Merit’s Compendium Table of Contents
___________________________________________________________
Introduction
03
The World Of Darkness Merits
04
Vampire The Requiem Merits
127
Werewolf The Forsaken Merits
169
Mage The Awakening Merits
185
Promethean The Created Merits
222
Changeling The Lost Merits
233
Hunter The Vigil Merits
264
Geist The Sin-Eaters Merits
275
Introduction This list was compiled to help the players in the creation process of their characters. The idea was to make a lot easier to choose Merits, putting them in just one book. However, you’re going to need the World of Darkness core book, and all the others templates books to make sense of the descriptions below. It’s really important to buy these books, so they will keep releasing them for our entertainment. So, White Wolf staff, don’t sue us, we are satisfied customers trying to help other players. This is the second version of the list and we will keep updating with new merits as soon as they are released. This project was started by a group of players in an internet WoD group, we want to keep releasing merits on future versions of this ebook. I hope you enjoy the list. The autor
Acknowledgements First the White-Wolf’s staff for writing the games, second the people who compiled this list (Leonardo, Paulo, Mateus, Aécio and myself) and the others from the WoD Group. In a personal perspective I would like to thank all the players and storyteller’s who helped me to love these games (André, Bandit, Berzins, Bu, Diana, Duda, Flávio, Igor, Jano, Judson, Pantera, Pedro, Ricardo), with a special thanks to Diana and Leonardo who helped me in these list with his thoughts, works and opinions. Last update: 08/18/10 – Signs Of The Moon – Added
The World Of Darkness Merits Mental Merits A Little Knowledge (•)
Book: Asylum, p. 50; Reliquary, p. 84 Prerequisite: Mortal (non-supernatural) Effect: Your character has either had a brush with the supernatural or been in a field that has regular casual contact with the supernatural (such as medicine or law enforcement) to know that something else is out there. While he doesn’t know anything specific (i.e., this Merit doesn’t give any bonus to Occult rolls or offer any frame of reference), your character doesn’t suffer negative penalties when trying to identify or diagnosis conditions for which there is no easy medical antecedent. For instance, a doctor with this Merit sees a patient in the ER with long, vicious bite marks. The doctor knows that no animal short of a bear could have made those wounds, and he knows that there are no bears native to the area. Normally, this would negatively affect his treatment — he might waste valuable time trying to shoehorn the evidence into his own experience. With this Merit, though, he takes it as read that something made these bites and treats them, or, a scholar with this Merit finds an anachronism in a text supposedly from the 17th century. Rather than immediately dismissing the text as a fraud, the character digs deeper and discovers other references to future events, along with the author’s descriptions of his horrible visions of things to come. This Merit also offers a +1 bonus to any roll made to recognize a strange or otherworldly situation. If the character ever becomes a supernatural being, including a ghoul or a Sleepwalker, he loses this Merit.
Area of Expertise (••)
Book: The Free Council, p. 131 Prerequisite: Resolve •• and a Specialty in the appropriate Mental Skill Effect: Your character is uncommonly focused on a particular area of expertise. By purchasing this Merit, your character essentially doubles his Specialty in a particular Mental Skill, so that he gains a +2 dice bonus from that Specialty rather than the usual +1. This Merit can only be applied to one of the character’s existing Specialties. This Merit can only be purchased once per character. Drawback: A character with this Merit cannot have any other Specialties in the same Skill as Area of Expertise. Thus, if this Merit is purchased for the Automobiles Specialty of Craft, the character can never have any other Specialties in that same Skill.
Combat Awareness (••)
Book: Dogs Of War, p. 109 Prerequisite: Military training or combat back ground. Effect: Your character understands how to survive on a battlefield as a result of either intense military training or personal experience. This includes knowledge of how to use terrain to your advantage and a general state of mental alertness sustainable even under heavy enemy fire. As a result of this aptitude, your character gains a +2 dice bonus to any situational awareness roll.
Common sense (••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 108 Effect: Your character is exceptionally grounded and pragmatic, and can usually be depended upon to make sound, straightforward decisions after a few moments’ thought. The Storyteller can make a reflexive Wits + Composure roll once per chapter for your character if he is about to embark on a disastrous course of action, or if you find yourself at a point in the story where you are completely stumped for ideas. If the roll succeeds, the Storyteller may point out the risks of a particular course, or suggest possible actions that your character can take that might get events back on track. Note: While you are free to ask the Storyteller for a Common Sense roll when you’re out of ideas, he is under no obligation to comply. It an aid, not a crutch. Available at character creation only.
Crafter’s Sense (•••)
Book: The Free Council, p. 131 Prerequisite: Craft ••• and a Specialty Effect: Your character has an intuitive sense of her craft, born of experience. Good decision-making is habitual for her when it comes to her work. This Merit grants all the benefits of the Common Sense Merit (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 108) but only regarding actions dealing with the character’s Craft Specialty. The dice pool for the reflexive action to check the character’s “common sense” is Wits + Crafts (instead of Composure). At the Storyteller’s discretion, this “gut check” roll can be used to gauge the target number of successes on an extended action using the subject Specialty, in addition to all the normal uses of the Common Sense Merit. If a character has both this Merit and the Common Sense Merit, each may be used once per chapter.
Danger Sense (••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 108 Effect: You gain a +2 modifier on reflexive Wits + Composure rolls for your character to detect an impending ambush. This kind of roll is typically made prior to the first turn of a surprise attack. Your character has a well-developed survival instinct that warns him of impending danger. Perhaps he’s adept at reading subtle clues in his environment orhe possesses an uncanny “sixth sense” when it comes to avoiding trouble.
Difficult to Ride (••••)
Book: Book Of Spirits, p. 108 Prerequisite: Composure and Resolve ••• Effect: Your character is remarkably resistant to being Urged, Ridden or Possessed by spirits or ghosts. The character adds two dice to all contested rolls against spirits’ attempts to affect her in that way (or with other forms of mental control), or adds two to her Resistance traits (if subtracted from a spirit’s roll). Whether this is because of a hardening experience in her past or some hereditary predisposition depends on the story. Drawback: Many spirits are angered by strong resistance and eager to get revenge. Others just want to eliminate such people so they never spawn more. Either way, your character becomes a target once her resistance becomes clear.
Driver’s Charm (• to •••••)
Book: Midnight Roads, p. 56 Effect: Some drivers have good luck charms for their vehicles. A hula girl on the dashboard, a Saint Christopher medal on one’s keychain, a pair of beloved fuzzy dice, a cup holder full of the knucklebones of a vanquished enemy. Sometimes, such items are just icons of luck that doesn’t really manifest. Other times, the driver imparts a tiny portion of his own soul and will into the artifact, and it genuinely grants him some measure of luck when driving. For every dot purchased, the charm can increase by +1 the following statistics of a chosen vehicle: Durability, Structure, Acceleration, Handling. Drawback: The driver’s charm works for only a single scene once per day, and requires one Willpower point from the driver to become active. Also, the charm is “attuned” only to one vehicle. If that vehicle wrecks, the charm (if it survived) can be re-attuned to a new vehicle, but doing so costs the driver a dot of Willpower. (Remember that recouping a dot of lost or spent Willpower costs eight experience points.)
Easy Ride (••)
Book: Book Of Spirits, p. 108 Prerequisite: Wits ••• Effect: Your character knows how to relax and let a spirit or ghost possess her. She forgoes any contesting roll or Resistance trait, and the possession takes place as long as the spirit rolls a single success. Possessing spirits gain full, penalty-free control over the character’s faculties immediately, without any muss or fuss. She remains aware of what is going on during the possession and has a couple of extra options. She may allow the spirit to continue controlling her body for longer than a scene, if she likes. Or, if displeased as the possession progresses, she may try to eject the spirit. She and the spirit make the normal contested roll they would normally have made during the original possession. Success on the spirit’s part allows it to remain for the rest of the scene, and ties must be rerolled the next turn. The character may only try this once per scene.
Drawback: As a well-trod soul, the character suffers a –2 dice penalty to any contesting rolls or Resistance traits applied to prevent (or end, as above) a possession. She also earns a reputation as “easy” among local spirits, who may seek her out when they need a quick body for something, even if she’s not likely to go willingly.
Eidetic Memory (••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 108 Effect: Your character has a near-photographic memory, being able to recall vast amounts of observed detail with astonishing accuracy. You do not normally need to make a roll for your character to remember an obscure fact or past experience, unless he is under stress (such as in combat). Under stress, there is a +2 modifier on any Intelligence + Composure or other Skill based roll (say, Academics, to remember a fact) for memory recall. Available at character creation only.
Emotional Detachment (•)
Book: Asylum, p. 50 Prerequisite: Resolve •• Effect: Your character can distance himself from the pain, grief and suffering of his fellow human beings long enough to help them. This might make him seem somewhat aloof, but it also means that he doesn’t second-guess himself when performing delicate surgery. The character ignores penalties stemming from stress equal to his Resolve rating. For instance, if an EMT is trying to perform an emergency tracheostomy while in a moving car with a werewolf on the roof, the EMT might normally suffer a –2 penalty from sheer emotional pressure. If he had this Merit and his Resolve were 2 or higher, he would take no penalty at all.
Encyclopedic Knowledge (••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 109 Effect: Your character is a veritable font of useful (and sometimes useless) information on a wide variety of topics. Chances are he can come up with an anecdote pertaining to any situation based on something he’s read, witnessed or seen on TV. You can make an Intelligence + Wits roll any time your character is confronted with a situation or phenomenon outside his normal realm of experience. If the roll is successful, he may recall a “factoid” that he’s heard at some point that may shed light on matters. Available at character creation only. Your character has either been soaking up trivia all his life or he hasn’t. Dramatic Failure: Your character ”remembers” something about the situation that is completely inaccurate. “Wait! Wait! I saw something like this in a movie once!” The Storyteller might make Intelligence + Wits rolls on your behalf when a dramatic failure is possible. Failure: Your character wracks his brain but comes up empty. Success: Your character remembers a detail or fact that sheds some light on the situation. “You said there was an almond odor? Seems to me I read somewhere that’s a sign of cyanide poisoning.” Exceptional Success: Your character recalls a number of useful details that provide extensive insight. "Hey, cool - a little candy skull. They make these in Mexico for the Day of the Dead. It's an offering for a loved one who's died. And they say you can't learn anything on TV."
Entheogenic Synesthesia (•)
Book: Magical Traditions, p. 137 Effect: While under the effects of a psychoactive drug, the character experiences synesthesia, where her senses blur together (she can “taste” music, perhaps, or “hear” colors). This grants her an added level of awareness, as her perceptions are bolstered by more than one sense. While on the drug, she not only experiences no dice penalties to her Perception rolls, but also gains +1 to any Perception rolls.
EOD (••)
Book: Armory, p. 208 (errata correction) Prerequisite: Wits ••• or Dexterity •••, Crafts •••, Demolitions Specialty in Crafts Effect: Your character is well versed in handling all types of explosives. She is familiar with all kinds of techniques used in bomb making, from creating her own explosives to identifying and arming manufactured ones. She has also been trained in explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) and is comfortable disarming
unfamiliar devices. Your character does not suffer the –2 penalty for disarming an explosive she did not build (see p. 114).
Good Time Management (••)
Book: Asylum, p. 50; Reliquary, p. 84 Prerequisite: Academics, Medicine or Science •• Effect: Years of working with demanding corporations have served your character well. She can make effective use of her time, provided that she’s not relying on anyone else who might slow her down. Each roll in an extended action has the time requirement reduced by one quarter. For instance, if the character is translating a text and each roll would normally require one hour, a character with this Merit only requires 45 minutes for each roll. Characters using Teamwork (see p. 134 of the World of Darkness Rulebook) cannot benefit from this Merit, or characters relying on machines (such as lab equipment). Good Time Management applies only to mundane actions. It does not apply to magical rituals of any kind, though it does apply to researching such rituals.
Higher Calling (••)
Book: Tome Of The Watchtowers, p. 125 Prerequisite: Resolve ••• Effect: Your character is especially devoted to a particular cause or purpose, gaining +1 die for Resolve rolls to resist coercion that runs counter to his calling. This only affects Resolve rolls, not Willpower or other Traits, and does not affect coercion that doesn’t involve the character’s Higher Calling. Drawbacks: If your character ever acts in a way contrary to his calling or abandons his dedication to it, the Storyteller may even remove this Merit.
Holistic Awareness (•••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 109 Effect: Your character is skilled in the arts of whole body healing, promoting health and recovery by keeping a person’s entire physiology balanced and strong. The resultis that he is able to treat sickness and some injuries (those not requiring surgery, and ones suffered to bashing or lethal damage but not aggravated) with a collection of natural remedies rather than resorting to a doctor or hospital. Make an Intelligence + Medicine roll once per day when your character spends an hour treating a patient. If the roll is successful, the patient’s healing times that day are halved. The worst of a patient’s injuries must be treated first. So, if he has suffered a lethal wound and a successful roll is made, the wound heals that day rather than in two days. If the patient has suffered nothing but bashing damage, all wounds are healed in mere minutes (about eight each). See Chapter 7, p. 175, for healing times. Dramatic Failure: Your character misdiagnoses or mistreats the problem, making it worse. The patient does not heal more quickly (he maintains normal healing times). He does, however, suffer an additional point of bashing damage. Your character cannot try to heal the patient again for his current injuries. Failure: The treatment has no effect and normal healing times apply to any bashing wounds or to a single lethal wound. If the Storyteller allows, your character can make a successive attempt to try again that day (see p. 132). If still no successes are gained to heal a single lethal wound or one or more bashing wounds, those must be allowed to heal naturally before another effort can be made. Thus, if no successes are rolled to heal one of a patient’s lethal wounds, that wound must heal naturally over two days before your character can try to heal another lethal wound. Success: Your character’s treatment is rewarding and the patient’s healing time that day is halved. Exceptional Success: The patient responds remarkably well to treatment. You can skip tomorrow’s roll altogether. It’s automatically assumed to succeed. In that case, two lethal wounds can be healed in two days. Suggested Equipment: Holistic medicines (+1), healing- touch manuals (+1), body-purifying foods and liquids (+1) Possible Penalties: Lack of remedies (-1 to -4), noisy environment (-1), imminent danger (-3), improvised facilities (-1)
Hollow Soul (••)
Book: Book Of Spirits, p. 109 Prerequisites: Easy Ride Effect: Your character can be possessed even by spirits that cannot normally use the Possession Numen. All the spirit needs to do is fetter to the character, and then it can possess him for a scene with a contested
Power + Finesse versus Resolve + Composure roll. The character can serve as a mouthpiece for spirits too weak to normally interact with the material world on a meaningful level, but also gets sought out by more powerful spirits who would prefer to abuse the character’s ability.
Hypnosis (•••)
Book: Mekhet - Shadown In The Dark, p. 120; Mage Chronicler's Guide, p. 115 Prerequisite: Medicine • or Occult • Effect: A character with this Merit can hypnotize others (or herself) using the Occult or Medicine Skills. The character must choose which of the two Skills the Merit is tied to, and write the Merit down on the character sheet as either Hypnosis (Medicine) or Hypnosis (Occult). The character can only use the chosen Skill to perform hypnosis. If the player wants the character to be able to use either Skills, he has to buy the Merit twice, once for each Skill. Many hypnotists use equipment such as pendulums, pocket watches, simple machines that project revolving spiral patterns and the like. A subject placed in a trance becomes easily manipulated and likely to respond positively to questioning or suggestion. This Merit is not limited to vampires or mages; it can be bought by any character. Hypnotizing a Subject Dice Pool: Manipulation + Occult or Medicine + equipment (hypnotist) - subject’s Resolve (if target resists) Action: Extended The hypnotist requires a number of successes equal to twice the target’s Willpower. Each roll represents one minute of work. If the hypnotist succeeds, the target falls into a trance and becomes malleable to suggestion. A hypnotist can hypnotize himself. Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The hypnotist fails even to calm the subject down, or makes a basic error in the process. The subject cannot be hypnotized again for a number of days equal to his Resolve. Failure: The hypnotist fails to induce trance in the time allowed, or gains no successes towards hypnotizing the subject. Success: The hypnotist makes progress, or gathers enough successes to place the subject in a trance. As long as the trance persists, any rolls the hypnotist’s player makes to influence the subject (eg. to induce the subject to impart information or to implant a posthypnotic suggestion which will make the subject behave in a certain way after the trance has ended) gain a bonus equal to the hypnotist’s dots in Manipulation. Exceptional Success: The hypnotist makes speedy headway towards hypnotizing the subject. Equipment: Pendulum or pocketwatch on chain (+1); audio visual stimulation (+1 to +3); white and featureless room (+1). Possible Penalties: Unfamiliar with subject (-2); language barrier (-3); distractions nearby (-2).
Informative (•• or ••••)
Book: The Free Council, p. 131 Prerequisites: Wits •• and •• in the appropriate Skill Effect: Your character may not be much of a writer or public speaker, but get him talking about his work and he becomes downright erudite. Your character can use the dots in one of his Mental Skills, up to a maximum of the dots in this Merit, in place of Expression to lecture, write papers or otherwise inform an audience. Your character’s performance may be dry or routine, but it will at least be clear and absorbing. You must specify the Mental Skill to which this Merit applies when you purchase it. You can purchase this Merit multiple times, selecting a different Mental Skill each time.
Interdisciplinary Specialty (•)
Book: The Free Council, p. 132 Prerequisites: ••• in two Skills and a Specialty Effect: Your character makes sense of the world through interdisciplinary thought. She sees metaphorical connections between different fields of study and, through those connections, achieves greater comfort and success more easily in both. This Merit lets a character duplicate her Specialty in one Skill with another Skill. For example, a Medicine Specialty in Anatomy could be duplicated under Weaponry to describe a character’s deadly precision. Or a Craft Specialty in Motorcycles could be duplicated under Drive to reflect a character’s honed experience. The character must have three dots in both Skills used by this Merit.
Note: Because the Storyteller judges access to any Merit on a case-by-case basis, the application of this Merit is left deliberately vague — it essentially saves a player an experience point in exchange for adding cohesion to her Specialties. Individual Storytellers must decide what Skills are suitable to be paired through this Merit based on the background and nature of the character involved. Some combinations (Anatomy as a Specialty for Weaponry, for example) will seem appropriate in some cases and inappropriate in others.
Language (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 109 (Errata Version) Effect: Your character knows an additional language besides his own, one that he can read, write and speak with fluency. If he wishes to convince others that he is a native speaker, however, the Storyteller might call for an Intelligence + Expression draw, contested by a reflexive Intelligence + Academics draw by anyone who is suspicious. You must specify which language your character is familiar with when purchasing this Merit. There is no limit to the number of languages that a character may learn, though each language must be purchased as a separate Merit.
Locus-Drinker (•••)
Book: Book Of Spirits, p. 109 Prerequisites: Mortal (non-supernatural) Effect: Your character can draw Essence from a locus, an ability normally reserved for spirits, werewolves and some mages. This requires a Morality roll that the character can only attempt once per day. Each success allows the character to draw out one point of Essence, and each point requires one minute of meditative effort. The character still has no ability to store that Essence within himself or use it for any means, but he can channel it to objects or creatures that can (such as spirits or the Cup of Life fetish, see p. 120). If the character somehow has the ability to use Essence, he may bend this Essence to that use immediately (but still cannot store it). Drawback: Possession of this Merit makes the character a threat to some (endangering their supplies of Essence) and a resource to others (potentially doubling their daily Essence acquisition). If the character isn’t careful with his ability, others may try to eliminate him or use him as a tool.
Make Do (• to •••)
Book: The Free Council, p. 132 Prerequisites: Wits ••• and • in the appropriate Skill Effect: Your character has some experience working under sub-optimal conditions. With poor tools or the wrong tools, she can change a tire, repair a roof or perform an emergency tracheotomy. When you purchase this Merit, assign it to a particular Skill (e.g., Make Do: Crafts). Reduce all penalties stemming from poor or inappropriate tools by the number of dots you have in this Merit. You still must need and have some kind of tools to attempt the action (you can’t patch a tire or perform a tracheotomy with your bare hands), but you can scrape by with poor substitutes using this Merit. Note that this Merit does not add dice to your pool; this Merit negates penalties. This Merit can be purchased multiple times to apply to multiple Skills.
Meditative Mind (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 109 Effect: Your character can effortlessly enter a meditative state when she chooses, and can remain in it for as long as she wishes. All environmental penalties imposed to Wits + Composure draws to meditate are ignored. Not even wound penalties apply to your character’s efforts to focus. See the Meditation Attribute task in Chapter 2, p. 51
Multi-Lingual (• to •••••)
Book: Reliquary, p. 85 Effect: The character either has knack for languages or grew up in a culture that teaches several different tongues. In addition to the character’s native language, the player may choose two languages for every dot in this Merit that the character speaks conversationally. Note that the character cannot speak effortlessly in these languages. Communicating quickly or over the telephone requires an Intelligence + Wits roll, and talking about anything esoteric (including humor, politics and certainly occult matters) imposes a penalty of –1 to –3 dice. Reading the language requires an Intelligence
+ Academics or Wits roll (depending on how the character learned the language; study or immersion, respectively), and writing something coherent in the language requires a roll of Wits + Academics or Intelligence (again, study or immersion). Even if these rolls succeed, the character’s utterances or writings obviously come from a non-native, unless the player rolls an exceptional success, in which case the character manages to sound like a native-born speaker of the language for a few moments. The player can spend one experience point for the character to become fluent in one of languages covered by this Merit.
Rational Explanation (••••)
Book: The Free Council, p. 133 Prerequisites: Resolve •• and Science or Academics •••• Effect: Your character relies on rational thought, reason and his education to make sense of a frightening and irrational world. When required to make a Resolve + Composure roll to resist fear, panic or some other mental breakdown in the face of the supernatural, the character may gain an edge from the reliability of reason. When spending a Willpower point to augment such a Resolve + Composure roll, the character may substitute his Science or Academics dots for the +3 dice bonus he would typically gain. If the Willpower point is spent to increase Resolve or Composure for the purpose of subtracting from an aggressor’s dice pool, this Merit increases the +2 dice bonus to +3 for a •••• Skill or +4 for a ••••• Skill. Specialties do not alter these effects. This Merit can only be purchased once for any character. It must be linked to one Skill — either Science or Academics — when it is purchased and cannot be changed thereafter.
Residual Spirit Energy (••)
Book: Book Of Spirits, p. 110 Prerequisites: Mortal (non-supernatural) Effect: Your character releases spirit energy — Essence — into the world when her blood spills. And spirits can sense it. No one has ever been able to explain why to the character’s satisfaction, but it’s true. Because Essence is such a valuable resource to spirits, the character has some measure of influence over them. She can bribe them for information or favors, and all it takes is a splash of blood. Each point of lethal damage the character suffers frees one point of Essence into the air, as long as the injury actually causes blood loss. For the next several turns before the Essence dissipates, any spirit nearby may take an action to consume the Essence. Drawback: While most spirits would rather preserve a renewable source of Essence, not all are so careful. Some might try to slaughter her all at once when they really, really need the Essence. Others notice her as a resource of their enemies and might decide to make a surgical strike against them (but at her). In short, the character becomes a target or potential possession to those spirits who don’t want to barter with her.
Scientist’s Sense (•••)
Book: The Free Council, p. 133 Prerequisite: Science ••• and a Specialty Effect: Your character has an intuitive sense of her scientific discipline, born of experience. Good decisionmaking is habitual for her when it comes to her work. This Merit grants all the benefits of the Common Sense Merit (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 108) but only regarding actions dealing with the character’s Science Specialty. The dice pool for the reflexive action to check the character’s “common sense” is Wits + Science (instead of Composure). At the Storyteller’s discretion, this “gut check” roll can be used to gauge the target number of successes on an extended action using the subject Specialty, in addition to all the normal uses of the Common Sense Merit. If a character has both this Merit and the Common Sense Merit, each may be used once per chapter.
Spirit Tongue (•••)
Book: Book Of Spirits, p. 90 Effect: No human can speak the language of the spirits (called “Babel” by some, or the “First Tongue” by others) perfectly. A human’s mouth and tongue are literally incapable of capturing the nuances of this otherworldly language. This Merit, however, at least allows a human to make a go at it. The character with this Merit can express very simple ideas (one to three-word phrases) without any roll. More complex communication requires a Manipulation + Expression roll. This roll may suffer negative dice modifiers (maximum of –5 dice) if the
circumstances are tense or if the ideas communicated are based solely in human experience (i.e., spirits would have a difficult time comprehending the idea much less the language involved).
Steady Driver (•)
Book: Midnight Roads, p. 59 Prerequisites: Drive •• Effects: Sometimes, effective driving is about achieving calmness, about driving with your head more than your hands. A character who possesses this Merit does just that: when driving, the character always makes Resolve + Drive rolls instead of using Dexterity, whether or not it’s a high-traffic scenario (see above, “Hightraffic Driving”).
Technophile (• to ••)
Book: Armory, p. 208 Effect: Through professional experience or a hobbyist’s fanaticism, your character is exceptionally knowledgeable with regard to one specific type of equipment, chosen upon purchase of this Merit. With one point in this Merit, its focus is relatively narrow: Edged Weapons, Handguns, Consumer Vehicles, 20thCentury French Military Equipment and so forth. With two points, the Merit’s focus may be broader: for example, Melee Weapons, Firearms, Vehicles, 20th-Century Military Equipment. With regard to items that fall within the chosen focus only, this Merit functions as the Encyclopedic Knowledge Merit (see p. 109, the World of Darkness Rulebook). With a successful roll, your character is fully versed in the performance, history and trivia of any specific item he encounters. In addition to identifying an item, he can recite the likely metallic composition of an ancient sword, the ballistic characteristics of an enemy’s sidearm, the top speed of a sports car or the explosive yield of a nuclear warhead. This Merit confers no actual bonuses or abilities when the character attempts to use an item that falls within his field of study. Unlike Encyclopedic Knowledge, this Merit is available after character creation, though the character’s actions and interests over an extended period of time should justify the purchase.
Trained Memory (•)
Book: Guardians Of The Veil, p. 46 Prerequisite: Composure ••, Investigation • Effect: Your character can remember the events of a single scene or a day’s worth of study perfectly as long as she has a turn to concentrate. During this turn (in which she cannot engage in combat or other stressful situations), the character uses a special technique to commit what she has learned to memory. (You should write a brief note about this on the character sheet.) After that, during peaceful times, you no longer need to make dice rolls to remember details about that event or piece of knowledge, and you can ask the Storyteller to fill in details that you might have forgotten. Drawback: Just as for any other character, you must make an Intelligence + Composure roll for the character to remember any additional details about a subject during stressful situations (such as combat). You gain no bonus to this roll; your enhanced memory is a matter of training and organized thinking, not off-thecuff recall.
Trained Observer (• or •••)
Book: Dogs Of War, p. 38 Prerequisites: Wits ••• or Composure ••• Effect: A Trained Observer can spot the smallest anomaly. No detail escapes his notice. With the one-dot version, the TO ignores penalties of up to -3 on Perception rolls. The three dot version gives Perception rolls the Rote Action quality (see “Rote Actions”, the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 134).
Trip Sitter (•••)
Book: Magical Traditions, p. 137 Prerequisite: Composure ••• Effect: Your character has some skill when it comes to guiding others through intense psychoactive head trips. Perhaps it’s a soothing voice or calming presence, or maybe you’ve just been through enough entheogenic experiences to know what effects are going to hit the user, and when. In your presence, a user can ignore up to two dice of penalties while undergoing her trip. If you’re present at the end of the experience, as
well, the user gains +3 dice to the Resolve + Composure roll made to resist Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder.
Vision (• to •••••)
Book: The Free Council, p. 133 Prerequisites: Intelligence, Wits, Resolve or Composure •••• Effect: Your character has vision. He is capable of visualizing his wants with great clarity and knows how to use that vision to guide his work. A character with two or three dots in this Merit has vision on a smaller scale — he sees his sculptures, inventions or performances with unusual clarity. A character with four or five dots in this Merit has a uniquely vivid vision of whole worlds. Whether he uses his vision to paint, to govern or to achieve some other aim is up to him. The character’s vision helps him accomplish his goals. Essentially, this Merit gives a skilled character a chance to gain more than the usual +3 dice when he spends Willpower. By spending a Willpower point, your character can reflexively rely on his vision to “assist himself” on any extended action he performs, whether it’s drawing the plans for a building, sculpting a statue or speaking in front of an audience (see “Teamwork,” p. 134 of the World of Darkness Rulebook). The character rolls Vision + an appropriate Skill, and each success is added as bonus dice to the next roll on the extended action. Your character may substitute his dots in Vision for either an Attribute or a Skill when rolling to assist another character on an extended action. The Storyteller has final say on whether a given trait can be replaced, however. Vision may be no substitute for Strength when lifting a boulder. Willpower points spent to activate this Merit don’t grant any of the usual effects of Willpower points; they simply allow the character to use the Merit. This Merit does not enable a character to spend more than one Willpower point per turn. Though a character may be said to have gained this Merit through supernatural means, Vision is not in itself a supernatural power. A character’s vision for the future may be the result of some supernatural experience or may simply the product of a profound imagination.
Unseen Sense (•••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 109 Prerequisite: Mortal (non-supernatural); Wits •• Effect: Your character has a “sixth sense” when it comes to the supernatural. Perhaps his hair stands on end, goose bumps race along his arms, or a shiver runs up his spine. Regardless of the manner, his body reacts to the presence of unseen forces. He can’t see or hear anything, and in fact he might not know at first what causes this reaction. It might be a response to a specific type of supernatural phenomenon such as ghosts or vampires, or it might be a general sense that something isn’t right. Over time and with a little trial and error, he might be able to qualify what his body tries to tell him. The specific type of supernatural phenomenon to which your character is sensitive must be determined when this Merit is purchased. It can be something as vague as a creepy feeling when in the presence of ghosts, or something as specific as a sudden chill when a vampire is nearby. The Storyteller has final say on the exact nature and trigger of your character’s sixth sense, and can keep its nature secret if desired, leaving you to figure it out during play. Only mortal, mundane characters can possess this Merit. The pivotal moment of becoming or being changed into a being with supernatural capabilities eliminates it.
Unseen Sense (Spirits) (• to ••••)
Book: Book Of Spirits, p. 111 Prerequisites: Mortal (non-supernatural); Wits •• This is an optional Merit, expanded from the World of Darkness Rulebook to focus on spirits and spiritual phenomena. Effect: Your character has a sixth sense about spirits and the strange phenomena that surround them and their world. Regardless of how much the character knows about the occult or the Shadow Realm (she may know absolutely nothing), she has some instinctual understandings and can often sense when spiritual events are going on around her. Each dot in this Merit adds a category of phenomenon to those that the character can sense. The character reacts when phenomena of the included sort are present. How the character reacts varies from one to the next. The hairs on her neck may stand up, a chill may run down her spine or anything appropriate.
• The character may sense verges and loci, feeling the emotional weight of the area around her. With an extended Wits + Composure roll, the character may be able to feel what sort of resonance the area has. The number of required successes is equal to 10 minus the locus’s rating, and each roll represents one turn. •• The character may sense when spiritual Numina or Aspects are used in her vicinity (within 20 feet). This kicks in when the acting spirit or the Numen’s target is in that range, not otherwise. When a Numen or Aspect targets her, she may roll a reflexive Wits + Composure roll at a penalty of the offending spirit’s Finesse rating to get a rough idea of the Numen’s effect. Even on a success, her knowledge is very vague. Only exceptional successes are at all clear. ••• The character may sense when a spirit in Twilight passes within 20 feet of her. She may roll a reflexive Wits + Composure roll to determine the rough direction the spirit is moving and whether it is hurrying. If the spirit is attempting stealth, roll its Finesse as a contested roll. •••• The character may sense when spirits riding humans or animals pass within 20 feet of her. She may roll a reflexive Wits + Composure roll, contested reflexively by the spirit’s Finesse, to pick out which creature is ridden. Unseen Sense (Spirits) has a drawback, but only in that characters who act on their subtle impulses can attract unwanted attention from spirits who don’t like to be noticed.
Well-Traveled (•)
Book: Reliquary, p. 85 Effect: The character has either made a study of customs and practices in cultures other than his own or, as the name suggests, traveled extensively enough to know such customs. The character receives the 9-again benefit on any Social roll involving dealing with a foreign culture, or Mental roll for remembering the practices and mores of such a culture. This knowledge is purely practical; the character might remember that it’s rude to show one’s bare head in a given country, but not why.
Whispers (•)
Book: The Mysterium, p. 179 Your character’s mind has ripped open, allowing tendrils of underlying primordial truths to reach into his psyche. He can purchase the Dream Merit (see Mage: The Awakened, p. 82) even if he is not a mage, and may attempt to gain insights through that Merit as an instant action while conscious rather than requiring the usual hour of meditation or sleep. However, each time he accesses Dream in this accelerated manner further erodes his sanity, requiring a character with a Wisdom (or Morality) higher than five dots to make a degeneration roll.
Physical Merits Ambidextrous (•••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 110 Effect: Your character does not suffer the -2 penalty for using his off-hand in combat or to perform other actions. Available at character creation only.
Armored Fighting (•• or ••••)
Book: Armory Reload, p. 84 Prerequisites: Strength •••, Stamina ••• Effect: Langschwert groups that emphasize historical techniques learn to fight in full armor. They know how to move and conserve energy in heavy chain mail or even full plate. These skills aren’t exclusive to European martial artists. They’re also found in Japanese koryu and modern military combatives. Your character knows how to fight in heavy armor. Every two dots in this Merit (at •• or ••••) reduce her Brawl, Melee Defense and Speed penalties for heavy armor by 1.
Athletics Dodge (•)
Book: Dogs Of War, p. 38 Prerequisites: Dexterity •• and Athletics • Effect: Whenever your character performs a dodge (see “Dodge”, the World of Darkness Rulebook, page 156) you can add his Athletics Skill dots to his Defense instead of doubling his Defense. He essentially draws on his knowledge of how his body moves to parry and evade attacks rather than rely on his raw ability alone. Athletics Dodge applies against incoming Brawl-and Weaponry-based attacks, against thrown-weapon attacks, and against firearms attacks made within close-combat range. Your character can move up to his Speed and perform an Athletics Dodge maneuver in a turn. A character can possess this Merit and also the Brawling Dodge and Weaponry Dodge Merits, but only one can be used per turn.
Berserker (• to •••••)
Book: Armory Reload, p. 113 Prerequisites: Resolve •••, Stamina •••, and Supplemented Skill or Style • Effect: The character supplements his chosen style or Skill with his own maddened fury. Berserk characters work themselves into a violent rage, sometimes aided through the use of drugs, which have the usual effect on their physiology (see p. 176, World of Darkness Rulebook). Working oneself into this fury requires an intense exercise of will, costing the character one Willpower point and an instant action. Once the character has entered the berserkergang, she may use any of the maneuvers listed below. These benefits can be combined with one another or with an associated Fighting Style Merit during the same turn, so long as the drawbacks or necessary expenditures do not contradict (for example, a character cannot benefit from Strength in the Fury when using a Fighting Style maneuver that otherwise costs the character her Defense). A character in a berserker haze occasionally has difficulty telling friend from foe, and must make a reflexive Resolve + Composure roll to avoid assaulting allies during any turn in which those allies present a more tempting target than an enemy. Characters who are already prone to a form of supernatural rage (such as vampires and werewolves) must roll Resolve + Composure during every turn in which they take advantage of this style. If they fail, they fall into their maddened state (frenzy, Kuruth, etc.) and lose the benefits of being berserk. The character remains in a berserk state until she either spends a second Willpower to calm herself, she is rendered unconscious, or the combat comes to an end. Characters who fight in a berserk haze often purchase Iron Stamina to represent their ability to ignore pain. The Brawl and Weaponry Skills are equally appropriate for use with this style, as are the Two-Weapon (usually axes), Shield, Knife, Stick and Staff Fighting Styles. Styles that require careful precision such as Evasive Striking or Light Sword are not appropriate. Defensive styles are explicitly incompatible with the aggressiveness required of berserkers. Dots purchased in this Merit provide access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next.
Strength in the Fury (•): A berserker goes all-out, all the time, and her body rewards her heedless actions with increased power and speed. The berserker gains an additional die (for a total of three) when taking allout attacks (page 157, World of Darkness Rulebook). Adrenaline Rush (••): The berserker ignores pain and her foes’ attacks only drive her madness, pushing her to brutally defeat them. The character gains a point of armor against bashing and lethal attacks as she casually shrugs off weak attacks. Inhuman Alacrity (•••): A berserker’s opponents are shocked and frightened by the speed and ferocity that manifests in her actions, making her far more difficult to hit. The character gains an additional 2 dice (for a total of four dice) when using Willpower to avoid suffering an attack. Ignorant in the Face of Death (••••): The berserker’s rage overrides her physical limitations, pushing her to greater feats even when others would fall in pain. In a mad, violently fit, the character can ignore some or all wound penalties for a turn. Drawback: The character sacrifices part of her Defense in any turn during which she ignores wound penalties on a one-for-one basis (for example, by ignoring two dice of wound penalties, she suffers a –2 to her Defense trait). If she has already applied her full Defense against an incoming attack during the turn, she may not use this maneuver. The character may still use Willpower to enhance her attack or Defense, if she so chooses, but may not utilize any other maneuver or supernatural ability that necessitates the loss of Defense (such as an all-out attack). Bloody-Handed Bastard (•••••): The berserker gouges at eyes, bites at ears, and tears at genitals. Her behavior is so violent that she inflicts lasting damage on her foes, regardless of weapon. The character’s attacks inflict lethal damage. Drawback: The character sacrifices her Defense during a turn in which she uses this maneuver. If she has already applied her Defense against an incoming attack during the turn, she may not use this maneuver.
Brawling Dodge (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 110 Prerequisite: Strength •• and Brawl • Effect: Whenever your character performs a dodge (see “Dodge”, p. 156), you can choose to add his Brawl Skill dots to his Defense instead of doubling his Defense. He essentially draws on his training in blocking and evading attacks rather than relying on his raw ability alone. While this might provide little benefit to a brawling novice, it can give the advanced fighter an edge. Brawling Dodge applies against incoming Brawl- and Weaponry-based attacks, against thrown-weapon attacks, and against Firearms attacks made within close-combat range. Your character can move up to his Speed and perform a Brawling Dodge maneuver in a turn. A character can possess both the Brawling Dodge and Weaponry Dodge Merits, but only one can be used per turn.
Combat Art (• to ••••)
Book: Armory Reload, p. 117 Prerequisites: Dexterity •••, Stamina ••, Composure ••, Supplemented Skill or Style • Effect: The character supplements her chosen style or Skill with a carefully-trained showmanship. Her movements are graceful yet expedient, her blades or fists flashing through the air as she steps lightly upon the balls of her feet. Combat artists often learn their skills in professions that are not traditionally associated with violence, namely the theatre and film, but many also train to showcase their own skills during martial arts demos or non-combative martial arts competitions. These maneuvers represent those who value style over substance. As such, this supplemental style may be purchased for the Expression Skill, representing those whose combat training is wholly theatrical. If used to supplement Expression, the style cannot be used effectively in combat, and the fourth tier of the Merit cannot be purchased. Disarm, Fast Reflexes, Fighting Finesse, Quick Draw and Student of the Blade are all popular Merits for those whose primary combat training is primarily for show. Those combat artists who reside in Hollywood often possess the Stunt Driver Merit, as well. Trick shooters and show marksmen often possess Gunslinger. The Expression and Weaponry Skills are equally appropriate for use with this style, though Athletics, Brawl and Firearms versions are widely learned, as well. Fighting Styles typically supplemented by Combat Art include Aggressive and Evasive Striking, Control, Knives, Light Sword, Throwing and Two-Weapon, while Combat Marksmanship, Sniping and even Archery find occasional crossover with this style. The combination of Combat Art with the Flexible Weapons Fighting Style can be stunning in martial arts competitions. Combat Art is rarely combined with the teaching of those schools that teachings are overwhelmingly pragmatic, such as Krav Maga. Exceptions do exist, however; Krav Maga’s popularity in entertainment demands stunt persons capable of convincingly performing the vicious style, for example. Particularly
traditional schools may frown upon Combat Art, as well, though many perform careful rituals and katas that can be considered powerful performance in its own right. Dots purchased in this Merit provide access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. Flourish (•): The character performs an example of her style in order to threaten rather than entertain (though audiences often experience a thrill when witnessing such a feat) as an instant action. She gains a bonus to Intimidation rolls equal to her rating in the supplemented Skill or Fighting Style. This bonus lasts until the end of the scene or the character suffers a successful attack from an opponent (whichever comes first). Characters who enter the scene after the flourish is performed are not affected by it. Drawback: The flourishing character’s bonus is penalized by others who know her supplemented Skill or Fighting Style, as they might see through the emptiness of her action. For each dot the target of the character’s intimidation possesses in the same Skill or Fighting Style as that being supplemented, subtract one die from the flourishing character’s roll. Against sufficiently skilled opponents, this can completely cancel the bonus granted by the maneuver and even remove dice from the base Intimidation pool. A master sees through such petty posturing and thinks less of the student as a result. Staged Combat (••): The character has trained to make perfectly safe and choreographed combat seem exceedingly real. The character gains a bonus to Expression or Subterfuge rolls to falsify combat equal to her rating in the supplemented Skill or Fighting Style. Drawback: This maneuver can only be used with another individual who is working to fake the fight (and typically functions as a teamwork action). Dancing for Mars (•••): The character gains a bonus equal to her rating in her supplemented Skill or Fighting Style to Expression rolls when utilizing her combat prowess as a performance piece (those using Combat Art to supplement Expression may double their Expression rating). This may be used to win competitions, secure a job teaching martial arts, or even intimidate one’s enemies. The bonus does not, however, ever apply to attacks made with the Skill, and use of this maneuver usually constitutes an extended action. Function Follows Form (••••): The character has learned how to marry life and art, and her extensive training allows her to utilize the grace she exemplifies on the stage or gym mat to out-maneuver her enemies on the mean streets of the World of Darkness. The character gains one half of her rating in the supplemented Skill or Fighting Style, rounded up, as bonus dice to her attack roll and as a bonus to her Defense (which is not doubled in the case of a Dodge maneuver). Drawback: The character must spend one Willpower point during any turn in which she benefits from this maneuver.
Combatant (••)
Book: Armory Reload, p. 181 Prerequisite: Resolve ••, Brawl, Firearms or Weaponry • Effect: Your character either has training in how to handle himself in a fight, or has been in enough crisis situations that he doesn’t lose his head when people start getting hurt. A number of combat hacks involving the effects of pain and stress do not apply to this character. These hacks are: Freezing Under Fire, Lethal Stun and Unable to Attack.
Direction Sense (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 110 Effect: Your character has an innate sense of direction that instinctively allows him to remain oriented. He can enter unfamiliar territory and always retrace his steps back to his starting point, and can orient himself to any of the compass points (i.e., face north, face south) without references.
Disarm (••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 110 Prerequisite: Dexterity ••• and Weaponry •• Effect: Your character has refined his Weaponry Skill to the extent that he can use a weapon to disarm opponents in close combat. When making a normal attack, compare your successes to the opponent’s Dexterity. If you get a number of successes equal to or greater than the opponent’s Dexterity, you can choose to have your character disarm him instead of doing damage. A weapon lands a number of yards away from the opponent equal to your successes rolled. Disarming is a different activity than specifically attacking or breaking weapons or items carried by opponents. See “Equipment” (p. 139) for rules on doing that.
Driving Style: High Performance Driving (• to ••••)
Book: Midnight Roads, p. 56 Prerequisites: Dexterity •••, Resolve ••, Drive •• Effect: Your character is trained in advanced driving techniques. Maybe he’s a cop or a federal agent. Maybe he’s a stuntman for film and TV or the wheelman in a heist gang. Dots purchases in this Merit allow access to special driving maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. Your character cannot possess “Smuggler’s Turn” until he has “Speed Demon.” Maneuvers and effects are described below. Speed Demon (•): For this character, a vehicle’s Maximum Speed is now the same as the vehicle’s Safe Speed. The character is very comfortable with driving fast, and thus does not suffer penalties for driving in excess of a vehicle’s Safe Speed (see p.143, the World of Darkness Rulebook). Smuggler’s Turn (••): Also known as a J-Turn, this is essentially a radical U-turn used at high speed: the driver puts the car into a controlled skid, the car turns around, and as it’s turning, he puts it into gear and keeps driving — except now, in the other direction. Used by bootleggers during Prohibition, it’s a great way to escape a pursuing vehicle, if it works. The character must succeed on a Dexterity + Drive + Handling roll to make this turn. In doing so, any pursuing vehicles lose the Handling bonus when trying to follow, unless the pursuing driver also possesses this Merit. Safe Passage (•••): Driving through strange or unsafe conditions — icy road, debris-littered highway, gridlocked highway — invokes penalties for most drivers, but not this character. He’s able to zip past wreckage and control his car even when in a fishtailing hydroplane. Doing so still requires a Dexterity + Drive + Handling roll, but the character can ignore up to three dice of penalty caused by bad or unsafe conditions. Offensive Driving (••••): When locked in vehicle pursuit (see pp. 69–71, the World of Darkness Rulebook), it’s good to drive in a way that distracts and disrupts the other driver. Whether the character is the pursuer or the pursued, he can perform a number of distracting and disrupting techniques to hamper the other car. The quarry might drive over the median, clip trashcans with his bumper to knock them over or even careen through a busy intersection. The pursuer can perform maneuvers such as bumping the back end of the fleeing car or distracting the fleeing driver by weaving in and out of traffic behind him (even disappearing momentarily behind, say, an 18-wheeler) inan effort to draw the driver’s attention away from what he should be paying attention to: the road. The effect is the same for whether the character is the pursuer or the pursued: the tricky driving hampers an opponent’s driving. The opponent’s Acceleration and Handling scores are halved (round up) as he is distracted. Drawback: The character must expend a Willpower point at the beginning of vehicle pursuit to achieve this effect. Moreover, by the end of it, the vehicle the character was driving assumes an automatic loss of two Structure from the highly offensive driving.
Entering Strike (••)
Book: Armory Reload, p. 72 Prerequisite: Dexterity ••, Brawl ••• Effect: Your character knows how to strike an opponent to upset his balance, making it easy for you to take him down. If you inflict damage with a Brawl-based strike, you gain a dice bonus equal to the damage you inflicted to a subsequent grappling hold (or shihonage, if you know the Aikido Fighting Style) attempt. This must be your next attack. Drawback: Your Defense does not apply during the turn in which you attempt an entering strike.
Equipped Grappling (••)
Book: Armory Reload, p. 89 Prerequisite: Dexterity •••, Brawl ••, Weaponry •• Effect: Your character knows how to use a blunt weapon to enhance her holds and locks. She presses the weapon against joints and muscle groups, or forces compliance with a few short blows. If she has a blunt weapon in hand, add the weapon’s Size to her Strength + Brawl pool whenever she attempts overpowering maneuvers. Drawbacks: This benefit doesn’t apply to initial attempts to establish a grapple. It only works with weapons that have a maximum Size of 3.
Fast Reflexes (• or ••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 110 Prerequisites: Dexterity ••• Effect: +1 Initiative per dot Your character’s mix of sharp reflexes and steady nerves helps him get the drop on adversaries.
Fighting Finesse (••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 110 Prerequisite: Dexterity ••• and Weaponry •• Effect: Your character prefers to fight with a chosen weapon in a manner that favors agility over power. With that one weapon (a rapier or katana, for example), you may substitute your character’s Dexterity for Strength when making attack rolls. This Merit may be purchased multiple times to gain agility with more weapons, one for each purchase.
Fighting Style: Aikido (Throwing; • to •••••)
Book: Armory Reload, p. 71 Prerequisites: Dexterity ••, Wits •• and Brawl •• Effect: Your character is a skilled practitioner of aikido, or another martial art that emphasizes throwing the opponent. She knows how to blend with the force of an attack and amplify it to send her enemy sprawling. Dots purchased in this Merit provide access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. Aikido maneuvers are based on the Brawl Skill and work in conjunction with unarmed combat. (Some aspects of traditional aikido involve a weapon, but they are beyond the specific purview of this Merit). Ukemi (“Receiving;” •): Your character knows how to fall properly and get up quickly. He may stand up from a prone position (but not both) once per turn as a reflexive action, and is considered to have one point of armor against bashing damage caused by falls – but not other sources. Aiki (“Harmonious Energy;” ••): Your character is skilled enough to defend with a throw by avoiding the attack and seizing his opponent’s balance. If he forgoes his standard Defense, roll Dexterity + Brawl; if the result exceeds the opponent’s damage roll the character suffers no damage and immediately applies a grappling hold or (once he attains the third maneuver) shihonage. He may employ this maneuver against Brawl, Weaponry or close-range Firearms attacks. Drawback: This maneuver constitutes your character’s action for the turn. Shihonage (“Four Directions Throw;” •••): The character can throw an opponent quickly and forcefully, without getting tangled up in a clinch. Treat a shihonage throw like a standard Brawl strike attack, except that it also knocks the opponent prone up to as many feet away as your Size + Brawl successes in any direction the character prefers. Renzoku-waza (“Combination Techniques;” ••••): The character can attempt multiple grappling or shihonage attacks per turn, or he can defend with multiple throws using the Aiki maneuver. He may make one additional grapple or shihonage for each point of Dexterity that he has above 2. Each extra action is rolled at a cumulative –1 modifier. Thus, he can attempt two grapples or shihonage at Dexterity 3 (with the second at a – 1 modifier), three at Dexterity 4 (at a 0, –1 then –2 modifier to dice rolls) and four at Dexterity 5 (at 0, –1, –2 and –3 to each dice roll, in turn). Drawback: If the character’s first action is anything but a grapple or shihonage attempt he cannot use this benefit. Kokyu-ho (“Breath Power;” •••••): Your character’s throws are so strong that he can either throw someone double the usual distance with his shihonage, or inflict lethal damage with it. Drawback: Spend one Willpower point per attack. Note that this Willpower expenditure does not add three dice to the attack.
Fighting Style: Archery (• to ••••)
Book: Armory, p. 208 Prerequisites: Strength ••, Dexterity ••, Athletics •• Effect: Your character has devoted years of practice to the bow. She may be a competitive archer, a lowtech hunter or a medieval history enthusiast. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. So, your character can’t have “Rapid Nock” until she has “Draw and Loose.” The maneuvers and their effects are described below. All of the following maneuvers work only with bows. Draw and Loose (•): Your character’s arm muscles are well-toned for the demanding task of repeatedly drawing a heavy bow. She gains +1 Strength for the purposes of a bow’s minimum Strength, Damage and Range. Rapid Nock (••): Your character can maintain a withering rate of fire. Once per turn, she may “reload” a bow as a reflexive action. Arcing Fire (•••): Arrows, like all other projectiles, travel in ballistic arcs. Your character is a master of estimating range, wind and other factors to arc shots much farther than they would travel if fired directly. Double the Ranges of any bow your character uses. Plunging Fire (••••): Your character can eschew direct attacks in favor of launching arrows high into the air to plummet straight down on hapless victims. Your character’s bow attacks suffer no penalties for target
concealment behind solid objects, so long as the target lacks overhead protection and your character can see any part of the target by which to gauge her location. For example, a target hiding behind a log with her foot sticking out applies no penalty, but a character in a fetal curl on a van’s floorboards receives normal protection. Drawback: Your character may use this maneuver only outdoors or in enclosed spaces large enough to provide for several hundred feet of vertical flight (e.g., football stadiums).
Fighting Style: Boxing (• to •••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 110 Prerequisites: Strength •••, Stamina •• and Brawl•• Effect: Your character is trained in the art of boxing, able to deliver swift, powerful punches, and to duck and weave away from opponents’ attacks. He might have participated in the sport in high school or college, or made a go of it professionally. Or he might have taken some classes at the local health club as a form of exercise. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. So, your character can’t have “Duck and Weave” until he has “Body Blow.” The maneuvers and their effects are described below, most of which are based on the Brawl Skill. Body Blow (•): Your character can deliver powerful blows that leave opponents reeling and gasping for air. If successes inflicted in a single Brawl attack equal or exceed a target’s Size, the victim loses his next action. Duck and Weave (••): Your character is trained to instinctively duck and evade an opponent’s blows. Use the higher of your character’s Dexterity or Wits to determine his Defense when dealing with Brawl-based attacks only (not against Weaponry attacks). If a combination of Brawl- and Weaponry-based attacks is focused on your character in the same turn, use his normal Defense against both. Combination Blows (•••): Your character’s training and experience allow him to devastate opponents with a flurry of rapid blows. He can make two Brawl attacks against the same target in a single action. The second attack suffers a -1 penalty. Drawback: Your character cannot use his Defense against any attack in the same turn in which he intends to use this maneuver. If he uses Defense against attacks that occur earlier in the Initiative roster, before he can perform this maneuver, he cannot perform the maneuver in the turn. He is too busy bobbing and weaving out of the way of attacks. Haymaker (••••): Your character can deliver powerful, accurate blows capable of knocking an opponent unconscious with a single punch. A single Brawl attack that equals or exceeds the target’s Size in damage might knock him unconscious. A Stamina roll is made for the victim. If it succeeds, he is conscious but he still loses his next action due to the Body Blow (see above). If it fails, he is unconscious for a number of turns equal to the damage done. Drawback: Your character cannot use his Defense against any attack in the same turn in which he intends to use this maneuver. If he uses Defense against attacks that occur earlier in the Initiative roster, before he can perform this maneuver, he cannot perform the maneuver in the turn. He is too busy bobbing and weaving out of the way of attacks. Brutal Blow (•••••): Your character’s accuracy and power are such that his fists are lethal weapons, able to injure or kill opponents. A brutal blow inflicts lethal instead of bashing damage. Drawback: Spend one Willpower point per attack. Note that this Willpower expenditure does not add three dice to the attack.
Fighting Style: Chain Weapons (• to ••••)
Book: Armory, p. 209 Prerequisites: Strength ••, Dexterity •••, Weaponry ••• Effect: Your character is trained in the difficult art of fighting with chain weapons. Chain weapons are notoriously unpredictable unless mastered — a poorly skilled fighter is as likely to tangle or cut himself as he is to harm an opponent. Your character’s training is likely to have been formalized, having learned the skill at a martial arts dojo or perhaps in stage combat for the theater. (Note that a character using chained weapons who possesses no Dots in this Merit suffers an automatic –2 to all attack rolls.) Dots purchased with this Merit allow access to unique combat maneuvers with chain weapons. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the subsequent maneuver. So, your character cannot have “Hand Bind” until he has “Impenetrable Defense.” These maneuvers and their effects are described below. All maneuvers are based upon the Weaponry Skill. Impenetrable Defense (•): Your character may choose not to attack in a given turn, and instead whirl the chain in the direction of her opponent (or opponents). During the entire turn, regardless of Initiative, you may add +2 to your character’s Defense to deflect incoming blows. Your character also takes no penalty for defending against multiple opponents until she faces three attacks. The first and second attacks made against her cause no negative modifiers to her Defense. Hand Bind (••): This defensive maneuver is made against an incoming attack (Brawl or Weaponry-based). When a foe attacks with a weapon or with his body, your character wraps the attacking limb with the chain,
grappling it with a Strength + Weaponry attack. The foe’s Defense is not subtracted from this roll, but his successes on the attack roll are. If your character is successful, the limb is bound with the chain, and the opponent can attempt to escape this next turn with a Strength + Brawl roll. If the foe achieved more successes on his attack, his attack is still diminished by whatever successes you rolled on the Hand Bind roll. This maneuver must be done on the attacker’s Initiative turn, and performing this action means your character cannot make an attack this turn. Outside Choke (•••): Your character attempts to wrap the chain around her opponent’s neck. Roll Strength + Weaponry. The victim may attempt to free himself on his next action with a Strength + Brawl roll, which is reduced by your character’s Strength +1. This maneuver is not to cause damage or kill the opponent — this maneuver is to render him unconscious by pressing the chain against the arteries of his neck, thus halting blood flow to his brain. If your character is successful on the grapple, she can begin to choke the victim on the following turn. For every turn that the choke hold is not broken, the victim suffers an additional –1 on all rolls to resist. When your character has accumulated a number of uninterrupted turns equal to the victim’s Stamina, he falls unconscious. This maneuver, when complete, causes a single point of bashing damage to the victim. This combat maneuver is ineffective against characters who need not breathe. Whirl and Thrust (••••): Your character at this level is highly adept at using chains, and can make focused attacks with any part of the weapon. By whirling the chain a few times, she can build momentum on a single attack, which can be made with startling accuracy. On a targeted attack, you can ignore up to –2 of penalties associated with directed attacks. In other words, attacks to an opponent’s torso or limbs are done at no penalty, attacks the head would be at –1, to the hand –2 and to the eye –3. Drawback: Your character negates her Defense for the rest of the turn. If your character has applied her Defense against any incoming attack before her turn, she may not perform this maneuver.
Fighting Style: Combat Marksmanship (• to •••••)
Book: 13th Precint, p. 80; Armory, p. 210 Prerequisites: Strength ••, Dexterity ••, Composure••• and Firearms •• Effect: Your character is not only proficient with firearms, but has trained extensively to maintain her accuracy during the stress of combat. She most likely has experience in law enforcement or the military, though she may simply be a self-defense advocate or a dedicated hobbyist with uncommon self-possession. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. So, your character can’t have Tactical Reload until she has Shoot First. The maneuvers and their effects are described below, most of which are based on the Firearms Skill. Shoot First (•): Your character’s trained reflexes give her a split-second edge in a gunfight. Whenever she begins a combat situation with a firearm already in her hand, she gains a bonus to her Initiative roll equal to her Firearms Skill. If she also has the Quick Draw Merit for firearms (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 113) and draws a firearm during the first turn of combat, this bonus is added retroactively, starting at the beginning of the second turn of combat. Tactical Reload (••): Your character’s muscle memory enables her to reload without conscious thought. Once per turn, she may reload a firearm that feeds from a detachable magazine or use a speedloader to reload a revolver, as a reflexive action. Double Tap (•••): When using a lever-action, pump action or semi-automatic firearm, your character may make short burst attacks as if her gun were capable of autofire. Bayonet Range (••••):Your character can maintain accuracy and control even when facing an opponent at arm’s length. The target’s Defense does not apply to fire arm attacks your character makes within closecombat range (see p. 155, the World of Darkness Rulebook). Rapid Fire (•••••): Your character’s concentration is such that she can unleash a hail of bullets. In a single action, she may make one extra Firearms attack for each point by which her Composure exceeds 2. Each extra attack is made at a cumulative –1 modifier. Thus, she can perform a total of two attacks at Composure 3 (the second of which is at –1), three attacks at Composure 4 (the third of which is at –2) and four at Composure 5 (the fourth of which is at –3). She must declare the targets of all attacks before rolling the first one. Each attack not directed against her initial target suffers an additional –1 penalty. All attacks made with this maneuver must be single shots. Drawback: Your character cannot use her Defense against any attack in the same turn in which she intends to use this maneuver. If she uses Defense against attacks that occur earlier in the Initiative roster, before she can perform this maneuver, she cannot use Rapid Fire this turn. In addition, your character may not use this maneuver with bolt-action or break-action firearms.
Fighting Style: Fencing (• to ••••) Book: Armory, p. 210 Prerequisites: Dexterity •••, Weaponry •••
Effect: Your character is trained in the art of fencing. He likely learned this skill at a fencing academy, and is familiar with the sport in more than a passing capacity. Dots purchased with this Merit allow access to unique combat maneuvers using fencing weapons. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the subsequent maneuver. So, your character cannot have “Feint” until he has “Thrust.” These maneuvers and their effects are described below. All maneuvers are based upon the Weaponry Skill. Fencing is meant to be performed with specific swords. The maneuvers below can be used without penalty provided your character is using one of the following swords: curved sword, fencing sword, rapier or sword cane. Any other type of sword incurs a –1 penalty against any of the maneuvers listed below. (For more information on swords as melee weapons, see Chapter One.) Thrust (•): The thrust is a simple yet powerful attack. A fencer’s stance (one leg anchoring your character’s position and the other leg lunging him forward) gives this attack extra force. When your character makes a thrust attack, plunging the blade toward an opponent, he does so with a +1 bonus. Feint (••): Your character knows how to make a fake attack intended to throw off an opponent. Make a “normal” attack roll (Strength + Weaponry), and this roll is penalized by the opponent’s Defense, par usual. This attack is fake; it does not strike the foe or do any damage. If your character achieves even a single success, however, the opponent is momentarily confused and off-balance, and may not apply her Defense against the next attack she suffers (which may be from your character the following turn or may be from some other source beforehand). Riposte (•••): A Riposte requires an attack to be made against your character. He steps out of the way of the attack using his Dodge (i.e., her Defense, doubled). While his opponent is open, he can then make a sudden and quick attack, which is performed at a –1 penalty. However, the opponent’s Defense does not further penalize the attack roll. Drawback: If your opponent suffers any further attacks on a turn where she has used Riposte, she cannot apply her Defense against them. Moulinet (••••): If your character makes a successful hit on an adversary with his sword, he may then rotate his wrist and perform a quick spiral cut with the tip of the weapon. This additional cut requires no additional roll; the cut does lethal damage to the opponent equal to your character’s Dexterity. Drawback: To perform this maneuver, the character must spend a Willpower point before he makes her initial attack roll. The Willpower does not grant him the additional +3 to attack. If the initial attack roll fails, the Willpower point is wasted and the Moulinet may not be added.
Fighting Style: Filipino Martial Arts (• to ••••)
Book: Armory, p. 211 Prerequisites: Dexterity •••, Weaponry ••• Effect: Your character is trained in the art of Filipino fighting, which is often called escrima or kali. He may have learned this from an instructor or a family member. Most escrima techniques use weapons and are meant predominantly for self-defense. Dots purchased with this Merit allow access to unique combat maneuvers with blunt weapons. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the subsequent maneuver. So, your character cannot have “Disarm” until he has “Lock and Block.” These maneuvers and their effects are described below. All maneuvers are based upon the Weaponry Skill. Note that to perform these maneuvers, a character must have at least one blunt weapon in hand. This weapon is potentially one escrima stick (or a pair), but it can be any blunt object shorter than two feet in length. If the character wields two weapons, he still assumes the –2 penalty for off-hand attacks. Once the character reaches the fourth and final level of this style, he can then choose to use any of the maneuvers without weapons. At this stage he learns the “empty hand” techniques of escrima. Lock and Block (•): With this move, your character uses an adversary’s momentum against her. If you succeed on a Strength + Weaponry roll, your character captures an opponent’s attacking arm in his own and gains a grapple over her (for grappling rules, see p. 157, World of Darkness Rulebook). You may add your character’s Defense to the Strength + Weaponry roll, as he is technically making a defensive maneuver. However, if you choose to add his Defense to this attack, you may not apply his Defense against any incoming attacks that turn. If he has already applied his Defense, he may still utilize this maneuver, but he does not get to add his Defense to the roll. Disarm (••): This allows your character to capture an incoming attack and bring his own weapon down upon a foe’s forearm, potentially forcing the enemy to drop her weapon. (Note that this is different than the Disarm Merit.) To enact this maneuver, make a normal attack roll (Dexterity + Weaponry). Compare the successes on this roll against the opponent’s Stamina. If the successes are equal to or exceed her Stamina score, she drops the weapon. This attack does cause damage to the opponent, as well. Take the successes gained on the attack roll and halve them (round up). The opponent takes this damage, bashing.
Off-Balancing Attack (•••): With this attack, your character uses his weapon to set a foe off-balance. This attack can take any form: thrusting a baton into a solar plexus, hitting a foe’s temple or the bridge of her nose or using a stick’s momentum to push her into an awkward position. The attack is made at a –2 penalty. If successful, the attack does full damage and the opponent’s next attack is made at a –3 penalty. Many-Handed Defense (••••): Escrima practiti ways often unparalleled in other weapon-style systems. In this case, you may apply your character’s full Defense (or Dodge) to all attacks against him in a single turn. They are not diminished at all by attacks made after the first.
Fighting Style: Formation Tactics (• to •••••)
Book: Requiem For Rome, p. 109 Prerequisites: Strength ••, Stamina •••, Weaponry •• (Used in the Roman era) Effect: Your character has completed extensive drill training, either in life or undeath, learning to work in efficient, deadly harmony with compatriot soldiers. He may be a career soldier, a member of the Legio Mortuum or a mercenary veteran. The Legio Mortuum makes frequent use of Formation Tactics, applying its benefits to devastating effect. There is little in Necropolis more intimidating than the sight of four or five Kindred legionnaires moving quickly into a coordinated and powerful display of arms. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. So, your character can’t have Ciringite Frontem until she has Testudinem Formate. The maneuvers and their effects are described below. Only one maneuver can be performed in a given turn. All of the maneuvers are effective only with a shield and melee weapon. Testudinem Formate (•): Your character is trained in assuming the legendary “tortoise” formation. All soldiers in the formation raise and overlap their shields, creating a nearly impenetrable wall. She gains +1 Defense against ranged weapons above and beyond her armor bonus, for each soldier in the formation, to a maximum of +5. Drawback: Characters taking part in the Testudinem Formate cannot attack while they benefit from (or contribute to) this Defense bonus, and they can only move at half their Speed rating. Ciringite Frontem (••): Your character knows how to work together with other soldiers to hold a position and better withstand an oncoming attack. If you succeed on a Strength + Weaponry roll, your character holds her ground and forces a knockback check (see the World of Darkness Rulebook) on any opponent who attacks her that turn. You may add +1 for each soldier in the formation, to a maximum of +5, to this Strength + Weaponry roll. Drawback: You may not add the character’s Defense to any incoming attack this turn. If she applies her Defense, she breaks formation and cannot benefit from its bonus or contribute to the bonusof any other soldier in the formation. Cuneum Formate (•••): Your character can participate in a fast-moving wedge formation designed to break and scatter enemy lines. The quick assault knocks enemies off balance and forces aggressive attackers to go on the defensive. This attack is made at a –2 penalty. If successful, the attack does full damage to one opponent and that opponent’s melee attacks against the soldiers in this formation are made at a –1 penalty for each soldier in the formation, to a maximum of –5 for the remainder of the turn. Orbem Formate (••••): Your character is trained in assuming a circular, defensive formation that protects any object or individual in the center. Whoever (or whatever) is in the center of this formation gains a +1 Defense bonus for each soldier in the formation, to a maximum of +5, applied against ranged and melee attacks. For every three soldiers in this formation, one adult (or adult-sized object) may benefit from the bonus applied. Drawback: The individual protected may not participate in combat. If he attempts to attack the opponent, the benefit of the Orbem Formate is lost. Contendite Vestra Sponte (•••••): Your character can take part in a shockingly powerful assault, unleashing a wave of attacks in concert with her well-trained compatriots. If a character in this formation scores a successful hit with her melee weapon on an adversary, she may benefit from the position of her fellow soldiers, pushing them directly into another’s blade (or otherwise maximizing the benefit of her attack). This capitalization requires no additional roll; the adversary takes one additional level of lethal damage for each soldier in the formation, to a maximum of 5. Drawback: To participate in this formation, each soldier involved must spend a Willpower point before she makes her initial attack roll. The Willpower does not grant her the additional +3 to the attack. If the attack roll fails, the Willpower is wasted, and the Contendite Vestra Sponte bonus does not apply to her attack (although her participation may still be counted toward the bonus of another soldier’s attack in the formation).
