Caine, the hoax or the last second gameplay design?

[Wesp5]

If you think I would jump at you for any UP content or whatever mod you would want to make, you are wrong.

Sorry if my comment came along too rude, but I really think it would be stupid to remove the main cause behind the events in Bloodlines. Regardless of who he is, the Cabbie orchestrated the whole story, so how can you remove him from it? Or if you weren't aware of this, here is what Jack says to him in one of the endings: "Hey, it happened just like you said. They never even knew what hit 'em. Threw that sarcophagus out there and they just tore each other up tryin' to get to it." This sounds as if it was Cabbie's idea all along!

[Aloysius]

I remember the epilog sure, but technically and story-wise, it's not that much of a strech. If he doesn't drive the car and this epilog either doesn't show or is replaced, he can very reasonably not being there without damage to the rest of the story. Jack could very well have thrown the sarcophagus on his own, or on the idea of a unheard party, why not even Caine if it's your thing. It simply become a player's choice to think what they like best.

But, maybe I am being excessive, I am actually shocked that the very idea of a 'Caine' in Bloodlines came from this wod book quoted earlier, and it's still make me wonder what is the real story behind the inclusion of this element. Did Troika even had the choice?
The ambiguity of the all thing in the game, and that for what I know they never wanted to say who is the guy one way or the other, still make me picture them wanting to leave freedom in the matter.

Anyway, my brain ran again on all this, and now I am thinking that I could overcome the shock, especialy since I always liked the epilog with Jack and I don't really want to change the scene, it's very good and the driver can just as much say his favorite line on the blood of his precious Caine. What I will do for sure is to provide the option of driving yourself a other car, I already did something like that for my new non-vanilla path so it shoudn't be too hard.
And it's still a little less work, the ventrue tower levels are already quite tricky to improve, loads of people are trying to reach Lacroix suddently, I keep re-working them again and again until I find the best story's iteration.

[Wesp5]

Anyway, my brain ran again on all this, and now I am thinking that I could overcome the shock, especialy since I always liked the epilog with Jack and I don't really want to change the scene, it's very good and the driver can just as much say his favorite line on the blood of his precious Caine.

How about this: The whole story with Adam, Eve, Caine and Abel is just a myth, but as there are elder and younger vampires, why can't there be a first vampire, who calls himself "Caine", because he feels some kind of analogy with the old biblical character? That would work fine!

[Aloysius]

How about this: The whole story with Adam, Eve, Caine and Abel is just a myth, but as there are elder and younger vampires, why can't there be a first vampire, who calls himself "Caine", because he feels some kind of analogy with the old biblical character? That would work fine!

Sure why not, there had to be a first vampire, and he can still exist, there can even be 'antideluvians' of sort when all is said and done. If there are, they shoudn't be overpowered nor in god like status over the rest of kindred/other species population. Very powerful alright but not to the point of staging a apocalypse with a whim even if they wanted to.

[Wesp5]

If there are, they shoudn't be overpowered nor in god like status over the rest of kindred/other species population. Very powerful alright but not to the point of staging a apocalypse with a whim even if they wanted to.

I agree with that. I think a antedeluvian awakened during Gehenna or shortly before and it was really overkill, but this will not have happened as well in the new release, I guess. Am I right, IanW?

[IanW]

If there are, they shoudn't be overpowered nor in god like status over the rest of kindred/other species population. Very powerful alright but not to the point of staging a apocalypse with a whim even if they wanted to.

I agree with that. I think a antedeluvian awakened during Gehenna or shortly before and it was really overkill, but this will not have happened as well in the new release, I guess. Am I right, IanW?

Ravnos awoke in 1999. It was a bad time. Fortunately he managed to be killed not long after. Maybe a week later.

Yes, this is still canon in the new material. It is not the first time, nor will it be the last time, that an Antediluvian has been killed. Even dead Antediluvians are still a threat.

[Wesp5]

Yes, this is still canon in the new material. It is not the first time, nor will it be the last time, that an Antediluvian has been killed. Even dead Antediluvians are still a threat.

Okay, so very powerful old vampires are still a fact. What about Caine? Is he still real in the new version even if he hasn't come back to cause Gehenna as far as I know?

[Aloysius]

Ah, ah! I was just doing research on Diablerie practices and it cause some black 'prints' or such in the aura of a kindred. So the special aura is actually not special, it might just be that the guy did a Diablerie recently enouh! Mh ha ha, further more, drinking the blood of a other kindred doesn't affect blood potency if it's not in a Diablerie, so Andrei's alledged science make definitly no sense, the poor sap is just desesperate and try one last time to look what he  isn't.
Try to find a parade to that, mh ha ha ha.

