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The [[Nightmare Fuel]] page for ''[[
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* The ''[[
* The entire ''[[
** And all of that happens to your character ''before the game even starts''...
** And if by some miracle you become powerful enough to convincingly oppose the True Fae, {{spoiler|you are almost certainly [[Jumping Off the Slippery Slope|too far down]] the road to [[And Then John Was a Zombie|turning into one of them]] to ever turn back.}} Enjoy!
** The premise of the game is that you were abducted into Arcadia by the Fae and subjected to mind rape, soul rape, torture rape, and/or actual rape. For ''years''. Until the abuse ''metaphysically changed you into something not entirely human''. Meanwhile, a 'fetch' has been left behind to wear your face, own your memories, live your life, and eventually die in your stead. So assuming you finally escape, you are (at minimum) unable to live a fully normal life, bear all the PTSD and then some of having survived years of literally inhuman abuse at the hands of Eldritch Horrors who are nigh-omnipotent in their home realm, and are still being hunted by said horrors. Oh, and since the fetch is created ''unknowing'' of its role as an impostor, getting even a fraction of your old life back requires you to ''murder an innocent being''. But this isn't the [[Nightmare Fuel]]. Oh no. The [[Nightmare Fuel]] is {{spoiler|all of the above is ''the True Fae reproduction cycle''. That's right. The purpose of kidnapping you and twisting and breaking you into something not entirely human? Well, if your Wyrd score gets high enough as a Changeling, you can become one of the True Fae. Seriously, it's all right there in the ''Equinox Road'' supplement, particularly [[Tomato in
*** Becoming a Changeling requires only three things: Entry into Arcadia, sufficient exposure to Arcadia to acquire certain Arcadian characteristics, and a return to Earth (technically, the last isn't required). Usually this involves unpleasant or flatly traumatic experiences, but they're not essential, just extremely common. The main author has said that he wanted avoid romanticizing abduction and imprisonment, and in retrospect went a bit too far the other way.
** Also disturbing is how the four Courts of the Changelings, and their different approaches to life, map almost ''exactly'' to four of the possible reactions for survivors of sexual or emotional abuse: hedonistic escapism (Spring), violent acting-out and revenge fantasies (Summer), abused-turns-abuser (Autumn), and paranoia (Winter). Notice how the faction of "eventually overcome the trauma and move on with your life in a healthy fashion" doesn't exist in Changeling society.
** They also map to the five stages of Grief, also without Acceptance:
*** Spring Court is Denial, pretending that they've taken all the good things from Arcadia and ignoring the bad.
*** Summer Court is about taking out violence and Anger.
*** Autumn Court is about Bargaining their time away by with the occult.
*** Winter Court is Depression. They hide from the world.
** More interestingly, one could see Privateers (Changelings who work as mercenaries for the True Fae, which usually entails dragging OTHER Changelings back to Arcadia) and Loyalists (Changelings who either didn't escape before they were totally brainwashed, or escaped and are being heavily blackmailed to do their Keeper's bidding) to encapsulate Acceptance. {{spoiler|And becoming a True Fae at Wyrd 10/Clarity 0 could be seen as Understanding.}}
** Also of note is the fact of how the founders of the Seasonal Courts made their Courts: By besting the [[Anthropomorphic Personification]] of the seasons at their own games. Mother Susan had dreams of motherhood that were ruined by the fae infertility. She forged Contracts with who-knows-what, and then gave her child up to Spring. Sam Noblood took a tree branch of autumn leaves as a spear and chased down Summer itself and forced it to make the pact (okay, that's not so much [[Nightmare Fuel]] as it is [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|awesome]]). It's not said how Clay Ariel got the pact with Autumn, only that she left with no weapon and a 'wry smile'. Considering the Autumn Court draws its power from Fear, whatever did happen must have been [[Nightmare Fuel]]. Snowflake John disappeared and came back a year later, claiming that because Winter couldn't find him, he got the pact.
** And Clarity, the morality stat equivalent from ''[[
** In-game, the Scarecrow Ministry actually ''creates'' [[Nightmare Fuel]], for good purposes. In ''[[
** Even the [[The Fair Folk|True Fae]] themselves aren't immune. A big part of why they're constantly looking for sources of conflict and struggle in their "lives" is that ''they cease to exist without it''. And one of the best ways to make a source of conflict that gives you an "other" to define your own existence against? Making a Changeling.
* One of the sourcebooks for ''[[
** Also, the Hildebrandt Recording is explicitly stated to be an impossibility. Hildebrandt himself was an ordinary man who should never have been able to summon the being at all. He used ordinary equipment, which should have been unable to record its sounds if he did. And for the recording of the seance to become a genuine grimoire should have been flatly impossible. It is, quite literally, a [[Eldritch Abomination|thing that should not be]].
* The Tremere Liches, as a base concept-[[Immortality Immorality|immortal soul-eaters]]-are pretty horrific in and of themselves. Then you learn their backstory, and realize the initial ones were made ''[[Tragic Monster|accidentally]]'', and you start imagining how utterly horrific it is to be one...
