Abominations Revised
By Steven Markley (smarkley@ocean.otr.usm.edu)
Author's Notes
I finally flipped through a Chicago Chronicles book recently, and saw the Abomination rules. And to quote the horse on Ren & Stimpy after he fell 10 stories and shattered all of his legs: "Hmm... no sir, I don't like it." I like the rules for them in the 2nd ed Werewolf Players Guide, but I still find them lacking. So this is my take on them (like anyone cares what I think, but here goes...) I look forward to responses.
Description
- No one likes Abominations. That rule I will keep.
- All Abominations take sunlight and fire damage as vampires, and silver and toxin damage as garou. This can be soaked with Dark Gifts (see below) and Fortitude rolled by itself.
- Abominations no longer regenerate, and must burn blood to heal.
- Abominations must spend a blood point to shift to any form but their breed form. They can assume breed form with no blood expenditure.
- Abominations, without exception, lose all their Gnosis upon Embrace. However, they are innately spiritual creatures, and thus maintain ties to the spirit world. However, their affinity shifts to the Shadowlands (Dark Umbra) rather than the Living Umbra. This is represented by their Thanatos rating.
- What the hell is Thanatos, you say?
- When the werecreature is embraced, roll her Gnosis rating against difficulty 6. The successes on this roll is her Thanatos rating. If no successes are rolled, it defaults to 1 Thanatos rating. If a botch is rolled, then the Abomination starts with no Thanatos, but can buy her first dot by spending 10 experience. For those with an affinity for death (Silent Striders, Black Spiral Dancers, Bubasti) the Storyteller my opt to add an additional success to the roll, or allow the roll to be made verses difficulty 5.
- Thanatos can be spent to activate Dark Gifts (explained later.) It is also rolled against the Shroud to "descend" into the Shadowlands. While they are cavorting there, they roll their Thanatos to soak damage from wraithly attacks and powers.
- Thanatos is regained from eating wraith plasm; for each five Corpus levels eaten, they regain a point of Thanatos. Though this does not neccesarily "kill" the wraith, this does not make Abominations very popular among the Restless either.
- Thanatos can be raised at current x 2.
- Abominations cannot learn Gifts from living shifters or spirits anymore. They can learn Dark Gifts from one another, however. Dark Gifts are dark reflections of the Gifts they had in life, instead turned toward affecting the Shadowlands and toward entropic effects. Examples:
- Mother's Touch becomes Death's Caress. It can heal the dead (vampires, wraiths and Abominations) but now it causes harm to living creatures.
- Parting the Velvet Curtain becomes Parting the Shroud. It brings others into the Shadowlands.
- Create Element could create plasmic objects or barrow flame.
- Some Gifts would remain unchanged: Sense Wyrm, Truth of Gaia, Might of Thor, Speed of Thought and others.
- Dark Gifts have the Thanatos cost of the corresponding Gift's Gnosis cost. Dark Gifts are learned from other Abominations at a cost of level x 5. Abominations are considered Ronin, and no longer have Rank (unless they are very good at keeping their natures hidden.) They learn all Dark Gifts from other Abominations at level x 5, regardless of their rank before Embrace. Some Death-spirits and Banes may also teack Dark Gifts, as well as some wraiths (a wraith with high Argos might teach Speed of Thought or Leap of the Kangaroo by exchanging knowledge with the werecritter. This will have to be closely monitored by the Storyteller to keep players freom learning Gifts whenever they want; Dark Gifts are rare and treasured.
- Abominations can learn and use Disciplines, but not as easily as vamps. They do not have clan Disciplines that can be learned at current x 5, but have instead several Discipline Affinities (Disciplines that can be learned at current x 6) The Abomination has Affinities for the following Disciplines: the three clan Disciplines of the Abomination's sire, Necromancy (because of the Abom's spiritual ties), Protean (for obvious reasons; Abominations with Protean 4 no longer have to blow blood to shapeshift), Potence, Celerity (cannot be used in conjunction with Rage!), Fortitude and Animalism. Abominations don't start out with an initial Discipline point spread, they must purchace Disciplines at 10 exp per Discipline. Abominations are considered the lowest form of Caitiff, and it is hard for them to find those willing to teach them new disciplines. However, the potential for learning their Affinity Disciplines is already there; all they have to to do is spend the experience. They don't have to be taught these.
- Abominations keep their Rage and Willpower. They also have Virtues, (5 points' worth at point of Embrace) and this is how Frenzy works: they roll the appropriate Virtue against the difficulty of the Abomination's Rage rating. If it is the night of the full moon or the the Abomination is in Crinos form, an additional success on the Virtue roll is needed to prevent Frenzy (this is cumulative, so an Abomination in Crinos during the full moon needs three successes on the roll to maintain control. A Willpower can be used to avoid going apeshit (or wolfshit, or whatever). In fact, Abominations gain Rage from the Embrace by being torn away from their connection to the Spirit world: add a point, up to 10, to a werecritter's Rage rating when she is Embraced.
- Abominations have a path rating as normal, and most follow Harmony. Other popular paths include Humanity, Inner Focus and Power and the Inner Voice. An option for this is to use the Ronin Wyrm corruption chart in Outcasts as a path rating for Abominations.
- Abominations may or may not show up as Wyrm-tainted; this is up to the Storyteller, though some factors include path and rating in said path; connection with the Shadowlands and other factors.
- Bastet abominations can only only cross the shroud in the areas corresponding to their den realms, but can do so at difficulty 3 and gain all the benefits of having a den realm in that area; this assumes the Bastet has the Den Realm background before the Embrace, as they can't be established after.
- Storytellers should seriously consider what they allow to become Abominations: Garou are an obvious choice, as well as Bastet. Do we really need vampiric werespiders, weresharks and werecrocs? My answer would be no, but that's your choice. Whatever you allow, make the rules for each breed consistant for simplicity's sake.
- Where the rules are lacking, or some rule I listed can be interpreted in more than one way, apply common sense and use the interpretation that seems to make the most sense. This is a difficult thing to ask in a world of rules lawyers and twinkers, but the real role-players will understand and apply this.