#disposable pawns in the game of the gods to be used and discard as if nothing

[in-fair-verona-we-set-our-scene]

I do think Withers has a really subtle background character arc in bg3. Because at the start it is really clear he doesn't want to be here and he's being forced to clean up his mess by Helm and probably Ao. He doesn't really care either. Everything ends so nothing really matters, he'd like to go back to his paperwork now please.

Except he's stuck babysitting a bunch of traumatized dumbasses as they stumble into dealing with the most recent bad idea of his three fuck-up disappointments. So he brings them back when they die for a pittance, lets them pay for some vengeful ghosts to come back as flesh and blood to wreak bloody vengeance on the Absolute, and starts to... comment, on what's going on, as he follows them on their adventure.

Next thing you know Withers is like, doing things unprompted. He refuses to bring back Alfira (or Quil) but that's an act of compassion, keeping the poor girl from the Urge and letting her rest, his actual duty as a god of death. He tells Arabella to follow her destiny and does that thing to make her grief go away which honestly freaks me out but seems to be him trying to help her. He shows up at Moonrise and prompts us to consider why the Dead Three would want a bunch of soulless illithids that would give them no power, getting us to think of the big picture.

And by the end (especially if you do a resist!Durge playthrough) Withers is actively interfering and seems genuinely invested! He brings Durge back from the dead, free of their father! He encourages us before the final fight with the Netherbrain! He's real fucking smug that the Dead Three lost when he never seemed to care about the destruction they caused before! He throws a reunion party and many of his lines are genuinely touching or kind! Especially if a companion died permanently! He has tea with Gale's mom and Tara! He's like, socializing and shit! Yes, everything is temporary and we all die, but there's great beauty in fighting for that precious time and living it to the fullest!

Basically Wither's character arc is this meme, all because Helm made him go outside and touch grass.

[lumi-klovstad-games]

Okay. You know what? I'm gonna defend my argument here. I respect your stance, but I do believe in what I wrote. I will take this opportunity to offer a more pointed illustration of why, since I believe it may help someone --anyone, really-- understand my point better lest they think I'm just cruelly beating on a game they like, even if that person isn't necessarily you (obviously, I hope you'll at least do me the courtesy of hearing me out, but I don't require it. You have one life so you do you.)

First off, again I say: if you enjoyed FF16, I'm happy for you. Truly. Genuinely. My criticisms of it are not meant to instill hatred for the game, but point out where I believe it requires significant improvement.

That being said, read on if you're interested. If not, well, I'll still freely admit to being overly harsh with my original wording before you leave.

Kingdom Hearts is actually a good example for how Square has, in the past, taken stories in a Dark As Fuck direction without trying to edge into becoming Warhammer Fantasy Grimdark. Now, obviously, FF16 isn't exactly that, but it's a clear push in that direction, and one that, as a Final Fantasy 16 thing works well, but I do not wish to see it define the series going forward, as Square-Enix execs have implied they plan to.

Kingdom Hearts is dark as hell, and here's some VERY short descriptions of how:

The villain of the first KH game is literally a guy who mind rapes a child into giving up his body to what amounts to a demonic possession and has genocided multiple worlds because he thinks that's the way the universe should be.

The villain of the second game was willing to kill as many people as possible just to create and acquire the Macguffin he thought might enable him to feel emotions again and had no regard for anyone outside of himself.

The villain of the saga overall wanted to create an endless war between every world in the multiverse because he thought that the resulting never ending butchery would cause "growth" and "innovation" and "answer questions he had about the universe", and used all the prior bad guys in the series as disposable pawns.

Final Fantasy VI literally blew up the planet and made the last several hours of the game's plot AND the final boss not about saving the world, but avenging it.

Final Fantasy X was about a Theocratic State using their Religion's dogma to lock the entire world in a never ending spiral of death, cultivating heroes like crops and casually discarding them by fooling them into pointlessly sacrificing themselves because that gave people false hope and reinforced their faith in the establishment.