Fighting Style: Gladiatorial (• to ••••) Book: Requiem For Rome, p. 109 Prerequisites: Strength •••, Presence ••, Weaponry •••
Effect: Your character is a hardened warrior, seasoned by years of experience in street-level combat or battle in the gladiatorial arena. She knows how to use crude weaponry, cruel tricks and flashy, crowd-pleasing tactics to maximum effect. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. So, your character can’t have Weapon Slap until she has Stunning Attack. The maneuvers and their effects are described below. Only one maneuver can be performed in a given turn. All of the maneuvers are based on the Weaponry Skill. Stunning Attack (•): Your character can make a sudden, howling attack of such viciousness that her opponent is knocked off balance. You must declare a Stunning Attack as your action before the attack roll ismade. If the number of successes inflicted in the single Weaponry attack roll exceed the victim’s Composure rating, the victim loses his next action. Note that your character must scream or howl while making this attack — it cannot be performed silently. Weapon Slap (••): Your character unleashes a powerful blow designed not to injure the opponent but to push his weapon or shield out of the way and create an opening that can be exploited. If the attack roll is successful, no damage is inflicted on the victim, but he does not apply his Defense (including the benefit added by a shield) to the next incoming attack (which may be from your character in the following turn, or from some other source beforehand). Lethal Accuracy (•••): Your character has an innate understanding of the various types of armor and their weak spots. Attacks made with any lethal weapon have Armor Piercing 1 and penalties to hit specific targets or body parts (see “Specified Targets,” p. 165 of the World of Darkness Rulebook) are reduced by two. Brutal Sacrifice (••••): Your character can intensify a lethal attack by staging it so that her weapon is embedded in the victim’s body and ensuring that the weapon’s removal will inflict more damage. You must declare a Brutal Sacrifice as your action before the attack roll is made. If the roll is a success, your character leaves her weapon in the victim’s body. If the weapon is not removed, the victim suffers a –2 penalty on all actions due to pain and physical interference. If the weapon is removed, it inflicts additional lethal damage equal to the weapon’s damage rating. This additional damage requires no roll. If the victim does not remove the weapon himself, your character may attempt a Dexterity + Brawl attack to do so on a subsequent turn. Drawbacks: To perform this maneuver, your character must expend a point of Willpower before the attack roll is made. The Willpower does not grant an additional +3 on the roll. If the initial attack roll fails, the Willpower point is wasted and the Brutal Sacrifice may not be added. In addition, your character loses the use of the weapon until it is removed from the victim and returned to her.
Fighting Style: Grappling (• to ••••)
Book: Adamantine Arrow, p. 50; Armory Reload, p. 67 Prerequisites: Strength ••, Dexterity •••, Stamina ••• and Brawl •• Effect: Your character has trained in a form of submission grappling, such as judo, old-school catchascatch-can wrestling (Olympic-style wrestlers learn the first two maneuvers) or Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He uses leverage and positioning to out-grapple opponents. Sprawl (•): Your character knows how to “sprawl” and sink his weight to avoid being overpowered in a rapple. Subtract the higher of Strength +1 or Dexterity +1 from dice pools to overpower him in a grapple. This doesn’t apply to the initial hold, but subsequent attacks from the grip. Takedown/Throw (••): Your character knows how to rapidly close with your enemy and take him to the ground. In lieu of securing a grappling hold, your character can immediately render the opponent prone (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, pp. 157 and 164). Furthermore, if he takes an opponent down this way, he can choose whether or not to go prone with the target. Mixed martial arts fighters take a crouching (but still standing) position fromand deliver vicious beatings with their hands — a technique called “ground and pound.” Chokehold (•••): Your character can efficiently choke enemies by cutting off blood flow to their brains. If he overpowers an opponent in a grapple, he can start the choke. The choke inflicts a cumulative –1 die penalty to the opponent’s actions for each turn the choke is maintained. The victim falls unconscious if he endures a choking attack for a number of consecutive turns equal to his Stamina. Your character can continue choking an unconscious victim. This inflicts lethal damage equal to the attacker’s Strength + Brawl successes every turn. Chokeholds don’t work on opponents who don’t need to breathe. Submission Hold (••••): Opponents caught in your joint locks can’t escape without injuring themselves. If your character scores more successes than his opponent’s Size in an immobilization attempt, the victim can’t attempt any physical action — including breaking free — without suffering a point of lethal damage. This penalty lasts from the moment of immobilization to end of the next turn. Furthermore, your character can always choose to inflict one point of lethal damage whenever he damages an opponent with an overpowering roll. The character’s first Strength + Brawl success inflicts a point of lethal damage; subsequent successes inflict bashing damage.
Submission holds don’t work on creatures that don’t have bones.
Fighting Style: Iaido (Defensive Striking; • to •••••)
Book: Armory Reload, p. 76 Prerequisites: Strength ••, Dexterity •••, Composure •••, Weaponry •••, Quick Draw Effect: Your character has studied the art of iaido, focusing her awareness of her surroundings and her ability to respond to a threat to the razor’s edge. She has learned to draw a blade at a moment’s notice, and has internalized kata focused on swiping the blade across her opponent’s vitals. Practitioners of iaido often cultivate the Wits Attribute, as speed of thought and awareness of one’s surroundings are valued by adherents of the style. Dots purchased in this Merit provide access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. Iaido maneuvers are based on the Weaponry Skill and are used with a curved sword, most commonly the katana. Tsuki Kage (“Draw and Cut;” •): The character sharpens his already capable ability to quickly enter combat. If the character begins combat with his weapon sheathed, he adds his rating in the Weaponry Skill to his Initiative modifier. If the Storyteller utilizes the optional initiative rule from page 151 of the World of Darkness Rulebook, this bonus applies on any turn in which the character’s weapon begins the turn sheathed. Drawback: The character must commit to an attack against an opponent during the first turn of combat to gain the advantage of this maneuver. Zanshin (“Awareness;” ••): While honing the speed of one’s reactions can save one’s life, better still to be constantly vigilant. The character strives to remain ever aware of his surroundings, that he may never be taken by surprise. The character gains a bonus of two dice to all rolls to avoid an impending ambush. This Merit duplicates the effect of the Danger Sense Merit, and a character with both Merits gains a total +4 on rolls to avoid being surprised. Such characters are paragons of self-awareness. Tachi-Sabaki (“Movement of the Sword;” •••): The character has mastered defensive kata designed to intercept incoming attacks and deflect them with the blade of the weapon. The character relies as much on the quality of his sword as he does his own speed of thought and motion. The character adds his weapon bonus (the weapon’s damage rating) to his Dodge value when taking a fully defensive action. A character may benefit from this Merit while utilizing the Weaponry Dodge Merit (though not the Brawling Dodge Merit). Drawback: The character only benefits from this Merit when taking a full Dodge action. Kan Ken No Metsuke (“Seeing with Eyes and Mind;” ••••): The character’s speed gives him a small but potentially important edge over other combatants. If the character’s initiative roll results in a tie with another character involved in combat, the character automatically acts before his opponents and allies. Initiative Modifiers are not compared and initiative is never determined by a roll-off (though if multiple characters aside from the iaido practitioner rolled the same initiative, their initiative ratings are resolved as normal). If two characters possess this maneuver, they act at the same time, each resolving their action as if the other had not yet acted. This can result in two characters killing each other in the same heated moment. Uke Nagashi (“Catch and Slide Off;” •••••): The character’s ability to move defensively and counter an attack with one of his own has been perfected. If the character’s weapon is sheathed, he can declare a Dodge action at any point during a turn, assuming she has not yet acted. His Defense is doubled as usual, though he may not utilize Weaponry Dodge or Tachi-Sabaki against attacks. However, the character can choose any opponent who is making an attack against him to perform a counter attack against. In a single swift motion, the character draws his blade, parries his enemy’s blow, and attacks his opponent. The character’s Weaponry Dodge (if he possesses it) and Tachi-Sabaki maneuver apply against the opponent’s attack (and only against this opponent). The character makes an immediate reflexive attack against the opponent at a one die penalty. After making his counter-attack, the character’s Defense applies as normal to further attacks made against him during the turn (i.e., his Defense is not doubled). Defense penalties for being attacked multiple times during a single turn are not affected by this maneuver in any way. Drawback: The character spends one Willpower point per turn using this maneuver.
Additional Systems Honmon Enshin Ryu’s Iai Kenpo A modern school of iaido, Enshin Ryu teaches jujutsu and suemonogiri (the practice of cutting), but possesses a strong focus on being attacked from 77 behind. Students of this style may purchase the following specialized maneuver instead of Kan Ken No Metsuke, above. Muso-Ken (“No-thought Sword;” ••••): The character draws, turns, and thrusts his blade at a potential enemy in a single motion. A character with this Merit may make a reflexive counter-attack when successfully attacked at point-blank range by an opponent by surprise. Drawback: This maneuver requires the user to expend a Willpower point. It constitutes the character’s action for the turn, though if used before initiative is rolled, the character may act on his initiative as usual.
Fighting Style: Improvised Weaponry(• to •••)
Book: Midnight Roads, p. 57 Prerequisites: Wits 3, Weaponry 1 During the course of their journeys upon the Road, wanderers find themselves in bad circumstances with nothing even remotely resembling a respectable weapon at hand. Perhaps the first, best rule of the nomadic life, however, is to make do with what you’ve got. Thus, certain improvisational fighting strategies have become time-honored traditions for people who get knocked on their asses and have to reach for the nearest solid object to avoid a serious beating, or worse. Note that, unlike most other Fighting Style Merits, Improvised Weaponry isn’t formally taught. Characters invariably pick up this brutal, sloppy style of combat at the school of hard knocks. Always Armed (•): The character has an instinct for grabbing something dangerous in almost any situation and maximizing its lethality once in hand. On her character’s initiative in any given turn, the player may make a reflexive Wits + Weaponry roll to have the character pick up an object suitable for use as a weapon in any save the most barren environment. (The player is encouraged to work with the Storyteller to determine an appropriate item — a large, jagged rock outdoors, for example, or a heavy glass ashtray with one sharp, broken edge in a dive bar.) Regardless of what it is, this object is treated as a Size 1, one lethal weapon with a Durability of 2. On an exceptional success, provided that her surroundings allow for it, the character may instead grab a Size 2, two lethal improvised weapon with a Durability of 2. In Harm’s Way (••): By interposing her weapon (no matter how small or inappropriate for parrying it might be) in the path of an oncoming Brawl or Weaponry attack, the character learns to increase her chances of walking away from a given attack unscathed. While wielding an improvised weapon acquired with the first technique of this Fighting Style, the character may, at the beginning of a turn, treat the Structure of her weapon as armor, but any damage inflicted upon her also inflicts an equal amount of damage to the improvised weapon, bypassing its Durability. Breaking Point (•••): One sure way to win a fight is to hit the other guy so hard that he doesn’t get back up, even if that means losing a weapon in the process. When the character uses the all-out-attack option in a fight while wielding an improvised weapon acquired with the first technique of this Fighting Style, her player may exchange points of the weapon’s Structure, down to a minimum of zero, for added equipment bonus for the duration of a single strike. The player must declare the use of this option before the attack is made, and the weapon still takes the damage even if the attack is unsuccessful (perhaps striking a brick wall, a parked car or some other heavy object.) If the weapon is reduced to zero Structure, the weapon is automatically destroyed after the attack is resolved, though the target is still damaged as normal if successfully struck. Note that the character may use this technique in conjunction with the previous one, allowing her to parry an attack made on a higher Initiative than her own and then go on the offensive with her improvised weapon, provided that it didn’t sustain enough damage to destroy it.
Fighting Style: Kendo - Japanese Fencing (• to ••••)
Book: Armory, p. 211 The above Merit is for European-style fencing, but can be adapted for Japanese kendo fairly easily. While the techniques (called waza) are slightly different, the mechanics stay the same. Thrust (•): becomes Kaburi; instead of thrusting, your character makes an overhead attack, but the +1 modifier remains. Feint (••): becomes Kiai. It involves shouting loudly while making a distracting maneuver. Riposte (•••): becomes Uchiotoshi Waza, or “killing the sword.” The character may not step out of the way but instead parries the attack before her own counter-attack. Moulinet (••••): becomes Nidan Waza, allowing one completed attack and a second quick cut with the sword. Again, all the mechanics are the same, and the Merit works in the exact manner, though with different terms. However, the swords used are different. A character can perform kendo waza with katana, wakizashi and curved swords — using them with any other swords incurs a –1 penalty.
Fighting Style: Krav Maga (Defensive Striking; • to •••••)
Book: Armory Reload, p. 79 Prerequisites: Strength ••, Dexterity •••, Wits •••, Brawl •••, Brawling Dodge Effect: Your character practices Krav Maga, and has become competent in an unarmed variant of Defensive Striking. Dots purchased in this Merit provide access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. Krav Maga maneuvers are based on the Brawl Skill unless otherwise noted and are used unarmed.
Immediate Defense (•): The character has learned to act quickly to neutralize a threat and make a fast escape. She gains a bonus equal to her Initiative equal to her Brawl Skill when fighting armed opponents. Disarming Defense (••): The character twists her torso out of danger while grabbing her opponent’s wrist and pulling him forward, using her own torso for leverage as she tears his weapon from his hand. This acts as the Disarm Merit save that it utilizes the Brawl Skill. Rather than knocking the weapon away, the character takes the weapon from her opponent, and may use it the following turn. Impenetrable Defense (•••): The character knows that offense and defense are one in the same. The character may add his rating in his Brawl Skill to his Defense or Dodge against a single incoming attack. The bonus from this maneuver combines with that from Brawling Dodge. Drawback: The character must expend a Willpower point to perform this maneuver. This maneuver is reflexive, and a character may use it and perform an instant action (such as attacking) so long as she did not use the Dodge action. The First Moment (••••): The character has trained her reaction time to a tenth of a second, acting more by instinct than thought. If the character’s initiative roll results in a tie with another character involved in combat, the character automatically acts before his opponents and allies. Initiative Modifiers are not compared and initiative is never determined by a roll-off (though if multiple characters aside from the Krav Maga practitioner rolled the same initiative, their initiative ratings are resolved as normal). If two characters possess this maneuver, they act at the same time, each resolving their action as if the other had not yet acted. This can result in two characters killing each other in the same heated moment. Finishing the Fight (•••••): The character moves defensively, but knows when to lash out at an enemy to bring him crashing to the ground. The character declares and benefits from a Dodge action (including Brawling Dodge, if she possesses it). She may abort that action to make an immediate, reflexive counterattack against an opponent whose attack fails to overcome her Dodge trait. Drawback: This maneuver costs the character one Willpower point to enact. After making her counter-attack, the character loses her Defense for the remainder of the turn.
Fighting Style: Kung Fu (• to •••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 111 Prerequisites: Strength ••, Dexterity ••, Stamina •• and Brawl •• Effect: Your character is trained in one of the many forms of Kung Fu, conditioning his mind and body for the purposes of focus and self-defense. He may have begun his training at an early age, following in the footsteps of family or friends, or he may have joined a school as an adult for the purposes of exercise or protection. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. So, your character can’t have “Iron Skin” until he has “Focused Attack.” The maneuvers and their effects are listed below, most of which are based on the Brawl Skill. Focused Attack (•): Physical conditioning and accuracy allow your character to deliver blows at vulnerable spots on targets. Penalties to hit specific targets are reduced by one. See “Specified Targets,” p. 165. Even when a specific part of an opponent is not targeted, armor penalties to your character’s Brawl attacks are reduced by one. Iron Skin (••): Your character has hardened his body to physical blows, allowing him to withstand repeated hits with minimal effect. He has an effective armor trait of 1 against bashing attacks only. Defensive Attack (•••): Your character has mastered the ability to fight defensively. When using this maneuver, your character gains +2 to his Defense for the turn, but any attack he makes suffers a -2 penalty. He can move no more than his Speed while performing a Defense Attack maneuver in a turn. Whirlwind Strike (••••): Your character can unleash a storm of blows against an opponent. He can make a number of extra Brawl attacks for each point of Dexterity that he has above 2 in a single action. Each extra attack is made at a cumulative -1 modifier. Thus, he can perform a total of two attacks at Dexterity 3 (the second of which is at -1), three attacks at Dexterity 4 (the third of which is at -2), and four at Dexterity 5 (the fourth of which is at -3). All attacks must be on the same target. Drawback: Your character cannot use his Defense against any attack in the same turn in which he intends to use this maneuver. If he uses Defense against attacks that occur earlier in the Initiative roster, before he can perform this maneuver, he cannot perform the maneuver this turn. He is too busy bobbing and weaving out of the way of attacks. Lethal Strike (•••••): By focusing his might and concentration, your character can kill or maim an opponent with a well-placed strike. A strike inflicts lethal instead of bashing damage. Drawback: Spend one Willpower point per attack. Note that this Willpower expenditure does not add three dice to the attack.
Fighting Style: Langschwert (Heavy Sword; • to •••••) Book: Armory Reload, p. 83 Prerequisites: Strength ••• and Weaponry •••
Effect: Your character is skilled in the German twohanded long sword style, or another martial art that specializes in using a long two-handed sword or stick. Dots purchased in this Merit provide access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. Langschwert maneuvers are based on the Weaponry Skill and work in conjunction with a Size 3 or 4 blade or staff. Wards (•): Your character knows how to use his weapon to deflect and threaten away attacks. Add 1 to his Defense when he wields a weapon compatible with this Fighting Style. Fool’s Guard (••): Your character knows how to hold his weapon low to seemingly invite attack, but when the opponent strikes, he can quickly raise it to counter. Instead of offering a normal Defense, roll Strength + Weaponry + 1 die against the opponent’s attack. This is an instant action. Each success reduces the attack’s damage by 1, and if the characters successes exceed the attacker’s, the difference is inflicted upon the attacker as damage from the character’s weapon Drawback: The character cannot employ his Defense in any turn where he uses the Fool’s Guard. Half Sword (•••): Your character grabs the midpoint of his weapon to rain more powerful thrusts and blows at a shorter range, almost as if he was using the blade as a small spear. If his attack succeeds, add 2 to the weapon’s damage (do not add this as the weapon’s equipment bonus, but after rolling). Drawback: The weapon’s reduced range nullifies the Wards maneuver, so the character loses its Defense bonus. It also reduces the character’s Weaponry-based dice pool by one. Doubling Cut (••••): Your character strikes the enemy with two quick cuts. He can make two Weaponry attacks against an opponent in the same turn. Drawback: Your character cannot employ his Defense or the Fool’s Guard in the same turn as he uses this maneuver. Wrathful Cut (•••••): Your character steps in with a powerful blow, capable of overwhelming his enemy’s defenses. When he makes an All-Out Attack (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 157), add his Weaponry dots instead of the normal +2 bonus. Drawback: Your character cannot employ his Defense or the Fool’s Guard in the same turn as he uses this maneuver.
Fighting Style: MAC (• to •••••)
Book: Dogs Of War, p. 38 Prerequisites: Strength ••, Dexterity ••, Stamina •• and Brawl •• Effect: The character is trained in Modern Army Combatives, the modern military style of hand-to-hand combat that blends a number of fighting styles such as Muay Thai to provide a soldier with an all-round means of unarmed self-defense and defense with short weapons (Brawl and Weaponry Skills). Each dot of this Fighting Style is the prerequisite for the next higher dot; one cannot purchase “Atemi Attack” until one has purchased “Tactician’s Sense”, for example. • Tactician’s Sense: The character gauges the body language of combatants in his proximity. In game terms, he can make a Reflexive Wits + Composure perception roll and gauge the Initiative modes of all combatants before a fight starts. •• Atemi Attack: The human body has a variety of pressure points, any of which can cause an opponent great pain. The trained fighter knows where to strike for maximum effect. When striking with a Brawl or Weaponry attack, the character may ignore up to 1 point of the enemy’s Armor protection per dot in this Fighting Style. ••• Forearm Choke: The character applies pressure to an enemy’s carotid artery in an attempt to knock him out. The character must successfully achieve a Grapple attack (see “Grapple”, the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 157). The character may apply the choke hold from the following turn. The hostile may attempt to free himself on his next action with Strength + Brawl, his dice pool penalized by the character’s Strength + 1. This maneuver is designed to render the foe unconscious. The foe may resist each turn at a cumulative –1 dice pool penalty. When your character has sustained the choke hold for a number of turns equal to the hostile’s Stamina, the hostile is rendered unconscious, and sustains a single point of bashing damage. The Forearm Choke is useless against creatures that do not need to breathe. •••• Bullring: The character is trained in fighting off multiple opponents simultaneously. His Defense is applied in full to each and every simultaneous hand-to-hand attack in a single turn. ••••• Lethal Strike: The soldier’s hands become deadly weapons when the character spends a Willpower point. A successful Brawl strike delivered in a turn in which he spends Willpower delivers lethal, rather than bashing, damage. Drawback: Because the lethal attack takes place in that turn, the character cannot spend Willpower to boost his attack dice pool.
Fighting Style: Muay Thai (• to •••••)
Book: Ancient Bloodlines, p. 119 Muay Thai, as a Fighting Style Merit, uses the same systems for ••, ••• and •••• as the Boxing Fighting Style (p. 110 of the World of Darkness Rulebook). The • and ••••• maneuvers are described below. Cut Kick (•): Your character knows how to deliver powerful round kicks to her opponent’s legs. When you choose this option your character inflicts one less point of damage than usual, counted after rolling to see if the attack succeeds. (For example, an attack that scores one success would still be a successful cut kick, but inflicts no Health damage). However, each kick reduces the opponent’s Speed by one, down to a minimum of one. If you roll as many successes as the opponent’s Size, he falls prone because he’s been swept by a kick or can’t use his legs out of sheer pain. Opponents can get back up whenever they have the chance, but their Speed only recovers at the end of the combat scene. Thai Clinch (••••): Your character grabs an enemy around the head and pulls him into a vicious elbow or knee strike. If you are establishing a grappling hold as the first part of using the Combination Blows maneuver to inflict damage as the second move, add your Dexterity to your dice pool to attack. Drawback: The usual –1 penalty for Combination Blows applies to the first grappling attempt, not to the following attack. This benefit does not apply if your character has already established a hold, or during future attempts to damage an opponent from the same hold, but she can always abandon her current hold and try a new grapple to use the Thai Clinch.
Fighting Style: Police Tactics (• to •••)
Book: 13th Precint, p. 81, Tribes Of The Moon, p. 36 Prerequisites: Strength ••, Dexterity ••, Stamina••, Brawl •• and Weaponry • Effect: Your character has picked up some of the mixed bag of subdue and compliance tricks that cops learn in the academy and on the street. If he doesn’t have law enforcement experience himself, he’s most likely learned these maneuvers from someone who has. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. So, your character can’t have Weapon Retention until he has Compliance Hold. The maneuvers and their effects are listed below. Compliance Hold (•): When trying to overpower an opponent you have grappled (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, pp. 157–159), you gain a +2 bonus to your Strength + Brawl roll if you attempt to immobilize or disarm him. You must choose your maneuver before making your roll, rather than after it, to gain this bonus. Weapon Retention (••): An opponent who has grappled you must score successes equal to your Weaponry score on his Strength + Brawl roll to choose a “disarm” or “turn a drawn weapon” maneuver against you. Speed Cuff (•••): If you have a pair of handcuffs or equivalent restraints drawn while grappling, you may choose “cuff” as an overpowering maneuver. With success, you get the cuffs on one of your opponent’s wrists. With exceptional success, you cuff both wrists.
Fighting Style: Qinna (Controls; • to •••••)
Book: Armory Reload, p. 88 Prerequisites: Dexterity ••• and Brawl •• Effect: Your character is skilled in a Chinese martial arts style that emphasizes qinna, or another martial art that specializes in standing joint locks, holds and chokes. Dots purchased in this Merit provide access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. Qinna maneuvers are based on the Brawl Skill and work in conjunction with unarmed combat. Qinna maneuvers are designed to exploit weaknesses in the human anatomy. Targets who do not feel pain, possess the need to breathe or have skeletons will not be affected by certain maneuvers. Of the commonly played supernatural beings, this renders vampires immune to the effects of Sealing the Breath or Disrupting the Veins. Standing Control (•): Your character gains an additional overpowering maneuver, called Standing Control. If she overpowers her opponent she may force him to accompany him wherever he goes. Drawback: The character can only move himself and his opponent half as far as his Speed would normally allow. The character cannot have moved earlier in the turn, and cannot automatically dump his enemy over a cliff or into a fire or other dangerous environment without performing a separate attack. [Can you use the target as cover?] Misplacing the Bones (••): The character’s holds can snap bones and tear connective tissue. If his player inflicts more damage in an overpowering maneuver than the victim’s Size, he breaks a limb unless the defender opts to immediately fall prone. The fracture (or tissue separation) inflicts a point of lethal damage
instead of the standard bashing damage, and renders the limb useless. It does not recover until the victim heals that damage. If the limb is an arm, reduce the defender’s Defense by 1 and note that he’s dropped anything held in it. If it’s a leg, the defender cannot walk upright. Drawback: Unless the character opts for a specified target (see World of Darkness, p. 165), the defender’s player (or Storyteller) chooses which limb’s been damaged. Grabbing the Muscles (•••): Your character’s grappling holds twist muscles out of place or puts the defender in a position where she can’t use strength to force her way out of the attack. Treat the defender as if her Strength was two dots lower for the purpose of resisting overpower maneuvers. Sealing the Breath (••••): Your character can use chokeholds and strikes to pressure points around the lungs to interfere with a target’s breathing. If he succeeds with a Brawl-based strike or damaging overpower rolled at a voluntary –1 die penalty, he inflicts a –1 die penalty to the opponent’s actions in addition to inflicting standard damage. This penalty is cumulative throughout the combat scene, but vanishes afterwards. Disrupting the Veins (•••••): Your character’s grappling maneuvers expertly attack anatomical weaknesses. When he damages a victim with an overpower maneuver you can choose to inflict lethal damage, and when he uses any other maneuver he can choose to inflict a point of lethal damage in addition to other effects. Drawback: Spend a point of Willpower per attack. This does not add three dice to your roll.
Fighting Style: Shurikenjutsu (Thrown Blade And Dart; • to ••••)
Book: Armory Reload, p. 104 The Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu’s curriculum includes shurikenjutsu. Despite the “ninja throwing star” stereotype, most shuriken were actually spikes (bo shuriken), not stars (hira shuriken or shaken), and were mostly used by samurai who trained in one of the dozens of koryu that taught their use. Drop the idea that they would have been thought of as “dishonorable” weapons – it’s false. This is the core Fighting Style for thrown edged weapons. We’ve included them under the TSKSR because traditional shurikenjutsu is almost never taught outside of a larger curriculum. Dedicated interest in the art is growing, however; there are a few small schools, new and old, that do teach it exclusively. Prerequisites: Dexterity ••• Athletics •• Effect: Your character knows how to throw edged weapons with particular skill. Dots purchased in this Merit provide access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. Your character may use Fighting Style: Shurikenjutsu with any edged weapon that’s been designed for throwing. She may also use it with any other Size 1 object as if she had one dot less in this Merit, or any Size 2 weapon as if she had 2 dots less (Size 3 or greater weapons are not compatible with the Merit). The advantages of this Merit apply to the character’s attempts to throw a qualified weapon, not use it in close range combat. Ma-ai (“Distance;” •): Your character learns to properly gauge a target’s distance and modify her technique to match it. Double her short, medium and long range throwing ranges. Kakushi Buki (“Hidden Weapons;” ••): The character knows how to rapidly retrieve a throwing weapon from a sleeve, holster or other prepared spot on her body. She never needs to use an action to draw a throwing weapon from a prepared spot. Choku Da-Ho (“Direct Hit Method;” •••): Your character can throw using the power of her entire body. Add her Strength dots to the dice pool for throwing the weapon. Drawback: The character is considered a still target and may not employ her Defense during the turn in which she uses this maneuver. She may not use this maneuver in conjunction with Ikki Gokken. Ikki Gokken (“Five Blades in One Breath;” ••••): Your character can throw multiple weapons in rapid succession during a single turn, provided she either holds them in one hand or can draw them instantly using Kakushi Buki. She may make a one additional throw for each point of Dexterity that she has above 2. Each extra action is rolled at a cumulative –1 modifier. Thus, she can throw twice at Dexterity 3 (with the second at a –1 modifier), three times at Dexterity 4 (at a 0, –1 then –2 modifier to dice rolls) and four time at Dexterity 5 (at 0, –1, –2 and –3 to each dice roll, in turn). Drawback: The character is considered a still target and may not employ her Defense during the turn in which she uses this maneuver. She may not use this maneuver in conjunction with Choku-Do-Ho.
Fighting Style: Sniping (• to •••••)
Book: Armory, p. 212 Prerequisites: Dexterity •••, Resolve •••, Firearms •••, and Stealth •• Effect: A sniper is the antithesis of a gunfighter, patient and serene rather than swift and ruthless. Your character, through life-long experience or intensive military training, is patient and skilled enough to spend hours staring through a rifle scope before taking one perfect shot that decides the fate of a hostage or a nation.
Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. So, your character can’t have “Battlesight Zero” until she has “On Scope.” The maneuvers and their effects are described below, most of which are based on the Firearms Skill. All of the following maneuvers work only with rifles (including assault rifles). On Scope (•): Your character has an intuitive understanding of long-range ballistics and has spent countless hours straining to pick out tiny details through a telescopic sight. The maximum bonus she may receive from aiming (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 162) is increased to her Composure +1 for semi automatic and automatic rifles and her Composure +2 for break-action, bolt-action and lever-action rifles. In addition, when using a scope or other long-range optic device (e.g., binoculars), she receives a +2 bonus to all perception rolls (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 45). Battlesight Zero (••): Once your character is familiar with the capabilities of a rifle, she can wring unparalleled performance from it. Whenever your character sights in a rifle (see “Sighting Tools,” p. 164), she doubles the number of attacks that receive the bonus from this process. In addition, whenever she makes an attack with a rifle that receives this bonus, the weapon’s short range is increased by five yards times her Wits, medium range by twice this amount and long range by three times this amount. Focused Shot (•••): Your character can lurk motionless in ambush for days, ignoring sleep deprivation, temperature extremes and even life-threatening injuries in the name of putting lead on target. When making an aimed shot, she may ignore an amount of penalties for wounds, drugs, disease, pain, fatigue, environmental conditions and similar factors equal to her Resolve. For example, if your character has Resolve 4, has two points of Health remaining (–2), has gone without sleep for 36 hours (–2) and has ingested strong hallucinogens (–3), her aimed shots suffer only a –3 penalty instead of the –7 that affects all her other dice pools. Tactical Intervention (••••): Split-second timing and nerves of steel enable your character to take advantage of the smallest opportunities for accurate shot placement. When making an aimed shot, all penalties for shooting into close combat and for concealment are halved, rounding down. One Shot, One Kill (•••••): When your character picks up her rifle, people fall down. It’s just that simple. When making an aimed shot, do not add the rifle’s Damage rating to the attack dice pool (though “9 again” or “8 again” still applies if it would normally). Instead, if the attack succeeds, add the rifle’s Damage rating as extra successes. Drawback: Spend one Willpower per attack. Note that this Willpower expenditure does not add three dice to the attack.
Fighting Style: Sojutsu/Jukendo (Spear/Bayonet Combat) (• to ••••)
Book: Adamantine Arrow, p. 51 Prerequisite: Strength •••, Dexterity •• and Weaponry ••• Effect: Your character knows how to use a spear in close combat. Sojutsu (often incorrectly called yarijutsu) is the Japanese form of the style. These skills also apply to using a rifle with a fixed bayonet (called jukendo in Japan). Thus, characters might learn this fighting style in a modern military force or a martial arts school. Martial artists often learn this fighting style alongside Fighting Style: Staff Fighting (see World of Darkness: Armory, pp. 213–214). A character using this fighting style must use his weapon with both hands to take advantage of its maneuvers. Warding Stance (•): The basic advantage of a spear or fixed bayonet is its length. Trained fighters learn to keep the tip of the weapon pointed forward, constantly threatening incoming attackers. Thus, this maneuver lets a practitioner attack first whenever an opponent using a smaller-Size melee weapon attacks from the front. Thrust (••): The character knows how to deliver precise, powerful thrusting blows. His spear or bayonet gains the 9 again quality. If the spear or fixed bayonet already has this quality, he gains no further benefit. Block and Strike (•••): Your character can deflect incoming attacks with the haft or stock of his weapon and swiftly strike back. When using this maneuver, your character gains +2 to his Defense for the turn, but any attack he makes suffers a –2 penalty. Unlike similar maneuvers (such as Two-Weapon Fighting’s Deflect and Thrust maneuver), the character can move freely while using the technique. Great Thrust (••••): The character lunges forward, putting his entire body behind a powerful thrust. If he employs an All Out Attack (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 157), he adds a number of dice equal to his lower of his Strength or Weaponry Skill instead of the standard two dice. Drawback: If the attack inflicts at least as much lethal damage as the opponent’s Size, the character lodges the weapon deep in his target’s body. Dislodging the weapon requires an additional Strength + Weaponry roll, but automatically inflicts a point of lethal damage.
Fighting Style: Sword And Shield (Shields; • to •••••)
Book: Armory Reload, p. 92 Prerequisites: Strength •••, Dexterity ••, Stamina ••, Weaponry •• Effect: Your character has trained extensively with a weapon in her primary hand and a shield in her offhand. She has learned to utilize the shield’s strengths, redirecting it towards incoming threats while overcoming some of the clumsiness involved in making attacks from behind a shield’s protective cover. Dots purchased in this Merit provide access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. Sword and Shield maneuvers are based on the Weaponry Skill and function only when a character possesses a shield. Cloak and Dagger (•): Your character’s extensive training with shields allows her to utilize improvised shields more effectively. This maneuver is named for the practice of using one’s cloak to buffet incoming attacks away. A character with this maneuver doubles the effective Structure of an improvised shield (usually an improvised shield can only deflect a number of attacks equal to its structure before being destroyed) and suffers a –2 penalty to attack rather than the standard –3. This penalty can be further decreased by the maneuver The Shielded Strike below, but improvised shields cannot be used to perform the Shield Bash, Shield Charge, or Stand Strong maneuvers. Shield Bash (••): Your character has learned how to use the shield defensively and offensively. Attempts to strike another combatant with the character’s shield still suffer a –1 penalty, but gain a Weapon bonus equal to the shield’s Defense rating. Damage remains bashing. Drawback: A character using a shield to knock an enemy back is not using it for defense. A character does not benefit from a shield’s Defense rating on a turn in which she uses this maneuver. If she has already used the full Defense rating against an incoming attack during the turn, she may not use the maneuver. The Shielded Strike (•••): The character’s use of her shield integrates seamlessly with that of her weapon. She may rest the blade across the top or side of a rectangular shield, pushing the weapon forward as if playing billiards. Perhaps she has developed a careful rhythm in which she lowers the shield for the bare instant necessary to deliver a fatal attack. Either way, when the character uses this maneuver to make an attack, she no longer suffers a penalty for using a weapon while benefiting from her shield, and her shield adds +1 to its Defense rating against the target of the attack. Drawback: The character’s concentration on coordinating her shield and weapon leaves her open to attacks from the flanks and rear. She loses her Defense against attacks made by any opponent save the one she is attacking. If she has already used her Defense against an incoming attack from another opponent during the turn, she may not use the maneuver. Shield Charge (••••): The character charges forward, shield lowered before her, and crashes into the enemy line. The character makes a shield bash attack (see above) at a –2. The attack inflicts bashing damage, but if even a single success is scored on the attack, the character may send her enemy flying. An opponent who suffers the effects of this attack makes a reflexive Dexterity + Athletics roll; if he rolls fewer successes than the shield-user, he suffers knockdown (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 168). At Storyteller’s discretion, this maneuver may be used against multiple opponents, provided that they are standing close enough together. Each additional opponent targeted levies an additional –1 to the attack roll, and the damage rolled is distributed evenly among those hit. Those who suffer no damage do not check for knockdown, even if their companions do. Drawback: Use of this maneuver necessitates a charge action (World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 164), which means, among other things, she loses her Defense. If she has already used her Defense against an incoming attack from another opponent during the turn, she may not use the maneuver. Stand Strong (•••••): The character digs in her feet, raises her shield, and stands as a human wall against an onslaught of attacks. She benefits from her full Dodge trait and shield defense bonus against attacks made from a single direction (Weaponry Dodge can be applied). Additionally, attacks from that direction do not decrease her Defense against later attacks in the round. For the purpose of this maneuver, a direction is approximately one third of the circumference of a circle drawn about the character (typically claiming defense against attacks from the left, front, or right is sufficient). Attacks made against the character from other directions suffer a penalty equal to Defense only, which suffers penalties from multiple attacks as usual. Note that while a single enemy might be able to move around the character’s defenses, no more than three characters can assault the character from a direction that she can’t fully defend against through this maneuver. Drawback: Using this maneuver requires an incredible exercise of will. A character must spend one Willpower point to gain the benefits of this Merit for one turn.
Fighting Style: Spetsnaz Knife Fighting (• to ••••)
Book: Armory, p. 213 Prerequisites: Dexterity •••, Weaponry •• Effect: Your character is trained to fight effectively with a knife. This particular form of martial knife training is based upon original Spetsnaz Russian Forces training. This training is now standard among many
of the world’s Special Forces. It involves holding a single-edged knife in a downward (or “reverse”) grip. Maneuvers involve a lot of quick, fluid movements complemented by a mixture of slashing and stabbing toward vital areas. Dots purchased with this Merit allow access to unique combat maneuvers with a knife. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the subsequent maneuver. Your character cannot have “Advantageous Angle” until he has “Anticipate Attack.” These maneuvers and their effects are described below. All maneuvers are based on the Weaponry Skill. Anticipate Attack (•): Those trained in Special Forces knife fighting know to move fast before incoming attacks and in response to them. To do this requires a level of anticipation and strategy even before a combat begins. At this level, your character may substitute his Weaponry score for his Composure when determining his Initiative modifier. This is only during combat situations in which your character is using an edged or pointed weapon of Size 2 or under. Advantageous Angle (••): Your knife-wielder knows how to make a feinted attack from the side or rear in a way that grants him advantage. While normally such attacks confer no bonuses, the character is aware how to deceive an opponent into mounting a Defense against an attack that isn’t coming — and then stage an attack from a different angle. The foe’s Defense is at –1 during such an attack. Drawback: This maneuver can only be made every other turn. Vital Attack (•••): Your character knows how to target his attacks to vital organs and other vulnerabilities. Attacks made with a knife have Armor Piercing 1, and penalties to hit specific targets or body parts (see “Specified Targets,” p.165 of the World of Darkness Rulebook) are reduced by one. Slash and Stab (••••): Your character’s deftness with a knife allows him to make two attacks against one target in a single action. The first attack is a slash, the second a thrusting stab. The first attack is made as normal, but the second suffers a –1 penalty. Drawback: This quick maneuver leaves the character somewhat more vulnerable against the next attack coming toward him. His Defense is counted as being one less against the next attack.
Fighting Style: Staff Fighting (• to •••)
Book: Armory, p. 213 Prerequisites: Strength •••, Dexterity ••, Weaponry •• Effect: Your character has learned to wield a quarterstaff, bo staff or jo staff effectively in combat. This is likely something she has learned from a martial practitioner. This style is sometimes called bojutsu. Dots purchased with this Merit allow access to unique combat maneuvers with polearms. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the subsequent maneuver. Your character cannot have “Temple Strike” until she has “Trip.” These maneuvers and their effects are described below. All maneuvers are based upon the Weaponry Skill. Note that while a quarter-, bo or jo staff are the norm for this fighting style, the maneuvers are not limited to these weapons. A character can use any polearm for these maneuvers, but using other polearms with an item that isn’t one of the aforementioned three staff types requires an additional point of Weaponry (Weaponry •••). A character can also utilize improvised polearms (including post-hole diggers, scythes or other objects at least five feet in length) with this maneuvers. In such cases, the Weaponry ••• is still required, and all attack rolls are made with the appropriate improvised weapon penalties in place. Remember as well that utilizing a polearm in combat grants the wielder a +1 Defense. Trip (•): Your character can use her polearm to trip a single opponent, hopefully sending him to the ground. It is a contested roll pitting the character’s normal attack roll against the opponent’s Dexterity + Athletics. The character’s attack is penalized by the foe’s Defense, as usual. If the opponent falls, assume Knockdown rules (per p. 168, the World of Darkness Rulebook). In this case, however, the fall to the ground incurs a single point of bashing damage to the opponent. Temple Strike (••): Your character brings her staff against the side of her adversary’s head. The normal –3 penalty to hit the head still applies, but if the damage meets or exceeds the target’s Size, the target falls unconscious for a number of turns equal to the damage done. This damage is usually bashing, as it is meant to be performed with a blunt staff. The damage can be performed with a bladed weapon such as the naginata, however. The effect is the same, but the damage is now lethal instead of bashing. Dangerous Radius (•••): With this technique, your character can swing her weapon in a wide arc, hitting anyone within three yards. Make a normal attack roll for the character (Strength + Weaponry + weapon bonuses). This roll receives a dice penalty equal to the number of opponents hit with this strike (to a maximum of –5 dice). Successes achieved on this roll are done as damage to all within the three-yard radius. If the weapon is a normal blunt polearm (i.e., a staff), it does bashing. If bladed, the weapon causes lethal damage. Drawback: This attack cannot distinguish between friend or foe. Any allies within the three-yard radius are hit along with enemies. The technique cannot be pulled to exclude friends from the damage.
Fighting Style: Two Weapons (• to •••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 112 Prerequisites: Dexterity ••• and Weaponry ••• Effect: Your character has trained to fight with a weapon in both hands, allowing him to attack and dodge or make two attacks in the same turn. Your character still suffers the -2 offhand penalty when attacking with a weapon in his secondary hand (unless you have also purchased the Ambidextrous Merit). Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. So, your character can’t have “Deflect and Thrust” until he has “Whirling Blades.” The maneuvers and their effects are detailed below, all of which are based on the Weaponry Skill. Whirling Blades (•): Your character’s Dodge trait (Defense doubled; see p. 156) is not penalized by multiple attacks staged against him in a turn until the number of attacks exceeds his Weaponry dots, at which point each attack thereafter reduces his Dodge by -1. So, if your character (with 2 Defense and 3 Weaponry) dodges attacks in a turn, the first three incoming attacks suffer his full Dodge trait as a penalty (-4). The fourth suffers a -3 penalty, the fifth suffers a -2 penalty, and so on. Basically, your character’s weapons move so quickly all about him that opponents in close combat have trouble reaching or assaulting him. The Brawling Dodge Merit (see p. 110) cannot replace normal Dodge (Defense doubled) when this maneuver is performed. Deflect and Thrust (••): Your character can avoid attacks and strike back in the same motion. When using this maneuver, your character gains +2 to his Defense for the turn, but any attack he makes suffers a -2 penalty. He can move no more than his Speed while performing a Deflect and Thrust maneuver in a turn. Focused Attack (•••): Your character can attack a single target twice in one turn. The second attack suffers a -1 penalty. Drawback: Your character cannot use his Defense against any attack in the same turn in which he intends to use this maneuver. If he uses Defense against attacks that occur earlier in the Initiative roster, before he can perform this maneuver, he cannot perform the maneuver this turn. He is too busy bobbing and weaving out of the way of attacks. Fluid Attack (••••): Your character can make a single attack on two different targets in one turn. The targets cannot be a distance apart in excess of your character’s Speed trait. The second attack suffers a -1 penalty. Drawback: Your character cannot use his Defense against any attack in the same turn in which he intends to use this maneuver. If he uses Defense against attacks that occur earlier in the Initiative roster, before he can perform this maneuver, he cannot perform the maneuver this turn. He is too busy bobbing and weaving out of the way of attacks.
Firearms Retention (•)
Book: Armory Reload, p. 89 Prerequisite: Dexterity ••, Wits ••, Brawl ••, Firearms •• Effect: Your character knows how to keep a hold of his gun when someone tries to take it, even while it’s holstered. If an opponent attempts to disarm her with an overpower maneuver, an attempt to target her holster with a grab (see the World of Darkness rulebook, p. 138) or use a similar tactic learned from a Fighting Style, he must subtract your character’s Brawl dots from his dice pool. This benefit also applies to attempts to steal the weapon from your character’s holster. Drawback: This benefit doesn’t apply against attempts to take a weapon by stealth.
Fleet of Foot (• to •••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 112 Prerequisites: Strength ••• Effect: +1 Speed per dot Regardless of your character’s physical build, he can run quickly when he chooses to.
Fresh Start (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 112 Prerequisites: Fast Reflexes • Effect: Your character dedicates an action to altering his standing in the Initiative order in the following turn and for all subsequent turns, choosing to insert himself at a new point in the roster, even if it means going first when he went last before. For example, if your Initiative roll (see p. 151) resulted in a 9, but a rival whom your character wanted to waylay got a 12, your character can forfeit an action in turn one to get a fresh start and then act before that rival at 13 in turn two and afterward.
Drawback: A character must take an action to change his Initiative ranking in subsequent turns. He can do nothing else in that action except move up to his Speed.
Giant (••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 112 Effect: Your character is seven or more feet tall and over 250 pounds. He is +1 Size (and thus +1 Health). Available at character creation only. Drawback: Your character needs to shop in big-and tall clothing stores or gets clothes custom tailored. He might also be required to purchase two seats for air travel, depending on the airline.
Ground and Pound (••)
Book: Armory Reload, p. 98 Prerequisites: Combination Blows Fighting Style Maneuver (Boxing or Aggressive Striking •••), Takedown/Throw Fighting Style Maneuver (Grappling ••) Effect: Your character may use Combination Blows (World of Darkness core, pp. 110–111) to perform Takedown/Throw Maneuver followed by an unarmed strike. If she succeeds with the first maneuver, her dice pool doesn’t suffer the usual –1 penalty for the second attack in the Combination Blows series. Instead, the character gains a +2 bonus to strike her prone opponent.
Gunslinger (•••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 112 Prerequisites: Dexterity ••• and Firearms ••• Effect: Your character’s capability and experience with firearms is such that he can accurately fire two pistols at the same time. Your character still suffers the –2 offhand penalty for shooting with his secondary hand (unless he also possesses the Ambidextrous Merit, above), but he can shoot both pistols as a single action during a turn. The second attack is also at a -1 penalty. Your character may shoot at two different targets if he wishes, but the amount of concentration required negates his Defense for the turn. The Merit can be used with pistols only. Drawback: Your character cannot use his Defense against any attack in the same turn in which he intends to use this Merit on two separate targets in the same turn. If he uses Defense against attacks that occur earlier in the Initiative roster, before he can perform this maneuver, he cannot perform the maneuver this turn. He is too busy bobbing and weaving out of the way of attacks.
Heavy Hands (•••)
Book: Armory Reload, p. 98 Prerequisite: Strength •••, Brawl •• Effect: Your character has a strong upper body, tough knuckles and enough raw aggression to punch harder than most people. Her strikes inflict +1 damage. This even applies when she’s wearing knuckledusters or other blunt fist loads. Drawback: The benefit does not apply to biting, grappling attacks or sharp weapons (including blades or spiked fist loads) – just standard unarmed strikes.
Iron Stamina (• to •••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 113 Prerequisites: Stamina ••• or Resolve ••• Effect: Each dot eliminates a negative modifier (on a one-for-one basis) when resisting the effects of fatigue or injury. For example: A character with Iron Stamina •• is able to ignore up to a -2 modifier brought on by fatigue. See “Fatigue”, p. 179. The Merit also counteracts the effects of wound penalties. So, if all of your character’s Health boxes are filled (which normally imposes a -3 penalty to his actions) and he has Iron Stamina •, those penalties are reduced to -2. This Merit cannot be used to gain positive modifiers for actions, only to cancel out negative ones. Your character can push his body well past the limits of physical endurance when he has to, pressing on in the face of mounting exhaustion or pain. Perhaps he trained himself to go without sleep for days at a time in order to get through college, or a lifetime of sports has taught your character how to play through the pain no matter how bad it gets. Drawback: When your character does finally rest, he sleeps like the dead. After staying awake for an extended period, your character is extremely difficult to wake until he’s slept for a minimum of 12 hours, regardless of the situation.
Iron Stomach (••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 113 Prerequisites: Stamina •• Effect: Your character can eat almost anything, under almost any conditions. Greasy bacon and runny eggs on a raging hangover? No problem. The green meat in the fridge? No problem. Milk two weeks past its expiration date? No problem. He could be dropped in the middle of the forest and could live off bugs and roots as long as necessary in order to survive - and with no ill effects. Add two dice to appropriate Survival rolls. Add three to Stamina to resist deprivation (see p. 175).
Natural Immunity (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 113 Prerequisites: Stamina •• Effect: Your character gains a +2 modifier on Stamina rolls to resist infection, sickness and disease. His immune system is exceptionally effective at resisting infections, viruses and bacteria. Your character can probably count on one hand the number of times he’s been seriously ill.
Outdoorsman (••)
Book: Midnight Roads, p. 59 Prerequisites: Survival 3 The character is a natural at making her way in the wilderness, and she has a knack for surviving situations that would prove deadly to most. She can find food and shelter where others see only the possibility of hunger and exposure to the harshness of the elements, and she knows the signs and subtle tells of the outdoors as though they were her native tongue. Characters with this Merit may ignore up to three points of penalties from environmental sources applied to any roll involving the Survival Skill. If a Survival roll is not penalized, then the character instead receives a +1 modifier to her dice pool.
Parkour (• to •••••)
Book: Strange Alchemies, p. 74, Tribes Of The Moon, p. 98 Prerequisites: Dexterity •••, Athletics •• The sport of parkour began in France, and has quickly spread to other parts of the world. Parkour demands a level of athleticism from its practitioners that few other sports do. The purpose of parkour, which is also called “free running” or “urban running,” is to move as quickly as possible through an environment with a variety of obstacles, sprinting through the terrain and using a variety of climbing techniques, leaps, rolls and other athletic movements to navigate. Watching an expert traceur (one of the terms for someone who practices parkour) at work is awe-inspiring, like something out of an action film. Though the technique comes from well-disciplined training, imbedding a certain body of movements and techniques into the parkour’s instinctive reactions, the goal is a flawless, seamless flow of movement from one obstacle to the next, with hardly any pause in speed or movement. This “flow” is the goal of traceurs — it is the highest achievement of a practitioner of parkour to achieve a Zen-like state of lack of thought, where purest instinct and reaction drives the movement. Skilled traceurs speak of sometimes being aware that they’ve accomplished a tremendously difficult feat heartbeats after they’ve accomplished it. Through intensive training to drive home certain actions when confronted with certain obstacles, the traceur can depend on his instincts, rather than his thoughts — which are vulnerable to fears and doubts — when moving through the urban environment. Traceurs gather in clubs. Though the sport has begun to catch on, and some of these clubs are receiving corporate sponsorship, the clubs tend to be quite informal, with members gathering in a given place on a given day of the week to work on their techniques. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special athletic maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. So, your character can’t have “Cat Leap” until he has “Flow.” The maneuvers and their effects are described below, most of which are based on the Athletics Skill. Flow (•): Your character has some basic training in the techniques of parkour, allowing him to act instinctively to obstacles and jumps. When using running or using the Foot Chase rules (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 65), your character may negate hazardous terrain penalties equal to his Rating in the Parkour Merit. Additionally, the roll to gauge a jump distance (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 67) is a reflexive action.
Cat Leap (••): Your character has mastered some of the twisting leaps, landing rolls and wall taps used by traceurs. When using a Dexterity + Athletics roll to mitigate damage from falling (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 179), your character gains one automatic success. Additionally, add one per dot in this Merit to the threshold of damage that can be removed through this roll. Thus, if the Storyteller decrees that only three successes may be garnered to reduce falling damage, the traceur with three dots in this Merit may actually use six successes (assuming the player accumulates that many, including his automatic success). Wall Run (•••): Your character has mastered the quick wall-run and leaping climb techniques of parkour. When using Athletics to climb (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 64), your character is capable of scaling heights of 10 feet + 5 feet per dot in Athletics as an instant action (rather than the normal 10 feet), though every full 10 feet beyond the first imposes a –1 die penalty. so extensively in this athletic discipline that its maneuvers are normal and instinctive for him. Your character may designate any Athletics roll that involves running, jumping and climbing as being a Rote Action (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 134). However, when doing so, he is less able to react to events that don’t have to do with navigating the environment, causing him to lose his Defense for that turn. Expert Traceur (••••): Your character has trained so extensively in this athletic discipline that its maneuvers are normal and instinctive for him. Your character may designate any Athletics roll that involves running, jumping and climbing as being a Rote Action (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 134). However, when doing so, he is less able to react to events that don’t have to do with navigating the environment, causing him to lose his Defense for that turn. Freeflow (•••••): Your character has achieved the freeflow that is the holy grail of traceurs everywhere — he acts without thinking, his movements flowing, graceful and quick when he enters “the zone.” He can perform any Athletics action that involves running, jumping or climbing as a reflexive action, rather than an instant action. Doing so requires that the character has been running for at least a full minute previously; any use of this ability before that minute mark requires the expenditure of one point of Willpower, however.
Quick Draw (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 113 Prerequisites: Dexterity ••• Effect: Your character can draw a pistol and fire or pull a melee weapon and attack without penalty as a single action in a turn. If a weapon is hidden on your character’s person (under a coat or in a purse), it can be drawn and used in the same turn without the normal loss of Defense. A separate Quick Draw Merit must be acquired for use with firearms and melee weapons.
Quick Healer (••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 113 Prerequisites: Stamina •••• Effect: Your character’s healing abilities are remarkable, allowing him to bounce back quickly from injuries that would leave most people bedridden for months. Your character recovers from injuries in half the time that others do. One point of bashing damage is healed in eight minutes. One point of lethal damage is healed in one day. One point of aggravated damage is healed in four days.
Strong Back (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 113 Prerequisites: Strength •• Effect: Your character gains a +1 modifier to actions involving lifting or carrying heavy weights. She can lift and carry much more weight than her build and body type suggests.
Strong Lungs(•••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 113 Prerequisites: Athletics ••• Effect: Your character is practiced at holding his breath for long periods of time. He might be a pearl diver or escape artist, capable of staying underwater without aid for longer than most people believe is possible. When determining how long your character can hold his breath, add two to Stamina when referencing the Holding Breath chart on p. 49. For example, if your character’s Stamina is 2, he can hold his breath for four minutes before you need to make a roll.
Student Of The Blade (•)
Book: Armory Reload, p. 66 Prerequisite: Fighting Style: Fencing (Aggressive Light Sword) or Iaido (Defensive Light Sword) • Effect: Your character trains with a wide variety of light swords and sticks, allowing her to flow from one method to the next. She never suffers a penalty for being unfamiliar with a weapon outside her original Fighting Style.
Stunt Driver(•••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 113 Prerequisites: Dexterity ••• Effects: Your character can drive a vehicle and perform an unrelated action (e.g., fire a gun, punch another passenger) in the same turn. Drive rolls may still be necessary for dangerous maneuvers or situations. See “Vehicles, “ p. 141.
Stunt Rider (•••)
Book: Requiem For Rome, p. 110 Prerequisites: Dexterity ••• Effects: Your character can ride a horse and perform an unrelated action (e.g., fire a bow, grab a running victim) in the same turn. Ride rolls may still be necessary for dangerous maneuvers or situations.
The Weapon at Hand (••)
Book: Armory Reload, p. 79 Prerequisite: Fighting Style: Krav Maga (Defensive Striking) •• Effect: Krav Maga teaches its adherents that efficacy trumps style in every case. Exposed to purposefully harsh conditions, mentors train their pupils to quickly recognize and obtain the most useful improvised implement of destruction in her immediate surroundings, whether it be a bottle of gin, a pool cue or even a stapler. The results can be brutal. A character with this Merit may roll Wits + Weaponry as a reflexive action to ascertain what nearby object is both useful and available for use as a deadly weapon. On a success, the Storyteller relates to her the nearest and most efficacious improvised weapon, which she may then take up as an instant action (or as a reflexive action if she possesses the appropriate Quick Draw Merit). On a dramatic success, the character finds a weapon so perfect that it does not suffer the usual –1 penalty for being improvised. Storytellers are encouraged to be creative with this Merit. Rarely does a character find herself in a situation in which absolutely nothing can be used as a weapon.
Tolerance for Biology (•)
Book: Asylum, p. 51 Prerequisite: Resolve, Stamina or Composure •• Effect: Some people see blood and pass out. Some people hear another person throwing up and get queasy. Your character can watch medicinal maggots being massaged into open, blackened wounds and feel nothing except a bit of curiosity. He never feels nauseated due to unpleasant things he sees in a medical setting, and receives a +2 bonus to any roll to keep composed when offered scenes of violence or carnage, or when exposed to horrific smells.
Toxin Resistance (••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 113 Prerequisites: Stamina ••• Effect: Your character gains a +2 modifier to Stamina rolls to resist the effects of drugs, poisons and toxins. His body is capable of withstanding high levels of chemicals without suffering any ill effects. He’s probably never had a case of food poisoning, much less a hangover. Drawbacks: Your character’s body can’t tell the difference between recreational toxins and intentional ones. It’s very difficult for him to become intoxicated, whether from alcohol, nicotine or other drugs. Also, painkillers and anesthetics are only half as effective as normal.
Weaponry Dodge (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 114 Prerequisites: Strenght ••• and Weaponry • Effect: Whenever your character performs a dodge (see “Dodge,” p. 156), you can choose to add his Weaponry Skill dots to his Defense instead of doubling his Defense. He essentially draws on his training in parrying and evading attacks rather than relying on his raw ability alone. While this might provide little benefit to a fencing novice, it can give the advanced fighter an edge. Weaponry Dodge applies against incoming Brawl- and Weaponry-based attacks, against thrown-weapon attacks, and against Firearms attacks made within close-combat range. Your character can move up to his Speed and perform a Weaponry Dodge maneuver in a turn. A character can possess both the Brawling Dodge and Weaponry Dodge Merits, but only one can be used per turn.
Weapons to Empty Hands (••)
Book: Armory Reload, p. 66 Prerequisite: Dexterity •••, Brawl •••, Weaponry •••, Fighting Style Merit •••• (and see below) Effect: Your character trains in a martial art that teaches common principles for weapons and unarmed combat. Her skills transfer from one to the other. This gives her the ability to use certain armed Fighting Styles without a weapon. Of the styles discussed in this book, she may use Two Weapons, Filipino Martial Arts (Stick Fighting) or Spetsnaz (and other forms of) Knife Fighting. You must purchase this maneuver separately for each Fighting Style. Your character uses Brawl instead of Weaponry for all maneuver-related attacks and dice pools, and inflicts damage as an unarmed combatant.
Wheelman (••)
Book: Midnight Roads, p. 59 Prerequisites: Dexterity 2, Drive 2 Some people were born to sit behind the wheel of a car (truck, van, etc.). Likewise, there are those for whom steering a motorcycle is as natural as moving their own limbs by will alone. Such individuals often take to the nomad lifestyle with the eagerness of a natural wanderer. Characters with this Merit receive the benefit of the 9-again rule with respect to all rolls involving the Drive Skill.
Social Merits Allies (• to •••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 114 Effect: Allies are people who are willing to help your character from time to time. They may be associates, friends of convenience or people who owe your character a favor. Each acquisition of this Merit is dedicated to one type of ally, whether in an organization, society or circle. Examples include the police, City Hall, criminals, unions, banks, university faculty and hospital staff. In order to have alliances in more than one venue, you need to purchase this Merit multiple times, each trait with its own dots. Thus, your character might have Allies (Police) ••, Allies (Criminals) ••• and Allies (City Hall) •, each acquired separately at character creation or during play. Each dot that your character has indicates how deep his influence runs in that group. One dot might mean he can ask for minor favors, such as being spared a parking ticket if alliance is among police, or being allowed to see an article before it goes to press if alliance is among reporters. Three dots garner considerable favors, such as a building permit “going missing” at City Hall, or a strike resolution being wrapped up early among union leaders. Five dots allow for dangerous and even overtly criminal favors, such as a stock being sabotaged on Wall Street or the answers to an exam being shared by a university professor. The kinds of requests made of people in an organization typically have to relate to their sphere of influence. Asking a criminal to slow down the bureaucratic process at City Hall makes no sense, but asking him to pass along word of a drug buy does. Favors might be minor and within the bounds of a person’s job or role, such as processing some paperwork more quickly than usual, or could be significant or dangerous and outside what’s allowed or even legal, such as allowing a civilian access to the police evidence locker. The Storyteller has final say over what is an acceptable request and what is not. If there’s any doubt, the Storyteller could call for a Manipulation + Persuasion roll, with a bonus equal to your character’s Allies dots. Penalties might also apply based on the importance or danger of the request. Asking someone to do something already in the bounds of their role imposes no modifier, while asking them to do something that could get them suspended imposes a -3 penalty, and asking for something that could get them jailed or killed is -5. Frequent favors asked of the same group also imposes a penalty as group members grow tired of being called upon. Similarly, a roll of Manipulation + Persuasion + Allies dots could determine how many police answer your character’s call for help, or how many longshoremen turn up when your character needs a show of force (one per success rolled). Allies doesn’t have to be defined in terms of specific individuals over whom your character has sway. He could simply know a variety of people among city reporters and he can call upon them in general from time to time. You should, however, explain why your character has influence in a particular body. Maybe he worked there himself at one time and still has friends in the organization. Or he has done a group a favor and its members still owe him. Drawback: Allies are not automatons, waiting for your character to ask for help. They have their own lives and needs. An alliance is a two-way relationship. Calling for favors makes your character indebted to his friends, and they are sure to call such favors in when they need help. The Storyteller can use such debts as inspiration for future stories.
Animal Affinity (• to •••)
Book: Skinchangers, p. 20 One particular animal species never seems to mind your character’s presence and reacts with remarkable favor when he tries to interact with them. Cats are always friendly, or wolves accept him as one of the pack. Each dot in this Merit adds a +1 modifier to all Social rolls made to influence or understand the chosen species of animal. Characters may purchase this Merit multiple times to affect multiple species. Special: Skinchangers who take this Merit for their totem animal treat the one-dot version as the two-dot version and the two-dot version as three dots. They cannot purchase the three-dot version of this Merit.
Armory (• to •••••)
Book: Banishers, p. 51 Prerequisites: Resources ••• Effect: Your character can draw upon an array of weapons and armor. This Merit could represent a large gun collection, the ability to call in favors for arms or ownership of a firearms or martial arts supply store.
When you select this Merit, give it a descriptor such as “dojo weapons” or “hunting club.” This will guide your use of the Merit. Each dot provides five “points” of weapons and armor. The pool of dots provides a vaguely defined assortment of available arms. You may use weapons and armor equal to your pool total at any given time. The base pool cost for a weapon is equal to its Damage rating. Add 1 to the cost if the weapon is a firearm. Armor has a pool cost equal to its Defense bonus. Add 1 to the cost of any weapon or piece of armor if it’s illegal or highly restricted. The maximum Damage or Defense rating possible for any Armory equipment is equal to the Merit’s dots +1. Firearms come with a full load or magazine. One Armory point adds an additional load or magazine. You don’t need to account for every single knife and gun, and in fact, there are more parts and arms than the pool would allow — the equivalent of the classic briefcase or rack full of guns. Your total represents arms in good enough repair to actually use. You may change weapon selections freely as long as the choices could plausibly fit under the general descriptor. Similar to the Sanctum or Library Merits, it’s possible to purchase this Merit collectively, dividing its benefits among the entire group. Drawback: Unlike arms and armor purchased with standard Resources, Armory gear is gray market at best. It includes a selection of stolen, illegally modified or improperly registered weapons. If the authorities discover your Armory, you might incur a fine or imprisonment.
Barfly (• to •••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 114 Effect: No matter what town or city your character is in, he can find his way into the best nightspots with a few quick words and a timely bribe. There isn’t a velvet rope made that can keep him out of a restaurant or club.
Bureaucratic Navigator (••)
Book: Asylum, p. 51 Effect: Bureaucracy has a pattern, and your character has learned to recognize it. Within any given bureaucratic system, be it a hospital, a government agency or a corporation, he has learned whom to talk to get results, which rules he absolutely must follow and which ones he can ignore because no one pays attention. You receive a +2 bonus to all Social and Mental rolls made to navigate, manipulate or work within a bureaucratic system. Note that this Merit doesn’t accomplish the impossible. Your character isn’t going to get a permit for a heavy assault rifle if such weapons are illegal in his city, no matter how much he flirts with the ladies at the country courthouse.
Contacts (• to •••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 114 Effect: Contacts provide your character information in a particular area of awareness. Each dot in this Merit represents one arena or circle in which your character has a web of connections and from which he may draw information. If he has Contacts •••, his dots might be assigned to computer hackers, couriers and big business, respectively. Contacts can include individuals whom you or the Storyteller defines, but more likely they comprise an array of people from whom your character can draw information with a phone call, email or faceto-face query. Contacts is strictly information-gathering. Contacts do not come perform services for your character or rush to his aid. Those actions are the purview of other Merits such as Allies and Retainer. Gaining information from contacts requires a successful Manipulation + Persuasion or Socialize roll, depending on the relationship between your character and the people in question. Penalties might apply if the information sought is little known (-1 to -3), confidential (-3), or if sharing it could get people in trouble or harmed (-3 to - 5). Success doesn’t guarantee exactly the information for which your character looks. Contacts aren’t all-knowing, and the Storyteller is perfectly justified in saying that a particular contact simply doesn’t know something. Dramatic Failure: The contact doesn’t tell your character the full extent of what he knows, or provides misleading information. Perhaps he’s holding out for money or favors, or simply makes an honest mistake. Failure: The contact doesn’t have the information your character needs. Success: The contact is able to provide some information that’s helpful to your character. Exceptional Success: The contact is able to provide a wealth of information to your character, providing answers to questions that aren’t even asked. Suggested Equipment: Gift (+1), small bribe (+1), large bribe (+2), an outstanding favor (+1 to +3)
Possible Penalties: Lack of bribe (-1), frequent and recent requests (-1 to -2), information confidential (-1 to -3), information scarce (-2), information obscure (-3).
Cultural Language (•)
Book: Immortals, p. 82 Effect: Communication was not always as simple as signing into e-mail and clicking ‘send.’ In time before e-mail, even in times before standardized letter writing, body thieves sought ways to communicate with one another even over distance, since their practices could carry them almost anywhere. To reflect this, body thieves take this specialized Language Merit to reflect this form of communication that can only be understood by members of their society. This Merit muddles the thieves’ language with secrecy, and any person trying to discern the actual meaning of a conversation or written communication suffers a two dice penalty unless they know the same cultural language. For the Archer family, it’s merely a derivative of their cultural Shelta language. For the Club, it’s a series of complicated metaphors often hidden in the text of school work or poetry. For those poor souls lost in the server of death.com, the Merit might reflect a deviant form of binary that once cracked, could allow her to communicate with the outside world and with it, a terrible warning.
Decorated (• to •••••)
Book: Dogs Of War, p. 39 Effect: Your character has received an award for meritorious conduct of some sort. Characters gain a bonus on all Social rolls relating to one’s Allies, Contacts or Status in the military, regardless of whether the character is currently serving or not. The three-dot, four-dot and five-dot Merits indicate an exceptional award: the Silver Star for the three-dot Merit; the Distinguished Service Medal or Distinguished Service Cross for the four-dot Merit; and the Medal of Honor for the five-dot Merit. Those who have earned the Medal of Honor are entitled to a salute regardless of rank or whether they are now civilians. Servicemen and servicewomen who have received lethal injuries as a result of combat during a military action are automatically awarded the Purple Heart, a two-dot Merit. Drawback: This Merit rides on the world’s perception of the character’s honor and Morality. The character must be seen to retain honor and dignity in his actions. Should the character commit sins rated 5 or lower on the Morality chart, and should those sins become public knowledge, the Merit may be revoked, earning him the Notoriety Flaw (see “Character Flaws”, the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 217).
