#chicago by night v5

[melonbear51]

VTM V5′s Cult of Shalim, the concept of Holy Darkness, and its ingenious (and respectful!) connections to Judaism

So for the past year or so I have fallen head-first into the World of Darkness and have been studying up on the amazing lore present. I recently got my hands on the Vampire: The Masquerade v5 supplement, “Cult of The Blood Gods.” The book as a whole is an amazing guide to vampiric religions, cults, and ideologies, but one of the most intriguing sections for me was the section on abyss-obsessed Cult of Shalim. (This is going to be long, probably formatted horribly, and a bit rambling, but I promise I have a point).  For those of you who aren’t aware, I’m Jewish. Well, Jew-ish; I was raised in a rather secular home, and while I observe the big holidays, I have always considered myself more culturally Jewish. I’ve been reading up more on my faith though, in an attempt to connect more to my heritage and traditions. Now, I’d noticed when looking at Jewish prayers and such that light plays a big part in Judaism (I’m not scholar here, so if anyone wishes to correct me please do so). We praise the light of God, praise God for fashioning light, ask to enjoy its splendor, etc. We also, of course, have Hanukkah, the festival of lights. So when I read “Cult of The Blood Gods” and saw The Cult of Shalim being tied to Judaism via the character of Rabbi Basaras and the Hebrew in the name, I was confused. 

Then I accidentally stumbled into articles on the Ayin-Yesh, the Ein Sof, and Tzimtzum, important concepts in Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism, and the connection hit me like a truck. I reiterate, I am no expert on Judaism as I am still learning, and VERY MUCH NOT AN EXPERT on the complicated subject of Kabbalah, but this is some fascinating stuff and I’m going to try and explain my mental connections.

The Ayin-Yesh, Ein Sof, and Tzimtzum

To give a very basic (and probably underdeveloped) summary on the Ayin-Yesh and Ein Sof, the Ayin is considered to be the nothingness from which our universe or “something” (Yesh) emerged. Inhabiting, or being present alongside, the Ayin is the Ein Sof: the immaterial manifestation of God before God manifested themselves as part of creation. Ein Sof is also associated with the concept of infinity and endlessness. The Ein-Sof and Ayin are often tied together due to the proximity of the primordial nothingness and the immaterial form of God. Additionally, God is said to have created the world by Tzimtzum, or contracting, to create a vacant, hollow, conceptual space from which to craft the world. 

In other words...

HOLY DARKNESS/NOTHINGNESS IS VERY MUCH A CONCEPT IN JEWISH MYSTICISM! The Cult of Shalim, spearheaded by the faith-shrouded Lasombra, who worship and wish to rejoin the abyss, oblivion and nothingness, would naturally find this concept and use it for their own purposes in order to justify their twisted agenda.

While you could discredit this as being a coincidence, I very much doubt it! I think Renegade Games did their research, and managed to take steps to tie the very Catholic-coded Lasombra to another faith in a very cool way. I also applaud them for providing more Jewish representation and opening the door for more Jewish characters, both good and evil. 

Think about it! You could have a Jewish Hunter: The Reckoning character who saw their temple become corrupted by the Shalimites and decided to fight against it. You could have a corruptor figure like Rabbi Basaras. You could have a vampire character who is desperately in search of something to believe in after the embrace, only to slowly fall into this perversion hidden under the mask of an Abrahamic faith.  To all those who’ve read this, thank you very much. For the rest, here’s a TLDR: The Cult of Shalim from “VTM V5′S Cult of The Blood God” ’s ideologies draw from Jewish mysticism in a way that perfectly compliment the Lasombra’s penchant for taking advantage of mortal faith, while also opening the door for more Jewish characters.  If anyone with a more knowledge on Judaism and Kabbalah would like to contribute or correct me, please don’t hesitate! 

[vtmchronicle-journal]

So this is finally finished. It took me an annoying amount of time since I was very indecisive about the colors but it’s done now. I could have touched a few things up but I was so over messing so I’m putting the mouse down and leaving it be.

