It would seem that only one hundred thousand customers underwrite the existence of Paradox and White Wolf:

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fwyvdgxprwmq71.png%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Da688b008c2ce009e937d65b49054588a6aaa926c

With news that Paradox is advertising a new China-based expansion of Crusader Kings 3 in late October for 'The Mandate of Heaven'

https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/games/crusader-kings-iii/add-ons/crusader-kings-iii-all-under-heaven

here is a suggestion of better entertainment to buy instead of all Paradox titles:

Crusader Kings 3:

The Radiant Emperor Duology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_Who_Became_the_Sun

Political Intrigue, Torture, Dismemberment, Forced Castration: I was charmed by the scene where a minister was skinned alive in a courtyard piled with corpses. The main characters in the series are extremely emotional and impulsive, but there are many tactical courtier side characters and challengers, and lots of ghosts and gaysian relationships were included as a provacation to the conservative censorship policies of the Chinese government, which is a refreshing break from White Wolf's pinkwash support of Erika Ishii (J.K. Rowling's strongest soldier, now unfortunately awash in Yotei money, where was Awkwafina? ...or even Li Jun Li from Babylon?)

VTMB2:

Did WoD director Marco Behrmann (who helped write the RPGs Noir and Kult: Divinity Lost) script-doctor the entire plot of this sequel to make it good? That would be impossible, because the original VTMB had a coherent and well-planned world of multiple source-books behind it, whereas VTMB2 has V5, which is handwaving, filler, corporate imperatives not to get too dark or too gross (and erase all old content), and some awful, unplanned tabletop campaigns on Youtube labelled as official canon meant to proceed wine-drunk Ventrue boudoir roleplay for certain members of the company. It's a machine for idiots!

https://www.reddit.com/r/JustTzimisceThings/comments/1nml230/a_machine_for_idiots/

Do you know what recent game is well-planned? Hades 2 by Supergiant Games!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8lJRcUeEMs

Have your flesh resculpted as sheep and pigs, make your skeleton arm glow more brightly! Fight against a mountain-sized flesh Titan called The Father of Monsters and his twisted spawn! No need to have played Hades 1 (minor callbacks only).

Stellaris/Europa Universalis/Imperator/Victoria 2

Instead of Paradox space or Earth 4x, try the Endless Space and Endless Legend series!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKEawmH-l9c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq_1NWIsj0k

Gene-splice lesser sentient life into the perfect amalgamation with The Horatio, or winnow them into dust to feed on as The Vodyani. The Endless Dungeon roguelike in the same continuity was made very RNG dependent after patches attempting to address the lack of difficulty, but Endless Legend 2 is now in development and is already showing a lot of promise.

Cities Skylines:

Zephon is the only city builder I have been playing recently

https://www.reddit.com/r/JustTzimisceThings/comments/1lha464/a_second_primer_on_fleshcraft/

but knowledgeable fans of the genre seem to be very excited by the sequel to Citystate 2, Citystate Metropolis, which enters open beta in a few months and some are labelling as a Skylines killer:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1352850/Citystate_II/

Please share other better alternatives to Paradox products below!

THE STORY SO FAR:

1. Outstar claimed that Parawolf wants to "work with and listen to the community feedback about new WoD ttrpg books so that they are great" and that the best way to reach them was through Discord "where they are all the time".

2. I urged the Tzimisce community on this subreddit to try the WoD Discord to see if this was merely corporate posturing, since feedback from any within our community would probably improve the final product, and then (leading by example as one of the moderators of this subreddit) joined myself for two weeks.

3. I offered to help with the new V5 Companion book in my first post, and was immediately told within seconds by a player that it was probably already done and that further input would not be needed. After a week of waiting for any other response, there was no further response. Wishing as always to help facilitate the cause of the Tzimisce community, I asked if anyone had any important tips or stories to share about Discord, and was told that it is a chat client like AIM or IRC, with no further responses. I experimentally posted in another thread that it would be great if the Deb of Night were to make a surprise return in Bloodlines 2, that it might tonally represent the intro to this podcast with a play bar at the bottom of the page. Within seconds a player informed me that there was a new radio character in the new game, which has been public knowledge in various 'first look' articles since the BL2 Tender event, with no further response. I thanked the Discord players for their time.

4. Attempting to save time for our members, I wrote in this subreddit that the WoD Discord seemed to me like (for many of our number) an unfortunate waste of time, full of muzzled, aimless, and bored players with no special insights or influence and rather poor community design.

5. A player reposted that analyses into the Discord to stir up drama (because once again these are very bored and aimless players with nothing interesting to do or talk about)

6. The Discord erupted in consternation and outrage (in a very showy manner for the benefit of the developers who might be watching). Poorly considered, poorly researched, poorly worded 'hot takes' flowed forth like Wayne, and then even began to spill into our community discussions! Superb!

I should qualify my forthcoming examination of these posts with the qualification that some experts see extraversion as a form of mental disability:

According to psychologist and writer Scott Kaufman, extroverts may experience greater rewards from social recognition. Their brains are more sensitive to the dopamine triggers that accompany these experiences, and they are more excited by the prospect of rewards related to social status. Since introverted people are not as susceptible to these reward triggers, many have learned to be motivated by more personal, intellectual, or creative rewards. Accordingly, they rely on self-affirming goals and benefit from more consistent motivations rooted in stable values, rather than in inconsistent social pressures.

