Tradition Book: Hollow

Ones by Halloween Jack

1 Introduction

2 Part i: Prologue, or An Orgy of Death. Death.

3 Chapter 1: Distractingly Obvious

4 Chapter 1 Part 2: Atrocity does not necessarily equate to a lack of romance

5 Chapter 2: Insert Highly Creative Goth Nickname Here

6 Chapter 2, Part 2

7 Chapter 3: Hollow Personalities. I cant change that title to make it more accurate or insulting.

8 Chapter 3, Part 2: They all reminded Mark of the characters in a couple of Japanese animes

9 Epilogue: You would not believe the shit I've seen

Introduction
posted by Halloween Jack Original SA post

Hey, remember these toerags?

It's a common joke about World of Darkness games that the varied and sundry
Clans, Tribes, Traditions, Kith, and what-have-you can be boiled down into cliques
from your high school. If that's the case, then the Hollow Ones are what you got
when the writers weren't even trying to hide it anymore.
"I'm choking, but I'll be damned if I smudge my concealer."
"My hair is bleached, like a skull in the desert. My tits are fried eggs, like my brain on drugs."
"Excuse me? Am I in the wrong artwork? I'm supposed to be on the cover of Shadowrun."

The Hollow Ones, per the Mage corebook, are a non-Tradition composed basically
of goths, and the book does little to establish them as anything more than whiny
adolescents of all ages. They don't have a seat on the Council, they don't have a
preferred Sphere, they have no leadership and anyone promoting organization gets
labeled a sellout. Their only strength is that their curiosity, coupled with a lack of
conviction or conformity, leads them to dig up secrets which are interesting but
which rarely lead to any kind of personal evolution, let alone any progress on a
larger scale.

Given that they aren't even a real Tradition, the ongoing accusation is that the
Hollow Ones are a bad joke that White Wolf tacked onto Mage--which isn't exactly
a horror game, after all--in order to sell the game to their established goth fanbase.
Here's what's funny--everything I've ever seen written about the Hollow Ones
indicates that the authors were even acquainted with the goth scene.

In the interests of full disclosure, when Mage 2nd Edition came out in 1995, I was in
middle school. When the controversial Revised Edition came out in 2000, I was
close to graduation. I played Mage during middle and high school, and I didn't get
involved in the local gothic scene until after I graduated high school. So I don't
know what the gothic scene was like in Georgia (or anywhere else) in the 90s, and
even today I'm only active on a local level. I don't claim any position of authority
from which to criticize White Wolf's goth street cred.

However, I just keep noticing that the references to goth culture in descriptions of
the Hollow Ones are vague and generic--there are references to absinthe, makeup,
black leather and dressing like a vampire, but rarely any mention of bands, record
labels, fashion brands, well-known events, or anything else that require a deeper
knowledge than watching one of the "Goth Talk" skits on SNL.

Homeless Neo doesn't know how to tell a ghost story.

You've seen "Big Bang Theory," right? Yes, I know, it sucks, it's blackface for nerds
and hurts your butthole a lot. The first time I watched it, though, I noticed that the
writers weren't afraid to admit that like most TV writers, they're big geeks--they
featured Stan Lee and the referenced the minutiae of The Flash's powers, instead of
a generic reference to a nonexistent "Stupendous Man" or something. White Wolf's
writing about Hollow Ones and goths has that same lack of specificity.

So what happened when the Hollow Ones got their own Tradition book, even
though, strictly speaking, they aren't one of the Nine on the Council of Nine and
aren't a Tradition at all? Well, a splatbook can really make or break a faction in the
World of Darkness. Here are two examples from Vampire, the game with which I'm
most familiar. The Brujah revised clanbook is great--Justin Achilli evolved the
Brujah from "Anarchy! Down with the elders! Burn motherfucker burn!" to a clan
that had its roots in a long line of soldier-philosophers who want vampires to be
more than bloodsucking monsters, but who are repeatedly slapped in the face by
the reality that vampires are parasites who feed on mankind, and only have a
culture of their own after the pattern of criminals and addicts. Their great ideas
come crashing down again and again, while the Ventrue quietly survive and
acquire, because despite being civilized monsters they do not lie to themselves
about the fact that they are monsters. And the Brujah are bitter about it, which is
why their clan has largely devolved into outlaw bikers and street trash. On the other
hand, you have the Toreador clan. The corebook marks them out as a bunch of
glamorous, effete snobs that everybody hates. Their corebook plays them up as...a
bunch of useless, effete snobs that everybody hates, and yet they're somehow vital
to vampire society.

White Wolf's own measurement of the quality of a splatbook is called the Chupp
Test--it's basically "Does the book make you want to play Splat X, even if you didn't
before?" Does the Hollow Ones book pass? Let me put it this way: I see that
Malcolm Sheppard worked with Angel McCoy, the author of this book, on another
Mage expansion. Perhaps he can come along and clear up some of my
misconceptions regarding the culture of White Wolf's writing staff and the fanbase
it attracted. Until then, following updates will mostly be me wondering how many
dicks the author had to have crammed in his ear to write this terrible, horrible, no
good very bad splatbook.

Next Time, on "The Hollow Ones" : I actually begin to review the book.

Part i: Prologue, or An Orgy of Death. Death.

posted by Halloween Jack Original SA post

Tradition Book: Hollow Ones, Part i: Prologue, or An Orgy of Death.

Death.

Hollow Ones opens with a short story about a potential recruit named Mark. Its his
birthday, not that he has anyone to celebrate it--certainly not his mother, a burnout
addict. Mark is a teenage runaway, a not-quite-homeless street artist who sleeps on
somebodys floor and washes his one pair of pants when he can afford it. After a day
spent trying to sell sketches until he could stand the cold and damp of the Seattle
streets any longer, he returns home to his flophouse to find his roommates
sprawled out on the floor--stoned, he thinks, until he realizes theyre all dead and
hes standing in a puddle of blood.

Mark stepped in a wet spot on the carpet. It went squich.

A gang comes through the kitchen door and one of them fires a shot at Mark. It
misses him, but the next thing he knows he wakes up on the floor with a man
beating the shit out of him, demanding to know where to find a book--Mark knows
nothing about it. As the thug methodically beats the life out of Mark, he drifts in
and out of consciousness, flashing back to similar abuse from his father. Mark
comes to the conclusion that hes of no use to anyone, he should have died years ago
at the hands of his father or himself, and that death is a reasonable answer to a
pointless, painful life. He gives in to the pain and waits peacefully for death.

You know how this happened? Thats right--Obamacare.

At that moment, Mark Awakens and feels no fear. Time slows down and he feels
supernaturally aware of the people around him. He perceives an old man speaking
to him in a guttural French accent, dressed as if its the nineteenth century, telling
him that help is on the way. Things suddenly go back to normal, so to speak--
Marks lucidity wavers as he realizes another group of people have arrived to rescue
him. He sees them slinging around heavy-duty magick--bodies flying across the
room, flesh melting away, and people blinking out of existence.

A woman who introduces herself as Mysry--I insist on pronouncing it Miss Rye--

helps Mark to his feet and half-carries him to an old black VW Bug as his rescuers
split up and scatter. Mysry tells Mark that he just experienced an Epiphany, then
bombards him with questions like shes his babysitter--Are you gonna freak? Are
you hungry? Youre not going to puke in the car, are you?

Mark isnt hungry, probably because he has internal bleeding. He feels that a part of
him died and was left behind in the apartment--a part of him that was glad to be rid
of.

Hollow Ones, Part ii: Introduction, or The Postmodern Prometheus

Every Hollow One is like Prometheus, because they defy the gods in the form of
whatever status quo is available to rebel against--the Council, the Technocracy,
whatever ya got. But as in Shelleys Prometheus Unbound, they escape their chains,
because heroism and romance conquers conformity and oppression.

(Could it be? Are they completely ditching the Were very dedicated to not
standing for anything ethos of the corebook Hollow Ones, treating that as only
what the proper Traditions say about them? I dont know. They seem to have
completely missed the part where Prometheus disobeyed the gods in order to help
humankind, not to be a rebel for the sake of his own ego. Then again, Im pretty
sure Shelley did, too.)

Hollow Ones follow individual paths. Were told that all Hollow Ones follow an
individual paththeres no lexicon for translating common Mage jargon into
Hollowese, and theres no Hollow paradigm as concerns actual willwork. Their style
is all about self-expression, and this leads to a New Agey syncretismHollow Ones
will perform channeling to invoke Lord Byron, or venerate Yog-Sothoth with yoga.
The gothic look is just one popular fashion amongst the Hollow Onesapparently
just as many dress like ravers, or else they either keep up with the bleeding edge
of scene fashion, or they lock themselves into one particular and specific retro
lookVictorian, Roaring Twenties, and so on.

See Spot. See Spots mascara run.

