#anton the lasombra

[secrets-and-streetlights]

My Theories / Thoughts on the new HtP audio log

Spoilers under the cut! Don't read unless you listened to the ghoul lore episode!! I will know!!!! (also massive post)

okay there is. so insanely much to talk about with this audio log. I have so many theories and thoughts, but I'll just share my main ones in no specific order.

Keep in mind that I'm no WoD scholar, so some info could be wrong or be interpreted by the Ogre Poppenang team differently. A lot of this info is coming from the White Wolf wiki.

The Lost Sons

I have a lot of theories on who the sons D lost were. My actual theory is that we'll never know so it remains mysterious. However, endlessly theorizing is fun so: 1.) D says that he lost a son and that it wasn't the first time. So we know at least two sons are gone. Assuming he has only lost two sons, they could be stand ins for the two lost Primarchs from 40k.

For those that don't know a lot about 40k, two of the emperor's sons are 'lost'. Thier names are never said and as far as I know their exact fates never confirmed (but assumedly killed). This goes with my actual theory of not actually knowing what happened.

2.) Anton. During the Australia story, D mentions Anton offhandly. I agree with @sensarna that Anton is a stand in for Angron. We don't know the exact details of that hunt so there is no way to be sure. Biggest point against this is that D gets very intense about saying "Markus' Brother's" name, so I doubt he would mention it offhandedly.

3.) I want to avoid using things not in the series but I'll be drawing on primarch fates from 40k for this. Fates are defiantly not one to one since Door is alive/has both hands, Horus is alive/a horse, and so on. But I immediately thought of Jaghatai Khan when hearing the Australia story.

Simplified for non-40k fans, Jaghatai is supposedly fighting space elf pirates in the space elf dimension, trapped in its endlessly twisting paths. In HtP, this could be interpreted as Jaghatai being trapped in a changeling freehold. Other primarchs are also trapped/lost in places (like Leman Russ and Vulkan) but Jaghatai is involved with the closest thing 40k has to cruel fae.

4.) The previous lost son(s) was not lost as in killed (necessarily) but lost as in changed. This has nothing to do with the Australia story but I'd be surprised if Markus was D's only supernatural(?) son. Leman is probably a werewolf or a gangrel, Lorgar could be possessed by a demon or a nephandi mage, Vulkan could be a wraith constantly possessing people, Roboute could be a changeling lost to banality, anything.

Markus and the Thing (1982)

We know a few things about Markus contacting the unknown force (which I will refer to as the Thing). The Thing is not a 'monster' or a 'demon'.

The Thing is described as or something from the Abyss (with a capital A, even). The Abyss is portrayed differently in every WoD game line, the descriptions conveyed by how that game's supernatural would interact with it. Its a cursed sea to Wraiths, a realm of sensory deprivation to Demons, and the realm of paradoxes and unreality to Magi just to name a few.

D himself says that he doesn't know exactly what it is or how exactly Markus contacted it, so he may be wrong in saying it is/from the Abyss. However, we do know from the Kevin audiolog that D was part of a hunt that killed a Lasombra Methuselah, whose clan has Abyss powers. I'm willing to give D the benefit of the doubt and assume that the Thing is related the the Abyss.

So, what the hell is it?

1.) While kind of a copout, we probably won't ever know its exact nature. The fifth edition Hunter book is full of creatures that don't fit into any neat classifications. It could be something totally unique to this story.

2.) While also unlikely, it could be a Neverborn. They are a major part of Wraith. Neverborn are forces of primordial destruction, endlessly slumbering while they wait for the end of everything. Their minds are the source of the Specters' hivemind, commands carried out through dreams. The 'million eyes' Markus caught a glimpse of could have been an endless hivemind trying to destroy the universe suddenly becoming aware of a lone child.

The big points against this is that getting into the world of the living is difficult for any single wraith/specter, more so for a whole group of them. Maybe whatever ritual Markus did made it easier, we don't know.

3.) According to D, Markus has had a 'sorcerous aptitude'. This immediately made me think of an Avatar. Avatars in mage are a kind of spiritual guide to Magi, always pushing them to realize their potential. Since Magi can have literally any paradigm (the way a mage understands magik), their Avatar can be literally anything.

