Lost Souls & Midian

Packs in games
One of the ideas passed about during an inebriated conversation was: should we include Lost Souls style vampire characters in the Midian game? Yeah, I know, "Keep the Midian crap on the appropriate forum." Many people like having only one character, even for different game systems. Others are fundamentally unable to create truly different characters. At any rate, this would delay the posting of the vampire rules, but could make the Undead that much cooler. Tell us what you think.¡

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Converting the MasseszThis is a good idea, provided you include conversion rules. You should also allow conversion to work both ways. This would allow the experiences gained to be applied to the Vampires when they return to their home game/modern time (although no one would believe them). As an alternative, Vampires with a Lost Souls 'flavor' could be included in the Midian game.

BlackHeart...

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An alternate view...

[i:27bc24ebd3]I disagree. While the rules for 'Vampire the Masquerade' wouldn't be problematic (Midian is too inclusive for this), the reverse would not hold true. Vampires would return to the 'World of Darkness' with powers and skills that would overwhelm the game.

Even if you have the 'generation' convert to 'blood purity', how does a returning vampire--who exsanguinated Midian vampires--handle having a partial generation?

Modern characters, even if they are not Undead, could also have weapons that would make them gods. That is, until the ammo runs out.

By the way, BlackHeart, what exactly do you mean by the[/i:27bc24ebd3] "Lost Souls' flavor"[i:27bc24ebd3]?[/i:27bc24ebd3]

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Flavor
The games we ran that were "Lost Souls" games were different than standard VTM. Not just the rules (table top and others added in), but the game just felt different, the characters more real-more "us".
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08693980b61Application for Membership in The Lost Souls Packf
...After a great deal of thought, I have decided to open membership in the Lost Souls for those that wish to become part of our growing 'internet community.'

(I know, that sounds cheesey as fuck)

In essence, I am creating a new rank within the organization, Confessor. This will be for those that are unable to participate directly (as in face-to-face). It is advantageous in that one may skip the 'Recruit' rank, and may join from anywhere without the necessity of ever having even met a Lost Soul. It is disadvantageous in that, without the Rites, further advancement cannot be done.

The 'Confessor' rank will denote those who are exclusively on-line members. This is different from those that are 'Warriors' who are the standard Pack Members who are able to participate in Ritae.

The only requirement for the 'Confessor' rank--and associated Lost Souls status, is contributing something to the site/game.

Lest any who are already 'Warrior' Lost Souls choose to rest on your prior experience, many of you are on shaky ground within the Pack for the sin of laziness.

Kinslayer

Cardinal, Lost Souls

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propose an area of Byzant that is ruled by a Vampiric nobility. Vampires are excellent rulers: longevity of a single lord brings consistance to the populace, less problems with old age/senility as well as succession to incompetent children;

the ruling class will leave the people the hell alone during the day (out of necessity), this will make work schedules more productive;

the mental domination prowess of Vampires keeps people and other populations in line;

Vampires are more interested in bleeding actual blood from the populace than from the (more important) pocketbooks, they also can drain the blood of animals without consuming the animals meat.

Quite a few other reasons may apply as to why Vampires should have their own state within the Byzant Empire (mostly they are just cool). I was going to suggest the name "Necropolis" but that was taken by someone in the Rumours page. Calling it "Litharge" would be too much a rip off.

Does this mean that I get to be a Confessor now? (she asked hopefully)

c33a970f3e Confessor
That is a good, workable idea. If you can provide us with more specifics then we can publish it with your credits. Details on the upper elite, names & such are needed, as is information on the community--size & resources.

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Blood Purity
Greetings my Sire,

The idea of blood purity is a far better way of

things than the generation theory. I for one would

like for this to be a way of the Lost Souls.

Respectfully,

Junior

W

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The nature of Vampirism.
This has been debated before, from different perspectives, but 'The Question' deserves repeating.

What is the nature of Vampirism?

This is a rather general query. Can we eat or drink? Can we derive nutrients (or intoxication) from the same? Can we reproduce in the "and Adam knew Eve" model? Do we age, slowly or at all? Are there other changes with age? What is the true extent of the power?

These questions have been pondered by RPG's, 'psychic' vampire proponents, cultists, religious fundamentalists, goths, and others. What are your answers?

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Undead Lore

First of all I would like to positively acknowledge all of the e-mails that I have received concerning the topic of vampirism in the Midian game. Thank all of you for your ideas and support. However, you secretive bastards could post to this forum every once in a while. Speak up, be bold, and let your opinions be known.

Secondly, I would like to cover some of what we are pondering for the lords of Undeath in the Midian game.

Blood purity

Rather than have a 'typical' vampire, a simple master/child set, or a 'generation' style, we will be utilising a system where the purity of a vampire's blood is expressed as a percentage. This allows for very powerful vampires as well as quite weak ones. This should allow for the best combination of player and opponent vampires. In addition, this allows for an additional way for vampires to become more powerful, instead of making them quite powerful in the beginning. This also creates a way to add a form of vampiric society to the game, by separating those with greater from lesser purity.

