After Sundown tweaks/house rules

[CatharzGodfoot]

I figured that too much water puts astral witches into a trance akin to their recharge ritual. Their roots come out and they stop being able to focus properly on producing magic. I think Frank has already mentioned that it encourages them to wear wide-brimmed hats and cloaks, and to strip down if their clothes get soaked, which are both stereotypically witchy things. It also has a nice symmetry with Baali not having Fire Walking.

But it would also totally work to make them vulnerable to alcohol instead, and keep the 'I'm melting!' bit with infernal witches (as Lokathor says). Then each would follow the standard for its subtype (infernal-water, astral-alcohol, and orphic-sunlight).

[Sashi]

The only power that vampires really need to always have is Patience Of The Mountains. Everything else is kinda optional. I could imagine, for example, a vampire without the ability to spend blood points and restore itself (Angel can't do this in Buffy).

Patience of the mountains feels more like a requirement for Animates than Vampires, to me. Vampires are the most human of the undead, so it's not that weird if Vampires can drown (the weird part is that CPR doesn't work on them but they perk back up if you drag them out of the lake and dribble some blood down their throats).

As it is, the things Vampires need is the Feeding schedule, a Sunlight Allergy (at least for Strigoi and Nosferatu), and Gift of Blood so they can make spawn.

[Grek]

The reason why Vampires are required to Patience of the Mountains is not so that they won't drown, but so that they can subsist on a diet of human blood alone. Gift of Blood is optional. A Sunlight Allergy is optional. The big absolute requirement to be a vampire is that it eats people's blood and not their waffles.

[Lokathor]

Also aging, why didn't either of you bring that up? Clearly vampires need to not age because they're undead. The point of vampires needing to have Patience of the Mountains is that they don't age, they just mope around for hundreds of years at a time. That's their thing.

[Sashi]

That just ... doesn't make sense, the game simply doesn't care about what people are eating/drinking, even the Survival skill doesn't mention food. It's completely fine to have Vampires chow down on raver chicks while Dryads stand in a bucket of fertilizer and the Icarid and Mi-Go take a trip to fucking Wendy's.

Patience of the Mountain is about not needing sustenance, not apples and value meals, and that actually makes it antithetical to the "blood hunger" of Vampires. Vampires should "need" to feed every week or so even if they don't spend their power points.

It's perfectly reasonable to think that you can bury a Golem for 100 years, then dig them up and have them walk out of the box and start wrecking shit. If you do the same thing to a Vampire they pretty much "die" and need a blood ritual jump start before they can do anything.

[Sashi]

Also aging, why didn't either of you bring that up? Clearly vampires need to not age because they're undead. The point of vampires needing to have Patience of the Mountains is that they don't age, they just mope around for hundreds of years at a time. That's their thing.

OK this makes sense. And I can see an argument that these abilities are simply not worth it to take individually. Though I still think it's weird that everything from Fallen to Leviathan have the "full golem" package.

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, there's shit tons of vampire source material that disagrees with you on the needing to feed so often bit. For better or for worse, we've got Anne Rice novels and all sorts of other bullshit around in which vampires can go dormant or live in the far corners of the world for long, long periods of time without needing to feed from humans. Having that option is frankly rather good from a setting standpoint, since it jibes rather well with the Vow of Silence and gives people the opportunity to play or introduce ancient vampires who just wake up every few centuries to check out what the new advances and art is like with a minimum of fuss or power creep--After all, being "alive" for 300 years isn't the same thing as having been active for 300 years. As such, I'm fine with AS's inevitable frenzy and only source of power points model. It's more flexible and light on bookkeeping and the only casualty is a flavor thing many people won't agree on anyway.

As for animates, I don't actually think the immortality thing is even the important bit of Patience of the Mountains compared to being a relentless being that never rests or falls prey to fatigue. Hell, it's not even that hard to posit animates who were either flawed in some way or were cruelly given short lifespans by design--they are, after all, supposed to be each relatively unique creatures. Combine that with the simple fact that most campaigns won't be doing enough time skips that death by old age becomes a factor and I'm willing to call it a non-issue if someone mentions that their character will give a big tears in the rain speech during the campaign ending credits.

[Maxus]

Side note, has anyone ever just outright made a map of what syndicates control where?