I'm unsure if Avatars can manifest for anyone aside the mage, but during an Awakening anything could happen. From the picture of the Thing (assuming the photo is diegetic) we know it was visible. If not interrupted, maybe Markus could've even stopped the fae. Or he could've been consumed by overwhelming power and died.

I think this is best supported theory, especially since D has no idea how Markus did it. Markus didn't have to know how to do it. He just needed to believe that it'd work.

4.) Lastly is the most closely related to Changelings. Fomorians. The oldest nightmares of the Dreaming. They are too alien to describe properly. Whatever Markus was doing, he thought he was "channeling a rival power in the fae court". If we're assuming the main power of the court was Seelie, this would mean he was using Unseelie (or possibly Shadow Court) power. Fomorians are supposedly the predecessors to the Unseelie, so Markus might've tapped into something much older than intended.

So why isn't this my main theory? Fomorians fit the physical description (as in, indescribable), are related to the enemy the Family was hunting at the time, and are esoteric enough that D could possibly not know about them.

Because as far as I know, The Dreaming not associated with the Abyss in any way. Its quite the opposite, since its the place of dreams and nightmares. Where the Dreaming is overstimulation, the Abyss is deprivation. That is my interpretation at least. This theory would have to assume that D was just wrong when name dropping the capital A Abyss, which doesn't seem right to me.

The Funny Drink

So the whole Draught thing. This post is long and rambling enough as is, so my theories will be brief.

We know that the draught can bestow any of the following. Strength, Speed, Endurance, or (uniquely for Norfolk) Domination. D says that the Domination one could "give victims complex orders that can be carried out without question."

I think the two lines of thinking are the ones brought up by @possiblylando , mainly that the domination draught is a red herring or that it was used to make someone attack Occam.

The other draughts could also be in use instead, assuming the Ghoul only has one.

If the person that took out Occam wasn't very strong, the Strength draught could give them the edge to overpower him.

Whoever killed Fatigue could've used the Speed draught and cleaned up/fled quickly after making him suddenly explode.

More theory than example but Brok takes a punch from D in chapter 4. D says "Your papa could never take a punch like that.", which could be the Endurance draught at work.

Summary

What a good audio log. Can't wait for the next episode!

[thisteaistoosweet]

A bunch of miscellaneous sketches of some vtm ocs that I never really shared outside of discord.

Read more down below:

In order: 

-Anton Lacroix: Toreador (yes he’s Sebastian Lacroix’ dad. Is extremely devoted to late wife Katia and attempts to collect every piece of artwork she’s ever done. His art is outfit design and doesn’t know Sebastian is alive)

-Willem: Venture (Anton’s best friend and depending on au is Sebastian’s sire. A lot of people mistake him for a toreador because he likes to make wine and metalsmith.)

- “Ume”: 4th gen Tzimische/ Tzimische adjacent antediluvian

(there’s a-lot to say about him , so for brevity’s sake, some fae sent him back to the past and he got turned into a vamp and hoping to save his vamp bf in the future from his final death)

-Izaya: Malkavian

(my second vtmb character and Ume’s bf. Again a lot to say but simply put his sire ate a Tremere, so izaya can do exactly two high level spells and anything else is a major flop. He likes to press every single button Sebastian has and is a menace to kindred and kind alike.)

-Jessica: Lasombra (v5)

(Again a lot to say but specifically in v5 Sabbat kinda thing. Is the bishop of Savanah Georgia, works at the local Waffle House, has a human roommate named Marcy who likes to role play as a Victorian vamp, and is in a pissing contest with the local head of the second inquisition. Her superior is trying to convert her to traditional Sabbat ideals through her fight with the SI. <I don’t care if her story isn’t lore accurate I’m the story teller here.>)

- Durante: Tremere

(A powerful player in the Tremere pyramid, rival to Oliver Thrace, and technically the sire to Preston Varrick. He’s sadistic, manipulative and likes toying with his ghoul at the time, Preston. Decides he going to eat the Salubri Dominico to one up Thrance, wins the dominance battle but mentally peaces out once he realizes he can’t take being more emotionally aware of people; leaving his body to be taken over by Dominico.)