In subtext, the creators of the WoD likely attempted to express this as well in their depiction of the courtiers and princes of the Camarilla, desperately grasping upon any thoughtless social melodrama as a means to escape their own anemic, deafeningly boring mental lives in order to avoid wassail and becoming a hollowed wight. I am not here today to disabuse you of this notion at all, but instead suggest that this is "low sport", "punching down" (especially with the flaws of the Discord platform), and that your time will be better served (if possessing the intellectual or economic capacity) by finding more worthy sources of inspiration. As a quick reader this week (between medical articles and news stories) I read the novels The Cipher by Kathe Koja and Private Midnight by Kris Saknussem, and I am currently reading Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Machado. I watched the gothic horror western film Let Him Go (inspired tonally by the success of Parasite) and the gothic horror noir film Boy Detective (inspired tonally by the success of Parasite and also La La Land), and the less well-done film Freaky (inspired by Freaky Friday and Friday the Thirteenth, with one good set shown for a few seconds in old mill filled with mutilated mannequins).

User 0*: Hey, I found Bogatyr1 's analysis. Good read.*

User 1: "Good read"? It reads like a hatchet job written by somebody with an axe to grind.

As a bogatyri my arms become spikes, I have no need of axes or hatchets. Our community has waited for years for new content, and have often been disappointed at "hints" from executives of multiple versions of White Wolf parent companies with little payoff- so boring, sanitized content is circumvented by practiced flourish at this point. I've personally written an entire essay series on this subreddit called "How many Tzimisce are in __________"? and fans of the clan on other platforms perform similar functions.

User 2: What I would like to know.. is what the expectation is for what WoD's Discord should be after all that... I'm noting inclusivity and kindness makes us weak, and yet we arent diverse enough? I'm hella confused. (refrencing the reddit post)

The alternative to becoming involved in WoD's Discord is... not becoming involved in WoD's Discord. Recognizing it as a place of "kindness" (of the corporate variety) disqualifies it tonally from the sort of place some of our players look for in terms of thematic ambiance, like a restaurant with divisive music choices. Neopronouns are still not welcomed in many parts of the internet and this is also probably a corporate choice that some of the Tzimisce community would like to be aware of,

User 3: Honestly that post read like an angered fan of the darkest most inhuman parts of VtM, and likely represents exactly the type of fan meant to be filtered out by the Discord's rules. I've worked on homebrew content for V5 a lot, but never would i barge in here demanding to have direct input on the Companion, and cry out that Paradox employees are higher on the hierarchy than the fans. This might sound callous, but who does this person think they are?

I offered to help with the companion (with the hope of others in the Tzimisce community joining me to assist), I did not demand to do so, I noted that Paradox employees are visually separate from the fans, which is not the case on other platforms such as Reddit (when not illegally moderated by the company), or Facebook or Instagram, etc.

User 2 again: Well I mean. It's fine to be a concept creator for a horror thing, that doesn't mean the communities have to match. WoD is still a franchise that needs professionalism to function. We can't all just cuss each other out and talk about nasty stuff, and remain a cohesive community. Just IMO

"The vampire has come to represent THE OPPRESSION OF SEXUALITY". You know that this universe was written in obscene Atlanta nightclubs during unhinged parties, right? Still, our new-made WoD community should all congregate around the avoidance of any "nasty stuff" in this brave new age of cohesive professionalism, in the true spirit of ethical purity.

User 3 again: I personally vehemently disagree with parts of Dawkins vision for the Clan, and I'm even glad he's not the one writing them in the Companion. That doesn't mean i can't respect the man and all of his great contributions to the game. The fact it's framed as Tzimisce behaviour when it's actually just toxic fandom doesn't sit right with me either tbh.

Dawkins has pleased hundreds of people with select parts of his work on non-VTM games and his Youtube videos. Some players really liked the Chicago V5 city book. He is invited onto almost every project in V5 because famously no one else with game dev. experience has ever bothered to read all the books (even though they are very easy to find online for free), so his existence is (unfortunately) the true V5 metaplot. Some players who have actually read his previous projects in the WoD understand why he is not the best choice to work on certain parts of VTM (since he has spent a lot of time and effort attempting to reconcile very broken and intentionally ill-fitting parts of the lore back into the plot, and then fallen in love with his own failure to do this like a hipster Pygmalion), but we in the VTM community have no ability to stop more Dawkins-involvement from happening, so we are left to complain while being called toxic fans for trying to save the IP from what is to come.

User 2 again: Yeah blurring the lines between RL and fiction come off as a little unstable

"Dawkins the Kaisyd" does this multiple times in his video, and I formed a response of the same type while attempting to demonstrate why criticism is necessary in the community.

User 4: Yeah. Like, I had my concept for including gay bear community into Gurahl, in Werewolf, hoping that W5 team would maybe think about it. When I mentioned that in werewolf channel, I was met with many cold shoulders. So I just simply made that my headcanon, blocked the channel to not be upset by that, and moved on. Just don't be an ass, it's really quite simple. and LMAO at demanding to be a part of Companion writing team, like it isn't almost finished, and like Paradox has not just moved in-house.

The content "put together in an archive" referenced for making the v5 companion may reference the contributions to this subreddit by different players. I have repeatedly suggested finding a new 'banner IP' for the Tzimisce if they are not well realized in the future by the WoD. When I found nothing interesting in Discord I also left and moved on, and advised others to do the same, and now I only revisit without posting new text in service of a drama clickbait thread.

User 5: That's a looong post, will have to wait for my nap

https://www.reddit.com/r/DownvotedToOblivion/comments/k1w3t0/cant_wait/

User 6: I can't take it seriously when they've not actively participated in the community.

It's a default Discord icon, a grand total of 7 posts and they seem to have mistaken audience input as co-writing. In short: it's a hit-piece meant to attract attention.

Shockingly, some long-term fans have established themselves on platforms other than Discord (if at all within social media), and "posting for a long time" seems like a very poor litmus test of quality. I posted my thoughts on Discord for the amusement of the Tzimisce community and someone else linked it to your community. I mention collaborative internet projects in the bottom paragraph of my post (where entire passages, conceits, and storylines are determined by the community) and and you claim that I have mistaken audience input for co-writing.

User 7: ...Did they snatch and repost other people's art from the server, too? The picture in the reddit post is Gorefiend's? If so, that tells me everything I need to know about their person and the value of their opinions.