[dovescandycoatedreality]

are we the hunters...or are we the prey?

[scrivnomancer]

Season's strangeness! For the holidays, I'll feature one of my written works a day. Today, we'll look at CHICAGO FOLIOS, a sourcebook for Vampire: The Masquerade 5th ed. I covered some of the oddities creeping about Chicagoland.

[amrii-absurd]

WIP Playlist for my Vampire: The Masquerade Campaign

A Storyteller's collection of underground, goth, alt, horrorcore, punk, crunk & gangsta rap music. Curated [WIP]

//for cold opens// intermissions// backstory//bkg// INTENDED AS QUEUED . NO SHUFFLING . JUST SKIPS . {{ {ViBES->} supernatural, sci fi, mystic, cosmic & psychological horror }}

I'm thinking I'll curate this into groupings of songs, by their tonality. They'll follow the major three times as ordered in the title. Isolated->Hard->Afraid. That will make the playlist easy to separate into shorter segments for roleplay scenes. Segments create a setup for developing a cohesive plot within each nightly story. This playlist's length has a 3-5 hour max. It's versatile and ideal for medium-to-long sessions. I've Anticipated intermissions between themes/genres. Therefore, groupings are optimized for spurts of play and keeping the vibes on point in between.

[gorbalsvampire]

Have you picked up and read the recent WoD 5th edition books, like blood strained love? How is this edition stacking up as they slowly add more splats? Are there any future releases you're interested in? Are there more things you'd like to see from WoD 5e that they don't have right now? Personally I feel like the concept of the loresheets was fun and interesting, but the application has been really uneven and disappointing. I'd want more clan specific sheets for some of the clans that haven't gotten as much love (like I believe there is only 1 Lasombra specific loresheet and nothing for the Tzimisce?) I'd also love to see more By Night books, especially examining places outside of the USA

I've been picking up most of the Renegade books, yes! I like V5, despite its rough start, and Renegade have chosen a middle path between the density of OPP and the aesthetic of the old ParaWW team. They're very game focused books, which I appreciate, not being an enthusiast of "lore for lore's sake" (even typing the word makes my stomach turn over).

It's nice to have a turn away from splatbooks and into transformative supplements. IF you want a dark romantic story, THEN add Blood Stained Love. IF you want overt sectarian conflict in an action thriller, THEN add Gehenna War. It's more useful as an approach than piling more into the core.

I do think they're less substantial than they could be. Blood Stained Love didn't do enough groundwork on establishing the legitimacy of romance stories and, as a result, a lot of the groggier players I know dismissed it as "not for a serious chronicle." Blood Sigils felt like a breathless gush, a glut of new powers with a context sort of folded around it. I know @friends-of-beetlejuice is way more into Alchemy than I am and found a lot of the new background on that very brain chewy, and I took more of an interest when the koldun bug got to me. They feel like what they are: optional extras for people who want more or one specific thing, not must haves to complete the One True "Canon" World of Darkness (there it goes again, bad tum! bad!)

I'm quite interested in Gehenna War, that's a chance to revisit the 1990s vibe. I'm not as interested in Crimson Gutter for myself, but I think it's exactly what the game needs right now: premade, metaplot light material to get new players and STs up and running.

As for future releases, someone badly needs to give the Tzimisce the same treatment the Hecata got: collate the ideas, work them over, rationalise the concept and build some out into Loresheets. Vicissitude is too long and fussy as a power, it needs tearing down and a lighter touch taking. A European City By Night book with a long Tzimisce chapter or two would be perfect as a vehicle for that. I'd rather see Onyx Path do it – I've ragged on Dawkins as a developer, but this is the kind of thing he was born to do, and the substance-over-style approach is what's needed here.

Generally I don't rate the By Nights – too many of them are metaplot vectors that don't care to make space for play – but the slower, colder, older, conflicts of the settled and less gun-happy European Kindred need a showcase, and another Chicago-tier book would do it.

