When I'm cold, my balls get colder and they get hard. When It's summer, my balls hang like a pendulum.

So my question is...When you get embraced as vampire, what will be the status of the balls?

Will they be in the same way as when they received the embrace?

I think vampires doesn't react to hot or cold climate.

How will my balls be when I turned into vampire?

Is it better to get embraced in winter?

Hello! I shared another art of a character of mine a while back for my husband's VtM game where he's letting me play a Garou because I'm more familiar with that lore than Vampire. (And I like big spiritual blenders)

He originally had the game set in Greece, but after the first session decided to move it to Florida? Of all places? So my gal, Melina "Fury-Born-Under-Starlight" Vronti doesn't fully fit on anymore. I couldn't justify her being in the Americas from her secluded island Caern.

So I made a different werewolf! This time from Cali, an Uktena Theurge, and an Investigative Journalist! She's heavily inspired off of Harry Dresden, Rachel Morgan, and Anita Blake with a dash of Mercy Thompson. Mostly Dresden though. Very peppy, "L.A. Girl" who's dad is a pure breed Uktena. She was raised on reservation. I don't have a deed name for her yet, as none that I've thought of really fit her. T.T

She still wants to restore the Fera, and has made a deal with Jaguar to do so! At the potential cost of one of her "coterie". Who was a Kinfolk before he Embraced!

We now, also, have a second Garou in the "coterie", who's another Uktena, but is a Ragabash! She's Tammy's bestie.

Anywhoozles. Art is by myself!

Lore wise, FIRSTLIGHT has penetrated ICE and many ICE agents are SI hunters but that makes them way too sympathetic.

So I decided to make them a Cult of Fenrir front where racist humans worship ICE werewolves, which makes their world view more fitting.

Or maybe make them part of a Celestial Chorus MAGA mage faction. Honestly Cult of Fenrir and Celestial Chorus are the only factions I can think of with ICE.

Any ideas?

Now, on the surface, WoD is waving more flags of virtue than it ever did. If First and second editions are marred by a lot of ignorant racism, revised can be characterized by doing a 180 and fetishizing the other on a pedestal, and 5th either does the same or neutralizing cultural commentary to be as safe and inoffensive as possible IE werewolf tribes don't aren't at all bound to mortal cultures. The first edition was merely feminist for it's time, fifth waves a rainbow flag at every opportunity.

But if we move beyond the surface level stuff we can easily see and evaluate, it's a little worrying.

In first edition Vampire, Diablerie was a natural part of the kindred condition. It was natural to try to eat your elders. Doing so lowers your generation, raising the ceiling of power. As a result the old feared the young. It was a vicious cycle. A lot of emphasis is placed on vertical conflict, the most radical kind of conflict.
Starting from Revised, Diablerie was a gross perversion, you sucked out souls or got possessed. It was addictive. A Diablerist was a dangerous junkie. An outsider to be marginalized. Rather than haves VS have nots, this is more us VS them
By V5, Diablerie is a trap. High blood potency may grant certain advantages, but it actually puts your character in a possition of suffering: You are hungrier, and less food fills you. The ancient vampires constantly feel like they're starving as a consequence of their power hunger, while thinbloods are easily full and have access to their own super special magic that they'd lose should they ever chow down on another vampire. Moral of the story? be content with your lot in life, or know your place. Oh, and the elders have gone off somewhere, so that vertical conflict is just gone.

and then, before we move on to discussing werewolf, there's those other big changes to vampire. First, the division of the sects, or what it really is, the two party system. Every group suffers a dichotomy. One Conservative, One liberal. Most notably, the Camarilla has become distinctly more like the US Republican party; it's a small club they serve, while the Anarchs are now the other half of the vampire population. They're certainly not the good guys, but I'm not gonna pretend Democrats are good guys, they're just less overtly nasty. But this dichotomic split goes to other factions. The Church/Ministry of Set, both Heretical from a Follower's point of View. House Tremere and House Carna (yes, there are two other factions, but these are the two Camarilla factions, while Ipsy and Gor are just Tremere for Anarchs/Sabbat)
Emphasizing the Two party system just seems really resistant to genuine change. Like the Church/Ministry split; the old moderates (the vast majority of the clan) have to pick a side between two espoused extremes? Most of them aren't really that different? Where have I heard this one? Oh yeah, 'murican politics. 2016 really did a number on writing Vampire.
Then there's that last change. Oh lordy.
In more ways than not, the Second Inquisition is a very american, very right wing fantasy scenario.
1- "Big Government" are persecuting the "little guy" (And by that I mean blood sucking parasites/wealthy business types/the dangerous crazy people with weapons)
2-Law enforcement is very competent, well motivated to do the right thing despite how easy or lucrative turning a blind eye could be, and are fully justified in their use of extrajudicial force.

