LeviathanTempest:SatchelDumpingGround

Specimens

These are Satchel's contributions to the sample Specimens (Leviathan Z-Splat) for the School of the Sun and the School of Fog.

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Friar Lantern

The School of the Sun are a religious bunch, and Friar Lantern is one of the poster boys for this truism. He's a real believer in the Primordial Waters and Tiamat and her kids. Having been brought up as a dyed-in-the-wool evangelical, though, he takes issue with the whole "destroy this diluted Creation" facet of his heritage.

So he strives to be good and spread the word of the Progenitors, which is tricky to do without sounding like a doomsayer and a madman. All the same, he's managed to amass a small cult who he mostly keeps to good ways.

+1 to transforming in either direction.

Unique Disruptions:

6: Neglecting an opportunity to fulfill a Virtue.

4: Denying the existence of the Progenitors.

Evolutions:

Wickedness Grants No Reward (O, Lambent Eyes of Judgement, requires Lantern of Shame): At Depth 1 and below, Lantern can spend a point of Ichor. If a character fulfills a Vice within Lantern's Wake, he does not gain a point of Willpower, and instead loses a point of Willpower. The target cannot gain Willpower from fulfilling his Vice for the rest of the scene.

Placid Waters, Calm Soul (OOO, Eye of the Eternal Storm): At Depth 3 and below, the Friar can automatically succeed at an attempt to resist the effects of a derangement by spending a point of Ichor.

Favored Son of Nunet (OOOO, Fluid Icon of Grace, requires Liquid Evasion): At Depth 2 and below, the Friar may reflexively spend 1 Ichor to perfectly dodge an attack. Lantern may do this as many times per turn as half his Sheol, rounded up.

Friar Lantern's unique power grants him divine reward for resisting his base urges. Once per story, when the Friar fulfills his Virtue, he completely refills his Ichor pool in addition to his Willpower pool.

Rumors of the Friar

The man's insane. He hides it well, but he's going off the deep end and fast. Word on the street is he's picked up this crazy notion that he's "saving" people by taking them into his cult. He's one indiscretion away from going completely old-school, fire-and-brimstone zealot, and when he does, people are going to notice.

Ever see Fight Club? Tyler Durden's got nothing on the preacher. He's been sleeping less and less and the sorry bums in his cult are getting confused. C'mon, let's go steal some space monkeys.

He talks with some very weird people, our Friar. Just the other night I saw him chatting away with some pale guy over at Biers. Seemed a bit of a dry fella, looked at his drink like it ate his dog or something.

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Bahamut1984

Bahamut1984 is not a subtle man, but he doesn’t have to be; he gets the answers he’s looking for sooner or later. As an avid net-surfer and research buff, his first recourse to answering a question is typically to ask everyone he knows.

Bahamut1984 is also not an active man. Again, he doesn’t have to be. He’s set up shop in an old library basement, where he acts as a supercomputer for his sparse cult and monitors as much as he can manage, which is quite a lot. He's recently run into difficulties with the School of Clay over the several social-networking sites he runs explicitly for the Wicked Tribe, but results are results.

+2 to becoming more monstrous.

Unique Disruptions:

5: Knowingly telling an untruth.

1: Refusing to answer a question asked.

Harmonic Triangulation (O, Blood in the Water, requires Peer Through the Depths and Flesh of the Earth OOOO) At Depth 5 and below, Bahamut1984 may see through solid objects using the Peer Through the Depths Evolution as though they were one “category” less by spending points of Ichor. So, by spending one point of Ichor, he can see unimpeded through an inch of heavy metal, a foot of metal, ten feet of stone, or twenty feet of porous barriers such as foliage per dot of Sheol he possesses. (He can also see through fifty feet of smoke per dot of Sheol.) Each additional point of Ichor shifts the effective category back by one, to a limit of fifty feet per dot of Sheol for any material.

Tree of Knowledge (OOO, Everflowing Fetid Growth, requires Memories Before Time) At Depth 3 and below, Bahamut1984 can grant recipients Skills with the use of this Channel and concurrent additional Ichor costs of Memories Before Time.

Tireless Quest For Wisdom (OOOO, No Mysteries Of The Flesh) At Depth 1 and below, Bahamut1984 only needs to sleep for one hour per night and is immune to penalties due to fatigue. He may go without sleep for a number of days equal to the higher of his Stamina and Resolve before passing out, at which point he sleeps for six hours plus one hour for every twelve hours over twenty-four hours he stayed awake.

