the Five Horsemen

I got my hands on Geist core rulebook just a couple of days ago, could someone please explain to me why did they have to be called horsemen? And the pale-white-gray thing... ?

Kamatej:

I got my hands on Geist core rulebook just a couple of days ago, could someone please explain to me why did they have to be called horsemen? And the pale-white-gray thing... ?

Mostly because the Sin-Eaters really don't care what they call them, as long as people know what they're talking about.  Perhaps because a Reaper would have to walk to get to all the dead souls it needs to claim, so they thought it would be better on horseback?  Perhaps the Horsemen terminology started spreading along with the Sin-Eater and Carnivale culture during the Catholic Heyday that birthed all of these Christianized words, even useful for non-Christians?

Even still, they can be called anything, really.  The Five Flying Spaghetti Monsters would power Ceremonies and cosmology equally well.  More seriously, your krewe could call them the Five Great Reapers, the Five Deaths, etc.  My Krewe theorizes that the "horsemen" are the Deathlords, so they use the terms interchangably but prefer the word Deathlord. 

Every culture has something that could work.  The Greeks might've called them the Children of Atropos.  The Egyptians might call them the Five Faces of Sokar.  It really depends on which affects your Krewe more--Sin-Eater slang or local/cultural terminology.

Cleverest of Things:

The Five Flying Spaghetti Monsters

that's going in the chronicle then :) Other than that - I love Geist, it's becoming my second favourite after Promethean.

Kamatej:

Cleverest of Things:

The Five Flying Spaghetti Monsters

that's going in the chronicle then :) Other than that - I love Geist, it's becoming my second favourite after Promethean.

The two would be very different, but have a lot in common.  Both have been reborn after death (Though, Promies don't remember the time before).  Both tend to have little access to their own kind and their teachings (Though, Sin-Eaters have a slight advantage of numbers).  Both walk a lifestyle path rather than a political group. 

And really, anything is possible with the Five Keepers of the Thresholds.  If you have a scientific group, you can call them the Points of Entropy.  It just takes custom tailoring to your Krewe's Mythos.

I know, but why horsemen to begin with?

Kamatej:

I know, but why horsemen to begin with?

The apocryphal Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse of (vague) religious tradition in the Book of Revelations.

Also, I found their colour choices odd, personally.
I recall them being...
Torn: Red (War)
Silent: Black (Famine)
Prey: White (Death)
Stricken: Green (Pestilence)
Forgotten: Blue (Chaos)
But Wikipedia disagrees, so...

Kamatej:

I know, but why horsemen to begin with?

As I said, same reason they use the word Sin-Eater.  Unlike Mage, which has a single solid mythos and cosmology, Sin-Eaters tend to pick up what sounds cool.  A lot of their "culture-wide" terminology rose up during the rise of the CHristian and Catholic faiths.  While individual groups of Sin-Eaters may reject Christian-based terminology, but the words were cool enough to spread through the Twilight Network like Wildfire.  There weren't any other really appropriate terms, except perhaps the Five Grim Reapers.  I like the idea of using the Horsemen of the Apocalypse because it seems to suggest that he five lords of Death will have their hold on everyone--While the Red Horseman is content ripping apart single lives, eventually Violence will claim everyone it can, and many many die.  Eventually, thousands will die of deprivation, mischance, etc.. so much so that every single living soul will eventually be claimed by one of the Horsemen.

It sounds lik Kamatej just isn't familiar with the reference to Christian symbolism.  Here's a link to the Wikipedia entry for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

GoldMatenes:

Forgotten: Blue (Chaos)

There actually is no blue horseman, and it's Grey for the Forgotten. Though what I find interesting is that the Forgotten threshold apparently didn't exist until some teenager made a forum post about her dreams, so maybe the Thresholds aren't really something that's as definite and obvious, like a vampire's Clan or a mage's Path.