#SyntheticTextPost

[syntheticmortal]

Reoutlined the last two chapters of my cyberpunk vampire novel 😭🙏 So SO ready to get this thing DONE! It's the most pleased I've been with anything I've ever made!

[syntheticmortal]

NO MORE TORIES

And then campaign against Starmer's horrific policies, shape Labour back into normalcy, or uplift its competitors further and further.

PROTECT YOUR KIN

Your Trans kin, your gay kin, your non-white kin, your disabled kin, your immigrant kin, protect them all!

NO MORE TORIES

Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak - REMEMBER WHAT THEY DID WITH FOURTEEN YEARS IN POWER. REMEMBER THAT WHAT THEY PROMISE NOW IS BOLLOCKS THEY HAD PLENTY OF TIME TO DO

Brexit, Windrush, Lockdown Parties, supporting the Palestinian Genocide, you KNOW what they've done, so tell these MPs they're fucking fired!

get em haddock

[syntheticmortal]

Hey loves! 💖

It's been a sec innit! Winter nuked my brain pretty hard, and as the warm and sun has come back with the break of spring I feel ✨R E N E W E D✨

I got the first draft of my cyberpunk vampire novel done recently and all, which I'm immensely excited about (and tbh hoping all the VTM mutuals on here are the kind of people who'd like it! 🤭)

And I've been able to make some brilliant progress on some other short story projects!

Oh and I've gotten most of the way through, like, hacking VTM to work in a Powered by the Apocalypse engine for @skaerdir to run for our group. Not sure if I'll release it proper but it sounds like the kinda thing you lot would like! 🤭

[syntheticmortal]

I've been running Werewolf the Apocalypse 5th edition for... God it must be a year? Longer? There was a several month break but we're back in the swing of it and I reckon we're probably done next Sunday.

So I'm getting all wistful about it. I've said before I'm not as fond of the new narrative position/lore, and that's definitely still true. I'm especially not vibing with the rules - I was already grinding against V5's ruleset and I think W5 wrestles harder against itself than even that.

My players have been great though - @the-art-block, @skaerdir, @klaciate, you've all been godsends - and we've all suffered as a team for sure. Our story kept us going where the rules and setting did not. Maybe I'll do a write up on the ideas I used that I think went well, it'd be nice to reflect!

But I think I really have come to terms with the thematically jumbled mess of V5 and W5. I love prodding the worldbuilding and magic system in my games, in any system with a prebuilt setting actually, but I think if I ran either of these systems again I'd have to do it very small scope, very street level, and go to town on homeruling mechanics.

Speaking of homeruling I'll also maybe have to talk about my hack of VTM for the PbtA engine sometime. It started as an impulse and now it's all gotten quite out of hand in the way of things.

I don't think I'd run W5 again though, really. Or at least maybe not for some time. But it's hard not to go 'oh I should have done THIS kind of plot' and keep the ideas tucked away in a little document just in case. It's all half-cannibalised from old lore though, the broad scope of pre-made and well-established settings are part of why you would play with one and W5 just doesn't have that foundation. But I still feel really proud of what I was able to cobble together, and what I was able to do!

I'm looking forward to trying new systems though for sure. I've found TTRPG design to be really satisfying and I really want to get more variety in me. Things like Ghost Lines, Eat the Reich, the Sprawl, and such 🥰

[syntheticmortal]

Onto Chapter 17 of my Cyberpunk Vampire novel, ALL IT COST💪🥰

[syntheticmortal]

“So, like, before my Grandparents were even born?” Nia said, her face scrunching up. She's a Fledgling, and eternity hasn't settled into her teeth yet.

Sheriff Hessler had used a military saber in San Bernardino. His Sire the Prince used Ghouls to speak on her behalf. He opened Kindred like champagne for their immortality, heads rarely old enough to leave dust on the laminated oakwood floor.

An abandoned Mom-and-Pop housed a Coterie of the Clanless. Nuance like Caitiff and Thin Blood wouldn't become worth noting for years. They had sought independence and safety, and received neither.

Cyrus the Anarch knows a Viking, an ice mummy pulled out of a shipment to the University of Michigan. The Jarl speaks of war and grudges Cyrus cannot comprehend. Cyrus hadn't thought eternity had settled into his teeth either, the Methuselahs were too different.

But Cyrus knew Nia was looking at him the same way. His sins on the bloodied edge of sharpened steel were not absolved, but instead aged and dead.

Redemption was outliving everyone who cared.

THE FOOL | CYRUS HESSLER

waking each night is like starting again.

