We had a thread earlier discussing how Delta Green would do in the universe of WoD and it made me curious; how would the Ordo Veritatis do if they were the ones transported and tasked with eliminating all Vampires? Assuming that they have all their government contacts and resources without needing to fight every other threat in the WoD, could they actually wipe out every vampire?
>>96522367I think the issue is that there isn't a "canon" version of the OV. It's up to the GM whether they are a hyper competent secret society immune to subversion or a barely running on a shoestring secret conspiracy whose worst enemy is themselves. It's left specifically vague so it can fulfill whatever story the GM wants to tell, a lot moreso than Delta Green.
>>96522416The Ocean Game preview that got leaked on here does give us a better general outline of them and it seems even the writers generally go for the former. They treat the OV as having an elite brute squad of operators that they send in after investigation teams who are so lethal the book generally seems to run with the idea that staying and fighting them is a lost cause and the Sallow (the evil demon-worshiping ultra-capitalist shadow conspiracy running the entire world) outright try to stay out of the OV's line of sight or redirect them to other falseflag targets, despite explicitly having more money than even the richest people in the world and enough connections to fully make use of it.
>>96522416>or a barely running on a shoestring secret conspiracy whose worst enemy is themselves. I don't think any version of the OV has ever been described this way. They've always been treated as having ridiculous reach and power across the globe.
>Esoterrorist I just wanted to say that I really like this word. I do. It works. Terror works best when it’s hidden, or kept occult.
>>96523441Robin says in the core book that they are literally whatever the GM needs them to be. The default assumption is that they are incredibly powerful because it's the one that gets out of the way of the main gameplay loop the most. Although, as >>96522429 points out, it sounds like the Ocean Game might codify them more than they are in the core book.
>>96522429>who are so lethal the book generally seems to run with the idea that staying and fighting them is a lost cause and the Sallow (the evil demon-worshiping ultra-capitalist shadow conspiracy running the entire world) outright try to stay out of the OV's line of sight or redirect them to other falseflag targets, despite explicitly having more money than even the richest people in the world and enough connections to fully make use of it.That sounds very silly. But I guess the all-ruling-yet-utterly-incapable-vs-the-anticonspiracy is on point for many real world conspiracy theories.
>>96523626Robin does say that yeah. But he also seems very much in support of the view of the Ordo being a powerful benevolent conspiracy, and the book stresses that the OV aren't some hidden evil worse than the things they face and even bluntly tells you to run Nights Black Agents instead if that's what you want. >>96523714The playtest does make a point that despite their Outer Dark masters constantly crowing for mass-scale genocide and countrywide devastation, the Sallow simply can't say a word and cause a war that wipes out a nation. Even they need subtlety and pulling of strings despite their power.
>>96523626A thing to mention is that the Ocean Game playtest does mention that the OV is essentially a benign version of the Esoterrorists in a more literal sense; like them, it's a meme rather than an organization as the Sallow have uncovered. It functions entirely as a series of ideas instilled in people of power or random individuals that causes them to gather and form organizations dedicated to the defense of reality whenever the Membrane is in jeopardy. The Sallow have noticed the rise and fall of several organizations that were literally just the OV under different names, and they keep popping up every time something threatens the Membrane. This is more or less used to discretely justify how you can have them be both a global planet-spanning super conspiracy with agents everywhere as well as a plain grassroots organization with a budget of pennies.So the answer to whether or not the Ordo is a massive organization spread across the entire world with effectively infinite resources and completely immunity to subversion or if it's just a small collection of random dudes is that it's both.
OK, having read the book on Esoterrorists a while back and tried to plan a session out, can I say I have no fucking idea how the game is meant to be run? You're just meant to fail the players forward to the next 'clue' they will automatically find until you off them, or they escape having pieced enough of the case together (i.e. you tell them what is going on). I am really struggling to see how to make a coherent game or campaign out of this system. Is it just meant for a one atmospheric one shot or two where you have a creepy scenario in mind?
>>96524815The players are meant to piece things together using good deduction, skills, and investigating areas of suspicious activity/Esoterror influence. It has results for successful deductions and giving answers through their skills that help them reach conclusive results that push the investigation along, but it also has results for potential failures that can also progress events along - the players will simply be missing otherwise crucial info whilst the Esoterrorists plots progress.
>>96524871In effect though as the players completely failing will never prevent them from continuing on to the next 'scene' unless they all end up dead or compromised, it looks indistinguishable to a railroad with GM fiat to me. Unless your players deliberately try to sabotage the investigations and break the GM/player contract the game pretty much plays itself.
>>96524908If the players fuck up, you're actively and explicitly encouraged to described how shit goes wrong or make life more difficult for them. If they fuck up too much, then the situation gets worse and worse and the subsequent Veil Out operation MUCH harder. And in campaigns like Worldbreaker or Albions Ransom, the players CANNOT afford to fuck up too many missions because the entire world is inarguably in jeopardy.
