Falling Darkness

Game Master Edelsmirge

OK, life has gotten a little less hectic, I'll check the posts and catch back up over the weekend, thanks for letting me step back in ST.

Hmm, I don't really see a problem with the setting so long as it's temporary?

My only reason for feeling like I'd want to change characters would be if we were to permanently stay in the past and live out our lives to the future.

As a player, I would have difficulty playing a character out of time and place to the point where I can barely socialize because of all the differences (particularly language barriers as Europe in the olden days, you weren't guaranteed one bit that people would speak English.)

If this is just a small section (Even if it takes months out of game given the nature and speed of PbP) then I can handle it and it will just be an interesting thing for the character to look back on.

Techncal difficulties over the weekend, will post tonight.

Alright crew, with few posts I will be moving the plot along in two days time

Sorry I've been absent. Unkind RL.

If we're going to be in the past for a goodly while, I'd like to rearrange Ezra's stats so he can interact more with people from the era. If it's just a temporary thing like a flashback scene or two, I'm not fussed.

go ahead and rearrange a few things Ezra

go ahead and rearrange a few things Ezra

I'll get on it, health permitting. I've been sick all week and the head cold let up right in time for coughing fits to start. :( Basically just going to find somewhere he can get a dot of Italian to get by with.[/ooc]

While my skills and backstory are more based in the future. I think I do have enough relevant skills to be able to survive with my current build. i'll spend some time for sure fumbling given that I might have some talking issues...but then this character wasn't gonna be the best of talkers for the moment.

Looking at all my skills, I was actually pretty surprised after a bit of thinking.

Well, I wouldn't say no to Russian since I was getting taught it in character already ^_^. Though I know Italian would be a bit more beneficial. I figure I might be seeing one or two others take that one.

Probably having Italian would help, agreed, that would be the one shift I would make.

The problem being then with language being a merit list is an inability to get more. I have always treated each language as a skill. I am open to discussion on each side however.

The problem being then with language being a merit list is an inability to get more. I have always treated each language as a skill. I am open to discussion on each side however.

Maybe both?

Ok I like it. Merit for multiple languages and then new skill 3 PT etc for add inside or doing it without merit

Ok I like it. Merit for multiple languages and then new skill 3 PT etc for add inside or doing it without merit

OK!

I'll drop 3 XP for Italian and reserve the last XP for something else.

Oh man, my notifications weren't showing there were new posts here for some reason. I'll jump back in as soon as I can.

Going to give Daniel a quick chance to catch up and secondly someone is going to take over Jessica so giving it a quick break before we move on.

Ok!

This next section is going to be very detailed and take some time. Roleplay wise this is where the rubber meets the road. You will be meeting many players and answering some questions from each through the night.

I can post all the questions here and have you all answer them prior to the night and then give you descriptions of who asks what questions or I can do it more organically and go as the night progresses.

Votes for style?

Which ever your preference is.

If each player is going to be asked every question...it'd be faster paced I think to just go ahead and throw them all down in Discussion and have us answer them, then give us a lengthy post.

If each player is going to be asked every question...it'd be faster paced I think to just go ahead and throw them all down in Discussion and have us answer them, then give us a lengthy post.

Agreed, we can then craft our posts to show who we are responding to and on what topic. :-)

slavery was not around in Europe then, I mean now, right? This is more than just casual mistreatment of a subordinate".

My other hobby is studying slavery and Ezra would not know this, so... :)

Sure it was. We're in about the 1420s, unless I'm misremembering. Most enslaved people in Italian cities would be Slavs brought from the Balkans and/or Ukraine. That remained the chief supplier for Mediterranean Europe until the Ottomans took the trade for themselves in 1454. The trade reached at least as far as Ibera, where enslaved Slavs sometimes grew cotton. They're also often described as "black" which in this case connotes more dirty & low class rather than being meant as a fairly literal description of their skin color.

Iberia is a bit of a long haul full of competing markets from the eastern Med, but sailing down the coast of West Africa brought Iberians in contact with slave societies that didn't mind a new market. By the 1450s, enslaved Africans are something one would expect to see on the streets of Lisbon. The Canary Islands ended up sort of a prototype for what became the island plantation colony complex in the Caribbean: original inhabitants wiped out, replaced by enslaved Africans with whites reaping the profits. The two slaveries coexisted just enough that a few enslaved Slavs show up in documents from early Havana.

All of this, plus some more local circumstances, put Iberians at forefront of efforts to develop the first early modern conceptions of race. They were then inherited by Englishmen, among others, who read and translated Spanish and Portuguese narratives about Africa preparatory to and then in conjunction with their own efforts. Because the English are latecomers to this, comparatively, it's possible to sketch out how racial ideas harden over the course of the seventeenth century. The main arena for that is the colonial Chespeake, because modern slavery studies in English are fairly Americentric, but probably the process happened earlier and a bit faster in places like Barbados.

But we should distinguish race theory here, which has a more explicitly religious and cultural cast to it, from out and out biological conceptions of race. They are similar, but the latter are more an Enlightenment and onward construct. Like originally there's some thought that if an enslaved person converts to Christianity, they should be freed. That might not have made them exactly equal to a white person, but seems to have nudged them up far enough on the Great Chain of Being that enslaving was no longer entirely appropriate.