-Dominico: Salubri

(there’s a lot for him again, but once he gets control of his new body he actively tries to hide that he’s a Salubri from the rest of the pyramid while attempting to teach Preston, his new childe, how to be a good little Tremere and how to use blood magic. <he sucks at both of these, blind leading the blind here.> and to figure out how to escape the pyramid. Thrace figures it out and after turning his own childe and their lover into a gargoyle, decides he wants Preston to be his new childe and proceeds to execute Dominico via beheading with wire. Preston never finds out Dominico died and was told he ran from the pyramid.

[churchofcaine]

The Sabbat innately appeals to me because of their diversity, chaos, but also inclusiveness.

Like with the Camarilla, one aspect that gets brushed over is that... most active members in a city are 25-200 years old. T h i n k about the values and ideals that person would hold, on average. Yeah I know LGBTQ people always existed , but like women in America couldn’t functionally exist without a man in those times. And for a very long time it was NOT ok to be out. The local Cam COULD be a haven for turned LGBTQ peoples... but it’s more likely that since the 3 major clans of the Camarilla recruit from the upper echelons of leadership, culture, and learning, it’s more likely they’d be the ones punching down.

Meanwhile the Sabbat doesn’t give a shit. You’re gay? Cool, you still kick ass though right? You’re trans? I got a favor I can pull with the Tzim bishop if you want some titty off the top. You’re asexual? Hell yeah me too brother, haven’t felt a thing below the waist in 40 years.

“Yeah but they’ll kill you for no reason.”

So will the Camarilla. They don’t care about the rituals and binding together, but if you act a certain way and thumb your nose to the higher ups, you’ll get quashed all the same. Theyll make you leave your family, friends, and life and enter into basically servitude under your side for, shit, a quarter century as a fledgling. They’ll only blood bond you if it’s more convenient than staking you out for the sun.

“Yeah but they’re monsters!”

Yes. You are too neonate. There is less difference between you and I than the humans you walk amongst. The difference is I’m not falling apart at the seams because I’m pretending to be something I’m not.

“Yeah but they’re eeeeevil!”

Have you looked at your elders? So low in humanity they look like walking corpses. We cast off the dregs of our humanity to become more true to ourselves. Beyond that Is a cat evil because it hunts mice? Is the hawk evil because it brings down sparrows? No, feeding is natural. It’s the cruelty, the savored exsanguination, the slow kill that only malice fed by intelligence can produce.

[churchofcaine]

So good to see the new blood enjoying the Gifts of Caine and Lilith.

The first time you achieve the black metamorphosis, you feel like you could crush the whole world in your grasp.

black metamorphosis + concepts = :)

[churchofcaine]

Storyteller advice: Combat and Movement

So you want to run a combat scene.

You’ve (probably) played other tabletop games and had a good time bludgeoning weird creatures to death. You’ve likely played VtMB and enjoyed the basic gunplay or even the janky melee combat. So you, as the young, naive storyteller crack open your (pre-V5) rule book and suddenly your head explodes with a migraine.

This is because the rules are scattered, the initiative system is crazy complicated, and there are a dozen maneuvers for melee and ranged combat. If you’re a veteran of tabletop games, you may look at some of the melee combat maneuvers and have some questions like “can people attack when grappling?” or “how does someone shoot a gun multiple times in one round?”

Well no worries, because I’m going to explain the combat system to you, why it is bad, and recommend some tweaks.

Combat by the numbers

Everyone involved in combat rolls 1d10+Dexterity+Wits to determine their initiative.

Starting from LOWEST initiative, each character declares what action they will take. You may ready an action to go off when another action occurs, such as dodging an attack.

Characters may move a distant of half of 20 + (dexterity x 3) yards in a turn and still attack.

Each character rolls their Dice Pools (Strength/Dexterity/Manipulation + Whatever) for their action.

If you’re making an attack, you roll Dexterity + Melee/Brawl/Firearms. If you’re doing a melee maneuver, you’re rolling Strength+Brawl generally. These are generally at difficulty 6, which means that a success occurs when your ten sided dice rolls a 6 or higher.

