WoD Denver Forums

So exploring the landscape of Roleplay over the years, I've come across inconsistencies, discrepancies, and, in a lot of circumstances, things I've found to be very intriguing concepts you wouldn't normally find outside of WoD. I enjoy expounding/debating/re-defining a lot of the details that WoD has come up with for their games and have had a chance to explore alternative boundaries (mostly metaphorical) to a lot of these 'Variables' we'll call them.

I believe RP shouldn't just be a release, but a chance to explore things, themes and ideas you wouldn't normally explore in your every day or more, you would only be able to explore from a secondary degree. RP really throws you into that hot seat of being present at the time of something distinctive and interesting without being a threat because, well, it's not real. Not in the Realistic sense anyway.

RP can be Authentic though. Impressively so. Character death, evolution and SL dimension can leave behind some lasting memories and intense stories that cling and hang with you for ages. Like a good book, Scenes can have their impressions and deliver this quality that is rare elsewhere. The freedom to consider the fantasy of the World, not simply from the perspective of escapism, but the interactions of authentic emotion to such outlandish boundaries.

Magic, Rage, Spirits, Alternate Living, Deeper Consciousness. Concepts well outside of acceptable reality, but within Roleplay, have their niches, places and blatant existence. There is no over-riding sense of 'REALITY' gavel and firm, coming down on the (sub)conscious to deny the possibility. To deny exploring it thoughtfully, intellectually or simply as an exercise in fun.

Building the Story, Watching a Character Grow, Exploring themes and ideas. The entire assortment of possibility, has produced and will continue to produce a thought-provocation not easily found elsewhere. Digging deep has little to no risk either, given at it's core it is a fantasy.

But it is an interactive one. A shared one. A collective experiment that can be as continuous or demented or dismantling as we make it.

This is going to be a series of explorations. Some of them have already been written and will simply be shared for those eyes who haven't seen. Others will probably just be thought blurbble that comes off the edge of something...well that thought went no where fast. Regardless, I like to think exploration is part of RP and I invite you to share in the possibility.

Just because...

Gnosis: That Other Dot


There is a charge in the air completely unlike the discomfort that comes with Wrath. You know the latter. It burns, eats, erodes and destroys. It fuels the beast and devours the soul and leaves behind an inhuman engine. A machine devoted to Obliteration.

This charge however, is the source of that Wrath. Not the opposite. Deep inside the boundaries of a Garou (And rarely, a Kinfolk) soul there can be found a sliver of something so pure, so absolute in it's existence, so rooted in a time before Humanity, that it defies and defeats civilization, society and the training ground of life that is the Modern Day.

This sliver is realness. Authenticity with abundance. It defies logical concern, not because it is illogical, but because it needs no explanation. No understanding. It's known. Period. There is and never will be a question, from the slimmest connection to the broadest wonderment, that you are different. More than Rage, the unreasoning and Will, the resisting, Gnosis is Reality.

Not the way Humanity sees it. Not the way it was defined by the corrupt Triat, but in the state that life has always meant to exist as. It is Pangaea. It is the Primordial Touch. It is the boundary of Enlightenment, Mages desperately want to achieve, the Golconda of Vampiric desire, the utter, ecstatic belief that drives Werewolves into a suicidal war effort they have no hope of winning. It is the single connecting force to Gaia that proves the right and wrong. It proves the presence of Taint. It proves corruption. It proves the Balance, within and without.

Gnosis is the Reason to fight. It is the meaning, the measure and the Mother.

When considering the effect it has on a Garou, Gnosis is not simply a spiritual charge or Gaian 'Battery' but a solid sliver of reason that is more convincing than any argument, any detraction, any attempt at obfuscation can hope to compete against. A Garou's Gnostic self is the defining factor and source of his reason for being what he is.

Take for instance the Lost Cub scenario. A frightened creature, freshly monsterized, bent to the whim of a Rage and Will they can't explain and yet deep within them, stirred to fullness, bloomed if you will, that Gnostic presence gives them a purpose even if their rational and logical mind cannot hope to define it. It is there, very real, very sure, the surest of things in a situation and circumstance that has turned everything else upside down.

That unhealthy, abnormal feeling they have had their entire lives, suddenly becomes the anchorhead, the foundation and the cure for their restless nature. It is the Wonder, the Scope and the Scalpel that helps to alleviate their humanity and bring about a connection to something far deeper.

Not Greater.

Deeper.

I say 'alleviate their humanity' because this is it exactly. The human no longer exists. The Garou is still mortal, still beast, still animal, still something but the Human they once were (or can be occasionally in the case of metis and lupus) is a show. A facade they walk around in. That flip performed at the first change and in subsequent events, turns the perspective of the city (even towns, villages and the smallest of communities) into something obscure. Something antithetical to the nature that they have always had.

That Gnositic self suddenly stares through that lense of pure reality, that has and always will be, right up to death, and shows the gray, illogical, irrational boundary of Humankind and just how sloppy and misaligned it is to what has been, should be, and, if the Garou have their way, will be again.

Gnosis the trait, Gnosis the Spiritual, Gnosis the Religion, Gnosis the Grease between worlds. It exists as the defining reason for Garou continuance. Garou definition. Garou tongue, litany, law and interaction. Boil all that they do down to it's root, core and source code and you've got nothing but Pure Reality. Undiluted by experience, time or age. A simple gauge and measurement of how unlike the rest of the world they are.

Villains: A Description


Villainy.

Do away with the idea of Morality. Remove it completely from the equation when you consider what you're doing in the story. Think of the individual from birth, to present and all the events and people they have met. Decide how they would react to the various events and peoples in their lives and ultimately design and map out their reactions. Even if this villain is in a single scene. Even if they are a definitive part of the backdrop. Even if they only show up for that one time monologue of greatness.

The Best Villains are defined by their past. How they came to be and where they turned off the norm. Really, that is the only standard for dividing a villain from a hero, is which of them is taking the Recognized, Supported and Convincing path and which is not.

Every Villain, mundane or godly, has events in their past that define when they went off the 'Acceptable' Trail and ventured into the 'Sacrificial' one. A Villain is a creature of goals, without the stricture of public acceptance to hold them back.

A Villain is an opinion that trumps all other opinions. Period.

A Villain is, above all else, without compromise. Conviction defines their motives and methods and any deviation from their efforts is considered a flaw, a mistake or a setback.

So how best to 'Torture' or 'Defame' your heroes or the public or the innocent or the weak? Have the villain show those who would stand in their way, the method by which they define their lives. Be this, Religion, Law and Order, Mercy, Compassion, Humility, etc. etc. All those topics and aspects and virtues that ultimately compromise the self for the greater good and better living.

And then have the Villain take said Virtues apart at the seam in front of their eyes. This could be as simple as a murder, as complex as a humiliating deception or as personal as relegating the Individual they are torturing, to that of a gnat or a bug. Have your villain take the aspects that define the heroes, innocent or otherwise? And make them irrelevant, obsolete and/or, worst of all?

Wrong.