More WoD homebrew stuff. This time a Hunter conspiracy made of teenage girls who fight monsters and actually work for Exiled True Fae throwing wrenches into the work of the Real Actual Faeries because Exiles are bitter. I haven’t really thought how they’d interact with Changelings themselves. They’re ostensibly going to be Enscorcelled, and they’ve essentially got Contracts of a sort. They take on Banes the same way that Spirits and Ghosts have got and in exchange they have powers.

They also have a manga and an anime based on them, because I love the idea of propaganda for magical teenagers who might die fighting monsters. 

Everyone dreams when they’re little of being something more. Firemen, police officers, superheroes, princesses. When we’re younger, we always think that adults can do amazing things, and we always wish we had some kind of power to change things. For many children since the late 90s, they grew up wanting to be Starlight Guardians, first a comic book series created by Kagome Yuzuki, a young Japanese woman living in LA, and then later as a Saturday morning cartoon. It was standard fare, well received. A story about young girls who fought against nightmares and a vaguely defined “Darkness”. The themes all centered on friendship and companions and it was praised for the fact that the girls struggled with protecting the world and going to school, as opposed to most other shows where classes are never missed and family is never worried.
It was considered a deconstruction of the magical girl genre, showing what the fallout might be, but it remained hopeful and upbeat, and managed to find an audience across many age groups and demographics.
Yuzuki has never really given an interview, despite her creation being so popular, licensed, translated, and dubbed in several languages. Starlight Guardian cosplay is common at anime and comic book conventions, and there have even been six video games and two stage musicals in Japan. All that’s known about her is that she moved to LA when she was 16, and that she’d been disabled when she was 19. Some fans speculate that she was shot, but there’s nothing but rumour to support that, certainly not medical records.
The truth is that Yuzuki didn’t come up with the Starlight Guardians and their secret world of magic and fairy creatures. They’re a Conspiracy of Hunters, mostly young women, dedicated to fighting evil and stopping the creatures that live in the Dark Forest, that cause nightmares and steal away children. She belonged to them once, and they’re very real. They really do fight against darkness, creating citadels and fortresses in the magical realm known as the Dark Forest. They gain their powers by making deals with the creatures that live there that don’t want to devour the living, or cause nightmares. Everything written about in the comics is based on the experiences of Yuzuki and her cell, and later on stories she heard from other magical girls.
Originally it was a way of coping with her injuries, which left her unable to fight. As time went on, the Starlight Guardians have used Yuzuki’s rather sizable media empire, rivaling that of Sanrio (of Hello Kitty fame) to act as a sort of propaganda. Young women take to the idea more easily when they can point to something. For many of them, their secret becomes a shared experience. Some turn away from the show, hating it. Others love the comics and cartoons, and hope that Yuzuki will immortalize their exploits so that they can encourage other young girls to be heroes.
Kagome herself is now in her twilight years, an unassuming Asian woman in her mid eighties. She works with the Guardians still, though rarely as anything other than a figurehead. She doesn’t lead, and she sleeps with a gun underneath her pillow.
The girls who join the Conspiracy are often young. Younger than most other Conspiracies by a long shot. Some are barely out of middle school. While most are high schoolers, there are some who make it to college before they’ve been brought into the fold. Almost every Starlight Guardian has had an interaction with the Unseelie, evil faeries from beyond the Dark Forest who feed on mortal children and pervert dreams. Some lost friends and loved ones, while others were taken themselves, and still bear the scars as their skin was torn at by the thorns before their rescue.

The Dark Forest
The magical girls make their sanctuary in the Dark Forest, a dreamscape wilderness with all manner of strange entities. Much of it isn’t actual forest, but all throughout even the strange towns and markets are vines and branches, and the ever present thorns. All manner of faerie beastie lives in the Forest, some strange animals that almost but not quite look like mundane animals. Some of the stranger creatures can even talk. And in sometimes in little temples or caves, or even in the markets, the Starlight Guardians can find something even more powerful.
They call them the Seelie. They claim to have been banished from their homes by the Unseelie, and they bargain with the Guardians, granting them powers to fight the Unseelie that manage to get to earth, stopping them from grabbing up children. Many of the Guardians have personal grudges against the Unseelie as well, for replacing siblings with doppelgangers, or trying to grab them through the Thorns.
Many of the magical girls can sculpt the Dark Forest, creating new pathways that are safe, and even creating little bastions of hope against the darkness.

The Enemy
The Unseelie are everywhere because the Dark Forest is everywhere. They poison dreams and steal away the innocent. Many a Starlight Guardian was born when a young woman was dragged out of bed at night and found herself pulled through the thorns of the Dark Forest, only to be rescued from whatever horrid fate awaited her in some far away faerie castle by an upperclasswoman who always seemed so distant and aloof. The Guardians make their Safe Houses far away from mortal eyes in the Dark Forest, and they do fight the nightmare beings there sometimes, but more often than not they chase down the monsters that creep out of the Dark Forest and threaten the innocent.
Monsters of all stripes have their origins in the Dark Forest, from creepy crawly spidery things that hide in attics and wait to capture anyone exploring that old abandoned house, to strange batlike things that glide through the night sky. While faeries that steal away children are the primary enemy, more often than not the magical girls face inhuman creatures, animals that escaped the Forest and try to sate their hungers.
There are also many doppelgangers, people left behind when the Unseelie take someone away. They often don’t even know what they are, and the Guardians are torn on how to deal with them. Some feel that as creatures of the Dark Forest they should either be destroyed–often resulting in the doppelganger turning into a pile of sticks and stones and snails and puppy dog tails–or sent back into the Dark Forest by force. Others feel that they’re as much victims as those who are stolen away, and that killing them just tears a family apart. At least with a doppelganger they think their son or mother or relative is alright.
Sometimes, the Seelie beings that the Starlight Guardians make pacts with will have certain tasks for them. Sometimes finding rare ingredients, or dealing with the Hobgoblins in the Dark Forest itself, before they can even leave it. Most of them have no problem carrying out these ‘missions’.
Even beyond the Unseelie and the monsters that crawl out of the Dark Forest, there are many other things that feed on the innocent. No magical girl worth her salt would ever refuse to fight an enemy because it’s “not my problem”.

Hunters
College was a big change. You’d just gotten out of a bad relationship, you were away from home for the first time. You were on your own. At first you were okay with it, but as the weeks went on, your dreams became nightmares, all the horrors of loneliness magnified. They all came to a head when you were dragged out of your bed by a woman on horseback, her hair–her head–all on fire. She dragged you by the ankles and your flannel nightgown was torn to ribbons and your skin was bleeding, but before she could steal you away for good you were rescued. Now you work to keep others from experiencing what you did.
You absolutely adored Starlight Guardians. It was your favourite show as a kid, you had all the toys, and even now you have a plushy of Hitomi, but as you got older you grew out of it, and called it kids stuff. That was before you were attacked in the park one night by a creature that looked like something out of a nightmare–or a TV show. Then a little white creature asked “Do you want to be a Starlight Guardian?” Now you’re living your dream, and you know twelve year old you would cream herself, but you just wish you could sleep soundly ever again.
You’re a guy. Not a macho guy, but you always thought there was something wrong with the guys who obsessed over a cartoon for girls. Then you accidentally wandered into the Dark Forest somehow, and you were drafted. Now you obsess over the cartoon yourself, hoping that it will give you some idea of how to keep from dying now that you know there are monsters out there. And you really wish you’d listen to your mom when she said to cut your hair.

Circles
The Starlight Guardians aren’t a unanimous group. There are several smaller groups that make up the Conspiracy, each with a different way of approaching the Vigil. Within the Conspiracy, they’re known as “circles”, after the group of doujinshi artists.
Big Sisters, Little Sisters is a group of magical girls who focus not so much on the Dark Forest or fighting monsters, but on helping those less fortunate. They even have a public face, acting openly as fans of theStarlight Guardians, dressing up in cosplay, and visiting sick children. They even put on skits at elementary schools. They believe they can make the world a safer place by making it less hospitable to the nightmare sustained Unseelie.
Spreading information through doujinshi and fanfiction, as well as helping with the animated series, Starlight Projekt can help get the word out on tactics and chronicle the exploits of Guardians. Sometimes they even honour fallen Guardians, though they do have a tendency to dramatize events and “ship” members of the Conspiracy. They also manage to bring in money for the magical girls. Kagome Yuzuki belongs to this circle.
The largest circle within the Guardians is the Starlight Sisterhood, who actually go out and fight the monsters up close and personal. Many of it do it out of a sense of justice, or regret at not being able to save a sibling. But a rather large number simply want to show up in one of Starlight Projekt’s doujinshi, or be immortalized by Yuzuki herself in the cartoon that inspired most of them to fight in the first place.

Status
Status in the Sisterhood is gained by stopping evil, and by the number of pacts and agreements with the things in the Dark Forest.
● Entry into the Guardians comes from first defeating one of the evil faeries. You can purchase dots of Pactio, and have others who can look up to you.
●●● You’ve seen enough of the things that haunt nightmares that you know how to recognize them. You gain the Unseen Sense Merit fromThe God-Machine Chroniclep.175 towards the Fae.
●●●●● At the highest level of Status within the Conspiracy, you have several resources to call upon thanks to your pacts and bargains with your Sisters. Divide three dots however you like between Allies, Retainer, or Safehouse Merits.

