Chronicles of Darkness Tierlist: Antagonists

Поділитися
Вставка
  • Опубліковано 16 лис 2024

КОМЕНТАРІ • 47

  • @TimPoultney
    @TimPoultney 3 місяці тому +4

    Really happy to see someone rating Pandorans so highly! And I get what you mean with Qashmalim, they can be a bit... Anything. I think they work better as a "wheels within wheels" type of antagonist -- the goal of the Prometheans is one thing, as in their story/mission, the pilgrimage as a whole is another, but they're trying to keep all the wheels turning at once and things rarely go to plan for anyone, imagine how that would affect a quasi-angelic agent of the secret fire! Desperation forces them to drop the "BE NOT AFRAID" gimmick and actually start acting, perhaps even against the Prometheans it's tasked to help it.

  • @duckdialectics8810
    @duckdialectics8810 5 місяців тому +8

    Beasts are kind like Goetia that managed to eat people's souls and slide in their place xD

  • @Theokal3
    @Theokal3 5 місяців тому +7

    I think the issue with Goetia (and the Astral in general) is that they're too cut from the mundane world compared to other entities. True Fae actively come to kidnap people; Goblins occasionally step out of the Hedge. Ghosts start out in the physical world and can haunt people, Spirits actively try to get in the physical world so they can cause trouble, and Angels are built with the world to handle Infrastructures. Meanwhile, Goetia have by default no ability to travel in the physical world, and they are basically near-powerless if they succeed in doing so. That leaves less option.

  • @tasnica2438
    @tasnica2438 5 місяців тому +6

    I play 1st Edition Mage, but really the big appeal of Abyssal entities is that each one is rather distinct. Sure, they sorta function like spirits and goetia on a surface level, but there's always a catch, things about them that aren't right. And it means that even if you defeat one, you aren't necessarily at an advantage to defeat another.
    If you want a terrifying Abyssal entity, start off with a spirit or goetia and just... break a couple of rules. Take a few of their traits and, in line with the entity's themes, completely twist them. Until you're left with a creature with a veneer of normal game mechanics (a form it's forced to take by entering our reality), but occasionally is just deeply wrong. And make it stronger if anyone is foolish enough to Paradox in its presence.

    • @jordanetherington1922
      @jordanetherington1922 2 місяці тому +3

      I like that they aren't just cthulhu monsters but they *replace* things that exist in the real world in a corrupted way

  • @craigjackson3550
    @craigjackson3550 5 місяців тому +2

    My take on abyssal intrusion: If the supernal is True and the Abyss is untrue, than any person, place, concept, or perspective that isn't in either has the potential to become untrue. Abyssal intruders are any aspect of the Fallen World that has become untrue enough to negate the potential of other aspects to become true. They seem broad because any thing can be warped in such a way but not the whole of said thing, just very specific aspects of it.
    E.G. The Nemesis Continuum, is a specific sequence of logical deductions that taints the mind of those who conceive it. Not all forms of the equation are tainted, but each part in each victim's memory of the step by step process of comprehending the work would need to be erased before the "conceptual spirit" could be exorcised from the fallen world.