The descriptions are a bit vague--I have no idea what's happening in the southern hemisphere, essentially. Given proximity, you could say Australia is run by the WCL. Or given its huge areas of nothing, you could say Australia's got a -lot- patchwork territories happening, along with cults trying to make zombie armies out in the deep desert.

But from what I see, this is how the political landscape is explicitly spelled out.

Blue is Makhzen, Red is the Cauchemar Communes, Black is the Covenant, and Purple is the WCL.

Northern Canada is supposed to be a lot of wild, so hard to pin an affiliation to that.

I imagine the Covenant's strong wherever Catholicism was/is strong, so possibly all of South America is there. Still don't know what's going on with Australia or Southern Africa.

[Username17]

You could certainly split up Patience of the Mountains from a thematic point of view. Creatures that don't eat, creatures that don't age, creatures that don't breathe, and creatures that don't rest are all at least potentially different creatures. The thing is: all of those powers are fairly minor in the game. Generally speaking, the game is not going to last long enough for immunity to aging to come into play, and the game doesn't track money finely enough for it to really matter whether you're paying $30 on groceries every week or not.

If one were going to change it, the only real way to do so would be to split those immunities up and put them as minor riders on other abilities. Immunity to Aging could go onto Restoration, while immunity to fatigue could go onto Indominability. And so on. Having a power that only provides limited resistance to flavor problems is probably too weak.

That would allow for the creation of Vampire types that still needed to eat food, and for Leviathan who still needed to breathe. It would require a rather extensive reshuffling of power sets, but it could be done.

-Username17

[Sashi]

As for animates, I don't actually think the immortality thing is even the important bit of Patience of the Mountains compared to being a relentless being that never rests or falls prey to fatigue. Hell, it's not even that hard to posit animates who were either flawed in some way or were cruelly given short lifespans by design--they are, after all, supposed to be each relatively unique creatures. Combine that with the simple fact that most campaigns won't be doing enough time skips that death by old age becomes a factor and I'm willing to call it a non-issue if someone mentions that their character will give a big tears in the rain speech during the campaign ending credits.

I 100% agree with this. In the vast majority of cases it's just not going to matter that Werewolves have to sleep and make trips to Burger King while Deep Ones don't. Like I said before, it's perfectly reasonable to say that the suite of abilities PotM gives you just don't matter enough to force Golems to buy them all separately. And Leviathan maybe should need to eat, but whatever.

You know what's weird, though? Someone with Patience of the Mountains isn't immune to fatigue but they are immune to poison. And actually more supernatural threats have Patience of the Mountains than don't, which makes poison super weak in a way that I don't know is intentional.

[Username17]

If there was going to be a sundering of Patience, a fair amount of care would have to go in so that one didn't end up with ghosts dying of old age or something. Also, Fortitude would need a new basic power, which could be Indominability which would force the creation of a new Advanced power instead.

Anyway, it seems like there should be a chart to determine the absolute requirements for various types. I don't think it's a big deal if creature types end up with additional immunities (because you can always make a case for why a Vampire can't be poisoned or doesn't need to sleep or whatever), but it's not acceptable if any creature ends up without their conceptual immunities.

Creature	No Breathing	No Eating	No Sleeping	No Aging	No Fatigue	No Poison
Vampire				*
Golem	*	*	*		*	*
Frankenstein					*	*
Android	*	*		*		*
Deep One	*			*
Troglodyte				*
Mi Go				*
Fallen				*
Zombies	*	*	*			*
Troll	*			*
Ghosts	*	*		*		*
Akuma		*		*	*
Asura				*
Ifrit		*		*		*

Now, the non-playable types can add up any which way, because if they need massive infusions of new powers, that's OK - they don't have to add up in the first place.

Now obviously one expects Vampries to have a long list of immunities on the grounds that they are undead. But they also have a lot of source material, and you can certainly find examples of stories where the vampires have to sleep every day, or have to eat food, or have to breathe, or get poisoned because they have flowing blood, or whatever. It's pretty negotiable what exactly is on their immunities list is what I'm saying. And it doesn't actually have to be the same for every type of Vampire. Strigoi could have to sleep in their coffins, while Nosferatu could prowl the sewers night and day, just to name a single obvious possibility.