Final Fantasy XIII was about a literal Murder Cult of Gods who were bored with the world they were ruling over and so used fear and propaganda to try to start a war amongst their followers that would kill everything so they no longer would be "burdened" with looking after "lesser creatures".

Square has ALWAYS done dark storytelling. You'd be hard pressed to find a Square game that hasn't gone into genuinely grim, disturbing territory. But it's never been so hamfisted about it. The colors and vibrancy of their worlds have typically contrasted the darkness that lies at the heart of their stories, making that darkness more effective and motivating the player to save the world because they've seen a world full of beauty.

Onto my next point: Square is just as bad as Konami about seeing a game's success or failure and taking entirely the wrong lessons about it. For instance, deciding Infinite Undiscovery, genuinely one of the best JRPGs of its generation, was "just something people clearly didn't want more of" when it failed to meet sales expectations, never mind that they put it exclusively on the worst performing system in Japan at the time (the Xbox 360), and barely marketed it all in regions where Xbox 360 had a bigger foothold. Tellingly, the dev team entirely cut their ties with Square-Enix for good afterwards.

Or, after seeing all the bad customer reviews for Final Fantasy XIII, which remains a front runner for "most divisive game in Final Fantasy history" and deciding that game needed TWO sequels. Admittedly, the sequels both addressed gripes many people had with the original, but that they were greenlit at all was shocking. It did not help that they too still landed to decidedly divided audiences.

This is also the same company that was dead certain that Forspoken was a surefire hit because it was made more "Western Style" (which Square-Enix seems to have developed an obsession with recreating for some reason), when their marquee games like Final Fantasy have traditionally stood out in America for... exactly not being that.

My fear (and a well founded one given how Square-Enix execs have behaved in the past) is that Square-Enix will look at the success of Final Fantasy XVI, and decide, without ever considering the other factors, that it was the literally dark and muted color aesthetic and much more pointedly grimdark tone that was so popular, and continue that trajectory, turning Final Fantasy into something that no longer stands out so well amongst all the other games that are already doing that. Final Fantasy has worked so far partially because it's not "Dark and Edgy" like everybody else.

That is why I want the game to fail. As an individual game, I like it. It's good! But Square-Enix has shown time and time again, for decades now, that they are willing to abort promising IPs, and promote and continue to support unpopular ones, because of mercurial executive reasoning that deliberately misconstrues a game's performance on the market and acquires the wrong take away lesson again and again as they have done for at least 20 years. The only thing that could actually stop that is for the game to fail to a degree that Square-Enix takes a bloody nose (or, crucially, just feels like they have) and washes their hands of the experiment.

It's worth noting that when Square-Enix has backed off an idea in the past, they've historically revisited it a few years later, but it tends to be much better because developer hindsight is often 20/20.

Fortunately, as Square-Enix is a company that delights in routinely setting highly unreasonable sales figures, the game could actually perform quite well and still be regarded as a disappointment. So, it's not as though I'm wishing a Pox on anyone's House here. And so far, it looks like exactly that is happening: it's doing well, just not "Square-Enix Executive Board's Hopes And Dreams" well, because that's not really a reasonable or attainable goal for most games, even a modern Final Fantasy game.

So, if this goes the way I hope it will (and early evidence is suggesting it will), everyone gets what they want. Square-Enix isn't going to "unpublish" FF16, so people who like it still get to enjoy it. Final Fantasy XVI still turns a profit, just not Square-Enix's unreasonably idealized idea of a profit. Square-Enix resultingly backs off making Final Fantasy into a Game of Thrones-toned "Dark Fantasy" series, and hopefully revisits the idea of a Medieval or Renaissance-themed Final Fantasy later, but realizing that a game doesn't have to lack bright colors or have the world be so depressingly bleak to tell a dark as pitch tale.

As for 16's dark as hell aesthetic and tone, I actually do dig it, and wouldn't mind it forming the basis of a spiritual sequel with a new IP; triple-A gaming could always use more of those, after all. And it would permit Square-Enix additional opportunities to be seen as something more than just "the FF and KH company".