So whats the common thread between these people who have nothing in common?
In a word, Romance. Romance is the Hollow Ones tradition-that-is-not-a-
Tradition, and the paradigm they defend against the numbing conformity of the
Technocracy. The heart of goth (I thought they werent all goth?) is doomed
heroism and tragic romance, like Byron and Keats and the Shelleys andall those
other guyswent on about in the 19th centuries.

(This is going to be a recurring theme in the book, by the way: A token note
protesting that Hollow Ones arent all goths and punks, followed by describing
them all as goths, with a very shallow understanding of that scene. The idea of a
diverse Tradition based on the concept of Romance is one with great potential,
which youre about to see squandered again and again.)

Slenderpriest considers buying a Posturepedic headstone.

The problem with Romance is that you cant assemble an army of mages to go fight
the Technocracy to make the world Romantic. Besides, how can you win a victory in
the cause of facing doom with nobility? This is why the Hollow Ones are resigned
and apathetic, at least in the eyes of the Council of Nine. But making the world
Romantic is the job of people willing to martyr themselves for the things theyre
passionate about. If the whole affair is a losing battle, that was the point! Its a win-
win scenario, from a certain very fucked-up perspective.

Hollow Ones go for everything ROmantic or gloomy Victorian. Imagine gardens

with dead roses at night under a full moon, as statues of weeping angels look on.
Lonely maidens riding mares across misty moors or windswept shores. Tortured
poets tossing failed manuscripts about candlelit rooms, standing on canes to
bolster leg injuries that just wont heal.

(I thought they were postmodern?)

Next time, on Hollowkissangel : The Saga, or Fragment of a Fanfiction

Chapter 1: Distractingly Obvious
posted by Halloween Jack Original SA post

Tradition Book: Hollow Ones, Chapter 1: Distractingly Obvious

La Recherche du Pepe le Pew

The Hollow Ones book came out in 2002. Like many of World of Darkness books
from that period, it delivers much of its content through a fictional dialogue or
personal account. In practice, this means it reads like a history of the Hollow Ones,
but padded with trivialities like She took a sip of her coffee every few sentences.

Did I mention that the fiction is really bad? Let me tell you why it is bad. I solemnly
swear that I havent read fanfiction since I was a teenager, but I know that this has
the unholy mark of fanfiction upon it. Every time a new character walks in--which
is often, since this chapter takes the form of goths having a kaffeeklatch--the
narrative grinds to a halt so that the author can describe their appearance in detail,
from their hair to their clothes to how they smell.

Mysry was hot. She wore her desert-colored hair short and scrappy, like a boy or
a computer tech who just doesnt give a shit about her looks. She didnt wear any
make-up either. Everything else was all woman. Her black turtleneck was of a
thin material. Her smallish breasts lay loose and low enough to make it
distractingly obvious that she wasnt wearing a bra. She stepped up next to Mark
and said, Hi.

Mysry and her buddies have lots of important things to tell Mark. You know that
these things are important because the author stops to tell you how important they
are.

Penny is visiting us from San Francisco. she learned from Neville Nevermore
himself.
Neville Nevermore? Mark asked. The name felt powerful upon his tongue.

Oh, and

Mark peered up at the speaker. It was the gothette from the counter. Huh?

Gothette. Seriously.

This chapter begins with Mark meeting up with Mysry at the nearest goth cafe.
Because this is the World of Darkness, where corporate buildings are decorated
with gargoyles and freestanding, open-all-week goth clubs are a profitable venture.
And everyone owns a trenchcoat. After some stultifyingly detailed dedicated to
Marks espresso order and Mysrys fashion accessories, she introduces him to
Penny Dreadful, who--
The goth held herself with stoicism, prim and proper, a pair of black glvoes in one
hand and an old-fashioned, leather doctors bag in the other. Black lace, ruffles
and silver buttons all combined to paint her into the perfection vision of a
Victorian widow, mourning the loss of her one true love, a young Miss Havisham
in negative.

Yes, well

Her body was ripe, full-figured and sexy. The luminescent pallor of her face,
rounded cheeks and high forehead, persisted even under the glare of the
fluorescent lighting. Black-framed librarian glasses slipped down her austere
nose. Her lips, like her body, were ripe, full and fleshy, painted burgundy wine.

Christ on a spike would you shut up Im trying to

The woman cast an imposing shadow over the table, even though she couldnt
have been much taller than five and a half feet. Her hair added a good inch or two,
teased up and enhanced with streaks of white and royal purple amidst the black--
extensions undoubtedly. The figure eight of her torso was exaggerated by a
midnight corset, blue-black brocade. It and the fullness of her mesh skirt made her
hips look all the more feminine and rounded. Up close, she smelled of flowers that
Mark couldnt identify.

Sigh. This is Penny Dreadful, the Hollow Ones Signature Character and a Really Big
Deal, you guys. Shes an overdressed thick goth girl. Who smells like flowers. Thats
fitting; everyone we meet in this book will be a thorough douche, Im sure.

Mysry and Penny are here to give Mark a lesson in the history of the Hollow Ones.
She explains that its impossible to say precisely where the Hollow Tradition began,
but that its tied to the concept of Romance--romance meaning heroism, tragedy,
true love, and individualism against the odds. The Hollow tradition, she says, is
not a club, it is the Living Embodiment of Romance. She says this out loud. She
makes Mark repeat it out loud. Then she makes him say I...am the living
embodiment of Romance. The author tells us how serious and profound this is.

Ive figured it out now. Mark is a Loser Outcast. Hes homeless and broke and no
one loves him and he wears old dirty white tennis shoes. But with the help of Penny
Dreadful and her pals, hell become a Cool Magic Outcast. Hell still be weird and
different and despised by the mundanes , but it wont affect his life negatively in
any way. Hell always be dressed like he has a team of employees to acquire the
perfect goth wardrobe and spend two hours making him up every morning. Hell
drive a hearse. Hell be seen at all the cool places the normals dont know about,
and his place will be a tastefully dilapidated Victorian mansion. Where will it all
come from? Magic(k).

Wait! You dropped your compact!

On with the actual history! Hollow Ones trace their origins at least as far back as the
12th century, in the traditions of chivalry and feudalism and the emergence of
Gothic architecture. They started hearing the term Gothic as an insult in the 16th
century when it was used to criticize medieval architecture as a barbaric reaction
against classicism. Thats okay, says Penny; classicism needed to die. Classicism
showed up again in Enlightenment of the 18th century, and was rebelled against
once more by the 19th century Romantics. The Romantic movement effectively
birthed the Hollow Ones as we know them today.

Classicism sucks, by the way! Pennys pretty sure its where the Technocracy got
started. Classicists only cared about what they could measure, slavishly imitated
Greece and Rome, produced cold and lifeless art, tried to control everybodys
thoughts and were just totally no fun. So the Romanticists came along and kicked
the door in and advocated freedom and love and individualism and the search for
inner truth. Although much the Victorian period was a reaction against
Romanticism, it produced works like Frankenstein , The Picture of Dorian Grey ,
love poetry, and declarations of the rights of women that were assimilated into the
Hollow paradigm, along with American authors such as Thoreau and Twain.

Marks history lesson is interposed with a sequence where Mysry gets him a job and
an apartment, and then takes him shopping so he can replace his old clothes with
black t-shirts, jeans, black buckled boots, and the obligatory black leather
trenchcoat. She introduces him to Pennys cabal, a bunch of Hollow old farts, who
are each introduced with their silly name and a description of how they dress.

Mark had never seen any man look so completely goth. Neville even wore make-
up. He outlined his eyes with black and drew them outward with sweeps of coal
gray. he had painted his lips black. His cheeks had deathly shading, a shadowy
blush applied with care. A black velvet suit and midnight satin vest over a white
pirates shirt would have looked ridiculous on anyone else. On anyone else, it
would have resembled an Austin Powers hand-me-down. On Neville, it looked
elegant.

Theres a bad writing technique called You Cant Fire Me, I Quit where you
anticipate that your readers will find your writing ridiculous, so you try to cut them
off at the knees by assuring them that no, this is serious. Imagine a guy wearing a
ton of makeup and a pirate shirt. Are you impressed with this man? Oh, and by the
way, this is the beginning of what I was talking about when I said that the author
seems to have been assigned to write a book about goths without knowing anything
about them. I mean, oh wow! Neville is so goth he even wears makeup ? Gee golly
jeepers!

The fashion victim cabal explains to Mark that WWI was the death knell of the
Romantic Age. Wars used to be about passion and produce heroes, you see, but
WWI and the wars that followed it made war an increasingly industrial affair. In
fact, they all seem much more bothered that industrialized warfare is unromantic
than by the fact that it produced an unprecedented body count. One of them points
out that theres nothing Romantic about firebombing entire villages--I guess its
better to go in on horseback to pillage and rape first.
Do not make fun of my Imperial Guard army.

With the mass murder of all those uncool mundanes behind us, the cabal goes on to
explain that the Hollow Ones got together in the 1920s when they were still called
the Orphans. After a few years of roundtable discussions, they decided on a plan
that wasnt really a plan, but a philosophy that was too fluid for the Technocracy to
define and discredit. The movement was centered on six artists and intellectuals,
four of whom are part of the group talking to Mark, who Mysry has renamed Mark
Moon with no explanation given.