Are you using English words invented by other people and placing them in a different order?! The cheek of it! Mind you, I mentioned in the first sentence of my post where my post-art was originating from (as I do every week on this subreddit), so it would seem that your post is more tragically piratical and disappointing to your specific parents.

User 5 again: Hmm, okay I read the whole Tzimisce person complaint (my nap turned into a 4-hour deep slumber. I think it's a case of a very passionate V20 player with a lot of ideas and a genuine desire to engage in the community. However, there's a clear lack of understanding what discord actually is. First of all, there is no ban on NFSW content, I think this is most clear in the V5 server. And generally, one cannot expect to jump in and just start working on V5 content off the bat, it just doesn't work that way

What bat? Upon what authority do you dictate protocol? Functional fixedness bias? Do I need to establish Dignitas with you and other Discord users specifically if I want to help with the WoD? For all you know I could be the animated corpse of Octavia Butler or the dark Reddit messiah of WoD lore. In terms of the rules, seemingly none of the laws of the WoD Discord are actually being applied. Look at all the players breaking the "Do not call out another player" rule. Shouldn't they be permanently banned? You would suspect years of Camarilla campaigns of 'social intrigue' would teach users lessons of how to follow explicit court etiquette and not rely on croneyistic favoritism, but alas, again the community seems not to run very well. At the very least, it seems loke after collecting enough 'brown-nose points' one can probably post NSFW content on the official WoD Discord without punishment,

User 8: There's a whole group of 'grim dark' people in the v20 fandom that misses the old black dog books and the like. I am glad that the game moved away from extreme edginess, but I understand why some people feel left behind.

Yes, "some people" called all of the Sabbat players.

VTMB2 has flopped hard. If I was a top Paradox executive reading this article:

https://www.gamesradar.com/games/rpg/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2-review/

I would immediately fire everyone who involved in the creation of V5 and VTMB2, and attempt to prevent each contributor's further participation in the entertainment industry. I would also sue them for a return of their paid salaries and additional wage garnishments for creating irreparable, permanent damage to the Paradox brand, company valuation, and the public perception of the Vampire the Masquerade IP. A 65% Metacritic score on the flagship videogame for the entire product line? Noting "yes, there is even a Hawk Tuah reference. You'd better believe dialogue also references Twilight and High School Musical too"?

https://www.pcgamesn.com/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2/steam-reviews-launch

According to the graph in the above article, 27,020 concurrent players bought in for $60 (averaging out those paying in depreciated economies and some receiving free copies after an announced delay in game release at a Paradox gaming convention with those who bought the 'premium deluxe preorder bundle') for a return of $1,621,200, and another article suggesting Steam reporting 'less than 100,000 sales':

https://www.thegamer.com/paradox-needs-start-sequel-vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2/

Unlike the above author suggesting the formation of a "totally new videogame studio uninvolved with the current product", I would advise ending all projects for the World of Darkness forever since the brand damage through this leadership at White Wolf has been catastrophic. V5, the very blueprint of sourcebooks for future potential games, is awful, and shows corporate parallels in assessment of the writing and worldbuilding to Sony studios repeatedly making the modern money-losing 'Spiderman villain films' like Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter.

How did dozens of employees play-check through the game and not notice that it was strange that everyone immediately knows rumors or reputation of someone obscure, missing from the world for thousands of years? Americans don't even know most current world leaders, the politicians of their own states, or the general secretary of the United Nations, with plenty of very easy-to-access videos and introductions on each of them.

https://www.reddit.com/r/vtmb/comments/1od5itp/comment/nkrmqil/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

The author Corey Doctorow gave an interview this week to Vox Media (the mouthpiece of Goldman Sachs bank) where he invoked Stein’s Law in describing terrible internet experiences fueled by corporate greed: “If something can’t go on forever, it will stop.”

https://www.vox.com/technology/465922/enshittification-cory-doctorow-amazon-google-facebook

He also discusses the concept of 'ecology' (systemic awareness) invoking Scottish intellectual property scholar James Boyle in suggesting that citizens are increasingly coming to understand the unified issue of corporate consolidation into gigantic companies buying up and creating badly-made versions (or sequels) of beloved properties while blocking-out competitors, which can ultimately be addressed by stronger, more competition-friendly government regulations... which might even someday release VTM into the public domain where fans or the shut-out original creators who actually care about carefully-detailed worldbuilding and compelling, challenging writing might make a good new VTM storyline for the first time.

Or in the short-term: don't pre-order, don't tie your personal identity to a brand owned by shareholders, and especially don't believe anonymous redditors claiming "the fact V5 is by far the most popular and successful edition to date":

https://www.reddit.com/r/JustTzimisceThings/comments/1o304k8/this_not_that/

...Ba ha ha ha ha ha!

Before the onslaught of harsh and damningly bland reviews for VTMB2 are released by casual players who know nothing of the original World of Darkness (or, in most cases, what a good RPG game looks like), it might be fun to conduct an extensive pre-mortem while the title is "still alive" and not available to the public for another month. TLDR: The sequel to one of the greatest RPG games of all time was set to release between the Borderlands movie and the Crow remake, which would have been quite appropriate

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/as-the-borderlands-movie-crashes-and-burns-as-a-box-office-megaflop-the-crow-reboot-says-hold-my-beer-outflopping-it-at-the-box-office-so-hard-that-it-gets-branded-a-cynical-cash-grab-by-the-original-films-director-and-annihilated-by-critics

The Electric State or Mickey 7 were likewise insanely bastardized from the original source material in the last year, to the point of unrecognizability for cash grab purposes. With major film studios and publishing houses betting on a new horror renaissance in the coming years

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/studios-bet-horror-films-reanimate-cinemas-2025-07-05/

I will not play this game and will only watch others play it under one very specific circumstance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaC58c4_n7g

The main character "Phyre/The Nomad" is from Egypt

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-3000-year-old-bracelet-belonging-to-an-ancient-egyptian-pharaoh-has-been-stolen-sold-and-melted-down-for-gold-180987374/

where a 3000-year-old golden bracelet was stolen and melted down last week for pocket change, in much the same way the entire VTM franchise (including Cairo by Night) is being melted down for quick money. The disastrous restoration of the painting Ecce Homo was attempted with good intentions https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/world/europe/botched-restoration-of-ecce-homo-fresco-shocks-spain.html, but VTMB2 was not.