Hopefully this didn't come across too harshly. If you read all this and still disagree that's totally fair. You are your own person with your own opinions and I have no interest in trying to force anyone to agree. I did feel laying down my thought process was important and I didn't really do that adequately before, in addition to having opened my argument with harsher word choices than the topic deserved.

Apologies for the long as hell post. Kudos for those who stuck through it all.

Have a potato.

I don't intrinsically hate Final Fantasy XVI, but I need this game to fail as badly as possible.

It is too bleak, too colorless, too depressing and dark.

And if you enjoyed the game, that's okay! I'm glad you did!

But I don't want this bleak tonal shift to become standard going forward. And if FFXVI is a massive success, then Square Enix, a company who is a leading world CHAMPION at learning the wrong lessons from a game's success or failure, will be tempted to move the entire SERIES in that direction, and Final Fantasy stories were already plenty dark, just less in your face about it.

Final Fantasy shouldn't try to be The Witcher.

Please fail, FFXVI. I can't bear the thought of Square Enix going "oh! People LOVED the new darker and grittier tone! Okay, apply that but even more so to the next SIX FINAL FANTASY GAMES!"

It's too much. Final Fantasy does not need to be bleak or oppressively dark. Put that shit in another game.

[leafdrake-haven]

Elrick:

Age: around 350ish years

Color Identity: green/blue/black

Race: elf

Plane of Origin: Fiora

First Planeswalk: Lorwyn

Magic Powers: Withering (necro) magic and adept with poisons (-1/-1 counters/giving creatures -X/-X). Can also manipulate/heal/reverse many poisons if he has the resources. Plant based magic/being able to control plants and plant-based creatures. Relatively adept at biomancy but is not his forte (knows more theory than practice). Good at gathering informations from people (card draw/opponent discard) Due to pass experiences he has worked on mental fortitude and is better than average at protections from mind magic but cannot attack others’ minds directly. Can do necromancy/raise the dead but rarely does it due to finding it inelegant/unsanitary in most situations but he won’t hesitate to use a powerful tool. Has very rudimentary healing abilities.

Proficiencies: Elrick has both magical and chemical/alchemical knowledge of many poisons. He is very knowledgeable about many plants and fungi around the multiverse and has an encyclopedic knowledge of a lot of plants and fungi on Ravnica, especially ones that the Simic work with or ones that grow in the under city. He is competent at making potions, elixirs, poisons, and other plant-based concoctions (including some very delicious foods!) Elrick has been around awhile and is a bit of a perfectionist so he likes to learn new things and then master them. He is quite talented at cooking, fencing, dagger-work, business, winemaking, and music (singing and some instruments though he has become a bit private about it now; mostly he only performs for or sings with his daughters, they’re working on getting him more open about it).

Backstory: Elrick grew up rich and privileged on Fiora. His family played the game of politics well and he was a fast learner. His parents had him doing spy-work on other families as a preteen and he was proud of his abilities and the trust they put in him. It being Fiora though meant that other families were jealous and trying to underhand and blackmail them back. One fateful day a 14-year old Elrick comes back from a mission to see his family slaughtered in his home by masked assassins. The assassins are still there and began to advance on the shocked boy only for his spark to ignite whisking him away to Lorwyn. Elrick was a teenage oldwalker but because of the shock of how it happened he repressed his new god-like power without realizing it so for awhile he didn’t know of his vast new powers. A group of elves on Lorwyn took him in out of pity but they considered him barely above an eyeblight because of his lack of horns and hooves, so he was constantly put down, made fun of, and given the hardest and worst chores. Having grown up being constantly praised for his looks and sharp wit for his age this treatment confuses and deeply hurts him but he’s still so in shock from what happened that he takes it and tries desperately to please his new “family”. A couple years of this and Elrick has made his way up a rank to Immaculate mostly due to his talent with poisons, plants, and his unrivaled ability to grow moonglove. He is still put down every day but he is at least able to learn a lot of the Lorwyn elves’ plant and withering magics. One day scouting by himself Elrick is attacked and for the first time after igniting his spark he accidentally taps into is oldwalker powers and kills all his attackers. He is overwhelmed and elated by his newly discovered powers and to his delight he realizes he can alter his appearance at will. He gives himself a pair of polished hooves and an elegant pair of antlers which he thinks are even more lovely than the typical thorny horns of the other elves. When he goes to gloat to his family they are aghast. They accuse him of being a changeling spy this whole time and immediately attack him with intent to kill. Scared, hurt, and angry Elrick defends himself and unable to control his new power kills the whole group. At first he is in shock again and feels a wave of grief and guilt but as he stands there he remembers the treatment he’s had these last few years his heart hardens and he decides they deserved it.