Next time, on The House on Hollow Hill : I just realized that this book is only
organized into three chapters, so covering the whole first chapter is too much to
digest. So next time around, the Scene Queen Cabal has a spat.

Chapter 1 Part 2: Atrocity does not

necessarily equate to a lack of romance
posted by Halloween Jack Original SA post
Tradition Book: Hollow Ones, Chapter 1 Part 2: Atrocity does not
necessarily equate to a lack of romance

God, its cold in here. Do you think I should put up some more pictures of butts?

In the last update, I meant to tell you the origin of the name Hollow Ones. Let me
do that now. You can thank Neville Nevermore, he of the gay pirate shirt and velvet
everything. Back in the 20s when he and his cohorts were inventing the Hollow
Ones, a mage named Lady Astria Moonshade asked them Who are you? and
Neville replied We are the hollow men, quoting T.S. Eliots poem. The name
stuck.

So: The Living Embodiment of Romance takes its name from a poem by a
Modernist who later described himself as a classicist, and wrote the essay which
revived interest in the metaphysicists. Great.
When we left off, Mark was in a private audience with a cabal which includes
Neville Nevermore and Penny Dreadful, discussing the origins of the Hollow Ones.
After WWI put a bullet in the head of the Romantic era, a group of like-minded
Orphans decided that they needed a way to be involved in the Ascension War, above
and beyond rebelling against the Technocratic status quo in individual ways. The
way this cabal sees it, the Industrial Revolution was a Technocratic coup, as was
Prohibition. Prohibition backfired because cops-and-gangster stories produces
heroes; the Technocracy ended Prohibition and instigated the Depression to numb
people with booze and misery. The Traditions fought the Technocracy in the 50s
and 60s with mind-expanding drugs--wait, the author and I are getting ahead of
ourselves.

So, these artists and intellectuals got together in the 20s and talked to each other a
lot. Four of the original six are part of Pennys cabal.

Neville, of course, Penny replied, indicating the man with a wave of her hand.
Neville cast Mark a bitter smile. Anais and Purity. Anais blew Mark a kiss.
Purity bowed her head and touched her fingers to her forehead. And Pietro.
Pietro huffed a dramatic burst of clove smoke up into the air but otherwise made
no particular gesture of recognition.
Wow, uttered Mark.

The original six met in Europe over five years, but moved to San Francisco during
WWII, where they still maintain a Horizon Realm called Waydown. The cabal
survived intact until a battle with Nephandi on New Years Day 1964, when member
Bog Asphodel sacrificed himself to save the last and now long-lost member,
Josepha de Espronceda. They lost the fight because they were all hungover.

Those present knew the time had come to tell the saddest part of the story. They all
dreaded it. They all soaked in the dreading .

The conversation reveals that Josepha made contact with and may have been
tainted by the Nephandi, and whats worse, Anais called her recently because she
missed her! As their security may be compromised, the group disperses.

Do you remember that we were supposed to get an explanation of how this ragtag
group of Bohemians created the Hollow philosophy, along with What It Is and How
It is Done? Im afraid that we dont. The idea of a philosophy or indistinct cultural
meme being deliberately developed as a weapon against reality fascism is an idea
worthy of Grant Morrisons best work, but it gets sort of tossed to the side in favour
of the personal drama of Neville Nevermore and company. Mysry tells Mark that
the original cabal has survived mostly intact to the present day, and that theyve
provided input and support the the movement, and established Hollow chantries so
theyd have a place to mince about being scene queens, but thats all we get.
I dont remember why I built all these tiny apartments. Probably absinthe, from the way theyre leaning.

Neville summons Mark and Mysry to apprise them of a rash of break-ins in Hollow
chantries, by some mysterious intruder(s) who always take some valueless trinket
and leaves an eyeball in its place. The Hollow Ones pair off to investigate at Hollow
chantries around the world; Mark is paired up with Baron, a San Francisco local.
Baron is a relatively unaffected Hollow One, a middle-aged, brown-haired, goateed
man who dresses like hes going hunting in the country circa 1930. Using postcards
as his focus, he teleports Mark around the world for brief stops at chantries in
France and Italy. Baron says that hes surprised no ones ever made a serious play at
turning the Hollow tradition into their own cult of personality, but you have to
understand that American Hollow Ones are a unique breed.

Well, technically I suppose you could say that modern goth originated in the US,
but it has spread to Europe.

Jesus dogfucking Christ, Angel McCoy. They had Google in 2002, didnt they? They
definitely had Mick Mercer. Fuck you.

Baron reminds Mark that hell largely be left on his own to learn magick and the
Hollow philosophy, and that Hollow chantries are the best place to seek refuge,
collect himself, and read, read, read the history of the not-a-Tradition. A few
notable chantries are mentioned:

Le Corbeau Cruel : A cafe in Paris, run by three Awakened brothers who are
descended from the duVauge family, whose line has traditionally prepared the
bodies of the French royalty for burial. They play classical music, Enya, and
occasionally Depeche Mode.

The Veneducci Hotel : An unnamed hotel in Milano, Italy within walking

distance of the Duomo cathedral. Its passed through the hands of many owners
who havent been able to make it a successful business, and is now owned by a
Hollow One who had 20 suites repaired into comfortable living quarters and uses
the 1920s ballroom as a Hollow salon.
Wookey Hole : A network of caves in the town of Wookey, near the Wells
cathedral in Somerset, England. The Hollow Ones who maintain the chantry
consider themselves the Guardians of the One True History of not only the
Hollow tradition but of history stretching back to antiquity.

Decadence : In Rio de Janeiro there are two Hollow chantries. The citys Tradition
is divided between those who want to help the poor, and those who want to live it
up in aristocratic opulence. The Decadence club is for the latter faction; the former
cluster around a youth hostel for travelers, the underprivileged, and the Hollow
Ones from the street.

Hohe Strasse : The Hohe Strasse is a particularly historic street in Cologne,

Germany. Partway down the street is an opening into a 19th century courtyard and
a cramped apartment which serves as a Hollow halfway house. Its run by Fraulein
Kirchin, a polyglot Hollow One who dresses like a Puritan and is often mistaken for
a historical reenactor, who doesnt mind serving as a local history guide for
tourists.

Moscow, Russia : Rather than a single stronghold, the Moscow chantry is a

network of small apartments across the city, linked by the Internet. Hollow culture
has mainly come to Russia through gothic websites, which have the local adherents
to the Hollow tradition dressing like American mallgoths. Accustomed to
persecution and censorship, Russian goths have a secret language of signs and
gestures to identify one another.

Waydown : The Waydown was a club in San Francisco that put on events
sporadically in accordance with the whims of the organizers--it was also a Horizon
Realm. Since the Avatar Storm, the club has relocated to a secluded warehouse, and
its once-legendary parties no longer include Sleepers or other guests who havent
been thoroughly vetted. The Waydown Viktae who run the place includes Neville,
Penny, Baron, and several others. Its decorated like every goth club youve ever
seen in a movie or video game--black drapery, stained glass, and candelabras.

Zis Hollow Paradigm hass final plan for gettink pesky moose and squirrel.
Baron tells Mark that being Hollow isnt about dressing funny, but about finding
your own true self and having the balls to show it off. According to him, Hollow
Ones have avatars that instill cravings within them--for heroism, tragedy, and other
emotional heights that make them a bridge between the past and present. Penny, he
says, likes to wrap this indefinable milieu around the word romance but that
horror is another one that serves.

I mean, I like a good Lovecraft tale as well as anyone else--or the more modern
writers such as Clive Barker or Poppy Z. Brite, both of whom have the amazing
ability to expand the mind of the reader. Im sure the Technocracy would just loe
to turn either one of them into corporate machines pumping out crap to cover up
their talent. But, as long as we watch over people such as them, it will never
happen.

Thats totally how a human being talks. Oh, and you can blame the Hollow Ones for
Poppy Z. Brites career; Baron says so. (Disclaimer: The only Poppy Z. Brite Ive
read is Are You Loathsome Tonight, which was very good and one of the two
bright spots on the otherwise thoroughly mediocre anthology Children of Cthulhu .
The other was Details by China Mieville.)

Baron tells Mark that most Hollow Ones are artists in some way, because its all
about self-expression. However, he sums up the Hollow ethos in two words:
individuality and courage. This means that if your soul tells you to express yourself
by decorating everything you own with skulls, you play Warhammer instead have to
have the guts to be That Skull Guy. If you know that Star Wars isnt real, but your
heart tells you that Jedi ethics are something you can believe in, then you run
around fighting the Nephandi in a bathrobe. He really says this. Because if the
Sleepers were all truly unafraid to embrace who they feel they truly are, the
Technocratic paradigm would completely break down and set society free. The
question "Is there a difference between having a collection of stiffly acted
affectations and having a real personality? is not asked. Mark is left with the
question of who he truly is.