Freedpeople in early Virginia, for example, seem to have sometimes attained something reasonably close to legal equality circa the 1650s. Anthony Johnson, who arrived enslaved, bought his freedom and was able to prosper well enough that he received grants of land from the colony in exchange for funding the passage of whites and was able to sue a white neighbor and prevail in the courts, specifically over that neighbor enticing away a man Johnson himself enslaved. The space for that narrows to almost nothing over the course of the next century, though there is one 1700s case of a black man who was rich enough and connected enough to have himself legally deemed white in South Carolina. He passed that status on to his kids. Neither of those would have flown in, say, 1820. By then we're into the more familiar to us stuff about gross anatomical differences, facial angles, and skull capacities. That probably reaches its zenith circa 1890-1940, but by 1850 the dominant mode of white supremacy in the US is explicitly scientific as accompanied sometimes by Biblical citations and argument rather than the other way around.

Nice bit of study. I have a minor in history and took a class in imperialism and colonialism which quite nicely ties to your above conversation most specifically past the 1700's.

As far as serfdom indentured service and slavery, the slavs were most definitely the losers at this point of history to be sure.

The list of those in attendance is in the campaign info along with these people from the wagon train as a reminder:

Lothar: A slightly built well dressed man with aristocratic features who wears a wooden cross around his neck. He is both curteous and well groomed and keeps an air on him of a major domo, which is what he is.

The Innkeeper and reknowned chef who came with the wagon train and has been hired to help run the Red Lamb, Sigismund.

A professional Soldier named Paul who is looking to get hired by the Giovanni. He is a true professional recently from Humyady's crusade against the Turks.

A Benedictine Monk named Clement.

The quiet shy nobleman whose name you didn't catch.

The Old Woman and her Granddaughter.

Man...that was a lot of typing. Alright I've got my answers in and waiting to be taken away from the group like a lamb to slaughter by one or more of them >.< For more interrogation.

oh it will be a most grand time by whom picks you and what you must do when you are picked. Get ready for some sanity checks boys and girls.

Sorry, been hectic. Hoping to get to the questions tomorrow.

Just as things in my life seem to settle down, they get really distracting and hectic. Should all be better now, though. I'm gonna just jump in and answer the questions.

And to clarify, would I be able to use 3 XP to give myself Italian as a third language?

Yes, you are able to either add it to the merit or buy it as the skill

Apologies, writing black has gotten to me. I'm gonna try and get a message back today or tomorrow. For some reason, the words are difficult to find for the situation.

Clans for planning your embrace:

Daniel salubri (warrior)
Joel tremere
Justin lasombra
Jessica ventrue
Ezra follower of set
Vincent Brujah

An interesting mix to be sure! :-)

Alright, I think I am caught up to my character waiting to eat.

For embrace we go to:

7/5/3
13/9/5
4 discipline points
15 freebie points

Up to 7 pts in merits and 7 points in flaws. Please clear any questions w me.

Apologies, can I get a difference between Embrace and original?

From the campaign tab

Character Creation Guidelines for Mortals:

Attributes: 6 – 4 – 3
Abilities: 13– 9– 5
Backgrounds: 5
Virtues: 7
Willpower: Equal to Courage
Humanity: Equal to Conscience + Self-Control
Freebies: 21 + up to 7 in flaws

Freebie Point Costs

Attribute – 5 per dot
Ability – 2 per dot
Secondary Ability – 1 per dot
Background – 1 per dot
Virtue – 2 per dot
Humanity – 2 per dot
Willpower – 1 per dot

So you get: One free stat boost in Primary, One free stat in Secondary, No stat boost in Tertiary
Abilities don't change.
And then 4 points in disciplines?

Now, do we gain an additional 15 freebie points?

Edit: Hopefully I'm looking at the right book but Celerity, Potence, and Presence are the Disciplines for Brujah?

Yes. Additional 15 freebies :-)

Yes Celerity Potence and Presence In Clan for Brujah.

Yes to all of the above Vincent

Everyone is now embraced and a vampire.

Got it. I'll get Justin updated when I get home tonight.

I assume the Leopold in question is Leopold Valdemar, which would make Justin 7th generation, correct?

Assuming the sire/generation thing is right, Justin is ready.

Yes you have it

All right, here's Daniel's post-Embrace changes.

I am interested in the Salubri merits mentioned in the V20 Dark Ages Companion (Tracker's Mark and Blooded by the Code), but I think those require a Blooding ritual first. Is that something that could be done and/or purchased with XP later on? I'd be willing to change some of these freebies around/add some flaws/etc. if you want me to invest points in them now, too.

Or if not, no worries.

Go ahead and buy those merits and those rituals will get done to reflect your expenses

Alright so I had 5 leftover from character creation so that mean I have 20 freebie to spend then yea?

yes this is true Vincent. as for the costs, your sire would have to have access to those disciplines or you would have to take the extra discipline merit to take one of those disciplines. Please see the list below for your opportunities outside of clan:

Marchettus "the Bold"

Lady Jadviga Almonov, "The Bohemian"

Jessica, please see below: