#i dont have a lot of her narrative planned yet but i have some funky details in mind for her first solo run

[lvebug]

wahoo new blog design! i feel like a whole new man!

[strxnger-things]

omg i finally found you!! I liked ur birthdaygate post AGES ago then forgot your url but im so glad i found you again bcos i have SO many questions- pls pls pls can you explain your theory more bcos its driving me crazy, a lot of people dont like this theory for some reason but im on the fence about how i feel about it :/

damn, I really thought I had the best hiding spot... *climbs out of a dark corner and stretches*

lol, hey!

ok so before I go any further into this, I just want to make something clear: I'm not the person who came up with the birthdaygate theory. I've seen a few people conflating birthdaygate with the post I made about something funky going on with the memories mentioned in the S2 shed scene, but they're like totally two separate things. Birthdaygate is the cool, big-brain theory that suggests Will's forgotten birthday is secretly a planned narrative tool that we'll see explained in Season 5 (whoever first put the evidence for that together, you rock and I have mad respect for you)

Memorygate on the other hand, is just a small expansion of it: my suggestion as to when or why Will's birthday might have been forgotten. Honestly, I'd not given the whole theory much thought before I unceremoniously threw it into the byler tag and watched the horror and heartbreak spread haha I'll do my best to explain it a little more, but I don't think I'll really be able to help much. My intention was never to convince people of anything. It was literally just me going, "huh... hey guys, isn't this kind of suspicious...?"

and the thing is, if you don't believe in birthdaygate to begin with, then memorygate is completely moot. Like, it's just a lot of fun. But if birthdaygate is real, memorygate just might be one possible explanation. Maybe. ?? honestly? I think it would kinda suck if it was real. I totally understand why some people hate it. Whilst I'm sure it'd be a shocking twist, it would also be very deux ex machina, and it'd mess with the character's agencies.

but like, if it WAS suspicious... ...here we have a villain who can canonically a) view people in the present moment like they're all laid out on a chess board ("now-memories"), b) enter any mind he so wishes and spy on their innermost thoughts and memories, and c) seems to have a connection/obsession with time.

This villain is also literally told a bunch of memories relating to one of his primary antagonists. The S2 shed scene helped Will break free of his possession just enough to save the day, but at the same time, what if Vecna was being given precious ammunition that he could utilise for future use? It's kinda convenient that Will's birthday is A Thing™ now, and the ONE time it's mentioned in the narrative is one of the most powerful and important scenes. Coincidence? Yeeeeah, maybe.

and as to how Vecna could have 'used' all those memories for his own benefit, I can only speculate. We don't yet know enough about what Vecna is fully capable of. Can he flit through people’s mindscapes without the victim suspecting anything? Do they always have a nosebleed or a headache, or is that just for when he’s going to kill/ consume you to open a gate?  Memorygate is just the theory that Vecna’s done something to those memories, including Will's birthday, because he knows they helped Will fight back against his possession.

Of course, Will was physically possessed in comparison to the mind possession we saw with Max and the other victims, so we don’t know if that changes things either.  It could be time-related (like, the date itself has been screwed with) or it could be memory-related (e.g. nobody from the shed scene can remember it because at some point, Vecna has messed with their minds, one by one). I can't help but compare it to how Vecna entered Max's memory of the Snow Ball. She did the same thing that Will probably did, and entered a safe space in her mind to escape him. She fought back by remembering the good, anchoring herself to her friends and to her special dance/kiss with Lucas. But then Vecna found his way in to that memory, slowly but surely, and took it over so she could no longer hide there. 

We didn't see it as an audience, but what if that was kind of what was happening inside Will's mind in S2? 

I'm not sure what more I can say to explain the memory stuff because there's still a lot of guesswork when it comes to Vecna and his powers. But I can go a little further into the Byler part for you, seeing as I only briefly mentioned it in my first post and I assume that's what you want me to get into most. So Mike talks about DnD games and their swingset meeting, and I think the latter is arguably the most powerful memory mentioned in the whole scene. A lot of attention is focused on the swingset memory. It's super important. We can also pretty confidently conclude that Vecna is pissed at Mike, especially by the time S4 rolls round. He's long known who he is, and he knows he's directly foiled his plans on more than one occasion, just like El. So go back and watch the shed scene again, and think about what we learned about Vecna in Season 4. Was he watching from Will's eyes, a hulking presence stalking through his mind, clouding Will's sense of self and listening intently to every word Mike was saying? Yeah, probably. Mike was visibly emotional. Distressed, vulnerable, raw, honest. Vecna learned that day that Mike and Will are deeply special to one other. He knows they're best friends. He knows a lonely Mike first approached a similarly lonely Will on a swingset when they were in kindergarten ('it was the best thing I've ever done...'). He also probably knows how Will truly feels about Mike. So that's a lot of ammunition for him to help put his plans into action, whatever they may be. He apparently doesn't want to kill Will, but perhaps he wants to isolate him. To hurt him, to make him feel forgotten by his loved ones, in a long game to win him over? Who knows.......