New Endowment: Pactio
By making deals with the more benign creatures of the Dark Forest, the Starlight Sisterhood gains some measure of supernatural power to do battle with the creatures of nightmares. Every time a member of the Starlight Guardians gains a new dot of Pactio, choose one of the following Endowments. A Guardian can change out which Pactio powers she has by sleeping for one night in the Dark Forest. Each point of Pactio comes with a cost, though: The magical girl takes on a Ban as if she were a Rank 1 spirit for each dot, representing the bargains made with the Seelie that allow her to use the powers. Her magic also suffers a specific Bane: Cold Iron.

Mascot
Something from the Dark Forest agrees to help the magical girl, whether out of the goodness of it’s heart(?) or because she’s made a bargain with it. The mascot is rarely larger than a dog, and looks nothing like a normal animal. It understands simple commands, and will carry them out, though more complex actions might require a Presence + Animal Ken roll.

Stereotypes

● The Malleus Maleficarum: These guys act like they’re straight out of an anime. Don’t they know The Church in those things is always evil?
● The Lucifuge: Sure, I guess they make great brooding and mysterious boyfriends, if you’re into that thing.
● Taskforce VALKRYIE: Boys and their toys are pretty useful, and there’s something about a guy in uniform. But if you’re gonna go out for drinks, get ready to hear them bitch about how the NCOs are incompetent.
● The Long Night: I don’t know what’d upset these guys more, kissing my girlfriend or working with fairies… uh, the other kind of fairies.
● Network Zero: Ugh, stop trying to take pictures, creep! I don’t want you ruining my life for your little conspiracy theory Youtube page.

● Vampires: Girls, I know, you think you can “fix” him and it’ll all work out. I’ve heard that story before.
● Werewolves: Bad dog, no treat.
● Mages: I’d make a D&D joke, but I’m wearing a bullet proof school uniform. Just remember that nerds rule the world. It’s kinda sexy, but kinda scary, so don’t let them know how much you know.
● Prometheans: I met this guy who was some kind of zombie and ended up writing THE most embarrassing sex fic. God, I felt so dirty I wanted to shoot him. Probably not a good sign.
● Changelings: Most of them remind us why we shouldn’t trust the things in the Dark Forest, but too many of them are Unseelie monsters going around giving nightmares. Just remember it’s not nice to glomp them even if some of them are just so cute and sad.
● Sin-eaters: If you ever wanna get white girl wasted in a graveyard, find one of these goths.
● Beasts: Woah there, Big Bad Wolf, what makes you think I’m Little Red Riding Hood?

Went through and seriously reworked the Starlight Guardians. The focus is that they’re a group of mostly teenage to early twenties girls who have gotten caught up in Changeling and Faerie bullshit. No idea how Changeling 2e will change things with the Huntsmen, but at the moment they mostly focus on dealing with things like dangerous Changelings, dream invading Hobgoblins, and the True Fae or hobs that come into the real world. 

The theme is basically magical girl deconstruction stuff like you get with Nanoha or Madoka. I’ve actually not watched either of those shows, but I really like the concept; fiction where teen and young adult characters balance magical lives and keeping them secret while also dealing with mundane lives that doesn’t actually show a difficulty in the balance is lame.

That said, I tried to keep the tone one of hope in the face of hopelessness. Being bitter and jaded only works in a world where it’s possible to have hope. Feedback on the concept and mechanics would be appreciated. PDF version

“Hiyah! Die, creature of darkness! Don’t you know that good and justice always prevails!”

When they’re little, everyone dreams of being something more: Firemen, police officers, superheroes, princesses. For many children since the late 90s, what they grew up wanting to be was to be like the Bishoujo Senshi (“Pretty Guardians”) from Pretty Guardian Faerie Knights:first a comic book created by Kagome Yuzuki in 1989, and then later a Saturday morning cartoon.

The first season was a standard magical girl story, with a bunch of teenage girls fighting evil faeries and nightmare monsters from a dreamworld. It had fans, but the story was rather generic. After a retool and a move to a later time slot, critical reception skyrocketed as it became a deconstruction of the genre, becoming closer to the original comics.

Characters were fleshed out and fully realized, and much of the focus was on the lives that the girls lead. They hid bruises. Worked through sleepless nights. Struggled to protect family members and friends from the Unseelie Fae without revealing their powers. Relationships were made and broken, and the young girls in the show would even suffer injuries or die. In spite of the grim setting, the tone managed to stay upbeat, with themes of friendship and togetherness. It managed to find an audience across all age groups and demographics, and it’s popularity has grown over the years, with a thriving fan community.

What most of the fans don’t realize is that it’s real.

Yuzuki didn’t create the Faerie Knights from whole cloth. She based it on friends of hers who became monster hunters after making a bargain with some thing in the woods. A group of teenage girls who snuck off to drink and smoke in the forest, a creature of nightmares attacked them, and dragged their friend off. They followed it into the Dark Forest and tried to fight back. One of the creatures there offered them the power to do so, and since then young girls have been fighting nightmare monsters. Members of the conspiracy tend to skew younger than in other Hunter organizations, and already have social hang ups. To “vanilla” fans the fan community can be an open and welcoming thing. To the actual magical girls, it often serves as the only thing that allows them to keep it together. They look after each other. Many Senshi hope one day to inspire others, having their exploits canonized by Yuzuki. She still takes an active role in the conspiracy, even after the gunshot wound that left her crippled and caused her to originally turn to comic books as an outlet.

The Dark Forest

A source of many of the yokai and monsters that the Starlight Guardians face—and certainly the source of the Unseelie—the Dark Forest is an alien dreamscape. Not all of it is wooded, but even in the Goblin Markets and oceans seem to feature ever present thorns on the edges. Strangeness is common, and minor monsters and shady street vendors wanting to buy “the sparkle of your eyes” are both constant dangers. The land can shift and change when a traveler isn’t looking, or even react to emotions.

Many Faerie Knights make personal sanctuaries in the Dark Forest, carved out of the thorns and made habitable, often represented by the Safe Place merit. While the Guardians have no normal way to get into or out of the Dark Forest, they often learn “Keys” to open Dark Gates into it. Usually these are objects or short gestures, as long as an Instant action, but other places are Keyed to more obscure, intricate rituals.

The Enemy

The Unseelie are everywhere because the Dark Forest is everywhere. They poison dreams and snatch away innocents. Many a Faerie Knight was born when she found herself dragged from their bed through, a window and into a world of biting thorns, only to be rescued by an upperclasswoman—clad in fanciful armour in the form of her cheerleading uniform and whose natural aloofness gave way to battle-hardened cool—or even one of the Seelie who saw a potential pawn.

All but the most naïve of the magical girls realizes that their benefactors are potentially as dangerous as the things they Hunt, and the conspiracy recognizes two major groups of faerie: The Seelie, who while potential threats are mostly willing to work with Hunters, and the Unseelie, who are dangerous creatures of nightmare that haunt dreams, snatch away children, and sow chaos. The strongest of the Seelie often claim to be exiles of great wars—though none ever seems to have been from the same war—or otherwise dispossessed of their noble lands.

The magical girls can rarely directly harm the Unseelie nobles—and many come to find themselves repeatedly dealing with foes they thought they defeated—but they do their best to throw wrenches into their plans when they can. More often they find themselves dealing with the repercussions of the Unseelie machinations, like the Fetches they leave behind after an abduction. Many of the Faerie Knights have had personal experiences with these doppelgangers, having found friends or loved ones replaced by them. Changelings are another result of the Unseelie messing with mortals, but the Senshi are torn on how to approach them. Some are clearly suffering and in need of the very same support that the Pretty Guardians give each other. Others are vicious monsters that sell innocents into captivity. And both types are dangerous.

Sometimes things are easy, and some scuttling horror without a moral quandary is spitted out of the Dark Forest or someone’s dreams, and it can be safely destroyed without a second thought.

Beyond fae creatures, the Guardians are likely to come into contact with vampires, dream-poisoning witches, and other beasties, but the Seelie who give them their powers are often most interested in having their rivals struck down or harassed.

Hunters

College was a big change. You were on the other side of a break up, away from home, and on your own for the first time. At first you were alright, but then your dreams became nightmares, all the loneliness and fears amplified. That all came to a head when you were dragged by the ankles out your dorm window by a woman on horseback, her hair—her head—wreathed in flames. Your flannel gown was torn to shreds and covered in blood from the thorns, but before you were lost forever you were saved. Now you keep what happened to you from happening to anyone else.

You absolutely adored Pretty Guardian Faerie Knight as a kid. You had all the toys and games and even wrote fanfic. You still keep a plushy of Hitomi, and when you’re sad or scared you talk to it, but as you grew older you pretended not to be interested and called it “kid’s stuff”. That was before you were walking in the park one night and got attacked by something out of an anime. A little white cat offered to make you a magical girl and you accepted. You know your twelve-year-old-you would cream herself in excitement, but you wonder if it’s worth waking up screaming in the middle of the night.

