New World of Darkness/WMG

Supernaturals represent fundamental cosmic forces

Prometheans with their Azoth (and flux) represent the fundamental coming together and falling apart of all things. Changeling's and Wyrd are the interconnectivity between everyone and everything. Sin Eaters and Psyche are, well, death. Mages have the whole supernal thing going on. Werewolves are spirit guardians and such. I'm not sure where vampires fit in though.

• Rebirth?
  • Stasis.
    • Given how Mummies are going to be the new splat, the Deathless (their proper name) are probably Rebirth, given how self-discovery is going to be one of their themes.

Supernaturals are human-possessed representatives of the Supernal Realms, and the Abyss is there to maintain humanity's innocence and basic moral superiority. (aka the nWoD-Unification Theory).

The supernaturals are escapees (well, rather, their powers and basic inherent abilities are) from the Supernal Realms, and as such, mages don't count. Hunters (and their relevant powers) are operating on Abyssal technology. Each Supernal Realm has a relevant "internal law and order" heirarchy.

• • Prometheans are from the Aether.
    • The Qashmallim are essentially walking, talking, very angry Tulpas, and perform the same duties in the Aether as the Kerberoi do in Stygia and the True Fae do in Arcadia.
  • Werewolves are from the Primal Wild.
    • Father Wolf was at one point equal to the other "internal law and order" beings such as the True Fae and the Qashmallim, but his murder by his sons was the first, and at present only verified, death of a Supernal potentate.
  • Sin-Eaters are from Stygia.
    • The Kerberoi serve the "internal law and order" situation here.
  • Changelings are from Arcadia.
    • True Fae.
  • Vampires are from Pandaemonium.
    • Vampires are a special case, and somewhat fuzzy, but it can be theorized that Belial, if he is truly a demon, might be the Pandaemonium equivalent. The Demons outlined in "Hunter" seem to follow this same reasoning, and operate magically the same way the demonic Investments of Belial's Brood operate. If this logic is pursued, vampiric attempts to "overcome" their demonic existence are contrary to their inevitable state at best.
  • The Mage "oracles" are actually prisoners in their Watchtowers... they're basically stealing juice from the Supernal realms and siphoning it across the Abyss to the Awakened. They have the same authority and power as the "internal law and order" of their individual realms, but if they try to leave, they are no longer safe from the laws of the realms they're basically pirating from. The "crime" of Atlantis was seeking to "conquer" the Supernal via the Watchtower technologies, resulting in the Abyss, which kept the "law and order" of the Supernal from taking revenge on mundane humanity. The Abyss is actually there for humanity's benefit, and it's a good thing.
• What about Numina and Inspiration?
  • Interesting...What would be the bane of a spirit-god's (First-Born level) of knowledge (and truth???)???

New World of Darkness supernaturals map nicely to Magic: The Gathering:

• White (Order): Prometheans. They can also go Back from the Dead that is not (entirely) wrong, which is White ability.
• Blue (Magic): Changeling. Their societies revolve around very complex promises and magic that bends reality on the basis of being magical. That's very Blue.
• Black (Death): Sin-Eaters gears more toward Red-Black (gangs of once-deads), Vampires gears more toward Blue-Black (aristocracy of the undead).
• Red (Chaos): Demons, they are there to subvert what little goodness exists in humankind. There is no Demon gameline in the nWoD, but demons do play serious role in the nWoD.
• Green (Nature): Werewolves, their entire society is based on might-makes-right and they try to balance what bizarre natural order is there (between the Spirit realm and the mundane world).
• Any color: Humans. As long as you are a Human, you can wear any hats. The Any Color-ness is embodied most strongly in Mages.

All of the movers and shakers in the World of Darkness are, in fact, humans, or influenced by humans.

Mages, Geniuses, and Sin-Eaters are self-explanatory, of course, given that they're essentially super-powered humans to begin with, but as for the rest... Vampires are basically cursed/undead humans. Prometheans are created from attempts to resurrect humans, and have the capacity To Become Human. Changelings are humans transformed by years of supernatural abuse. Werewolves are half human, and half spirit--and it's arguable that spirits in the World of Darkness are at least party shaped and influenced by human beliefs and emotions. Furthermore, there's the godlike beings associated with them--Ascended Mages are, well...Ascended Mages; Geists and Kerberoi are very, very old ghosts; the True Fae are what happens to a Changeling when he reaches 0 Clarity and 10 Wyrd...