Bahamut1984’s unique power calls up a lot of nervous Big Brother jokes among those who know about it. At Depth 6, his sensory range extends to cover the reaches of any electrical system his Wake overlaps at least one part of. He can see via power lines, lightbulbs, and other electrical devices and relays, and can benefit from any sensory powers he has access to through this conduit. He is immobile while this power is active.

Rumors of the Watcher

He’s turning into an honest-to-Tanin tree. Go down and visit him sometime, you’ll see. Man, I didn’t even think we could do that…

Have you checked you checked his Twitter lately? He’s been sleeping more and more lately, and he swears he’s seen stuff that doesn’t make sense. You want a link to the dream journal?

He’s putting a lockdown on visitors. Something about not being able to keep up with all the questions. Can something like that really drive you crazy?

Alternative Suggestions

Given that there seems to be a certain simultaneous predisposition towards emphasis on elemental symbolism and the "sea monster" interpretation of Leviathans, both of which I find detract from the notion of Leviathans as potential miniature eldritch abominations, I have set up this space for the purpose of working out possible alternatives for the emphases of the system and fluff. (Also I find the Leviathan model to be a potentially interesting "general model" for a shapeshifter splat.)

First Thoughts

Firstly, as mentioned on the thread, I feel that the emphasis on water is growing, at times, too strong, given that a) the concept behind the Progenitors owes itself as much to the void of space as to the ocean, b) the bias towards the ocean is limiting to characters focused inland [e.g. swamp monsters, giant lake catfish, or ambulatory plants (Shub-Niggurath had babies, too. Famous for it.)], and c) the big inspiration [Lovecraft] was by no means limited to aquatic aberrations [see the fungi from Yuggoth, shoggoths, the Colour Out of Space, etc]. Consolidating the system for immersion into a general system of environmental requirements (open sky for the Fisher Kings or equivalent, solid ground for Behemoths or equivalent, etc.), along with similar establishments of macrosystems for the entire "descendants of primordials" phylum, would be beneficial to the idea of making a useful general system.

Secondly, Tranquility, while an adequate Morality stat, seems as though it could use a minor change in how Typhons (Tranquility-0 Leviathans) are handled. Although the "threefold nature" of a Leviathan consists of god, beast and man, loss of Tranquility only renders transformation to a more human form (with less access to the "godly" powers of the Wicked Tribe) more difficult and confers no loss of ability to use the "divine" aspects of the Leviathan condition (Ichor, Channels, etc.). Coupled with the fact that "god" does not directly equate to "good" or "moral," an interpretation of Typhons more akin to "wicked primordial god (child sacrifice sold separately)" would be preferable to the current "mindless beast" interpretation.

Second Thoughts

In keeping with my earlier statement that having Leviathan as a general model for a shapeshifter splat would be nice, the main template should be as broadly applicable as possible. In this case, this means shapeshifting is limited to organic biological forms, typically inspired by something within the animal kingdom (though not necessarily). The connection with water, while useful, could be broadened to a more general connection with fluid media (anything that is easily changed or shifted, e.g. sand, clouds, and yes, water).

To expand upon the "environmental requirements" mentioned above, this should play into the rarity of Leviathans (and their non-aquatic cousins) and add to the out-of-the-way placement of high-Sheol Leviathans; the strictness of requirements should scale with Sheol and possibly bleed into the higher Depths as Sheol rises. (Another note: change all mentions of "Depth _ or lower" to "at least Depth _"; this is less confusing.) As an offhand concoction, I propose that Depth-bleedthrough occur at Sheol 6 and above (starting with Depth 5 at Sheol 6 and working up to Depth 1 at Sheol 10), requiring gradually less of the appropriate condition (so a Depth 1 Leviathan of sufficient power might only need to get their feet wet, while the same Leviathan would need to be immersed in water up to the waist at Depth 3 and up to the head at Depth 5). Alternately, have extra conditions for Apotheosis Form come into play at higher Sheol — this gets us the tree-people and the deep sea vent-worms with two or three extra requirements. The point of this is, Leviathans and their related cryptid-likes should be out of the way and hard to find in their monstrous forms; to wax Lovecraftean for a moment, the more powerful ones should feel Not Of This Earth — creatures who can't live in the light or on the land or around people. Heat, light, pressure and chemical setup seem like ideal starting points for these requirements. Possibly implement this in a manner similar to changeling frailties or vampiric bloodline weaknesses.