Next time, on Hollowlander II: The Quickening : Chapter Two, The Hollow
Paradigm.

Chapter 2: Insert Highly Creative Goth

Nickname Here
posted by Halloween Jack Original SA post
Tradition Book: Hollow Ones, Chapter 2: Insert Highly Creative Goth
Nickname Here

As youd expect, the Hollow paradigm is a vague thing thats difficult to define,
especially from the outside. Its more of a pattern of tendencies than a theory or a
principal teaching. Their magickal tools and methods are focused on having
personal meaning and being practical and cool . Oh, and being coincidental. Hollow
Ones are actually in a very good position following the Avatar Storm. Theyve never
been wealthy or cohesive enough as a group to have Horizon Realms, great
chantries, or elite partisans like the Golden Chalice to protect them, so theyve
gotten very, very good at keeping their magick subtle, an ironic contrast to what
youd expect from a bunch of preening melodramatics. (Some young Hollow Ones
are flashy with their magick. They dont become old Hollow Ones.) So lately, the
Hollow Ones have Traditionalists sheepishly coming to them for advice on ritual
work.

The book says that the Hollow Ones can be considered major players despite not
being a faction, though it doesnt say exactly why. Its very rare for them to coalesce
around a single goal and pursue it, but it can happen if a prominent figure (like one
of Nevilles cabal) is involved. Really, the Hollow Ones think the Ascension War is
bullshit. As a group theyre completely cynical about the ideal of universal
Ascension, for reasons which are one part enlightened and one part crass
arrogance.

Ill start with the latter: The last thing most Hollow Ones would ever want to devote
themselves to is trying to raise the mindless sheeple to their level by handing them
keys to Ascension they wouldnt understand or appreciate. The most supercilious
just dont want a crowd of hangers-on imitating their style. That said, everything
about a Hollow Ones Awakening is supposed to be individual and personal. Magick
and Romance are things to be experienced and shared, but not transmitted or
wrapped up and given as a gift. Real Hollow Ones understand that if you truly
believe in your personal paradigm, you dont need someone else to validate it with
their agreement. For the same reason, most Hollow Ones dont believe in personal
Ascension, either. Awakening is about discovering your true self, and the Hollow
tradition is about being that person fearlessly and without compromise--thats the
price and the reward all in one.
And theeese are the dead mans guuuts

Sleeper subcultures are full of Hollow One wannabes--kids who dress in black,
name themselves Lenore or Raven or something, and complain that no one
understands them. What separates these poseurs from real Hollow Ones is that
theyre not really sad because theyre different, theyre sad because theyre afraid
theyre not different, and theyre only brave enough to speak and act differently
when its getting them some kind of attention they want. (This doesnt explain how
Penny Dreadful, who has a gimmick name and looks like she needs an hour of
primping before she leaves the house, is a genuine Hollow One.) Some Hollow Ones
believe that the whole trend of dark and edgy culture throughout the 1990s was a
Technocratic plot.

The Hollow attitude ensures they dont form master/apprentice relationships like
many of the Traditions, much less have finely-enumerated dogma, creeds, houses,
and lineages. Theyre about as far from the Hermetics as you can get, except for the
part about not wanting to share whatever they consider their really good stuff.
Hollow recruits get told to figure themselves out, not sling magick around like an
idiot, study as much as they can, and otherwise find their own way.

The actual word Hollow means (surprise surprise) different things to different
Hollow Ones in formulating their approach to magick. Philosophically, its usually
taken to mean that life has no inherent meaning, and the existential question that
comes along with that. Magickally, it seems to usually mean something about
hollowing oneself to make room for the magick--the two examples given are a
channeler seeing herself as hollow inside in order to accommodate a Spirit, and a
mage clearing his consciousness to achieve Zen no-Mind and work Mind magick.
Nobody knows what Neville Nevermore meant when he coined the term by way of
quoting Eliot, and hell probably take it to his grave. For all we know, he was being
flippant, and was smart enough not to argue when the name stuck.

Chapter 2, Part 2: Factions and Fads

Whether they want to be labeled or not, Hollow Ones can generally be grouped into
one of two factions: Councilors and Revolutionaries .

Councilors are the more involved and optimistic Hollow Ones. Theyre not
interested in trying to win the respect and recognition of the Traditions for its own
sake. They think that the futures offered by the Technocracy, the Nephandi, and the
Marauders are nightmares worth fighting against. They dont believe that magick is
draining from the world, but changing, and the Traditions are making themselves
irrelevant with antiquated methods. The Traditions need the Hollow Ones to
motivate them and teach them how to adapt to the modern world--that would be
bad news for the Technocracy.

Revolutionaries just want to be left out of it. The Technocracy sucks, the Traditions
suck, and the Nephandi and Marauders are obviously crazy. Theyre in it for
whatever they can eke out of their own Awakening. They dont work well with other
mages at all, especially mages who arent fellow Hollow Ones--in fact, theyre more
likely to associate with ghosts, vampires, fey, and shapeshifters.

The fuck? This is a boss battle from Final Fantasy 3

Cliques are... types of Hollow Ones, I guess. The term is used to denote a model
for a cabal, an entire mission and lifestyle, and various fads.

An elemental clique is a cabal where each member occupies a position

corresponding to an element (Western or Eastern, whatever). Their personal and
magickal development will correspond to their current seat.

A pantheistic cliques is also a cabal, but with mages who believe they are
possessed by their avatar and come to embody the traits of some ancient pagan
deity or hero. Theres disagreement as to whether its a legit form of channeling or
just a weird form of shared Quiet, but it works. One drawback is that it tends to
produce specialists who constitute a one of each type team that enemies can pick
apart and destroy.

Incognitos live their lives as moles inside the Technocracy, aiming to take it down
by aggravating the internal strife between the different Conventions, and by
disseminating the secrets they uncover back through the Hollow network.

Voudoun Gangstas are the last living remnant of the legends that glorify
Prohibition-era gangsters. Theyre mostly African American, practice a hodgepodge
of voudoun and any African mysticism they can get ahold of, and originated with
the bootleggers of New Orleans. It seems theyre not involved in the drug trade
themselves anymore; in fact, they see themselves as defenders of the downtrodden
and wage war against gangs who deal drugs (such as crack) which are deliberate
Progenitor conspiracies to keep urban areas economically depressed.

Soundwave Masters are DJs who use techno music to encode information as
part of the informal network of gossip and espionage tradecraft called the Hollow
Network. They usually excel in Mind and Forces, are in tight with the Traditions
(especially the Cultists and Adepts) and infuse their music with psychic essence that
spreads the emotions associated with the Hollow tradition.

The Railroad Riders keep the Hollow Railroad going by serving as lone, self-
reliant, all-purposes couriers of information for their fellow Hollow Ones. They
carry secret messages encoded in their own dreams, and share records of
Soundwave Master performances. They tend towards martyrdom; they tempt a lot
of Paradox by using Correspondence to get from Chantry to Chantry in a hurry. In a
rare moment of what could be called actual research, the author says the first Rider
was a British goth named Telegram Sam.

The Social Terrorist Punk Cells have a wordy name for a simple concept:
Theyre violent punks with a hate-on for the Technocracy and no sense of self-
preservation. They gladly throw themselves against HIT Marks and the like
alongside the warriors of other Traditions whenever shit goes down.

Like the Incognitos, the Moles infiltrate the Technocracy, but not to act as agents
provocateur. Instead, they gather information. If an Incognito is in a Technocracy
boardroom inciting his fellow Progenitors to invite a nasty scrap with Iteration X,
then a mole is the secretary or janitor who overhears the whole thing and simply
records the information to disseminate later.
Hollow Ones refer to their members whod rather talk to the other things that go
bump-in-the-night as Outsiders . Gaunts deal with ghosts, but make friends and
allies with them instead of binding them to their will--ghosts want things, it turns
out, and theyre powerful allies if youre able to listen and willing to help. Mangers
who want to hang with shapeshifters are usually Kinfolk, as its otherwise difficult
to gain their trust. Blood Bags are aptly named, because mages who think they
can hang with vampires dont usually last long--they rarely end up ghouls, but often
end up addicted to the Kiss. If they dont die young, the best they can probably hope
for is to wind up a tool in an elder vampires pocket. Relationships between Hollow
Ones and fae dont go much better--many Hollow Ones are escapists, and however
well-intentioned, fae glamours and enchantments usually result in the mage either
going completely off the deep end, or experiencing crushing withdrawal when they
snap back to reality.