He spends the next couple of centuries exploring his new powers, honing the powers he already had, and repressing his emotions. He gets rid of his hooves but keeps the antlers as a reminder that he was better than the elves that mistreated him (also he ended up liking how they look). He is not a very good person during a lot of this. The multiverse was cruel to him so he feels justified being cruel back and treats a lot of the people he meets as disposable for a long while. He spends a while on Tarkir with the Silumgar mastering more poisons and even returns to Lorwyn to learn more wither and plant magic from other elves he never met before. He travels to as many places as he can to learn as much as he can. Eventually he returns to Fiora to exact revenge for his family. He finds and eliminates the assassin guild that killed his family and eventually starts planning revenge for the family that ordered his family’s death. At some point he over-estimates himself and almost gets killed and instinctively planeswalks to Ravnica for the first time. A Golgari elven lich saves him and cares for him and being so desperate for friendship or kinship Elrick sticks around to help her for awhile. He eventually joins the Golgari and learns to Calm Down from this lich lady (who is actually much older than him and he starts to look at her like a grandmother). She helps him see the cruelty of his current path and for the first time in awhile he feels some guilt and starts a longer journey of introspection. With her guidance, he is still a snobby ass most of the time but he is no longer cruel and treats people with respect (mostly) and not as disposable pawns. He remembers the heart of who he was as a kid and tries to become that again even if he knows he can’t erase the bad he’d done for hundreds of years. He doesn’t care if he’s good by most moral standards as long as he’s happy with himself and comes up with his own moral code that he usually sticks to (eventually). Eventually he falls in love with a merfolk woman in the Simic guild and guild hops. Gonna stick to being vague here cause I eventually wanna write this as stories BUT basically Elrick becomes a single dad to an (adopted) infant merfolk daughter and finds himself planesbound as his spark was ripped from him. He now has his own apothecary/potions shop and eventually takes in (and then accidentally adopts) Rhynn once her spark lands her on Ravnica as a teenager.

[stevedonnellyfaith-blog]

The Storage Locker (Post 89) 5-20-15

                        I popped the door open, looked at the inside space and my heart sank. The storage room looked way too small for the lion share of my earthly possessions and I really had no backup plan.  It was Sunday morning and the moving van was due to arrive in twenty minutes of so.  A serial procrastinator, I had waited until Saturday morning to finally procure a self-storage location for the shipment that Nick and Abby had served into my court from California on Monday and Tuesday.

The semi had crossed the continent at an inexorable pace throughout the week like the white blipping ball in a game of 70’s electronic pong.  I knew I would have to deal with the rolling truckload eventually but the sand in the hour-glass sifted slowly enough that I kidded myself that I had more time … until it nearly ran out.  During Thursday lunch I web searched for storage locations; most of them were clustered around Kent, Ohio for summer use by vacationing university students.  On Friday, finally, I called the first one on my list of four and hit pay dirt immediately.  

A helpful woman named Tina could rent me two large lockers that would give me extra space to organize and stage my stuff in the future when I finally go to move into the house that I have yet to identify, make an offer on, get under contract, etcetera. I arranged to meet Tina on Saturday morning still well ahead of the glacial progress of my household goods which might have then been crawling through Nebraska or Iowa.

