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Hunter: The Vigil

2021-02-20T22:20:50Z

2A00:23C5:120A:C100:C837:6A78:FC2:9242: /* Books */

{{Game Infobox
|name = Hunter: The Vigil
|picture = [[File:HTV_Cover.png|250px]]
|type = [[RPG]]
|system = [[Storytelling System]]
|publisher = [[White Wolf]] / CCP
|authors = Justin Achilli, [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]] ''et al''
|year = 2008
|books = Hunter: The Vigil Rulebook
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:175px">
*''Witch Finders''
*''Block by Bloody Block''
*''World of Darkness: Slasher''
*''Horror Recognition Guide''
*''Night Stalkers''
*''Spirit Slayers''
*''Compacts & Conspiracies''
*''Mortal Remains'' (2e)
*''Tooth and Nail''
</div>
}}

{{Topquote|He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.|Friedrich Nietzsche, ''Beyond Good and Evil''}}

''Two words: Fuck monsters.''

''Fine, I'll give you a longer explanation, but I've got to be quick, the bastard MIBs are probably already tracking this. '''Hunter the Vigil''' is a [[World of Darkness]] game line, back when [[White Wolf]] was still a thing. See, some people didn't want to play as an undead rapist or a lunatic witch. But they didn't want to just sit around and act like they could just ignore the terror in the world as a plain ol' mortal. White Wolf already tried hunters once. Time to try it again.''

''See, these hunters don't ''all'' get powers. Hell, a lot of them don't even know what they're fighting. You want to be a hard working sonuvabitch that's got his buddies and baseball bats to beat down that drug dealer or monster hanging around your kids' school? Do it. Want to be part of an organization of basement dwelling fuckups who use cameras to film demon summoning ceremonies to upload to YouTube? Done. A descendant of Hell itself? Do you want to throw fireballs or get the ability to summon demons?''

''I don't think I need to say it, but since you don't know anything about how the world really is, I'll tell you. Hunter doesn't get along too well with the characters of the other New World of Darkness game lines. You're supposed to be staking vampires that kill people, or cutting up fairies with iron daggers, why the fuck should there be any playing nice?''

''Morality? Here's your damn morality: Monsters don't count. Any "hunter" who says there should be exceptions isn't a real hunter. Ignore those fucks who think they know the right way to handle monsters, and remember that collateral damage is irrelevant as long as you can justify it.''

''Yeah, you don't understand because you haven't been doing it too long. Give it time. Pretty soon you'll realize that you can't trust anyone anymore.''

...Of course, by that point, it might be wise to remember the quote on the top. And sure enough, an alarming amount of Hunters tend to devolve into Slashers: lunatics whose obsession with killing for its own sake grants them limited supernatural abilities which make them the perfect serial killers.

'''Hunter: the Vigil''' is another ''[[New World of Darkness]]'' attempt at adapting part of the Old, in this case, ''[[Hunter: The Reckoning]]''. However, it is in many ways a superior game, with less broken magical powers and ill-thought-out ideas, and more being a squishy human surrounded by terrible threats that will tear away at your sanity, soul, and flesh. If that sounds [[grimdark]] as shit, that's only because it is. It literally has a spin-off game, ''Slashers'', devoted to playing as one of the above-mentioned Slashers so you too can play a murderous psycho who wouldn't be out of place in... well, a slasher movie.

Still, despite all that, ''Hunter'' is, or can be, an oddly hopeful game. Sure, you're probably going to die, but in [[World of Darkness|a world like this one]], it is a good and noble thing for [[Imperial Guard|ordinary people]] to stand up and refuse to be victimized. One candle blows out, but lights two more as it passes. The Hunter dies, but the Vigil goes on forever. World without end, amen.

All in all, perhaps the biggest difference between the two versions of Hunter, and why Vigil has attained a popularity that Reckoning has lacked, is that Vigil takes more of a pro-[[Humanity Fuck Yeah]] stance, whilst Reckoning, in accordance with the rest of the Old World of Darkness, is very much on the anti-HFY! stance. Vigil hunters, even at Cell tier, woke up to the true world around them and chose to fight the things that go bump in the night even though they know next to nothing about them. Reckoning hunters were forced awake by "mysterious powers of good" and can only hope to challenge the monsters because those same patrons gave them all kinds of anti-monster abilities.

Hunter: The Vigil is still in its first edition and had a limited run of books: the core book, an expansion for monster territory, a collection of short stories based in the Hunter setting, three books focusing on the World of Darkness' Big Three (Vampires, Werewolves and Mages) and one book to wrap it all up and reveal the truth on some groups. Four years after the first book it received the book Mortal Remains, which updated the game to fit into the Chronicles of Darkness. This was not a "true" second edition like Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, and Promethean have been receiving, but instead, it was a book that updated some things and expanded on the "lesser" lines of Promethean, Changeling, Geist, Mummy and Demon. Another book, Tooth And Nail, focused on the newly introduced Beast line. Hunter: The Vigil's second edition [http://theonyxpath.com/corebook-outline-kick-off-hunter-the-vigil/ is in the works at this moment.]
==Hunter Organization==
Hunters are organized into groups at three levels; Cell, Compact, and Conspiracy.

===Cell===
At least the [[Imperial Guard]] gets some backup, amirite? A Cell has only one to a few people in them, maybe five or six if you're lucky. They have no support base, no guiding ideology, and no way of telling if the tentacle monster is really going to rape, kill, and eat them (Spoiler: It will, and not necessarily in that order). So what do they have to help? They're not being told what to do by people who have no idea what's going on either but act like they do, and their small size means they can react quickly to unexpected situations.

===Compacts===
When a bunch of cells met up and decide they have more in common than being killed by werewolves on a monthly basis, they sometimes form into a compact, a collection of cells that go from citywide to nationwide. The cells typically have a shared ideology or view of the Code, but there's no real bosses, so they make things up as they go along still. But the important thing is that now they have some help to call on and a better selection of resources to work with. Provided said help doesn't decide it's not worth it or that they have the right idea on what to do...or if internal strife doesn't cause the compact to tear itself apart.

'''Ahl al-Jabal:''' A Middle Eastern compact founded in the Middle Ages after a leader of the Hashshashin (the Islamic sect that lent its name to the term "assassin") discovered that vampires had infiltrated much of the Muslim world. They're notable for having very strict rules about collateral damage, for reasons which should be very obvious if you've been paying attention to world history over the past couple of decades.

'''Ama-San:''' Traditional Japanese pearl divers, almost exclusively women, who know all to well what horrors lurk in the deep. They are skilled at drawing them to the surface where these ladies kill the monsters, butcher them and sell off the meat to make a tidy profit.

'''Ashwood Abbey:''' A bunch of bored, jaded rich assholes who want to hunt the most dangerous game of all in a world where that ''isn't'' "man". Sick fucks to the core, even when other books try to tell you they're in it "for the thrill". To them, hunting's a game, and they want to play without any rules. Also, they have money. Lots and lots of money. Which is why they think they can afford to hunt monsters with swords and arrows. They claim that they convinced Jack the Ripper to join them for a while, but apparently he liked killing prostitutes better than killing monsters. It should go without saying that they don't make terribly sympathetic PC's, but a lot of their fluff is surprisingly funny (in a morbid sort of way), making them entertaining villains, if nothing else.

'''Azusa Miko:''' Shinto priestesses who talk to the dead, they were kicked out of the mainline temples because in Edo-period Japan traditional stuff like this was considered unwholesome. Now they travel the nation seeking spirits to placate, and if necessary shoot them with their bows. Are all female as well, but they have male counterparts in the Geki who do similar stuff.

'''The Barrett Commission:''' Politicians who have found out that vampires (and other monsters, but mostly vampires) like to meddle with politics, so they decided to band together in order to keep them out. According to the 2e previews, they were later absorbed into VALKYRIE after getting their funding cut.

'''The Bear Lodge:''' Big Game Hunters who have decided that werewolves are the ultimate trophies to hunt. They can't actually keep any pelts or anything, but the hunt is still dangerous enough they keep at it. Sometimes they even just let the werewolf go if it hasn't hurt a human being since their real interest is honing themselves into the ultimate hunters, a sentiment that has earned them a surprising degree of respect from the Uratha (who are themselves well-versed in the sacred role of the hunt). What the Ashwood Abbey ''thinks'' they are.

'''Bijin:''' Pretty Japanese people who are travelling artists and performers (Bijin just means "a beautiful person") who started to figure out that monsters exist and decided to hunt them. Think the [[Toreador]] except they're not vampires.

'''Division Six:''' A secret government agency hunting down "reality deviants" before they can cause the total collapse of reality. In actuality, they're the unwitting dupes of the Panopticon, being used to hunt down the Awakened. They would probably turn on their wicked masters if they learned the truth... but when have the Seers of the Throne ever allowed Sleepers to do that? According to the 2e previews, they were later absorbed into VALKYRIE after getting their funding cut.

'''Followers of the Mansa:''' Hunters who defended the Kingdom of Mali and its rulers from demons. All of their members were taught to try and learn as much as they can and indirectly attack them, and if direct attack was unavoidable, to use all of their weaknesses against them.

'''Habibti Ma:''' Founded by Eme Amun Hassan, an Egyptian woman who lost her husband and sons to a suicide cult. After suing every authority who watched it happen but didn't act she was left with a fortune and an empty feeling. Hassan began to organize a group dedicated to breaking up cults and returning cultists to their families: Habibti Ma. The authors have admitted they fucked up and should've called the group Habibti Ma'at, named after the Egyptian goddess of mercy that Hassan bases her group's ideals on. While they act out of mercy they're not above kidnapping, torture and psychological abuse to deprogram cultists. This means that they'd rather go after cultists of monsters (frequently cults of arisen, vampires and the Kinfolk of werewolves), but if push comes to shove they'll take on the monsters as well.

'''Heritage House:''' A handful of families passing the Vigil from generation to generation. Clannish and a bit cult-like, they encourage you to start making babies after being accepted as a member.

'''The Hunt Club:''' Sick fucks who make the Ashwood Abbey look like saints by comparison, this is only a "hunter" compact in that it's pretty common for burnt-out hunters to end up in it. This is basically a social network for serial killers and Slashers who haven't completely lost their ability to relate to people, based on covering up each other's messes and scoring "points" by their kills. Based on the rules they follow they either hunt people that nobody will miss (homeless, prostitutes), those who have squandered their lives or held others back (aka, those who are only alive because it's illegal to kill them) and those who are quite capable of defending themselves or would draw significant investigation (the physically and/or politically powerful).

'''The Illuminated Brotherhood:''' Wigged out druggies whose experiments in psychedelics have clued them into the existence of ghosts and spirits and who continue to poke at the supernatural despite their lack of any training in what to do when they get noticed.

'''The Keepers of the Source:''' A bunch of hippies and eco-nuts who have the sucky ability to sense those carrying Essence by feeling pain, so they think werewolves and mages are "parasites of the Earth Mother". Used to use typical peacenik tactics to try and convince the werewolves and mages to stop channeling Essence; when this kept getting them laughed at or killed, they upgraded to terrorist acts instead.

'''The Keepers of the Weave:''' Native American storytellers and lorekeepers. Since they don't write things down all stories have to be told and shared in person, making their knowledge especially fragile. They keep the stories of all the iterations of various monsters the people encounter and seek to make connections to provide everyone with (hopefully) correct information.

'''Les Voyageurs:''' Native Americans and French settlers protecting the French colonies from werewolves and other beasties who want to maul them for hunting beavers and stuff. Given the fact that they're armed with muskets, bows and hatchets compared to, well, a fucking werewolf, it speaks for their badassery and skill at trapping that they still exist.

'''The Long Night:''' The Westboro Baptist Church on one end, the Triple Rock Baptist Church on the other, with tent-healers in the middle. The Long Night believe it's the end of the world and a lot of them do ''not'' feel very fucking fine. The belief that Jesus will arrive if all the monsters are dead is about the only thing most of them can agree on, beyond that, how you treat monsters and your fellow man is all up in the air.

'''The Loyalists of Thule:''' Repentant ex-Nazis, their descendents, and people they've essentially blackmailed into being hunters. The Loyalists were originally the Thule-Gesellschaft, the occultist society whose beliefs in an Aryan "master race" and sponsorship of the German Workers' Party unintentionally set the stage for the rise of the [[Nazi]]s. Blaming themselves for allowing their old beliefs to become tools of genocide, they seek to atone for their crime by providing their vast knowledge of the supernatural to whoever needs it. They've also been keeping an eye on current events, as they're seeing some alarming parallels to the events of the past in modern politics.

'''Maiden's Blood Sisterhood:''' A sorority of vampire-hunting college chicks. Like Buffy, only no superpowers, basically. They're run at least in part by Witches, and might also have their founders as vampires. Or something worse.

'''Network 0:''' Making shows like Ghost Adventures and Finding Bigfoot seem professional, Network 0's members are all obsessed with finding footage and evidence of the monsters and dark parts of the world and either shoving said evidence of them in people's faces or hiding it and waiting for the right time to shove it in people's faces. You'd think they'd have blown most forms of the Masquerade open by now, but even they underestimated the cynicism that comes with who knows how many fake videos of the supernatural that are out there. Could become a conspiracy if they managed to organize more effectively and get some serious hardware.

'''Nine Stars:''' A relatively new compact, formed by members of the Hong Kong police force to protect the city's inhabitants from an unexplained surge in Slasher activity. Currently thriving, but may become a victim of its own success if the Complaints and Internal Investigations Branch mistakes them for a network of corrupt cops.