Hello mah baby, hello mah honey, hello mah ragtime gal

Hollow Masters are rare and elusive. In contrast to their young brethren, they
eschew their own reputations and maintain a low profile. Although the Hollow
tradition has only officially existed for a matter of decades, and the oldest Hollow
ones seem to have grown up in the 20th century, there are always rumours that
however old a Hollow One is, theres another one whos older. Hollow Masters tend
to emerge into a scene from time to time, disseminate some art or information they
think the young ones will find interesting, be aloof and snide, and then submerge
into obscurity. Generally speaking, theyre not ostentatious, except that they do like
to flaunt the fact that they know a lot about people who know nothing about them.
Like I said, the Hollow Ones dont practice master/apprentice relationships as the
other Traditions usually do. In fact, the way Hollow Ones are raised appears
childish and cruel to most of the other Traditions. Adept Hollow Ones rear the
youngsters on a diet of condescension, ridicule, and magickal pranks. The elder
Hollow Ones dont actually enjoy it; the idea is to toughen up the initiates while
allowing them to develop their own opinion on everything. The rationale is that if
they cant develop a thick skin and a strong sense of identity in the face of
schoolyard bullying, theyre going to be easy prey for Nephandi, Technocrats, and
Tradition fanatics. Hollow Adepts look forward to when an initiate will turn one of
their magickal tricks back on them. Thats how you become accepted as a Hollow
One, by forcing other Hollow Ones to recognize your merits. Hollow Ones of equal
status are also prone to subtly pranking each other and testing one anothers
defenses, and the initiates form cabals for mutual protection from their elders. This
is how the Hollow Ones are able to band together in times of strife and work as a
well-oiled machine, without having to be a hierarchical organization with formal
rank and dogmatic teaching. The masquerade is also a part of the Hollow mindset--
if the term Hollow actually does mean anything, its that the Hollow Ones
acknowledge that the costumes and made-up names and carefully constructed
demeanors are a cover for the fact that deep down, they dont want to calcify the
ineffable core of their Avatar and their selfhood by putting a name or a definition on
it. Theyre not hollow of meaning, just hollow of anything that can really be labeled.

Every year, the Hollow Ones elect a king and queen at a big party--the ones
chosen are always one Councilor and one Revolutionary. These two are obliged to
appear as representatives whenever the Traditions ask for a Hollow envoy. They
fight all the time, which gives the Traditions a look into the Hollow way of doing
things.

The Hollow Railroad is a complicated network of information-sharing among the

Hollow Ones, using both normal and magical means. Correspondence and Time can
be used to send messages quickly, and Spirit is used to encode spectral signs, but
they also share information in the form of mail art, tape-trading, and the like. Its
considered bad form to share information via direct conversation--you dont brag
about your own accomplishments, and you dont directly ask another mage exactly
how competent they are in the Spheres. Telling tales of another Hollow Ones
accomplishments is a respected tradition, though.

Next time, on Hollowton Abbey : Hey! Theyre mages! They do magick! Lets talk
about that.

Chapter 2, Part 2
posted by Halloween Jack Original SA post
Tradition Book: Hollow Ones, Chapter 2, Part 2:

When we last left our insufferable antiheroes, we were discussing their paradigm,
factions-within-factions, and how they keep in touch. Now well get into the nuts,
bolts, and eyebrow pencils of how they actually cast magick spells.

A special thanks to Malcolm Sheppard for Tradition Book: Euthanatos and to

Justin Achilli for Clanbook: Brujah , which I flipped through when this book was
driving me crazy.

Poor Yorick. He never even bagged a ten-pointer.

Hollow Foci
Makeup : A popular Mind focus, makeup allows the Hollow One to ready
themselves by putting on their face and adopting a carefully crafted but false
persona as an analogue to the Zen No Mind.

Clothes : That phrase self-expression comes up again; Hollow Ones are the type of
people who think individuality means having that thing you always wear. Cloaks,
boots, dresses, and leather jackets are all mentioned as popular Prime focuses.

Tattoos : Tattoo foci are A Big Deal for Hollow Ones, used as identifiers as well as
foci. Flames for Forces, skeletal and gambling motifs for Entropy, circles and
polygons for Matter, eyes for Mind, and so on--the symbols employed are pretty
obvious. Hollow Ones like them because theyre simple and not easy to lose, and
they serve as emblems of accomplishment.

Jewelry : From necklaces to bracelets to earrings and other body piercings. Their
use of such trinkets essentially imitates that of the more established Traditions.

Trinkets : Hollow Ones like to reenact classical magickal rituals, but with cheap
kitschy shit. Need to do an Ostara ritual? Plastic Easter grass and a marshmallow
egg. Samhain? Halloween decorations. Basically, whenever a Hollow One needs to
do some kind of traditional ritual and is missing some difficult component, they
make up the difference with cheesy fake shit, on purpose. It gets the job done,
quicker and easier and in a pinch, and its like D&D 4th Edition: it makes sad old
fatty wizard nerds cry. Win-win. The only hitch is that once youve decided that a
cigar is a suitable substitute for a torch made from elder wood, you have to stick
with your substitution--it works because you invested personal meaning into it.

Tarot cards : These are popular foci for Time, Spirit, and Prime, and the decks and
methods Hollow Ones use are as varied as they are for Sleeper occultists and New
Agers. Some consider them a sort of gateway to the Avatar.

Channeling : This is also a Big Deal to Hollow Ones, and another basic method that
they employ in many different ways. Channeling is often a way for a young Hollow
One to substitute a more confident and forceful personality for their own--often,
only the channeled spirit can work magick. Other Hollow Ones become a host for
several spirits in a manner that manifests itself not unlike multiple personality
disorder, which creates social problems. Still others take the Hollow part of the
traditions name to mean that they are hollow, soulless compartments for any spirits
that happen to come along--they become unpredictable and likely to both excel in
the Spirit sphere and to fall into Quiet. The smartest Hollow Ones who experiment
with different types of channeling will eventually narrow their abilities into a small,
strong stable of reliable spirits, or effectively channel their own avatar.

(Seriously, this sounds like an extended metaphor for having an adolescent identity
crisis before stabilizing into a well-adjusted adult. Be thankful that otherkin and
Headmates werent a thing when this book was written.)

Seances : A Spirit focus, of course. Ritual is the point of these things, so they tend to
be very formalized with shrouds and crystal balls and all that.

Arcanology : Hollow Ones like debating and developing theories on metaphysics--

without wholly committing to one Unified Field Theory of reality. Its not explained
how they really use this as a focus, though.
Spell books : Often called books of shadows for the Wiccan cred. These are likely
to be diaries and personal journals which are meticulously handcrafted, written in
with special pen and ink, and include a mixture of anecdotes, theories,
observations, poetry, and photographs, rather than anything a Hermetic would
identify as a spellbook.

Sigils : Reviving and mixing together runes and symbols from long-dead cultures is
a versatile focus.

Astrology : Hollow Ones like it, I guess? Its popular with the nerdier arcanologist
crowd; Hollow Ones tend to see signs related to whatever sphere for which they
have the most aptitude.

Familiars! Hollow Ones like them; they prefer ones which have exotic
connotations but can pass for common pets and street animals. Cats, especially
black cats, are a given. Rats are survivors who can be used as spies and scouts, and
to pass messages along the Hollow Railroad. Reptiles are cranky but always possess
fragments of ancient wisdom. Crows and ravens are spoooky, owls are for
intellectuals, and dogs are loyal protectors who will save your ass from gettin
bushwhacked.

The Page of Pentacles told me not to take your personal check.

Hollow Rotes
These rotes follow in what seemed to me to be a really annoying trend in Mage
sourcebooks: That is, if a Rotes effect could conceivably done with a particular level
of a particular sphere, you needed everything that applies not just one of them.
Some of these are way too stringent for what they do. Im leaving out some boring
ones, like the one that makes spooky fog.

Alley Vanish
(Correspondence 3, Mind 2)

Allows you to duck into an alley and disappear, throwing off any pursuit. Its
vulgar if you vanish into a dead-end alley with zero apparent means of escape.

Antiquing
(Matter 4, Entropy 3, Prime 2)

Aside from sounding like slang for furtive gay sex in a nursing home, this Rote
explains how Hollow Ones always have super-cool stuff despite being broke
overgrown club kids. You can use it to find something worn-out and
nonfunctional in a junkyard or thrift store and restore it to something extravagant.
Its coincidental as long as somebody doesnt actually observe you transforming a
cheap piece of broken trash into a million-to-one thrift store find.

Being Invisible
(Forces 3, Mind 3)

This is an example of what Im talking about. It combines psychic misdirection with

bending light to make you invisible--as long as you stay perfectly still. Despite being
coincidental, its too expensive for what it does, in my opinion.

Bum a Dollar from the Universe

(Entropy 2, Matter 2)
A coincidental Rote that allows you to find enough money to get a meal or a bus
ticket--generally limited to about $20.

Crowd Surfing
(Mind 4)

A cool Rote that lets you drift around a large group of people and mentally sense
whos cool, how people feel about each other, and so on, allowing you to integrate
into an unfamiliar scene apparently without effort. In MET, you can use this to
ask up to 3 people their goals for the scene.
When they find out what shes doing, they will write whatever laws they have to to make sure its a federal crime.

Cup of Joe
(Prime 3)

You can infuse Quintessence (up to your Arete) to make a caffeinated beverage into
Tass.