-Username17

[Blicero]

Side note, has anyone ever just outright made a map of what syndicates control where?

I tried to make a map based on the descriptions in the text. I posted it in the main aWoD thread. I would link to it again, but I don't actually have the file anymore.

It ended up being pretty similar to your map, but perhaps a bit more detailed. As I recall, Frank chimed in with a bit of extra information afterward.

[Orion]

Honestly, Non-Aging, Non-Eating, and Non-Breathing don't need to be stapled on to other disciplines at all. They could just be merits.

[Username17]

Honestly, Non-Aging, Non-Eating, and Non-Breathing don't need to be stapled on to other disciplines at all. They could just be merits.

The problem with that methodology, aside from mandating the creation of a "magical advantages" group, is that it would create a large Advantage debt for Golems. With such a system, the Golem would be layered down with like 4 weird and niche magical advantages. Then we would have the choice of either giving out mandatory advantages to all the other children, or weighing down the Golem with a giant pile of compensatory disadvantages. Either is, I think, rather more work than is worth it.

Now, creating a "Magical" category of advantages and disadvantages is certainly possible. People always want more little dials to twiddle with. But I don't think it is really the way forward to solve the riddle of Golem immunities.

Looking at the half-assed table I wrote up there, it seems to me that the current Patience of the Mountains set is covering two broad groups: the people who are immortal, and the people who are not conventionally alive. Of the two, the immortality group is by far the larger, and it would probably be better to hand out agelessness as a rider on several different powers. The obvious choice would be to give out slightly different flavors of agelessness on sorcerous disciplines from all three power sources. So you'd have your Orphic themed immortality in Path of Blood. Indeed, Vampires could all have their Vampire Immortality because they have Gift of Health, while the Deep Ones could all have Astral themed immortality because they have Dream Visions.

Then Patience of the Mountains could be merged with Indominability and made a lot more rare.

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

I'd actually be in favor of including more effects that those immunities worked against. I don't know if the [unaging] tag is supposed to protect against Withering, but it feels like it should, given the flavor. If there was a sorcerous path where the main direct offensive curse was hunger-based, that would be perfectly in-genre.

Non-breathing is actually a decently-sized deal by itself, given how easy it is to use proactively, but I wouldn't object to seeing a suffocation-based effect in there somewhere.

[Grek]

I would like to point out that (with the exception of Demons and Leviathans) every creature you've got listed as needing to be immortal also has Vigor as a required discipline. It also occurs to me that nobody would particularly object to Demons and Leviathans gaining Vigor as a discipline. It would be a little weird that Werewolves and Bagheera don't die of old age, but fuck it, magical healing is already something they get, why not magical life extension?

[Lokathor]

As it stands, before we make any changes, Patience of the Mountains is a Basic level power in a Universal discipline. So in the game right now, basically anyone can learn the power extremely easily. Tons of people end up being ageless all over the place, and it almost becomes a bigger deal when you're not ageless because you're the odd one out.

So you can attach the [Ageless] tag to several powers and spread it around by theme, or just move it to Vigor and only a few new people pick it up, or even some other option, but either way it's dumb to worry about the fact that almost all the monsters will end up being ageless if you make some change, because that's already how it is.

Given the proposed levels of lethality involved in the AS universe in general, and monstrous society as well, it will hardly make an impact on the world population or anything because people seemingly get shot in the face all the time anyway.

[Whipstitch]

Personally I am not really concerned by this whole thing, but if you do dismember Patiences I think Sensory Damper would be easy to swap into Fortitude from Discernment, which would be fine since that set already had an "extra" power anyway.

[erik]

I think eating could just be a footnote for various types along with their power schedules and sources in their writeup.

For all the "No eating" categorized folks, many of them do eat, just not normal fare. You don't really change your eating requirements unless your type is changed (i.e. human becoming a monster).

Zombies eat brains, Demons eat whoever they want and they need to eat something. It wouldn't be out of line to require sustenance for Androids and Golems as they need to recharge electrically, mechanically or spiritually.

Ghosts are the exception. Always hungry but can't eat and not eating doesn't harm them.