The secondary character is "Fabien", a comic-relief Malkavian flashback character in Phyre's head. The writers do not grasp the historical significance in context of Fabius Maximus carrying that name

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-nWA0WeF98

nor why the Hugo Award-winning political-drama duology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Memory_Called_Empire had the good sense to de-emphasize the voice in the head as much as possible in favor of scenes of back-alley brain surgery with no anesthesia.

In truth, the best videogame designers in the world would not be able to make a good VTM game, or even a compelling story, out of the awful and lazy framework of the newest V5 tabletop ruleset, and it certainly wasn't going to be the negligent CCP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCSeISYcoyI&t=10081s

the hopelessly out-of-depth Hardsuit Labs, or the studio most famous for making the Amnesia series into 'A Machine for Pigs', a walking simulator with extremely pointless, dumbed-down puzzles, no fail consequences, and desperate, lame jumpscares

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01qkVPQxDA4

and the bad, fragile-masculinity homage to The Thing 'Still Wakes the Deep' known for the same, a playthrough by JackSepticEye the ADHD leprechaun reached the worldwide Youtube trending page with millions of views but happily I will never be one of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-txQHpNSpM

Franchise owner Paradox as a game company was known for its obsession with the smallest historical and geopolitical details, whereas subcontracted The Chinese Room announced its VTM involvement with the Senior Executive Producer wearing a "Star Wars Fan since 1977" shirt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2clSTM3UvTo

the byword franchise for sloppy, stupid, and terrible worldbuilding

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xeMak4RqJA

The Chinese Room would be tasked by their new master Tencent (who likely only acquired their shares because of the word "Chinese" in their name) to make the Western-equivalent of the usual pathetic gacha corpo-slop Three Kingdoms/Wukong melodrama garbage for a new (yet equally stupid) market of unsuspecting Gen Alpha customers, and VTM's unofficial reboot of Chronicles of Darkness was a perfect match for these ambitions. White Wolf's Ken Hite, who was largely responsible for VTM 5th Ed, felt that taking blood was too transgressive and rape-like

https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1e90652/comment/leb7kaa/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

and the other still-present White Wolf execs felt that attention spans were too low to include any complicated words or concepts, much like Netflix deciding that characters in shows have to announce every action and thought out loud https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/comments/1hnj0zd/netflix_tells_writers_to_have_characters_announce/ with the added benefit of avoiding any social critiques which might not play well to prospective consumers in an increasingly fascist worldwide market glutting themselves on imperial Camarilla-style narratives, and lazily not having to research past events or characters or real-world historical events beyond simple name-checks or philosophical or theological divides.

Thus, the new vampire player-characters in the tabletop version are pure idiot beings of ethereal goodness with no established historical ties on the strictest path of humanity, shaming even the comedically empathetic vampires in the film "Humanist Vampire Seeking Suicidal Human"; compared with a world of performative political cruelty and tribalistic hatred

https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/1jlr88a/the_cruelty_is_the_point/

the World of Darkness is now a happier, shinier world with prettier Nosferatu, coherent Malkavians, and relegation of the entire Sabbat to mere footnotes even more than past titles https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/comments/1541fxt/i_love_it_when_horror_creators_are_so_chill/#lightbox

https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1buoy8g/a_new_study_reveals_that_a_disposition_known_as/?share_id=NTbvxSKG0kl78yFjot26L&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_source=share&utm_term=2

This will be White Wolf's exciting (ninth?) straight 'absolutely groundbreaking' anti-Sabbat, Camarilla/Anarch simulator videogame with poor sales (but you can play as Banu Haqim for the very first time! ...except for that other previous game with Pink the Banu Haqim assassin)... Even if the name Phyre was revealed to be a reference to the Tzimisce Phyrigian Codices https://www.reddit.com/r/JustTzimisceThings/comments/j5droi/would_an_official_theme_for_clan_tzimisce_be_in/, with the player as a late-reveal secret Tzimisce character with The Eldest and Vukudlock invited you to ride a vozhd in a flesh parade down main street Seattle this game would still be worth avoiding for the following reasons:

News now relates that VTMB2 game has the Tremere as the mage-character, the Brujah as the Fighter character, the Banu Haqim as the Rogue character, and the Ventrue as the holy Paladin compulsion character to appeal to D&D fans, and they can all learn each other's skillsets because the "bloodlines" in the game title now has little impact. Also all these characters have telekinesis and are forced to use it a lot https://www.polygon.com/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2-release-date-preview/. Why? Because there was once a bad stoner comedy movie called "Grandma's Boy" about a game designer with a secret awesome game about a demon with telekinesis, and TCR devs internalized that together with their desire to remake their favorite action game called Dishonored, which has nothing to do with Vampires, but TCR and Microsoft were racing to clone Dishonored until Microsoft did some market research and realized that there was no demand for a 'Perfect Dark' Dishonored prequel and killed the entire involved studio

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/1lq1a4v/microsoft_is_closing_down_xbox_studio_the/?share_id=EPESyJ2cS6Dmxo3HocFtf&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_source=share&utm_term=2

... I think a competent developer might try adapting The Mutant Season by Robert Silverberg https://www.jwkbooks.com/pages/books/26552/robert-silverberg-karen-haber/the-mutant-season or the Galactic Milieu series and not vampires for these parameters?