[rottenbrainstuff]

We finally played the first V:tM game this weekend! It went…. Well… eh… I mean all three of us are still alive! However, we ARE 1) apparently stuck in a town that seems to keep only (?) vampires trapped inside it and when we tried to drive out, we got lost and had to sleep on the highway 2) we might have accidentally offended the local camarilla representative by accidentally saying hello to an anarch leader first 3) said camarilla representative sounds shady as fuck anyyyyyways and my character is worried about being diablerized……

So that’s how it’s going.

Kiddo I think is frustrated that we all rolled pretty good and besides getting supernaturally lost, mostly nothing bad happened to us, haha, they were hoping to be a bit more mean, I think. I mix n matched my character a bit with some loresheets I pulled from Chicago by Night so my malk is properly plugged into the cobweb. She is very fun to play. I’m currently rehearsing something suitably grovely and possibly threateningly name-dropping to smooth things over next game. I think I’m getting the hang of V5 rules?

[kitausuret]

Meet the writer!

Stolen from @bakageta!

Rules: Make yourself using this picrew and answer the questions below!

3 Fun Facts about me:

The first fanfic I ever wrote was in second grade, for Beverly Cleary's Ralph S. Mouse.

I almost always write at night (or at least after sunset).

I'm very particular about what kind of pens I handwrite with, but my favorites are from the Pilot G2, V5, or V7 lines. I've sworn by them since middle school.

Favorite season:

Autumn, for college football, cooler weather, the leaves changing color, pumpkins, bonfires, Halloween... all the things!

Continent where I live:

North America, in the Midwestern United States!

How I spend my time:

Outside of my work in disability insurance, I like to spend my free time writing, cycling, exploring the city I live in, traveling (when I can), and of course I love comics. At night I like to wind down with audiobooks! I also spend an embarrassing amount of time on Tumblr and Discord LOL

Are you published?

Back in high school, I did have a couple poems and a prose piece in our school-wide publication. I think I may have also gotten a poem submitted to a state-wide publication but I have no idea what it was.

Introvert or Extrovert?

I consider myself an extrovert, I really love being around lots of people, as long as it's not a super-enclosed space. But I thrive in places like Chicago and DC that are always hustling and bustling. It's fun!

Favorite meal:

Ooo, hard choice. I really love breakfast foods though, so: 1 egg over medium, french toast, and slightly-limp bacon. That's the good stuff!

If you'd like to do this, consider yourself tagged!

[born-4-this]

🎨 - @/CROWNEDINMARIGOLDS

🙏This is an in character Vampire: The Masquerade/World of Darkness Blog🙏 📿My Personal Blog - Call me Chiss👋 Any pronouns work 📿 🙏 While I try to avoid it, I may well get details wrong; I wasn't raised Catholic nor am I one irl.🙏

👇Character Info 👇 [+ rules @ the bottom]

[Image Source: The Red Sign, p. 94] [Revised Era Sourcebook] [Artist: Vince Locke, his website]

You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off. [Leviticus 17:14]

BRIEF INTRODUCTION Billie Caruso. Soon-to-be Nun, shunned.

Raised by members of the Clergy who had every intention having her follow the through-line straight into ranks of the Society of St. Leopold's oft mistrusted sister order The Order of Saint Joan, Ms. Caruso was denied even so much as a chance to pass her Novitiate and become a full-fledged Sister let alone learn the many and varied truths about what truly goes bump in the night the "proper" way. Embraced at just 19 years of age, wholly dedicated and devout - unpopular with the more-set-in-their ways sisters as her opinions might have been, Billie isn't sure where she went wrong to be shunned so absolutely; besotted with Cain's mark and left to fend for herself... The Good Lord has plans for all of His creatures; perhaps this isn't just a penance to be paid... After all, He has bestowed her with: - 'Visions', like her beloved Joan. A daunting task to heave upon her shoulders, but one nonetheless undertaken dutifully. - The oft sought-after gift of being able to bask in the sun's warmth while bearing Cain's mark. [which, in turn, allows her to observe the Canonical Hours for prayer as she would have during her Novitiate.] Suffice to say, she's still trying to figure it all out and stay 'alive' at the same time. To that end, she interviews willing Full-Blooded cainites when and where she can in an effort to gather her bearings.