You ’re a guy. Not a manly guy or anything, but you always thought it was weird that guys your age were obsessing over a cartoon for little girls. Then your girlfriend convinced you to do cross-play as Hitomi and you wandered into the Dark Forest and were drafted. Now you’re obsessing over the cartoon, hoping it gives you better insight into all this faerie crap so that you don’t get yourself killed. Your mom was right, you really should have cut your hair.

Ever since you were little, you knew about the Dark Forest. You’ve been able to see them ever since your dad came home and wasn’t your dad. No one believed you until your real dad came back and killed your fake dad. You kept loving him, even if he was a gargoyle. So after years of watching a show that was so real to you, you walked up to Yuzuki at a convention and told her you wanted to help.

Circles

Unlike most conspiracies, the Senshi are both monster Hunters and a fandom. Some of the fans are aware of what goes on behind the curtain, while others are oblivious. The various groups that consider themselves Pretty Guardians are known as “Circles”, after the term for a group of doujinshi artists.

Big Sisters, Little Sisters is a circle dedicated not to directly stomping out the monsters of the Dark Forest, but healing their damage. They act openly as fans of Bishoujo Senshi Yousei Kishi, dressing up in cosplay, visiting sick children, putting on inspirational skits at elementary schools, and helping the less fortunate. Though they rarely directly fight, they are invaluable in giving a shoulder to lean—or cry—on, acting as a release valve for pent up emotions. It’s not unusual for members of other Circles to have a friend or girlfriend who’s a Big Sister.

Spreading information through doujinshi and fanfic—some of it used by other Hunters as well—Starlight Projekt can help get the word out on tactics and chronicle the exploits of the magical girls; some girls even draw doujinshi of their own cell, and hope to work with Kagome Yuzuki herself on the animated series (or one of it’s several media spin-offs). They honour living and fallen Guardians, but have a tendency to “ship” their friends. As a production focused circle, they also provide monetary aid to other Guardians.

The largest circle within the Guardians is The Pretty Soldiers, who dedicate their lives to fighting the creatures of darkness. Many do it out of a sense of justice, regret at having failed someone, or even a suicidal drive to take out as many enemies as they can (these are the ones who most need Big Sisters), but there are a surprising number of Guardians who are in the Pretty Soldiers Circle in the hopes that they’ll end up immortalized in the comic books and anime that first inspired them.

Status

Status as a Pretty Guardian Faerie Knight is often a very informal thing. There are no ranks or initiation ceremonies, and it can come through making an impact defeating monsters or for a well received fan comic. Ultimately it measures the impact that the Senshi has on the fandom.

● You know the truth about the fandom, and have probably made a few Pacts with the Seelie. You may purchase the Pactio Endowment.

●●● You’ve seen terrible nightmares and may never sleep again, but you’ve also caused a fair share of nightmares among those who threaten the innocent. You gain the Unseen Sense merit for Faeries. Like the God-Machine specific version, it allows you to see through the Mask. If you already have it, an existing Ally is upgraded to a True Friend.

●●●●● Creatures of Darkness tremble when they hear your name, and hope is brought to the hopeless. You likely have fandoms within the fandom dedicated to you. You gain three dots to distribute among Mixed Blessings merits, as per the Dread Power (the Willpower must be paid over three turns before the power is rolled), and may purchase the Dread Power as a Merit. You’re the one giving out bargains now.

Stereotypes

Network Zero: There was this guy who seemed like your typical con creeper. I thought he was trying to get upskirts or something and when I went to give him a piece of my mind he showed me the video he recorded. You’d think I’d have realized by now looks can be deceiving. Still not gonna let him put video of me on his little conspiracy theory Youtube page.

The Long Night: I don’t know what would upset these guys more: seeing me kiss my girlfriend or knowing I work with faeries. Uh… other kind of faeries. I always expect them to be picketing something, or complaining about gay marriage.

Taskforce VALKYRIE: Like my dad, in all the worst ways. Gruff, demanding, never answers questions, and expects to be obeyed completely. These guys have great toys, but don’t let them push you around.

Lucifuge: I know how tempting a brooding boyfriend is, and it’s freakin’ awesome watching a guy in a leather jacket burn a demon to cinders, but there’s always too much baggage. Don’t even think about getting serious, keep it to the Vigil and try to find someone in a mask and formal wear.

Ascending Ones: I’ll admit I’ve made some bad decisions. I turned to this guy I met on a Hunt, and he hooked me up with some really good stuff. It wasn’t worth it. I understand what it takes to hold the Vigil, but we sell comics and they sell drugs. I’ll take capitalism any day.

New Endowment
Pactio

By making deals and bargains with the more benign creatures of the Dark Forest, Guardians are able to call upon a measure of supernatural power to defeat their foes. Every time a member of the Faerie Knights gains a new dot of Pactio, she chooses one of the following powers. Each power can be exchanged for another provided the Senshi performs an oblation for one of the Seelie and is granted a new one (these are rarely very difficult, but can often be uncomfortable, time consuming, or both; for Storytellers who care more about how long it takes than playing it out, assume an extended action requiring successes equal to 10 minus Pactio, with each roll being a day).

Any physical component of a Pactio bargain is summoned into reality from dream-stuff with a point of Willpower. This summons together all of the dream-woven regalia that a Senshi might have, though some abilities can be held back. If they are, they’ll need to be summoned on their own with another point of Willpower.

Each Pactio bargain also comes with a minor Ban (as a Rank 1 ephemeral being, God-Machine Chronicle pg. 221), representing the chiminage paid and favours performed in return for being able to use the Pactio, and through performing the Ban, or avoiding it’s restrictions, the magical girls provide their benefactors with tithes of supernatural energy. Once the power is given, the Seelie who bestowed it upon the Faerie Knight isn’t able to unbestow it, but failing to uphold the agreement results in a fixation that subtracts one die from all rolls and otherwise functions as the Deprived Condition (God-Machine Chronicle pg. 181).  As the Guardians gain more Pactio, they risk becoming drawn into the same stories that govern the fae.

Storytellers should decide the Ban that needs to be heeded when the Pactio bargain is struck, and each power has a list of suggestions, though they aren’t comprehensive.

Costume Weapon

Action: Reflexive, as regalia

No magical girl is complete without a magical weapon, and with this Pactio,  you gain the use of an ostentatious weapon. It has the weapon profile of an existing melee weapon (chosen when the power is taken), but even the most reserved Senshi will always have a Costume Weapon that looks like exactly that: an over-dramatized weapon like something out of a comic book. Big Sisters are known to have Costume weapons that look like they’ve been peacebonded, perfect for the convention floor.

The weapon has one less initiative penalty compared to it’s mundane equivalent, has a Strength requirement of 1, and can be summoned from thin air as regalia. If desired, you can do bashing damage instead of lethal, but it’s considered a magical weapon when dealing with anything with supernatural resistances. If the you ever get disarmed, the weapon returns to your hand as a Reflexive action at the top of the initiative. Costume Weapon lasts for one scene.

Suggested Bans: Must declare a challenge verbally, must practice an hour each day, must use the weapon in combat once a week.

Starlight Shooter

Action: Reflexive, as regalia

While up close and personal is the favoured style of many Senshi, it never hurts to have a ranged weapon. Much like Costume Weapon, this Pactio allows you to summon a fanciful weapon for a scene by spending a point of Willpower. The Starlight Shooter can take any form, but uses Dexterity + Firearms. It has a short range of Presence + Resolve + Pactio in yards, a damage rating of 2, and a clip size equal to your Resolve + Composure + Pactio, which can be refilled with another point of Willpower. As long as you have three dots of Pactio, you can full autofire.

The Starlight Shooter can be anything, from a crystal scepter or cartoon musket to a winged bow with energy arrows that form when the bowstring is drawn. If you have Starlight Shooter and Costume Weapon, they can both be the same object (a sword swing sends out blasts of energy, a bow has spikes or blades, magical staffs are just as good for hitting as shooting lightning bolts).

Suggested Bans: As with Costume Weapon.

Barrier Jacket

Action: Reflexive, as regalia

Magical girling is tough work, and evil isn’t going to pull it’s punches, even against a teenage girl. It takes thick skin to keep going. Literally. With this regalia Pactio bargain, energy crystalizes around a Senshi and forms into a lightweight but protective piece of armour. It gives a general armour rating equal to dots in Pactio, and half that in ballistic armour, despite having the appearance of a stylized uniform of some sort—seifuku is common, but candy stripper uniforms and cheerleader outfits are possible; any costume that might be associated with young women—it protects even uncovered limbs, midriffs, or faces.

Suggested Bans: Handwashing clothing, sunbathing or sleeping naked, wearing the same outfit twice in a row.