Next day, I left the house bright and early on Saturday morning, well actually at least bright but more towards 11 AM as I am a late riser on the weekend.  In route I dropped Natalie off at a friend’s house to organize a lemonade stand project that they were completing as part of a school activity.  From there I proceeded down a state road and arrived at the locked door of the office of the aptly named Storage Company.  The locked door was unexpected so I broke into a cold sweat at this seeming roadblock to my first recent concrete participation in the family cross country migration from California back to the land of snowy slush, smoldering rivers, and appallingly bad professional football.

Luckily, Tina answered the door as the lock was an apparent security measure necessitated by some unsavory clientele called college students.  Her office reminded me of a pawn shop without merchandise or the television repair shop that my father used to patronize back in the days of cathode ray tubes.  The room was dressed with faux wood paneling, dingy vinyl floors and only lacked a Budweiser clock to complete the décor of a finished basement circa the dawn of the Age of Disco.  Maybe my marathon sessions of Zillow surfing is beginning to jade my latent real-estate sensibilities.

Anyway, Tina let me in and I began to process my paperwork. Things proceeded slowly as she was multi-tasking.  Tina was also helping a heavily accented young Asian coed from the university who had discovered that the small sized locker purveyed to her did not match the large load in the U-Haul van that she had also rented from the same location. I kibitzed with a representative from my insurance company while Tina strolled out to do a walk-thru of my prospective lockers and to try to engineer a resolution to the student’s problem.

That’s when the steady slope of my progress did a loop-d-loop. Tina returned to the office cave and announced that there was an issue: both of my units were flooded from some previously unidentified roof damage.  My lockers would not be my lockers as neither room could be repaired in the near term and my traveling effects did not consist of a load of swimming pool noodles and rubber inner tubes.  Other than those two lockers that had inadvertently been equipped with spa facilities, the site had no other units available that might suit my needs.  I have no idea how things turned out for the young lady and her predicament, but my haphazardly laid plans had definitely placed their foot squarely on a greasy black banana peel.

A resourceful customer service professional, Tina soon resolved my dilemma with a price match at a sister facility that was headquartered within a couple miles of where I had dropped off Natalie.  The single locker that I finally rented was in a third site located conveniently at the nexus of the three towns that I am targeting for my house search.  The only issue was that I would be renting a single unit unseen until the morning of the arrival of all my stuff.  The whole business seemed of an angelic Candid Camera prank staged in retribution for my agreeing to delivery on the morning of the Lord’s Day.  Obviously, Sunday AM delivery also meant that the rental office would be closed; there would be no safety net for the operation. Hauling an appliance that didn’t fit to my parent’s house with a Chevy Aveo is not a viable contingency plan.

So I was pretty apprehensive as I promenaded my Aveo on a 5MPH circuit through the facility ostensibly to make room for the moving van, but also surreptitiously casing the locked hasps of the other lockers in hopes of spying an unlocked unit where I could squirrel an odd dozen boxes for a couple of hours if the unload went badly.  Finally, I opened the roll-up door for a second time to unveil my quaint cubby to Matt, the polite semi-driver from Allied Van Lines.  My household goods needed to fit there, but I waited nervously hoping for a positive diagnosis from my friendly shipping professional.  Matt and his crew were surprisingly unastonished by the small size of my rental unit.  They said they could fit everything in with no problem.

The news was a great relief, but also simultaneously deflating.  The stress of being at the potential epicenter of a colossal screw-up was immediately calmed.  I’m sure my blood-pressure plummeted by ten psi quicker than a Patriot’s football, but I was also disheartened in a way that end result of my fifty-year secular endeavor in collecting cool stuff had reaped such a meager bounty.  After inspecting the minuscule sanctum that would house the remaining cache of a half-century of acquisitions, Matt and his crew were confident that my stuff would slide right inside.  In a way I felt like I had failed as an American male.

And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry."' "But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?' "So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." [Luke 12:18-20]

I understand that while men judge each other based on the amount and quality of acquisitions, in actuality, Jesus will critique my earthly sojourn based on my actions, inactions, thoughts and emotions, the evidence of my loving demonstration that I desire life with Him and am of His flock. My energy and concern ought to be towards the needs of my neighbor and not towards my toy box, which still holds an unfortunate spiritual power over me that webs my soul to the little-used air hockey table that Pam sold before we emigrated from Fort Wayne to California. I understand that Jesus is helping me be free from the material world in stages as each season change of life seems to begin with a garage sale or trip to the dump, but jettisoning junk does not come easy to me.

