[OSSR] Kindred of the East

[Mask_De_H]

so if you ignored that time limit, you totally could do the actual Ikkitousen thing, where Lu Bu now looks like this:

Right when I was reading this, my co-worker walked by, said "Ikkitousen!" and went on her way.

Your co-worker is awesome and/or crazy.

[codeGlaze]

).)
Moar?

[Koumei]

Sure. I'm trying to adjust my sleep cycle, and so far it seems like the best option will be to go to bed somewhere in the 4-6PM range, wake up around 2AM. So I'm off to bed in a moment, but I'll see if I can make a good post in the nighttime-morning hours.

[codeGlaze]

O.o Holy balls... I'd never be able to pull that sleep pattern off.

[Koumei]

Well I've never been a morning person, and I've always been "most active" in the post-midnight hours. So this ticks that.
It also means that I'm awake and alert and ready for the day ages before work starts, so sleeping in will cease to be a problem there - any sleeping in that happens will basically just take time out of video games.
And it allows me to pay attention to the Internet at the same time as my girlfriend for a substantial amount of time.

[Koumei]

Let's pick up where we left off - the exciting part where we learn what varieties of vampire demon kuei-jin you can play.

The Howl of the Devil Tiger

Not quite.



These guys embrace the monster within. They are unsubtle rampaging killers, for all they justify it with their role being that of the rod that drives the cattle. They think/claim they exist to punish wrongdoers by doing even more wrong unto them, and I'm pretty sure ancient China did at some point have a government/philosophy of "punish even the most minor of crimes with shocking acts of brutality" so I guess this isn't a curveball. You're supposed to love fighting/violence, and pain (giving/receiving), and try to be the actual villain while justifying your actions as necessary. This might sound disruptive, and that's because it is disruptive. But don't worry, people won't choose to play them.

Wait, why not you ask? Surely the "I HIT IT WITH MY SWORD" crowd and BDSM fetishists would love it? Yeah sure, except get this: in order to rise in Dharmic rank you make a roll. That roll is your Virtue, opposed by your P'o. If you get even one more success than it does, you rise. If you commit an act of blindness, you have to roll that same Virtue against P'o and, if P'o rolls higher, you lose rank. For the Devil Tiger, your Virtue is your P'o. Yeah, there is no way you can get better (or worse) than even dice pools.

Note also that the thing they're supposed to be doing (torturing and murdering people) puts them on thin fucking ice when it comes to acts of blindness. If you play one of these and your MC isn't just arbitrarily raising people's Dharma based on roleplaying alone, you will basically flounder about at the same point as you started.

They hate Cranes more than they hate everyone else, and they are usually assassins, "rebelsub kids", entertainers, prostitutes, smugglers, hired guns, torturers, enforcers, bureaucrats, philosophers and "wandering strangers".

So remember, you're not playing one of these. I rate this one D.

Way of the Resplendent Crane


That picture looks pretty rad, which is good, because you are going to play these guys. True story: I actually tried to run the Ikkitousen idea on RPoL, and although the usual thing happened (eight people express interest, four actually apply, one gives a finished sheet and then it's dead), every single character concept was a Crane. And this happens in a lot of games.

The Cranes embody Legalism and Confucianism in a way. All suffering flows from imperfection, and they were cursed in the first place due to their imperfection and arrogance, so now they must not only pay the price, but actually fix the problem. They must make themselves perfect. Also they must make everyone else perfect.

They are all about virtue, and wisdom, and paying for their past sins as well as guiding others, and basically they work pretty well in a group. Mostly. They have no tolerance for rebellion, and games in general, nevermind WW games, tend to have at least one PC being the edgy rebel. So that character gets murdered on day one.

Their virtue is Hun, which means they have heaps of Willpower. Given how much Willpower you have to buy up in character creation, this makes the most of an otherwise shitty deal, and they'll also likely invest in Rites and Disciplines that let them spend Willpower to do stuff, which can help cover the fact that they're not pumping their Yin/Yang that high. They are generally the policeman, priest, monk, rule-following soldier (or indeed, rule-issuing commander), lawyer, teacher, martial artist, paramedic or technician.

So, decent Virtue, encourages them to help others and work together and provide wisdom and so on, covers everything from Kenshin to Pai Mei... this one gets grade A.