No Eating: Becomes a Hunger footnote based upon monster type
No Sleep/No Fatigue: Combine No Sleep with No Fatigue. If you are Tireless then you don't need sleep or rest. Minor Power/Merit (new Patience of the Mountains)
No Aging: Bundled by sorcery paths as per Frank's suggestion. Deny the Gauntlet, Gift of Health, Dream Vision (?). Trickiest thing is that the Animates are really light on Sorcery, Frankenstein's having none at all. Of course of the 3 animates those ones get the hairy eyeball most from me for being immortal anyways.
Poison Immunity: Bundle into Indomitability (and maybe Empty Body)? Incidentally, I just noticed the misspelled "Indominability"
No Breathing: Bundle into power or monster type footnote. I reckon much like hunger, it's not something you usually pick up other than by becoming a certain monster. That way you can make Deep Ones water breathing, rather than vacuum breathing if you like.



* = Absolutely required
* = Erik thinks these deserve to be on too
really?= erik is skeptical these are absolutely required

Creature	No Breathing	Hunger	No Sleeping	No Aging	No Fatigue	No Poison
Vampire		Blood		*
Golem	*	Ritual	*	*	*	*
Frankenstein		Food			really?	also, really?
Android	*	Electrical/Mechanical	*	*	*	*
Deep One	*	Food		*
Troglodyte		Food		*
Mi Go		Food		*
Fallen		Food		*
Zombies	*	Brains	*		*	*
Troll	really?	Waffles Flesh		*
Ghosts	*	hungry but cannot eat		*		*
Akuma		Food		*	really?
Asura		Ash		*
Ifrit		Pain		*		*

I figure the table is easier to summarize stuff

[Lokathor]

Zombies don't die if the run out of brains, they just wander about until there are more brains. I don't think any of the others would starve to death either.

[CatharzGodfoot]

I came up with a slightly different list.

Code: Select all

                Breath  Eat Sleep   Age     Tire    Sicken
Android         no      no          no              no
Frankenstein                                no      
Golem           no      no  no      no      no      no
Deep One        no*                 no*         
Mi Go                               no*
Troglodyte      no*                 no*             no*
Fallen                  no*         no
Ghost           no      no          no              no
Zombie          no      no  no      *       no      no
Ifrit           no      no          no              no
Akuma                               no*
Asura                               no*
Troll                               no*

"Leviathans" are iconically immortal, but that does not mean that all deep ones, mi go, and troglodytes must be.

Deep ones don't breath, for obvious reasons--but they could, if they got a 'water breathing' special.

Troglodytes don't breath because they burrow and spend large amount of time in tunnels with no or bad air. They don't sicken because they eat rotting meat, and spend a large amount of time in bad air. Both necessary rather than iconic, and could probably be handled another way.

Fallen are iconically immortal (SHE), but don't eat simply because they aren't expected to find food in the Dark Reflection. But the food issue could probably be handwaved.

Zombies don't age, but slowly rotting and falling to bits is basically indistinguishable.

Trolls, Akuma, and Asura are only ageless in as much as you want them to be immortal demons/fairies. If you decide that they don't have human lifespans because they were never human, but that they do eventually grow old and die, they don't need a special anti-ageing power.

[erik]

Zombies don't die if the run out of brains, they just wander about until there are more brains. I don't think any of the others would starve to death either.

Fair enough on Zombies. They could be like ghosts. Always hungry but no penalty for starving.

I see all the rest starving except Golems. Vampires who don't feed go nuts and if they go long enough they go into torpor. Likewise Androids. I don't really like equating their ritual to hunger but if they go long enough without repeating it, torpor.

I can definitely see Catharz's point that Fallen don't need to eat. Consider me convinced.

My biggest take-homes are figuring out which things should be selectable versus hard-coded.

Not needing to eat and not needing to breathe are things that are bound to your type and don't really change up or get added to other types. So they should be just part of the monster type.

Immortality should be selectable. Likewise poison immunity. Some monsters should start with Tireless/Sleepless, but it can be appropriately thematic for some others to have it or not.

[Username17]

I would like to point out that (with the exception of Demons and Leviathans) every creature you've got listed as needing to be immortal also has Vigor as a required discipline. It also occurs to me that nobody would particularly object to Demons and Leviathans gaining Vigor as a discipline. It would be a little weird that Werewolves and Bagheera don't die of old age, but fuck it, magical healing is already something they get, why not magical life extension?

