and worthy of adoration as the Golden Throne itself. The Omnissiah is in all things, and only the unenlightened see him as a fractured entity. When we find S.T.C.'s, the old knowledge of the world, do restore further order to the completed divine engine and widen our grasp. Stray not down the path of the Heretek my son. The Omnissiah is here, and everywhere. He needs not your flawed consciousness to corrupt his holy being.
I hope this has been an enlightening talk, my son. Perhaps one day, you will deliver it yourself, when you have reached the highest levels of optimization and calibration. Have a productive day.
Monday, 23 September 2013
Tuesday, 17 September 2013
The Ivory Tower
You seem lost, neonate. Confused about your place in the world. I've been watching you, you know, seeking answers from all the wrong sources. Mingling with Anarchs and unbound louts. Well, I'll do you a favor and fill you in, but you'll owe me. Deal? Excellent.
What you're going through is natural, neonate, the usual response to a brain ripped free of its mortal ties. The sunlight now burns you, animals reject you, and, let's face it, you're never going to see your friends or family again. These are just some of the sad facts about being Kindred. But chin up, we all had to go through it mate. And it's not all downside either. When you were a breather could you lift a dumpster over your head? Run faster than a speeding car? And those are just the most vanilla benefits. By becoming one of us, you've just joined the most exclusive club the world has ever known, one who's roots stretch back to the middle ages. Yes, with eternal life, we don't just sit around moping all day, you understand. The Camarilla gives us something to do with our time. You might think us weak, neonate, despite our powers, and you'd be right. Mortals outnumber us a million to one. But the one thing we'll always have over them, is time. We will never run out of time.
Don't listen to the jostling rabble who decry us. The Camarilla has been around and survived more persecution and revolts than you know. Yes, it is a strict organization, but those rules have a purpose. You're too young to remember the inquisition, correct? Well, there was a time, not too long ago, when the kine found out about us. In those nights, they put dozens of our kind to the torch, neonate and elder, and that was using only the technology of the middle ages. Can you imagine what the humans would do to us if they found out about us today? Don't listen to the idiotic ramblings of the Anarchs, they would never accept us. As cosmopolitan their society has become, even they are not stupid enough to accept predators in their midst. Even more, don't listen to the inane babblings of the Sabbat, who fight for some foolish dream that they could rule the kine openly even. Kine have weapons, technology and above all, numbers, as well as the daytime on their side. No, we don't stand a chance against them, and that's why the first rule of the Camarilla is the Masquerade. We don't reveal our nature to humans. It's as simple as that. If you break that law, you threaten all of us, and thus, we group together to bring you down. It may seem a harsh penalty to you, neonate, but mortals today have the internet. They have cameras in their phones that can upload video to the web in seconds, and all it takes is some foolish vampire showing off to endanger all of our blood.
The second rule is that of progeny. You don't embrace willy-nilly. Now, I'm aware that this one seems especially harsh, especially given that the sire and childe must both be destroyed. Think upon it from our perspective, neonate. This is a fragile ecosystem. There can be no point in which the mass of predators outweighs the prey. While it is all well and good and romantic for a young Toreador to embrace out of love or obsession, how long do you think that love will last? Vampires have centuries to get sick of each other, form new obsessions and bonds. If we simply embraced on a whim, the Masquerade would have fallen centuries ago. Some Kindred will say that the embrace is there's to give as they please. Some would say that we have no right to infringe upon our citizens. These vampires are irresponsible, young, and have not seen what happens when the embrace is handed out with no respect for the law. Take one look at Mexico city, or Detroit, where the Sabbat embraces dozens of kine to use as shock troops, because that is what it would devolve into. The Camarilla is the only one being responsible with its depredations.
Finally, within the Camarilla, we respect the rule of elders. Again, you may argue, why should age determine power? Well, allow me to clue you in neonate. Elders are specifically those kindred who have come from more turbulent nights, and have lived beyond what a human would consider a natural lifespan. Elders see the long game, they are not blinded by petty human emotions or flaws. Elders see what neonates cannot, because neonates have not yet come to appreciate the patience that is required to play the Jyhad for eternity. Some would call it a weakness, some would see us as slaves, but in truth, our elders are our greatest strength. Look again to Sabbat cities, or those cities of the preposterously named Anarch Free State. Crime, warfare, kinslaying in the streets. Within the cities held by the Camarilla, there is order, and do not let your impulsiveness fool you, fledgeling, order is all that holds our kind together. We are a fragile race, and as a fragile race we must control everything around us, to ensure our unliving conditions are optimal.
Don't listen to the Anarchs who would say we are exclusive. The Camarilla opens its doors to any kindred that wishes to follow the traditions. One of the arrogant Tzimisce, Assamite or even a Follower of Set could claim membership, and as long as they obeyed the rules, they would be welcome to the protections herein. Do not let the naysayers fool you, my friend, the Camarilla is the last line of defence against the very real extinction of our race.
Good night neonate.
- Kephn
What you're going through is natural, neonate, the usual response to a brain ripped free of its mortal ties. The sunlight now burns you, animals reject you, and, let's face it, you're never going to see your friends or family again. These are just some of the sad facts about being Kindred. But chin up, we all had to go through it mate. And it's not all downside either. When you were a breather could you lift a dumpster over your head? Run faster than a speeding car? And those are just the most vanilla benefits. By becoming one of us, you've just joined the most exclusive club the world has ever known, one who's roots stretch back to the middle ages. Yes, with eternal life, we don't just sit around moping all day, you understand. The Camarilla gives us something to do with our time. You might think us weak, neonate, despite our powers, and you'd be right. Mortals outnumber us a million to one. But the one thing we'll always have over them, is time. We will never run out of time.
Don't listen to the jostling rabble who decry us. The Camarilla has been around and survived more persecution and revolts than you know. Yes, it is a strict organization, but those rules have a purpose. You're too young to remember the inquisition, correct? Well, there was a time, not too long ago, when the kine found out about us. In those nights, they put dozens of our kind to the torch, neonate and elder, and that was using only the technology of the middle ages. Can you imagine what the humans would do to us if they found out about us today? Don't listen to the idiotic ramblings of the Anarchs, they would never accept us. As cosmopolitan their society has become, even they are not stupid enough to accept predators in their midst. Even more, don't listen to the inane babblings of the Sabbat, who fight for some foolish dream that they could rule the kine openly even. Kine have weapons, technology and above all, numbers, as well as the daytime on their side. No, we don't stand a chance against them, and that's why the first rule of the Camarilla is the Masquerade. We don't reveal our nature to humans. It's as simple as that. If you break that law, you threaten all of us, and thus, we group together to bring you down. It may seem a harsh penalty to you, neonate, but mortals today have the internet. They have cameras in their phones that can upload video to the web in seconds, and all it takes is some foolish vampire showing off to endanger all of our blood.
The second rule is that of progeny. You don't embrace willy-nilly. Now, I'm aware that this one seems especially harsh, especially given that the sire and childe must both be destroyed. Think upon it from our perspective, neonate. This is a fragile ecosystem. There can be no point in which the mass of predators outweighs the prey. While it is all well and good and romantic for a young Toreador to embrace out of love or obsession, how long do you think that love will last? Vampires have centuries to get sick of each other, form new obsessions and bonds. If we simply embraced on a whim, the Masquerade would have fallen centuries ago. Some Kindred will say that the embrace is there's to give as they please. Some would say that we have no right to infringe upon our citizens. These vampires are irresponsible, young, and have not seen what happens when the embrace is handed out with no respect for the law. Take one look at Mexico city, or Detroit, where the Sabbat embraces dozens of kine to use as shock troops, because that is what it would devolve into. The Camarilla is the only one being responsible with its depredations.