Fun Trivia: they demand that you follow the Fivefold Way, because that sounds like a crazy Hong Kong Action Theatre thing in the same way that you'd be mistaken for thinking Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil is a Chinese thing. The Fivefold Way is Indian (which is Asian, but not the kind that people usually think when they think KotE), and dates all the way back to the ancient times of... er... 1944. And it's actually kind of inclusive and embracing of other cultures (even us filthy Westerners). Someone namedropped without doing research!



The Song of Shadow

No.

Not that either!



I'm not going to lie to you, I like these ones. I played one way back in my first KotE game, and it worked really well for me so I will always view them in a positive light. Their virtue is Yin (you might have guessed that) and their other name is the Bone Flower. SHADOW SHADOW BO BADOW DEATHDOOM SKULLDARK. Ahem.

So, death isn't a part of life. Life is a part of death. From the moment you are born, you are beginning to die. Reading this, you are dying right now. Life is the dew on the eternal spiderweb of the spirit world, and is just as temporary. So, having already died, that's a huge relief - the whole "living" thing is finished, and so is the bit where you die. You now have something eternal, and you can throw mortal concerns to the wind while you do something important.

It turns out that what they consider important is research. They love the pursuit of knowledge, so you can basically have a bunch of immortal goth types in a library, soaking up information without limit. They mostly deal with the spirit world and console ghosts and put down wraiths and crap. Thankfully, they are supposed to care for their families in major ways, so you can at least use that to anchor them to the actual "world people are in" for an actual game. Otherwise, that's really the main problem with them: they don't care about much in the living world and it's hard to hook them in to things. I mean, aside from being part of a Wu and Luna/Zordon telling them they have to go punch something in the face.

Obviously they focus on Yin. So Wood attacks are Super Effective, and most of them actually rot in the sun (there is a Merit in the Song of Shadow book that negates this). Also it means they basically never fly into a rage, but they run away kind of easily and they have trouble waking up in the evening. They are typically priests, artists, archivists, detectives, wandering sages, necrophiliacs (thanks, WW!), ambassadors to other supernatural types, ghostbusters, and "the weirdo in the graveyard".



Pretty much. If not for how hard it is to make them care about the living world and all that, I'd give them a solid B. Yin is a decent Chi Virtue to have so from a powergaming perspective, I could see them being up there with the Cranes. But between the real problem and the fact that so many people play them (because nearly all official art is sexy pale ladies with long black hair wearing tight black leather), they get a C.

Path of One Thousand Whispers


I never really understood or liked these guys, despite the cool picture there. You have to be True Neutral Druid Balanced, in that weird way that typically involves doing a good deed, then making up for it by punching a dog in the face so as to keep your alignment in check. They love riddles and mysteries, which is of course an opportunity for players to be a pain in the arse (hi, Ragabash, Pooka, Malkavian!) and they tend to be shapeshifters that use this to be a million different people in a given day. Their belief is that the sixth age is not the end, this is just the next step in a cycle (which seems to be true, but even if the end of the world just makes the way for the birth of the new one, it's still your world which means you die). Honestly, the Tia Maria here means I've already stopped giving a shit about these guys.

Anyway, they're typically lunatics (good start?), teachers (but I repeat myself!), spies, martial artists (who isn't?), wanderers and "enigmatic strangers". Their Virtue is seriously balance: it's the average of Hun, P'o, Yin and Yang, and that is in no way acceptable. Thanks to scaling costs, it does mean they'll basically improve all at the same rate (except maybe P'o because if you increase all 4, then you raise both opposing dice pools by 1 and oh hey, it's a Devil Tiger!) and stay balanced. But that's just really shitty and somebody should have lost their job for it- oh wait, everyone at White Wolf lost their job!

I give this one a D because of the Virtue problem, the fact that it encourages annoying behaviour, and the fact that it's not interesting outside of that.

Dance of the Thrashing Dragon

Isn't that a euphemism for masturbation? Alternatively it's a moveset for Gyarados, either way.


So probably masturbation then.


Yeah, looks like it.

Here we have the final Dharma, the epitome of Yang - life energy. Like a rainbow, life is an illusion but too colourful to ignore. They have the fresh perspective of one already dead, but they love life too much to give up on it. Also they're just full of actual life energy so they are drawn towards the living world. Yes, this basically gives them a reason to interact with the world.

