Post by Frederic Bourgault-Christie on Nov 25, 2005 22:39:14 GMT -5
The Black Veil
Even as little as a century ago, and even in parts of the world today, things take on a more visceral meaning. All things. A storm is not a random confluence of hot and cold; it is the punishment of an angry god, beyond human comprehension. Terrifying places in the woods do not simply arouse instinctual fear; they are glades where demons and the fair folk lay. Disease, fire, pestilence, famine, are all forces that can be scarcely stopped, only negotiated with.
Are these superstitions? Not in the world of the Black Veil. For reasons unknown, the power of spirits began to decline roughly around the onset of European empirical practice. Note that this cannot be coincident with the rise of science per se, as Taoists, Greeks and many others performed scientific miracles with something approaching a scientific method. And now, coincident with the rise of postmodernism, the old spirits are returning. Big time.
All over the world, ancient spells practiced as mere ritual suddenly gained power. Mysterious disappearances not seen for millenia could only be plausibly attributed to superhuman attackers. Hallucinogenic episodes began to become much more dangerous. Fetishes and legendary items glowed, left their museums, began activating ancient dweomers. Something, perhaps many things, were bringing Earth back to a magical equilibrium. The day that these events began to happen? Y2K.
And the newly emerging cyber-realm is beginning to be populated by horrors, as well. Stories, myth, culture, interactivity between people, all form minor spiritual links. The Internet serves as a massive focus for the spirit world, a repository of almost infinite culture and stories, and a place that is ethereal almost like the spirit realm yet exists in the physical world. A perfect place for demons to begin a kingdom...
Never Reveal your Name!
Names are powerful. Naming is an act of power: when someone names an object, it adjudicates untold future interactions between that object and others. Naming also helps to access the core I of people, and it has much to do with the incipient process of birth. For this reason, true names are incredibly powerful.
This often puts humans at a disadvantage. Spirits and demons know that they must keep their true name a secret at the moment they are born. But humans will go for years telling people their real name on a regular basis. Why shouldn’t they? Unfortunately, this means hundreds of people could accidentally reveal a true name to an enemy.
How may the characters solve this? They may adopt a nickname, or have always had a nickname. They may try to change their legal name, which would reduce the effect. They may create fake IDs or find a way to acquire a new hidden name through spiritual travel. Most likely, they will make a whole new life with a whole new legal identity.
Beware Who You Invite In
Some demons, vampires, and fairies cannot enter a house without the explicit permission of those in the house. They also cannot attack the house directly. Hearth spirits are quite powerful even if quite localized, and they pose a powerful barrier to these beings. Players will have to learn very quickly to almost never invite someone in explicitly. For example: “Come in” is very explicit, “take a seat” is less so, “Why don’t you come in?” even less so, and “Whatever.” or similar is best.
Always Keep your Gifts a Secret
In the new world, governments are split between comporting with dark forces or eliminating any trace of them. Regardless of which path they choose, PCs are dangerous. A character who reveals that his player group is special will be deluged by requests and threats from the Mob, the government, corporations, terrorist groups. These people often stop at nothing to bring in independent heroes.
The Internet and Virtual Reality
Some of the most interesting interactions will occur in virtual reality.
Virtual Reality Transportation
Unlike RPG Project, players will not be able to zip around in the virtual realm. There are a number of dangers and prerequisites.
1.The hacker must be sufficiently skilled to completely transmit the players as data and reconstitute them at the end. Any failure in this regard can cause permanent loss in the virtual reality world – build a new character or find someone to pay to get them out!
2.Even if the hacker is skilled enough to transmit the characters and their equipment digitally and reconstitute them as matter, she must be able to coordinate the motion of the electromagnetic bits and pieces that now constitute her allies through a gamut of different transmission paths: wireless networks, satellite, cable, copper wire, and so on. If the hacker is not skilled enough, she must avoid these paths, either elongating the time of travel or simply making the trip impossible.
3.When travelling, the players will need to deal with the denizens of the virtual world. At lower speeds, they may be able to stick to safe servers and paths, but at higher and higher speeds, they may not be able to constantly stay on the safe path. Daemons and viruses will plague the characters. Remember that the digital composition of the characters is as vulnerable to change as their physical bodies’ flesh and blood is, and they must avoid changes, or the reconstituting process may kill or harm the characters. Too many bad rolls and the hacker will take the characters into the Spirit Realm!
