Allies

A few friends, either kept from your mortal days or made after the Embrace,

help you out in your endeavors. You can make a few calls and cut a few deals to

get assistance in a wide range of activities. Your Storyteller will probably require

you to define how you keep your allies and their relations to you.

Each Allies Trait possessed represents one person that you can call on for

aid. Unlike Influence, your Allies have special talents that make them better than

the average person on the street. Though your allies may not be aware of your

vampire nature, they can be quite useful if directed properly.

In general, your allies do not show up in play directly. Instead, you can use

them for certain services between play sessions, by notifying your Storyteller:

• An ally can be directed to follow up on research or activities that you

have started. If you undertook a specific task previously, like tailing someone,

researching a project or building a device, your allies can continue the work,

doing so with one Ability Trait’s worth of expertise. As long as they work on

the project, your Allies Trait for the individual is tied up.

• If you need a particularly competent ally, you can expend multiple Traits to

gain access to a mortal with multiple levels of an Ability or Influence. Each Allies

Trait that you spend after the first gives an extra level of expertise to your allies. They

may use this expertise on your behalf, though rarely with your own skill, and they

only help as long as you tie up your Allies Background Traits in this manner.

• An ally can help you to hunt, though obviously, it’s not a good idea to rely

on your allies as blood sources, or to even tell them exactly what they’re doing

when they bring people to you. Each Trait of Allies that you use for hunting lets

you make a Simple Test. A win or tie grants you one additional Blood Trait. Doing

so counts as a project that lasts for the entire time between game sessions.

Be wary of calling on your allies too often. An ally may call on you for mutual

aid or refuse to help if pressed into dangerous or illegal activities.

 

Contacts

With the right contacts in all walks of life, you can get a line on all sorts

of useful information. Although having an “ear to the wall” doesn’t necessarily

provide you with good help or loyal servants, it does mean that you know who

to ask when looking for the movers and shakers behind the scenes.

In game terms, your rating in Contacts allows you to discern rumors and information.

When you call on your contacts, you make a few phone calls, check with

likely snitches and grease a few palms. In return, you get rumors and information

as if possessed of a certain amount of Influence. Doing so lets you find out exactly

what’s going on in the city within a particular area. You can get information of a

level equal to however many contacts you use. If you use Contacts x 3 on Industry,

for instance, you get information as if digging up dirt with Industry x 3 Influence.

The advantage of the Contacts Background is that contacts can be switched from

place to place each game, getting information in different areas at your demand.

Using Contacts for especially dangerous or secret information may require you

to spend some money or perform a few favors, at the discretion of a Storyteller. On

occasion, accidents can cause contacts in one area to dry up, such as a strike that affects

your Industry contacts, or a particularly unlucky astronomical conjunction sends

your Occult contacts running for the hills. Your contacts will not generally function

as aides or lackeys; that is the purview of the Allies and Retainers Backgrounds.

Example: Langley, a Nosferatu, has Contacts x 5. This month, his player, Robert,

decides that Langley is going to engage in a little corporate espionage. Robert allocates

Contacts x 4 to Industry, learning about local projects and where they’re bound for; he

leaves one level of Contacts in reserve, for life’s little emergencies. Next month, he plans

to use his contacts to find an Underworld buyer for his secrets.

 

Fame

Some vampires are Embraced from among the ranks of the wealthy or

talented elite. As a result, many Cainites can make a claim to some distinction

in their breathing days. Though such notoriety often fades with the years, your

Fame lingers on to influence mortal society.

Fame allows you to exercise your connections over a longer distance than

usual. Certainly, if you’ve got the right Influence, you can push things around

on an interstate or even national scale, but with Fame, you can just make a few

calls and get your Contacts, Influence or Resources exerted over a greater range

without any impediment. This is not to say you must have Fame to get anything

done, only that it may help. Your total Fame determines your maximum range

for unimpeded use of your Contacts, Influence and Resources.

When you make an effort to exert your Contacts, Influence or Resources over

a long range, you lean on your popularity and image, thus expending your Fame

Traits until the next game session. Fame is most often used in the downtime

between sessions to facilitate long-range plans. 

In a less mechanical fashion, your Fame also dictates how recognizable you

are to mortals, for one reason or another. The Storyteller will certainly make the

effects of your Fame apparent, and mortals may take notice of you at bothersome

times. Being profiled on “America’s Most Wanted” or spotted at the Academy

Awards does things to one’s repuation, after all.

