My Toons, Let Me Show You Them: Bad Touché

What do you get when you cross Pepe Le Pew, Batroc the Leaper and Cyrano de Bergerac?

 Zut alors! 'oo is zis 'andsome fellow?

Hon hon hon! Eet ees I, ze Bad Touché -- mercenarie extraordinaire, pireet of ze 'eart, and mastaire of ze witty rapière!

I make ze pun, no? Ze rapière wit? Ma swoord, eet ees la rapière?

...

Ma 'umair, eet ees wasted upon you Americains.

Yes, I just now realized that "sacrebleu" is misspelled. 

Bad Touché is one of my exceptionally rare boy toons, and you can see why: the concept of "Comedically Sleazy" just wouldn't work with a girl, who would instead just appear slutty and not very comedic. 

As an aside, his name in the game is Bad Touche' because I figured people wouldn't want to hunt for the é character to message him and/or invite him to teams. 

Luc-Maël Thierry Balzac's life was changed the moment he watched the fencing scene in The Princess Bride. He swore that he, too, would one day become a fencing wizard to equal -- nay, surpass -- Inigo Montoya and Westley the Dread Pirate Roberts, and after many years of wheedling his parents finally acquiesced and bought him lessons. 

You've seen the meme "While You Were Partying, I Studied the Blade"? That was Luc-Maël. He studied fencing at the expense of everything else, including social skills. Especially social skills. 

In short order, Luc-Maël earned a spot on the French Olympic Fencing Team at age 18, the youngest fencer to ever compete at that level. This is where he learned some interesting facts about himself:

• He was a sore loser, prone to sulking and scheming revenge. 
• He was an even worse winner, going out of his way to humiliate his opponents. 
• Playing by the rules doesn't guarantee anyone except the rule-makers a victory, but playing outside the rules earned him a victory in every way that mattered. 
• Cheating is only cheating if you get caught. If you're good enough, you can cheat and not get caught... and if you're good enough not to get caught, you deserve to win. 
• As much as he liked girls, they didn't like his boorish behavior and lack of social awareness. 

If you are thinking "This guy sounds like he's heading towards being a serial rapist," well, you're not wrong. He was headed that way, but someone influential got to him first and set him on a slightly different path. 

That someone was an Fortunata Fateweaver accompanying the Arachnos Olympic Team. (Well, technically, the Rogue Islands Olympic Team, but the Rogue Isles are run by Arachnos, so it's the same thing.) She saw the potential within Luc-Maël, both as a budding villain and even perhaps as the Destined One. It took very little effort to convince him to abandon France and travel back to the Rogue Isles with her, as he thought he was going to live a life of lawless luxury, surrounded by a bevy of beautiful babes. 

What he got, however, was a crash-course in survival of the fittest, as the moment the Arachnos transport touched down Luc-Maël was kicked out into the unforgiving streets of Darwin's Landing. The Fateweaver told him that he now had ultimate freedom, but everyone else did too, and if he wanted to live he'd need to be better than everyone else. 

Much to Luc-Maël's surprise, he succeeded. At first he was a petty thug fighting for food and shelter, but he quickly built a reputation as a skilled swordsman. He adopted the name "Bad Touché" as a double entendre: "touché" means "touch" in French, and signifies landing a scoring strike on your opponent, but it also makes him sound like a pervert molester. You wouldn't think this would be a benefit, but there's a certain psychological advantage to having your opponent think you're going to do terrible things to them, especially if you're so skilled that you can cut away their clothes to impair and/or humiliate them. 

At this point in his career, Bad Touché has completely thrown himself into his caricature persona of "Very Frawnch Pervy Swordsman" and enjoys every glorious, hammy moment of it. He's successful enough and rich enough that he doesn't need to work, and so he takes whatever jobs challenge or amuse him. In short, he's not so much evil (although he's done bad things) as he is extremely self-centered, self-indulgent, and arrogant, making him less of a supervillain and more like the fencing version of a heel wrestler keeping kayfabe. 

Other notes of interest:

• He used to fight with a rapier and main gauche, but quickly developed the skill to fight with paired rapiers to take advantage of the extra reach. 
• The rapiers he has now are made of impervium and have monomolecular edges to them, making them incredibly sharp.
• He stole a gravity-reducing belt early in his career, giving him the ability to make tremendous leaps and move with surprising grace. 
• He has advanced, lightweight body armor build into his costume, which he thinks makes him look like a cross between a dashing pirate and a handsome musketeer. 
• The beret? Well, he's French. 

Hon hon hon!

My Toons, Let Me Show You Them: Cherenkova

I'm going to level with you: Sometimes I feel like the universe is sending me messages, and when I don't get them first time it increases the frequency and amplitude of that message until I finally get it. 

For example, I took this screenshot on October 16th, 2021:

Cherenkova in front of the Terra Volta reactor after successfully defending it against attack. 

By itself, that means nothing other than Erin is a slack-ass who is four months late in writing about this, but that's because you don't yet know who this character is. I do, and this character is not just relevant to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but also events that are happening there right now, what with battles being fought around Chernobyl and another nuclear power plant under attack. I don't know if this is coarse or tone-deaf or something; I hope it's not. I just feel like there are so many coincidences piling up that I my writer brain needs to do something about it or I'll go crazy. Regardless of how this turns out, I want everyone to know that my heart is with the Ukrainian people. Slava Ukraini, y'all. 

I originally created Cherenkova in 2005, giving her the following character biography (brief because the text space in game is limited):

Dr. Nataliya Cherenkova is a world-renowned nuclear physicist and the great-granddaughter of Pavel Cherenkov, the man who discovered Cherenkov radiation*. Her power to safely absorb radiation manifested while still in the womb, saving the life of her mother who was living in what is now known as the Chernobyl "Dead Zone".   

She has multiple doctorates in physics, electrical engineering, biology, and medicine, and has recently written a thesis regarding radiation and its effects upon parahumans. Her current mission is to prevent nuclear accidents and terrorism, and to this end has designed a suit which enables her to project and control the radiation her body absorbs and stores.

*Electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle gives off energy as it moves through oxygen faster than the speed of light. Radiation occurs mainly in the visible and near UV (especially blue) region of the spectrum. That Cherenkova's powers manifest as green, not blue, indicates she is phase-shifting the radiation to reduce its lethality.

