[MOD] Princes of Darkness

[trias10]

1/ The PDX Ruler Designer doesn't allow for more than 120 years I think. Our custom designer event doesn't change the age, so you would have to first pick a character with an age you like, then use the decision/event... but then you can't use PDX RD at all (since it resets the age) so you won't be able to change your traits. Honestly, you could just play Al Ashrad for an infant of Ur Shulgi with very good stats and old age. Or you will have to choose between traits or age.

2/ Quietus doesn't exist anymore in V5 and all Assamites have blood sorcery. For now, we use this ruleset, since it allows us to concentrate on a smaller number of disciplines to flesh them out (before perhaps moving on to the more exotic ones). If you are Assamite and have blood sorcery, we have localized it as "Quietus" as a nod to the old ruleset. But it still use the blood sorcery tree.

Thanks!

So to be sure I understand: V:tM Revised Quietus no longer exists in V5, in V5 Assamites have Blood Sorcery as their clan discipline.

The clan discipline in the mod for Assamites is this Blood Sorcery exactly as per V5, however, you have chosen to call it Quietus, even though it is nothing like the Quietus from Revised or DA: Vampire -- it is Quietus in name only, for all other purposes it's just Blood Sorcery from V5?

 

[karde]

You understand it correctly.

This situation might change in the future when lifestyles trees are more complete and we have more time to focus on "niche" disciplines though.

 

[Orinsul]

Many of the new edition things, as I understand it, have it in the story that a change has gone over them recently, rather than retconning that they always had their new stats they have it as a new change in world, so that stuff might not effect the mod setting being in the past? Idk if quietus to sorcery is one of them, but it's worth keeping in mind and checking.

 

[karde]

It's mostly a development convenience thing right now anyway. We could easily have all the niche disciplines as lifestyle trees, but they would all be empty, which is sad. Instead, we have them represented as other, more mainstream, disciplines (following V5 in some instances, but not all) so the player can always enjoy lifestyles trees with actual content in it.

 

[kekeface123]

Can someone explain to me? I start as the Prince of Athens, go for ''hunt'', choose vein-piercer or whatever it's called, then I get trait ''bloodsorcery''. I select sanguine perk tree> and it says I cannot earn any new perks because I dont have the base skill?? But i just got it from the previous event? -.- any guide on the skill trees? also why diablerize keeps failing? 95% chance? yet it failed 4 times in a row? buged?

 

[DahndI]

Can someone explain to me? I start as the Prince of Athens, go for ''hunt'', choose vein-piercer or whatever it's called, then I get trait ''bloodsorcery''. I select sanguine perk tree> and it says I cannot earn any new perks because I dont have the base skill?? But i just got it from the previous event? -.- any guide on the skill trees? also why diablerize keeps failing? 95% chance? yet it failed 4 times in a row? buged?

You are probably inferior to your target in some aspect: He got celerity and you don't? He can run away. You target someone with dominate and have no defense against it? Prepare to be mesmerized. You attempt to diablerize someone with higher prowess than you? Baaad idea if you are fond of your current character.

 

[Naufragus]

Thanks! Two quick follow up questions, if I may:

1) Either using the Ruler Designer or the Custom Character event chain, can I set my vampire age to something appropriate as a childe of Ur-Shulgi, so set my age as 900 years? I'm guessing the Ruler Designer won't allow this, so can it be done with the event chain? This would also then alleviate the issue of embracing childer which are older than you (as 900 years old should be older than anyone you could embrace).

2) I'm confused about what you meant by your statement on Quietus. In the Dark Ages: Vampire sourcebook, Quietus is the Assasmite clan discipline which has powers focused on assassination and combat, but Assamite blood sorcery (Blood Thaumaturgy) is an entirely different discipline (IIRC, I haven't played the game in years). So a character in PnP would have dots in Quietus and dots in Thaumaturgy. But in this game, Assamite Thaumaturgy = Quietus? So if I want to have maxed out Quietus (the same Quietus from the rulebook) and maxed out Assamite Blood Sorcery (the discipline from the rulebook) how could I do that in the mod?

I suggest using Notepad+ or something similar. and Daddy Pika's cheat menu.

You create a character in Ruler designer for the visual. Just set your looks and ethnicity. Dont worry about traits. Then once the game starts use the provided character creator to create the Vampire version. Then Daddy Pika's to tweak your stats and traits. Now save the the game.

Open the save file in the editor of your choice and go to your character entry. Here you can change your birthdate, So if you want to be 500 years old change the year that far back. You can also set your Vampire age which is how old your character looks. Ive also done this for my children too since if Im 900 they should be at least 850. Save the file.

Now when you load the game youre whatever age

 

[r3xm0rt1s]

You can easily change your age via console too, if it is at all necessary for your immersion to be embraced before the greatly exaggerated rumours of your sire's demise. Many of them vanished without a trace anyway. And yes, I am aware that sometimes their diablerist knows what happened.

Hell, just starting at 16 years old is sufficient. It will take you a very long time to breed a worthy childe, even if you can unland and hook an existing revenant dynasty with pure blood to your court. Though I admit the problem is mainly how non-rulers have too few children. Land your revenants and you can kiss your eugenics goodbye.

 

[trias10]

Thank you kindly for the replies.

Another question: I notice that on new game start, an event chain pops up right away asking you what sort of humans you prefer to drink blood from. However, at the bottom, you can say "Perhaps I do not drink blood from humans" and this then takes you to another screen where you can tell the game that you prefer to drink the blood of other vampires.

However, if you pick this option, that you prefer to hunt/drink other vampires, I'm not sure how you are supposed to do this action in the game. I have picked this option, and yet the game still only allows me to Herdify and Hunt only humans, not other vampires. Other vampires only allows me to Diablerize them. So what is the point of that option?

Lastly, looking at my court, it appears I have some vampires in my court, some humans, and some mortals (those with the blue Mortal trait). However, not all humans (non-vampires) seem to have this Mortal trait, some have only base game traits, no Vampire and no Mortal. It this a bug? Shouldn't everyone be either Vampire or Mortal? Additionally, it appears I can only Hunt and Herdify those who have the Mortal trait. If they don't have the Mortal trait, I can't hunt them (possibly only Herdify them). Is this some kind of bug too, or am I missing something?

 

[karde]

Characters without any splat (vampire or mortal) trait will gain one at time passes. If they are an important character (landed) it will be quick, if they aren't, it can take up to three years. Most actions in the mod requires the victim to have the mortal trait, so you sometimes have to wait.

For the "drink from vampires", it means that your character gains sustenance only from other vampires. It's, for now, mostly a difficulty choice. This predator type is criminal to most faiths (obviously, since it's like cannibalism) but you gain a little more resonance from diablerie (where you actually eat another vampire).

 

[trias10]

Characters without any splat (vampire or mortal) trait will gain one at time passes. If they are an important character (landed) it will be quick, if they aren't, it can take up to three years. Most actions in the mod requires the victim to have the mortal trait, so you sometimes have to wait.

For the "drink from vampires", it means that your character gains sustenance only from other vampires. It's, for now, mostly a difficulty choice. This predator type is criminal to most faiths (obviously, since it's like cannibalism) but you gain a little more resonance from diablerie (where you actually eat another vampire).

Thanks for the clarification about the splat, that makes sense now.

I was curious about the "drink from vampire" stuff so I looked in the game files and I see that, as a player character, you can do the Hunt scheme on Mortals only, but you can do the Herdify scheme against Mortals or Vampires, so am I correct in understanding that, since you cannot ever Hunt them, that the only way to drink blood from Vampires on a regular basis (to lower your Hunger value) is to herdify them and then drink from them like any other herd member (aside from diablerie)? I would also make a suggestion that this asymmetry doesn't really make sense. Why can you only Hunt mortals for drinking blood but not other Vampires? If you can herdify other vampires to regularly drink from them, and if you're a Vampire-blood-drinker, surely you should be able to Hunt other Vampires too?

And just to confirm: if you pick the "drink from Vampires" option, then drinking Mortal blood will never lower your Hunger score, the only way to lower your Hunger is to drink from a Herded Vampire or commit Diablerie?

Also, one last question: what do the advanced discipline traits give you? When looking at those traits in the Game UI, they don't seem to confer any benefits on their own (Advanced Auspex, the perk, it just says "You gain this perk", but there are no benefits from it, like +4 Diplomacy, or anything like that). Doing a search of the game files (grep -r), it doesn't seem like anything in the game uses those perks, like auspexadvanced_perk or proteanadvanced_perk. They seem to do absolutely nothing in the mod as they are currently implemented, is that correct?

 

[karde]

"Hunt" vampires already exist, it's the diablerize scheme. It's obviously way more difficult than hunting mortal though.
I'm not sure about the exact interaction between the herd and the vampire only predator type, this wasn't my work.

Advanced disciplines have several purposes. They let us target which character should auto complete their tree at the start and they also let us know which character should be eligible for advanced disciplines. Right now, it's only for Vicissitude I think (not 100% sure, also not my work) but you should enable an advanced power if you are 4th generation with advanced vicissitude. More advanced powers like these will come as time allows.

 

[trias10]

Gotcha, thanks!

Btw, looking at the mod code files, it does not appear that choosing to be a bloodleech at character creation, "I drink from other Vampires", stops you from reducing hunger by drinking blood from mortals. However, in the game I do confirm it does appear to be working.

I can't figure out how this works though, because if I look at all the event trees and scheme code surrounding Hunts (vamphunt), I see no if-limit { } checks for the bloodleech trait, and yet somehow, somewhere, it does stop you from reducing hunger by feeding on Mortals when you are a bloodleech.