From this, we can draw two conclusions. Firstly, humans, despite appearances, are the most powerful force in the cosmos, and second, everything wrong with the World of Darkness is their own freaking fault.

• ...I thought that was canon.

• This is only half-true. There's nothing remotely human about the Acamoth, the Idigam, the Qashmallim, the Kerberoi, the True Fae, or the Demons, among others. And all of those beings wield great power and influence. Only the playable races are directly related to humanity. In a universe drowned in Cosmic Horrors and Eldritch Abominations, I doubt any of those races qualify as the "movers and shakers" of the World of Darkness...
  • Except that Kerberoi are also very very old ghosts, the True Fae are, as mentioned above, the result of Changelings hitting Wyrd 10 and Clarity 0, and there's at least one canonical example of a demon being derived from a human ghost. And there could well be hidden connections to humanity in the others, as well. Except for the Abyss. The Abyss doesn't fit. Though it is ultimately a product of man's hubris...
    • The Kerberoi could be very ancient ghosts. It's just one theory among many. And the True Fae aren't the "result" of anything, unless you think Changelings existed BEFORE the True Fae, which wouldn't make any sense (you can't abduct yourself, you know...). When a Changeling reaches Wyrd 10 and Clarity 0, it's because he/she effectively lost all connections to humanity and became part of Arcadia.
      • You can't abduct yourself, true. You can go insane after having accumulated a massive amount of mystical power, which may well be where the first Fae came from. And for the purposes of this WMG, we're assuming that Kerberoi are ghosts.
        • Where is the first cause, sir/madam? Assuming all True Fae were once changelings runs smack into The Vampire Problem -- where did those changelings come from? -- and the Fae can come from nightmares or the Hedge or the Wyrd itself without ever having been human. The Kerberoi can have been ghosts in some Dead Dominions, chiefly those where the position can be passed on, but Book of the Dead's introduction to the Stygian Key is telling in its characterization of the Kerberoi as creatures with "no memory of the living world" -- ghosts explicitly can't teach the Key.
  • All the mortal hunter conspiracies indicate mortals might actually be the movers and shakers in the new World of Darkness.

The seven covenants in Vampire: The Requiem represent the Seven Heavenly Virtues, just like the seven clans represent the Seven Deadly Sins.

• The Invictus are Prudence.
• Lancea Sanctum are Faith.
• The Carthian Movement are Charity.
• The Circle of The Crone are Temperance.
• Belial's Brood are Fortitude.
  • Except that Belial's Brood represent sin incarnate, what with being personified demons.
    • That's why they personify Villainous Valor.
• The Camarilla were Justice.
• The Ordo Dracul are Hope

Each Game in the New World of Darkness represents one of the the Seven Heavenly Virtues

• Vampire: The Requiem- Temperance (controlling dark urges)
• Werewolf: The Forsaken- Chastity
• Mage: The Awakening- Kindness(Working to improve the world)
• Promethean: The Created- Patience(Enduring until their New Dawn)
• Changeling: The Lost- Humility
• Hunter: The Vigil- Diligence(Self-Explanatory)
• Geist: The Sin-Eaters- Charity
  • Um--only two of those are actual Virtues. Seriously, they're listed in the World of Darkness corebook--how could you no know that? And some of you choices are wonky, too--Mages working for a better world? Werewolves as representatives of Chastity--did you miss the part where non-procreative sex, or sex with normal humans, is A-OK? And I think that the Changelings have been humiliated quite enough.
  • I liked the idea, but I couldn't really get it to work, okay?
  • Those are the heavenly virtues. The virtues in the game are the theological and cardinal virtues, which are different.

Alternatively, each game represents one of the Seven Deadly Sins

Some are very obvious, some... not as much.

• Vampire: The Requiem- Lust
  • And not just for blood, either. The sheer amount of Power Perversion Potential in that gameline is off the chart.
• Werewolf: The Forsaken- Wrath
• Mage: The Awakening- Pride
• Promethean: The Created- Envy (of the humans, yes?)
• Changeling: The Lost- Sloth ("maybe if we sit very quietly, the Gentry won't notice us...")
  • That's just the Winter Court, though. The other Courts are a bit more pro-active.
    • If you take the old fashioned definition of Sloth as languor and sorrow, it fits a lot.
• Hunter: The Vigil- Greed (err... Well, the Cheiron Group sure fits!)
  • The larger organisations in general are big power-mongers, and they're known to battle each others for territory and personal gain. I'd say it's quite accurate.
• Geist: The Sin Eaters- Gluttony (because they eat sins. It's in the name, you see.)
  • The name is misleading and has nothing to do with their nature. However, they still correspond to Gluttony because their entire society is a 100% hedonistical, never-ending carnival. Supernatural trash culture, anyone?