So, a few things:

• Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov absolutely existed, and so does Cherenkov radiation, which is the glow you think of when you think "highly radioactive."
• Cherenkov radiation is blue. Very, very blue. I don't know why people think it's green, but it's been that way in pop culture (mostly comic books) for longer than I've been alive. 
  
  

  

  https://tinyurl.com/2zck588d

  
  
• Pavel Cherenkov had a son (Alexey) and a daughter (Yelena) with his wife Maria Putintseva. I don't know about any children they had, but this is for a superhero MMO based on comic book logic and I've already shown more due diligence than a lot of comic book writers in doing my research, so I think I've earned plausible deniability... especially in a game clearly set in an alternate universe. 
• Cherenkov married his wife in 1930 at the age of 26. I don't know when his children were born, but let's spitball using minimums: assuming Alexey was born within 9 months of that marriage, he'd be 25 years old in 1955, and his son would be 25 years old in 1980. That's well within the range needed for great-granddaughter Nataliya to be born within 1986, the year of the Chernobyl disaster. 
• Why were they at Chernobyl? In true comic book fashion, I assume that Pavel Cherenkov's grandson continued the family tradition of nuclear physics and was one of the people who worked there. Because this is a comic book and also featuring Russians (more on that in a moment, I promise), it seems apropos that her father died while trying to SCRAM the runaway reactor. 
• OK, Russians. Keep in mind that in 1986, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union and therefore under the control of Moscow. The reason why Kiev is now Kyiv is because the former name is the Russian pronunciation and the latter is Ukrainian. Until the fall of the USSR in the 1990s, Russian was the national language of Ukraine, and many Russian people lived and worked there. In fact, a Ukrainian-born friend of mine who was there at the time says that she was culturally Russian. Schools were all Russian, with Ukrainian language and literature taught as separate subjects. I'm not making any claims regarding sovereignty, I'm merely stating that's how it was then. 
• In honor of my friend, I'm declaring that Nataliya's mother is ethnically Jewish and emigrated to America in 1987, the same year my friend did. This puts Nataliya right where she needs to be for City of Heroes, and she can attend the very advanced Paragon City University. 
• I created Cherenkova in 2005. 2005 - 1986 = 19. Yes, this means she was a child prodigy. So was Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic. 
• The Rikti War happened in 2002; she'd be 15 or 16 at the time. She wasn't old enough to fight in it, but old enough to be affected by it. It's a good reason to become a hero. 
• City of Heroes shut down in 2012. I guess that means she's perpetually 26, which is a fine age for superheroing. She'd be 36 today, which is practically old age for heroes, but RDJ taught us that Iron Man can be smart and tough and cool well into middle age, so I'm fine with that. She's only going to get smarter as she ages by collecting more PhDs. 

Her Powers

Nataliya Cherenkova is basically a living control rod: she can safely absorb large amounts of ionizing radiation, aka "radioactivity". In much the same way that heat always flows into cold areas first due to thermodynamics, ionizing radiation always flows into her. If you're at ground zero of a nuclear accident, the best place to be is within 10 feet of her (preferably with her between you and the radiation). 

What's more, she metabolizes that radiation. It nourishes her and kicks her metabolism into high gear. She's a bit like a lizard in that the "hotter" she gets, the stronger and faster and smarter she is. This is why she was a child prodigy; the radiation she absorbed from Chernobyl kickstarted her development. 

As a result of this odd metabolism, Cherenkova emits a rare, specific wavelength of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation that invigorates the cells of living things. Skin heals and bones knit at an accelerated pace, and damaged genes repair themselves via an interaction with DNA polymerase that even Nataliya doesn't fully understand. 

This would be amazing just by itself, but Nataliya went one step further by designing a suit that would feed her radiation at a constant rate. This not only keeps her "charged up" but also allows her, through electromagnetic lensing, to emit and focus that energy in various ways. In addition to flight via graviton emission, she can also sap the strength of her opponents by giving them temporary radiation poisoning. As mentioned above, she is very conscientious about the potential lethality of her powers, and takes great pains not to permanent injure, let alone kill, anyone with them. She absolutely, positively, does not want to be known as "that hero giving cancer to people", and so she is quite free with her healing radiation when the battle is done. 

However, she is quite formidable. If necessary, Cherenkova can emit concentrated beams of energy that pierce even the toughest armor, and she can create small-scale electro-magnetic pulses which will fry even hardened electronics. 

Her Suit

When I first made Cherenkova, I wanted the aesthetic of "charming yet chunky Soviet design", reminiscent of the old Rocket Red Brigade (interestingly enough, also created in 1987).

In that regard, I think I succeeded marvelously:

However, there's a problem, and you might see it: despite being Ukrainian by birth, she's not wearing the colors of Ukraine. I wanted to fix that, and at the same time I felt she needed an armor upgrade. After all, that suit design is 17 years old. 

First, let me tell you that it is damn hard to make a costume using just canary yellow and bright blue. I'm sure it can be done, but I couldn't make this one work. So I decided that I'd go with red, white and blue (the flag colors of Cherenkova's adopted country, the USA) and blue and yellow (the flag colors of Ukraine). It's not perfect, but I like it, and that's what is important. 

Speaking of importance, I'm pleased I was able to keep some chunky aesthetic in the design. Since most of her powers emit out of her hands I just assume that the focusing apparatuses are in her gauntlets. 

Her Life

Nataliya is always defending the city, even when she's not out fighting crime. She can charitably be described as an overachieving, type-A workaholic, and so thanks to her powers she maintains a work schedule that would kill a normal woman:

• She has admitting privileges at all hospitals within Paragon City. While she doesn't specifically work at any of them (although most would cheerfully kill to have her on staff), she regularly drops by to lend a hand. She starts with the emergency room, ICU and NICU, then goes up to the children's ward and oncology. If she has time, she visits the newborns in the maternity ward to relax. 
• She is credentialed to teach at Paragon City U. She typically only teaches one class a semester, and that class is extremely advanced and competition for a slot is bordering on cutthroat. The topic varies, but it's always so lofty that you'll need an oxygen mask to reach its levels, and passing it looks amazing on any resume. To be fair, her long-suffering TAs do most of the work (she's there to teach, not grade papers) but just being her assistant is worth credits towards your PhD. 
• When she's not doing all that, she's working at the Terra Volta reactor: monitoring its systems, upgrading its hardware, and (of course) defending it against attacks by Sky Raiders, Freakshow and Rikti. If she can be said to have a home, it's here: they keep a small bedroom for her, and she's on-call for them 24/7. In return, they let her use their machine and electronics shops for free so she can repair and upgrade her suit. 

Slava Ukraini, and slava Cherenkova. 

V5: Sumerian Vampire Clan Names

So yesterday I had a bit of the Blessed Madness come upon me, and when that happens I must drop everything and chase it because it happens so rarely, and when it does it always gives me really good material. 

So in the lore of Vampire: the Masquerade, the first vampire was Caine, the son of Adam and Eve, and vampirism was his curse for murdering his brother Abel. There's no date on when the first clans emerged, but they are mentioned as developing in the "First City", as in "the first city to ever exist". 

One of the things which has bothered me about V:tM is that even though the vampire clans date back to the dawn of civilization, the names for those clans are very modern in comparison. Toreador, Brujah, and Lasombra are Spanish; Gangrel is Middle English; Ventrue is French. The Latin Salubri is respectably old, and even though Egyptian mythology is older than Roman, the -ite suffix in Setite is Greek. 

In other words, in my extreme nerdery I wanted vampire clans to have names which were as old as they were, even if those original names weren't used any more due to linguistic drift (and the fact that players probably couldn't, and definitely wouldn't, like to use them). So I looked up which language was the oldest, and as it turns out the oldest known written language is Sumerian. This was ideal for my purposes because Sumeria was in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East and therefore meshed perfectly with the Abrahamic origins of V:tM. 

Did you know that there's an online Sumerian dictionary where you can search for words in English? You do now. What's more, most of the words there have pictures of them written in Cuneiform (the written script of the Sumerians, among others -- sort of like how most of the Western world uses the Roman alphabet) and they are delightfully archaic and creepy. You know how in the Blade movies the various vampire houses had cryptic sigils? Well, Cuneiform looks older and creepier, and because it's an actual language it looks more legitimate as well. 

So here are the clans of Vampire: the Masquerade as I think they would have been named during the time of the First City. Because I am a hobbyist scratching at something deeper than I can imagine, I have probably gotten some things wrong. But that's okay, because we aren't looking for accuracy (because vampires don't exist), we're looking for things which are fun and flavorful. 

Canonical Clans

Banu Haqim: Sagaz

Sa-gaz (“Robber; murderer”) 

The Banu Haqim (formerly known in previous editions as Assamites) are a clan of vampires who lust after the blood of other vampires and, in previous editions at least, hired themselves out as assassins who would take as part of their payment the blood of their victim. Therefore, someone who robs and kills seems an excellent fit here. 

Brujah: Ursag

Ur-sag (“Warlike; Hero, Warrior”)

Troile, the founder of the Brujah line, had a mighty temper and a preference for physical altercation. Modern Brujah see themselves as righteous rebels fighting against The Man, they clearly see themselves as heroes. Given all that, I couldn't have picked anything else. 

Cappadocians: Namus

Nam-us (“Death”)

The Cappadocians have always been known as the Clan of Death.

Gangrel: Umaam

U-ma-am (“Beast”)

A clan of shape-shifters who take on bestial features as their humanity slips. 

Lasombra: Gissu

Gissu ("shade, shadow; protection, aegis")

Yay, the clan whose name means "The Shadow" and which has shadow powers has another name which means shadow. Yawn. 

See below for what I picked for my highly non-canonical Lasombra. 

Malkavian: Namigigal

Nam-igi-gal (“Insight”)

I'm very proud of this one, as I couldn't find a translation for "madman" or "seer" or things like this. However, "insight" is a nicely vague word which both compliments their abilities and touches upon their madness (as in "seeing what others do not"). 

Nosferatu: Ludubgara

Lu-dub-gar-ra (“Hunter”)

Abisimilard, the founder of the clan, was known as a mighty and stealthy hunter. 

Ravnos: Dabariri

Da-ba-ri-ri (“Liar, Trickster, Con Artist”)

Regardless of whether you go by the official version of this clan or my own, the fact remains that the Ravnos are distrusted by the rest of kindred society, and so this fits. It's doubtful that the Ravnos themselves would call themselves this, but unlife isn't fair and so if everyone else calls you this, this is what you're called. 

Salubri: Abgal

Ab-gal (“Sage, Priest”)

The easy solution would have been to go with "doctor" or "healer" but I felt that pigeonholed this clan too much. Abgal gives them flavors of wisdom and holiness which were lacking from other names. 

Setites: Musgal

No, I refuse to call them "The Ministry". Go away. 

Mus-gal ("Great serpent")

Y'know, it's funny: the Setites have this whole snake motif going on, yet Set himself has the head of a jackal, not a snake. But then, I think this entire clan is stupid and I'm not going to waste any more time on them. 

Toreador: Ummia

Um-mi-a (“Expert, master craftsman”)

This was another difficult one. I couldn't find a Sumerian word for "artist" or "artisan", or even "beautiful". I found this, though, and I feel that it fits well, for no other clan are experts on art and beauty. 

Tremere

They don't have a Sumerian name because they didn't exist until 1022 AD. 

Tzimisce: Uzu

Uzu (“Flesh, body, entrails, omen”)

The Tzimisce are a clan of flesh-shapers, but if I'm being honest the real reason I picked this name is because the word looks like a body. 

Also, and I am not joking, there is an actual Sumerian phrase uzu zu kešda gu-mur which means "flesh tooth bind spine" and I can't think of a better way to describe Vicissitude than that. 

Ventrue: Lugal

Lu-gal (“lord; master; owner; king; a quality designation”)

The Ventrue are the Clan of Kings. Self-explanatory.

Non-Canon Clans

Ba'ali: Kurgara

Kur-gar-ra (“Cultic performer”)

As I've mentioned elsewhere,  I hate the Followers of Set and so the demon-worshipping  Ba'ali are the super-evil baddies in my V:tM world. "Cultic performer" is close enough to "cultist" for my taste, and I am tickled that the first character resembles Damien's triple-6 birthmark from The Omen.