Fame (• to •••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 115 Effect: Your character has a measure of recognition in today’s media-saturated society, possibly as a performer, athlete, politician or other sort of public personality. He’s frequently identified and can often get star treatment. On the other hand, it’s difficult for your character to go places without being recognized, and the media watches him carefully. Each dot adds a +1 modifier to your character’s Socialize (or Persuasion, where applicable) rolls among those who are impressed by his celebrity status. Drawback: The more famous your character is, the more easily he is recognized by the public. The Storyteller should apply the same +1 modifier per dot to a general Wits + Composure roll to see if he is recognized by anyone on the street. An exceptional success indicates that one or more people are loyal fans who approach him for autographs, pictures and long conversations.
Fence (• to •••)
Book: Banishers, p. 51 Prerequisite: Streetwise ••• Effect: No matter your character’s location, she can almost always find a way to buy and sell stolen goods within the local criminal community or online. No dice roll is required. She avoids common law enforcement tactics designed to catch fences, but her clients might not be as clever. The one-dot version of this Merit applies to typical stolen goods: items that would require Resources •• or less to purchase. More expensive or exotic goods such as sports cars, fine art or assault weapons require the three-dot version of the Merit.
Friend (• to •••••)
Book: Requiem Chronicler’s Guide, p. 68 Effect: The Allies Merit from World of Darkness Rulebook represents influence in groups. While this is a valuable Trait for a Prince to have, sometimes it’s necessary to have individual allies who are more potent by themselves. The Retainer Merit can represent these potent allies if they are subordinate to the character. Likewise, Mentor can represent individual allies to whom the vampire owes favors or allegiance. However, this new Friend Merit is intended to represent allied peers, individuals who have independent power and are neither beholden to the character with this Merit nor owed any allegiance by her. Similar to Haven, there are multiple aspects of this Merit: allocate dots purchased to Power and Trust. Power represents the friend’s level of skill and influence; one dot is significantly less powerful than the character, three dots is about the same level of power and five dots means a friend who is significantly more powerful. Trust is an indicator of the depth of the friendship; dots in Trust are added as bonus dice to any roll to convince the friend represented by this Merit to do something for the character.
Ingratiating Wanderer (••)
Book: Midnight Roads, p. 58 Prerequisites: Manipulation 3 Upon first rolling into town, making contact with the powers-that-be usually proves to be a notion as difficult to follow through with as it is wise. Some individuals, however, possess an almost uncanny sense for the best places to look for the people in charge and how best to approach them. Such people are prized by many of those who take to the road, as a little insight into the local power structure — not to mention the chance to earn a bit of favor — can go a long way, indeed. Certain of these individuals are like charming snake oil salesmen, while others are just approachable and assertive, but all have a knack for getting a foot in the door. The character receives a +2 bonus to all rolls made to track down a local authority figure of her supernatural “type” (Kindred, Forsaken, Lost, etc.), provided that such exists. Further, this bonus applies to all mundane social rolls made to establish a positive first impression with said authority figure. The character may ruin the good graces she’s established through her subsequent actions, but the initial reaction that she receives is likely to be a good one. Note that this Merit’s effects may come into play again in the same city if the localpower structure undergoes a significant shake-up while the nomads are away, or if the characters look different, disguise themselves or have simply been forgotten by the time they return.
Inspiring (••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 115 Prerequisite: Presence •••• Effect: Your character is able to rally others in times of great distress, renewing their courage and determination in the face of adversity. Once per game session, your character can exhort those around him to redouble their efforts in the face of great stress or danger. Make a Presence + Persuasion roll. If the roll succeeds, any individuals who actively assist your character and who are within earshot regain one spent Willpower point (not to exceed their Willpower dots). The character may not use this Merit on himself, and may not use it on the same subjects more than once a day.
Mentor (• to •••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 115 Effect: This Merit gives your character a friend and teacher who provides her with advice and guidance. Your character’s mentor acts on her behalf, although the Storyteller determines exactly how. A mentor usually offers advice, allowing the Storyteller to use him to help guide your character through tough situations. A mentor may also use his influence or abilities to help your character out, although he probably wants to see his charge do things for herself. A mentor is likely to give up in disgust on a pupil who constantly asks for aid. Mentors may also ask for something in return for their assistance, which can lead your character into some interesting situations. The number of dots purchased in this Merit determines the relative power, knowledge and experience of your character’s teacher. One dot indicates a mentor with one or more specialized Skills and a small amount of experience in your character’s field of interest. Two dots indicate a mentor with a wide range of capability and experience in your character’s field of interest. Three dots indicate a mentor possessing a broad range of Skills, years of experience and significant influence in your character’s field of interest. Four dots indicate a
mentor who not only possesses a broad range of Skills and decades (or in some cases, centuries) of experience, he is also a preeminent figure with major influence in your character’s field of interest. Five dots indicate a mentor with towering influence and power in your character’s field of interest. A five-dot patron watches over your character and influences her life in ways both obvious and subtle, and likely has an agenda in which your character is pivotal.
Pleasing Aura (•••)
Book: Book Of Spirits, p. 109 Effect: Strange things happen around your character. This is because, for whatever reason, spirits like his presence. The character might have an emotional resonance that is universally enjoyable for denizens of the Shadow Realm, or maybe they just like your style. The bad news is that spirits tend to flock around the character, making him one of those people who is always in the “right place at the right time” with respect to otherworldly events. The good news is that, as a general rule, the spirits don’t mean the character ill. Unless they get territorial or jealous. The character gains a +1 bonus to Persuasion and Socialize rolls to affect spirits.
Predator’s Bearing (••)
Book: Skinchangers, p. 20; Changing Breeds, p. 97 Effect: Something about your character reminds people and animals of the predators that hunt them. A human feels a base fear in his reptilian brain that catches his breath or causes hairs to stand up on the back of his head. Animals stand stock still, watching the character out of the corner of an eye, ready to run should she step close. This Merit adds +1 die to any Social roll that would benefit from such unease. Intimidation benefits most directly from this Merit, but some forms of Expression (reciting black, actually frightening poetry or appearing to be a “dangerous” rock star), Persuasion (fear can make for an exciting seduction) and Socialize (the cool kid who gathers the crowd can be disturbingly scary at times) are all viable Skills. The bonus from Predator’s Bearing can apply to animals, if appropriate. Skinchangers who emulate carnivorous or impressive animals commonly take this Merit. Drawback: This isn’t something that a character can just turn on or off. Many other Social rolls suffer a penalty because of the character’s nerve-wracking habits. Any Social action that such a demeanor would make more difficult suffers a –1 penalty. The character’s efforts to sing a sweet song or act the waif must first overcome her natural “hungry” tendencies. People are often reluctant to deal with someone who frightens them (not everybody’s turned on by the thrill of dangerous partners). And creepy people receive more scrutiny, which they can ill afford when trying to lie. Special: Creatures that are already top predators in their regions (such as lions on the savannah) are unafraid of other predators. Character with this Merit cannot apply it against such creatures. This includes supernaturally-enhanced predators, such as vampires or werewolves.
Resources (• to •••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 115 Effect: This Merit measures your character’s material resources, both possessions and wealth. All characters are assumed to have a job or a source of income (trust fund, parents) that is sufficient to cover their basic needs: food, shelter and transportation. Dots in this Merit represent disposable income - wealth and assets that can be liquidated for more money in case of emergency. The number of dots indicates your character’s general level of wealth. One dot suggests low disposable income: $500 a month and approximately $1,000 worth of assets. Two dots suggest moderate disposable income: $1,000 a month and approximately $5000 worth of assets. Three dots suggest significant disposable income: $2000 a month and maybe $10,000 worth of assets. Four dots suggest substantial disposable income: $10,000 a month and $500,000 worth of assets. Five dots suggest significant wealth: $50,000 a month and as much as $5,000,000 worth of assets. Resources can be used to determine if your character can reasonably afford a purchase or expenditure. Equipment, weapons and items throughout these rules are assigned costs in dots. The Storyteller can assign cost dots to other items during play based on what’s here. If your character has the same or more dots in Resources, he can afford the item on his disposable income. That doesn’t mean he has a blank check with which to buy everything he sees. He might be able to afford one or two items with a cost equal to his Resources dots in a single month. Items with lower costs can be acquired more often. The Storyteller has final say on what’s too much or what’s too often. Your character’s Resources dots aren’t spent and don’t go away. They represent available cash at any given moment. The only means by which your character’s Resource dots might decrease is if story events conspire
against them. Perhaps your character’s fortune is wiped out, he loses his job or his company is subjected to a hostile takeover. The Storyteller therefore influences how your character’s dots might decrease, and whether they can be salvaged.
Retainer (• to •••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 116 Effects: Your character has an assistant, aide, indentured servant or fanatical follower on whom she can rely. You need to establish how this trusty companion was acquired. He may be paid exorbitant amounts of money that buy his unwavering loyalty. He might owe his life to your character (or to your character’s predecessors). Your character might blackmail this person or threaten his family with harm if services are not rendered. Or your character might have a supernatural hold over this poor person. Regardless of the circumstances, this person is constantly loyal and follows almost any order without question. A retainer can be called upon to perform many duties without fail. A bodyguard might be willing to hurt other people on a mere command. A dedicated street kid might hang on your character’s every word and get her information or contacts without being asked. Unless your character has direct control over a retainer’s mind, however, this person can’t be made to perform any task. He might not risk his own life unduly or perform a task that violates his own morals. You or the Storyteller should detail your retainer with an identity, background and character sheet of his own. The Storyteller usually plays your character’s retainer. Each acquisition of this Merit grants your character one follower. Dots spent in the trait indicate the training, capability or flexibility of the aide. One dot suggests a child, an automaton or a madman with limited capabilities and freedom of thought. Two dots indicate an ordinary person over whom your character has sway. The servant is completely mundane and has no particular training above the human norm (he has two dots in all of his Attributes and Skills). Three dots represent a capable employee with a range of training at his disposal (three or four of his traits have three dots). Four dots represent a valued and irreplaceable assistant (someone with a handful of traits with four dots each). Five dots indicate an extraordinary follower. He is exceptional in many ways (five dots in a couple traits, and four in many others) or he may be capable of supernatural feats. Retainer is different from Allies in that no roll is ever made to get results from an aide. He performs the task requested, unless subjected to repeated abuse or an utterly intolerable assignment (as decided by the Storyteller based on the assistant’s personality). Drawback: If your retainer is ever hurt he may be incapable of service while recovering. If he is killed, he’s lost forever unless supernatural in origin. A retainer who possesses his own will and who is forced to perform a duty that offends his sensibilities or defies his morals may abandon your character, temporarily or permanently. Points spent to acquire a retainer who is killed or driven off are lost.
Saintly (•••)
Book: Book Of Spirits, p. 110 Effect: Spirit’s do not like your character’s presence. She might make spirits uncomfortable because of her extraordinary faith (per the Merit’s name) or maybe she has a less earthly reason for disturbing them. A mighty spirit might have blessed or cursed her when she was young, or declared her off-limits to others for inscrutable reasons. Either way, she has a little influence on them, and they don’t like her. She gains a +1 to Intimidate rolls against spirits, and to attempts to abjure or exorcise them from places or human hosts (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, pp. 213–124). They may also be unwilling to harm her or disrupt her life. Drawback: Some spirits are not unwilling to harm her, and may even see it as a challenge — after all, she has a level of notoriety. She suffers a –1 die penalty to all Expression, Persuasion and Socialize rolls against spirits. A given spirit may be unwilling to involve itself with her at all, which could cause complications.
Seductive Grace (• to •••)
Book: Signs Of The Moon, p. 144 Prerequisites: Dexterity •••, Expression •• The character has mastered the nuances of seduction through their expressive craft. With coy looks, meaningful words dripping with intent, or graceful hypnotic movements in dance, the artist is able to soften a target to suggestion. The performer can subtract her rating in this Merit from a subject’s Wits + Composure roll to resist seduction attempts (see the World Of Darkness Rulebook, p. 84) when she uses her talents to directly allure and distract onlookers.
Shadow Contacts (••• to •••••)
Book: Book Of Spirits, p. 110 Effect: Your character knows a place where she can ask questions and get information. She has reasonably free access to this place — which may be the urinal in a cathedral, a dank cave in a national park, the manhole that a murderer used to dispose of bodies or nearly anything else — and can occasionally go there to get answers. She does not know what entity she asks. For each answer the Shadow Contact provides, it asks a price. This price often has some tangential relation to the nature of the question, but may well not. The more urgent or esoteric the question, the stranger and more disturbing the price. Frivolous questions are discouraged by incommensurately outrageous demands. If the character asks whether and why her creepy neighbor is stealing locks of her hair, the voice may request a Barbie doll hanged in a noose made from a young girl’s hair. Asking whether she should change her hairstyle, the entity may demand all the hair shaved from three young girls. The character only pays the price if the Shadow Contact has the answer. The Storyteller (who likely knows just who or what the Shadow Contact is) may simply decide, or he may roll the character’s rating in the Merit to determine either way. Drawback: If the character receives an answer from the Shadow Contact, she must pay the price or make the contact reluctant to speak with her. Each time the character fails to give the Shadow Contact its dues, her rating in the Merit drops by one dot. She may purchase greater trust with proper roleplaying and experience points. This will often involve meeting the reneged upon deal, with interest. If the rating drops below three dots, the contact refuses to speak with her any longer. She must purchase the Merit anew from zero dots, which represents finding a new mysterious font of information — no easy task. Note that the Merit degrades only if the Shadow Contact decides that her payment is officially past due. Clever characters may be able to delay the entity for some time.
Shadowless Chambers (• to •••••)
Book: Book Of Spirits, p. 110 Effect: Your character owns or can take refuge in a location that spirits have trouble finding. Maybe the location has no reflection in the Shadow Realm or has a peculiar resonance that confounds spirits. The location may have a bad reputation in the spirit world, in a way similar to the worst streets in a mortal city. Whatever the cause, spirits rarely go there and rarely think to go there. The character may hide there with reasonable surety that denizens of the Shadow Realm will not find him. Each dot in this Merit applies a –1 die penalty on spirits’ attempts to track the character to that location or reason out where he might be hiding. Drawback: This Merit is fragile. When a spirit does manage to find the character in the marked location, word begins to spread. The location’s reputation diminishes, or the presence of a spirit alters the resonance that once kept them away. Each such event reduces the Merit’s rating by one. On the other hand, when something bad does happen to the spirit there — the character manages to discorporate it, or the resonance infects the spirit — such events serve as excellent reason to increase this Merit with experience points.
Small Unit Tactics (•••)
Book: Dogs Of War, p. 39 Prerequisites: Manipulation ••• and Persuasion ••• with a Leadership Specialty Effect: The character is familiar with the tactical application of force by a small unit: no unit larger than a platoon. The character must be in charge of the unit in question for it to benefi t from his tactical leadership. When conducting a tactical maneuver such as a flanking attack, covering fire or when in a CQB (Close Quarters battle) or FIBUA (Fighting In Built Up Areas, aka Urban Warfare) situation, in any turn, the leader may spend 1 Willpower and roll Manipulation + Persuasion reflexively to issue a command to his unit. The Willpower bonus of +3, or +2 to a defensive dice pool, applies to all the men in the unit in that turn, including the leader. Any individual member may also stack their own Willpower expenditure and bonus on top of the leadership bonus conferred by the leader. Drawback: The Willpower bonus only applies in a situation in which the leader and his men are already well trained, using tactics familiar to all men in the unit. In game terms, all members of the team, including the leader, must have gained 1 experience point at some prior stage whilst under the guidance of the leader. If a situation arises for which there is no SOP (Standard Operating Procedure), the leadership bonus does not apply unless it is applied to a defensive dice pool.
Socially Small (••)
Book: Skinchangers, p. 21; Changing Breeds, p. 97
Whether natural or carefully cultivated, your character is easy to overlook. Socially, he’s ignorable or of negligible importance. He’s not necessarily forgettable. People are as apt to remember him as they are anyone else, if they even notice him in the first place. Even when they do look at him, he usually weighs in as “unthreatening.” Mechanically, the character gains a +1 modifier to Subterfuge and Stealth rolls, since people are paying less attention to him, and thus his lies and his attempts to go unnoticed. Some other Skills may also benefit from this Merit, at the Storyteller’s discretion. There are times when being small could benefit a player in Politics or someone using Streetwise. More generally, people with this Merit register as someone whom people don’t need to pay attention to. The character gets chosen last for kickball, but the police don’t pick him up while looking for the usual suspects. Shopkeepers who are strict about loiterers consider him a non-issue. People and creatures who get nervous around others feel a little less so when it’s just him. Even prey animals react a little less to his presence. This amounts to a –1 penalty to the Wits + Composure rolls to notice this character as a detail. Skinchangers who emulate small or prey animals commonly take this Merit. Drawback: Even when the character wants to be noticed, he’s still overlookable or unimportant. Waiting with others to get customer service’s attention, everyone else successfully shouts over him. No one really takes his threats seriously, even when he means them. This applies a –1 penalty to Expression, Intimidation and Socialize rolls, as well as any other actions the Storyteller deems appropriate.
Spirit Ear (•• to ••••)
Book: Book Of Spirits, p. 111 Prerequisites: Wits ••• or Composure ••• Effect: Your character has a knack for understanding spirits. Perhaps one whispered to his mother as she was pregnant or sang him to sleep (and nightmares) as an infant. Today, even though their alien minds speak human tongues only poorly, the character always understands exactly what the spirit meant to say. This is by no means a conscious process of translation, and the character has no means of more effectively communicating to spirits, just understanding their words. On a mechanical level, the character gains +1 die bonus to use the Empathy Skill on spirits and to use the Subterfuge Skill to detect their lies. The character also ignores penalties based on poor understanding of the spirit’s words. This is the two-dot version of the Merit, and only available at character creation. The four-dot version of the Merit does not grant the above. Instead, that version of the Merit makes it possible for the character to piece together and infer meaning from the glossolalia that spirits speak naturally when not forced to communicate with humans. The character may attempt to assemble a rough idea of what a spirit is saying in that tongue with a Wits + Empathy roll at a –3 dice penalty. Other penalties may apply, especially if the speech is hard to hear or the spirit is deliberately being vague or opaque. For characters who possess the two-dot version of Spirit Ear, the four-dot version costs only three dots. Other characters must purchase it at four dots.
Status (• to •••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 116 Prerequisites: Varies (see below) Effects: Your character has standing, credentials, authority or respect within an organization, group, company or social body. He might have an official position or title, or might simply be revered and honored within the group and therefore accorded a degree of authority. Your character might be a company vice president, a police sergeant or lieutenant, an army corporal or a nurse at a hospital. Or he could be a lowly member of the group whom everyone likes or who has won some acclaim and is allowed more standing than he is officially entitled. Each acquisition of this Merit is dedicated to one type of authority, whether in an organization, society or circle. Examples include police, City Hall, criminals, unions, banks, a university faculty and hospital staff. In order to have authority in more than one venue, you need to purchase this Merit multiple times, each trait with its own dots. Thus, your character might have Status (Police) ••, Status (Criminals) ••• and Status (City Hall) •, each acquired separately at character creation or during play. You would need to explain how he reconciles all this authority in the setting. The aforementioned character might be a dirty police sergeant who has paid his dues in civil elections and gained some recognition among city officials. Status represents the privileges and liberties that your character is authorized to take within the confines and definitions of his group. Increasing dots reflect increasing clout. A cop with Status 1 can enter the suspect lockup and interrogation rooms, while a cop with Status 4 can enter the evidence locker without supervision or get involved in a crime scene investigation without specifically being called in.
The phrase “within the confines and definitions of his Group” is emphasized above because Status operates exclusively through official channels. A surgeon might have one patient seen or operated on before another, because that’s within the official confines of his authority. Exceeding the confines of authority or proper channels transcends the limits of the Status Merit. Going above and beyond — to ask for favors rather than give orders or to requisition an official request — enters the realm of the Allies Merit. So, a police detective who gets a lower-ranking officer to investigate a case may do so with Status. That request is conducted through proper channels. Meanwhile, a police detective who asks another officer to overlook some evidence or to delay an investigation does so with Allies. The favor is asked outside official channels. While Status might allow your character to give orders to underlings, the Merit doesn’t automatically get results. Subordinates or co-workers might resent their assignments, dislike your character or have personal agendas that interfere with your character’s needs. Efforts to get things done through official channels still call for Manipulation + Intimidation, Persuasion or Socialize rolls, whichever Skill is appropriate to the request, circumstances and your character’s standing within the organization. Bonus dice equal your character’s Status dots. Penalties might apply if your character browbeats someone (-1), uses threats (-2), skirts the limits of his authority (-2) or exceeds his authority (-3 to -5). Some sample organizations and the basic benefits, perks and privileges of standing in them are listed below. City Police: A patrol officer has legal powers of search, seizure and arrest, is permitted to carry a firearm at all times and has access to a wide range of local databases. High-ranking officers (•••+) can initiate investigations, coordinate with neighboring county or state police, and call in urban-assault teams. Clerical Standing: Your character is a licensed minister, gaining access to people and places such as accused criminals, hospital patients, crime and accident scenes, and restricted areas in religious institutions. Prerequisite: Academics Skill Specialty: Religion. Corporate Executive: A low-level corporate executive has access to much of the company’s resources, including corporate credit cards, vehicles, cell phones and computer equipment. Depending on the company, he can also access sources of information and influence not available to the general public. Executives (•••+) have larger salaries, expense accounts, and hiring and firing powers, not to mention social perks and access to connected political figures and/or celebrities. Diplomat: Your character is a registered diplomat for a sovereign country. If he works in a foreign country he has free lodging, access to his country’s embassy and immunity from foreign criminal prosecution. Prerequisites: Politics •• and Persuasion ••. Licensed Professional: Your character is licensed in a recognized profession that affords him privileges unavailable to most civilians. He might be a private investigator and authorized to carry a concealed weapon and to have access to restricted databases and government files, or he could be a building contractor and be authorized to own and use explosives for professional applications. Prerequisite: Academics Skill Specialty: Law (private investigator), Science Skill Specialty: Demolitions (building contractor). Medical: Your character is licensed to practice medicine. He can write prescriptions, access medical records and gain access to restricted areas such as crime and accident scenes. Prerequisite: Medicine ••. Military: An enlisted soldier has a monthly stipend, is permitted to possess military-grade firearms and has access to restricted sources of information and equipment. If he is an active-duty soldier he receives free room and board and medical care. High-ranking soldiers (•••+) are officers who can command units, requisition military equipment and perhaps even initiate foreign insurgencies. Rotary Club: A basic member in good standing has access to the local meeting hall and a network of members who can provide club-related information or perform club-related duties. A basic member can also benefit from the organization’s emergency fund in times of need. High ranking members (•••+) have access to other clubs around the country, and have sway over connected civic groups and political figures. Drawback: Your character’s standing in a given organization is dependent on the fulfillment of his duties and on abiding by the regulations required of members.
Striking Looks (•• or ••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Core, p. 117 Effect: Your character is exceptionally attractive by modern standards; heads turn and conversations stop when she enters a room. For two dots, your character gets a +1 modifier to all Presence or Manipulation rolls when she attempts to use her looks to entertain, persuade, distract or deceive others. For four dots, your character’s looks are angelic; she gets a +2 modifier. Drawback: The more attractive your character is, the harder it is for her to avoid notice in public. Witnesses to any criminal acts are much more likely to remember your character’s appearance, and easily recognize her in a lineup. Your character is also likely to receive a great degree of unwanted attention in social situations.
Support Network (••)
Book: Immortals, p. 82 Prerequisite: Status •+ in the group Effect: With this Merit, the character has access to a number of likeminded individuals who share in a particular depraved act. This support network offers sympathy that most could not. This Merit allows the character to spend a Willpower point to gain the usual three-dice bonus on the roll to resist gaining a derangement, if the action causing the roll is acceptable to the members of the group. Drawback: The group expects the character to act as support for other members, and the group may call her in to perform other perverse acts in kind, such as body disposal. This can lead a character to an even quicker path to moral degradation.
Sworn Officer (• to ••••)
Book: 13th Precint, p. 81 Prerequisite: The character must meet the basic requirements to be an officer in the department she selects. See p. 36 for the minimum requirements for an MPD officer. Effects: You character is a sworn law enforcement officer, with all the rights and duties thereof. She is empowered within her jurisdiction to make arrests, use department equipment and resources, view confidential information, request assistance from other agencies and use force during the course of her duties. She may legally carry a concealed deadly weapon anywhere in the United States not prohibited by federal law, even when off duty. When in another agency’s jurisdiction, she also can expect professional courtesy (see p. 60), subject to local customs and policies. This Merit differs from Status (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 116) in that Status represents a character’s standing within an organization, while Sworn Officer indicates that the character actually is a duly empowered law enforcement officer. The civilian director of the Midway Forensic Science Center may be an MPD employee with Status (MPD) ••••, but he’s still a civilian, not a sworn officer. The number of dots purchased in this Merit determines the extent of the jurisdiction of the agency for which your character works. One dot indicates a small to mid-sized town or a rural county. Two dots indicate a major city (such as Midway) or a densely populated county. Three dots indicate a statewide agency. Four dots indicate a federal agency with national jurisdiction. Note: For a police-centered story in which most or all of the characters are officers, the Storyteller is strongly encouraged to provide this Merit free. In such a case, being a cop is an intrinsic part of the story and players should not be charged points for playing characters that fit the game’s concept. However, an individual player who wants to play a cop character in a non-police-focused chronicle must still purchase this Merit.
Tunnel Rat (• to •••)
Book: Chicago, p. 54; Invite Only, p. 34 Homeless or investigative vampires who have spent all or most of their Requiems in Chicago (The Lost City) may have gained some knowledge of the vast and complicated system of connected el tunnels, abandoned freight tunnels, deep tunnels, sewers and commuter train tunnels that riddle the land beneath the city. This Merit indicates how well the character knows this interconnecting suite of tunnels. Characters may add their dots in this Merit to Survival dice pools made within the Undercity, in addition to the effects described below. It should be noted that any Kindred who starts bringing unwanted visitors into the Undercity makes enemies of his fellow tunneld wellers in no time, not the least of whom is Max Maurey. This Merit was originally printed in World of Darkness: Chicago, p. 54. Characters may add their dots in this Merit to Survival dice pools made within The Lost City, in addition to the effects described below. • The character has ventured into the tunnels once or twice. He’s safe so long as he stays on the biggest and busiest passageways. Getting from one place to another strictly through the tunnels may take up to twice as long as it would on the surface. Penalties to dice pools for navigation and survival in the Undercity are reduced by one (e.g., from –3 to –2). •• The character has a solid, but imperfect, understanding of Chicago’s (The Lost City) tunnels. He may specialize in one kind of tunnel (el tunnels or freight tunnels, for example), or he may stick to primary and secondary tunnels. Traveling from one place to another through the Undercity is no more time-consuming than surface travel. Penalties to dice pools for navigation and survival in the Undercity are reduced by two (e.g., from –3 to –1). ••• The character knows the Undercity in an up-close and personal way. She has personally explored dozens of tunnels down to the smallest service conduit and probably spends most of her active time down in the Undercity. She can tell her location in the tunnels by one or two subtle landmarks and knows the fastest routes
to get anywhere. A character with this level of knowledge need never fear getting lost in the Undercity and cuts travel time by 25% when traveling between any two points in Chicago (The Lost City) via the tunnels. Penalties to dice pools for navigation and survival in the Undercity are reduced by three (e.g., from –3 to 0).
Special Template’s Merits The merits on these list couldn’t fill, normally, in a standard World of Darkness’s character or game, unless with Storyteller's permission.
Abyssal Resonance (• to •••••)
Book: Banishers, p. 39 Effect: All Sleepers have a shard of the Abyss within them, but characters with this Merit resonate strongly with the Abyss. The character has little or no control over this Merit, but any mage around her certainly feels its effects. Dots in this Merit allow access to various effects based on the Abyss’s growing intrusion into the character’s soul. This Merit is progressive, that is, a character can and does find that her Resonance with the Abyss increases the more contact she has with Awakened magic. In game terms, each level of the Merit is a prerequisite for the next. A character can’t have Skin of the Abyss without first purchasing Eyes of the Abyss. Eyes of the Abyss (•): The character can automatically sense Paradoxes and even potential Paradoxes. Whenever a mage casts a vulgar spell within 100 feet of the character, she senses it. No roll is required. The character might perceive this information as a scent of saltwater and smoke, or a cold shudder down her spine or the sounds of wailing and screaming as if from a great distance. If the player makes a reflexive Wits + Composure roll, the character can pinpoint a direction. If she is in the presence of the mage who cast the spell, this roll allows the character to identify him. Skin of the Abyss (••): The Abyss protects the character from attempts to identify or analyze him. Any Unveiling or Knowing spell cast directly on the character is considered vulgar in aspect, as is any other spell designed to gain information about or otherwise analyze the character (including Scrying). Beacon of the Abyss (•••): Merely being in the presence of this character invites Paradox. All mages within a 50-foot radius of the character increase their Paradox pools whenever any mage casts a vulgar spell. For example, if one member of the cabal casts a vulgar spell (Paradox base dice pool of one), the next mage to do so, no matter who it is, has a Paradox base dice pool of two. If the character with this Merit is a mage, she is not immune to the effect, and neither are any allied mages in the area. The Abyss does not discriminate. Claws of the Abyss (••••): Containing a Paradox within one’s own body is often a wise decision ó better a few points of bashing damage than an hour’s worth of insanity or the chaos of an Anomaly. A character with this Merit, though, can worsen the damage thus inflicted. This requires the character to grapple the mage (see p. 157 of the World of Darkness Rulebook) and the player to spend a Willpower point. The mage’s player rolls Resolve + Stamina + Gnosis – (the number of vulgar spells the mage has cast during that scene, regardless of whether a Paradox occurred). If this roll fails, any damage from containing a Paradox upgrades to the next category (bashing becomes lethal, lethal becomes aggravated). The damage remains resistant. Abyssal Warden (•••••): The character unconsciously understands and can manipulate the gateways between the Fallen World and the Abyss. Whenever a mage suffers a Paradox within view of the character with this Merit (that is, the character doesn’t absorb the Paradox within his own body), the character can try to force a Manifestation. The player rolls Resolve + Presence + Gnosis in a contested action against the mage’s Resolve + Stamina + Gnosis (resistance is reflexive). If the mage fails to equal or exceed the character’s successes, the Paradox becomes a Manifestation, no matter what type was indicated by the Paradox roll. Using this power requires the expenditure of a Willpower point. Drawback: So much exposure to the Abyss is dangerous for the character’s sanity. Every time the character increases the rating of this Merit, she must check for a new derangement as if she had just failed a degeneration roll (dice pool is Morality or Wisdom). Also, mages with this Merit always have nimbuses that relate to or call to mind the Abyss ó shadows darken, objects grow cold to the touch, etc.
Alternate Identity (•, •• or ••••)
Book: Immortals, p. 110 Note: Purified Effect: As beings that live for centuries and can die and later return to life, purified regularly require new legal identities. All purified are assumed to have a single legal identity and need pay no Merit dots for this privilege. However, if the purified has lived in a single legal identity for more than two decades, your character has almost certainly begun to have to use various minor forms of disguise to change his appearance so that it better matches his legal age. Having a second identity allows purified to have an identity that matches his apparent age and it also allows him to easily vanish if any legal questions arise surrounding his activities. In addition, if your character’s
body dies in such a way that others notice his death, he can use this alternate identity if there is no way for him to explain his perceived death. However, modern background checks, paper trails and bureaucratic scrutiny make acquiring a new identity far more difficult than it was in the past. Few characters have the skills to create a new identity for themselves. The vast majority must look for help, either from older and more experienced purified or from some mortal or supernatural source who is skilled in the various complex and highly illegal methods of acquiring such documents. The number of dots spent on this Merit determines how convincing and in-depth the documentation surrounding this new life actually is. Alternate Identity (•) represents an identity that passes casual inspection, but not much else – a character can go shopping and get around in most daily situations, but any kind of trained scrutiny such as from a police officer or bureaucrat immediately identifies this identity as a fake. Alternate Identity (••) creates an identity that will pass most forms of relatively cursory professional inspection, but cannot stand up to a sustained investigation. A police officer that pulls your character over will not automatically pick up anything unusual if she runs the character’s license plates or calls up his name in a database. However, if your character is arrested and the police begin a formal investigation his identity will quickly unravel. Alternate Identity (••••) represents an identity that is essentially as real as any identity can be – it takes a truly dedicated, competent and time-consuming search by trained professionals to uncover any hint that the purified isn’t exactly who he claims to be, at least as far as his documentation is concerned. This Merit may be purchased multiple times at multiple ratings, each time representing a different identity. Also, an identity may also be upgraded later with the appropriate in-game explanation and experience expenditure. In the case of certain Merits such as Resources or Status, it might also be worth noting to which identity these Merits are tied, since a character may not easily be able to access or maintain them if that identity is compromised. Drawback: Although one-dot Alternate Identities require no maintenance, both of the more thorough versions do. If someone checks on a legal identity, they will immediately become suspicious if the person has no legal address or magazine subscriptions, pays no taxes and has no phone number. Similarly, if all of this data exactly matches your character’s primary legal identity, many people soon realize both of these identities belong to the same individual. Therefore, your character must take time and spend money to maintain any two or four-dot Alternate Identities. Having the identity make frequent trips to remote locations and similar inventive dodges can reduce the frequency of this maintenance. The amount of maintenance needed to keep a two-dot identity looking legitimate is fairly minimal, requiring only a few hours of work every month. However, keeping a four-dot identity believable requires at least several hours of work every week. Failure to perform this upkeep on an identity causes it to be reduced to the next lowest level. However, alternate identities never fall lower than one dot. Paying Experience Points to upgrade an identity represents the effort needed to build it back up. Characters can also pay criminal organizations to maintain alternate identities, but doing so causes its own problems, including both the cost and the possibility of blackmail.
Anticipation: Unpredictable (•••)
Book: Mirrors, p. 118 Effect: You are almost impossible to Anticipate, and still worse for your very clever enemies, very good at using their best-guesses against them. If anyone tries to use Anticipation on you, you may counter it with an opposed roll (the dice pool would be the most appropriate based on their roll), and if you’re successful, you claim your successes on this roll as a bonus of your own and neutralize any they would have earned.
Amulet (•• or •••)
Book: Immortals, p. 83 Note: Body Thief Effect: Each purchase of this Merit allows for the maintenance of one amulet at a time. Any number can be created, but only one can be active for every version of this Merit that the character possesses. The Merit comes in two levels, corresponding to the bonus it gives to the wearer. At two dots, it provides a +1 bonus to any single Attribute chosen by the caster at the time of creation. At four dots, this bonus increases to +2. This bonus cannot raise the character’s Attribute above 5. The character can sacrifice one point of the amulet’s bonus during the amulet’s creation to instill the amulet with one Body Thief Merit like Morality Sap or Emotional Urging. The character may only instill in an amulet Merits that she knows. If used in this fashion, the amulet is typically given to an unknowing target, who is the victim of this Merit for as long as he wears or touches the amulet. If the Merit has a variable effect, like Emotional Urging, the amulet can only enhance a single emotion, which must be determined when the amulet is created. The instilled Merit works normally, except that it affects the target for as long as he wears
the amulet. If an amulet contains both a Body Thief Merit and an Attribute bonus, both of these affect the wearer. The character can also sacrifice one point of the bonus to craft an amulet that allows a body thief using mystic exchange to remain in her current body even after the end of that ritual’s duration. Characters who use this amulet instantly switch back to their original body one turn after the amulet is removed. A character can only benefit from a single amulet for each Merit or Attribute. Dice Pool: Intelligence + Occult, extended. Each roll represents one hour of work. The total number of successes required depends on the level of the amulet. Two-dot amulets require only 10 successes and fourdot amulets require 20. Creating an amulet also requires an Intelligence + Crafts roll to create or modify a suitable object. Duration: Permanent until destroyed. Note that this potentially increases the duration of any Body Thief Merit indefinitely. However, the effect ends immediately upon the wearer’s removal of the item. The creator can also perform a short ritual where he makes an Intelligence + Occult roll and spends one point of Willpower. If successful, he can instantly cancel the effect of the amulet, regardless of how far away it is. Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The object being used as the amulet is rendered useless and the caster loses one point of temporary Willpower. Failure: The creator fails to instill any power into the amulet. Success: The caster gains progress towards the amulet’s creation. Exceptional Success: Additional successes are their own benefit, making for a faster creation.
Animal Familiar (• to •••)
Book: Inferno, p. 125 Prerequisites: Possessed Effect: The Possessed is tended to by an animal guardian; it’s quite often a black animal, though it may also be an animal that is oddly-colored (an albino, for instance, or a creature whose feathers or fur shows patterns that are not common or ever found in nature). The animal is profoundly loyal, and will protect the Possessed at the cost of its own life (though if that happens, this Merit will need to be re-purchased). The character may still at times need to succeed on a Manipulation + Animal Ken roll to communicate her wishes (which are not purely empathic), but she gains +3 dice on this roll. The number of dots purchased in this Merit indicate the general strength of the attendant hellfamiliar. One dot is usually equivalent to something small (such as a raven). Two dots represent an animal with similar traits to a cat. Three dots provide the character with a beast similar to a dog. (Traits for these three animals can be found on p. 203, World of Darkness Rulebook.)
Atavism (•)
Book: Slashers, p. 127 Prerequisite: Dexterity ••• or Wits •••, Intelligence •• or below. Effects: You’re a throwback to a time when men were closer to beasts. Whether your mental state matches a warped and twisted body, or you look out of a normal face with the eyes of an ancient predator, you’re not normal. You run on instinct more than intellect, your body moving in response to signals that your brain never consciously registers. Like an animal, you use the higher of your Dexterity and Wits to determine your Defense. Available at character creation only. Drawback: Other people can see that look in your eyes and know that something’s wrong. You suffer a -2 modifier on non-confrontational Social rolls. If you raise your Intelligence above •• then you no longer benefit from this Merit.
Barrister (••••)
Book: Book Of The Dead, p. 91 Prerequisite: Politics ••• Effect: The Lower Mysteries thrive on the Old Laws, and you’re a natural at comprehending legal systems. While the Kerberoi who enforce them know when someone breaks the law, you’ve got a decent sense for just when you can push the very edges, obeying the letter of the law but not the spirit without drawing undue attention. Better, you know precisely when it’s best to get the hell out of Dodge. Once you know all of the Old Laws that apply in a particular Dominion, you can work out ways to push the edges. You can only do this once in each Dead Dominion. Dice Pool: Intelligence + Politics - the number of Old Laws (max -5) Action: Instant
Roll Results Dramatic Failure: Your character thinks he’s found a loophole, but he’s wrong. The first time he takes an action that isn’t clearly allowed by the Old Laws, the Dominion’s Kerberos knows precisely where he is. Failure: The Old Laws are cast in stone, and your character can’t think his way around them. Success: Your character knows how and when to push his luck. You can take one action that would normally contravene the spirit but not the letter of the Old Laws without the Kerberos knowing; for example, you can’t get around spilling blood on entering a Dominion that requires it, but unless the Law is very specific you don’t need to spill your own blood. Exceptional Success: Your character has a sudden flash of insight. You can pick two actions, rather than one.
Beacon Of Life (•••)
Book: Book Of The Dead, p. 91 Prerequisite: Mortal (non-supernatural); Occult •• Effect: Your character has a powerful attachment to living her life for as long as she can, and enough esoteric knowledge to instinctively ward off malevolent influences. To the eyes of the dead she shines like a beacon, burning with a light so bright that some ghosts have a harder time affecting him. Your character adds her Occult dots to her resistance roll against any Numina, as she subconsciously wards herself against the power of the Underworld. This extends to Manifestations unlocked by the Stygian Key. Only mortal, mundane characters can possess this Merit. The pivotal moment of becoming — or being changed into — a supernatural creature eliminates it. Available at character creation only.
Boneless (••)
Book: Wicked Dead, p. 154 Prerequisite: Dampyr Effect: You are like the Balkan Dampyr whose exploits fed much of the old mythology, and possess flexible bones. Though you appear normal, you’re able to bend and contort your body in grotesque ways, easily allowing you to fit through gaps as small as a human fist, though doing so requires several minutes (tighter squeezes taking longer to negotiate). You are also extremely resilient to Bashing damage, and have 2 points of durability against such attacks. Drawback: Your flexible bones don’t protect your organs as well as normal human bones, and Lethal attacks against you benefit from the 9-Again rule.
Chi (•••)
Book: Immortals, p. 111 Note: Purified Effect: Your character gains an additional dot of Chi. All purified begin play with one dot of Chi. However, more experienced and powerful purified have more dots in Chi. During character generation, each additional dot of Chi costs the character three Merit dots. See Effects of Chi (p. 99) for more information about how this Merit affects your character. Purified characters can purchase this Merit no more than twice, for a total Chi of three. Available at character creation only. Your character can only purchase additional dots of Chi as a Merit during character creation. During play, Chi can only be increased using experience points.
Cursed Item (• to •••••)
Book: Book Of Spirits, p. 108 Effect: Your character possesses an item of power but questionable providence. Though the character may use the item from time to time for an advantage, that advantage always comes at a price. See “Cursed Items,” p. 112, for examples of what a character may possess with this Merit.
Damnable Certainty (••••)
Book: Slashers, p. 127 Prerequisite: At least one altered tenet of Morality (see The Code, Hunter: The Vigil p. 325) Effect: You know that what you’re doing is right. That passion burns within you; the fire of certainty scours all doubt from your soul. When you kill, you are whole again. When you kill a person in a fashion that
is not a violation of your altered Morality, you regain a point of Willpower. You can use this ability once per session. Drawback: You have to remain moral in order to know right from wrong. Your Morality must be equal to or higher than the level of the altered sin.
Dead Reckoning (•)
Book: Book Of The Dead, p. 91 Effect: Something about the Underworld resonates with the character’s way of thinking. Maybe he’s more at home around the dead than the living — common among pathologists, undertakers, and Indian mahar corpse handlers — or she feels a natural aptitude for life below ground, without the uncaring stars hanging over his head. In the caverns and tunnels of the Underworld, forever cut off from the living world, you’ve got a damn fine sense of direction. Your character gains the 8-again quality on all rolls to navigate the Underworld (see “Navigating Dark Passages,” p. 99 of this book). Drawback: Navigating without a roof over your head is just that little bit less reliable. Whenever you roll Survival to navigate above ground, do not re-roll 10s.
Death-Touched (•• or ••••)
Book: Book Of The Dead, p. 93 Prerequisite: Sin-Eater Effect: Something has stained your character’s soul. Perhaps her geist has always born the inky stain of death upon its corpus. Maybe something about your character’s death caused the stain, tainting her geist along with it. However she gained the mark, your character connects with ghosts on a level that few others will ever manage. With the two-dot version of this Merit, your character gets a +1 modifier to all Presence or Manipulation rolls when dealing with ghosts in a non-confrontational manner. The four-dot version indicates that ghosts sometimes have a hard time remembering that you’re not already dead; your character gains a +2 modifier. This Merit normally only affects dealings with ghosts in the Underworld. Purchasing an extra dot in the Merit allows you to apply the modifier against all ghosts, wherever they may be. Drawback: The more your character is touched by death, the more ghosts will treat her as one of their own. Ghosts actively seek her out, believing a physical body no barrier to communing with a kindred spirit. Your Other characters who can perceive ghosts will know that something’s odd about your character from all the attention she’s getting.
Declaration: Ear For Gossip (•)
Book: Mirrors, p. 119 Effect: You have a catalog of secrets and scandals in your head, and are always hearing more. If someone is well-known or famous, chances are you’ll know something about them. You can add a target’s Status or Fame Merits to your rolls to make Declarations about them, so long as the facts you declare are those you could reasonably know by word of mouth.
Declaration: Holmesian Deduction (•••)
Book: Mirrors, p. 119 Effect: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” You have a knack for uncovering (via the Declaration mechanics) the bizarre, macabre, and unlikely. You do not suffer penalties when your Declarations stretch probability so long as they come with sufficiently strange details the Storyteller can use to complicate and embellish future drama.
Declaration: Shocking Revelation (•••••)
Book: Mirrors, p. 119 Effect: You can make Declarations to devastating effect that can make those of a nervous disposition collapse, the deranged suffer a psychotic episode, and the honorable commit suicide in shame. In effect, your Revelation has the effect of Intimate Sway in addition to its effects as a Declaration. You get to say the first thing the Declaration will make the target do, the Storyteller the second, you the third, and so on until you are both satisfied. When the roll is made, the successes are referenced against this ladder of extremis, and the victim’s reactions determined.
Den (•••)
Book: Skinchangers, p. 21; Changing Breeds, p. 96 Indulging one’s need to change form and spend time as an animal can be… difficult, especially for an urban skinchanger. Unless your character lives in the middle of nowhere and all by himself, there’s still the chance that someone will be in the wrong place at the wrong time and see him change, and in the city it’s near impossible to find real privacy. This Merit represents a place that your character knows about where no one else ever goes. It might be the shack Old Man Grezny used for moonshine back during Prohibition, or the ancient and abandoned Allied Products factory down the street. Whatever this hidden place is, the character can access it in near-absolute secrecy and squirrel away her little trinkets without fear of detection. A skinchanger can also shapechange there and head out to experience her animal side, confident that no one’s watching. When someone tries to track her back to her den, in animal or human form, that person suffers a –2 penalty to all relevant rolls.
Demon Familiar Imp (•••••)
Book: Inferno, p. 125 Prerequisites: Possessed Effect: The Possessed character has an embodied familiar with a physical body—a small imp. The imp, like the Animal Familiar above, is profoundly devoted to its Possessed master (really, it’s more devoted to the demon than to the human host, though imps are allowed to favor the mortal soul, instead). It will throw itself into harm’s way only if the character demands it, however. The Animal Familiar does so without question or command, but imps can be a bit cowardly—an Imp Familiar needs to be urged into combat (or cajoled, or threatened). If an Imp Familiar is slain, its Infernal spirit usually discorporates and returns to whatever Hell from whence it came. Sometimes, though, it latches onto its master and feeds off his memories, drinking deep of the hunter’s soul to sustain itself in ethereal form. In game terms, a Possessed character’s player may, upon the destruction of his embodied familiar, choose to immediately spend 10 experience points as a reflexive action to preserve the demon as a Twilight Familiar (see below). Stats for the Imp Familiar can be found in the sidebar below.
Demon Familiar Twilight (••••)
Book: Inferno, p. 126 Prerequisites: Possessed Effect: A Twilight Familiar is a spiritual entity with no proper physical body of its own. A Twilight Familiar is also known as a “fetch.” Twilight Familiars can temporarily manifest like ghosts (see Manifestations, p. 210 in The World of Darkness Rulebook), but their ephemeral bodies are otherwise invisible and intangible to the physical world. A Twilight Familiar must manifest or use Numina to affect anything in the physical world—except for its master, whom it can touch at will. (Its master can also see and speak with the familiar freely, even if he cannot see or hear into Twilight.) A Twilight Familiar often leaves behind a subtle sign of its presence, even when it is not manifested. A whiff of sulfur might waft from its location, or the lights may flicker in the room when the entity is present. A Twilight Familiar, when manifested, often represents its Possessed master’s Vice: a Gluttonous character may have something that resembles a bloated, tumor-besieged bullfrog, while a Lustful character may instead be served by a lithe succubus or priapic incubus. Stats for the Twilight Familiar can be found in the sidebar below.
Dream (• to •••••)
Book: Immortals, p. 111 Note: Purified Effect: Your character’s ties to the Shadow Realm also gives her a connection to ancient truths that can be seen and comprehended only in dreams. She gains flashes of insight through reverie and visions, finding answers to questions she couldn’t normally get by mundane means. This might be through the collective unconscious, universal mind, poetic reverie or even an imagined journey to a fictional dreamscape. Through effort of will, your character can channel this insight into action. Once per game session, your character can use her Dream ability to gain a supernatural insight concerning a question or topic. Activating this ability requires at least one hour spent in sleep, meditation or an activity exclusively focused on accessing an altered state of consciousness. The Storyteller then rolls the character’s Wits + Composure in secret. A successful roll results in one or more clues per dot of Dream.
The meaning of these clues is hidden behind allegory, symbols and archetypes. Dreams rarely answer questions directly, typically relying on symbolism and images to convey information. If one of the purified is seeking a specific person’s location wouldn’t see his address, but landmarks nearby could lead the way: a river, a tower or even the face of a man walking by at dusk. The answer has the potential to resolve the problem. It’s a tool for the Storyteller to help drive events of the story.
Emotional Urging (••••)
Book: Immortals, p. 83 Note: Body Thief Effect: Every thief needs a con to keep their lifestyle going, and with it, their unending life. With practice and time, a good thief is able to manipulate the feelings of others around them. Time, conversation, or just sheer forces of personality are all tools to manipulate the feelings of others. In a blink of an eye or possibly a wink, the thief can push on the mild feelings of fear or passion and feed them, strengthen and empower them. Of course, this manipulation is not total. The thief cannot create emotions that are not already being felt by the target, but he can take those light feelings lurking and turn them to full blown wild fires. A body thief can’t simply focus his attention and force a strange woman to be instantly in love with him. However, over a romantic dinner with quiet music and dim lights, a thief could talk his target into the faintest flutter of a crush and then use this Merit to build that flutter into a rushing heartbeat. Similarly, a Club member hoping to push her quarry to give up on life entirely can’t just wish for it and have her quarry leap from a window. Rather, she’d have to wait until he was already feeling morose over a lousy test grade before using Emotional Urging to amplify the suffering to dangerous levels. The caster must be able to either speak to or touch the target or have a sympathetic connection in order to manipulate the target’s emotions. Dice Pool: Manipulation + Persuasion versus Composure Duration: One day Suggested Equipment: An item of emotional significance to the victim (+1 to +5, depending on relative importance) Possible Modifiers: Target fulfilled Virtue within last week (–3), target fulfilled Vice within last week (+1 per, up to +3) Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The power backfires; the caster suffers the full effects of a normal success. Failure: The power fails. The target is immune to this effect for one day. Success: The caster achieves more successes than the target. For the remainder of the night, the target’s most powerful emotion at the time of casting amplifies dramatically, becoming a driving force in the subject’s mind. If an opportunity to indulge in the emotion presents itself, the victim must reflexively spend one Willpower point and succeed in a Resolve + Composure roll to avoid indulgence. If this indulgence would result in lethal or aggravated damage, the subject need not spend the Willpower point and can avoid indulgence with the successful roll. Each time the victim resists temptation, she gains a cumulative +1 bonus to her next roll to resist indulgence, up to a maximum bonus of +5. Exceptional Success: As above, however, the victim must spend Willpower to avoid harm in their indulgence.
Essence Reservoir (• or ••)
Book: Immortals, p. 111 Note: Purified Effect: Your character has some talisman or other item that can hold additional points of Essence. The character must touch this item to put Essence into it or retrieve Essence from it. The amount of Essence your character can put in or remove from this item every turn is limited by both how much Essence he can spend per turn and how much Essence the device can hold. A one-dot Essence reservoir can hold up to three points of Essence and must be at least as large as a small wrist watch or a large coin like a quarter. A two-dot Essence Reservoir can hold up to six points of Essence and must be at least as large as a large pocket watch or a cell phone. Regardless of their size, Essence Reservoirs can be made in any form, including being a working cell phone or watch. Essence reservoirs also exist in Twilight, the Shadow Realm and the Underworld. If the character is touching this item when he sends his mind into one of these realms, the item vanishes from the physical world and remains with him in the realm to which he travels. Also, as long as he is touching this item when he returns to his body, it reappears with him. Purified cannot create Essence Reservoirs, but they can bargain with spirits or some powerful mages who know the secret of their creation.
Familiar (•••)
Book: Immortals, p. 112 Note: Purified Effect: Your character has a magical bond with an immaterial and invisible spirit from the Shadow Realm that aids him and which normally dwells in Twilight These familiars can temporarily manifest like ghosts (see “Manifestations,” p. 210 in the World of Darkness Rulebook), but their ephemeral bodies are otherwise invisible and intangible to the physical world. A familiar must manifest or use Numina to affect anything in the physical world — except for its bonded purified, whom it can touch at will, just as the purified can always see the familiar. Although familiars normally exist in the Twilight Realm, they can accompany their masters into the Shadow Realm, or travel there themselves if their Numina allow it. Familiar Traits A familiar is considered to be the lowest rank of spirit (a “squire” or “lesser gaffling”, with a limit of 5 on all traits, and a maximum Essence of 10. The Storyteller designs the spirit’s traits. Each familiar begins play with at least one dot in each Attribute, with extra dots as listed below. For rules concerning spirits traits, including additional Spirit Numen, see p. 210-212 in the World of Darkness Rulebook, as well as pp. 317322 in Mage: The Awakening, pp. 273-282 in Werewolf: The Forsaken, or pp. 130-149 in Book of Spirits. Familiar Traits Attributes: 3/3/2 (allocate dots in any order among Power, Finesse and Resistance) Willpower: Equal to Power + Resistance Essence: 10 (10 max) Initiative: Equal to Finesse + Resistance Defense: Equal to highest of Power and Finesse Speed: Equal to Power + Finesse + “species factor” (same as its earthly counterpart) Size: 5 or less (same as its earthly counterpart) Corpus: Equal to Resistance + Size Influence: 2 dots (choose one) Numina: Choose one Ban: The fetch has one Ban, chosen by the Storyteller pp. 320-321 in Mage: The Awakening, pp. 278-279 in Werewolf: The Forsaken, or Book of Spirits, pp. 135-137. The character to which the familiar is bonded is considered to be its anchor to the material world, although there is no limit to how far a familiar can travel from the purified it is linked to. It also does not lose Essence for every hour it spends in the physical world or Twilight. It must follow all the other rules concerning Essence, however, including spending one Essence per day. If it is reduced to zero Essence, it falls into Slumber but it is not transferred back into the Shadow Realm as long as the purifiedfamiliar bond still exists. Like other spirits, it can gain Essence by being in proximity to something that it reflects (p. 135, Book of Spirits, pp. 319-320 in Mage: The Awakening, pp. 275-276 in Werewolf: The Forsaken, or Book of Spirits, p. 135). The purified and her familiar have an empathic connection; each can automatically feel the emotions of the other. However, supernatural effects that damage or manipulate the familiar through an emotional attack don’t damage or manipulate the purified to which it is bonded. Also, your character can use his familiar as a magical connection that is sufficiently close that there are no penalties to her Siddhi roll. Improvement: To improve a familiar, the player of the purified must spend some of his character’s experience points on the familiar.
Fetish (• to •••)
Book: Blood Of The Wolf, p. 125 Prerequisites: Wolf-Blooded; any rating Effects: This Merit allows the character to begin play with a talen or a fetish. Wolf-blood characters cannot begin play with a fetish rated higher than ••, however. One dot of this Merit indicates that the wolf-blood owns two copies of the same talen, two dots translates to a level-one fetish and three dots means the character owns a level-two fetish. Some examples of fetishes that are applicable and useful to wolf-bloods can be found on p. 127, and the rules for creating such fetishes (for werewolves) and using them (for uragarum) can be found on the previous page.
Fighting Style: Frenzied Assault (• to •••••)
Book: Slashers, p. 128 Prerequisites: Strength •••, Stamina •••, Intimidation ••, Weaponry ••
Effect: Your character knows how to use her weapon to great effect, lashing around her in an orgy of blood and death. She doesn’t think when fighting, instinct drives her to kill with a passion that only a few people will ever really understand. She’s a natural killer, making up for her lack of finesse with savage fury and dismembering opponents with each swing. Despite her almost animal intelligence, she realizes the benefit of having a weapon, and the bigger the better — though some spree killers prefer to use a more concealable tool, hiding it like a tiger hides its claws. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers which must be bought sequentially. Your character can’t have “Terrorize” until she has “Bestial Instincts.” The maneuvers and their effects, most of which are based on the Weaponry Skill, are described below. To perform these maneuvers, your character must have a close combat weapon capable of dealing lethal damage in her hand. Bestial Instincts (•): Your character sees weakness as an opening, and strikes before her prey has a chance to defend herself. Your character may substitute her Weaponry score for her Composure when determining her Initiative modifier. Terrorize (••): Whether she grins manically whilst drenched in other people’s blood or refuses to speak from behind a gore-spattered hockey mask, your character can use her very presence to scare her targets into submission. Instead of attacking, you may make a contested Strength + Intimidation roll. Everyone who has seen you inflict at least two levels of lethal damage resists with their Resolve + Composure. Every character who fails the contested roll loses their Defense until after your character’s next action. Hard to Kill (•••): Your character doesn’t feel pain when he could be inflicting it. Whenever he is engaged in combat — specifically, part of a scene where he takes specific actions in order of Initiative — he gains an extra two points of Health and doesn’t have to roll for unconsciousness until his rightmost Health box is filled with lethal damage. Drawback: The bonus Health vanishes at the end of the combat — when the action fades to a point that Initiative is no longer necessary. See “Temporary Health Dots” on page 137 of the World of Darkness Rulebook for more information. Savage Rending (••••): Your character swings wildly with her weapon, rending flesh from bone — and limbs from bodies — in an orgy of death. Reduce all penalties for targeting specific body parts by two (see “Specified Targets,” World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 165). If you target an arm or leg and do five or more points of lethal damage, the blow severs the limb. Each character witnessing the attack must succeed at a reflexive Resolve + Composure roll or suffer a -2 modifier on their next action. Drawback: Your character cannot use her Defense on the same turn she intends to use this maneuver. If your attack is a dramatic failure, the weapon lodges in your foe, wrenching it from your character’s hands. Trance of Death (•••••): Your character is so far removed from normal humanity that the dangerous and chaotic whirl of combat means very little to him. Maybe he tunes it all out, like a soldier who has seen too much. Maybe he actually enjoys it, finding solace in knowing that he could die at any second. Whatever it is, nobody can question his effectiveness. When attacking, spend one Willpower point to turn the roll into a rote action (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 134). Drawback: Spend 1 Willpower per attack. This willpower expenditure does not add three dice to the attack. If your character uses a rote action in combat she cannot apply her Defense to incoming attacks on the same turn (see the “Combat by “Rote” sidebar on p. 69 of Hunter: The Vigil.
Gatekeeper (••••)
Book: Book Of The Dead, p. 51 Prerequisite: Mortal. A gatekeeper that experiences the Awakening, the First Change, or the Embrace loses this Merit, as does a character taken by the True Fae. Hunter: The Vigil characters can have this Merit at the Storyteller’s discretion. Sin-Eaters cannot possess this Merit, though of course they can already open Avernian Gates. Effect: The character can open Avernian Gates. All that is required is that she touches the gate, and the player expends a point of Willpower. The gateway remains open for a number of minutes equal to the character’s Morality. This Merit doesn’t enable the character to detect Avernian Gates; for that, she would need the Unseen Sense Merit, with a focus on ghosts or other death-related phenomena (see p. 109 of the World of Darkness Rulebook). Drawback: If word of the character’s talents gets out, she can expect various supernatural factions to want her enslaved or dead in very short order. Available at character creation only.
Hands Of A Killer (•)
Book: Slashers, p. 129 Prerequisite: Dexterity •••, Weaponry ••
Effects: Your character has a talent for using mundane objects to inflict pain; in his hands, almost anything with the right heft or edge is an effective killing tool. The character ignores the standard -1 penalty for improvised weapons. This doesn’t negate other limitations inherent to certain objects, like a damage maximum or a propensity to break in combat. Drawback: The character can never take a specialty relating to the use of a melee weapon, ranged weapon or firearm. While the character is capable of using actual, designed weapons, they don’t interest him enough to become especially proficient in them.
Inherited Ghoul (••)
Book: Ghouls, p. 71 Prerequisite: Ghoul Your character used to be a ghoul in service to another regnant, and was passed down to her current master (probably when the last one went into torpor or suffered the Final Death). The intimate relationship she shared with her previous regnant left her with information that could be valuable to others. During situations in which information pertaining to your character’s last employer is a factor, you should apply a +2 modifier on an Intelligence + Composure roll to see if she can recall anything useful. Available at character creation only.
Locus (• to •••)
Book: Immortals, p. 112 Note: Purified Effect: The character has claimed a minor locus (see p. 92). One dot provides your character with a one-dot locus, two dots provide your character with a two-dot locus. The addition of one dot to the cost allows this locus to be mobile. However, the object to which the locus is attached must be inanimate and can never be smaller than a large steamer trunk or some other object of at least Size 5. Loci do not combine, moving a onedot mobile locus into the area of a three-dot locus does not temporarily create a four-dot locus. Instead, spirits and the purified can still draw Essence from both loci separately. Few purified are powerful enough to claim anything larger than a two-dot locus, and any who try must deal with powerful and hungry spirits. Many purified put the locus in a ward (see p. 109) to keep out spirits. Also, most arrange to have it nearby, having their dwelling or place of work very near or even inside the area of influence of the locus. Owning a locus allows one of the purified to regain Essence easily.
Lucid Dreaming (••)
Book: Changeling: The Lost Core, p. 195 Prerequisites: Non-changeling, Resolve ••• or higher Effect: Your character has the ability to control his own dreams, subtly shaping them according to his wishes. For all intents and purposes, your character is considered to have the ability to dream ride, but only in his own dreams. He is also capable of engaging in oneiromachy, or dream-combat, with oneiropomps who enter his dreams. Lucid dreamers cannot use any of the special actions associated with dream riding (such as Scour the Integrity, Analyze the Dream and the like); their changes are limited to simple environmental changes. However, the changes a lucid dreamer makes to his dreams have no chance of disrupting the dream, either, granting lucid dreamers unprecedented control over their own dreams even if they can’t perform quite the same feats that true oneiromancers can.
Luck Drain (••••)
Book: Immortals, p. 84 Note: Body Thief Effect: We make our own luck, which is of course an easy thing to say but not a rational thing to count on in the real world. Or is it? In the case of the body thief, relying on the good luck that flows naturally to any one person in any given frame of time isn’t always enough. To the body thief who has developed the ability to drain the luck of others, the roll of a dice isn’t up to chance like it is with the rest of the world. This is handy because the risk inherent in stealing the bodies and lives of others grows exponentially with every passing year. Luck Drain ultimately comes down to robbing a victim of success on an action and taking those successes for themselves. Unfortunately, this ability does not work in conjunction with other body thief Merits or with any rolls to steal or borrow someone else’s body. In addition, dealing with these kinds of forces can be dangerous; attempting to use this power more than three times a day results in a backlash that reduces
the success category by one. A success becomes a failure while a failure becomes a dramatic failure. The caster must be able to either see the target or have a sympathetic connection to steal the target’s luck. Dice Pool: Wits + Subterfuge versus Resolve Duration: One day or until the effects are suffered and enjoyed Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The power fails and the caster cannot use this power for one full day. In addition, the caster’s next roll subtracts one success. This can turn success to failure. Also, if the roll fails, the caster instead makes a dramatic failure. Failure: The power fails. Success: The next roll the victim makes loses a number of successes equal to the caster’s initial successes. The caster’s next roll gains one success. Exceptional Success: As above, except the caster’s next roll gains three successes.
Lunatic Glare (••)
Book: Blood Of The Wolf, p. 125 Prerequisites: Wolf-Blooded ••• or more Effects: Your character inherited a small measure of the Predator’s Menace, and can inflict the Lunacy on others. Doing so, however, is draining, and runs the risk of backfiring terribly — humans are not the fearsome predators that werewolves are, even humans related to werewolves. Most of the time, the wolf-blood has no idea what he is doing, and is simply defending himself or trying to pick a fight for whatever reason. Sometimes, however, a person that the wolf-blood is trying to intimidate screams in terror or backs away, wide-eyed, leaving the uragarum wondering what he did to induce such fear. Use of this Merit requires the uragarum to glare at his target, making eye contact and exhibiting some sort of threatening behavior (baring one’s teeth is enough). The player spends a Willpower point and rolls Presence + Intimidation (receiving no bonus dice for the Willpower point). Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The target immediately attacks the wolf-blood, perceiving him to be a monster and a threat. Others in the area might well join in, instinctively seeing the character as dangerous. Failure: The target is not intimidated and not affected by the Lunacy. Success: The target suffers the Lunacy, but with a +5 to his effective Willpower. Any others uses of this Merit in the same scene require another Willpower point from the uragarum. Exceptional Success: As above, but the wolf-blood can use the Lunatic Glare on others in the same scene without spending a Willpower point, provided that they witnessed the effects of the Lunacy on the first victim. Targets affected by this Merit do not suffer any memory impairment, only the fear. Drawbacks: The wolf-blood does not actually control when this Merit activates. The player can decide that the wolf-blood might be angry or defensive enough to initiate the Merit — but so can the Storyteller. If the wolf-blood ever becomes a werewolf, this Merit disappears.
Mechanical Memento (•••)
Book: Book Of The Dead, p. 157 Ripped directly from the frame of a ghost-machine, a mechanical memento is a power source extraordinaire. Anything a character can jury-rig the memento up to can be completely powered by the memento alone, no matter what sort of fuel it originally required. To reiterate that point: only the mechanical memento is required to power any machine to which it is attached. Energy provided by the memento is unlimited, meaning, theoretically, as long as the machine it is hooked up to continues to function, the memento will continue to provide energy. The only limitations on what can be powered by a mechanical memento are those decided upon by the Storyteller. Successfully hooking a mechanical memento up to a machine first requires an Intelligence + Science roll to figure out the best way to approach the problem. Actually attaching the memento requires a Dexterity + Crafts roll with a -5 penalty. The penalty is reduced by one for every success gained on the initial Intelligence + Science roll. The exact dimensions and appearance of a mechanical memento are left for the Storyteller to determine, but should bear some relation to the ghost-machine from which it originated.
Medium (••• or •••••)
Book: Book Of The Dead, p. 93 Prerequisite: Mortal (non-supernatural); Resolve ••
Effects: A medium is a character who can see and hear ghosts. As opposed to characters who possess a sixth sense in the presence of the unquiet dead, she can see the dead clearly — and may have a hard time telling them apart from the living. If she keeps her wits about her, she can turn her sight into a blessing. More often, mediums treat their ability as a curse. A character with the three-dot version of this Merit is an unwilling medium. When she’s under stress, she can see ghosts in Twilight. Precisely what counts as stress is up to the Storyteller, but taking an action that’s reduced to a chance die, or having to spend a point of Willpower to hold off a negative condition both certainly count. She can see ghosts in Twilight for the remainder of the scene. She doesn’t count as a mortal for the purposes of penalizing a ghost’s attempt to manifest (see Manifestations on p. 210 of the World of Darkness Rulebook for more information). Your character might not even realize that someone else is a ghost, until he does something supernatural. The five-dot version of this Merit offers more control over your character’s ability. She’s also closer to the Underworld; if she purchases the Unseen Sense Merit with regards to ghosts (World of Darkness Rulebook p. 109) it counts as a two-dot Merit. A medium who undergoes a near-death experience — or who actually dies but is brought back — has a better than average chance of returning with a geist bound to her soul. Her connection to the Underworld is so strong that few geists can resist the chance. Action: Instant Dice Pool: Resolve + Occult Roll Results Dramatic Failure: Your character can see ghosts all right, and can until the end of the scene. She can’t stop seeing them, and any ghost she can see is aware that she can see him. They gain a +1 modifier to any Numina that they use against her. Failure: Despite focusing, she can’t contact the dead. Success: Your character can see and hear the dead until the end of the scene, or until she chooses to end her vision. She doesn’t count as a mortal for the purposes of penalizing a ghost’s attempt to manifest, and can negate the manifestation penalties of a number of people up to her Resolve by reflexively spending a point of Willpower. Exceptional Success: Your character can pick out a specific ghost from all those around, and “tune out” all others, only dealing with the ghost of her choice. Only mortal, mundane characters can possess this Merit. The pivotal moment of becoming — or being changed into — a being with supernatural powers eliminates it.