Speaking of vampires: the bloodsuckers do a Damned good job of acting as [potentially aquatic] Eldritch Abominations — read Night Horrors: Immortal Sinners (check out the Tatzlwurm or Billy Reed for a look at what I mean) or the clanbooks for the Gangrel (Of Rose and Thorn allows for that lovely arboreal creepiness and the clan's deal in general makes them very well-suited to being dead bestial gods at higher Blood Potency) and the Nosferatu (pretty much the authority on how the Blood can physically change you). Vampires don't need to breathe, can transform their bodies, and are very good at pulling the whole "get more alien with age" shtick. They're dead and dreaming during the day, to boot.

Because I will never shut up about the Size debate: the Giant Movie Monster is itself an Unbuilt Trope — watch The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms sometime. Giant things are not immune to bullets by sheer dint of their giantness. If a player wants to be able to pull a Godzilla or a Cloverfield, they ought to build for it. Four Ichor and a point of Willpower is not a "nuclear option"; plenty of the existing Depth 6 powers have that same cost sans Willpower and I don't think the Willpower point ups the ante all that much. Yes, getting from Depth 0 to Apotheosis costs six points of Ichor, but unless people are out to get you or you're particularly paranoid about getting put on a slab, there's no reason not to walk around in Depth 1, and Havoc rolls (really need a new term for that, since it's already being double-used by Genius and Mage) are trivially easy to succeed on with increasing momentum. I realize people will want to "be the Kraken" and drag a freighter under once in a while, but odds are quite good that most of the game will be taking place inland; going for Tier 3 stuff like breaking an aircraft carrier in half is all well and good, but if we don't cover the street-level Tier 1 stuff first things will get, for lack of a better term, screwed up. Give A Mountain Walked some actual bite in terms of cost. It should not be so trivially easy to invoke at the level of "lol naval frigate." If nothing else, make the Size increase cost Ichor on a per-point basis. Given the rate of progression for Ichor based on Sheol, cost will work as a better limiting factor than a cap would.

I feel I should point out that our character creation rules seem rather steep — other game lines don't force a derangement on a player who chooses to lower their starting Morality (Genius is not an official line and therefore is not being counted here) or, for that matter, any drawback except the loss of any benefits a starting Morality of 7 would have provided (extra starting fuel, supernatural abilities, lack of penalties, etc). We have here both the potential for multiple derangements (or a severe derangement — something the WoD corebook says is too problematic to give to a starting character as a Flaw, never mind as a punitive measure) and afflictions. In addition, the starting powers are somewhat lockstep; where other games have the starting requirement for power allocation simply be "at least one favored power" out of a group of three, we have things arranged such that one has to allocate two powers of three to a group of two.

Third Thoughts

The longer I look at it, the more this game seems like a Frankensteinean mash-up of the various splats rather than anything original. To wit:

1. Psychic powers, thralls and potent blood that gets more potent as one increases in power are well-represented in Vampire. (Ties to a Vice based on inborn splat are also explicitly illustrated in that game.)

2. Shapeshifting into a monstrous form with an associated PTSD-like effect on onlookers has been done with Lunacy in Werewolf, which has actual mechanics for it that doesn't require an esoteric sub-power to thwart technology. (Also, the failure to make good on the "Werewolf's Paleolithic, Leviathan's Paleozoic!" line means the two are drawing from the exact same era, except that Werewolf's First Tongue can actually pass for a pre-Babylonian language.)

3. A powerstat that represents greater insight into the nature of one's power and is increased by, among other things, Magic Archaeology, sounds an awful lot like Gnosis. A mental world with increasingly abstract layers that are only remotely safely accessible by one splat sounds quite a bit like the Astral Realms with respect to Mages. Also, similar to the Lunacy concern, memory-erasure seems to fall under a Quiescence-like effect.

4. Promethean did the monstrous mutant engine of destruction thing quite well already with Centimani and Pandoran Transmutations. Pandorans likewise pull off Typhons rather nicely with Titanic Form and Praecepitati. While we're at it, Ahabs can be done simply by having a particularly obsessive victim of fourth-stage Disquiet.

5. You're subsumed into a psychoactive realm and given over to your Vice when you hit Morality 0 in a certain otherworldly place. Are you a changeling turning into a True Fae or a leviathan turning into a Deep One?

[More in this space as consolidation continues.]