Finally, within the Camarilla, we respect the rule of elders. Again, you may argue, why should age determine power? Well, allow me to clue you in neonate. Elders are specifically those kindred who have come from more turbulent nights, and have lived beyond what a human would consider a natural lifespan. Elders see the long game, they are not blinded by petty human emotions or flaws. Elders see what neonates cannot, because neonates have not yet come to appreciate the patience that is required to play the Jyhad for eternity. Some would call it a weakness, some would see us as slaves, but in truth, our elders are our greatest strength. Look again to Sabbat cities, or those cities of the preposterously named Anarch Free State. Crime, warfare, kinslaying in the streets. Within the cities held by the Camarilla, there is order, and do not let your impulsiveness fool you, fledgeling, order is all that holds our kind together. We are a fragile race, and as a fragile race we must control everything around us, to ensure our unliving conditions are optimal.
Don't listen to the Anarchs who would say we are exclusive. The Camarilla opens its doors to any kindred that wishes to follow the traditions. One of the arrogant Tzimisce, Assamite or even a Follower of Set could claim membership, and as long as they obeyed the rules, they would be welcome to the protections herein. Do not let the naysayers fool you, my friend, the Camarilla is the last line of defence against the very real extinction of our race.
Good night neonate.
- Kephn
Monday, 16 September 2013
The Sword of Caine
Imagine what it was like to be one of our kind in the dark ages. Imagine a time when the young had no rights, and could be treated like chaff and cannon fodder for their elders. Imagine knowing that the rapacious forefathers were resting, feeling their presence in our blood, and knowing that they would one day rise and devour the world of men and Cainite alike. We waged our secret wars across the earth, clan against clan, kin against kin, forever re-enacting our dark father's crime. We hurled our young across battlefields, to batter down the fortress walls of our enemies, to supplant them in this region or that.
Finally, someone said no. Finally, someone stood up to their dark masters, breaking the chains of blood and struck down the elder who thought he could mistreat his childer with impunity. Patricia, a young neonate of clan Brujah, sickened by the way the elders of her clan eagerly sacrificed their neonates to the human inquisitors in the burning times, lead a revolt against Hardestadt, her master, and committed diablerie upon his broken body. This marked the very beginning of the first Anarch revolt. The war between elders and childer reached it's most conclusive point when Gratiano de Veronese, eldest childe of the Lasombra antediluvian lead an assault on his sire's keep and destroyed the monster in his tomb. Spurred by his example, Lugoj of Romania and his Tzimisce allies destroyed their antediluvian as well, marking the very first time in history that two of these ancient monsters had been slain by lesser Cainites. The cunning Tzimisce, who joined the revolt with the Lasombra brought with them a blood ritual called the Vaulderie, an essential tool in breaking the elder's hold over the blood of the young.
Of course the corrupt elders tried to restore order. They were afraid that they were growing obsolete in the modern times. They were terrified of being left behind by history or being extinguished by the power of mortal ingenuity. They gathered together, amassing their resources and formed the Camarilla, our hated rival. The Camarilla proposed the cowardly option of denying our true natures. It proposed the idea of hiding among the mortal cattle that we could so easily have subjugated in those ancient nights. The elders were afraid, you see, and formed an entire organization around that fear. Still, it was a powerful organization, and the combined might of seven clans managed to defeat the nascent unruly childer. On October 23rd, 1493, we were called to the Convention of Thorns, a supposed negotiating table, which in truth, was nothing but the elders calling us to lay down their terms for our surrender. They give us the option to return to our masters, partake of the vinculum, and bow our heads once more, in exchange for not being wiped out entirely.
Unsurprisingly, many in our number responded with a rather conclusive 'fuck that.'
We had fought long and hard to gain our freedom, and we would rather have faced the cold mercy of the sun than return to our enslavement. A young Tzimisce who would later become a Priscus of our order, named Sascha Vykos reportedly even sheared away his manhood and hurled it on the table to make his feelings on the matter known. More cowardly Anarchs argued that they should tow the line of the Camarilla, that we should allow ourselves to slip once more beneath the rule of elders. We of clan Tzimisce and Clan Lasombra, however, are proud clans. Noble clans. We bowed before no one, and even if we did, the destruction of our antediluvians would have rendered us a mere abberant bloodline in the eyes of the Camarilla, without pedigree and stripped of the nobility we had cultivated through the centuries. From that moment on, a line was drawn in the sand. Let the foolish Anarchs play at rebellion while seeking scraps of approval from their Camarilla masters. Let the neonates of the Camarilla be ground to bloody gristle by the schemes of the antediluvians. In the Sabbat, we know freedom. In the Sabbat, we find a family who will accept us as we are.
In it's modern incarnation, the Sabbat is the last bastion for Cainite freedom. While obviously, it would be foolish to reveal our nature to the kine, as the Camarilla has allowed them to organize and build weapons and armies capable of destroying us, we do not deny who we are. Among the Sabbat, we are a family, one and all, and we care for our family. Through the sacred rite of the Vaulderie, pack members share blood and become as loyal to each other as we may have loved in life. Through the sacrament of the blood bath, we exult in our nature, not pretending to be mere cursed cattle, but knowing to our hearts that we are the chosen of God and Caine, the wolves to walk among His herds of sheep. Through the Paths of Enlightenment, we need not cling to irrelevant and obsolete human morality to stave off the Beast. The Sabbat is the one place in the night, where any vampire, elder, neonate, or even Caitiff, can claim the right to be free. It is the one place where no Cainite need ever be judged for the sins of his forebears. It is the one place where being a vampire is not a shame or a weakness, but a strength, and one day, when the stars are darkened, and the hated light of the dawn is extinguished forever, the Camarilla and the false Anarchs trampled to bleeding embers beneath our heel, the world shall be our domain, our slaughterhouse, our buffet. Caine shall return and lift us all up, my brothers, and together, we shall strike down the antediluvians as his sword. That night is coming, my brothers. Coming very, very soon.
- Kephn
Finally, someone said no. Finally, someone stood up to their dark masters, breaking the chains of blood and struck down the elder who thought he could mistreat his childer with impunity. Patricia, a young neonate of clan Brujah, sickened by the way the elders of her clan eagerly sacrificed their neonates to the human inquisitors in the burning times, lead a revolt against Hardestadt, her master, and committed diablerie upon his broken body. This marked the very beginning of the first Anarch revolt. The war between elders and childer reached it's most conclusive point when Gratiano de Veronese, eldest childe of the Lasombra antediluvian lead an assault on his sire's keep and destroyed the monster in his tomb. Spurred by his example, Lugoj of Romania and his Tzimisce allies destroyed their antediluvian as well, marking the very first time in history that two of these ancient monsters had been slain by lesser Cainites. The cunning Tzimisce, who joined the revolt with the Lasombra brought with them a blood ritual called the Vaulderie, an essential tool in breaking the elder's hold over the blood of the young.