4.Even if all these problems are overcome, more mundane problems may come into play. ISPs are under pressure by transportation companies and the government to try to restrict long-distance digital transportation and nip it in the bud. This means characters must deal with both regular firewalls and specialized firewalls, perhaps even Hunter AIs and Sentinel AIs. In addition, if a cable is destroyed, faulty, or gets cut off, the characters may get trapped.
How Much Weaker than CotG?
Characters start far weaker than in CotG. It'll vary from race to race, but most races start with ½ to 1/3 of the Class Points and Rank Boosts they begin with.
What Races Are Available?
To be plausible in the world of the Black Veil, a player must be able to somehow mimic humans. Otherwise, they’ll be spending a lot of time back at base. Most governments’ official tack is that there has been no alien contact; that intelligence must either be so far behind or ahead that they wouldn’t interact with us; and so on. They’re wrong, and they know it.
Available ones are:
Any race that can learn sufficient magic at early levels to metamorph
Graei with metamorphing abilities
Ateng with fairie abilities to incarnate as human
Entan
Tentata who hide their cybernetics
Tomodo
Elves
Dwarves
Werebeasts
Vampires
What Classes are Available?
The majority of CotG classes are from worlds with healthy amounts of all four Affinities. For example, Veneficium Secutor skills are from thousands of years of development. That having been said, it could be plausible that some classes are available.
Some magic and psionic classes can be available from a spirit or demon patron. In this case, the character must include how this happened in their character, often paying for it in Traits.
Some martial arts, particularly many of the Twanchen arts, are sufficiently mundane to be a cutting edge new art.
Characters such as Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, etc. may have strong magic from the Old World. The only problem is that suspicion will already fall on them for their alien appearance. Add in rare magic and you have a clear admittance that the character is not human.
Chinese Wu Shih, Tao Shih and Feng Shih are available due to their long history. A similar caveat goes for Druids and similar.
Psychologist
Psychologist player characters often come into the path of spirits when they treat Spectral Seers or others with spiritual affinity but little to no control or understanding. They will generally treat many of these as deluded psychotics... until something happens. They eventually figure out that something is very wrong.
A psychologist is a useful character, though not glamorous. They can make an excellent front for the team; the fellow PCs can be disguised as patients and/or friends. They rake in some cash, always necessary when the Gung-Ho wastes the team’s silver bullets. If they can surpass their fear of the supernatural, they can be very useful in discovering the psychologies of bizarre creatures and also determining the exact nature of the affliction of people who are possessed or whether or not they are simply psychotic.
Daemon Seeker
These are possibly the most traditional of spell casters in the Black Veil world. Daemon Seekers know little magic aside from demon control, but they have the most advanced concept of magic and the most mystiphilosophy experience. They are often versed in the Runic alphabet, Latin, Egyptian, Hebrew, Chinese, and Persian., meaning they can access the original language of several magical manuals.
Daemon Seekers primarily operate through enslaving or recruiting spirits and demons. Most of their Rites require preparation, complex incantations and somatic gestures, and materials. Roughly, Daemon Seeker Rites fall into the falling categories:
Rites of Chastisement: These spells are designed to harm demons and spirits so as to remind them, none too gently, who is master.
Rites of Negotiation: These rituals find ways of negotiation between the spirit and the mage. For stronger spirits, chastisement is out of the question; negotiation will be necessary.
Rites of Protection: A Daemon Seeker without these is kidding themselves. Circles of protection and similar will prevent a daemon.
Rites of Binding: For truly recalcitrant demons, rites of binding can restrict a demon or spirit to a particular area. Lamps, boxes, etc. can be used to hold demons.
Rites of Summoning: These are the bread and butter of Daemon Seekers. These rites allow either a specific demon or any demon of a certain caliber through into the real world.
Contra-Psychic
For whatever reason, some people refuse to believe in what they see. Vampires are maniacs with surgically enhanced fangs, werewolves are large hairy fellows or wolves or hallucinations, psychics are deluded. Their belief in this is so strong that they are able to “disbelieve” supernatural effects.
Alternately, some are so headstrong and confident that they totally and completely believe that they cannot be stopped by pitiful magic. These are cocky people who will take insane risks, yet will be relaxed in all situations.
Whatever makes a person a Contra-Psychic, the effect remains the same: the person is capable of exerting force, somehow connected to Tech, that functions to dispel and stamp out psychic energies. Contra-Psychics saving throws are astronomical, as they have a very visceral disbelief in illusions.