[Eugène-Romain Thirion || Joan of Arc listening to her voices]

MERITS

Faith Proof [V5] [Thin-Blood] Whether you consider yourself an atheist or devoutly religious, you remain too close to mortality for True Faith to affect you.

Day Drinker [V5] [Thin-Blood] She's walking on sunshine.

Ingenue [V5] (•) You look completely innocent and blameless, making others believe in your good intentions much easier.

Linguistics [V5] [Latin] (•) Fluent.

Tempered Will [V5] (•••) Your stubborn spirit didn’t die during your Embrace, and you find yourself knowing when people are trying to force you to do something against your will. [Aware of Dominate/Presence attempts]

FLAWS

Night Terrors [V5] [Thin-Blood] She has nightmares she's incapable of remembering until the most inopportune of times... She assumes these to be visions from God and the Heavenly host.

Vitae Dependency [V5] [Thin-Blood] Her, nominally non-existent, disciplines require feeding from a full-blooded vampire once a week to use.

Knowledge Hungry [V5] (Noddism) You always feared that you wouldn’t have the time to learn everything you wanted about what’s truly important. Well, that’s one problem solved. The time to learn is not always now, though — you regretfully put a bookmark in your studies and attend to more life-threatening matters.

No Haven [V5] She has, and you'll never believe this, no haven to call her own.

LORESHEETS

Novice (••) [LS: THE SOCIETY OF ST. LEOPOLD] [Chicago By Night, p. 285]

Your interest in entering into a profession of faith went deeper than most: you were on the verge of entering into your novitiate when that life was permanently torn away from you. Whether you resent this or have accepted it, you retain a considerable amount of interest in and potential contact with members of the local church. These Contacts (equivalent of ••) would naturally include your confessor, the members of the order you were seeking to enter who oversaw your training, fellow novices, or members of the local congregational volunteer groups.

[Bartolome Esteban Murillo || Our Lady of Sorrows]

RULES N' SUCH:

Minors, away with you. 🫵(blocked where spotted) [have a good day, though!👋]

Note: I'm 21.

if anything ever crosses a line or comes across as particularly pointed, please do not hesitate to lmk!!

If you ever have any questions ever/would like a source on a piece of lore I refer to/in general - I'm always happy to help!

Still new-ish to Tumblr RP, please have mercy on me; Caine bless.

RESOURCES

State of Grace [Link to Buy] [Revised Era Sourcebook] [How the children of Caine interact with and adapt to practicing their religions]

Both Hunters Hunted II [V20 Sourcebook] and The Inquisition [Revised Sourcebook] have very, very brief snippets of lore about the Order of St. Joan. Truth be told, you would be better going off to the White Wolf Wiki for information on them as it's 1.) Free 2.) All there.

"Poor little creatures!" she said. "What can a person's heart be made of that can pity a Christian's child and yet can't pity a devil's child, that a thousand times more needs it!" [Mark Twain's Translation of: Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc]

[gorbalsvampire]

I'm so glad someone else cares.

Do we want to get into how V5 specifically has had – gotta count on my fingers here – five distinct development teams in six years?

There's the "White Wolf" imprint that Paradox briefly used to release the game, before multiple furores and brouhahas around distasteful content, bad actors, neo-Nazi dogwhistles and two out of three in hoise devs resigning brought that to an end. These books – V5 core, Camarilla, Anarchs and Fall of London (lol) were distributed by Modiphius because Paradox didn't have an established process for that (and I'm not sure they do now).

There's Onyx Path, who produced two big books and a raft of stretch goal PDFs as licensors.