------------------------------------------------------------

Very excited to be trying out a new art challenge 👀

[syntheticmortal]

HANDLE IT

A retail horror

I wrote a short story inspired by my time behind a cash register in a butcher's shop, presented in Twine as an experiment in controlling the flow of text. I'm immensely proud of it, and my friends like it, so hopefully you will too!

It's free on Itch.io and only takes about 20 minutes of your time. If you read it please let me know what you think, I'd be ecstatic to hear from people either on Itch or on here!

Feel free to check it out here!

Lots of love and thanks to my darling partner @the-art-block for the cover image - I mean LOOK at it!!

And if you're the kind of person to want ambience when reading spooky stuff here is what I listened to when making it!

[syntheticmortal]

Back from the void to officially state I think older WTA lore outcompetes W5 lore by a huge margin, and that's even after factoring in all the really bad shit in there tbh from major representation issues, to the Black Furies omg??

But there's just at least something to respond to! I need to take a break from WOD games and play some new systems to detox after my current games (as much as I'm now staring at Dark Ages WTA???) but if I went back I might have to switch either lore or even entire system...

[syntheticmortal]

It's Itch.io creator's day!! I have a short retail horror story in Twine (HANDLE IT) and a Vampire the Masquerade zine from me and

@the-art-block's Fangfest entries (FORTUNES OF THE DEAD) Both are FREE✨and very short time investments!! I think you'll probably love them

[syntheticmortal]

For real, I followed Seth from Destiny lore because he wrote most of the stuff I loved and the in game stuff wasn't doing it for me anymore, so I'm so glad he got his own space to create. He's done such a fantastic job!

His characterisation is great, and his worldbuilding is phenomenal. Maybe I've just had a string of bad books but the worldbuilding was top notch, and focused on ethnographic design which, to me, tells you if a setting feels tangibly lived in or not. Plus the views of political and military organisations are so spot on in a way most stories fail to grasp.

And that first Chapter was so unbelievably soul destroying I have hungered for a conclusion to this series ever since.

Taking a stab at reading books again. It's so hit or miss with me and bookreadin', I get bored very easily (unfair) and the adhd makes it super hard to retain info without a second, or even third pass - that being said I am IMMEDIATELY smitten with the Seth Dickinson's The Traitor Baru Cormorant

I highly recommend this series if you're a fan of Seth's prior works with Destiny (the game) as he was responsible for all the best lore entries and the The Book of Sorrows

Baru is already promising to be a favorite. Dickinson's mastery with the topic of colonization and cultural genocide is… ✨✨✨

[syntheticmortal]

i don't regret picking up the Mass Effect trilogy again a while back for dirt cheap, but I slogged through ME1 and ME2 in a row and now I'm struggling to get through ME3

I've not got work tomorrow so I may try to stagger through the next bit tomorrow. I just don't play video games like I used to, most of it is writing in the morning, going to work (thankfully a very pleasant job atm), and then resting or doing TTRPG stuff on the weekend.

But when I'm through with it I'll finally give Baldur's Gate 3 a go, finally, now I have a laptop that can (hopefully!) run it

[syntheticmortal]

I'm feeling so profoundly blessed right now that so many people are enjoying my prose contributions to @the-art-block's art for Fangfest 🥰✨

It's a whirlwind of typing and editing but man it feels good to be churning out pieces I feel proud of so quicklyyyy~!

So thank you everyone who's reblogging and leaving nice tags and to the mutuals who are consistently showing up - today will feel great because of all of you 🥰

[syntheticmortal]

I think I got rid of the Recall AI nonsense off my laptop 😩 Going to cross my fingers and hope for the best 🤞(all we can do sometimes, ugh)

[syntheticmortal]

New avatar new me 💖💖 Thank you @the-art-block!!

[syntheticmortal]

Hey Darlings

Looking for Dungeon World one shot players turned up no one sadly XD - though I'm immensely grateful for everyone who reblogged my posts!! ❤️❤️ You're all so lovely for your help ^^

Since I still wanted to run something small for new people I was wondering if people would be more into, say, VTM one shots? (Or 1-4 session things, I don't know)

I dunno, give me a shout! I'm interested in what people are into :')

[syntheticmortal]

Getting fairly into Changeling the Dreaming lore (as I've told quite a few people now) and I just find myself wishing that the other WOD gamelines got the Bloodlines treatment

Bloodlines was so good setting a foundation, even in the V5 era, and just being able to physically walk around a WOD setting is so inspiring for GMing