'''The Night Watch:''' Ghetto toughs, petty hoods, gangbangers and other street trash who've decided they aren't going to stand for being the go-to munchies for vampires anymore.

'''Null Mysteriis:''' When scientists find out the truth, they don't go full-mystical. They break out their gear and start researching, bitch. They analyze vampire blood, study things from other dimensions and look for theories to explain why witches can break reality. And this is a damn hobby to them. Currently undergoing a nascent schism between those who wish to take a purely rationalistic/skeptical approach and those who are more open-minded about the existence of the supernatural but have techniques that are more pseudoscience than actual science.

'''The Promethean Brotherhood:''' Envious pricks who perform human sacrifices on mages, monsters, even Conspiracy-tier hunters to try and steal their magic for a time. Also on the cusp of becoming a conspiracy, they just need to perfect their sacrificial rites. Similar to [[Promethean: The Created#Alchemists|Insatiate alchemists]], though they were made first.

'''The Protectors of the Light:''' Native American hunters who hunt the monsters of the New World. More or less the only group actively upholding the Vigil, but the arrival of the Europeans and intertribal tensions make their duty more and more difficult.

'''The Reckoning:''' A bunch of fundamentalist Christian preppers and sovereign citizens who hunt Heroes rather than Beasts after a Hero leveled their compound. It's wacky. Especially when they start kidnapping Beasts to lure Heroes to them, which makes ''them'' more likely to turn into Heroes, or when they go on and on about Heroes causing collateral damage while causing collateral damage.

'''The Reclaimers:''' A cell on the cusp of becoming a Compact, the Reclaimers believe that the Lairs of Beasts are made from the collective subconsciousness of humanity, and them using this somehow weakens the human race. So the Reclaimers set out to break into the Lairs of Beasts and collapse them to make humanity whole again. Despite them figuring out how to do this, this is a terrible idea for three reasons: A, a Lair is a gigantic fucking deathtrap, and B, a Beast's Lair is where its Horror lives and it's not going to just let you collapse its home, and C, the Beast that the Horror belongs to is also going to notice, get pissed off, and merge with said Horror to bring it to its full power.
[[File:Yuri's_Group.PNG|300px|thumb|right|Yuri Kochiyama of the group of the same name, using the Going to Groups Tactic on a vampire. This involves being a support group for a reluctant monster. And no, you aren't required to have [[Awesome|Raoul Duke]] to perform this Tactic.]]

'''The Scarlet Watch:''' In the aftermath of the Inquisition a couple of powerful families banded together and formed a united front against vampires. Their descendants have moved to the New World and some seek to continue the fight against the ever-increasing numbers of vampires in the colonies. But the vampires have long memories, and they do not take kindly to being hunted. If they had magic whips this Compact would be the [[Castlevania|Belmont clan]].

'''Soldiers of the Forbidden Sun:''' An old compact of [[China|Chinese]] hunters who have dedicated themselves to protecting their land from the Underworld and the monsters that come out of it. This has since expanded for including just ghosts and living dead to spirits, shapeshifters, evil wizards, and cultists and followers of monsters.

'''SWORN''': Following a series of policy changes intended to aid indigenous families in gainng job skills (and cut costs on reservation subsidies) culminating in the passage of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Relocation_Act_of_1956 Indian Relocation Act of 1956], many Native Americans were encouraged to leave their ancestral homes and move to the cities, only for them to find that the supposed employment opportunities awaiting them were just another broken promise from the US government. The new "Urban Indian" population formed new communities to help them adapt to city life; SWORN (short for Strong Warriors Of all Red Nations) was founded by a Native American activist from one of these groups whose son was murdered by undead. They seek to protect Native communities from the monsters lurking in the dark using the tribal lore they've recovered.

'''The Talbot Group:''' Well-meaning healers hoping to try and "cure" werewolves and spirit possessions. Founded by a couple whose son turned into a werewolf. They're slowly making progress and are considering how the werewolves they have pseudo-pacified handle spirits doing bad shit, [[Derp|which is the entire purpose of werewolves to begin with.]] This unfortunately places them in the top-tier of werewolf-themed hunter groups where intelligence is concerned.

'''The Union:''' The compact of the common men and women who don't know or care about what the monsters are as long as they stay out of their neighborhood. Unlike most Hunters, they prefer to react to monster depredations rather than go out looking for trouble themselves. Membership is pretty huge for a compact, but semi-balanced by their weak internal coordination and generally defensive stance.

'''Utopia Now:''' A bunch of Libertarians looking to make the world a better place for everyone. The catch? They want to do this using whatever they pilfered from dead institutional demons, demons who have taken over buildings instead of people (translation: the God-Machine's Infrastructure). Their founder is a Stigmatic, a human who has been exposed to the workings of the God-Machine and was changed for the experience. He is now looking to rid the world of institutional demons and build a utopia where they do not exist. Possibly being manipulated by the God-Machine, wouldn't be the first time It got humans to do Its dirty work without their knowledge.

'''Yuri's Group:''' A mix of the Talbot Group and Habibti Ma'at, Yuri's Group is a support group for critics of [[Beast: The Primordial|this ill-concieved little experiment]], who sometimes take the fight to their former tormentors. Starting to branch out into helping the battered housewives of all the other gamelines too, with the odd attempt to help vampires, beasts, and other predatory supernaturals who're still human enough to feel bad about the things they do to humans cling to what humanity they have left in them. Frequently team up with other Cells and Compacts to provide support because sacrificing an entire support group worth of people is bad for attendance rates.

<center>
<gallery>
File:Compact Ahl Al-Jabal.png|Ahl Al-Jabal
File:Compact Ama-San.png|Ama-San
File:Compact Ashwood Abbey.png|Ashwood Abbey
File:Compact Azusa Miko.png|Azusa Miko
File:Compact Barrett Commission.png|The Barrett Commission
File:Compact Bear Lodge.png|The Bear Lodge
File:Compact Bijin.png|Bijin
File:Compact Division Six.jpg|Division Six
File:CompactFollowersoftheMansa.png|Followers of the Mansa
File:Compact Habibti Ma.png|Habibti Ma
File:Compact Illuminated Brotherhood.png|The Illuminated Brotherhood
File:Compact Keepers of the Source.jpg|Keepers of the Source
File:Compact KeepersoftheWeave.png|Keepers of the Weave
File:Compact LesVoyageurs.png|Les Voyageurs
File:Compact Long Night.png|Long Night
File:Compact Loyalists of Thule.jpg|Loyalists of Thule
File:Compact Maidens Blood Network.png|Maiden's Blood Network
File:Compact Network Zero.jpg|Network 0
File:Compact Night Watch.png|The Night Watch
File:Compact Null Mysteriis.jpg|Null Mysteriis
File:Compact Promethean Brotherhood.png|The Promethean Brotherhood
File:Compact ProtectorsoftheLight.png|Protectors of the Light
File:Compact ScarletWatch.png|The Scarlet Watch
File:CompactForbiddenSun.png|Soldiers of the Forbidden Sun
File:Compact Talbot Group.png|The Talbot Group
File:Compact The Union.jpg|The Union
File:Compact Utopia Now.png|Utopia Now
</gallery>
</center>

===Conspiracies===
It would be god tier, if they weren't so god-awful about so much. Conspiracies aren't just the largest groups in Hunter. They're controlling governments, churches, and have access to endowments. What's an endowment? Do you want to shoot werewolves with plasma weapons? Kill a golem with God's holy power? Wolverine claws? Take your pick of quasi-supernatural abilities and fancy doodads. But remember that the conspiracies don't give a shit about you unless you get results, and more than a few have their own dirty little secrets which the Hunters working for them aren't supposed to know about. At the end of the day, very few Hunters in a Conspiracy are irreplaceable. Plus, even they don't know everything about the supernatural- the gaps in their knowledge can be disastrous for a Hunter.
[[File:Aegis Kai Dante.jpg|300px|thumb|right|The example character of the Aegis Kai Doru. People immediately recognized this as a shitty photoshop that snuck by the editing team. And yes, this does mean that Hunter: The Vigil is [[meme|featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry Series]].]]
'''Aegis Kai Doru:''' Definitely not a front for an Arisen/Guardians of the Veil hunting down their old magical toys. Nope, not at all. In all seriousness, they've got a ton of fancy relics and match the [[Blood Ravens]] in their interest for more, and they really hate mages and werewolves. Their name is Greek for ''shield and spear'', and two of their most powerful Relics are the Aegis and Doru talismans.

'''Ascending Ones:''' Every Conspiracy has its divisions, but it's most pronounced among these guys, who are the three geographically-separate divisions of the same ancient Egyptian cult of alchemists that grew in radically different directions over the millenia. You've got the Knives of Paradise, the ones who handle the actual monster-hunting and are made up of devout members of the three Abrahamic faiths. There's the Order of the Southern Temple, the pasty, stubbornly Pagan and Hermetic nerds who handle manufacturing and R&D for their Endowment, Elixir. And as for the Jagged Crescent... What do you need, man? Heroin from Afghanistan? Crack from Colombia? Weed from Mexico? Mysterious alchemical mixtures whose formulas were first perfected in ancient Egypt? Pay up, you'll be helping them wage war on evil. Just as long as you're okay with rampant drug addiction and street crime where they take control, those reagents are expensive.

'''Aves Minervae:''' The Birds of Minerva were worshippers of the eponymous goddess who protected [[Roman Empire|Rome]] from vampires and other supernatural beings. Their Red Rituals would go on to become the Rites of Denial that the Cainites below would use.

'''The Cainite Heresy:''' Crazy fuckers who use blood magic and are obsessed with killing all vampires RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. It kicks ass against actual vampires, but is so useless against ''everything'' else that the game-makers actually had to come up with optional rules for how to let it affect other monsters. They are descended from an organization of rebellious ghouls in the Roman Empire that turned against their vampiric masters... <s>allegedly</s> <span style="color:red"> '''Snk!''' "Who. Is. <b>Caine?</b>"</span>

'''The Council of Bones''': An ancient and reclusive Conspiracy of undead fighters that uses a collection of secret spiritual techniques called Perispiritism to see and interact with ghosts. Its members are marked with a strange tattoo that is believed to be the source of their power, but they have been reluctant to reveal what they know of it to outsiders. The mark also grants its holders the ability to read and write messages that only a mark-bearer can understand, and it only appears on living hosts to act as a safeguard against infiltration by the undead.

'''The Cheiron Group:''' They're better than Umbrella, if only because they haven't accidentally triggered a zombie apocalypse yet. On the surface they appear as a respectable pharmaceutical conglomerate known for its affordable yet effective products and philanthropic efforts. Needless to say, the truth isn't half so squeaky clean. Their "Field Projects Division" don't just get powers, they get powers from ''monster body parts'', which are strongly implied to be the secret ingredient in their products. Vampire limbs, serial killer brain implants, hands "volunteered" from the Lucifuge, and much stranger bits are some of the things that you can jam into your body, and they most likely won't have too many dangerous side effects...probably. The pay is superb but you won't be retiring anytime soon- and keep in mind that there's a good chance you might end up becoming the test subject for an implant that they haven't quite worked the kinks out of. Are actually lead by lovecraftian horror/aliens who use the Cheiron Group for some mysterious reason; atypically they might ''actually'' be trying to help for purely altruistic reasons, in their terrifyingly inhuman way, though that same write-up presents just taking humanity for all they're worth as a second option.

'''The Faithful of Shulpae:''' Weird cultists who ritually cannibalize their "gods" (read: any monster that can live a long time) as an act of worship as some kind of messed up version of the Eucharist, in doing so to obtain some of their nifty powers. The fact that the "gods" they worship generally DON'T want to have their flesh devoured doesn't seem to bother them at all.

'''The Hototogisu:''' During the Edo period the Japanese merchant caste, the despised-but-wealthy bottom rung of the Confucian caste system, discovered the various supernatural critters that had infested Japanese society. One of them, a man named Inoue Akio, realized after a conversation with such a monter that he could write up a very predatory contract that literally bought some of the monster's supernatural powers off it, and did so in a way that didn't actually result in any kind of loss of resources to him. This is their Endowment: Setto (Japanese for theft). Several hundred years later they rule the roost in the Japanese supernatural community; immortal, rich, and with enough supernatural lackeys at their disposal that they can easily defend their business interests while conning their marks out of shit like immortality.

'''The Knights of Saint Adrian:''' Half biker gang, half paladin order, all bounty hunter, no real subtlety. They work for angels to capture or kill demons. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing really depends on how big an asshole a particular demon's being. And how much you've read about the God-Machine. To facilitate this they are given tattoos with angelic magic coded in. For example, one makes it so they can punch a demon so hard their stolen human face flies right off while another is basically an infinite ammo cheat code for the Knight's firearm of choice.

'''The Knights of Saint George:''' Ostensibly a branch of the Church of England, in reality, they hunt mages with their own magic-nullifying spells because they fear they'll wake up the Lovecraftian "Faceless Angels" if they aren't killed. Said angels may or may not be Mage-style Abyssal spirits.

'''Les Mysteres:''' They think they're helping the innocent, oppressed spirits fight against their tyrannical werewolf masters by siding with the underdog werewolves who agree with them. Anyone who has ever played [[Werewolf: The Forsaken]] will realize that they're being manipulated and are too dumb to know that "freeing" the spirits will result in the destruction and/or enslavement of humanity at the hands of said spirits and the Pure who ''actually'' outnumber regular werewolves two to one. Somewhere, a Uratha is trying to stave off Death Rage after learning what this group is trying to do. Briefly mentioned in the 2e Kickstarter as being "defunct".