Vecna plays chess with people. He spies, he collects information, he uses people's memories against them. And the shed scene would have been a prime opportunity. A feast, if you will.

Once again, I hope I'm wrong about this. :)

[paint-lady]

Thinblood Mechanic Update 1: Homebrew Flaws

reposted from the RP sideblog

Tampa by Night is both a fun time to hang out with a couple of thinblood loving friends, but it also is to test out some concepts and fully fleshed out mechanics for homebrew thinblood content. We love these funky little Gehenna portents so much and we know it will either be a long while (or never) when new content for these alchemists arrive. (Yes the ashfinders in cotbg are accounted for).

So, I wanted to update you all with our findings and what new things we are playing with.

We built our three characters with the normal neonate 15 bonus experience at character creation. We each took at least 1 by the book thinblood merit or flaw- and at least 1 homebrewed thinblood merit or flaw.

Our selected Homebrew Flaws were originally written as follows:

1. Thinblood Homebrew Flaw: Harbinger- supernatural flaw "Bad stuff just seems to happen to you at the worst possible moment. Maybe you were unlucky in life, and unfortunately, it followed you in death. Whenever you roll a 1 on your hunger dice, it removes a success on the check. This renders you far more likely to bestially fail.” 2. Thinblood Homebrew Flaw: Deficiency-  feeding flaw. "You have to eat food in order to lower your hunger.   Your body requires necessary supplements that the blood alone cannot provide. You have to endure the pain of keeping food down if you do not possess the Eat food merit, the life-like merit, or high humanity (8+). If you do not consume food or supplements every night, you cannot lower your hunger below 2.”   3. Thinblood Homebrew Flaw: Hemophilia- lifelike flaw. You must take the Lifelike merit to take this flaw.  You cannot will the blood to clot, it just bleeds and bleeds. Whenever you take damage from slashing and piercing weapons or environmental factors, you automatically suffer an Impairment, a -2 penalty to all rolls until you can properly cover the wound and help it clot. Any Vampire nearby at Hunger 4 must make a Hunger Frenzy test.  

Right off the bat, we misread our own rules with Harbinger. We were subtracting successes whenever Damien rolled 1s rather than just on his hunger dice. The poor guy could not catch a break. Once we addressed this, we realized there is an accountability issue. Since we are using digital dice, it is easy to overlook subtracting 1s from the Hunger dice alone. Some dice rollers dont show the rolls, just count successes and failures and criticals. We believe that this flaw is actually fairly well balanced in comparison to some of the books, it just requires the player to be vigilant, just as they would be for vitae dependency or mortal frailty. Originally, the Harbinger flaw was a 3 dice pool given to the storyteller to use once per session to reduce the harbinger's successes. This didn't foster a dread inducing dynamic of when is harbinger going to kick in. Instead, it fostered a much more "you versus the dm" culture. While the storyteller has a lot of power, this is not a healthy dynamic to push- especially in a game of personal horror. So instead, we changed it to a static all 1s on hunger subtract successes. This way your character actively struggles against their even worse luck and probably more active beast- and can offset it with risky blood surges and willpower rerolls.

It took longer to recognize how Deficiency is much more lax in comparison to the by the book flaws. While it is continuously funny to watch Tommy sneaking microwavable burritos into their mouth when the Camarilla court isn't looking- if caught it's more played off as "well that's odd" not "wait a moment--thinblood!!" In a modern setting where there's something to eat at every gas station, convenience store dumpster, or neighbor's refrigerator- there's never an issue of getting food. Additionally, we never set how you must endure the pain of consuming food. So we started implementing that you must rouse the blood to use blush of life to activate your digestive system. This is fairly effective- so far. As written in v5, thinbloods always look as if they have blush of life active. However that does not mean they purposefully have it turned on. Another option is making the character roll Stamina or Resolve checks to hold the food down. This feels less optimal as the two dot Eat Food merit would get rid of these checks.

Tommy’s player has suggested that failing to eat food deals superficial damage to your hunger tracker. Reaching hunger 5 in superficial damage means you aren’t in torpor, but are rolling 5 hunger dice- or more. Upon consuming food, you clear a single box (1 scene spent consuming food = 1 box). Every time you eat, you need to rouse the blood, which may further raise your hunger. With higher hunger, you increase your chance of messy criticals and suffering compulsions. Ey also floated the idea of having any superficial hunger renders you unable to use voluntary rouse checks- such as supernatural healing, blood surges, or using disciplines. Our goal is to test the superficial hunger track first- and see how the thinbloods react to rolling a lot more hunger dice. If it feels too lax even then, we will test further punishing factors- but may need to go back to the drawing board completely.