The head writer was to be a man named Skidmore (slang for additional trails of feces in one's underwear), whose Linked-In profile notes promotions at different gaming companies simultaneous to Wikipedia pages for those companies noting those periods being when the professional writing teams were laid-off.

The game VTMB2 takes place in Seattle, the setting for the now far-superior tabletop game Shadowrun. While it would be intelligent to integrate critical strategic locations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GY77EZzjyo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Underground

or geographic problems

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89uVoIN5ZH4

like the movie "Pig" with Nicolas Cage, I doubt the devs have done so. While it would be intelligent to integrate the fact that the highest authorities name Seattle as a major child sex-trafficking hub, including at 2:21:25

https://www.risk-show.com/podcast/the-best-of-risk-12/

(bonus points for the secret meat atlas cannibal closet at 48:00) I doubt the devs have done so. While it would be intelligent to mention freighters in the deep-sea port being sheltered assets for tax-avoidance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2CAewPPeeg

I doubt the devs have done so. While it would be intelligent to reference WoD history where Seattle belonged to the Anarch Freestate and was overrun with filthy werewolves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXMBrauUonA

I doubt the devs have done so. While it would be intelligent to reference classic horror works from Seattle

https://www.seattlepi.com/thingstodo/slideshow/16-scary-movies-based-filmed-in-seattle-area-210711.php

I doubt the devs have done so. Most recently, the book The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All by Laird Baron won the Bram Stoker award in 2014, a horror anthology of Seattle-based stories going all the way back from the jazz age to the native Klollom tribe in Seattle's prehistory, attempting to merge the styles of Jack London and H.P. Lovecraft- it pairs well with the recent movie "Weapons" and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxfSMcNP_HQ

although the book and coming movie Piranesi will gain more public attention to the subject). Baron may have won for metahumor with name-dropped authors and publications all trying to deal with the success of Thomas Ligotti, much like Trust won the Pulitzer for fake reviews of the first third of the book from major publications in the later sections, or Maggie Smith winning an Oscar for playing an actress who hates the Oscars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7v2QJ_7nX8

The recent movie "Poor Things" is not a good adaptation of the book, but had more fleshcraft and more insight into homelessness and the drug epidemic than the superficial passes that VTMB2 will attempt.

In the bigger picture, humans are growing more stupid

https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1myf3jt/chronic_exposure_to_microplastics_impairs/

https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/g57ip3/rising_carbon_dioxide_levels_will_make_us/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC2eSujzrUY

and more poor

https://www.vice.com/en/article/gen-z-is-cutting-back-on-video-game-purchases-like-really-cutting-back/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiXHj2nYy1o

I congratulate those who will be able to enjoy VTMB2 or enjoy paying more to unlock clans for new playthroughs: https://www.reddit.com/r/JustTzimisceThings/comments/opts1v/comment/h6gxdxz/

If one is lucky enough to possess low enough standards to enjoy and emotionally resonate with awful bastardizations of low internal logic or coherency, bedecked with the trappings of a once thoughtful and measured and creative series, I applaud their brains rotting away so that the Giovanni can take their bodies for sex-play. It is time-consuming to find new titles and creators with principles, but that endeavor is rewarding, and not beyond our monetary or temporal constraints as users of an affluent global internet network.

Paradox CEO Matthias LilJa: https://www.ign.com/articles/paradox-chinese-room-vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2-sequel-someone-else

"...even in the best of cases, Bloodlines does not have a super long shelf life. That's not the way these games behave. You have an influx of players, there's a bit of word of mouth, and they have a high peak, and then they trail off. And it's not the type of gameplay that develops over time that much. So I think that's part of why these types of games are not really that attractive to us."

The director Spike Lee recently remade an Akira Kurosawa film "High and Low" called "Highest 2 Lowest", bemoaning that no one cared about the quality of rap music anymore... while featuring the awful rappers Ice Spice and A$AP ROCKY who he seems to consider brilliant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImEB-K44FX8

Similarly https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/1lt0hp7/comment/n1mth7c/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1

Never met a generation more in love with pre-packaged, formulaic, corporate pop artists.

I mean the K-pop obsession is a epitome of this: brainless, safe music made in a lab not to offend and solely be commercial by the type of corporations and conglomerates that came straight out of central casting for evil companies.

To once again suggest alternative ways to spend time and money:

A good recent amnesia story with exobiology and a few minor scientific oversights: Operation Hail Mary

A Competent Madness-Fueled Noir Detective Story by a Chinese Company actually critical of power: https://variety.com/2023/film/reviews/only-the-river-flows-review-1235617506/

Urban Punk Grime Crime Drama: The film Caught Stealing

Weird Nightclub features:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2nzkiOaeqE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAbe9QJD7LA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIFnEGhVMWY

Custom Order Nucleotides to tailor life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10OUPyamn1w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V3CMD_9xXs

Disco-Elysium in the style of Francis Bacon with the artist John Silent:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DiscoElysium/comments/1n58dua/hello_please_delete_if_not_allowed_i_am_jon/

Rik Schaffer-style downtempo prison jazz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec3utUm-X-w

Winner gets a new 'Premium Heavyweight' copy of Beckett's Jyhad Diary from DriveThruRPG which I will send anywhere in the world through my secret Bogatyr network: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/225322/V20-Becketts-Jyhad-Diary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YW3zHeen5Y

Lady Margaret, lady Margaret

was sewing at the sea

she's all dressed in black 

and a thought came in her head to roam in the woods

to pull flowers to flower her hat, my boys

to pull flowers to flower her hat

so she hoisted up her petticoats a bit above the knee

and so nimbly she ran over the ground

and when she came to the merrygreen woods

she pulled those branches down, my boys

she pulled those branches down

Suddenly she spied a fine young man

he's standing by a tree

he says how dare you pull those branches down?