Any chance I could please trouble you to point me to the block of mod code which stops bloodleechs from reducing their hunger by hunting mortals? Am very curious to know how this is implemented.

 

[r3xm0rt1s]

You can herdify vampires who are in the same province as you, whether that means your court, or knight in the army you command, or raising your army in your vassal's capital to start the scheme. Actually feeding on them would require being in the same province too, I guess. But at least it works for vampire courtiers. Feeding on them makes them more hungry though. Hilariously, it seems once they are frenzied, next sip makes them hungry again.

Arguably, bloodleeching or vampire herding is really lore friendly, sufficiently old and powerful vampires require more potent blood than mortals can provide, and actually feed on their childes. Wiki told me so anyway. The mod is not quite as punishing, but diablerie your way to blood potency ten and nothing short of killing the mortals will ease your hunger anymore. Choosing to go bloodleech increases starting blood potency by one, which pushes at least fourth generation vampires over the edge of "conscience tenet demands not hurting kine when feeding, but I need moar!". Contrast how a vampire with blood potency one can keep themselves merely hungry by sipping a little, or go from frenzying to satiated in one kill.

Related to herding, presence is a lovely discipline, because hunting with lingering kiss perk can herd over the cap of five. Mortals only though.

 

[flintsparc]

Gotcha, thanks!

Btw, looking at the mod code files, it does not appear that choosing to be a bloodleech at character creation, "I drink from other Vampires", stops you from reducing hunger by drinking blood from mortals. However, in the game I do confirm it does appear to be working.

I can't figure out how this works though, because if I look at all the event trees and scheme code surrounding Hunts (vamphunt), I see no if-limit { } checks for the bloodleech trait, and yet somehow, somewhere, it does stop you from reducing hunger by feeding on Mortals when you are a bloodleech.

Any chance I could please trouble you to point me to the block of mod code which stops bloodleechs from reducing their hunger by hunting mortals? Am very curious to know how this is implemented.

Predator types don't stop you from feeding from other characters. It is not a prey restriction like the Ventrue have. Prey restriction also doesn't stop you from feeding on characters that don't meet your diet either, it just causes stress.

If your hunger is not reducing when feeding it is likely because you have a high blood potency (from all that diablerie, YOU MONSTER!) and it takes more blood to reduce hunger with high blood potency. At highest blood potency, you have to at least severely wound a mortal before reducing hunger even one step. This is as per VTM V5 TTRPG rules which we have tried to implement. Also, to drop from one hunger to zero hunger requires the victim to be killed.

 

[DahndI]

Whenever a VIP spawns you should just herd them, ghoul them, embrace them and put them in prison. That way you have a renewable snack source. You can drink from herded vampire prisoners.

 

[trias10]

Predator types don't stop you from feeding from other characters. It is not a prey restriction like the Ventrue have. Prey restriction also doesn't stop you from feeding on characters that don't meet your diet either, it just causes stress.

If your hunger is not reducing when feeding it is likely because you have a high blood potency (from all that diablerie, YOU MONSTER!) and it takes more blood to reduce hunger with high blood potency. At highest blood potency, you have to at least severely wound a mortal before reducing hunger even one step. This is as per VTM V5 TTRPG rules which we have tried to implement. Also, to drop from one hunger to zero hunger requires the victim to be killed.

Thank you for the clarification!

So then what exactly is the point of selecting "I drink from other Vampires" during the character creation event chain? Because selecting bloodleech gives you some benefits, like free Protean and Blood Potency +1, but if there is no actual game rule preventing you from drinking Mortal blood and lowering your hunger with Mortal blood, then is it just a role-playing thing? Or do you never gain resonance experience from drinking Mortals if you are a bloodleech, and this is therefore the down-side?

Whenever a VIP spawns you should just herd them, ghoul them, embrace them and put them in prison. That way you have a renewable snack source. You can drink from herded vampire prisoners.

Why do you need to put them in prison? Surely once you herdify them, then you can drink from them whenever you want using the "Drink from Herd" action? What's the benefit to imprisoning them that you don't already get from the Herdify success?

 

[DahndI]

Why do you need to put them in prison? Surely once you herdify them, then you can drink from them whenever you want using the "Drink from Herd" action? What's the benefit to imprisoning them that you don't already get from the Herdify success?

They aren't going anywhere, they don't get to scheme your demise, they double up as stress-relieving torture toys and when I am done transmogrifying them I can roleplay that I got my own private freakshow in the basement.

 

[trias10]

They aren't going anywhere, they don't get to scheme your demise, they double up as stress-relieving torture toys and when I am done transmogrifying them I can roleplay that I got my own private freakshow in the basement.

You a cold-blooded Tzimisce you are!

 

[DahndI]

You a cold-blooded Tzimisce you are!

Why, thank you very much! I am indeed playing as Yorak right now, simply because I like his nickname You know a dude is a bad when the underworld of bloodsucking monsters call him "Your Darkest Terror."