Fame does have its limitations. It makes little sense for you to have this Background

if you’re known to be dead in the mortal world. Also, Fame does not always indicate

widespread instant name recognition; you may only be known to a subset of a particular

group, or a recognized expert in a field who’s unknown to those outside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Generation

Generation is the measure of one’s fundamental closeness to Caine. Each vampire is

Embraced from a long chain of sire to childe, and the blood weakens with each passing.

Those Embraced by a sire closer in the chain to Caine and the Antediluvians find that

their blood is strengthened by that proximity. The less scrupulous among the younger

generations steal this power through the foul process of diablerie. Since a vampire’s sheer

power and eventual potential are limited by Generation, much of vampire society is ordered

by those of low Generation (close to Caine) while the neonates of weak, thin blood and

high Generation (many steps removed) champ at a bit that cannot be removed.

You must spend one Background or Free Trait for each Generation purchased.

Thus, if your character is of the 10th generation, you must spend three

Background or Free Traits for this privilege. The Storyteller may place a limit

on how low the generation spread may go.

The total number of Traits placed in this Background determines your exact

generation. You start at the 13th generation, and drop one generation for each

Trait spent — thus, with five Traits of Generation, you are of the eighth generation

removed from Caine. 

Your generation affords great power, for it determines your ultimate potential

and raw potency of blood. However, being of low generation also makes

you a tempting target for would-be diablerists, who seek to steal your vitae to

enrich their own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Herd

Whether surrounding yourself with mortal cultists, or just making sure

that you have regular access to a blood bank, your herd gives you a guaranteed

volume of blood for feeding. You don’t have to go very far to hunt; your herd,

when available to you, offers you a safe and easy way to sustain your powers.

You should work with your Storyteller to describe the exact nature of your herd,

since these Traits can be lost through hazards or deliberate sabotage. You could have

mortals who are conditioned to enjoy the Kiss, access to medical blood supplies

outside of the normal channels or a religious cult that gives you blood freely. Each

Trait of Herd can be used to gain one extra Blood Trait once per session. You can do

this immediately on entering the game to represent that you have previously fed, thus

improving your blood from your starting Traits for the evening. You can also take 15 minutes

out of play to call on a herd and gain a Blood Trait. You can split up Herd Traits if you wish,

so you may use some Traits to start with extra blood, then use more later to replace spent vitae.

Members of your herd (assuming it is composed of people and not plastic bags)

are not necessarily particularly competent or loyal — they simply let you feed from

them. You must take Allies or Retainers if you want them to do other tasks for you.

 

Influence

Mortal society builds on institutions. As humans raise their cities, they form

gatherings of expertise that are manipulated by the Cainites hiding in their midst. If

you have Influence, you can sway the direction of some areas of mortal society, pushing

cities to grow as you direct. Your Influence can be used to strike indirectly at your foes

while protecting your own assets, or to gain information and special resources.

Influence comes in many different areas. You must allocate Traits separately

to each Influence; thus, if you have Legal x 4, you could still have Police x3 independently

but you would have to spend the Traits for each.

You cannot manage more Influence than the sum of your permanent Physical,

Social and Mental Traits combined. This limit counts against all of your

total Influence — your combined levels cannot exceed this total. After all, there

are only so many things you can do in a night.

When you exercise Influence, you expend temporary Influence Traits. The

tables for various Influence areas detail what you can do with a specific number

of Traits. Performing an action requires a number of Traits equal to the level

of the action; you must use three Traits to perform an action listed at the third

level of an Influence chart, for instance. Thus, with high levels of Influence,

you can perform many small actions, or a few significant ones.

Certain levels of Influence gift you with items, money or aides. Unlike the

Resources Background, money and equipment garnered with Influence does not

come automatically each month. If you want a steady income from Influence, you

must direct your Influence in that direction continually, and this income does not

come with any associated trappings of wealth (you’d have to buy a house and car

separately, for instance). Aides garnered with Influence generally help only for one

specific task, and they usually only have the equivalent of one level of Ability in

their area of skill — for more competent and readily available help, take Allies.

Most cities have only a set amount of Influence in various areas. For instance,

Atlanta has a great deal of Transportation Influence, because it is a hub of

travel, while Hollywood would have a lot of High Society and Media Influence. A

Rust-Belt city where manufacturing and heavy industry has all but disappeared

would have very little to no Industry Influence.

Storytellers should map out the total amount of each type of Influence to be

had in the city. Once all of the Influence of a given type is used up, the only way

to get more is to use Influence to grow that area of society (making new projects or

sponsoring investment), to destroy someone else’s Influence and thus free up those

resources, or to acquire an adversary’s Influence in an area. Also, each city may have

different reflections of the Influences listed here. A city with a thriving independent

film community is going to have a different picture of Media or High Society than a

city where the arts are being literally starved out due to budget cuts.