Morality Sap (••••)
Book: Immortals, p. 84 Note: Body Thief Effect: Traditionally, this fell power is a curse inflicted on a victim through some sympathetic connection. Although it is most useful to Magically Talented body thieves, any thief can make use of this power as it assists in lowering the victim’s resistance to proposals of increasingly vile deeds. Someone who might scoff at petty theft could be talked into anything, even murder if this power is used sufficiently often. There needs to be some kind of physical connection between victim and thief to make this power work. In the case of the House of Avalon, they create an amulet that is given to their would-be victim through which they cast their spells. In other cases, like a wild Mentally Talented body thief, he may need to steal strands of his victim’s hair to sap away her morality. Dice Pool: Wits + Manipulation versus Resolve + Composure (extended and contested) Duration: Permanent. Each roll represents one week of effort. Possible Modifiers: Victim is a relative (+2,) caster has high Humanity (–1 for each dot over five) Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The power fails. The subject is immune to the power for one year. Failure: Add no successes to the total. Success: Once the total number of successes exceeds twice the subject’s Willpower, the victim loses one dot of Humanity. Exceptional Success: No additional effect, beyond the additional successes. Note: Consider the use of this power a sin against Morality 2.
Morbid Fascination (••)
Book: Slashers, p. 129 Effect: People find themselves wanting to talk to your character even despite themselves. There’s something distinctly wrong with how you come across, whether you miss common social cues or deliberately
cultivate a predatory air. Their fear begets fascination, and soon they can’t leave you alone. You ignore all penalties for your otherwise disturbing mannerisms when talking one-on-one with someone. This includes any penalties that you gain for changes in your Code (see “External Costs,” Hunter: The Vigil p. 329). You may give off a weird air because you see no problem in killing the “unclean,” but when you give someone your full attention they just don’t care. Drawback: If at any point you fail a Social Skill roll when talking to that person, your penalties come back in full force.
Murder Expert (•••)
Book: Slashers, p. 127 Prerequisite: Intelligence ••, Stealth ••• Effect: You may not be any good in a fight, but it doesn’t matter. You understand the language of murder in a way that few others do. You’re a connoisseur of death, skilled at bringing other people to their ends. When you attempt a surprise attack in combat, if your target doesn’t detect your attack (and would normally not apply Defense), you instead strike a killing blow (World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 168). Drawback: You must name your target on the turn before you attack — you can’t choose to slaughter whoever is slowest that turn.
Mythologist (•••)
Book: Book Of The Dead, p. 91 Prerequisite: Occult •• with a specialty in “Underworld Lore” or similar Effect: Your character has studied the mythology of death in all manner of cultures. She knows the tales and the legends, and she’s been to more than one site that inspired myths of the lands beyond death. While the Underworld takes impressions from the death-myths found in several cultures, it’s not truly a product of any. Even so, the details your character can recall from mythology can sometimes come in very handy, offering a +3 bonus to dice rolls made to decipher the enigmas of the Underworld (“That looks like a doorway into Mictlan. If we’re lucky, we might get some assistance navigating from Xolotl”). This cannot help with navigation, but it might offer a Social bonus on dealing with a Ferryman or a Kerberos, a Mental bonus on solving a riddle or a mystery related to the Underworld (such as the riddles put forth as a means to enter the Athenaeum on p. 172), or a Physical roll to help a character survive off the mythic “bounties” available in the Great Below.
Occultation (• to •••)
Book: Immortals, p. 112 Note: Purified Prerequisite: No Fame Merit dots Effect: Because of their connection to the Shadow World, some of the purified can effectively slip through the cracks of mortal society. Your character is also protected from all supernatural effects designed to spy upon or learn anything about her. When any magician or supernatural being attempts to use their power to learn anything about your character, subtract a number of dice equal to your character’s dots in this Merit. Occulted purified mostly live on the fringes of mundane reality and the edges of mortal society. Mortals have trouble keeping track of their identities and activities. Records concerning them tend to get lost, and the authorities are challenged to investigate their activities. Since most mortals find it hard to gather information about the character, they won’t gather many details about him. This Merit also makes it harder for supernatural beings to research information about the character through mundane sources. Whenever someone makes a roll to gather information about your character, your Occultation dots are subtracted from the researcher’s dice pool. This Merit is especially helpful for purified who are several centuries old and wish to conceal this fact. Drawback: If your character ever becomes well known to the public (such as getting caught on camera and being shown on television night after night), he loses his Occultation until the public at large forgets him (which could take many years, depending on how famous or notorious your character became). Likewise, if he maintains a public persona at all among mortals, even to the degree of having several prominent or wellknown friends, he cannot maintain his Occultation. The character must constantly cultivate this Merit, working to remain away from the attention of mortal society. It does not affect his standing among any supernatural beings he knows.
Potency (• to •••••) Book: Night Stalkers, p. 157
Effect: Every vampire, whether she feeds from blood, meat or dreams, possesses this Merit. The Merit represents how old or how powerful the vampire is—elder immortals have fed so long on the lives of the innocent that the blood in their bodies is like red sap. The Potency Merit lets vampires store Willpower above their expected Willpower score. Vampires can also use their Potency dots to resist the effects of other vampires’ and other creatures’ Dread Powers, and even certain Endowments such as certain Benedictions or Castigations. As Potency increases, vampires’ Attributes can even rise above the human limit of five dots. Potency dots also add bonus dice to contested rolls to resist any Dread Power or Endowment intended to influence a vampire’s mind or emotions. This is cumulative with any bonus from enhancing Resistance Attributes; see p. 95 and 133, World of Darkness Rulebook. (The bonus equates to the dots held in the Potency Merit.) Age is how long the vampire has been dead, not the vampire’s age was when she was turned. The age ranges overlap, because some vampires are more active than others. Some might spend many nights feeding, fighting rivals, fleeing hunters and testing the physical limits of their dead tissues, whereas others pursue more sedentary unlives and develop Potency more slowly. Potency and Age are not always married: a young vampire sired by a truly puissant elder may possess higherthan-normal Potency for his years in death. Maximum Willpower/per Turn is the vampire’s total potential pool of Willpower; as the vampire grows in power, she is able to transubstantiate the blood of her victims into the will that animates her undead form and fuels her Dread Powers. Note that this different from the vampire’s base Willpower score, which remains as a computation of Resolve + Composure. A vampire of Potency • with a Resolve •• and Composure ••• still has five dots of Willpower. However, because a vampire at that Potency can store up to 10 total Willpower points, the vampire can store five points above her normal Willpower total. This also calculates how many Willpower points the vampire may spend per turn. Vampires of low Potency (• and ••) may only spend one point of Willpower per turn, like most characters—but higher Potency increases this. Maximum Attributes is the maximum unenhanced levels in a vampire’s Attributes. A vampire with Potency 3 can have an Attribute go up to 6, for instance. Potency 1 2 3 4 5
Age 0-75 25-125 100-250 200-500 400-500
Max Willpower/per Turn 10/1 13/1 15/2 30/4 50/10
Max Attributes 5 5 6 8 10
Proximus (•)
Book: Mage: The Awakening Core, p. 334 Prerequisite: Sleepwalker Effects: Your character has a magical heritage. One of his ancestors might have been permanently enchanted with Life magic, or encountered a spirit or other supernatural entity that enchanted him such that his progeny have a tinge of magic about them. He might have come from a long line of Awakened mages, an inheritance that seems destined to breed true. Proximi are valued by some mages because they are believed to have a greater chance of Awakening than common Sleepers, but they are sometimes resented as hindrances and fifth wheels. Only mortal, mundane characters can possess this Merit. The pivotal moment of becoming or being changed into a being with supernatural capabilities eliminates it.
Reel It In (•)
Book: Wicked Dead, p. 154 Prerequisite: Dampyr Effect: Unlike most Dampyr, you can temporarily suppress the effects of your Lure, preventing it from attracting unwanted vampire admirers. Spend 1 Willpower to suppress the Lure for 1 scene. Drawback: While the Lure is suppressed, you can’t use your advantages.
Regnant (• to •••••)
Prerequisite: Ghoul Book: Ghouls, p. 71 While many ghouls are little more than unquestioning slaves, your character enjoys the benefit of a special relationship with her regnant, which goes beyond the simple master-servant boundary. Your character can
rely on her regnant to provide information, extra Vitae, equipment or even to personally intervene on her behalf. Conversations with your character’s regnant might be genuine interpersonal dialogue rather than the simple dispensation of orders, and you might even find him turning to your character for true companionship. This doesn’t suggest that the ghoul is anything remotely like an equal to her regnant, just that she isn’t necessarily made to feel like a lowly, servile nonentity. There are a variety of beneficial relationships with regnants. One ghoul might enjoy service to a generous master who isn’t significantly influential, while another is sheltered by her regnant’s status without receiving any special attention from him. The advantages of this Merit are split into three factors — power, favor and trust. Players who choose this Merit must also choose how to allocate these three factors when spending points. For instance, the first dot might go toward Regnant Power with two more going toward Regnant Favor. Each one of these characteristics has a limit of five dots, and the fifth dot costs two dots to purchase. A ghoul with a powerful regnant finds that her dealings with local Kindred and their ghouls are, while not simple, at least a bit easier. Her compatriots (and regnant’s compatriots) know who she serves, and probably won’t be eager to impede her, especially if the news of such interference reaches her regnant’s ears. A regnant represented by several dots in Power might hold a significant position in the city (such as a respected Primogen, Priscus or Prince), while one represented by just a couple could be an acknowledged member of a powerful covenant. Each dot of Regnant Power confers a +1 die bonus on Persuasion, Intimidation and Socialize rolls when in conflict with a local ghoul or Kindred. Regnants whose ghouls have no dots allocated thus are local bottom-feeders. Note that Regnant Power need not be a simple reflection of title or position. A Priscus regnant might actually earn very little respect from the local Kindred, while an unaligned vampire without ties to the local vampire community might be so old and dangerous as to be feared by all. Regnant Favor reflects the master’s willingness to provide her ghoul access to Vitae, resources and equipment. It doesn’t necessarily reflect an emotional bond between the regnant and ghoul as much as it does a measure of generosity. Each dot of Regnant Favor could reflect an additional hit of Vitae (one at a time) that a ghoul may request from her regnant per month without risking his wrath. Alternatively, Regnant Favor could be used in place of Resources to determine whether a ghoul can afford to secure equipment. A ghoul with three dots in Regnant Favor could requisition a heavy pistol from his regnant, while one with five dots could take one of his regnant’s sports cars from the vast warehouse-like garage. Regnants without any dots allocated to this category are typically tight-fisted with their resources (and Vitae) and not likely to give any gifts without some real convincing. Regnant Trust is a measure of the extraordinary quality of the relationship your character enjoys with her regnant. Some ghouls are simply well liked by their regnants and are more likely to be afforded some breathing room with respect to their performance. The Kindred knows that his trusted ghoul will perform whatever job has been set before her, so he’s willing to let some minor early setback slide. An especially trusting regnant might even gift his ghoul with tidbits of forbidden information, which might prove infinitely more valuable than a gun or a car. Each dot of Regnant Trust confers a +1 die bonus on Persuasion rolls in dealings between your character and her regnant. Regnants who are represented by having no dots allocated to this category don’t necessarily dislike their ghouls, they just fail to see any reason to be friendly with them. Note that ghoul characters may not share the Regnant Merit. If several players wish to have their ghoul characters serve the same Regnant, they should all spend the same amount on Regnant Power. The favor and trust aspects of the Merit reflect personal relationships, however, so they can be different for several characters in service to the same master. They can also change in time as the various characters demonstrate their worth.
Relationship (• to •••••)
Book: Mirrors, p. 212 Effect: The character has a reciprocal relationship with a Storyteller character, in which he has at least some emotional investment — the more dots, the more significant the relationship. This relationship is a source of strength and aid. It could be a parent, a sibling, a child. It could be a lover or an ex-lover. The relationship doesn’t have to be a positive one: that ex-wife who you’ve got to see every week because she’s got custody of the kids is still important to you, even if love turned horribly sour long ago. Your feelings for your going-right-off the- rails teenage son may be appallingly conflicted, but he’s still central in your world. Each purchase of the Merit counts for a relationship with one specific Storyteller character. The character can be human or supernatural. Once per scene, you may add your dots in the Relationship Merit to one, and only one dice pool, provided that you can give a plausible rationale as to why the relationship should aid you. If it is plausible, the Storyteller must accommodate the rationale.
It can reward any dice pool at all. You can even get the bonus relationship dice while using supernatural powers (if you have any), but only in a circumstance when the player can justify the bonus. Be creative with your rationale for getting the dice. Sometimes, this is simple: when you’re trying to convince your ex-wife that you need to see the kids a day early because you’re going to be out of town (and no, you can’t tell her you’re off risking your life), add your relationship dice to your Manipulation + Persuasion roll. The relationship might be at stake in some way: you’d get the bonus while trying to convince the head teacher at your deadbeat teenage son’s school not to expel him for truancy and the stuff they found in his locker. You might decide that the object of the relationship is doing something to help your character (or hinder your character): you’re trying to talk a vampire you know out of coming into your house, and you say “my five-year-old daughter calls down the stairs and says ‘Daddy, who’s that?’ and I decide that I mustn’t let her see him...” And you take the dice for your relationship with your daughter. You might even take the bonus for a person with whom you have an adversarial relationship turning up. You’re desperately fighting a horde of zombies; you declare: “But each zombie carries an amulet around his neck, exactly like the one (my arch-enemy) wears! He sent them! He must have learned how to make them!” And you take the dice, and if the Storyteller hasn’t already decided that your character’s archenemy did send the zombies, he has to re-jig the story to cover that. Drawback: Relationships are reciprocal and complicated. The Storyteller character with whom you have the relationship gets the same bonus on dice pools when it’s relevant to you. Also, relationships need to be kept alive. You actually need to have some contact with the character with whom you’ve got the relationship — phone, face-to-face contact, running arguments, office conflict, whatever — or risk losing dots in the Merit. The Storyteller can decide what constitutes a reasonable interval for lack of contact (perhaps if the character doesn’t engage in the relationship once per game session, a dot in the Merit is thrown into jeopardy for the next session). Finally, if the subject of a character’s Relationship Merit dies, the Merit is lost. Power in Relationships That’s an extremely powerful Merit, isn’t it? You get a pile of free dice for bringing friends and enemies into the story. But, I hear you say, wouldn’t that mean that the players end up dictating much of what happens in the story, as they force you to bring in their relationships again and again? The answer to that question is: yes. Absolutely. That’s the whole idea. What it does is take some of the responsibility for driving the story away from the Storyteller and put it firmly in the hands of the other players. If the players get into it enough, the amount of work a Storyteller does to keep the story going should become more and more minimal. The Relationship Merit is also there to show how even a tiny mechanical change can fundamentally alter the way you play the game. But you can make it even more extreme: consider: • Allowing characters an extra seven Merit dots at character creation set apart solely for Relationships, giving every character the chance to get those lovely extra “relationship” dice. • Allowing players to shift around the Relationship dots they have at the end of a story, the better to reflect how their personal relationships have shifted. (Though perhaps they can only move one dot from the Merit at a time?) It’s not for everyone. But if you’re cool with everyone taking responsibility for driving the story and you’re willing to wing it, it can make for some fabulous evenings of play.
Ritual Crypt (•)
Book: Immortals, p. 113 Note: Purified Effect: Your character has a ritually prepared location where her body can be made to reappear if it dies. Even if the character’s corpse is largely intact, she must spend five points of Essence to cause her body to vanish from its current location and appear within the ritual crypt. At minimum, this crypt consists of a bed, slab or other surface large enough to hold your character’s body inside a room with doors and windows that close. This location could be anything from a deeply buried stone crypt to an ordinary bedroom. Regardless of the crypt’s appearance or location, the slab, or bed where your character’s body reappears and all of the walls and doors of this room are marked with special sigils. If any of these markings are disturbed, the ritual crypt does not function and the character’s body remains where it was. Your character can only cause her corpse to reappear there; she cannot cause her still-living body to magically appear at this location. Also, even if the character’s corpse is fully intact, it costs five points of Essence to move her body to the ritual crypt, because doing so involves destroying the body at its present location and then restoring her body to the crypt. All purified automatically know how to create a ritual crypt; possessing this Merit only means that your character has taken the time and effort to create one.
Drawback: If any of the sigils on the crypt are erased or damaged, the crypt does not function and the character cannot cause her corpse to reappear there. Destroying a character’s ritual crypt is quite easy for anyone who can gain access to it. Doing so is a standard part of any attack upon one of the purified. Purified usually attempt to keep their ritual crypt secret from everyone and rarely visit it to avoid someone watching them finding it. Of course, this means that it may not be available when they need it. Creating a new ritual crypt requires one day of special preparations and the expenditure of another two Experience Points, to purchase this Merit again.
Scourge (•••••)
Book: Wicked Dead, p. 154 Prerequisite: Dampyr Effect: Your half-Damned nature is flexible and potent, affecting any vampire that encounters you as if your Lure and doom were perfectly attuned to her blood. None of your other traits or advantages change, and this power is almost more of a curse—your life will be an unstoppable pageant of tragedy and revenge, but for all vampires you are a whirlwind of endings, leading your obsessive admirers into conflict with one another.
Secret (• to •••••)
Book: Mirrors, p. 210 Effect: Secret is a unique Merit in that its value is set by the Storyteller and it costs nothing. It can be taken in conjunction with the Flaw of the same name, and it is designed to represent secrets with somewhat higher stakes, like shadowy patronage or an illicit background. It’s appropriate to the sort of secret that includes benefits that last only as long as the secret stays hidden. The benefit of this Merit is that it allows the character to take two free dots of Merits for each dot of secrets. These merits cannot be intrinsic things (like Quick Draw or Striking Looks), rather they must be Merits that could potentially be lost, like most Social Merits. So long as the character’s secret remains hidden, these Merits remain; if the secret ever goes public, they are immediately lost. When taking this Merit, the player describes the secret, and the Storyteller assigns its value. Practically speaking, this allows the Storyteller to set the maximum value of Secrets in his game. Secrets above •• are very powerful, and are best suited to games with a heavy emphasis on intrigue and politics. In such games, allowing a high threshold of secrets is a quick and dirty way to allow characters to be movers and shakers without also making them combat monsters. (You’ll also find information on secrets earlier in this book (Mirrors), on p. 132.)
Setup: Coordinator (••• or ••••)
Book: Mirrors, p. 119 Effect: You are extremely good at organizing others during Setups — you can include as many characters or allied Storyteller characters as you wish in a Setup with only a basic success on the check required. The four-dot version allows that, and lets you have an additional roll per Setup flashback.
Setup: Faceman (•)
Book: Mirrors, p. 119 Effect: You are adept at using Social Skills during Setup scenes, fixing future advantage by being charming and persuasive. Add three dice to a Social roll made during a Setup scene.
Setup: Mastermind (•••••)
Book: Mirrors, p. 119 Effect: You are always three steps ahead of everyone else, and are a master of organizing perfect Setups. You can include as many of your allies as you wish in a Setup, and they all gain a bonus to their dice rolls during that scene equal to your successes on the Setup roll.
Sexualized (••)
Book: Ghouls, p. 73 Prerequisite: Ghoul Maybe it’s something brought on by the Vitae, or perhaps it’s the perverse function she serves for her regnant. Regardless, the ghoul now has an intangible undercurrent of sexual power and experience that those
exposed to her cannot help but notice. This carnal aura can be a potent tool in taking advantage of weakwilled or lustful individuals. What’s more, it bears no relation whatsoever to the character’s physical appearance. Having this Merit grants a +1 modifier on all Presence or Manipulation rolls when the character is attempting to intimidate, seduce or distract others. Drawback: Some mortals might find themselves disturbed by the feelings your character’s presence stirs in them, especially if those feelings seem inappropriate. (For instance, if your character is very young, very old or contrary to the subject’s gender preference, a heady mien of sexuality can have a profoundly troublesome impact.) This drawback doesn’t change the bonus your character can apply to dealings with them, but it could change the way those characters react when considering their actions later.
Shadow Sanctum (• to ••••)
Book: Immortals, p. 113 Note: Purified Effect: Your character has a stronghold in the Shadow Realm where he can retreat from foes and regain his strength. The exact nature of this sanctum is up to you, it could be a well-fortified building, a deep cavern, or something far stranger like a living hollow tree the size of a small apartment complex that is also an intelligent spirit who is your character’s loyal friend and ally. All shadow sanctums are by their nature difficult for enemies to locate, with the basic Shadow Sanctum providing anyone attempting to locate it with a –3 penalty to all rolls to do so. A one-dot Shadow Sanctum is a relatively small and spartan space, like a room in a cave or a small hut. The sanctum is relatively comfortable, but is both small and devoid of amenities. This Sanctum can be enhanced in three different ways that each increase the cost of the Merit by one additional dot. A Shadow Sanctum with all three advantages costs four dots. The enhancements are: • The sanctum is both larger and more comfortable. It can be as large as a large house or small mansion and contain light heat, running water, a well-stocked larder, some facilities for entertainment and various similar comforts. • The sanctum is far more formidable. It now has a penalty of –5 to all roll to locate it and is also highly defensible. When locked up, which your character can accomplish in one turn, its walls have a Durability of 10. • The sanctum becomes a spirit that is intelligent and loyal to your character. This spirit cannot move. Sanctum Spirit Attributes: 10 dots total (allocate dots in any order among Power, Finesse and Resistance, with a minimum of two dots and a maximum of five dots on any Attribute) Willpower: Equal to Power + Resistance Essence: 15 (15 max) Initiative: Equal to Finesse + Resistance Defense: Equal to highest of Power and Finesse Speed: 0, this spirit is immobile and can never move under its own power. Size: 20 (35 for a larger Shadow Sanctum) Corpus: Equal to Resistance + Size Influence: 2 dots (choose one) Numina: All spirit sanctums possess the Innocuous Numina and one additional Numina* Ban: The intelligent sanctum has one Ban, chosen by the Storyteller; see the familiar Merit for further information * Shadow Sanctum Spirits cannot possess any Numina that allows it move or to travel to or affect the mortal world in any fashion. Common Numina for Sanctums are Blast, Harrow and Wild Sense.
Sleepwalker (••••)
Book: Mage: The Awakening Core, p. 334 Prerequisite: Mortal (non-supernatural) Effects: Your character is not completely asleep; the Quiescence does not affect him fully, and he is not susceptible to Disbelief. He can witness improbable or vulgar magic without increasing the chances of a Paradox. Only mortal, mundane characters can possess this Merit. The pivotal moment of becoming or being changed into a being with supernatural capabilities eliminates it.
Sleight of Hand (••••)
Book: Immortals, p. 84 Note: Body Thief Effect: The world is rarely what it seems, and it doesn’t take several stolen lifetimes to see that. To body thieves who have manifested this talent the difference between what you see and what you don’t see is just a matter of practice. The thief in question need only put her hands on a pair of inanimate objects, and if the power activates successfully, one object appears to be the other and vice versa. For example, a clever thief puts his briefcase down on the ground between herself and another passenger on the train. With use of this power, her briefcase appears to belong to the man next to her, and his appears to be hers, then it’s just a matter of knocking them both over, grabbing the one that appears to be hers and make off with the stranger’s things. A young artist walks into a museum with a sketch pad under his arm, and with a little leaning on the wall, he switches his pad with a oneof-a-kind oil painting under his arm and he walks out without a single witness. Beyond the specific needs of thieves like the Archer Family to have personal items of their targets, this ability has a myriad of uses. Stealing a wallet is small time, but being able to lift a laptop with a room full of people certain that the thief wasn’t you can go a long way to setting up a new life in a new body. If it isn’t nailed down and the thief has a good enough replacement, she can walk out the door with her prize with no one the wiser. Dice Pool: Wits + Subterfuge, minus the highest Resolve of all witnesses Duration: One scene Possible Modifiers: Items are similar in appearance (+2), witnesses expect a trick (–2), each level of Size difference between the two (–2) Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The power fails, and all possible witnesses feel something weird, as if they all were possessed of the Unseen Sense Merit for the turn. Failure: No effect. The items remain as they were. Success: The caster simultaneously touches two objects. If successful, the two items switch appearances. For the remainder of the scene, appearances suggest the two items switched places. Any mundane scrutiny will suggest that an item is the other. Only mystical scrutiny can pierce the temporary illusion. The only limitation is that objects gain no additional functions and are no more durable than they were before. A yardstick disguised as a rifle can’t fire and is easy to break. At the end of the scene, the objects revert. Exceptional Success: The items remain switched for one full day.
Source Sympathy (•••)
Book: Ghouls, p. 73 Prerequisite: Ghoul, Empathy ••• A good servant responds unerringly to her master’s emotional state. With this Merit, a ghoul enjoys an emotional connection with their regnant similar to the blood sympathy felt by vampires (Vampire: The Requiem, p. 163). Some ghouls develop this ability over decades of service, while a few rare ones seem to do so almost immediately. Ghoul characters with this Merit sometimes experience vague moments of recognition of intense emotions just as their regnants are feeling them (even if the two of them are in separate rooms or divided by trackless miles). If a long-dormant Kindred is just arising from a period of torpor, his surviving legacy ghouls might start to key in on his hunger and confusion and be drawn to where their once-master has reemerged. Just as with the blood sympathy of Kindred, the Storyteller may ask the player of the ghoul to roll the character’s Wits + Occult. The number of successes reflects the amount of useful information the character learns. Roll Results Dramatic Failure: Players cannot dramatically fail a roll for Source Sympathy. Failure: Nothing happens. Success: The ghoul has a strong general impression of his regnant’s experience and has a general notion of the direction and distance to her. Exceptional Success: The ghoul knows exactly what his regnant is feeling, and the awareness remains for a scene, fading slowly. He also knows exactly where she is. Note that unlike the Kindred’s blood sympathy, the ghoul does not literally share the experience with his regnant. He only understands the effect it has upon her. If the regnant is ambushed in her haven while the ghoul is out running a daytime errand, the ghoul might suddenly realize that the master is not only awake but afraid and angry. He does not, however, feel the selfsame mortal terror or outrage that the master is concurrently experiencing. This effect goes only one way. The regnant feels no such connection to the ghoul. Source Sympathy doesn’t confer any Discipline bonuses when targeting your character’s regnant.
Spelunker (• to •••••)
Book: Book Of The Dead, p. 92 Prerequisite: Dexterity ••• and Athletics ••• Effect: Your character has spent a lot of time caving, pot-holing, and otherwise twisting his body through tight places, a skill-set that comes in damn handy in the twisting tunnels and tight caverns of the Underworld. Note that though this Merit is of a lot of use in the Underworld, it’s just as applicable to cavers who haven’t encountered the supernatural world in any way. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special athletic maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. So, your character can’t have “Free Climb” until he has “Squeeze Through.” The maneuvers and their effects are detailed below, most of which are based on the Athletics Skill. Sure Footed (•): Your character has spent enough time underground to get a feel for caves, allowing him to act on instinct in enclosed spaces. When moving through tight spaces, your character can ignore penalties to his Speed due to hazardous terrain up to his rating in the Spelunking Merit. In addition, rolls to retain balance in an enclosed area gain the 9-again quality. Cave Sense (••): Your character’s been underground long enough that she can supplement her sight with the feel of air currents and pressure. This doesn’t replace normal sight, but can come in handy as a backup to a flashlight. If the character operates with some source of light underground, she can ignore all penalties due to darkness if she has a moment to gather her senses. In combat, she doesn’t have that time but she’s still at an advantage. Halve any penalties for acting in darkness. Squeeze Through (•••): Your character can fit through very small openings without losing speed. He can squeeze through openings as though his Size were two lower than it actually is. Drawback: When scurrying through narrow tunnels, your character cannot move faster than half his Speed unless he takes a point of lethal damage. Free Climb (••••): Assuming your character has even basic equipment, she can climb up almost any surface. She can’t go faster than most people, but she can pick out natural handholds if she takes a moment, and thus is a lot less likely to fall. Action: Instant Dice Pool: Wits + Athletics Roll Results Dramatic Failure: Your character thinks a hand-hold is stable right until it crumbles under her hand. Her next Strength + Athletics roll to climb the surface is reduced to a chance die. Failure: Your character can’t pick out any useful details of the rock in front of her. Success: Your character identifies a number of useful hand-holds and alternate routes. She adds the number of successes on this roll as a bonus to her Strength + Athletics rolls (maximum +5) to climb the surface. She can make one climbing roll per dot in the Spelunking Merit before she loses this benefit. Exceptional Success: Your character identifies a faster route than is immediately apparent. Her next Strength + Athletics roll covers 15 feet rather than 10. Born to the Cave (•••••): Your character is so adapted to moving around in cramped spaces that people wonder if he wasn’t born underground. He can see perfectly normally if there’s even the slightest glimmer of light, and can climb rough cavern walls and narrow chimneys at his normal Speed without having to make a roll. If the surface is taxing enough that an Athletics roll to climb it would normally suffer a penalty, he has to roll as normal. If he’s attacked when climbing underground, his unpredictable movement doubles his Defense. Drawback: Your character isn’t best suited to life above ground, without walls on either side and a roof far above. She gains no benefit from any level of this Merit when she’s not underground, and suffers a -1 penalty to Athletics rolls to climb in the open air.
Staff (• to •••••)
Book: Ghouls, p. 74 Prerequisite: Ghoul, Resources (varies) Your character has official command over a staff of employees. These people are mundane mortals, but they’re also professionally trained and capable of taking on a host of roles. An aristocratic household, for example, might employ a number of maids, valets and cooks, while a social predator might have publicists, investigators and lawyers on the payroll. The number of dots in this Merit reflects the relative size and complexity of the force at your character’s disposal. You can assign a category to each dot, reflecting the separate tasks that can be delegated at any given time. For example, if your ghoul has Staff •••, you could assign the dots to chauffeurs, gardeners and security guards. Your character could then assign tasks involving driving guests, landscaping and guard detail to her own employees without requiring special effort beyond a simple dispensation of orders.
The number of dots your character can have in this Merit is limited by the number of people your household can afford to employ. You may not have more dots in Staff than you have in Resources. It’s also possible to have the ghoul’s regnant be the one whose Resources dots support the service staff. In such a situation, the Kindred is the true master of the house, but the ghoul character is his butler or housekeeper in an Edwardian manor-house-style division of labor. And while the ghoul might be the one giving the orders and maintaining the staff’s affairs, the master’s wishes are the rule of the night.
Steal Sense (•••)
Book: Immortals, p. 85 Note: Body Thief Effect: With the right skill or ability, even the most intangible of things can be stolen. With this Merit, the body thief is able to reach out to a victim and rob them of sight, hearing, taste or any basic sense. In fact, in the case of knowledgeable thieves, even senses that are neither obvious nor mundane are fair game. Among all kinds of thieves, robbing a victim of their senses is a common practice since the benefits for the thief are as strong as the hindrances to the victim. Among the Magically Talented, rituals that involve using puppets or dolls are common, whereas the Mentally Talented are considerably less flamboyant. The caster must be able to either clearly see the target or have a sympathetic connection to him in order to steal a sense. Dice Pool: Wits + Empathy versus Resolve Duration: One scene Possible Modifiers: The sense is not one possessed by the caster (–2), the sense is supernatural in nature (– 3) Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The power fails. Sensory overload causes the caster a –2 penalty on all perceptionrelated rolls for the remainder of the scene. Failure: The power fails. Success: The caster achieves more successes than the victim does. Before the roll, the caster must select one targeted sense to steal from the victim. The victim loses the sense for the scene. The caster finds her perceptions heightened. When making any roll pertaining to that sense, the caster can substitute the victim’s traits for her own and may roll all rolls with that sense twice, taking the best of the two results. If the sense is supernatural in nature, the caster must use her traits to utilize the stolen sense. This power can steal a person’s Unseen Sense Merit for a scene. The caster must know that the victim has the Merit before the roll is attempted. Exceptional Success: As above, except the stolen sense lasts a whole day.
Sway: Cut To The Heart (•••••)
Book: Mirrors, p. 118 Effect: You have an insight into human nature (either studies or intuitive) that is so profound you can use Intimate Sway with anyone — strangers, cellmates, taxi drivers. Nobody is safe from your uncanny manipulation of mind.
Sway: It’s Like I’ve Known You My Whole Life (••••)
Book: Mirrors, p. 118 Effect: You form rapport with strangers and acquaintances with astonishing speed, rapidly striking up warm and sometimes intimate conversations with people you’ve only just met. The time it takes to move a relationship from Casual Sway to Intimate Sway is halved (see table on p. 106).
Sway: Magnificent Bastard (•••)
Book: Mirrors, p. 118 Effect: Even people whose trust you’ve abused, who’ve been warned against you, or who catch you in the most compromising situations just can’t, for some reason, bring themselves to condemn you for it. You suffer no circumstantial penalties for your Swaying actions. Even if your target knows you’re a no-good lying sack of shit, the knowledge won’t help them at all.
Sway: Once Burned (••)
Book: Mirrors, p. 118 Effect: You used to trust people, until betrayal (or your base suspicious nature) got in the way. Now, it is extremely difficult to Sway you. You double your Composure or Resolve when resisting Sway.
Drawback: Trust is impossible, even when it might serve your character in the long term. If you have Willpower, you must spend it to resist Sway, and can never willingly go along with it in order to gain the bonus experience.
Sway: Trustworthy Face (•)
Book: Mirrors, p. 118 Effect: You just have one of those faces people tend to trust, without any particular rational reason for them doing so. If they stopped to think about it they might reconsider, so don’t give them the chance. Gain +2 bonus on all Casual Sway attempts.
Telltale Murder (•• or •••)
Book: Slashers, p. 127 Prerequisite: Intelligence ••••, Medicine •• With the two-dot version of this Merit, you know how to disguise a murder as a suicide, or use the means by which your victims die to taunt your attackers. Roll Intelligence + Medicine before the character ends a victim’s life. Each success allows you to make one brief statement: “The murder symbolizes Pride,” or “The victim is not innocent.” An investigator will pick up on these statements with one success on a Wits + Investigation roll. You can use this capability to taunt the officers investigating your crimes, or to foil their attempts to build a profile. The three-dot version of this Merit enhances understanding of murder. You can stage a killing so that it sends a message that isn’t true: “This death was a suicide,” for example. Anyone studying the body must gain more successes on an Intelligence + Medicine roll than you rolled when using this Merit, or believe your lie. Note that use of this Merit isn’t supernatural: the character isn’t psychically willing a message into the corpse or the murder scene. No, this necessitates work on the part of the slasher: arranging a series of bodies in some grisly display out of Milton’s Paradise Lost, for instance, carving a scarlet letter (“A”) in a dead adulterer’s chest, or some other kind of murderous theatrics. Drawback: Once you start leaving messages, it’s very hard to stop. If you don’t make use of this Merit when you strike a killing blow, the Storyteller may decide on a single statement that investigators will pick up.
The Dragon’s Tongue (• or ••)
Book: Inferno, p. 126 Prerequisites: Possessed Effect: Demons have their own tongue, known colloquially as the Dragon’s Tongue. What are the origins of this strange language? Why is it for some a series of hisses and clicks, while for others it is a mad susurration of sibilant noises? Frankly, few know; some suggest it is a remnant language cobbled together from the Babel-speak of angels, of God, and of Adam and Eve. Others say it’s more a conceptual metalanguage, a tongue that is as much meaning as it is sound. All demons know it, but the Possessed do not automatically have access to it: it seems that, for some, once the demon has taken possession it cannot always parse its understanding of the Dragon’s Tongue through the host’s plainly human mind. However, those Possessed who purchase this Merit at 1 dot find that their minds do understand it, and can move their mouths to speak it. Those Possessed who purchase this at 2 dots find that they can communicate with all demons (within and without) all the more completely: they gain +1 to Social rolls with demons outside their bodies, and they gain +1 to any Contest of Wills rolls made against the demon within their bodies.
Theft of the Sublime (•••••)
Book: Immortals, p. 85 Note: Body Thief Effect: To the other denizens of the World of Darkness, this is possibly the most dreaded and dangerous power body thieves possess next to or possibly including their ability to swap bodies. With this unique ability, the thief is able to rob a supernatural being of the very talents that make them inherently what they are. A thief does not need to be intimately familiar with what it is the supernatural in question is capable of, it takes merely an estimate of what they should be able to do to draw out the gift. Witnessing the power in use and an Intelligence + Occult roll will suffice. Manifestation of this ability among a society of thieves who recognize it for what it is tends to carry with it a certain amount of esteem as many consider it the pinnacle of their craft, magical or otherwise. Those aware of the power still fear those with it, as their own supernatural skills are not exempt from this theft, including
the unique specifics of their own body swapping powers. The caster must be able to either clearly see the target or have a sympathetic connection to her in order to steal a supernatural power. Dice Pool: Intelligence + Occult versus Resolve + Supernatural Advantage Duration: One scene Possible Modifiers: The caster is familiar with the power targeted (+2), the caster has never seen the power before (–2) Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The power fails; the victim is aware of the caster’s intentions and identity. Failure: The power fails. Success: The caster chooses one supernatural power possessed by the victim. For the remainder of the scene, the victim loses access to the power and the caster gains access to it. If the power requires an activation cost (Vitae, Essence, Mana, et cetera,) the caster must pay this cost in Willpower. At the Storyteller’s discretion, some powers may not be available to a body thief. Examples include powers that necessitate a dead body to function. As well, at the Storyteller’s discretion this Merit may allow the theft of an inherent ability, such as a werewolf’s regeneration. If there is a question as to what this power can or cannot work on, the default answer should be “no.” Exceptional Success: As above, but the power is stolen for one full day.
Unmask (••••)
Book: Wicked Dead, p. 154 Prerequisite: Dampyr Effect: You may share your ability to pierce vampiric veils and undo vampiric influence by touching a target, and spending a point of Willpower. The recipient benefits from the same perception and protection you enjoy for the remainder of the scene.
Unobtrusive (•••)
Book: Ghouls, p. 74 Prerequisite: Ghoul, Stealth •• Your ghoul character performs her daily duty with such apparent single-minded purpose that she seems to fade into the periphery of Kindred perception. Granted, Kindred rarely notice each other’s ghoul servants anyway, but this Merit reflects a feature of a ghoul’s service that is truly unusual and useful. Your character has trained herself to notice details without appearing to pay them any heed at the time, storing them for retrieval from memory later. She makes an excellent spy, retaining information without consciously noticing it, so that even the most discerning subjects (sometimes even those with Auspex) tend to ignore her. In studying a subject or a location, the character gains a +2 die bonus to escape notice as long as she’s engaged in some practical task at the same time. (Such tasks include driving, clearing a table, gardening, washing a car, performing a mundane desk job or any other such routine, monotonous drudgery.) To retrieve the information he’s “stored,” a character must engage in silent, sometimes ritualistic, contemplation. He could engage in such mnemonic techniques as the “memory palace,” he could undergo hypnosis, or he could simply meditate. This Merit also grants a +1 to the ghoul victim’s Resolve for purposes of resisting The Forgetful Mind (Dominate •••).
Unobtrusiveness (••)
Book: Immortals, p. 86 Note: Body Thief Effect: Few thieves get far in their careers as the center of attention, doing their deeds in broad daylight with an audience. Some do, but that’s another matter entirely. For the body thief, staying hidden and acting with subtlety can be the difference between escaping to the next lifetime and death or perhaps imprisonment as a lunatic. The thief who develops this ability has learned to excel in going unnoticed, blending and becoming a part of the background. This is not any form of invisibility, not even as much as the ability to create a fake invisibility by forcing others to ignore you. This power is simply the ability to be utterly uninteresting and avoid notice. Even on a successful roll, victims in the area will still be able to see the thief, they would simply think nothing ill of their presence. In a crowded restaurant, who notices the extra busboy rushing from table to table to keep things clean, and who would take notice of said busboy leaning over the table to take something from it? In a club full of club kids bumping into each other in a throng, what’s one more club kid?
In essence, this is not so different from donning a good disguise and acting unobtrusive. Though this is every bit as supernatural ability as the others listed in this section, as such a Storyteller should take that into account. Dice Pool: Resolve + Stealth Duration: One scene Suggested Equipment: Inconspicuous clothing (+1), a crowd (+1), bright lights (–1), clothing that doesn’t fit environment (–2) Possible Modifiers: Active pursuit (–2), Caster has Striking Looks (–1 or –2) Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The power fails. The caster is unaware of the failure. Failure: The power fails. The caster is aware that she has failed, and can attempt again. Success: If successful, this power’s successes subtract from any rolls to locate the caster. Exceptional Success: In addition to the increased successes, the caster also enjoys a +2 benefit to any action where visibility may be a complication, such as pickpocketing.
Veteran (• to •••••)
Book: Mirrors, p. 20 Character creation only Effect: A veteran character is one with at least five years of experience in a specific field. These characters haven’t yet experienced enough of the oddities of the World of Darkness to truly recognize everything isn’t as it seems, but they’ve had more real-world experience than is typical of your average starting character. For each dot spent on this Merit, the character gains one Specialty in a Skill that relates to her field. Stacking Specialties (above) is recommended in coordination with this Merit. Examples of appropriate Skills to enhance with Specialties by way of this Merit include: Cop: Computer, Investigation, any Physical Skill except Survival, any Social Skill (including Animal Ken for K-9 units) except Socialize. Blue Collar Laborer: Computer, Crafts, possibly Medicine by field, Athletics, Drive, any Social Skill except Streetwise. Professor: Any Mental Skill except Occult, Athletics, Drive, any Social Skill except Streetwise. Professional Thief: Computer, Crafts, Investigation, any Physical Skill except Survival, any Social Skill except Animal Ken. White Collar Laborer: Any Mental Skill except Crafts and Occult, Athletics, Drive, any Social Skill except Animal Ken and Streetwise. Soldier: Academics, Computers, Crafts, Medicine, any Physical Skill except Larceny, any Social Skill except Animal Ken and Streetwise. Street Thug: Crafts, Investigation, any Physical Skill except Survival, any Social Skill except Animal Ken and Empathy. Example: Stew decides he wants to make a beat cop with several years experience on the job. He invests three dots into the Veteran Merit, which allows him to select three Skills to enhance with a Specialty. Stew figures his character has in-depth knowledge of Drive, Firearms, and Investigation and so the character begins play with a Specialty in each of those Skills. Likely choices for Narrow Choice Specialties include Drive (Police Cruiser), Firearms (Pistol), and Investigation (Crime Scene). Drawback: Time on the job frequently comes with some disadvantages and the longer you spend on the same job; the more problems are likely to come up. Buying this Merit at three dots or above means beginning play with one Flaw. A construction worker might lose hearing after being around loud equipment day after day, a cop is likely to make some enemies during the course of his duties, or an accountant might take to slugging back the booze to drown out the numbers dancing in his head. Select Flaws that seem in-character and use them as possible future plot points and roleplaying opportunities. Don’t feel bound by the Flaws presented in the World of Darkness Rulebook (p. 218) either. Be creative and design Flaws that say something about the character. Example: Continuing with the example above, since Stew took three dots in the Veteran Merit, he must select one Flaw. Stew decides that his cop’s time on the job has made him cynical about human behavior, which makes him hard to deal with at times and imposes a –2 penalty to Socialize rolls.
Vitality Drain (•••)
Book: Immortals, p. 86 Note: Body Thief Effect: This ability is the most primitive and primordial manifestation of the body thief’s talent. It takes the stuff of life from the target and gives it to the thief, reflecting the parasitic relationship between thieves and their victims.
In the case of Vitality Draining, there is no one social group that prefers it, although many hesitate to use it as it tends to manifest in such a flashy and over-the-top-manner that it risks exposing the thief to unwanted attention from the common people and monster hunters alike. This is not a subtle power; the victim of this power grows noticeably ill or weak while the thief in question grows empowered. (A Wits + Medicine roll allows an observer of the power to notice something amiss.) In the cases of thief and victim who are already injured, wounds might exacerbate or deepen on the victims face before closing up on the thief’s face a moment after. The caster must be able to either touch the target or have a sympathetic connection to steal the target’s vitality. Dice Pool: Intelligence + Medicine versus Stamina Duration: One day Possible Modifiers: Victim is sleeping (+2) Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The power fails and the caster takes one lethal wound. Failure: The power fails. Success: Reduce the victim’s Health trait by one dot for the next day. The caster gains one dot of Health for the next day. The caster can only benefit from a number of extra Health dots equal to her unmodified Stamina at one time. A victim can only be victim to this power once at a given time. Exceptional Success: As above, except the victim loses two dots of Health, and the caster gains two. This can exceed the limit a thief can benefit from by one.
Weaponry Monomaniac (••)
Book: Slashers, p. 129 Prerequisite: Weaponry •, and a specialty in the specific weapon Effects: Some slashers take great comfort in one weapon. Whether a woman gains power from her dead husband’s straight-razor or a Legend possesses a fire ax that he believes speaks to him, the reliance on one specific weapon is this slasher’s defining trait. When using one specific weapon — a custom glove with razors in the fingertips, or a perfectly-balanced sniper rifle — the slasher’s roll gains the 8-Again quality. Drawback: The slasher cannot voluntarily get rid of his weapon. Even if the cops are after him and it’s dripping with the blood of a dead cheerleader, he will take it with him. If circumstances outside his control separate him from his weapon, he gains a derangement that remains until he is reunited with his weapon.
Willpower Drain (••••)
Book: Immortals, p. 87 Note: Body Thief Effect: There is nothing to which a thief will not stoop when it comes to survival, and once one has tasted immortality, even with the limitations presented to the body thief, little seems unreasonable on the quest for unending life. With this power, a thief has mastered the ability to drain away the very will of their target, making them pliable and weak in the face of any other attacks the thief might later inflict. In some cases, like in the case of the Seekers of Knowledge, this Drain is part of an act of devoted surrender to a greater cause, and indeed, a charming or charismatic thief can convince her target that being subjected to this assault is part of a higher calling or maybe simply an act of love. Not all practices of Willpower Drain are as seemingly benevolent. A thief could just as easily strap a victim down to a chair, pull a chair up across from her and start barraging her with this assault; this technique is rarely pleasant for the victim and it is common for other more mundane torture to accompany its practice. The caster must be able to either touch the target or have a sympathetic connection with him to steal his Willpower. If this power is instilled in an amulet, the wearer also cannot regain any Willpower for as long as she wears the amulet. Dice Pool: Intelligence + Presence versus Resolve + Composure Duration: Instant Possible Modifiers: Target believes she is willing (+2), no eye contact (–2) Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The power fails and the caster loses a point of Willpower and cannot use this power for one full day. Failure: The power fails. Success: The caster achieves more successes than the target. For each success in excess of the victim’s, the victim loses one Willpower point. If the target is reduced to zero Willpower with this ability, she becomes listless and devoid of all will or volition until she regains at least one point of Willpower. Exceptional Success: As above, but the caster also gains one Willpower point, not to exceed his maximum.
Wolf-Blooded (••••)
Book: Werewolf The Forsaken Core, p. 79 Effect: Your character has blood relations with a lineage of werewolves, and the blood of the werewolf runs particularly strong in her. Strange things have probably occurred around her all her life. Spirits and Uratha might even keep tabs on her, awaiting a First Change that might never even occur. Your character might be fully aware of her heritage or completely ignorant of it. In the first case, she has been exposed to the existence of werewolves through stories, half-glimpsed sights or full disclosure by her kin. In the second case, she probably lives as an ordinary person, but still suffers strange encounters that tell her that she doesn’t quite fit among the masses. In either case, your character automatically has the Unseen Sense Merit (World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 109) by virtue of her strong werewolf blood. That free Merit must be focused on werewolf and spirit activity. Furthermore, she’s not as subject to Lunacy as ordinary people are. A Wolf-Blooded character’s effective Willpower is treated as two higher than normal for purposes of resisting Lunacy. Your character has a faint rapport with wolves, and is able to read lupine body language and growls far better than other people can. This is not an ability to communicate with wolves — a flair for relating to wolves is simply in her blood. To some extent, this rapport extends to dogs as well, though dogs’ blood is generally very far removed from the ancestral wolf nature to which she is connected. Your character gets a free “Wolf” Specialty if she possesses the Animal Ken Skill. This Merit can also apply to a werewolf character who has yet to undergo the First Change. If your character later undergoes the First Change, the Wolf-Blooded Merit is lost. In addition, if your character becomes supernatural in some other fashion, such as becoming a ghoul, undergoing the Embrace or Awakening, the Merit is lost; the tenuous connection of werewolf blood is easily disrupted. The Wolf-Blooded Merit is available only at character creation. Your character can’t suddenly prove in the midst of play to have a strong strain of werewolf blood all along. Drawback: Werewolf blood is not a blessing. Your character is exposed to creatures and phenomena that she can’t comprehend. She is also marked as the weak link in related werewolves’ lives. Enemies of those Uratha might target your character to send them a message. When horrifying or truly bizarre events occur, any rolls made to resist incurring a derangement suffer a –1 penalty. This penalty doesn’t apply to degeneration rolls when sins are committed, but to rolls such as Resolve + Composure to remain sane before a gruesome spectacle. Relatively frequent exposure to such scenes eventually wears down one’s ability to remain on an even keel.
Wolf-Blooded (•• to ••••)
Book: Blood Of The Wolf, p. 126 Note: This version of Wolf-Blooded is optional, meant primarily for chronicles in which multiple players portray uragarum characters and for Storyteller characters that don’t need to be quite as “blessed” as most wolf-bloods. If the Storyteller does not wish to make use of this Merit, she is under no obligation to do so. Effects: Your character has a blood relationship with a werewolf. She might be a member of a wolfblooded line such as the Pickerings or might be the only wolf-blood in her immediate family. She might not even know the truth of what she is. Those details are up to the player and the Storyteller. This Merit does not measure how much the character knows, nor does it measure a character’s relationship with her Uratha family. (Merits like Watched and Allies on p. 114 of the World of Darkness Rulebook are better indicators of that.) This Merit simply charts a character’s semi-mystical, semigenetic connection to the Uratha, and what benefits (and drawbacks) the character receives. Dots in this Merit purchase special traits and effects similar to a werewolf’s natural abilities. The effects of this Merit are cumulative: a character with Wolf-Blooded ••••• receives all of the benefits listed below. This Merit cannot increase in rating with experience points and cannot be purchased after character creation. A character is either wolf-blooded or he isn’t. Wolves’ Rapport (••): The character possesses an instinctive understanding of canine body language and other cues. While she can’t communicate with wolves and dogs fully (lacking the ability to pick up on cues based on scent), she can usually guess at a wolf’s or dog’s mood and general temperament. The character gains a free Specialty in Animal Ken (Wolves/Dogs). Lunacy Mitigation (•••): The character is slightly resistant to the Lunacy. Treat the character’s Willpower as if it were 2 points higher when determining the effects of the Lunacy. (Also see p. 125 of this chapter for information on how the Lunacy affects the wolf-blooded.) Unseen Sense (••••): The character can sense werewolves and spirits. This power functions exactly like the Unseen Sense Merit described on p. 109 of the World of Darkness Rulebook. See “Wolf-Blooded and Spirits” (p. 110)for more on uragarum perception of spirits. Lesser Regeneration (•••••): The truly blessed wolfbloods can heal damage much more quickly than their fellow mortals, though nothing on the level of the Uratha. This power functions exactly like the Quick Healer
Merit (p. 113 of the World of Darkness Rulebook), except that Lesser Regeneration grants no bonus to healing aggravated damage. A character with both this level of Wolf-Blooded and the Quick Healer heals a point of bashing damage in four minutes, a point of lethal damage in 12 hours and a point of aggravated damage in four days. (Note that aggravated damage benefits only from the Quick Healer Merit.) Drawbacks: Aside from the unfortunate circumstance of being related to monsters with hair-trigger tempers and ruthless, inhuman enemies, the Wolf-Blooded Merit carries three intrinsic disadvantages. First, as stated on p. 80 of Werewolf: The Forsaken, the uragarum’s mind can only handle the strangeness of the World of Darkness for so long before the mind begins to crack, and the barrage of spirit activity only worsens matters. Any time a wolf-blooded character might receive a derangement due to mental stress or any use of a supernatural or spiritual power, the player receives a –1 penalty to the Resolve + Composure roll. If the character has Wolf- Blooded •••••, the penalty is –2. Attractiveness to spirits is the second major disadvantage. Uragarum create slight weak spots in the Gauntlet, allowing spirits to exert their influence more easily in the wolf-blooded’s presences. At WolfBlooded ••, spirits gain a +1 bonus on any attempt to affect the physical world in the wolf-blood’s presence but must have Numina that allow them to do so. At Wolf-Blooded •••, this bonus rises to +2. At WolfBlooded ••••, a spirit of rank 2 or higher can use the Reaching Numen in the wolf-blood’s presence, even if the spirit doesn’t actually know that Numen. At Wolf-Blooded •••••, the spirit can cross the Gauntlet as though the wolf-blood were a level-one locus. If more than one wolf-blood is in the area, spirits can take advantage of the highest rating represented, with one exception. Unless an uragarum with Wolf-Blooded ••••• is present, spirits cannot cross the Gauntlet without using a Numen (though they 127 can use Reaching as described for Wolf-Blooded ••••). See the sidebar on p. 127 for an optional system on this matter. Finally, wolf-bloods suffer a much lessened form of the Rage that grips their werewolf relatives. At WolfBlooded ••• or higher, when the character is severely frustrated, humiliated or angered the player must roll Resolve + Composure. If this roll fails, the character lashes out. This outburst might be nothing more than a shouted word or a raised hand, but multiple failed rolls within a given scene should carry increasingly intense responses. At Wolf-Blooded •••• and •••••, this roll receives a –1 and –2 penalty, respectively.
Psychic Merits Psychic powers are roughly divided into four distinct categories for our purposes: ESP, mediumism, psychokinesis and telepathy. This division is mainly organizational, and nothing prevents a character from having Merits in different categories, provided the Storyteller approves. All psychic powers are described mechanically as psychic Merits. Some have multiple dot scores, with higher ratings representing greater potency. Others simply modify related powers, giving a psychic new ways in which use existing abilities. Many of the Merits listed also have prerequisites, typically other more common powers within the same category. Generally, the Merits in this chapter should be available at character creation only, and cannot be purchased during play with experience. And yet, Storytellers may choose to allow players to later purchase additional psychic Merits at normal costs to represent a character branching out into other areas of mental development. Or Storytellers may permit players of psychics and even ordinary people to purchase psychic Merits in response to miraculous or tragic in-character events, such as exposure to weird chemicals or supernatural phenomena awakening latent capabilities. Regardless, players should never purchase psychic Merits without Storyteller approval.
ESP Merits Astral Projection (•••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 36 Prerequisites: Clairvoyance. A clairvoyant who has the “Uncontrolled Clairvoyance” option cannot learn to project astrally. Effect: Astral Projection allows a clairvoyant to completely free his consciousness from his physical form and travel mentally to distant locations while leaving his body behind. The psychic must first enter a trance state (see “Entering a Trance,” p. 35). Then, the player makes a reflexive Stamina + Composure roll to determine how long the character can remain away from his body. Once separated, the psychic can instantly travel to any location he is capable of perceiving with a normal Clairvoyance roll (Wits + Composure; see p. 37). Once at a desired location, a psychic can move around freely but is generally intangible and invisible. He can, however, be perceived through any appropriate psychic means (such as Aura Reading •••••). Other astral projectors or other beings existing in Twilight — an ephemeral state in the material world, such as a ghost’s — can perceive him normally. Returning to his body requires an instant action and a successful Wits + Composure roll, or the clairvoyant can return to his body reflexively with an exceptional success. If the psychic’s physical body is tampered with while he is “gone,” the he may sense the intrusion with a successful Intelligence + Composure roll. The psychic always feels actual pain inflicted on his physical body and may react accordingly. However, an astral projector’s physical body may be subjected to a killing blow if the body is left unprotected (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 168). If a psychic using Astral Projection uses the optional form of Clairvoyance that grants only one sense, he is able to use only that one sense while projected. A projector who has only clairaudience is at a severe disadvantage, as he arrives at a location and is functionally blind. Characters whose Clairvoyance grants only vision are slightly less handicapped, but are still effectively deaf. While astrally projecting, a psychic is free to use any other ESP or telepathic Merit he possesses. Thus, a “deaf” projector with Mind Reading can attempt to “ride the senses” of someone nearby, while one with Animal Empathy could do the same to a nearby animal. Cost: 1 Willpower to project. None to navigate. Dice Pool: Stamina + Composure (to determine the duration of the projection). Wits + Composure (to navigate astrally to the desired location) Action: Extended to enter the trance state. Instant to release the astral form and navigate to the desired location. Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The psychic is rendered unable to use his Astral Projection power until he has rested for at least eight hours. A dramatic failure on a navigation roll means he is lost and has traveled to some unintended and possibly dangerous location.
Failure: The psychic fails to project, but can try again. A failure on the navigation roll means that the ESPer has missed his destination, but is close enough to try again. Success: The psychic can maintain his astral form for up to 10 minutes per success. A success on the navigation roll means that he finds the location he was seeking. Exceptional Success: The psychic maintains his astral form for the duration of his trance. An exceptional success on a navigation roll gives the psychic a +2 bonus on all Perception rolls while at the desired location, as well as a +1 bonus on any other psychic powers used astrally.
Clairvoyance (•••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 37 Effect: When most people discuss ESP, they really refer to clairvoyance — the power to perceive things beyond the normal range of human senses. The default form of clairvoyance permits a seer to project all of her senses to a distant location, observing what happens there as if she were physically present. The events witnessed happen contemporaneously. The seer can neither see into the future nor into the past of the location viewed, unless she also has precognition and/or postcognition. A person who possesses this Merit is often referred to as a clairvoyant. While this power is in use, a player is at a –2 penalty to all Perception rolls pertaining to both the status of her character’s body and anything going on in the character’s immediate surroundings. Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Wits + Composure Action: Instant Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The character receives erroneous or misleading information. Failure: The character is unable to project her senses. Success: The character can perceive events at the location she wishes to observe for up to one scene. Exceptional Success: The character can “move around,” changing the vantage point of her vision at will. She can even “pause” and “rewind” as needed, although she cannot see what happened before her vision began (see “Postcognition,” below). Suggested Modifiers Modifier +2 +1 +1
0 –1 –2
Situation The intended vision is of a person or place with which the clairvoyant has a strong emotional attachment, such as with a loved one or home. The intended vision is of a person or place with which the clairvoyant has some emotional attachment, such as with a friend or workplace. The clairvoyant holds some object or is in the presence of someone with a strong emotional attachment to the subject of the desired vision, or is in a location strongly resonant with the desired vision (such as the last place a missing person was seen). The clairvoyant attempts to perceive someone she knows personally and whose location is currently known. The clairvoyant either does not know the person whom she attempts to scry or she has no idea of the location she attempts to scry. If both situations apply, the penalty is –2. The person or location that’s the subject of the intended vision is not currently resonant with strong emotion. That is, it is hard to scry a location if nothing interesting is happening there at the moment, and it is hard to scry a person if he is simply asleep or watching TV as opposed to running for his life. This penalty may also apply if the intended subject of this vision is dead, although that may depend on the situation and the Storyteller.
Option [Crystal Gazer]: The clairvoyant can perceive only the target location while focusing on some type of special surface such as a mirror or crystal. Option [Eyes of Another]: The psychic can view a scene only through the eyes of someone witnessing that scene. Thus, the clairvoyant cannot scry a location if no one is present there. The clairvoyant can get a +1 bonus if she can simply choose any person to view through, or she can get a +2 dice bonus if she is limited to only seeing through they eyes of a certain class of individuals. For example, the title character in The Eyes of Laura Mars had the power to observe murders taking place, but only through the eyes of the murderer and
only in an uncontrolled manner. A character with those options gains +4 bonus on all Clairvoyance rolls — +2 for the Eyes of Another option and +2 for the Uncontrolled option (see below). Option [One Sense Only]: The clairvoyant can perceive the target location with only one of his senses, most commonly vision or hearing (i.e., clairaudience). Option [Trance Only]: The psychic can use his clairvoyant powers only while in a trance state (see p. 35). While the psychic is using his powers, he suffers the –5 penalty for Perception rolls inflflicted by trances, instead of the normal –2 penalty. A psychic with this option gains a +2 dice bonus to activate this power. Option [Uncontrolled]: A psychic whose powers are uncontrolled has visions only at times of the Storyteller’s choosing, although the psychic should generally have at least one vision per session. A common form of Uncontrolled Clairvoyance causes the ESPer to perceive only visions of nearby individuals who are in danger. Another form might be combined with the Eyes of Another option (see above) to cause the ESPer to involuntarily see “through the eyes” of another person, perhaps a serial killer who stalks prey. The psychic can attempt to force a vision, but doing so reduces the player to a chance die. The psychic’s player spends a Willpower point only on Clairvoyance rolls if a vision is forced.
Dowsing (•)
Book: Second Sight, p. 38 Prerequisites: Clairvoyance, Cayce Channeling or Spirit Channeling A limited form of divination, dowsing is a technique that lets a psychic to search for hidden objects. Traditionally, dowsing was used to search for good places to dig wells for fresh water, although it was also used to find gold and oil with varying degrees of success. The procedure requires a psychic to walk around and concentrate on the object or substance to be found, while holding either a swinging pendulum or a stick called a divining rod. If the psychic is successful, the rod or pendulum swings slightly in the direction of whatever is sought. Exactly how dowsing works is unclear, even to psychics. Some say it is a form of clairvoyance, others a form of mediumship (with spirits moving the divining rod in the same way a ghost might affect a Ouija board). Still others say the practice calls upon the Universal Unconscious. Generally, dowsing can find things and not individuals, although the Storyteller might permit a psychic to perform feats such as find a missing person with a divining rod if the performer has some personal possession belonging to the subject. Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Wits + Occult Action: Extended. The number of successes required is determined by the Storyteller based on how well hidden or distant the substance is. A hidden safe might require three successes, while a fresh water source in the Sahara might require 20 or more. Each roll represents 30 minutes of dowsing. Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The psychic is led on a wildgoose chase far from his desired goal. He also loses all accumulated successes. Failure: The current dowsing attempt is unsuccessful, but more rolls may be made. Success: When the player has accumulated the number of successes required, the attempt succeeds. Exceptional Success: The psychic might also gain insight into some other prize hidden nearby.
Dream Travel (• to •••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 38 Prerequisites: Astral Projection, Mind Reading (either version) and Thought Projection (either version) Effect: Dream Travel is a refinement of Astral Projection, combined with elements of telepathy. A dream traveler can cause her astral form to enter the mind of a sleeping person and interact with the sleeper during his dreams. The psychic must first astrally project using the normal rules for that Merit. She must then navigate astrally to the physical location of a sleeping person, although doing so may not require any roll if the sleeper is physically near the psychic’s body. Once the psychic locates her subject, she can enter the subject’s dreamscape and communicate with the sleeper as if the two were in the same physical location. To the dream traveler, the dreamscape is exceptionally realistic, even more so than it is for the person who is actually having the dream. Anything encountered by the psychic in the dreamscape is “real” to her and potentially capable of causing her injury. Normally, this harm occurs only if the psychic enters a nightmare, the dream of a mortal who is a lucid dreamer able to defend himself against an intruder or if the traveler encounters someone else intruding in the same mind. If a psychic is caught within another’s nightmare, the psychic may be subjected to an attack, depending on the nature of the nightmare and how the psychic responds to it. If the dreamer possesses the Lucid Dreamer Merit (p. 67), he may be able to initiate dream attacks at the expense of one Willpower point per attack.
(Anyone with Dream Travel can initiate attacks in her own dreams without the expenditure of a Willpower point.) Regardless of the form the dream attack takes, all attacks are represented by a Wits + Resolve + Dream Travel pool, from which the target’s Composure is subtracted. Even if the attack is the result of an ordinary person’s nightmare, the nightmare itself may attack the intruding psychic using the dreamer’s Wits + Resolve pool. Each success inflicts one point of “phantom damage” to the target. Any phantom damage inflicted has no lingering effect once a psychic withdraws to her own body, unless the phantom damage is enough to kill her in a dream. In that case, the psychic’s physical body dies instantly, usually of a heart attack or cerebral hemorrhage. Attacks initiated by lucid dreamers or by other dream travelers customarily inflict bashing damage. A psychic with Dream Travel •••• or higher can inflict lethal damage. No form of dream attack can inflict aggravated damage. While a psychic uses this Merit, she is subject to all the limitations of Astral Projection, including limited awareness of her body’s surroundings and vulnerability to a killing blow. The length of time a psychic can remain free of her body is determined by your initial Astral Projection roll. A dream traveler can remain within her subject’s subconscious only while a dream takes place, however. Generally, REM cycles last between five and 45 minutes, so any attempt to enter and manipulate a dream does not usually last beyond a scene. If a dreamer wakes or dies, any dream travelers present are expelled back to their bodies. A psychic can make minor cosmetic changes to the dreamscape with an instant Wits + Resolve roll. At the Storyteller’s discretion, particularly vivid, evocative or just plain cool descriptions of how a psychic manipulates a dreamscape may translate into bonus dice. Cost: 1 Willpower to project into another’s dream. None to initiate dream attacks. Characters with the Lucid Dreamer Merit can initiate attacks by spending one Willpower point, but only in their own dreams. Dice Pool: Wits + Resolve to enter a sleeping person’s dream and to manipulate it. Prior to an entry effort, a psychic must successfully use Astral Projection in order to leave her body and travel to the target’s location; Astral Projection typically requires a character to enter a trance first. Action: Instant Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The psychic fails to enter the sleeper’s mind and cannot try again until the sleeper’s next REM cycle. In dream combat, the psychic inflicts one point of phantom damage on herself. Failure: The psychic simply fails to enter the sleeper’s mind, or no damage is inflicted. Success: The psychic successfully enters the sleeper’s mind. Each success in dream combat inflicts a point of damage. Exceptional Success: The psychic enters the sleeper’s mind and gains a +1 bonus die to all other rolls for the duration of her stay.