Seriously, this debate inspired me to revise a few of my dialogs, to make some of my characters aknowledge that antideluvians might exist, so you see I am a very reasonable fellow after all.
The real problem I think is how wod want to portray them, god like monsters that just want to kill everything and don't have to watch their backs like everyone else.
Fortunatly, Bloodlines isn't wod and don't have to bend before bad writting.

[IanW]

Okay, so very powerful old vampires are still a fact. What about Caine? Is he still real in the new version even if he hasn't come back to cause Gehenna as far as I know?

The Caine myth is real. Whether or not Caine himself is real is still an open question. V5 seems to be stepping back and introducing more uncertainty into the mythology, which is great. First Edition, for example, said that various sources indicated there may be 13, 30, or 300 Antediluvians, and we brought back some of those ideas with Beckett's Jyhad Diary.

One of the hallmarks of the Camarilla that separated them from the other sects was that, officially, they didn't believe in the Antediluvians. They were probably myths, and even if they existed, they were long-dead.

That is... no longer the case. The Camarilla now accepts that the Antediluvians are real, and may be an active threat. There's still uncertainty on who they are, what they want, and how many of them exist.

[Raving_Neonate]

The more I read on the thread, I can stick the following to the character of Cain, especially in Bloodlines:
"The greatest devil's trick was that he convinced the people that he does not exist." Now just change the devil with Caine and people with kindred... this is precisely the reason why there will be no consensus on the matter.

[Aloysius]

It's me again. Probably to run away from a bunch of tedious tasks, I found some old books I didn't read in ages last night, then I had a vague recollection that I liked the vampire origin made up by Anne Rice in her books. I went through Lestat's book in a night just to get to the first vampires's myth, I am now in the queen of the damned and I remember where my aversion for overpowered antideluvians probably came from.

But the story of the creation of the original vampires as delivered in full in the queen of the damned is far more better than wod's story if you ask me.

[Wesp5]

But the story of the creation of the original vampires as delivered in full in the queen of the damned is far more better than wod's story if you ask me.

Can you summarize this here? I only saw the movie a long time ago which indeed reminded me a lot of the goddess Lamastu depicted on the sarcophagus!

[Aloysius]

Hm, summarize a story is hard for me but I will try. Spoiler just in case:

Spoiler for Hiden:

Some time around 4000 years BC, two twin witches live near Jericho. At the same time in egypt which isn't called that way yet, a young king take a wife who hate the local canibal practices and start to prohibate cannibalism in her new kingdom, even when it's for funeral purposes.

Later the king and queen hear about the reputation of the twin witches living far from their kingdom and send them a invitation to visit their court. When the sisters refuse, having a bad feeling and being warned off by their spirits, the king eventually come to their land with soldiers and kill almost everyone in the witches's tribe during a funeral rite on the pretext that they eat their deads. Only the sisters are left alive and brought to egypt, or kemet.

There, the queen turn out very selfish and hypocrit, she wanted the tribe dead only to have the witches at her disposal but won't admit it, hiding it behind what she think to be good reasons. Anyway she ask many questions about life, death, gods and so on. To keep it short, the answers aren't what she want to hear. Things get bad for the witches but a spirit who somehow managed to discover a way of stealing and tasting blood also manage to scare the queen enough, and so she eventually let the witches go. After having them raped to demonstrate she and the king aren't afraid in public.

The spirit who like blood however decide to torment the intendant who was forced to rape the sisters after the two left the kingdom, and the king and queen decide to try and drive away the spirit themself. Some canibals who aren't happy about the changes introduced by the queen take advantage that she and the king went alone in the intendant's house, and they kill them.
Or try, since when it happen, the spirit either try to take too much blood from the dying queen or it try to steal her body, maybe both. Whichever, something unexpected happen and the spirit sort of merge with the queen, giving her supernatural attributes, blood thirst, vulnerability to sunlight... Well you know, Making her the first vampire.

It summarize it for the original creation I guess, I leave names, details and the rest of the origin's story to the book.
It's very pagan, and actually not really religious if you think about it, which is why I must like it. It's a accident, a sort of supernatural mutation that wasn't planned by anything.

[Wesp5]

It summarize it for the original creation I guess, I leave names, details and the rest of the origin's story to the book.

Wow, in my opinion this is a completely unbelievable mess and much worse than the rather elegant Caine story of the WoD.

[Aloysius]

Wow, in my opinion this is a completely unbelievable mess and much worse than the rather elegant Caine story of the WoD.

Or it's just me who didn't succeed at summarizing the story for someone who never read it. I am not even sure it's possible to accuratly summarize a story, unless the said story is made of two lines to begin with. But in that case it's a device and not a story to me.

Oh well, there is no accounting for tastes, I think it's the expression. Personaly I don't see anything elegant nor believable in Caine story. Euh, beside when supernatural is part of a universe, the 'believable' line become hard to define.