Lasombra: Dar

Dar (“To break up, crush, grind; to split, split up; to cut open”)

This is for my non-canonical, not-having-shadow-powers version of the clan which are cancerous corruptors who blackmail people and hollow out organizations in order to control them. I feel that the meaning of this word perfectly encapsulates how I see the Lasombra operating. 

Nagaraja: Sugzag Gu

Sug-zag gu (“To destroy completely” with “gu” meaning “to eat, consume”)

This is for my version of the Nagaraja. The word is interesting because "sugzag gu" as a whole means "to destroy", but the component "sugzag" means "marsh edge" and "gu" means "to eat". This makes me think of a crocodile dragging its prey underwater, never to be seen again and to be devoured at its leisure. This really fits with how I envision the Nagaraja. 

A Booby Trap

I was hit with this challenge by my friend Adrian, so here's my best shot. 

Let's be up front about things which were always up and in front: she had a large bosom, she knew its effect on people, and she dressed to use it to her advantage. But that was not the extent of her character; those who could pry their eyes away from her inviting cleavage could see the quirk of amusement upon her delicate mouth and the gleam of judgement within her deep brown eyes. Her unruly black hair fell past her shoulders in long waves, and her fresh face and fair complexion suggested youth and naiveté in exactly the same way that the lair of a trapdoor spider suggests a lovely, harmless place to spend time. She was a huntress, and what she hunted were those who couldn't see the woman for the boobs.

You can't ignore that cleavage, and trying to do so would be disingenuous. But that expression of hers tells me that she's up to something, so I imagine she's smarter than she (deliberately) appears to be, and when she goes on dates she tries to figure out what kind of person she's with is. She wants you to look... but if you look for too long, you've failed her test. 

It is, quite literally, a booby trap. ;)

My Toons, Let Me Show You Them: Suffolk Punch

 It's been a long time since I last talked about City of Heroes. Now that the "renegade" servers are public and are (apparently, hopefully) in no danger of being shut down, and now that I've gotten back into playing CoH in my copious free time [/sarc], I figured I'd share some more of my character creations with you dear readers. 

I'm going to start off with something that is so very, very me: a character that is essentially one big My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic reference. 

This is the Mysterious Mare Do Well from the episode of the same name. The costume is very much of two-fisted (two-hooved?) pulp style of The Shadow, and I was curious if the versatile CoH character creator could do a credible anthropomorphization thereof. 

The answer is "Yes, and quite a good one too."

You could say that the resemblance is downright... re-mare-kable. 

But just having an MMDW tribute toon wasn't enough, because I wanted an explanation for why she was human, and I wanted a good punny name, and I wanted a pony reference without just straight-up copying the character. So I named this character Suffolk Punch. 

The Suffolk Horse, also historically known as the Suffolk Punch or Suffolk Sorrel, is an English breed of draught horse. The first part of the name is from the county of Suffolk in East Anglia, and the word "Punch" is an old English word for a short stout person. It is a heavy draught horse which is always chestnut in colour, traditionally spelled "chesnut". Suffolk Punches are known as good doers, and tend to have energetic gaits. -- Wikipedia

Since Mare Do Well got her physique from Applejack, I knew I wanted a punchy-kicky type of character, so I picked "Street Justice" as a primary and let me tell you, she kicks like a horse. (Heyooo!) I chose Super Reflexes as her secondary because it was the closest representation to Pinkie Sense that I could find (plus the power icons for SR are pink, so it fits). I also made her a Brute, for reasons I'm not entirely clear on; I just feel like it better captures the character, both as the embodiment of Applejack's physique and as a two-fisted pulp brawler. 

 So using AJ as a base and an English name, you can guess where this is going. Here's her in-game bio:

(Translated from the thickest, most incomprehensible English country accent ever heard):

Nae, it's na Suffolk, it's SUCKER! Sucker Punch! Look, Oi lives on a farm wiv me Granny Kidney, me big bruvver Falcon and me li'l sister Rabbit. Wha koinda punch issa Suffolk? It makes nae bleedin' sense!

Ye've already entered th' name in th' registry? Well bleedin' CHANGE  IT, then! 

What d'ye mean "Oi can't change it?" 

Bloody bureaucrats. Foine. I'll be "Suffolk" Punch, then, an' Oi'll Suf-folk yer roight up if yeh cross me agi'n.  

I regret nothing!

V5 Loresheet: Father Dmitri

 How do I explain this other than by saying "Here's another thing I made for V5. If you don't play it won't make any sense to you"? I'll give it a try, though.

In V5, Loresheets are a special kind of background that you can buy for your character that links them into the setting of the game. For example, if your Vampire was related to someone important, or possessed special knowledge, or was connected politically, that could be represented with a Loresheet. Think of it as "More powerful than a typical background, less powerful than a Discipline."

Look, it'll make sense in a moment. 

Last week my GM concluded the Vampire: the Masquerade game which we began in the fall of 2019. It concluded because, well, my character had basically "won at unlife"; he'd accomplished everything I'd wanted him to accomplish and I felt bad for making the GM throw 404 errors by coming up with completely unexpected actions and/or out-politicking him. 

(Look, I know it sounds like a brag, but I was literally playing V:tM when my GM was in diapers and, well, I am quite wickedly creative and creatively wicked. To his credit, he never asked me to go easy on him and in fact challenged me to do my worst. Which I did.)

So when Father Dmitri Ignatiev, my character, saved the city for the umpteenth time and was in a position of unassailable power and privilege, I figured it was time to retire him to NPC status and hand my sheet to the GM so that my character could be a quest-giver and pain in the ass to future players. 

And then I thought "I'd like to make a Loresheet for him, based on my actions within the game and with the abilities reflective of who he was." So I did, and my GM approved it. 

Some of this may not make sense. I'll try to explain more when I post Dmitri's character sheet.

There is also a PDF version on Drive here. 

V5: Nagaraja (my version)

https://tinyurl.com/p3dsktr4

Let's talk about predators.

Predators and prey always exist in unequal numbers; if there are too many predators, they end up eating all of the prey, and then the predators either starve or move elsewhere in search of food. Conversely, not enough predators means that the prey species ends up outstripping its natural resources and, again, either dies off or moves on in search of more food. As in all things, there is equilibrium.

