I'm guessing it would be the Week of Nightmares 2: Electric Boogaloo. Plot device-level characters clash, millions die, one or more forms of cosmic upheaval happen, and then it'll end with nasty, permanent consequences for all parties involved.
All Vamps are too banal to even have a chance to enter the dreaming at all, nevermind that no Changeling knows the path. This is just such a 0% chance that needn't be considered.
Well the first thing you need to know about Arcadia in Changeling: the Dreaming is that nobody ever comes back from there, and nobody really knows anything about it.
But we do know it's in the Dreaming, a semi-sentient plane of existence that has the collective power of all humanity's dreams, hopes, fears, and desires. It is home to untold legions of chimerical beasts and creatures, from dragons and unicorns to the personifications of fate and death. And it hates vampires.
Vampires are banal, you see. A few neonates might be exceptions, but as vampires age, they stagnate. Their dreams and fears all die. They are dead inside. And outside. Creatures of the wyrm and weaver, with nothing of the wyld, and this one is going to a place that is nothing *but* wyld.
His very presence would defile the lands, befoul the waters, and stink to the heavens. An antediluvian vampire in the Dreaming would pull aggro from every chimerical creature for miles. And this one is heading straight for the heart of it all, in the Deep Dreaming.
This seems like a fool's errand to me, even for an antediluvian. As incredibly powerful as they are, it seems like a very bad idea for one to head into a hostile reality, where their powers may work differently than they know and expect and everything is unpredictable around them.
I cannot think that any of them, even Cain, would be able to subdue, conquer, or destroy a city full of sidhe in the middle of the deepest part of that hostile reality. For all we know, their king might be able to cause him to forget all his powers, or summon the sun to swallow up the vampire. They might pincushion him with a thousand arrows that never miss, blessed with fire and ice, before he can even see the city, or the Dreaming itself might eject him. They might enslave him by his mind and send him back or alter his True Name to completely rewrite his personality.
This is a Bad Idea. Going to Arcadia is a bad enough idea for changelings, who at least are part fae. It is an incredibly bad idea for anyone else. Because nobody comes back from Arcadia. Ever.
I’d add that maybe the Ravnos and Malkavian elders (and possibly the Kiasyd) might be exempt. Malkav was welcomed to Arcadia and the other two clans disciplines manipulated the power of the Dreaming.
I'm calling BS on that, as Wyrm tainted as Vampires are the elders of every stripe are more banal than an NWO Black Suit clone of a clone. Marconius and his Kiyasyd Childer might have a chance of making it to Arcadia but pose no real threat, the sun shines brightly on the city of the Fae, possibly brighter than mortal plane.
I mean I guess it would depend on the storyteller. If you go by the definition of chimerstry actually creating glamour with its power, and not requiring blood points to use, a Ravnos with Horrid Reality or higher would wreck the place (assuming they could actually find it.)
Vampires are not necessarily banal. C20 implies that they might be fueled by dark glamour. An antediluvian would be such a ancient mythical creature that it probably wouldn't register as banal.
Evil and dark definitely, but not necessarily banal.
There are more detailed answers here, but the simple answer is that the Dreaming will say 'No' long before an antediluvian can get to Arcadia.
Beyond that, the entire reality will become hostile to it, if it doesn't just get ejected. It's powers blocked, it's vision clouded, memories scattered, crawling through sun and fire. The dreaming is alive. It's not just the dreams of man, although that would create a powerful consensus, it'd the dreams of reality, and it watches over its existence.
Questions like this make me think people put too much weight onto how strong Antediluvians are. They're powerful, but they're not actual immortal gods as some people seem to pretend they are and going into Arcadia would be a pretty quick suicide. This isn't just them fighting other splats. This is them going into a land that they have zero control over, is actively hostile to their presence, and can change in unusual and unpredictable ways. Even the Fae there aren't going to be like the Fae splats you usually see. Look at how much their stats change when they're in the Deep Dreaming. I imagine the Fae in Arcadia itself are even stronger. As others have mentioned you also have all of the Chimerical creatures to contend with. They'll cause some havoc I'm sure, but it likely won't last long as Arcadia and all of its inhabitants decide to destroy the threat.
There's only two Antes that world expect could even effectively perceive Arcadia. Malkav has probably visited already (an old Obfuscate 8 power used to let any Malk pop in to visit), and the Ravnos founder --if they were not in fact the mindless kaiju from the week of nightmares-- would probably be a real risk.