On the other hand, most of that interaction is going to be coke binges and orgies. These guys are kind of like the Sensates of Planescape: it superficially looks like it's all about the sex and drugs, BUT REALLY IT ISN'T (it is). Hilariously, being Yang-Aspected, they can get STDs. Also, wood doesn't hurt them (which is handy if we want to make a crude joke about getting wood, which I just did then), but Steel attacks are Super Effective. So if they pick up a disease that requires some kind of injection: ha ha ha and HA!

Oh, they also like to test the boundaries/shun societies' restrictions (which mainly involves public nudity), use shapechanging to live amongst the trees and animals, and expand their horizons with martial arts, tantrik practices and powerful hallucinogenics.

Yang isn't an awful Chi Virtue to have - like Yin it's relatively cheap to raise, and the fact is you'll be pumping that Chi into your Disciplines to do useful stuff. They are typically artists (again), prostitutes (again), doctors (handy, that one), the rapists therapists, farmers, entertainers (again), foresters, ecoterrorists, activists and cannibals.

Overall, this one gets a B if you're playing a sex-romp game or if the player is reasonable and wants to explore other things and just be "live life to the maximum despite not being alive", but a C otherwise. At least they spend their time in the world where the game is happening, after all.

Chapter 3 will cover character creation, and I'll point out how disappointing it is.

[Red_Rob]

I guess one of their clan disciplines relates to having no bones in their legs??

I was a little disappointed with the lack of lady-art in this review... and then I got to the Thrashing Dragon

[Koumei]

I guess one of their clan disciplines relates to having no bones in their legs??

Well, there aren't any clan disciplines in this - there are "this Dharma usually picks this", but there's nothing you are required to choose from at character creation, and no disciplines get "in-Dharma" XP discounts. That said, they do often take (as a distant second to Yin Prana) Bone Shintai, and that one does actually let you treat bones as optional, morph their shape, move them around and so on.

Yes I know you were just commenting on the art quality, but I felt like explaining that anyway. So the sample character there might actually be using Bone Shintai. The real question is "why does she feel the need to make her legs bendy and wobbly (and super-long) at the moment?"

[Longes]

I guess one of their clan disciplines relates to having no bones in their legs??

Well, there aren't any clan disciplines in this - there are "this Dharma usually picks this", but there's nothing you are required to choose from at character creation, and no disciplines get "in-Dharma" XP discounts. That said, they do often take (as a distant second to Yin Prana) Bone Shintai, and that one does actually let you treat bones as optional, morph their shape, move them around and so on.

Yes I know you were just commenting on the art quality, but I felt like explaining that anyway. So the sample character there might actually be using Bone Shintai. The real question is "why does she feel the need to make her legs bendy and wobbly (and super-long) at the moment?"

It must be the same reason that prevented her from eating for the last year, and made her hands bigger than her head.

[DSMatticus]

I guess one of their clan disciplines relates to having no bones in their legs??

Well, there aren't any clan disciplines in this - there are "this Dharma usually picks this", but there's nothing you are required to choose from at character creation, and no disciplines get "in-Dharma" XP discounts. That said, they do often take (as a distant second to Yin Prana) Bone Shintai, and that one does actually let you treat bones as optional, morph their shape, move them around and so on.

Yes I know you were just commenting on the art quality, but I felt like explaining that anyway. So the sample character there might actually be using Bone Shintai. The real question is "why does she feel the need to make her legs bendy and wobbly (and super-long) at the moment?"

It must be the same reason that prevented her from eating for the last year, and made her hands bigger than her head.

Well, to be fair, she is on a strict fluid diet, so that's one mystery down. I think. Kuei-jin still drink blood, right?

Edit: According to this thread, kinda sorta yes. Good enough for me.

[Username17]

It's because her legs are made of wibbly wobbly, leggy weggy stuff.

I totally get wanting to have eastern monsters have a five elements thing where they suffer super effective attacks from wood or steel or water or whatever, but I am unable to figure out why you would want to do all this bizarre accounting. Can't we just say "Pick an element, that determines what attacks are super effective against you?"

-Username17

[Koumei]

Clearly we can't, no :/

Honestly, if they wanted to stick to their usual thing of having five X to choose from (to be fair, this predates the LAW OF FIVE that nWoD gave us but they were very much married to the idea of it being not-a-class-based-game-but-it's-a-class-based-game), they should have done it properly. Tied a Direction and Balance to your Dharmic Path, said "yes, this is your elemental weakness for being X type, no questions about it", and given them "Clan Disciplines" and favoured abilities and crap.

Or they should have gone the other way and just said "make a Kuei-Jin. Whatever. Pick a weakness, choose your favourite virtue and stuff. That's character creation sorted, time for the pub?"

DSM: if of a low enough Dharmic Rank, she'd have to eat flesh. If of a high enough one she doesn't even need to drink blood. But most characters fall into the range of "drinks blood", so that's a safe assumption. I like the idea of the wibbly wobbly, leggy weggy stuff, personally. It's in the medical opinion of a real doctor!

[codeGlaze]

I guess one of their clan disciplines relates to having no bones in their legs??

Well, there aren't any clan disciplines in this - there are "this Dharma usually picks this", but there's nothing you are required to choose from at character creation, and no disciplines get "in-Dharma" XP discounts. That said, they do often take (as a distant second to Yin Prana) Bone Shintai, and that one does actually let you treat bones as optional, morph their shape, move them around and so on.

Yes I know you were just commenting on the art quality, but I felt like explaining that anyway. So the sample character there might actually be using Bone Shintai. The real question is "why does she feel the need to make her legs bendy and wobbly (and super-long) at the moment?"

It must be the same reason that prevented her from eating for the last year, and made her hands bigger than her head.

Shit... was Liefeld drawing for WW?

[RadiantPhoenix]

It must be the same reason that prevented her from eating for the last year, and made her hands bigger than her head.

Shit... was Liefeld drawing for WW?

Don't be silly. Liefeld can't draw feet.

EDIT: Tags

[codeGlaze]

Don't be silly. Liefeld can't draw feet.

Hahahaha, touche monsieur pussycat!


edit: Your tags are fucked, radiant.

[Koumei]

So, much like Simon Cowell's friends list, the character creation section is short. That cheap shot wasn't necessary, but it was fun.

Okay, so remember how nobody liked how stingy character creation was in oWoD to the point that it was just flat-out accepted that everyone would take 7 points worth of flaws (typically seven individual 1-point flaws that have no impact on the game or are actually beneficial) and then get another 5-7 points out of the ST for a backstory? How people were so much happier with Exalted's comparatively generous set-up?

And remember how you've apparently finished a year or so of training in this one, so you're starting with some experience under your belt?

WELL FUCK YOU.

We're back to the 7/5/3 dots for Attributes. That's lame.

Also, it's 13/9/5 for Abilities. That's extra lame. You cannot make a character that feels well rounded out and all that, unless the ST just goes "Here, you went to school so you can get some free dots in Academics, Science, Computer Use and Politics" and such.

Also, I have some special news regarding Abilities, guaranteed to remind people about the more annoying aspects of oWoD.

You get all of three fucking dots worth of Disciplines. One of which has to be a Demon Art, and IIRC the other two must not be Demon Arts. Remember that there are no Clan Disciplines so every upgrade/new purchase is at full price, which is bullshit.

Only 5 dots for Backgrounds, which basically encourages everyone to just pick one and take at 5 so they can own "The Yakuza" or "The Chinese Government" or simply be "richer than Smaug".

Next, your Yin and Yang are 1 each, but you have 4 extra points to spend. Most players will put 2 in each, for 3/3.

Next, your Hun is 1, your P'o is 3, your Willpower equals your Hun score (1), your Demon Chi equals your P'o (3), your Dharma is 1, and your Yin and Yang Chi equal the virtue ratings.

Now you have your 15 freebie points, EXCEPT! You must raise your Willpower to a minimum of 5 to start with. You can either do this by just increasing Willpower (1 freebie per increase), or by raising Hun (3 freebies per increase, which does specifically raise your Willpower).

So already you have to spend a minimum of 4 of those points just to be a starting character. Oh, and Disciplines are 10 points each.

Basically, for all it talks up how much training you've had and how much more awesome Kuei Jin are than their mass-shovelhead Western brethren... starting characters are shit in this game. I'm not sure if I'd say "worse than level 1 in D&D", but I would definitely place it in the same category of hate crime.

Oh right, I said I'd mention the Abilities thing. There's a picture of someone who is covered in a leaf pattern and it looks kind of cool, then we get some badass yakuza. Looks pretty rad.