I don’t know whether my journey through this life will end in a car crash, as Natalie once dreamed.  If her nightmare proves prophetic, I will still probably be in possession of too many items of no import, but I am hopeful that their value to me will, in the future, be at a commensurate level to their eternal worth. God may, instead, choose to continue to empty my ditty bag of material possessions in stages as He has throughout the last decade – an air hockey table here, an extra well-used and dated couch there while my accommodations shrink from 3000 SQFT to 1500 on down to 1200 until I just possess a disposable toothbrush and the current hospital gown that I will own only until my next sponge bath and linen rotation. Whichever way I go, I understand that it will be to my benefit as part of my preparation for eternal life.

So I sit here writing in a my muggy Aveo, mercifully ignorant of whatever the vacuum noise is on the obscured business side of the moving truck where a crew of three wrestles my gear into a mini confined space – at least there is no sound of a buzz saw.  I am sure that there is steady progress being made on shoving the collections of my life into that small spider hole that Matt, the mover, approved. The weather is oscillating annoying as it does in Ohio between quick drizzle and sunshine with the result being that I have to keep adjusting my car windows.

Anyway, the only packed possessions I really care about that will be stored are pictures, letters, family videos and a wedding album that is mostly uploaded to Facebook already anyway.  My memories won’t need props once I get into the after-life, I’m sure. In the short term, if a Mid-Western tornado launches my rented portion of this facility and peppers Portage County with the contents my locker, there is nothing in there that I haven’t done without for two months already. The long-ago discarded, one-time cherished hockey game is adorning somebody else’s basement somewhere in Indiana.

[mz-elysium]

A Primer.... On Ghouls

Ghouls of The Bay By Night, as based on Vampire the Masquerade

Content warnings: fantasy addiction, fantasy slavery, abuse, non-consent

Tag list (let me know if you want to be added or removed):  @thewritertiffany

Some are promised riches, or glory, or eternal life and beauty. Others are promised power or the Embrace once they’ve proved themselves. Most follow happily, led into hell by the chains of blood.

In the end, they all end up the same.

Slaves.

Blood bonds

While Monroe had never been a ghoul, he could still remember what his sire’s blood tasted like. If drinking human blood was the closest to a religious experience kindred got, then drinking a kindred’s was akin to an audience with God.

Vampire blood. Kindred vitae. Red stuff from the veins of the undead has numerous supernatural powers, the most feared of which is the blood bond. Not all thralls of the blood bond are ghouls, but all ghouls are fully enthralled. 

The bond is initiated when any drinks from a vampire, after three consecutive drinks it can only be broken by the regent’s death, a year dry, Embracing the thrall into a vampire, or drinking three times from a new vampire (which replaces the bond with a new one).

Ghouls, as they have to drink monthly to keep their benefits, have their bonds topped up regularly. The result is a brutal cycle of addiction and withdrawal, with the dealer set up on an impeccable pedestal.

If the potential thrall is afraid or attempts to fight the drink, the effect only becomes stronger. This terrible consequence of non-consensual bonds (applied as punishment by a prince on another vampire, or through simple cruelty) calls back to the archaic name “blood chains”.

> > First drink. A strange fixation on the regent; might be mistaken for a crush or casual friend. Thinks of them regularly and fondly, but goes on with their day.

> > Second drink. A near-constant preoccupation with the regent; likened to a best friend, but a degree of inequality enters the relationship. The thrall has a deep desire to serve and looks up to the regent with adoration and admiration.

> > Third drink. A complete emotional slave to the regent; unlike any consensual mortal relationship, but quickly can become likened to an abusive romantic relationship. In antiquity, enthralled humans worshiped their regents as blood gods and the sentiment still exists. Thoughts of the regent dominate the thrall’s mind. The regent is absolute and does no wrong.