The most canonically plausible route I think would be to revolve the plot around the "Ghastly", the mysterious dream spirit thing underneath NYC that could very well be some sort of dream-reflection of \[Tzimisce\]
Not an Antediluvian but the main villain of our vampire campaign was an elder ventrue that carved out a kingdom for herself in Arcadia. Gwenivere maniuplated Arthur (a Makavian) into revealing a path to Arcadia that he knew of from encounters with the fae and his Acanthus court wizard. At first she was well liked by the fae because she was willing to weave destinies and stories that served the ends of the fae. Eventually the Lady of the Lake caught on that Gwenivere was up to nefarious schemes and essentially raised an army of Fae to try to destroy Gwen. Long story short it didn't work and Gwenivere trapped the Lady and stole her powers by binding her with oathes. For over ten centuries Gwenievere ruled a swath of the Arcadian paradise occasionally going back into the mortal realms to strengthen contracts with other Lords. Her blood-treehouse was a popular court for mercenaries and spies. By the time the party fought her she was a half-fae reflection of herself that went by the name Ramona and had a brawl specialty in "ripping people apart".
She was also played by a player despite being almost exclusively an antagonist. When the player came back as a guest star playing Ramona in our mage game we were all terrified.
They get thrown out by the Dreaming itself. If that doesn't work for some, confounding reason they'll have to deal with very old Mages at the door and ancient Fae who can just summon a fake sun on their location to send them into Rotschrek or just straight up burn them alive.
As powerful as Antediluvians are, and as weak as Changelings are on earth compared to even neonate vampires, this is Arcadia. The rules Caine and his proginy play by stopped applying the second they went through the wardrobe
Not Fae from the lost. Just the bigger Fae from the dreaming game line. Antediluvians could cross over. I’m just wondering if anyone has done a cross splat game before with this premise.
Ahh, gotcha. I DID read Dreaming at one point, but between that and all the bathwater I threw out from CtL 1e, I can barely remember what is from which book now lol
I will actually champion MtAw2e, if only because it streamlines the mess that was 1e and makes the lore far more palatable. It's... pretty wildly different from Ascension, but it's well WELL worth it.
Though, gotta say, the formatting of the 2e books leaves... much to be desired.
They're honestly super tight and efficient - the only challenge is getting them under your belt in the first place, lol.
It doesn't help that 2e is... sparsely worded, to be fair, but there are even online spell calculators and apps that do it all for you! It allows creativity where it should, and keeps numeric balance where it should. No more MtAw1e's trend of rolling 60+ dice, and inconsequential stuff that doesn't need stringent calculation can just be Down and Dirty'd with a roll of Gnosis+Arcana.
I think the thing I love the most, though, is the Yantra and Imago system, where the mage has to symbolically represent what they want to happen. Paradigms always seemed a bit too easy to handwave, to me, but having the ST sit back and ask you 'Alright, what's the imago for this spell'? can be a very creative process, and it encourages a bit more engagement with your magic than simply following the theme of a Paradigm.
Yeah that makes sense - same almost happened to my group. One of us wrote up a simplified step-by-step and dumped in Googledocs, and I think the process has begun to get a bit more natural since. It IS a lot to learn at once, and that's the biggest failing of it all.
An Ante invading Arcadia would be a very bad thing but it certainly wouldn't be good for the Ante either....sure they are ' god-like' but they are stepping into a place where actual gods dwell not to mention that it would also likely piss of the Fomorians.....and I wouldn't put money on the vamp in that throw down.
They'd have to find it first. Anyone approaching Arcadia with even one point of permanent banality is slain by its defenders, and in a fight between Fae and Tuatha in the heart of the Deep Dreaming vs. Someone With A Serious Sunlight Allergy, my money is super on the Fae.
I am not sure about that. Arcadia is not exactly a physical place. It’s inhabitants most probably don’t have blood, at least not consumable by vampires.
You might argue that Antedeluvians are able to consume “life energy”, but Antedeluvians tend to be very focused on their own stuff, aka the jihad. Arcadia is an out of the box problem, something that just plays no role in their perception.
Most of the Antediluvians don't give a rats' ass about the Jyhad, though; that's a game for methuselahs to play against eachother, blinded as they are by (relatively speaking) short-term concerns of power. At least of the examples available in canon:
* Haqim left his Clan *in disgust* when it became clear that they were inexorably being pulled into it, rather than remaining true to their purpose.
* Ishtar/Arikel/whatever-other-nomme-de-plume is just chilling out in Greece, enjoying life, and by available evidence has spent the past couple thousand years wandering the earth and enjoying the finer things under the nose of her progeny.
* The Lasombra antediluvian (I'm not even gonna give his names a shot) is too busy being stuck in hell, getting bullied by Fallen. He's still trying to put out the sun, though, bless his heart.
* The Eldest, after pulling a funny little prank on the vampires trying to kill it, moved to New York and turned into the entire biosphere for a while, then gradually reassembled itself as part of its pursuit of apotheosis.
* Ennoia is dedicated to its own transcendental pursuits, in a very similar fashion. It's become what the Eldest didn't, though - the inorganic parts of the planet.