Light of Truth

Action: Instant

Dice Pool: Presence + Expression

There are a lot of beasties and monsters that lie as easily as they breathe, and wear false faces. With this power, you can see through that, whether it’s the Mask that fae wear or the way that some vampires make themselves seem invisible. As an instant action you raise your hand, a symbol of your faith, or light simply emanates from your heart. A number of yards equal to your Integrity are illuminated as if lit by a flickering candle.

In addition to lighting things up, it becomes harder for anything to be obfuscated, whether it’s the truth or an enemy. Anyone who would speak falsely is unable to do so without spending a point of Willpower, and any rolls for subterfuge or trickery are at -2. Mundane means of stealth are instantly revealed, and anyone using supernatural methods must roll Composure + Potency to stay hidden.

Hidden nooks and crannies are also faintly illuminated, granting +3 to any attempts to uncover them, but using this power requires concentration, and means giving up your Defense.

Suggested Bans: Hide something in plain site and keep it hidden, use mundane means to find something in the Dark Forest, choose one object and keep it unhidden.

Knockout Punch

Sometimes an enemy won’t stay down. This power fixes that. When you first bargain for this Pactio, choose a Personal Tilt other than Beaten Down or a Grave Tilt. Whenever you make a successful melee attack, you may spend a point of Willpower to treat your damage rating as 0 and apply that tilt. The use of the power is always obvious.

Suggested Bans: an hour of physical training each day, outdoor meditation, calling your attack

Mascot

Unlike other Pactio bargains, a Mascot (sometimes called a Shikigami or for the stuffy and serious a Familiar) isn’t just a Seelie bestowing the Senshi with a vestige of power in exchange for fulfilling a contract. The Mascot is the Seelie, and the contract tends to be caring for it. Mascots are small creatures from the Dark Forest, never bigger than a dog and often taking forms like cat-rabbit hybrids or monkeys with strange fur. They have a Mask, but it’s weak, and anyone making sustained contact with them can roll Wits + Composure - 2 to notice something “off” about them (or Wits + Occult, if they have a relevant specialty, to notice telltale signs of fae creatures).

Mascot Traits

• Attributes: 5/4/3 (divided among Mental, Physical, and Social)
  
• Skills: 9/6/3 (divided among Mental, Physical, and Social); the Mascot receives a free dot in Brawl, Larceny, or Stealth
  
• Willpower: Equal to Resolve + Composure
  
• Glamour: 10 (10 max)
  
• Initiative: Equal to Dexterity + Composure
  
• Defense: Equal to lower of Dexterity or Wits, plus Athletics
  
• Speed: Strength + Dexterity + “species factor” (based on animal type).
  
• Virtue and Vice: Any, though they often share their Senshi’s Virtue and Vice.
  
• Integrity: A Mascot has no Integrity rating.
  
• Size: 5 or less (based on it’s animal type)
  
• Health: Equal to Stamina + Size
  
• Dread Powers: One dot each of Absorb Energy, Dark Gate, Dream Seeing, and Revelation as described on Mortal Remains pp. 46-47; Mascots don’t inherently have Mixed Blessings. In addition, choose three dots of Dread Powers.
  
• Bane: All creatures of the Dark Forest have a Bane of Cold Iron
  
• Innocuous: Mascots are very good at not being noticed by others. Anyone but it’s bonded master suffers a -2 penalty on perception rolls to notice the Mascot, unless it does something to draw attention to itself.
  
• Conditions: The Senshi is considered to have the Bonded Condition with her familiar, and she is considered tagged with the Fettered Condition, preventing Glamour Bleed outside of the Dark Forest. Whenever a Mascot would resolve a Condition placed on it, instead of taking a Beat it gains a point of Glamour.
  

Mascots function in most ways similar to a Lucifuge’s Embodied Familiar Castigation. It uses Glamour instead of Essence or Willpower (regained through it’s Absorb Energy Dread Power), is emotionally linked to it’s master, and doesn’t need to have commands spoken. You may learn Merits such as the Falconry or K-9 Fighting Styles, but lose them if your Mascot dies or you switch it out; the dots still fall under Sanctity of Merits.

Suggested Bans: Taking care of a non-magical creature is a task of it’s own to begin with.

Big Sister Says

Action: Reflexive

The Big Sister is a common stock character in many stories. Faeries too are known for being implacable. It’s befitting then that with the power of justice—or at least gifts granted by the Seelie—you’re able to channel that older sister allure. You always draw eyes towards you when you want to be seen. You suffer no social penalties and double any Striking Looks bonuses.

By spending a point of Willpower you may treat yourself as having a Good Impression towards someone for the purposes of Social Maneuvering, and characters who choose to Go With The Flow take an additional Beat. In combat if you haven’t acted with hostility or drawn a weapon, anyone who wants to engage you violently must first spend a point of Willpower and roll Resolve + Composure.

Suggested Bans: Always listen to your cell’s problems, care for a child or animal.

Fenix Down

Action: Instant or Extended, each roll is one turn

Something of a last resort power, this ability allows one of the Senshi to heal the most grievous of injuries, provided you get to them in time. By spending a point of Willpower and rolling Presence + Resolve you can heal others injuries. Each success heals one point of lethal or bashing damage that was incurred during the scene. This use of the power can’t be used to heal Aggravated damage, but can downgrade it, though wounds that were originally Aggravated can’t be healed any further.

If an ally completely falls in battle, it isn’t the end for them. Provided you manage to reach them in a number of turns equal to their Willpower, you can return them to life, at a cost. Spend a dot of Integrity as well as a point of Willpower and make an Extended Integrity + Pactio roll, with a target number of 15 minus the subject’s Integrity.

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: You fail, but subtract one from the maximum number of rolls you can make. If you do manage to succeed, your ally gains a Persistent Condition, such as Broken, Fugue, or Madness. If you fail, you gain the Guilty Condition. Either way the psychic backlash causes you a point of aggravated damage.

Failure: You don’t make headway, and may take a minor Condition or give up.

Success: You make headway, and the body stirs, letting out a ragged gasp or twitching as the soul struggles not to release itself. Once the target number is met, the previously dead ally violently wakes up, convulsing and shivering and usually crying. Both girls are treated as if they got a Dramatic Failure on a Breaking Point roll, but the subject’s aggravated damage is made lethal, and her rightmost health box is cleared.

Exceptional Success: As above, but you manage to heal damage equal to your Presence and both of you are treated as if you only had a normal failure on a Breaking Point roll.

Suggested Bans: Must kiss those you heal, can’t refuse a sincere gift

Kiss Kiss Fall In Love

Action: Instant

Sometimes people love you all on their own. Sometimes they need a little help. With a subtle display of confidence and a contested roll of Presence + Expression + Striking Looks versus Composure + Potency you give someone you make eye contact with a suitable Condition, chosen when the power is taken.

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: You gain the Condition towards the target instead, or the target gains the Informed Condition towards you.

Failure: Nothing happens. You can use the power on the same target again after 24 hours.

Success: You can impart the chosen condition on the target. Conditions like Swooning, Inspired, or Leveraged give this bargain it’s name, but Conditions like Shaken and Spooked are also acceptable.

Exceptional Success: You can give the target the Addicted or Obsessed Condition focused on yourself. They can’t help but want to jockey for your attention and affection.

Suggested Bans: ten minutes spent in front of a mirror admiring yourself each night, must kiss the target, cannot turn down flattery

Pain isn’t Pretty

Action: Passive

Fighting monsters and evil faeries isn’t easy. They have ways of causing searing pain, like the Agonize Dread Power (Hunter: the Vigil pg. 276-277) or blows that target limbs to cripple. With this Pactio, you’re completely able to ignore Tilts and combat penalties that are inflicted on you during battle with the forces of darkness up to your Pactio dots. Any Persistent Conditions that might result from the

Example: Akemi has Pactio ●●●. During a fight with a powerful yokai, she has her arm and leg hit with powerful blows, leaving her with the Arm and Leg Wrack Tilts. On top of that, the nightmare’s claws Sickened her and through supernatural means it forced her to accept the Beaten Down Tilt. She still notes that she has the Arm and Leg Wrack Tilts, as well as Sickness, but doesn’t suffer any ill effects from them (at least so long as she continues to fight). Because of the Beaten Down Tilt, which puts her over three ignored Tilts, she’ll still have to spend a point of Willpower to keep on fighting, but it’s a small price to pay to keep her friends safe.

When she finally defeats the monster that’s been plaguing her neighborhood’s dreams, she collapses in pain and vomits all over herself before struggling to get back to her Safe Space, where she can rest. During the battle she was able to ignore her Wound Penalties, but now that the danger is over, her injuries are hampering her.

In addition, you don’t take any physical indications of damage, and your Regalia remains untorn. After all, Pain Isn’t Pretty, but magical girls are.

Suggested Bans: Subject yourself to injury or conditions that would cause a Tilt outside combat (a thumbtack in the thigh, cold or inclement weather), keep a candle lit, go without sleep for 24 hours a week.