Even vampires must obey this equilibrium or perish. While they have an advantage in that they do not need to kill in order to feed, which both reduces the drain on the prey population and allows for a greater concentration of predators in a smaller area, this is tempered by the disadvantage that vampires are not apex predators and that a suitably startled, informed, and brave percentage of the human population can and do take matters into their own hands to cull the numbers of vampires.

Furthermore, legend has it that in the days of the First City, when kindred ruled over the kine as gods, that there were havens within the High House of Caine for more than 200 vampires. Given the size of cities in the early days of human civilization, this is a great concentration of predators within a small space, and it is only by the strength and will of the First Vampire that the City did not fall to decadent bloodlust.

But think for a moment: 200 vampires, all ostensibly of the third generation as Caine forbid the creation of more; the third generation, from which come the mightiest vampire clans. Don't you find it likely that at least one of those kindred would have succumbed to the pressure of ecological equilibrium and developed a taste for other kindred?

After all, Diablerie had to come from somewhere.

The entire document may be found here.

Normally, this is where I'd place my justification for why I did what I did, but I don't know if anyone ever reads that part of my posts or not. I'll just leave this blank for now, and if anyone wants to know why I made these choices, I'll gladly answer. 

V5: the Clan of Death

In the mythology of Vampire: the Masquerade, there is a clan of vampires who did not achieve their position in the usual manner of "being a descendant of one of the 13 whom Caine embraced before the Flood." Instead, they diablerized the unsuspecting Antedeluvian of another clan, thereby becoming a clan in their own right, but this heinous act marked them as the enemies of the other kindred and to survive they needed to rely upon their magical abilities, subjugated supernatural soldiers, and their own tight-knit structure to survive. To this day they are mistrusted and seen as being only out for themselves. 

Quickly now: am I talking about the Tremere, or am I talking about the Giovanni?

Unfortunately, the answer is both. The Giovanni are just a re-skin of the Tremere, with Necromancy instead of Thaumaturgy and Potence instead of Auspex. The similarity was only reinforced in the 3rd edition (aka Revised) when Necromancy was given multiple magical paths in exactly the same manner as Thaumaturgy. I always preferred the Cappadocians, the original Clan of Death introduced in Vampire: the Dark Ages, who approached the study of the afterlife from a spiritual and scholarly aspect rather than from one of power and manipulation and whose disciplines were Auspex, Fortitude, and Necromancy. 

As it turns out, the writers for this version of VtM agree with me at least in part, because they have decided to rename the clan of death Hecata. I assume this is a reference to Hecate, the three-faced Greek goddess of magic (including necromancy) due to the fact that the Hecata are an amalgamation of the Giovanni, the surviving members of the Giovanni, and all the other death-related bloodlines like the Samedi and the Nagaraja. On the one hand, this is good because it ties up a lot of loose ends in the form of errant bloodlines tied to a meta-story. On the other, it's bad and lazy because, suddenly and magically, all of these bloodlines with their formerly disparate powers and weaknesses now all have the same disciplines (Auspex, Fortitude, Oblivion) and bane (the Giovanni weakness of dealing extra damage when feeding -- which, if used properly, can become a benefit in combat). 

What's worse is that the V5 writers have decided that the shadow powers of the Lasombra come from the same netherworldly source as the Hecata's necromancy, and now canon Lasombra have Dominate, Oblivion, and Potence. So now not only do the Lasombra resemble pre-V5 Giovanni, they also have access to necromantic powers... which rather puts the lie to the Hecata's claim as the "clan of death", doesn't it? Ugh. 

By the by, this is why I made my version of the Lasombra jettison the whole "shadow power" concept. Not only was Obtenetration reductive ("We're the clan called 'The Shadow' and we have shadow powers"), but it also opened a huge can of worms by making the Hecata no longer unique and giving the power-hungry Lasombra access to too much power. 

So, with all that said, here is my version of the Clan of Death. In terms of game heresy it's worse than my Tzimisce writeup but not as bad as my non-Obtenebration Lasombra. Much like in Cult of the Blood Gods it integrates the Giovanni and Samedi back into the mother clan but, if I may say so myself, my version does it less awkwardly by ignoring a lot of the metaplot-backstory baggage which caused all the problems in the first place. This also nicely explains how and why the Cappadocians have managed to get along without the Camarilla: they are effectively a sect in their own right, and much like the Banu Haquim of previous editions* they are too useful and too powerful to alienate but too insular and too disturbing to be kept close. 

Also, for those who are wondering about the Nagaraja, I left them out because I think they're too interesting to be a mere bloodline. I'm going to tweak their concept (and probably their disciplines) to see if I can't come up with a clan that has a distinct flavor of India and Central Asia. 

* I am NOT a fan of the Assassin Clan joining the Camarilla. I preferred them as NPCs who did awful things for payment in large quantities of vitae, not the Cam's new enforcement branch. 

Unknown Armies: Hateboxing

Author's Note:  Holy crap, I can't believe I found this. I wrote it in another lifetime, and the computer where I kept it had a fatal hard drive crash [this was WELL before Google Documents existed], and the mailing list it was on went defunct. Praise be to the Internet Archive Project and the Wayback Machine! And let's all enjoy the irony of being able to recover a forgotten story which starts with the phrase "Because sometimes, you just want to forget."

Because sometimes, you just want to forget...

I've lost track of how much money I've spent trying to deal with the shit I've seen. It's been ten years since Poughkeepsie, and I still can't eat spaghetti. Sometimes I wake up screaming, the taste of blood thick in my mouth like tomato sauce.

Did I mention I'm Italian? Shit. I can't even eat Sunday dinner with my mama without having shakes.

Anyway. I see an ad in the paper one day, says Eliminate harmful dreams and memories using only common household tools, $100 for initial session and startup kit. Address is some third-floor walk-up in Queens. I figure, what the hell, worth a look, right? Considering how much I've flushed on goddamn therapy, a hundred is just another sheet of toilet paper at this rate.

So I get over there, find the brownstone's been converted to some kinda artists' commune. The entire place reeks, but its not weed, it's machine oil. They're all industrial types, making statues outta scrap metal with power tools. And this godawful German shit is playing, like they're hammering a goat on an anvil or something.