Anyway, already the game changes the standard 3x10 Abilities - Martial Arts is in there as well as Brawl, and costs extra points on top of that, just to be annoying. Unlike Exalted, it doesn't let you have associated weapons - if you use a weapon, it's either Melee, Athletics (thrown weapons) or Firearms.

But now, not included on the actual character sheet they have at the back, there are some new extra Abilities they've just shoved sideways into the book. Acrobatics, Meditation, Portents, Torture and Enigmas. Fuck this shit, seriously.

Basically all the old Backgrounds are still there (except Generation, obviously), but now you also get: Horoscope (a limited pool of bonus dice with lucky numbers), Jade Talisman (a starting trinket that helps store Chi), Magic Artefact (the game has so few example ones, most of which are pretty lame. Just let people port over Exalted's Artefact Weapons/Armour), Nushi (the whole team put points in, and then the whole team gets a benefit to share and sometimes it can withhold benefits until you go to hell to do a task for it, don't take this one), Rites (gain some rituals of varying use).

And that's it, basically, what info remains I don't feel like covering in this post. But now you know that making a character is painful and annoying, and you're left feeling weak and useless for a while, and the stupid bloat of extra stuff that the sheet doesn't even have space for begins in the fucking core book.

[Longes]

Oh, oWoD skill bloat, how I hate thee.

Sorcerer's Crusade introduces skills "Hunting", "Tracking" and "Weather-eye" (it lets you forecast weather). Let me quote from the core skill "Survival":

You can live off the land. A character with this Skill can hunt, find or build shelter, gauge weather and discern fresh plants and water from had.

Also traking is a suggested specialty for Survival.

I also hate new "Swimming" skill with passion:

A rare skill in these times; unlike most folk, who sink like stones in the sea, you can keep afloat and dog-paddle for a short time. Without this Skill, you cannot swim at all.

Fuck you, Swimming. Fuck you.

EDIT: the only interesting skill I've seen introduced in extra books is "Animal Language". Does exatly what it say - allows you to speak wiith animals.

[talozin]

For all that nWoD is even more miserly on character creation (5/4/3 and 11/7/4 -- plus the 5th dot in anything costs 2 points, so if you buy a 5 in any attribute you unavoidably get 1 in the other two), it has had much better discipline about skill bloat. So, uh ... that's something, I guess. Lots of other terrible design decisions, of course, but at least one that didn't suck.

[Username17]

Yeah, nWoD managed to keep it entirely in its pants as regards writing up new bullshit skills. The only extra skills there are are the five bonus skills in Requiem For Rome. And even there, they just replace Firearms with Archery, Drive with Ride, and three Mental skills with pre-modern Mental skills I can't be fucked to remember. In a dicepool system, it is absolutely imperative that you don't add new skills, because players obviously won't have the new skills. And unlike just about any other mainstream dicepool RPG, they managed to hold to that.

If only they could have been convinced to keep it in their pants as regards making extremely boring and shitty games.

-Username17

[Koumei]

If only they could have been convinced to keep it in their pants as regards making extremely boring and shitty games.

And as regards keeping it in their pants. Most people don't actually want to read about rape ghosts and such. Anyway, because I hate you all, I'm going to cover the next chapter of suffering.

Chapter 4 is all about the Disciplines. What I'm going to do is just cover them with a description and any interesting notes or pointing out where they decide "fuck balance" or whatever.

Equilibrium: this is the art of adjusting your Chi and changing it around. Because that whole "carefully tally your Yin and Yang and keep the correct balance" is annoying so everyone should just find a way to sidestep the whole thing and turn it into a joke. The very first dot lets you do that, and also lets you spend both Yin and Yang in the same turn. Chances are, you only want that one dot. The other dots just let you change your Yin/Yang virtues (as opposed to the temporary Chi) for the scene, adjust other people's Chi (which can hurt them or cause paralysis), or at the final dot, cause people's Chi to leak out - this specifically can also render Blood Points "inert" (causing vampires and ghouls to lose Blood Points, yes, you can un-ghoul people), and also cause a loss of Gnosis or whatever mystic crap people use.

You can also (at 5 dots) corrupt people's Chi, causing them to take damage each turn until they spend all of that Chi/Blood/Gnosis/Glamour/Quintessence/Flobadob. In the case of humans (who can't spend their blood), this means they will die unless healed by someone with Medicine 4 and the appropriate background/specialty (ie "Eastern Medicine").

