World Of Darkness - Tumblr Posts
Alchemists (Chronicles of Darkness)
I’m a lot of things, but one of them is a science person. I’m driven to learn about the new and discover the unknown. All reality is one great big puzzle, and I get to see how the pieces fit together in new and exciting ways. So in fiction, I tend to have sympathy with academics, scientists, and explorers. I will die on my bed raving about how science wasn’t the problem in Jurassic Park. The problem was capitalism.
But alchemists? Alchemists in the Chronicles of Darkness scare me. Alchemists are the dark side of scientific progress, which transgresses and doesn’t care about the harm it causes. Alchemists are the western tradition’s deep connection with imperialism and its arrogance in disenfranchising other knowledge traditions. They are the “ends justify the means” people and the “it’s for your own good” people. They want knowledge, they want power (even if they won’t admit it to themselves), and they ultimately don’t care about anything that stops them from getting either.
Alchemists are mortals who tap into the secrets of Pyros, allowing them to learn Promethean’s Distillations, modify their bodies, and gain Dread Powers. Body modification? In a game crawling with body horror? Totally not going to backfire on you, but you do you. The catch is that most Alchemists get the barest trickle of Pyros and can’t stablize much of it at a time - unless they steal it from Prometheans. And those modifications? They need Vitrol to do that, so at best, they are delaying a Promethean’s progress toward becoming human for their own game. Most of the time, they just murder them.
If Promethean: the Created is a game that embraces humanity, its Alchemists represent the rejection of human nature. If you want to play a game where transhumanism leads to the loss of what makes humanity important, Alchemists are a great place to start.
Graveyard Gary’s been at this a long, long time. He considers himself a reanimator, in the “grand” tradition of Herbert West, while rather missing the point about West’s grizzly fate. In fact, Gary’s missed the point so completely that he didn’t even notice when his body died, but by that point, it was so laced with Spark of Life Distillations that it just kept moving. As a result, Gary’s lack of heartbeat and unblinking stare unnerve anyone who visits his cemetery, but other than the faint smell of formaldehyde and ozone, there is no decay. Gary wouldn’t even mind even if it was pointed out to him; this is the best he’s felt in years. Honestly. Mostly. Probably.
N0V4 thinks he’s big shit, with the corner office in his father’s company and a hacker alias, so he can pretend he’s on the worker’s side. He’s not untalented, but he’s a relentless taskmaster who isn’t half as bright as those who work for him. Unfortunately for every Promethean who comes near Toronto, the world of corporate ruthlessness trained him well for being an Alchemist. He’s mastered various Electrification and Luciferus Distillations, he even sees the electromagnetic spectrum’s invisible colours, but now the electricity is stalking him back. An electricity spirit has latched onto N0V4’s resonance, and it has no intention of letting its food source slow down his experiments.
Good intentions, hell, and all that. Annabel started her study of Alchemy after hearing rumours of the Created and hoped to help them. She’s even knowledgeable enough about Disquietism to help Prometheans learn the Transmutation. The problem is that she now inflicts Disquiet on those around her, and the temptation to use Weaponize to her advantage grows stronger daily.
For a changeling game.
Trying to paint without doing any lines at all or any normal anatomy planning phase I just kind of started plopping down person-shaped blobs in greyscale and hoping for the best. I seriously have a lot more respect for people who normally paint this way now oh fuck you guys how do you even!?
Portraits of the very rare moment of these two not in the middle of smashing each other’s (and all the other character’s) faces in.
What’s that? Have I tried not roleplaying a goddamn problem? Yeah like once it was really boring tbh.
Day six was zombie. I kind of cheated. This is an older roleplaying character of mine from when I spent every weekend in college playing Scion and World of Darkness.
Her name is Roxy Queen; she is an undead punk rock musician from Houston, Texas, and her dad is the god of death. She was extremely good fun to play back in the day. No one cares if you smoke when you're dead.
so i've been playing mage the ascension
we're playin a bunch of orphans who all knew each other pre-awakening, went our separate ways, but are now livin in a fucked up house with very little memory of how we came to be living here. we did not know the others were mages upon moving in. as we've been forced to use magic in front of each other in life or death situations tho, we've figured it out.
the rent is free, tho, bc our landlord fucked off to the bahamas suddenly. the level of haunted is not enough to beat not paying rent.
this shitty little doodle comes from my character (the redhead) spilling weird magic liquid on herself in some seemingly-abandoned mages lab in our house's own personal backrooms (long story), being immediately forcibly thrown into a horrifying seeking (my arete was only 2 so pray for me goin forward) where she almost died and her avatar shit talked her, came back to consciousness, had this interaction with her friend, then fell into a seizure. i cannot stop thinking about this sequence of events.