Riding the Railroad

(Correspondence 3-4)

A vulgar teleportation Rote. You can take anything you can carry, so its often used
to carry mail or to take luggage to a chantry where youll be staying.
Correspondence 4 lets you take people with you.

Rooftop Leap
(Forces 3, Life 3)

Its the Matrix Jump. Its always vulgar, and lets you jump an extra 10 feet per point
of Arete. Yes, you need three dots in two spheres to accomplish this. BULLSHIT !

Thought Transfer
(Forces 2, Mind 2)

This is what the Soundwave Masters use to encode a hidden message in music. I
think this can be used to either send a specific, detailed message to another mage or
to communicate feelings to anyone. Its always considered coincidental.

Spot The Man

(Correspondence 1, Life 1, Matter 1, Prime 1)

Its a Technocrat detector! It detects cybernetic implants and something called

primium. (Seriously? Is this Exalted now?)

Traffic Pulse
(Entropy 2, Forces 2)

You can subtly alter things like how long it takes lights to turn, how thickly or thinly
traffic congests in a given area, and cause minor traffic accidents. This can speed up
or slow down a journey by car, or create distractions through minor accidents.

Vext
(Time 3, Entropy 2)

A famous Hollow curse which is, by honour, never invoked on a fellow Hollow One.
It basically causes a bunch of minor setbacks and irritations--everything goes
wrong for you. When at war, Vext is often used on targets days in advance of a
calculated strike.

Well Get There

(Correspondence 1, Entropy 1)

A Rote that points you in the right direction when youre lost, as long as you have a
general idea where youre going.

Writing on the Wall

(Mind 3, Matter 1)

Another Hollow Railroad spell, it turns graffiti into a magical map conveying
messages and directions to its intended audience. Hollow Ones use it to point each
other toward chantries, away from the lairs of monsters, and so on. Coincidental,
although often illegal.

Some of these are pretty neat, but I wish there was at least one good Hollow rote
that just melts somebodys brain or tears them into pieces.
Yeah, the new Magic set has cards that you smoke instead of putting into your graveyard. They banned it from tournament play on its release date.

Necromancy is a special thing for Hollow Ones; there are some Rotes just for that.

Fetter Ball
(Spirit 4, Prime 2)

A prerequisite focus for many other necromantic effects, this allows a mage to sign
a pact with a spirit, which is then encased in a ball of candle wax, becoming a free 1-
point Fetter for the ghost.
Blood from a Stone
(Spirit 4, Mind 4, Life 3)

Ghosts hate this, for the same reason little kids hate shots. Once youve made a
Fetter Ball, if the wraith gets all Angsty on you, you can use this ritual to literally
drain out some of its Angst in the form of a thick, dark blood that leaks from the
Fetter Ball when you poke it with a needle. Its vulgar as hell, produces a great
torrent of whining from the wraith, and requires you to burn the blood with sulfur
afterwards.

Shelter from the Storm

(Prime 4, Spirit 4, Entropy 1)

Creates a Haunt with a rating equal to your Arete, lasting for one scene. I dont
know Wraith well enough to know what this means, but it protects you from the
Maelstrom.

Voice Across the Void

(Mind 3, Spirit 3, Correspondence 2)
Using your Fetter Ball, you can communicate with your bonded spirit across any
distance.

Hollow Ones are also very into dream magick. Called narcoleptics, Hollow
dreamers are likely to get wrapped up with the fey, whereupon they often get
addicted to Glamour and vivid dreaming, and have to have their friends pull them
out of it, kicking and screaming.

Dream Play
(Mind 3, Prime 2, Time 2)

A Hollow One can spend hours constructing a dream scenario in his mind, then
invite a group of people to dream together and live out the scenario. Regardless of
what happens within it, the whole things has been just a dream when they wake up.
It requires 8 hours of sleep for all involved, regardless of the length of the dream,
and its coincidental assuming you dont try to pull in unwilling victims, which
requires a Willpower challenge.

Running Scenarios
(Mind 4, Time 2, Entropy 2)

This Rote allows you to fuck with your REM sleep so that you get what feels like
days or weeks of time within a few hours of sleep, so you can train, make plans, and
prepare yourself for an upcoming event. Mechanically, it allows you to fake having
some dots in an Ability that the ST anticipates youll need, for a number of days.
You need dots in the Dream background to make use of this.
Jesus, what idiot invented bacon absinthe?

Hollow Wonders

Looking Glass (2): A pocket mirror that can spy on other locations within a range of
1 mile (unless you augment it with your own Correspondence). Strangely, it doesnt
say anything about restrictions on where and how you scry.
Rimbauds Recipe for Sacred Absinthe (3): A scroll with the recipe for an absinthe
that lowers the Gauntlet by 4 for purposes of communicating with other realms (but
doesnt actually let you sidestep into the Umbra). Requires Spirit 3, and potentially
months of gathering special herbs.
Tass Tapes (1): With Prime 3, you can infuse these with a point of Quintessence.
They can also be used to carry the Sound/Thought Transfer Rote.

Next time, on American Hollow Story : Hollow Personalities. This is the most
accurate title of anything in the book.

Chapter 3: Hollow Personalities. I cant

change that title to make it more accurate or
insulting.
posted by Halloween Jack Original SA post

Tradition Book: Hollow Ones, Chapter 3: Hollow Personalities. I cant

change that title to make it more accurate or insulting.

Chapter 3 starts with a joke about Snow White and the Seven Goths (Gloomy,
Sappy, Snooty, Sexy, Smarty, Perky, and Hateful) and leads into another unfocused
ramble to remind us that Hollow Ones aren't all goth and don't fit goth stereotypes
all the time, the same is true of goths themselves, and that the Hollow Ones didn't
invent the gothic scene, they just nourished it. By the way, did you know that the
Traditions proper don't appreciate the Hollow Ones, and that no two Hollow Ones
are alike because being a Hollow One is about expressing yourself? You did? Oh,
did we go over that a dozen times already? Good.

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join this woman and this crumply statue in the bonds of holy matrimony .
The other Traditions don't appreciate the "nuances of philosophy andenduring
strength" that the Hollow Ones exhibit, or value their contribution to the fight
against the Technocracy through "passover assertion via existence." That is, the
Hollow Ones believe in the principle "living well is the best revenge." If you live
however you want to live, you're bucking the Technocracy as well as any Tradition
mages or fellow Hollow mages who snub you. Win-win!

Hollow People

Hollow Ones are preoccupied with defining themselves, and their social ladders are
an extension of that--how you present to others is an important part of defining
yourself, and so is comparing yourself to others and judging their public persona
relative to your own. The most well-known and well-respected Hollow Ones are the
mages who've spent decades crafting their personal legend.

Neville Sinclair Nevermore : Neville is the A+ #1 mysterious scene queen of the

Hollow Ones. Neither his true age nor the circumstances of his Awakening are
common knowledge. What is common knowledge is that transferring his mind from
body to body is his preferred method of immortality. He's rumoured to have been
alive since at least the 15th century, but of course, he didn't take part in the
founding of the Hollow Ones until the 1920s.

Neville's pretty shit at possessing guys who don't look like walleyed fish.

Neville wears the body of a tall, pale, gaunt Caucasian man with long dyed-black
hair, and always dresses in suits in an early-20th century style. He manages to hold
the enviable position of someone who is a master of the Hollow One social network
without appearing to need it--he's arrogant, doesn't allow anyone outside his cabal
to get close to him or contradict him, and often knows the names and relevant
details of people who've never met him, solely through his keen memory and
information network.

Penny Dreadful : Mary Sue Penny Dreadful is basically your prototypical Hollow
One. A weird kid from a dysfunctional family who didn't fit in, her first experience
with magick was through playing with a ouija board. She threw herself into a
jumble of New Age paraphernalia and was a teenage hedge mage--her Avatar finally
awakened when, at the age of 18, she was about to cast a Very Bad spell and her
familiar, a black cat named Mister Mistoffeles, warned her against it. She was lucky
enough to become a protege to Neville Nevermore, and the rest is cringeworthy
franchise fiction history.

You just know she calls complete strangers "sweetie."

Penny dresses like a classic Victorian goth (the kind that don't really exist outside of
photo shoots because real people don't have an hour to dress themselves every day).
Neck-high collars, ankle-length gowns, a corset on top of her dress, and heavy
makeup. Her one concession to being a flawed human being is having faint traces of
acne scarring. Assuming she spends a lot of time in San Francisco, she must smell
like ass in the summer. As of 2001, Penny is 28, and like all White Wolf signature
characters she has a boatload of XP.