I manage to make it upstairs without getting tetanus, find apartment 33, bang on the door. This little tweedy guy opens it, and I swear to God he can't be more than twenty-five but he's dressed like my goddamn grandfather, with the suede patches on his jacket and a thick black tie and a pair of birth-control glasses like they had in the fifties. Except, of course, he's listening to the anvil-fuck chorus or whatever.

So he introduces himself as Trent, has me sit, makes me coffee. Now let me tell you, guys like this I expect to be twitchy as chihuahuas, but this bastard was relaxed. Smooth, even, like he had a 38D blonde girlfriend tied up in his bedroom.

So I drink his almond-flavored coffee and we talk for a bit. No, not about my problems, he doesn't give a shit about those. He asks to see my hands, seems pleased to see that I have callouses. He asks me if I've ever worked with machines before, and I say yeah, I tune my car's engine, change the oil, yadda yadda. He smiles this freaky-calm smile and says good, you have what it takes to build a hatebox.

About this time I think maybe, just maybe, I've stumbled into a fetish shop by mistake, and start to get up. No no, he says, I know what you're thinking, and it's not like that. He says, You know that sense of peace and satisfaction you get when you tune your car? and I say Yeah. So he says, Hateboxing is like that, but instead of working on a car, you're building a box to hold your emotions. Doesn't have to be hate, can be pain or fear or whatever, but he thinks hateboxing sounds best.

So I go, Okay, I sorta get you, but I've been working on my car for ten years, and it hasn't helped me sleep any better. He says, The trick is in the training. He points to a milk crate full of greasy parts and says, that's going to be your hatebox, and I'm going to help you build the frame.

There are rules to hateboxing, he says as he's taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves. The first rule, he says, is that we can't use any tools that use electricity or hydraulics, it's all gotta be hand power. It's the sweat and effort, he says.

The second rule is that it's gotta be metal and wood. No plastic.

The third rule is that when I'm hateboxing, I can't think of the box. I have to think about the memory I want to get rid of. Because we aren't really trying to build anything, it's just something for our hands to do so that our minds can fall into, get this, a meditative state.

So I say, Wait a goddamn minute. This is meditation? Like clearing the mind, chanting, all that happy horseshit?

He says, Close. Chanting is for mystics, this is for practical people like him and me. This is Transcendental Mechanization. And he gives me that freaky calm smile.

So what the hell, I think, and he and I, we start the hatebox, there on his apartment floor. I dunno how long we work at it, because the time just seems to slip away. When we're done, it's dark outside, and I've got this cubic-foot box that looks like a reject from a high school metal shop. but for the first time in my life I don't feel like there's something breathing rotten anchovies down the back of my neck.

He says, That's your hatebox. Put all your negative emotions in it. Build on it, add stuff to it, expand on it. Then he gives me a strange look and says, Got a garage?

Got a garage? I live in fuckin' Brooklyn.

You'll need one, he says. And then I get this weird idea that maybe this entire building is his hatebox. And then I really fucking want to leave right then.

Whatever, I say. So I ask how much I owe, and he says, A hundred bucks for the materials. And any time I need more, I can come see him.

So, yeah. Anyway, I'm gonna go home, and work on this fucking thing, and maybe when I'm done I'm gonna have a big bowl of spaghetti.

-----------------

Game Rules
It's mechanomancy, only without the realization that something is being built. If you're a rules freak, I suppose you could say that a hateboxer is building a device that acts as a psychoanalyst and helps to remove failed notches in accordance with the madness rules. But really, the entire point of hateboxing is turning the charging structure of mechanomancy into a tool for eliminating memories.

(For some strange reason, I have an image of Dexter, from the Dexter's Lab cartoon, and his continuous tightening of the same nut-and-bolt assembly, as a kind of hateboxing.)

Trent assumes that most hateboxers will break taboo enough times to keep anything truly scary from being built. But eventually, a hateboxer will find a way to infuse his box with a major charge. The results of a Major-Effect Clockwork, infused with negative emotions, should be as spectacular as they are destructive.

-----------------

Here are some follow-up notes and ideas, based off the feedback I received:

1) "I keep seeing a man working on his artificial leg. Half way through, he forgets how he lost his leg, tears apart the artificial leg, remembers, and begins to work again."

2) "What happens to the trapped memories? Can those failed notches be slapped around random if, say, the box is lobbed like a grenade? Or what happens if little Jimmy finds Grandma Pandora's little hopechest and, thinking there's pirate treasure inside, opens the lid? Does little Jimmy get a headful of bad memories and failed notches?Could be a good plot hook and trigger event."

3) "I saw the word 'hopechest' and immediately thought of a hatebox usedfor the opposite of its intended purpose.

"Imagine, say, an undercover cop. He's infiltrated a gang of real bastards, and found out he's just not enough of a bastard himself to keep his cover for long. One day when he's feeling superstitious, he remembers Trent, and remembers him saying you can store any emotion in a hatebox. So he builds one to store everything that's good and decent in him.

"It worked like a charm, and now this guy is the ultimate bastard, Hardened all the way, so extreme he manages to neatly fill the requirements for one of the nastier archetypes. And he's right in the PC's backyard, learning just enough about the Occult Underground to become a threat for everyone involved.

"Learning about the hopechest and making him into a good guy again seems like a good idea for a few adventures - it would be the best option for dealing with him, since direct combat would result in a very high body count."

4) [follow-up to #4] 

"Nice thought... when all his good memories return, he realizes how far down he's fallen, and eats his gun in grief.

"You did it."

About that IN/VtM Crossover...

Like I mentioned in my recent State of the Erin Report, I'm working on converting In Nomine to V5 mechanics. This rather necessitates some changes in the setting as, for example, both settings have vampires and the existence of Lilith (Adam's first wife, according to Jewish tradition) but there's disagreement on how they interact: in In Nomine, Lilith is a powerful Princess of Hell who creates demons (the Lilim) for other Princes, and vampires are soldiers of Hell who sacrifice their souls via a dark ritual for immortality and power here on Earth; meanwhile in Vampire:the Masquerade, vampirism is the blood curse God lay upon Caine for murdering Abel, and all other vampires descend from him... except there's some lore which claims that no, actually Lilith may have been the first vampire, and she turned Caine into one and taught him how to use those powers, only to have him betray her in a turn of cosmic irony.