Of course the corrupt elders tried to restore order. They were afraid that they were growing obsolete in the modern times. They were terrified of being left behind by history or being extinguished by the power of mortal ingenuity. They gathered together, amassing their resources and formed the Camarilla, our hated rival. The Camarilla proposed the cowardly option of denying our true natures. It proposed the idea of hiding among the mortal cattle that we could so easily have subjugated in those ancient nights. The elders were afraid, you see, and formed an entire organization around that fear. Still, it was a powerful organization, and the combined might of seven clans managed to defeat the nascent unruly childer. On October 23rd, 1493, we were called to the Convention of Thorns, a supposed negotiating table, which in truth, was nothing but the elders calling us to lay down their terms for our surrender. They give us the option to return to our masters, partake of the vinculum, and bow our heads once more, in exchange for not being wiped out entirely.
Unsurprisingly, many in our number responded with a rather conclusive 'fuck that.'
We had fought long and hard to gain our freedom, and we would rather have faced the cold mercy of the sun than return to our enslavement. A young Tzimisce who would later become a Priscus of our order, named Sascha Vykos reportedly even sheared away his manhood and hurled it on the table to make his feelings on the matter known. More cowardly Anarchs argued that they should tow the line of the Camarilla, that we should allow ourselves to slip once more beneath the rule of elders. We of clan Tzimisce and Clan Lasombra, however, are proud clans. Noble clans. We bowed before no one, and even if we did, the destruction of our antediluvians would have rendered us a mere abberant bloodline in the eyes of the Camarilla, without pedigree and stripped of the nobility we had cultivated through the centuries. From that moment on, a line was drawn in the sand. Let the foolish Anarchs play at rebellion while seeking scraps of approval from their Camarilla masters. Let the neonates of the Camarilla be ground to bloody gristle by the schemes of the antediluvians. In the Sabbat, we know freedom. In the Sabbat, we find a family who will accept us as we are.
In it's modern incarnation, the Sabbat is the last bastion for Cainite freedom. While obviously, it would be foolish to reveal our nature to the kine, as the Camarilla has allowed them to organize and build weapons and armies capable of destroying us, we do not deny who we are. Among the Sabbat, we are a family, one and all, and we care for our family. Through the sacred rite of the Vaulderie, pack members share blood and become as loyal to each other as we may have loved in life. Through the sacrament of the blood bath, we exult in our nature, not pretending to be mere cursed cattle, but knowing to our hearts that we are the chosen of God and Caine, the wolves to walk among His herds of sheep. Through the Paths of Enlightenment, we need not cling to irrelevant and obsolete human morality to stave off the Beast. The Sabbat is the one place in the night, where any vampire, elder, neonate, or even Caitiff, can claim the right to be free. It is the one place where no Cainite need ever be judged for the sins of his forebears. It is the one place where being a vampire is not a shame or a weakness, but a strength, and one day, when the stars are darkened, and the hated light of the dawn is extinguished forever, the Camarilla and the false Anarchs trampled to bleeding embers beneath our heel, the world shall be our domain, our slaughterhouse, our buffet. Caine shall return and lift us all up, my brothers, and together, we shall strike down the antediluvians as his sword. That night is coming, my brothers. Coming very, very soon.
- Kephn
Friday, 13 September 2013
RPG Antagonists: The Antediluvians (Vampire: The Masquerade)
So today we'll be taking a crack at one of my favorite RPG's of all time, the one that set the tone for a decade, and probably one of the coolest vampire stories ever, Vampire: The Masquerade. There's so many themes to be tackled here, but this is RPG Antagonists, so I'll start on the biggest, baddest fish in the sea, the Antediluvians.
For the uninitiated to the backstory, Caine, the first vampire, cursed by god for his unorthodox approach to family bonding time, fled the land of Nod and founded his own city, Enoch, possibly with or without blackjack and hookers. There, he did what every other emo teen does when gifted with phenomenal supernatural powers and a healthily homicidal attitude and turned a bunch of people into vampires. Well, more accurately, he turned three, Zillah, Irad, and the unimaginatively named Enoch. He then told his childer not to sire any more vampires, because Caine, being the intelligent man he was, realized that vampires outnumbering humans would be quite a bad thing, given that they needed them to live. His childer, paying no attention whatsoever whoopsied another 13 vampires into existence, who decided to thank them by eating them all. Caine, being a bit perturbed by this, cursed them all, and sent them away.
In the modern day, the 13 Antediluvians are little more than legends and folklore. Each one represents what their clan could be, and represent the father whose sins their children inherited. The Antediluvians aren't really active characters, but their presence should be felt. Each one of them is an ancient, genocidal monster that wants to turn the earth into their own personal buffet. Antediluvians are never seen, but felt. The Tzimisce know, whenever they use Vicissitude, that their founder bubbles just beneath their skin. When the Ventrue dominate the minds of the kine, they feel their founder's dread gaze pouring through them, breaking the mortal's will. Vampires like to be in charge, and they like to feel powerful. Each vampire, from the oldest elder to the youngest neonate wants to feel like the apex predator on top of the food chain, and the Antediluvians are there to remind them that they aren't. They're really a representation of what it means to have failed the main aim of the game, that is, to retain one's humanity and reconcile that with one's unholy nature. The Antediluvians, to a man, have discarded humanity entirely, and in doing so have become things that are very certainly not human. Besides Caine, who, depending on who you believe is either dead, sleeping, or driving a taxi around Los Angeles, these alien beings are the very masters of the chessboard of the night. Even hoary old elders who have spent centuries accumulating wealth and resources may be nothing but a pawn to an Antediluvian, who remote controls him from a tomb beneath some mountain halfway across the world.
The Antediluvians make the best antagonists when they aren't seen. Like many of the best RPG Antagonists, they can instill a real feeling of paranoia to a campaign, where everyone could be (and probably is) working for them. You yourself are probably serving some inscrutable scheme of your elders, who could very easily be planting suggestions in your head via the power of the blood. Antediluvians are an inescapable, lingering doom, which vampires fear, because ironically, even creatures as eternal as they are, are running out of time. When Gehenna comes, The Antediluvians will rise and it's game over man. The Camarilla ignores the threat because they don't like their stooges knowing that even the big boys in the inner circle are little more than tools for the elders, and the Sabbat actively oppose and try to destroy the Antediluvians, but really, are far too disorganized and silly to put up a particularly good fight. Antediluvians add an element of urgency to a game, and ensures the players can't just hole themselves up in a nuclear bunker with ten crates of blood packs and every final fantasy video game to wait out the apocalypse.
Now most importantly, a little something I think that a lot of players, and really, even the writers have missed. THIS COULD ALL BE TOTAL BULLSHIT. No one has ever seen an Antediluvian and lived to tell about it. Even Tremere, who's entire clan was founded on the diablerie of Saulot could have just been blowing smoke out of his ass to make his bloodline of usurpers feel more legit. There is absolutely not a shred of evidence given that Caine or the Antediluvians are still alive, or hell, if they ever existed in the first place. Vampirism could easily be some kind of disease, or the taint of the Wyrm, as in Werewolf, or just some kind of entropic glitch in the Tapestry. Sure, we have things like Generation implying that it all has to come from somewhere, but that doesn't mean that Patient Zero was necessarily the biblical Caine of all people. Vampirism could in fact be a lot younger than most vampires think, or could have had multiple origins. None of this detracts, however, from the power of the Antediluvians as a concept. Defining them, or having them seen in a game, robs them of a lot of their power to create horror. Yes, they could all be dead, yes, the Camarilla could be right, and it's all rumors and hearsay. But there's always that lingering doubt, that sense of paranoia in the back of every vampire's head. What if they're wrong?