Gung Ho
Ex-military. Hick. Mercenary. Angry father. Whatever it is, these people’s response to the supernatural is simple: Pick up a gun or knife, shoot it or stab it to another world. Repeat.
While the Gung Ho may pick more than they can chew, be too angry or bitter or headstrong to make safe decisions, and generally respond to everything by firing a gun, they do have some advantages. For one, their pragmatism is very impressive, allowing them to experiment with anything and find new, effective ways of dealing with demons. Gung Hos discovered that uranium can slow down some creature’s regenerative process (maybe due to the radioactivity, maybe due to the association with Tech and science) and that a taser gun can emulate lightning for purposes of vulnerability.
Gung Hos will tend to have a lot of connections to weapons dealers and therefore a smattering of experience with the underworld.
Karate Kids
Maybe Aikido taught the character how to use positive ki and therefore harm devils and demons; maybe they were taught in a monastery expecting dark times.
Karate Kids have obvious advantages. In case of a demon or spirit ambush, they can do acceptably with no energy and no equipment. Demons and spirits often underestimate the strength of incoming Karate Kids, and ki is an effective weapon against demons.
Antiquarians
For those looking to play an offbeat character, Antiquarians can be fun. Whether an aging British man with a collection of talismans or a Chinese collector of alchemy books, Antiquarians offer a number of advantages.
The Antique shop is both a cover and a source of income. It can also be used to find out information. After all, the Antiquarian will be talking to the rich and powerful of town. He can keep a pulse on trends. If a potential enemy comes in asking about amulets or talismans or wards, the players can be warned ahead of time. In addition, antiquarians often hold rare and odd items and wisdom.
Teen Fiend
Contrary to the name, Teen Fiends don’t have to be teenagers or fiends at all. The name comes from the magic employed by these magicians. Teens have the greatest degree of raw paranormal ability in humans.. This is because the energy released by physiological growth also coincides with a rise in the four Affinities. As magic seeps back in slowly, more and more children discover that occasionally they can make things different by thinking, saying a lucky word, making a gesture, whatever. Their magic is often teen oriented magic, such as mystic skateboards, boomboxes, whatever.
Even as little as a century ago, and even in parts of the world today, things take on a more visceral meaning. All things. A storm is not a random confluence of hot and cold; it is the punishment of an angry god, beyond human comprehension. Terrifying places in the woods do not simply arouse instinctual fear; they are glades where demons and the fair folk lay. Disease, fire, pestilence, famine, are all forces that can be scarcely stopped, only negotiated with.
Are these superstitions? Not in the world of the Black Veil. For reasons unknown, the power of spirits began to decline roughly around the onset of European empirical practice. Note that this cannot be coincident with the rise of science per se, as Taoists, Greeks and many others performed scientific miracles with something approaching a scientific method. And now, coincident with the rise of postmodernism, the old spirits are returning. Big time.
All over the world, ancient spells practiced as mere ritual suddenly gained power. Mysterious disappearances not seen for millenia could only be plausibly attributed to superhuman attackers. Hallucinogenic episodes began to become much more dangerous. Fetishes and legendary items glowed, left their museums, began activating ancient dweomers. Something, perhaps many things, were bringing Earth back to a magical equilibrium. The day that these events began to happen? Y2K.
And the newly emerging cyber-realm is beginning to be populated by horrors, as well. Stories, myth, culture, interactivity between people, all form minor spiritual links. The Internet serves as a massive focus for the spirit world, a repository of almost infinite culture and stories, and a place that is ethereal almost like the spirit realm yet exists in the physical world. A perfect place for demons to begin a kingdom...
Never Reveal your Name!
Names are powerful. Naming is an act of power: when someone names an object, it adjudicates untold future interactions between that object and others. Naming also helps to access the core I of people, and it has much to do with the incipient process of birth. For this reason, true names are incredibly powerful.
This often puts humans at a disadvantage. Spirits and demons know that they must keep their true name a secret at the moment they are born. But humans will go for years telling people their real name on a regular basis. Why shouldn’t they? Unfortunately, this means hundreds of people could accidentally reveal a true name to an enemy.
How may the characters solve this? They may adopt a nickname, or have always had a nickname. They may try to change their legal name, which would reduce the effect. They may create fake IDs or find a way to acquire a new hidden name through spiritual travel. Most likely, they will make a whole new life with a whole new legal identity.