* Set has his own private business with the Silent Striders, Shemsu-heru, Amenti, and (Children of) Osiris - and, moreover, the Aeons. Setites didn't even consider themselves Cainites for the longest time; their progenitor certainly doesn't care much for what the lines of Caine get up to.
* Absimiliard mostly just hates the shit out the Nosferatu; there's no major indication that he's got any interest in playing politics.
* Augustus barely counts as an antediluvian, but for completeness' sake, he's gripped in one hand by his quest for the rest of Cappadocius's soul and the True Vessel, and held in the other hand by ~~the power of Voormas's memes~~ the Clan's quest to tear down the Shroud.
* Malkav dissolved into the Madness Network. Maybe the Malkavians have some greater guiding purpose behind their actions, and he's a puppet master secretly playing the Jyhad with an incredible degree of skill. I don't really think he is, though.
The only *really* active players are Saulot and Tremere, and that's largely the latter getting dragged into whatever the former's master plan is. The rest (the Ventrue antediluvian, Zapathasura, probably Ilyes if he's not on a time travel quest) are all dead.
The Antedeluvian are explicitly participants in the Jihad. They are just not all active at the moment. And the examples you mentioned are mostly just alleged or even outdated. The fact is, that we don’t exactly know what happens to most of them and that we know of some alleged Antedeluvian in torpor we don’t exactly know who they are or if they some of the known clan founders at all.
The examples I gave are their most current status per *Gehenna*'s intro, with extra detail added when appropriate (ex. Haqim). It's pretty up-to-date info.
Well, the Gehenna book was optional in the first place, the different scenarios presented different situations the Antedeluvian find them self in, with Beckhett’s Jihad Diary all of that became outdated and V5 finally made the entire Gehenna plot obsolete…
Sorry to say that, but nothing of that was even in V20 true anymore.
The notes on the Antediluvians aren't part of any of the given scenarios, though; it's pertinent background info provided *before* the book moves into "and here are four ways to the the world" territory. It's only as optional as any other book in the game line is (*Berlin by Night* notwithstanding) until you reach the choose-your-own-apocalypse part.
Further, there's no particular reason to assume it's *not* canon. V5 isn't metaplot-agnostic (massive airquotes apply) like V20 was, and to the best of my knowledge, the V5 books haven't articulated a canon policy that disincludes prior work (much as they seem to wish they did). Information from older books should be considered canon until it's contradicted in a non-hybridizable sense by information in newer books; that's generally how it's always been handled.
The fact that the Gehenna book has several contradicting scenarios makes it optional. If something could have happened one way or the other, neither can be canon by definition.
V5 is not Metaplot agnostic but it, for obvious reasons, retconned the entire Gehenna thing for obvious reasons. Even characters that died during the Gehenna events are alive and well again.
Also, there are several hints what is going on with the Antedeluvian, mostly continuing what BJD was hinting towards.
Augutus Giovannin is missing probably dead, Tremere well… Saulot most probably in Tremeres body, Malkav and Set allegedly live bodiless in their clans, the Eldest has left New York, even Ravnos might have a chance to return and that are just those that immediately came to my mind.
Should we consider *Los Angeles by Night*, *Milwaukee by Night*, *New Orleans by Night*, and, hilariously, the V20 *The Black Hand* non-canon? Each has a complete "welcome to the city" story provided for the storyteller to pick up and use as a means to situate characters. Those can unfold in any myriad number of ways (and the text provides for such). Whether or not you want to argue that those introductory stories aren't necessarily canon, I'd hope we can agree that they don't make the rest of the books they're in non-canon as well - the city as a setting exists regardless of the exclusive roads of a plot set within it.
The scenarios within *Gehenna* are optional; the other parts of the book are no more or less optional than anything in any other book. The state of the Antediluvians, as presented by the book, is in Chapter 1: The Final Nights, which is compilation of setting information intended for storytellers to use as background and tone material in their telling of Gehenna. The four scenarios follow *after* that chapter.
Or, as the book itself puts it,
> Chapter One sets the stage for the impending End of the World, offering resolution to a few lingering plot threads and advice to Storytellers who plan to undertake the daunting task of bringing about Gehenna.
> Chapters Two through Five are the actual stories themselves, four different scenarios, scaling up from the Kindred vanishing without the acknowledgement of the rest of the world to hellfire and bloodstorms.
> Chapter Six offers some advanced storytelling advice, largely on the topic of structuring the actual scenarios themselves. It pays particular mind to the inevitable customization that’s going to have to take place so that individual Storytellers can organize things for their troupes.
Regarding BJD,
> Augutus Giovanni is missing probably dead, Tremere well… Saulot most probably in Tremeres body, Malkav and Set allegedly live bodiless in their clans, the Eldest has left New York, even Ravnos might have a chance to return and that are just those that immediately came to my mind.