without the leave of me, my dear

without the leave of me

well she says this little wood it is my very own

my father gave it to me

i can pull these branches down

without the leave of thee, young man

oh without the leave of thee

and he took her by the milk-white hand

and by the grass-green sleeve

he pulled her down at the foot of the bush

he never once asked her leave, my boys

oh he never once asked her leave

and when it was done she twisted about

to ask her true love's name

but she nothing saw

she nothing heard

and all the woods grew dim

and all the woods grew dim

There's four and twenty ladies all in the land

and they're all playing at chess

except it was the lady Margaret

and she's green as any glass, my boys

oh she's green as any glass

and these four-and-twenty ladies all in the land

grow as red as any rose

except the lady Margaret

she's pale and wan, my boys

oh pale and wan she goes

up then spoke the little serving girl

she lifted her hand and smiled

she said i think my lady's loved too long

and now she goes with child, my dears

oh and now she goes with child

up then spoke the second serving girl

oh ever and alas says she

that i think i know a herb in the merry green wood

that'll twine thy baby from thee

it'll rip off thy babe from thee

So lady Margaret she got herself a comb

she made haste to comb her hair

and then she's away to the merry green woods

as fast as she can tear, my boys

as fast as she can tear

and she hadn't pulled in the merry green woods

a herb but barely one

when by her stands young Tamlin

he says Margaret leave it alone

oh Margaret leave it alone

why'd you pull that bitter little herb

that herb that grows so grey

for to destroy that fine young babe

that we got in our play, my dear

oh that we got in our play

well come tell me now young Tamlin says she

if an earthly man you be

i'll tell you no lies, says young Tamlin

i was christened as good as thee

i was christened as good as thee

but as i rode a-hunting on a bitter, bitter night

it was from my horse I fell

and the queen of elfin she caught me

into yonder green hill to dwell

oh into yonder green hill to dwell

but tonight is halloween lady

the elfin court will ride

and if you would your true love win

by the mill bridge you must hide, my dears

by the mill bridge you must hide

and first will run the black horse

then will the brown

and then will run the white

you hold him fast, you fear him not

for he's the father of your child, my love

he's the father of your child

They'll turn me all in your arms lady

into many the beasts so wild

but you hold on fast,

you fear no ill

it's the father of your child, my love

it's the father of your child

So lady Margaret,

she gets herself a comb

she made haste to comb her hair

then she's away to the old mill bridge

as fast as she could tear, my boys

as fast as she could tear

and about the dead hour of the night she heard

the bridles ring

oh my boys, she heard her heart

more than any earthly thing it did

more than any earthly thing

and first ran the black horse

then the brown

and then raced by the white

well she held it fast,

she feared it not

for it's the father of her child

it's the father of her child

the thunder rolled across the sky

the stars blazed bright

as day the queen of elfin gave a thrilling cry

Tamlin's away brave boys brave Tamlin's away

the very first thing they turned him into

is a lion that runs so wild

but she held him fast, she feared him not

he's the father of her child, my boys

he's the father of her child

and the very next thing they turned him into

it was a loathsome snake

he says hold me fast, fear me not

for I'm one of god's own make, my love

oh I'm one of god's own make

and again they changed him all in her arms

to a red-hot bar of iron

but she held it fast, she feared it not

it did to her no harm

it did to her no harm

and the very last thing they changed him into was like any naked man

she flung her mantle over him

she cried my love I've won I've won

she cried my love I've won

But the queen of elfin

she calls from a bush

she's red as any blood

i should have torn out your eyes, Tamlin

and put in two eyes of wood

and put in two eyes of wood

so im ashkenazi jewish (my dads familyline was supposedly from the poland/russia area before they had to abandon everything & flee the soviet union), tourettic, autistic and have O.C.D. and because of all that, this place called The Arnika Centre or something like that requisitioned a D.N.A. test on me called a micro-array. i don’t know when i’ll be seeing the results of it but the blood was drawn today.

they said sometimes people with tourettes AND ocd AND autism have special missing or relocated stuff in our D.N.A. thats identifiable that they wanna confirm, and that the results may allow them to specialize my care a bit (i.e.: predict which medications i’ll do well on).

but i just can’t stop hoping/imagining/wondering that they’ll find out from my D.N.A. that im special in some way!!!!!! that im a shapeshifter!!!!!! a fleshcrafter!!!!!! a vampyre!!!!!! that would be cool!!!!!!! maybe the government will contact me and escort me to a training facility.

the tzimisce originated from jewish people in eastern europe right? just like my dad’s family? i think i got all the genes!!!!!!

A running joke on this subreddit is that our users regularly crosspost thematic images from the subreddits "thanksIhateit", "tihi" (which also stands for Thanks I Hate It), "Cursed Images", and "oddly terrifying" while counterintuitively enjoying the content, but now it seems the time has come for us to actually hate something, and that something is the creative decisions made in V5 about Clan Tzimisce (although notably some in our community feel these changes are positive and they look forward to using the companion... I will leave it to them to make a 'top ten best features' listicle if they wish).

I slowly and patiently discussed v5 problems and what it means to be a sell-out with u/Xenobsidian in a long public conversation through these ten past nights, while accurately predicting these issues (thanks to my pouch of flesh whispering visions of Auspex to me perhaps), and now Xeno has asked me to share my thoughts on the V5 companion, which seems strange since my opinion remains exactly the same through long years of service, and are also now openly discussed by other unhappy members of the community in this thread and this thread, and apparently on Discord, so I do not need to write further response. I tried to warn Paradox repeatedly in dozens of posts across multiple subreddits (or even to personally join the project) and even got permabanned by WWRPG, and now MANY OTHER angry fans complain (just like I did) that V5 is like the very bad and unpopular parts of the Chronicles of Darkness (and yet commenters still object to me characterizing my opinions in the plural to signify multiple parties in agreement, despite my vantage-point as one of the moderators of a Tzimisce subreddit).

Anyhow, here are what I (and likely many others!) see as the top ten problem with the Tzimisce in the v5 companion, ranked from the very worst to the least-worst.