Beware Who You Invite In
Some demons, vampires, and fairies cannot enter a house without the explicit permission of those in the house. They also cannot attack the house directly. Hearth spirits are quite powerful even if quite localized, and they pose a powerful barrier to these beings. Players will have to learn very quickly to almost never invite someone in explicitly. For example: “Come in” is very explicit, “take a seat” is less so, “Why don’t you come in?” even less so, and “Whatever.” or similar is best.
Always Keep your Gifts a Secret
In the new world, governments are split between comporting with dark forces or eliminating any trace of them. Regardless of which path they choose, PCs are dangerous. A character who reveals that his player group is special will be deluged by requests and threats from the Mob, the government, corporations, terrorist groups. These people often stop at nothing to bring in independent heroes.
The Internet and Virtual Reality
Some of the most interesting interactions will occur in virtual reality.
Virtual Reality Transportation
Unlike RPG Project, players will not be able to zip around in the virtual realm. There are a number of dangers and prerequisites.
1.The hacker must be sufficiently skilled to completely transmit the players as data and reconstitute them at the end. Any failure in this regard can cause permanent loss in the virtual reality world – build a new character or find someone to pay to get them out!
2.Even if the hacker is skilled enough to transmit the characters and their equipment digitally and reconstitute them as matter, she must be able to coordinate the motion of the electromagnetic bits and pieces that now constitute her allies through a gamut of different transmission paths: wireless networks, satellite, cable, copper wire, and so on. If the hacker is not skilled enough, she must avoid these paths, either elongating the time of travel or simply making the trip impossible.
3.When travelling, the players will need to deal with the denizens of the virtual world. At lower speeds, they may be able to stick to safe servers and paths, but at higher and higher speeds, they may not be able to constantly stay on the safe path. Daemons and viruses will plague the characters. Remember that the digital composition of the characters is as vulnerable to change as their physical bodies’ flesh and blood is, and they must avoid changes, or the reconstituting process may kill or harm the characters. Too many bad rolls and the hacker will take the characters into the Spirit Realm!
4.Even if all these problems are overcome, more mundane problems may come into play. ISPs are under pressure by transportation companies and the government to try to restrict long-distance digital transportation and nip it in the bud. This means characters must deal with both regular firewalls and specialized firewalls, perhaps even Hunter AIs and Sentinel AIs. In addition, if a cable is destroyed, faulty, or gets cut off, the characters may get trapped.
How Much Weaker than CotG?
Characters start far weaker than in CotG. It'll vary from race to race, but most races start with ½ to 1/3 of the Class Points and Rank Boosts they begin with.
What Races Are Available?
To be plausible in the world of the Black Veil, a player must be able to somehow mimic humans. Otherwise, they’ll be spending a lot of time back at base. Most governments’ official tack is that there has been no alien contact; that intelligence must either be so far behind or ahead that they wouldn’t interact with us; and so on. They’re wrong, and they know it.
Available ones are:
Any race that can learn sufficient magic at early levels to metamorph
Graei with metamorphing abilities
Ateng with fairie abilities to incarnate as human
Entan
Tentata who hide their cybernetics
Tomodo
Elves
Dwarves
Werebeasts
Vampires
What Classes are Available?
The majority of CotG classes are from worlds with healthy amounts of all four Affinities. For example, Veneficium Secutor skills are from thousands of years of development. That having been said, it could be plausible that some classes are available.
Some magic and psionic classes can be available from a spirit or demon patron. In this case, the character must include how this happened in their character, often paying for it in Traits.
Some martial arts, particularly many of the Twanchen arts, are sufficiently mundane to be a cutting edge new art.
Characters such as Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, etc. may have strong magic from the Old World. The only problem is that suspicion will already fall on them for their alien appearance. Add in rare magic and you have a clear admittance that the character is not human.
Chinese Wu Shih, Tao Shih and Feng Shih are available due to their long history. A similar caveat goes for Druids and similar.
Psychologist
Psychologist player characters often come into the path of spirits when they treat Spectral Seers or others with spiritual affinity but little to no control or understanding. They will generally treat many of these as deluded psychotics... until something happens. They eventually figure out that something is very wrong.