'''The Lucifuge:''' They've got Hell in their blood and they aren't happy about it. They view the destruction of supernatural beings as a way for them to redeem themselves in the eyes of God by ridding the world of Satan's creations. At least they get kickass powers from it. Fun fact: their founder has been alive since the 800s. Fun fact 2: they always have exactly 666 members. Don't ask too many questions about what happened to the guy you replaced.

'''The Malleus Maleficarum:''' Vampires, Witches, and Demons; that's the order of importance for the Catholic Inquisition. Don't question it and you won't be taken down to the church basement. Agree to help and you can call on God and his saints to give you awesome abilities to slay monsters. Please ignore the fact that their leader is a ghoul still addicted to vampire blood who uses "holy" magic. Here's some fun facts. The organization used to consist solely of monks, but now have there ranks open to any devoted catholic and they have a bitter rivalry against the Lancea et Sanctum.

'''The Merrick Institute:''' A shadowy government-linked research collective used nasty, damaging science to discover [[Beast: The Primordial|the Primordial Dream]], and started gathering "gifted" kids with a mixture of scholarship money and violence to try to weaponize it. In one of their labs, the test subjects were able to escape and kill their tormentors, save a few who were sympathetic to their plight, then commandeered their tech and training to try to make something good out of what they were put through. The end result is a mixture between ''A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors'' in the World of Darkness, (indeed they are referred to as such at one point) and one of those young adult novels where teenagers gain superpowers by experimentation that overthrew their captors, but kept the story going. Their Endowment is Dreamscape, allowing them to gain supernatural powers while inside of a dream, allowing them to hunt Beasts and similar monsters on their own turf. This makes them very powerful in the dream world, but useless outside of it (in no small part because the experiments performed on them left many of the kids crippled or even comatose). They're also thematically a bit like what the [[Deviant: The Renegades|the Renegades could be like in their upcoming game]], since the original collective is still active and hunting them down. As a result, the Merrick Institute is rather loosely organized for a Conspiracy and spends much of its time on the road lest they stay put long enough for their former captors to find them.

'''The Otodo:''' Named after the single most complex kanji consisting of no less than 84 brushstrokes (which roughly means "the appearance of a dragon in flight"), the Otodo are a family of cousins close and distant whose ancestors lived in a village [[Monstergirls|that engaged in sexual intercourse with a bunch of]] [[oni]]. The blood of their spiritual ancestors created a race of half-oni who use their powers to protect Japan and its people from the monsters hunting them. They also go after those Otodo who don't join in the fight against evil and consider Changelings to be just like them, explainations be damned. This means they're more or less the Shinto equivalent of the Christian Lucifuge. Their powers even work the same; the Otodo's Endowment of Seitokuken is more limited in scope (you can pick only five of the seven powers in total, while the Lucifuge has a much wider array) but no less potent: a well-buffed Otodo can take on a fair number of monsters head-on. Because of their limited numbers the Otodo see no problems with increasing their numbers by copious amounts of boning, and when they're not killing monsters or getting laid the Otodo keep meticulous records of their offspring to keep an eye on those who could develop their powers.

'''Task Force: VALKYRIE:''' MIBs, conspiracy creators, and America's last line of paranormal defense. Great story, but the execution isn't quite as neat as it sounds. They're composed of various government entities (i.e. military, law enforcement, and so on) and designed to prevent supernatural subversion, but in practice it's a bureaucratic clusterfuck that can barely keep track of which monsters they're supposed to be killing. Even worse, the organization has been compromised after several agents' identities were leaked online and its attempts at spreading disinformation to prevent further leaks may be backfiring as new recruits struggle to distinguish the truth from the lies. Oh, and only some of the top brass know that most of their budget secretly comes from vampires using the organization to deal with their rivals and that they can't do anything about it without toppling the organization and exposing themselves in the process. The only thing holding up this corrupt monolith from crashing down at this point is sheer inertia and the brutality of the blacker-than-black door kickin' and dog shooting constitutional violators they employ. Remember, they are not here to help you against supernatural threats, but to maintain the status quo, which includes the masquerade, all in the name of national security of course.

'''Vanguard Serial Crimes Unit (VASCU):''' Originally FBI agents with telepathic powers who use their abilities to hunt down supernatural serial killers, mostly Slashers. The subject of much hilarious interdepartmental in-fighting and dick-measuring with VALKYRIE. VALKYRIE's got neater stuff, works outside the law, and has a better idea of what's going on. But VASCU isn't nearly as much of an organizational mess and its agents are often actually good at their jobs. Often end up hunting other kinds of monster, since, well, while there are many ''mechanical'' differences between a crazed superhuman serial killer and a vampire who's given all the way into madness and degeneration, they aren't necessarily obvious to the outside observer.

By 2E funding issues caused them to be let go from the FBI, but an unknown benefactor gave them the opportunity to act as freelancers using the bioengineering research group "Vanguard Institute" as a front. They now sell their services to international law enforcement worldwide, though some of their agents do have to wonder who exactly is paying their expenses now.

<center>
<gallery>
File:Conspiracy Aegis Kai Doru.jpg|Aegis Kai Doru
File:Conspiracy Ascending Ones.png|Ascending Ones
File:Conspiracy Cheiron Group.jpg|Cheiron Group
File:Conspiracy Faithful of Shulpae.png|The Faithful of Shulpae
File:Conspiracy Hototogisu.png|The Hototogisu
File:Conspiracy Knights of St Adrian.png|The Knights of Saint Adrian
File:Conspiracy Knights of St George.png|The Knights of Saint George
File:Conspiracy Les Mystères.png|Les Mystères
File:Conspiracy Lucifuge.jpg|The Lucifuge
File:Conspiracy Otodo.png|The Otodo
File:Conspiracy Task Force VALKYRIE.png|Task Force: VALKYRIE
</gallery>
</center>

==Slashers==
Not really meant as player options (although they are technically playable for those who really want to) because of their powers, goals and because having your players play actual serial killers instead of hunters would be very fucked up, Slashers are either hunters who have gone off the deep end or people who just happened to go batshit insane in the worst possible way. They all have some kind of ''Undertaking'', a modus operandi based on famous real-life and fictional serial killers. Each of these can go even crazier, going from a Ripper (a Slasher who's still human, at least in the physical sense of the word) to a Scourge (a Slasher with powers that border on the supernatural). While Slashers can be very powerful they all have a Frailty, a psychological (and sometimes physical) weakness linked to their particular brand of insanity.

Generally speaking, Rippers are less powerful than Scourges, but Scourges are more deeply crippled by their Frailties in addition to inheriting the Frailty of their Ripper counterparts.

===Rippers===
'''Avenger:''' Avengers are out for revenge. Having been deeply hurt by someone else they take (lethal) revenge on those who wronged them, then go on to hunt people like their first target to prevent others from being wronged like they were. But with every victim they kill, they grow increasingly indiscriminate to the point where the subjects of their revenge have only tangential connections to their initial victim. While the drive for revenge is not an uncommon origin for a Hunter, the difference is that Avengers often do not target supernatural beings specifically (not for long, anyway). They are ''very'' capable at handling several targets at the same time, but are driven to chase their targets no matter what, which can make them easily manipulated. Drawn from movies like ''I Know What You Did Last Summer'', ''Death Wish'', and ''Urban Legend''.

'''Brute:''' One could say that these Slashers are more like animals than people, but animals aren't capable of sadism like they are. A Brute lives only for the hunt and the kill, contempt for human weakness estranging the Brute from the rest of the human race. Exceptionally dangerous at close range and nearly impossible to stop when they've found a victim, a Brute out for blood is a killing machine, shrugging off pain, fatigue, and injury in the pursuit of their prey. Their bloodlust makes them less perceptive though, and with care one can avoid a Brute who has not spotted its prey yet. Drawn from movies like ''Ravenous'' and ''The People Under The Stairs''.

'''Charmer:''' A rather friendly and affable sort at first glance, a Charmer will appear nice, help you out, win your trust and then strap you to a rack and work you over with a blowtorch as he mocks your decision to trust him. Often the product of abuse in their childhood, Charmers are obsessed with vulnerability and punishment, frequently abhorring sex as well. They will find a victim, win their trust until they let down their guard, then do whatever horrible thing it is they do. Those who trust them tend to make all kinds of excuses for them and dismiss any implied wrongdoings, all the way until they are the next victim. The particular worldview of a Charmer is also their greatest weakness: if someone resists their charm or sets them off in another way, a Charmer will lash out, often violently, revealing themselves in the process. Based on the likes of Stuntman Mike from ''Death Proof'' and Preacher Powell from ''Wolf Creek''.

'''Freak/Undesirable:''' Physically deformed and shunned by humanity or perhaps simply believing themselves to be thus ostracized, Freaks want revenge on the world for rejecting them. They get it by performing the most depraved sorts of acts on their victims. They often grow attachments to people (like their family or other Freaks) or places and know their environments to an almost supernatural degree. Freaks sometimes team up with a supernatural being as an Igor of some kind, but sooner or later they realize they are being used, which inevitably results in the death of either the Freak or the supernatural. Because of their worldviews and hideous appearances, Freaks are very bad at social interaction. Based on monstrous killers like Francis Dolarhyde from ''Red Dragon'' and Leatherface from ''The Texas Chainsaw Massacre''; note that after his surgery the former was no longer deformed, but his mutilated psyche still made him a psychotic, dangerous person and a social mess.

'''Genius/Virtuoso:''' Working with their superior intellect, a Genius can deduce what a victim is going to do, how they'll react to situations, their routines and so on. They can also learn about their target by talking to them, discovering oddities, psychological problems or secrets with nothing but a conversation. They love using traps to kill people, rigging things to kill and maim in inventive ways. Some will give their victims a way out when putting them in a trap, feeling that if a victim doesn't figure it out then the resulting horrible blood-typhoon isn't the Genius's fault. Because Geniuses tend to be creatures of order and routine, when an irregularity happens that isn't part of their plans, they tend to get irate and sloppy, even if it wasn't something they could have prevented. Based on urbane serial killers like Hannibal Lecter from ''Silence of the Lambs''.

===Scourges===
'''Legend:''' The evolved form of the Avenger, Legends are Scourges who have transcended mortality to become living slasher myths. They're the murderous boogeymen that people tell stories about, stories that are ultimately all-too-real. Each Legend is, as you'd expect, wrapped up in his or her own personal mythos, gaining strength when others "play their parts" right but also being compelled to obey certain bans or afflicted with banes based on their legends as if they were spirits- nobody's sure if they're just that fixated on their own legend or if it somehow deprives them of free will. Based mostly on urban myth slashers like ''The Hook-Handed Killer'', the ''Lover's Lane Maniac'', or the ''Licking Lunatic'', they also tap into the more "supernatural" slashers from films like the titular character of ''Candyman'' or Freddy Krueger from ''Nightmare on Elm Street''.

'''Mask:''' The evolved form of the Brute, Masks are killing machines to an even greater extent than their Ripper counterparts. They are supernaturally durable to a level to make even the monstrous player splats sit up and go "Damn, that's a tough bastard!" ''Any'' attack, no matter how weird or supernatural can only inflict a single point of damage to them. However, this durability doesn't count for shit against booby traps, ambient damage, or other things that aren't actually "attacks" (most likely because otherwise, they'd be nigh-invincible), and they're literally incapable of doing anything that doesn't involve trying to hunt people down and kill them- they can't speak or even understand human language anymore, and extended contact with living things seems to actually cause them pain and a desire to respond with violence. In short, they simply want everything around them to die. Based on super-tough film slashers that never seem to stay dead; the most iconic examples of a Mask are probably Jason Voorhees from the ''Friday the 13th'' films and Michael Myers from ''Halloween''.

'''Psycho/Hypno:''' The evolved form of the Charmer, the Psycho has been consumed by their murder-lust, their obsession eating away at them until they can barely feign normality on a day-to-day basis. A Psycho still has enough charm that they can trick victims into lowering their guards at just the right moment, but suffers from intense obsessions; if they fail to manipulate someone, a Psycho is compelled to make that victim their next target. Patrick Bateman from ''American Psycho'' is called out as an inspiration for this kind of Slasher.

In 2e, this was replaced by the Hypno. Hypnos share the charisma of the old Psycho, but consider their murder sprees as a mission to be performed in the name of some higher cause of their own imagining as the thing that repulsed or disgusted them as a Charmer becomes an entire warped worldview in its own right; rather than performing a killing blow after lowering a victim's guard, they can choose to steal the victim's Willpower. Light Yagami of ''Death Note'' would be a good example of this type of Slasher.

'''Mutant:''' The evolved form of the Freak, Mutants are even more hideously deformed to the point where they are no longer recognizable as having ever been human. Their mutations act as either natural armor or natural weapons as a result and are even worse at social interaction than Freaks due to their horrific appearances. However, their mutations also make them painfully vulnerable to a certain kind of stimulation, making it impossible for them to bear and reduces them to a state of atavistic rage- a cave-dwelling monster that burns in agony at the touch of sunlight, a blind abomination that hunts through scent and recoils at strong odors, etc. Mostly owe their origins to "Hillbilly Horror" type Slasher flicks, such as ''The Hills Have Eyes'' or ''Wrong Turn''.