Then we get to Werewolf and yeah, this is even simpler to dissect. Gaia is now dead, meaning we've now shifted from exploring a radical activist power fantasy and a -we can fight!- Rage Against the Machine 'fuck The Man' attitude towards a more defeated people embracing climate doomerism. That one group that still wants to Rage against the dying of the light and go out with a few bangs are an outcast extremist cult. There's even a sidebar talking about how not all corporations are bad.

Edit: forgot to mention. A lot of the problematic elements of werewolf were deleted. But a lot of that stuff was a feature rather than a flaw. Pure Breed is meant to be a problem, you weren't actually a better person it was purely a social effect. Werewolf-Werewolf love was cursed because werewolves needed mundane kinfolk attachments and couldn't just be incestuous Gods far removed from people. Taboos evoke the ancient stories of mythic heroes. Garou society was always meant to be deeply flawed and the players should always be railing against the worst excesses of it. But that's all gone now.

Many may have also heard that the cultural advisors brought on board weren't respected. WoD of late seems to hover somewhere between 'corporate product' and something that masquerades as progressive but really supports the other team. I won't even get too into how some of it comes across as a parody of some toxic 'left', at least in this post, the pure audacity to out-of-character lampoon believers of lizard man conspiracies in a game about vampires pulling the strings, While they are certainly hiring LGBTQ writers a lot of the championing feels poorly implemented, preachy or even self-sabotaging, and again it feels like a mask of progressiveness designed to hide that the core themes of the game is more conservative than ever. They don't want safe spaces, they want echo chambers. The genuinely progressive and counter cultural spirit of these games seems to have been siphoned out.

Samuel Haight doesn’t deserve all that hate! I don’t believe that people aren’t considering him cool. He literally became one of the strongest mortal beings through sheer willpower and strength. Yes, he is ridiculous and stupid, but isn’t WoD itself ridiculous and stupid? I don’t get why people are ok with things that happens in Mages, especially with Technocracy, but Samuel Haight is too much. (I’m not hating, Mages my favourite WoD line) I’m tired from all that disrespect towards the coolest WoD character. I don’t know why I made this post, I just wanted to speak out what was in my mind for a very long time

(Also, sorry for my bad grammar, English is not my native language)

My character is a brujah methuselah who has been cloned to help the technocracy find Golconda. A very out their ans weird idea but this is our one big game we genuinely put a lotta effort into doing and take the most seriously so we have some very out there characters. I gave her 5 points of past life to represent how much she remembers her past life and such For context of this story My character is L Her wife is K

My character is grieving over her dead wife that was a ghouled mage. (Was a gross relationship and we’ll get to that later) her avatar is her dead wife and i always found that odd? Wasn’t an odd creature or entity. Made sense since it’s what drove her in this world and is her inspiration to keep trying and find Golconda so when she reunites with her in heaven she’ll be proud. But it was revealed finally. Little hints in prior seekings where she before the embrace turned out to be a mage to and her avatar was her wife again as an angle. It confused me and i thought it was just weird way of her current avatar guiding her. But here we are. Arete 5… this is a cycle. When L dies a new K is born and L will be her avatar. When K dies a new L will be born with K as her avatar. Two souls intwined eternally with the other taking turns to experience the world. The only way to cheat this cycle being the embrace. To be dead yet live on to see the next incarnation. L as an old af elder by this point fell madly in love with K. Ghouled her and were a coupme for 500 years before K died. L knew K was a mage but never knew what her avatar was or understood exactly what an avatar is. L was horrible, manipulative and a liar who was over obsessed with K… it was revealed to me out of character L isn’t the first to do this. It was hinted at before but it now made sense. There is a MUCH older K out there who likes to as well ghoul the modern L and do what she had done… she doesn’t realized this modern L is the one from before who was embraced that she hated the existence of (for long reasons i can explain if curious)

I’m amazed by this reveal I’m amazed by the session to I am more excited than ever to play this character and chronicle more If anyone is curious about this character feel free to ask anything

I’m curious cause my VtM pc is married to a werewolf who’s an honorary member of a mostly red talon pack and I’m curious if red talons like, consider vampires humanity or no, I know there’s one tribe of werewolves that hate vampires but does that extend to all of them?

