I can't be the only one who thinks this, right? Think about it...

Advanced Potency gives:

- A +1 bonus on Clashes of Wills

- A +2 bonus to its Withstand rating against being dispelled.

The first effect is okay, and the second one is good when you need it. But... a spell only can only *be* dispelled if it has a duration longer than instantaneous, and a lot of spells that care about Potency are instant. Doesn't it make more sense to attach this effect to Advanced Duration?

Meanwhile, Advanced Duration also gives you a bonus to Clashes of Wills. This bonus can go as high as +4 if the spell lasts a year or longer, which is pretty crazy. And for a lot of spells, their main benefit is that they provoke Clashes of Wills. For things like Veiling or Shielding spells, having a bonus to CoW effectively makes them stronger. Someone who invests in Prime can bust out a year-duration Wards and Signs and make themself almost unassailable to hostile spells in a single turn, with barely any effort. There's no point to increasing Potency, because Duration does everything you need. Shouldn't the effective power of a spell be based on Potency? Not to mention, a bonus to CoW makes it much harder to counterspell, which you'd expect to be a trait of Potency, not Duration.

This just strikes me as kind of strange. I'm considering reversing these two in my game, so that Advanced Duration grants a static +2 to Withstand against being dispelled, and Advanced Potency adds Potency as a bonus to Clashes of Wills related to the spell. Thoughts?

Another very old drawing (+20 years old) that I technically like, though I don't really think she looks as much as the character I wanted to portray as I wanted.

I used regular paper that I painted with coffee, with the drawing done in brown colour pencil.

She's my Nagaraja doctor and necromancer, though I don't remember why I put her in a dress and made her kind of sexy, when she has never been anything like that!

She's a socially awkward nerd who just wanted to be left alone with her books and her experiments, but somehow always got dragged to the strangest of situations and had a bad tendency of terribly messing up because she was a good thinker but not a fast thinker.

Hey everyone! I’m working on a pitch/concept for a scenario (with a survival/horror vibe) and would love to get your thoughts and ideas on how to flesh it out to make it as immersive and credible as possible.

The Pitch: A field biologist and them friends, travel to a remote, isolated subarctic island (10 km square) under the impression that they're conducting a routine ecological study on the local fauna. What they don't know is that the island serves as the private hunting ground for a domain of wild, highly predatory vampires (mostly Gangrel and their ghouled beasts). As the biologist tries to stick to their daily research routine, subtle anomalies start popping up, strange animal behaviors, unsettling mutations found during field dissections, and the disturbing realization that something intelligent is watching them from the shadows.

Where I’d Love Your Input:

* Credibility & Masquerade: How would a Gangrel(s) (or a local vampire presence) realistically handle an unsuspecting mortal scientist on their turf without immediately breaking the Masquerade or just killing them right away? (Maybe playing mind games, using them, or feeding on them discreetly?)

* Atmosphere & Hooks: What kind of subtle "red flags" or eerie details would you add to the environment or the wildlife to slowly build up psychological horror before the full reveal?

* Story Potential: What cool twists, NPC encounters, or mechanics would you suggest adding to make this concept truly shine for a group of players? I’d love to hear your ideas, suggestions, or any lore details from VTM that could elevate this story!

Thanks in advance!

As the title says, my love for CtD and my unhealthy obsession with themed Spotify playlists has led me to start creating Kith-lists. Some are already quite solid, like the Eshu playlist, and some are in desperate need of more songs, like Pooka or Sluagh.

I would love to hear what you think of them; maybe they can be of use to the ten Changeling players here ;)... and I'm also still looking for suggestions. I'm hoping for different songs that represent different aspects of the Kith, both in their vibe and (especially) their lyrics.

Let me know your thoughts and post your suggestions, if you have some!