'''Maniac/Puppeteer:''' The evolved form of the Genius, Maniacs (sometimes refered to as Lunatics) are even crazier, but also startlingly charismatic; they prefer a more "hands off" approach to killing, and mostly sate their murder-lust through proxies and Rube Goldberg-style deathtraps, having the ability to not only gain great understanding of peoples' psychologies by studying them but also driving them off the deep end to become the Maniac's loyal flunkies out of the need to share their horrific "insights" with the world. Their flaw is that they're obviously insane to anyone who doesn't end up adopting their twisted mindsets, penalizing their Social skills with anyone who isn't as crazy as they are (and doesn't catch their brand of insanity from interacting with them) and making them very recognizable. Jigsaw from ''Saw'' and John Doe from ''Se7en'' are perhaps the best examples of Maniac type Slashers in modern films.

==Nests==
A new feature to be added in 2e, Nests are what the monsters you hunt call home. Taking a page from the Lairs of Beast, these places typically have a bunch of Tilts and Conditions associated with them that will give Hunters a hard time...and that's assuming nobody's home when they come to investigate. Most of them are fortunately mundane in nature, but a handful of them called 'Tainted areas' have their own lingering supernatural effects with stuff like tricking interlopers into thinking they're nearing the exit when they're actually going deeper inside or causing hunters to see each other as the monster who lives there. Most dangerous of all are the cases where the Nest '''is''' the monster, in which case anyone stuck inside will need to get creative if they want to escape alive.

==Books==
Because of its status as a Limited Run game, Hunter: The Vigil has not received many books. The books that they have made do a fine job at making for a tight setting that does its thing well. The books are:

*'''Hunter: The Vigil Rulebook''' is the core book presenting what the game is about, how it expands on the base World/Chronicles of Darkness book, what the Compacts and Conspiracies are about how to run a game of Hunter.
*The trio of books on the "Big Three" of World of Darkness. These books go into depth on how their particular brand of nasties are fought, how the core Compacts and Conspiracies see them as well as new toys for them, new Compacts and Conspiracies that specialize in a particular brand of enemy and how to fit the monster into your Hunter games:
:*'''Night Stalkers''' is the Vampire book and adds The Barrett Commission, Maiden's Blood Sisterhood, The Night Watch and the Cainite Heresy.
:*'''Spirit Slayers''' is the Werewolf (and spirit) book, adding The Bear Lodge, The Illuminated Brotherhood, The Talbot Group and Les Mysteres.
:*'''Witch Finders''' is the Mage book and details the use of magic in a low-key version of Mage: The Awakening. It also adds Division Six, The Keepers of the Source, The Promethean Brotherhood and The Knights of Saint George.
*'''Block by Bloody Block''' is for urban monster hunting and has rules for Territories, parts of the city that you can drive monsters out of to reclaim them as your own, freeing a city this way. It also has rules for webs of alliances/enmities between various groups so that getting rid of one group might gain you allies somewhere and enemies somewhere else.
*'''World of Darkness: Slasher''' is technically a core book, but it's been made an honorary Hunter book. It details the Slashers, those Hunters who go off the deep end. It also includes the rules for those government agents who hunt Slashers, the Vanguard Serial Crimes Unit (VASCU).
*'''Horror Recognition Guide''' is a collection of fifteen short stories set in Philadelphia, detailing various Hunter Cells who get into contact with various monsters and how this ends. The book works as inspiration for Hunter games, with no stats included.
*'''Compacts & Conspiracies''' is the finale book, greatly expanding on the various core Compacts and Conspiracies. It gives them more rules, more background and lifts the curtain for a few to reveal that they're actually being duped.
*'''Mortal Remains''' was released four years after Compacts and Conspiracies to update Hunter: The Vigil for Chronicles of Darkness. It goes into detail on Prometheans, Changelings, Geists, Mummies, and Demons, adds a whole slew of new Dread Powers for monsters, updates a lot of existing rules and adds four new Compacts and Conspiracies: Habibti Ma'at, The Faithful of Shulpae, Utopia Now and The Knights of Saint Adrian.
*'''Tooth and Nail''' was released in the wake of [[Beast: The Primordial]] to expand on how to fight <s>Beasts</s> Heroes. Tries very hard to convince people who somehow haven't heard of it that Beast is a good book with a good premise and not an abomination unto God, and places an undue emphasis on Hunters teaming up with Beasts to fight Heroes....as opposed to hunting the far more obvious target for a group of monster hunters. Famous for its "great" art including a guy in a hospital gown with psychically projected weapons and armor about to fight Cthulhu and his humongous lunchbox, Danny DeVito as a Cheiron Group scientist (about to inject the remains of a Beast into Donald Trump's penis, no less, which made him immediately beloved among the fandom) and the picture of Yuri's Group shown above. Contains one Cell that's soon to be a Compact, two new Compacts and one new "Conspiracy": The Reclaimers, The Reckoning, Yuri's Group and The Merrick Institute.

=== Fan Works ===
Hunter has had several fan pieces made, including a full-on fan-made book focused on hunting fairies. Mainly though, the work focuses on adding new Compacts and Conspiracies to the lineup.

*'''Dream Catchers:''' Focused on fairies, changelings, and even expanded on Philadelphia to look at how the hunter-fairy interactions have shaped the city, as well as introducing four fan organizations.
*'''Skin and Bones:''' Made up of several original compacts and conspiracies with no real overarching connection but with well-developed backgrounds.

==See Also==
*[[Hunter Fan Compacts]]
*[[Hunter Fan Conspiracies]]
*[[Delta Green]]
*[[Monster Hunter International]]

{{WoD-Games}}

Wraith: The Oblivion

2021-02-20T22:00:34Z

2A00:23C5:120A:C100:C837:6A78:FC2:9242: /* Charnel Houses of Europe: The Shoah */

{{Game Infobox
|name = Wraith: The Oblivion
|picture = [[File:WtO_logo.png|200px]]
|type = [[Role-playing game]]
|system = [[Storyteller System]]
|publisher = [[White Wolf]]
|authors = [[Mark Rein·Hagen]], [[Jennifer Hartshorn]], [[Sam Chupp]], [[Richard E. Dansky]]
|year = 1994
|books = Wraith: The Oblivion
}}
'''Wraith: The Oblivion''' is a [[roleplaying game]] of "Passion and Horror" published by [[White Wolf]] that often provides more [[PC]]s than there are players, thanks to a system allowing for "The Shadow" of a character to act like a separate entity. Progenitor to the [[Promethean: The Created|Promethean]] school of "game that people like to read but no one actually plays." One of the grimmest, most depressing games ever made that wasn't [[FATAL|unintentionally so]]. It also is one of the only WWI role-playing games via the historical setting ''Wraith: The Great War''. And if the trenches of WWI weren't horrifying enough, there's even a splatbook for the dead of WWII, ''including The Holocaust.''

Each player, in addition to their character, plays the "Shadow" of another character, undermining whatever they tried to do and tempting them to give in to their worst impulses and damn themselves. This seemed like such a good idea on paper that everyone somehow missed that it means that the game was actively ''encouraging'' players to screw each other over. To quote our hatefuckbuddies over at TVTropes: "The intent was to create deep, psychological roleplaying where the players got to flex their drama muscles as much as the GM; the effect was that most people saw it as a game that could only end in hurt feelings and recriminations." Which, if you think about it, is exactly what the game wants, friends undermining each other, except that somewhat fatally it doesn't encourage people to actually play the game or at least not more than once.

==The Setting==
W:tO takes place in the planes of existence surrounding and within in the Shadowlands, the place where the deceased go after their earthly demise. Not all humans turn into wraiths; some people simply die violently and horribly enough that they simply cannot get over the fact that they kicked the bucket. Tying the wraith in the space between the skinlands and the ever-increasing and all-consuming Oblivion are the wraith's personal "fetters". Fetters are random objects that meant something emotionally to the restless in question. They may range anywhere from a simple pocket watch to a vampire character. Wraiths may use these items to restore their mental and physical attributes: Pathos and Corpus.

Your main focus as one of the restless should be to pass on into eternity either by achieving Transcendence, now made widely taboo and outright claimed as a fairy tale by wraith society or succumbing to the will of your "shadow" and embracing Oblivion, thus becoming a Spectre: A hellish ghost solely pursuing its own vicious, self-destructive and selfish goals.

Unlike most settings; wraiths cannot really use any sort of items, unless they were of some emotional significance, the only thing that matters in the land of the dead, where all hope is lost and the only thing that keeps you from simply giving up is the memory of when you were alive. And, boy howdy, are those things scarce. One way to get around this is to use soulforgery, which is the only way to create everything on the wrong side of the Shroud. However, Soulforging comes at a price, in order to create anything, someone has to give up their existence to become that item. The process of hammering a wraith into a piece of furniture, for instance, is a horrible and ghoulish endeavour, the process causes extreme agony to the wraith and it is '''irreversible'''. Some say they can hear their soulforged items wail and moan occasionally. Usually victims of soulforging are the types of wraiths known as drones: mindless and simple ghosts doomed to forever play out the last moments of their life.

Sounds bad? Well, Charon put it this way, Soulforgery is the final and worst punishment to a wraith and is only to be mete out in the most extreme conditions, such as leading wraiths to feed oblivion or trying to overthrow Stygian society. A soulforged wraith cannot feed oblivion anymore and serves a better purpose as a sword, for instance, against the denizens of the Labyrinth. There! You can use this cognitive dissonance to muffle those silent moans and sobbing your soulsteel blade is emmitting.

Since most of wraiths are ancient dead from bygone eras, such as classic Rome and the middle ages, most of them prefer swords and traditional weapons. Plus, in order to fire a soulforged or relic firearm, it requires relic or soulforged bullets plus the mental energy of the wraiths, 'pathos', to operate, cause basic physics don't work naturally in the underworld, they have to be fueled; so it is simply more cost effective to use a crossbow, for instance.

==Stygian Guilds==
Stygian guilds formed around the use of one of the "Arcanoi", the psychic powers of wraiths. While most wraiths are well-versed in more than one power, guilds simply focus and draw profit on one of them. Guilds were banned from Stygia by the order of Charon, cause they kept messing around with the Quick (You are either quick or dead) and causing a general ruckus. Now guilds operate in secret and only allow exclusive membership. While guildship is punishable by soulforging, many wraiths still employ their services to advance their machinations and plots as well as providing a service to the high-ranking deathlords and other residents of Stygia (every Wraith will need the services of a pardoner or a monitor at one point). Use of different Arcanoi causes permanent "scarring" on the Wraith Corpus (plasm surrounding the soul).

*'''Alchemists:''' Alchemists use the Arcanoi "Flux" to manipulate objects in the skinlands, such as causing things to break down to creating inanimate golems to wreak havoc. Separate from their parent guild, The Artificers, Alchemists were disbanded by Charon, as a part of his "stop meddling with mortals" -policy. Alchemists don't have any distinguishing marks, but they are obsessive idiots, who never talk about anything else except their power.

*'''Artificers:''' Mockingly known as "Hammerboys" or by modern "Neos", these wraiths use "Inhabit" to manipulate real world machinery or items. Artificers are the richest guild in Stygia, due to practicing the fine art of Soulforgery. Artificers are recognized by red blotches caused by working at the soulforges or by circuitry-shaped burns from inhabiting electrical machinery.

*'''Chanteurs:''' The loudest of the loudest, Chanteurs can use their Arcanos "Keening" to imbue their voice with amazing powers. They function as bards, in the sense that their singing can imbue Pathos to wraiths in need of it and can even cause harm and heart attacks on mortals with a combination of "Embody" and "Keening".

*'''Harbingers:''' The taxi-drivers of the shadowlands. Using the Arcanos "Argos", these wraiths have the ability to jump to and fro in the ever-roiling tempest. Using different abilities to mask themselves and their clientele from the hungry gaze of the denizens of oblivion, Harbingers can carry other wraiths to safety or rescue them from the strong currents. Harbingers can be recognized from their completely black eyes.

*'''Haunters/Spooks:''' These two guilds work closely together to wreak havoc inside haunts to drive out inquisitive mortals. Spooks use "Outrage" to cause material objects to fly around and do spooky stuff; while Haunters use "Pandemonium" to create any kind of substance into the skinlands a'la blood elevator in The Shining, these effects are temporary, however, and at worst will simply cause slight structural damage. Spooks are oddly misshapen with strong muscle groups and Haunters wear fantastic black cloaks for theatrical effect, much like the Phantom of the Opera.

*'''Masquers:''' If you don't like what you look like, you can employ a masquer to use her "Moliate" ability to change your appearance for the better or make you more deadly by crafting your Corpus to have swords for arms, for instance.

*'''Mnemoi:''' The ability of "Mnemosynis" grants the power to read minds, making Mnemoi effective Inquisitors in wraith society. Like Soliciting, Mnemosynis can implant thoughts and objectives into the mind for the poor victim to perform. Like Monitors, Mnemoi never blink except by conscious effort, which makes their affiliation very obvious.

*'''Monitors:''' Considered very useful by wraiths, these users of the Arcanos "Lifeweb" to probe, monitor (hurr) and manipulate the structural strength of Fetters. Monitors never close their eyes, which isn't really amazing, cause dry eyes isn't really a thing when you're a ghost.

*'''Oracles:''' The Oracle's guild uses "Fatalism" to divine the strands of fate and possibly "turn the tide" to their favour. Tempting fate too much, however, can have dire consequences. Oracles have a permanent "eye" tattoo on their forehead, which seems to dance and twirl.