Each area of Influence has its own description. Elder vampires may possess

truly far-reaching Influence, giving them the power to exert control beyond the

levels included here.

 

 

 

 

 

Mentor

An older or more experienced Cainite looks after you and comes to your

aid occasionally. Whatever the case, you can get assistance from your mentor,

though his favor may be fickle.

When you call on your mentor, you risk a certain number of Traits to achieve

a given effect. A lowly one-Trait mentor probably knows only little more than you,

while a five-Trait mentor may well have luminous standing within your sect and a

wide range of potent powers. Regardless, taking up your mentor’s valuable time is

costly. You must engage in a Simple Test when you call on your mentor. If you succeed,

your mentor deigns to aid you. If you tie, your mentor grants you assistance,

but then requires something in return. If you fail, your mentor demands the favor

first before helping. In any case, your mentor can be called on only once in any given

game session, and only if you have an appropriate way to contact him or her.

The level of aid that your mentor can give depends on the number of Traits

in this Background (and Storyteller approval, of course):

• For one Trait, your mentor is privy to a single piece of specialized information

at a level above your own. If you have Cainite Lore x 2, for instance, your mentor

can be called on to gift you with one piece of information from Cainite Lore x 3.

• For two Traits, you can borrow one level of Contacts, Influence, Resources

or Status from your mentor for the duration of the game. If your mentor is very

powerful (four or five Traits), you can borrow two levels.

• Two Traits allow your mentor to instruct you in a Basic Discipline that

you do not know.

• For three Traits, your mentor can instruct you in an Intermediate Discipline

that you do not know.

• Also at a cost of three Traits, your mentor can train you in the ways of a

special Hobby/ Professional/ Expert Ability that is outside your normal ken, such

as Wraith Lore.

• For four Traits, your mentor can train you in an Advanced Discipline

beyond your grasp.

• For five Traits, your mentor can train you in the phenomenal powers of

the elders, if your blood is potent enough to learn such secrets.

Since Mentors can prove unbalancing by providing too many different powers

over the course of a long game, the Storyteller may lower your total Mentor

Traits as you call on his knowledge. This decrease represents the fact that as your

character learns the mentor’s secrets, the mentor has less left to teach.

 

Resources

You have access to liquid capital and spending money. You also have some

solid resources that you can use when times are tight. Unlike the use of Finance,

these resources are always readily available, and they come to you automatically

due to your investments, jobs and holdings.

Your number of Resources Traits determines the amount of money and capital

that you can secure. By expending temporary Resources Traits (which return at the

next game session), you can draw on your regular income, as shown in the accompanying

table. If you expend permanent Resources, you can divest yourself of holdings,

allowing access to 10 times the amount shown on the table. However, the limits of

what you can buy are always adjudicated by the Storyteller. Truly powerful uses of

Resources are best left to downtimes and moderation between game sessions.

 

Retainers

Whether out of personal loyalty, love, Conditioning, the blood bond or some

other power, you have managed to secure the fellowship of a mortal (or several

mortals) who obeys your every whim. Unlike the Allies Background, your retainers

are nearly always around, overseeing your personal effects, defending your property

and furthering your goals. They may not have the specialized knowledge of allies,

but they are mostly loyal to your cause, and they serve your needs first.

You should work with your Storyteller to determine how you managed to

secure a loyal retainer. Your retainer’s exact capabilities are up to the Storyteller;

a retainer may be skillful but unmotivated, or loyal but inept. No retainer is ever

perfect, but they all can be a great help.

• A retainer can be assigned to watch over a particular location. Generally, if

someone attempts to break into your house, the retainers there will attempt to stop

the intruder. In this case, they are treated as normal humans, run by Narrators.

• A retainer can be used to manage your assets and perform tasks. Retainers

tied up in this fashion allow you to manage more Influence than normal; they

add to the number of Attribute Traits that you possess for purposes of counting

your total Influences. Each retainer directed in this fashion adds one to your

maximum Influence Traits. If retainers are later lost, killed or reassigned, the excess

Influence Traits are lost, starting with the highest levels of Influence held.

• A retainer can perform other menial functions, as allowed by the Storyteller.

You can get someone else to pick up your character’s dry-cleaning.

You may choose to declare that any one of your retainers is a ghoul, if you

so desire. However, for each ghoul that you have in your holdings, you begin

each session’s play one Blood Trait down from usual, as you must feed and

maintain the servant. Ghouls have the usual benefits of Disciplines and an

improved understanding of vampire society, so they make useful guards, but

too many can be troublesome. Jealous ghouls (especially when many are blood

bound to the same domitor) can cause no end of troubles.