>>96523571I especially like how Allsop's art sells the grunge aesthetic and the writing actually conveys just how awful the monsters are. I think Blossomers and Snuff Golems are some of the few things I've seen consistently gross people out on the chans.
>>96523714Esoterrorists is an incredibly silly setting. This is a setting where evil demons literally catfish men to death.
>>96525996>This is a setting where evil demons literally catfish men to death.So, realiy of living in the Occident in a year that begins with 2?
>>96522429That sounds so stupid. Like the cringe rhino team meme from Delta Green.
>>96522367Well, you need to ask yourself - could they deal with:- Invisible and inaudible guys shanking them in the spleen or using explosives- Speedster murder machines- Waves of zombies/flesh crafted monsters- Getting blown up through blood ties from half the globe away- Straight mind control- PrecognitionThat's basically the minimum needed requirements to even attempt clearing the vamps. If you get somewhat successful you run into guys like Dracula who can do most of the above at the same time and knows some generalist magic.
>>96526219The difference is that the default assumption for the OV both for a storytelling and game perspective is that they're a world-spanning giga-conspiracy with guys in the highest echelon of government who have pretty much infinite funding and manpower from all walks of life, whilst Delta Green are maybe 80 guys armed with riot gear working out of a dilapidated warehouse on their best day.
>>96524908That's only if you feed the players hyper explicit, neon sign style clues and shuffle them around in the most efficient way possible. Literally all it means is that the players are constantly fed enough information to do something, to follow some lead. It boggles my mind that people have such a problem with this.
>>96526502>It boggles my mind that people have such a problem with this.When in doubt, always blame crippling autism.
>>96525411>I think Blossomers and Snuff Golems are some of the few things I've seen consistently gross people out on the chans.Post 'em up.
>>96528056Throwing in the description attached with the original post for some extra flavor.>Basically, they're the end result of particularly gruesome, horible and big budget snuff films born from the last awful moment of the actor's death which acts as their catalyst for manifestation. It's from that point on that they then proceed to create and 'film' their own snuff films, torturing and killing people and competitors with their reality altering abilities whilst pretending to be the original movie makers (who the Snuff Golem kills as an initial act). All of the sick glee, horrid techniques and just general awful resentment from the original cast and crew goes into making the demon, and it acts on these concepts with equal joy.
>>96528382And the other one?
>>96528715Was a bit harder to find a good image of it along with a summary of what it does, sorry.
>>96528893Isn't the lower half eaten by the cultists during the demon impregnation ritual?
>>96528893I dun geddit.
>>96528939Yes. >>96528947Cult of mindbroken teenagers/young adults have to eat the lower half of one of their own in accordance with the will of their demonic patron, who then sends a servitor of itself into the corpse of the half-eaten individual who proceeds to impregnate all the women in the cult with half-demon hybrid spawn.
>>96526300>- Invisible and inaudible guys shanking them in the spleen or using explosivesSeveral ODEs can create illusions or hide themselves in plain sight, so I'd peg this as a maybe. They'd definitely lose investigators before catching on though.>- Speedster murder machinesHow fast are we talking here? >- Waves of zombies/flesh crafted monstersYes. They have faced similar and have excellent track records of destroying large groups of mindless monsters.>- Getting blown up through blood ties from half the globe awayIf it's unlimited range and an unlimited duration effect, then no. Most Esoterror rituals aren't comparable to that and the only things with that level of power are either Outer Dark Gods or the omnipotent Mystery Men, neither of which are things the OV can deal with through bruteforce.>- Straight mind controlDepending on the mind control, they have protocols and safeguards that would make it nigh-impossible for it to be very effective. If it has any tell at all, then the chances of it working are really slim. >- PrecognitionHow far in the future are we talking here? If it's perfect precog that covers every conceivable choice or action they could ever make at all times, then the answer is no. If it's limited or has flaws, then they can possibly create workarounds even if they can't directly counter it.
>>96528947Demon rape cannibal orgy.
>>96526106Kek
>>96529595>How fast are we talking here?General population up to ~200 km/h max, elders, outside of bullshit antideluvians, can go to something like 400-500. >If it's unlimited range and an unlimited duration effect, then no.It's not unlimited duration, but could be unlimited range if the caster wants you dead hard enough and builds a big enough ritual. Amount of attempts depends on how many samples they got. So if you get wounded you better clean up after yourself. >Depending on the mind controlDominate (direct commands), Presence (fear and awe) and Ghouling(addiction to vampire blood and love for their new master). That's the most likely to be used en masse. Again elders could do more bullshit but they are thankfully rare. >How far in the future are we talking here?Technically no limit. Though the further away the bigger should be the explosion to be significant enough to be noticed. Countermeasures unlikely to work since best precognitives are Malkavians, as in the local crazies, so any attempts to work around one of them would fail against the others. The worst part is that their combo of Disciplines is absolutely horrendous to deal with - they get precog, stealth, enhanced senses, including seeing magic and spirit world and ability to drive people insane, permanently if they are skilled enough.