*'''Pardoners:''' With the shadow constantly tormenting you as a wraith, Pardoners come in handy for their Arcanoi called "castigate", which tells the wraith's Shadow to STFU. These wraiths act as the psychiatrists of the underworld, where your crazy self is constantly trying to destroy you and those around you. Pardoners have inky, black fingers.

*'''Proctors:''' Permab& by Charon, Proctors use "Embody" to phase over to the Skinlands to mess around with mortals as they see fit. Everything from materializing in front of poor souls just for cheap thrills to taking a stroll just to relive past days of being made of flesh. You may tell a user of this Arcanoi by blots on their skin, which resemble shadows cast by trees.

*'''Puppeteers:''' Once again, banned by Charon for '''painfully''' obvious reasons, skinriders can "hop a ride" on mortals or even control them on higher levels of this art. Skinriding causes the wraith to adopt certain quirks and habits used by the host. In the 20th Anniversary edition, this got updated to also taking on the physical characteristics found between the hosts a given Puppeteer most frequently possesses (eg, age, gender, ethnicity, weight).

*'''Sandmen:''' These overly dramatic users of "Phantasm" can cause sleep in mortals and affect their dreams in any way they see fit. In addition they can weave illusions around them in the shadowlands, making them wanted performers in Deathlord and other aristocratic courts.

*'''Solicitors:''' Solicitors can probe into your head and fish out your deepest desires or wants with "Intimation". In addition to this, Solicitors can change your wants and needs to the point of even making them into an obsession. They can use this power on any type of creature, barring maybe Fey creatures. If a wraith with a single, glowing green eye says he wants to peer into your very being, just say no.

*'''Usurers:''' Like odd healers of the underworld, the Arcanos Usury allows these merchants of death to transfter Pathos into Corpus and vice versa. They can even imbue either of these attributes into material objects, turning them into freakish mana or health potions. Usury also creates soulfire crystals, which are used to create soulforged objects. Usurers speak in precise, numerical terms.

==Arcanoi==
The supernatural powers of the dead, powered by Pathos (from the Psyche) or Angst (from the Shadow). Comes in the three flavors depending on the group in question, possibly more as they depend on what Dark Kingdom a wraith is from, but ''WtO'' wasn't always fleshed out as much as the main three gamelines.

===Wraith Arcanoi===
The normal Arcanoi for players who play one of the core sixteen Guilds. In the earlier editions of the game they are all on paths of five powers, with [[splatbook]]s providing alternative powers to pick up. In the 20th Anniversary Edition they come in two paths of five powers: the first path has powers that can be learned by anyone, and the second path consists secret powers that are limited to members of the guilds only. Some of these powers are taken from existing Arcanoi, while others are created for the new edition. The two are learned seperately from one another, and the number of dots you know in an Arcanoi are determined by your highest dots in either path.

'''Regular Arts:''' Argos (travel), Castigate (shadow control), Embody (physical manifestation), Fatalism (future sight), Inhabit (control machines), Keening (bardic ability), Lifeweb (fetter control), Moliate (plastic surgery), Outrage (classic poltergeist), Pandemonium (control buildings), Phantasm (control dreams), Puppetry (possession), and Usury (pathos control).

'''Forbidden Arts:''' Flux, Intimation, and Mnemosynis.

<center>
<gallery>
File:Argos.png|Argos
File:Castigate.png|Castigate
File:Embody.png|Embody
File:Fatalism.png|Fatalism
File:Flux.png|Flux
File:Inhabit.png|Inhabit
File:Intimation.png|Intimation
File:Keening.png|Keening
File:Lifeweb.png|Lifeweb
File:Mnemosynis.png|Mnemosynis
File:Moliate.png|Moliate
File:Outrage.png|Outrage
File:Pandemonium.png|Pandemonium
File:Phantasm.png|Phantasm
File:Puppetry.png|Puppetry
File:Usury.png|Usury
</gallery>
</center>

===The Arts of Jade===
The Way of the Scholar (psyche control), The Way of the Artisan (jade crafting), The Way of the Farmer (shadow control), The Way of the Merchant (pathos control), The Way of the Soul (modified version of Castigate), and Chains of the Emperor (for capturing wraiths).

===Dark Arcanoi===
Contaminate (manipulation of the shadows of wraiths), Corruption (manipulating the living), Hive-Mind (a way of staying in contact with other spectres at all times), Larceny (prolongs their existence in the tempest), Maleficence (infusing being with the power of oblivion), Shroud-Rending (lets them see the skinlands and the living), Tempest-Weaving (manipulation of the tempest), and Tempestos (lets them move through the tempest).

==Dark Kingdoms==
The underworld of the old WoD was never fully defined, instead existing as a bunch of island kingdoms surrounded by what used to be the Sea of Shadows, but is now The Tempest after the 3rd Great Maelstrom set in motion a perpetual storm. The North African "Amenti" of the Dark Kingdom of Sand have their own game-line in the form of [[Mummy: The Resurrection]].

===Stygia===
The main setting for ''WtO'', also known as the Dark Kingdom of Iron, it sits on the Isle of Sorrows. It's impossibly big and supposedly a reflection of Western civilization

====Stygian Factions====
* '''The Hierarchy'''
Founded by the legendary Charon himself, The Hierarchy is the largest wraith government form in the Shadowlands. The Hierarchy's role was to keep unruly restless in-check from messing with folks in the skinlands, examples include everything from the occasional jump scare crazy house to blatant possession of mortals. After Charon's disappearance, however, guilds proceeded to practice their typical shenanigans.

The Hierarchy is the main form of government in Stygia, the city made from soulforged wraiths.
* '''Heretics'''
Heretics are wraiths, who practice one or another form of religious worship to a deity known in the mortal world or an idea. During the first days of Christianity, the underworld was beginning to see a sect of Heretics, known as the "Fishermen". Posing a danger to the local pagan wraiths by possibly staging a coup, Charon sought and agreement with the Fishermen, allowing them to continue recruitment of new wraiths but leaving the current residents alone.
* '''Renegades'''
Renegades live outside Stygian society and follow their own path in the afterlife. A certain biker gang rides through deadlands in a neverending journey of violence and lack of liquor.

===Yellow Springs===
East-Asia, AKA the Dark Kingdom of Jade or Jade Kingdom. Has ties to the [[Vampire: The Masquerade|VtM]] spinoff, ''Kindred of the East'' and the Wu T'ian of [[Mummy: The Resurrection|MtR]].
* '''Imperial Army'''
* '''Jade Censors'''
* '''Judges of the Dead'''
* '''Protectors of the Prosperous Realm'''
* '''Rebels'''

===The Bush of Ghosts===
Africa, the Dark Kingdom of Ivory.

===Karta===
Australia, the Dark Kingdom of Clay.

===Port Royal & The Mirrorlands===
The Caribbean, full of pirates of course.

===Swar, the City of Delights===
India, no kingdom title.

===The Dark Kingdom of Obsidian===
The Americas. "The Lands of Gold" in South America were devastated by living & dead conquistadors, while the Mesoamerican "Flayed Lands" and North American "Islands of Flint" are still around. Easily the most criminally underused setting in the World of Darkness, possibly all of fiction.

===The Dark Kingdom of Wire===
Detailed in ''Charnel Houses of Europe: The Shoah''.

==Spectres & The Labyrinth==
A spectre is a wraith/ghost who has become an agent of [[Oblivion]]. The transformation into a spectre happens, when a wraith's Shadow gains control and its Psyche becomes secondary, their biggest asset is that they share a hive-mind. Some dead start this way, such as children, because their wants, lack of patience and selfish attitude overrule any self-reflection and are instantly consumed by their shadow. There was even a book under the Black Dog label, ''Dark Reflections'', that provided rules for an inverted experience where someone else plays your character's Psyche instead of their Shadow. Spectres cannot see people or really understand their surroundings in the shadowlands under normal circumstances, because their alignment towards oblivion far removes them from the land of the living.

The Labyrinth is essentially the center of the Underworld, and at its center is the Maw of Oblivion, a big hole of nothing that destroys all that falls into it. Spectres experience the pull of oblivion far worse than wraiths. To the point where it is akin to a ripping agony and the only way to satiate it is to cause untold misery and suffering to wraiths and eventually lead them to be consumed by Oblivion. One way this happens is through "harrowings", a harrowing occurs, when a wraith becomes weak enough to be pulled through the tempest via nihil forming under her corpus, and into the labyrinth to an impromptu nightmare scenario, orchestrated by the local spectres. Ever seen Jacob's Ladder? The whole movie can be used as an example of a wraith going through one harrowing after the other. The VERY personal nightmare scenarios are dictated by the wraith's shadow to the spectres. Every spectre is consumed by oblivion eventually, increasing its mass and power.

===Spectre Castes===
*Apparitions: middle-caste lackeys, in transition to becoming Nephracks
*Doppelgangers: low-caste, the usual Wraith whose Shadow took over, can pass for a Wraith
*Haints: non-caste as they hate everyone, became Spectres after a horrific death that defined their unlife
*Hekatonkhires: varies with the spectre, they're failed Onceborn and like Shades at Malfean power levels
*Malfeans: leader-caste; two types, Onceborn (former humans) and [[Exalted#Neverborn|Neverborn]] (nonhumans)
*Mortwights: under-caste, became Spectres on death yet are still defined by their life
*Nephracks: upper-caste (admin, military, priests, etc.), they're former Doppelgangers warped by their contact with Oblivion
*The Nothings: lowest caste, those stuck in shell-shock or who just give up, some even try "suicide"
*Pasiphae: non-caste ciphers
*Shades: middle-caste shock troops, twisted into monsters by Oblivion kept in check by the hive-mind
*Striplings: non-caste, mobs of feral dead children

==Charnel Houses of Europe: The Shoah==

If Wraith is known for anything in particular, it's the book they had covering the Holocaust in great detail, "Charnel Houses of Europe: The Shoah". Interestingly, the whole thing is actually regarded as "not a horrible mistake", which is the most probable fate facing such a product (see, for example, White Wolf's equally "problematic" [[Gypsy|Gypsies]], which ''was'' regarded as "a horrible mistake"), surprisingly well written and respectful with a lot of interesting idea's if you have the balls to run it.

==Wraith 20th Anniversary==
A Kickstarter for the 20th Anniversary edition of Wraith was put online on December 2nd 2014. As usual with [[White Wolf]] Kickstarters it was funded in [[Rule 34|69]] minutes. A release in the same vein as V20, W20, M20 and C20, Wr20 will be based on a game with a small but dedicated fanbase, that might bring in some new players.

The game was finally released in February 2018, seeing the release of a book of nearly 600 pages long. It turns the clock back to a time before the Sixth Great Maelstrom, which is only referenced to once in passing as something to prevent. So far, it has come out with a Player's Guide, and the Book of Oblivion, a book detailing... Well, Oblivion and its spectres.

==See Also==
*[[Orpheus]] (sequel game-line)
*[[Geist: The Sin-Eaters]] (the New World of Darkness ghost game, though it's quite different from Wraith)
*[[World of Darkness]]

=Links=
* [http://www.worldofdarkness.com/ World of Darkness website]
* [http://wiki.white-wolf.com/worldofdarkness World of Darkness wiki]
* [http://www.unmodchat.com/ Unmoderated WoD Chat]
* [http://mrgone.rocksolidshells.com/ Mister Gone's Character Sheets]

{{WoD-Games}}

Order of Hermes

2021-02-20T21:42:11Z

2A00:23C5:120A:C100:C837:6A78:FC2:9242: /* Houses */

{{WoD-stub}}

The '''Order of Hermes''' are the closest you will get to the stereotypical Wizard in [[Mage: The Ascension]]. And for good reason, since they literally shaped the western idea of Magic, with all the trappings of such (including the pedantry, arrogance, and haughtiness). They're infamously disciplinarian and rigid in structure, with several "Houses" fighting for control. They, unsurprisingly, tend to fuck up quite a bit. This includes when what would become the [[Tremere]] Vampires split off from them, and how they essentially forced the Technocracy into existence by being top dog for so long.

A lot of the terminology and paradigm for the Order is ripped word-for-word from [[Ars Magica]], which may or may not share a universe with the [[World of Darkness]], depending on the edition you're playing.

==Houses==
As you can imagine, a globe spanning millennia-old conspiracy that has literally reality-warping levels of egotism as an entry requirement can get pretty out of control. Luckily, the Hermetic love politics and structure almost as much as they love magic itself. As a result, the House structure divides the Order into [[Splat|subfactions]] based on political interests and magical praxis.

Note that while the Order as a whole has a nominally unified [[Reality Paradigm]], each house has its own body of theories and signature techniques. In addition, the Order has been around in some form or another since Imperial Rome, so Houses have been formed, merged, destroyed, divided, promoted or demoted countless times through the ages. There are currently 7 Major Houses.

Note that, depending on the Metaplot you're using, the Solificati, Ngoma, and Wu Lung Crafts [[skub|may or may not]] have been absorbed and turned into '''Houses Solificati''', '''Ngoma''' and '''Hong Lei''', respectively.

===Major Houses===

- If the Order of Hermes are a real wizard's wizards, then '''House Bonisagus''' is a wizard's wizard's wizard. The wizardiest wizards to ever wizard. While the other Houses concern themselves with specific subsets of Hermetic lore or worldly interest, the Bonisagi work towards a unified and holistic understanding of the Art. They're predictably bookish, even by Hermetic standards and, depending on which Metaplot you use, currently reeling from the loss of all their ancient offworld libraries.