The New World of Darkness is a true sequel of the Old World of Darkness, rather than just a Spiritual Successor.

The Year of Fire was caused by Haruhi Suzumiya having a bad day. After The End of the World as We Know It, she decided to try creating a new one.

• No, obviously what happened was that the reality glitches caused by power imbalances and outright contradictions in the rules, combined with multiple eschatological prophecies coming true at the same time, weakened the fabric of reality enough that a Marauder with temporary Oracle-level abilities was able to cause a Logic Bomb Time Crash, resulting in an Alternate Universe replacing the world.
  • A writer explained the the old World of Darkness was "multi-faceted" and existed parallel to Exalted. Everything that was written in every book happened somewhere. It's very... metafictional.
• Maybe Changeling: The Dreaming and Wraith: The Oblivion got together and decided to pretend to be each other and the sheer horror the exchange wrought sundered the very laws of reality itself, echoing throughout all of The World of Darkness.

The Malleus Maleficarum draw their powers from less-than-holy sources.

The Hammer of the Witches has got a few skeletons in its closet. Aside from their leader being a ghoul, there's also something very fishy about the Benediction endowments. Just read the entries for the Fortitude of St. George and the Boon of Lazarus. Consider that the last one slowly makes you Go Mad from the Revelation. Not the kind of thing you'd associate with holy powers, isn't it? Much like their fellow hunters the Knights of Saint George, the Malleus Maleficarum might unknowingly be Abyssal cultists.

• They can still be holy powers. Holy doesn't necessarily equate to the human conception of "good." One should remember the Qashmalim, best described as "Angels if the Bible had been written by H.P. Lovecraft."
  • Which is quite fitting, since if you take the Crossover Cosmology into account, both the Quashmalim and the Benedictions are likely fueled by the Aether.

The board of directors of the Cheiron Group are- or at least effectively are- still human.

They've 'sampled' so much of their own 'merchandise' over the years, that they're not effectively human any more- more a Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot style amaglamation of every supernatural being there is. However, all of the effects just about cancel each other out- they still have human minds and motivations.

• Glad to know being a wetware cyborg doesn't destroy your humanity.

The Exarchs are Yozi/Titans/Ascended Infernals

The Ochema are parallels to the souls of the Yozi and the Avatars of the Greater Titans, and each one represents a concept (in the form of the Arcana). The Fallen World is the Shattered Annex spoken of in the Broken Winged Crane, which is why the Iron Seals are cited as being mortal "mages" originally before taking the Supernal Realms, shattering the ladder and the world.

The Supernal Realms are the domains of the Exalted

Aether is the domain of the Solar; the Sidereals contructed Arcadia; Mastigos belongs to the Infernals; the Lunars manipulated the land into the Primal Wild; Stygia even shares a name with the island of the Underworld, ruled by the Abyssals.

When it comes time for White Wolf to end the nWoD line, its equivalent of Gehenna will be a complete Hunter victory

The Barrett Commission will purge Task Force: VALKYRIE of its subornment by vampires and secure it high-priority funding from the USG, while Network Zero breaks the various masquerades wide open once and for all, leading to the complete extermination of all the things that go bump in the night.

• This will have a price, though. Division Six gets wiped out by it's handlers misdirecting them, and the Malleus Maleficarum is split by civil war.

Metaphysical speculation

• The Pyros is not, physically or metaphysically speaking, anywhere. It's nowhere and therefore everywhere. It is fundamentally absent from Fae bargains and the Astral Realms which encompass virtually all that is. It is something that ought not be drawn upon. Drawning upon the power of something that isn't there should not be possible.
  • Exactly.
  • Explain that one again, please.
    • It's something impossible to be drawn upon. Therefore, it only works in situations wherein the goal is impossible. The Divine Fire was "stolen" on a metaphysical level to the point where it's not with the "gods" and mortals can, in their desperation, draw upon the Pyros and perform the impossible task of creating a new life from unliving parts by dint of the very impossibility of using something that can't be used. It works because it shouldn't work and it never will again. (For the mortal demiurge, anyway.) It's inherently miraculous. It shouldn't work. And that's kind of the point.
    • Now it sound even more like Mania than it already did.
      • Other way around.