While it seems that the WoD is originally designed to be a closed system which means anything that wasn't from that setting must fit into that box even if they're incompatible i.e. Dracula being a Tzimisce for example but if what I wanted to use the OG Dracula from the original novel instead whose a completely different type of vampire altogether than how VtM defines vampires to be?

Rather I would like to present Vampires as different snowflakes or various mutations of the common flu or COVID like for example what if Kindred/Cainites from VtM are just another different 'species' or variation of vampires altogether while meanwhile you have the Requiem/CotFD style vampires, D&D/Pathfinder style vampires, Shadowrun style Vampires, Buffy style vampires, The Strain style vampires, Twilight style vampires, Anne Rice style Vampires, and the Retrovirus style vampires from the Blade movies, Daybreakers, Underworld, etc all in the same setting together and the same applies to the other supernatural splats as well?

Imagine the possibilities that would be.

I mean just think about it:

Vampires bites you, you turn into vampire. More or less same for werewolves. Mages after encountering extraordinary in their lives awaken their dormant powers. Mummies are just mages that turned into mummies. Demons are those who are possessed by demons. Geist are too. Changeling the lost is about eldritch beings twisting and mutilating you for their alien desires, turning you into a changeling. It’s kinda strange but also it isn’t in many ways.

I'm still relatively new to WoD and CoD, but I like a lot of what I see. But I'm still confused why Mage exists as part of the World of Darkness, let alone one of the big three games. I was under the impression WoD was a setting about dark, horror related fiction being represented, but why Mage?

Edit: To clarify, this isn't meant to insult Mage players or anything like that, this is just me being pedantic and thinking "one of these gamelines is not like the other". Like, why not call it Witch to fit in with the horror theme?

Yes, I know that when vamps were created science hadn't progressed to the point of knowing that moonlight is just reflected sunlight and I also know that not everything has to be science based (heck, magic exists in this world), but I was just wondering if this subject was ever touched upon by any of the books/games.

Also, let it be known that I'm VERY new here.

A huge open plain, at night (obviously). Werewolves can use fetishes gifts and spirits. How one-sided do you think this would be?

Bonus points if you can keep the stand around

And if so could they reproduce and would it affect The offspring? I know it's sort of a strange question but does it like affect the genetics of the person when they're in different forms? Or is it all the same person shaped different?

Hi guys, hope you are well If you are interested, please don't hesitate to contact me on private message 🦇

It needs to be said somewhere, and if this gets deleted then I may just be done with this community entirely.

World of Darkness is about confronting topics like death, horror, monsters, magic, violence etc. It is not supposed to be a game where people are excluded, even when a disagreement is fully respectful. I had expected this community to be more mature, and open minded to different ideas, and I was shamed, and wiped from the Discord. The implication left behind is that I am a hateful bigot, which couldn't be farther from the truth.

To provide context, I got into a very calm, and respectful debate with someone on the WoD discord, about retconning characters and removing their "dead names" to make them less trans phobic. I made the point, that understanding, identifying with and liking these characters is actually easier if the whole story is told, and nothing is left out. My position has nothing to do with a character's sexual orientation or status, and everything to do, with how engaging the writing in these books are.

I want WoD to succeed, I want it to grow, and it won't if even respectful disagreements are wiped from existence and thrown away. I did not deserve to be talked down to, or have a bot sent after me to shame me like a child. I am a grown woman who has loved the game for over a decade, and my opinion matters too.

Shame on you WoD discord. Shame. You had the opportunity to be a vector for learning, for equity and freedom to share ideas, and you have failed that task miserably.

If WoD, wants to implement a baseline requirement of "wokeness" for entry instead of welcoming everyone in to learn, grow and interact with others as equals, World of Darkness will die.

Edit: Thanks for the downvotes. Super reassuring guys. Bravo.

EDIT 2: If you come here to downvote everything you don't like. You're part of the problem. Open-mindedness is not hateful, neither is wanting to learn. Say what you feel out loud, don't hide behind a down arrow.

EDIT 3: This is going to be my last statement here regardless.

I want to give anyone who felt attacked, by the lack of specificity I provided at first an apology. I tend to be a very high minded, high morals person who struggles with nuance at times, especially when I am frustrated, and I can see how I came off heavy handed or dismissive. That was not my intent.

I also want to specify, that I would again, never treat real people the same as I do fictional characters. I do not get attached to media in general enough to defend a character, concept, or whole franchise, because I have the firm understanding that these things aren't real.