Postcognition (• or •••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 40 Prerequisites: Precognition for the • version. None for the ••• version. Effect: Your psychic has the ability to see into the past. If the roll to activate this power is successful, you are allowed to ask a variable number of questions about a past event based on your successes. The effort suffers a dice penalty based on temporal proximity, and the Storyteller should always roll for the player who uses Postcognition, since the player may be able to deduce when something might have occurred by noting the penalty applied, even if the roll is unsuccessful. Each success on the roll allows the player to ask one question about the past event viewed. Dice Modifier 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5
Proximity Within a day Within a week Within a month Within a year Within 5 years Within 10 years*
* Each additional 10-year increment intensifies the dicepenalty by –1. The effort faces additional penalties if the character lacks any sort of sympathetic connection to the scene he wishes to view. If the psychic is present at the location where the past event took place, he suffers no penalty. If he is in the presence of a person who was present at the past event, the player suffers a –2 penalty. If the psychic is in possession of an object that was present at the scene of the past event, he suffers a –4 penalty. At the Storyteller’s discretion, these penalties might be reduced, depending on the situation. For
example, if a psychic attempts to view a violent murder by handling the murder weapon, he might suffer only a –2 penalty, while touching the actual murderer could eliminate any penalty. Example: Detective Halloran, who secretly uses his Postcognition abilities to help him solve crimes, examines a bloody knife used in a brutal homicide. The Storyteller rolls Halloran’s Wits + Occult, applying a –1 penalty (due to the fact that the murder took place more than a day but less than a week ago) and a –2 penalty (for not actually being at the crime scene, but simply holding the murder weapon). The roll yields three successes, and Halloran gets a brief glimpse of the murder itself. His player can ask three questions about the vision. Triggering the vision costs the player one Willpower point. Psychics with this Merit commonly possess the Precognition Merit, too. If the psychic does have the Precognition Merit, the cost of Postcognition is only one Merit dot. If the psychic acquires the three-dot version of this power, he does not need Precognition as a prerequisite. Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Wits + Occult Action: Instant Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The seer has a wildly false or misleading vision. Since the Storyteller makes the roll on the player’s behalf, allow the player to ask an arbitrary number of questions, say one to three, and invent erroneous or misleading information about the scene observed. Failure: Failure indicates that the seer fails to produce a vision. Success: The character has a postcognitive vision. The player may ask one question about the vision per success. No more than one successful vision about a specific scene may be had every 24 hours. Exceptional Success: Additional successes are their own reward. The Storyteller may point out significant details about which the player does not think to ask.
Precognition (••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 40 Effect: Precognition represents the power to predict the future. This power is perhaps the most difficult to incorporate into games, and the Storyteller should proceed cautiously. Precognition is also difficult for characters to use properly. While precognitive visions might give a psychic a clear vision of a future event, the future changes constantly based on people’s actions. Thus, when a psychic receives a completely “accurate” vision of the future, time remains in flux, and a seer can never be entirely sure whether his actions in response to the vision will prevent the it from coming to pass or ensure that it will do so. Even with an exceptional success, a character’s vision can still be distorted, blurry or possibly even wrapped in symbolism, particularly in the case of dream precognition or precognition though a focus. Characters must generally use the Occult Skill to interpret what they perceive. Psychics who possess the Precognition Merit are sometimes called “precogs.” Those who require foci such as cards or tea leaves are sometimes referred to as “seers” or (often disparagingly) “fortune-tellers.” A precog can never predict the immediate future (i.e., what will happen next within the current scene). That is more the purview of the Danger Sense Merit (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 108). A roll to see the future suffers a penalty based on temporal proximity, and the Storyteller should always roll for a character who uses Precognition, since the player may be able to deduce when something might occur from noting the penalty applied, even if the roll is unsuccessful. Each success on the roll allows the player to ask one question about the future event. Dice Modifier 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5
Proximity Within a day Within a week Within a month Within a year Within 5 years Within 10 years
* Each additional 10-year increment intensifies the dice penalty by –1. Example: Madame Zora tells the fortune of a young girl who wants to know when she’ll be married, and to whom. The Storyteller knows the girl will most likely get married in about three years, so a –4 penalty is applied to Zora’s dice pool, which is rolled by the Storyteller. Zora gets two successes, and Zora’s player can ask up to two questions about the girl’s wedding. Triggering the vision costs Zora one Willpower point. Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Wits + Occult Action: Instant
Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The seer has a wildly false or misleading vision. Since the Storyteller makes the roll on the player’s behalf, allow him to ask an arbitrary number of questions, say one to three, and invent erroneous or misleading information about the scene observed. Failure: Failure indicates that the precog fails to produce a vision. Success: The character has a precognitive vision. The player may ask one question about the vision per success. No more than one successful vision about a specific scene may be had every 24 hours. Exceptional Success: Additional successes are their own reward. The Storyteller may point out significant details about which the player does not think to ask. Option [Precognitive Dreams]: The psychic’s visions come to him in the form of dreams. Thus, he can trigger visions only after entering a trance state (see p. 35). Option [Required Foci]: The psychic requires some form of divination tool in order to predict the future. Common types of divinatory tools are listed in the “Tools of the Fortune-Teller” sidebar. The psychic can attempt to force a vision without using such tools, but doing so reduces the effort to a chance die. Option [Touch Precognition]: The psychic can predict the future of other people only while physically touching them. The psychic can predict a person’s future with some object close to that person if the seer also has the Psychometry Merit. Otherwise, the psychic can only try to force a vision, which reduces the effort to a chance die. All attempts by a psychic to predict his own future are reduced to a chance die. Option [Uncontrolled Precognition]: A psychic whose powers are uncontrolled has precognitive visions only at times of the Storyteller’s choosing, although the psychic should generally have at least one vision per session.
Psychometry (••• or ••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 41 Effect: Psychometry is a subset of clairvoyance that deals with perceiving the history of physical objects. Also known as “object reading,” psychometry permits a psychic to handle an object for several seconds and then undergo a brief vision of important moments in the object’s history. Exactly what the most important moments are is a matter for Storyteller discretion, but, as a general rule, the stronger the emotions connected with the item, the more clearly the psychometrist can see events connected to those feelings. Negative emotions tend to resonate more than positive ones, so the fact that a little girl loved her teddy bear will usually be overshadowed by fact that she was holding it as she watched her mother’s murder. Psychometry is generally tied to objects, not places, and an object must generally be small enough to fit in both hands. For every point of Size an object has over three, the psychic suffers a –1 penalty in addition to the penalties listed below. With the four-dot version of this Merit, location and size limitations do not apply. The psychometrist can perceive the history of any object he can touch, or he can simply walk into a location and “see” the most emotionally charged moments in the recent history of the place. Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Wits + Composure Action: Instant Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The psychic gets a “mixed message” or a very believable but entirely false impression. The Storyteller should always make chance-die rolls on behalf of players whose characters use this power. Failure: Failure indicates that no impressions come through. Success: Success yields a sense of the most emotionally charged event or person connected with the object read, as well as a reliable vision or sense of the memory in question. Only one successful reading of an object is allowed every 24 hours in order to see more events. Exceptional Success: An exceptional success provides a comprehensive or extended chronological understanding of an object and its past, such as an entire slideshow of images. Suggested Modifiers Modifier Situation +1 The character has drawn a psychic impression from the object before. Recent and intense (a murder weapon used a few hours ago) — -1 Recent but mild, or old and intense (a dusty family heirloom in a chest) -2 Emotionally shallow or long forgotten (a leisure suit found at a secondhand clothing store) -3 Disconnected or spiritually muted (a set of keys found several weeks ago) -3 Object read during a fight or other stressful circumstance
Mediumist Merits Automatic Writing (••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 42 Effect: Automatic Writing permits a medium to access a source of paranormal knowledge through indirect means. Individual mediums disagree on whether they commune with spirits or the Universal Unconscious, or if they simply use clairvoyance. In any case, the mechanical effects are the same. The psychic must first enter a trance state (see p. 35). As she does so, she also randomly draws on paper, usually in a spiral pattern. As her trance takes hold, her writings become less random, and she draws pictures symbolic of whatever questions she seeks to answer. She continues to draw until the trance ends (usually an entire scene unless someone interrupts her), by which time she is typically surrounded by crudely scribbled drawings that may direct her to whatever she wants to find. The precise source of this knowledge is left to the Storyteller’s discretion, but if a psychic possesses the Channeling or Clairvoyance Merits, they may grant a +2 bonus on automatic writing attempts. Cost: None Dice Pool: Composure + Craft Action: Instant; although the psychic must first enter a trance state Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The psychic’s drawings contain false or misleading information. The Storyteller should make any chance-die rolls for the player. Failure: The automatic drawing attempt is unsuccessful. Success: The psychic’s drawings contain vital clues to whatever mystery she seeks to solve. Exceptional Success: The drawings are particularly clear, giving a +1 modifier to any subsequent Investigation rolls pertaining to the drawings’ subject matter. Suggested Equipment: Any item that has a strong connection to the subject about which the psychic seeks information (+1 to +3, depending on the strength of the connection).
Channeling (•••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 43 Prerequisites: Ghost-Calling for Spirit Channeling. None for Cayce Channeling or Past-Life Channeling. Effect: Channeling represents a psychic’s capacity to paranormally gain abilities that he does not normally possess. There are three distinct forms of channeling: Cayce Channeling, whereby the psychic accesses the Universal Unconscious to gain the knowledge he seeks; Past-Life Channeling, with which he accesses the talents he possessed in a former life; and Spirit Channeling, with which a psychic allows a ghost to possess his body and give him access to its wisdom. The three versions are grouped together because the mechanical effects are the same. The psychic must successfully enter a trance before he can channel effectively to gain new Traits (see “Entering a Trance,” p. 35). Skills gained last until the psychic next sleeps or until he attempts to channel again. Cayce Channeling: With this technique (named for Edgar Cayce), the psychic enters a trance state in which he can access the Universal Unconscious, the sum total of accumulated human knowledge. Theoretically, anything that has ever been known can be rediscovered through this power. Few modern practitioners have psychic powers on par with Edgar Cayce’s and are thus unable to utilize his techniques to their full extent. Cayce Channeling alone cannot be used to learn personal or secret details about people and places outside the psychic’s vicinity. Clairvoyance and precognition are more useful for that purpose; Cayce was also skilled in both of those powers. Finally, while Cayce Channeling can give a psychic access to potentially any empirical knowledge, Cayce Channeling cannot convey talents that require kinesthetic training (i.e., Physical Skills). A psychic might be able to use this power to identify a particular sword as a 15thcentury Japanese katana, but he could not use the power to gain any proficiency in swordsmanship. The Skill dots acquired through this power take the place of any dots a character already possesses. Thus, if a player wishes to raise his character’s Skill above what it currently is, he must roll more successes than the character’s current Skill dots. Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Intelligence + Occult Action: Instant; although the psychic must first enter a trance Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The psychic is trapped in his trance state for hours as he contemplates the infinite mysteries of the Universal Unconscious. Waking requires a number of successes on an extended Intelligence
+ Resolve roll equal to the psychic’s combined Stamina + Composure, with each roll taking one hour. Alternatively, the psychic is unable to access this Merit again until 24 hours pass. Failure: The effort is unsuccessful. Success: Each success is converted into one dot of a single Mental or Social Skill selected by the player. The number of successes must exceed the character’s current Skill dots, if any, in order for him to gain any benefit from the power. The new rating lasts until the psychic next sleeps or until he next uses this power. Exceptional Success: In addition to the normal benefit of extra successes, the psychic receives one bit of useful knowledge that he randomly comes across in the infinite Universal Unconscious, although the true significance of this nugget might not be immediately clear. If the successes exceed five, any more can be assigned to another single Mental or Social Skill of the character’s choosing. Past-Life Channeling: The psychic has a preternatural awareness of his own prior incarnations. After entering a trance state, he can summon forth the collective life experiences of one of his prior selves, merging it with his own personality. Although each person conceivably has countless past lives, the more recent they are, the more progressively difficult to channel. Most past lives capable of being channeled are from primitive eras, so this Merit cannot be used to access abilities that require a modern education. Mechanically speaking, Past-Life Channeling cannot be used to gain Mental Skills. Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Composure + Occult Action: Instant; although the psychic must first enter a trance Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The psychic assumes a personality from a previous life. He manifests a new Storytellerassigned personality and background for the duration of the scene, including a new Virtue and Vice. He may (or may not) retain the ability to speak his normal languages, and has no knowledge of any friends, his current situation or, indeed, anything about modern life, viewing everything through the lens of a Roman centurion, a courtesan from the era of Louis XIV, a Mississippi plantation owner on the eve of the Civil War or anything else of which the Storyteller can think. Failure: The past-life regression was unsuccessful. Success: Each success is converted into one dot of a single Physical or Social Skill selected by the player. The number of successes must exceed the character’s current Skill dots, if any, in order for him to gain any benefit from the power. The new rating lasts until the psychic next sleeps or until he next uses this power. Exceptional Success: In addition to the normal benefit of extra successes, the psychic can access the personal memories of the past life sharing his body. These new memories are lost when the power’s effect ends. If the successes exceed five, any more may be assigned to another single Physical or Social Skill of the character’s choosing. Spirit Channeling: A medium uses his powers to commune with the dead to summon a ghost capable of providing the capabilities that he needs. After entering the necessary trance state, the medium invites a ghost with useful traits into his body. Spirit Channeling is also used by professional mediums to allow ghosts to commune directly with bereaved loved ones. The weakness of Spirit Channeling is that ghosts generally lack the capacity to interact normally with the living. Spirit Channeling can never be used to gain dots in Social Skills. Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Resolve + Occult Action: Instant; although the psychic must first enter a trance Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The ghost summoned is instinctively hostile toward the psychic or the effect summons a different and more malevolent entity than intended. The hostile spirit can automatically succeed on a roll to possess the psychic (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 212). Failure: The medium was unsuccessful. Success: Each success is converted into one dot of a single Physical or Mental Skill selected by the player. The number of successes must exceed the character’s current Skill dots, if any, in order for him to gain any benefit from the power. The new rating lasts until the psychic next sleeps or until he next uses this power. Exceptional Success: In addition to the normal benefit of extra successes, the psychic can access the personal memories of the ghost who shares the psychic’s body. If the successes exceed five, any more can be assigned to another single Physical or Mental Skill of the character’s choosing.
Death Sight (••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 44 Effect: Your medium can see dead people. The psychic may perceive and communicate with any ghost she encounters. The power allows only perception of and communication with ghosts in Twilight — ghosts tied to the material world and not to any otherworldly spirit world. The power affords no ability to contact spirits
from the Shadow Realm that have entered the material world and that exist in Twilight. This Merit does not permit the psychic to aid ghosts in manifesting in the physical world (which requires the Ghost-Calling Merit). Most ghosts instinctively realize when a mortal can perceive them, and psychics who possess this power are often inundated by requests from desperate beings seeking help to resolve their earthly affairs. A character who possesses the Ghost Ally Merit can acquire a limited version of Death Sight capable of letting her see and communicate with his ally by increasing the normal cost of the Ghost Ally Merit. (See “Ghost Ally,” p. 65.) Cost: None to sense the presence of ghosts. One Willpower to initiate communication with them. Dice Pool: Wits + Composure Action: Reflexive Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The medium is unable to use this Merit for the rest of the scene. Alternately, she may suffer horrific visions of some hellish underworld, inflicting a –2 penalty on all actions for the remainder of the scene. Failure: The attempt to activate Death Sight is unsuccessful. Success: Your character can perceive and communicate with any ghost in her vicinity for the remainder of the scene. Such ghosts remain intangible to her, however. Exceptional Success: The medium may gain a +2 bonus on all rolls made in dealing with ghosts during the scene. Option [Permanent Death Sight]: The medium’s ability to see the dead is always active. The stress of constantly being surrounded by spectral beings inflicts a mild derangement, such as Depression, Phobia, Irrationality or Avoidance. The player must still roll Wits + Composure in order to communicate with ghosts, but with this option, such rolls gain a +3 bonus.
Ghost-Calling (•••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 45 Effect: Your medium is capable of more than merely perceiving the dead; he can summon them to his presence and even assist them in crossing over to the physical world. A sufficiently talented medium can call out to an existing ghost and draw it to his location. By doing so, he can also help the entity to “cross over,” aiding it in manifesting in the physical world or in using other ghostly powers that affect the material realm. Mediums who possess this Merit and Astral Projection (p. 36) have the option of physically interacting with ghosts and other beings in Twilight with the expenditure of a Willpower point. Ghost-Calling can only summon ghosts; other supernatural beings existing in Twilight are not affected. Roll Wits + Occult for your character to make spiritual contact with an existing ghost. Not all deceased persons continue to exist as ghosts, and few ghosts persist more than a few decades after their demise. If a ghost is still in existence, the medium can potentially contact the ghost wherever it roams. Once the connection is formed, the medium is considered to be a temporary anchor for the ghost, and it can instantly come to his vicinity from wherever it may be. If the ghost is unwilling to come to the medium, he can attempt to compel its attendance with a successful Presence + Occult roll versus the ghost’s Resistance in a contested action. Whether the ghost comes willingly or not, a Willpower point need not be spent for the ghost to travel to its new anchor. A medium cannot control a ghost in any meaningful way. A character with this Merit cannot automatically detect ghosts unless he also has the Death Sight Merit. If he does have that Merit, he receives a +2 bonus on all Ghost-Calling rolls. When a medium forms a psychic connection with a ghost, the medium continues to serve as the ghost’s anchor for the duration of the scene. If the medium attempts to sever the connection early, a successful Wits + Occult roll must be made versus the ghost’s Power in a contested action, unless the ghost consents to the severing. When a medium no longer serves as an anchor, a ghost returns instantly to wherever it was prior to the summoning. Severing the psychic connection does not harm the ghost in any way. While a connection is in force, a medium is considered an anchor for all purposes. Thus, the ghost can manifest in the psychic’s vicinity without need for a roll. A medium may place himself in grave danger if he does not know with what sort of ghost he deals. Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Wits + Occult versus an unwilling ghost’s Resistance to become a temporary anchor to a ghost (resistance is reflexive). Presence + Occult versus an unwilling ghost’s Resistance to forcefully summon one to the medium’s vicinity. Action: Contested Roll Results Dramatic Failure: A psychic connection is forged with some entity other than the one the medium sought. The medium may be unable to sever the connection or may even become a permanent anchor to a hostile ghost.
Failure: You fail to get more successes than the ghost. The attempt to contact or summon is unsuccessful. Success: On a contact roll, more successes are rolled for the medium than for the ghost. The medium is considered an anchor for the remainder of the scene unless the effect is ended early. On a summoning roll, the ghost is compelled to come to the medium’s vicinity. Exceptional Success: On a contact roll, the player gets five or more successes, more than rolled for the ghost. The medium gains a +2 bonus on all rolls made in dealing with the ghost during the scene. Dice Modifiers +1 per extra person (max +3)
+1 +1 +3 -1
Situation The medium attempts to summon a ghost during a séance in which he is assisted by believers (see “Believers,” on p. 64). During a séance, a ghost’s loved ones are considered to be believers unless they categorically reject the possibility of life after death. The medium has summoned this particular ghost before. The medium has some object or person (other than an anchor) important to the ghost during its life. The medium possesses another anchor of the ghost to be summoned. Per 50 years that the ghost has been dead.
Option [Spiritualist Medium]: The medium can interact with the dead only in the context of a séance. In order to utilize this power, she must be assisted by one or more people. The medium gains a die bonus equal to the total number of believers in the séance up to a maximum of +5.
Psychokinetic Merits Biokinesis (• to •••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 46 Effect: Biokinesis governs a psychic’s ability to manipulate the biological processes of living things. The scientific explanation for biokinesis eludes most parapsychologists. The most commonly accepted explanation relies on Wilhelm Reich’s theories regarding orgone energy, which are consistent with biokinetics’ claims that they can perceive and manipulate some form of ambient “life energy.” Biokinesis permits a psychic to manipulate his own personal life force to alter his body in three ways. First, Biokinesis is a prerequisite for a number of other powers that allow a psychic to manipulate life energy. Second, the power can aid a psychic in attempts to control his own mind and body. Each dot in Biokinesis is added as a bonus die to all attempts to either meditate (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 51) or to enter a trance state (see p. 35). Finally, Biokinesis allows a psychic to make minor alterations to his own physical body, temporarily affording him the benefit of certain Physical or Mental Merits, including some from the World of Darkness Rulebook and others listed here. Each Merit gained this way has a “success cost” equivalent to the Merit’s normal rating. The player must make an extended Intelligence + Composure roll with each roll representing a number of minutes equal to the success cost of the desired Trait. A Merit gained through Biokinesis lasts for the duration of a scene unless stated otherwise. Normally, the psychic can gain only a single Merit with a roll, but a biokinetic’s successes can be spent on multiple Merits with an exceptional success. In order to be able to use a Merit, the psychic must meet any prerequisites for that trait, and the psychic must have Biokinesis dots equal to [the success cost of the Merit +1]. The Merits that can be acquired through this power include the following: Eidetic Memory (Two successes): See the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 108. This Merit lasts for one scene. Fast Reflexes (One or two successes): See the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 110. This Merit lasts for one scene. Fleet of Foot (One to three successes): See the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 112. This Merit lasts for one scene. Fresh Start (One success): See the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 112. This Merit lasts for one scene. Hysterical Strength (Variable successes): The psychic can trigger a massive surge of adrenaline, temporarily boosting his own Strength. For every success spent to purchase Hysterical Strength, the psychic increases his Strength by one dot to a maximum of 5. Doing so is very taxing and potentially life threatening. Every turn in which the psychic actually uses his augmented Strength (for example, to lift something heavy or to strike a powerful blow), he suffers one point of bashing damage. The increase in adrenaline also makes the psychic extremely excitable, and he is at a –1 penalty on all Composure-based rolls to resist provocation to anger while the power is in effect. This Merit lasts for a number of turns equal to the psychic’s Biokinesis rating. Improved Awareness (One to three successes): For each success spent, the psychic gains a +1 bonus on all Perception rolls. This Merit lasts for one scene. Improved Immune System (Four successes): While this Merit is active, the psychic can attempt to cure himself of diseases, poisons or drug effects by temporarily heightening the effectiveness of his immune system. The player must make an extended Stamina + Resolve roll, with each roll reflecting one hour recovering from a drug or poison or one day spent recuperating from an illness. During this period, the character can take no action more strenuous than walking, and, ideally, should have complete bed rest. The number of successes required is determined by the severity of the disease, drug or poison from which the psychic seeks to recover. Generally, common colds require three to five, while cancer, AIDS and other persistent or deadly diseases might require as many as 30 successes to send into remission. Similarly, a single success might be required to overcome the effects of alcohol or minor food poisoning, while five or so might be required to overcome the effects of LSD or a rattlesnake bite. Note that if a poison or toxin is especially fast acting — having a lethal effect within turns or minutes rather than hours or days — this capability may be of no use against it. This power can affect only mundane diseases, drugs and poisons. It cannot aid the psychic in curing himself of a blood bond. This power also does not affect any supernatural diseases or poisons. It also has no affect on psychological addictions, although it can cure the physiological effect of an addiction. Iron Stamina (One to three successes): See the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 113. This Merit lasts for one scene. Iron Stomach (Two successes): See the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 113. This Merit lasts for one scene.
Natural Immunity (One success): See the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 113. This Merit lasts for one day per dot of Biokinesis or until the psychic uses his Biokinesis again, whichever comes first. Pain Resistance (Three successes): The psychic becomes extraordinarily resistant to the physical side effects of pain and injury. Wound penalties are reduced by one, and the character gains a +1 bonus on rolls to stay conscious after all Health boxes have been filled with bashing damage, all for the duration of the scene. Quick Healer (Four successes): See the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 113. This Merit lasts for one day per dot of Biokinesis or until the psychic uses his Biokinesis again, whichever comes first. Strong Back (One success): See the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 113. This Merit lasts for one scene. Strong Lungs (Three successes): See the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 113. This Merit lasts for one scene. Toxin Resistance (Two successes): See the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 113. This Merit lasts for one day per point of Biokinesis or until the psychic uses his Biokinesis again, whichever comes first. Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Intelligence + Composure Action: Extended Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The psychic suffers one point of bashing damage due to painful psychic feedback. He cannot attempt to use his Biokinesis powers for the remainder of the scene. Failure: The psychic fails to accumulate any successes for now, but may keep trying, or utterly fails to manifest any biokinetic benefits. Success: Accumulated successes can be used to temporarily acquire a single desired Merit, provided the psychic meets any prerequisites and his Biokinesis dots equal or exceed the desired Merit’s success cost, plus one. Exceptional Success: Accumulated successes can be used to acquire multiple Merits temporarily, with successes allocated for dots as the player chooses.
Cryokinesis (• to •••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 47 Prerequisites: A character’s dots in this Merit cannot be higher than the lesser of her Resolve or Stamina. Effect: Cryokinesis permits a psychic to decrease ambient temperature. The player must spend one Willpower point to activate, and then roll Intelligence + Composure. The effectiveness of the cryokinetic’s power is based on her Merit dots, with successes rolled lowering the temperature according to this chart. Merit Dots • •• ••• •••• •••••
Temperature Ranges 2 degrees per success 5 degrees per success 10 degrees per success 15 degrees per success 25 degrees per success
When used to attack a moving target, treat Cryokinesis as a ranged attack. Defense does not apply, and the temperature shift bypasses armor unless the protection has some type of thermal aspect or the protection is a supernatural armor capable of protecting against cold. The attack also ignores cover, since the character can potentially lower the temperature over an area big enough to encompass even someone behind full cover. Cryokinesis affects the temperature of everything within the affected area, so living targets suffer a drop in body temperature commensurate with successes rolled. Short range for a cryokinetic attack is equal to a psychic’s Intelligence + Wits + Cryokinesis dots in yards. Medium range is twice that distance and imposes a –2 penalty on an attack dice pool. Long range is up to twice medium range and imposes a –4 penalty on an attack dice pool. The Size of the area to be affected is subtracted from the cryokinetic’s dice pool. Thus, an attempt to freeze a human-sized target suffers a –5 penalty. However, physically touching the object to be affected confers a +2 bonus on the roll. Once a psychic has successfully lowered the temperature in a given location, he can do one of three things: (1) maintain the reduced temperature as long as he concentrates, (2) release his concentration and let temperature equalize normally or (3) use his Cryokinesis powers again to lower the temperature even further. Thus, with time and a prodigious amount of Willpower, a cryokinetic can reduce ambient temperature to low levels, although the absolute lowest temperature that any cryokinetic can achieve is about –400 degrees, well above absolute zero. Cryokinesis is potentially deadly to living beings. The record for the lowest body temperature in a human is approximately 60 degrees Fahrenheit, although that patient lost all four limbs as a result. When Cryokinesis is used against a human, the victim suffers nothing more than discomfort until her internal body temperature is
reduced by 10 degrees. At that point, the victim suffers a –1 penalty to Dexterity, Strength and Wits (and consequently, a –1 penalty to Initiative and potentially Defense, and a –2 penalty to Speed). For every additional five degrees of reduction, this Attribute penalty intensifies by an additional –1. If any of a victim’s Dexterity, Strength or Wits is reduced to zero, the victim is immobilized due to the onset of hypothermia. Also, if a victim’s body temperature is reduced by 20 degrees or more, she takes one point of lethal damage per turn spent subjected to the cryokinetic attack. If this lethal damage crosses over into aggravated damage, the victim suffers frostbite and may lose Attribute dots or gain Flaws to represent the loss of fingers or even limbs. Most physical objects suffer no direct damage from low temperatures, but pipes can burst from frozen water, and machines that depend on lubricants may seize up if ambient temperature drops below freezing. At temperatures of 50 degrees below zero, trees snap and splinter spontaneously as heavy ice accumulates on their branches. Ice accumulates on streets and bridges, making travel hazardous. At 100 degrees below zero, almost any amount of water within an area is flash frozen, and living creatures are killed almost instantly unless protected somehow. Vampires and the undead are almost completely immune to low temperatures, but at temperatures of –100 or lower, a vampire’s body might well freeze solid. Unless she can thaw herself out (through the use of blood or Disciplines), she may well remain paralyzed when the sun comes up the next morning. Once a psychic ceases to focus her attention on a specific location, temperatures equalize normally. In the case of extreme temperature changes in excess of a 400-degree difference from the surrounding area, “equalize normally” may mean an explosive reaction, inflicting two dice of bashing damage on everyone within a radius equal to the Size of the area initially affected x5. The explosion also causes knockdown (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 168). If the temperature shift is less than 400 degrees, the affected area returns to normal temperature at a rate of 10 degrees per minute. Cryokinetics also have an improved resistance to environmental temperature extremes. A psychic with this power is automatically immune to natural temperature extremes ranging from zero to 100 degrees, plus an additional temperature range equal to plus or minus [Merit dots x20] degrees. A cryokinetic is automatically immune to the temperature-based attacks of other cryokinetics whose Merit dots do not exceed her own. Cost: 1 Willpower per roll to affect temperature. None to resist temperature. Dice Pool: Intelligence + Composure (– Size of area to be affected) to reduce the ambient temperature. The cryokinetic can resist low temperatures without a roll. Action: Instant Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The psychic fails to affect the ambient temperature and suffers one point of bashing damage as his own internal body temperature goes haywire. Failure: The psychic fails to affect ambient temperature. Success: Each success lowers the ambient temperature as described above. Exceptional Success: Additional successes are their own reward. Option [Emotional Cryokinesis]: Whenever the cryokinetic is in the grip of strong emotion, Resolve + Composure must be rolled with a penalty equal to the level of the emotion as described by the Emotional Response table on p. 60. If the roll is unsuccessful, the cryokinetic’s powers function uncontrollably, raising or lowering the ambient temperature in random ways. A dramatic failure means that this wild activity might flare up at random intervals over the next several days whenever the psychic becomes agitated, causing freakish “cold spots.” Such uncontrolled power may have catastrophic effects for powerful cryokinetics. These random phenomena do not require the expenditure of a Willpower point.
Plant Empathy (•)
Book: Second Sight, p. 49 Prerequisites: Biokinesis •+ Effect: Plant Empathy makes a psychic a natural “green thumb,” giving him almost supernatural talent at cultivating plants. There is no roll associated with this power. Instead, the power gives the psychic a bonus to any dice pools pertaining to the cultivation of plant life (most commonly Intelligence + Crafts) equal to the number of dots he has in the Biokinesis Merit. Additionally, the growth rate of plants under the psychic’s care is multiplied by [1 + the psychic’s Biokinesis Merit dots]. Thus, a plant empath with Biokinesis ••• can cause plants to grow at four times their normal rate.
Psychic Healing (••• or •••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 49 Prerequisites: Biokinesis ••• (to heal oneself) or Biokinesis ••••• (to heal another)
By building on the psychic’s underlying facility with Biokinesis, a psychic can now heal herself and others. The three-dot version of this Merit allows the character to accelerate her own healing, cutting all times in half. This power is cumulative with the Quick Healer Merit, so a character with both heals all injuries in 1/4 the normal time. With the five-dot version, the healer can extend this power to others. Thus, a patient heals all injuries in 1/2 the normal time or 1/4 the normal time if he has the Quick Healer Merit. Using either version of this power requires a player to roll Stamina + Resolve. If a character attempts to heal someone who resists or who rejects the existence of psychic phenomena, the subject can resist with Composure + Supernatural Advantage as a reflexive action in a contested roll. The healer can also use her gifts to facilitate recovery from disease, poison or drugs. A psychic with the threedot version of this Merit gains the benefits of having an Improved Immune System (see p. 46). With the five-dot version, she confers the benefits of an Improved Immune System to another. A point of Willpower must be spent for a psychic to activate either version of this power. The duration is [the psychic’s Biokinesis dots x 12] hours per application. Using this power on another requires the healer to touch the patient. Although healing someone fully with Psychic Healing may require multiple applications of this power, even one application is considered providing medical attention and thus prevents a dying patient from expiring while the Merit’s effects last. Repeated applications of this power might be necessary to recover from serious diseases, but one application is usually enough to cure someone subjected to drugs or poison. This power does not heal or cure supernatural diseases, drug addictions or other otherworldly effects. Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Stamina + Resolve (versus Composure + Supernatural Advantage if the subject resists healing) Action: Instant (willing) or contested (unwilling) Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The psychic suffers one point of lethal damage due to painful feedback. Alternately, the subject of the attempt might take additional damage or simply develop a strong antipathy toward the healer. Failure: The psychic fails to heal the subject. Success: The subject’s healing rate is doubled for [the psychic’s Biokinesis rating x 12] hours. If Psychic Healing is used to cure poison, drugs or illness, either the character or the subject gains the benefits of an Improved Immunity System for [the psychic’s Biokinesis dots x 12] hours. Exceptional Success: The psychic’s Biokinesis is treated as if one dot higher for purposes of determining the duration of the healing. Option [Empathic Healing]: The psychic cannot cure the effects of poison, drugs or illness on others, although he can still cure them within himself. When healing another of physical injuries, the psychic feels the pain suffered by his patient. When the power is activated, the psychic suffers one point of “phantom” bashing damage for every point of bashing damage the patient currently has. Phantom bashing damage heals at a rate of one point per turn. Each point of lethal damage the patient has inflicts one point of bashing damage on the psychic, which heals at the normal rate. Each point of aggravated damage to be healed inflicts one point of lethal damage on the psychic, which heals at the normal rate. This damage is inflicted on the healer every time he initiates a healing attempt on anyone other than himself. On the positive side, a healer with this option gains a +2 bonus on all healing attempts, and his Biokinesis is considered to be one dot higher for purposes of determining the duration of the improved healing rate. Option [Faith Healer]: The psychic’s healing powers are irrevocably tied to her religious faith and she considers her healing powers to be a gift from God, which unbelievers are unworthy to experience. Any attempt to cure or heal someone whom the psychic considers to be immoral or who clearly does not share the psychic’s faith suffers a –2 penalty. Also, if the psychic fails to maintain a Morality of 7 or higher, she suffers an additional penalty equal to [7 – new Morality] on her healing attempts. Thus, a faith healer whose Morality is reduced to 5 suffers a –2 penalty on all healing rolls. When the healer attempts to cures someone who does share her faith, however, the healer gains a +1 bonus, and she gets a +1 bonus on all healing rolls for each point by which her Morality exceeds 7. Option [New Age Healing]: The psychic must channel her biokinetic energy through some type of focusing mechanism, most commonly a crystal or perhaps herbal remedies or even magnets. Psychics who adhere to New Age religions typically believe that the actual healing power comes from whatever focus is used, instead of from the psychic. Whether such paraphernalia is actually necessary or merely a crutch cannot truly be determined. Regardless, the healer cannot use her power without entering a trance state while meditating on a crystal or using some other type of New Age trapping. Healers with this option gain a +2 bonus on all healing attempts.
Psychic Vampirism (••• or •••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 49 Prerequisites: Biokinesis •••• for the four-dot version. Biokinesis ••••• for the five-dot version.
The inverse of Psychic Healing, Psychic Vampirism allows a psychic to take life as well as restore it, draining orgone energy from victims to replenish one’s own Willpower. There are two versions of this Merit, both of which require physical contact with the victim. (See “Touching an Opponent,” the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 157.) The four-dot version allows a psychic to drain a target of temporary Willpower points. The Willpower is lost. With the five-dot version, the psychic regains one point of Willpower for every two points of Willpower stolen. The psychic cannot gain more Willpower points than he has permanent Willpower dots. Both versions of this power automatically fail when used against mages, werewolves or vampires. Storytellers should be cautious that players of characters with the five dot version do not rely on it to regain Willpower to the exclusion of their own Morality. Dice Pool: Wits + Resolve (— the target’s Resolve). The psychic vampire must also successfully touch a victim. Cost: None Action: Instant Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The psychic fails to steal any Willpower points and actually loses one Willpower point instead. Failure: The psychic’s attempt fails. Success: The psychic drains the victim of one temporary Willpower per success. Exceptional Success: Additional successes are their own reward.
Psyrokinesis (•••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 50 Effect: Pyrokinesis represents the ability to cause objects to spontaneously combust. Psychics with this power are usually referred to as pyrokinetics. Pyrokinesis is separate and distinct from Thermokinesis (see below), the latter of which permits a psychokinetic to actually manipulate ambient temperature. Pyrokinesis does not directly produce heat. Instead, this power triggers a chemical reaction that causes a given material to burn. A fire triggered by this power continues to burn until its fuel has been exhausted or until the fire is put out normally. A pyrokinetic can also extinguish an existing flame (whether or not she started it), but stopping a fire may be more difficult than starting one, as a fire may quickly spread to encompass a bigger area than where it was ignited. Once a fire is set, it follows all normal rules for fire damage. (See the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 180.) A character with Pyrokinesis must overcome three difficulties in starting a fire: the size of the fire to be set, the desired heat level of the fl ame and the relative fl ammability of the material to be ignited. The modifiers applied to an attack roll for each of these criteria are listed below. Dice Modifier 0 -1 -2 -3 -4
Size* A candle wick or match. About a three-inch radius. A torch. About a six-inch radius (+1 lethal damage). A small campfire. About a one-foot radius or a Size 1 object. A large campfire. About a two-foot radius or a Size 2 object. Roughly the size of a man. About a four-foot radius or a Size 5 object. -5 A bonfire. About an eight-foot radius or a Size 10 object (+2 lethal damage). * A pyrokinetic cannot create a fire larger than a bonfire with a single application of this power. Dice Modifier 0 -1
Intensity* Candle heat sufficient to cause a first degree burn. Torch heat suffi cient to cause a second degree burn (+1 lethal damage). -2 Bunsen burner heat sufficient to cause a third degree burn (+2 lethal damage). * Thermokinesis is required to create temperatures hotter than a Bunsen burner, such as a chemical fire or moltenmetal. Dice Modifier +2 +1 0
Fuel* A flammable gas (butane, hydrogen, pure oxygen) A flammable liquid (gasoline, kerosene) An easily flammable solid (match heads, oily rags, wax, fireworks)
-1
Dry and lightweight flammable materials (paper, dry leaves, cotton) -2 Wood, cardboard, most clothing, vampires -3 Wet wood or clothing, hair -4 Plastic, fire retardant cloth, human flesh * Igniting anything more flame resistant than this requires Thermokinesis. The roll to start a fire involves Wits + Resolve. When the pyrokinetic seeks to ignite a person or some other target capable of movement, the attempt is treated as a ranged attack. Defense does not apply, but the pyrokinetic suffers a –2 penalty when attempting to ignite a moving target. Short range for a pyrokinetic attack is equal to a psychic’s Intelligence + Wits + Pyrokinesis dots in yards. Medium range is twice that distance and imposes a –2 penalty on an attack dice pool. Long range is up to twice medium range and imposes a –4 penalty on an attack dice pool. The damage inflicted with a successful pyrokinetic attack is equal to one point of lethal damage for each success. This damage pool (minus the benefits of any heat-resistant armor) is inflicted every turn on anyone set ablaze until the fire is put out. Once a fire is set, it can be put out normally or extinguished instantly with another application of Pyrokinesis. Putting out an existing fire requires an extended Stamina + Resolve roll with the number of successes required equal to the Size of the blaze +1, with each roll taking one turn’s action. Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Wits + Resolve to start a fire. Stamina + Resolve to snuff one out. Action: Instant to start a fire. Extended to snuff out a fire, with each roll representing one turn. Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The psychic suffers one point of lethal damage due to painful psychic feedback. Alternately, the psychic might produce a flame of the desired intensity but not where he wants it to combust. A pyrokinetic attempting to snuff a flame might make it larger instead. Failure: The attempt to start or extinguish a fire is unsuccessful. Success: The pyrokinetic ignites his target. If attempting to snuff out a flame, the pyrokinetic accumulates a number of successes equal to the Size of the fire +1. Exceptional Success: Additional successes are their own reward. Option [Emotional Pyrokinesis]: Whenever a pyrokinetic is in the grip of strong emotion, the Storyteller may direct the player to roll Resolve + Composure with a dice penalty equal to the intensity of the emotion as described by the Emotional Response table on p. 60. If the roll is unsuccessful, the pyrokinetic’s powers function randomly, igniting small, nearby flammable objects. A dramatic failure means that this pyrokinetic activity might flare up at random intervals over the next several days whenever the pyrokinetic is agitated. Such wild phenomena do not require the expenditure of a Willpower point. A pyrokinetic with this option gains a +2 bonus on all deliberate uses of this power.
Pyrokinetic Immunity (•• or ••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 52 Prerequisites: Pyrokinesis Effect: Your pyrokinetic is highly resistant if not completely immune to fire. With the two-dot version, make a reflexive Stamina + Resolve roll when your character is exposed to mundane fire, with each success providing one point of armor that protects against only fire damage. With the four-dot version, you need only spend one Willpower point to render your character totally immune to fire damage. If any Doubting Thomas (see p. 65) is present when the four-dot version of this Trait is invoked, a successful Stamina + Resolve roll subject to normal penalties is required for unilateral protection to activate. The effects of either version last for one scene, although clothes and possessions are not protected. No protection is provided against supernaturally induced fires or flames. Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Stamina + Resolve for the two-dot version. None for the four-dot version, unless a Doubting Thomas is present. Action: Reflexive Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The psychic is not protected from the flames, and fire damage is increased by one. Failure: The psychic is not protected from the fl ames, but she can try again in the next turn as a subsequent attempt. Success: Each success provides one dot of armor with the two-dot version. With the four-dot version, total immunity is conferred despite the presence of a Doubting Thomas.
Exceptional Success: With the two-dot version, additional successes are their own reward. With the fourdot version, any Doubting Thomases present are treated as ordinary people for the duration of the scene and do not inflict any further dice penalties on the psychic during that time.
Pyrokinetic Shaping (•••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 52 Prerequisites: Pyrokinesis and Pyrokinetic Immunity •••• Effect: A pyrokinetic can manipulate how an existing fire (whether natural or created by psychic powers) grows. By pointing toward an existing flame and gesturing in the direction of a gas main, a psychic might cause a jet of fl ame to spread across the ground in a straight line, as if there were a trail of gasoline to burn. The pyrokinetic cannot truly shoot fireballs, as a fire must still have a fuel source and must generally spread along a surface of some kind. Within those limitations, the psychic can manipulate a fire as she wishes, using this power to “sculpt” the flames according to her desire. Shaping a fire requires concentration, so a pyrokinetic loses her Defense and can take no action other than movement up to Speed per turn. If the pyrokinetic’s concentration is broken, she loses control of the flames. An additional Willpower point must be spent and a new activation roll made to regain control. If a pyrokinetic attempts to direct a flame toward a target capable of movement, the attack is treated as a normal ranged attack, with Wits + Crafts rolled to make the attack. Short range for this action equals your character’s Dexterity + Composure in yards, with medium range double that distance (and at a –2 penalty) and long range double medium range(and at a –4 penalty). Although the fire moves quickly, it is still slow enough to be evaded, so the target’s Defense applies. Each success on an attack roll inflicts one point of lethal damage. Cost: 1 Willpower to activate this power for a scene or until all nearby fires have been extinguished, whichever comes first. Dice Pool: Wits + Crafts to shape flames. Wits + Crafts (— target’s Defense) to attack with a flame. Action: Instant Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The psychic suffers one point of lethal damage due to painful psychic feedback. Alternately, the psychic might send the flames to a different location than intended. Failure: The attempt to shape the fire is unsuccessful. Success: The pyrokinetic manipulates the fire to his desires, determining the direction in which it spreads and perhaps even shaping it into simple forms. If used as an attack, the flames inflict one point of lethal damage per success. Exceptional Success: In addition to damage inflicted, the target is set ablaze and continues to take lethal damage per turn until the fire is extinguished. Dice Modifiers Modifi er +1 0 -1 -3
Situation The pyrokinetic created the flames with his Pyrokinesis Merit, and they are now manipulated The flames being manipulated are natural fire. The flames being manipulated were created by another pyrokinetic. The intended manipulation is something wholly unnatural to fire, such as shaping it into a face or into the form of an animal.
Telekinesis (• to •••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 52 Prerequisites: A telekinetic can possess but cannot use more dots in this Merit at one time than he has Resolve. Effect: The power to move physical objects by mind alone. The psychic can lift objects, assuming they are light enough for his Telekinesis to handle. He can also throw objects that he is capable of lifting at a target. At high dots, a telekinetic can immobilize someone with a telekinetic grapple or even strike someone with a telekinetic blow. Lifting an Object The simplest use of Telekinesis is to lift objects. The player must first spend a Willpower point to activate the power. Each dot gives a character one dot of Strength that can be applied to move any physical object within the telekinetic’s direct line of sight, pursuant to the lifting/moving objects chart in the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 47. When attempting to lift something, consult the chart and compare the psychic’s Telekinesis dots to the item. If the telekinetic’s dots exceed the Strength required to lift the object, he can move it freely. If his Merit dots
equal the Strength required, he can slide the object across the floor at about a yard per turn. If the telekinetic seeks to lift something even bigger, roll Resolve + Composure reflexively, with each success adding to the telekinetic’s Merit dots for the action. Telekinesis is both physically and mentally taxing; a character can hold up an object for a number of turns equal to the lesser of his Stamina or Resolve. After that, he must either drop the object or another Willpower point must be spent to retain control. A telekinetic can lift objects smaller than Size 1, but he must still be able to see the object directly. Cost: 1 Willpower + 1 additional Willpower after every [lesser of Stamina or Resolve] turns Dice Pool: No roll is required to lift an object, provided that the psychic’s Telekinesis Merit dots are sufficient to do so. If the object is too big, a Resolve + Composure roll is required. Action: Reflexive Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The item is dropped and/or the telekinetic suffers one point of bashing damage due to psychic feedback from the effort. Failure: The telekinesis attempt is unsuccessful. Success: Telekinesis dots increase by one per success. Exceptional Success: The telekinetic increases his Merit dots by five or more and gains a +1 bonus on any attempt to manipulate the item, such as throwing it. Also, the telekinetic can continue to manipulate the object for a number of turns equal to the greater of his Stamina or Resolve before needing to set the object down or spend another Willpower. Throwing an Object If the telekinetic wishes to hurl an object at a target, he must first lift it. An object can be lifted and thrown as part of the same instant action, provided the character’s total Telekinesis dots exceed those required to lift the item. A non-aerodynamic object (such as a clay pot or tire) can be thrown a distance in yards equal to Wits + Resolve + total Telekinesis dots, minus the object’s Size. This distance is considered short range. Medium range is double that, and long range is twice medium range. So, a character with 4 Wits, 3 Resolve and an unmodified 2 Telekinesis can throw a tire with 2 Size a short distance of 7 yards, a medium range of 14 yards and a long range of 28 yards. Aerodynamic objects can be thrown double those distances, but an object whose Size exceeds the psychic’s modified Telekinesis dots cannot be thrown no matter how aerodynamic it is. Hitting a target requires you to roll Wits + Resolve, –2 for medium range and –4 for long range. The Damage of the object thrown (usually the lesser of its Size or Durability) is added to the dice pool, and the target’s Defense applies. A character can hurl an object up to twice long range, but is automatically reduced to a chance die. Cost: None, although 1 Willpower is required to lift the object Dice Pool: Wits + Resolve + Damage bonus of thrown object (– target’s Defense) Action: Instant Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The character loses control of the item. If it is large or heavy (Size 4+), he loses his telekinetic grip and drops it, possibly hurting himself or others. Smaller objects land wildly off the mark. Failure: The telekinetic attack misses its target. Success: The telekinetic hits his target, inflicting one point of damage per success. Exceptional Success: The telekinetic hits his target with great accuracy and force. Suggested Equipment: See the Damage ratings of possible thrown objects on p. 150 of the World of Darkness Rulebook. Grappling a Target (Telekinesis •••+) Seizing a human-sized or larger target and attempting to hold him steady requires at least three Telekinesis dots. The player rolls Stamina + Resolve, minus the target’s Strength. If the roll is successful, the target is not only grappled, but he is automatically immobilized. If the target has any psychic or supernatural powers that can be brought to bear against the telekinetic, such powers suffer no penalty due to immobilization. As usual, an additional Willpower point must be spent after every [lesser of Stamina or Resolve] turns in order to keep a target immobilized, and no other actions are allowed except moving up to Speed in that time. A victim of this effect is allowed no Defense against attacks from others. A victim can try to break free each turn as a contested action. Strength + Resolve is rolled in an instant action, with the telekinetic’s Merit dots subtracted from the victim’s dice pool. In order to escape, a number of successes must be rolled for the victim in excess of those rolled for the telekinetic when the hold was achieved. Cost: None, although one Willpower must be spent to initially activate the power Action: Instant Dice Pool: Stamina + Resolve (– the target’s Strength) Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The grappling attempt is unsuccessful, and the telekinetic suffers one point of bashing damage due to psychic feedback from the failed effort. Failure: The telekinesis attempt is unsuccessful. Success: The telekinetic successfully grapples the target, pinning her or lifting her off the ground. The telekinetic can keep the target immobilized for a number of turns equal to the lesser of his Stamina or Resolve, unless the subject escapes earlier. Spending Willpower extends the period in which a victim may be held. Exceptional Success: The telekinetic can restrain his target for a number of turns equal to the greater of his Stamina or Resolve. Telekinetic Blow (Telekinesis •••••) A psychic with five dots of Telekinesis can strike a target with a blast of pure kinetic force. Treat the blow as a ranged attack to which Defense does not apply. The blow inflicts bashing damage, and armor protects the target as normal. Short range equals Wits + Resolve + Telekinesis dots in yards. Medium range is double that, and long range is double medium range. Hitting a target requires you to roll Wits + Resolve, –2 for medium range and –4 for long range. A character can strike up to twice long range, but the player is automatically reduced to a chance die. Cost: 1 Willpower per attack Dice Pool: Wits + Resolve Action: Instant Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The attack is unsuccessful and the telekinetic suffers one point of bashing damage due to psychic feedback from the failed effort. Alternately, the telekinetic might inadvertently hit someone or something other than his intended target. Failure: The telekinesis attack is unsuccessful. Success: The telekinetic strikes his target with a blast of pure kinetic force, inflicting one point of bashing damage per success. Exceptional Success: In addition to bashing damage inflicted, the target must also roll to avoid knockdown (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 168). Option [Emotional Telekinesis]: Whenever the telekinetic is in the grip of strong emotion, Resolve + Composure is rolled with a dice penalty equal to the level of the emotion as described by the Emotional Response table on p. 60. If the roll is unsuccessful, the telekinetic’s powers function randomly, flinging small objects around the room in what onlookers might mistakenly ascribe to the actions of a poltergeist. A dramatic failure means this activity might flare up at random intervals over the next several days. Such “poltergeist activity” does not require the expenditure of a Willpower point. If a telekinetic has this option, he gains +1 on all deliberate uses of telekinesis. Option [Limited Telekinesis]: The telekinetic can manipulate only certain types of objects. At the Storyteller’s discretion, such limitations might include objects of Size 3 or less, only “soft” objects such as cloth or cardboard and nothing harder, only living material, or only earth. Depending on just how limited this telekinesis is, the Storyteller might permit the dice bonus accompanying the option to be +1, +2 or even +3.
Thermokinesis (• to •••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 53 Prerequisites: A character’s dots in this Merit cannot exceed the lesser of her Resolve or Stamina. Effect: Thermokinesis permits a psychic to increase ambient temperature. The player must first spend one point of Willpower to activate the power and then roll Intelligence + Resolve. The effectiveness of the thermokinetic’s power is based on her dots in this Merit, with each success increasing the temperature according to the chart below. Merit Rating Temperature Ranges Merit Dots • •• ••• •••• •••••
Temperature Ranges 2 degrees per success 5 degrees per success 10 degrees per success 15 degrees per success 25 degrees per success
When Thermokinesis is used to attack a moving target, treat the power as a ranged attack. Defense does not apply, and the temperature shift bypasses armor unless it has some type of thermal protection aspect or is a supernatural armor capable of protecting against heat. The attack also ignores cover, since the character can potentially lower temperatures over an area big enough to encompass even someone behind full cover.
Thermokinesis affects the temperature of everything within the affected area, so living targets caught in the hot spot suffer an increase in body temperature commensurate with successes rolled. Short range is equal to a psychic’s Intelligence + Wits + Thermokinesis dots in yards. Medium range is twice that distance, and inflicts a –2 penalty on the psychic’s dice pool. Long range is twice medium range, and inflicts a –4 penalty on the psychic’s dice pool. The Size of the area affected is subtracted from the cryokinetic’s pool. Thus, an attempt to heat a human-sized target suffers a –5 penalty. However, if the psychic can touch the object to be heated, a +2 bonus to the roll is gained. Once the psychic has successfully raised the temperature in a given location, he can do one of three things: (1) maintain the increased temperature as long as he concentrates, (2) release his concentration and let the temperature equalize normally or (3) use his Thermokinesis powers again to raise the temperature even further. Thus, with time and a prodigious amount of Willpower, a thermokinetic can raise ambient temperature to incredibly high levels, although the absolute highest temperature that any thermokinetic can achieve is roughly 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. Thermokinesis is especially deadly against humans, as a normal mortal caught within the area of effect is physically heated up as if caught in a giant microwave. Normal human body temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. When Thermokinesis is used, a victim suffers a –1 penalty to Dexterity, Strength and Wits (and consequently, a –1 penalty to Initiative and possibly Defense, and a –2 penalty to Speed) for every five degrees of temperature increase for the duration of the thermokinetic effect. If any of the victim’s Dexterity, Strength or Wits is reduced to zero by a thermokinetic attack, the victim is immobilized due to heat prostration. If a victim’s body temperature is increased by 15 degrees or more, he suffers a point of lethal damage per turn spent subjected to the thermokinetic attack. At temperatures of 200+, all living things suffer one point of aggravated damage per turn. Most paper and cloth combusts at just over 400 degrees, and wood catches fire and lead begins to melt at around 600 degrees. Surprisingly, vampires and other undead creatures are immune to ambient temperatures below 1500 degrees. However, in most cases, an undead creature’s clothing ignites somewhere between 350 and 500 degrees, inflicting aggravated damage as normal. Once a psychic ceases to focus her attention on a specific location, the site’s temperature equalizes normally. In the case of extreme temperature changes in excess of a 400-degree difference from the surrounding area, “equalize normally” may mean an explosive reaction, inflicting two dice of bashing damage on everyone within a radius equal to the Size of the area initially affected x5 in yards. The explosion also causes knockdown (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 168). If the temperature shift is less than 400 degrees, the affected area returns to normal temperature at a rate of 10 degrees per minute. Thermokinetics also have an improved resistance to environmental temperature extremes. A psychic with this power is automatically immune to natural temperature extremes ranging from zero to 100 degrees, plus an additional temperature range equal to plus or minus [Merit dots x20] degrees. A thermokinetic is immune to high-temperature attacks unless the attacker’s Thermokinesis dots exceed his own. Cost: 1 Willpower per roll to affect temperature. None to resist temperature. Dice Pool: Intelligence + Resolve (– Size of the area to be affected) to increase temperature. No roll to resist temperature extremes. Action: Instant Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The psychic fails to affect ambient temperature and suffers one point of bashing damage as his own internal body temperature goes haywire. Failure: The psychic fails to affect the ambient temperature. Success: Each success raises the ambient temperature as described above. Exceptional Success: Additional successes are their own reward. Option [Emotional Thermokinesis]: Whenever the thermokinetic is in the grip of strong emotion, Resolve + Composure is rolled with a dice penalty equal to the level of the emotion as described by the Emotional Response table on p. 60. If the roll is unsuccessful, the thermokinetic’s powers function uncontrollably, raising ambient temperature in random ways. A dramatic failure means this activity flares up at wild intervals over the next several days whenever the psychic becomes agitated, possibly causing small fires. With powerful Thermokinesis, catastrophic effects may occur. These random phenomena do not require the expenditure of a Willpower point.
Telepathic Merits Animal Empathy (•• or ••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 55 Effect: Although Animal Empathy is sometimes considered a rare gift, some parapsychologists speculate that it is more common than it appears, since the average observer cannot readily distinguish between a psychic with the innate ability to communicate with non-sentient creatures and an ordinary “horse whisperer” who is simply “good with animals.” Regardless, this Merit combines a wide number of psychic effects, including Mind Reading, Thought Projection and Emotion Control under a single power, albeit one which can affect only animals. The two-dot version allows a psychic to affect a single species of animal such as dogs, cats or rats. The four-dot version permits a psychic to affect any type of animal. Either version can allow a psychic to affect multiple animals at once, although the power usually inflicts a dice penalty on a roll. Also, a psychic attempting to control large numbers of animals at one time must give the same instructions to all of them, and cannot send different animals off on individual missions without a separate roll for each of them. There is also a separate Merit called Animal Rapport that creates a permanent psychic link with a single animal. No version of this power can affect truly sentient animals or other beings that have transformed into animals. Cost: None if the psychic has time to interact with the animal and achieve some kind of rapport. If the psychic has never seen the animal before or it is currently hostile, one Willpower point must be spent to instantly seize control of the animal. One point of Willpower must be spent to control multiple animals simultaneously. Action: Instant or contested Dice Pool: Wits + Animal Ken to communicate. Manipulation + Animal Ken (versus animal’s Resolve rolled reflexively) to control. Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The character triggers psychic feedback in the animal, making it immediately hostile. Further attempts to use Animal Empathy against the animal fail automatically for the remainder of the scene. Failure: The character fails to infl uence the animal in any way. Success: The psychic can intuitively understand the animal’s mood and thought processes. Although true communication is not yet possible, the psychic can intuit crude impressions such as “I’m hungry,” “I want to play” or “That man beats me.” With Manipulation, the psychic can command the animal to follow simple instructions such as “Heel,” “Fetch” or “Tear him apart!” Animals that were previously hostile become docile, and trained guard dogs let an intruder walk right by. Exceptional Success: The psychic can freely communicate with the animal, almost to the point of sharing its senses. The psychic can also give relatively complex instructions and expect them to be obeyed, such as “Go fetch Timmy! He’s in town at the movie theater, in the third row!” Dice Modifiers Modifier Situation Modifier +1 0 -1 -3 -5
Situation The psychic has previously used this power successfully on the same animal(s). The animal is a mammal or bird. The animal is a common fish or a group of up to three mammals. The animal is a single insect, a school/swarm of up to 25 fi sh or vermin or a group of up to 10 larger mammals. The animal is a swarm of insects with a hive mentality, or a collective group of up to 100 small creatures or up to 25 larger mammals.
Animal Possession (••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 56 Prerequisites: Animal Empathy •• or ••••. If the psychic has only the two-dot version of Animal Empathy, he is limited to possessing the type of animal with which he is attuned. The four-dot version allows possession of any type of animal. Effect: Animal Possession builds on the power of Animal Empathy to actually allow a psychic to possess a particular animal, totally controlling its body and perceiving through all of its senses. The psychic’s own body is completely inert and helpless while this power is in effect, and she cannot perceive anything about her body’s surroundings unless the possessed animal is nearby. If the character’s body is damaged, though, she
knows it and can reflexively end the possession after taking any damage, although she may be subject to a killing blow (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 168) in the duration of the possession. If the character’s physical body is killed while possessing an animal, her mind dies as well. If the animal is killed during the possession, the psychic’s mind is immediately sent back to her body. This power requires the animal to be possessed to have at least the intelligence of a small rodent or fish. Simpler creatures such as insects cannot be possessed. Possession lasts for one scene, but can be extended at the cost of one Willpower point per scene. Under no circumstances can the time of possession last beyond a number of hours equal to the lesser of the psychic’s Stamina or Resolve. This power cannot be used against sentient creatures, including mages, vampires or werewolves who have simply assumed the forms of animals. The psychic can never possess more than one animal at a time. The psychic also cannot possess an animal smaller than a mouse. Animals larger than Size 5 confer a penalty on the roll. Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Presence + Animal Ken versus animal’s Resolve; resistance is reflexive Action: Contested Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The character triggers psychic feedback in the animal, making it immediately hostile. Further attempts to use Animal Possession against the animal fail automatically for the remainder of the scene. Failure: The character fails to possess the animal. Success: The psychic projects his own consciousness into the animal, totally controlling its body and replacing its Mental (but not Social) Attributes with his own. The psychic cannot use any other psychic powers while possessing the animal, although he can end the possession at any time. The animal’s Physical Traits prevail. Exceptional Success: The psychic can maintain the possession for up to the lesser of his Stamina or Resolve in hours without paying any additional Willpower. Dice Modifiers Modifier +1 — -1 -2 -4
Situation The psychic has previously used the Animal Possession power on the animal to be possessed. The animal is a mammal or bird. Per point of the animal’s Size in excess of 5. The animal is a reptile or sophisticated aquatic life form such as a dolphin or shark. The animal is a fish.
Animal Rapport (Variable)
Book: Second Sight, p. 57 Prerequisites: Animal Ken ••+ Effect: This Merit acts as a version of Animal Empathy. The character has an innate mental bond with a single animal. The character can communicate with the creature, understanding its barks or hisses as speech and allowing the animal to comprehend the character’s normal language. The character must speak to the animal to communicate with it, but the expenditure of one Willpower point allows the character to communicate non-verbally with his pet. The cost of this Merit is determined by the Size of the animal, based on the chart below. Merit Dots 3 4 5
Size of Animal Size 3 or smaller Size 4 to Size 5 Size 6 to Size 10
No roll is ever required for verbal communication, but the character does not have the capacity to control the creature outright. If he wishes it to do something that the animal might consider dangerous, you must win a contested roll against the animal, which, while generally loyal, does not normally commit suicide on its master’s behalf. Resolve or Composure is rolled reflexively for the animal, while Manipulation or Presence + an appropriate Skill is rolled for the character. The animal with which the character has a bond is a normal example of its species, but a side effect of the rapport permanently increases the animal’s Intelligence by one. If the character seriously mistreats his pet, it is capable of turning, at the Storyteller’s discretion. The character must be within line of sight to communicate
freely with the animal, but if the animal can hear the character even at great distance (such as Timmy yelling from down a well a half-mile away), the animal likely travels as quickly as it can to its master’s location. If the animal is ever lost or killed, experience spent or dots assigned to this Merit may be lost or reassigned at the Storyteller’s discretion. The character may even forge a bond with another such amazing animal, assuming one can be found.
Animal Possession (•• or •••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 57 Effect: Aura Reading blurs the distinction between telepathy and ESP, as Aura Reading represents a form of psychic perception, but also has elements of mind reading. According to telepaths who have this Merit, all living things (and some “unliving” things) are surrounded by a nimbus of energy that is perceptible by psychic means or by Kirlian photography. Aura Reading allows a psychic to perceive this otherwise invisible halo, and with experience interpret its constantly changing hues to gain insights into a subject. Vampires and mages have access to a similar power known as Aura Perception. Aura Reading, however, does not carry with it the same level of sophistication. And yet, a talented psychic can deduce a target’s general emotional state and perform such feats as determining whether the person is lying. With the five-dot version, a knowledgeable telepath may use this power to recognize supernatural entities. To a trained telepath, vampires are recognized by their extremely pale auras, werewolves by their vibrant intensity and mages by sparkling lights that appear in the patterns. Dematerialized ghosts and spirits are also visible with this power, as are astral projectors, but only faintly, and a psychic cannot communicate with them without use of other powers. Regardless of the type of supernatural subject, a telepath must have some familiarity with a sort of being to identify it. A psychic who has had opportunity to perceive the auras of vampires might know that a mage is “not right” and also knows that she is not a vampire, but he would not specifically realize that she is a mage unless he also had some familiarity with the auras of willworkers. Both versions of this Merit require the expenditure of one Willpower point and an Intelligence + Empathy roll, contested by a target’s Composure + Supernatural Advantage; resistance is reflexive. The two-dot version requires the psychic to scrutinize the target for a number of turns equal to the target’s Composure prior to the roll, and a target may be suspicious of someone staring intently at her if a reflexive Wits + Composure (or possibly Wits + Occult) roll for her succeeds. The two-dot version automatically fails against supernatural beings. The five-dot version can be used against supernatural beings, but otherwise functions as the two-dot version. Once a psychic successfully reads a target’s aura, the psychic can continue to view it so long as she maintains concentration, allowing her to observe the target for possible deception or even to predict an imminent attack. A failure on an attempt at Aura Reading means that the psychic is unable to discern an aura at all, while a dramatic failure means she receives false or misleading information. Thus, the Storyteller should always roll for the player when the possibility of a dramatic failure applies. A telepath who successfully reads the aura of someone in the act of lying may recognize that the subject speaks falsely by rolling Intelligence + Empathy + [the successes gained on the initial Aura Reading roll] versus the subject’s Composure + Subterfuge in a contested action. If the psychic wins the roll, he recognizes the lie. Applied toward reading the mood of potential combatants, this power grants its user a bonus to Initiative equal to the number of successes rolled in activating the effect, provided the telepathic is actively reading the aura of a target at the time that person initiates an attack. Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Intelligence + Empathy versus target’s Composure + Supernatural Advantage (resistance is reflexive) Action: Reflexive (though a subject may have to be studied in advance of making a roll) Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The character gleans utterly misleading and wholly inaccurate information. The Storyteller may wish to make any chance-die rolls for a player, to keep the true results secret. Failure: The character can distinguish no information at all. Success: The character can determine the target’s general mood and nature, possibly picking up details about a supernatural being’s nature or whether a particular target is lying. Exceptional Success: The character gains all the benefits of a normal success. In addition, the character gains an additional +2 dice on all Social rolls made against the target for the remainder of the scene due to his being so in tune with her personality.
Mental Blast (•••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 58 Prerequisites: Thought Projection ••••
Effect: An extremely rare and dangerous power, Mental Blast allows a telepath to damage the mind of another being by force of will. The psychic uses Thought Projection with such force and intensity that it overwhelms the victim’s brain, potentially causing a stroke or cerebral hemorrhage. Each success achieved on the attack inflicts one point of bashing damage on the target in the form of a blistering migraine. A sustained attack may have lethal results. Fatalities inflicted with Mental Blast generally appear to be strokes or similar maladies, but in some cases the power quite literally causes a victim’s head to explode. Once this power is initiated, the psychic can maintain the assault, the player rolling again every turn so long as the attacker can maintain concentration. While concentrating on the target, the psychic loses his Defense and can take no action other than maintaining the assault and moving up to Speed in a turn. If the psychic’s concentration is broken, another Willpower must be spent to initiate a new Mental Blast. Cost: 1 Willpower on the first turn of a Mental Blast. The psychic can continue to inflict damage as long as he can maintain concentration on his target. Dice Pool: Presence + Intimidation – subject’s Stamina Action: Instant Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The character suffers one point of bashing damage from psychic feedback and is unable to use the power for the remainder of the scene. Failure: The character fails to inflict any damage. Success: The character inflicts damage as noted above. Exceptional Success: Additional successes are their own reward. Also, the target must roll her Stamina to avoid knockout (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 168.)
Mind Breaker (•••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 58 Prerequisites: Thought Projection •••• Effect: Mind Breaker does not inflict any damage on a victim. Instead, it inflicts either a temporary or permanent derangement. Generally, the user simply inflicts madness, with the precise form of ailment is determined by the Storyteller. If the psychic has specialized training as refl ected by Science ••• or higher with a Specialty in Psychology or some similar field, the Storyteller may permit her to deliberately tailor the victim’s madness. Derangements gained through use of this power cannot be removed by raising one’s Morality trait. Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Presence + Empathy versus the subject’s Resolve + Supernatural Advantage. Intelligence + Science may be rolled instead for characters with specialized training in psychology or something similar, with a successful roll permitting a telepath to tailor the derangement to his desire. Action: Contested Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The character suffers one Storyteller-chosen derangement for the remainder of the scene. Failure: The character fails to inflict madness on his target. Success: The character gets more successes than the target, who suffers one mild derangement for the remainder of the scene. Exceptional Success: The character gets at least five successes and exceeds those of the target. If the psychic wishes, the derangement inflicted may be severe instead of mild. Alternatively, the target can be subjected to a permanent mild derangement that can be removed through only roleplaying.