- '''House Flambeau''', by stark contrast, cut out a lot of the more esoteric intellectual detritus from their Art, focusing instead on its applications in conflict. That's a very circlejerky way of saying FIREBALL! FIREBALL! FIREBALL! They act as the military arm of the Tradition and have pretty much never been politically unpopular as a result. Despite this, they naturally have a reputation for being hot headed (pun intended) and alarmingly cavalier about Sleeper fatalities in their offensives.

- One of the younger Major
Houses, '''House Fortunae''' are the Order's numerologists, focusing on gematria, divine numbers, all that jazz. Despite the fairly dorky sounding elevator pitch, they're some of the Tradition's smoother operators, excelling at finance and gambling. This proclivity is largely responsible for their meteoric rise in power, making them an invaluable, if sometimes suspicious, resource.

- '''House Quaesitori''' is the Order's judges and, with the destruction of House Janissary, its internal police too. As you can tell by the number of splinter cells, double agents, and secret traitors in the order, they aren't actually all that great at their job. They are devoted to the ideal of justice, bless their hearts, but still throw a hissy fit when the [[Euthanatos]] try to do their job for them.

- '''House Shaea''' are Truenamers. Wait no, come back! Not [[Truenamer|that kind of Truenamer]]! They are specialists in the essential names of things, being experts in spirit binding and the mysticism of the ancient Egyptians, who believed that the name was an essential component of the soul. They're also disproportionately female, due to their links with the cult of Isis.

- '''House Tytalus''' focuses on the Awakened Will above all else, exalting hardship so as to train its adherents to better remake reality in their image. As you can imagine, this makes them come off as overbearingly machiavellian, even by Order standards. They were pretty much perpetually politically ascendant until a couple of their members decided to commit the ultimate betrayal of their ideology: subordinating their wills to some [[Vampire: The Masquerade|vampires]], kicking off the Second Massasa War and severely wounding the House's reputation, because apparently Hermetics never learn their fucking lesson.

- The wondermakers and enchanters of the Order, poor '''House Verditius''' has a messy and tempestuous history. One of the founding Hermetic Houses, the Verditii provided much of the material wealth of the Order from their superlative craftsmanship. Unfortunate, it was also the incubator for the Hermetic heresy thay would grow into the Craftmasons, who went on to found the Order of Reason and, well... the rest is history. By the Industrial Revolution, the other Houses decided that their brand of "olde tyme master blacksmithe magicke" still resembled too much of their enemy's techniques for comfort and stripped them of their political power. It was only recently that the Lesser House emerged and combined with the shattered remnants of its spiritual successor, House Thig, that it regained its place among the Major Houses.

===Lesser Houses===

These houses are all broadly considered under the banner of '''House Ex Miscellanea''', functionally the clearing house for all the Hermetic practices the Order didn't want to give full membership.

- '''House Criamon''' was one of the Order's founding Houses, specializing in enigmas, lowercase-p paradoxes, riddles, and unsolved mysteries. Their influence has declined pretty much constantly sonce their formation, culminating in their demotion after the Metaplot killed most of their Archmages. They tend to suffer from White Wolf Trickster Syndrome, which makes them equal parts twee, incomprehensible, and self-impressed in the fluff.

- '''House Jerbiton'''. Mundane relations and recruitment. They run the wizard DMV. They are, by definition, the closest to mundane and often put in charge of running front groups and mystery cults as a result.

- '''House Mernita''' deals specifically with faeries, an increasingly unrewarding task as the [[Changeling: The Dreaming|fae]] grow more and more secretive and rare.

- An odd duck, '''House Skopos''' focuses on the intersection of quantum physics and Hermetic practice. Through drugs. Because [[White Wolf]]. It also canonically has exactly three members, so that's weird.

- '''House Xaos''' is just Discordianism with a Hermetic membership card. They are not dissimilar to the [[Xaositects]] from [[Planescape]], actually.

===Former Houses===

- Both '''House Bjornaer''' and '''House Diedne''' were various doomed attempts to incorporate less organized druidic practices (shapeshifting and general druidic craft) into the Hermetic Paradigm. Diedne fell particularly hard, as the rest of the Order launched a crusade against them for what were, by all accounts, some pretty fucked up rituals. Of course it may or may not have been a scapegoat for [[Tremere]] (that little shit). Whatever the case, the [[Verbena]] have literally never let go of a grudge, so they're still pretty salty about this.

- '''House Golo''' is notable for being probably the shortest-lived of all Houses, only existing for about 17 years. It all formed around this guy who got obsessed with an Arabian physics textbook called the ''Kitab al-Alacir'', which he used to build [[magitek]]. Then his airship blew up and his followers scattered. Despite its short run, it was basically responsible for laying the groundwork for the modern day [[Sons of Ether]]. Go figure.

- Who watches the watchmen? Maybe someone should have asked that before the whole fucking debacle with '''House Janissary''' happened. They used to be the internal police and enforcers of the Order. Then some snoopy [[Euthanatos]] discovered that their roots could be traced back to an obscure assassin conspiracy called the Ksarifai... which just so happened to be a founding Convention of the Order of Reason. The Euthies accused the House of harboring secret Technocratic loyalties and smuggling intel to the [[New World Order]]. There's no canon answer as to whether or not this is actually true or if it was a power play by the Euthanatos. Whatever the case, the Council reacted with fire and bloodshed, scouring them from the face of the earth.

- '''House Luxor''' is not really elaborated on especially well. It was apparently the first predominantly black, American House. It seemed like it might have been something to do with syncretic blending of Victorian spiritualism, dimensional technology, and Charismatic Christianity, but that's mostly conjecture.

- '''House Mercere''' was around from the beginning as the designated messengers of the Order. Initially derided as mere gofers, the House slowly increased in power through its mastery of the information trade. As better mundane communication made its official function increasingly irrelevant, several info brokers jumped ship to the seedier parts of House Fortunae as Mercere fell apart in the 30's.

- '''House Tharsis''' had its heyday during the Age of Exploration. These weather wizards and pragmatic sailing techniques were the golden boys of the Order when the high seas were the biggest frontier of the Ascension War. Sadly, the House was gutted after its leaders infernalist leanings were revealed to the world.

- '''House Thig''' was the unholy lovechild of the Order and the [[Virtual Adepts]], channeling their magic through modern tech and manipulating the wired world. While unpopular with the older crowd, they were still on their way up until the Revised Metaplot kicked them in the dick and forced them to merge with House Verditius.

- Learn more about those fuckers in '''House Tremere''' [[Tremere|here]].

- '''House Validas''' were big adherents of the "God the watchmaker" school of thought, and as such were pretty good at divination. They also turned out to be infernalists like Tharsus, so they got purged. They might actually still exist somewhere in England as an obsure [[Nephandi]] sect.

- '''House Zirach''' was the house that took over study of "Ars Cupidae", the Art of Desire. Predictably, the House was sitting pretty until someone found out that it was full of rapists and hellfire clubs, at which point it was purged.

{{WoD-Traditions}}

Beast: The Primordial

2021-02-20T21:25:42Z

2A00:23C5:120A:C100:C837:6A78:FC2:9242: /* Hero-Bashing */

{{Game Infobox
|name = Beast: The Primordial
|picture = [[File:Beast_the_Primordial.png|200px]]
|type = [[RPG]]
|publisher = [[White Wolf]] / Onyx Path
|system = [[Storytelling System]]
|authors = Matthew McFarland, Dave Brooksaw, Jim Fisher, Emily Griggs, Andrew Heston, David A. Hill Jr, Dana Hughes, Renee Ritchie, Travis Stout, Peter Woodworth, and Sam Young
|year = 2016
}}
{{Fail}}
{{WoD-stub}}

'''Beast: The Primordal''' is one of the newer games to come out for the New [[World of Darkness]], and probably the one most scorned on [[/tg/]]. You are a Beast, a living embodiment of humanity's deepest and darkest fears, driven by an inescapable need to sate your Hunger, a manifestation of fear. You may be driven by the urge to Ruin or Dominate, but you cannot help but Feed. Of course, where a Beast lurks, Heroes inevitably arise, driven to slay the Thing lurking in the Dark...

Sounds awesome, right? A chance to both completely blow off the supernatural wangst that bedevils almost all of the other WoD lines (except [[Geist: The Sin-Eaters]] and maybe [[Demon: The Descent]]) and revel in being the bad guy you truly are: what could possibly wreck that idea?

Then the preview edition came out, and the problems began to show themselves.

For a start, you don't get ''any'' shapeshifting powers at all. That's right, you have a "Beast's soul", but not a Beast's '''body''' - even your Atavisms are ''completely invisible'' to normalfags, even when you're squeezing through a too-tight space, ripping them apart with claws or breathing fire (unless you decided to drop your Lair (the fancy domain thing that is tied to you) on top of their asses. Though, if that happens, subtlety has gone right out the window). This fact alone got /tg/ mocking the game as appealing to Otherkin: one of the mercifully rare, but not non-existent, branches of nutjob that heavily overlaps with the [[furry]] fandom, except that even ''other furries'' think they're out of their minds. It would have been bad enough, but coming in the wake of [[Demon: The Descent]], which gave excellent modular rules for building a demonic form, fans were expecting a similar level of cool shapeshifting powers in a game that was advertised as "be the beast that haunts humanity's soul".

Next, though the intended flavor of the game was "screw the Heroes, they're really nothing but nutjobs who think they're the Good Guys and insist you're the Bad Guys", the writing of it came off as so sneering and condescending that not only did hordes of people start defending the Heroes (no thanks to that screwy "if you Critical Fail on your Rampage check, you spawn a Hero" rule), but /tg/ began writing Beasts off as otherkin fodder. The "special people with the souls of mythical creatures, picked on and bullied by the normies who just don't understand" (with the latter part going so far as to equate them with persecuted minority groups): that's what /tg/ saw and derided, in a repeat of [[Changeling: The Dreaming]], mixed with an alarming amount of juvenile revenge fantasies. It didn't help that the author openly mocked the people who argued in favor of making Heroes less unsympathetic.

But, in a surprising show of self-awareness, Onyx Path actually took the time to respond to the criticisms and began an immediate rewrite of the book to address them, rewriting large portions of the book to be relatively more neutral in tone, though in many cases these rewrites either failed to address the original issues or were exactly the same as the original. And in at least a few cases, "optional interpretations" trying to shoehorn in the original depiction of Beasts were added in an attempt to circumvent the rewrite.

In some cases, the rewrite actually made the issues with Beast '''worse''' by attempting to give the Beasts the moral high ground. "They're merely teaching people important lessons through fear, honestly!" is a common refrain through the book, because apparently the only way for someone to become wise is to be constantly scared shitless by nightmare monsters. That that's almost the exact same justification the [[Night Lords]] used, it didn't give them the moral high ground either. And Jigsaw, of the iconic Saw franchise - which looks like one of the foremost Beast's inspirations - may be liked by many a maniac admirers but hardly anyone sane argues him not a villain.

The methods of dealing with Hunger suggested by the book ranged from the ludicrously petty to the outright murderous, and the addition of the "Family Dinner" mechanic in which a Beast could sate its hunger just by watching another supernatural being hunt or feed made the double-edged sword that Hunger could have been completely irrelevant.

Combined with openly dismissing all non-asshole Heroes as too boring to be of interest (despite sympathetic villains being a good thing), compelling all other supernaturals (except Demons for some reason) to be friendly towards Beasts despite several in-character reasons for them to oppose each other, and generally trivializing any harm a Beast might cause to others in fulfilling its Hunger, /tg/ has quickly come to the conclusion that it is by far the worst of the Chronicles of Darkness books.

Later on, it was discovered that author Matt McFarland was accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl and was quietly let go from Onyx Path. Following further accusations of sexual harassment in 2019 involving the abuse of his position as a senior writer, Onyx Path stripped McFarland of his remaining assignments with them and publically condemned his actions.

When you look at all the above stuff about Beasts being entitled to indulging their Hungers, the people are trying to stop them are evil bigots and that they're actually doing their victims a favor in the light of said accusation...well, it starts sounding an awful lot like the sort of thing a [[FATAL|registered sex offender]] would say in an attempt to justify his actions. If BtP makes any success, it will not be because of him, but in spite of him.

==Family==
To condense down what each family group of beast "souls" are, there are seven different families of monsters (which again are each an abstract conceptual basis to come up with your own style of monsters, although in practice some of them tend to fit specific stereotypical monsters far more than others). Each Horror is the nightmare manifested, a primal fear given shape, and the Beast is always the first inflicted upon by this nightmare, and are no longer troubled by it.
These families are then mixed with seven hungers to help build your own monster.

===Anakim===
[[Giant]]s, [[ogre]]s, and the powerful primordials of an earthy disposition. The fear that makes up your soul is the fear of powerlessness. Something that you will likely never allow to happen to you again. These are not your BFG friends, because even the nicest ones feed on the fear of powerlessness and dominate their opponents. As for their powers, expect strength, presence and for a fight in their lairs to become a titanic struggle. Like [[Anime|Attack on Titan]] where you're the Titan and your enemy forgot their jet pack and cables.

===Eshmaki===
Lurkers, dwellers in the dark places, and sometimes capable of breathing fire or shredding opponents. Eshmaki are the beasts of the fear of darkness and the things that go bump in the night. Because they have conquered their fear, they never feel alone, though they might be. Did I mention you can be a [[dragon]] with this? Maybe one day you can use your incarnate powers to rule the world as force of change... Or just make a really, really good thief and/or killer. After all, what's to stop a dragon except a [[knight]]? And knights are just more tinned food.