>>96532419>General population up to ~200 km/h max, elders, outside of bullshit antideluvians, can go to something like 400-500.Yeah, general OV agents are more or less normal dudes so that would be very difficult if not impossible to deal with for them.>It's not unlimited duration, but could be unlimited range if the caster wants you dead hard enough and builds a big enough ritual. Amount of attempts depends on how many samples they got. So if you get wounded you better clean up after yourself.If it's specific to the individual, then I think they should be good more or less. The OV can replace new agents faster than they're killed (though they wouldn't like it at all) and the way it's power structure works would mean that there wouldn't be anyone outside of a Mr. Verity whose samples they could gain access to.>Dominate (direct commands), If it's instant and there's no way to reliably resist, then they might be screwed here. Or at least have a very hard time.>Presence (fear and awe)I think they can deal with this, since many ODEs can create similar effects by expending Aberrance.>and Ghouling(addiction to vampire blood and love for their new master). Don't they have to physically imbibe the stuff for this to take effect first? >Technically no limit. Though the further away the bigger should be the explosion to be significant enough to be noticed. Countermeasures unlikely to work since best precognitives are Malkavians, as in the local crazies, so any attempts to work around one of them would fail against the others. The worst part is that their combo of Disciplines is absolutely horrendous to deal with - they get precog, stealth, enhanced senses, including seeing magic and spirit world and ability to drive people insane, permanently if they are skilled enough.This one is the real killer. The OV would find this next-to-impossible to reliably deal with and would probably just have to take it as it comes.
>>96532976>If it's instant and there's no way to reliably resist, then they might be screwed here. Or at least have a very hard time.You need iron will or true faith to resist it reliably as a human. As in you need to be either a determinator on the level of shounen manga or have genuine faith in a higher power. Both things exist in WoD itself and both are incredibly rare. Otherwise it doesn't get a 100% chance to succeed but most vampires that use it regularly are too experienced to fail often. >Don't they have to physically imbibe the stuff for this to take effect first? Yeah, but ghouling is a pretty standard way to deal with Hunters. Group of vampires or their patsies catches a Hunter, they get ghouled and then pumped for information. Though considering what I know of Delta Green they probably won't be able to go high up the chain through that. For now it seems like Delta Green guys are in the same boat as Technocracy - they have the tools to kill rank and file vamps, but it is an absolute pain in the ass to manage it at scale. Especially if you don't want to break the masquerade wide open. Technocracy mostly culls the vamps that go for mass turning of humans or just targets of opportunity. Elders are too good at hiding and have too much bullshit in their corner, both power and resource wise, so its hard to remove them.
>>96533129>Yeah, but ghouling is a pretty standard way to deal with Hunters. Group of vampires or their patsies catches a Hunter, they get ghouled and then pumped for information. Though considering what I know of Delta Green they probably won't be able to go high up the chain through that.Esoterrorists dudes aren't Delta Green, but the Vamps run into the exact same problem; can't figure out what the fuck is going on in the Ordo Veritatis by pumping the investigators for info by ghouling them. And once the OV figures out that ghouling people is a thing to begin with, they're going to start finding ways to shut that shit down hard.I'm aware the Camarilla and Sabbat have people in high-up positions of government or control in governments so maybe they might get tipped off to the wider OV from that. But given the nature of the OV as stated in the Ocean Game playtest, I have to wonder whether or not this could cause major problems for them if known government members and people in power suddenly (and have always been) turn out to be members of some super ancient benevolent conspiracy. In many ways it's a bigger issue for the vamps than the Technocracy, even if the OV have the same issues where Elders are too entrenched and powerful to remove. Mostly because there's no guarantee for the vamps anymore that their usual systems of control over the human populace are even reliable or haven't been turned into proxies for the OV essentially overnight.
Stealth Death Battle threads are cancer. Kindly fuck off back to /co/ where that powerscaling wankery belongs.
>>96533909Fuck off retard.
>>96533909I don't think you've ever been in a single Death Batyle thread if you think a civil thread like this could ever occur there.
>>96522416>>96522429>>96523626The recent pdf preview (which is pretty much exactly the same as the playtest, just with minor text changes, proper stats, and all the art) outright calls the Ordo Veritatis a worldwide conspiracy with access to effectively unlimited resources via its government connections. So the Ocean Game has 100% defined them in a specific form, though the other posts are correct that the way they're described means any level of play is permissible.https://gamefound.com/en/projects/pelgrane-press/fear-itself-shattered-veil-edition/updates/10Incidentally, the book ALSO hints that 'Mr. Verity' might be a benign Mystery Man or other similar entity rather than just some intermediary to relay orders to Ordo investigators. So that's a thing.