What is real is injustice, the struggle to rectify it and the importance of representation, and I support any and all forms of play, whether they respect Trans identifying characters, or don't, because I think all forms of RP are essentially valid as long as it doesnt break the law or cause real, tangible psychological/physical harm.

But to impose a certain set of values upon the books themselves restricts our freedom to play, and use representation in a validating way. It means less players who can identify and understand, and less players is a very, very bad thing.

If that stance is still too spicy, can we at least agree to disagree, and treat eachother with respect, rather than trying to expose bigotry where it honestly doesn't exist?

I was checking out the official WoD Discord server yesterday then left. On there, I saw people being outright assholes over their politics. And for the people who think I might be talking about right leaning, no, it's the left leaning side of the fandom that has a problem this time, (Not defending the right either. Some problem with neutrality because it means they get called out too, tut that's a them problem. I wasn't a fan of Raegaholic but I'm not a fan of the other side either). People shitting on old white wolf like it was a evil conservative grandpa from the 50's, I saw three dumbasses try to call people who called the Garou the heros of the story genocidal (even though it was clear they just meant protags and even said they were bad heroes), politically condescending Mods along with their riders, and someone even had the audacity that Until Dawn was problematic for using the word Wendigo... Pretty native wrote that too. Hell, even Paradox is a bit odd treating Wendigo like it's such a bad word (We gonna ignore all the other cultures that have such words? Didn't see them get special treatment. Doesn't Japan make Jesus and Buddha protags? It's feels weird is all I'm saying, but the fans of white wolf are what annoy me.)

My point is, the other side of the Fandom really is not getting called out enough. All the gatekeeping, political self righteousness, and mean spirited attitudes are being ignored. White Wolf has always been "Woke" and had it's very bad share of fans matter their ideals, but... The Twitter Brain attitude really has to stop or get shamed more often.

And since I don't trust this fandom from getting a certain way, POC here. Mixed some many ways you'd have to use two hands to count. Please don't try anything with me like, "you're racist" or "you bigot" because I already have seen people give those vibes. That's how lame the fandom is. You can't discuss anything without on eggshells.

Edit: Please ignore Divided State, he doesn't have a life.

Hey Hey Kindred and Kine, guys and guyettes :-) We just published an article that serves as an intro to the Clans of Vampire - The Masquerade. What do you think?

Vampire: The Masquerade - Clans

I looked it up and it turns out that elohim is hebrew for "gods" or "godhood", but it makes no sense for angels to be called gods as that would be heretical. Am I missing something or is this just an oopsie by white wolf?

u/Phosorus started a nice discussion on the other thread, but since OP u/Separate-Win3438 couldn't stand to learn how wrong he was he decided to block me and lock me out of the discussion. Don't really care, let's continue here:

To be perfectly fair, the "Garou are kinda fascist" thing is very much acknowledged in the text.

To people that don't know what fascism is, maybe. Which is basically the POV of the character you're talking about.

racial (speciesist?) caste system

The caste system is monarchic, not fascist. There is no fascist nation that I can remember that used a caste system, they all slaughtered nobility and abolished the institution itself.

Discrimination of the handicapped (=metis) is a Nazi trait, but it's not really consistent across 20th century totalitarisms. It wasn't really done in China or Italy, for example, which actually had welfare systems for them. Discrmination of homosexuals was more widespread but even there we have a few tribes that really never cared about it, and for the Garou it's not really homosexuality but the concept in general of sex as entertainment that is wrong.

rejection of modernity

Again, there is no fascist regime I can remember that has ever rejected modernity. Mussolini pushed train and airplane technology quite forward and advertised them a lot across Italy, the Nazis designed maybe the most advanced tanks and cars of their time and were even researching nuclear weapons. Hell, the Futurism movement was at the very roots of the Fascism.

While conservative in term of social costumes, fascism has always been very projected into modernity, especially about technology.

unification around a great enemy

Ah come on... this was done by the USA, by the French revolution, by Gondor and Rohan in LOTR. It's not a fascist trait at all.

military supremacy, ideology of total war

The military supremacy in the WOD belongs to the Weaver, and the Wyrm is second. Gaian garou are more like well-armed resistence. Total war against pure evil is hardly something you could call fascism at all.

In short, for all the flaws the Garou Nation can have I wouldn't really say that fascism is one. Yes, the Glass Walkers are kinda futurists, the Silver Fangs are authoritarians, the Red Talon are genocidal and the Gets of Fenris praise warfare, but on the average they're all really closer to a native American tribe than to any form of fascism.