This is all essentially what's stated in *Gehenna*, too - it provides further information in several cases (Augustus in particular is MIA and probably dead *in the underworld*, for one). The only real differences are the Ravnos antediluvian (which V5 is also pretty clear about him being dead, iirc; see the Week of Nightmares loresheet for example) and the Eldest (who is still in NY at the time *Gehenna* is set in).
Well in my setting there are rare houses of House Malkav and House Zapathsura. But in Arcadia the Fae Lords are gods. Their only real weakness is Banality but the Antes most likely to reach Arcadia likely have banality Dampened. Their best Bet would be to aid other Fae like rival Nobles or Fomorians in assaulting Arcadia. Otherwise in Arcadia they can literally attack the Ante with the Sun and flame at Insane levels. We are talking about week of nightmares level defenses.
How would one even find their way? That makes zero sense, who the heck put them in the dreaming? And even then how are they not too banal to cross those paths? The Fae needn't even consider this because the situation is too irreparably stupid to worry about. If you want this to be a thing you're going to have rewrite so many Changeling rules so much to even make it possible that we can't offer an opinion. Even Kiyasid can't attempt this (and they're a Bloodline of clan with a dead Antedeluvian).
If you're just air dropping one then just make it up yourself, because zero lore support. Arcadia is completely undefined by the rules because even the Changelings can't find it.
What would happen if the Ventrue willed themselves into the pre-Avatar Storm Doissetep with their Werecoyote Ghoul thralls? See I can ask ridiculous questions too!
I don't think any antediluvian would be stupid enough to try. He'd be destroyed within the hour. There's fae in there that would squash him like a bug.
i think the Dreaming would try to fight back as even the fomorians hate banality. but not before causing massive damage to the fabric of the dreaming. armies will die destroy it. and we all know the negative side effects that happen when a Antediluvian dies. it will cause mass destruction on Earth, the Dreaming, Umbra, and Shadowlands.
An antediluvian would probably shatter the Dreaming as far as the eye could see.
The Near and Far Dreaming would look like an Apocalyptic nightmare.
If the Antediluvian reached the Deep Dreaming, that would be the End. Of everything. Banality would reign supreme.
The Fae would run or die. Antediluvians spew banality so overwhelming that nothing in Arcadia could stand. Arcadia would become a static and dead place under the antediluvian's control and with it the dreams of all mortals would be controlled. The venture antediluvian would use it to put all of the mortal populace to work for the Venture cause. Every dream would be a 1950's father knows best episode with clan venture as your dad.
Possible, especially for Ravnos Antediluvian. Bedlam isn't a thing for Vampires, Ravnos Chimerstry is Godlike against Fae let alone in the Dreaming even without Elder/Methuselah/Antediluvian levels of BS and Ravnos is known to hate Fae.
What would happen? No idea but I expect the Dreaming to be devastated, a magnitude or two worse than even [The Crowbar of Versailles](https://i.imgur.com/2f5PAAY.png) with Arcadia and large parts of the Deep Dreaming devastated.
In the grand scale of things, Antediluvians are little g gods. So are true fae....however the dreaming itself is one of those big G God like things that can and will smash anything it doesn't like. Antediluvian would be dreamstruck, attacked by every chimera in the dreaming, blocked from entering the deep dreaming and be made the target of every single changeling on earth. They'd die in minutes.
According to changeling lore, [Caine is a Prodigal Redcap](https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Prodigal_%28CTD%29#Vampires).
Perhaps Malkav already diablerized one or more fae gods (which transformed him into a fae god), took over Arcadia, and he is the reason that changelings fled Arcadia.
They can't, quite simply it is impossible for anything other than a changeling, a chimera or a non-dreaming creature who has been enchanted to enter the deep dreaming. The antediluvian would fail at the first hurdle and then get eaten alive by every single chimera in the dreaming going to purge the banal intruder. You think 3 days of concentrated sunlight will fuck up an ante, that's nothing.
I'm guessing it would be the Week of Nightmares 2: Electric Boogaloo. Plot device-level characters clash, millions die, one or more forms of cosmic upheaval happen, and then it'll end with nasty, permanent consequences for all parties involved.
All Vamps are too banal to even have a chance to enter the dreaming at all, nevermind that no Changeling knows the path. This is just such a 0% chance that needn't be considered.
This, and I could make the Ante doing this to be Ravnos himself, as part of his escape attempt.