(Honestly, if you think all this is complicated, do not -- I repeat, DO NOT -- research angelology. You will find so many contradictions that it will drive you mad.)

So I wanted a way to tie In Nomine into Vampire: the Masquerade, and doing all that requires a lot of work and I'm nowhere near done with it. However, in the interim I can give you a taste of something related.

This is one of the things which I wrote for my very first IN-hacked-to-VtM campaign as a way to tie the two games together thematically. I wrote this over 20 years ago (!), and it shows. I hadn't been writing for very long at that point, and... well... I had good intentions, but lacked the skill. It's not as shuddersome as a journal full of teenage poetry, but I look at it now and go "Oh, I should have done this, and this, and this. I could have done it so much better."

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, even though it likely won't make total sense to anyone who doesn't know both games.

The Third Thing

She traveled east across the barren wastes. he was hungry, but she did not cry out. She was thirsty, but her pace did not waver. She was cold in her nakedness, but did not shiver. For to do these things would be to admit weakness, and she was a prideful and vain creature.

She was Lilith, the first woman, and she was dying.

Not from exposure, or from hunger, or even from thirst, but from the emptiness of her soul; a great, aching emptiness that tore at her spirit like the rocks at her feet. Paradise had been hers, and she had left it on principle, simultaneously abandoning it and God. It was that abandonment which ate at her, made doubly painful by the knowledge that, if given the choice, she would do it again. Her pride demanded no less.

And so, she hated. It was an easy enough thing to do, a cold comfort of the mind to accompany the cold winds of the eastern wastes. She hated Adam for his superiority; hated Eve for being her replacement. But greatest of all was the hate she harbored for God: for allowing Adam to treat her so, for acquiescing to his demands for a new mate, and worst of all, for not stopping her from leaving.

She hated herself, too, but would not admit it. And that was why she was dying.

"Lilith." The voice seemed to both surround her and tickle her ear with its warm breath. She looked to see who had addressed her, naked and alone in the cold wastes of Nod. She tried to speak, but her mouth was dry and her throat was parched, and no sound could escape her cracked lips.

"Lilith." The voice came again, this time from a point in front of her. And as she watched, an angel of the Lord appeared before her in all its glory: his hair black and luxurious, his eyes as blue as the rivers that ran through Eden, garbed in a shimmering robe of a green more vibrant than the foliage of the Garden. He was barefoot, and where he walked grass grew, the earth turning fertile in each footprint. His wings sparkled like morning dew, and droplets fell from the tips of his feathers into small pools of the purest water. He smiled at her, and in that smile Lilith saw a radiance that rivaled the sun itself. He held out his hands to her, and cupped them, and they were filled with cool water. "Drink," he asked of her.

She hesitated. "Drink," he said again, "that I might speak with you." And so she drank from his hands, and the water cooled her throat and eased her thirst, and did not diminish from his hands until she had drunk her fill.

"What is your name?" she demanded.

"I am but a servant of my Lord, and so, you may call me Eli." the angel responded. "I am here because the Lord has not forgotten you, nor has He rejected you. I have come to bring you succor and peace." And Eli gestured about him, for a fertile oasis had blossomed from his feet.

Lilith shook her head fiercely. "I do not need your mercy, Eli. Neither do I need God’s, for He saw fit to cast me out of Eden when I chose not to be a slave to my husband."

Eli clucked softly. "Lilith, Lilith… you left of your own accord. The Lord did not cast you out, nor did He require such an act on your part. He simply allowed you to leave. The two are not synonymous." He shook his head and turned to regard the lake that was forming behind him. "That is something you will learn, given time." He turned back to her. "And I am here to make sure that you have that time, Lilith. It is a very important lesson. You could say it’s the most important lesson in the world." Eli smiled at her then, and within that smile was both joy and pain. "And when you have learned it, you will teach it to another."

Lilith blinked at him, uncomprehending. "But that is a matter for another time," the angel continued. "For now, your survival is most important. Behold, I have created a home for you: food to eat, water to drink, shelter from the elements. Your life will not be as easy as it was in the Garden, but it will be long and full. You will need to learn many things if you are to survive. Three of them I teach to you now."

"First, you need clothing if you are to keep warm." With that, Eli removed his robe and placed it upon Lilith. The green clothing shimmered, and shifted, and wrapped about her so perfectly that she could no longer tell where she ended and the clothing began. "Second, know that you are never without the Grace of God. If you were, you would have died here today." Then he fell silent.

"And what is the third thing?" she demanded, her voice bitter, her eyes defiant. "I did not ask for your charity or for your counsel. Tell me this, angel, that I might be done with you and left in peace again!"

"The third thing," Eli said, smiling as he faded away, "is that you owe me a… we shall call it a favor for all this. And one day, I will come to collect it in full. So be not proud and cast away what I have given you, for you will one day repay my service, measure for measure." He winked at her. "So you might as well make use of it."

And Lilith pondered this, by the shores of the newly-made sea.

Insalubrious Basterds

More Vampire: the Masquerade nerdery.

As you may have noticed. we fans of role-playing are creative, passionate, and impatient. This means that when a new version of an RPG comes out and doesn't update a thing we like, then we will take it into own hands to make that thing ourselves so that we can have it for our game.