So you want either one dot or five. I suggest one, but I suggest everyone take it.

Tapestry is actually embroiderygeomancy. Nine tenths of the law is feng shui and all that. The first dot lets you summon spirits (but not actually control or even perceive them). You can then weaken the Wall (the barrier between worlds, not the Pink Floyd album), change the dragon lines (change luck in the area, defend against Chi attacks), teleport along dragon lines by chasingriding the dragon, and create portals to the spirit realms.

Yang Prana... it's limited to the lowest of your Dexterity and Stamina, but whatever. The first dot gives you the option to spend Yang Chi for extra actions or extra dice - limited by your Prana rating. After that, they largely get a bunch of buff moves, including one called Dragon Dance, then the ability to turn into a Yang Spirit. If you want to be a melee fighter and were going high Yang anyway, because you were playing as Gyarados, then you could do worse than this.

Yin Prana is limited to the lowest of your Stamina and Perception. You might want the first dot because it lets you turn invisible. After that, you can grant yourself buffs, penalise others (or even put a Sleep effect on mortals), conjure items out of darkness, turn your shadow into a Yin-infused attack dog, or turn into a Yin Spirit. It's not just Yang Prana reflavoured, which is nice I guess. It's not a bad one, too - you get some decent variety.

Blood Shintai: this lets you spend Chi to increase your Strength. The first dot lets you make Soak rolls easier (difficulty 5 on the rolls because fuck you, variable TNs with variable dice pools and variable numbers of successes needed) and either distort your face to obscure your features and scare people, or squeeze yourself so you can slither up people's assholes down the drain. After that it's a debuff on others, then a Dodge boost, then you can make whips out of your own blood, and finally can either awaken the spirit of an object (with Yang Chi in blood) or paralyse a spirit (with Yin Chi in blood).

Bone Shintai lets you boost your Stamina with Chi. The first dot can be used to gain extra Health levels (if they get filled, the damage disappears when they do, score!) but giving a social penalty. Next you can turn invisible, then create bone weapons/armour or a skeleton key (no really), then spray toxic clouds, and finally turn into a big bone monster.

Jade Shintai lets you boost Strength with Chi. Immunity to knockdown, walk-on-water, meld-with-earth, fly-on-dragonlines, then finally elemental-themed boosts (specifically, hurting those that touch you).

Flesh Shintai lets you boost Dexterity with Chi, so everyone has a reason to take this already. The first dot lets you extend your limbs and neck so you can attack at reach. The next one lets you detach your limbs and throw them at people. You can probably do the Detachable Penis thing too. You can let the head+guts detach and crawl after people. Three dots lets you exhale narcotic smoke, fuck yes! Four dots lets you create little helpers (~= homonculi), and five lets you shapeshift to disguise yourself. That last dot doesn't feel like a five dot power but being able to boost your Dexterity by 5 for a scene at a time isn't bad.

Ghost-Flame Shintai lets you improve Stamina by spending Chi. You can see in darkness, then make dancing lights, then blast people with flame. It has some interesting abilities, I guess. Needless to say, the damage attacks don't really do enough to be impressive next to other attacks. Because it's White Wolf.

There are other Disciplines but I've already typed enough, and there weren't really opportunities for hilarious pictures this time. But so far you can see that the Disciplines are as over-the-place as ever.

[Longes]

Moar?

[Koumei]

I'll get onto that at some point. Sorry, I already got a bit bored with it, it just wasn't hilariously rage inducing and big lists of disciplines get boring.

Incidentally, apparently I forgot to mention why I call it Kindred of the Ag: every man and his dog has a method of dealing Ag damage, and Bashing and Lethal Soak get so high that you always want to be dealing Ag. Yes, everyone has a way of soaking some of that, too. Basically, you only ever specify Soak/Damage type if it's not Ag damage.

[Longes]

Well, then. How are Kuei-Jin from the crossover perspective? Is it possible to play one in a mixed game?

[Koumei]

Sort of. On the "yes" side of things:
1. You're probably drinking blood like the normal vampires
2. You run about at night and shriek at the sun like normal vampires
3. Your Attributes and (most) Abilities are the same, and Disciplines are about equal
On the "no" side of things:
1. They can eat their way up the Generation tree to raise their power stat, you have to just get old.
2. You're explicitly told to be an asshole about it. Admittedly, everyone in WoD is told to be an asshole about everyone else, so w/e.
3. You have different goals, a different belief system that is "real" in the game and so on.