===Inguma===
Nightmares of the Other. The youngest Family, "only" dating back to the dawn of civilization and the xenophobia it fostered. This is where you find stuff like [[Doppelganger]]s, the Pod People, The Thing (from the John Carpenter film), [[Lacrymole]]s and various other monsters that can be called almost but not quite human. Ironically, they're the most humanlike of the Families despite their schtick of being the perpeutal outsiders.

===Makara===
For those wanting to say they are the Kraken, Leviathan, or any other sea monster. The Makara are the beasts of the fear of the depths. At its simplest this translates to a fear of drowning, but can easily be extrapolated further into overwhelming knowledge or circumstance. They tend to have the more lethal kinds of lairs. Drop one into reality and watch the world face a natural disaster level threat.

===Namtaru===
Those that believe in beauty being skin deep might have been referring to these things. Probably before being horribly fossilised. Namtaru are the fear of revulsion, and have Gorgons, insectoid terrors, and various other fuck-ugly things in their background. They can inflict a single condition once per scene, but they also are potentially some of the easiest people to hide evidence. After all, a statue can't expose you if you're simply a talented stone carver.

===Talassii===
Nightmares of Confinement. They embody fears of being kidnapped, imprisoned, and otherwise held against one's will. After an especially unwise brood attempted to re-enact the Rape of the Sabine Women on a band of Heroes, the entire Family got saddled with an Anathema which causes them to be followed with an air of menace that makes people think any Captor they encounter is "out to get them". Naturally, they try to avoid brutalizing or raping their "prisoners" now, which probably causes some problems with the fact that, lore-wise, they're actually cursed to be compulsive rapists, though. Don't really end up mapping easily to a popular monster archetype like the others, so they mostly end up being giant spiders, living prisons, or unseen jailors. Could probably work for folks wanting to be Jigsaw or Leatherface-style slashers...but wouldn't it be easier to just play as a Slasher in that case?

===Ugallu===
Monsters of the air that represent everything from harpies to dragons (again), to great birds like the majestic [[Phoenix]] or Roc. They are the fear of exposure (literally or metaphorically), and too few people ever look up. Flight is something that falls among the realms of ease for these creatures. What's terrifying is their birthright ability to breach through facades. That means no glamour or special obfuscation can escape these eyes. It only inflicts a condition, but sometimes that's all it takes.

==Hunger==
Your Beast's Hunger is what defines the kind of dark monstrous things you need to do to keep your Horror happy and full. There is always the feeding on flesh and blood but sometimes a beast can satisfy their craving in other ways. Feeding your Beast is what gives you power, and how full your beast is is the satiety stat. High satiety gives you a lot of power to fuel your awesome abilities like unleashing your dragon breath or using your titanic strength to kick a vampire through a skyscraper, and also passively enhances your Nightmares. However, high satiety has risks attached. Your Horror could become gluttonous or picky, refusing to feed on anything other than rare and high quality heists or stimulations. A Collector might not be satisfied until you have Fort Knox gold, for example. At maximum Satiety, the Horror goes into a food coma, leaving the mortal body kind of helpless in the mortal world (and since it takes some pretty heinous shit to reach that point, the now-mortal Beast will have a lot of enemies waiting to take advantage of his weakness).

By contrast, not feeding your beast enough means your Horror rampages through the dreamscape more often. At its minimum, you take lethal damage every day you don't feed and your Horror starts attacking the same dreams more than once. This leads to Heroes showing up and cause extreme problems, especially since you're probably not equipped to deal with the murderous glory hounds after the kill of their lives- but on the other hand it makes your Atavisms stronger, among other stuff. Walking the middle road between keeping your beast from rampaging and not having it become a glutton is manageable, but also has risks of its own. You gain none of the benefits for being at either extreme, and Heroes will find it easy to saddle you with Anathemas.

In practice, it's best to rapidly ping-pong between high and low satiety without hitting either the minimum or maximum so you gain the benefits of either extreme without needing to suffer the drawbacks for long.

There are seven Hungers. When combined with the seven families this creates 49 types of Beasts, so even Beasts of the same Family can be widely different (but in practice, several Hungers and Families overlap with each other or aren't well-defined enough to be distinguishable). These Hungers are:

===Collectors===
The Hunger [[Warcraft|for the Hoard]]. Simply put, the Collectors like to obtain all sorts of stuff. Not because of what it's worth to them, but for what it's worth to others. Anakim Collectors prefer trophies that show off their own strength such as things taken from Heroes or mementos from worthy enemies, Eshmaki Collectors like to terrify the owner before taking things, Makara Collectors prefer ancient relics for their worth and to learn more about the world, Namtaru Collectors collect what seem to be items of great beauty, but look too close and the horror sets in like the stench, insects everywhere or the ground being filthy; other Natamu like to vandalize valuable things. Ugallu Collectors are magpies, or at least close to them: they look down at the world looking for something they like, mainly hidden objects, and if they find something that catches their fancy they swoop down, grab it and fly up to their out-of-reach lairs.

===Enablers===
Hunger for Transgression. The tempters to the Nemeses' punishers, they push people to break their own moral codes, then gain Satiety when the transgressor feels guilty or ashamed about giving into their vices. They can't take the easy way out of using mind control though, the victim has to make the choice to transgress of their own will.

===Nemeses===
The Hunger for Punishment. The boogeymen of the Beasts, delivering retribution upon transgressors big and small. Anakim Nemeses solve violence with more violence, going after violent criminals and serving the dish best served cold. Eshmaki Nemeses work by reminding the perpetrator of a crime long forgotten of what they did, stalk them and drive the criminal to paranoia by (reasonably) making them think that there's a monster out to get them. Makara Nemeses protect certain places. Those who break these codes (transgressing somewhere where they shouldn't or killing animals somewhere) will face the wrath of such a Beast, but because of the nature of their Hunger these Beasts will require support from broodmates to help them feed regularly. Namtaru Nemeses tend to be scorned, and repay those who pick on those like them. Bullies, abusive spouses and other cruelty coming from hate will face one of them sooner or later. The Ugallu Nemeses punish secret crimes and other transgressions that are difficult to prove: hypocrisy, deceiving romantic partners, falsely professing belief in a religion and so on. These Beasts too like to torment their prey days or weeks before striking, making the retribution all the better.

===Predators===
The Hunger for Prey. Not as straightforward as you'd think: while some Beasts do kill their prey it's more about besting the prey than to outright eat it. Anakim Predators prefer to chase their prey down, uncaring about who sees them. Eshmaki like to hurt their prey in subtle ways: either physically or psychologically: for them it's about stalking rather than hurting. Makara Predators prefer to use traps, tricks and bait to lure others to their doom, when the prey falls for it the Beast considers it a job well done. Namtaru Predators tend to do bizarre (and often violent) things with their prey: drink blood from various cuts on their body, lap the sweat from their foreheads or leave a nasty, but not lasting, mark. Ugallu Predators prefer to plan, plot and scheme, picking their prey carefully. But when that's done the Beast strikes swiftly, brutally and efficiently.

===Ravagers===
The Hunger for Ruin. The most destructive of the Hungers, these Beasts live to destroy, pure and simple. They only go for non-living targets though, because those who target people Hunger for Prey, not Ruin. Anakim Ravagers like to smash first and think later, forcing them to live lives on the road lest they be found out quickly. Eshmaki Ravagers like to break things in the most guarded of places, ruining only their target and nothing else to prove their skill and scare people. Makara Ravagers make the damage they do look like forces of nature, reminding people they are not safe from the fury of nature. Namtaru Ravagers prefer to pollute instead of destroying. Their horror sets in the moment people think themselves to be safe only for them to realize the depth of the damage. These Beasts don't just burn the fields, they also salt the earth. Ugallu Ravagers strike suddenly and precisely, destroying what they need to feed and move on. They are like the drone strikes of the Beasts, terrifying people of the open sky.

===Tyrants===
The Hunger for Power. Tyrants want to assert their power over others, making people feel small and helpless. Anakim Tyrants like to see people be defeated, Eshmaki Tyrants relish the hunt and give their prey a sporting chance, Makara Tyrants prefer to make people feel like the malevolent forces they face are being guided by some kind of intelligence, Namtaru Tyrants scare people by being impossibly monstrous looking and Ugallu Tyrants make people feel they're being watched all the time, driving them to paranoia.

===Whispers===
Hunger for Secrets. These Beasts like nothing more than to expose or uncover the secrets that others want to keep hidden. Depending on Satiety, this can mean anything from catching a coworker who got out of work by feigning illness to exposing a vast conspiracy.

==Powers==

===Atavisms===
The powers granted by your Horror and the most conventional of powers. All Atavisms are linked to a particular Family: the core five have five each and the two new ones each have three. Any Beast can learn any Atavism, as long as it matches with their Horror's identity. Atavisms become more powerful when used in a locations that resonates with the Beast's Lair, allowing the use of a more powerful version of the Atavism by spending a point of Willpower instead of Satiety (but this can be done only once a turn). Aside from this optional effect all Atavisms have a more potent variant that is used if the Beast has low Satiety. A starting character starts with two Atavisms, one of which has to be from a Beast's own Family. It can learn all the others too: all non-Family Atavisms are simply one XP more expensive.

===Nightmares===
Nightmares invoke the fears commonly found in nightmares: "nobody likes you", "something's chasing you", "you're covered in bugs", and so on. (A notable exception is "Behold, My True Form!", in which you can scare people to death with your presence alone).

They require either eye contact or physical contact, followed by the Beast speaking a few words. Lasting for one Scene, Nightmares provide powerful negative modifiers on targets that give the Beast an edge when dealing with them. Nightmares come in three forms: the regular one, an additional effect gained if the Beast has 7 or more Satiety, and one that is activated by spending Satiety (if your Satiety drops to 6 or lower because of this you still get the high Satiety effect). Because all Nightmare rolls involve rolling a Beast's current Satiety, this means that at high Satiety you're easily looking at dice pools of 10+.

===Lairs===
Your home sweet home in the Primordial Dream, this is where your Horror "lives" when it's not out giving people nightmares. Lair is also the name of your power stat: it's your supernatural tolerance trait, once you have more than five dots in Lair you can increase your traits beyond the normal maximum, etc. Lairs are composed of '''chambers''' (the dream-mirrors of places where somebody got scared so bad it left an impression on the Primordial Dream; you can open a gateway from a chamber to the place the chamber is based on to enter and and exit the Lair) and '''burrows''' (connections between chambers). The first and most important part of your Lair is the '''Heart'''. Your heart can't be used to warp to the real world as it's based on you and not a physical location, but that's a good thing on account of if somebody destroys your heart you get instakilled. From there you add chambers, connect them with burrows, and choose your '''Lair Traits''', the shit that makes your lair deadly to anyone who isn't you. Lair traits are environmental Tilts divided into minor (a raging blizzard, poor lighting, a sticky floor) and major (anyone who stays for too long becomes a pillar of salt, bottomless pits) categories; at least one of your lair traits has to be minor. If one of the tilts is already present in the real world, you can bring up to (Lair) other traits along for the ride for free. (Every WoD splat has its super-murder cheese combo, and this is the one for Beast: turn off the lights or run into a maze, then activate all your major traits and sit in the dark while your enemies die horribly in your magical pocket universe that kills in minutes and leaves no evidence.)

All the chambers in an area are called the '''Hive''', which is where your Horror goes when it ''is'' out scarring people for life and whatnot. Generally, the nature of the Hive is influenced by its Apex- the meanest, scariest thing in the area, which need not be a Beast or even a supernatural. Their sway over the fears of humanity creates an additional trait in every chamber connected to the Hive, but unlike other Traits you ''don't'' get free immunity to it. Depending on the trait, this can be either mildly annoying or a good reason to move your brood somewhere else.

You can cut your Lair and its Chambers off from the Hive if you like, but that means your Horror is going to keep fucking up the same people again and again, which will either attract or create a Hero to bust your ass.

===Kinship===
Beasts consider themselves to be part of an extended family originating from the being they call "The Dark Mother", and claim that all other supernatural beings are basically their distant cousins who just don't know where they ''really'' come from. The only exception is the [[Demon: The Descent|Unchained]]; not only do Beasts not claim kinship with the scions of the God-Machine, they actively hate them.

Naturally, some supernatural beings like the [[Werewolf: The Forsaken|Uratha]] and the [[Mummy: The Curse|Arisen]] who already have their own origin stories don't buy it, but even then they're not normally the type to pass up free allies. As for when they come to blows...well, Beasts know that family members can still end up in fights with one another and see nothing wrong with making such fights lethal.

In crunch terms, this means that Beasts can detect other supernatural beings, disguise themselves as other supernaturals, gain Satiety by watching said supernatural beings "feed" (the aforementioned Family Dinner mechanic that torpedoes the whole issue of managing Hungers), empower other supernaturals to make their powers work better, create new Nightmares based on their kin's abilities, and even open Primordial Pathways from their Lairs to other spiritual dimensions (e.g. the Shadow and the Hedge).

It should be noted that the True Fae, Centimani, Slashers, and other fucked-up sorts are also recognized as Kin by Beasts. That...is probably not a good sign.

===Others===
Birthrights, Obcasus Rites etc.