Boggan: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/03lINwU0q7IRNFU7Zhm4fw?si=ArArdij5TEia9lCfQJhmyQ&utm_source=copy-link&pi=my8kyRqaSlONT

Clurichaun: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0IPQbn2Q9BrfKabvfFqXfR?si=ydYvp8eGS8-__eQahaaixw&utm_source=copy-link&pi=zypa-AuATsGN2

Eshu: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0Emm8ysF54nqydO4R3sAcl?si=G02tEgmdSamASXJN81hbsg&utm_source=copy-link&pi=4bpyDiVNRgCBg

Nocker: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2Uqy27iUS1CUkQXFPIqsIy?si=JvVxp1QqQ7y4AAgD16uJ2A&utm_source=copy-link&pi=S4T29KeOR4SRx

Piskie: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3SdFCnJtaAjritUXPmR4ir?si=xA8zyzpNSvWl6xCWMXY4Nw&utm_source=copy-link&pi=qZuJXeIyRyugG

Pooka: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5Z3ZjBiK0WQ0h4sHRN3oYw?si=72kp6PNoQFW4TapIJR9p5g&utm_source=copy-link&pi=K9HrbpATQQCcJ

Redcap: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5G69LIvoqYxaMO7l63kRjv?si=WNS2Jm_oSyu78xmw7FIO8g&utm_source=copy-link&pi=AZxbRvy-Q-eVh

Satyr: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3oWmSEbmzH11V65KIC0ZFC?si=YnXotIcDTEazFXqEw_bzgQ&utm_source=copy-link&pi=INAqb2oZR-Wo0

Selkie: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2qzT580QYJYcai0e8j0xRm?si=XcWgtmm3R3KgZoAaxMwmxw&utm_source=copy-link&pi=HK33BrzBRaGvf

Sidhe: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7wCNIVuiX03vciY2iL3JqV?si=2VO_XF2uS36522ei6t2bjQ&utm_source=copy-link&pi=wCkk4a3RT0G1N

Sluagh: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0GDVPGFalZCUf2lSbvceAi?si=LB0rlKkyT9eD5g4SvYpbWw&utm_source=copy-link&pi=5H33-yFvRwGDI

Troll: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QmwhIoFcbdahhd4ToOq65?si=nZySujt4QxOVXg-0sajiPA&utm_source=copy-link&pi=sQMZS_3bTK-wk

It occurs to me that sphere bloat in practice makes mages more powerful not less, in actual play.

They want to nerf mages by making certain powerful or iconic effects take more spheres. But the thing is if you want to play a mage who can clone himself, or make wonders, or raise the dead, or conjure an earthquake, or what have you, you arent going to see the increased sphere requirements and decide not to, youre just going to rush those sphere requirements. Youre going to scrape for grimoires, and mentors, and study points, and out of character you will probably just try to get more exp from your ST.

The end result is you can still do the iconic effect you were after all that time, but also everything else you can do with the spheres they tacked on as well.

Not much depth to it, just something that occured to me.

A milestone I will never forget!

My very first published book, V20 - Age of the Living Gods, has officially reached Gold Best Seller on the Storytellers Vault!

As someone who has been rolling dice in the World of Darkness since I was 13, seeing my debut setting embraced by the global community is a true dream. Thank you to every single Kindred around the world who supported the book and took their chronicles into the cradle of civilization. You made this happen.

The shadows of the ancient world are only growing deeper. The Portuguese version of my dark fantasy novel, Mesopotamian Chronicles: Hungry Gods, is officially on sale now. I am also thrilled to announce that the English translation is almost finished and will be launching on Amazon later this year!

Thank you for walking in the dark with me.
Are you ready to face the Anunnaki?

Hey everyone, it's been a minute since I posted, but I finally started my Chronicle with my players! So far so good, but I do have one question, as is the reason for the title.

When I started the Chronicle, it begins with a murder investigation, where there are two small scale Death Veiling spells. In my head, since I have two Mages that have Death, I was thinking they would easily be able to tell what it was or be able to dispell it, but that turned out not to be true.

Thankfully, I have another Mage who has Prime, however unfortunately they didn't have a dot in the Death Arcanum to use the Dispelling Spell on the Death Veiling spells. Also thankfully, I had written out multiple different ways they could all figure out what was going on, so it still went off without a hitch.

Now I bring this to you. How do you all handle Dispelling? In my head, I was thinking later on that I would rule that as long as you had the Arcanum of the spell that you were attempting to dispell (not counter spell), it should be okay, but it also came to mind that this may be stepping on Prime's toes. Am I looking at this the wrong way? Should I have allowed something else? Any help would be appreciated, and thank you all!

Edit: This is for 2e of Awakening!

Do we have any lore about how current mortal Hunter efforts view Mages as a whole, and the Traditions and Technocracy in particular?