Effects of the Blood

So long as they are fed monthly, a ghoul receives a few fringe benefits from their regular intake of vampire blood.

> > Eternal youth. Theoretically immortal, immune to illness, and able to heal from physical injuries with their stored blood. If ghouls are deprived of blood for thirty days, their years catch up with them at a rate of one year a week. Ghouls over a century will turn to dust. 

> > Disciplines. The physical Disciplines of vampire blood (Potence/super strength, Celerity/super speed, and Fortitude/physical resistance) come naturally to a ghoul, while cerebral or magical Disciplines may be taught if a regent requires it. 

> > Sunlight. The sun doesn’t burn even the eldest ghoul and they still have earthly needs and feel desires for sleep, food, water, and sex.

Mostly, though, ghouls are tortured by the blood they crave and the regent they are bound to serve.

> > Mental health. While not a direct side effect of vampire blood, living in a constant state of peril and absolute mercy to a centuries old monster does tend to affect a ghoul’s stability. Many develop PTSD, obsessive tendencies, paranoia, depression, or psychosis after prolonged ghouling.

> > Isolation. While new ghouls might keep contact with a family, nothing will ever compare to the taste of vampire blood or the devotion they feel for the regent. Nothing comes between it. As years go on, ghouls become a unique supernatural creature. Neither human nor vampire, able to keep with the times but never become a part of them.

> > The Beast. The quasi-sentient voice of the blood, the animalistic instinct that desires to hunt and survive is often more a liability than anything. For a ghoul, whose Beast is very weak, it’s doubly dangerous. Their Beast is utterly devoted to their regent and likely to lash out at disobedience. Ghouls can also frenzy, a mental state where the Beast takes over completely, often in a violent manner at the target of the frenzy.

> > Humanity. Unlike vampires, whose humanity is burned or quieted by their full Beast, ghouls have to contest with their human morality. If your vampire god says, “Butcher your human family or I will punish you and make you watch while I do it,” what do you do?

> > Addiction. Physical addiction is immediate, from the first taste. Psychological addiction comes later, as the ghoul realises they will literally die without it. Withdrawal symptoms may include chills, sweats, sensitivity to light, aches and pains, hallucinations, and frenzy. Most turn to further substances in an attempt to calm the agony of withdrawal: alcohol, drugs, caffeine, sex, or drinking human blood (ineffective and dangerous).

Life cycle of a ghoul

> > New ghouls (0-30 years). Often disposable, may be ghouled for a specific purpose or skill in a modern field the regent wants access to. May not be aware they’ve been ghouled and will be abandoned at some point, returning to their mortal lives with a gaping emotional wound and inexplicably much older.

> > Summer ghouls (30-60 years). Head over heels in a “summer love” with their regent, whether it’s romantic love, admiration, worship, or another twisted relationship, it’s brand new and fresh. These ghouls have been brought into the night world. They know a lot about vampires and know bits of court. The world is thrilling and dangerous, but their regent will protect them. Even if they are harsh.

> > Elder ghouls (60-100 years). The “terrible twos” of ghouls, according to vampires. As ghouls age out of mortal lifespans, they hit a mid-life crisis where they realise there is absolutely no going back. They’ve likely murdered or committed terrible crimes by this point, and traded regents. The world they were born into no longer exists. Their family and everyone they knew is dead. Without the blood, they will crumble.

> > Heirloom ghouls (beyond 100 years). Especially old ones (beyond 200) are sometimes called “winter ghouls”, to contrast the summer ghouls. Heirloom ghouls have lived among vampires so long they cease to be anything resembling humans. They take on vampiric characteristics, like an alien stillness, aloofness, abject cruelty, and a cold distance. Their sole will is to serve. Not necessarily out of devotion, but out of an emotionless drive to survive. At this point, they know the game and have accepted their role as a pawn.

Ghouls in the sects

Camarilla

Most have one, the Ventrue and Tremere often have several. Heirloom ghouls are a mark of a long unlife of prosperity and power, or a very valuable investment.

