As Above|So Below

Jack | He/Him | WoD/CofD, other ramblings. “The highest is from the lowest, and the lowest is from the highest.”

[awakenedsalamander]

You know what I’ll say it

The movie Real Steel (2011, dir. Shawn Levy) should have done better with critics and audiences.

[awakenedsalamander]

Currently wondering if I should include the Sun and the Moon in a theoretical set of Changeling: The Lost Courts based on the classical planets.

Pros:

- They are definitely considered classical planets

- It would bring it up to seven Courts, which means you could play on the planetary hours thing and have a different Court in power each day of the week.

- Cool thematic stuff going on with light and darkness, day and night, and so on

Cons:

- They are not considered planets anymore, which may be confusing (though changelings probably don’t care about that)

- Seven Courts is quite a lot to keep track of, frankly

- There is already canonically a Court of the Sun and a Court of the Moon but they don’t fit into this schema at all

These are the very serious problems that keep my mind turning at night

[awakenedsalamander]

I wonder what embracing my theatre kid background and my devotion to the Chronicles of Darkness at the same time by saying “Valjean’s Soliloquy follows the beats of an Obrimos Awakening” would do to my meager following. Fortunately, I’m not doing that, so we’ll never know.

[awakenedsalamander]

Well, since you were so kind as to ask, @thestray7, I will expand. Just so everyone's caught up on what I'm talking about, let me briefly sum up the opening to the stage musical version of Les Misérables. This covers the first two numbers, Look Down/Prologue and Valjean's Soliloquy.

We open up on our protagonist, Jean Valjean, toiling in a chain gang, the punishment for his crime of theft. We soon find out what he stole and why: One loaf of bread, to feed his sister's starving child. However, his sentence (19 years) has finally elapsed, and his parole has begun. The officer who informs him of this (and very interesting but not currently relevant character, Inspector Javert) also makes it clear that Valjean is not to break the terms of his parole, or he'll be right back where he started.

Valjean quickly finds out that living as convict on parole is, to put it lightly, quite difficult. No one trusts him, and refuse to pay him as much as they would other workers. He quickly finds himself wandering, embittered and cynical. Still, a bishop sees him struggling one night, and offers to feed and shelter him for the night. Valjean accepts, but, driven by a mixture of envy, anger, and just pure desperation, he steals the bishop's valuable silverware and flees. He is caught by law enforcement basically immediately and dragged back. Valjean lies and says the bishop offered the silverware as a gift, and to his astonishment, the bishop not only goes along with it, but takes a step further and gives Valjean his even more precious silver candlesticks, telling the police that Valjean must have forgotten to take them. As the police leave, the bishop only tells Valjean that he must use his newfound wealth to build himself an honest life.

Valjean is then torn up inside, confronted with his guilt at having betrayed the one person who gave him a second chance, and his hope for a new life, but also his anger towards the wider world, and his conviction that "goodness," like the bishop's, is foolish and leads to suffering. Okay, recap over! Now for the nerd stuff. Why is this an Obrimos Awakening? Well, to be honest, I might have overstated my case a bit by saying it's specifically an Awakening to the Golden Key, it could really be to any Path (but the heavy religious symbolism makes me think Obrimos).

But it's very much an Awakening to me! Like obviously literally within the story he doesn't become a mage, but it's the same idea. A person who is wrestling with the state of the world, and his place in it, is the first component of an Awakening-- an Inquiring Mind and a Prepared Soul*. Now, stereotypically, that takes the form of philosophizing and striving for enlightenment, but I think Valjean still counts! He's wounded by the injustice he's faced, and is contemplating why that is and how it can be allowed to continue-- see the following lines

VALJEAN: And now I know how freedom feels The jailer always at your heels It is the law This piece of paper in my hand That makes me cursed throughout the land It is the law

He comes to, understandably, see the world as arbitrarily cruel and repressive. This is, in Mage: The Awakening terms, part of the Lie told by the Exarchs. And that brings us to the second step, the Confrontation with the Lie. When the bishop not only gives Valjean food and shelter, but also protects him from being arrested and offers him a new way forward, he challenges Valjean's worldview, and proves to him that there's more to the world than just scorn and suffering. Valjean really grapples with what this could mean:

VALJEAN: My life he claims for God above Can such things be? For I had come to hate the world This world that always hated me Take an eye for an eye Turn your heart into stone This is all I have lived for This is all I have known!