Antediluvians add a very special, nihilistic undertone to the game, and they really should never be in the forefront, because it makes players feel railroaded. But like great Cthulhu himself, they should always be just out of sight, watching and waiting for the day the stars are right.
Here are some fictional examples I think inspire a good Antediluvian based story:
Queen of the Damned: A very, very, campy, silly vampire movie based on a slightly less campy and silly vampire book. I mean, it's hard to get over the fact that the world-devouring elder was woken by rock music. That said, Akasha is actually quite a good example of an Antediluvian being an unstoppable ancient horror creating merry havoc for a secret society that has nowhere to run for help. She may look human, and even has the same human tastes and lusts, but deep down, she's a ravenous, hungry, insane monster.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines: I feel like I'm almost cheating by including this one, given that it is a vampire chronicle, but it shows how to handle a Gehenna based storyline almost perfectly. Some people believe in the Antes, some don't, and the only potential Antediluvian is simply a macguffin, sleeping in a sarcophagus for everyone to chase. The story, for all it's terror, funny moments and awesome, has a creeping apocalyptic feel to it, as if someone's about to make that one fatal mistake that ends the world.
Dragon Age: Origins: Yes, I'm aware that this one seems to come out of nowhere, as it's a fantasy game that has precisely zip to do with vampires. Still, the themes are all there. Humans fucked up in the distant past, and now their sins are coming back in the form of a massive apocalyptic horde of infected monsters and a massive zombified dragon. The game has a very rich mythology to justify the coming apocalypse, all of which is conveniently espoused by the rather corrupt church, and given not a shred of evidence for. Characters (and the player) are free to believe or disbelieve, but it doesn't really matter, because the Darkspawn are coming regardless of where they came from, and they don't really give a damn what you believe.
For the uninitiated to the backstory, Caine, the first vampire, cursed by god for his unorthodox approach to family bonding time, fled the land of Nod and founded his own city, Enoch, possibly with or without blackjack and hookers. There, he did what every other emo teen does when gifted with phenomenal supernatural powers and a healthily homicidal attitude and turned a bunch of people into vampires. Well, more accurately, he turned three, Zillah, Irad, and the unimaginatively named Enoch. He then told his childer not to sire any more vampires, because Caine, being the intelligent man he was, realized that vampires outnumbering humans would be quite a bad thing, given that they needed them to live. His childer, paying no attention whatsoever whoopsied another 13 vampires into existence, who decided to thank them by eating them all. Caine, being a bit perturbed by this, cursed them all, and sent them away.
In the modern day, the 13 Antediluvians are little more than legends and folklore. Each one represents what their clan could be, and represent the father whose sins their children inherited. The Antediluvians aren't really active characters, but their presence should be felt. Each one of them is an ancient, genocidal monster that wants to turn the earth into their own personal buffet. Antediluvians are never seen, but felt. The Tzimisce know, whenever they use Vicissitude, that their founder bubbles just beneath their skin. When the Ventrue dominate the minds of the kine, they feel their founder's dread gaze pouring through them, breaking the mortal's will. Vampires like to be in charge, and they like to feel powerful. Each vampire, from the oldest elder to the youngest neonate wants to feel like the apex predator on top of the food chain, and the Antediluvians are there to remind them that they aren't. They're really a representation of what it means to have failed the main aim of the game, that is, to retain one's humanity and reconcile that with one's unholy nature. The Antediluvians, to a man, have discarded humanity entirely, and in doing so have become things that are very certainly not human. Besides Caine, who, depending on who you believe is either dead, sleeping, or driving a taxi around Los Angeles, these alien beings are the very masters of the chessboard of the night. Even hoary old elders who have spent centuries accumulating wealth and resources may be nothing but a pawn to an Antediluvian, who remote controls him from a tomb beneath some mountain halfway across the world.
The Antediluvians make the best antagonists when they aren't seen. Like many of the best RPG Antagonists, they can instill a real feeling of paranoia to a campaign, where everyone could be (and probably is) working for them. You yourself are probably serving some inscrutable scheme of your elders, who could very easily be planting suggestions in your head via the power of the blood. Antediluvians are an inescapable, lingering doom, which vampires fear, because ironically, even creatures as eternal as they are, are running out of time. When Gehenna comes, The Antediluvians will rise and it's game over man. The Camarilla ignores the threat because they don't like their stooges knowing that even the big boys in the inner circle are little more than tools for the elders, and the Sabbat actively oppose and try to destroy the Antediluvians, but really, are far too disorganized and silly to put up a particularly good fight. Antediluvians add an element of urgency to a game, and ensures the players can't just hole themselves up in a nuclear bunker with ten crates of blood packs and every final fantasy video game to wait out the apocalypse.
Now most importantly, a little something I think that a lot of players, and really, even the writers have missed. THIS COULD ALL BE TOTAL BULLSHIT. No one has ever seen an Antediluvian and lived to tell about it. Even Tremere, who's entire clan was founded on the diablerie of Saulot could have just been blowing smoke out of his ass to make his bloodline of usurpers feel more legit. There is absolutely not a shred of evidence given that Caine or the Antediluvians are still alive, or hell, if they ever existed in the first place. Vampirism could easily be some kind of disease, or the taint of the Wyrm, as in Werewolf, or just some kind of entropic glitch in the Tapestry. Sure, we have things like Generation implying that it all has to come from somewhere, but that doesn't mean that Patient Zero was necessarily the biblical Caine of all people. Vampirism could in fact be a lot younger than most vampires think, or could have had multiple origins. None of this detracts, however, from the power of the Antediluvians as a concept. Defining them, or having them seen in a game, robs them of a lot of their power to create horror. Yes, they could all be dead, yes, the Camarilla could be right, and it's all rumors and hearsay. But there's always that lingering doubt, that sense of paranoia in the back of every vampire's head. What if they're wrong?
Antediluvians add a very special, nihilistic undertone to the game, and they really should never be in the forefront, because it makes players feel railroaded. But like great Cthulhu himself, they should always be just out of sight, watching and waiting for the day the stars are right.
Here are some fictional examples I think inspire a good Antediluvian based story:
Queen of the Damned: A very, very, campy, silly vampire movie based on a slightly less campy and silly vampire book. I mean, it's hard to get over the fact that the world-devouring elder was woken by rock music. That said, Akasha is actually quite a good example of an Antediluvian being an unstoppable ancient horror creating merry havoc for a secret society that has nowhere to run for help. She may look human, and even has the same human tastes and lusts, but deep down, she's a ravenous, hungry, insane monster.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines: I feel like I'm almost cheating by including this one, given that it is a vampire chronicle, but it shows how to handle a Gehenna based storyline almost perfectly. Some people believe in the Antes, some don't, and the only potential Antediluvian is simply a macguffin, sleeping in a sarcophagus for everyone to chase. The story, for all it's terror, funny moments and awesome, has a creeping apocalyptic feel to it, as if someone's about to make that one fatal mistake that ends the world.
Dragon Age: Origins: Yes, I'm aware that this one seems to come out of nowhere, as it's a fantasy game that has precisely zip to do with vampires. Still, the themes are all there. Humans fucked up in the distant past, and now their sins are coming back in the form of a massive apocalyptic horde of infected monsters and a massive zombified dragon. The game has a very rich mythology to justify the coming apocalypse, all of which is conveniently espoused by the rather corrupt church, and given not a shred of evidence for. Characters (and the player) are free to believe or disbelieve, but it doesn't really matter, because the Darkspawn are coming regardless of where they came from, and they don't really give a damn what you believe.
Tuesday, 10 September 2013
RPG Antagonists: Unremitting Horror (GUMSHOE)
So, somewhat recently, my friend introduced me to the GUMSHOE system, published by Pelgrane Press, those fine people behind Trail of Cthulhu (an excellent, investigation focused update on Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu game), The Esoterrorists (A kind of very weird blend of KULT and Mage: The Ascension) and Fear Itself (My personal favorite). For these systems comes a rather unique book of enemies, specifically enemies that could fit into any one of those settings, called the Book of Unremitting Horror.
Now, let me just say that this is easily one of my favorite RPG supplements ever printed, and it lives up to its title. Over the course of this review, I'm going to be going over some of these monsters, and believe me, even for seasoned WoD, KULT or CoC players, this shit is not for the faint of heart. So, fair warning before reading below. Some of these creatures do rather nasty things to people's organs, prey on children, and rape their victims to death, and are almost guaranteed to ensure you several sleepless nights. So, with that in mind, let's move onto the content.
The setting of the world of Fear Itself and The Esoterrorists is a kind of vaguely defined world with a standard issue Cthulhoid dimension brimming with creatures trying to get into ours, called the Outer Black. The Esoterrorists are a bunch of very silly people who've decided that a world being raped to death by drill-tongued monsters and living chainsaw demons is just the world for them, and your characters need to stop them. Sounds simple right? Wrong. What really sets the Unremitting Horrors aside from any other antagonist imaginable is how close to home they hit. Whether based on urban legends from the 90's to ancient fairy tales of yore, each of these creatures, described in loving detail, is designed to hit one of your phobia G-spots. Take for example, probably the most vanilla creature in the book, the Death Tapper, (which also happens to hit my fear G-spot.....damn parasites!) a tiny, flea-like demon that creates a poison within itself that can cause people to vomit uncontrollably for a few hours, before liquefying their innards and having all of that come out of their mouths, Cabin Fever style, and yes, this is one of the most vanilla. There's something really, really creepy about the idea that something so small could be so deadly. One bite from this thing, and the average human is very soon going to be making a gorey offering to the porcelain gods. This is the flavor of the Outer Black, a flavor very similar to that of the Warp or the Wyrm. It can be big and terrifying, skinned demons dripping with viscera and power drills for teeth, or it can be something very small, and either way, it'll kill you in a horrifying way. The Outer Black very nicely combines Lovecraftian themes and 40k ones. Rather than the Warp, which is a universe that actively hates you, but is dependent on you, or Mythos creatures, who are completely indifferent, the Outer Black feels like a vast, horrifying nightmare world that has taken notice of earth, and currently enjoys screwing with it. All of the creatures presented in this book that hail from the Outer Black have a very nightmarish, otherworldly feeling to them, that seems to be only barely contained by human flesh and steel, bound up by suffering. All of the rituals to commune with them are horrific beyond words, for example, that of the Blossomer (SEVERE SQUICK WARNING. ANYTHING PAST THIS POINT WILL INFLICT SANITY DAMAGE), a ritual that requires a human sacrifice to be eaten alive down to the waist, voluntarily, at which point they get possessed by a demon that proceeds to orally impregnate all the female participants of the ritual with little antichrist children, and the opening fiction has the good taste to portray a cult operating out of a middle school. In a way that I'm sure Lovecraft wanted, these rituals feel wrong, unpleasant and uncomfortable to hold in one's mind. The Outer Black is implied to be all powerful anyway, so why make people degrade themselves hideously just for its attention? Why, that's all just part of the game, my friend.
Even the monsters that aren't affiliated (directly) with the Outer Black are insidious, and take the form of modern urban legends and folk tales re-interpreted to prey on modern fears. Take one of the creepiest monsters, a Snuff Golem, an animated construct created by the hate, pain and physical parts and camera equipment of a snuff film gone wrong. This creature murders people horrifically, uploading it's livestream onto the internet so people can enjoy the killings. Sisterites are demons that seduce lonely men over the internet, and lure them to their lairs to be eaten alive. Kooks are adorable little child fairies that find neglected children and lure them away to transform them into child-soul eating fae like themselves. All of these things aren't especially dangerous one on one, but there's plenty more to prey on our primal fears of getting hideously dismembered as there are to prey on our more rational fears, like those of child abuse and serial killings. The monsters in this book have been decried, being said that they cross the line. I however would argue that horror is all about finding that line of decency and crossing it. As the world grows around us, we feel safer and safer, never realizing how isolated it makes us. These things almost fulfill the original idea of urban legends, to warn people what could happen if they let their 'rational' lives slip up.
Some neat inspirations for a Fear Itself game (I'll cover Esoterrorists as an RPG Antagonist in another post. They're too complicated for this article to do them justice.)
The Slender Man Stories: If you haven't heard of the Slender Man, than really, congratulations on recently getting an internet connection. For the uninitiated, the Slender Man is a faceless man in a business suit who stalks people who often go missing. There are a TON of blogs and videos of varying quality that chronicle the whacky adventures of his victims, and if nothing else, he makes a very good example of the Mystery Man monster within the book, with a very simple Ocean Game of hide and seek.
The Creepypasta Wiki : A very neat collection of fanmade urban legends on the internet. Any one of these stories could easily inspire an Unremitting Horror. Never underestimate the messed up imagination of people with too much time on their hands and an internet connection (I mean, just look at this blog).
Hellraiser: We need at least one movie reference right? Well look no further than one of the pioneers of splatterpunk, the Hellraiser series. Now, the first two are good, though your mileage may vary on the rest. Nontheless, the series captures the Outer Black very well, being a surreal pastiche of machinary, molded and fused with screaming, agonized human flesh. It portrays a hellish realm of torture tools and dripping viscera, with no heaven or earthly redemption in sight.
- Kephn
Now, let me just say that this is easily one of my favorite RPG supplements ever printed, and it lives up to its title. Over the course of this review, I'm going to be going over some of these monsters, and believe me, even for seasoned WoD, KULT or CoC players, this shit is not for the faint of heart. So, fair warning before reading below. Some of these creatures do rather nasty things to people's organs, prey on children, and rape their victims to death, and are almost guaranteed to ensure you several sleepless nights. So, with that in mind, let's move onto the content.
The setting of the world of Fear Itself and The Esoterrorists is a kind of vaguely defined world with a standard issue Cthulhoid dimension brimming with creatures trying to get into ours, called the Outer Black. The Esoterrorists are a bunch of very silly people who've decided that a world being raped to death by drill-tongued monsters and living chainsaw demons is just the world for them, and your characters need to stop them. Sounds simple right? Wrong. What really sets the Unremitting Horrors aside from any other antagonist imaginable is how close to home they hit. Whether based on urban legends from the 90's to ancient fairy tales of yore, each of these creatures, described in loving detail, is designed to hit one of your phobia G-spots. Take for example, probably the most vanilla creature in the book, the Death Tapper, (which also happens to hit my fear G-spot.....damn parasites!) a tiny, flea-like demon that creates a poison within itself that can cause people to vomit uncontrollably for a few hours, before liquefying their innards and having all of that come out of their mouths, Cabin Fever style, and yes, this is one of the most vanilla. There's something really, really creepy about the idea that something so small could be so deadly. One bite from this thing, and the average human is very soon going to be making a gorey offering to the porcelain gods. This is the flavor of the Outer Black, a flavor very similar to that of the Warp or the Wyrm. It can be big and terrifying, skinned demons dripping with viscera and power drills for teeth, or it can be something very small, and either way, it'll kill you in a horrifying way. The Outer Black very nicely combines Lovecraftian themes and 40k ones. Rather than the Warp, which is a universe that actively hates you, but is dependent on you, or Mythos creatures, who are completely indifferent, the Outer Black feels like a vast, horrifying nightmare world that has taken notice of earth, and currently enjoys screwing with it. All of the creatures presented in this book that hail from the Outer Black have a very nightmarish, otherworldly feeling to them, that seems to be only barely contained by human flesh and steel, bound up by suffering. All of the rituals to commune with them are horrific beyond words, for example, that of the Blossomer (SEVERE SQUICK WARNING. ANYTHING PAST THIS POINT WILL INFLICT SANITY DAMAGE), a ritual that requires a human sacrifice to be eaten alive down to the waist, voluntarily, at which point they get possessed by a demon that proceeds to orally impregnate all the female participants of the ritual with little antichrist children, and the opening fiction has the good taste to portray a cult operating out of a middle school. In a way that I'm sure Lovecraft wanted, these rituals feel wrong, unpleasant and uncomfortable to hold in one's mind. The Outer Black is implied to be all powerful anyway, so why make people degrade themselves hideously just for its attention? Why, that's all just part of the game, my friend.
Even the monsters that aren't affiliated (directly) with the Outer Black are insidious, and take the form of modern urban legends and folk tales re-interpreted to prey on modern fears. Take one of the creepiest monsters, a Snuff Golem, an animated construct created by the hate, pain and physical parts and camera equipment of a snuff film gone wrong. This creature murders people horrifically, uploading it's livestream onto the internet so people can enjoy the killings. Sisterites are demons that seduce lonely men over the internet, and lure them to their lairs to be eaten alive. Kooks are adorable little child fairies that find neglected children and lure them away to transform them into child-soul eating fae like themselves. All of these things aren't especially dangerous one on one, but there's plenty more to prey on our primal fears of getting hideously dismembered as there are to prey on our more rational fears, like those of child abuse and serial killings. The monsters in this book have been decried, being said that they cross the line. I however would argue that horror is all about finding that line of decency and crossing it. As the world grows around us, we feel safer and safer, never realizing how isolated it makes us. These things almost fulfill the original idea of urban legends, to warn people what could happen if they let their 'rational' lives slip up.
Some neat inspirations for a Fear Itself game (I'll cover Esoterrorists as an RPG Antagonist in another post. They're too complicated for this article to do them justice.)
The Slender Man Stories: If you haven't heard of the Slender Man, than really, congratulations on recently getting an internet connection. For the uninitiated, the Slender Man is a faceless man in a business suit who stalks people who often go missing. There are a TON of blogs and videos of varying quality that chronicle the whacky adventures of his victims, and if nothing else, he makes a very good example of the Mystery Man monster within the book, with a very simple Ocean Game of hide and seek.
The Creepypasta Wiki : A very neat collection of fanmade urban legends on the internet. Any one of these stories could easily inspire an Unremitting Horror. Never underestimate the messed up imagination of people with too much time on their hands and an internet connection (I mean, just look at this blog).
Hellraiser: We need at least one movie reference right? Well look no further than one of the pioneers of splatterpunk, the Hellraiser series. Now, the first two are good, though your mileage may vary on the rest. Nontheless, the series captures the Outer Black very well, being a surreal pastiche of machinary, molded and fused with screaming, agonized human flesh. It portrays a hellish realm of torture tools and dripping viscera, with no heaven or earthly redemption in sight.
- Kephn
Saturday, 7 September 2013
Vampires: The Very Coolest of the Undead.
Now, here's a topic I've been wanting to do for a good long while. Vampires, to be a stereotypical gothic nerdy wanker, are one of my favorite archetype of supernatural creatures of all time. There's so much that a writer can do with vampires. They're almost certainly the most versatile undead, and can make really good antagonists, protagonists, or supporting characters. So, without further ado, let's examine everyone's favorite bloodsucking zombies, vampires.
Vampires hold a basically unique stance among the undead, because they are the undead with PERSONALITIES. Zombies, wights, ghouls, and other varieties of walking corpses really have no identity besides being flat out antagonists to be slashed apart without guilt. One of the most important things about vampires is that they are people. People with flaws, people with memories, people who may have been transformed into abominations against nature against their will. As much as I hate DM's trying to force their philosophical views on a campaign, vampires are really the only kind of undead that actually have personalities. When a vampire succumbs to a player's well placed stake or flamethrower, there should definitely be a feeling that an eternal life is ending, and that in itself, is a bit sad, regardless of how necessary it is.
Vampires have another unique quality as antagonists, because they represent temptation. There's definitely something very cool about living forever through devouring all your enemies. What vampires should represent, however, is a classic devil's bargain. Something that looks attractive, but on closer examinations, fails. Vampires have some pretty problematic restrictions. Can you imagine never seeing the sun again? or only having about ten hours to act every day? Vampires live in an eternal unlife, a very real curse, that fucks them up in a physical and pragmatic way as well as a metaphysical way. Even people who don't really care about the implications of a blood drinking monstrosity will have some problems when they realize that they have no one to feed off but their aged mothers. Vampirism should represent trading life for a miserable half life, that really, is no different to becoming a ghoul digging through a graveyard, or a wraith haunting a delapitated old mansion. Vampirism represents how undeath can be seductive to someone with very poor planing skills. Ultimately, it's not really worth it, but it has some very nice bells and whistles hanging off it, which can ensnare people who are desperate or needy.
One can't really discuss vampires in RPG's without discussing them as protagonists. Vampire: The Masquerade and The Requiem have made their entire franchise out of people portraying vampires as player characters, and really, it seems like I'd be selling them short without mentioning them as characters. Now, vampires are just as cool as protagonists as anything else, and make for some really good anti-heroes. There's something about a character that requires a solid intake of fresh human blood that adds a shade of grey to even the most squeaky clean characters. This is why Vampire (both WoD lines, I realize it's heresy not to choose one over the other, but I like them both) rank as my favorite roleplaying games. Vampires offer a really unique opportunity to play as an outright villain. Regardless of how you rationalize it, from the perspective of one of the kine, vampires are baddies. Everything they do ultimately serves themselves, and no matter how good they are, they're ultimately concerned with how to preserve their unlives for all eternity. There's a really neat dichotomy in that, which is what largely attracts me to them as supernatural creatures. Vampirism, regardless of any rationalization or any kind of justification, is ultimately, and should be portrayed as a bad thing. Nothing really justifies feeding off a person's blood, and there should always be that subtle sort of theme of corruption underlying the idea of the vampire. This is the reason it's referred to as the Curse of Caine, by White Wolf games. No matter how many neat benefits it gives, all it is is really a curse. A curse both on you and on everyone around you.
