Promethean: The Created

Promethean: The Created
RPG published by White Wolf
Rule System	Storytelling System
Authors	Justin Achilli et al
First Publication	2006

The New World of Darkness' attempt to do something exotic, in the form of "Frankenstein's Monster: The Roleplaying Game". You are a Promethean, an incredibly rare unliving (not undead; your body isn't really alive, but you are a whole new entity, albeit of artificial origins and often made from corpses in some way) creature stumbling through the World of Darkness. In lieu of a soul, you have a storehouse of Pyros, the raw energy from which all life springs, but which isn't meant to exist in such a concentrated form. As a result, reality itself hates you - and that's not hyperbole. Ordinary humans and other supernatural beings hate and despise you on sight, animals flee from you, plants wither and die in your presence- even hanging around in one place too long eventually fucks it up as the land is corrupted and unbalanced by your presence.

Your goal, then, is to master the understanding of humanity. Through this, you can use spiritual alchemy to hone your Azoth (the power of the Divine Fire honed into a form suited for creation), and eventually transmute it into a human soul, giving up all your mystical powers to become just an ordinary human... but at least reality no longer hates you, so, it's worth it, right?

Promethean has the dubious honor of being the NWoD's equivalent to Wraith: The Oblivion or if you're generous, Mage: The Ascension, in that it's a game where people read it, but don't play it. The setting is incredibly bleak, even if the tone the game is trying to go for is optimistic (since it is canon that you can achieve the New Dawn and become human... except if you're a Zeka, since you suffer a dose of rads equal to your Azoth when you transform, and the bare fucking minimum Azoth you need to succeed at the New Dawn is one dot below the "instant death due to radiation" level), the rules are complex, it requires a hell of a good Storyteller to be run successfully what with the whole "the world itself despises you" thing, and frankly not a lot of people actually want to play a game where your goal is to go from a superpowerful monster to a squishy human. Especially when that squishy human then has to live in the World of Darkness.

In a way, it's the most Humanity, Fuck Yeah fanboyistic of the Chronicles gamelines. Yes, you play as a super-powerful Template:Golem ala the Frankenstein's Monster archetype, but the whole point of the game is "all this power is meaningless because You're Not Human", with the drive of every single campaign being to find a way to ascend from your cursed state to the blessed form of humanity.

Finally recognizing this, Onyx Path Publishing has promised a second edition update, and although they defend the "become a human" goalpost as the gameline's essential "buy in", evidence suggests that they will be toning down some of the more socially punishing states like Disquiet and Wastelands.

Until 2015, Promethean was also the only game that did not have an earlier version in the Old World of Darkness. Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Changeling, Hunter, Mummy and Demon all have a version in each. Geist is more of a spiritual successor to Wraith, as they deal more or less with the same subject. Orpheus is the only unpaired in the Old World of Darkness, but it deals with the underworld and is more akin to Wraith and Mummy. It since had to share the position with Beast: The Primordial, although they can be somewhat argued as a rework on the core concept of Changeling: The Dreaming.

Promethean Lineages

As is usual for the NWOD, you have about five different sub-types (Lineages, in this case), each connected to a different Humour (bodily fluid believed once to be responsible for measuring health) and Element, which also influences your Disquiet (how people freak out for your presence), Wasteland (how your presence fucks over the world), and Torment (what you do when you finally get sick of shit and start trying to fuck people over on purpose).

• Frankenstein
  • Humor: Choler (yellow bile)
  • Element: Fire

As the name suggests, Frankensteins are descended from the titular monster (in the NWoD, Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus" based on testimony given to her by the actual Bride of Frankenstein, who's become a Centimanus), who goes by the name "Verney" and is still running around. Their Disquiet causes people to become increasingly petty, small-minded, shallow and selfish. Their Wasteland manifests as distortions of electricity, causing unnatural thunderstorms and "dead spots" where electronics just won't work. When they succumb to Torment, they become stubborn, petty, vengeful and sadistically spiteful, dedicated to torturing whoever's pissed them off- much like the monster itself in the novel.

• Galateid
  • Humor: Blood
  • Element: Air

They claim descent from the Greek gods via the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea, and so are one of the vainest types. Their Disquiet causes people to lose self-confidence and courage, becoming overwhelmed by shame and increasingly self-degrading in their pursuit of some form of licentious release. Their Wasteland makes the air grow still and messes with peoples' heads, erasing their ability to recognize anything or anyone. Their Torment manifests as unwholesome fixation - we're talking "stalk someone you find attractive to the extent of sneaking into their house at night, yanking their spouse out of bed and trying to rape them" fixated.