Josepha de Espronceda : Although she was born in 1891 to a poor Spanish

family with a history of witchcraft, Josepha's parents wanted nothing more than to
marry her off to a nice farmer. Josepha wanted nothing more than to be a doctor.
She was refused entry to medical school, then deceived, drugged, and raped by a
doctor who promised to teach her medicine in secret. What happened afterwards is
unclear, but after Awakening and killing her rapist, it's clear that Josepha would
have become Nephandi if Neville hadn't saved her and helped her overcome mental
illness. She learned magic from him and was his lover for decades, until she began
dabbling in "dark forces" in order to better understand and combat them. She left
her cabal open to a Nephandi attack, Bog Asphodel died protecting her, and she left
in shame.
Josepha looks and dresses like Morticia Addams, except that years of guilt and
regret have left her looking less "dark, mysterious and curvy" and more "bloated,
pasty and disheveled." At her best, she seems melancholy, and other times she
seems drugged and distracted. If she doesn't heal the rift between herself and her
former cabal, most likely she'll commit suicide by throwing herself at the
Nephandi.

Hollow Chronicles

Hollow Ones are flexible as far as multi-Tradition cabals are concerned--they'll join
a cabal for personal reasons rather than because they were given marching orders,
sometimes simply because they like the other members (what an idea)! Like any
official Tradition, the Hollow tradition comes with a code of "street wisdom" that
can conflict with the interests of the cabal--it's not homogeneous, but Hollow Ones
often find it hard to refuse aid to other Orphans, even if it's dangerous or not worth
the trouble.

All-Hollow chronicles supposedly provide two benefits--one, it breaks up the

stereotypes because an entire gaming group can't all play the same stereotypical
goth. Two, if you want the chronicle to drip with gothic atmosphere, you don't have
to worry about Hermetics and Sons of Ether spoiling the mood with magic missile
wands and ray guns.

Horatio's House of Horrors is a sample Hollow cabal which consists of a

traveling circus with a haunted house as its centerpiece. Its leader is Benjamin
fortune, a Hollow mage who gave up the life of a wandering hobo in 1952 to take a
job as a carny. By 1962, he had changed his name in honor of Horatio Alger and
established his own carnival, Horatio's House of Horrors. His cabal is composed of
Orphans he picked up as employees along the way. The cabal's goal is twofold: One,
they run an excellent haunted house which, with a little help from coincidental
magick, encourages people to Awaken. Two, they're paranormal investigators. They
debunk the garbage, and if a story is real and worth repeating, they incorporate it
into the act to add a little magic into the world.

Horatio has been a mage and a vagabond since he left home at 17. A divorced
father of three, Horatio is waiting for one of his grandchildren to awaken so that he
can groom them to inherit the carnival.

Mia Minuet has been a carny for 40 years. She comes from a middle-class family,
and ran away from home after she was blamed for an accident that killed a child she
was babysitting. She fell into drugs and prostitution until she found some stability
working for the carnival. "Somewhere out there, a pornographic movie stars Missie
Mango. Mia. To this day, Mia can't stand the sight or smell of mangos." Anyhoo, she
awakened under the tutelage of an herbalist who treated her for her chronic colds
and flus.
Mohican "Mo" Guyhot is a Canadian illegal immigrant who's been working odd
jobs under the table since he fled a murder charge years ago. While working on a
farm after a visit to Horatio's, Mo had a mystical experience that began his
awakening. He returned to the carnival for guidance and has been a member of the
cabal ever since.

Next time, on General Hollowspital: Signature characters and me throwing a

screaming fit.

Chapter 3, Part 2: They all reminded Mark of

the characters in a couple of Japanese
animes
posted by Halloween Jack Original SA post

Tradition Book: Hollow Ones, Chapter 3, Part 2: They all reminded

Mark of the characters in a couple of Japanese animes

The books ongoing story concludes (I hope) with Mark and Baron visiting the
Hollow chantry in Hong Kong. Its a two-bedroom apartment on a street that holds
an open-air market which stinks of fish guts and sells pirated and knock-off goods,
and the Chinese Hollow Ones are all intimidating characters who are into physical
fitness and martial arts. They remind Mark of anime characters--I guess because all
anime characters are scary martial artists and so are all Asian people!

Mark and Baron have a brief conversation about how people think all goths are
snooty but theyre really not, and the Hollow Ones dont preach any dogma except
no dogma! How Zen! Oh, and everyones entitled to their opinion, but opinions
create fashions which create opinions, and its like, chicken and the egg, man! You
know? This reminds me of every deep conversation I had as a teenager that was
really boring because no one actually said anything insightful.
Putting on a Daft Punk helmet and fucking a train seems more like a Sons of Ether thing.

Baron shares with Mark the Hollow One party-line-opinions, such as they are, on
everybody else in the World of Darkness. (These are delivered as running
paragraphs, and not as line-item one-liners as in some of the older books.)

The Hollow Ones dont care for the Celestial Chorus because organized religion is
lame, yknow? The think that they have a lot in common with the Akashics because
of the philosophy of Void where you empty yourself so you can be filled. They
think they have a lot in common with the Euthanatos because they like dead things
and we like dead things too. Lots of Hollow Ones are computer geeks so, hey, the
Virtual Adepts are cool. Beyond that, the Traditions are alright because they each
have something to offer, theyre just stuffy, yknow?

Were kind of a combination of Cultist of Ecstasy and Akashic Brother, with a

pinch of Dreamspeaker and a shake of Verbena. Add in a teaspoon of Euthanatos
and bake at 350 for a couple hours until crispy and blackened. That tickled
Baron. He laughed at himself and took another drink of his beer.

Dont you want to adopt this Baron guy as your spiritual guru? I have to admit his
presence in the book is an injection of realism, because hes an innocuous stoner
dudebro whos agreeable but totally insipid, and those guys exist in every scene. I
just wish he wasnt the character delivering summaries of the Hollow philosophy.

The Technocracy! Theyre The Man, bro. Gotta fight The Man. Technocrats are
cowards who are scared of anything they cant control and totally incapable of
original thought. Hollow Ones fight the Technocrats just by existing and being
themselves, because the Technocracy want to kill the worlds soul and turn it into a
machine.

Vampires are not your friends. They dont give a shit about living a Romantic ideal,
and they definitely dont want to encourage Sleepers to see the world in a more
magical light. Orphans who fuck around with vampires dont last long. Werewolves
are basically the same--approach them only when absolutely necessary; theyll rip
you apart if you get in their way. Ghosts are a different matter--Hollow Ones are
actually interested in getting to know ghosts and their personal stories; some of
them just want to be able to say theyre friends with dead people.

Hollow Ones would like to become better acquainted with changelings, because
theyre both defending Romance against the banality of the modern world, but
faeries are distant, condescending, and mistrustful of mages. Ultimately, Baron
concludes, dealing the other supers arent at all important compared to the
Sleepers, because theyre the ones who have to be liberated from the Technocratic
paradigm. Hollow Ones spend most of their time living among regular people,
because they need an audience.

In a sidebar, Penny Dreadful asks Mark Moon what kind of person if he could be
anything, in any place, at any time--a pirate? A knight? A Jedi knight ? (Seriously,
and this is the books second Jedi reference.) Her point is, why arent you living
your life as your best self, right now? Because no one else does? Because of what
other people will think? So what?

And thats a good point. If living true to yourself is risky, what price are you already
paying by living a life based entirely on other peoples expectations and demands? I
mean

Penny gave Mark a gentle smile. Thats what Mostpeople think. Do you want to
be one of the Mostpeople? No, of course not. You already know youre not like the
MOstpeople. Youre special. And you can be anything you want, in any way you
want to be it. The worst crime a person can ever perpetrate is to kill his true
personality in favor of something more socially acceptable. Mostpeople do it. You
dont have to follow in their footsteps. If they all jumepd off a bridge, would you do
it too? Penny smirked a cute, quirky kink of a a smile. Irony.

Nnevermind. Jesus, every time Penny Dreadful opens her mouth you know its
going to be a pompous explosion of
Im sorry, am I rambling? Its just that she acts like every young woman I met in the
scene who put on an air of being enlightened and wise beyond her years who was
just full of hot air and scared to have a real personality instead of a gimmick.

Mark takes a moment to consider what kind of person hed like to be. This is his
answer:

I would be an artist in Europe in the early 20th century. Id have a studio where
my models would come to pose for me. Id eat bread and cheese and meats, and Id
drink red wine at least once a day with my meal. Id wear fitted jackets over loose
white shirts with billowing sleeves and leather pants. Id practice fencing and ride
horses to stay in shape. Id drink coffee in cafes with my fellow artists and discuss
the play of light when a beautiful woman tips her head just so or a man clenches
his fists just so--things important to an artist and only visible to the eye of those
who are looking for them. Movement and gesture can tell you so much about a
person, yet its so subtle that most hardly notice. Artists notice. As if suddenly
realizing that he was rambling, Mark blushed.

The peak of Marks Maslow Pyramid is Privileged white man who eats food. Ecce
homo.

Penny tells Mark to never let the Technocracy control him and never be
embarrassed of his dreams and they leave to get dinner and fuck this, I cant take it
anymore.

Hollow One Templates

The template characters in this book deserve special mention because the authors
approach is absolutely terrible. Every character is directly inspired by a fictional
character, and the writeups explicitly name-drop every one. Templates that are
takeoffs or outright jokes are not uncommon--from Vampire books, I remember a
Gangrel who was an Indiana Jones style adventuring archaeologist, a Texas
Chainsaw Nosferatu, and a Toreador that was obviously a mocking reference to Rob
Liefeld. But almost all of these templates is a narrowly-inspired stereotype and
admits it with a very clumsy reference. Its just weird.

