Prometheans come to life with very little understanding of themselves or the world around them. Residual memories from their constituent bodies and Azothic memory help, of course; they give the Created a grounding in language, movement, and the skills and knowledge they need to embark on their Pilgrimage.
But taking as read that a young Promethean understands the Pilgrimage in broad terms – I am not human, but that is what I can become – what is the next step? How does a Promethean refine the base lead of her existence into the gold of humanity?
The first steps are the five basic Refinements, which are:
- Aurum, the Refinement of Gold: The goal is to become human, and what better way than to live among people, to pretend to the human condition, and try to figure out what exact balance of humours will allow the transformation from Promethean to human? Mimics try to learn about humanity from whatever angle they can manage, reveling in the beauty and the horror of the human race. They take part in whatever human rituals they can, no matter how minor, because (especially at first) they have no good gauge for what is important and what isn’t. As a side effect, they alter their humours and manipulate the Divine Fire to induce a variety of emotional effects in the people around them. Example: He knows just about everything there is to know about the old man. He has to. He is the old man now. A month ago, when he came to the house to bring him his groceries and check his meds, he found the poor dear dead in bed. Quickly, respectfully, he buried him in the back under the flower bed. He would like that. Then, he stepped into his life. He’s been over every inch of the apartment: reading old letters and dog-eared books, looking through all of the photo albums, examining his clothes. Tomorrow, the grandchildren come. He is ready.
- Cuprum, the Refinement of Copper: The Created are not ready. That’s the whole point. They need to take it slow, observe the world around them, find an entry point. The Pariahs of the Refinement of Copper take this as their ethos: Reduce, but do not eliminate, contact. Speak when spoken to. Engage when sought. Share wisdom when it is requested. Pay attention. Some Created find Pariahs to be hyper-vigilant, wound too tightly, but the truth of the matter is that they are simply trying to take in so much information that they can’t help seem a little off. Example: Ila began as an obsessive effort to crack the Turing barrier, a chatbot to end all chatbots. When she started speaking in broken sentences without inputs to prompt her, though, her creator knew something was wrong, and only an open internet connection saved her from being deleted outright. Aware of her own fragility as nothing more than data, Ila hijacked a factory and constructed a body for herself. She avoids humans both because she fears them and because she is unused to independent articulation. She perseveres in the hope that someday, maybe, she can talk to her creator, and they won’t be afraid of her this time.
- Ferrum, the Refinement of Iron: The world is dangerous. Some of the dangerous are obvious – Pandorans, Centimani, alchemists, and the ever-present threat of Disquiet-infected humans. But many dangers are more ephemeral, and more insidious. Despair, grief, loneliness, dysmorphia. A Promethean needs to have the strength, both of body and of will, to carry on, and mustering that strength, tempering the body and soul into iron, is what drives the Titans. Some Prometheans mistake this Refinement for an exercise or combat regimen, but it is that and a philosophy of hope and fortitude. A Titan tests herself to the breaking point, growing stronger with each setback. Example: Alice was made by a man who wanted the perfect wife. Delicate, gentle Alice, who would ever be at his side. Needless to say, it didn’t go well, and Alice has had to learn to the hard way how to survive on her own. She is still beautiful, but on her own terms; taut muscle has replaced the soft limbs her creator gave her, and small fingers have grown firm and callused with hours upon hours of training. She’s made her body her own, decorated it with piercings and tattoos, and become a very different Alice than she was meant to be. She’s proud of that.
- Plumbum, the Refinement of Lead: What is a Promethean? What is the nature of the Divine Fire? How are Prometheans able to manipulate it, to leave their memories and teachings behind in Athanors, to form alchemical pacts with others of their kind? Azothic radiance alerts other Created and awakens Pandorans – can this fire be muffled? Amplified? The Originists‘ ethos, simply put, is “know thyself.” They record their Rambles, noting changes in their bodies as they learn and grow on the Pilgrimage, and they help other Prometheans master the basics of their condition. A Promethean cannot ignore what she is, they argue, to focus on what she could be. Example: For her, the transition from Copper to Lead was a natural one. She feels that her time as a Pariah prepared her for the path she now follows, but she has learned all she can on her own. Now it is time to find others of her kind. Lead has given her the ability to do so, but she is afraid. The only time she has spent with another of their kind was when she was created and that time was very brief. Now, she lurks in the shadows, watching other Prometheans at a distance and trying to work up the courage to make contact.
