![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dunmurderinThis was a reply I posted to Ex Libris Nocturnis (http://www.nocturnis.net) a really, really cool WOD fan site back a few years ago. The discussion was, near as I can tell from this reply, apparently about why is it that the various supernaturals in the WOD know so little about each other? The bits in italics were from cynn78's original post on the topic.
cynn78 wrote:
There is a character was was once a Werewolf and is now a Vampire... Whoever his Sire is should know a good bit about his childe's Tribe...
Depends if the sire gets the chance to find out before the resulting Abomination rips his or her throat out. *G* Also depends on how much the Werewolf in question knew about his or her tribe.
I am very into crossovers... it seem rather odd that the WW doesn't give any option to have the various supernaturals interact in any manner...
Actually, they do. Kinfolk: Unsung Heroes has information on the Kin and how they relate to other supernatural groups, like Kinfolk who get Embraced or Kin Mages/Wraiths/Changelings/etc. Same for Ghouls: Fatal Addiction. Book of the Wyrm, 2nd edition goes into how the BSDs feel about their fellow supernatural baddies and iirc even the core books give a little information on how to present supernaturals from other systems in that system. Also, the revised Clanbooks for vampire give the individual clan's feelings not only on the other vampiric clans but also on other groups of supernaturals.
it is like each creature is in its own world and these 'others' play a minor roll...
Yeah, it is, because each supernatural group has their own concerns that have nothing to do with the others. Gehenna is more important to most vampires than saving Gaia is and the average werewolf probably doesn't give crap one about the Dreaming (unless their [note: gahhh..they're] Fianna). The main focus of each game isn't "Let's go meet other Supers and share our secrets with them" it's "Let's save the world/ourselves/whatever from our own particular Big Nasty Menace."
I want an 'alternate' universe where I can have a vampire, tradition mage, and werewolf in the same group and have them
get along without having this 'ancient' stigma against the other creature-type... but it isn't to be...
Yeah it is. If you want this alternate universe, create it. Golden rule says you can. If you want to toss out the stigma between the three groups, go for it. Or, if you'd rather not go that far, have the characters come up with valid reasons why these three particular supernaturals are able to toss aside the prejudices of their respective groups. And be sure to pick groups that *could* concievably get along with each other. A Gangrel, a Child of Gaia and a Verbena mage (they're the nature lovers, right?) would all be more likely to get along than a Giovanni, a Red Talon and a Nephendi.
and that is another thing... if what all the creature types knows about each other is practically nothing... where does
this automatic hostility come from?
Fear, ignorance, hearsay, prejudice, the same place human bigotry comes from. The only 'good' thing about supernatural bigotry is that at least it's based on something a little more concrete than "Those guys are darker/lighter than me!" I mean, it's one thing to hate someone because they're a different skin color, it's quite another to be afraid of them because they can light you like a tiki torch with a thought.
Never underestimate the power of fear and ignorance. Becoming a supernatural, even if it's something genetic like being a Garou or a Mage, is scary. Human beings don't like being scared or lonely. We want to feel safe and secure in ourselves and lumping in with your particular supernatural group is one way to do that. Considering that the only thing Joe-Brujah probably heard from his sire on the subject of werewolves was "They'll kill you if they find out what you are" it's not surprising that he might be skittish around that Child Of Gaia Ragabash who's sitting thumbing through a magazine. And that same COG probably hasn't heard much about vampires except that they're "Of the Wyrm" which doesn't exactly lead one to think "I wonder if they'll be friends with me..."
It would be interesting to see by the numbers how many just plain mortals there are after subtracting the vamps, mages,
hunters, werewolf from the populace... minority indeed...
Not really. According to some fan-based demographics sites I've found the number of Garou in the world is around 13,700 with 137,000 kinfolk (no clue on the other Bete or on KOE shifters). Figuring that vampires should number about 1 in 100,000 people, the current world vampire population should be around 62,000 (western vampires that is, no idea what KOE stats would be). The site I found figured mages at around 1/350,000 which means the current mage population of the world is around 18,000. Figure changelings at around 1/50,000 gives us a figure of 123,197. The stats for Wraith are 1 out of every 100 people who've died, and since I can't find any figures on that, your guess is as good as mine. THey're probably the biggest group in the WOD hands down though. As for Hunters and Mummies, couldn't find any figures for them but I'd seriously doubt they number more than a hundred or so thousand people. So, so far, Plain Vanilla Mortals have the upperhand among those folks still out walking around. So, for the sake of argument, let's add another 400,000 for Hunters, Mummies, Bete, ghouls, and KOE supers, which brings us to a grand total of around 754,000. The Supernatural population of the WOD would comfortably fit in the city of Indianapolis...well, until they started killing each other off....
Subtracting that from a World Population figure of around 6,159,896,675 we get 6,158,589,675 plain vanilla mortals running around in the world. Supernaturals are a little bit more than 0.0001% of the world population. Mortals, as always, have the advantage in the WOD. They can move as they wish, go where they wish, breed freely and have sheer numbers on their side against any and every supernatural group out there, with the exception of Wraiths. The reason the average WOD game, whether it's a LARP, tabletop, MU*, talker or chatroom, doesn't reflect these figures is that most folks don't want to play Plain Vanilla Mortals.
Though, again, these figures are based off other people's figures and are probably not 100% accurate. If anyone has more concrete figures for the demographics of the WOD, I'd be interested in seeing 'em.
Any Tremere that blood bonds a mage or embraces one should have a nice view of how mage society works...