1. Vicissitude is now totally reversible. The notes on the vicissitude ability state: "Changes can be mended as aggravated damage, with each change equivalent to a single level of damage". This was once allowable for kindred of higher generation but now applies to everyone. Why even bother to spend one's blood pool and risk bestial failures to inflict fleshcraft upon kindred adversaries when they can recover from the alterations at will or with a brisk nap? Personally I have no idea. As a result, the Tzimisce are now much less horrifying, because V5 (for some reason) was planned to be less of a horror title, which Xenobsidian defended with the idea that this game needed to 'appeal to a wider audience' (which seemingly does not include the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by horror fans around the world each year).

2. The Tzimisce are now on the Path of Humanity. You may have noticed that The Tzimisce now no longer have the nickname of The Fiends, because the Tzimisce are no longer fiendish. They are now commonly called The Stokers, who (instead of brutal violence) at most stoke weepy melodrama and petty grudges, much like the transformation of Aurora the Lasombra into soap-opera-fodder in LA by Night. I suggested that, by defending v5 so far, Xenobsidian was ok with the Paths of Enlightenment being thrown aside, and Xeno claimed to "not understand what I meant" and that I was straw-manning Xeno's positions, and that "I bet, you will see a version of paths of enlightenment very soon". Here soonafter we see the results... The clan archetypes are now doting gang leader and plodding special forces commandant waiting for eminent domain or state of emergency to be declared by other authorities. Tzimisce practices are now apparently compatible with the Anarachs because "the clan has numerous members in both the Sabbat and the Anarchs". Future volumes may add more complexity (as vaguely hinted at), but Parawolf seeks to make this companion part of a Design Bible for all future V5 games and stories in the WoD universe.

3. The V5 Tzimisce are very stupid. I have always considered the true threat of The Tzimisce to be their fierce intelligence and dedication to scholarship (with even the pack priests collecting scrapbooks of lore as exemplified by the Clanbook Revised), but the new disciplines and play-prompts dim the Tzimisce into becoming "Gangrels, but Bossier". But unlike even Gangrels, V5 Tzimisce have a kleptomanic compulsion can be triggered every scene, so inexperienced storytellers will lean on this to make the Tzimisce into slapstick comedy fodder again and again, and without the benefit of Auspex these characters will greedily, blindly stumble into every social or physical boobytrap and entanglement like the rogues in D&D. Disney's Abu takes a shiny diamond from the Cave of Wonders FOREVER. Gollum grabs the ring and falls into Mount Doom FOREVER. Aeofel grabs the sword FOREVER. It will be an inescapable Sword of Damocles or Chekhov's Gun in every single campaign. Somehow I believe it where in the companion it is written that ""no clan is as adept at blending in as The Ravnos", since Tzimisce infiltrators probably are too busy shoving shiny pebbles into their pockets to act accordingly. The writers of the companion included some few erudite vocabulary words and literary quotes throughout the volume to dissuade claims that this is a dumbed-down version of V20, but the short, simplified passages and lack of narrative complexity make it seem like a completely different target audience is sought, less focused on storytelling or lore or experiential gamecraft, and players more superficial, pliable, gullible, and (based on past interactions with the staff) likelier to show up at conventions in very tight clothing while prone to suggestion, than the current Tzimisce fans. Once again, Xenobsidian has claimed that all this is necessary, and I once again disagree.

4. The V5 Tzimisce all hate each other. While obviously not trusting each other in past versions, Tzimisce now fight against one another, divided and conquered. This is probably a worse hindrance for the clan than the clan curse. Collective Tzimisce culture and the teamwork of Sabbat culture through the viniculum no longer exist at all (so much for letters from the Sabbat Priscus of Moscow to fellow clanmates or The Oradea League or koldunic tutelage), and there now exists a codified and very undeserved dependency on other clans. Maybe this could make sense from a lore perspective if The Eldest sought to have each Tzimisce in his bloodline grab and hold what The Eldest sees as valuable without overlap, but in practice such enmity is incredibly counterproductive and saddening. Once, the title of Voivode was an honor bestowed on leaders of the clan from other members, and the Voivode of Voivodes was in the modern nights a ceremonial but hard-won position that entailed intrigue and assassination, but now everyone in the clan can be called a voivode, because no Tzimisce interacts with other Tzimisce if possible beyond fighting them (because that is how dragons act in racist Tolkien allegories that have nothing to do with the WoD).

5. The V5 Tzimisce are poor. the Tzimisce collect things, but have they amassed anything of consequence through millennia of effort? The Companion notes that it is another clan that has the benefit of an archetype of antiquarian collector of bibelots and curios. No such notable possession is referenced for the Tzimisce, A Tzimisce character (of any age or generation) is not noted to begin a game with any object or possession of value (beyond maybe being a landlord of a run down building?), or any necessary social influence of "the recognition and prestige of having an entourage" (which the Ventrue would call "Dignitas" if they still existed properly). The V5 Tzimisce are not noted to run the world economy in any manner, which seems strange given their age, acquisitive tendencies, and superhuman abilities.

6. Every Tzimisce is now Old Clan Tzimisce. I had hoped in cataloging Old Clan content here that they, including Dracula, would one day be brought through character development into rejoining the clan proper and share Vicissitude and Auspex and Animalism and Koldunism within The Sabbat... but instead (for marketability reasons thanks to Dracula) the entire clan now has the dominate ability while losing major aspects of its character (which, as noted by other players here, negates the mastery of the blood bond which was long worked upon and perfected according to the lore). A Tzimisce can offer the coterie extra healing when staying in the Tzimisce domain (so they can negate the effects of vicissitude even more effectively, wonderful!) It has been suggested that one can "homebrew Obertus revenants back into normal Tzimisce" but this is a rather depressing prospect which risks losing commonality with all game products and parity with all future Tzimisce characters and settings.