Hope’s Blessing

Action: Passive

All that it takes for evil to succeed is for good girls to do nothing. The senshi know this, and know that the hope that what they’re doing is right is a powerful force. Called Hope’s Curse by more jaded Guardians, this ability allows you to shrug off debilitating injuries and continue fighting so long as you continue to hold out hope for a better world. All healing times are cut in half: Bashing heals in fifteen minutes, lethal in a day, and aggravated in only three days.

Any Conditions resulting from crippling injuries that are otherwise mundane (not the result of a direct magical curse, like a sorcerer blinding you) are resolved after a week. So long as you survive a fight, you can—and likely will—continue fighting until you finally can fight no more.

Suggested Bans: three hours or intense physical training, prayer, or volunteer work a week.

Hammer Space

Action: Passive

In both Japanese and western cartoons, characters will often pull objects out of nowhere, seemingly from behind their backs (or out of their asses). With this Pactio bargain—called the Handy Haversack in one Starlight Projekt doujin game—you have that ability as well. When you take this power, you gain the ability to store objects in a pocket dimension. The dimension has a total space of twice your Pactio + Resolve.

No single object stored in Hammer Space can have Size larger than the lesser of Resolve or Pactio, and you’re considered to have the Quick Draw merit for any objects within your Hammer Space. If another character with Pactio dots (not necessarily the Hammer Space bargain) is close enough to reach into your clothing and knows you well enough, they can even share your Hammer Space, removing objects but not being able to store them (for mechanical purposes, assume two characters that know the same version of a Tactic are able to use Hammer Space together, even if taking from the Hammer Space of an unconscious character). The total weight of Hammer Space is never more than one pound, and you must be wearing at least some type of clothing or in reach of an enclosed space to benefit. You can’t actually pull things from your ass, even if it might seem that way.

Example: Realizing that her powers aren’t strong enough on their own, Akemi decides to store heavier armaments inside of her Hammer Space. After tracking down and assaulting a man who sold illegal weapons from the trunk of his car, Akemi takes his guns for herself. With her Pactio ●●● and Resolve ●●●● she has a total Hammer Space of 14, she takes two assault rifles (Size 3), a riot shield (Size 3), a gas mask (Size 2) and three heavy pistols (Size 1). She couldn’t, however, store a grenade machine gun in her Hammer Space because it’s Size (4) is larger than her Pactio dots (If her Pactio was ●●●● and her Resolve ●●●, she couldn’t, but if both were ●●●● she could).

Later, when fighting a strange robotic angel, she’s knocked unconscious. Knowing about her Hammer Space, Takamichi, one of Akemi’s cellmates who knew about her hidden armoury, reaches into Akemi’s shirt and pulls out an assault rifle to finish off the monster and get her friend to safety.

Suggested Bans: Only storing a specific type of item (weapons, first aid supplies, clothing), carrying a specific item on you at all times outside of your Hammer Space, wearing a specific article of clothing.

This is another World of Darkness homebrew. This time a friend wanted to have something similar to the game Muramasa: The Demon Blade, so I came up with this template for her game.

Geist isn’t actually updated to the GMC rules yet, but I’ve done my best to encorporate them here.

Long ago in Muromachi period of Japanese history there lived a swordsman named Sengo Muramasa. Second only to Soshu Masamune, his swords were of legendary quality, said to cleave any opponent in two. They were also claimed to be cursed, incapable of being drawn without drinking blood, even going so far as to cause bloodlust in whoever wielded one of his blades. They were said to go insane, slaughtering their kin or even turning the blade on themselves if it couldn’t have it’s bloodlust sated.

Keep reading

I’m going to try doing homebrew more often, and when I do I’ll link it on my Tumblog. This is for the 12 Days of Onyx Contest, creating holiday Conditions for new World of Darkness 2e Chronicles of Darkness

Basically it’s nominally Christmas themed status effects, but I’ve tried to take the Silver Bordered Magic approach and made it so that they could be renamed and used for something real. All of them are for any nWoD2e CofD game, except for the Siskur-Dah of the Lodge of The Krampus, which is Werewolf, and I Have A Machine Gun, which is Hunter, unless you want to let anyone get Risk benefits. For a prettier, pdf version, go here.

Grinch (Persistent)
Your heart is three sizes too small. You have two additional doors in any social maneuvering, but take a -2 penalty on social interactions other than Intimidate.
Possible Sources: Being a lonely curmudgeon
Beat: You ruin someone else’s fun
Resolution: Have someone reach out to brighten your day.

Scrooged
You know the true meaning of the holidays is spreading good tidings and cheer. Your holiday spirit is invigorating, and you’re willing to buy a whole goose. It’s enough to brighten the day of even other humbugs, serving as an Anchor to all present.
Possible Sources: A heartwarming television special, a series of ghosts showing you the error of your ways
Resolution: Resolve this condition to be treated as a True Friend or the appropriate Touchstone to as many characters as can fit at a dining room table until the end of the Story. 

Tacky Sweater (Persistent)
Your sweater is so tacky that it can’t be beat. Everyone around you is in complete awe of the sweater, even as it disgusts them. Anyone who looks at the sweater suffers a Breaking Point when viewing it, but is at -2 to notice anything else. You have the Open Condition for the Storyteller’s choice of phenomena.
Possible Sources:An Exceptional Success (or Dramatic Failure) on making or finding a tacky sweater, then wearing it.
Beat:Your sweater frightens a child or causes spiritual trouble. 
Resolution: You take the sweater off and, ideally, burn it. In extreme cases abjuration may be necessary, but it certainly couldn’t hurt.

Warring on Christmas (Persistent)
For whatever reason you choose not to celebrate Christmas, and some people find that antagonistic. Your first impression with such people is Hostile, and whenever someone tries to lecture you on how you’re ruining the country, you lose a point of Willpower.
Possible Sources: Being Jewish, Atheist, Agnostic, or Jehovah’s Witness
Beat: Someone fails to accept your nondenominational “Happy Holidays”
Resolution: You give into secular commercialism or the holiday ends.

Siskur-Dah (Persistent)
Your character is on the Siskur-Dah of the Lodge of the Krampus. By concentrating on a subject you can tell their Integrity or the equivalent, as well as a general sense of what this means in terms of naughty or niceness. If the prey drops in Integrity or the equivalent, you can sense it.
Possible Sources: The Sacred Hunt rite of the Lodge of the Krampus
Resolution: The prey is brought down (a kill is not necessary) or the pack breaks off the Siskur-Dah by taking any significant actions towards ends other than the hunt.
Beat: Your character achieves an exceptional success on an action involving the prey.

Naughty (Persistent)
You enjoy doing bad things, and taking out your frustrations on others. You need to spend a point of Willpower to not indulge in your Vice if given the opportunity, and you take -2 on non-Intimidate social rolls with anyone who witnesses you indulging your vice.
Possible Sources: Losing a point of Integrity for causing someone harm
Resolution: Gain a point of Integrity, lose another point of Integrity, get Scrooged
Beat: Cause trouble indulging your Vice.

Nice (Persistent)
Being good feels good to you. Once per scene in pursuit of your Virtue, if it would benefit another character, you can choose to have a roll count as Exceptional with three successes instead of five.
Possible Sources: Gaining a point of Integrity, consistently playing to your Virtues.
Resolution: Cause someone harm, lose a point of Integrity
Beat: Cause trouble trying to help someone else

Now I have a Machine Gun
There’s one of you and more of them, but now you’re armed and that makes you dangerous. As long as you’re on your own and without help, whenever you spend Willpower on an action, you can choose one of the Risking Willpower options without needing to Risk. HO-HO-HO.
Possible Sources: Being shoeless and trapped in a building with fake terrorists
Resolution: Save the hostages

Not A Terrorist (Persistent)
Other than telling everyone you were a terrorist, who said you were a terrorist? Your motives are murky and your plan is convoluted, meaning that any actions taken to figure out what you’re up to suffer a -3 penalty.
Possible Sources: Pretending you’re a terrorist to rob a building
Beat: Lose a henchman
Resolution: Give up and go to jail peacefully, get blown up by the hero.

This was my submission for Hunter: The Vigil Second Edition’s Open Call. It’s been months with no word,  so I’m going to finally share it. I may not have gotten picked, but I’m still proud of it, even if I did have to consolidate and cut down a lot of ideas to make the wordcount limit.

The main idea is that it’s a Compact based on the trope of the Final Girl; i.e. the last of the Slasher’s victims, who manages to turn the tables and kill him. It’s also fucking filled with stupid references, since the slasher genre has been very meta since even before Scream. There’s a lot of references to other movies, a few video games, Scooby Doo, and quite a bit of Hack/Slash. Count them all and get a NoPrize. The core concept of the Conspiracy is that they’re the would-be murder victims who are trying to prevent other Slasher attacks. There’s also an underlying fear that they could become Slashers themselves, due to either being related to them or having been changed by the event. You know, that old twist.

The Final Girl’s Club

Summer, 1980. The camp at Toluca Lake was shaken by the killing spree of an implacable psychopath wearing a kabuki mask. Seventeen people were dead because a land developer wanted the camp owners to sell. After hefty hush money settlements to the surviors, the company got the land anyway. 