** They also have the way that the [[Ancient Conspiracy|Seers of the Throne]] [[Powered
* The section 'What Monsters Fear' in the sourcebook 'Mythologies'is pure [[Nightmare Fuel]]. It really makes the reader imagine how incredibly lonely it is to be a vampire, and then, to top it all off, shows you just how scary it is to face [[Eldritch Abomination|something]] [[Paranoia Fuel|alone]] in a world of perpetual night, [[Adult Fear|surrounded by peers who'll look down on you for admitting weakness]]. Pleasant dreams....
* The nWoD games are filled with guys trying to show evil is the only true way. There's implications everywhere, both in powers and fluff, that they are indeed correct. It's like WW is saying [[Evil Is Sexy|"Dude, this is a horror series. Whachu expect?!"]]
** ''[[
** ''[[
** ''Promethean'' has the Centimani, but they are much less of a pure, unified "evil" faction than their counterparts in other game lines -- quite a few aren't really evil, just world-weary and hurt, or simply follow unusual philosophies.
** ''[[Hunter: The Vigil]]'' is no picnic, either. The Cheiron Group, the Lucifuge, and the Cainite Heresy are of dubious morality, while Ashwood Abbey, the Hunt Club and the Knights of Saint George are considerably more than dubious. Consider that that last one serves the local analogues to the Elder Gods...
** Oddly enough, ''[[
*** Of course, there's a catch. If you die again and haven't fulfilled your end of the bargain sufficiently (and you aren't dying of natural causes like old age), the Geist brings you back and someone else dies in your place. You get to live through the death of your replacement, and the trauma of being brought back can cause your grip on sanity to slip. Die enough times and the Geist takes over. Sure, you can say you want to be allowed to die next time, but the Geist can always do it anyway. To me, that gives ''[[
*** The Geist themselves ARE the "guys trying to show evil is the only true way". By all means, they are [[Psycho for Hire|insane half-death spirit ghosts]]. And they're ALWAYS hanging around the Sin-Eaters. In fact, your soul is bound to them. And when the Geist actually take over...[[Nightmare Fuel|it's not pretty.]]
* The [[I Love Nuclear Power|Zeka]] from ''[[Promethean: The Created]]''. All Prometheans have things really bad, but Zeka are a whole different story. For starters, they are in constant pain. That's all there is to it, they just have to live with the pain. Unlike normal Prometheans which can heal from electricity, Zeka need to be exposed to huge doses of radiation. They have some of the worst Torment and Disquiet affects, causing hysteric fear where they go and becoming [[Omnicidal Maniac|Omnicidal Maniacs]] when overcome by Torment. No prize for guessing what ''their'' [[Walking Wasteland|Wasteland]] looks like. When you take all of this into account, it's no wonder that ''not a single one'' has completed the Pilgrimage, and that it's ridiculously easy for them to become the aforementioned Centimani. [[It Gets Worse|The worst part?]] ''Their numbers are growing.''
** It says volumes about ''Promethean'' that [[It Got Worse|it gets]] ''[[It Got Worse|worse]]''. If Zeka ''do'' achieve their Pilgrimage, they immediately take a potentially lethal hit of radiation (intensity is equal to their Azoth, which kinda sucks if they have Azoth of 5 or above - five-dot radiation is ''automatically'' lethal). It generally goes "Yay, I managed to become human! Fuck, is that thing my intestine? Aaaargh." [DIES]. Yes, even ''completing'' the Pilgrimage screws them over.
** The sourcebook with the Zeka in it also applied this to Pandorans. Not from the perspective of Prometheans, although this is entirely the case. No, ''being'' a Pandoran or Sublimatus. You have a ceaseless hunger for Promethean flesh; you petrify on contact with humans; you have a number of instinctive sadisms; and, to make matters worse, you're doomed to spend the rest of your existence as a monstrous undead thing devoid of hope. Unlike Prometheans, you ''can't'' be cured.
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* ''[[
* The fan supplement ''[[
** Clockstoppers, who stop technology from working. O.K. you're thinking, but some of them see ''clothes'' and ''language'' as technology, reducing everyone in the area of their influence to cavemen who communicate in grunts (think about what happens to Commander Riker in that de-evolution episode of [[Star Trek:
** Unmada are nigh on impossible for Mages to tell apart from Abyssals - they alter the area around them so the physics they believe in is true. (The Creator of Genius has stated they are not Abyssals, but a Mage wouldn't know that.) The bad part is if they end up in a hospital and their physics makes the equipment go wrong or ambulances pass their place of residence and stop.
** An Insane Genius looks like a Mage, and An Insane Mage looks like a Genius, if one takes the wrong training, they can [[Go Mad
* Maybe the scariest thing of all in the World of Darkness isn't the monsters or ghosts or strange happenings that sometimes have no explanation, even by magical means. No, what's possibly scariest of all is that these evils still pale to what still happens in the unknowing mortal world. Wars are still fought, people are still raped, and children still die. The monsters may cause it sometimes, but then there's the times when all it took was one sick person with their own ideas. The human evil, the real, non-mystical human compulsion for hate, is still a more powerful force than any magic in this setting.
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[[Category:Tabletop Games/Nightmare Fuel]]
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