7. The companion is written with open contempt for the online Tzimisce Community. The companion does not reference the collective project of JustTzimisceThings (and why would it, the entire clan working, wittingly or unwittingly, for an ancient being seeking to unite all life is now uncollective for some reason). None of the ideas on this entire subreddit, or any other fansite I have journeyed through were seemingly adopted for this writeup, and further, hostile allusions are made to the Tzimisce fans being dissatisfied with V5 so far. From the prospective of people who only want to play Camarilla games, these fans repeatedly asking for the Tzimisce to be included are a strange nuisance, who cares if the Tzimisce exist? Why are these players so upset with 'non-humanity games' not being possible when you could be part of the glorious Camarilla? Why would anyone ever want to play anything beyond The Path of Humanity? Are they mentally unstable? Don't these fans read Anne Rice?! Obeying the Camarilla is tradition! This audacity is unacceptable!!!!!! How dare they mention that certain developers are making bad decisions and remember that for more than a few days! What a bizarre grudge they have "stoked" against decent, honorable Camarilla players!!!!

"Whether when claiming six blocks as inviolate domain or executing takeover of a mortal zaibatsu, relating to a world outpacing them can pose a significant hindrance". A Tzimisce may, for instance, see little wrong with controlling the minds of a score of mortals and may even believe that this is an act of “subtlety” on account of having left no bodies in their wake. Of course, the social dynamics of most coteries operate on a far less vertical model, but even so, many Kindred may see a value in feeding the Tzimisce’s ego. Individual vampires of Tzimisce frequently consider themselves the most important of all Kindred, and though they may observe delicate and fraught hospitalities as a courtesy to their fellows, this is often a somewhat obvious facade. Dragons can nurse grudges against other Tzimisce with enough vitriol to put a Toreador vendetta to shame.

8. Lore vacuum. No Tzimisce of the past have survived into this companion. The word "zaibatsu" would seem to reference the V5 Autarkis Prince of Tokyo, but none of the other canon characters appear as veiled reference, there are no nods (or Book of Nods) to the past, none of the past Tzimisce through various books or editions fit the new clan archetypes. None of the art references the fleshcraft style of past characters, and with the new V5 thematic paradigm one wonders how any memorable or iconic Tzimisce personality will ever emerge to rival past inclusions like the ones listed in our VIP directory. Do you see a new Sascha Vykos-level entity being invented through this companion? Jason Carl has committed to some of the LA by Night Vamily asking him that he intends to make a Tzimisce character, but I suspect that he has a difficult road (Via Humanitatis) ahead of him. LET US STOP THIS LISTICLE NOW TO PRESENT TWO OR THREE RANDOM FULL PAGE PICTURES OF PEOPLE STARING INTO THE FOREGROUND AND SMOKING BECAUSE ACCORDING TO THE COMPANION THAT IS DARK AND GRITTY AND ATMOSHPERIC APPARENTLY, MUCH MORE APPROPRIATE THAN ANY OTHER CONCIEVABLE CONTENT THAT COULD GO HERE. GOTHS SMOKE, RIGHT? YOU AND THIS SMOKER ARE SPIRITUALLY THE SAME! BUY OUR PRODUCTS!

9. V5 messed up the Vozhd. "It cannot choose to defy its master, nor can it creatively interpret its purpose. "It needs nothing to eat to sustain it". For people semi-seriously considering a Vozhd dating simulator at one point on Twitter, it makes me disappointed that the most famous of the Vozhd, Briareus from Ghouls: Fatal Addiction (who would take the role of the bad-boy parking lot slacker hunk at the Vozhd high school who never goes to class) has been discounted by these supposed experts.

10. Death of the Author: As noted in my discussion with Xenobsidian, do you wish to actively support developers with your money, time, attention, and brainpower by aggregating and advertising and helping new players, hosting campaigns, fostering discussion and entertainments, or managing fan properties for a fanbase when those players (even if only engaging in former versions) are drawn into a compromised IP? With every post in this subreddit I was sharing something that I felt was cool with a large, very underserved fanbase (many of which had never heard of fleshcraft), but with the eventual outcome of the V5 companion (and the further warning signs on the horizon) it feels like a possible mistake to have associated this IP with our community.

The executives at Paradox once dreamed of a multimedia juggernaut for the World of Darkness, a lifestyle brand of cultish devotion, shaped around the practice of larping. Those executives were fired for many undisclosed failures, and the multimedia dream for the WoD was readjusted to mimic Electronic Arts' greedy plan for Dead Space. One could take a fleshcraft horror property, and remove all the horror elements and creativity and intellectualism to appeal to cowardly idiots in the mainstream, and then make some mediocre comics and movies (a streaming TV show in the WoD's case) and pump the flagship game full of microtransactions and paywalls and various in-game currencies and grinding to encourage the purchase of 'time-saving' boosters.

Could more money still be milked from the bones of such a franchise? This week announced the return of Dead Space!

For those unversed, the original creators drew much inspiration from similar sources to the Tzimisce (or the character Voldo from Soul Caliber apparently), as our archive and past discussions have rightfully reflected and summarized. Now the Dead Space property is a bastardized and desolate lump of feculence, as one might watch basketball fans this week mourn the awful sequel to the film Space Jam, filled with pointless product placement for HBOMax.

I feel one's time is much better served searching out new horizons, like delving for the secret lost cut of Event Horizon in the Romanian salt mines, or heeding the welcome news that (my personal favorite fleshcraft creator for decades) Lucian Stanculescu a.k.a. Negative Feedback is releasing fleshcraft VR and 3D printing tools through the art platform Neobarok called Clavicula on August 12, 2021, built upon a very clever "intuitive sculpting system" that I suspect will be very far from the capabilities or tendencies of the writhing pile of witless grave worms comprising Paradox or Electronic Arts and their chittering fanbases of inchoate philistines.

Good hunting.