Mind Control (•••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 59 Prerequisites: The psychic must deliver his instructions verbally unless he is capable of projecting his thoughts. One of the most insidious manifestations of psychic power, Mind Control permits a telepath to project his mind to overcome a subject’s will and render the subject open to suggestion. Unless the character also has Thought Projection or some similar advantage, he must verbally tell his subject what he wants her to do, effectively making this power a form of paranormal hypnosis. Combined with Thought Projection, the psychic can make anyone a puppet, silently seizing a victim’s will from across a room and making her his slave. If he has both Thought Projection and Clairvoyance, he can command the mind of someone from across a city like a modern-day Svengali. Commands that force a subject to violate deeply held beliefs, to act against Virtues, or to harm loved ones impose a penalty to the roll made for the psychic. Mind Control is effective only against ordinary people and
other psychics. A Mind Control attempt automatically fails against anyone who is the subject of a supernatural template (such as mages, vampires and werewolves). However, ghouls, wolf-blooded and similar beings may be affected, although they may gain bonus dice to resist in some circumstances (such as when a ghoul is mentally controlled to betray his undead master). The benefits of the Striking Looks Merit (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 117) apply to Mind Control attempts, and psychics with the Hypnotic Voice Merit (see p. 66) gain a +2 bonus on all uses of this power. The psychic must concentrate fully on his subject while conveying his instructions, suffering all the normal penalties for concentration. How long this effort takes depends on the complexity of the instructions, and may last for several turns. Once the command is issued, the psychic does not need to continue concentrating. The telepath’s command must be something that can be completed within the scene or the attempt fails, unless the telepath achieves an exceptional success. Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Manipulation + Persuasion versus subject’s Resolve (resistance is reflexive) Action: Contested; requires concentration while instructions are conveyed Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The character triggers psychic feedback in the target, making him instinctively withdraw or distrust her. The target is also rendered immune to further Mind Control attempts by the psychic for the next day. Failure: The target ignores the character’s command. Success: The target obeys the character’s command, provided that the order can be fulfilled within one scene. Exceptional Success: The player gets five or more successes and they exceed those of the target. There is no time limit on how long the command can take to be executed. Dice +1 -1 -2 -4 -5
Modifiers The psychic has successfully used Mind Control on the subject within the last week. The command forces the subject to act against a loved one or to violate deeply held personal beliefs. The command forces the subject to harm a loved one or to act against a Virtue. The command forces the subject to kill a loved one or perform an action that might cause her to lose Morality. The command is clearly suicidal.
Mind Reading (••• to •••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 60 Effect: Mind Reading is the essential telepathic power; the ability to read the thoughts of others. The threedot version permits a telepath to read the surface thoughts of an ordinary person, although the telepath cannot yet perceive information that a subject does not currently think about. The four-dot version permits the telepath to probe the mind of an ordinary person for buried information or even subconscious thoughts, or to perceive the surface thoughts of beings who are the subject of a supernatural template, such as mages, vampires or werewolves. The five-dot version permits the telepath to probe the buried thoughts of even supernatural beings. This last version also allows a telepath to perform “light scans” of multiple minds at once to discover who among several thinks something in particular (such as identifying which of several murder suspects thinks, I killed her.) Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Intelligence + Empathy versus the subject’s Composure + Supernatural Advantage (resistance is reflexive) Action: Contested Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The character triggers psychic feedback in his target, making her instinctively withdraw or distrust him. The target can also automatically resist any use of Telepathic Merits by the psychic for the next day. Failure: The character fails to read the target’s mind. Success: The character can perceive the target’s thoughts, and the player is allowed to ask one question about them per success. Surface scans are limited to what a subject currently thinks about, although a telepath can attempt to manipulate a subject into thinking about something in particular with a successful Manipulation + Subterfuge roll (contested by Wits + Subterfuge if the subject is aware of the telepath’s capabilities). If the psychic is capable of deep scans, the player can ask questions about any topic, including
questions about a subject’s buried memories or even subconscious thoughts of which the subject is not even aware. Exceptional Success: Extra successes are their own reward. Also, the Storyteller may rule that the telepath discovers some useful tidbit of information in the subject’s mind for which he wasn’t even searching. Dice Modifiers Modifier Situation +1 The psychic has successfully used Mind Reading on the subject within the last week. +1 The psychic touches the subject. +1 The subject willingly consents to a telepathic probe. +2 The subject willingly consents to a telepathic probe and also has this Merit, or, at the Storyteller’s discretion, has some other supernatural or psychic power that conveys telepathic abilities. -1 The subject actively resists the telepathic probe and also has this Merit, or at the Storyteller’s discretion has some other supernatural or psychic power that conveys telepathic abilities.
Psychic Empathy (•••• or •••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 60 Prerequisites: Aura Reading and Thought Projection (either version) Effect: Psychic Empathy builds on the underlying power of Aura Reading, as the telepath moves from merely perceiving the emotional aura of a target to actively manipulating it and thereby affecting the subject’s mood. In order to use Psychic Empathy, a character must first successfully use Aura Reading on a target. Once the character can clearly see the target’s aura, he can psychically “adjust the colors,” affecting her mood. The four-dot version is only capable of short-term manipulations, while the five-dot version can hardwire a victim to feel a particular emotional response for extended periods. The intensity of any particular emotional state is determined by the chart below. Emotional Response 0 No discernable signs of the emotional state. -1 Noticeable signs of the emotional state. -2 Obvious signs of the emotional state. A Resolve + Composure roll for the subject must succeed to avoid acting on the emotion in minor ways (snide comments toward someone he dislikes, flirting with the person for whom he now feels sexual attraction) every time he has an opportunity to do so. -3 Unambiguous signs of the emotional state. As with the previous entry, except that the target must get at least as many successes on the Resolve + Composure as the empath does on the Psychic Empathy roll to avoid acting out on the emotion in a very obvious way (picking a fight with a person he now hates, acting in a subservient manner toward a person he now loves). -4 Overwhelming signs of the emotional state. The emotional state approaches or even exceeds the level of a derangement (homicidal rage, suicidal depression, obsessive stalking). A Willpower point must be spent for the subject to even attempt a Resolve + Composure roll to contest the emotional compulsion, and he must still get as many successes as the empath does on the activation roll. The target seeks out opportunities to act on the emotion in obvious ways, and any attempt to conceal his state is automatically reduced to a chance die. Any attempt to manipulate a subject’s emotional state is penalized by the intensity of the emotion to be created or suppressed. Thus, if an empath wanted to make a total stranger fall in love with her (i.e., moving from no discernable signs (0) of love to unambiguous (–3) signs of love), the dice pool suffers a –3 penalty. Or if an empath wants to totally suppress an enemy’s overwhelming (–4) hatred of her in order to allow for peaceful interaction, the dice pool suffers a –4 penalty. Often, an empath seeks to produce an emotion that is the opposite of one a target currently feels, such as causing a man to hate his beloved wife, or when she wants a suicidal person to suddenly feel happy about his life. In such cases, the penalty is the total associated with the previous emotion, plus the new one. Thus, converting a subject’s unambiguous (–3) love for his wife into unambiguous (–3) hate inflicts a total –6 penalty. Emotions produced with the four-dot version of this power last while the empath concentrates, or for the duration of an entire scene if the empath achieves an exceptional success. The five-dot version automatically lasts for at least a scene, and applies for a day with an exceptional success. With either version, the dice pool
for affecting emotions is Manipulation + Empathy, contested by the subject’s Resolve + Composure. The five-dot version is capable of affecting a being with a supernatural template, but the four-dot version automatically fails against such beings. Any emotion can be affected by this power, and its parameters are limited mainly by the Storyteller’s discretion and a player’s innovation. A few of the more commonly affected emotions include anger, happiness or sadness, love, sexual libido, possessiveness (for an object or a person) and compassion. Only one successful attempt can be made to alter a subject’s emotions per scene. Cost: 1 Willpower per use. One Willpower must also be spent to activate the character’s Aura Reading powers prior to manipulating a subject’s emotions. Dice Pool: The psychic must first successfully use Aura Reading on the subject (see “Aura Reading” on p. 57). The roll to alter emotions is Manipulation + Empathy versus Resolve + Composure (resistance is reflexive). Action: Contested Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The character triggers psychic feedback in the target, making him instinctively withdraw or distrust her. The subject is also immune to the psychic’s Psychic Empathy for the rest of the scene. Failure: The character fails to influence the target’s emotions. Success: The subject’s emotions change according to the empath’s desires. Exceptional Success: The emotional change lasts for a longer period of time. With the four-dot version, the effect persists for a scene without concentration. With the five-dot version, the effect lasts for a day. Option [Limited Empath]: The empath’s powers are limited in some way, such as in the type of person affected, the type of emotion manipulated or the type of person or object that can be made the subject of an altered emotional connection. The dice bonus is determined by how specific and limited the empath’s powers are. An empath who can affect only women might gain a +1 bonus, while one whose sole power is to trigger intense misogyny in other men might gain a +3 bonus. Option [Touch Only]: With this option, the empath can affect another’s emotional state only while physically touching the target, (although concentration is all that’s required after contact is made). See “Touching an Opponent,” the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 157. Option [Uncontrolled]: With this option, the empath’s power is not totally under his control. Whenever he experiences a profound emotion, a reflexive Resolve + Composure roll must be made, with a penalty based on the emotion as determined by the response table, above. If the roll is unsuccessful, Presence + Empathy is rolled, plus a bonus equal to the emotion’s rating, with everyone in his vicinity making a contested Resolve + Composure roll. Anyone who fails to get as many or more successes than the empath instantly experiences the same emotion as the character. Uncontrolled uses of Psychic Empathy do not require use of Aura Reading or the expenditure of a Willpower point. Deliberate uses of this power functions as normal, except that with this option, the empath has a +2 bonus.
Psychic Illusions (•••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 61 Prerequisites: Mind Control and Thought Projection (either version) Effect: This power represents a refinement of the Mind Control Merit. Instead of giving hypnotic commands to the target, a telepath causes the subject to see something that isn’t there, or to misapprehend some element of his surroundings. The telepath must be able to see the person to be affected, although clairvoyance can substitute for direct observation. Cameras and videotapes are never affected by a psychic illusion. The illusions created can affect any normal senses that the illusionist possesses. The illusionist cannot create an image capable of deceiving psychic powers, so a clairvoyant remotely viewing the scene is not deceived. Likewise, a psychic cannot create an illusion of something he cannot perceive, such as a deaf character creating an illusion that includes an auditory element. The default use of this power assumes that only one sense is affected, and each additional sense affected imposes a –1 penalty to the roll. The player’s Manipulation + Persuasion roll is resisted by the Composure + Supernatural Advantage of any observers (roll the highest pool for a mob of onlookers) in a contested action. Theoretically, the illusionist can fool any number of people with a particular illusion, but the maximum number of people who can easily be affected at the same time equals the psychic’s Intelligence + Manipulation. Each additional person imposes a –1 penalty to the activation roll. Thus, the more people who are present, the greater the likelihood that some or all are able to see through the deception. Normally, an illusion is static and cannot interact with beings. If the illusionist wishes his visions to interact with someone who is deceived by them (such as having a “phantom police officer” direct observers away from a crime scene), the player must roll Wits + Persuasion as an instant action. If this roll fails, onlookers see through the illusion, even if they had been previously fooled. Such follow-up rolls are only required when the
illusion must be made to interact with an observer in a fairly direct manner. So, if the interactive police officer fools an observer, a reroll is required only if the observer actively tries to engage the police office somehow (whether through communication or an attack), or if the psychic wishes to have the police officer interact in some new and different way, such as writing a ticket. Regardless of how convincing an illusion is, it is never solid, although it “feels” solid to a deceived observer if the illusionist incorporates tactile sensations into the creation. An illusory chair is not capable of supporting an observer’s weight, no matter how strongly she believes in it. An illusory wall does not prevent someone from passing through it if she leans against it, although both may feel perfectly solid to the casual touch. So, an illusionary item cannot be used as a weapon; any attack with an illusionary weapon fails. Dice Pool: Manipulation + Persuasion versus the target’s Composure + Supernatural Advantage to create illusions (resistance is reflexive). Wits + Persuasion to manipulate existing illusions. Cost: 1 Willpower. Also, the character must maintain concentration for the duration of the illusion, meaning that he can take no action other than moving Speed per turn, and he loses his Defense. Action: Contested to activate; instant to manipulate Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The character triggers psychic feedback, making every potential observer in the vicinity instinctively withdraw or distrust her. Also, the illusionist is unable to use this power again for the remainder of the scene. Failure: The psychic fails to create any illusion at all. Success: Any affected targets perceive whatever sensory effect the psychic desires. Exceptional Success: The illusions created are highly realistic. The psychic no longer needs to maintain concentration, although a Wits + Persuasion roll must still be made to cause the illusion to move or react in any way.
Psychic Invisibility (•••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 62 Prerequisites: Mind Control and Thought Projection (either version) As the name suggests, Psychic Invisibility represents a psychic’s ability to “cloud men’s minds” so that onlookers cannot perceive him. The character is not truly invisible; cameras are not affected by this power and anyone sufficiently perceptive can see through the deception. The psychic cannot disappear from view if he has already been seen, but any witnesses he encounters after the power is activated are typically unable to see him unless he does something to call attention to himself. If the psychic affects any physical object while a potential observer is looking, or he makes any particularly loud sound, the invisibility ends automatically for observers. Also, the character must maintain concentration for the duration of the power’s use. He loses his Defense and can take no actions other than moving up to Speed in a turn. Cost: 1 Willpower Dice Pool: Intelligence + Stealth versus an observer’s Resolve + Supernatural Advantage (resistance is reflexive). If a mob is affected, make one roll for the group using the highest dice pool of its members. Action: Contested, and requires concentration Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The psychic is convinced that she is invisible and acts accordingly, even though any onlookers are able to see her. Failure: The psychic fails to hide her appearance. Success: The psychic activates her psychic invisibility power. If anyone in a group points the character out, all onlookers can see her. Exceptional Success: The psychic no longer needs to concentrate to maintain invisibility and can take other actions (although any interaction with her environment may end the effect). If she performs no actions, the effect lasts for the remainder of the scene.
Telepathic Communication (••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 63 Prerequisites: Thought Projection •••• Having mastered both Mind Reading and Thought Projection, the telepath can now initiate two-way telepathic communication with another person. The contact must be within line of sight unless the psychic has a Telepathic Rapport with the other party (see below). This power fails automatically if the other party does not wish to communicate. The psychic cannot perceive any thoughts other than those a subject wishes to send, unless the psychic also uses Mind Reading, even if the other party is willing. Each use of the Merit lasts no longer than one scene, even if both sides remain within sight of each other. Cost: 1 Willpower to allow communication for the rest of the scene
Dice Pool: Presence + Empathy Action: Instant Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The character triggers psychic feedback in the subject, making her instinctively withdraw or distrust him. Also, the character might transmit his thoughts to a different party than he intends, or even send thoughts that he did not intend. Failure: The character fails to initiate communication, but can try again. Success: The character successfully initiates psychic communication with his target. He can freely send thoughts to the other party, and he can freely hear whatever thought messages the other party wishes to send back. Exceptional Success: The character gains a +2 bonus on any subsequent use of a telepathic Merit in regard to the other party for the remainder of the scene.
Telepathic Rapport (•••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 63 Prerequisite: Telepathic Communication The telepath can establish a permanent telepathic connection with the mind of another person, allowing the character to form a psychic link with the subject from anywhere in the world with the expenditure of a Willpower dot. This Merit can be taken multiple times to refl ect having more than one rapport, up to a maximum number at one time equal to the psychic’s Intelligence. If the other party to a rapport dies, the dot spent is lost. The other party may never sever the rapport once it’s formed, but the telepath may voluntarily end it, still losing the Willpower dot spent. Only the character who possesses this Merit can freely initiate telepathic communication, and the other party must develop this Merit himself in order to initiate a link on his own, assuming he is even someone capable of doing so. A telepathic rapport cannot be forged with an unwilling target, or with someone the psychic doesn’t know closely. Any telepath who meets the prerequisites can forge a new rapport, but the telepath must successfully use Mind Reading and Thought Projection on the other party and spend a permanent Willpower dot. Once the link is achieved, the telepath can activate the rapport without a roll. Also, if anyone with whom a telepath has a rapport experiences intense emotion, such as being in great danger, the telepath may be able to sense the emotion at any distance with a reflexive Wits + Empathy roll. This roll should be made by the Storyteller. This Merit allows a character to forge a new rapport whenever she wishes, and a significant number of other Merits are required as prerequisites. At the Storyteller’s discretion, a character can develop a single Telepathic Rapport as a two-dot Merit at character creation, without possessing the prerequisite Merits or indeed any other psychic Merits. This rapport must be with some other person close to the character, such as a parent or twin sibling, and represents a paranormal bond not dependent on the character’s facility with telepathy. The character is not able to create any new rapports unless she acquires the full, three-dot Telepathic Rapport Merit and all its prerequisites. Regaining Willpower dots lost from broken rapports costs eight experience points each. Cost: 1 Willpower point per scene to activate communication with a single subject Dice Pool: None to activate, as once the rapport is purchased, it can be turned on and off at will. Wits + Empathy (rolled by the Storyteller) to know when the other party is in danger or undergoes intense emotion. Action: Reflexive Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The telepath grossly misinterprets the emotions experienced by the other party. Failure: The telepath fails to sense the other party’s emotional state. Success: The telepath intuitively knows that the other party is experiencing pain, fear or some other intense emotion. Exceptional Success: The telepath gains limited insight into exactly what situation the other party faces, even if the subject is unable to communicate such information directly. For example, instead of simply knowing that the other experiences fear, the telepath knows he is afraid of a pack of guard dogs that pursues him. If the subject experiences pain, the telepath realizes he has just been stabbed. Also, the telepath has an intuitive idea of where the other party is.
Though Projection (••• or ••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 64 Prerequisites: Mind Reading ••••• Effect: The telepath can move beyond simple mind reading to actually projecting his thoughts into the mind of another. A telepath cannot usually transmit thoughts beyond his line of sight. With the four-dot version, however, he can communicate with individuals outside his line of sight at a penalty determined by his degree of psychic connection to a target. Even with the three-dot version, a telepathcan communicate with
someone in a distant location if he is able to perceive the subject through clairvoyance. If the psychic also wishes to read the thoughts of the person to whom he sends, he must also activate his Mind Reading Merit (p. 60), which normally requires the expenditure of a second Willpower point in a subsequent turn. Cost: 1 Willpower to allow thought transmission to a single subject for the rest of the scene. If thoughts are to be sent to someone else in that time, the first connection must be broken. The new connection costs another Willpower point. If the first connection is to be re-established, yet another Willpower must be spent. Dice Pool: Presence + Empathy [versus Resolve + Supernatural Advantage if the subject is unwilling (resistance is reflexive)] Action: Instant if the subject is willing; resisted is he’s unwilling Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The character triggers psychic feedback in the subject, making her instinctively withdraw or distrust him. Also, the character might transmit his thoughts to a different party than he intended, or even send thoughts that he did not intend to send. Failure: The character fails to transmit his thoughts, but can try again. Success: The character successfully transmits his thoughts to his target. He can continue to send thoughts for the rest of the scene. Exceptional Success: The gains a +2 bonus on any subsequent use of a telepathic Merit against the other party for the remainder of the scene. Dice Modifier — -1 -3 -5
Psychic Connection The target of the telepathic communication is within line of sight. No connection is necessary. Intimate. The target is a longtime friend or close family member. Known. The target is a friend or co-worker about whom a great deal is known. Acquainted. The telepath has met the target several times. This is the weakest level of connection that allows long-range telepathic communication.
Other New Merits Anti-Psi (•••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 64 Prerequisites: None, but the character can have no other Merits that confer psychic powers. Effect: Anti-Psi is a rare ability, the existence of which has only recently been theorized by parapsychologists. A person gifted with Anti-Psi (who can never be an active psychic) has the power to greatly inhibit psychic powers by her mere presence. Any individual who strongly disbelieves in psychic phenomena can impose a –1 or –2 penalty on a psychic’s abilities (see Doubting Thomas, below), but an Anti-Psi goes even further, literally jamming a psychic’s ability to function at all. Any psychic in the presence of an Anti-Psi is automatically reduced to a chance die on any attempts to use psychic powers. A person with this Merit likely has no idea that she has any special abilities, and simply ascribes any failure of psychics to perform in her presence as proof of the fraudulent nature of such phenomena. This Merit has no effect on the paranormal abilities of supernatural creatures. Drawback: Any character with this Merit also suffers from a severe derangement triggered by the presence of overt psychic phenomena. Whenever the character is confronted by another person claiming to have psychic powers, or by clear evidence of psychic phenomena, the Anti-Psi manifests an intense hostility toward the object of the offense. Exactly how this derangement plays out is for you to decide, but the character is likely obsessed with debunking the psychic’s claims and exposing him publicly as a fraud. Possible derangements include Hysteria, Megalomania, Paranoia and Anxiety (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, pp. 97–98).
Believers (• to •••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 64 Prerequisites: Any Psychic Merit Effect: Believers are typically Storyteller characters who serve as assistants to a psychic character and who unconditionally believe in the psychic’s powers. Believers are essentially the same as Retainers (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 116), except that the Believers’ strong belief in psychic phenomena allows them to aid the character in using his powers. When a psychic is assisted by Believers, he gains a +1 bonus to a power’s roll for each dot in this Merit, assuming that at least the same number of such people are present. Normally, this bonus is limited to a +3. Some Merit options can allow the bonus gained from Believers to go as high as +5. So, if Believers ••• is possessed and only two such people are actually present, a +2 bonus is gained. If seven Believers are present and only three dots are possessed when using another Merit, only +3 is gained. If a psychic suffers a dramatic failure while using a power, the results never cause a Believer to withdraw or develop an aversion to the psychic.
Doubting Thomas (•)
Book: Second Sight, p. 65 Prerequisites: None, but the character can have no other Merits that confer psychic powers. Effect: A Doubting Thomas is a mortal who strongly and emphatically rejects the existence of psychic phenomena. Almost anyone can simply doubt the existence of such possibilities, but a Doubting Thomas is almost pathological on the subject, as the character himself has a latent potential for psychic powers that he cannot use due to a persistent mental block. The character’s latent abilities are channeled into negating any actual psychic powers in his vicinity in order to help preserve his belief that the possibility is not real. Any attempt to use obvious psychic powers in the Doubting Thomas’ presence automatically suffers a –2 penalty, as he constantly watches the psychic for the slightest hint of fraud. If multiple Thomases are in a psychic’s presence, the penalties they impose are cumulative. Drawback: A Doubting Thomas also suffers from a mild derangement triggered by assertions of psychic phenomena. Precisely how this ailment manifests is determined by you, but a Doubting Thomas confronted by phenomena purported to be psychic is likely compelled to confront the performer and try to debunk her claims. Common derangements for Doubting Thomases include Fixation, Suspicion and Irrationality (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, pp. 97–99).
Ghost Ally (••• to •••••) Book: Second Sight, p. 65
Effect: Unlike the Allies Merit available in the World of Darkness Rulebook, which represents infl uence in a particular field or area, a Ghost Ally represents a specific being — a ghost who is able and willing to aid the character in her endeavors. A Ghost Ally is built as follows. First, he has seven dots in Attributes, divided among Power, Finesse and Resistance. These Attributes are used to determine the rest of the ghost’s Advantages according to the rules outlined on p. 208 of the World of Darkness Rulebook. The Ghost Ally has both a Virtue and a Vice, but no Skills. The Ghost Ally has a maximum Essence pool of 10 that is used to fuel Numina. The Ghost Ally has one Numen, chosen from those listed in the World of Darkness Rulebook. The Ally also has a single anchor that must be the character with whom the being is connected. Finally, a Ghost Ally has a set number of bonus points used to flesh out the restless-dead character. With this Merit at three dots, a Ghost Ally has six bonus points, while the four-dot Merit offers 12 bonus points, and the five-dot version offers 18. These bonus points can be spent as follows: six points per additional Attribute dot, three When a psychic is assisted by Believers, he gains a +1 bonus points per additional anchor and six points per additional Numen. Also, for six points, the bond between ghost and character is made so strong that the character can see and hear the ghost when it is present, even without any psychic abilities. Without such a bond, the character cannot perceive the ghost unless it manifests or otherwise makes its presence known.
Hypnotic Voice (••••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 66 Prerequisites: Persuasion ••• or Science ••• (with a Specialty in Hypnotherapy or a related field) Effect: Although not truly a psychic power, Hypnotic Voice is certainly capable of eerie effects. Whether through training in psychology or simply through having a deep, soothing voice, a character with this Merit is capable of hypnotizing others into trance states. The character can hypnotize anyone given the opportunity, but it is much easier if the subject is willing. While in a hypnotic trance, a subject can be given suggestions or forced to confront repressed memories, possibly memories stolen by vampiric Disciplines or repressed due to Lunacy triggered by werewolves, or Disbelief invoked by vulgar magic. Inducing a Light Trance In order to begin the process of hypnotizing a subject, Manipulation + Persuasion or Science (depending on which Skill is used as the prerequisite for the Merit) is rolled. If the subject is willing, the roll is extended but not contested, and the hypnotist must accumulate [subject’s Resolve x5] successes, with each roll representing 10 seconds of induction. If the subject is unwilling, he can resist with Composure + Supernatural Advantage in contested rolls; resistance is reflexive. If the subject ever gets more successes in a single roll, he realizes what the hypnotist is attempting and any further attempts to hypnotize the subject fail automatically. If the subject and hypnotist ever get the same number of successes in a roll, the subject does not begin to enter a trance, but doesn’t realize what the hypnotist attempts either, so the performer can proceed. If the hypnotist’s successes on a roll are ever five or more and exceed the subject’s in that period, the victim begins to enter a trance despite himself and suffers a –1 penalty on all subsequent contested rolls. The hypnotist must have a target’s undivided attention. She cannot hypnotize someone carrying on a conversation with someone else, or who intently watches television while paying the hypnotist no mind. Once the player accumulates enough successes, the subject is successfully placed into a light trance. The subject is not able to initiate any hostile actions until he wakes up, and is highly suggestible. The hypnotist can induce an entranced subject to give up any non-intimate information or to perform almost any nonhazardous action with a successful Manipulation + Persuasion roll. A light trance lasts for a scene before the subject comes out of it. The trance ends automatically if someone makes a loud noise or even physically shakes the subject, and the hypnotist can wake the subject whenever she desires. If the hypnotist attempts to get the subject to do something that violates her Morality or her Virtue, or that is obviously dangerous or suicidal, the trance ends immediately. Cost: None Dice Pool: Manipulation + Persuasion or Science (Hypnotherapy Specialty), possibly contested by Composure + Supernatural Advantage Action: Extended (subject willing) or extended and contested (subject unwilling). The hypnotist must accumulate successes equal to the target’s Resolve x5, with each roll representing 10 seconds of speech. Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The hypnotist fails to entrance his subject and loses any accumulated successes. If the subject was unwilling, she automatically knows that the hypnotist was attempting to hypnotize her and may react accordingly. Any subsequent attempts to hypnotize the subject (or indeed, anyone else who saw what happened) fail automatically. Failure: The character gathers no successes at this time. Success: The character gets the required number of successes and the subject is placed in a light trance.
Exceptional Success: The character gathers five or more successes than required. The character gains a +2 bonus on any Social rolls against the subject for the remainder of the trance. Dice Modifiers +2 +1
Situation The subject is intoxicated, drugged or otherwise mentally impaired. The subject is under peer pressure to submit to hypnosis, most commonly during a stage-hypnotist show.
Deepening the Trance Once a subject is put into a light trance, the character can attempt to hypnotize him further. The player must roll Manipulation + Persuasion (– the subject’s Composure). While such a deep trance lasts, the hypnotist gains a +2 bonus on all Social rolls against the subject (+5 with an exceptional success), she can persuade him to perform almost any non-dangerous action, and she can give post-hypnotic suggestions that can affect the subject’s perceptions or even beliefs (such as the stereotypical depiction of the hypnotist making a subject bark like a dog). A deep trance lasts for a scene, after which the subject goes into a normal sleep and stays out for hours unless awoken by mundane means. While the subject is in a deep trance, the hypnotist can attempt to get him to perform actions that violate his Morality or Virtue, or that are obviously dangerous or suicidal. The hypnotist must phrase such commands in a manner calculated to work around the subject’s beliefs, however. A conservative preacher might rebel at being ordered to strip down in front of strangers, but if persuaded that he was a male dancer, such inhibitions can be overcome. Commands calculated to overcome Morality or Virtue or that place a subject in grave danger suffer a penalty in a Social roll based on how well the hypnotist works around the subject’s inhibitions. Cost: None Dice Pool: Manipulation + Persuasion – subject’s Composure Action: Instant, although the roll can be made only after at least five minutes of induction Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The hypnotist fails to entrance the subject, who instantly awakens. Failure: The character fails to induce the subject to enter a deep trance. Other attempts can be made if time permits. Success: The subject is placed in a deep trance. The character gains a +2 bonus on any Social rolls against the target for the remainder of the trance. Exceptional Success: The subject is placed into an exceptionally deep trance. The character gains a +5 bonus on all Social rolls against the subject for the rest of the trance. Dice Modifiers +2 +1
Situation The subject is intoxicated, drugged or otherwise mentally impaired. The subject is under peer pressure to submit to hypnosis, most commonly during a stage-hypnotist show.
Memory Recovery Once a subject has been put into a deep trance, the hypnotist can attempt to help him to recover repressed or stolen memories, although doing so might be highly traumatic for the subject depending on the experiences’ nature. The player must roll Manipulation + Persuasion, resisted by the subject’s Resolve + Supernatural Advantage, and accumulate [the subject’s Resolve x5] in successes, all as part of an extended and contested action. The player’s dice pool also suffers a penalty according to the nature of the memories recovered. The hypnotist must achieve an exceptional success (gather five or more successes than needed in the time allowed or under the circumstances) for the subject to be able to recall the repressed memories after waking from the trance. If more successes are ever achieved for the subject in any contested roll, that memory cannot be restored by the hypnotist in this effort. Another attempt may be made after 24 hours. Cost: None Dice Pool: Manipulation + Persuasion versus the subject’s Resolve + Supernatural Advantage (resistance is reflexive) Action: Extended and contested, with each roll representing 30 minutes of hypnotherapy Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The hypnotist’s attempts to dredge up the lost memories traumatizes the subject, inflicting a mild derangement on him. Failure: The character gathers no successes at this time. Success: The character gets the required number of successes. The subject is able to recall the lost memories while under a trance, but does not recall them while awake.
Exceptional Success: Five or more successes than required are accumulated. The subject recalls the lost memories after awakening. Dice Modifier — -2 -4 -5
Lost Memories Non-traumatic events that have simply been forgotten. Traumatic but mundane events such as childhood circumstances or a sexual assault. “Unintentional” supernatural infl uences that have affected the subject’s memories, such as Disbelief triggered by the actions of a mage or Lunacy triggered by a werewolf. “Deliberate” supernatural effects intended to alter the subject’s memories, such as vampiric Disciplines or effects created with the Mind Arcana.
Lucid Dreamer (•)
Book: Second Sight, p. 67 Effect: The Lucid Dreamer Merit is common among both ordinary people and psychics. It represents the capacity to realize that one is dreaming and that such dreams cannot truly cause harm. Your character is rarely troubled by any but the most terrifying of mundane nightmares, although he remains vulnerable to supernaturally or psychically induced ones. The Dreamer can defend himself against attacks by psychics who have the Dream Travel Merit. When a Lucid Dreamer is psychically attacked within one of his own dreams, his Composure is considered to be +2 for purposes of determining whether a dream attack can harm him. Second, a Lucid Dreamer can initiate attacks against intruders of his dreams. One Willpower point must be spent per attack, and each attack is resolved according to the rules for Dream Travel described on p. 38. Unless a Lucid Dreamer has the power of Dream Travel, he can initiate these attacks only within his own dreams.
Psychic Resistance (• to •••)
Book: Second Sight, p. 67 Effect: Your character, either through extensive training or natural ability, has an innate resistance to invasive telepathic powers such as Mind Breaker, Mind Control, Mind Reading and Psychic Empathy. This resistance might take the form of performing math problems mentally, quoting nursery rhymes or even praying fervently. With even one dot, the character can tell if a psychic attempts to use a telepathic or other mind-affecting psychic power on him with a successful Wits + Composure roll (made reflexively by the Storyteller). The character’s Psychic Resistance dots are also added to his Resolve or Composure when rolling to contest any psychic powers that affect his mind. Neither powers directed against his body (such as Psychic Vampirism or Telekinetic Grapples) nor psychic powers that affect the mind but that do not allow a contested roll (such as Mental Blast or Psychic Invisibility) are affected by this Merit. The benefits of this Merit do not apply to mind-controlling effects used by vampires, werewolves or mages.
Relic Merits The Merits below all tie in with mystical objects and relics somehow. If a character possessing such a Merit loses the object to which it refers (where applicable), the Merit dots are lost. This list was compiled form the Reliquary book.
Relic Creator (••••)
Book: Reliquary, p. 85 Prerequisites: Occult 2, Crafts 2 Effect: The character can create limited-use mystical items, such as a Hand of Glory or the Writ of Safe Haven (see p. 79-81). Doing so is a time-consuming and sometimes expensive or dangerous process, and not even the most talented and prolific craftsman can churn out such objects quickly. To create a relic, the character must first have suitable materials. This might require the character to procure components or ingredients. If any preparation is required (carving a statue or writing a poem, for instance), the player makes the appropriate rolls to make the vessel ready for magic (typically Dexterity + Crafts or Manipulation + Expression). Once the object is ready, the character performs a ritual appropriate to her style of magic and the type of enchantment she is trying to lay upon the object. The player makes an extended Resolve + Occult roll. The target number of successes is equal to five times the relic’s rating, based on the formula presented under the Relic Merit, below. Every roll takes one hour of work, prayer, chanting, dancing or whatever activity is appropriate to the ritual. The player may only make a number of rolls equal to the character’s Resolve + Occult dice pool. Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The object has taken on the appropriate magical properties, as far as the creator can tell, but in fact the object has become tainted by faulty enchantment. It takes on a curse (see p. 113-116), which becomes activated when the object’s magic would normally take effect. Failure: The character accumulates no successes. If the number of rolls surpasses the character’s Resolve + Occult pool before the target is reached, the magic doesn’t “take.” The item must be ritually cleansed and reenchanted. Success: The character makes progress toward the goal. If she reaches the target number of successes, the relic is complete and functions as described in Chapter Two. Exceptional Success: Significant progress is made toward the goal. No other effect.
Relic (• to •••••)
Book: Reliquary, p. 85 Effect: The character owns a mystical object or relic. How the character came to own the object is up to the player. The character might have inherited the object, stolen it, purchased it or just found it by sheer luck. Note that this Merit only represents an object that a character begins play with; if your character finds a relic during a story, you don’t need to pay the experience points for it. Relics have a variable point cost, determined as follows: Condition Cost in Merit Dots Powers +1 per Power dot Durability +1 per dot Equipment Bonus +1 per dot (maximum of +5 above what such an item would normally confer) Bonded (the item only works for this +1 character) Cost -1 per dot of Cost (see p. 116-117) Curses/Drawbacks -2 per Curse (see p. 113-116) Example: Matt, in creating a new character for Chuck’s chronicle, decides to put some Merit points into a relic. He has visions of a ring that looks plain, but in fact contains a deep and abiding power. Right off the bat, Matt decides he doesn’t want to deal with anyone stealing the ring and using it on him. The ring is Bonded to his character (1 dot). He decides against raising its Durability, and a ring doesn’t normally confer an equipment bonus anyway, so he doesn’t spend points in those areas. For Powers (see p. 87-113 for a full list of Relic Powers), Matt chooses Hypnotic Suggestion and Reward Temptation — the ring
allows the wielder greater benefit from indulging his Vice and great opportunity to do so. These are both twodot Powers, which raises the total to five; a little more than Matt was hoping to spend. Fortunately, there are ways to lower the cost. Matt decides that the ring is Cursed (see p. 113). Yes, using it can grant the character untold amounts of pleasure and mental fortitude, but it saps his physical well-being. The ring has the Leech curse, sapping the character’s Health away every time he uses it. Matt decides that this Health loss manifests as a wracking cough, sometimes with a bit of blood. This drops the total cost to 3 Merit dots, which both Matt and Chuck feel is fair. All that remains is for Matt to figure out where he got the ring, what it looks like and how he discovered its powers, all details that he will work into his character’s prelude. Note: The reduction in price for taking Costs is only applicable if these costs are taken in conjunction with the specified cost of the chosen Power(s), not as a replacement for the costs listed. If the relic only works at night, and its Power still costs the specified Willpower to activate, the builder can subtract the appropriate 1dot Cost value for a Temporal Cost. If the relic only works at night, and the builder takes this limitation in place of its Willpower cost, it does not lower the relic’s overall cost.)
Relic Analyst (•)
Book: Reliquary, p. 86 Effect: The character has an instinctive understanding of how relics work, what their capabilities are, and how to make use of them. This understanding is by no means complete, nor does it grant prescience about curses or other pitfalls of the relic. This Merit grants a +1 to any attempts to figure out an item’s “trigger” condition or activation, detect curses and any other roll that involves figuring out practical (not historical) uses for a mystical object (see p. 132 of Chapter 4 for a sample scenario).
Changing Breeds Merits The next list of merits is only for Ferals. As your shapechanger grows “into his skin” so to speak, you can add more Merits to his original traits, or raise the ones he already has to higher levels.
Animal Companion (• to ••••)
Book: Changing Breeds, p. 95 Effect: A feral’s affinity for Nature runs deep. Sometimes, that affinity returns his affection. Similar to the Retainer Merit, Animal Companion reflects a single beast who loyally follows your character. This creature could be your breed-kin, but she doesn’t have to be. It’s possible she’s an old pet or new partner who’s not spooked by the beast-blood’s changing skin. To purchase the Merit, you must decide the back story between your feral and his friend. Does their bond predate the First Change? If so, how old is the animal now, and how did their affinity survive her “master’s” new life? Is this a new companion, and if so, how did the normal animal bond with the shape changing beast? Whatever their tale might be, this companion is smart, useful and independent. A rat in a cage or a dog in the yard isn’t a Merit — she’s a pet. The dots in this Merit reflect the animal’s power, intellect and often size. The higher the trait, the more capable the companion. A one-dot beast could be a smart rat or clever bird, a two-dot Merit might reflect a loyal (if finicky) cat, three points could buy a common-looking but brilliant companion such as Lassie or Trigger; at the top of the scale, the companion stands out in any setting — a tiger, bear, dolphin or chimpanzee whose physical and mental capacity would be impressive even if she weren’t devoted to her apparent “master.” Unless the Animal Companion is driven off by poor treatment or otherwise killed, she remains a loyal element in the character’s life. She will do whatever she can to assist him, and regard him with the ultimate affection. The details, naturally, depend on her species — a devoted cat or loyal snake won’t show devotion the way a dog might. Still, unless that bond is severed by death or abuse, the Animal Companion is yours for life. (If this “Merit” is killed off, all points regarding her are lost.) Drawback: Unlike the Retainer Merit, an Animal Companion is just that: an animal. She won’t have free access to Man’s world, and remains limited by manual dexterity, mental perspective and social rules. Lassie may be a great dog, but she still can’t drive to the bank and cash a check. Powerful animals are often exotic, too, and they stand out on a city street. Most places have laws against horses in public, and almost all human societies regulate private “ownership” of tigers, bears and so forth. The beast may spook other animals, and will probably follow her instincts if prey happens to be nearby. Loyal as she might be, this friend retains her bestial habits and needs; she might trash an office, eat a garden or throw feces at the cops if that’s what seems natural. Your feral might adore his companion, but a smart, powerful animal remains a high-maintenance friend.
Beast-Kin (••••)
Book: Changing Breeds, p. 95 Effect: Not everyone affiliated with the changing breeds actually transforms. This Merit reflects a character whose First Change has not yet arrived, and might never arrive. Kin to the feral folk, this person lives in the shadow of their world. He hears odd stirrings in the back bedroom, sees fur or feathers too thick for normal explanations. Perhaps he serves one of the Regencies, surrounded by hopeful relatives. Or languishes in a backwater swamp, tending the gator that just happens to be his sister, too. The upside? This character is immune to the Delusion and the primal terror associated with werewolves. He understands how far back the curtain of “reality” can be drawn, and sees at least a glimpse of the parties behind it. Chances are, he’s very good with animals; although the breed of his associated beast might terrify him, he shares a deep affinity with it. He can understand animals through body language and vocal cues, and while he’s no Dr. Doolittle, they often understand him, too. For now, this character exists on the cusp of a world that may or may not take him in completely. Even so, he knows more about that world than most. Drawback: That world is no gentle playground. Despite the New Age fascination with “spirit totems” and such, the animal realm is harsh by human standards and the feral one even more so. Enemies of the shapeshifter or her clan often target the kin when they want to make their presence known. Meanwhile, that shapeshifter in her clan might abuse, neglect or despise the “weakling” among them. Feral clans, even the wealthy ones, are notoriously hard on their members, and all it takes is one bad day to turn Mommy or Big Brother into the lion at the door. (Note: If the First Change finally overtakes this character, the Merit gets “traded” for the feral supernatural template).
Pack (• to •••••)
Book: Changing Breeds, p. 96 Effect: See that flock of ravens following the chick next door? The yard full of dogs down the street? That person might be a real animal lover . . . or she could be a feral with a “pack” of associated kin. Similar to the Animal Companion Merit, Pack gives your character some bestial company. In this case, though, that company is a bit more numerous and bit less loyal. A Pack (which could actually be a herd, flock, pride or what-have-you) includes a number of animals that remain close to your shapechanger. They’re probably members of the feral’s species, but might be something else instead if there’s a good explanation for their presence. The dots in this trait measure the number and relative power of the Pack. For one dot, the character has two or three small beasts — a handful of rats, bats or small birds. Two dots reflect 10 or 12 smaller animals or a couple of larger ones — cats, small dogs, owls, falcons. Three dots allow for a much larger group of small beasts (30 or more), about a half-dozen larger animals or two or three strong, competent ones — wolves, monkeys, falcons, cheetahs. At this level, the Pack might include a few different animals — say a wolf, a hawk and a ferret. For four dots, the feral gets a regular menagerie — 40 or more small animals, 10 larger ones, five powerful ones, two or three really impressive ones (tigers, sharks, oxen) or three powerful ones of different species. These beasts aren’t as devoted as a single Animal Companion, but their numbers make up for that reduced loyalty. Drawback: Where do you keep those animals, Tarzan? What can you feed them? What have they not destroyed yet in your home? A Pack is a horde of wild animals, not a collection of tame pets. Their presence in human settlements is disruptive, destructive and very often dangerous. Unless your feral lives in the wilderness, a large Pack is chaos . . . and even there, it makes its presence known. Through devotion to their shapechanging friend, these beasts avoid eating one another. That doesn’t mean they won’t eat anything else. Animals in a pack need to hunt, run free and generally be themselves. If they don’t get that — or worse yet, if they’re treated badly or sent off on suicide missions — these creatures abandon their so-called master. Affection is not blind loyalty, and a feral who considers herself Lord or Lady of the Beasts soon winds up with an empty kingdom.
True Breed (••)
Book: Changing Breeds, p. 97 Effect: The Changing Gift runs in this character’s family. Dad or Mom might have been feral; maybe Grandma or weird Uncle Martin. Someone in recent memory was a shapechanger, and at least a few folks (in or outside the family) know about it. Odds are good that the werebeast’s kid or grandkid will be feral, too. Drawback: This knowledge makes certain things easier (there’ll probably be a support network for First Changes) but not necessarily (that “network” might involve a prayer group that tries to “beat the devil” out of a shapechanger). In any case, we suggest that the player and Storyteller collaborate on the backstory for a character with this Merit. Whether the connection is an open secret or a hated mystery depends on the player’s vision and his Storyteller’s whims.
Merits List Every character has the same basic Attributes and access to all the same Skills. Merits are different; they are special, individual qualities that make your character different from all the other kids. These personality quirks or remarkable talents are purchased during character creation or with experience points as you play through your character’s journeys.
Mental Merits Common Sense (••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 100 Effect: You are blessed with sound judgment and natural prudence. Given a moment to think, you can generally suss out the proper course of action — or at least a sensible one. Once per scene, when your character is about to do something very dangerous or stupid, or the group is at a loss for ideas or clues, the Storyteller may point out a fact or clue you’ve missed, or delineate the risks of your plan in very clear terms. You may ask the Storyteller for this hint when you feel you’re completely out of ideas, but he is under no obligation to provide it — he may know you’ll need your Common Sense even more just around the corner, after all. Available at character creation only.
Danger Sence (••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 101 Effect: You have an uncanny knack for knowing when you’re about to get jumped, whether it’s a constant awareness of your surroundings, or just the hair standing up on the back of your neck. You receive a +2 bonus on the refl exive Wits + Composure rolls made to detect the presence of an ambush (see p. 34). This roll is typically made prior to the first turn of a surprise attack.
Ego Boost (••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 101 Effect: Kids thrive on well-deserved praise — not the forced kind that tells them that every child is a special snowflake, but praise that shows someone has really noticed what they do well. When your character receives an honest compliment on his talent in a Skill in which he has at least two dots, he receives a one-time +1 modifier on his next roll of that Skill in the same scene. This Merit can be used only once per Skill per scene.
Eidetic Memory (••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 101 Effect: Your photographic memory is almost perfect. You can remember almost anything you have witnessed or read. Under normal circumstances, you do not need to roll to recall a fact, license plate or face. Under stress, you receive a +2 modifier to any Intelligence + Composure or Intelligence + Skill (Study, for instance, to remember a chemistry fact) roll made to pull something from your memory. Available at character creation only.
Language (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 101
Effect: Your character is fluent in another language in addition to her native tongue. Maybe you’ve lived in a foreign country, have family who speak another language, or you really paid attention in French class. Each language is purchased as a separate Merit.
Mental Prodigy (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 101 Prerequisite: Any Mental Attribute at •••• Effect: Your character is a natural prodigy, an unlikely master of a Skill or an area of study at a remarkably young age. Select one Skill from the Mental category. Your character has access to the levels of that Skill beyond the cap imposed on child characters (see p. 47). You must still pay for all points in the Skill during character creation, or with experience points at a later date. The Skill should be related to the exceptional Mental Attribute. For example, Study would most likely be linked to Intelligence (your character is naturally gifted), but it could also be attributable to Resolve (your character studies with remarkable focus). The Storyteller has the final word on the chosen Prodigy and its prerequisite. Available at character creation only.
Multilingual (• to •••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 101 Effect: Your character grew up in a culture that teaches several different tongues, or maybe she has a prodigy-like gift for languages. In addition to the character’s native language, the player may choose two languages for every dot in this Merit. The character speaks these languages conversationally. Note that the character cannot speak effortlessly in these languages. Communicating quickly or over the telephone requires an Intelligence + Wits roll, and talking about anything more complicated than simple pleasantries or asking straightforward questions imposes a penalty of -1 to -3 dice. Reading the language requires an Intelligence + Study or Wits roll (depending on how the character learned the language; study or immersion, respectively), and writing something coherent in the language requires a roll of Wits + Study or Intelligence (again, study or immersion). Even if these rolls succeed, the character’s utterances or writings obviously come from a non-native, unless the player rolls an exceptional success, in which case the character manages to sound like a native-born speaker of the language for a few moments. The player can spend one experience point for the character to become fluent in one of the languages covered by this Merit, as described in the Language Merit, above.
Prized Possession (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 101 Effect: Your character owns a useful item that he has practiced with for many a long hour. As such, the item provides an equipment bonus (see p. 132) beyond what such an item would usually provide, simply due to the familiarity. The item provides a +2 bonus to applicable rolls within its intended function (a harmonica provides the bonus to Expression rolls to play it, while a laptop computer provides the bonus to Computer rolls) and a +1 bonus to rolls a bit outside or related to the usual purview (using the harmonica to wedge open a door or using the laptop for a Study roll to get homework done on time). Combat rolls can benefit from this Merit, but the Storyteller and the player should consider why the child has spent that much time fighting. Drawback: If the item is broken or lost, this Merit is forfeited.
Trivia Hound (••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 101 Effect: Your hours spent digging for obscure and weird facts on the Internet were not wasted. You have very wide, but usually shallow, fields of knowledge from which you can pull when the need for those little nuggets of information arises. Make an Intelligence + Wits roll for your character any time she is confronted with a situation or phenomenon outside her normal experience. If the roll succeeds, she remembers some bit of trivia that may be relevant to the situation. Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The information you dredge out of your brain could not be more wrong — you’ve been reading too many comic books! (The Storyteller should make the Intelligence + Wits roll for you in secret if a dramatic failure is possible.) Failure: Your character draws a complete blank on this topic. Success: Your character remembers a piece of useful information: “Hey, is that band playing ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’? That means something bad’s happened at the circus! Let’s go see!”.
Exceptional Success: Your character has a wealth of information on the topic hidden away in her mind: “An 1840 stamp from Britain? That’s the year postage stamps were invented! It should be small and black, and have some old lady’s head on it.”
Unseen Sense (••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 102 Prerequisite: Mortal (non-supernatural); Wits •• Effect: By the pricking of your thumbs, something wicked this way comes. You have a sixth sense that alerts you to the presence of the supernatural. It isn’t anything you can see or hear, but your body reacts in some consistent way to the paranormal. You may not even understand, at first, your body’s reaction as a signal. With some experience and some experimentation, you may be able to figure out just what sets off your unearthly radar — but those will be dangerous experiments! The specific type of supernatural effect or presence (ghostly haunting, lurking vampire, stalking werewolf) to which your character is sensitive must be specified when this Merit is purchased. The Storyteller has the final word on both the target of your sensitivity and the cue it gives you. If you or the Storyteller prefers, he may keep under wraps the details of how this Merit will work for your character, for you to discover during play. This Merit is only available to normal, mortal human characters. Should your character become somehow a supernatural creature herself, this Merit is eliminated. Available at character creation only.
Physical Merits Ambidextrous (•••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 102 Effect: Your character is equally capable with both hands: she can swing a bat righty or lefty, and even write legibly with her off-hand. She does not ever suffer the -2 penalty for using her off-hand in a fight or on any other die roll. Available at character creation only.
Direction Sense (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 102 Effect: Your character never gets lost — not in the most confusing shopping mall, not in the abandoned quarry where kids aren’t supposed to play, anyway. Even in unfamiliar territory, your character can always retrace his steps back the way he came. He can also orient himself to cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) without reference to a compass or the sun.
Fast Reflexes (• or ••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 102 Prerequisite: Dexterity ••• or Wits ••• Effect: Your character is the first off the starting line for a race, the best in the neighborhood at stealing bases, or the first to throw a punch when a fight starts. Your character’s Initiative is increased by +1 per dot of Fast Reflexes. (But be careful — parents and teachers usually don’t accept “He started the fight, but I hit him first,” as an excuse.)
Fighting Style: Karate for Kids (• to •••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 103 Prerequisites: Dexterity ••; Stamina ••; Brawl •• Effect: Many kids take karate classes at small dojos in strip malls and tiny urban studios. Parents enroll them hoping their children will learn discipline, maybe a little self-defense, and at least spend a little time off the sofa and away from the TV. A good karate teacher will, in addition, make sure her pupils learn to avoid confrontations when possible, and to run away when the opportunity arises. When all that fails, her students may have a punch or kick to throw into the mix. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. Your character can’t have “Cautious Engagement” until he has “Evade.” The maneuvers and their effects are described below.
Evade (•): The first rule is to not get hit. When your character is facing a single opponent, he can dodge and weave pretty well. Add a +2 modifier to his Defense when he uses a Dodge action (after doubling his Defense for the Dodge). For example, a character with a Defense of 3 would have a total Defense of 8 against a single attacker when Dodging. See p. 142 for more on the Dodge system. If another opponent joins the attack, this bonus is lost. Cautious Engagement (••): You attack, but keep a very healthy respect for your single opponent’s blows. Use the higher of your character’s Dexterity or Wits to determine his Defense against Brawl-based attacks only (not against Weaponry attacks). If another opponent joins the attack, this bonus is lost. Vulnerable Target Strike (•••): While there isn’t a whole lot of chance to practice this at full speed in class, your character knows sensitive spots to attack — eyes, nose, ears, throat, groin, knee. If your character’s attack succeeds, one of the points of damage he inflicts is lethal instead of bashing.
Fighting Style: Playground Dogpile (• to •••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 103 Prerequisites: Strength ••; Stamina ••; Brawl •• Effect: This isn’t really fighting. It’s just kids being kids. Kids being kids while they try to pound each other’s faces into the asphalt, pull hair, scratch and even bite in a rolling pile of aggression. Adults may wax nostalgic about their own playground dustups, but kids can and do hurt each other, especially when they gang up. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. Your character can’t have “Take Down” until he has “Cheap Shot.” The maneuvers and their effects are described below. Cheap Shot (•): Your character isn’t afraid to hit below the belt, or jab an eye, or pull an ear. Strength + Brawl rolls made to damage an opponent your character has immobilized have a +1 modifier. Take Down (••): A successful grapple attack immediately renders both your character and his opponent prone. The fight continues as normal, from the ground. See Grappling, p. 144. Pile On (•••): Your character throws his body into the middle of a fight already in progress, squashing the unfortunate combatant at the bottom of the pile. If an opponent is immobilized in a grapple, your character may join the grapple with a Strength + Brawl roll (the opponent’s Defense does not apply). Extra successes beyond the first to establish a hold are immediately applied as bashing damage.
Fleet of Foot: (• to •••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 104 Prerequisite: Strength •• Effect: Your character is the one to beat in a flat-out footrace. She gains +1 Speed per dot of this Merit.
Fresh Start (• or •••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 104 Prerequisite: Fast Reflexes • or •• Effect: Your character is unpredictable in stressful situations — which isn’t always a bad thing! With the first dot of this Merit, your character can use an action to change his place in the Initiative order for the rest of the combat. He can choose to take his actions first in the turn, or place himself immediately after a friendly character — or any other time that he thinks will be advantageous. For example, your character has an Initiative result of 8 in a playground dustup; the opponent has a result of 13. Your character can choose not to take a swipe in the first turn, instead repositioning himself for an advantage in the second and subsequent turns, changing his place in the Initiative order from 8 to 14. The prerequisite for this level of this Merit is Fast Reflexes •. With three dots in this Merit (which has a prerequisite of Fast Reflexes ••), your character performs such a startling maneuver (knocking over a noisy tray of silverware, or executing a dance move he saw in a music video) that everything around stops for the briefest second. The Initiative order is then reset from scratch, with everyone involved rolling again, no matter how satisfied they were with their previous results. Drawback: Changing the Initiative order is the character’s entire action for the turn; he may only move up to his Speed in any turn he uses this Merit. For the three-dot version, remember that everyone involved in the situation must re-roll their Initiative result, even if they were happily at the top of the order.
Giant (•••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 104
Effect: Your character towers over other children. She is, for all intents and purposes, the same size as an adult. She wears adult clothing, can ride all the rides at amusement parks, and can survive a deploying airbag. She gains +1 Size (to the adult size of 5). This also grants her +1 Health. This also adds one die to any attempt to pass as an adult (see Disguise, p. 74). Drawbacks: People have a tendency to treat your character like an adult, when she’s not. This can lead to awkward social situations. Also, she no longer fits on or in a whole lot of fun kid stuff. Finally, when Dodging, you don’t get as much of a bonus as most kids (see p. 142).
Hard Head (••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 104 Prerequisite: Stamina ••• or Resolve ••• Effect: Your character can take a big hit and still keep her focus. She receives a +2 modifier to all Resolve rolls to avoid being stunned. If she would normally not be allowed a roll (because the attack inflicted more points of damage than her Stamina), the player may still make a Resolve roll to avoid the stun. In this case, though, the +2 modifier does not apply. See p. 153 for more on stuns.
Iron Stomach (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 104 Prerequisite: Stamina •• Effect: Your character is willing and able to eat almost anything. Most kids observe a five-second rule when food hits the floor; your character thinks nothing of eating pizza left out on the counter for days, or candy stuck to the floor. And none of this makes him sick. Your character gets a +2 modifier on food-oriented Survival rolls (see p. 65), and a +3 modifier on Stamina rolls made to resist deprivation (see p. 155). Your character’s willingness to try new foods or to eat whatever a questionable cook puts in front of him can also be a surprising social grace.
Natural Immunity (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 104 Prerequisite: Stamina •• Effect: Whether your character stays out in the cold rain without galoshes or a rain slicker, or shares a bus seat with a kid with the flu, she never comes down with whatever bug is going around. She may have never once been seriously ill (in her admittedly short life). Your character receives a +2 modifier on Stamina rolls to resist diseases and infections: parasitic, amoebic, viral, bacterial, fungal — you name it. Even if your character becomes infected, she continues to receive the +2 modifier on all rolls to fight off or survive the course of the disease.
Physical Prodigy (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 104 Prerequisite: Any Physical Attribute at •••• Effect: Your character is a natural prodigy, an unlikely master of a Skill or technique at a remarkably young age. Select one Skill from the Physical category. Your character has access to the levels of that Skill beyond the cap imposed on child characters (p. 47). You must still pay for all points in the Skill during character creation, or with experience points at a later date. The Skill should be related to the exceptional Physical Attribute. For example, Larceny would most likely be linked to Dexterity (your character has fast, sticky fingers), but it could also be attributable to Strength (your character has mastered the “breaking” part of breaking and entering). The Storyteller has the final word on the chosen Prodigy and its prerequisite. Available at character creation only.
Quick Draw (• or ••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 105 Prerequisite: Dexterity ••• Effect: He always knows exactly where all his stuff is — or maybe it’s the result of endless hours spent playing pirate or mystic space knight. The end result is the same: your character can draw an item from somewhere on his person and use it in the same turn (even attack with it, if the item in question is a weapon). Your character does not lose his Defense for pulling an item from a pocket or bag worn, or even a concealed weapon from his person.
This Merit must be bought separately for tools (• used with all items like flashlights, cameras, cell phones or keys), melee weapons (••) or guns (••).
Quick Healer (••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 105 Prerequisite: Stamina ••• Effect: Your character bounces back from injury with a speed that makes doctors shake their heads. Bones mend, wounds close, and she goes back to playing like it was no big deal. All healing times for your character are halved: one point of bashing damage heals in eight minutes; one point of lethal damage heals in two days; and one point of aggravated damage heals in five days.
Strong Back (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 105 Prerequisite: Strength •• Effect: Your character is used to lifting and carrying heavy loads. Maybe she works around the farm, or helps stock shelves at the family store. Your character receives a +1 modifier to actions involving lifting or carrying weight.
Strong Lungs (••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 105 Prerequisite: Athletics ••• Effect: Swimming, diving deep, running until there are tears in his eyes and his leg muscles start to scream — none of this is a problem for your character. Your character’s Stamina is considered to be two points higher on the “Holding Breath” chart (see Chapter 2, “Stamina”) when determining how long he can stay underwater. He also receives a +1 modifier on all Stamina + Athletics rolls — these are activities like running or biking over long distances.
Tiny (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 105 Effect: Your character is very small for his age. He may look (or actually be) underfed or in poor health, or he might just be waiting longingly for a growth spurt to kick in. On the plus side, he can fit in some very small spaces, and he has an easier time hiding when the need arises (see the Stealth Skill in Chapter Three). Also, there are times when being treated like a younger kid comes in handy — when it’s time to take out the trash or wheedle treats, for instance. The character receives a +1 modifier to any attempt to hide (see p. 65), and to most other Stealth rolls. The Storyteller is encouraged to apply a positive modifier to any other situation where being a little smaller than average might pay off, such as Socialize rolls to convince an adult of the character’s innocence. The character can also walk across thin branches and other surfaces that won’t support much weight. Finally, when Dodging (see p. 142), this character gets more of a bonus than bigger kids. Drawbacks: Your character is at -1 Size (Size 3); this also means -1 Health. Also, there are times when being treated like a younger kid is a pain — when getting permission to stay up late or go somewhere “dangerous,” for instance. Finally, your character receives a -3 modifier to any attempt to pass as an adult.
Tough (• to ••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 105 Prerequisite: Stamina ••• or Resolve ••• Effect: Your character possesses a rare attribute among children: the ability to persevere, to push on through pain or exhaustion. Most children will be tempted to cry uncle when they hit “uncomfortable” or “tired.” Your character plugs onward even as his body begins to suffer real harm. Coaches and scoutmasters love him. School counselors and social workers may want to sit him down to find out what dreadful experiences might have hardened such a young child to pain. Each dot in this Merit eliminates a negative modifier (on a one-for-one basis) caused by injury or fatigue (see Chapter Six, Applying Damage (p. 150) and Fatigue (p. 159)). For example, a character with one dot in this Merit and a -2 penalty from injuries can ignore one point of that penalty, for a -1 modifier. With two dots, he could ignore the entire -2 penalty.
This Merit can only be used to remove penalties from your character’s actions. It never provides a positive bonus to a roll. Drawback: Your character crashes hard when he finally stops moving. When he finally falls asleep after fighting off the effects of fatigue, he must sleep for a minimum of 12 hours. Before that 12-hour period is up, he will be almost impossible to wake up — even if the house is on fire.
Toxin Resistance (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 105 Prerequisite: Stamina ••• Effect: Your character suffers few ill effects from being stung by a bee — or from trying that weird cigarette the “cool kid” offered. She receives a +2 modifier to Stamina rolls made to resist the effects of drugs, toxins or poisons.
Social Merits Allies (• to •••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 105 Effect: Allies are people — other kids or even adults — who will help your character out from time to time. Child Allies could be school friends, members of a club or sports team, or even a street gang. Adult Allies could include police or social workers, teachers, clergy, or even a local criminal enterprise. A child can even justify having Allies among a crowd most children do not normally have access to, through a parent or other relative. If your character’s uncle is a highly respected attorney, a small amount of pull with local lawyers is not out of the question. Each group of Allies must be purchased as a separate Merit with its own dots: for example, your character might have Allies (Drama Club) • and Allies •• (Children and Youth Services), both acquired separately at character creation or with experience points during play. Each dot in this Merit indicates the depth of your character’s involvement in or influence on that group. At one dot, your character can ask for small favors, like an extra credit assignment from a teacher to boost a shabby grade, or just a verbal warning from police for being caught out after curfew. Favors at two dots are a little more involved; your character can arrange tutoring sessions with a teacher to help his grade, or get a safe, warm lift home in a police cruiser (no cuffs). With three dots, your character can get pretty substantial favors: the teacher fudges your character’s grade upward because he knows “you know the material,” or police sit an unmarked car in front of your character’s house to watch for suspicious individuals. The favors and requests made to Allies should fall within their spheres of influence, like the teacher and police examples made above. Obviously, asking a policeman to fix a grade isn’t likely to have the desired effect. And while a very involved teacher may be willing to help with situations outside school, she doesn’t have the authority or resources of the police. The Storyteller needs to evaluate each request for help with the following criteria in mind: is it simple or complicated? Easy or difficult? Legal or questionable? Can it be traced? Some factors will matter more or less, depending on the Allies in question — a criminal might have no compunctions about breaking the law, but plenty about sticking out her neck, while a local minister might be willing to spend a great deal of time on an issue that is completely legally and morally on the level. In an unclear situation, the Storyteller can ask for a Manipulation + Socialize roll with a modifier equal to your dots in the appropriate Allies group. Penalties may apply to the roll based on the gravity of the favor (from -3 for a serious concern about the request, to a -5 for an almost deal-breaking concern). Penalties may also apply if your character asks for help too often and wears out his welcome with the group. Your character can also call on Allies for immediate aid. In this case, successes on the Manipulation + Socialize + Allies roll determine how many members of the group show up to help; for example, how many Drama Club members come by to help your character hang up LOST DOG signs. You do not need to designate individual members of a group as specifically being the Allies referred to in the Merit, although you and your Storyteller together can detail members of the group. It is important, however, to explain the connections between your character and the group as a whole. It can be as simple as “My character is in the Drama Club,” or as roundabout as “My character has been picked up by the police a lot, but they can tell he’s basically a good kid.” Drawback: Allies are characters in their own stories — they have their own lives to live, and they won’t always be right where your character wants them, when he wants them. Also, favors are barter; a favor granted to your character may be a bargaining chip when your ally comes to ask for help in return. If your Allies are adults, they might not be so demanding, but then the relationship is different. The adults probably
won’t take as much for granted as other kids would, and if the favor is liable to land them in trouble or make them look suspicious (and, sadly, an adult slipping off with a child can look suspicious), they might well decline or call the character’s parents.
Contacts (• to •••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 107 Effect: Contacts provide your character with information — the word on the street or the gossip in the schoolyard. Each dot in this Merit represents one area of information; for example, Contacts ••• can cover goings-on at local bars, teachers’ lounge gossip and the scuttlebutt at the firehouse. A child may take this Merit to represent a parent’s or guardian’s information sources, to which the child can gain access by listening in on phone conversations, reading papers he shouldn’t, or carefully asking questions about how a day was at work. Contacts can include specific individuals who like to dish with your character, but more often, it is a large group of acquaintances your character knows just barely well enough to pose a question to. Contacts only applies to gathering information — favors and other help are the purview of other Merits. Getting information requires a successful Manipulation + Socialize roll when asking around. (The Storyteller may instead allow a Manipulation + Subterfuge roll or even a Dexterity or Wits + Stealth roll to ask leading questions, listen in on conversations, or search a briefcase.) Penalties on the roll apply if the information is little known (-1 to -3), confidential (-3), or if sharing it could get someone in trouble or hurt (-3 to -5). Even success on the roll doesn’t guarantee that your character’s Contacts have the desired information. If they don’t have the information, they can’t share it — but they would if they could! The information known by any single contact or set of Contacts is always at the Storyteller’s discretion. Roll Results Dramatic Failure: Your character’s informant holds back an important piece of information, or gives completely false information (either unknowingly or on purpose). Failure: Your character’s queries turn up no information. Success: One of your character’s contacts provides the sought-for information, or something just as helpful. Exceptional Success: Your character’s contact is a font of information, sharing items of interest your character wouldn’t have even thought to inquire about. Suggested Equipment: An appropriate gift, like a desired trading card; a fistful of fl owers, or can of soda (+1 to +2); an outstanding favor (+1 to +3) Possible Penalties: Rude behavior (-1), frequent or repeated requests (-1 to -2).
Deep Pockets (••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 108 Effect: The latest style in shoes, a newly released video game, a shiny, tricked-out bike — things all kids would love to have. Not all kids get them, but you do. Your parents or guardians may be so stinking rich that they don’t notice the money spent on your kid stuff, or they may have some other combination of monetary resources and parenting permissiveness. However the “financial managers” work it out, your character always has the stylish duds and required toys to keep up appearances in the neighborhood. In addition, once per chapter, your character may make an outlandish request of the parent or guardian who holds the purse strings. To get them to accede, make a Manipulation + Subterfuge or Socialize roll (when purchasing this Merit, you must choose to use Subterfuge or Socialize, depending on your character’s relationship with her parents or guardians, and then stick with it). Success means your character gets the desired item. The expense of the item, or its nature, may impose a penalty on the roll. A video game, a metal detector, a set of two-way radios, even a $100 gift card to a nearby store are reasonable, or at least expected, requests and incur no penalty. An expensive bike, a new computer (for schoolwork, of course), or a pellet gun might raise eyebrows a bit (for a -1 to -3 penalty). Truly outlandish or dangerous requests — say, for an allterrain vehicle, a swimming pool, or a real gun — might garner a penalty up to -5. Your character can gain a bonus on a roll by planting the seed of a desire with the parent (wistful mentions of the desired item, or pictures cut from magazines stuck to the fridge), but forgoing any Deep Pockets roll for a while. For each chapter in which the player sacrifices his use of the Deep Pockets Merit, he gains a +1 modifier, up to a maximum +5. Drawback: What is given can be taken away. If your character does not take proper care of her toys (the ATV is wrecked, or the pellet gun is used to shoot the neighbor’s dog), she may find that she no longer gets what she wants — she loses access to this Merit temporarily, or permanently.