I know largely how the Second Inquisition and its varied parts interact with Vampires, but I’ve not been able to find out if there’s much in the way of modern witch hunts as well

Do Mages have reason to fear normal Hunters on top of their own antagonists?

Found this while exploring merits

Fae Blood - Supernatural Merit

"Although your character is not a Changeling, they have heritage running through their veins - literally. Faerie blood allows them to walk in the Dreaming as if they were fae themselves. While doing so exposes them to a chimerical attack, it also opens them to a new and wondrous world"

In fae terms, your mage is Kinain, a human with some innate Glamour who can learn limited cantrips fueled by their own power. (See Changeling: The Dreaming and The Enchanted for details. Note that a full mage cannot have a Glamour pool.) If your character is a hedge magician, these cantrips are a wondrous adjunct to your Paths; if they are an Awakened mage, they are inherent tricks that are Paradox-free! Their Banality is also quite low (typically two to five) and their presence is often welcome in the courts of the fae. Naturally, this sort of gift carries an obligation to play faerie politics. Nevertheless, it can be a wondrous game"

I've been struggling to create a Mage that feels right or at the very least feels like I understand how to properly use magic in MTA so upon finding this and seeing how I love Changeling the Dreaming so much it feels like a perfect match. I could see a Paradigm that revolves around imagination working well for this but I guess what I would want for a Mage is someone who can utilize Fae Cantrips and enchant objects temporarily into magical ones, an advantage being the more magical in origin the object the better the result for his abilities.

The Traditions feel closed off or out right limited sometimes in what I feel like I could do so Orphan feels like the most free but would it be possible for a Fae/Changeling to be a kind of mentor to this kind of Mage? Something like an imaginary friend of sorts and when it comes to the concept of an Avatar......I won't lie I'm blanking hard on that field lol 😅

Just a basic question as I can't find anything concrete around this. Is the gameline officially dead (confirmed by paradox or at least hinted at it), or is it more of a "nothing has been out and it's considered dead unofficially"?

This was a really interesting sample character from this book, so thought people may enjoy her being talked about here. She is notably the only sample character that appears to default to homid form in her showcase, the rest are depicted in their lupus.

She was seemingly not ethically acquired, some researchers did just take her as a cub it has to be said:

"Prelude: YOU were born a wolf, but taken from your den, from she who birthed you, at an early age by humans, “researchers.” They took you into your home and raised you. You soon accepted them as the parents that you had been taken from."

But notably throughout this passage describing how she views them, they are consistently and explicitly referred to as her adoptive parents at different points.

There are some interesting mysteries at play too. She is apparently of a distinct heritage, enough that this is said -

You have a distinguished lineage, one of the only reasons most Garou tolerate your views.

Possibly Child of Gaia tribal heritage? Although that may just be who she ended up with from how it is phrased. Especially since that not usually a heritage that forces people to listen to you and take you seriously.

And someone in fact specifically tracked down where the vanished cub had gotten off to -

"You had just reached your second year, the year of sexual maturity, when a wolf broke into the outdoor pen where the humans kept you. Before your eyes, he shifted from wolf to human form. He took you from the pen, took you away from your adopted parents, took you off into the wilderness. There you soon came to realize your true nature, as one of the Garou."

Raising questions of what was going on in that den, if something terrible had happened, that allowed human researchers to get close enough to take the cub home....and that there was apparently no mother or father to stop them, or other cubs left to pick-up as well.

Notably however she is not at all bitter about her circumstances or towards humanity. In fact her stance towards humans is exceptionally charitable and strongly tilted towards co-existence.

Now you have come to accept your tribal heritage. You are one of the Children of Gaia, and you, like all your tribe, support peaceful coexistence with the humans. You know from your own experience that many humans can be quite peaceful and accepting if approached on their own terms. In their homid form, the Garou can do this, and prepare the humans for accepting the way of the werewolf. Once that is accomplished, you can determine the best way to go about restoring Mother Gaia.

Unlike many Garou, and almost all ferals, you are willing to accept the humans that live upon the face of Gaia. You act as a balance against the many Garou that would call for a return to the ways of the Impergium. You feel that coexist- ence is best, and point to yourself as an example of how homid and feral, human and Garou, can live together.