When rumours began springing up that the Toluca Lake Resort was haunted by the killer’s ghost, Laurie Carpenter set out to gain closure. Unfortunately what she learned as the killer lay dying was that her own brother had taken up the kabuki’s mantle, wanting revenge for being silenced.

With another incident came more survivors, who looked to Carpenter for guidance. After a class action lawsuit over the company’s cover up, the Toluca Lake Survivor Foundation was formed. Their mission was to aid slasher victims. Secretly, Laurie hoped to prevent people from becoming like her brother. The organization researched the slasher phenomena, and as it grew it became more of a proactive compact, with the survivors of attacks now actively looking for slasher activity. By the early 90s, when people began talking about the often gendered violence of these killers, the compact part of the Foundation took on its unofficial name: The Final Girls Club.

The Enemy
Many of the Final Girls (and guys) were victims of supernatural stalkers. Creepy admirers who wouldn’t take no for an answer and escalated to murder. Others were chosen for revenge, often for something they had no part in, or broke some taboo they had no way of knowing about. Almost every hunter in the compact was the victim of a slasher of some kind, though the compact plays fast and loose with the term. Stalker vampires and rampaging werewolves both leave victims with nightmares, and wizards and faeries have a way of punishing whoever they consider a rulebreaker.
The slasher phenomena is their greatest concern, and the members who aren’t survivors tend to be relatives of victims, or even the slashers themselves. The phenomena primarily affects teens, and while other orgs might prioritize youth, the Final Girls aren’t just protecting kids, they’re protecting their friends. This kind of closeness is as much a blessing as a curse.

Hunters

• When you were too young to remember, there was this creepy guy in the neighborhood. The parents didn’t like the way he looked at the kids, so they burned him alive. Whether he was a monster then or not, he came back a decade later for revenge on the parents. He still haunts your dreams, but at least he can’t hurt anyone else after you stopped him.
  
• Every kid gets picked on, especially the lunch lady’s. Not every kid’s mom starts murdering the bullies and serving them up as Mystery Meat Special™. The look of betrayal on her face when you brought the cops in–right before she shoved it into the fry oil and killed herself–is something you’ll never forget.
  
• Dolls always made you uncomfortable. Something about those lifeless eyes. It was almost vindication when your deadbeat dad was brought to life possessing one and tried to kill your family. You sent him back to hell, and in the last few years your cell has given him a lot of company.
  

Camps
Groups within the compact tend to be based around how they approach combating the slasher phenomena.

Slayers want to give their nightmares nightmares, and teach others to fight.
Exorcists were often victims of demonic possession and research the occult
The Loomis Group focuses on trauma therapy to aid victims, and hope to even cure the slashers themselves.

Status
Status is earned not by hunting down or dealing with slashers–though it certainly is impressive–but supporting and protecting the victims of their attacks.

● Having already been up close with Slashers, you gain your choice of Tolerance for Biology, Relentless, or Greyhound.
●●● You gain the Mind of a Madman merit. You’ve likely given up on restful sleep.
●●●●● You’ve no doubt seen many killers who started out with good motives or looking for revenge. Even though you still have your Integrity, you can understand them. The fact that it worries you is probably a good sign. Work with the Storyteller and choose an appropriate Dread Power.

Stereotypes

• VASCU: Vigilantism is illegal. We’ve got girls who work at Langley, so try not to make it hard for them to turn a blind eye to our little after school program.
  
• Ashwood Abbey: Usually I’d say something like “I’m glad they’re on our side”. Don’t make that mistake. They’re slashers, or might as well be.
  
• Maiden’s Blood Sisterhood: I guess they’ve got fall and we’ve got summer?
  

Small Unit Tactics, Advanced (●●●)
Prerequisite: Small Unit Tactics
When you coordinate a group and spend a point of Willpower, a number of characters equal to twice your Presence may choose from the Risk options, even if they aren’t a Hunter. If their roll succeeds, they regain a point of Willpower, but for each of those rolls that fails, you lose a point of Willpower as if you had Risked.

Endowment: Know Thy Enemy (● to ●●●)
One thing that keeps coming up when researching the slasher phenomena is rules. The slut-shaming priest with the sharp silver crucifix hates sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. If a woman with a slit-mouth asks if she’s pretty, be ambiguous or offer her an orange unless you want to be cut to pieces by rusty scissors. You can use these rules to your advantage.
By using a Clue gained from a successful Investigation, you can discern the killer’s pattern. So long as you follow their rules, you might as well be invisible. It takes a point of Willpower and a Resolve + Composure roll to harm you, and actions against you suffer your dots in this endowment. Drawback: The rules only work if you abide by them. Break the rules and you’re fair game.

I made a vampire Bloodline based off of a joke. While the core concept (catgirl vampire) seems a bit funny, I’ve made it so that the bloodline itself can be played seriously.

A monster chases you through the graveyard. It taunts you, always with a smile and two mismatched eyes staring out from the darkness. It comes with flickering ghost-light and yowling laughs. It dresses like an entertainer, but tonight you’re the entertainment. Claws run down your shoulder and you turn, only for another slash across the opposite hip. The cat plays with you, toying and laughing. A gentle kick to the back sends you stumbling forward, and you break into a run.

Keep reading

So I found a homebrew of mine lying around and figured I’d share it. Primarily, it’s a 2e update of the Coil of Blood, with a few tweaks. Most relevant to today (Thanksgiving) is the Taste of Life Scale, which exists entirely because I wanted vampire cooks.

But for the most part it’s pretty straightforward. Use less blood, get restricted by blood less.

Blood is power to the Kindred, but Blood has power over them as well. While vitae can allow a vampire to strengthen her body and enthrall others, the need for it still chains her. If there’s one thing that a Dragon despises, it’s another chain around her neck. With this Mystery, the limitations of the vampiric condition are mitigated.

The Defiant who study this Mystery seek to restore a semblance of life to themselves. This isn’t due to a desire to return to mortality, but to reclaim what undeath denies them. Scales of Life are often learned through massive vitae expenditures and experimenting with the border of life and death.

The Coil of Life

Blood Seeps Slowly  ●

The Dead waste vitae simply through waking from the Daysleep. To a Dragon, this loss of power is akin to theft. With this Coil, the Defiant only needs to spend a point of vitae to wake after a number of days equal to the lower of her Coils of Life or Resolve.

The Chosen Drink  ● ●

A Lord of the Night should not be shackled by the restrictions of their Blood. A Defiant who has reached this level of mastery over Life has their effective Blood Potency lowered by their dots in the Coil of Life when determining feeding restrictions. A Dragon whose effective Blood Potency is less than one dot may drink from stored blood and gain two vitae for each liter she drinks.

The Full Faced Beast  ● ● ● 

The vampire is a corpse. Not even a shambling one, but fully ambulatory and capable of logic and reason, undeterred by decay or rigor mortis. “Not good enough!” Says the Dragon. And with this Coil, she can cause her blood to pump once more through will alone. The Blush of Life costs only a point of Willpower, not vitae.

Keep the Red Hoard  ●●●●

Like a greedy wyvern lying atop a pile of coins and precious treasures, the Defiant is unwilling to part with her well earned treasure. Any time she would spend two or more points of Vitae, she may spend up to two points less by paying a point of Willpower instead. This can never lower the ability’s cost below one point of vitae, and can only be used once per effect.

Perspicacious Blood  ● ● ● ● ●

While the Kindred metaphorically refer to vitae as “the Blood”, it’s so much more than that. Vitae is life essence, stolen and used by the damned–or, as the Dragons see it, blessed. The Dragon know how to stretch that stolen life for all she can. With this level of mastery, treat every mortal vessel the Dragon drinks from as if he had the Producer merit (Vampire: The Requiem pg 299), but treat his Stamina as one lower when determining whether he gains the Drained Condition.

Sample Scales of Life

Taste of Life

Prerequisite Coils: Full Faced Beast
Procedure: Vitae is like euphoria in liquid form, but even Elder Kindred will sometimes long for the taste of mortal food. The procedure for this Scale is simple enough, albeit more time consuming than most, and some would say it serves no practical purpose: The Defiant must ghoul and raise an animal for a number of weeks equal to its Size. The animal’s feed must come from plants watered with the Dragon’s vitae. The Dragon then slaughters the animal and prepares it to taste.
Outcome: Any animal raised in such a fashion gains a point of Size. When slaughtered and cooked, it will always retain a bloody, reddish hue no matter how ‘well done’ it is (there is of course still argument on how the meat should be cooked). Once prepared, the meat provides one point of vitae per health box of the animal, and any vampire may eat the meat and enjoy it as if they were using the Blush of Life. The taste is exceptional due to the infusion of vitae, and anyone who consumes it must roll for Vitae addiction if their Resolve is two or lower. Other than that the vitae is ‘neutral’ and doesn’t cause Vinculum. Eating food in this way doesn’t cause it to be vomited up, and provided half the meal is flesh, it can be garnished with vegetables or sauces.