• Fate has its fingers in everything in some form or another. Besides the preponderance of precognitive powers present in the setting (along with the inherent ambiguity in whether those visions are meant to be fulfilled, thwarted, or seen to pass), there's the way the sheer number of incomprehensible forces in the setting act. The Kindred are pulled to certain modes of strength and weakness by their capital-B Blood, the Uratha tend to either follow or fight the arbitrary whims of an unquestionably mad goddess, Prometheans seem to be part of The Plan, consecrated krewes of Bound call in and are correspondingly bound by their Destiny, and changelings and mages have such a direct view of Fate and Time alike that no more need really be said about them.
  • And lest we forget the most obvious manifestation, it's there, too.

• The "supernal shade realm" hypothesis is a hypothesis advanced by certain fans that states that the Realms Invisible (the Underworld, Faerie, the Shadow, Hell, and the Empyrean/God-Machine) are reflections of the Supernal Realms. However, this theory is not correct, as stated by the writers. The cosmology was specifically designed to NOT make sense, not have easy answers, and even have multiple truth values. For example, the different Realms Invisible are arranged in an extremely haphazard fashion relative to each other, whereas the Supernal Realms are seen as equal to one another. Furthermore, Faerie and Arcadia might be the same place, or they might be reflections of one another, or both. Furthermore, the Shatter chronicle setting in Mirrors provides a description of the two that further confuses the issue, where from one perspective the Supernal Realms are observed as being submerged beneath the "ocean" of the Abyss, and Faerie is an island in that ocean.

Ventrue and Daeva are both Lords

I couldn't help but be bothered by the fact that while the Ventrue are presented everywhere as "Lords over the Damned" and the the Daeva as hedonistic socialites too involved in their own vices to achieve true power, there are quite a few Daeva bloodlines with Aristocratic ideals that are not "decadant" - the Spina and En bloodlines come to mind. Heck, the En's nickname is "Emperors"!

This is my explanation : both represent two different "ruler" archetypes that oppose each other. The Ventrue are the modern lords: the financial moguls, the elected politician, the head of whatever conspiracy you'd like, the oil baron. They know the right persons, make the right inheritance, are always were things happen ; they "know where it's at". They have Dominate because theirs is the power to emit any order and it doesn't matter if you don't like it, you have to it. They use Resilience because today's leaders don't need to know how to fight, just to be sure that a hired killer passing in his car and emptying his gun in the street won't kill them. They go crazy because to be a ruler today requires to keep track of so many factors and to make such calculs that you simply can't deal with the pressure.

The Davea are the ancient rulers ; the kings, the warlords, the medieval knights, the emperors. They don't rule pragamatically or rationally ; they rule passionately. People don't obey because they're the one who gives the paycheck or because they've won the right election ; they obey because when they see a Daeva, they see, they feel that he is the freakin' King and that there is no objection. Thus Majesty: people fear them or love them or worship them but they are never indifferent. And if you don't agree then they'll rip your heart out in the blink of an eye. Because they are the King. Thus, also, their weakness: they never had to learn restraint, in fact the strength of their urges is proof of their more-than-human nature.

This is why there were regal Daeva in ancient times, when raw physical power and awe-inspiring allure still mattered, and why the Ventrue are in charge now, in a system where you need to actually think before you do something and convince others that it's the right decision - even if through mind-whammying.

The Cheiron Group’s directors are somehow survivors from the Old World of Darkness’ apocalypse

Conspiracies and Compacts reveals how Cheiron Group’s board of directors could be alien beings (from another dimension) escaping a world’s destruction. The dying world they were fleeing was the old Word of Darkness.

• Cheiron Group’s board of directors are Pentex’s board of directors, who survived the apocalypse – they have learned nothing.
• Cheiron Group’s board of directors are a remnant of the Wyrm, this will not end well for the New World of Darkness
• Cherion Group's board of directors are Glass Walkers, who realized the sheer stupidity and xenophobia of the other werewolves had doomed it and got out while they still could. Their schemes will save the New World of Darkness from itself, and lead to long-lost hope being found...although the path there will not be something they brag about.

Prometheans and Pandorans are made by uplifting an entity from the Lower Depths.

Think about it.