Ghouls are often traded to settle boons or debts, or simply given as a gift. They serve many needs -- ranging from providing a human herd, to disposing of bodies, to picking up dry cleaning, to running a corporation, to teaching a wary elder what an “aeroplane” is.

Because the average age of the Camarilla in power is quite old, their views on slavery trickle down through the hierarchy. As such, ghouls become less than second class citizens, barred from society, often horribly abused or mistreated, and regularly written off. 

Even so, “play dates” are scheduled for an elder or heirloom ghoul’s mental health by those regents who care about their investment. It also provides an opportunity for the ghouls to spy or interrogate each other over the pretense of coffee.

While ghouls exist as a slave class, the numerous ghouls of the Ventrue and the Tremere come from places of privilege. They’re captains of industry or hold political office. On the other hand, Toreador ghouls are flights of fancy and hot new artists, traded like fashion accessories and discarded like last season’s Chanel.

Anarchs

Ask ten Anarchs any question about philosophy or sect politics and you’ll get twenty different answers. For Everett and his Reds, including Tony, the creation of a ghoul and binding a mortal in a blood bond is monstrous. How can Anarchs fight for freedom while they hold humans in chains? Many Anarchs agree. They’re young and don’t come from a day world where slavery or indentured servitude is acceptable. 

Others take the thought of the Camarilla and declare ghouls a necessary part of vampire existence. After all, who would protect their havens in the daytime? Who would keep them rooted in the modern times? With issues of vampire inequality, they say, there’s not possibly enough time to worry about ghouls.

What ghouls who are made by Anarchs often end up as daytime spies, infiltrating Camarilla domains, or are made by casual and thoughtless neonates who want their drinking buddy to join them in unlife. 

Sabbat

The Sabbat consider all mortals below them, to an extent even most ancient Camarilla would not. Ghouls, therefore, are both abominations of Caine’s Blessing and dead useful.

Clan Tzimisce took matters into their own hand sometime in the Dark Ages and forced their ghouls to breed. As the blood stunts aging, most unions resulted in miscarriages. Careful application of sorcery saw the first revenants enter the world. Lineages of born ghouls, these revenant families exclusively serve the eldest members of the Sabbat. Many still worship their vampire masters like the blood gods of antiquity -- a model most Sabbat wish the world could return to. 

Even so, this doesn’t spare the revenants from the idle tortures of the inhuman and Bestial Sabbat. It is rare to see a revenant without the mark of Tzimisce flesh-crafting or the abject terror the Lasombra shadow masters inflict.

Independent

Some ghouls exert a supreme force of will and leave their regents. Breaking the bond and refusing the compulsion to return to the regent will be the hardest thing a ghoul can do. Younger ghouls return to mortality a bit older, more fearful, but largely unscathed if they can hide. Others are simply bound by another regent into service, but some manage to survive.

Loathed by vampires, there are a handful of operating independent ghouls, who trade discreet services for blood. Most are escaped elder ghouls, who rely on the blood to survive and have few qualms about performing favours for vampires. Even so, they remain almost mythical among vampires and there’s no more than a handful world wide.

Rarer, even, are those ghouls who break free from the chains of blood and hunt their former masters, slaying and bottling the undead. Their advantages as a ghoul make them exceptional hunters, but not many other hunters want to associate with them.

James shook his head, as though to clear the thought away. “All the shit I’ve done for him over the years,” he said, half to himself. The words tumbled out in a rush, as though clamouring to be free after his century of service. “Yes, my father’s debts were cleared and my brothers were taken care of. It was a hard life and they got out. I got… I… I don’t even know what I am anymore. Yeah, I run messages to vampires who don’t know email’s a thing. I organize day to day operations of a multi-billion international corporation but… damn… I’ve killed for him — happily. I’ve blood bound politicians and media moguls. It’s ruined their lives. And then I’ve bound their successors. I’ve — God forgive me, I’ve kept his herd. And he’s still…” His sigh shuddered and he buried his head in his hands. “Everything.” 

“It’ll never get more difficult than this moment,” said Annabelle. She put an awkward hand on his shoulder. There was no point lying. “You aren’t human. There’s no need to act like it.”