Overall, the vampiric archetype has lasted almost as long as recorded history. As a story point it wouldn't have survived as long without some lasting appeal and multiple vectors of interpretation. Whether you portray vampires as nasty, disgusting, plague carrying biohazards or metropolitan bloodsuckers, they're pretty unlikely to die out any time soon. This is almost certainly not the last time I'm going to visit my favorite bloodsuckers, but this is a nice preliminary look at vampires as they fit into the RPG genre.
- Kephn
Vampires hold a basically unique stance among the undead, because they are the undead with PERSONALITIES. Zombies, wights, ghouls, and other varieties of walking corpses really have no identity besides being flat out antagonists to be slashed apart without guilt. One of the most important things about vampires is that they are people. People with flaws, people with memories, people who may have been transformed into abominations against nature against their will. As much as I hate DM's trying to force their philosophical views on a campaign, vampires are really the only kind of undead that actually have personalities. When a vampire succumbs to a player's well placed stake or flamethrower, there should definitely be a feeling that an eternal life is ending, and that in itself, is a bit sad, regardless of how necessary it is.
Vampires have another unique quality as antagonists, because they represent temptation. There's definitely something very cool about living forever through devouring all your enemies. What vampires should represent, however, is a classic devil's bargain. Something that looks attractive, but on closer examinations, fails. Vampires have some pretty problematic restrictions. Can you imagine never seeing the sun again? or only having about ten hours to act every day? Vampires live in an eternal unlife, a very real curse, that fucks them up in a physical and pragmatic way as well as a metaphysical way. Even people who don't really care about the implications of a blood drinking monstrosity will have some problems when they realize that they have no one to feed off but their aged mothers. Vampirism should represent trading life for a miserable half life, that really, is no different to becoming a ghoul digging through a graveyard, or a wraith haunting a delapitated old mansion. Vampirism represents how undeath can be seductive to someone with very poor planing skills. Ultimately, it's not really worth it, but it has some very nice bells and whistles hanging off it, which can ensnare people who are desperate or needy.
One can't really discuss vampires in RPG's without discussing them as protagonists. Vampire: The Masquerade and The Requiem have made their entire franchise out of people portraying vampires as player characters, and really, it seems like I'd be selling them short without mentioning them as characters. Now, vampires are just as cool as protagonists as anything else, and make for some really good anti-heroes. There's something about a character that requires a solid intake of fresh human blood that adds a shade of grey to even the most squeaky clean characters. This is why Vampire (both WoD lines, I realize it's heresy not to choose one over the other, but I like them both) rank as my favorite roleplaying games. Vampires offer a really unique opportunity to play as an outright villain. Regardless of how you rationalize it, from the perspective of one of the kine, vampires are baddies. Everything they do ultimately serves themselves, and no matter how good they are, they're ultimately concerned with how to preserve their unlives for all eternity. There's a really neat dichotomy in that, which is what largely attracts me to them as supernatural creatures. Vampirism, regardless of any rationalization or any kind of justification, is ultimately, and should be portrayed as a bad thing. Nothing really justifies feeding off a person's blood, and there should always be that subtle sort of theme of corruption underlying the idea of the vampire. This is the reason it's referred to as the Curse of Caine, by White Wolf games. No matter how many neat benefits it gives, all it is is really a curse. A curse both on you and on everyone around you.
Overall, the vampiric archetype has lasted almost as long as recorded history. As a story point it wouldn't have survived as long without some lasting appeal and multiple vectors of interpretation. Whether you portray vampires as nasty, disgusting, plague carrying biohazards or metropolitan bloodsuckers, they're pretty unlikely to die out any time soon. This is almost certainly not the last time I'm going to visit my favorite bloodsuckers, but this is a nice preliminary look at vampires as they fit into the RPG genre.
- Kephn
Sunday, 1 September 2013
RPG Antagonists: The Cthulhu Mythos (Call of Cthulhu and countless others)
Today we're going to be going over one of the major inspirations for the horror genre, the nasty, squishy, slimy cephalopods of Mr. Lovecraft's wettest dreams.
The Call of Cthulhu RPG is notoriously lethal, and characters really aren't going to be living very long. For a horror RPG, there's not a lot of suspense within. It's kind of a forgone conclusion. That said, a lot of players miss the point. Call of Cthulhu isn't horrific because we want the PC's to live. It's horrific because the default state of the universe is essentially one where you suffer and die horribly.
The Alien
Mythos monsters are meant to be alien. They're literally extraterrestrials a lot of the time, but gone should be the Star Trek notions that aliens have to be even remotely similar to people. Lovecraftian aliens represent a way that life could have evolved, if it had come from somewhere deeply, intrinsically different to earth. While they are weird to the extreme, there should be a certain amount of sense in the way that they do look. A horrifying tendriled monster could in theory just be a wild, sea dwelling animal on whatever dimension it was called from. Regardless of what humans say about being comfortable that they aren't alone in the universe, there's a certain level of confrontation in coming face to face with a creature that isn't only different, but provably better. There's definitely a blow to the collective ego of humanity that fortune could have favored another species, and that really is the thing that hits a person's sanity. Humans are used to themselves being the 'main characters' of the universe. We're definitely not used to being a random encounter for a fourth dimensional crab on its way to work, and a pretty low level one at that.
Indifference
One thing to understand about Mythos monsters, or any monsters that are inspired by them, is that they kind of are the main characters in the Cthulhu Mythos. Deep Ones are worshipping Cthulhu, Insect-Creatures are busy sacrificing sponge-people from an empty asteroid to Azathoth, and preparing an invasion of Alpha Centauri. Humanity really isn't a very big part of the gigantic space opera that the Cthulhu Mythos is. In a very big way, humans are essentially a bunch of luddite aliens that still think in just three dimensions (the naive little things) that nobody really gives much thought to. Alien monsters are way too concerned with their extradimensional politics to really give that much of a shit about hairless monkeys crawling around on Cthulhu's kitchen floor. When the PC's encounter Mythos monsters, they really should feel out of place. Most of the time, aliens in the Mythos never go out of their way to mess with humans, if they even notice them at all. Encountering these creatures really should make humans feel 'out of the loop', which in a very existential way, is a terrifying thought. As mentioned above, humans like feeling special, and finding out that they aren't the star of the show, that even the evil cultist they've been fighting for five sessions isn't even noticed by his alien master, should be a massive blow to your players.
Defeat
A lot of people think that making Mythos monsters defeatable at all undermines the themes of the core material. While Mythos creatures should certainly be hard to defeat, I personally disagree. The main premise behind the Cthulhu Mythos is that NO ONE is special, not humans, not Great Cthulhu himself, they're all just different life-forms, destined to die cold and alone. I for one think that a millenia old plan by Lord Zagathor, Master of The Twenty Thousand Mouths being foiled because some random primate scored a lucky hit perfectly fits into the nihilistic themes of the universe. The point is that, while earth may be safe, by foiling said plan, you may have doomed countless other planets, asking the question if life is important and sacred even if it is different to us. Everyone is focusing on their own business, disregarding anything that doesn't serve their immediate goals, and humans really are no exception to that.
Finally, while Mythos monsters may be difficult to defeat, when portraying them, keep in mind that they are much easier to drive off. Remember that monsters don't go out of their way to antagonize humans. If a threat from an investigator becomes more trouble then its worth, the alien may just decide to leave. Why bother terraforming some insignificant blue speck when there are seven other planets in the solar system, which aren't inhabited by annoying monkeys with primitive projectile weapons? This is basically the best you can hope for in a Mythos game, along with the hope that the aliens will just avoid us out of convenience rather than wholesale exterminating us, but hey, I said they weren't antagonistic, not that they were necessarily nice.
