u/Lampdarker

The way the Pactverse interprets Ghouls and undead things in general stuck out to me as, maybe not an extremely original twist but nonetheless a notably interesting interpretation.

The setting as a whole seems to be defined by creepypasta just with some infusions of older and more generic urban fantasy.

Many Others are basically creepypastas, the kind of short story that's passed around the internet that blurs the lines between the fascinating, the disgusting, and the plausible.

I'm sure someone else could define the tone and content of creepypastas much more precisely but that's the correlation my mind has been making as I read Pale and Pact.

Which brings me to the title. For those who don't known Russian Sleeping Experiment is a 15+ year old creepypasta about a supposed well you know russian sleep experiment where Soviet scientists used a special gas mixed with the air to keep humans awake indefinitely, observing the increasingly horrifying effects as their insanity grows.

Complete fiction obviously and based on rather insulting ideas of Soviet science.

But in the Pactverse I could see it becoming an origin for a subtype of Ghoul.

I liked the idea of the Couch Potato Ghoul, someone who doesn't actually endanger their life necessarily but stops doing the mundane things which are associated with being a living creature and therefore being stranded between the boundaries of a corpse and a person.

Sleep is something fundamental to animals so I could see someone in the extremes of insomnia finding Life abandoning them but Death not recognizing them and therefore they become a Ghoul.

As far as I know, while blood cults are mainly associated with Setites or Hecates and maybe technically the Giovanni, the actual barrier to starting and running a blood cult is relatively low especially if you're an ageless being with literal magical powers including your blood being able to make people love you fanatically and unwaveringly.

The average forward thinking vampire has a herd to feed from and a blood cult is just a herd that's bigger and more premeditated and with the ritualism and dogma of a cult. People start cults all the time just with some decent people skills.

Obviously yes yes I know this is up the ST's discretion if they want the chronicle to focus on vampire Scientology or vampire Mormons or well oddly enough it's not like there aren't real world cults where the members explicitly identify as vampires or ghouls or blood wizards.

Sure that's technically a Masquerade breach but whoever said the Camarilla was involved or even the Sabbat or Anarchs?

What are the pros and cons of "selling out" and just becoming a cult leader with a mass of followers to do your bidding?

What's stopping them from the success of the many many modern cults with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers?

The existence of the Arcanum is quite funny to me especially in light of the Camarilla, Technocracy, and several other shadowy conspiracies meant to prevent the exact kind of thing the Arcanum does on a daily basis, study and transmit information about magical creatures.

I guess maybe the Changelings would rather people know about them but even then the idea of academia is rather Banal isn't it? But maybe not so banal for you. Who wouldn't want to write their thesis on the ontological disparities between True Magick and Wyrd?

Or maybe a different area entirely would appeal to you. It's your choice, after all.

And no you can't bring any of your splat books with you, you can carry what knowledge you already have in your brain but otherwise you've gotta hit the books in the setting itself.

Just something fun to think about since it's not like there's a shortage of historical figures that would uphold the Technocratic ideology and are very weird even if not technically evil people.

Some examples my wife and I have come up with:

1. Galen of Pergamon: Vivisected many different kinds of animals just to figure out how their organs work, including literally sealing urinary tracts of animals shut until their kidneys burst out of their backs and cutting open skulls to see what happens when you squish/remove parts of the brain, and was a fierce supporter of logic and observation to understand the world.

2. Francis Bacon: Often credited with the modern scientific method back in the 16th century but also with stuffing raw chickens with snow outside in the middle of winter, eating them with bare hands to see if the cold killed the disease causing factor. He also was a misogynist who said things like "I have come in very truth leading to you Nature with all her children to bind her to your service and make her your slave" and "Neither ought a man to make scruple of entering and penetrating into those holes and corners when the inquisition of truth is his whole object." Also he was terrible at writing anything artistic or fictional.

3. Adam Weishaupt: Founded a group called the Illuminati, yes THAT Illuminati from the conspiracy theories. Despite the sensationalism he was an ardent believer in promoting human reason and fighting the corruption caused by religion and he even helped many Jesuits not be alive anymore.

4. Maximilian Robespierre: Did a lot to save France from Catholicism, aristocracy, and to promote humanism even if technically he believed in the Supreme Being of Rationality and also he ended up running afoul of his allies.

5. Jacques Hebert: Similar boat with Robespierre but much more of an atheist who made humanism and rationalism much more accessible to the average French person, a feminist, and he planned and led revolutionary campaigns to help Christians remedy the misfortune of their birth.

6. Isaac Asimov: Author and researcher responsible not just for a massive chunk of modern science fiction but also the depiction of robots as neutral or even benevolent servants of humanity rather than pulp fiction monsters or alien invaders and a book series about plotting the direction of a massive empire across millennia. Also he was very touchy feely with women even by the standards of his era, hugging and kissing them without consent. Very neurotic to, afraid of blood transfusions.

