OOC thread

[Ranger Princess]

Re: OOC thread

Second time's a charm then I guess. But yeah I love Adria, and so does Eliza. Maybe the only person inside her black little heart.

Haha, maybe that's why Eliza was teasing her so much about having the angel costume. Now that I look at it, the girl there does kinda like innocent. I'm sure it's not a perfect match, but the mannerisms just kinda reminded me of her.

Also, wow that guy has some pretty cool pics. I found some other neat stuff from other artists on that website too.

 

[dmronny]

Re: OOC thread

You're right Adria did a much better job of making a complete and utter slave to her will the second time around.

That's actually why I put her in the angel costume, it seemed to fit her demeanor better. Even if her nature is the complete opposite. The girl in the picture does have an innocent look about her, it's just the blood on her lips kind of draws attention from the innocent part.

 

[Ranger Princess]

Re: OOC thread

In other words, Eliza is her favorite.

 

[dmronny]

Re: OOC thread

Yep, the favorite and the first target if someone else decides to take Adria out. Thankfully Jourdain isn't the insanely jealous type who would flip out and destroy the only thing his dear sister ever loved so that her heart could be as black as his. The frightening part of course being that Jourdain and Eliza are actually nice people compared to most of the clan. Adria is actually like the rest of the clan but they're to blinded by love to notice or care at least right now they are.

On the plus side at least we aren't Giovanni, which would add at least several levels of weirdness to the story.

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: OOC thread

Which one? The incestuous layer? or the hang out with shambling zombies layer?

 

[dmronny]

Re: OOC thread

Well you could technically combine both those layers, which is why the other clans tend to look at the Giovanni so oddly. However I was leaning towards the incestuous layer with the familial angle I've been using for the Lasombra characters. Especially since there are already shambling zombies running around the chamberlain's mansion, so we already kind of hang out with them. We just don't "hang out" with them like the Giovanni do.

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: OOC thread

I've never understood the in game reason for that. Why do the Giovanni do that?

 

[dmronny]

Re: OOC thread

I don't really understand the incest part myself nor do I really understand the mafia thing they seem to have going on. I understand the zombies of course since they're a clan of necromancers.

Of course technically they aren't even all Giovanni since there is something like a dozen different families in the clan: Dunsirn, Pisanob, Rosselini, Milliner, etc, etc. Honestly it almost seems like they were trying to come up with something for pure shock value when they made the Giovanni

 

[Ranger Princess]

Re: OOC thread

I've always kinda liked the Giovanni. I'm not so much into the zombie stuff, but wraith communication just sounds so cool to me. And I think the family is a neat concept if not taken super serious. It's just so hard to incorporate them for an actual PC.

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: OOC thread

I actually like the idea of the Giovanni too. The whole idea of a family concept is similar to the close knit ties of the Tremere. Necromancy secrets are similar to thaumaturgy secrets as well.

I suppose you could run a Giovanni campaign, or have a Giovanni character sent as a liason to the local Camarilla powerholders.

 

[Ranger Princess]

Re: OOC thread

Yeah I really like them too. For the longest time, I was trying to figure out a way to fineagle an embrace for them (though I never really considered them for any of my players in DotD). It's tough because of their weakness and the way their family handles the embrace.

The way I was thinking it was some lower Giovanni wanted to embrace someone but it had to be secret or they'd be punished by the family. So they made a deal with a Toreador or a Lasombra (seemed like the most fitting clans to me) to help with the embrace and then pretend to be the sire of that childe while the emo-ish Giovanni meets in secret with their childe every so often. Otherwise, the character would have to have a long relationship with the family to be embraced. Thing is, said Toreador or Lasombra would have to have a REALLY good reason to do that since they'd basically be giving up their chance to have a childe of their own for a while. As you can see, it's complicated.

 

[dmronny]

Re: OOC thread

I don't really care for the Giovanni myself, though I think they could be fixed easily enough. I love the various necromancy powers. The idea of a family of vampires is interesting but they did a poor job of presenting it in my opinion. I honestly think they would work better as one of the many bloodlines remaining of the former Cappadocian clan than as a clan in their own right. I would say they should never have killed the Cappadocians off but the Giovanni were technically invented before their parent clan.

As they are written the only way to really play as a Giovanni, at least in the typical coterie based game, is as Blue pointed out. A Giovanni based campaign which of course limits other clans, or simply have their sire be the clan liaison to either the Sabbat or the Camarilla. In the latter it's not really much different from playing a Tremere in that they both answer to clan over sect.

You're idea might work except that meeting in secret is going to be awful hard with all those ghosts everywhere watching and willing to sell you out to the rest of the family for torturing them. Still that only makes it sound more interesting. I can't really see the Toreador involved in such a deal I would think the Ventrue more likely myself. And the Lasombra probably wouldn't mind since they can technically make as many childer as they want, since there isn't anyone around to tell them no in the Sabbat. Of course it would still have to be a pretty sweet deal for both clans to do anything for a Giovanni.