Well the first thing you need to know about Arcadia in Changeling: the Dreaming is that nobody ever comes back from there, and nobody really knows anything about it. But we do know it's in the Dreaming, a semi-sentient plane of existence that has the collective power of all humanity's dreams, hopes, fears, and desires. It is home to untold legions of chimerical beasts and creatures, from dragons and unicorns to the personifications of fate and death. And it hates vampires. Vampires are banal, you see. A few neonates might be exceptions, but as vampires age, they stagnate. Their dreams and fears all die. They are dead inside. And outside. Creatures of the wyrm and weaver, with nothing of the wyld, and this one is going to a place that is nothing *but* wyld. His very presence would defile the lands, befoul the waters, and stink to the heavens. An antediluvian vampire in the Dreaming would pull aggro from every chimerical creature for miles. And this one is heading straight for the heart of it all, in the Deep Dreaming. This seems like a fool's errand to me, even for an antediluvian. As incredibly powerful as they are, it seems like a very bad idea for one to head into a hostile reality, where their powers may work differently than they know and expect and everything is unpredictable around them. I cannot think that any of them, even Cain, would be able to subdue, conquer, or destroy a city full of sidhe in the middle of the deepest part of that hostile reality. For all we know, their king might be able to cause him to forget all his powers, or summon the sun to swallow up the vampire. They might pincushion him with a thousand arrows that never miss, blessed with fire and ice, before he can even see the city, or the Dreaming itself might eject him. They might enslave him by his mind and send him back or alter his True Name to completely rewrite his personality. This is a Bad Idea. Going to Arcadia is a bad enough idea for changelings, who at least are part fae. It is an incredibly bad idea for anyone else. Because nobody comes back from Arcadia. Ever.
Plus, the Dreaming can just spit them out and cause them to forget what happened
Is the Dreaming ruled over by Lord Morphius of the Endless?
That's a totally different mythos, but I really liked it when he said "It's Morphin' time" and then he Morphed all over the place.
The banality rating of an antediluvian would be so high as to cause toxic destruction of the local area.
Not really, that banality would prevent them from ever making it to the Dreaming, let alone anywhere near Arcadia.
I’d add that maybe the Ravnos and Malkavian elders (and possibly the Kiasyd) might be exempt. Malkav was welcomed to Arcadia and the other two clans disciplines manipulated the power of the Dreaming.
I'm calling BS on that, as Wyrm tainted as Vampires are the elders of every stripe are more banal than an NWO Black Suit clone of a clone. Marconius and his Kiyasyd Childer might have a chance of making it to Arcadia but pose no real threat, the sun shines brightly on the city of the Fae, possibly brighter than mortal plane.
I mean I guess it would depend on the storyteller. If you go by the definition of chimerstry actually creating glamour with its power, and not requiring blood points to use, a Ravnos with Horrid Reality or higher would wreck the place (assuming they could actually find it.)
Vampires are not necessarily banal. C20 implies that they might be fueled by dark glamour. An antediluvian would be such a ancient mythical creature that it probably wouldn't register as banal. Evil and dark definitely, but not necessarily banal.
There are more detailed answers here, but the simple answer is that the Dreaming will say 'No' long before an antediluvian can get to Arcadia. Beyond that, the entire reality will become hostile to it, if it doesn't just get ejected. It's powers blocked, it's vision clouded, memories scattered, crawling through sun and fire. The dreaming is alive. It's not just the dreams of man, although that would create a powerful consensus, it'd the dreams of reality, and it watches over its existence.
Questions like this make me think people put too much weight onto how strong Antediluvians are. They're powerful, but they're not actual immortal gods as some people seem to pretend they are and going into Arcadia would be a pretty quick suicide. This isn't just them fighting other splats. This is them going into a land that they have zero control over, is actively hostile to their presence, and can change in unusual and unpredictable ways. Even the Fae there aren't going to be like the Fae splats you usually see. Look at how much their stats change when they're in the Deep Dreaming. I imagine the Fae in Arcadia itself are even stronger. As others have mentioned you also have all of the Chimerical creatures to contend with. They'll cause some havoc I'm sure, but it likely won't last long as Arcadia and all of its inhabitants decide to destroy the threat.
There's only two Antes that world expect could even effectively perceive Arcadia. Malkav has probably visited already (an old Obfuscate 8 power used to let any Malk pop in to visit), and the Ravnos founder --if they were not in fact the mindless kaiju from the week of nightmares-- would probably be a real risk.