Fame (• to •••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 108 Effect: The cult of celebrity embraces even children. Fame means recognition, measured in web site hits and column inches devoted to your character. This fame may be of a positive nature, if your character is a child star, a local Little League pitcher, or a hero who saved his family from a burning house. Salacious negative attention is also quite effective in the fame game. Perhaps your character was plucked from the smoking ruins of a cult compound on live cable TV, or testified in a high-profile kidnapping trial. The most neutral sort of fame is the product of having famous parents. Most child characters, with a few exceptions for nationally known actors or songstresses, will languish with at most one or two dots of this Merit. Each dot of Fame adds +1 modifier to Social rolls among those impressed by such things. Drawback: Fame does bring out the crazies. Famous people are often stalked, both by folks wanting to take their pictures and people of decidedly less wholesome intention.
Guardian (• or •••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 108 Effect: Someone is personally responsible for your character’s physical safety on a day-to-day basis. This custodian accompanies your character everywhere — to and from school, on shopping trips and picnic outings, even to check out the mummies in the museum; everywhere but around the house. A one-dot Guardian may be a nanny, au pair or tutor. A three-dot Guardian is a bodyguard, someone trained in close personal protection, who may even carry a gun and wear body armor. Obviously, a typical nanny or tutor isn’t trained to physically protect a child, but without a doubt, an accompanied child is much safer than one wandering around alone. Note: parents and other relatives may qualify for this Merit. The difference between a stay-at-home mom who is a Guardian and one who isn’t is that the former expects her child to not be safe, and/or to cause trouble. Most parents, rightly or wrongly, expect that their children not be in danger every day. Drawback: Your character’s actions are limited by what the Guardian will allow. It is possible to ditch the Guardian to have a little fun, but it won’t be easy, especially if the Guardian has tactical training (or your character has a reputation for escapes and escapades). But at least if your character disappears, somebody knows he’s missing.
Guardian Angel (••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 108 Effect: A strange presence watches over your character, keeping her safe from harm — or so it seems. She gets into and out of serious scrapes without any real harm. When a bad situation could go either way, it always tips just right. Your character may just be lucky. You have two options for the Guardian Angel Merit. You might decide to specify what exactly the presence is that protects your character, give it traits and fully defined capabilities, and have the Storyteller control it during the game. The creature might be ghost or spirit (see p. 199), or a supernatural creature of some kind — perhaps even a vampire, werewolf or mage. The Appendix to this book gives some basic information on such creatures. Making the Guardian Angel into a character this way means that what it can and can’t do is very well defined, but it also means that the Angel can die. The Angel should still be invisible much of the time, only appearing and helping the character indirectly. The second option is that the character just seems to get all the breaks. The “Guardian Angel” here is metaphorical, rather than being an actual, sentient creature. Before every chapter, the player rolls Resolve + Composure. Multiply the successes by two. The result is the number of bonus dice that can be used on any roll during that chapter. The dice can, instead, be applied to characters acting in direct opposition to the protected character as penalties. Each die can be used only once. Example: Alice has the Guardian Angel Merit. Before the session starts, her player rolls Resolve + Composure and gets three successes. She therefore has six bonus dice for this chapter. During the session, Alice winds up running away from one of her teachers, a man who turns out to be something other than he appears. She hides from the teacher, and her player applies three of the bonus dice. The Storyteller picks up some dice to roll Wits + Composure for the stalker, and Alice’s player, not liking the size of the dice pool she’s seeing, applies the other three dice from her Guardian Angel as a penalty to the Storyteller’s roll. The roll fails, so Alice is still hidden — but she’s used up her Angel’s influence for the chapter.
Inspiring (•••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 109 Prerequisite: Presence •••
Effect: Your character can rally other children to action. Even if her speech is loaded with references to comic book characters and popular movies, it nonetheless raises the spirits of her intended audience and bolsters their courage, no matter what lies ahead. Once per chapter, you may make a Presence + Socialize roll for your character. If the roll succeeds, all children listening — and who intend to help out or go along with a proposed course of action — regain one spent Willpower point (not to exceed their Willpower dots). Your character cannot use this Merit on herself.
Mentor (• to •••••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 109 Effect: A Mentor provides your character with support and advice, and a voice of experience and wisdom. For a lucky child, possible mentor figures abound: a parent, grandparent or other family member; a teacher; a social worker; a religious figure; a sports coach; or even someone from a mentoring organization. For a child from a more disadvantaged background, potential mentors may not be so thick on the ground, but they can still be found. A mentor can use her own assets, influence or abilities to help your character, but she will also insist that her protégé learn something along the way. Mentors are not necessarily selfless and endlessly patient, either — a surly, lazy or unwilling pupil might find himself without an instructor. A mentor always acts in what she perceives to be her protégé’s best interest. Both the mentor’s perception and actions are determined by the Storyteller. This means that in some situations, depending on the mentor, going to her for help may not have the results the child wants. For instance, a mentor may report to the police a stranger habitually lurking outside her charge’s house, when the child really wanted help figuring out just what that lurking stranger is. The Storyteller may also employ advice given by a mentor to guide your character into a new storyline, or to nudge one that has stalled. The number of dots purchased in this Merit determines the influence, knowledge and experience of your character’s Mentor. One dot represents a Mentor with one or more specialized Skills in an area of interest shared with your character, and some life experience to go with it (for example, a baseball coach who played some college ball back in the day). Two dots represents a Mentor with a wide range of Skills and abilities and significant experience in that area of interest (here, a coach who played for a minor league team, and has some pull with local sports fundraisers). Three dots represents a Mentor with an even broader reach, years of experience and accrued influence (our coach has now led his young teams to state championships, owns a car dealership, and has donated generously to political and charitable fundraisers). Four dots adds major influence to your character’s Mentor (Coach scouts for major league teams on the side, and keeps his fingers in a whole handful of high-profile dugouts). And finally, a five-dot Mentor is a leading figure in his area of expertise and has vast influence in that area and many others. (Your character’s coach is an active baseball star or successful coach who runs a charitable foundation, owns a car dealership, works as a motivational speaker and still finds the time to throw the ball around in the backyard.) Baseball coaches, schoolteachers and other neighborhood types are not likely to be five-dot Mentors, though they provide much-needed guidance to the kids who rely on them. The most powerful mentors are likely to be individuals who wield power on a national or international level (or on a level that transcends such boundaries), who are also related to their child protégés. After all, how many such high and mighty types have time to deal with a child? Your character’s Mentor may have tasks that she requires be completed (some boring, like keeping up with piano practice, or some that may lead to great adventures), but it is highly unlikely that she will demand quid pro quo for her assistance. The earning of extra privileges (like joining the starting lineup, or not being grounded anymore) is another matter entirely.
Odd Jobs (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 110 Effect: Mowing lawns, raking leaves, babysitting — these are time-honored jobs for kids looking for a little bit of pocket money. In some areas, other jobs exist, like shoveling snow or digging up bait worms. There are even jobs of dubious legality, like being a bookie’s runner or a gang’s lookout. Whatever your character’s choice of jobs, he reaps the benefits. He’s always got $10 to $20 in his pocket to spend. This money is his to spend however he likes, without asking anyone for permission. Of course, if your character doesn’t take the time to do his job, he won’t have any money.
Pet (• or •••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 110 Effect: Your character keeps a pet of some kind: a dog, a cat, a horse, a hamster, a snake, or practically any kind of animal that can be given a cute name. A pet can be a very important part of a child’s life. No matter what grades are on the report card, or how shabby the family’s clothes are, a pet given just the basics of food
and care will always provide companionship and love. A kid can tell things to a pet that she would never dare tell a person, even a trusted parent or friend — hopes, fears and dreams and troubles all go safely into a pet’s ear. This judgment-free friendship is the sole contribution of a one-dot Pet. Spending 15 minutes playing with or caring for a pet gives your character a +1 modifier on her next degeneration roll; she knows there is always someone who will love her and listen to her, no matter what has happened. This bonus lasts until a degeneration roll is made, or until the character sleeps, whichever comes first. When your character has made a degeneration roll, she may go back to her pet for solace (and refresh her +1 modifier) without having to sleep first. A three-dot Pet provides the same love and affection as a one-dot Pet, and therefore the same bonus on degeneration rolls. There is, however, a different bond between a character and a pet at this level of investment. The pet is fiercely loyal, even in the face of terrible danger or a terrifying creature. Your character’s pet will remain with her through thick and thin. If rescue is possible, the pet will run for help. If there is nowhere left to run, the pet will gladly die protecting your character. The type or size of pet does not matter when determining how many points this Merit will cost. A dog can be a one-or three-dot Pet — a one-dot dog will turn tail and run when danger appears, whereas a three-dot dog will interpose itself between danger and child. Admittedly, guinea pigs, fish and their ilk are lousy protectors and should be relegated to the lower rank. Your character can teach her pet tricks with Animal Ken, using the normal method. All Animal Ken rolls for training the pet, understanding its body language or communicating a need to it are made with a +2 modifier. A three-dot Pet learns the “guard” and “heel” commands for free — your character must still train the pet, but these two commands do not count against the animal’s known tricks. Drawbacks: Here begins the parental lecture: having a pet is a big responsibility. A pet must be fed, taken on walks (or have its litter box or cage or tank cleaned), groomed, and shown attention and love. An abused or mistreated pet provides no benefits — an animal pushed far enough may even attack its owner. It is a sad fact of life that pets die. They grow old, they get lost, or they may die tragic deaths before their time. The loss of a one-dot Pet may grieve a child, but such pets are, blessedly, somewhat interchangeable. A fish dies, is replaced, and a few weeks later its owner loves it as much as its predecessor. After a month of story time, the benefits of the lost one-dot Pet can be provided by its replacement. The loss of a three-dot Pet is another matter. This bond between child and pet is unique, and if such a pet dies, the player must make a trigger roll for the character (see p. 82). The child may, in time, replace her lost friend with another animal companion that will provide the benefits of a one-dot Pet. At the Storyteller’s discretion, this pet (if it is of an appropriate species), can eventually rise to the three-dot level.
Social Prodigy (•)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 111 Prerequisite: Any Social Attribute at •••• Effect: Your character is a natural prodigy, an unlikely master of a social grace or an area of art at a remarkably young age. Select one Skill from the Social category. Your character has access to the levels of that Skill beyond the cap imposed on child characters (see p. 47). You must still pay for all points in the Skill during character creation, or with experience points at a later date. The Skill should be related to the exceptional Social Attribute. For example, Animal Ken could be linked to Presence (animals like your character a lot), to Manipulation (your character can make animals do what he wants), or to Composure (your character’s unfl appable calm reassures animals). The Storyteller has the final word on the chosen Prodigy and its prerequisite. Available at character creation only.
Striking Looks (••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 111 Effect: Your character’s appearance is breathtaking, even while it remains childlike. Adults have been known to mutter things like “Watch out when that one grows up,” or simply acquiesce to his demands with amusement. Your character receives a +1 modifier to Presence or Manipulation rolls made while taking advantage of his looks — this won’t work over the phone, for instance. Drawback: Your character’s face is always remembered. You cannot simply vanish into a crowd. Also, he may attract the attention of predators — of the humankind or even worse.
Team Player (••)
Book: The World Of Darkness Innocents, p. 111
Effect: Your character knows how to work in a group with other children — when to delegate, when to lead, when to pitch in and get the work done. She also knows how to encourage others to cooperate, keeping even a motley group of kids organized and effective for at least a short while. Once per chapter, you may make a Presence + Empathy roll for your character. If the roll succeeds, every child character gains a +1 modifier on all teamwork rolls made for the scene. This applies to both primary and secondary actors. If more than one character in the group successfully uses this Merit in the same scene, the bonuses are cumulative (+2 for two characters, +3 for three, etc.). More information on teamwork can be found on p. 127.
Altar (• or ••)
Merits List
Book: Circle Of The Crone, p. 40 Prerequisite: Vampire, member of Circle of the Crone. Having an altar present in one’s haven and possessing the Altar Merit are not necessarily the same thing. An Acolyte can have an altar with various reagents, personal effects and idols, but that altar does not grant her any kind of mechanical bonuses. It is a vehicle for her faith, to be sure, and the vampire surely believes that the altar is necessary to fuel her belief and her powers. The altar offers no bonuses to rolls, however. An Acolyte can possess an altar that helps her perform Crúac rituals specifically. This altar likely contains instruments that allow her to spill her blood, as well as a place to spill the blood and even dispose of it — a bronze sink or well may grant her a place to empty her Vitae, as could a series of ritual cruets to contain the spilled blood. The points taken in this Merit grant the vampire one or two bonus dice to all Crúac activation rolls made using the altar. The number of bonus dice is equal to the Merit’s rating (• or ••). Note that some Crúac rituals (such as Cheval, p. 143 of Vampire: The Requiem) require the target of the sorcery to be in sight. If the target cannot be dragged before the altar, the Merit points do not grant any bonus at all. A ritual such as The Hydra’s Vitae (see p. 143, Vampire: The Requiem), on the other hand, is ideal for casting at an altar.
Armor of Scars (• to •••••) Book: Night Horrors - Immortal Sinners, p. 101 Prerequisite: Vampire only Effect: Something is off-kilter in your undead state. The physical stasis that marks the Kindred is grossly deficient in you. When you’re injured and heal, rather than return to your eternal state, your body grows thick lumpy scars. Serious injury like burns over wide areas of your body transforms whole sections of flesh into calloused cracked scar tissue. Over time, this dense tissue has formed across enough of your body to act as armor. Each dot in Armor of Scars grants 1 point of Armor that works equally well against all forms of attack. Drawback: The scars that protect you also make you hideous and gross. You have the Deformity Flaw as described on p. 209 of the World of Darkness core book, but the penalty is equal to your rating in Armor of Scars. The scars also reduce your sense of touch, imposing a penalty equal to the rating on such rolls.
Bad Breeding (• to •••) Book: Ventrue - Lords Over The Damned, p. 105 Prerequisite: Cannot have dots in Good Breeding. Only certain bloodlines and clans in the city qualify as “ill bred” for the purposes of this Merit, but the precise identity of the scorned varies from city to city. The Storyteller has final say on what clans or bloodlines make a character eligible for this Merit in the local city. Effect: Your character is part of a bloodline or family line regarded as brutish, crass, pedestrian, dirty, or otherwise ignoble to Ventrue tastes (and the customs they promote throughout Kindred society). This peculiar counterpart to the Good Breeding Merit carries with it a distinct negative connotation to those Lords who concern themselves with ancestry and parentage, but that negativity is subjective – this trait is still a Merit, after all. This Merit represents your character’s ability to use traditional preconceptions of his social worth to his own advantage. As scum, your character can get away with rudeness that would not be tolerated from a more civil monster. It isn’t considered crass or shameful for your character to be seen in the presence of prostitutes or common hoods. Your character may be able to admit (or fake) a degree of ignorance without losing face,
because, after all, how would a Kindred of such poor breeding know anything about the Bishop’s plans for the city? In game terms, this Merit grants a bonus to Social dice pools when, at the Storyteller’s discretion, the reputation of your character, his sire, his clan, or his bloodline influences the Kindred or ghoul he is trying to affect. You may choose to invoke a bonus up to the number of dots your character has in this Merit, depending on how aggressively your character takes advantage of other’s preconceptions. Remember, though, that this is a Social Merit – a white-trash reputation doesn’t actually grant your character any special knowledge or training with cars or guns. The bonus from this Merit is useful only against characters who care about lineage, reputation, and breeding among the Damned. Even then, it is limited by the overriding importance of Status. While your character (through your clever play) may be able to balance a reputation from Bad Breeding with the respect he’s due through Covenant Status, Kindred of great rank are likely to care about their authority, not your character’s breeding. A character with more dots of Status than you have in this Merit is not subject to your Bad Breeding bonus. (For example, the Prince doesn’t find your character’s lowly behavior intimidating – everyone is lowly compared to him.) Drawback: When you choose to make use of the Bad Breeding bonus in a given scene, your character is taking advantage of stereotypes and preconceptions. Those same preconceptions can work against him. Later, the Storyteller may penalize a dice pool by imposing a modifier equal to the bonus you invoked earlier, depending on how other characters in the scene regard yours. The bonus to Intimidation you drew from your reputation as an ill-tempered Savage might penalize a Persuasion roll later.
Bugman Network Membership (••• or •••••) Book: Night Horrors - Immortal Sinners, p. 64 Once you’re in, you’re in. The Bugman knows you. The Bugman knows you’re real and the Bugman knows you’re worth knowing. This is a coveted position. It’s also a precarious one. If a Carthian ends up bothering the Bugman too much, he will quickly grow frustrated and cut the cord. At 3 dots, the hook-up is fairly basic. The character can email the Bugman up to three times a month and get an answer to something obscure, although not mad, bad or dangerous to know. In mechanical terms, this allows the character access to any piece of information covered by any Mental Skill, assuming it is capable for research to uncover such a thing. The answers aren’t always simple. The Bugman could send a .PDF of a relatively obscure text or send the character a package of xeroxed pamphlets he thought might be interesting. In fact, sometimes even without asking, the Bugman may surprise the character with an odd book or packet of information, just because it seemed “what I know you’re into.” At 5 dots, the Bugman can find just about anything for the character, even incredibly dangerous shit. He could provide a handbook written by Anoushka Tepes (written in mirror writing and copied in Greek) on how to learn the Coil of Banes, or a fifteenth-century textbook written in Persian about how to deal with a stranger from the wrong side of the sky. It’s hard to tell what he’ll come up with, except that, in some form, it’s an answer to the character’s question. The Bugman trusts his contacts not to misuse the information, and that trust can be revoked at any time. Drawback: While it seems as if the Bugman can get anything for a character, remember that he’s not infallible. Learning something from the Bugman might have disastrous consequences, especially if the information is flawed or inherently dangerous. He’s also not as discreet as he thinks he is; using the Bugman for government records, for instance, could be very dangerous.
Bleak Annals (• to •••••) Book: Nosferatu - The Beast That Haunts The Blood, p. 113 The Bleak Annals are a library… of sorts. Oh, never a normal library, no. Maybe it’s too-tall walls whose thousand niches are filled with clay pots and in these clay pots lurk curls of papyrus. Sure, it could be books, but if they are, don’t count on them being arranged by alphabet or by the Dewey Decimal System—instead, they’re probably piled into teetering stacks or are scattered not in one room but throughout the breadth and depth of the entire damn Necropolis. Worse, the Annals might be something totally bizarre: walls made of shrunken heads that speak secrets if offered prayer, or a breeding room of rats whose squeaks and chitters could be translated into knowledge and wisdom for those who care to take the task.
Story Use: Some Annals detail only the exploits of their clan keepers. Others offer a ragtag collection of whatever strange information its Nosferatu “archivists” could scribble down on Post-It notes, in the margins of newspaper clippings, or on takeout menus. The Annals always have one Nosferatu who serves as a master archivist, the Damned who knows how to translate the strange system and find the information necessary. This is an ideal role for a player’s character. System: For each dot in the Annals, choose one Mental Skill Specialty. At any time, any Nosferatu with dots contributing toward the Necropolis can use the Bleak Annals and make a Research roll (pp. 55-56, World of Darkness Rulebook). Success on this roll allows the character to utilize the bonus from the Skill Specialty as if it were his own for the rest of the night. Note that, when purchasing dots in the Annals, the same Skill Specialty can be purchased up to three times. For example, the Annals might be particularly focused on demonology, and if this Occult Skill Specialty applies three times, it grants a +3 bonus to all appropriate Occult rolls. The Storyteller may allow non-Mental Skill Specialties to apply when appropriate, but these may only be purchased once. Those who do not contribute dots toward the Necropolis can still use the Annals, but have to pierce the veil of confusion when trying to decipher the system of organization. They must still succeed on the extended Research roll, but suffer a -3 to the roll and must gain 10 total successes.
Cacophony Listener (••• to •••••) Book: Daeva - Kiss Of The Succubus, p. 116 Effect: People talk, and so do monsters. The tradition and taboo surrounding the Masquerade may obscure communication between Kindred, but they don’t block it completely. A childe of the information age, your character hears everything. Where other people see outbreaks of Masquerade breaches or scatterings of pamphlets, your character sees what’s really going on. He has the ability to reconstruct current events in the Kindred world from the mess of tiny messages vampires send, deliberately or otherwise. He recognizes useful information, and knows where to get more. Cacophony information sources are divided into the following levels of accessibility. Each level includes the lower ones. ••• Word on the Street: Your character can read the signals used by neighboring vampires. He might recognize the graffiti of the surrounding coteries, for example, or know their hand signals. Your character can access the knowledge of Kindred who keep domains near his, or who have access to the same herds. •••• Talk About Town: Your character knows where underground magazines and pamphlets get dropped, as well as how to decode them. He can gain access to specific gossip and other messages being spread around the city, and subjects of general Kindred interest, such as debates on how the Embrace works, around the region. ••••• Friends Abroad: Your character is one of the rare Kindred with reliable, personal contacts outside his nearby domains. For older vampires, these are likely to be mailboxes or phone numbers. For younger generations, they might be Internet acquaintances or communities. Your character not only has access to the general “noise” coming out of the world’s Kindred population, but can ask specific questions of other information junkies. You should agree with the Storyteller in advance who your character’s sources are, as with the Contacts Merit. Once per topic, you may make a Wits + Investigation or Socialize roll. For each success, your character learns one fact or finds one document about the subject in the Kindred community at the level he has access to. If the Storyteller feels that less information exists than the number of successes rolled, she should inform you, although your character may assume he simply hasn’t found anything yet.
Caldarium (•••• or •••••) Book: Nosferatu - The Beast That Haunts The Blood, p. 115 For some, the Nosferatu bath house is a truly glorious affair: tarnished brass tubs sunken into stone floors, the tubs and water made hot by a floor heated through with steam or stoked with smoldering coals. For others… well, in one Necropolis the bathhouse is a grimy series of pits filled with rancid blood whose skin (like that which forms on old tomato soup) is pierced by the vigilant stirring of blind ghoul sycophants. Story Use: The Caldaria are the social centers of the Necropolis: even those who choose not to partake in the baths still come to feel the warmth and peer through the gauzy steam, brokering the deals of the Damned that the vampires of the world above don’t know one whit about. Here, one Haunt sells his herd to another. Or a coterie comes to beseech the aid of a fat-bellied Nosferatu smuggler. Or the whole of the Necropolis gathers
just to shoot the shit. The Caldaria are the one location in the Necropolis that strangers may be allowed to visit. If the Haunts allow such a thing, then the Caldarium often lurks at the fringes of the Necropolis, a distance away from anything the residents consider important. The Caldaria is, in a way, a Nosferatu Elysium: one shall not bring violence here, or the Haunts will fill the baths with that one’s boiling blood and bubbling juices. System: At one dot, the Caldarium provides a place of social power for the Nosferatu: all Haunts within the Caldarium gain +1 to rolls involving Expression, Persuasion, Socialize or Subterfuge. At three dots, this bonus increases to +2, and in addition all present gain the Meditative Mind Merit. At five dots, the bonus increases to +3, and a dark serenity stays with the Haunt even after he leaves the bathhouse. For the rest of the night, he gains a +2 bonus against any kind of frenzy.
Cant Fluency (•) Book: Damnation City, p. 200 Prerequisite: Politics • or Occult • or Streetwise • Effect: Your character is fluent in one kind of Kindred marks. She may have learned this academically as part of a dryly rational attempt to prepare herself for contact with street vampires, or she may have picked this up through experience. However she learned it, she is now fluent both in reading and creating a style of underground graffiti. She can read marks left behind in the style and leave marks for those fluent in it. You must select a category of marks when purchasing this Merit. Categories include Clan Marks (covering the marks of all Kindred clans in a single Merit), Covenant Marks (each covenant covered by a separate Merit), or any other category unique to your chronicle’s city (such as a bloodline’s marks). This Merit can be taken multiple times to reflect fluency in multiple marks.
Cant Savvy (••) Book: Damnation City, p. 200 Prerequisite: Intelligence •• and Investigation • or Occult • or Streetwise • Effect: Your character is adept at puzzling out the meanings of occulted graffiti with which she has no fluency . With time, she can decrypt the symbols and numerology of gang tags, Kindred marks, and other secret society glyphs. This enables her to read warning signs, coded directions, and declarations of territory intended for someone else. Your character gains a +2 bonus on the extended action to make sense of foreign and coded glyphs. Once she has decrypted at least three of a group’s marks, she gains a +1 bonus on Social rolls with members of the group.
Carthian Lawyer (••) Book: Carthians, p. 184 Prerequisites: Vampire, Status (Carthians) •, Academics • Effect: This Merit is applicable only in cities where Carthian Law has taken effect (see p. 172). The character has learned to instinctively manipulate the Law to best suit her. This usually indicates that the character has dwelled in the city for a long time and thus has an intuitive and experienced understanding of the tenets that the city’s Kindred have passed, as well as how those tenets have changed over the years. Sometimes such characters were lawyers or scholars in life, but sometimes they are simply people who latch onto Carthian Law easily (which has some interesting implications, depending on what explanation for the Law your troupe uses). The systems for this Merit are included with the mechanics for Carthian Law and can be found on p. 174.
Carthian Pull (• to •••••) Book: Carthians, p. 181 Prerequisite: Vampire, Carthian Pull can never exceed a character’s Covenant Status (Carthians).
Effect: Carthian Pull allows a character to use a network of associates to accomplish tasks that are beyond his normal means. Because he has sowed some effort by working for the Movement, he gets to reap. Pull is not quite the same as Status. Status is an index of respect and esteem. Carthian Pull measures how much a character has gotten done, how much she’s perceived as doing for the covenant and how much the covenant gestalt feels she deserves. Pull goes hand in hand with Covenant Status, inasmuch that someone who is useful but despised is going to have as hard a time getting help as someone who is esteemed but hapless. Once per game month, a character with Carthian Pull can apply it to one of the following Merits: Contacts, Haven, Herd or Resources. This represents a fellow Carthian offering a favor or someone otherwise connected somehow to the Movement offering temporary aid to the character. Example: Roger has Carthian Pull •••. He’s got a fine haven, but he’s on the wrong side of town and needs to lay low and heal after having his ass kicked in an ambush. Because Roger has some pull among his fellow Carthians, he can call in a favor, substituting his Carthian Pull for Haven. In story terms, a Carthian or Carthian sympathizer offers Roger a place to stay, allowing him to act as if he had Haven ••• for the night. The effects of Carthian Pull do not last more than one night. Carthian Pull can be used to augment a Merit the character already possesses (for example, someone with Contacts •• and Carthian Pull • can, once per month, act as if he had Contacts •••), though Merits increased in this fashion can’t go above 5. The player may also choose to parcel out the benefits. A character with Carthian Pull ••• could, say, use it to raise his Resources by two one night and then, a few weeks later, improve his Haven by one for a night. Whenever Carthian Pull is used, its effective level drops by the amount used for one month.
Catacombs (• to •••••) Book: Nosferatu - The Beast That Haunts The Blood, p. 115 Some Necropoli are little more than a series of connected rooms: a rotting set of pocket doors opens to reveal the library, a rusted porthole leads to the temple, and so forth. Others, though, have a great deal of space between the rooms, and in some, this space is a precarious tangle, a true labyrinth. These are the Catacombs. In one Necropolis, the Catacombs are a series of long-forgotten and ill-conceived sewer tunnels, nevermapped and choked with the foul miasma of trapped methane. In another, they are a tortuous knot of abandoned mine tunnels or even an endless series of gutted bomb shelters whose matte gray appearances are damnably similar that over time it becomes impossible to orient oneself in the never-ending sameness. Some Nosferatu carve out their own Catacombs, blasting or hacking away at the rock to forge twisting burrows and narrow bolt-holes. Some even decorate their catacombs with a funhouse flare, with strobe lights, rooms of warped mirrors, floors that move, or concealed speakers that emit unnerving cacophonous notes. Story Use: The Nosferatu use the Catacombs for protection. Those who seek to traverse the grim underground and find the Necropolis have a great deal of trouble navigating the labyrinthine structure, thus providing a potent buffer against the Haunts’ secrets. Those who dare to find the Necropolis often end up wandering the dark tunnels and twisting chambers, hungry, thirsty, blind, mad. They wail as they feel along the walls, driven to fits of hysteria. System: Navigating the tunnels necessitates an extended Wits + Investigation roll, with ten successes required. Each roll is equivalent to one hour’s worth of wandering. Those who do not have dots in the Necropolis Merit suffer a penalty to this roll equal to the owners’ total dots in Catacombs. Those who do possess any dots in the Merit, however, may still have to succeed on the roll. Even the Haunts may find themselves periodically lost in the dark and distorted heart of their own Necropolis. The Catacombs are almost unremittingly dark. Standard Perception rolls are hampered by a standard -3 penalty, and the “Fighting Blind” rules (p. 166, World of Darkness Rulebook) may apply at Storyteller discretion.
Chapter Library (• to •••••) Book: Night Horrors - Immortal Sinners, p. 43 Prerequisite: Covenant Status (Ordo Dracul) (equal to Merit dots), Haven (Size) 1 The Dragons hoard information like few other creatures in the World of Darkness, but are not the best at separating the truths from the fictions, keeping a great deal of esoteric information at their fingertips. The particulars of any given Chapter Library tend to vary greatly from those of any other library, as the media and subjects of research tend to be extremely personal.
For each dot in this Merit, the player chooses a subject of interest. Research rolls made in regard to this subject take the usual amount of time but gain an equipment bonus equal to the rating in the Merit. Furthermore, characters utilizing this Merit may substitute any appropriate Mental Skill for Academics when making a Research roll. For example, an alchemist with a weak understanding of the Liberal Arts might substitute Occult or Science when using Chapter Library (Alchemy) to research his chosen field. Even the best-stocked library doesn’t hold the answer to every question. The information that can be gleaned by digging through the character’s personal library is left to the Storyteller’s discretion.
Close Family (• to •••) Book: Daeva - Kiss Of The Succubus, p. 117 Prerequisite: Must be a vampire. Effect: To the Daeva, family means Blood. Family doesn’t always mean getting along or not screwing each other, but at the end of the night, it’ll be family that comes for your body. Your character’s family line is particularly widespread or in close contact in your local area. Doesn’t matter if they’re a mechanically distinct bloodline or a group of cousins who just keep in touch: when your back’s against the wall, you’ve got somebody to turn to — or at least somebody to be the wall. Once per session, you may add a +3 bonus on a Manipulation + Persuasion or Manipulation + Empathy roll involving a member of your character’s family. The family member isn’t anymore likely to put his life on the line, but he is willing to take a few risks to help your character out. Especially if he sees something in it for him. The number of dots a character possesses in Close Family determines the distance at which this bonus applies: • Immediate Family: Sire or broodmate. •• Middle Distance: Grandsire or first cousin. ••• Distant Kin: Second cousin, member of same bloodline. At her discretion, the Storyteller may apply penalties to a Close Family roll. Some example conditions: -1: Your character has recently asked for a lot of favors, or otherwise slightly annoyed members of his family. -2: Your character’s family may be close, but they have reason to completely ostracize him, such as suspicion that he murdered a member of the family, or having been publicly convicted of a serious crime. Drawback: Familial connections go both ways, particularly if one has called on them in the recent past. A character with this Merit may expect to be asked to assist members of his Blood as well, or risk reducing the rating of this Merit by one dot.
Coder Clique (•) Book: Carthians, p. 181 Prerequisite: Covenant Status (Carthians) •, Computer •• Effect: This is most commonly a website or blog where members discuss coding problems, software issues and other, similar coder chat. While most the members of the group are Carthians, or at least Kindred, they don’t discuss matters vampiric or Movement issues, except perhaps in passing. Private questions are commonly handled via encrypted mail, or (if they’re especially delicate) through arranged face-to-face meetings. Online is where the vampires go to find out whom to meet with, however. Generally, the system works fine, until a mortal in the group accidentally finds out what his email pals really are — usually because one of the Kindred assumed that everyone involved was Damned. When making rolls with the Computer Skill, characters with this Merit may reroll 9s as well as 10s.
Connections (• to •••••) Book: Damnation City, p. 200 Prerequisite: Presence •• and Politics •• or Streetwise ••• Effect: Your character knows who is connected to whom in the feudal hierarchy. He’s met others face to face throughout the social network. He knows names and faces. He knows the relationships between Kindred.
Each dot in this Merit represents knowledge of and rapport with two connections between your character and others in the feudal hierarchy. For example, with just one dot in this Merit (a poor value by itself), your character might have a rapport with his personal feudal lord (up one step from your character) and another of the lord’s vassals (down one step from the lord). With more dots, the character can develop a reasonably accurate picture of the city’s politics. At the Storyteller’s discretion, two connections can be used to forge a connection between the character and another Kindred of the same feudal rank or to recognize a private (invisible) connection between a Kindred of the same feudal rank and any other. Connections with Kindred above the level of Regency (such as the Prince and, in some cities, the Primogen) may be worth two connections as well, at the Storyteller’s discretion. This Merit interacts with the schema described later in this chapter. Each branch of the feudal hierarchy is a connection. With this Merit, a character has a good starting sketch of the city’s feudal schema.
Crucible Ritual (•••) Book: Ordo Dracul, p. 202 Prerequisite: Vampire, Convenant Status • (Ordo Dracul), Resolve •• and one or more tiers of Coils Effect: A crucible, in the jargon of the Ordo Dracul, is a Wyrm’s Nest with a spiritual atmosphere that facilitates the personal awareness and philosophical growth necessary to learn new tiers of the Coils of the Dragon. Not all Dragons are sensitive to the effects of a crucible, however. Fortunately, the covenant’s Masters of the Coils are able to train Kindred to appreciate the subtle effects that crucibles have on the blood and body of a vampire. Some Dragons describe the sensation of being affected by a crucible’s energy as “being washed” or “floating back and forth on a river.” Others say the they feel the influence of a crucible “in the curse.” A character with this Merit is able to make use of the effects tied to a crucible. In most cases, a crucible reduces the cost of purchasing a new tier in a particular Coil of the Dragon by three experience points. Other crucible effects are possible at unique crucibles, as the Storyteller sees fit. All crucibles require some action on the part of the character to “tune in” to the energy of the site. Often, this requires meditation, but some crucibles may require the character to participate in ritual combat, to walk a particular path through the Wyrm’s Nest, to sketch or paint the area or to slumber in its soil. For more on Wyrm’s Nests and crucibles, see p. 40.
Current Events Circle (•) Book: Carthians, p. 182 Prerequisite: Covenant Status (Carthians) •, Politics •• Effect: This is a group that gets together to discuss current events, both mortal and Kindred. These conversations become more and more frank as the members gain trust and confidence in one another. Blabbermouths imperil a group like this, even though the kind of passion that leads to reckless opining can keep such a circle fueled and running. It’s always a careful balance to maintain, especially since someone kicked out for indiscretion is likely to be pissed and to have the political ammo to do something about it. When making rolls with the Politics Skill, characters who have this Merit may reroll 9s as well as 10s.
Dark Temple (••) Book: Nosferatu - The Beast That Haunts The Blood, p. 115 Perhaps it’s a small alter ringed with rat skulls, or a golden urn in which the ashes of an ancient Haunt linger. Or perhaps it’s a bloody pulpit surrounded by rock walls made white with chalk crosses. Somehow, this room hás become consecrated—why or when such a consecration happened is hard to say. The local Haunts may or may not remember. Maybe the Dark Temple lies beneath an open sewer grate that opens up in what they call “Murder Alley,” and over time all that bad blood dripping down left an indelible stain (both physical and spiritual) on the room. Could be that some decrepit Nosferatu Saint (Saint Cheslin of the Boneyard, Splinter of the Monastery of Yellowjackets) makes this room his sarcophagus. Or, perhaps it’s just that this is where the Nosferatu choose to worship, and their grim energy has pooled here like so much sewage.
Story Use: If a Necropolis has a Dark Temple, it is the spiritual center of the city of Haunts. Here they gather to perform rituals in service to some old, mad god or goddess, be it the many monstrous faces of the wretched Crone or the one shining face of the cruel Lord of the Lancea Sanctum. The presence of the Dark Temple is also an indicator of the presence of one or several Nosferatu “holy men,” whether a synod of withered Bishops or a Cybele cult leader who consecrated the temple by castrating himself on the altar, then burning the wound forever shut with the hissing flame of an oil-soaked torch. System: The Dark Temple can only be consecrated for the Lancea Sanctum or the Circle of the Crone; to whom it provides its benefits must be decided at the time of the points purchased. The Storyteller may allow characters to actively attempt to “reconsecrate” the Dark Temple to their own faith. The consecration provides two benefits: usage of either Theban Sorcery or Cruac in this Dark Temple gain +1 to those rituals, depending on whether the temple is sacred to the Crone or the Dark Father. Also, those with Status in the appropriate covenant gain +2 Social dice when speaking to those without such Status while in the Dark Temple.
Debate Club (•) Book: Carthians, p. 182 Prerequisite: Covenant Status (Carthians) •, Persuasion •• Effect: Kindred who like to argue get together, have some sort of structured (or unstructured) discussion, pick a topic for the next time and then leave. The topics sometimes concern distinctly vampiric matters, but more often are oriented to more general philosophy, especially political philosophy. Members not only learn facts about a variety of topics, but also learn persuasive techniques that work on any topic. When making rolls with the Persuasion Skill, characters who have this Merit may reroll 9s as well as 10s.
Devoted (• to •••••) Book: Ancient Mysteries, p. 65 Note: If your chronicle does not incorporate the system of Merit Degeneration, found on page 51 in this book, this Merit does not have any mechanical effect. Effect: When Kindred enter torpor, they often leave a number of assets, relationships, and other loose ends unattended. In many cases, mortal individuals and institutions simply forget about the vampire. On occasion, some of the groups a vampire holds an interest in simply vanish, a casualty of culture, technology or conflict. Kindred who are used to power, influence and prestige do not adjust well to the loss of their comforting control over mortal society. Gathering a host of Devoted followers, descendants, cults, or even worshippers helps to shore up a vampire’s influence that he worked for before entering torpor. The Devoted can be organized in a number of different ways. A preferred ghoul and his family watch over the vampire, knowing that this dark family duty will one day be rewarded. An occult society places magical significance on the torpid vampire, shaping and evolving the secret society around their vigil. An old world crime family, bound by tradition and respect for elders, watches over the family secret and keeps a web of influence ready for the dark ancestor’s return. This Merit allows a vampire to retain a number of Social Merits in the event that he enters torpor for nearly any length of time. Social Merits affected by this Merit include Allies, Contacts, Resources and Retainer. However the player describes the vampire’s Devoted, this mixed group of mortals is charged with supporting the Kindred’s wealth, keeping records on the surrounding populace, and maintaining a presence in institutions in lieu of the slumbering Kindred. For each dot the character possesses in the Devoted Merit, the player may assign two automatic successes to a single at-risk Merit. Example: Referring to the previous example of Maxwell’s Merits, he also has the Devoted Merit at two dots. Of the three Merits at risk (Allies 4, Contacts 2, and Resources 3), he may choose two of them, assigning two automatic successes to those two merits’ dice pools before rolling. He chooses Contacts and Resources, ensuring the retention of the entire Contacts Merit and only needing a single success on the roll for Resources in order to retain all of the dots in that Merit. The player must roll for the Allies Merit as usual.
Distant Sympathy (••) Book: Ancient Mysteries, p. 66
Prerequisite: Blood Potency 6 Effect: The normal limits of distance do not apply to the vampire with this Merit when determining what she is able to sense through Blood Sympathy (Vampire: The Requiem, p. 163). While a vampire is normally limited to the metropolitan area, or roughly 50 miles, a vampire with this Merit has extended this range to virtually any place in the world. This Merit does not allow a vampire to “transmit” across vast distances; for that, she is still limited to the normal distance limitations.
Doll Face (•) Book: Mekhet - Shadown In The Dark, p. 118 Effect: No matter how badly the character got messed up last night, when she awakens from her daily slumber she is always groomed immaculately, without need for a mirror or a servant to do the work for her. Her hair and make-up are exactly as they were the night before. Her skin is as clean as it was the night she was Embraced. The vampire instinctively knows this to be the case. Vampires with this Merit whose Humanity scores fall low enough to severely impact their interaction with mortal humans begin to look like dolls or mannequins. Their uncanny grooming makes them too perfect, too artificial. Just as normal, it costs a Willpower point for a vampire with this Merit to make a permanent change to her appearance.
Domain (• to •••••) Book: Damnation City, p. 200 Prerequisite: Fealty Flaw Effect: Your character is lord over a domain granted to him by an overlord. Like the Haven Merit, the Domain Merit actually encompasses several other related Merits. Most of these “under- Merits” closely resemble their counterparts from the Haven Merit (see Vampire: The Requiem, p. 100-102). In many cases, your character’s ratings in this Merit won’t be variable, but rather given to you by the Storyteller to reflect a domain already in existence in the game world. You may be able to gradually increase certain values of these Merits with experience points, but changing the character of a neighborhood doesn’t simply happen and certainly does not happen because your character solved a mystery last week. The Storyteller must oversee alterations to this Merit. See “Designing Domains,” p. 203, for guidelines on creating and altering domains. The following Domain Merits are each purchased or defined separately. Domain Location (• to •••••) Effect: This Merit generally measures how easy it is for a vampire to hunt within the Domain. Each dot of Domain Location grants a +1 bonus to hunting rolls for any character in the domain, whether resident or trespasser. This Merit also defines the maximum number of dots in Haven Location a resident Kindred can have here. Your character, as the lord of the Domain, may impose a lower maximum on a tenant, vassal, or simple resident by demanding she nest in some secluded part of the territory. This Merit is not identical to the Feeding Ground Merit. Feeding Ground represents a body of mortals suitable for hunting regardless (or even in spite of) the general atmosphere and landscape of the area. Dots in Domain Location cannot be “cashed in” for dots in Herd. This Merit is its own drawback. Better feeding grounds attract trespassers who often bring trouble with them. The lord of a domain with a good Location has to protect it. Domain Quality: Interactive (• to •••••) Effect: The Domain Quality Merit describes the Domain’s influence over actions in the area and the nature of its populace. In practical terms, it defines the maximum modifiers, positive or negative, the Domain can have in its Interactive Attributes (see p. 251). An Interactive Attribute can have a positive or negative modifier up to the number of dots in this Merit. Thus, with two dots in this Merit, the Domain can have a +1, –1, +2 or –2 ratings in Access, Information, and Prestige. An Attribute does not have to be rated to the maximum possible modifier, but no Attribute’s modifier can exceed the dots in this Merit. So, with Domain Quality: Interactive •• the Domain could have Access –2, Information +1 and Prestige +2. Domain Quality: Reactive (• to •••••)
Effect: The Domain Quality Merit describes the Domain’s influence over actions in the area and the nature of its populace. In practical terms, it defines the maximum modifiers, positive or negative, the Domain can have in its Reactive Attributes (see p. 251). A Reactive Attribute can have a positive or negative modifier up to the number of dots in this Merit. Thus, with two dots in this Merit, the Domain can have a +1, –1, +2 or –2 ratings in Safety, Awareness and Stability. An Attribute does not have to be rated to the maximum possible modifier, but no Attribute’s modifier can exceed the dots in this Merit. So, with Domain Quality: Reactive ••• the Domain could have Safety +2, Information –3 and Prestige –1. Domain Size (• to •••••) Effect: Domain Size measures the amount of physical ground your Domain covers. More is not always better. A larger Domain means more land to patrol and defend, more space for Kindred trespassers to slip in or even lair unnoticed, and more room for troubles to emerge. More land, however, generally also means greater Status and prestige among other Kindred in the feudal hierarchy. Domain Size isn’t a precise measure of blocks or miles. It’s a relative measure of the domain compared to the city and its Districts. In general, each dot of Domain Size should correspond roughly to the lord’s station in the feudal hierarchy — the lowliest domains are Domain Size • while all but the most modest or tokenappointed Regents are Domain Size •••••. (The Prince doesn’t count his dominion by Domain Size as his Domain trumps everyone else’s — it’s the whole damn city.) In some cities a single dot of Domain Size might represent three or four blocks of turf while in others it could be nine or ten streets wide. It depends on the size of the city and the Prince’s standards for the number of domains her city should have. The guiding rule of Domain Size is its relationship to the Tenant and Vassal Merits. Your character can purchase a Tenant or Vassal Merit once for each dot of Domain Size. Resident Kindred who keep havens in the domain, but have no formal claim to land under the lord, count for about half a dot of Domain Size as an abstract measurement, but the Storyteller should adjust that measurement relative to the size of the domain. A nest with five dots in Haven Size may be worth a whole dot of Domain Size in a small city or crowded District where a mansion sized lair would be almost impossible to maintain under the Masquerade. The Masquerade is always a looming factor in determining what kinds of havens are suitable for the Domain Size. (But don’t discount the ability of a domain to contain hidden networks of rooms in defunct office buildings or even abandoned subway stations serving as palatial havens.) This Merit, therefore, doesn’t necessarily limit the number of dots that local havens can have in Haven Size. The Storyteller has the right to set a limit in order to reflect the nature of the domain’s neighborhood, but it’s not essential. Regardless of limits imposed by the domain, the lord of the land always has the right to limit the size of local havens. It’s his right to decide how much of his land another Kindred receives. Some lords cite the Masquerade when forcing their tenants into smaller havens, but the fact is that lordly fiat is all the justification they need. Domain Security (• to •••••) Domain Security reflects the general safety of the area, either as the result of police oversight or the proximity of Hounds or a surplus of gated condos and iron grilled storefronts. Domain Security interacts with the local District’s Attributes (and thus the Domain Quality Merits) but doesn’t override them. Neither does it dictate a limit on Haven Security dots in the domain. Domain Security modifies the likelihood of thieves and muggers in the domain. Each dot of Domain Security imposes a –1 die penalty on rolls to locate or hire characters specializing in Skills like Larceny, Stealth, Streetwise, and Subterfuge. This penalty does not apply to the actual physical acts of breaking and entering, though; that’s covered by the Security dots of individual buildings like havens. Rather, Domain Security reduces the need for dots in Haven Security. The Storyteller could assume that an average neighborhood in the city is prowled by muggers and thieves with an average dice pool of 7 plus or minus Stability modifiers. The Storyteller rolls that particular dice pool to determine if a random act of crime or violence emerges from the background to spice up the chapter. A success indicates a couple of muggers or a car thief. An exceptional success could indicate an armed robbery, drive-by shooting, or open shootout in the street. Dots in Domain Security, modified by Safety, are rolled to contest the random crime roll. The domain’s rating in Haven Security (modified by District Attributes) can be rolled, with each success reducing the response time by one minute from a base starting time of ten minutes, to determine the response time of local police. Strictly speaking, a lord may impose a ruling on the security measures of local havens — declaring blaring alarms off limits or demanding Kindred have barred windows — but it is not his feudal right to do so. The space within a Kindred’s haven is his own. That is where every vampire is a lord.
Dream Visions (•••) Book: Mekhet - Shadown In The Dark, p. 119 Effect: More than any other clan, the Mekhet dream. And sometimes, between bizarre, gory, awful dreams of death and transformation and blood, they dream of places they haven’t been to and people they haven’t yet met. Sometimes, during some later night, they find themselves going to those places or meeting those people (Nitokris, Vincent Moon and Elisabeta all dreamed of Frances before they met her, for example). With this Merit, your character can make use of his dream-visions. The first time (and only the first time) he meets another person or visits a place, the player can make a roll of Blood Potency. If it’s a success, the player can ask one (and only one) question about the person or place, which must be phrased so that it can be answered truthfully with “Yes,” “No,” or “Maybe.” The roll can only be made once regarding any individual, and the roll can only be attempted once a scene (meaning that, for example, if the character meets two vampires for the first time, the player must choose which of them to ask the question about, because he won’t ever get the chance to ask about the other). Note: Though this Merit is not restricted to Mekhet characters, it is found among the Shadows more often than any other clan.
Encounter Group (•) Book: Carthians, p. 182 Prerequisite: Covenant Status (Carthians) •, Empathy •• Effect: The Carthians borrow freely and widely from mortal organizations. One organization from which some borrow is Alcoholics Anonymous. Others were Embraced after the advent of widespread group therapy. If Kindred were in a support group before they died, they almost certainly feel some inclination to get in one after. Encounter groups for Kindred are scheduled opportunities for vampires to discuss personal matters in what’s supposed to be a safe, nonjudgmental and supportive environment. They can discuss practical things (“How do I keep his wife from finding out?”) and more emotional issues (“I keep getting romantically involved with my — you know — the people I feed on.”) The advice varies widely in terms of actual value, but one side effect of an encounter group is that it can help you learn the signs of real emotional trauma, as well as the tells of incomplete honesty. When making rolls with the Empathy Skill, characters who have this Merit may reroll 9s as well as 10s.
Feeding Ground (• to •••••) Book: Damnation City, p. 202 Prerequisite: Fealty Flaw (for •••• or ••••• only) Effect: Your character has been granted one of a limited number of exclusive hunting grounds in the city. This hunting ground is like a private patch of land to farm, which is making your character at least a crofter in the feudal hierarchy. Even with a large or rich hunting ground (•••• or •••••, say), your character does not have any feudal rank without the City Status Merit or any real authority without the Domain Merit. Exclusive hunting grounds grant a dice pool bonus to hunting attempts made therein. That bonus should range from +1 to +3. Each increasing bonus in hunting dice pools should be proportionally rare and at a rarity determined by the Storyteller to represent the scarcity or bounty of easy Vitae in the domain. For example, there may be four hunting grounds of +3 value in the domain, 12 of +2 value, and 36 of +1 value. These values are not cumulative; time spent hunting in one feeding ground precludes time spent hunting in another. As an option, the player may choose to “cash in” a hunting ground in order to cultivate a number of Herd Merit points equal to the original bonus. This effectively reduces the bonus of that hunting ground to +0 permanently. (Kindred may continue to hunt there, but they simply don’t gain the benefit of the bonus anymore.) Multiple Kindred may share the benefit of a plentiful hunting ground, but overtaxing the local vessels is a quick way to scare people off and thus reduce the bonus. Each time in one month that more than a single character takes advantage of the bonus in a specific hunting ground on a single night, make a note of it. If such occurs more than the value of the bonus in that single month, the bonus is negated completely until the Storyteller deems otherwise.
Fighting Style: Swarm (• to •••••) Book: Wicked Dead, p. 106 Any vampire that fights the Larvae and survives can pass along this piece of wisdom to his fellows—“Do not let them surround you.” A pack of Larvae doesn’t have much in the way of intelligence, but more than makes up for it in animal cunning, ferocity and tenacity. This Fighting Style simulates the way in which a pack of Larvae takes down its prey. Note that only a true pack of Larvae uses the Swarm. If, for some reason, several unaffiliated Larvae wound up in the same place at the same time, and a convenient victim was nearby, the minions would be just as likely to attack each other as the vessel. They certainly would not use any of the maneuvers listed here, even if they knew them. Not all Larvae are equally talented in battle, and so not all of them have access to all levels of the Fighting Style. The Storyteller needs to decide, when using Larvae in a battle, which minions have access to the Swarm and at what rating. It might be simpler to assume that all members of a pack have the same rating, rather than write out traits for a large group of them, of course. Dots purchased (or granted) in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers. Each dot is a prerequisite for the next one, so a Larva can’t have Set-Up until he has Dogpile. All Larvae involved in a given maneuver have to have the requisite dots in this Merit to enact it, except for Sever Limbs (see below). • Synchronicity: The Larvae anticipate one another’s moves, waiting for an unspoken signal before moving in. The Storyteller makes one initiative roll for the Larvae, using the character with the highest Initiative modifier. All members of the pack act on this initiative. •• Dogpile: The Larvae attack a single target simultaneously, grappling him and holding him down. A maximum of three Larvae can enact this maneuver at once. Use the grappling system found on p. 157 of The World of Darkness Rulebook, except that the Larvae use the teamwork rules (found on p. 134 of that book). The primary actor subtracts the target’s full Defense rating from the roll, but if the roll succeeds, the character is grappled by all of the participating Larvae. This means that to break free, the grappled character’s player must roll Strength + Brawl – the highest Strength rating of the grappling Larvae + 1 for each additional Larva. The grappling Larva can bite the target on the next turn, but cannot enact other Swarm maneuvers. ••• Set-Up: One Larva moves in and absorbs a blow from a victim. As the blow lands, the next Larva attacks, taking advantage of his packmate’s sacrifice. The first Larva sacrifices his Defense, taking no action for the turn. If the target attacks the “sacrificial” Larva, another member of the pack can attack the target and gain a +2 to the attack roll. Only one Larva can take advantage of this maneuver in a turn. •••• Eyes Everywhere: Since Larvae have an intuitive sense of each other’s positions and current situation, they are extremely difficult to overwhelm. All Larvae in a given combat scene with this level of Swarm do not suffer from the Defense penalty due to multiple attacks in the same turn (see p. 155 of The World of Darkness Rulebook). ••••• Sever Limbs: Once a pack of Larvae has grappled a target using Dogpile, it can hold the target immobile allowing devastating attacks from other members of the swarm. By chewing through the target’s flesh at joints, the Larvae can sever a target’s arm or leg in a matter of seconds. This is an extended action, during which the target must remain immobilized in the grapple. The attack roll comes from a Larva not involved in the Dogpile (and whose Strength doesn’t contribute to the penalty for breaking free, therefore). The Storyteller makes the Larva’s attack roll as usual. The target’s Defense does not apply. The Larva must accumulate a number of successes equal to the (target’s Stamina x 2) + Resilience (if any). If the Larva manages to accumulate these successes before the target breaks free, the creature chews through the target’s elbow, shoulder or knee and removes the attached limb. To a living target, this immediately fills the character’s Health track with Lethal damage (meaning that the character is bleeding out), even if the successes on the attack roll(s) were not sufficient to do this. To a vampire, the loss of the limb is obviously terrifying and inconvenient, but the vampire won’t bleed to death. He merely suffers the Lethal damage indicated by the Larva’s attacks. Only the Larva making the chewing attack needs to have Fighting Style: Swarm •••••. Example: A pack of four Larvae attack a hapless mortal walking home one night. Three of them (each with Swarm ••) grapple him, while the fourth (with Swarm •••••) chews through his arm. The man’s Stamina is 2, his Health rating is 7 and he has no wounds going into the fight. That means that Larva needs 4 successes to chew through his arm. The Storyteller rolls 3 successes on the first turn and 2 on the second. This indicates 5 levels of Lethal damage, but it’s also enough to separate the man from his arm. This fills his Health track with Lethal damage and he immediately begins to bleed out (as described on p. 173 of The World of Darkness Rulebook). Of course, the Larvae will surely drain his blood in the next few seconds, killing him. If the hapless wanderer had been a vampire with Resilience 1, the Larvae would have a much harder time of it. For one thing, once the vampire activated Resilience, his effective Stamina increases to 3, meaning the
Larva needs 7 successes to sever the limb (Stamina 3 x 2 = 6 + Resilience 1 = 7). At that point, it’s more likely that the Larva will put the vampire into torpor than take off his arm.
Fighting Style: Swarm Tactics (• to ••) Book: Carthians, p. 183 Prerequisite: Vampire, Covenant Status (Carthians) •, Brawl or Weaponry •• Effect: Your character has been trained to fight cooperatively, as a member of a tactical unit instead of just a lone brawler. Originally developed by anarchist demonstrators to overwhelm armed and protected (but outnumbered) police, Swarm Tactics offer Carthians distinct advantages against battle-Disciplined Kindred or other foes. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. So, your character can’t have “Unexpected Strike” until he has “Feint.” The maneuvers and their effects are detailed below. All can be used with either Brawl or Weaponry. Feint (•): You may declare that you’re making a Feint, and then roll a normal Brawl or Weaponry attack against a single opponent. If the roll succeeds, it does no damage, but anyone else who attacks that opponent can use Unexpected Strike if he knows how. The opponent is vulnerable until the end of the turn. Unexpected Strike (••): If you attack someone who has successfully been fooled by a Feint, you can take 9 Again with your attack, even if the weapon you’re using typically allows only 10 Again. If you attack someone who has been fooled by two Feints, you can take 8 Again as well.
Font Ritual (••) Book: Ordo Dracul, p. 202 Prerequisite: Vampire, Convenant Status • (Ordo Dracul), Academics • and Occult •• Effect: To make use of the spiritual powers contained in the Wyrm’s Nests called wellheads or fontal nests, a Dragon must know an arcane ritual capable of harnessing and channeling that power into a medium suitable for vampires: blood. Before a vampire can learn those abstruse rituals, however, she must be trained in the ways of blood attunement and ritual memorization. Learning rituals is demanding — it requires the Dragon to develop a sort of psychic muscle memory for the words, behaviors and acts of will necessary to invoke a ritual’s power. But before the Dragon can “train her blood” to perform a ritual, she must learn how to learn, in a sense. A character with this Merit can purchase and perform fontal rituals (described on p. 209). In addition, this Merit grants the character a +2 bonus on Wits-based dice pools to investigate or locate nearby fontal nests. This Merit grants no bonus on dice pool for mystic extrapolation, but does aid in dousing (see p. 42).
Garbage Pit (••) Book: Nosferatu - The Beast That Haunts The Blood, p. 116 Trash has to go somewhere. Welcome to the Garbage Pit (which like many of the chambers listed here may have its own name in the Necropolis: The Shit Pit, perhaps, or simply, The Ditch). In some cases, it’s the trash from the world above. Garbage seems to ceaselessly wind its way downward, as if seeking interment and decay. Other trash comes from the Nosferatu themselves: old blood-stained clothing, broken masks, pilfered goods from victims, and so forth. Garbage Pits come in many shapes: a big broad room that stinks of motor oil, curry, mold; a pile of metal parts strewn across several chambers, the floor practically lined with raw tetanus; or a collection of bins which gives the appearance of some kind of organization and neatness but is truly just a bunch of bins filled with refuse and debris. Story Use: The Garbage Pit finds many uses among the Necropolis Haunts. Looking for a present for your true love (a ghoul chained to a pipe on the other side of the underground kingdom)? Dig around, see what you can find. Need to hide a couple of corpses? The Garbage Pit is glad to swallow them up. Is the Necropolis compromised with enemies traversing and stalking the halls? Lead them to an ambush in the Garbage Pit, where the freaks lie in wait… System: The Garbage Pit provides a handful of unconnected benefits. The first is that when aiming to use Crafts to jury-rig a device, a Nosferatu’s player can make an extended Wits + Investigation roll to look for a
“missing part.” Five successes are necessary, and each roll is an hour of digging deep into the debris and waste. Second, any Nosferatu with points invested in the Necropolis gains a +2 to Stealth rolls performed within the Garbage Pit (imagine as him dancing across a floating pig carcass, deftly leaping to an oil drum and ducking behind na old Vaudeville sign—all in perfect silence). Third, the Nosferatu are home amongst the trash, and gain +1 Initiative here.
Geomantic Nexus (• to ••••• and • to •••; Special) Book: Ordo Dracul, p. 202 Prerequisite: Vampire, Convenant Status • (Ordo Dracul), Occult ••• and Wits •• Effect: Many Dragons within the Order are fascinated with geomancy — the magic of locations and spatial arrangements. While the Order’s version of geomancy borrows heavily from traditional feng shui and the European study of ley lines, their long spans of study (and their undead patience) have taken it in some unique directions. Characters with this Merit have a carefully maintained space that enhances good fortune on actions performed within it. This “fortune” takes the form of a dice pool bonus on rolls involving a specific trait. For instance, a library might be arranged to grant a +2 bonus on Intelligence dice pools, while a ceremonial chamber might be altered to provide a +1 bonus on dice pools based on Presence. These bonuses only apply to actions taken inside the space. This Merit works somewhat like the Haven Merit, and can even be combined with it. Geomantic Nexus is actually two interconnected Merits. Geomantic Nexus Size defines the size of the nexus (from • to •••••), using the same scale as the Haven Merit (reprinted here for your convenience). Geomantic Nexus Potency defines the potency of the nexus (from • to •••). If your character already has a space defined with the Haven Merit, she can apply the Geomantic Nexus Potency Merit directly to that space without “buying it again.” Thus, your character can even add a geomantic effect to a shared haven or to someone else’s haven. • A small apartment, a suite or a shop; 1-2 rooms •• A large apartment or small home; 3-4 rooms ••• A small warehouse, a church or a large home; 5-8 rooms •••• A mansion, a warehouse or a medium-sized office building; 9-15 rooms ••••• A sprawling estate or several floors of a tall building; 16+ rooms Each dot purchased in Geomantic Nexus Potency adds a +1 bonus to dice pools based on a single Attribute. The Attribute a space affects cannot be changed, but it can be replaced by purchasing this Merit again. A space can only be affected by one instance of the Geomantic Nexus Potency Merit. Therefore, a given space can be aligned with only one Attribute. Example: Victor already has three dots in the Haven Size Merit when he buys his third dot in the Occult Skill and becomes eligible to purchase the Geomantic Nexus Merit. Rather than creating his geomantic nexus somewhere outside his haven, Victor chooses to buy two dots in Geomantic Nexus for his haven. Victor’s player spends only the experience points necessary to buy Geomantic Nexus Potency ••, and chooses to align his nexus with Wits — Victor doesn’t want to be surprised in his sleep. This Merit presumes that your character has regular access to the space in question and is able to perform regular geomantic maintenance on it. Your character doesn’t have to own the space or be in charge of it, she just needs regular access to it. The time requirements of geomantic maintenance depend on the size of the space and the size of the bonus. A good rule of thumb is that a space requires about one hour of mystic adjustment and careful alignment every month for every room that grants the bonus. In many cases, this maintenance time won’t be important, but in some stories, time is a factor. Either a whole space is successfully maintained, or it’s not. Two hours of work on a mansion that normally requires 10 hours of geomantic upkeep aren’t sufficient to maintain the bonus in two rooms, for example. The mystic alignment of the whole space must be correct, or there is no bonus. If a space goes untended for one month, its geomantic effects are suspended. To restore the bonus, your character must dedicate sufficient hours to maintenance for the month; it’s not necessary to purchase this Merit again unless you want to adjust the geomantic state of a whole new space. Note that one aligned site can’t exist inside a larger one. It’s not possible to have a +1 bonus to Manipulation dice pools in the bedroom and a +3 bonus to Presence dice pools everywhere else in the house, for example. Disrupting a positive arrangement isn’t too hard: change enough elements and the balance is ruined. Trashing a room, repainting a house, tearing out the grove of Spanish moss-draped cypress trees on the estate — all these things can disrupt positive geomancy. Generally speaking, a roll isn’t even required as long as destruction is occurring. It’s up to the Storyteller’s judgment when enough damage has been done, but in no event is it possible to mess up a good vibe and have the Dragon who maintains it fail to notice.
Ghost Eater (•••) Book: Book Of The Dead, p. 54 Prerequisite: Vampire Effect: The character can draw sustenance from ghosts even outside of the Underworld. While she doesn’t retain the ability simply to walk up to a ghost and feed from it, she can claim Vitae from ghosts under certain circumstances. This Merit requires that the character has learned to feed from ghosts in the Underworld as described above. When the character learns to feed in the Underworld, the player may at any point after that (provided the character is still in the Underworld) expend the experience points necessary to purchase this Merit (12 points). Thereafter, the character can touch a ghost’s anchor and steal Essence from the ghost, one point per turn, just as if the vampire was feeding on blood. Onlookers see the vampire’s eyes glow a faint blue color, and the anchor shudders slightly under her touch. Ghosts can sense when their anchors are being violated thus, and are free to defend them as they see fit. This makes ghost-eating a risky form of feeding. Also, this Merit doesn’t help a vampire find a ghost’s anchor (though nothing stops her from touching everything in a given haunted area trying to find it). But since ghosts regain Essence by remaining near their anchors, a vampire with this Merit that discovers an anchor or brings one to her Haven has a potentially unlimited supply of Vitae, and no mortals have to die. Drawback: Of course, everything comes with a price. A vampire that feeds exclusively on Essence gradually loses the ability to feed on anything else. If the Kindred consumes Essence for a number of months equal to her Humanity, and feeds on blood less than once a week on average, she loses the ability to take nourishment from blood. She can only gain Vitae from Essences. Vampires to whom this happens usually either amass a collection of anchors, or flee to the Underworld for good.
Good Breeding (• to •••) Book: Ventrue - Lords Over The Damned, p. 106 Prerequisite: Cannot have dots in Bad Breeding. Only certain bloodlines and clans in the city qualify as “well bred” for the purposes of this Merit, but who is esteemed varies from city to city. The Storyteller has final say on what clans or bloodlines make a character eligible for this Merit in the local city. Effect: Your character is part of a bloodline or family line regarded as admirable, classy, refined, dutiful or otherwise noble according to Ventrue tastes (and the customs they promote throughout Kindred society). This counterpart to the Bad Breeding Merit carries with it a distinct connotation of poise and excellence to those Lords who concern themselves with ancestry and parentage, but that connotation is subjective – Kindred expect a certain decorum from a well-bred vampire. This Merit represents your character’s ability to use traditional preconceptions of his social standing to his own advantage. As a creature of fashion and taste, your character might be able to pass off an exposed lie as a polite gesture, present his opinion as something more valuable than it is, or explain away his secrecy as discretion. It isn’t considered rude for your character to miss appointments or excuse himself from difficult situations. In game terms, this Merit grants a bonus to Social dice pools when, at the Storyteller’s discretion, the reputation of your character, his sire, his clan, or his bloodline influences the Kindred or ghoul he is trying to affect. You may choose to invoke a bonus up to the number of dots your character has in this Merit, depending on how aggressively your character takes advantage of other’s preconceptions. Remember, though, that this is a Social Merit – a white-collar reputation doesn’t actually grant your character any special knowledge of politics or finance. The bonus from this Merit is useful only when dealing with characters who care about lineage, reputation, and breeding among the Damned. Even then, it is limited by the overriding importance of Status. While your character (through your clever play) may be able to use Good Breeding to distract from his lack of useful Covenant Status, Kindred of great rank are likely to care more about their authority than your character’s breeding. A character with more dots of Status than you have in this Merit is not subject to your Good Breeding bonus. (For example, the Priscus doesn’t find your character’s parentage impressive if you can’t back it up with actual authority.) Drawback: When you choose to make use of the Good Breeding bonus in a given scene, your character is taking advantage of preconceptions. Those same preconceptions can work against him. Later, the Storyteller may penalize a dice pool by imposing a modifier equal to the bonus you invoked earlier, depending on how other characters in the scene regard yours. The bonus to Socialize you gained from your reputation as a
prestigious social accessory might penalize a Subterfuge roll later on, when you try to claim you weren’t at that party.
Haunted Channel (• to •••••) Book: Nosferatu - The Beast That Haunts The Blood, p. 109 Effect: When a ghost endeavors to communicate with the Nosferatu or manifest near the character, the ghost gains a number of dice equal to the dots purchased in this Merit. The Nosferatu gains no control over the ghost, but the ghost finds it has a much easier time communicating with the Nosferatu than with others, whether manifesting or communicating without Numina, or attempting to use Numina such as Clairvoyance, Ghost Sign or Ghost Speech. The ghost gains nothing to rolls made in attempt to harm the Nosferatu (though insulting or threatening communications still gain the bonus).
Haunted Hand (• to •••••) Book: Nosferatu - The Beast That Haunts The Blood, p. 109 Effect: Whenever the Nosferatu makes a roll against a ghost (be it a roll to communicate with it, abjure it, exorcise it, or use a blessed item against it), the Nosferatu gains a number of dice equal to the dots purchased in this Merit. This bonus doesn’t apply when attempting to affect a ghost’s anchor.