Also, it's not totally relevant, but the line "He told me that I have a soul... how does he know?" is so affecting to me, and reinforces the level of paradigm shift this is for Jean Valjean. He is trying to understand something that is metaphysically beyond him, but he has at the same time witnessed a trace of it. And this kind of feels like the Intercession of a Watchtower to me! It's as if an Angel is walking in human form, or showing its hand to Valjean-- Supernal light leaking through the shadows. The fact the song ends on an act that is very reminiscent of signing the Watchtower, with Valjean declaring that "Jean Valjean is nothing now, another story must begin!" and tearing up his parole letter, is the icing on the cake.

I dunno! I think there's something here, however obviously unintentional a parallel.

This is maybe the most niche thing I've ever written.

*I am making the minor assumption that Jean Valjean was not erstwhile claimed by another supernatural power.

[awakenedsalamander]

God help me I’m getting into Scion again

[enddaysengine]

👀👀👀

Always glad tidings to my ears, even if I’m seeing it a year and half later. How did it go?

[awakenedsalamander]

I confess it didn't (or hasn't, as of yet) come to much-- I haven't had the chance to run or play in a Scion game, and for better or worse I don't get the sense that's likely to change soon.

That said, I do still love the setting, and at the time I initially wrote that little post, I was just kind of enchanted by the sheer scope of it. Not necessarily in the "cosmic significance" sense, but in that there was such breadth to what kind of characters and plots were on the table. The variety of the mythic world being explored, and the attempts to both link and highlight the contrasts (some slight, some strong) between aspects of that world, really captured my attention-- as did the attention paid to the structure and underlying mechanisms of mythic storytelling, which recurs to this day.

[awakenedsalamander]

I wonder what embracing my theatre kid background and my devotion to the Chronicles of Darkness at the same time by saying “Valjean’s Soliloquy follows the beats of an Obrimos Awakening” would do to my meager following. Fortunately, I’m not doing that, so we’ll never know.

[dangarou]

[polyvinylist]

Shit man, this Technocracy war is fucked. I just saw a guy open up Siri on his phone and say "liquidate my assets" or some similar shit, and every one around him turned pale, began sublimating into nanoparticle mist, and was re-encoded on a quantum level into blockchain value. The camera didn't even go onto him, that's how common shit like this is. My ass is using cryogenic pistol rounds and low-frequency neural disruption. I think I just heard some Iterator go "activate throngulator.exe" two groups over. I gotta get the fuck outta here.

[awakenedsalamander]

I’ve been thinking about the First Change (specifically in Werewolf: The Forsaken, though I know this will still be relevant to Apocalypse), and I can’t help but feel that of all the kind of “crossing the threshold experiences” in CofD— you know, the Embrace, Awakening, the Bargain— there’s something uniquely compelling about it.

I mean, you get a lot of the same beats. A supernatural world gets revealed, an unknown history unearthed, the character forever changed, all that. But it’s a little bit different, because for a werewolf it’s not really a transformation imposed from the outside, but rather a realization emerging from the inside. A werewolf is not made, but born.

And so for all the horror of your quicksilver flesh, the opening of new keener senses, the discovery of the strange and terrible spirit world that awaits you, there’s also got to be this feeling of “Oh… so that’s what I am.” Maybe it’s a good feeling, maybe it’s an awful one, but it’s finally the truth.

It goes for both those raised steeped in the lore of the Uratha and the Shadow, and those who weren’t. In the former case, you finally get to experience, for better or worse, the power and fury of the werewolves you’ve grown up dedicated to. You are the same kind of monster as them. Did you aspire to be this? Did you fear them? Did you dream about the wilds, the spirits? Did you ever wonder if under your skin, the Wolf was waiting? Now it’s all yours.