So just like I did with the Tzimisce, here are the Salubri for V5.

https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Salubri

A few notes:

• The clan bane and compulsion were crafted by my GM Adrian Rook, who I think got the ideas from various sources that weren't quite what either of us wanted, so we made a delicious jambalaya out of them to get what we wanted. 
• The same goes for Valeran; the list of powers and their levels were largely taken from someone else's attempt t make a V5 version but, oddly, they kept all the V20 mechanics which made me think it was just cut and paste from that edition. So honestly, I did more work converting them to V5 than the other person did. 
• Veterans of previous versions will note that this is a combination of the Healer's Path (Obeah) and the Warrior's Path (Valeran). I'm okay with this, because V5 already has 2-3 powers per level in all the other Disciplines and the writers apparently want to condense and consolidate the amount of old KNDs into a more manageable number. 
• Also, in my opinion, Valeran sounds better than Obeah. I don't think Valeran is itself a word; it's probably a derivation of vale, the Latin word for "farewell", because the power is about "saying goodbye to evil". Another possibility is that it is rooted in the Latin valeō, which means "I am strong / I am healthy / I have worth" and also means in New Latin "I leave, I go away" which brings us right back to farewell but in a more badass way. Please compare that to the word Obeah, which is "a system of spiritual and healing practices developed among enslaved West Africans in the West Indies" -- so basically, a religion. Yeah, let's not go and compare someone's religion with a supernatural power of a dead thing, thanks. 
• Also, fun fact: salubrious is a Latin word which means "wholesome, healthful, promoting health or well-being" which means that they already have the healing thing covered in their name and don't need a Discipline with another name for it as well. 

So, yeah. That's stuff you know now. 

The Vicissitudes of V5

Buy the PDF here and I get a few bucks back!

OK, time for some nerdiness again.

I was asked to join an online game of Vampire: the Masquerade recently. Here's the short version of events:

1. Someone who knows my work at OBS contacted me on Facebook looking for information. 
2. During the process of informing him, I found out he lives in Orlando. 
3. I asked him if had been at Orlando Pride. 
4. He said no, and regretted not being there, because if he had been he'd have brought a Dungeons & Dragons book for me to sign. 
5. Puzzled, I asked him "Why D&D"? 
6. He said "Because I read your blog and I know you're into roleplaying games."
7. Then he mentioned he was currently running a Vampire game over Discord. 
8. This promptly kicked over my geek box as I have a long and well-documented love for the original game (not that new Requiem crap) and I mentioned to him that back in the day my Werewolf tribal name (long story there) would have been "Owns-All-the-Books."
9. I then became a geek resource for him as he asked me for details about the game setting as I literally got in on the ground floor with it back in 1991 and stayed with until White Wolf Studios got tired of making money and ended their entire game line in 2004. (They came to their senses in 2011 and began releasing 20 year anniversary editions of the games, which did well, and now Modiphius is publishing the 5th edition, aka V5. 
• In case you were curious, that numbering goes 1e, 2e, VRev (3), V20 (4) and V5. 
10. I was lonely and bored on Halloween because it's supposed to be a spooky event and I had nothing spooky going on, so I asked if I could join his game and he gave an emphatic "Yes!"

So I have a lot to say about V5, but at this moment I don't have enough experience with it to give it a proper review. I'll hit the highlights with a more in-depth review later. 

• The useless "Appearance" attribute is gone and is replaced with Composure, which is basically a stat for self-control and remaining calm under pressure. 
• The "Perception" attribute has become a skill under a different name (Insight) and replaced with Resolve, which is a mental toughness. Pair it with Composure and that's your Willpower rating. 
• Blood Pool is gone and replaced with an abstract Hunger mechanic which is nifty but difficult to explain. The short version is that the "leaky gas tank" type vampire is gone and with a few bad rolls you could end up really hungry really quickly. The best way to explain it is to imagine D&D but instead of Hit Points you rolled a Fortitude save each time you were hit to determine if you were knocked out or not. 
• Willpower is a wound track, meaning that you can take mental damage from social attacks like intimidation, frustration, humiliation, etc. 
• Speaking of wound tracks, there's no such thing as wound penalties any more. I'm not sure how I feel about this but there hasn't been much combat in this game so far. Hopefully more on this later?
• In general, the mechanics have been.... re-vamped (hah!)... and overall I like it. 

There is, however, one tragic oversight. You see, while the core rulebook included the obligatory 7 Camarilla clans plus the Caitiff, and other books included independent clans like the Banu Haqim (née Assamites) and the preciously-renamed Ministry (née Followers of Set) and even the "Surprise! We're part of the Camarilla now!" Lasombra (the Sabbat has kinda... gone away. I haven't yet read all the fluff because honestly, there's a lot of it and I'm busy, but I'm cool with this because I thought the Sabbat was rather dumb) and whatever the Clan of Death is calling themselves these night (Hecata, actually, though I'm not clear on why).... 

... wow, that was a long sentence...

... I found myself incensed because one of my favorite clans was not represented. They had the gall to update the Setites but not the Tzimisce, the clan of Dracula? FILTHY PEASANTS! 

[Rage! Frenzy! Excessive scene-chewing!]

https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Tzimisce

And so, in cooperation with Adrian, my GM, I bring you this V5 version of the Fiends. It will of course be eventually eclipsed by canon, but who knows when that will be? Until then, you are of course most welcome to use mine. 

I translated the discipline into V5 as best I could, with Adrian making sure the terminology was correct. He and I collaborated on the clan weakness (now called a Bane) and their corresponding Compulsion. 

Oh right, before I go, a quick explanation:  V5 seems to be trying to do away with what I call KND Syndrome. KND stands for Kewl New Discipline, and anyone who played in previous versions of Vampire knows exactly what I mean by that even if they haven't heard the term before now. And so in an effort to reduce KND, the writers have been trying to consolidate the disparate clan abilities into as few disciplines as possible. For example, the old Assamite discipline of Quietus has been subsumed into equal parts Obfuscate and Blood Sorcery (née Thaumaturgy, and I don't know why they changed that name); the Malkavian discipline of Dementation has been folded into Dominate; etc. 

So when it came time to write up Vicissitude, I folded it into Protean (both powers are about changing shape, after all) and I did it three ways to give flexibility to GMs:

1. I made it a 3-power system so that it became a variant fork of Protean;
2. I made it a traditional 5-power system so that people who wanted all of the old powers Vicissitude could get them;
3. and then I just added some more details, removed the amalgam prerequisites, and turned it into its own discipline. 

Yes, this way means that Gangrel can get access to what was once the province of only the Fiends, but I'm okay with that, because first of all they're both clans of shapechangers and it's thematically appropriate, and second because I'm tired (and I've been tired for a long time) of people who play a clan just to get access to their unique power. This way, only the people who want to play the Tzimisce will choose to play them.

Also, it gives the Fiends access to more nifty powers too, which is always acceptable in my book. 

In closing:

http://www.riotamot.com/vampire/readArchive.php?IssueNo=206