7. Thomas Kuhn: Disproved Newtonian methods among other scientific norms of his time and developed a philosophy towards science that could stand up to the scrutiny of postmodern philosophy while still being extremely committed to empiricism and removing cultural biases from research.

Many of the other Clans have difficulty maintaining harmony and safety in their ranks over the centuries both due to vampire related violence and threats from non vampire factions not least of which are vampire hunters.

Every time the Giovanni come up in the lore it seems to be how utterly insane and disgusting they are on every possible level even compared to the Baali or Tremere who also get framed as undesirable by Kindred standards.

The Tremere have their own factional splits despite also trying to maintain a unified front against everyone else. They have vulnerabilities related to their unorthodox vampirism.

Yet the Giovanni is literally just an Italian crime family that does things most hardened criminals would consider atrocious much less groups like the Society of Leopold or the Wise Guys in the Glass Walkers or other Clans.

Or the Camarilla deeming them a potential Masquerade breach or the Sabbat taking issue with their frequent collaboration with the Camarilla.

And aside from the perverted stuff it seems like they just are really good at talking to Wraiths.

I'm guessing that "family" is broadened a bit that they have enough numbers to be a presence worldwide.

And obviously it's a fictional setting so if the writers say that Italian mobsters who spitroast a dog with their brother have survived this long then that's just the canon.

But I'm curious how it could be justified in setting.

I'm at the start of Let Slip 20 in Pale and the end of Arc 7 in Pact but I don't mind any spoilers either way. Obviously mark Pact spoilers since this is tagged for Pale.

I like Pact but Pale grips me a lot more because of the pacing being slower and there being more nuanced exploration of the characters and setting because unlike Blake the Kennet Trio is in much less acute danger.

But in both serials it seems like Karma and the Seal mainly protect Innocents from KNOWING about Others and Practice rather than being affected even harmed by the machinations.

The actual justifications for goblins and faerie and even bogeymen can be pretty thin according to their niche and it seems like it's actually the advantage to meddle in the affairs of Innocents as long as you have "coup" and "claim."

Not that I'm complaining because this makes antagonists like Musser interesting because he can move with a casual air of arrogance just because he's a walking talking Freeman of the Land, an existing common law precedent.

Also makes Durocher interesting as someone who just wants to study and bind Antediluvean horrors for Spirit's sake so even rather chauvinistic powerhouses like Belanger or Musser don't want to even appear to stand in her way.

But even accusing Belangers of Mussers of chauvinism runs into the roadblock of "I have X and Y mutually beneficial and consensual relations with X, Y, and Z women/girls so let the Spirits witness that I am a friend to women."

It makes conflicts take on a dialectical edge that's fun to read about. Dialectical in the sense that the setting quite literally has dialectical idealism as the source of all reality.

There is only an idea of humanity and the ideas of Others and Practitioners who forfeit Innocence in the name of the Seal and likewise are rewarded for occupying their specific idea of wizardry in a way that makes the Spirits jobs easier.

If it wasn't for Suleiman then humanity would just be scattered thoughts among a dream.

But to get to the title of my post, it seems like Others are merely selectively segregated and obscured rather than actually divorced from Innocent reality. Sewer grates access the Warrens, forest groves connect to the Abyss or a Faerie Court or both, the internet is literally a realm people can go to but most only use computers and phones to access it.

And Faerie can kidnap literal children and even babies just by working in the context of "consent" in the sense that if you walk up to a child and tell them you can take them to a magical realm or give them a magical doll in exchange for their help then that's not a lie.

And on the extreme ends you've got Others like the Beorgmann who can even avoid connection to the Seal itself and still get to kidnap children and keep them forever if they're not fenced off from the rest of the world.

Even literal demons seem to be a bit of afterthought aside from those who dedicate their Practice to countering diabolism.

So just because you're Innocent doesn't mean you're safe.

And that's not even getting into people turning into Others or Aware just by knowing too much or getting tainted by some realm or pattern.

And before you wise crack I'm aware it could easily be a grey area between both being a profit seeking empire and an over the top evil theocracy under the guise of being a conglomerate and it's up to the interpretation of the ST which attitude they most want to emphasize blah blah blah.

Speaking of our chronicle we leaned more towards the former that the Defiler Wyrm is more about personal desires being actualized via the free market and corporate corruption rather than any selfless desire to help the Wyrm escape. Garou are about various ways of escaping out of the illusion that Pentex and the overall modern Western society has created.

For all their differences and blindspots the Tribes generally recognize the falseness and unsustainability of the United States and allied countries. In our chronicle we mainly focused on the Black Furies whose truth and progress is focused on fighting misogyny. Pentex is the ultimate manifestation of chauvinism. They sell women makeup to control them and sell men means to corrupt and enslave.

For fuck's sake Pentex literally has a Boy Scouts equivalent called the Serpent Brothers (Get it, serpent? Like a wyrm?)