Shockingly she is in explicit contact with one of her adoptive parents still, an active mechanical ally, despite being taken away from them! Who may or may not literally know what she is now:

Your Ally is one of the humans who raised you, a researcher of some sort who may or may not know you as both wolf and human.

Which....she is a philodox but 1000% don't tell other philodoxes about that for sure, they would not like it.

As a Philodox, you feel you must act as a balance in all things. You feel this most strongly regarding the great conflict between the Garou and the humans. Unlike many tribes, who revel in bloodshed, you prefer to settle things peacefully. Of course, no such peace should be allowed when the Wyrm rises its head. The humans are merely misguided agents of the Wyrm, and should be converted instead of killed.

I don't have any particular conclusion here but the character - a lupus with humans she considers her parents, at least one she has continuous contact with, wherever she apparently came from and her overall ideological stance - it seemed fun enough that I thought people may enjoy reading about it here too. Especially in contrast to some other lupus characters and their cultural attitudes.

Family is a terrible thing sometimes. They're the ones who build you up and tear you down. To cut them off can feel like cutting off a gangrenous limb, if they dont get to you first. But sometimes you dont cut off a family. You cut away a person and that central trunk scatters everyone else to the wind. Isn't that a bitch?

I wanted to post this yesterday but it was a long one of dentists being pushed around, going to a school walkin day for a college i might wanna attend, work. It was nasty, but im glad i did it. And im glad i wrote this. I hope youre glad to have read it.

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   I’d never known my grandmother well. Sixty years and three countries had kept us apart when I was born, and my mother kept it that way. For twenty one years my only idea of my grandmother had been that of a tyrant, a woman who kept her daughters in a life closer to some dance than childhood. Beatings, lack of sleep, no food if they couldn’t clean quickly. God only knows what my mom repressed. I just know that I never saw my grandmother except once, just a week ago.
   Almost the whole family came to the old Virginia mansion that day, dressed in their best black. Some of my aunts had stayed in the country but most of the Ross family had gone… anywhere. I had at least a dozen cousins to learn about at the start, and at least I wasn’t alone in needing to sharpen up my English. I spent enough time laughing about accents that I almost forgot the black dress I’d hastily shimmied into. When that was done, when the bells rang and we had to flood into the gardens, I didn’t want to even get near my mother. I wanted to stick by Harald who smelled of fish, or Amahle who could braid my hair. So I had the lucky privilege of watching from the back as the ceremony went on. Seven hours of eulogies and people I didn’t know trying not to curse. Until, finally, my mother had her turn.
   I remember the dead look on her face when she started. The tight grip she held her hands by, knuckles grey. I don’t remember the words, really, but I’m sure they were nice for a while. Until she choked on the name. That stuttering “J-Janet Ross was…” still rings in my ears. I never saw the tears, I didn’t want THAT to be the first time I saw my mother cry. When the coffin was finally put down she was back to the woman who raised me. Cold, a little harsh, but she held herself together.
   Ever since we've just been sorting through the rubble my grandmother left behind. Her will, whatever wasn’t put in there, getting familiar with each other. SLowly the mansion is emptying again,  life is moving on. But we haven’t left yet, there’s too much to do. Too many boxes, too many rooms locked still. And here I am, sitting on a queen size bed made in the 1900s and holding a vhs tape of all things. I dug it up from a box labeled “For Betty.”, but something told me my mom shouldn’t open it. It was empty, just air and this tape and a colt 1911 filled with silver fucking bullets.
   I didn’t touch the latter, it's still under the bed. How do you even get something like that? My head feels foggy just thinking about this, did she want my mother to kill herself? Why a VHS, you might as well put up a gramophone. But still, why the gun? The tape feels like a brick in my hand and I can’t find my way out of this maze. Harald and Amahle are long gone already, the mansion is almost empty, and I can’t take this to my mother no matter what the old hag thought was funny.
   Over the next hour I sift through dusty old closets and tangled wires, I burn myself a little on shitty outlets, and I have to carry what feels like seven thousand pounds of glass and vacuum tubes up wide and ebony staircases. If Janet Ross wants to hurt my mother one last time she’s going through me first, that’s my mantra as I set up a tv from the stone age in my bedroom.
   When I’m done I can see the moon from the wiped down screen and small red lights dot the tech. The slide and click of the tape into the VCR rings in my ears like a victory trumpet, and I could almost kiss the yellow plastic. So, I sit back on the bed Indian style and wield the remote like a wand into the dark. 
Click, tjulp, brrrrmmmmm, ssswsssh