If you’re doing multiple actions you must split your dice pool. In Vampire 20th anniversary edition, this means you take the lowest dice pool of all your actions, and allocate dice to each action. For example, if you’re driving a car and shooting out a window, and your DEX+drive is 6, but your DEX+firearms is 4, you divide your 4 dice between driving and shooting.

If you hit, you roll damage. For melee, roll strength + your additional successes on the attack roll (you only need one success to hit). For guns, add their damage value + additional successes. Maneuvers may or may not do damage but will use the same pool as melee attacks if they do. Some damage may only allow you to roll your Fortitude. This is all at difficulty 6.

If you are hit, you roll to soak the damage. Roll your Stamina + Fortitude (if you have it).

Actions are resolved from the HIGHEST initiative order to the lowest, but all actions occur simultaneously.

Additional Celerity actions occur here.

Storyteller describes what happens dramatically.

The turn ends. Return to step 1.

Why this is a terrible system and you should never use it

There are THREE ROLLS involved for one person taking ONE mundane action. If you’re part of a 5 person group, that is a minimum of 15 rolls before you account for any opposition.

There are too many steps for one turn of combat. This can lead to an entire session being 2 or 3 turns of combat. Boring.

Damage is horribly inconsistent. If you roll a good attack roll, you could roll a terrible damage roll and not do anything. If you roll a good on attack and damage, it can be more damage than even an Elder can soak.

Initiative makes NO sense. The developers seemingly intended for players who did well on their initiative to have foreknowledge of the actions happening around them, but the ability to interfere with other actions is limited. If you go to tackle the guy trying to punch your dainty Toreador friend, he still gets to punch them since actions occur simultaneously.

It is unclear how disciplines can or cannot affect combat. For example, Dread Gaze reduces dice pools, but does it affect the dice pools of the goon shooting at your friend the turn you activate it? Does Shroud of Night increase the difficulty to hit if you’re higher in initiative than your attacker?

A variety of modifiers can change dicepools. Disciplines, firearm maneuvers, melee maneuvers, injuries, and circumstances can add or subtract dice. This can be very difficult to track in addition to figuring out WHEN each addition or subtraction applies.

Soaking is horribly inconsistent. I have been in games were Gangrels high in fortitude and stamina have gotten thrashed due to bad rolls. This more than anything makes players upset because they can never be sure if their “tanky” character is going to be put into Torpor from a bad roll.

Once you’re injured, you’re done. Injury reduces your dice pools, how fast you can move, and how many actions you can take. By default, you can heal only as much blood as you can spend in a round and cannot take any other action while doing so. Rules as written seem to imply injury penalties apply to soak dice as well.

Movement is both too complicated and too lenient. Even a character with 2 dice in dexterity can move 13 yards (39 feet/~12 meters) and attack someone. There is no tactical movement since every character can zip around all but the largest battle maps (If you use that). Injury reduces movement drastically, eventually giving slow static move speeds.

Splitting actions is a mess and never works out well. The game seems to assume everyone will split their dice pools and that’ll somehow balance the game since everyone is trying to dodge and attack. In practice, it’s best to roll your full dice pool on attack and overwhelm the person’s dodge. Celerity where you get either additional dexterity dice or actions, and you completely breaks the combat system by allowing multiple actions at full dice pools.

Recommendations for a more fun and dynamic combat

You do not have to take my ideas as gospel. Take what works for you and your friends, leave what doesn’t.

SOAK LEVELS: A vampire has a static soak rating of their Stamina + Fortitude and an aggravated soak rating of their fortitude. If damage is under half this rating, they take no damage. If it is over half they take 1 damage. If it is over their rating, they take the difference+1 in damage. This makes vampires reliably tough and eliminates an unneeded roll.

ENVIROMENTAL DAMAGE. The only time you should roll soak dice is when damage comes from an irregular source such as sunlight, fire, falling, or the rare electrocution.

TAKE THE INITIATIVE. Initiative is 1d6 added to your static rating in Dexterity and Wits. This makes initiative less swingy and eliminates ambiguity.

MY TURN ON THE TURN ORDER. The first turn in combat, characters declare their actions from LOWEST to highest. Then actions resolve from HIGHEST to lowest. You roll for the action on your turn and any effects are immediately applied. After this first turn, it goes dungeons and dragons style. Highest to lowest, effects immediately occur. Do not re roll initiative.

THROW OUT MOVEMENT. I personally do dramatic movement, where there are no set movement speeds and players move as the drama of the scene allows. Getting shot from a distance? Gonna take a turn or two to get there. See your friend getting beaten through a window? You can jump through the window and risk damage or take a turn to enter the house. Find what works for you and your trope.

LET THEM DEFEND. If a character doesn’t move, allow them the chance to dodge or block if circumstances allow.

INJURIES FOR DRAMA. Don’t religiously observe injury penalties. These should only kick in during significant fights and should be fairly applied. Injuries should never affect soak ratings

WE JUST WANNA SURVIVE. If someone wants to take an action while healing, default rules require a stamina and survival check. Ignore this. Use Willpower instead. Every Vampire has some dots in this, and it allows your thaumaturge some hope once he is hurt.

SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE. To take multiple actions, increase the difficulty of each subsequent action by 1 and reduce the dice pool of each action by the total number of actions being taken. If the dicepool is 0 or less, they cannot take that action. For example, if a character tries to jump a wall, trip a bad guy, and shoot him while he is down, the first action is Dexterity+Athletics-3 at difficulty 6. The second is Strength+Brawl-3 at difficulty 7. The third is Dexterity+Firearms-1 (+2 for shooting at someone prone) at difficulty 8.

GRAPPLING WITH MORALITY. Grapple and hold are two separate actions but have ill defined effects. Hold says they cannot attack and can only try to break the hold, but grapple doesn’t mention that but talks about it doing damage every turn. My recommendation is when you are grappling, whoever rolls higher on a Strength+Brawl does damage to the other and neither person can attack another target until they both stop grappling. Hold restrains a person until they break out, but neither the holder nor the person can take any physical action besides trying to escape

TAKE A BITE. Normally you can bite someone after tackling, grappling, or holding a person. This makes strength builds very one sided, where each turn they’re going to try to tackle and then do a Strength Aggravated damage bite. This is only worse if they also have Celerity and can bite entire rooms to death. Instead, only allow bites after a Hold is established, then another roll to Pin. This at least allows the person being held to escape. Instead a Kiss can be done during a grapple or tackle to drain blood.

[blanketempress]

Campaign : Vegas by Night (2015)

Name : Anton Stillman

Sire : Gabrielle

Clan : Malkavian

Hunter type : Alley Cat

Coterie : Pyre (Ministry) - Luce/Umbra (Lasombra)

Family : N/A

Ambition : to find a mysterious very precious book that could grant him a safe return to his original friendly desert kindred community (it’s the Church of Caine)

Tag on my blog : “team disaster”

The campaign so far

- Anton was kicked out of the kindred cult in which he was embraced after a clash between his sire and another member, and he was told he could come back if he found something interesting enough out there

- He met Luce while she was still human and they became friends, though the friendship did suffer from her embrace as now he has issues seeing her as the same person

- To test the newcomers in their domain and get rid of a troublesome kindred, the Prince of Vegas called Anton, Luce, and Pyre to do the dirty work

- Multiple fucking up times later, the team is almost a coterie but the Prince’s patience is the real miracle here

Additional information :

- Anton might or might not be in way too many blood bonds, and may or may not expand his collection

- He doesn’t even have Auspex.

[handern]

& 5, 27, 38 for anton :3

5 - How easy is it to earn their mistrust?

Hum

His trust and mistrust are distributed completely randomly, based on absolutely nonsensical criteria

The Lasombra who tried to kill him to piss off his sire? Friend shaped

The Follower of Set who probably wants to diablerize him? A great ally

The Malkavian Prince who blood bonded him and is using him as a spy without him knowing it? A new role model

Miranda, who is just trying their best to keep Luce safe from other vampires and hate-consumes bad vampire fiction for the kicks? Booh hiss if he sees them again he'll run

27 - What causes them to feel dread?

His own brain's made up possible scenarios fill him with way more dread than any real life situation he's ever been in

He's been held at gunpoint and beaten up really badly without feeling too scared about it but if you leave him in a safe but crowded room too long he's going to give himself a panic attack picturing how everything can go wrong

38 - What memory do they revisit most often?

Haha, Anton and his memories :)

I guess he remembers his childhood best, and likes it better than the rest anyway, so maybe something about a really good day where he was playing with his best friend? Nothing extraordinary, when it happened it felt like just any other day but now he's amazed that a perfect day like that could ever happen. No school, home made cake for snack time, best friend and grandpa were there, and they went to run on the beach's rocks pretending to be pirates or something

The rest is just bad memories that he replays too often, he's not sure why since he can't change the past

[churchofcaine]

It ever amuses me to see the Anarchs use Sabbat rhetoric. It pains me to say that Hegel was right. The clash of mine own sect and the Camarilla has produced a sect anarchistic and fervent, yet weighed down by the burden of Humanity.

“What do you believe in?” “I believe in myself.”

[churchofcaine]

I find it increasingly disturbing that vampire hunter blogs are popping up. You have the whole of the information superhighway to enjoy, can you not leave your self righteous delusions in the real world?

Must you pollute my wonderful ecosystem of fellow kindred with your kine swaggering?

[churchofcaine]

God it’s so hard to hunt with the mortals confined in their homes. I can’t even use shadow form to feed on the sleeping since this new herd of kine are up at all hours of the night. I sometimes miss the days of oil lanterns.

[blanketempress]

How many OCs do you have, all told across all settings and such? :3

right now I have my three main PCs for Vampire the Masquerade (Arzel, Anton and Lorenzo), a bunch of NPCs I made up regarding my PCs' backstories, and waaaay too many NPCs for my own TTRPG campaign

London by Night campaign ; Nelle (Brujah, Arzel's mawla), Sophia (Caitiff, Arzel's ex)

Vegas campaign ; Gabrielle (Anton's sire), Seok (Lasombra, Anton's? enemy?)

LA campaign ; Gina (Lorenzo's sire), Matteo (ghoul, Lorenzo's brother), Livia (ghoul, Lorenzo and Matteo's mother), Fortunato (ghoul, Lorenzo's? nemesis? it's one sided. on Fortunato's side.), Annabelle (ghoul, Lorenzo and Matteo's hhhh caretaker?)

[churchofcaine]

Mmm. That tattoo looks pretty...

Infernal

To me.

this was meant to be a joke but i kept adding details and here we are lmao he’s tired because Allistrair made him redecorate their apartment. twice.

[churchofcaine]

See, friend? The Anarchs are but a revamp (heh) of old ideas.

Was not once every vampire willing to look at themselves and say “I will not budge from what I am now, I will not let my humanity falter!” But you do. By steps and increments and the slow creep of time, it does. First you lose the life you once lead, then the people you once knew, and finally the culture you once appreciated until you’re an alien in what was once your home.

You age out of humanity, eventually. The Sabbat are just choosing to rip the bandaid off early.

sanglantromantique‌:

Lack of concern for mortals. The idea that we are supposed to be monsters. Humans deserve kindness and respect the same as every other creature.

– that’s not our cause - you said the ‘crusade aspect’, the crusade is our cause. What’s wrong with our cause– ? We do not want cainites to suffer feeling like they don’t belong pretending to be human when they are not. We are not human– the things we do do not fall in the frame of human morals-

to pretend otherwise is foolish- and only hurts the well being of our souls–

[churchofcaine]

Burning.

okay what’s the mood kindred. we yearning or burning

[churchofcaine]

Drums.

Dancing around a fire.

The presence of your Pack around you.

The thrill of the leap. The howl of the beast.

The dull thrum of victory as chalices of blood are pressed into your hands.

Feeling better than you ever did while alive.

okay SO PUTTING ASIDE THAT I AM AN IDIOT:

what would you all like to see at a party? i don’t have a pool but I do have a nice patio and a moon/sun room!

I have not planned a party since the Electric Tablecloth incident.

[churchofcaine]

Worse than you have tried and failed.

like, dont know if it needs be said but for the record fuck the Camarilla and fuck the Sabbat 👉👉