Also, if you introduce one to a Vampire game, suddenly the ST has to pay attention to what Chi is in the blood of people.

Now, a mixed-group game that is "All Asia", not "All Vampire", that has its own problems. Do Hengeyokai and Kuei Jin work together? No they fucking don't. Unless they do. And then you have the usual Werewolf+Vampire problems that oWoD had.

[Koumei]

Okay, so last time we confirmed that there's circus music playing any time WW write up ordered lists of powers people can have. Also I missed opportunities to include pictures of Gyarados, Dhalsim and the creepy flying head vampires.

Now, for SOUL disciplines! It's all about soul, da-da-da da-da-da!

Note that for any of these, if you botch on the activation tjeck, you then need to see if you go into Shadow Soul. Because you're dealing so closely with your Hun and P'o. Yes, that means a string of bad rolls can be "Botch an activation -> Enter Shadow Soul -> Lose Dharmic Rank for your Act of Blindness", which might involve reducing other traits, and that's hilarious to do in the middle of a fight.

Anyway, the first is Cultivation. Users of this one are distrusted, because it focuses on poking your P'o with a stick to get a reaction from it - or doing that to others. First dot lets you pacify your P'o so it's harder to go into Fire/Wave/Shadow Soul. Also you can force a dialogue with your demon side. It also lets you scan others, determining their P'o rating, their P'o Nature, or for Kindred, their Virtues, Path/Humanity, Derangements and whatever. The second dot lets you kick half your soul out to go scouting or fight things in the Spirit World. Then they can do that to other people. Then they can lock the P'o in a box so it can't do shit, and intimidate mortals with it. Finally they can fuse the two, becoming immune to ___ Soul, being able to freely use Demon Chi/Arts with no drawbacks, and all [Mind Affecting] effects need to succeed on the roll twice, because two minds.

It's not a bad one to have, but the botch drawback is pretty dangerous. We then get a picture of a tattood guy holding a hot girl by the chin/neck. The perspective makes it look like they're towering over trees, too, so they might be giants.



I could have worded that better.

Next is Dragon's Tears. First it gives you a gemstone in your forehead, and you can get prophetic dreams. Not bad if the ST decides it should be useful (because you play it up as being cool or offer them oral sex). Shitty otherwise. Next you can just see spirit crap really well. It then turns into a third eye because every splat needs a third eye option, and you can set up a Ward against spirits. At four dots you can shut someone's P'o up for a while and cure them of derangements, of if the P'o is currently in control of you, it can use it to infect people with psychic poison to make them give in to their darkest urges. Finally it turns into a blazing orb in your forehead and you're a Solar Exalt. At this point, the Hun can rip people's souls out to heal them (restoring lost Humanity/Hun and even restoring lost Dharmic Rank), or the P'o can rip their soul out and eat it (but not on higher-Ranked ones, we learned our lesson!)

YOUR SOUL IS MINE!

Next we have a picture of a topless lady in tats, with the snake tattoo crawling off her. There's side-nipple.

Next: Internalize! You can better resist mind-reading/control, regain extra Willpower more quickly, attack enemies at a range, boost the number of auto-successes you get from spending Willpower, and enter a state of perfection where you can't botch and don't suffer dice penalties.

Yes, one of those powers does not fit with the others.

Obligation is supposed to be like Dominate. The first dot lets you learn shit about people by looking at them. Three successes lets you do the Sherlock thing. Four lets you look at personality-based stuff on their character sheet. The second dot lets you scan surface thoughts, send empathic messages, or get bonus dice on social checks. Next you prevent people from lying and they automatically think you hold rank and importance over them. Next is the Thousand Hell Stare which lets you glare at people until they fall comatose and develop derangements. Finally you actually get the ability to make people your loving eternal slaves.

So until you hit five dots, it's not as good. On the other hand, they don't have to be looking at you and Rank/Generation doesn't provide immunity.

And there we have it. There is a future splat that adds more, but whatever. You can find some gems but there's a lot of shit there too.

Next post I will be skipping the rites because they're long-winded and mostly useless and boring. But there's a picture of a guy vomiting fire!