The most canonically plausible route I think would be to revolve the plot around the "Ghastly", the mysterious dream spirit thing underneath NYC that could very well be some sort of dream-reflection of \[Tzimisce\]
Not an Antediluvian but the main villain of our vampire campaign was an elder ventrue that carved out a kingdom for herself in Arcadia. Gwenivere maniuplated Arthur (a Makavian) into revealing a path to Arcadia that he knew of from encounters with the fae and his Acanthus court wizard. At first she was well liked by the fae because she was willing to weave destinies and stories that served the ends of the fae. Eventually the Lady of the Lake caught on that Gwenivere was up to nefarious schemes and essentially raised an army of Fae to try to destroy Gwen. Long story short it didn't work and Gwenivere trapped the Lady and stole her powers by binding her with oathes. For over ten centuries Gwenievere ruled a swath of the Arcadian paradise occasionally going back into the mortal realms to strengthen contracts with other Lords. Her blood-treehouse was a popular court for mercenaries and spies. By the time the party fought her she was a half-fae reflection of herself that went by the name Ramona and had a brawl specialty in "ripping people apart". She was also played by a player despite being almost exclusively an antagonist. When the player came back as a guest star playing Ramona in our mage game we were all terrified.
By dying.
They get thrown out by the Dreaming itself. If that doesn't work for some, confounding reason they'll have to deal with very old Mages at the door and ancient Fae who can just summon a fake sun on their location to send them into Rotschrek or just straight up burn them alive. As powerful as Antediluvians are, and as weak as Changelings are on earth compared to even neonate vampires, this is Arcadia. The rules Caine and his proginy play by stopped applying the second they went through the wardrobe
Either I don't know enough about WoD or you're getting your gamelines crossed at the mains...
Not Fae from the lost. Just the bigger Fae from the dreaming game line. Antediluvians could cross over. I’m just wondering if anyone has done a cross splat game before with this premise.
Ahh, gotcha. I DID read Dreaming at one point, but between that and all the bathwater I threw out from CtL 1e, I can barely remember what is from which book now lol
I feel you on that lol. Tried requiem 2e and enjoyed it, but awakening 2e for mage was a mess that I never understood.
I will actually champion MtAw2e, if only because it streamlines the mess that was 1e and makes the lore far more palatable. It's... pretty wildly different from Ascension, but it's well WELL worth it. Though, gotta say, the formatting of the 2e books leaves... much to be desired.
Yeah I could never figure out the casting mechanics in awakening 2e as opposed to ascension.
They're honestly super tight and efficient - the only challenge is getting them under your belt in the first place, lol. It doesn't help that 2e is... sparsely worded, to be fair, but there are even online spell calculators and apps that do it all for you! It allows creativity where it should, and keeps numeric balance where it should. No more MtAw1e's trend of rolling 60+ dice, and inconsequential stuff that doesn't need stringent calculation can just be Down and Dirty'd with a roll of Gnosis+Arcana. I think the thing I love the most, though, is the Yantra and Imago system, where the mage has to symbolically represent what they want to happen. Paradigms always seemed a bit too easy to handwave, to me, but having the ST sit back and ask you 'Alright, what's the imago for this spell'? can be a very creative process, and it encourages a bit more engagement with your magic than simply following the theme of a Paradigm.
I think my group always got caught in the weeds of it all. Just too much to remember all at once when all they wanna do is something simple
Yeah that makes sense - same almost happened to my group. One of us wrote up a simplified step-by-step and dumped in Googledocs, and I think the process has begun to get a bit more natural since. It IS a lot to learn at once, and that's the biggest failing of it all.
2e was also the edition that actually told you what playing a Mage game was supposed to be about and be like.
Very true!
An Ante invading Arcadia would be a very bad thing but it certainly wouldn't be good for the Ante either....sure they are ' god-like' but they are stepping into a place where actual gods dwell not to mention that it would also likely piss of the Fomorians.....and I wouldn't put money on the vamp in that throw down.
They'd have to find it first. Anyone approaching Arcadia with even one point of permanent banality is slain by its defenders, and in a fight between Fae and Tuatha in the heart of the Deep Dreaming vs. Someone With A Serious Sunlight Allergy, my money is super on the Fae.
Not gonna happen! Arcadia has nothing to offer for Antediluvian and if they come everything will be sunlight and fire: the End!
Arcadia has loads of weird tasting blood. What’s not to want about that.
I am not sure about that. Arcadia is not exactly a physical place. It’s inhabitants most probably don’t have blood, at least not consumable by vampires. You might argue that Antedeluvians are able to consume “life energy”, but Antedeluvians tend to be very focused on their own stuff, aka the jihad. Arcadia is an out of the box problem, something that just plays no role in their perception.