Hemophilia has yet to showcase how dangerous it can be. I play as Hazel with this flaw, and am overly cautious about how close I get her in fights- because I wrote the flaw, I know how bad that -2 impair is. We recognize that this flaw should be coming into play much more frequently, as Hazel utilizes the calcinato method to brew her alchemy and must have her vessels drink her vitae for it to work. This requires the vitae to come directly from her, requiring a cut or open wound to pour it into the mouths of her vessels. There are a few thoughts to this flaw. Firstly, it does not feel necessary to restrict this flaw with the lifelike merit. The flavor text on how vitae, thinned vitae, and regular blood look and taste varies from table to table and storyteller to storyteller. Originally, we wanted to showcase the negative aspects of having lifelike- such as feeling cold, sweating, and never unlearning the need to breathe. But these feel more like flavor text than actual debilitating flaws to a thinblood- and maybe an astute vampiric eye would pick up on these behaviors.   Secondly, the player is allowed to supernaturally heal the wound closed despite the wording on the flaw. We will have to specify if it is superficial or aggravated damage when a wound is self inflicted, such as when Hazel opens her vein for her alchemy. By the book, thinbloods take aggravated damage from almost anything except sunlight without the Vampiric Resilience merit. To heal aggravated damage, it is three rouse checks on the next night to heal 1 box. This can be potentially debilitating for a character without an easy supply of food. Additionally, in combat, it takes a full round or more to heal. Thinbloods are already at extreme disadvantages in combat without proper planning, this would exacerbate it. However that is the point of the flaw- you don’t want to bleed. We will have to keep exploring to see how limiting this is when in full effect. Which means I gotta get Hazel in a knife fight.

The other thing we noticed is that a lot of the by the book flaws tend to  not have mechanical disadvantages. They are narrative disadvantages that  can have mechanical effects.   Some sessions we do not roll any dice other than a nightly rouse check to awake. Some sessions have us rolling checks for every other action. Ultimately, as we explore and finalize these flaws, we aim to craft them that they are less reliant on the dice. However, that might mean we have to completely rewrite them. This is not too big of a concern, as some of the by the book flaws give  static mechanical penalties, such as Bestial Temper (frenzy like a  full-blooded vampire), Clan Curse (retain your sire’s clan curse), or  Dead Flesh (-1 to all applicable social tests).   There are some other flaws we have written that fit this mold a little better, such as Tagged and Tracked, and Blacklisted.

Tagged and Tracked:  You have been captured by F1rstlight. Operatives are not only aware of your existence, but actively keeping an eye on you. The character may or may not know about their surveillance. They may also be aiding the agents that claim them. Regardless, if other thin-bloods (or kindred) find out what you are, at best you will be blacklisted. More likely, you will be killed.

Blacklisted:  Even your fellow mercurians keep their distance from you- at least the ones in the know do. Whether you have been deemed dangerous in their small circles, crossed a leader, betrayed them in some way, or have been set up- you are a scapegoat among the scapegoats.

So, here are some rewrites to our Homebrew flaws we selected:

1. Thinblood Homebrew Flaw: Harbinger- supernatural  flaw "Bad stuff just seems to happen to you at the worst possible  moment. Maybe you were unlucky in life, and unfortunately, it followed  you in death. Whenever you roll a 1 on your hunger dice, it removes a  success on the check. This renders you far more likely to bestially  fail.”

2. Thinblood Homebrew Flaw: Deficiency-  feeding flaw.  "You have to eat food in order to lower your hunger. Your body requires necessary supplements that the blood alone cannot  provide. For every night you fail to consume food, increase your hunger superficially by 1. This superficial damage is not alleviated by daysleep. For every superficial slash through your hunger, you must spend a scene consuming food. In order to properly digest it, you must use blush of life or possess a relevant merit. If the thinblood reaches Hunger 5 with superficial hunger- they do not go into torpor or frenzy.”

3. Thinblood Homebrew Flaw: Hemophilia- kept the same You must  take the Lifelike merit to take this flaw.  You cannot will the blood to clot, it just bleeds and bleeds. Whenever  you take damage from slashing and piercing weapons or environmental  factors, you automatically suffer an Impairment, a -2 penalty to all  rolls until you can properly cover the wound and help it clot. Any  Vampire nearby at Hunger 4 must make a Hunger Frenzy test.  

Next up is our Homebrew Alchemy. Some of us spent experience to take new  alchemical powers, and im certain we will see how quickly they break  everything including the masquerade. Tommy has taken steps towards Hermetic Alchemy, which brings old Alchemical Thaumaturgy into V5, Hazel has taken upgrades to her far reach and eventually will take recipes for Thermotics- melting things! Thanks for reading!  Can’t wait to tell you all about our findings next time!