The Gentle Giant: The best one of the bunch; she is a well-meaning kid who just
didnt fit in due to size and awkwardness, and found friendship with ghosts while
working a graveyard shift. Granted, You are shunned and misunderstood, more
like Mary Shelleys Frankensteins monster. You sympathize with her creature, but
its a loose connection, and this template appears to be an actual identifiable human
being with whom we can sympathize. A Good Template.

I dont want to be cruel, but...your ghost friends all call you fat. And Johnny Football didn't really write that note asking you to the Homecoming dance.

The Anonymous Benefactor : Charles Dickens himself could not have created
a character more Dickensian than you. This character is a man who clawed his way
out of poverty to become a successful accountant, and started amassing wealth by
using numerology to gain an edge in the stock market, which led to Awakening. He
uses his money to support Orphans. There isnt an explanation for why he dresses
like a 19th-century barrister other than he felt like it one day.
If youre not going to stop cutting your forehead with razors, you could at least put some cocoa butter on it now and then.

The Gemini Twins : More than once, someone commented that you were twins
separated at birth, like the good and evil twins in The Man in the Iron Mask by
Alexandre Dumas. This template is actually for a pair of characters who share an
Avatar, and are so in tune with one another that they look alike and dress alike and
finish each others sentences and are never apart and probably creep the fuck out of
everyone. This character concept actually doesnt hew to its literary reference, but
that only makes the clumsy reference all the more unnecessary.
I cant wait to see their Christmas sweaters.

The Curious Coroner : Tim Burton has your number. You admire Ichabod
Crane. He faced his fears with the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. You
could intellectually challenge even Sherlock Holmes. This guy is a medical doctor
who investigates supernatural happenings. Again, he could do his job--and fulfill
his character concept--just as well without wearing Victorian-era clothing.
It says Your hat is stupid.

The Wise Flake : Oh look, its one of those annoying child-women I was telling
you about a few paragraphs ago! I swear to Christ I didnt plan this. Author Neil
Gaiman likes to create characters that combine innocence with wisdom. Thats the
first sentence. I refuse to read the rest of this page.
Im rooting for the snake.

The Freak : You wish you had stepped out of Clive Barkers Hellraiser series, but
your origins were actually quite lame. A rare moment of honesty. A kid from an
abusive family engages in self-harm before becoming a body-modification
enthusiast.
The 2012 Cenobite GT comes with ergonomic handlebars.

The Tragic Hero(ine) : You sympathize with John Constantine, a character

created by Alan Moore and the main protagonist in the comic book Hellblazer ,
published by Vertigo Comics. Do you want to add an Amazon link, too? So this
character had a supernatural encounter at 14 and has been a supernatural private
eye ever since. Theres nothing else to say, except that this John Constantine action
figure comes with a trenchcoat, a crucifix, and a 9mm with silver bullets and karate
goth action.
This is why John Constantine wears Stain-Guard.

The Reality Warrior : You model yourself after Neo from the movie The
Matrix . He is your hero. The Reality Warrior was a Virtual Adepts recruit who
rejected Virtual Reality--yet he models himself after a fictional character from a
movie when he himself is the real deal. This is another example of a concept that
was fine by itself before the obvious reference was thrown into the text.
Heres a hint: Your goth shirt shouldnt announce to the world what kind of pantyhose your mom wears.

Next time, on The Legend of Shitty Hollow : The end is the beginning is the end.

Epilogue: You would not believe the shit I've

seen
posted by Halloween Jack Original SA post

Tradition Book: Hollow Ones, Epilogue: You would not believe the shit
I've seen

Alien Rope Burn posted:

It's pretty amusing how Hollow Ones goes on and on about them
being individualists, but every one of them we see is a derivative pop
culture drip cup. It'd actually be a really great take on them if it were
actually done on purpose...
Dammit Who? posted:
It's so consistent that I'm starting to wonder if it really is on purpose.
That description of Mark's perfect life where he flounces around
wearing billowy sleeves, for instance. His ideal life is one where he
has the fashion and social life of a painter, without having to do
anything as tedious and time-consuming as actually paint
something.

Tradition Book: Hollow Ones has two authors. I'm guessing that whoever did the
character templates wasn't responsible for the bulk of the book, and didn't think it
was worth talking about.

The non-Tradition of the Hollow Ones shows some genuine promise. A loose
confederation of mages whose Awakening isn't tied to a particular Weltanschauung,
and whose magical practice isn't based on any historical framework: instead it's
about the idea of Romance and their preoccupation with their own personal legend.
The Hollow tradition would actually fulfill its role as a dragnet to catch and hold the
most facile and self-absorbed mages who are wasting the gift of Awakening by
imitating pop-culture cliches, but also provide a safety net for some of the most
independent and eclectic mages around.

The Hollow Ones are supposed to be the Living Embodiment of Romance, so what
say we get some Romantic characters? There's no Byronic Hero template. The
Romantics developed the concept of the Sublime in art; wouldn't a David R.
Brower-style conservationist outdoorsman be a great breakaway from the Hollow
One mold? The book has long sections discussing factions of the Hollow Ones like
the Soundwave Masters, the Vodoun Gangstas, the Railroad Riders, and the Social
Terrorist Punksso why the fuck isn't there a single DJ, hip-hop artist, crust punk,
or Skinhead Against Racial Prejudice? Instead we get stuff like "You are an actual,
real-life magic hacker, but you adopted a fictional character from a movie as your
personal hero."

Oh, and all of Leif Jones' character portraits look like a chubby Latino kid put on
way too much makeup. Just throwing that out there.

Hollow Ones: Epilogue

Mark and Baron return to the Waydown chantry in San Fran to find Penny sitting
around. She informs them that they never found out who was leaving those eyeballs
around Hollow chantries, but they were just cow and sheep eyeballs, and the whole
thing was a Hollow prank. (Do you remember that plot tidbit from the first chapter?
Me neither.) Mark and Baron laugh. Neville came up with the totally brilliant idea
of cleansing the eyeballs' Patterns and leaving them in local graveyards for Sleepers
to find and remark upon. Mark and Baron are rolling with laughter. It's like the end
of a children's cartoon special where everyone is laughing even though nobody told
a joke.

Except for the character sheets, the book ends with a list of reference works. Here it
is:

Music : "All manner of gothic and industrial music," but especially Dead Can
Dance.

Comics : The Invisibles and Promethea .

Books : "Anything on modern chaos magic," Liber Null , Robert Anton Wilson, and
"the Romantic poets" and T.S. Eliot thrown in as an afterthought.

Movies : The Craft , Cecil B. Demented , Gothic , The Crow , and Groove , a movie
about the Bay Area rave scene.

This really pisses me off. The sources that ought to be the primary inspiration for
the book get some lip service in the form of half-hearted comments that you should
definitely read Romantic authors and listen to gothic and industrial music, but
none of it is actually worth discussing or even calling out by name--except Dead
Can Dance. (Which, by the way, isn't a gothic rock band, but a New Agey folk band
that gets played a lot in the clubs, for some reason. It's great for sucking all the
oxygen out of the room when you're tired of seeing people actually dance.) There's
no mention of the Batcave, Mick Mercer, or anything covering the development of
the gothic subculture--if you want to understand clubs, the book tells you to watch a
movie about ravers.

I'm at a loss. White Wolf, the company that was branded as a RPG publisher for
goths, who needlessly inserted a gothic splat into their game about wizards, put out
a sourcebook for their goth wizards and hired a writer who apparently knew
absolutely nothing about the gothic subculture and had little or no interest in it. So
that's Tradition Book: Hollow Ones. A book about a non-Tradition of unimaginative
poseurs masquerading as individualists masquerading as unimaginative poseurs.
No, fuck you, Dad

Finally, there's the Chupp Test. That's an informal term for measuring the
usefulness of a splatbook--it asks, "Does this book make you want to play this splat,
even if you didn't before?" If anything, this book is Antichupp. If you didn't like the
Hollow Ones before, it definitely won't win you over. If you did like playing Hollow
Ones, I daresay reading this book will make you think "Wow, even the developers
have no idea what to do with this. Maybe my special snowflake character wouldn't
be so out of place in an actual Tradition after all. Putting up with the Hermetic
hierarchy has to be better than competing for a wink and a handjob from a grown
man who calls himself Neville Nevermore."

When handed a #2 pencil and a copy of the Chupp test, Tradition Book: Hollow
Ones puts the paper on the ground and shoves the pencil up its own ass, and takes a
big black gloomy espresso-fueled shit all over it. It shits on its source material, it
shits on the few peppercorns of worthy ideas it develops early on, and it shits on the
$19.95 of everybody who bought a copy of this rag.

Penny just continued to smile, smug. Her eyes twinkled. Mr. Mistoffelees licked
one of his paws.