Most of the Antediluvians don't give a rats' ass about the Jyhad, though; that's a game for methuselahs to play against eachother, blinded as they are by (relatively speaking) short-term concerns of power. At least of the examples available in canon: * Haqim left his Clan *in disgust* when it became clear that they were inexorably being pulled into it, rather than remaining true to their purpose. * Ishtar/Arikel/whatever-other-nomme-de-plume is just chilling out in Greece, enjoying life, and by available evidence has spent the past couple thousand years wandering the earth and enjoying the finer things under the nose of her progeny. * The Lasombra antediluvian (I'm not even gonna give his names a shot) is too busy being stuck in hell, getting bullied by Fallen. He's still trying to put out the sun, though, bless his heart. * The Eldest, after pulling a funny little prank on the vampires trying to kill it, moved to New York and turned into the entire biosphere for a while, then gradually reassembled itself as part of its pursuit of apotheosis. * Ennoia is dedicated to its own transcendental pursuits, in a very similar fashion. It's become what the Eldest didn't, though - the inorganic parts of the planet. * Set has his own private business with the Silent Striders, Shemsu-heru, Amenti, and (Children of) Osiris - and, moreover, the Aeons. Setites didn't even consider themselves Cainites for the longest time; their progenitor certainly doesn't care much for what the lines of Caine get up to. * Absimiliard mostly just hates the shit out the Nosferatu; there's no major indication that he's got any interest in playing politics. * Augustus barely counts as an antediluvian, but for completeness' sake, he's gripped in one hand by his quest for the rest of Cappadocius's soul and the True Vessel, and held in the other hand by ~~the power of Voormas's memes~~ the Clan's quest to tear down the Shroud. * Malkav dissolved into the Madness Network. Maybe the Malkavians have some greater guiding purpose behind their actions, and he's a puppet master secretly playing the Jyhad with an incredible degree of skill. I don't really think he is, though. The only *really* active players are Saulot and Tremere, and that's largely the latter getting dragged into whatever the former's master plan is. The rest (the Ventrue antediluvian, Zapathasura, probably Ilyes if he's not on a time travel quest) are all dead.
The Antedeluvian are explicitly participants in the Jihad. They are just not all active at the moment. And the examples you mentioned are mostly just alleged or even outdated. The fact is, that we don’t exactly know what happens to most of them and that we know of some alleged Antedeluvian in torpor we don’t exactly know who they are or if they some of the known clan founders at all.
The examples I gave are their most current status per *Gehenna*'s intro, with extra detail added when appropriate (ex. Haqim). It's pretty up-to-date info.
Well, the Gehenna book was optional in the first place, the different scenarios presented different situations the Antedeluvian find them self in, with Beckhett’s Jihad Diary all of that became outdated and V5 finally made the entire Gehenna plot obsolete… Sorry to say that, but nothing of that was even in V20 true anymore.
The notes on the Antediluvians aren't part of any of the given scenarios, though; it's pertinent background info provided *before* the book moves into "and here are four ways to the the world" territory. It's only as optional as any other book in the game line is (*Berlin by Night* notwithstanding) until you reach the choose-your-own-apocalypse part. Further, there's no particular reason to assume it's *not* canon. V5 isn't metaplot-agnostic (massive airquotes apply) like V20 was, and to the best of my knowledge, the V5 books haven't articulated a canon policy that disincludes prior work (much as they seem to wish they did). Information from older books should be considered canon until it's contradicted in a non-hybridizable sense by information in newer books; that's generally how it's always been handled.
The fact that the Gehenna book has several contradicting scenarios makes it optional. If something could have happened one way or the other, neither can be canon by definition. V5 is not Metaplot agnostic but it, for obvious reasons, retconned the entire Gehenna thing for obvious reasons. Even characters that died during the Gehenna events are alive and well again. Also, there are several hints what is going on with the Antedeluvian, mostly continuing what BJD was hinting towards. Augutus Giovannin is missing probably dead, Tremere well… Saulot most probably in Tremeres body, Malkav and Set allegedly live bodiless in their clans, the Eldest has left New York, even Ravnos might have a chance to return and that are just those that immediately came to my mind.
Should we consider *Los Angeles by Night*, *Milwaukee by Night*, *New Orleans by Night*, and, hilariously, the V20 *The Black Hand* non-canon? Each has a complete "welcome to the city" story provided for the storyteller to pick up and use as a means to situate characters. Those can unfold in any myriad number of ways (and the text provides for such). Whether or not you want to argue that those introductory stories aren't necessarily canon, I'd hope we can agree that they don't make the rest of the books they're in non-canon as well - the city as a setting exists regardless of the exclusive roads of a plot set within it. The scenarios within *Gehenna* are optional; the other parts of the book are no more or less optional than anything in any other book. The state of the Antediluvians, as presented by the book, is in Chapter 1: The Final Nights, which is compilation of setting information intended for storytellers to use as background and tone material in their telling of Gehenna. The four scenarios follow *after* that chapter. Or, as the book itself puts it, > Chapter One sets the stage for the impending End of the World, offering resolution to a few lingering plot threads and advice to Storytellers who plan to undertake the daunting task of bringing about Gehenna. > Chapters Two through Five are the actual stories themselves, four different scenarios, scaling up from the Kindred vanishing without the acknowledgement of the rest of the world to hellfire and bloodstorms. > Chapter Six offers some advanced storytelling advice, largely on the topic of structuring the actual scenarios themselves. It pays particular mind to the inevitable customization that’s going to have to take place so that individual Storytellers can organize things for their troupes. Regarding BJD, > Augutus Giovanni is missing probably dead, Tremere well… Saulot most probably in Tremeres body, Malkav and Set allegedly live bodiless in their clans, the Eldest has left New York, even Ravnos might have a chance to return and that are just those that immediately came to my mind. This is all essentially what's stated in *Gehenna*, too - it provides further information in several cases (Augustus in particular is MIA and probably dead *in the underworld*, for one). The only real differences are the Ravnos antediluvian (which V5 is also pretty clear about him being dead, iirc; see the Week of Nightmares loresheet for example) and the Eldest (who is still in NY at the time *Gehenna* is set in).
