The Begotten are born of primal horror, the simple, revolting, visceral fears that plague people the world over. Beasts can harness the power of these fears and inflict them upon others, to exert control, make a target isolated and paranoid, and even kill with pure terror.
Beasts of any Family or Hunger can learn any Nightmare; fears of illness, isolation, death, and justice are common and easy for any Beast to harness. The Children can also call upon their Kinship with other supernatural creatures to create new and unique Nightmares. These Kinship Nightmares can be quite broad (You Are Infected could stem from any vampire), specific to a subset of the creature in question (Your Tools Betray You might be created from an Iron Master werewolf), or based on one particular character. So if my Beast is down with, say, Zita Vargas, the example of character creation from Geist: The Sin-Eaters (I would have used one from Vampire or Werewolf 2nd Ed, but they don’t have example characters, lamentably, and Promethean isn’t out yet), then he might have a Nightmare that calls on fears of car accidents and losing control of a vehicle. Call it You Cannot Stop or something like that. Beast has a section on designing Kinship Nightmares that explains how to make sure the systems jibe with the rest of the game, our basic design principles in making them up, and how to avoid redundancy with the existing, common Nightmares. Several of our playtesters came up with their own, which they’re welcome to share in the comments.
Nightmares, unlike Atavisms (which we’ll get to next week) work better if the Beast is well-fed. If the Beast is hungry, she can’t focus as well on the Nightmares – they’re still potent, but they get a lot more so if Satiety is high. The player can also spend a point of Satiety for a truly impressive effect.
So, perhaps an example? OK, then. I’ll give ya two, a common Nightmare and a Kinship Nightmare.
All Your Teeth Are Falling Out
Your body is a ruin of wasted flesh and ragged skin. Age, disease, or infirmity have robbed you of your vitality, left you helpless and weak as the predators close in.
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Satiety vs. Stamina + Supernatural Tolerance
Normal: The victim suffers a –2 penalty to all Physical traits, and temporarily loses access to Striking Looks or any similar Trait dependent on physical beauty. This penalty also applies to derived Traits (e.g. Health, Speed, Defense, etc.)
High Satiety: On Physical actions where the number of successes matter (such as in combat or during an extended action), any normal success generates only a single success, no matter how many were rolled. An exceptional success yields two.
Satiety Expenditure: The player may spend multiple Satiety on this effect. For every Satiety spent, the Beast may reflexively cause the victim to fail a single Physical action.
Exceptional Success: The victim also applies a –2 penalty to his Defense.
You Are Lost (Changeling)
It was just here. Wasn’t it? Were you supposed to turn left back there? None of this looks familiar, and night is closing in fast.
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Satiety vs. Resolve + Supernatural Tolerance
Normal: The victim gains the Lost Condition. A successful navigation roll does not resolve the Condition until the Nightmare’s duration expires; instead, a successful navigation roll lets the victim make a single roll in an extended action to reach his goal.
High Satiety: Every time the victim fails a navigation roll while he has the Lost Condition, he suffers a dramatic failure.
Satiety Expenditure: The Beast may spend 1 Satiety when the victim fails a navigation roll. The victim’s hallucinations guide him into one of the many alternate realities that abut the World of Darkness: the Shadow, the Underworld, or the Hedge, for example. The Beast has no control over exactly where the victim winds up.
Exceptional Success: The Beast can apply the Lost Condition relative to some abstract goal rather than literally “finding your way.” She might, for example, render the victim hopelessly lost on how to proceed in writing a book or closing a business deal. Adapt the skill used for navigation rolls as necessary (in the examples of writing a book or making a deal, navigation rolls might be Wits + Academics or Manipulation + Persuasion, respectively).
Comments
62 responses to “[Beast]Nightmares”
Please, sir, I want some more.
Since the nightmares don’t have a specified duration, I’m going to guess that a Nightmare’s duration depends on the Beast’s Satiety?
Actually, by default they last a scene. Sorry, maybe should have mentioned that.
Well that was anti-climactic.
There are no words to accurately describe how awesome this is! ????
*how awesome this is!!!!!
I’m personally very excited for this system; I love being able to create unique powers. I’m a little concerned because I have players that tend to be poor at it. Do you think players will be able to get a good experience out of the game without using the Kinship Nightmare option to create their own powers?
I think so, but I also think that with some guidance, they could still do it, even if it’s not normally in their wheelhouse.
That’ll do. I just don’t want to have to put all my eggs in the player input basket. I love it when they add to the game and create things but sometimes that spark just isn’t there for them.
These are very VERY nasty. Nightmares are deserving of their name!
Scary. So, less direct copying, more thematically similar kinship powers.
I like how the Nightmares are all titled in 2nd person. You’re assaulting not just the character with these powers, but the players and readers as well. Truly devious!
I also like how the Exceptional Successes are really nasty. It’s rare enough to get 5 successes on a roll, even moreso if it’s Contested, so it’s great that Nightmare ESs are particularly rewarding.
[quote]I like how the Nightmares are all titled in 2nd person. You’re assaulting not just the character with these powers, but the players and readers as well.[/quote]Good observation.
EVERYTHING IS AWESOME FOE-EVEH!!
Just how “real” are these to the victims? If someone has ‘All Your Teeth’ inflicted upon them, do they actually become wasted and withered, albeit temporarily, or do they just SEE themselves wasting away, trapped in a waking nightmare (as it were)?
Judging on how you lose striking looks guess it is real.
Every time the victim fails a navigation roll while he has the Lost Condition, he suffers a dramatic failure.
Does he get to take a Beat for that dramatic failure?
I’m pretty sure by default that unless a power/mechanic says you don’t, you still always get a beat for a dramatic failure.
Those are some scary powers! Can they be taken as the player will, or are they part of a progression?
They’re discrete. I’m not big on progressive powers (see also Demon).
Excellent news!
Is anything going to be done to make navigating them easier? Without the progression of a Discipline it’s hard to focus attention on where to look. It’s one of the things that I am finding slows down my Demon game the most – flicking through the book looking for the specific Embed someone wants to use. I probably shouldn’t have to use the WoD Index online to find the page reference.
I’ve started to write down page numbers on character sheets to deal with this. I love WoD but one thing it does not do well is indices, even when it has them.
That leads to things like starting characters able to freeze someone in time or drop them in an extra-dimensional oubliette.
And what’s the problem with that?
Absolutely nothing in my book.
I love being able to do that.
Can Beasts create Kinship Nightmares from the antagonists of other game lines, such as Angels, Strix, Pandorans, or Abyssal Manifestations?
Probably not angels, but otherwise, sure, why not?
Is there a reason you get count Angels as Kin on a theme level? Or is it more a ‘the system doesn’t jive well with how angels operate’ sort of deal?
Presumably, angels don’t count as cousins for the same reason demons don’t. (In my Beast chronicle, if I ever have one, this will extend to any other process of the God-Machine — i.e. definitely stigmatics and possibly, depending on how I come down, qashmallim.)
Can you do it from demisplats? Say, could a ghoul give rise to a Nightmare along the lines of “they can do what you can, but don’t have your limits”?
What about Inferno Demons, as opposed to God-Machine Demons?
Now this is is a question I’m actually interested in getting an answer to.
Now this is interesting. I like the idea of wielding nightmares and fear as a weapon. Though I worry it could become a little one note with a group of beast players afflicting targets with a range of horrible curses.
Also beast meet the autumn court, autumn court meet the personification of primordial human fears. I think you two could really hit it off.
I worried about Nightmares being one-not, too, but they’re really pretty diverse in effect.
I can see an Anakim or Tyrant using All Your Teeth Are Falling Out, since it emphasizes the powerlessness of the target. And You Are Lost sounds like it’s right in the wheelhouse of the Eshmaki.
So,No nightmares that cause earthquakes or mind control of several people?nothing in a big scale?
Nightmares don’t really cause earthquakes (though a Nightmare certainly could capitalize on that humbling terror you get when you’re caught in a natural disaster). But there are other ways.
there are other ways to cause earthquakes?
I’m going to hazard a guess that the Anakim have a monstrous strength Atavism going on, and could stomp continents out of alignment if they *really* want to.
I know it’s just an example, but “A successful navigation roll does not resolve the Condition until the Nightmare’s duration expires; instead, a successful navigation roll lets the victim make a single roll in an extended action to reach his goal”?
So the victim makes a navigation roll, and if they succeed, they are then allowed to make a navigation roll (or another roll if you’re making him ‘lost’ in a more abstract sense)?
Not exactly; normally the Lost Condition resolves when you make a single Wits + Survival roll as an instant action (Wits + Streetwise in urban environments); the Condition then goes away and you can proceed as normal–which usually means no further rolls unless you’re trekking through hostile or dangerous territory.
With the Nightmare in effect, any travel at all becomes an extended action, with dice pool and required successes determined by the ST (Strength + Athletics on foot, maybe, or Dexterity + Drive in a car). You make one navigation roll, and you’re “un-lost” long enough to make one roll, whatever interval the ST decides is appropriate.
So, where is the influx of glorious playtesters to share their genius with us?
And how might we join their ranks??
I suspect we are a little late for that.
Crossovers!
I like that a Begotten might act as a link between monsters. My friends and I enjoy mixed games, but it’s been tricky to do so with any kind of large justification outside of “we all happen to be ambassadors.”
“You were all friends before you turned. It might be Fate.”
“You were all interested in monsters before you became monsters.”
“You were all present when something ‘transformative’ happened.”
“Something *big* is going down, and you need help from another context to deal with it.”
“One of you is fascinated with mysteries or other supernaturals, and deliberately seeks them out.”
I absolutely love You are Lost’s satiety addon.
Overall, good work. I’m very much looking forward to Beast.
I get the teeth thing sometimes. It’s interesting you use a Changeling example since Beasts now bear a striking resemblance to CWoD Changelings, i.e. a primal soul born to a modern person, only with humanities earliest dreams switched to its earliest nightmares.
Do beasts and their lairs show the symbols of Pandemonium under mage sight? I’m getting a very Jungian vibe form Beasts and Heroes.
These are very interesting powers.
Is the source of a Kinship power immune to it? If it’s based on why [i]they’re[/i] scary and all.
Is it weird that reading about Beast makes me hungry?
This is all great, but now I want to know what next week’s blog posts will be!
Thinking about other nightmare power titles based on the classics.
You Didn’t Study For The The Exam
You Are Naked In Public
It’s Right Behind You
“You have no mouth but you must scream.”
How about, “You try to scream, but no sound comes out?” That’s a nightmare I can remember having many times.
How about “No One Can Hear You Scream”?
Sounds like a good effect to unleash before devouring some unfortunate soul without disturbing the neighbours : )
Better yet use it on a mage. There will be no chanting of arcane languages in my presence thank you very much.
Hey if hanging out with the changelings teaches a beast “you are lost” does hanging out with werewolves teach “you are forsaken”
Perhaps an effect that generates I’ll feeling between friends and Denys access to allies?
Sounds reasonable to me.
Something Just Moved In Your Stomach
What Was That In The Mirror?
You Can’t Run Fast Enough
Where Is That Music Coming From?
Where Did Everyone Go?
All Your Teeth Are Falling out is simply ridiculously overpowered. -2 to all physical attributes for the scene? That’s just wow…
I am no expert in mechanics, but wow… these Nightmares really do pack a punch. Are you sure they are balanced?
Wednesday. Still no new Beast blog posts.
Satiety at dangerously low levels.
As someone who suffered (and occasionally still suffers) vivid nightmares, here are some I’ve woken from screaming or weeping. I’ve no ideas on what sort of powers you might associate with them in game, but have fun.
Sadistic Choices are for me the worst sort of nightmare–choose between, say, your mother or your father, stand and watch as one suffers some unthinkable torture.
On this note, Being Forced To Watch is frequently its own nightmare, but it is different, because it doesn’t come with the same amount of crushing guilt afterwards.
Nothing Is Real/You Can’t Wake Up is sometimes hard to articulate the true terror of. But it is very frightening to not know if you are really yourself or if your surroundings even exist, to not able to trust your own senses, and that terror follows you for the next several hours after you wake.
Some others:
No One Will Ever Believe You
Spiders Everywhere
Eyes Torn Out
Falling
It’s Watching You
Can’t Move
Hope that lends someone a bit of inspiration.