Expand the Stomach

Prerequisite Coils: The Chosen Drink
Procedure: The Dragon must binge on as much vitae as she can, drinking (or eating) until she has a taken in a number of points of vitae over her maximum equal to twice her Blood Potency within the scene. She holds the blood in by spending a point of Willpower each turn, looking like a bloated corpse. During this time, she forces herself into a Frenzy where the Beast does nothing but roil about in it’s own gorged stupor, only attacking if someone gets close.
Outcome: The Dragon bleeds and vomits up the excess vitae, but for a number of nights equal to her dots in the Coil, her Blood Potency is treated a number of dots higher equal to her Coils solely for determining how much Vitae she can store.

Orphan the Blood

Prerequisite Coil: Perspicacious Blood
Procedure: A large tub (such as that used for Epidermal Shielding Bath) is filled with an alchemic mixture of vitae (or blood), special salts, oils, and potent elixirs. The vitae must come at least in part from the subject. A Kindred subject is placed into the warm bath and over the course of an hour and allows the water to seep into their skin, and concentrates on their sense of self. A mortal may also be the subject, but at it takes three points of lethal damage to obtain enough water for the ritual. The dragon then bleeds into the tub, and the subject is forced to spend all of their Willpower..
Outcome: The Dragon spends a point of vitae for each point of Blood Potency of the vampire the subject has a stage three Blood Bond with. The Blood Bond is broken, and replaced by a stage two bond–never more–with the Defiant. For a number of nights equal to the Dragon’s dots in the Coil of Life, the subject is unable to move passed the second stage blood bond, but after that point if they drink from the original vampire, the bond is restored to full after only a single sip.

Let’s talk about cWoD’s Gypsies. This is a pretty bad book, and one that I get called out for dissing on without having read it (likely by people who also haven’t read it). “You can’t know something is bad unless you actually read it for yourself” they seem to say. Getting my information from the FATAL & Friends archives or TVTropes means that I can’t judge the quality. These are the same people who would judge the quality of FATAL itself, or Twilight without reading it, but still. So since the book is only 122 pages, I decided to bite the bullet and do my own chapter by chapter review of it.

Am I wrong about the game? Is it actually decent? Does it have merit? I don’t really have hope for it, but let’s go into this hoping for an interesting game about playing a secret outcast, as opposed to a racially insensitive piece of crap with the kind of shitty untested mechanics cWoD is known for.

Keep reading

With 2009’s National Novel Writing Month already ten days old, and with nothing but a pile of notes to show for it, I’m going to try writing something a little different here, just to get the creative juices flowing. I’m going to write about the Hero’s Journey, something that I really love, but that I don’t research nearly as much as I should. It’s something that’s an incredible asset to a writer of any kind. Without even getting into the psychological aspects of it—Joseph Campbell, the man who introduced the concept of the Monomyth in his book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, was a student of Carl Jung, and the concept features numerous Jungian archetypes, such as the Hero, the Mentor, the Temptress, the Shadow, etcetera etcetera—the concept itself is useful because it’s archetypical. The Hero’s Journey is, in it’s purest form, a template. At least, that’s the way that I see it.

Of course, this is all my own take on it, and in a way, every story is the exact same thing told a million times over with a million variations. It’s been said that there are only three distinct plots: Man vs Man, Man vs Himself, and Man vs Nature. “There is nothing new under the sun”. “Creativity is about hiding your sources.” Not only does this come from research into the Hero’s Journey (without actually reading much of Campbell’s book), a lot of it comes from http://www.TVTropes.org. Almost everything capitalized has an entry, so check it out.

Well, that’s what the Monomyth is. The source of all stories, consciously or unconsciously. You can see it in everything from the journey of Christ and Buddha, and since Campbell’s book was one of the inspirations, you can see it in Star Wars. Pieces are rearranged and flipped over, some are left out, some are doubled up while others are barely mentioned, but every story has the Hero’s Journey at it’s heart. Especially a fantasy story.

The Journey is broken down into three main elements, from there broken up more. They are: 
The Departure: The Hero meets with the Herald, and either accepts the Call, or it is thrust upon him. He is forced to leave his idyllic world, and experience the supernatural. The supernatural in this case need not be ghosts and wizards. It could be the world of fashion, as seen in The Devil Wears Prada. It could be just on the edge of an affair in I Think I Love My Wife. More obviously, Luke learns the ways of the Force, and goes from a life of boring moisture farming to the world of the Rebellion. The ‘supernatural’ might even be just the opposite. A supersoldier is thrust into a world of the mundane.

The Initiation: Wherein the Hero deals with the world he’s been thrust into, and goes down the Road of Trials. Now in the supernatural world, the Hero is tested in ways he hasn’t been before. They deal with Temptresses and slay Dragons. They encounter death in ways, from the literal—Luke could have died when rescuing Leia, and without his more competent allies, Frodo would have been Orc chow. This is the bulk of the story, where the hero undergoes the great adventure, meets his allies and enemies, and is tempted and tested.

The Return: Having survived the Road of Trials, the Hero uses all that he’s learned to go back to the beginning and put everything that he’s learned to the test. He returns the McGuffin to where it belongs, he starts a New Jedi Order, or realizes that he doesn’t need another woman because he really does love his wife. Often, the Return is in the form of a race. The Hero makes a flight with the Elixer, running from the last of the forces that want to destroy him. The archetypical castle falling apart as the Big Bad is destroyed, or the villain inputting the self destruct sequence when the Hero thinks he’s won. With the end of this stage, the Hero returns to his life, changed by the experiences he’s had throughout the journey.

Each of the three stages is broken down, often into 12 stages. Each one represents another stepping stone for the Hero. Another trial, or a hurdle to leap over.

At the start of the story, the Hero is in The Ordinary World. This is where they live, and whether or not it’s ordinary for the reader, viewer, or player, it is for them. Often, they wish that something would happen, something to take them away from their home, and give them an adventure. This is the stage where the bored farmboy sits looking out at the stars, or listening to the tales of travelers in the pubs.

Soon, the hero gets their wish, and the Herald comes into their life. Not necessarily a person, the Herald is the character or object in the story that brings the Hero The Call to Adventure. A man might stumble into the room shouting that zombies are coming, or a robot might play a message asking for help. Whatever it is, this is what will begin the Hero’s journey. Often times, despite their wishful thinking, there is a Refusal of the Call. The Hero is reluctant, either out of fear, or insecurity. Sometimes, they might not even know the Call was the Call. If this happens, The Call Knows Where You Live. The stormtroopers hunt down the droids, and kill Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. The Call is an important part of the story, and in some cases it’s a little more complicated. Luke Skywalker gets the Call for Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan trains Luke as his apprentice. In Kingdom Hearts, Sora unknowingly takes Riku’s call from him. He later receives another. In Harry Potter, Hermione and Ron decide to make it a Conference Call. In some cases, the Hero’s Call might just be that they couldn’t deal with waiting for it. One case of a different Call is when the Hero Can’t Stay Normal. They already have some supernatural power, and they strain to hide it. This is seen in modern stories such as X-Men and Heroes.

Whatever the case, in the end the Hero is thrust into The Supernatural whether they like it or not. They encounterSupernatural Aid, often in the form of a Mentor. Luke is given a lightsaber by Obi-wan. Neo becomes a Red Pill, and becomes a member of the Nebuchadnezzar, with Morpheus as his mentor. In some cases, the Mentor and the Supernatural Aid are one and the same. The Hero might find an ancient book of spells, and set about teaching himself magic.

With the aid, the hero undergoes The Crossing of the First Threshold. This is where the Hero can no longer turn back. They enter the world of monsters. It is here that the first true test of the hero is made. They face one or more Threshold Guardians, who while not necessarily antagonistic, will attempt to test the Hero to see if they are worthy to go on. This is the Council of Elrond, where Frodo speaks up and announces that he will take the ring to Mordor. This is Mos Eisley, where Luke has to convince Han Solo to aid them in saving Princess Leia from the first Death Star. The Hero may actually 'die’ here, failing their journey, only to once more be pulled back. They may sit like Achilles in his Tent, only to renew themselves to the adventure, and return—often just in the nick of time to save those they love—This happens all the time in Spiderman.

Once the Threshold is crossed, there’s no turning back. The Hero is exiled, the spaceship has launched, the train has started moving. This begins the Road of Trials. This is the bulk of the story, and the most open. Here, anything can happen, and the Hero will be tested. They will meet Allies and Enemies, and the adventures that they have will strengthen them for the climax. 