And for those who had no idea, does it finally feel right? Does the need to hunt, the heritage of Moon and Wolf, and the realization of the mad, invisible forces that shape the world make you feel that you have a purpose after all? Or instead, do you feel as lost and hopeless as ever? You thought you might be special maybe?, You are— you are a sacred killing thing, and you will never be anything else.

[awakenedsalamander]

Been thinking about the melancholia of Vampire a little bit. There’s lots of ways I could talk about it, I suppose, and yet the one that keeps resonating in my skull is that every Kindred is still a person.

In fact, I’ve come to really love that phrase, “A Beast I Am, Lest A Beast I Become,” because of how elegantly it captures the two truths about vampires:

1. They’re not human, they’re monsters

2. They’re still people

And to be clear, the fact that a vampire is still a person doesn’t necessarily absolve them of anything. They do still prey on the vulnerable, they do still lie and steal and kill and enslave, and they are losing bits of themselves to eternity with every passing night, but there’s a kind of tragedy in that often becoming a vampire is not voluntary, and it can happen to anyone.

Like, behind the blood and fangs exists a creature with dreams, with loves, with hopes and fears and sorrows. I’ve written before that I’m not a big fan of the idea that the Beast kills the human side of a vampire, and this is a large reason why— the drama and the pathos of a monster that still feels just gets to me.

And it doesn’t make them any less a monster.

[sunsetconcert]

easily the best part of reading through Mage 20th is when the book goes "Hey, I know I've been trying to be chill about this... But do you want to hear *my* conspiracy theory about how things work?" like they're trying not to get overheard by some notional higher-up on the hierarchy

[awakenedsalamander]

Dwelling upon the idea of a “road trip” kinda chronicle lately. Not sure which game it would suit better, or even if it would fit into WoD or CofD. But I like the idea of doing, rather than say, Monster of the Week, “Landmark of the Week (which has a bunch of monsters in it).”

Much to think about, perhaps.

[l-una-c]

Another of our pack, Fiona Fate-Like-Lightning. She is a Fianna Ahroun, homid. She was a reluctant warrior, but has grown into her role in the past few sessions. She is headstrong and kind, and often leads the pack into battle, alongside Klea. She is also a talented musician. I had a lot of fun drawing her!

[awakenedsalamander]

More art from @l-una-c, this time of Fiona, the pack’s lead combatant— or at least, according to prophecy, she’ll be a fateful warrior for Gaia, though it’s unclear if that’s for good or for ill.

Nonetheless, Fiona is a delightful character. She’s often one of the more somber/reflective members of the pack, believe it or not, and I’ve had a lot of fun seeing how she’s gone from hesitant and even meek to finding a place among the pack, and perhaps among the Garou Nation.

[l-una-c]

Going a little crazy making art of my Werewolf pack lmao. Been a minute since I did Klea art. for those of you who don’t know she is my lupus Black Fury theurge. She’s from Albania, she refuses to learn how to read because she doesn’t respect paper (she associates it with currency, bureaucracy, ideological blindness, and immigration law), does not respect human laws usually (but her friends pay for her food so she stops stealing), and she doesn’t use computer computers, but she is familiar with Internet memes because one of her black fury friends is hactkivist. It’s always jarring whenever she uses one. Her pack does not like that. Avery is teaching her them lmao. The only technologies she readily operates are: a lighter, and an iPod shuffle with the entire discography of My Chemical Romance, her favorite band.

[l-una-c]

and a sketchy painting of her lupus form!

[awakenedsalamander]

Art by @l-una-c of her character, Klea Tends-The-Hidden, in our Werewolf: The Apocalypse game.

Klea’s great, and brings a very fun mixture of mystic seriousness and completely wild goofiness to the story.

What you might not know is that one of her primary functions on a mechanical level is getting absurd amounts of successes on Perception rolls, which has made some of my efforts as a Storyteller to conceal a threat rather pointless.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

[lanthanite-void]

I love Yantras so much. Make your own flavour. Symbolism crystallised. Bonuses for casting under a new moon and sticking candles everywhere. Dedicated Tools as self expression. Very normal about yantras.