  • @user-ut5nx6hm9d
    @user-ut5nx6hm9d 26 днів тому +1

    Explaining Abyssals:
    Every Abyssal entity you see is a tiny piece of a still born universe. Take a universe, then make it's rules inherently contradictory in some way that said universe could not exist. Then make it sentient and make it exist anyway (that's the paradox). Make little bits of these miscarried realities leak in as by-products of a Mage's hubris or just in places that are naturally vulnerable (probably due to a mass of contradictions or falsehoods that could serve as a "thin place" or weak point), and then let that tiny slice of unreality get to work spreading.
    Abyssal entities are kinda like the Hosts from Werewolf the Forsaken, except instead of just infecting people, they infect *concepts*. An abyssal entity gets into any aspect of anything's fundamental pattern, infecting it like a virus in a healthy cell, then it subverts that thing's existence into something that is wholly incompatible with our world, and uses it to spread to other patterns. Abyssal incursions can manifest as horrifying parasites in people, materials that cannot exist chemically, a meme or idea that spreads through the populace and drives people insane, even something as simple as a new color that nobody can comprehend (I always recommend "A color out of space" by HP Lovecraft as a great example of an abyssal incursion).
    As infection progresses the parasite people might be completely subsumed and start popping off fingers into a meat canning plant to spread, or that impossible material might pollute the environment to turn everything into more of it through violent chemical reactions, or that meme might completely rewrite people's language and sense of norms into something unrecognizable, or that color might get into the water, spread to the plants and livestock, and then leave, sucking all the life out of those things and leaving them as glowing husks in the process. Anyone who gets the light from those glowing husks shined onto them for too long also picks up the hue and becomes another carrier.
    one canon example of an Abyssal legacy are time traveling Mages who are tricked by their teachers into turning themselves into abyssal entities, by traveling back in time and murdering their own past selves, replacing them with a temporal paradox that looks and talks like them and could do everything they could. Their ultimate goal is to destroy Time.
    Another canon example from the Boston Unveiled book is the Prince of 100,000 leaves, or the Blasphemous Scribe. It is an alternate history that was so abhorrent that it was rejected by the universe.
    In short, the appeal of the abyssal entity isn't the being itself but the way it twists the world into something completely unfamiliar and the fact that more often than not this damage could be a consequence of something one of the players did. *Abyssals work best as horrifying consequences for the actions of one or more of your players going on an in-universe power trip and doing something that was a bad idea*

    • @user-ut5nx6hm9d
      @user-ut5nx6hm9d 26 днів тому +1

      Now for Goetia:
      It isn't so much that Goetia are born form people's emotions and ideas so much as they *are* people's emotions and ideas. The Astral is basically the collective unconscious and so long as someone has felt, dreamed up, or experienced something there is a corresponding goetia somewhere in the astral personifying it.
      Ever seen Inside Out? Goetia are kinda like that. There is a realm within the astral called the "Oneiros". It's the closest and most shallow realm of the Astral outside of where dreams take place, and inside are all the Goetia embodying every one of an individuals thoughts memories and feelings. The entirety of Inside Out basically takes place inside of Riley's Oneiros. Joy, Sadness, and the other characters we see inside Riley's head in that movie are all goetia. And just like in that movie, if something happens to the goetia, that person loses access to that memory thought or feeling in the physical world. If you summon the happiness goetia out of a person's oneiros they can't feel joy until you put it back.
      The Temenos is deeper than the Oneiros and this is where you find stuff like the Realms and Goetia of idealogies, philosophies, and societies. Any place or being from any religion, belief system or fictional work exists as a goetia here. The Temenos is the astral realm that embodies the collective soul of humanity. tacking this onto the end because I just remembered, but lairs from Beast are also here, in the areas corresponding to societies legends and fears. Every time a Beast builds up their lair they are literally buying up real estate in people's heads by growing their legend. There are also realms embodying the values and beliefs of each Mage group, and probably a lot of other factions from the other gamelines that have human or human soul- bearing members. So you could go for a walk through the ideal world of the Free Council or the Long Night from Hunter or the imagined ideal world of one of the Pure Tribes.
      The Anima Mundi is the deepest part available to Mages and this is all the thoughts and feelings and ideas of everything period. Anything that can think or feel to any degree has corresponding goetia here. Can it think but not have a soul? it's Goetia are here. all the thoughts and feelings of animals and rocks exist here. You can find Goetia embodying each of the 10 Arcana (schools of magic mages use) here and they're all terrifying godlike assholes who can use their powers to give you boons or do horrible things to you. The edge of reality can be found here, with the Abyss lapping at it's shores with a Goetia called the Old Man embodying paradox. You could probably walk around the subconscious of Luna (the spirit) here by looking up and deciding to walk to that moon you can see over the horizon. The Night Mother from Beast also probably exists here as *the* conceptual idea of the mother of monsters and embodiment of fear. (This actually leads to my theory on how Kinship works. Beast's horrors *do* have kinship with the *idea* (goetia) of a vampire, and they extend that to irl vampires because they are literally a walking talking intersection point between thoughts and physical reality and can't tell or don't care about the difference. Sorry if you don't like the Beast stuff but it feels relevant enough to not leave out)
      Anyway point is Goetia are cool

  • @lanthanite
    @lanthanite 5 місяців тому +2

    Correction: Huntsmen innately lack a weakness to cold iron, which is why True Fae replace a Huntsman's heart with a Title to have one do their bidding.

  • @paulll47
    @paulll47 5 місяців тому +7

    The Stryx are the thing I like the least in Requiem, I understand what they represent but they are more of a plot device rather than something you can actually fight, I mean, I played in mage games where we were at our wits end with them because the damn things are almost completely immune to magic too, I don't know what the big idea was but they definitely needed to get a second look, it's just not feasible for most splats to handle them, especially vampires who are the ones less equipped to deal with them.
    My personal ones are the huntsmen and the Kerberoi/Cthonic gods, I like the first one because they are powerful enough to be a menace yet not invincible and possible to take down, while the Kerberoi/Cthnonic gods really help when I want to go a bit lovecraftian on my players or when I want to really scare werewolf players.

    • @orathaic
      @orathaic 5 місяців тому +2

      Strix are, I think, meant to make Vampires paranoid.
      They aren't meant to be fought, they are written to be extremely dangerous, but most of the actual danger comes from the paranoia and vampiric infighting.
      One Strix bringing a domain to ruin... It is an excellent horror device to add to a story.

    • @paulll47
      @paulll47 5 місяців тому +1

      @@orathaic I get it and there are things I like about them but then again, they should have had more weaknesses, I mean, mages having trouble with them is enough of an indicator that they needed a nerf.

    • @AwkwardGMCorbin
      @AwkwardGMCorbin  5 місяців тому +3

      Strix work well for paranoia inducement. I think a lot of the best antagonists in general are not meant to be combat antagonists.
      Like Strix infiltrate Princedoms and can cause political conflict issues via false flag operations.
      But like Huntsmen I like because they don’t want to kill Changelings. They want to capture them.

    • @vxprado
      @vxprado 5 місяців тому

      I don't mind Stryx being hard to kill, they are supposed to be horror monsters, so it makes sense they don't have a lot of weakness, if they were easier to fight it, a lot of the horror would be lost. That said, I don't think they are hard to kill at all for mages (but I don't believe mages are as broken as most people usually put it either). For some paths it may be harder than others, but I don't see it as something bad. But just from the top of my head, forces should be really easy to kill it. Death you can probably shape it directly, they are just shadows. That said, I may be biased, I like Stryx hahaha

    • @orathaic
      @orathaic 5 місяців тому

      @@vxprado yes, Mages with enough death can literally transform themselves into living shadows, which is the closest thing to a Strix for any player splatt
      So Death would be my go to solution

  • @vxprado
    @vxprado 5 місяців тому +2

    Nice video, there's even some antagonist that I didn't remembered, cool stuff

    • @AwkwardGMCorbin
      @AwkwardGMCorbin  5 місяців тому +1

      Thank you! Yeah there are a lot more I haven't covered in supplements too.

  • @mitchistophelesr6756
    @mitchistophelesr6756 5 місяців тому +1

    I really enjoy the Night Horror books from CoFD, wish we could have gotten some more of those with the 2nd editions. The Werewolf the Forsaken 2nd ed book had the fiction with Hosts and made it seem a really daunting foe, truly terrible also. I feel The Idigam are more of a, end of game/chronicle threat personally, along with the True Fae.

  • @jordanetherington1922
    @jordanetherington1922 2 місяці тому +1

    This was really fun! I hope to see more like this!

  • @williammorgan9622
    @williammorgan9622 7 днів тому +1

    The rules for Manticores are in The Clads Companion

  • @milov3154
    @milov3154 5 місяців тому

    The purpose of goetia is just to be a standard ruleset for the various demons you can summon up from your psyche & for players to interact with in the astral. I'd say the key thing they really need is more wordcount on the different types of goetia in one easy to access place, since it can be easy to see them as 1 sorta unthematic entity rather than thousands of different varieties of entity. The chthonic powers are very different to an archetype which is also different to a walker which is very different to the embodiment of your regrets.

  • @Shamefulroleplay
    @Shamefulroleplay 5 місяців тому +1

    Enjoyed this video, nice one!

  • @tragedyjones
    @tragedyjones 5 місяців тому +3

    Quashmallim are very different mechanically from Angels. They don't have Rank or Influences and aren't even Ephemeral.