Common elements of the Road of Trials are:
The Temptress, often a female figure who will attempt to distract the Hero from his quest. In a romantic movie, this is the other woman. Of course, if the Hero is swayed by the other woman, it can be a story in itself. After all, in Act I, Romeo was pining for Rozalin until he saw Juliet. The Temptress may not even know herself as such. The reason that Spiderman acts as Achilles in his tent so often is because of Mary Jane Watson(Parker, depending on the writer). 
The Goddess, the Hero meets a woman of power. She may offer him aid, or might serve as another test. Galadril offering to take the One Ring serves as both a test of Frodo’s resolve, as well as the Woman As Temptress of above.
Atonement With the Father. The Hero reconciles with the father, or their father figure. Perhaps they never saw eye to eye, and the Hero wants to resolve their differences, or perhaps the character’s father is dead, and they want to live up to a name. Luke Skywalker convinces his father, Anakin, to turn on Palpatine, and he takes him over the edge with him. In this case, the Atonement also serves as the climax.
The Innermost Cave. The Hero journeys into the heart of his fears. Literally into a cave, or perhaps into the stronghold of the enemy. There they face their problems, hopefully coming out on the other side victorious. Quite literally, Luke journeys into the Jedi cave on Dantooine, and encounters the shade of Darth Vader. In angrily attacking it, he sees that he will only symbolically kill himself, the same way that Obi-wan claims Vader killed Anakin on Mustafar.
Often, there is a Rescue from Without. The Hero is saved by something outside of themselves. A good example of this is Han Solo coming to Luke’s rescue after he got his reward and went their separate ways. Something saves the Hero, whether it’s another character, or fate, or even that they’re spared by one of the villains.
The Dragon. A right hand man to the Big Bad, or possibly even a real dragon or other monster that serves as a final test before the climax. They are the one who guards the lair to the final battle, and the one who serves to give the Hero that last bit of XP before they face the end boss.
Before the final showdown, there is often a time out. This is the Action Movie Quiet Drama Scene. It’s the moment where the Hero and his crew sit around a campfire, preparing for the attack on the Big Bad’s stronghold, where many of them will surely die, and the Hero will face the Final Boss of the story. Confessions are made, and the characters try not to think about the fact that they’re most likely going to die. In modern stories, this could be the agents planning for a raid on the terrorist cell, or the plucky young heroine getting up the nerve to do something that will make her lose her job, but keep her dignity or integrity.
Then comes the Final Battle. The Hero fights against the Big Bad, and one of them may die. Whether it is the hero or not, there comes a Resurrection. The Hero is dead, the Big Bad has triumphed. When all seems lost, the Hero’s hand comes up over the edge, and he climbs back up, determined once more. It is after this symbolic death that the Hero finally triumphs. Likewise, it’s not uncommon for the Big Bad to return, only for the Hero to defeat them for real. Often in a jRPG, this will happen at least twice, with the Big Bad changing forms. In a romance, the Hero will confess their love, only for the girl of his dreams to be with someone else. Often, this false 'death’ turns out to be just a good friend of her’s, or a brother, or the Hero convinces her that he’s the one.
With the defeat of the Big Bad, the Hero is granted The Ultimate Boon. Whether it is some mystical ability, some special item, or just a quality of character that the Hero needed to possess doesn’t matter. The Hero now takes what he’s gained or learned, called The Elixer by Campbell, and races along The Road Back. Oftentimes, the Hero will make a harrowing flight home, returning to the original world with the Elixer, often using it to save someone from their normal life. The Elixer itself may have served early on as the Call, where the Hero’s Journey revolved around the quest for the Elixer. 
Once the journey is complete, the Hero has The Freedom to Live. They are no longer under threat from the supernatural, and they often become The Master of Two Worlds. Mulan manages to save the world by using the skills she learned masquerading as a man, as well as no longer needing to hide her femininity. Luke Skywalker is no longer ordinary, he is now a full fledged Jedi, and creates a New Jedi Order.
That isn’t always the end, though. The Hero’s Journey is cyclic. When one journey is complete, the next can begin. This is most obvious in trilogies, where the first movie often encompasses it’s own journey, while the sequels are a two part Hero’s Journey. In The Matrix, Neo becomes the Master of Two Worlds by defeating Smith, and in Revolutions and Reloaded, he again undergoes a journey. The second movie even ends with a spiritual death, leading into the next. In Curse of the Black Pearl, Will Turner answers the Call and becomes a Pirate, saving Elizabeth and ending one cycle, only to begin another contained in Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End.

After the Emperor is defeated, and a New Republic instated in the Galaxy, Luke, Han, and Leia are forced to deal with Grand Admiral Thrawn, the Heir to the Empire. Years later, Jacen Solo has to save the galaxy from the Yuzhang Vong.

Now, none of this needs to be taken at face value. The Wise Old Man that serves as a Mentor can just as easily be a Wise Old Man or a Magical Negro, but in modern times we don’t always have old people or racist caricatures to aid us. Sometimes instead we have the cop’s Rabbi, or the student’s unique teacher. The Mentor can be a coach, or a doctor, or even a boss. The Mentor might be a Marine sniper who runs the team and smacks you on the back of the head when you act stupid.

Even the term Hero can be altered. The Hero could just as easily be a Villain, going along the same journey. He’s called to adventure by himself, deciding that he needs to take over the world. The final battle is nothing more than the Hero—in this case a villain—attempting to defeat the one hero who could stop him. It can also just as easily be a heroine. 

The character’s atonement with the 'father’ could be with their mother. Or it could be with a brother or a friend that they betrayed, or that they feel betrayed them. It can be Luke and Anakin making nice, or it can be Han coming back to save Luke, deciding he doesn’t need to be a smuggler.

While the original reason for the Temptress is as an aspect of the Hero’s Anima, his female soul, the Temptress could just as easily be something else. Aunt May is just as much reason for Peter Parker to put away the Spiderman costume as Mary Jane is. It could be doubts and fears that the Hero faces, things they experienced during the Refusal of the Call and never quite got over.

The Final Battle could easily, easily be anything else. The last game of the championship game, the Hero standing up for something they believe in. It could represent nothing more than a turning point. The Hero 'defeats’ the Big Bad, where the Big Bad is themselves. They make a choice they have to make, to save something or someone, whether metaphorically or literally. It could be Peter Parker realizing that the world needs Spiderman.

The pieces themselves are all just symbolism. Change them around and the story becomes more interesting, more varied. Rearrange the pieces if you want. Creativity is about hiding the sources, after all, because there’s nothing new under the sun.


That’s what the Hero’s Journey is, though. It’s the Monomyth. It’s a template, tried and tested from the dawn of civilization, speaking to us from something archetypical. It’s a guideline for anyone who chooses to write anything. Change the pieces, flip them around. The story is the same and yet different every time. From drama to action, and everything in between. One Hero, of a Thousand Faces.

I decided to go rewatch the first Harry Potter movie and randomly joke about it and keep track of my observations with some friends in Discord. Here’s the log, which I will hopefully do something with later. Maybe review a movie that’s been reviewed to death. I should do the same with the other movies as well. 

Rory-Last Thursday at 8:52 PM

Tribuna Mcclay-Last Thursday at 8:52 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 8:56 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 9:01 PM

Gilboron-Last Thursday at 9:10 PM

Tribuna Mcclay-Last Thursday at 9:10 PM

Gilboron-Last Thursday at 9:14 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 9:15 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 10:19 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 11:01 PM

Pillow-Last Thursday at 11:05 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 11:06 PM

Pillow-Last Thursday at 11:07 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 11:07 PM

Pillow-Last Thursday at 11:07 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 11:07 PM

Pillow-Last Thursday at 11:08 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 11:08 PM

Pillow-Last Thursday at 11:08 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 11:09 PM

Pillow-Last Thursday at 11:14 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 11:14 PM

Pillow-Last Thursday at 11:15 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 11:15 PM

“I’m half'n'half. Me dad’s a muggle, me mom’s a witch”. Jesus, you’ve got internalized bigotry already, Seamus
God, these ghost effects are shitty.
John Cleese, so underutilized here.
They keep that scene in, but leave out Peeves. The ghosts aren’t even important.
Does Nick get basilisksed in the Chamber movie?
The moving pictures and staircases are done really poorly.
They’re so stiff.

Tribuna Mcclay-Last Thursday at 11:34 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 11:34 PM

Tribuna Mcclay-Last Thursday at 11:34 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 11:34 PM

CircuitBreak-Last Thursday at 11:35 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 11:35 PM

CircuitBreak-Last Thursday at 11:37 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 11:38 PM

CircuitBreak-Last Thursday at 11:39 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 11:39 PM

Pillow-Last Thursday at 11:49 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 11:49 PM

Tribuna Mcclay-Last Thursday at 11:55 PM

Rory-Last Thursday at 11:55 PM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:00 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 12:01 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:01 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 12:02 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:02 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 12:04 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:05 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 12:06 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:07 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 12:08 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:08 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 12:10 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:10 AM

Tribuna Mcclay-Yesterday at 12:14 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:14 AM

Tribuna Mcclay-Yesterday at 12:14 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:15 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 12:17 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:18 AM

Tribuna Mcclay-Yesterday at 12:24 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 12:24 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:24 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 12:24 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:25 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 12:25 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:25 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 12:25 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:26 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 12:27 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:27 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 12:30 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:31 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 12:31 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:31 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 12:31 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:31 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 12:35 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:36 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 12:43 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:43 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 12:43 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 12:43 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 1:00 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 1:01 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 1:02 AM

Tribuna Mcclay-Yesterday at 1:05 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 1:05 AM

Tribuna Mcclay-Yesterday at 1:06 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 1:06 AM

Pillow-Yesterday at 1:27 AM

Rory-Yesterday at 1:27 AM