That's actually not true. Not only Leviathan, but also Fallen, Asura, Wisps, and Ifrit don't have Vigor either. Of the 16 subtypes that definitely shouldn't be aging, only about half of them have Vigor (Daeva, Nosferatu, Strigoi, Golem, Android, Wraith, Poltergeist, Akuma, Troll). And of course, a fuck tonne of creatures that should be aging also have it. It's just a really terrible fit.

The "ageless" types could be handled with sorcery effect riders fairly easily. Let's look at the creatures who are canonically immortal, and see if they could "get by" if they didn't have to spend a slot on living forever.

Immortal Creature	Free Slot?	Sorceries Known
Daeva	Yes	Gift of Health, Fire Walking
Nosferatu	Yes	Gift of Health, Tongue of Beasts
Strigoi	Yes	Gift of Health, Bite of the Serpent
Android	No	Light of Ennui, Howling Winds, Contradiction
Golem	No	Fire Walking, Summon Spirit
Deep One	No	Dream Vision, Rising Mists
Mi Go	Yes	Small Witness, Body Colony, Abyss of the Body, Magnify the Swarm
Troglodyte	Yes	Touch of Darkness
Fallen	Yes	Deny the Gauntlet, Learn the Heart's Pain
Wisp	No	-
Wraith	No	-
Poltergeist	No	-
Troll	No	Poison Heart
Akuma	No	-
Asura	Yes	-
Ifrit	No	Distant Reflection, Deny the Gauntlet, Curse of Failure, Pain Drops, Learn the Heart's Pain, Mirror Pocket, Dark Night of the Soul, The Smoking Mirror, Object of Envy

Now, it's actually a plot point that Lycanthropic history goes down the memory hole when werewolves die of old age from time to time, so it would be nice if they didn't come with immortality. Lycanthropes have:

Beast Form, Tongue of Beasts, The Beckoning, Touch of Darkness, Abyss of the Body, Learn the Heart's Pain.

And to a lesser extent, the fact that Reborn grow old and die is also actually a thing. They have Summon Spirit and Shadow Casting. Icarids have no particular reason to be immortal, and have Curse of Failure and Dark Night of the Soul.

Vampires are all taken care of by having Orphic Immortality pop off of Gift of Health, which seems reasonable. Any other immunities that they get off of Fortitude or other powers is gravy and totally acceptable.

It's too bad about Abyss of the Body being a Nezumi thing, because it is the kind of thing that sounds like it come with a horrible form of immortality. But then, so does the Light of Ennui, and that's an Android thing. Your beacon of Despair could keep you going indefinitely. If that was the Infernal route to immortality, then it would make sense for Fallen to get it. And really, having them trade out Patience for Light of Ennui sounds reasonable given their purpose in life.

Summon Spirits really shouldn't grant immortality, which sort of leaves Golems in the cold. But they still need to spend a power on being all variously non-biological, and that could certainly give them immortality as well.

If Deep Ones got Water Breathing out of another power and they got Immortality out of Dream Vision, they'd be good to go. So if Pain Drops (for example) let you breathe water, Deep Ones could trade out their Patience for Pain Drops and be good to go. Troglodytes and Mi Go (and Wendigo) could all get Dream Vision and all live forever the same way.

-Username17

[Grek]

I specifically called out Leviathans and Demons as needing a change if Vigor is the immortality power, so those don't count. Further, Fallen and Wisps do not need to be immortal. Only specific sorts of Fallen (ie. the creepy little unageing children) are supposed to stay at their current age forever, and you can go ahead and handle that with optional powers. Wisps are specifically supposed to eventually unravel and cease to be after enough time has passed, so making them persist indefinitely would be really weird.

[Username17]

I specifically called out Leviathans and Demons as needing a change if Vigor is the immortality power, so those don't count. Further, Fallen and Wisps do not need to be immortal. Only specific sorts of Fallen (ie. the creepy little unageing children) are supposed to stay at their current age forever, and you can go ahead and handle that with optional powers. Wisps are specifically supposed to eventually unravel and cease to be after enough time has passed, so making them persist indefinitely would be really weird.

I could go with you on Wisps. Although some of them are supposed to hang on for a really long time.

The Fallen are people like She and Dorian Gray. Not aging is pretty much their entire shtick.

-Username17