There's the "safe pair of hands" era, where VtM's longest serving lead developer came back to Paradox and developed the antagonist supplements and Player's Guide.

And now there's... whatever's going on now. The World of Darkness, distributed by Renegade Games, and apparently developed by everyone who hasn't been fired or quit during the previous chain of events.

AND! White Wolf LARP split off into a whole separate company, By Night Studios, which developed parallel to Onyx Path and did things rather differently. They're printing the LARP rules for V5. They're still influential, because prestige LARP is a big showcase for the IP, and By Night staff – Jason Carl and Dhaunae DeVir especially – have ended up in core roles on the Paradox team.

Bottom line though: Paradox Interactive own it all, and the buck stops with them. The rest is licensing arrangements and shell branding.

To complicate matters still further, a lot of the same people are still around, with different levels of responsibility, because a lot of the actual development has been done on a freelance basis or by the same people in different capacities.

Rich Thomas was art director at White Wolf and is creative director at Onyx Path, and his current relationship with Paradox is unknown.

Jason Carl cut his teeth at By Night Studios, the LARP publication arm, before moving into his current role as WoD marketing manager for Paradox. Same with Dhaunae DeVir, partnerships manager.

Justin Achilli has been lead developer three times: at White Wolf (for Revised VtM and Requiem 1e), Onyx Path (for V20's core book) and Paradox (for V5 on the Player's Guide, Sabbat and I think Second Inquisition books).

Matthew Dawkins is a contributing writer to Paradox but a lead developer at Onyx Path (that's why Chicago By Night and Cults of the Blood Gods are so different from the V5 launch books – he had creative control there).

Mark Rein-Hagen created the game but was merely a contributing writer to V5. Exactly what he wrote is somewhat mysterious (if a chapter is badly received, don't admit which of your team wrote it), but he stepped back after the Chechnya chapter fiasco and he is pretty close, geographically...

Isn't it interesting that the trans women who led development on Requiem 2e at Onyx Path don't show up on the Paradox team, even though at least one of them had been contributing since the White Wolf era? Their ideas certainly appear, in decidedly crunked up form, but where's the credit for Rose Bailey and Olivia Hill?

(There's a lot of murky he-said she-said personal and industry politics attached to that last name, much of which would be outright libellous to repeat since I can't verify any of it, but still... credit where it's due. I can say that Hill's Hunter heartbreaker, iHunt, is a good game, and if she's gotten to release Savage Garden, her Vampire heartbreaker, we will get to see what V5 could have been.)

And isn't it interesting that the most safety-tool-focused book, Blood Stained Love, is also the only V5 book with a female lead developer? Juhanna Petterson, take a bow.

I am legitimately fascinated by production circumstances: because of the autism, but also because when you know who wrote what and you've heard enough scuttlebutt to suspect who wrote what isn't being copped to, the stylistic differences and creative choices start making sense.

Because it's a thing that pops up multiple times and I'm pedantic.

White Wolf publishing doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for a good while. V5 is made by Paradox.

For context: In 2006 White Wolf publishing has been merged with CCP. WW would handle traditional publishing while CCP would deal with some mmo stuff they wanted to do.

At one point in 2011 a shit ton of employees were laid off and the creative director then went off to create onyx path publishing which published White Wolf stuff on CCP's (and now Paradox) behalf.

In 2014 more staff was laid off and the mmo was canceled. Then Paradox bought White Wolf. Since 2018 White Wolf has been restructured directly into Paradox and hence doesn't exist.

[vtmchronicle-journal]

My NPC pages for the VtM Chicago game I’m running soon came turned out perfect. I was having trouble finding a way to organize everyone beforehand. But putting the info from the book into campfire seems to be working great (plus it helps me actually remember all of them).

Below the cut are spoilers for an npc in Chicago by Night.

So yeah, just have 70+ more npcs to transfer over

[andrealeora]

I’ve been playing my first VTM game and years and it’s been a blast. Today I was working on art job stuff and needed a break, so I painted this real fast for my own joy. 