A psychologist is a useful character, though not glamorous. They can make an excellent front for the team; the fellow PCs can be disguised as patients and/or friends. They rake in some cash, always necessary when the Gung-Ho wastes the team’s silver bullets. If they can surpass their fear of the supernatural, they can be very useful in discovering the psychologies of bizarre creatures and also determining the exact nature of the affliction of people who are possessed or whether or not they are simply psychotic.
Daemon Seeker
These are possibly the most traditional of spell casters in the Black Veil world. Daemon Seekers know little magic aside from demon control, but they have the most advanced concept of magic and the most mystiphilosophy experience. They are often versed in the Runic alphabet, Latin, Egyptian, Hebrew, Chinese, and Persian., meaning they can access the original language of several magical manuals.
Daemon Seekers primarily operate through enslaving or recruiting spirits and demons. Most of their Rites require preparation, complex incantations and somatic gestures, and materials. Roughly, Daemon Seeker Rites fall into the falling categories:
Rites of Chastisement: These spells are designed to harm demons and spirits so as to remind them, none too gently, who is master.
Rites of Negotiation: These rituals find ways of negotiation between the spirit and the mage. For stronger spirits, chastisement is out of the question; negotiation will be necessary.
Rites of Protection: A Daemon Seeker without these is kidding themselves. Circles of protection and similar will prevent a daemon.
Rites of Binding: For truly recalcitrant demons, rites of binding can restrict a demon or spirit to a particular area. Lamps, boxes, etc. can be used to hold demons.
Rites of Summoning: These are the bread and butter of Daemon Seekers. These rites allow either a specific demon or any demon of a certain caliber through into the real world.
Contra-Psychic
For whatever reason, some people refuse to believe in what they see. Vampires are maniacs with surgically enhanced fangs, werewolves are large hairy fellows or wolves or hallucinations, psychics are deluded. Their belief in this is so strong that they are able to “disbelieve” supernatural effects.
Alternately, some are so headstrong and confident that they totally and completely believe that they cannot be stopped by pitiful magic. These are cocky people who will take insane risks, yet will be relaxed in all situations.
Whatever makes a person a Contra-Psychic, the effect remains the same: the person is capable of exerting force, somehow connected to Tech, that functions to dispel and stamp out psychic energies. Contra-Psychics saving throws are astronomical, as they have a very visceral disbelief in illusions.
Gung Ho
Ex-military. Hick. Mercenary. Angry father. Whatever it is, these people’s response to the supernatural is simple: Pick up a gun or knife, shoot it or stab it to another world. Repeat.
While the Gung Ho may pick more than they can chew, be too angry or bitter or headstrong to make safe decisions, and generally respond to everything by firing a gun, they do have some advantages. For one, their pragmatism is very impressive, allowing them to experiment with anything and find new, effective ways of dealing with demons. Gung Hos discovered that uranium can slow down some creature’s regenerative process (maybe due to the radioactivity, maybe due to the association with Tech and science) and that a taser gun can emulate lightning for purposes of vulnerability.
Gung Hos will tend to have a lot of connections to weapons dealers and therefore a smattering of experience with the underworld.
Karate Kids
Maybe Aikido taught the character how to use positive ki and therefore harm devils and demons; maybe they were taught in a monastery expecting dark times.
Karate Kids have obvious advantages. In case of a demon or spirit ambush, they can do acceptably with no energy and no equipment. Demons and spirits often underestimate the strength of incoming Karate Kids, and ki is an effective weapon against demons.
Antiquarians
For those looking to play an offbeat character, Antiquarians can be fun. Whether an aging British man with a collection of talismans or a Chinese collector of alchemy books, Antiquarians offer a number of advantages.
The Antique shop is both a cover and a source of income. It can also be used to find out information. After all, the Antiquarian will be talking to the rich and powerful of town. He can keep a pulse on trends. If a potential enemy comes in asking about amulets or talismans or wards, the players can be warned ahead of time. In addition, antiquarians often hold rare and odd items and wisdom.
Teen Fiend
Contrary to the name, Teen Fiends don’t have to be teenagers or fiends at all. The name comes from the magic employed by these magicians. Teens have the greatest degree of raw paranormal ability in humans.. This is because the energy released by physiological growth also coincides with a rise in the four Affinities. As magic seeps back in slowly, more and more children discover that occasionally they can make things different by thinking, saying a lucky word, making a gesture, whatever. Their magic is often teen oriented magic, such as mystic skateboards, boomboxes, whatever.
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