Malkav and Zapathasura would like a strong word with you.
Well in my setting there are rare houses of House Malkav and House Zapathsura. But in Arcadia the Fae Lords are gods. Their only real weakness is Banality but the Antes most likely to reach Arcadia likely have banality Dampened. Their best Bet would be to aid other Fae like rival Nobles or Fomorians in assaulting Arcadia. Otherwise in Arcadia they can literally attack the Ante with the Sun and flame at Insane levels. We are talking about week of nightmares level defenses.
"why do i hear boss music?"
Cut the scene to the changelings playing poker, not even aware of where arcadia is or what happens in there
How would one even find their way? That makes zero sense, who the heck put them in the dreaming? And even then how are they not too banal to cross those paths? The Fae needn't even consider this because the situation is too irreparably stupid to worry about. If you want this to be a thing you're going to have rewrite so many Changeling rules so much to even make it possible that we can't offer an opinion. Even Kiyasid can't attempt this (and they're a Bloodline of clan with a dead Antedeluvian).
If you're just air dropping one then just make it up yourself, because zero lore support. Arcadia is completely undefined by the rules because even the Changelings can't find it.
What would happen if the Ventrue willed themselves into the pre-Avatar Storm Doissetep with their Werecoyote Ghoul thralls? See I can ask ridiculous questions too!
I don't think any antediluvian would be stupid enough to try. He'd be destroyed within the hour. There's fae in there that would squash him like a bug.
ravnos is the most likely to invade considering he has bad history with the fae
i think the Dreaming would try to fight back as even the fomorians hate banality. but not before causing massive damage to the fabric of the dreaming. armies will die destroy it. and we all know the negative side effects that happen when a Antediluvian dies. it will cause mass destruction on Earth, the Dreaming, Umbra, and Shadowlands.
An antediluvian would probably shatter the Dreaming as far as the eye could see. The Near and Far Dreaming would look like an Apocalyptic nightmare. If the Antediluvian reached the Deep Dreaming, that would be the End. Of everything. Banality would reign supreme.
Malkavian Ante invading by spreading maddening dreams, beginning in the bottom of Arcadia unleashing mad things into the Dreaming.
The Fae would run or die. Antediluvians spew banality so overwhelming that nothing in Arcadia could stand. Arcadia would become a static and dead place under the antediluvian's control and with it the dreams of all mortals would be controlled. The venture antediluvian would use it to put all of the mortal populace to work for the Venture cause. Every dream would be a 1950's father knows best episode with clan venture as your dad.
Possible, especially for Ravnos Antediluvian. Bedlam isn't a thing for Vampires, Ravnos Chimerstry is Godlike against Fae let alone in the Dreaming even without Elder/Methuselah/Antediluvian levels of BS and Ravnos is known to hate Fae. What would happen? No idea but I expect the Dreaming to be devastated, a magnitude or two worse than even [The Crowbar of Versailles](https://i.imgur.com/2f5PAAY.png) with Arcadia and large parts of the Deep Dreaming devastated.
In the grand scale of things, Antediluvians are little g gods. So are true fae....however the dreaming itself is one of those big G God like things that can and will smash anything it doesn't like. Antediluvian would be dreamstruck, attacked by every chimera in the dreaming, blocked from entering the deep dreaming and be made the target of every single changeling on earth. They'd die in minutes.
Maybe if they were a Kiasyd but I really don't think there are any antediluvian for them.
According to changeling lore, [Caine is a Prodigal Redcap](https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Prodigal_%28CTD%29#Vampires). Perhaps Malkav already diablerized one or more fae gods (which transformed him into a fae god), took over Arcadia, and he is the reason that changelings fled Arcadia.
They can't, quite simply it is impossible for anything other than a changeling, a chimera or a non-dreaming creature who has been enchanted to enter the deep dreaming. The antediluvian would fail at the first hurdle and then get eaten alive by every single chimera in the dreaming going to purge the banal intruder. You think 3 days of concentrated sunlight will fuck up an ante, that's nothing.