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: OOC thread

I'd be fine with a GM just rewriting the Giovanni/Cappadocian history... have the Giovanni be an offshoot of the Cappadocian clan that somehow betrayed the other bloodlines.

They could be responsible for hiding the other Capps behind the Kaymakli barrier. Same sense of betrayal, same inheritance of necromancy crown, but less tied to simply being mafiosos.

Addendum: Playing a Giovanni would also necessitate involving some crossover with Wraith: the Oblivion, which is certainly intriguing but requires learning more background stuff and also mulling over the Week of Nightmares conundrum.

 

[dmronny]

Re: OOC thread

I think it would be a fairly simple rewrite. Let's see you have the Cappadocians and then their bloodlines the Giovanni, Lamia, Samedi, Premascines, and the Harbingers of Skulls. I think that's all of them at least.

I would work along the lines that Ashur/Cappadocius had 3 childer: Augustus Giovanni (Giovanni), Japheth (Samedi), and Lazarus (Harbingers of Skulls), Lamia was embraced by Lazarus. Giovanni was embraced as you said to aid in imprisoning Lazarus and the his branch of Cappadocians behind the barrier during the feast of folly. These later become the Harbingers of Skulls and it gives them a reason to hate the Giovanni.

At some point Ashur and a large number of the Capps decide to go to the Shadowlands because well he's fascinated with death and what better place to study it. At some point Giovanni gives the Camarilla permission to hunt down the remaining Lamia, since they are even more a masquerade breech than the Samedi and Nosferatu. Which of course scares the hell out of the Samedi who remain nominally "friendly" with the Giovanni but otherwie avoid them and the Camarilla. The Premascines are the few remaining Cappadocian advisors of Giovanni who is ostensibly the leader of the Cappadocian family on earth.

It gets rid of the weird mafia thing they seem to have going and actually goes a way toward explaining the number of necromancy using lines. It also doesn't change things too much to make them unrecognizable. At least that's how I would do it and it would probably need some details hammered out.

And yes it does help to know Wraith a little even if you don't necessarily use wraiths as they are written in their splat. The week of nightmares always messes everything up which is why I never used it. Granted I conveniently never ran a game during or after the week of nightmares so that helped.

Any questions, comments, funny stories about getting your arm caught in a cheese grater?

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: OOC thread

Sounds like a good way of working it out. I'd play any modern vampire game with that backstory implemented, and would be fine with completely ignoring the week of nightmares, keeping the shadowlands intact, because I find the wraith backstory neat and didn't like them completely killing it off.

I'd be very tempted to play a Giovanni in such a setting.

 

[dmronny]

Re: OOC thread

Yeah I didn't like how they handled any of the Gehenna/Apocalypse/etc. stuff which is why I've never run such a scenario. The Week of Nightmares being a sort of harbinger for said end of the world. Plus as you said the backstory for Wraith was too good to just kill them all off, even if I would probably never play a game of Wraith I still love the splat.

I like that it makes it so much easier to incorporate Giovanni characters into your typical game without the typical baggage that makes them undesirable to me. Maybe some people like the incestuous mafioso thing but I personally thought it took away too much from their being the clan of death.

Now I just need to decide if Saulot was the most evil, depraved, and corrupted mastermind ever or if he really was just the undead Mr Rodgers. That's a bit more difficult since I actually like both ideas. While I'm thinking that over I'll go post.

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: OOC thread

Hah... like we'll ever find out the answer to that with this group...

Unless you pull out the ol' put us all into torpor for 1000 years and have us wake in modern nights.

 

[Ranger Princess]

Re: OOC thread

I think that sounds like a pretty neat set up too, Ronny. Only thing is I've never liked the idea of the Lamia being extinct. They are just too cool to be gone. That's just a personal thing on my part.

Still, most of my players are set with clans now too, and if I actually GMed a Giovanni thread, it would most definitely fall short of lore expectations but maybe not other areas. x.x Still a pretty cool idea though.

 

[dmronny]

Re: OOC thread

1,000 years might be a little rough, though I was thinking of eventually using ye ol' torpor ploy at some point. Either to the Victorian Age or to the 1930's-40's period because I always thought a noir setting would be cool for vampire. Still wouldn't be very likely to find that out with this group though.

I like the Lamia too, obviously or I wouldn't have one as an NPC. Still I can understand them being extinct in the modern age. Causing unusual plagues is a pretty big breach of the masquerade. Of course being extinct doesn't necessarily mean they are completely gone. I myself have a soft spot for Ahrimanes which are also supposedly extinct.

Well if you ever wonder about any lore I can always spout off some random facts for a number of clans and bloodlines. I'm sort of like a rules lawyer except I memorize fluff instead of crunch.

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: OOC thread

Ahrimanes are cool too. Too bad they're only sabbat.

They're like a female "Nightwolf" from Mortal Kombat series. Green glowy native american spirit weapons.

I'd agree that Lamia would be troublesome in the modern nights, but they're no more so a masquerade breach than the Nagaraja. In very low numbers, they could survive, especially if they took care to always kill their prey to prevent the spread of disease.