Again, depends how much the mage in question knows. If they grab Sammy Newbie, they might learn a few names but that's about it. Any higher level mage is probably going to fight like a madman to keep from losing his spheres (iirc, that's what happens).
Kathy
cynn78 wrote:
There is a character was was once a Werewolf and is now a Vampire... Whoever his Sire is should know a good bit about his childe's Tribe...
Depends if the sire gets the chance to find out before the resulting Abomination rips his or her throat out. *G* Also depends on how much the Werewolf in question knew about his or her tribe.
I am very into crossovers... it seem rather odd that the WW doesn't give any option to have the various supernaturals interact in any manner...
Actually, they do. Kinfolk: Unsung Heroes has information on the Kin and how they relate to other supernatural groups, like Kinfolk who get Embraced or Kin Mages/Wraiths/Changelings/etc. Same for Ghouls: Fatal Addiction. Book of the Wyrm, 2nd edition goes into how the BSDs feel about their fellow supernatural baddies and iirc even the core books give a little information on how to present supernaturals from other systems in that system. Also, the revised Clanbooks for vampire give the individual clan's feelings not only on the other vampiric clans but also on other groups of supernaturals.
it is like each creature is in its own world and these 'others' play a minor roll...
Yeah, it is, because each supernatural group has their own concerns that have nothing to do with the others. Gehenna is more important to most vampires than saving Gaia is and the average werewolf probably doesn't give crap one about the Dreaming (unless their [note: gahhh..they're] Fianna). The main focus of each game isn't "Let's go meet other Supers and share our secrets with them" it's "Let's save the world/ourselves/whatever from our own particular Big Nasty Menace."
I want an 'alternate' universe where I can have a vampire, tradition mage, and werewolf in the same group and have them
get along without having this 'ancient' stigma against the other creature-type... but it isn't to be...
Yeah it is. If you want this alternate universe, create it. Golden rule says you can. If you want to toss out the stigma between the three groups, go for it. Or, if you'd rather not go that far, have the characters come up with valid reasons why these three particular supernaturals are able to toss aside the prejudices of their respective groups. And be sure to pick groups that *could* concievably get along with each other. A Gangrel, a Child of Gaia and a Verbena mage (they're the nature lovers, right?) would all be more likely to get along than a Giovanni, a Red Talon and a Nephendi.
and that is another thing... if what all the creature types knows about each other is practically nothing... where does
this automatic hostility come from?
Fear, ignorance, hearsay, prejudice, the same place human bigotry comes from. The only 'good' thing about supernatural bigotry is that at least it's based on something a little more concrete than "Those guys are darker/lighter than me!" I mean, it's one thing to hate someone because they're a different skin color, it's quite another to be afraid of them because they can light you like a tiki torch with a thought.
Never underestimate the power of fear and ignorance. Becoming a supernatural, even if it's something genetic like being a Garou or a Mage, is scary. Human beings don't like being scared or lonely. We want to feel safe and secure in ourselves and lumping in with your particular supernatural group is one way to do that. Considering that the only thing Joe-Brujah probably heard from his sire on the subject of werewolves was "They'll kill you if they find out what you are" it's not surprising that he might be skittish around that Child Of Gaia Ragabash who's sitting thumbing through a magazine. And that same COG probably hasn't heard much about vampires except that they're "Of the Wyrm" which doesn't exactly lead one to think "I wonder if they'll be friends with me..."
It would be interesting to see by the numbers how many just plain mortals there are after subtracting the vamps, mages,
hunters, werewolf from the populace... minority indeed...
Not really. According to some fan-based demographics sites I've found the number of Garou in the world is around 13,700 with 137,000 kinfolk (no clue on the other Bete or on KOE shifters). Figuring that vampires should number about 1 in 100,000 people, the current world vampire population should be around 62,000 (western vampires that is, no idea what KOE stats would be). The site I found figured mages at around 1/350,000 which means the current mage population of the world is around 18,000. Figure changelings at around 1/50,000 gives us a figure of 123,197. The stats for Wraith are 1 out of every 100 people who've died, and since I can't find any figures on that, your guess is as good as mine. THey're probably the biggest group in the WOD hands down though. As for Hunters and Mummies, couldn't find any figures for them but I'd seriously doubt they number more than a hundred or so thousand people. So, so far, Plain Vanilla Mortals have the upperhand among those folks still out walking around. So, for the sake of argument, let's add another 400,000 for Hunters, Mummies, Bete, ghouls, and KOE supers, which brings us to a grand total of around 754,000. The Supernatural population of the WOD would comfortably fit in the city of Indianapolis...well, until they started killing each other off....
Subtracting that from a World Population figure of around 6,159,896,675 we get 6,158,589,675 plain vanilla mortals running around in the world. Supernaturals are a little bit more than 0.0001% of the world population. Mortals, as always, have the advantage in the WOD. They can move as they wish, go where they wish, breed freely and have sheer numbers on their side against any and every supernatural group out there, with the exception of Wraiths. The reason the average WOD game, whether it's a LARP, tabletop, MU*, talker or chatroom, doesn't reflect these figures is that most folks don't want to play Plain Vanilla Mortals.
Though, again, these figures are based off other people's figures and are probably not 100% accurate. If anyone has more concrete figures for the demographics of the WOD, I'd be interested in seeing 'em.
Any Tremere that blood bonds a mage or embraces one should have a nice view of how mage society works...
Again, depends how much the mage in question knows. If they grab Sammy Newbie, they might learn a few names but that's about it. Any higher level mage is probably going to fight like a madman to keep from losing his spheres (iirc, that's what happens).
Kathy