==Allies==

===Cults===

===Horrorspawn===
A Horrorspawn is a minion created from the Beast's Horror. Sometimes literally. Some Beasts even liken it to a child. That child, however, is a monster that requires a corpse to possess in order to vacate the Lair, mutating it till it becomes a copy of Junior. Depending on how the player stats their nightmare baby, the critter can acquire special traits to better fulfill whatever job it was made for. This can even include Atavisms and Nightmares known by their master, as well as assistance when feeding. However, there are downsides to spawning a sin against nature. For one, the more time spent with it means the more uncomfortable your friends, even fellow Beasts become when socializing with you. The spawn also needs to feed, making it more likely a Hero will awaken to investigate. And if you leave it alone for too long, it'll take on a life of its own (and several Chambers as well).

==Heroes==
The designated antagonists of Beast: The Primordial. We say "designated" because despite the game's best efforts to make them look as terrible as possible, they are actually not that evil as CoD antagonists go. Far less so than the writers intended them to be, if their statements complaining about how people weren't supposed to sympathize with them are any indication. Gaston from Disney's version of ''Beauty and the Beast'' is considered the archetypal Hero... which is <s>a really surface level reading of the film if authors considered Gaston a Hero.</s> fitting considering that Heroes think themselves the heroic main characters, but are just egotistical bastards, which is ''exactly'' what Gaston was in ''Beauty and the Beast,'' a self-righteous prick who thought himself infallible.

The basic premise is that while Beasts "dream deep", Heroes "dream wide" and skim the surface of the Primordial Dream, where they can detect the disturbances caused by Beast activity. Back in ancient times, they supposedly helped Beasts teach the lessons they embodied, but because of modern cultural narratives they're only concerned with killing Beasts now.

Given that the average Beast is a shameless monster that literally feeds on terror, you might assume that this technically makes them the good guys. But since Beasts can do no wrong as far as the writers are concerned, Heroes are instead murderous sociopaths who would gladly send a thousand people to their deaths as long as they can claim the glory of killing a Beast. The very idea of Heroes not being assholes is brought up only in a sidebar, where non-asshole Heroes are dismissed as being too dull to be worth discussing.

One of the example heroes provided is basically a nerdy, selfish neckbeard with delusions of grandeur, complete with trenchcoat, trilby, and unironically referring to people as "milady". Let that set the tone for how Beast views Heroes.

Anyway, Heroes can instinctively track Beasts (an ability that the book has no crunch for, instead suggesting that the Storyteller just say it happens when the plot calls for it) and impose Anathemas in combat, which are weaknesses that the Hero "discovers" that either constrain a Beast's behavior or make them easier to hurt in some way. Stuff like the single scale Smaug was missing on his belly, or taking bonus damage from the Hero's "Chosen Blade". As a Hero kills Beasts, they get more powers like built-in armor against attacks from a Beast or placing an Anathema by denouncing a Beast as evil to the Beast's face (and since the only way to interrupt it is to physically attack the Hero, it creates ''interesting'' challenges for Beasts if there are witnesses present).

===Hero-Bashing===
Amazingly, the Heroes were portrayed as being even worse than they are in the old Kickstarter version despite their being explicitly created as the result of Beasts fucking with their dreams and being completly correct that beasts should be hunted down. They're described as having the personality of "a high school bully crossed with a rabid dog", and an entire section of their chapter is dedicated to a slang lexicon that sounds like it was invented by stereotypical frat boys. Several other chapters discussing them can similarly be boiled down to "Heroes are all evil lunatics because we say they are, never mind the fact that their only crime was being victimized by a Beast".

Between this and the Heroes' final depiction, the implications should speak for themselves.

== The Insatiable ==

Since Heroes were a bit of an impotent wet fart as antagonists go (and even setting aside the problems with how they're written, mechanically they're just not much of a challenge to the average beast), the ''Conquering Heroes'' sourcebook (ironically) introduced a second set of villains for the gameline. Descended not from the Dark Mother but her mate, the Primogenitor (and later retconned to be the result of proto-Horrors which never bothered to form a Lair and embody human fears before claiming a human's body), the Insatiable's transformation has rendered them utterly inhuman, imbued with fears from an even-more-primordial time when the planet was hostile to all life, and claiming to be the Beasts' truest kinsfolk. The Beasts dispute the claim, violently, partly because they feel no kinship to them like the other monsters, partly because they're a bunch of sick fucks and no one wants to be related to ''that'', partly because they kill whenever they feed and never get full and partly because the Insatiable, rather than having Lairs of their own, typically try to invade the Beasts', draining their powers and trying to possess their bodies.

Did it work?

Well, on the one hand, they're definitely a cut above Heroes in terms of being a Beast character's natural enemies. On top of their power-stealing, and thus being natural predators-for-the-predators, they can force humans to do their bidding by driving them insane, a process called a "Schism," and turn into their giant monster shapes whenever they want rather than while in lairs. And they're divided by element-themed Moments rather than Families.

On the other hand, their examples a "scary" unattractive gamer girl/Internet troll named "Null Snyper" who pushes her victims to suicide, a lava golem called "the Authority" (no relation to the WWE), and The Blind Man, who must be read about to be believed:

<blockquote>''"The Blind Man's blotted clothing is as result of a thick trail of what resemble fish eggs progressively leaking from his navel, urethra, and anus. Particularly around his navel area, a coagulated mass of pink and black eggs comes forth when the Blind Man strains his abdominal muscles. Horrifyingly, the Blind Man has from time to time passed these eggs off as salmon roe or sturgeon caviar, as they bear a sour, fishy odor. Those who consume his “produce” have their fertility dramatically increased, and gradually produce their own eggs in a similar fashion to the Blind Man, the only difference being that mortal-produced eggs possess a coat of thin white fur. This invariably drives the afflicted unfortunates insane, as they cannot stop the egg production, resulting in self-destructive harm. The Blind Man believes that by participating in the birthing, they increase the speed at which the Primogenitor will be reborn."'' --Night Horrors: Conquering Heroes</blockquote>

Yes, it's basically saying that he pisses, shits, and cums fish eggs, and tricks people into eating them so they also piss, shit, and cum fish eggs. Truly a creation even [[/d/]] would be hard-pressed to appreciate.

And that's just their fluff. Their crunch is an absolute clusterfuck since they use Satiety faster than they could possibly gain it- the only way they could use their own powers is by either Storyteller fiat or the presence of a virtually endless number of lesser Beasts they kill offscreen. It's obvious that an editor was never involved either, since their rules reference non-existent Tilts and are written so vaguely it's hard to tell what their powers actually ''do''.

=== Insatiable Moments ===
As previously stated, the Insatiable are divided among "Moments" rather than Families. A Moment represents different aspects and terrors drawn from moments in time outside written history. From the ice age to the vacuum of space. The book says they aren't limited to primordial eras, though. Giving an example of an Insatiable of Molten Earth projecting the feelings of violence and hatred for fellow human beings, while a Freezing Hell may cause people in the area to become obsessed with hoarding food and possessions in preparation for the apocalypse.

===Clashing Faults===
Earth elementals, cave shelters that collapse without warning, mountains crumbling before earthquakes. Essentially stone cold assholes that brutalize then devour their victims. They like everything being in caves, valleys, or underground, especially if it makes it easier to suffocate people.

===Freezing Hell===
ICE! ICE! MORE ICE! They're not just about the creatures under and over the ice, but the starvation and exposure animals go through in desperate search of food and warmth in an otherwise barren land of ice. Every FH is literally ice cold, from their touch to their blood temperature. They're the most likely to actually store their victims in ice boxes and freezers.

===Molten Earth===
Your classic magma boys. They love fire, heat, and how billions of years ago the world was made of molten rock, waterfalls of molten lead, and molten hot pockets. As expected, they're hot tempered, violent, and very good at cooking in the kitchen. They're pyromaniacal sadists with a fetish for burns, kindling, and charred husks.

===Primordial Seas===
Believing their founder to have been a giant jellyfish, these guys like to think they're Makara but better. Much like a college teen, they suffer disproportionate amounts of anxiety, hate resting, and become paranoid as fuck. And, much like the classical college student, they will strike first at the nearest source of food to show dominance over the rest of their kind. They apparently feel the effects of hunger more keenly than their "siblings," and get violent when feeding.

===Void===
The black sheep of black sheep, the Void are black holes, unknown distances, and the terror of infinity. They like Cthulhu, sci-fi, inter-dimensional conspiracies, and the idea of sucking people's brains out with bendy straws.

==Inheritances==
Inheritances are the "endgame" for a Beast, the result of how they reconcile their mortal lives with their Horror's Legend, the metaphysical framework that provides context to their existence.

===Merger===
This Inheritance happens when a Beast's lair is destroyed, either intentionally by the Beast or by someone else's actions. The Horror merges with the Beast, destroying any trace of self-awareness or humanity and devolving the Beast into a monster that exists only to feed.

===Retreat===
Normally if a Beast dies, the Horror dies with it. But when a Beast dies while its Horror is slumbering, the Horror survives and continues to exist as an ephemeral being that continues to fuck with human dreams. Infamous because of its poor wording: if the right conditions are met (having your power stat at 10 and making your Horror get the Slumbering condition, then dying and getting enough successes) the Unfettered Horror becomes a rank 10 Ephemeral entity, one of the most powerful beings in all of Chronicles of Darkness.

===Divergence===
A more obscure form of Inheritance, where the Beast deliberately starves himself nearly to death while keeping the Horror cooped up in its Lair until the Horror tries to eat him out of desperation and fury. The Beast responds in kind, and after enough time eating each other the Beast and Horror both become half dream and half flesh. They remain connected to one another to some degree, but the Beast no longer has to appease the Horror's Hunger for it. However, both halves are also somewhat less powerful for it- the Beast can't use most Atavisms, the Horror can't use most Nightmares, and both of them draw from the same pool of Satiety. More importantly, the Horror gets to manifest outside of the Primordial Dream at will, and the Beast can't control what it does. And it'll probably be pissed at the Beast for trying to starve it.

===Erasure===
Some Beasts really want to be human again, but since the Horror eats your soul when you become a Beast they need to get creative. To do this, they need both a new soul and some way to kill their Horror (most likely involving another supernatural or even a Hero). If they're successful, they become more or less human but can still use Nightmares and Birthrights. The catch? They can only regain Satiety by eating the flesh of other Beasts and can never become another type of supernatural due to pissing off the Dark Mother.

===Inversion===
Some Beasts look at themselves and realize that they hate what they've become, but don't just commit suicide or seek Divergence or Erasure. Instead, they go a step further and seek revenge against the Dark Mother directly: they travel to the Bright Dream (better known as the Temenos to mages), study their effects on the world around them until they can craft an Anathema weapon against their Horror, and use said Anathema to bring it to a state of near-death. When this happens, they lose the ability to gain or use Satiety in any way but retain most of their powers and gain the ability to place Anathemas on other Beasts. From there they quickly go on to begin hunting other Beasts in the hope of hurting the Dark Mother as much as possible before they die.

===Incarnate===
The most complex Inheritance and the one that the game pushes as the "best" one. After reaching a certain amount of Lair, an aspiring Beast must do one of the following things:
*Subvert a Hero's narrative by thoroughly destroying the Hero before he/she can even retaliate
*Become the Apex of the local Hive and visit their hunger on other Beasts
*Spawn a Legend by feeding their Horror in a spectacularly grandiose manner.

By changing their Legend into a Myth, an Incarnate gains the following powers:
*They can transform into their Horror in the physical world, gaining a bunch of stuff like extra limbs, natural armor, and so on when they do so.
*They become immune to Anathemas and can in fact de-power Heroes just by touching them.
*They can enter the Primordial Dream at will.
*They can never become Ravenous or Slumbering, though they still retain the ability to use Satiety and can gain the benefits/drawbacks of high and low Satiety.
*Their Life and Legend is replaced by a Myth. However, if they lose control of their Myth, they lose all their Incarnate powers and anybody can place Anathemas on them. Good fucking luck with that when you remember all the shit they can pull.

== Attempts to fix ==

Strangely enough, players have tried tying the splat with the "Inferno" blue book, since the splat shares a lot of terminology with said-book. This begs the weird comparison where Demon: the Descent v. Beasts is like the Demons vs Devils Blood War in D&D. Does it fix the splat? Depends on who you ask.

Another, less malefic option is that you play as a guardian protector Beast who stays his darker nature by being around those less villainous kin. This is done by abusing the shit out of the "Family Dinner" mechanic, which essentially allows a Beast to never go hungry so long as they watch kin feed, eg. Changelings harvesting glamour, mages doing oblations, Prometheans fucking power outlets, etc. And, to be honest, it's not a half-bad metaphor, that we are all of us more vulnerable to our darker impulses when we try going at life alone. But, when surrounded by friends who care about you, who will stick by you through thick and thin, you can become something truly indomitable.

= In short =

Arguably the ''real'' NWoD/CoD equivalent of [[Changeling: The Dreaming]]<ref>In that it's a tonal mess, got some serious issues about "yeah but what do they ''do''?", and seemingly not liked by anybody but the author(s).</ref>, but written by a pervert who probably got beat up in school a lot. Also, this game should really be called "Abuser: The Gaslighting".

==See Also==
*[http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/kurieg/beast-the-primordial/ FATAL and Friends' scathing review, which sums up everything wrong with Beast]
*[http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/kurieg/beast-night-horrors-conquering-heroes/ The review for Conquering Heroes, which brought us The Blind Man up there]
*[https://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/kurieg/beast-the-primordial-players-guide/ And the one for the Player's Guide]
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