[awakenedsalamander]

I especially appreciate the Broad Dedication Merit— you can make the element of stone itself, or tattoo of interlocking runes, or the arrival of high noon, your Dedicated Tool.

The Supernal casts long shadows in the Fallen World, after all, and they have manifold shapes.

[themarcheschronicle]

My game's Libertine player is eyeing Broad Dedication to dedicate his techne. I've told him I don't want to start chewing on Signs of Sorcery (or the Tomes of the Watchtower or Pentacle) until the other players feel confident with casting basic spells. But you're right, it is incredibly neat.

Though...taking high noon as a dedicated tool, if you don't have the other SoS merit that allows for multiple dedicated tools, means you're limited on paradox mitigation at other times...improvised casting can't always be planned for midday, by its very nature.

[awakenedsalamander]

Oh I wouldn’t recommend taking high noon as a Dedicated Tool in most cases, it was just my quick example of how abstract it could get. Absolutely right that a mage would be wise to have a more reliable tool for dealing with Paradox.

And yeah, when I ran Mage getting folks to be comfortable with standard spellcasting was enough of a battle in the first place! As much as I love the game, I wish it was somewhat more approachable for new folks.

[electricpentacle]

Upsettingly, "gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss" is actually a fair description of the Seers of the Throne's agenda.

[awakenedsalamander]

You know me, I’m always thinking about something “of Darkness” related, and for a while I’ve been dwelling on Kinfolk (and thus also Wolf-Blooded, really; I’m going to just say “Kinfolk” and use Werewolf: The Apocalypse references for brevity, though.)

Just to get everyone up to speed in case anyone not in the know is reading, Kinfolk are, in a phrase, the extended family of werewolves. Being a werewolf is… well, I hesitate to call it a “genetic” trait for a few reasons, but it is passed down through families, and moreover, it’s a rare trait, relatively speaking. It’s definitely not guaranteed that people born from a werewolf parent will be werewolves themselves, though obviously they have stronger chances.

The Kinfolk, then, are everyone descended from that heritage but who are not werewolves. They can still pass down the trait to their children, but are otherwise fairly normal mortals. The only real supernatural advantage most of them have is being able to look upon a werewolf in their war form and not be driven away in instinctive terror (though most of them are still smart enough to get the hell away from said werewolf).

Now, there are admittedly discussions to be had about the Kinfolk and how the game overall treats them. While the fact that they are sometimes seen as accessories to the werewolves who are best fit only for making more werewolves is played for horror and tragedy in-setting, there’s also some points where the game can get uncomfortably close to parroting that view uncritically. Don’t take me as defending that.

That said, though, I think Kinfolk are interesting to me because they occupy an inherently compelling social role. They are part of werewolf society to some extent, certainly— they help with logistics, intel, social ties, and even combat as part of that society— but they are also distant from it, with most Kinfolk still maintaining a presence in the mortal world as just… normal people. Seemingly everyday families.

And that’s fascinating to me. The setting is an urban fantasy/horror game, and like most such settings, it features the supernatural as a hidden world lying beneath the mundane reality. And in such stories, the process of uncovering and crossing into that hidden world is a major focus— the assumed protagonists, the vampires and ghosts and yes, werewolves, thus spend their time mostly occupying the supernatural world, and interacting with mortal societies and institutions mostly as a means to carefully navigate through that supernatural existence. That’s a simplification of course, but it’s still an underlying trend.

So the fact that the Kinfolk are in this “in-between” state, having strong connections to the everyday world of mortals and having at least some understanding of the magic and horror beyond it, even getting directly involved at some points, is intriguing. While both Werewolf games are about the duality of worlds, it’s the Kinfolk who actually embody it. They don’t have the clear purpose or strength of werewolves, but they also haven’t lost themselves to that either.

I don’t know, I could obviously keep going about the ways in which “the family secret” being that your brother is a werewolf, and so was his grandmother, is very cool, or how growing up among monsters and getting half-glimpses of their world makes for a very interesting story, but I’ve spent too much time detailing the basics to go into that. Suffice it to say, I think they’re neat!

[awakenedsalamander]

God help me I’m getting into Scion again