 My Malk is a painter and painted one of her coterie mates. :) Naturally, the painting will never leave the closet. 

[invictusimvu]

The original Succubus Club book published by White Wolf had floor plans of the club. I had to take some scans of the book and then clean them up and compile them into one file that way we could use Mind’s Eye Theater  to visualize where everything and everyone was.

[gmortschaotica]

I just backed The Onyx Path's Chicago By Night for Vampire The Masquerade 5th Edition on Kickstarter

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/chicago-by-night-for-vampire-the-masquerade-5th-ed/

[ellyawn]

Ayleen Shepard Character development

First thing, my english is rusty, long time I didn't write a big text like that. Since few months I have a character idea for Vampire: The Masquerade v5 : a woman doing videogames streaming and extremes sports who will be embrace by a Malkavian fan.

As a result, she would "obtain" a mmorpg vision of the world (name on the top of the people, music when a fight start and many interaction like crying for xp/drop or not understanding why the coteries doesn't accept her group invitation XD)

So I started to work on a design but I wasn't convinced

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Having no one to make me play vampire, I put her in waiting because I storytell a Chicago by Night campaign with very active players ^^

But last week one of my player proposed to storytell a Hunter: The Reckonning game... and in my head it was : maybe I could play her human story with that ! So here we go :D Since the story will be happen in parallel to mine, in the same city, events will be link ^^ And my idea of character became the little sister of Andie's (one of my player) best friend : Miakoda Shepard.

Their father is Iroquoian while their mother is French, Miakoda learn the way of the chamans, is a nature photographer and fight for the natives americans rights. So Ayleen is younger and doesn't have the same character, she love doing extreme sport, pushing her limit, and playing videogames so she start streaming, becoming famous really fast.

Doing a pinterest to put all the idea of design in it, I realized that Ayleen is totaly a modern version of Korra (Avatar: The Legend of Korra) XD Now I have to find a great illustration or draw her myself ^^;

And I have already start her playlist, some musics are more for her vampire version (like The World) but it give a good idea already

As you can see, I have still some way to improve her story (I must create her bests friends, I hesitate to make her a twin sister, I must add drama, etc) and I will work on that this weekend ^^

[mz-elysium]

San Francisco by Night... kinda sucks imo

[ID: dreamy enhanced photograph of the Golden Gate Bridge from the wharf, with foamy waters and a pink sunset over the hills]

“SF” or “the City”. “Frisco” is unacceptable. this is literally the first thing anyone here will say. i got made so much fun of when i moved, pls save yourself.

The racist overtones of the Middle Kingdom are well documented (but, if you wanna hear me rant, it’s under the read-more), so I’ll mainly complain about the obvious one to me.

Between the “Kindred of the East” city-book and the “Changling” book on SF, they still failed to get something right.

Sense of Scale

SF is a city of less than a million. It’s cramped. Shoved up against the water on all sides, there is literally no more room to build out (and don’t even think about trying to build up! i swear, there are some gnarly vampire politicians messing with building and zoning laws here). I came from a midwest city that’s larger than SF -- it’s not hard.

BUT

Bridge toll is reasonable-ish. Trains cross the Bay. There is no real hard line between San Francisco and South San Francisco (yes, different cities). In the East Bay, divides are even slimmer. Like, a couple of blocks-ish between Oakland and Berkeley. Maybe the county has the lines, but it really doesn’t matter.

It’s all just the Bay Area.

SF By Night doesn’t even think about this. As if, being on the peninsula, the City is entirely locked in. Gary is further from Chicago than Oakland is from SF. For gods sake, ppl live in Fairfield and commute into Palo Alto.

This is the Bay Area. 9 counties. 9 million people.

[ID: a detailed and colour-coded map of the Bay Area, including many cities, highways, bridges, and honestly it’s a crayon scribble of a mess]

Fairfield to San Jose is 1.5hrs, tops. It’s very crowded, densely urban with swathes of protected hills and redwoods, and yet compact?