• Osirian
  • Humor: Phlegm
  • Element: Water

They claim descent from the Egyptian god Osiris, and tend to be dispassionate and thoughtful by nature. Their Disquiet makes people increasingly incapable of rational thought, compelling them towards insane, irrational emotion-driven outbursts. Their Wasteland fouls the water, causing droughts and transmuting standing bodies of water into noxious, undrinkable slime. Their Torment makes them thoughtlessly cruel, completely crushing any emotional feelings they have even as they fixate upon some particular problem that they need to solve.

• Tammuz
  • Humor: Melancholer (black bile)
  • Element: Earth

The golems of Hebrew folklore, they value their personal freedom above all else and are famous for their stubbornness and stoicism. Their Disquiet compels people to hunt the Golem and try to control it- a particularly unpleasant experience, as many Tammuz have either been enslaved in the past or fear the possibility of becoming slaves. In a Golem's Wasteland, the earth itself sickens and dies; mines go empty, sinkholes swallow whole buildings, once-fertile soil becomes lifeless dust and stone sculptures/buildings start to crumble and rot. Torment initially makes them go berserk and try to destroy everything in sight, but they quickly become lethargic after a few minutes.

• Ulgan
  • Humor: Ectoplasm
  • Element: Spirit

These unusual Prometheans have close ties to Twilight; some say their Progenitor was a shaman who was torn to pieces by spirits and then reassembled from the remains. Whether or not this is true, their instincts are rarely in error and their ability to communicate with spirits is valued among their kind. Their Disquiet has one of two effects; the closed-minded become increasingly so, winding up as virtual mindless zombies just begging for the spirits to hop into their heads and run around in their bodies, whilst the open-minded find themselves increasingly able to see into the spirit world. Neither outcome is good for any average Joe's sanity, and the spirits are less than grateful towards the Ulgan. As you might expect, their Wasteland rips open the barrier between the worlds of flesh and spirits, allowing the denizens of both to intermingle. When controlled by Torment, they begin acting randomly in emulation of some mad spirit, which leads them to perform incomprehensible rituals and bizarre actions until they snap back to their senses.

• Zeka
  • Humor Any, tainted with radiation
  • Element: Any, tainted with radiation

The Zeka are freaks even among the Prometheans, with the only real connection between Zeky being the massive amounts of radioactivity involved in their creation and the constant pain they suffer as a result of said radiation. This radioactivity also has a tendency to make them rather unhinged at the best of times and completely insane at the worst. Disquiet? Unreasoning paranoid fear, a la the Red Scare of the 1950s but worse. Torment? The Zeka goes into a mindless killing spree, exhausting all of his/her Pyros in the pursuit of killing anyone and everyone he/she can find. Wasteland? The nuclear variety, of course: the land becomes smothered under cold, sun-blocking clouds that rain down poisoned ash and snow, mutant insects proliferate whilst everything else dies, killed by the spiritual radiation contaminating the land. These guys are screwed even by the standards of Prometheans; for some fucking insane reason, a Zeka takes "radiation damage equal to their Azoth" if they complete the New Dawn. But, see, you need a minimum fucking Azoth of 4 to achieve the New Dawn. And a 5-dot dose of radiation? Is instant fucking death. It's no surprise that most of them embrace their monstrous nature and become Centimani for relief, something that is easier for them than any other kind of Promethean.

Later splatbooks introduced Constructs (any of the above, but made from inanimate matter rather than flesh), Extempores (created by freak accidents where a corpse was exposed to enough Pyros to become a Promethean in the absence of a demiurge), the Unfleshed (robots and machines who have become Pyros-souled "Promethean kinsfolk") and even weirder variants, like Prometheans that were dreamed into existence, or created by supernatural demiurges.

There are also related creatures called Pandorans- the malformed horrors spawned when a Promethean creation rite fails. Like Prometheans, they draw power from Pyros but cannot generate Azoth themselves. Instead, they harness the destructive aspects of the Divine Fire (called Flux) to steal the Azoth from Prometheans; if none are nearby, they enter a state of dormancy until a source of Azoth revives them.