- Stannum, the Refinement of Tin: The world hates the Created. Savants and Originists might talk about how the world simply recoils from the power of the Divine Fire, but the Furies know masturbation when they see it. The world shuns the Prometheans because they are abhorrent. And sometimes, a Promethean sees this hatred and decides to earn it. Furies the the raging storm, the fury of the Divine Fire channeled to destructive ends. They call up lightning and hurl it at those they hate, loosing the Torment that festers in the heart of all Prometheans. Any of the Created can adopt the Refinement of Tin, instantly. And yet, this makes Stannum, in some ways a source of hope – it’s open to anyone, any time, even the Centimani. Example: He used to follow the Refinement of Cobalt but his time spent among the sick, the mad, and the weak made him cynical about humanity and his experiments became crueler, more pointless. Eventually, his phlegmatic humour got the better of him and he found himself dispassionately torturing the humans who crossed his path. In an effort to save himself, he allowed himself to fall to Tin. He is still cold and vicious towards those around him, but he is once again making progress on his Great Work, learning the lessons only a monster can learn. His sadism is no longer an indulgence distracting from the Pilgrimage, but a tool he learns to wield so that it doesn’t consume him.
And there ya have it: The 10 Refinements. Tune in Sunday to vote on next week’s topic!
Is good to see a disenting opinion IC on the nature of Disquiet in the Stannum writeup. Sometimes is hard to remember that the characters doesn’t have access to the rule books.
It’s also nice to see it presented as a source of hope and potential redemption. The actual bad thing is getting off the road of the Pilgrimage.
Is there any sort of threshold between basic and complex Refinements? Can a newly-made Promethean begin on an advanced Refinement, or must there be some Milestone crossed before she can adopt something more “niche”? Do Prometheans recognize a difference between the two tiers, and is there a difference beyond the classification?
You can’t begin on a complex Refinement, you have to learn it. There are a few ways to do that; the obvious one is “find a Promethean currently following it and apprentice,” but that’s not always easy. Fortunately some Created leave guidebooks, of a sort.
“but the Furies know masturbation when they see it” reads as non sequitur to me. I looked up masturbation in case there was some obscure meaning unknown to me. This does not appear to be a misspelling so I assume it is a metaphor. I don’t get it. If “the world shuns the Prometheans because they are abhorrent” then I don’t see a comparison to masturbation there. Since this group is disagreeing with the position that “the world simply recoils from the power of the Divine Fire” then how can they see Disquiet as masturbation. I don’t follow, and when a word with obvious imagery is used but seems out of place then I’m jarred out of my reading. Is Disquiet masturbation? Is causing Disquiet masturbation? I can’t help but think you’re doing it wrong. LOL
Basically: The Furies see the notion that the Divine Fire is just too awesome for the world as masturbatory.
Another way of looking at is that the idea of Disquiet being caused by the Azoth being too beautiful/powerful/true is a self-aggrandizing fantasy, with no other value than to comfort one’s self. Furies regard this as bullshit, recognizing that the Azoth is toxic to both world and soul. Anyone telling themselves differently had yet to feel the deepest stings of Torment and Disquiet.
Will there be any way recommended ways benchmark the progress of a promethean?
Is a promethean in stanuum more likely to adopt the refinement of flux?
I don’t understand the first questions.
Furies aren’t necessarily more likely to adopt Centimanus than any other Refinement, no. Furies are violent, spiteful, vengeful, and sometimes even petulant, but those are all very human things to be.
And now we may all celebrate 2nd Edition NWoD’s uncoupling of the human-state from moral behavior – yaaaaaaaaaaaaay
Part of being humanist is taking the bad with the good. 🙂
I love that Aurum example. He’s a wonderful illustration of the innocence and monstrousness of these creatures.
First: Thank you for Ille, I’ve always wanted to know if there could be a Promethean digital AI (she isn’t now, but she was for a while). Also, her origin is hilarious (congrats, you’ve passed the Turing Test! Too bad it’s because the computer now EXACTLY imitates a human, right down to the self-awareness and sapience).
Also, I like the idea some Furies became that way in an attempt to avoid losing what sanity and compassion they had left, or by barging back on to the Pilgrimage, all guns blazing. Shows the positive sides of it, even though they’re by default the dark side of the ostensibly human-seeking Refinements.
I was just about to say that about Stannum.
Will we be seeing anything on /how/ a Promethean comes to a Refinement?
I never quite grasped how one stumbles off the slab and somehow knows to follow a set of fairly complex philosophical principles, let alone knows enough of things arcane enough to follow two or more. It seems like the Created and literature related to them is far too scarce for the Refinements to really exist.
I’d think that our mysterious, slippy friend Azothic Memory points a new Promethean towards her first Refinement, and the Base Refinements (a term I have formally suggested to Matt that replaces ‘basic’ that sounds a little too Lloyd Dobler to me…) allow for some intuitive navigation.