Here are some neat examples of Mythos monster themes in fiction, to use as inspiration.
Predator Series: Bizarrely, the Predator series is one bunch of horror movies I think exemplifies Cthulhu Mythos themes better than those that actually try for it. In all these movies, it's clear that the aliens are in charge. Everything plays out on their terms, and they do view earth as a neat little hunting planet. Every victory the humans win in this series of movies are won by playing the game of the Predator, which fortunately for them, fits into the human idea of hunting. Predators are the perfectly indifferent aliens, and even when they do respect individual humans, they clearly don't see them as anything other than primitive animals. Later movies tried their absolute hardest to try and re-interpret them as Klingons and make them more relatable, but I do think that the movies that portray the Predators as bizarre aliens who's culture just happens to coincide with humans in one very specific way are more powerful.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem: An absolutely stunningly good survival horror game, Eternal Darkness perfectly shows what a Mythos chronicle can be like over several characters. The game itself essentially shows a war played out with several superpowered aliens, all who happen to be using earth as a battlefield. The humans in the game are often just unlucky shmucks who get caught in the crossfire. Ultimately, humans win the day, but only by being manipulated by ANOTHER eldritch horror, who took advantage of the other elder gods underestimating them. This is a really good example of alien monsters manipulating humanity for their own purposes, and how creepy it is to be caught in a situation that has no earthly context.
The Blair Witch Project: Bit of a small scale one, but I think this movie absolutely epitomizes what it feels like to be a protagonist in a Mythos story. The creature stalking the kids clearly has some kind of intelligence, and the weird shit it leaves behind definitely makes sense to it, but the kids (and viewer) have no context. It's very creepy to be stalked by an alien creature that is absolutely unrelatable, especially if you consider that it doesn't seem to view you as a person, more as a toy to be played with.
-Kephn
The Call of Cthulhu RPG is notoriously lethal, and characters really aren't going to be living very long. For a horror RPG, there's not a lot of suspense within. It's kind of a forgone conclusion. That said, a lot of players miss the point. Call of Cthulhu isn't horrific because we want the PC's to live. It's horrific because the default state of the universe is essentially one where you suffer and die horribly.
The Alien
Mythos monsters are meant to be alien. They're literally extraterrestrials a lot of the time, but gone should be the Star Trek notions that aliens have to be even remotely similar to people. Lovecraftian aliens represent a way that life could have evolved, if it had come from somewhere deeply, intrinsically different to earth. While they are weird to the extreme, there should be a certain amount of sense in the way that they do look. A horrifying tendriled monster could in theory just be a wild, sea dwelling animal on whatever dimension it was called from. Regardless of what humans say about being comfortable that they aren't alone in the universe, there's a certain level of confrontation in coming face to face with a creature that isn't only different, but provably better. There's definitely a blow to the collective ego of humanity that fortune could have favored another species, and that really is the thing that hits a person's sanity. Humans are used to themselves being the 'main characters' of the universe. We're definitely not used to being a random encounter for a fourth dimensional crab on its way to work, and a pretty low level one at that.
Indifference
One thing to understand about Mythos monsters, or any monsters that are inspired by them, is that they kind of are the main characters in the Cthulhu Mythos. Deep Ones are worshipping Cthulhu, Insect-Creatures are busy sacrificing sponge-people from an empty asteroid to Azathoth, and preparing an invasion of Alpha Centauri. Humanity really isn't a very big part of the gigantic space opera that the Cthulhu Mythos is. In a very big way, humans are essentially a bunch of luddite aliens that still think in just three dimensions (the naive little things) that nobody really gives much thought to. Alien monsters are way too concerned with their extradimensional politics to really give that much of a shit about hairless monkeys crawling around on Cthulhu's kitchen floor. When the PC's encounter Mythos monsters, they really should feel out of place. Most of the time, aliens in the Mythos never go out of their way to mess with humans, if they even notice them at all. Encountering these creatures really should make humans feel 'out of the loop', which in a very existential way, is a terrifying thought. As mentioned above, humans like feeling special, and finding out that they aren't the star of the show, that even the evil cultist they've been fighting for five sessions isn't even noticed by his alien master, should be a massive blow to your players.
Defeat
A lot of people think that making Mythos monsters defeatable at all undermines the themes of the core material. While Mythos creatures should certainly be hard to defeat, I personally disagree. The main premise behind the Cthulhu Mythos is that NO ONE is special, not humans, not Great Cthulhu himself, they're all just different life-forms, destined to die cold and alone. I for one think that a millenia old plan by Lord Zagathor, Master of The Twenty Thousand Mouths being foiled because some random primate scored a lucky hit perfectly fits into the nihilistic themes of the universe. The point is that, while earth may be safe, by foiling said plan, you may have doomed countless other planets, asking the question if life is important and sacred even if it is different to us. Everyone is focusing on their own business, disregarding anything that doesn't serve their immediate goals, and humans really are no exception to that.
Finally, while Mythos monsters may be difficult to defeat, when portraying them, keep in mind that they are much easier to drive off. Remember that monsters don't go out of their way to antagonize humans. If a threat from an investigator becomes more trouble then its worth, the alien may just decide to leave. Why bother terraforming some insignificant blue speck when there are seven other planets in the solar system, which aren't inhabited by annoying monkeys with primitive projectile weapons? This is basically the best you can hope for in a Mythos game, along with the hope that the aliens will just avoid us out of convenience rather than wholesale exterminating us, but hey, I said they weren't antagonistic, not that they were necessarily nice.
Here are some neat examples of Mythos monster themes in fiction, to use as inspiration.
Predator Series: Bizarrely, the Predator series is one bunch of horror movies I think exemplifies Cthulhu Mythos themes better than those that actually try for it. In all these movies, it's clear that the aliens are in charge. Everything plays out on their terms, and they do view earth as a neat little hunting planet. Every victory the humans win in this series of movies are won by playing the game of the Predator, which fortunately for them, fits into the human idea of hunting. Predators are the perfectly indifferent aliens, and even when they do respect individual humans, they clearly don't see them as anything other than primitive animals. Later movies tried their absolute hardest to try and re-interpret them as Klingons and make them more relatable, but I do think that the movies that portray the Predators as bizarre aliens who's culture just happens to coincide with humans in one very specific way are more powerful.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem: An absolutely stunningly good survival horror game, Eternal Darkness perfectly shows what a Mythos chronicle can be like over several characters. The game itself essentially shows a war played out with several superpowered aliens, all who happen to be using earth as a battlefield. The humans in the game are often just unlucky shmucks who get caught in the crossfire. Ultimately, humans win the day, but only by being manipulated by ANOTHER eldritch horror, who took advantage of the other elder gods underestimating them. This is a really good example of alien monsters manipulating humanity for their own purposes, and how creepy it is to be caught in a situation that has no earthly context.
The Blair Witch Project: Bit of a small scale one, but I think this movie absolutely epitomizes what it feels like to be a protagonist in a Mythos story. The creature stalking the kids clearly has some kind of intelligence, and the weird shit it leaves behind definitely makes sense to it, but the kids (and viewer) have no context. It's very creepy to be stalked by an alien creature that is absolutely unrelatable, especially if you consider that it doesn't seem to view you as a person, more as a toy to be played with.
-Kephn
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)