Pentex does this because it makes them feel good, the customers feel good, the people getting their money feel good by spending it on further goods and services. It has no more ethical principle than masturbation.

Not that I'm complaining about the lack of subtlety it's just funny how little they bother to hide themselves.

And yet it's the Garou who see them for who they really are. It's the Nation that is willing to do whatever it takes to rid the world of their illness. Even the Red Talons just want their own spaces to be wolves and humanity has just trampled over them with more brutality and callousness than they've ever showed.

But obviously this is all subjective interpretations of a fictional setting so tell me how your table treats Pentex and portrays their evil.

This is an uncommon instance where there actually are a lot of canon examples of these two splats interacting heavily.

As far as I know Garou can have Fae ancestry and vice versa as part of playable characters.

Which raises the question of what kind of werewolf would procreate with a walking glitter bomb and what kind of fairy would procreate with a walking normal bomb. Not that I can't visualize it happening in specific instances where one or both are cultural outliers in their Tribe or Kingdom or whatever.

But what about an even more outlying outlier?

A major Freehold adopts an orphaned infant only for that baby to end up having a First Change.

Or a major Caern adopts an orphaned infant only for that baby to end up having a Chrysalis.

For the sake of simplicity let's say the former is a Black Fury Ahroun among Seelie Sidhe and the latter is a Seelie Sidhe among Black Fury Homids.

Anything else feel free to speculate or powerscale just speculate.

For those who aren't on the internet enough and are asking to know what the fuck that is:

>What is this really all about? It’s about trauma. It’s about suffering and damage. It’s about abuse both systemic and deeply personal. It’s about being used and abandoned. These are stories of breaking. It’s about the pain, and what comes after it.

>We’ve found empowerment in the reclamation of our dehumanization, in the acceptance and celebration of our place as Other. Sure, we’ll never be people, but even so, maybe we can manage to build a home for ourselves here, in the Empty Spaces between.

There's a lot of painfully purple prose also attached to this genre but that's about the size of it. I don't think I have to explain how this ties into the setting do I? The splats could be summed up as some abandonment of what it means to be human but still being forced to live in a world centered on humans.

You may have used to be human, you may be able to appear human, you may have specific human traits but you're not a human and you can never actually be a human. It's sad as shit and all but there's a certain allure to embracing your sad sad life in order to do cool stuff.

Empty Spaces is about exploring what happens when we question personhood in its most commonly accepted assumptions and embracing being an entity with internal experiences that are alien to most other people.

And it's also about a certain moral nihilism that understands that the only reason murder is bad because people have certain feelings about people being killed in certain ways in the context of normalcy but if you're a vampire then eating someone alive until they stop moving ceases to actually be immoral because it exists with separate feelings in a separate context.

Same with Garou, people can wring their hands about what the Red Talons or Galestalkers do but that's just their opinion it just might be backed up by powerful forces but it's still a subjective judgment of a different group of people.

The Litany is written with Gaia in mind, not humanity just as Pentex has its own opinions on what "good" and "bad" means.

The only "right way" that can exist is what anyone has the means to implement with enough degree and certainty that it subsumes what people agree is real.

And for everyone else, they have to occupy an unoccupied region, an empty space get it?

Between Garou tearing through Pentex facilities with all the subtlety of grizzly bears.

Black Spiral Dancers doing similar feats.

Pentex doing everything bad multinational corporations usually do except with literal divine aid and way more bloodlust.

The Sabbat having entire holidays and religious commands geared towards mass murdering and torturing mortals.

The Camarilla secretly controlling basically every United States institution where you get to carry a gun or baton or fire a missile/pilot a drone.

Specters and whatnot being mainly serial killers and bigots and warmongerers.

Nephandi and even less evil Mages being willing to use large amounts of blood and vital organs as fuel.

Technocrats sending out Men in Black (if not literal Terminators) to do their bidding even if it means burning down a witchcraft bookstore with everyone in it.

It's safe to say that their world has a much higher rate of violent death per capita in much of the world than ours even if it's being actively covered up by the mainstream media and other factors like Delirium or Disciplines and also might disproprtionately be inflicted on homeless people.

As the ST you could choose to decide how much actual murdering happens outside of the locations the PCs are focused on.

But I think it's interesting to question about "butterfly effects" their timeline has compared to ours, even excluding the Week of Nightmares or the Sixth Maelstrom and whatever.

In the real world 1980s-1990s many people have a rose tinted view of it being the end of the Cold War. Not that there weren't a bunch of truly truly violent stuff being ignored by mainstream media both inside and outside the West but not quite on what the World of Darkness must be experiencing on a day to day basis.

Even if we assume the factions are all excellent at "cleaning up after themselves" they can't exactly clean up all the parents whose children abruptly stopped calling them and were never found nor can they clean up the fact that eating at McDonalds turns you into an asshole.

Aside from a vague "everything sucks so bad" how do you portray it in your chronicles?