Vampiric abilities

We will include two types of vampire abilities, 'gifts' and 'flaws' (similar to traits), and vampire-only mystic skills. Any vampire may learn the skill set, but we are still undecided on gaining & losing gifts & flaws.

Creation

The creation, or rebirth, of a vampire will be a deliberate act. Rather than "everyone who dies/survives/is bitten will turn into a vampire," or a percentage chance from any of these, we would rather have it that a vampire must give his or her blood to any prospective childer. We are working on a system for the creation rules that includes such factors as: the creators age and power, the blood purity of the sire (obviously), how many the sire created before--as well as the duration between childer, and the care with which the creating vampire took for the newly created Undead. This system will allow for powerful player Undead--having the support and care of their creators, as well as allowing one to unleash a horde of vampires in a relatively short amount of time--these 'cannon-fodder' vampires are created quickly and are easily destroyed. SunlightShockingly absent from the e-mails we have received, perhaps because no one wanted to even think about it, was the question of how sunlight should affect vampires. We have a simple system in the works that compares the intensity of the sunlight to the area of flesh exposed to determine the damage done. This will allow older &/or more powerful Undead to walk about in the day with only mild discomfort while still allowing sunlight to be a sure way of destroying the Undead.

We are also compiling superstitions and stories about vampires to throw into the mix. The net result should please you.

H

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Blood Purity Rating#
Blood purity measures a Vampire's relative power level. It is also an indirect measure of age and strength of her bloodline. This blood purity is noted as a percentile.

<<Midian-specific notes will be segregated in brackets in this manner. >>

A Vampire's blood purity is based on the purity of the creating Vampire's blood, and the care with which he or she is created. A Vampire is about half as pure as his creator. The Sire can influence the progeny's blood purity with the care that she uses in the creation rite. A Vampire created with great time and care (a three-day process leaving the Sire nearly completely drained of both blood and energy), results in a progeny of greater purity and power than one quickly brought into Undeath as cannon fodder.

There are various rituals that may be employed to learn a particular Vampire's blood purity. This rating is used by many Vampiric societies to stratify or discriminate other Vampires. This is varied by region. Vampires who have been well entrenched in one area <<such as southeastern Formour or northastern Byzant>> might consider a Vampire with a rating of 10% to not be "pure enough," whereas that same Undead may be far more powerful than any others when in a different location.

The percentile rating of blood purity is an arbitrary measurement. This is based on the estimations of elder Vampires who attempted to trace their lineage through lore and legends back to the mythical 'Original Vampire.' There is no forseeable upper limit, so theoretically a Vampire could have--for example--a blood purity rating of 102%.

Blood purity is increased in two ways. The simplest and easiest is by aging. As a Vampire advances in years and centuries, her blood becomes purer and more refined. The second, faster yet more dangerous, method is by exsanguinating other Vampires. Completely draining (unto death) the blood of the Undead of lesser purity than one's own does increase one's blood purity rating, but not nearly as much as the exsanguination of those with a greater blood purity. The amount gained from Undead of greater blood purity than the draining Vampire's is 1/10th of the departed Vampire; those of lesser purity provide only 1/50th of their rating. That is, a Vampire drains another with a blood purity rating of 12.04%--which is greater than her own of 5%--she would add 1.204% to her blood purity rating. If she drained a Vampire with a rating of only 3%, she would only gain 1/50th of that or plus 0.06 percent. The amount gained via age is one-percent of one-percent. In other words, a Vampire's blood purity is increased by 0.01% per year.

<<Add in the blood purity rating to all of the Vampire's attributes & hit points, rounded down. For example, a 3.25% blood purity rating would add +3 to all attributes and hit points. A rating of 8.998% would add +8, whereas a blood purity below 1% would not have any associated bonuses. For those unfamiliar with the Midian system, Humans have an average of 10 in all attributes, and about 10 points of damage will kill them. >>
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16d4ce10e8.what are the rules for Lost Souls characters??. what are the rules for Lost Souls characters??

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Rules are for suckers

"Do as thou wilst shalt be the whole of the law."

There aren't the quite the same rules for creating a Lost Souls character as with a traditional rpg. You can create a character with nearly any game system that you desire, White Wolf's Vampire: the Masquerade being the most popular. As the (un)live games are essentially free-form style, whatever you can get away with is the only true rule.

Many Lost Souls pride themselves on being able to replicate the effects of many of the V:tM abilities in our games. As a suggestion, you should have a character that you would be comfortable with. The best way to do this is with a character that is similar to yourself. Since these are rather open interaction games, if your character varies widely from yourself in either appearance or ability, you might not have as good a time.

The 'default' system is V:tM, but traditionally we have integrated books (such as Anne Rice's works), myths and legends, or other game systems (the creed is from Night Life).

Judging from the responses we have received concering some of the things that we are working on with Vampires in the Midian game (notably blood purity), we will possibly integrate some of those concepts into something workable for the live action Pack games.
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