    • @AwkwardGMCorbin
      @AwkwardGMCorbin  5 місяців тому

      I’ll have to double check that. It’s been a long time since I ran them.

    • @lincr.1988
      @lincr.1988 5 місяців тому

      How do you play with them exactly?

  • @ArninoStorm
    @ArninoStorm 2 місяці тому +1

    Qashmal are amazing in the 1e supplement that give smore detail on them. They're not exactly antagonists though.

  • @milov3154
    @milov3154 5 місяців тому

    Abyssals definitely suffer from lack of page count in 2e, though for context they feed on paradox & sleepers having breaking points just in the same way a spirit feeds on resonance and they don't have Influence (Paradox) but just generally have their numen and influences be weird. I feel all of the ephemerals could really use a bigger set of example numen to play with. The official list is so tiny.

  • @Tonkers177
    @Tonkers177 5 місяців тому +2

    Thank you! I holy agree about the Abyss just being...nothing. It's not a threat. There are no mechanics. It's kind of awful. Same with Goetia, they really, really needed to update The Astral Realms books and Intruders! Encounters with the Abyss and Left-Hand Path for 2e because that entirely fills in the gaps we're missing, but is outdated mechanically so you have to Homebrew it.

    • @Theokal3
      @Theokal3 5 місяців тому +2

      Yeah the lack of mechanics for Abyssal entities frustrates me too. I struggle to understand what they're meant to be like and I had to improvise when I made some. So far I only used them once or twice.

  • @ryukentuken2947
    @ryukentuken2947 5 місяців тому +2

    I think you forgot ghost eaters, if i am right

    • @AwkwardGMCorbin
      @AwkwardGMCorbin  5 місяців тому

      They are covered in the Mortal Template tier list:
      ua-cam.com/video/Y_QrYcupUEE/v-deo.htmlsi=5ovNy5U0yfzL1pSd

    • @ryukentuken2947
      @ryukentuken2947 5 місяців тому +1

      @@AwkwardGMCorbin Oh, okay. Thank you!

  • @orathaic
    @orathaic 5 місяців тому +2

    Can't believe you rank Spirits so highly and Goetia so meh.
    They are almost mirrors in many ways, except the astral doesn't really have a way for goetia to leave so they aren't as widely usable.
    But you have very powerful goetia, like the collective human subconscious idea of Death (a rank 7 entity in 1st ed) and beyond the human subconsciousness you get goetia of aspect of the world soul, going up presumably to mirror the highest level of spirit-Gods.
    The most interesting goetia to play aroind with are likely the aspect of an individual, like summoning the goetia of a person's vice (which might be rank 1 or 2).
    Would be much more fun if there was some generic rules for mortals to summon thinks (maybe a merit for a psychic power/meditative practice). Because as written, only Mages (and maybe Primordials) have any access.

    • @orathaic
      @orathaic 5 місяців тому +1

      You missed Shades for Mummy, which are almost ghosts, but have the barest of bones of rules...

    • @AwkwardGMCorbin
      @AwkwardGMCorbin  5 місяців тому +2

      I think in a Mage game Goetia are more likely to come up. Because none of the other splats interact with Astral (except Beasts).
      If an antagonist type is too similar to another and it doesn’t differentiate itself it’s hard for them to break out.

    • @orathaic
      @orathaic 5 місяців тому +1

      @@AwkwardGMCorbin They made Shades as an alternative to ghosts inspired to a different folklorist origin.
      Not being bound to one place (just avoiding direct sunlight) does give them a lot of freedom as an antagonist which anchored ghosts (like the typical poltergeist haunting a house) are limited by.

  • @youknowpomm
    @youknowpomm 5 місяців тому +2

    The tierlist in the description leads to the drive thru link!

  • @laszlokaszas1003
    @laszlokaszas1003 5 місяців тому

    I like to portray Heroes as people lost in a sword and sorcery fantasy.
    They are the murder hobos of ChoD.

  • @lincr.1988
    @lincr.1988 5 місяців тому +2

    First time I see someone putting a Promethean creature as someone's favorite.. I'm so happy 🥲💜💜💜
    Go go PtC 2e!!

    • @vxprado
      @vxprado 5 місяців тому +1

      Yeah, I don't remember much because there's some time that I read it. But I remember liking a lot Pandoreans when I first read it.