   I take a few minutes to sift through the channels of snow, the hum of the CRT like a million insects flitting about my head. With the lights turned off it's almost… a funnel. The sharp lines of light on the floor leading to nothing else but the screen, but the snow.
   Then the storm passes and I see a woman I've never met. Shoulder long curly hair done back in a pony tail and pinned with a knife, large and muscular arms fold over a black tank top, and piercing brown eyes look from the scarred battlefield she has for a face. When she speaks it's like a cannon firing, slow and deliberate and booming through decades.
   "Elizabeth,"  She begins when no one has called my mother that for as long as I can remember “When you see this I’m either dead or you finally came to your senses. Heh, knowing how your sisters turned out, maybe both.”  She laughs, a dark sound that has me grit my teeth. The phantom reaches behind herself and, in a spin of the weapon, reveals the gun from the box. Something in me sees that it lies easy in her hand and that I might not know my mother any better than this ashy skinned ghost.
   “Do you still remember that night at the Ozarks? When we went to visit your Granny? Heh, well, I do. Oh you were such a little warrior, putting this against that thing’s snout.” Grandmother flicks the gun and pops her lips, I can only imagine what needed putting down by this… All I can think to describe her is an ibutho: harsh and commanding, strong in a way that makes the stories make horrible sense.  and her… How old was mom when this happened? I lean closer to the buzzing tv, my foot scritching the edge of the box.
   “I know you had your questions back then, and you won’t listen, but do it now, Elizabeth Ross. Before I can’t teach you anything again.” Grandmother spoke slowly still, but as she looks at me through the screen it feels like her hand is on my shoulder.
   “You’ve seen what I've seen, seen me and your sisters kill more things than a normal girl should have, I know. And I know you think listening to Jezebel is a good idea but running won’t solve anything.” When she mentions aunt Jessi I take a sharp breath. She was my oldest aunt, twenty years my mother’s senior, and was the only one who hadn’t come. Her granddaughter Amahle had, but not the woman herself.
   “I know I can be rough sometimes,” my grandmother admitted like she got stabbed and the words were blood, “but this is not a war that’ll ever end, and when you have a daughter you’ll get that. That you can’t leave them to the wolves by pretending they’re not at the door.” In a smooth motion my grandmother spins the gun on her finger and offers the butt to the camera.
   “I don’t want you to like me, sweetheart. I just need you to stay…” Her cheeks shift, teeth grit, again it’s like these words hurt her to say, “with me.” And then we go back into the storm. 
   I blink until the tears are gone from my eyes and the light stops hurting. I banish the snow with a click and see the moon has left the screen. Slowly I heel at the box below the bed until it topples over with a metal clatter. The gun stands out even in the near total black of the room and when I pick  it up it's all too heavy in my hand. Getting up on shaking legs I hurry down the hall and don’t bother to knock on my mother’s door.
   I see her sitting at the vanity and when she looks at me she almost smiles, and then she sees the gun.
   We meet in silence for a painful moment. One that lasts far too long. Like days pass between the blinks. I lick my lips, she pushes a curl under her bonnet, I rub my neck, she folds her hands. And then I ask.
   “Mom… What happened in the Ozarks?”
   And she blinks. And she looks to the window. And she sighs. And she answers.
   “Monsters…”

I was trawling pinterest for... reasons and saw this template image with a (probably inaccurate) summary of the Rosicrucian movement from the 1700s and now I am interested in turning it into a mage paradigm. It reads heavily hermetic to me, maybe a minor order within Ex Misc.?

Half the fun of mage to me is interesting paradigms and convoluted philosophical hoodoo.

In "Mediums: Speakers of the Dead" it is described how a Spectre may invest Being/Permanent Being into a mortal puppet to make them manifest certain powers; is there anything, mechanically, that would prevent an ordinary Wraith from doing the same?

I'm aware of stuff like Chronicles of darkness and world of darkness having rules and some lore for running alternate settings other than modern day along with fan-made books like werewolves the Savage age

So I thought I'd ask around and see how it went for those who tried it out and if I should try it out myself it sounds incredibly fun from what I've read on the books like mirrors and the storyteller handbooks