It’s also very neatly divided into five : North Bay, East Bay, South Bay, SF, and the Peninsula. It’s almost as neatly squared off as New York City boroughs, in terms of splitting domain.

North Bay : rich. touristy. wine, fine dining, resorts. classy in a way your mom likes and your aging hipster friend thinks is innovative. (unless you’re in Solano County, which is very East Bay)

East Bay : poster child of the area. homelessness. violence. some gangs. faltering blue collar industry. broken hippies. chic hipster food. underground music (ppl who love or hate Green Day). craft beer. gentrification. also, “UC Berkeley” (University of California: Berkeley). (unless you’re east of the hills from concord south, in which case it’s WASP city)

South Bay : baby white collar tech grads. new developments. silicon valley. new wealth that thinks it “won’t be like THOSE rich people”. punished communities of chinese, vietnamese, and latino immigrants.

Peninsula : very much like the east bay -- grubby, industrial commercial areas spliced with Stanford and incredibly stupidly priced houses.

SF : new rich that thinks it’s old money. crime and locals fighting gentrification from “liberals”. hipsters and social vultures pretending to be rebels. everything is kinda dated, not cool, and clinging to relevance.

From politics and the upper crust, there’s a vibe of “we’re in a liberal paradise, we don’t need any more progress!” People crutch onto the identity of California Democrat, while being anti-Black, anti-Asian, against improvements for homelessness or public transit or the housing crisis.

It is violently hypocritical. People don’t live their values. Class divides started sharp and have only gotten sharper, and harder. There’s a feeling of desperation, of remembering when days were easier. At the same time, a lot of the “wealthy” are only “comfortable” and living tight.

Isn’t that a great setting for the World of Darkness?

god do I have to do everything myself?

[read more for middle kingdom complaining]

The Middle Kingdom / Keui-jin

does. not. work.

It doesn’t work to such a degree that V5 scrapped the “eastern vampires” entirely. The Camarilla now has footholds in Singapore and Tokyo.

Once, there was a pan-Asian race of vampire-like creatures. They’re similar enough that it kinda flies in the face of the Caine myth, but reading their mechanics and history is a bit of a Scrabble box of cultural words from... various Asian countries. Hun and po. Chi. Dharma. Karmic cycle. Ying and yang. A lot about tigers and dragons.

The name is a mash-up of Mandarin and Japanese, which is pretty on-point since the only two countries mentioned seem to be China and Japan.

The main mechanical improvement is the dharmas, which work (not as Hindu dharma) as paths to enlightenment. Like Humanity, a dharma functions a little like a morality scale, but is mainly a concept of spirituality in an attempt to break out of the undead state and earn the universe’s favour to escape reincarnation.

Like, a Buddhist or Hindu take on vampires would be very cool. Cursed to be ripped from the natural cycle of reincarnation? Trapped to wander the earth as an echo of your mortal self? Great. Make that a standard kindred and you got a very interesting character concept.

also this horrible theme...

All City books start out with some themes for the city. All cities in WOD become characters, so that’s always cool.

Uh.

[ID: title, “Colonialism”, text, “The Middle Kingdom suffered under more than a century of European colonialism, which forced alien laws, values and conditions on nations and cultures thousands of years old. Although many of Asia’s nations have reasserted their own cultural identities, the legacy born of European influence and rule remain like a bitter aftertaste. Now the Kuei-jin of the August Courts have turned the tables on the West, invading and occupying two of their cities and imposing their own rules and requirements.”]

Now, if any of the Kuei-Jin came from countries that suffered under western colonialism, that would be cool. But, as often in white media, the only countries that exist are China and Japan -- both with their own colonizing history.

I appreciate the emphasis on Asian (particularly east Asian) immigrants in the Bay Area, which has substantial Chinese, Filipino, and Vietnamese populations. But. This? This isn’t good. The racist “Uno reverse no you” horror plot is trying to sound progressive : “oh no, we invaded and colonized them, so now they treat us the way we treated them!”