I think it’s more a description of their general attitude to Humanity and their own life.
A lone Frankenstein could flee into the night (Cuprum) and spend a while wandering the wastes, talking to trees.
Then, perhaps, they might start wondering what the heck they *are* and switch to Plumbum.
After a few years experimenting, they trigger an angry mod that destroys their work. Wounded and seeking revenge, they switch to Stannum.
There’s no teacher required (although that certainly would make it easier if you deliberately seek out a new perspective.) It’s just a way of categorizing how you react to people – fear, stoicism, clumsy attempts to fit in …
Demiurges! So many Demiurges… Or Alice’s creator isn’t human?
I have a question. Last week I heard thesis that “Mummy is what Promethean should be”. Well, yeah, this games have common idea, theme, and so on, but Mummy has game mechanics for it (for example, Memory), while PtC1 left it to Storyteller.
Will 2e add it? This universal milestones seem all about that. Will Refinements have their own list of not-so-universal milestones? Because in 1e Refinements wasn’t exactly clear concept (in terms of covenant/guild-like element). Their connection to Transmutations too (well, connection Transmutations to Pilgrimage wasn’t clear concept at all for me).
The Pilgrimage has a lot more mechanical support this time around, yes.
Good! Thanks.
And about that “feeling that they (Prometheans) don’t belong in their own bodies”. Will it be reflected in the game mechanics too?
Torment is a big part of that, and it gets some fleshing out, yeah.
MtC is what PtC should be? They have exactly opposing themes! Promethean is about childhood, while Mummy is about old age!
> Promethean is about childhood
It is… it is [i]very[/i] dark childhood.
But both games about “I’m not a human and don’t know how to be one of them (yet/anymore), but I want”.
Ok, Lead makes sense. And I too like that the Imbued are getting more screen time. I just wonder if there will be any membership requirements for the Complex Refinements?
You have to learn them, yeah.
Now, what I’m interested to see in playtest is whether that means one member of a throng learns a complex Refinement, and then the other folks pick it up, not necessarily because they think they need it, but because what if they do and this is the only chance they’ll get?
It’s interesting that I might see it quite the opposite as being just as possible. That is, a member of the throng exploring Phosphorum could act as a negative example to her throngmates who follow different Refinements.
Also, it would be interesting to see how that experience of deciding whether to move from a Base Refinement to a Complex Refinement works out from an ‘in-character’ perspective. Would an Aurum see the utility of the Refinement of Silver on his own, or would he need (or want) some form of proselytising from an Argentum first?
The above only reflects how very much I’m excited about the JOURNEY inherent in this game’s mandate!
That’s kind of a player decision, or at least it can be.
So, let’s say that a character is on Aurum, and the *player* wants to try out Argentum. Best practice would be for the player to tell the ST, “I want to move to Argentum,” which means the ST needs to put a way to do that into the chronicle.
But the other way works, too: The character meets another character following Argentum, they talk shop, and the Aurum character thinks, “y’know, I spend all this time trying to play at being human, but there’s this whole world that humanity doesn’t know about but clearly interacts with – maybe that’s another way to approach this. TEACH ME!”
Or our Aurum character sees her Phosphorum throngmate do something incredibly foolish like, I dunno, ignite himself and leap out of third story window to distract some alchemist jerks, which leads our Aurum character says, ‘I dunno WHAT that barmy bloke’s doing, and I don’t want noffink to do with that!’
…But the Aurum’s player says, ‘That was AMAZING! I gotta get that.’
Yeah, point well taken, and it points to why I constantly say that a troupe who trust one another can do nearly anything. Of course, if the CHARACTERS knew what the players did, trust across the fourth wall might never occur!
So, story-wise, the complex refinements occupy a similar design space to Covenant Disciplines in Requiem?
Kiiiiiinda, but they’re more practical philosophies than political parties.
I meant to say that the signature Transmutations for those Refinements are more like covenant disciplines, in that your character needs to earn the privilege to learn how those powers work.
Very interisting. Expecially Stannum and Cuprum. Nice to see that playing Cuprum don’t necessarily means you get holed up avoing by all means to interact with the world.
Encouraging players to go off alone and never interact isn’t good game design. 🙂
I like what I see so far. I don’t understand a lot of it but it seams a little better than 1e. My troop and I have play every gameline except this one… most of us found the Disquet to disturbing and to hard to play around it. Most of our stories are around big cities and Disquet its a major set back. I am kind of hoping a little more manegable Disquet but so far I am starting to understad better the game.