Who is your Mage character?
ok my keen was low for a hot minute there but it's bACK and im ready to ramble
Bonnie Raith-Ballantyne is an absolute monster of a mage - she doesn't have much arete, or dots amongst her spheres, or anything really: except for the three things she does have.
Monstrous willpower.
A 5-dot avatar.
Money to burn.
She is VERY Scottish, VERY enthusiastic about academia, and VERY ready to do anything and everything that she wants.
She's a totally self-indulgent character, in that I went, "hm, what's an aesthetic I like?" and just built someone who is very 'dark academia'. She's a daughter of the wealthy elite, with easy access to academic circles, and the plotline of our mage game revolves around all of us, as newly-awakened orphans, all moving into the same house, previously owned by an archmage. This is, of course, no accident, but it wasn't arranged by us, and we have very fuzzy memories of why any of us moved here, or our landlord.
The setting is peak dark academia, the character is peak dark academia, and the storyline is peak academia, it's been insanely fun.
Her awakening happened at her pretentious friend group's faux-Bacchanalia party, and the Storyteller has been dropping hints that in a past life, Bonnie may have been the oracle at Delphi, or at least in some way relevant to Apollo's cult. He's weaving plot threads that had me veer violently off my very Prime/Mind course and hurtle down Time instead.
She's the Party Face, but also the one with all the willpower, so a lot of the time she's like "right, ok, we're doing this." She's usually the first volunteer for magic experiments - although her best friend, another PC, has recently had her promise to stop almost dying, which is valid I suppose! So she's chilling out on that stuff.
She's made good friends with a local mage's familiar, but the guy all but loathes her, so that's been a fun dynamic to play out. She's also had her life saved by another guy repeatedly, but they both have incredibly manic vibes, so the closer they get, the more antics are on the horizon. I'm very, very excited about the character, and absolutely adoring playing her.
I’m still deciding how to draw his skin so he isn’t sufficiently Fucked Up but,,
SO.. let’s talk about sabbath salubri
Hello~! I curated a playlist on @spotify for my upcoming Vampire: the Requiem campaign I have planned with some online friends! All #vamily members are *encouraged* to listen and save the playlist for their own leisure! Cover art a teaser for an upcoming art piece I’m too nervous to share yet ft. my French Girl breasts 🥴🤫
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2wWVDVOWCOI23YQEPyI4CS?si=sfdAOf7JRMi1AclvL7XeiQ
All vampire, all the time.
Local vampire works at Waffle House
My Nosferatu character, an italian opera singer embraced in 19th century. Salty but happy that his voice is still good.
My Toreador tortured artist. Wanted to be a famous actor but ended up being a niche perfomance artist and fetish porn actor. Kinda mad about it and obsessed with the idea of turning his unlife into work of art by being a simp for a Nosferatu diva and begging her to ruin him.
Nosferatu diva and her Toreador toy. Hollywood star and failed actor who ended in porn industry. She wants to be worshipped again like she`s still alive and he wants to be shown his place and degraded even more than his own life degraded him. Mutually beneficial relationship.
Story of my Toreador`s unlife, full of religious symbolism and historical bullshit because I`m a nerd.
Lasombra elder writes a letter to his newly embraced childe before joining the gehenna crusade on sabbat side
my poor vtm character only looks their age when they’re smiling…
Your Gangrel looks SOO fun! Could you share some tidbits about them? :3
Hey there, tysm!!! You've opened pandora's box here lol
Lauchlainn Douglas Black is a former WWI soldier saved from rotting in a mass grave by their sire’s Embrace. They were born to poverty in the late 19th century in Scotland, eventually joining the British army to support their family in 1912. When the Great War broke out across Europe, Lauchlainn was shipped off to the western front.
There they served for four years, and in that time grew close with a mysterious gravedigger nicknamed "the Mórrigan" by their Irish comrades. They hadn't thought it possible to dig graves gracefully, but somehow Mórrigan pulled it off.
The two were eventually engaged — planning to wed upon the war's end, though they both knew the law would never recognize the union. Lauchlainn would not live to see the ceremony: the soldier was killed in the final hours of the war.
Over a century later, some would-be graverobbers got a wee bit more than they bargained for when they accidentally woke a blood-starved fledgling from torpor after digging up the mass grave where Lauchlainn had been buried (un)alive. All they want now is to reunite with their lover and sire — their engagement the only undying thing they have to hold onto in the cold, unfamiliar world that left them for dead.
I'm currently playing them in a chronicle alongside a Renaissance assassin, a Jewish Salubri scholar, a WW2 pilot, an Edwardian mad scientist, and a guy who responds to stress with IEDs — we as players are currently betting on who in the coterie tries to kill each other first LMAO
Lauchlainn is the only one in the entire coterie who can drive, and all they have is a motorbike. Shenanigans ensue.
Tags via @gen1talp1rate on the last ask lol