Haven (• to •••••; Special) Book: Vampire: The Requiem Core, p. 100 Effect: A haven is a place where a vampire sleeps, protected from the sun during the deadly daylight hours. Legends tell of vampires in dark, twisted citadels on high mountain peaks, complete with labyrinthine catacombs, but the reality is far less grandiose. In truth, a haven can be as simple as a sewer or an abandoned warehouse or a crate in a forgotten storage closet, as long as it is undisturbed between dawn and dusk. All havens are not created equal. A warehouse might have plenty of space and proximity to a significant amount of prey, but it might not be secure against unwanted visitors. An abandoned subway car in a longforgotten tunnel has space and adequate security, but it might be so far out of the way that finding prey is difficult. Great time and effort is spent finding suitable havens, and their value is represented by three factors — location, size and security. Players who choose this Merit must also choose how to allocate these three factors when spending points. For instance, two points may be spent on Haven Location, with a third spent on Haven Security. A good Haven Location makes it easier for a vampire to feed, situated near a meeting place for large numbers of humans. A haven with many dots in this category might be close to several nightclubs or bars that do considerable nighttime business, while one with few dots might simply be close to a bus or train station that brings travelers on a regular basis. Each dot of Haven Location grants a +1 die bonus on hunting checks for the character who controls it and any whom she allows in. Havens without any dots in Location are sufficiently secluded so as to not provide any bonus. Haven Size is important to characters who need a place to safely store their possessions and valuables. A haven with no dots in Haven Size is just large enough for its owner and perhaps a single companion, with minimal if any storage capacity— the aforementioned crate in the forgotten storage closet, or a cramped apartment. By spending points to increase a haven’s size, a player allows for accoutrements and personal effects. Larger havens can be anything from mansions to mountain hideaways to vast subterranean catacombs. Note, however, that havens of considerable size are not necessarily easy to maintain. • A small apartment or underground chamber; 1-2 rooms •• A large apartment or small family home; 3-4 rooms ••• A warehouse, church or large home; 5-8 rooms, or large enclosure •••• A abandoned mansion or network of subway tunnels; equivalent of 9-15 rooms or chambers ••••• A sprawling estate or vast network of tunnels; countless rooms or chambers Of course, Haven Location and Haven Size do not prevent rival vampires from attempting to find and steal choice havens, nor do they prevent intrusion by mortals (police, criminal organizations, social workers). Players of characters who wish to ensure privacy and safety may choose to spend points on Haven Security, thus making it difficult for others to gain entrance. Havens with no dots in Haven Security can be found by
those intent enough to look, and offer little protection once they have been breached. Each dot of Haven Security subtracts one die from efforts to intrude into the haven by anyone a character doesn’t specifically allow in. This increased difficulty may be because the entrance is so difficult to locate (behind a bookcase, under a carpet) or simply difficult to penetrate (behind a vault door). Also, each dot of Haven Security offers a +1 bonus on Initiative for those inside against anyone attempting to gain entrance (good sight lines, video surveillance). Characters whose players spend no points at all on Haven might have their own small, humble havens, or perhaps they share the haven of a sire or Prince. In any event, they simply do not gain the mechanical benefits of those who have spent Merit points improving the quality of their homes. Each aspect of the Haven Merit has a limit of 5. In other words, Haven Location, Haven Size and Haven Security may not rise above 5 (to a maximum of 15 points spent on this Merit). Special: It’s possible for the Haven Merit to be shared among characters in a close-knit group. They might simply be devoted to one another and willing to pool what they have, or perhaps their mutual reliance on an individual or trust could bring them together to share what they have in common. To share this Merit, two or more characters simply have to be willing to pool their dots for greater capability. A shared rating in the Haven Merit cannot rise higher than five dots in any of the three aspects of the trait. That is, characters cannot pool more than five points to be devoted to, say, Haven Size. If they wish to devote extra points to the Merit, they must allocate those dots to a different aspect of the Merit, such as Location or Security. Shared Haven dots can be lost. Coterie members or associates might be abused or mistreated, ending relationships. Group members might perform actions that cast themselves (and the group) in a bad light. Money might be spent or lost. If any group member does something to diminish the haven, its dots decrease for all group members. That’s the weakness of sharing dots in this Merit. The chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The Storyteller dictates when character actions or events in a story compromise shared Haven dots. Characters can also leave a shared haven. A rift might form between close Kindred. A character might meet Final Death. Or one could be kicked out of the haven by the others. When a character leaves a shared-Haven relationship, the dots he contributed are removed from the pool. If the individual still survives, he doesn’t get all his dots back for his own purposes. He gets one less than he originally contributed. So, if a character breaks a relationship with his coterie, his two Haven dots are lost by the group, but he gets only one dot back for his own purposes. The lost dot represents the cost or bad image that comes from the breakup. If all members agree to part ways, they all lose one dot from what they originally contributed. The Storyteller decides what reduced dots mean in the story when a character leaves a shared haven. Perhaps no one else picks up the character’s attention to Haven Security, leaving that to drop. The haven might not be tended as fastidiously, causing a drop in the Haven Location value. Maybe a portion of the haven falls into disuse or even collapses, causing an effective drop in Haven Size. Whatever the case, a plausible explanation must be determined. A character need not devote all of her Haven dots to the shared Haven Merit, of course. A Kindred might maintain a separate haven of her own outside the communal one represented by the shared trait. Any leftover dots that a character has (or is unwilling to share) signify what she has to draw upon as an individual, separate from her partners. For example, three characters share a haven and expend a group total of five dots. One character chooses to use two other dots on a private haven for herself. Those remaining two dots represent a haven entirely separate from what she and her partners have established together. To record a shared Haven Merit on your character sheet, put an asterisk next to the name of the Haven Merit and fill in the total dots that your character has access to thanks to his partnership. In order to record his original contribution, write it in parentheses along with the Merit’s name. It is not important to note which aspect of the Haven Merit on which those points are spent, as this allows greater flexibility should a character ever decide to withdraw from the community arrangement. The result looks like this:
MERITS Heaven* (2) •••• Heaven ••• Retainer •• In this example, the character shares a Haven Merit dedicated to the coterie’s communal shelter. He contributes two dots to the relationship, and the group has a total of four dots that are made available to each member. The character also has his own private Haven Merit rated •••, which he maintains by himself. And, the character has Retainer rated •• that is also his own Merit.
Haven (Occultation) (• to •••••) Book: Mekhet - Shadown In The Dark, p. 119 Prerequisite: Haven Size ••• or less Effect: Some Vampires become so linked to the places they inhabit that they somehow imbue these places with something of their own being. The Shadows are particularly good at this: consider the boarded-up house that everyone walks past, but no-one ever looks at, or the basement room that everyone forgets, or the attic that Frances used to inhabit, with the trapdoor that no one ever looked at. This is an extension of the Haven Merit (Vampire: The Requiem, p. 100) which works alongside Haven Size, Location and Security. The larger a haven, the more difficult it is to hide: a character with Haven Size of more than three dots cannot take advantage of this Merit. A haven belonging to a vampire with this Merit simply becomes very difficult to find: characters who have never been to the haven who try to find a way to access it suffer a dice pool penalty equal to the character’s dots in the Merit; characters who don’t know it is there at all don’t normally notice it, but if it comes to rolling Wits + Composure to notice it, they suffer the same penalty.
Herd (• to •••••) Book: Vampire: The Requiem Core, p. 102 Some vampires tire of the hunt and seek to develop a small group of mortals upon whom they can feed without fear. Such a herd may take many forms, from a brothel of prostitutes to a blood cult worshipping a vampiric god. These mortals provide nourishment without the difficulties of the hunt. Typically, herds are not very controllable or closely connected to the vampires who use them, nor do they possess great skill in any one area. (For effective agents, the Allies or Retainers Merit is more suitable.) Each dot of Herd adds one die to feeding rolls (p. 164).
House Membership (• or •••) Book: The Invictus, p. 187 Prerequisite: Vampire or ghoul Effect: This Merit measures your character’s involvement in a cyclical House. This Merit reflects his commitment to, and influence with, the other members of the House and is a prerequisite for all other Dynastic Merits. Each level of this Merit represents a different relationship to the character’s House. Trusted (•): Your character, whether Kindred or ghoul, is trusted by the members of the dynasty, possibly being groomed for eventual participation. For all purposes of House law, your character is a participant in the House. Your character can purchase some other Dynastic Merits and enjoy minor benefits of membership, but he does not have access to the House’s full assets and is not yet honored or protected by a successor. This levelof the Merit confers a +1 bonus to Social dice pools involving members of the same House, similar to Status. Successor (•••): As above, except your character is a full (though perhaps not equal) participant in the dynasty. This level of the Merit confers a +3 bonus to Social dice pools involving members of the same House, similar to Status.
Inherited Resistance (•• or ••••) Book: Ventrue - Lords Over The Damned, p. 106 Prerequisite: Dominate • or Animalism •, Ventrue only Effect: Your character is the childe of a Ventrue sire with unusually potent blood or a phenomenally strong will. Some degree of her power has been passed on to you through the Blood – not genetically or through training, but through a kind of mystical reverberation. You are simply predisposed to have a greater resistance to certain powers of the Blood. In game terms, your character enjoys an increased resistance to the powers of Dominate and/or Animalism when those powers are used against him by other vampires.
With two dots in this Merit, you gain a +2 bonus to resist or contest any power of Dominate or Animalism used against your character by another Ventrue vampire, if your character has dots in the same Discipline as that power. With four dots in this Merit, you gain the +2 bonus regardless of the clan of the opposing vampire. Thus, with two dots in this Merit and one dot in Dominate, you gain a +2 bonus to resist or contest all powers of Dominate used against your character by other Ventrue, but your character gains no special benefit against powers of Animalism or any Discipline used by non-Ventrue. With four dots in this Merit and one dot each in Dominate and Animalism, you gain a +2 bonus to resist or contest all powers of Dominate and Animalism, no matter what clan your opponent calls family.
Inhuman Resistance (•••) Book: Gangrel - Savage And Macabre, p. 113 Effect: Your character’s Beast is willful, unknowable, certainly inhuman. Certain mind-control powers have a hard time reconciling this, for they are ostensibly for use on a human mind. But the Beast will not be shackled so easily. In game terms, this means that your character has a canny resistance to the powers of Dominate and Majesty, gaining +2 on resistance rolls made to thwart their effects. In many Gangrel possessing this Merit, this is less of a conscious thing, and more something that the Beast stirs to work against. (In this way, some posit the Beast as kind of a parasite in and of itself: it works on the behalf of the host to keep itself safe.) Drawback: Unfortunately, the Beast being what it is, the Gangrel suffers -2 to any rolls made to resist the effects of Animalism powers (Leashing the Beast in particular) or other powers that specifically interact with the Beast.
Initiation (• to •••••) Book: Ancient Bloodlines, p. 27 Prerequisite: Mortals can only take one dot in this Merit. Ghouls can take up to two dots. Only Kindred can take the Merit at three or more dots. Effect: Your character has received initiation into one of the Shadow Cults. On the first occasion the character meets another member of the cult, he gains a bonus to Social rolls for the duration of the scene, equal to his dots in this Merit. Other benefits come from Initiation into a Shadow Cult, depending on the cult and the number of dots the character has gained in his Initiation. Drawback: Initiation into a Shadow Cult carries with it duties, and failure to perform those duties can cause dots in this Merit to fall, although benefits gained from initiations (such as access to the cult’s proprietary Disciplines, once learned) don’t go away once granted. A character with more than one dot of Initiation into any Shadow Cult can become initiated into others, but can never gain more than one dot in Initiation in any other cult.
Kindred Medium (•• or ••••) Book: New Orleans: City of Dammed, p. 93 Prerequisite: Vampire; Wits •• Effect: A vampire with this Merit sees dead people, all the time. He can detect when wraiths are nearby and can even converse with them—but only some of them. The most curious thing about this Merit is that the sensitivity it involves seems focused on wraiths who have some connection to the Kindred—either those who were killed by vampires, or those who lost loved ones to vampires, or even those who once were vampires. A Kindred Medium can freely see and converse with such spirits but can only sense the general presence of all others. A Kindred Medium is especially sensitive to the passage of his favored spirits and to the impressions they leave in either places or on objects, and may detect the age and relative intensity of those impressions with a successful Wits + Occult + Auspex roll (variable difficulty), even without a wraith’s direct presence. The cost of this Merit is variable, depending on when the player purchases it. If he purchases it right after his character becomes a vampire, the cost is halved. If purchased later on in the game with experience, the cost is double that number.
Lab Section (•) Book: Carthians, p. 182 Prerequisite: Covenant Status (Carthians) •, Medicine •• Effect: These groups tend to be very small and secretive, as their most common meeting places are morgues after closing time. Kindred discuss, debate, dissect and speculate. Generally, they keep up-to-date on mortal medicine in order to extrapolate applications to Kindred physiology. Sometimes, they even experiment. When making rolls with the Medicine Skill, characters with this Merit may reroll 9s as well as 10s.
Labyrinth Guardians (•••) Book: Nosferatu - The Beast That Haunts The Blood, p. 116 Perhaps the vaulted arch ceiling is darkened not just by shadows, but by a carpet of shuddering bats. Maybe a pack of mangy hounds stalking the endless Catacombs, ribs showing through leprous flesh, eyes flashing in the pitch black. That skittering sound might be a flood of rats, the sound of a hundred spiders weaving a thousand silken strands, or a ravenous, shit-eating horde of cockroaches stampeding through unused pipes and conduits. The Necropolis is home to bestial, avian or insect guardians: these beasts are lost, hungry, wayward, having gone more than a little mad in the tenebrous chambers. Story Use: These animal guardians of the labyrinth aren’t pets, not exactly. The Nosferatu don’t control them, but the two have a kind of symbiotic relationship. All have become part of the shadow ecology, and so they accept each other. In many ways, the beastly guardians reflect the Nosferatu contingent in some way: should the preponderance of Haunts in the Necropoli be like the Galloi bloodline (thin, coy, beautiful in a sickly way), then the guardians might manifest as a colony of feral cats (perhaps even patchy Egyptian Blues or some other rare breed). If the Haunts are gutter-fed mongrels, then the guardians are mongrels, too—dogs, vicious and starving. It can get as bizarre as the Nosferatu themselves: one Necropolis is said to be home to a mad, blind stallion called “Blackjack.” The stallion gallops about, bony and sick, biting and kicking, whinnying and snorting like some diabolical nightmare. Some even say that ol’ Blackjack has eyes of fire, he does. Few believe it, but few dare find out. System: Purchasing Labyrinth Guardians buys the Necropolis a number of creatures that total up to 12 points of Size (which could be six cats, six ravens, three dogs, a variable-Size swarm, or some strange combination). All do lethal damage when attacking, and attack, they will. Those who possess dots in the Necropolis Merit get a bit of a break. The beastly guardians recognize their own by sight, scent, or something altogether more subtle and preternatural. However, if the character encounters the Labyrinth Guardians, she must give to them a point of Vitae, which they will sup upon and perhaps even share. When the creatures encounter an enemy (be it a human sewer worker, a vampire intruder, or even just another animal) that doesn’t belong (i.e. doesn’t have points in the Necropolis Merit), they’ll attack with all their grotesque fury. Should the Guardians be killed, they will be replaced by some other manner of creature that will crawl into the shadows, but not until the next story begins. For swarm information, see below sidebar.
Living Anchor (•••) Book: Wicked Dead, p. 60 Prerequisite: Jiang Shi Effect: Your character possesses a strong metaphysical bond to another individual. This person is likely a mortal friend or relative, but may be a supernatural entity. She cannot, however, be another Jiang Shi; the bonds that tie the Jiang Shi to the living are bonds of jealousy and longing, emotions these beasts do not feel toward one another. The bond need not be one forged while the Jiang Shi remained alive (someone who prays each day at a temple haunted by a Jiang Shi, for example, may eventually come to serve as that creature’s anchor), though it often is. The Living Anchor acts in all ways as an anchor for the character. The Jiang Shi can travel to her as an instant action, but can travel from her only a distance in miles equal to his Resolve. As a result, Jiang Shi often threaten and coerce their Living Anchors to travel to locations of the cursed creature’s choosing.
Drawback: The bond with the Living Anchor must be established, requiring at least an uninterrupted hour of contact each week for four weeks before the Jiang Shi may purchase this Merit. This time requirement is waived for living family and close acquaintances from life, but the character must somehow arrange to be in the individual’s presence for an hour to cement the bond. Furthermore, the Living Anchor may not be particularly inclined to assist a self-damned creature of the night. The Jiang Shi must keep the Living Anchor convinced that helping him is in her best interest. He may do so through bribery or threats, though actually killing her severs his connection to her (which may leave a Jiang Shi stranded at his grave, depending upon how remote that location is). A Living Anchor who has been pushed too far can become a deadly and devoted enemy to the Jiang Shi. One legend persists in Japan regarding a Jiang Shi (kyonshi) that killed his Living Anchor’s cousin. The Living Anchor hunted down the Jiang Shi’s grave and, with the help of a priest, destroyed the foul abomination. With both its anchors in one place, it had nowhere to run.
Lordly Palette (• to •••) Book: Ventrue - Lords Over The Damned, p. 106 Prerequisite: Kindred only Effect: Your character possesses a keen palette for blood, either through training or raw talent. She is able to discern details about kine and Kindred through nuances in the taste of their Vitae. When your character attempts to discern parentage, power, or other details about a subject by tasting its blood, add your dots in this Merit to the dice pool. You also gain this bonus on perception rolls that would otherwise involve scent or taste if your character is able to taste blood from the area. At the Storyteller’s discretion, characters with two or more dots in this Merit may make a Wits + Medicine + Lordly Palette roll, with a –2 penalty (or greater), to detect known toxins or diseases in sampled blood. The character swishes the sample about like wine and then, hopefully, spits it out. Other unusual perception rolls may also be possible through this Merit on a case-by-case basis, as the Storyteller sees fit. A vampire machinist may be able to use a Wits + Crafts dice pool to detect the presence of industrial toxins in a subject’s blood. Not just anything can be sampled and analyzed through the lordly palette, however – this Merit reflects only a knack for discerning things present in blood. Despite its name, and the Ventrue reputation for well-honed palettes, this Merit is available to Kindred of any clan.
Mind of the Devouring Worm (•••) Book: Ordo Dracul, p. 204 Prerequisite: Vampire, Convenant Status • (Ordo Dracul), Intelligence ••• Effect: Through rigorous training — everything from mnemonic tricks and psychological concepts like “memory palaces” to ruthless conditioning in which Auspex or Dominate are used to torment the student whenever her mind wanders from the desired concentration — your character gains a phenomenal memory. Mind of the Devouring Worm functions just like Eidetic Memory, except that it can only be purchased after character creation.
Mind of the Unblinking Serpent (••) Book: Ordo Dracul, p. 204 Prerequisite: Vampire, Convenant Status • (Ordo Dracul) Intelligence •••, Mind of the Devouring Worm, Effect: Once your character has developed incredible memory skills with Mind of the Devouring Worm, she can use them to double-check her own perceptions for evidence of external tampering. By using Mind of the Unblinking Serpent, she essentially compares “mental snapshots” from her memories — even of the recent past — to look for recollections that don’t quite “line up.” This mental exercise is also useful for picking out small discrepancies within remembered events. Disjointed or distorted memories are of particular concern. In game terms, this power helps your character determine when Obfuscate has been used (or is being used) or when Dominate has been applied to suppress or alter her memories. When the character consciously decides to scrutinize her memories with Mind of the Devouring Worm, she’s allowed an Intelligence +
Composure roll. If she succeeds — and a Discipline was used to edit her memories or alter her perceptions — she notices that something is not quite right. That’s all. It does not penetrate or dispel the illusions of either Discipline, but it can be enough to spark an investigation or inspire new efforts to protect her invaded privacy.
Mind of the Inscrutable Hydra (••) Book: Ordo Dracul, p. 204 Prerequisite: Vampire, Convenant Status • (Ordo Dracul) Intelligence •••, Mind of the Unblinking Serpent Effect: Your character’s mental restraint is now so formidable that she can foil attempts to read her mind by splitting her consciousness in two and directing the telepathic force into a closed loop of thought. Your character enjoys bonuses when opposing or resisting supernatural mental influences (such as Dominate) as though she had spent a Willpower point to add three dice to her dice pool or raise her resistance trait by two. The nature of the thought-loop varies from Dragon to Dragon. Some have elaborate, circular interior monologues, often rehearsed to be misleading or confusing. Others repeat memorized statistics, recite ancient Javanese vocabulary or make use of disturbingly elaborate dismemberment visualizations. On the other hand, repeating a mantra (something simple like “Fuck you, you can’t read my mind”) ad infinitum can also work, and may even provoke a reaction in the would-be mind reader. Drawback: This mental advantage can be brought into play with a reflexive action and “kept on” indefinitely. As long as your character is benefiting from this Merit’s bonus, however, she suffers a –2 penalty on all dice pools using her Intelligence.
Necropolis (• to •••••; Special) Book: Nosferatu - The Beast That Haunts The Blood, p. 113 Effect: Buying points in the Necropolis Merit allows a Nosferatu character to contribute to the communal catacomb “kingdom” of the local Haunts. While it’s possible that only one Nosferatu in the city contributes these points, the Merit is meant to be shared by some or all of the city’s Haunts. One Nosferatu may possess the points which contributes toward the Necropolis’ many chambers and sites, but in all likelihood these are still open to those allowed entrance. Every point purchased in this communal Merit go toward the procurement of the various chambers and sites as listed below. Necropolis dots can be lost. Nosferatu characters may betray the nest. They may fall out of favor. They may end the relationship held with their other subterranean dwellers, preferring instead to eschew the freak-show and try to carve out a niche amongst the “upper crust” of Damned society. Alternately, one of the Haunts may meet Final Death or be forced into exile by an angry Prince. In any such instance where Necropolis dots are lost, the Storyteller and players should work together to decide what that means for the communal Necropolis. In some cases, it might be easy: if one of the chambers is of variable dots (• to •••••), it’s easy enough to lower a three-dot chamber to a two-dot chamber and accept the resultant vulnerability. Alternately, it may be reasonable to restrict access to one of the rooms until the lost point or points can be bought back (thus, reclaimed) by another Nosferatu character. For example, if a powerful Nosferatu Bishop lost his head, the Dark Temple in which he held Midnight Mass might fall into disrepair. Until the Bishop’s dots in the Necropolis Merit can be bought back, assume the Dark Temple’s benefits cannot be accessed by any of the nest-member Haunts. If all the dots in the Necropolis are purchased by a single Nosferatu, assume that only that character grants or restricts access to the Necropolis. This Merit can apply to any Kindred, but it’s very rare that the local Haunts are willing to share the glories and shadows of their Necropoli with any outside their clan.
Necropolis Specter (• to •••••) Book: Nosferatu - The Beast That Haunts The Blood, p. 117 Somewhere in the heart of the Necropolis is something that a ghost considers very important: a Polaroid of loved ones thrown decades before, the still-bloody claw hammer that ended the ghost’s mortal life, or even a set of blueprints outlining the architectural design of the original Necropolis tunnels (blueprints designed once designed by the ghost himself). This something serves as an anchor for the ghost, and so the ghost lurks within the Necropolis.
Much like with the aforementioned Labyrinth Guardians, the Necropolis Specter is something of a key fixture in the subterranean chambers or caverns. The ghost is as much a part of the Necropolis as the Haunts who built or claimed it. The specter is in the walls. The whisper of water running down the wall contains his whispers, too. The foul wind that sometimes kicks up might carry breath of the wraith. Story Use: This specter isn’t entirely mindless. He’s a character unto himself, and while he may perhaps become trapped in many mad reiterations of a single action (crying for a drowned child, writing a diary entry and then smoking a cigarette, or running from some unseen presence), he can be pulled from those chained actions and may at times actually communicate in some fashion with the Necropolis Haunts. This ghost may know secrets about the Necropolis, or may even know tales of decadence, perversity or horror that would thrill even the most cynical Nosferatu. Not every Necropolis Specter needs to be a vocal character—one could just as easily be a furious poltergeist rattling rusted grates and venting searing pipe steam in the faces of unwitting intruders. System: Assume that the Necropolis Specter has stats roughly equivalent to the “Deceiver” ghost found on p. 216 of the World of Darkness Rulebook. The Storyteller, however, chooses an appropriate Virtue and Vice for the ghost, and should come up with a story to explain the ghost’s presence and determine the ghost’s anchor. Each point purchased in this Merit earns the ghost one Numen from the list found on pp. 210-212 of the World of Darkness Rulebook.
Night Doctor Surgery (•••) Book: Carthians, p. 183 Prerequisite: Vampire, Covenant Status (Carthians) •••, Membership in a Night Doctor clique (see p. 33), Medicine ••• Effect: The Night Doctors have developed surgical techniques that speed Kindred healing. Although a vampiric body can’t repair itself without the use of Vitae, Night Doctor Surgery can make the job easier, and therefore more efficient. Performing an operation with this Merit requires access to a fully modern operating room and cutting-edge tools. Due to the extreme difficulty of the techniques, tools give no bonus. They simply make resetting broken bones, stitching together tissue, reconnecting blood vessels and realigning nerves possible, all of which is necessary to ease the effort of the Vitae. In extreme cases, such as severe burns, skin grafts from other parts of the body are employed. The player of the character performing the surgery makes an extended Intelligence + Medicine roll, with each roll representing an hour of surgery. The doctor needs to achieve a number of successes equal to the number of Health points of damage the patient has suffered (from whatever kind of damage). Once those successes are amassed, the patient has been stabilized. The player then makes one final roll, again representing an hour of surgery. Each success on that final roll turns one point of lethal damage into one point of bashing damage. Alternately, two successes on that final roll can be spent to turn one point of aggravated damage into two points of lethal damage. Example: Monica has suffered two points of aggravated damage on her arms, but is otherwise unharmed. She goes to see Dr. M for surgery. His Intelligence + Medicine pool is five dice, and he needs two successes to stabilize her. He does it on his first two rolls, so after two hours of surgery he’s ready to really attack the problem and start reconstructing her mangled limbs. He rolls again, and this time gets two successes. This turns one of her points of aggravated damage into two points of lethal damage. If he’d gotten four successes, both points of her aggravated damage would turn into four points of lethal damage. Had he failed his roll, the damage would remain. It should be noted that many forms of anesthesia don’t work on Kindred. Those that do generally require the patient to use the Blush of Life effect to deliberately absorb them. Since Kindred who are willing to undergo surgery are often short of Vitae, this can be a problem. Various solutions have been used, from staking (which has the drawback of inflicting more damage, but which at least keeps the patient still) to Dominate to simply strapping the patient down and stuffing a gag in his mouth.
Occultation (• to •••) Book: Mekhet - Shadown In The Dark, p. 120 Prerequisite: no Fame Merit dots Effect: Some vampires — especially the Shadows — become so adept at disappearing into the dark that something of the dark attaches itself to them, and they become surpassingly difficult to notice. After a while,
an occulted vampire becomes so forgettable that it becomes hard even to remember even if the vampire was male or female, let alone details like dress, or hair or eye color. Old vampires with Occultation (such as Doe) even begin to forget who they themselves were. A vampire using Auspex •• to read the aura of a character with this Merit aura suffers a dice pool penalty equal to the character’s dots in Occultation. Likewise, uses of Auspex ••• on items last touched by the character suffer the same penalty. Further, the character gains a bonus on uses of Obfuscate equal to her dots in the Occultation Merit. Drawback: If the character ever somehow gets dots in the Fame Merit, she loses her dots in Occultation. More importantly, a character with Occultation who has dots in the Majesty Discipline always suffers a dice pool penalty equal to her dots in the Occultation Merit: Majesty is about being noticed; a supernatural tendency towards Occultation flies in the face of that.
Of Rose and Thorn (••••) Book: Gangrel - Savage And Macabre, p. 113 Prerequisite: Blood Potency ••, Animalism •• Effect: Some Gangrel maintain “Savage Gardens,” ill-manicured plots of land (whether in the city or far from its lights) where blood-red roses grow with biting thorns, where love-lies-bleeding hangs from a rotten crosshatch of wood, where sallow trees produce sick fruit and climbing vines conspire to blot out the light from the moon and stars. Some such Damned cultivate gardens much like any mortal: while a vampire’s touch is chill and unnatural, it does not blacken roots or wilt flowers (usually). Some, though, aim to take a more personal touch with their projects. They grow so bound to such cultivations that they begin to feel a connection with the garden, with the very soil around it. This opens up Animalism to the Gangrel, allowing her to use the Discipline on plants as well as animals. Of course, this is not a perfect one-to-one ratio: the powers work a bit differently on foliage and flowers than they do wolf and hawk. Furthermore, the Gangrel must possess Animalism at a rating of one more dot than the power she wishes to use with plants; thus, to use Obedience, a Gangrel must possess Animalism •••. The first four dots of Animalism work accordingly when used on plants: Feral Whispers (•): The Savage is able to speak to a plant. This is no easy conversation. Plants “think” in alien, inscrutable ways – sometimes simple, other times woefully complex. A Savage might be able to learn who was in her garden or what the plant hungers for, but will have no luck discerning elements of time from flora. Eye contact is obviously not required for this ability to take effect. Obedience (••): The Savage can command a plant to grow in a certain way, and somewhat quickly. He can demand that it bloom. He can force it to produce nectar. He can stir a vine to climb a wall, slippery moss to spread across a stone path, or the branches of a tree to grow together so that visibility is limited to nearly nothing. Given the commands thusly, foliage does grow at thrice its normal “growth rate” until its task is complete. Note that a plant cannot do things that are outside its purview; that is the nature of the next level of this power. Call of the Wild (•••): With this, the Gangrel can demand that a plant grow elements outside of its own nature: a blood-red maple tree may bloom roses, the grass beneath one’s feet may manifest thorns, a thick hanging vine may be infused with medicinal or hallucinogenic properties to humans (or to Damned who drink the blood of those humans). Once again, growing such elements occurs at a growth rate of thrice its expected speed. Subsume the Lesser Spirit (••••): The vampire may psychically enter a single plant’s “body” and possess it. The other rules of this power as per with animals apply. The Gangrel cannot move faster than the plant normally does (which may be not at all or at such a glacial rate that it’s not worth considering). Sunlight does not harm the vampire while in this state (though it can harm his empty body), and he does not need to attempt to remain awake at this time. To exit this state, the vampire must expend a point of Willpower or be otherwise trapped. He can use Animalism while within the plant, but no other Disciplines. Note that this Merit only applies to the first four levels of Animalism: Leashing the Beast (•••••) has no plant-specific effects. Drawback: Possessing this Merit makes it harder for the Savage to use Animalism as it was naturally (or perhaps unnaturally) intended. All Animalism rolls suffer -1 dice when used on actual animals, due to the perversion of the Discipline.
Pack Blooded (••) Book: Gangrel - Savage And Macabre, p. 114 Prerequisite: Must belong to a coterie where other members of the coterie (some, if not all) possess this Merit. Effect: For most Damned, being a part of a coterie is without true bond. The vampires within a given coterie might work against each other as much as they work for one another. A handshake and a kind word in the front, a sharpened stake and a whispered insult from the back. Moreover, at least when compared against the entire backdrop of a vampire’s eternal Requiem, coteries form and fade all the time. They are ultimately fleeting. Not so with some Gangrel coteries, known as “packs.” A pack formed between Gangrel is something that goes beyond a social relationship. It gets in the Blood. This doesn’t mean they share Vitae, swapping the red stuff in some sort of circular Vinculum. No, it’s as if the Blood within one Savage shifts subtly to be like the Blood of another in his pack. Silly as it seems, it’s how mortal females living together for long periods of time often develop the same menstrual periods: the Blood is given over to a certain animal rhythm for those who care to give into it. Some Gangrel certainly do. Only those who possess this Merit within a given coterie gain the benefits, and these benefits only apply to those who possess the dots of this Merit in that coterie. (In other words, if a pack has four Savages and only two of them possess the Pack Blooded Merit, only those two gain the benefits for one another. The others are outside the harmony of this feral resonance.) To reiterate, this only works with vampires in the same coterie or “pack.” How a pack is formed is different from place to place. Some Gangrel institute elaborate rituals of scarification or ceremonial hunts to “bond” the Damned together. Others need no such ritualized behavior, recognizing other kin and giving into the unspoken bonds immediately. Those with this Merit gain +1 Initiative, +1 Defense and +1 Speed when working together in combat (they must be within 50 yards of one another). Outside combat, those with the Pack Blooded Merit gain +3 to all Empathy rolls made on one another. Drawback: Being Pack Blooded is a disavowal – whether conscious or not – of one’s own human compass. Degeneration rolls made whilst in the company of other Pack Blooded members of the coterie are made at -1 dice.
Remnant of Clarity (• to •••) Book: Ancient Mysteries, p. 66 Prerequisite: Blood Potency 4 Effect: The character has one year in his Requiem that he remembers with perfect clarity. He may look back over that year in his mind and recall moments with alarming ease. The reason for this may be unclear to the character, or it may be that something happened during that year to focus the character’s mind (performed diablerie, Embraced another, awoke from torpor, or some other Requiem-changing event). The result is that when attempting to remember any event or element of that year, the character gains a number of bonus dice to that roll equal to the dots spent in this Merit. (See “Memorizing and Remembering,” p. 44, World of Darkness Rulebook.) The player can also add this Merit, in the form of bonus dice, to the character’s attempt to resist indoctrination upon awakening, if the brainwasher is attempting to alter beliefs or memories relevant to that year (see p. 43). A player can purchase this Merit a number of times for her character, with each instance representing one year. Those years needn’t be consecutive.
Requiem Diary (• to •••••) Book: Ancient Mysteries, p. 66 Effect: While some Kindred claim to have spent a century or more in torpor and remember their earliest nights clearly, others spend a mere decade in torpor before forgetting which city they were Embraced in. Because of this nigh-inevitable strain of the Requiem, some have turned to the practice of keeping written accounts of their unlives. Depending on the time period from whence a vampire came and the culture’s technology, these written accounts can vary from engraved tablets to hand-written journals to blogs on the Internet. This Merit represents not only how complete a written record is, but also how organized the vampire keeps those records.
Totally assimilating decades or centuries of accounts and memories could involve prodigious study. However, a Kindred’s Requiem Diary Merit is helpful for gaining an edge when dealing with one’s past. Upon taking this Merit, the player should write a background for his character, especially detailing where the vampire resided, major events that he witnessed, and important individuals that impacted his unlife. The Storyteller may always reserve the right to insert additional places and time periods if it suits the story, as the vampire would not necessarily remember he wrote such information into his journal. When presented with an issue that the Storyteller and player agree could be related to the vampire’s earlier years, he may consult his Requiem Diary. Successful research provides an amount of inspiration and insight, bringing those events of the past back to his mind. The player rolls Intelligence + Academics. For each dot in the Merit, the vampire gains the 9-again quality on a single Mental or Social dice pool directly related to the subject of the research. Depending on the nature of the information sought, penalties may apply to the roll. Researching the status of his own covenant at the time and place of his Embrace is only slightly obscure in relation to his diary, imposing a -1 penalty. Uncovering details of the specifics behind an individual rival and his weaknesses could be a bit tougher to find, imposing a -3 penalty. Based upon details and information provided by the player, the Storyteller should also assign bonuses to certain rolls. If the player has specifically mentioned a person or event that the vampire needs to research, a +2 bonus could be applied to the roll. Should a mere reference to a related group of people or time period be written in the player’s notes, a +1 could still be applied. The player can choose, of course, to describe the journal in very general terms, and the Storyteller shouldn’t penalize the player for not writing a novel. However, if the Requiem Diary is going to be any use at all, the Storyteller needs to know what span of time it covers and what sorts of things the character put in it. If the character has any rating in this Merit, he gains bonuses to certain types of rolls upon awakening from torpor. See p. 43 and 44.
Savage Kenning (•••) Book: Gangrel - Savage And Macabre, p. 114 Prerequisites: Animalism • or Animal Ken •, must be of Clan Gangrel. Effect: Something in one species of animal resonates with the Gangrel: that wild spark in a hound’s eye, the mad curiosity in a cat’s swishing tail, the alien distance of a fat and hungry fly. The Savage gains +2 to all Animal Ken or Animalism rolls involving animals of that species. The character cannot possess several versions of this Merit applying to different species. It can only be purchased once and cannot change: whatever it is that forms the link between animal and Savage is something that is deep and primal, a connection based off the Savage’s innate nature. The Damned are simply not dynamic enough of creatures to dig that deep and change something so utterly fundamental. Available at character creation only.
Sepulchers (• to •••••) Book: Nosferatu - The Beast That Haunts The Blood, p. 117 The bigger the commune of Nosferatu gathering in the Necropolis, the bigger the need for Sepulchers. The Sepulchers are the havens of the Haunts who call the Necropolis home. Not every Haunt needs to slumber in these places, but many do. The Sepulchers are generally gathered together in a cluster in one part of the Necropolis. Perhaps a halfcollapsed mine tunnel, rock walls riddled with boltholes, leads to the sleeping chambers. Perhaps a busted-up bomb shelter’s many Spartan rooms have been claimed by the many Haunts. Some, though, aren’t clustered together at all, and are scattered throughout the whole of the Necropolis. Consider the general layout of the Necropolis and determine where the Sepulchers could fit. Individually, the Sepulchers are of roughly equivalent Size, usually big enough to sleep in and to have a few personal things, perhaps even one or two pieces of furniture (an old rickety set of drawer in which one keeps her many porcelain dolls, or a burnished mirror whose glass has been replaced with a crazed painting of the character). In some cases a Necropolis may have an “emperor” or “Senex” of sorts, and he won’t sleep in the havens represented by the Sepulchers, instead keeping some grand chamber of horror and divinity away from the chattel. In most cases, though, the Necropoli are truly communal, with the space offered by the Sepulchers divided equally among the Haunts. Story Use: A Nosferatu’s Sepulcher is his haven: or at least one haven. While not huge, it does give the Haunt a chance to customize his space a bit: does he sleep on the bare floor, surrounded by tapestries stolen
from a wicked sire? Does he sleep on a cot, beneath which waits a suitcase full of guns and knives? Has he managed to bore a hole all the way down from the above world and secure a shitty modem connection for his crusty old laptop? The Sepulcher might be religious, with the Nosferatu using it to offer worship to some old god or accept worship as if he himself is of twisted divinity. The Sepulcher might be where he keeps his Resources, recognizing that banks are too public for a guy who smells of the slaughterhouse: his money, therefore, waits in a rusted gun-safe. System: The Sepulchers are purchased a bit differently from other elements of the Necropolis. In this case, a character must purchase his own Sepulcher, and the dots that go toward it are his and his alone to access, representing his own “private” space within the community. It’s a bit like Haven, but here Size doesn’t matter (assume all Sepulchers are about the size of small apartments, one to two rooms). Location doesn’t figure in, either, because they’re all a part of the Necropolis. And Security isn’t something the character really controls: Security is largely communal, so assume that for every five Sepulchers in the Necropolis, intruders suffer a -1 penalty to discover and intrude upon the tombs (to a maximum of -5). So what do dots in Sepulcher go toward? Pick a Skill upon the purchase of a Sepulcher. This Skill gains a bonus equal to dots purchased when the character is present in the haven itself. The Storyteller must approve the Skill chosen, but nearly any choice can work with a proper explanation. Perhaps the Nosferatu gains Empathy dice because he has set up the room to scrutinize those who gain entry (the way a shaft of light is angled to illumine a face, or the way the walls echo every peep, squeak, moan). Maybe the Nosferatu gains dice toward Science because his Sepulcher is more a lab than bedroom: beakers and burners, specimens bound to a workbench with medical tubing, a periodic table written in blood on the wall. Could a Nosferatu gain Brawl dice? Sure. Maybe he knows every crooked floorboard, every cubbyhole of loose mortar (dust that can be thrown into an adversary’s face), each iron pipe hanging low in the darkness… all of which allows him to move with an unerring grace while within the confines of his tomb.
Shadow Cult Initiation (• to •••••) Book: Mekhet - Shadown In The Dark, p. 121 Prerequisite: Mortals can only take one dot in this Merit. Ghouls can take up to two dots. Only Kindred can take the Merit at three or more dots. Effect: Your character has received initiation into one of the Shadow Cults of the Mekhet (for example, the Moulding Room, the Followers of Seth or the Moirai). On the first occasion you meet another member of the cult, you gain a bonus to Social rolls for the duration of the scene, equal to your dots in this Merit. Interacting with that individual from that point on is based solely on your own abilities. Other benefits come from Initiation into a Shadow Cult, depending on the cult and the number of dots the character has gained in his or her Initiation. Drawback: Initiation into a Shadow Cult carries with it duties, and failure to perform those duties can cause dots in this Merit to fall, although benefits gained from initiations (such as access to the cults’ proprietary Disciplines) don’t go away once learned or otherwise paid for. A character with more than one dot of Initiation into any Shadow Cult can become initiated into others, but can never gain more than one dot in any other cult.
Site (• to •••••) Book: Damnation City, p. 202 Effect: Your character has a degree of access to a useful building in the city or a degree of influence over a mortal who can provide access to such a place. A Site grants bonus dice equal to the Merit’s rating to the dice pools of one Skill when used on the premises. You must define the Site and the relevant Skill when this Merit is purchased. Purchase this Merit multiple times to represent multiple Sites or Sites that grant bonuses to multiple Skills. The bonus granted by this Merit represents a selection of equipment kept at the site (something more substantial than just a few tools — a complete garage, not a toolbox) or a supporting character found at the Site who can provide service and expertise. Thus a Site worth Medicine •••• might represent access to a private medical practice’s surgical suite or access to an underground surgeon. A Site might not comply with this Merit as neatly as, say, a haven. Specific Sites can be designed by the Storyteller or the player with additional bonuses or penalties, provided the final Site and its rating in dots are approved by the Storyteller. Dozens of sample Sites can be found in Chapter Five.
Social Chameleon (• to •••) Book: Daeva - Kiss Of The Succubus, p. 115 Prerequisites: May not possess the Fame Merit ••+. Effect: Your character is one of those people who just belongs. He can walk into a party not caring that he doesn’t know the guests and doesn’t know the host. All he truly needs is awareness of exactly the kind of people he’s surrounded by: how they dress, how they act, and most especially what they want. This Merit is based on long periods of interaction with and observation of the herd. In fact, understanding how to belong is based on knowing the differences that make mortals many herds instead of just one. He knows how to stand out, and he knows how to blend in. Your character gains a bonus, equal to his rating in this Merit, for Socialize rolls in dealing with the members of a group who adhere to a specific sort of identity: hanging out at the cop bar,among the society mavens at the most exclusive club in town, or just chilling with the local underworld scum at an illegal gambling den. Additionally, you receive this same modifier for any Persuasion or Subterfuge rolls made to convince the members of that group that you’re one of them. At the Storyteller’s option, not having any dots in a Skill appropriate to the group (Computer when trying to blend in with programmers, or Streetwise among criminals) inflicts a –3 dice penalty to Socialize rolls associated with this Merit. This Merit can also be used as social camouflage, blending into groups of others to remain unseen by those searching for the character. In such an instance, the character with this Merit may make a Manipulation + Socialize roll, opposed by the Wits + Composure or other appropriate roll used to look for him.
Speaker for the Eclipsedn (• or •••••) Book: The Invictus, p. 188 Prerequisite: Vampire, Torpor Connection ••• Effect: The connection between members of a House may become so strong that verbal communication is the least of the benefits they enjoy. At times, the link between House members is so strong that torpid Kindred can passively project their feelings or wishes onto others of their House. This ability would certainly be invoked if something happened to catastrophically impact the House’s holdings or if the waking participant wanted to take another talented Kindred into the House. The effects of this Merit can only be felt by a character with a Torpor Connection to a vampire that is currently torpid. By spending one Willpower and making a successful Wits + Empathy roll, the character briefly connects with his torpid fellow and becomes aware of his instinctual, emotional reactions to things knowingly perceived by the character. The range of this ability is five miles per dot purchased.
Status (• to •••••, Special) Book: Vampire: The Requiem Core, p. 102 While certain Merits detailed in the World of Darkness Rulebook focus on recognition in mortal society, certain Status concerns itself with the social orders of the night and represents recognition among other vampires. Status is divided into three areas — City, Clan and Covenant. Players must choose one of these three areas for each Merit point spent. (Enterprising Storytellers may come up with additional types of Status, and clever players might have unique applications as well. Status is designed as a sort of “umbrella” Merit, under which new types can be created.) City Status represents a vested responsibility and according acknowledgement in the affairs of a domain. Regardless of clan and covenant, certain individuals rise to the top of the social or feudal strata, exemplary because of their efforts in the name of the domain as a whole. Princes, Regents, Primogen, Harpies and other “officers” of a given domain fit this description. Additionally, City Status represents those Kindred who aren’t part of the prevailing social structure, but who nonetheless have significant esteem, sway or reputation among the Kindred. Examples include bosses of powerful gangs, Kindred who have considerable influence in specialized areas (prominent businessmen, city government, health care and hospitals, religious communities), or even just those who are powerful in their own right but largely apolitical, as with a potent elder who abstains from city responsibilities but whose territory is respected by all other local Kindred.
In some cases, City Status is very much a chicken-and-egg situation — does Prince Maxwell have City Status 5 because he’s Prince, or did his accumulated City Status result in his claiming praxis? In other cases, City Status obviously reflects accomplishment, as with a political activist who has many mortal supporters — but those supporters obviously didn’t join his cause because they knew he was a vampire. Harpies, in particular, make much of these distinctions, but some speculate that that’s because their own Status falls under the definition of City Status. • Hound or “rising star” •• Sheriff or “accomplished individual” ••• Harpy, Seneschal, Master of Elysium or “muchdeserved reputation” •••• Regent, Primogen, Herald or “cornerstone of Kindred society” ••••• Prince or “true paragon” Clan Status is concerned with lineage and the Blood. At the outset of a chronicle, a Kindred’s standing often reflects the prestige her sire has gained and passed along, such as with regard to the Ventrue. Many assume that childer who were Embraced by powerful and influential members of the clan have already shown some special quality or excellence, otherwise they would not have been chosen by so great a sire. This kind of recognition is short lived, however. A neonate might enjoy prestige by association under the purview of her sire, but such a favored childe is expected to make a name for herself. Vampires who truly embody the ideals of their clan and who establish themselves in positions of power and influence (often as Prisci) gain the respect of others in their clan, being perceived as models for success. While the Daeva tell tales of particularly vicious Harpies of distant cities, the Gangrel speak of brooding hulks who confidently brave the Lupine-infested wilds alone. Those who diverge from the expected behavior of the clan in remarkable ways gain renown (or notoriety), as well, perhaps founding bloodlines that become known to vampire society as a whole. Clan Status is not so rigidly defined as City Status. While individual clan titles might arise, the notion of esteem is more general in this context. Covenant Status represents rank, achievement and responsibility, less concerned with clan ideals and more with covenant actions, philosophies and accomplishments. The various covenants are not bound by any supernatural means or governed by clan lineage. They find a commonality of goals and ideologies, instead. It is not enough to be powerful or exemplary of clan ideals; a covenant is concerned with what its members have done to benefit its cause and combat its rivals. Those Kindred who enjoy the greatest covenant-based esteem are often the core members of their factions in a given city, those around whom others rally. These Kindred instigate or mediate conflict with other covenants, generally looking to further certain idealistic goals and establish themselves or other members in positions of influence in the local hierarchy. A Mekhet in command of a massive spy network might have status within his clan, but the lowliest of his spies might risk her unlife to gather a specific piece of information that helps oust the Invictus Prince, subsequently enjoying far more status with, say, the Ordo Dracul than her master. A character must have at least a single dot of Covenant Status in order to gain the benefits of any special abilities of that covenant. In other words, a character must have at least one dot of Covenant Status (Lancea Sanctum) in order to learn Theban Sorcery. Or a character must have at least one dot of Covenant Status (Invictus) to take advantage of the experience-point break on the Herd, Mentor, Resources and Retainer Merits. If a character leaves a covenant after learning some of its secrets, he does not lose any of those traits for which he paid experience points, but he may not learn additional dots of those traits (or additional dots at that particular price break, as with the Invictus and the Carthians). See p. 91-92 for the complete list of which covenants grant which benefits. Like Clan Status, Covenant Status is not so specifically tied to certain titles. It is more a notion of an individual’s accomplishments. A Lancea Sanctum Priest, for example, has a greater title than, say, a noted ethicist of the covenant, but that ethicist might have written numerous treatises on the state of undeath and the soul, according her more esteem among her peers than the Priest who rides solely on the weight of her title. • The character is known to a select subset of the clan/covenant — a spy network, perhaps. •• The majority of the clan/covenant in the city recognizes the character’s face and can recall her exploits. ••• The character’s deeds are known to all in the local covenant, even in other nearby cities; many members of other covenants recognize her face. •••• Word of the character’s exploits has traveled far, and her name is known in cities around the country. ••••• The character’s name and face are synonymous with her clan/covenant; her exploits are taught to new members of the clan/covenant. Status can serve as a mixed blessing, however. Those who enjoy the most might be able to use it to their advantage, but they are also visible targets for their enemies. High levels of Status make it almost impossible to pass unnoticed, even while they open doors that would otherwise remain closed. Status works like a “social tool” in that it adds to dice pools for social interactions between members of the sub-group in question. That is, Covenant Status adds to dice pools for interactions with members of the same
covenant, Clan Status enhances interactions with members of the same Clan, and City Status affects those who are recognized residents of the given domain. City Status, however, may be ignored by those who are among the unbound. Example: Loki wants access to the Mekhet Priscus, but the Priscus is already occupied with an envoy from Clan Daeva. He instead finds himself dealing with one of her aides, another Mekhet. Loki, a Mekhet himself, tries to convince the aide that he has important business to discuss with the Priscus. His player adds Clan Status to a Manipulation + Persuasion dice pool. Loki has Manipulation 2, Persuasion 3 and Clan Status (Mekhet) 2, creating a pool of seven dice for the task. Status does not add to dice pools predicated on supernatural powers. For example, a Prince’s City Status is not added to a dice pool for use of his Dread Gaze power. Dealing with Status can be a mire of responsibility, though clever characters can turn it to their advantage. They may actually have a variety of Status — it is not unheard of for a character to have City Status, Clan Status and Covenant Status. A character may have Clan Status only as a member of his own clan. For instance, a Nosferatu never gains Clan Status (Gangrel) no matter how much aid he provides the Savages. His aid of the Gangrel may certainly earn him esteem, but such concern is better handled on a case-by-case basis by the Storyteller, not in the form of Clan Status. Covenant Status is unique in that a character may, on occasion, have more than one form of it. This occurs almost exclusively at low levels, where a character is often beneath the notice of most other members of his covenants. A character may never have more than three dots total in Covenant Status among multiple covenants. A double-agent, for example, might take two dots worth of Covenant Status (Carthians) and a single dot of Covenant Status (Lancea Sanctum), representing the character’s true allegiance to the Carthians as well as the fact that he’s in on the ground floor of the Lancea Sanctum so that he can feed information back to his Carthian fellows. A character may even have a single dot of Covenant Status in three different covenants — perhaps he’s somewhat accomplished in each, but has yet to determine where his true loyalties lie. Naturally, a character with Status in only one Covenant is not beholden to the three-dot limit. A character with dots in Covenant Status through multiple factions does indeed gain access to those covenants’ special benefits. Covenants expect certain contributions of their members, however, and if other Kindred find out that the vampire in question plays multiple sides against the middle, he might see that Status vanish in a single night in which he’s called upon to account for his treacheries. Such is also the reason that cumulative Covenant Status is limited to three dots. By the time a character gains a certain degree of Status in a single covenant, he sticks out like a sore thumb if he turns up among another covenant’s members. (An exception to this might occur if a character is truly some sort of deep-cover agent or other mole, but that circumstance is best handled at the Storyteller’s discretion).
Study Group (•) Book: Carthians, p. 181 Prerequisite: Covenant Status (Carthians) •, Academics •• Effect: Often taking the form of a book club based around scientific or cultural texts, the Study Group pursues knowledge aimlessly, based more on what’s interesting than what’s useful at the minute. When making rolls with the Academics Skill, characters with this Merit may reroll 9s as well as 10s.
Swarm Master (••••) Book: Wicked Dead, p. 108 Prerequisites: Kindred, Blood Potency •••, Humanity no greater than 5 Effect: The vampire’s Beast resonates with the Larvae, allowing her to seize control of a swarm. Whenever the character is in close enough proximity to a Larva to trigger the Predator’s Taint, the player may roll Presence + Resolve + Blood Potency in a contested roll vs. the Larva’s (or the pack leader’s, if applicable) Resolve + Composure. If the vampire wins, the swarm is under the vampire’s control until she is physically separated from the swarm for a period of one hour per dot of Blood Potency. At the end of that time, the swarm regains its independence, though the vampire can attempt to assume control again. During the separation, the Larvae will follow the vampire’s last orders, or, if no orders were given, attempt to find her. While in control of a swarm, the vampire can issue verbal commands to the swarm. The Larvae follow the Kindred’s commands to the best of their abilities. In order to force the swarm to undertake especially dangerous actions (entering a burning building, fighting a more powerful vampire without the rest of the pack,
etc.), the vampire’s player must roll Presence + Intimidation. If the command involves facing fire or sunlight, apply a –3 to the roll. Another vampire can attempt steal the pack away from the master, but incurs a –5 penalty on the attempt to do it, whether using this Merit or another method. Drawback: The swarm doesn’t feel safe away from the master. The Larvae follow the vampire around, which can make maintaining the Masquerade difficult. Clever masters find ways to compensate, but one Larva running off after a vessel can ruin the whole enterprise.
Swarm Mind (••) Book: Gangrel - Savage And Macabre, p. 114 Prerequisites: Protean •••• Effect: By purchasing this Merit, the Savage using Shape of the Beast (Protean ••••) can become a swarm of small animals instead of a single larger creature. The purchase of this Merit allows for only one type of animal: rat, raven, horsefly, or some other creature of Size 2 or smaller. This Merit must be repurchased for each different type of animal. The Protean swarm form exists in a radius or yards equal to the Gangrel’s own Size (usually Size 5). A swarm can generally inflict one die of bashing damage to anyone within its radius per turn. A swarm can inflict even more damage by condensing. Every time the swarm condenses to cover one yard less of its full area, it inflicts one additional die of damage per turn (representing a larger concentration of rats biting, bees stinging, and so forth). Condensing is also representative of a visual horror: rats piling into a teetering tower of yellow teeth and tails flickering, or a column of spiders toppling toward a victim. A vampire can choose to drink blood in this form, thus doing lethal damage, but can only drink a single point per two turns – many mouths make quick work, yes, but they can only take blood in nips and licks. Armor is effective against a swarm only if it covers one’s full body, but even then it provides only half its rating. In addition, targets are distracted by the swarm, suffering -2 dice on rolls involving perception or requiring concentration while they are within the radius, even if they’re not specifically attacked. The swarm cannot be attacked with fists, clubs, swords or guns. Only area-affect attacks such as a torch affect it. Each point of aggravated damage inflicted by a flame or other applicable attack halves the swarm’s Size. Once the swarm is reduced to a two-yard radius, the vampire has no choice but to return to his original form (at which point he must check for a fear frenzy, Vampire: The Requiem, pp. 179-180). Drawback: Fragmenting the body is not a sane action. For eight hours after changing to a swarm form, the Gangrel suffers from the Irrationality derangement and must make Resolve + Composure checks accordingly to resist giving into that lunacy. If the character already suffers from the mild version, he suffers the severe malady (Multiple Personality) instead. These derangements are found in the World of Darkness Rulebook, pp. 99-100.
Tap the Torpid Mind (• or •••••) Book: The Invictus, p. 188 Prerequisites: Vampire, House Membership •••, Speaker for the Eclipsed • Effect: As the boundaries between the psyches of Kindred in a House blur, the Kindred may develop a truly remarkable ability to channel one another’s personalities — and powers of the blood. This very rare benefit of the House connection takes a great deal out of the Kindred who uses this Merit, but it can allow a vampire to pull a trick or two out of his hat that his enemies would never have anticipated. A character with this Merit can gain brief access to one Skill or non-physical Discipline possessed by his House’s slumbering member. To invoke the psycho-sanguine connection, the character must spend one Vitae and one Willpower point as an instant action while within range of the torpid member (as determined by his dots in the Speaker for the Absent Merit). To use a torpid member’s Skill, the character then simply forms a dice pool using his own Attribute paired with the Skill and Specialty (if any) of his torpid partner. Notice that this may allow a character to temporarily access a Skill with more than six dots. For the rest of the scene, the character may take a number of actions using that Skill equal to his dots in this Merit. To use the Discipline of a torpid partner, the character must use the dice pool of the vampire whose power he is tapping, with a –5 penalty imposed by the murky conduit of the blood. This penalty is reduced by one for each dot the invoker has in this Merit. Only a single Discipline power may be invoked in this way before the connection must be invoked again. Only the Disciplines of Animalism, Dominate, Majesty, Nightmare
and Obfuscate can be used in this way. The Discipline power’s cost in Vitae or Willpower must be paid separately from the cost for invoking this Merit.
Taste of The Strange (•) Book: Ancient Mysteries, p. 67 Prerequisite: Blood Potency 7 Effect: Those Damned who have survived long Requiems often grow to a troubling point: the Beast can only be satisfied by consuming Vitae stolen from the bodies of other vampires. This Merit can offer a somewhat “extended menu” for vampires of that age and Blood Potency by allowing a Kindred character to consume another type of blood in addition to Vitae. The vampire can still drink Vitae from other Damned, yes, but each instance of this Merit allows the character to add one more supernatural source of blood to the menu. She may possess Taste of the Strange (Werewolves), which allows her to get her fix from both the undead and from the shapechanging Lupines. Other sources may include mages, changelings, Prometheans, demons, or any other horror of the night that the Storyteller rules appropriate. The player may purchase this Merit up to four times, but only once at each stage of Blood Potency starting at Blood Potency 7 (so, the character may buy it again at 8, 9, and 10). Drawback: Getting blood from such creatures is by no means easy. In addition, the blood of other supernatural creatures is not always kind to a Kindred’s system or mind. The Storyteller is encouraged to come up with unique effects from consuming blood from other monsters. Hallucinations are not uncommon.
Temple (• to •••••; Special) Book: Circle Of The Crone, p. 42 Prerequisite: Vampire, member of Circle of the Crone. Effect: An Acolyte temple is similar to a vampire’s haven. (This Merit may, in fact, replace the Haven Merit, if this is somewhere that the cultists reside as well. If not, then each must be bought separately.) Similar to the Haven Merit, a Circle temple is represented by three component Traits: Location, Size and Security. All three are bought separately, and provide the exact same functions and mechanics listed under the Haven Merit (see pp. 100–101, Vampire: The Requiem). That said, players have the option of purchasing a fourth element to this Merit: Temple Library. This Trait allows the cult to maintain a library devoted to the subjects dearest to the cult. For every dot purchased in the Library facet, the coterie enjoys a +1 equipment bonus to any Intelligence + Occult rolls made for research purposes. This may not lead to a cumulative bonus larger than +5. The Library Trait does not necessarily represent books. Depending on the contributing vampire’s Resources, a temple’s archives may contain relics, vases, old scrolls or other artifacts that don’t necessarily contain literal texts but rather inspiring or enlightening artistic or historical details. Special: Similar to Haven, characters can share this Merit. The same rules apply. If a character leaves the cult or suffers Final Death, her contributed points are removed — perhaps she takes her books with her, damages vases or relics on her way out or the gods visit some seemingly coincidental catastrophe on the collection.
Tenacious Consciousness (••) Book: Ancient Mysteries, p. 67 Prerequisite: Resolve ••• Effect: Some vampires do not sleep quite as deeply as others. Your character clings to the waking world with a desperate hold. You gain a +2 bonus for your character to awaken from torpor or daytime slumber due to external threats. In the event of being disturbed while in torpor, your character must still have been in such a state for at least the base time indicated by his Humanity (Vampire: the Requiem, p. 176).
Tenant (• to •••••) Book: Damnation City, p. 202 Prerequisite: Domain Size • per Merit, Fealty Flaw Effect: Your character has one or more Kindred tenants in his Domain. This vampire makes her haven in your domain in exchange for providing your character with a corvée. Each dot in this Merit entitles your character to call in the corvée roughly every month. Like the Resources Merit, the Storyteller needs to regulate the frequency with which you can use this Merit in order to prevent it from outclassing other Merits. You define the specific terms of service your character demands from his tenants, but the Storyteller can veto your terms if no local Kindred will agree to them. In general, each dot in this Merit entitles your character to five Vitae per month, which is one expenditure equal to about Resources • (multiple dots do not equate to a higher Resources value, but rather more frequent use of Resources •), temporary access to a piece of equipment worth +1 to +3 in bonuses, or one night’s use of a Retainer worth the same value as this Merit. The specific benefit of the Tenant Merit must be decided when the Merit is purchased. If the Storyteller agrees, however, the Merit can be renegotiated with the tenant later. You can purchase this Merit multiple times to reflect different tenants in residence, but you cannot purchase this Merit more times than you have dots in Domain Size. Drawback: Tenants can cause trouble. Because tenants do not have the same kind of authority or responsibility over the land, they cannot be expected to defend the domain or solve problems on site unless the lord calls in the corvée. This Merit essentially comes with a linked Flaw. Every time your character collects his corvée, the Storyteller may roll a dice pool equal to 7 – the dots for that Tenant Merit. If the Storyteller gets a success, the tenant in involved in some kind of trouble, such as attracting unwanted mortal attention or causing damage to the Domain or a Site that temporarily reduces its value by one point. This trouble may not be the tenant’s fault, but it is the tenant’s presence that makes it responsibility of the lord (your character) to deal with it.
Theater Society (•) Book: Carthians, p. 182 Prerequisite: Covenant Status (Carthians) •, Expression •• Effect: No director likes a pale, dead-eyed Desdemona, particularly if she can’t make matinee performances. An undead actor going on with the show even after her Requiem begins isn’t impossible, but it’s challenging. Thus, many of them turn to other vampires. Some domains have complete societies of Kindred theaters performing Kindred-penned plays that touch on Kindred themes for exclusive Kindred audiences. There aren’t many, however. More commonly, performances and troupes are small. Those who want to perform in mortal plays can find few better allies than a Kindred theater society. Providing, of course, that they haven’t found bitter rivals there. When making rolls with the Expression Skill, characters who have this Merit may reroll 9s as well as 10s.
The Right Bar (•) Book: Carthians, p. 182 Prerequisite: Covenant Status (Carthians) •, Streetwise •• Effect: A group of this nature might be a formalized gang in one city, a group that meets for a weekly poker night in another or just some guys who know the right bar for playing pool and hearing gossip. Characters with The Right Bar Merit hear the word on the street, not because they seek it out, but because they’re right on the street there with it. When making rolls with the Streetwise Skill, characters who have this Merit may reroll 9s as well as 10s.
Tomb (• to ••••) Book: Ancient Mysteries, p. 67 Prerequisite: Haven •
Effect: Tomb is to Haven as a vault is to a padlock. While both provide some measure of security, a Tomb is nearly impregnable. Tombs in ancient Egypt and Babylon were built beneath havens as a matter of survival. Throughout history, the Damned have needed a place where they could sleep without fear of discovery. Gravediggers, miners and archeologists bent on raiding sacred resting places could not be allowed access to a Kindred’s greatest secrets, so added security was necessary. • 1 room, earthen, with a crawlspace leading to primary haven •• 2 rooms, some furnishings and a tunnel leading to primary haven ••• 3 rooms, furnished, security measures in place with multiple tunnels leading to the primary haven •••• 4+ rooms, comfortably furnished, extensive security measures with multiple tunnel system leading to various locations, including primary haven In order for an intruder to access a Tomb, he must first gain entrance to the vampire’s Haven (and cope with any Haven Security measures that the vampire has in place). From there, any rolls to find or gain ingress to the Tomb suffer a negative modifier equal to the vampire’s rating in Haven Security + the vampire’s rating in the Tomb Merit. For example, a vampire with Haven (Size 1, Security 2) and Tomb 2 has taken over the basement of an apartment building. The basement is small, but serviceable, and the undead inhabitant has taken measures to hide his presence and keep intruders out. He has also dug a tunnel into the nearby sewer system and found a disused room with thick concrete walls — his Tomb. Anyone who breaches his Haven suffers a -4 modifier to find and gain entrance to the Tomb. In addition, a vampire can seal the Tomb from the inside. This doubles the Tomb rating for purposes of figuring this modifier. In the example above, if the vampire decides to go into torpor in this Tomb, anyone trying to get in suffers a -6 to all attempts (Haven Security 2 + [Tomb 2 x 2]). Drawback: No matter how secure the Tomb, once it’s breached, it’s breached. Tombs might have multiple escape routes, but once a Tomb has been discovered, it’s compromised. The player can add half the Tomb rating to the Haven’s Size (rounding up), but the security modifiers are forfeit.
Torpor Conection (• or •••••) Book: The Invictus, p. 187 Prerequisite: Vampire, Presence ••, House Membership • Effect: The connection between the vampires of a dynastic House allows torpid members to perceive the trusted and familiar voice of fellow House Kindred, even through the rush of frightening visions and memories that come with torpor, like drowned-out shouts through a waterfall of blood. Torpid Kindred are not truly aware of the vague communication they participate in through this connection — the words they hear are swallowed by the shadows of cursed sleep — but they may respond by “talking in their sleep” all the same. Only the voice of a character with this Merit can penetrate the dead ears of a torpid vampire; witnesses to the consultation go unheard by the subject. A character who purchases this Merit is presumed to have a torpor connection with another vampire, but the connection is one-sided. For a shared connection, both vampires must purchase this Merit. Two-sided torpor connections do not have to be balanced. Without this Merit, speaking to a torpid vampire has little reliable effect. With it, your character may consult with his trusted, slumbering kin to gain advice, facts and other bits of information. In many cases, this consultation is awkward and imprecise, but straightforward questions may be heard and answered without an action, at the Storyteller’s discretion. Generally speaking, the more dots in the Torpor Connection, the clearer the messages whispered by the torpid vampire. If it becomes necessary to gauge this connection mechanically, the questioning character should make a Presence + Empathy roll. This dice pool suffers a –5 penalty due to the fog of torpor, but each dot the character has in his Torpor Connection reduces the penalty by one. Each success on this roll allows the character to receive the answer to one question asked of his torpid ally. A character with this Merit also has a chance to rouse a partner in involuntary torpor without donating Vitae of the correct potency. To do so, the character must feed two Vitae of vampire blood to the torpid subject and attempt a Presence + Empathy roll. This dice pool gains a +2 bonus if the character and his subject share a blood bond. If the result is an exceptional success, the torpid vampire can choose to awaken or remain in his dead sleep. Anything less than an exceptional success merely invokes the benefits described above. This Merit may be purchased multiple times to gain a connection with other Kindred, one per purchase.
Trapdoor (• to •••) Book: Nosferatu - The Beast That Haunts The Blood, p. 117 The trapdoor spider constructs a burrow, then tops it with a spongy mix of soil, vegetation, and web. When prey walks over this “trapdoor,” dinner is served. The Trapdoor in the Necropolis works similarly for the Nosferatu. One way or another, a clandestine “trapdoor” opens up somewhere that is heavily populated or trafficked, though also somewhere that the trap is easily concealed: the dark corner of a nightclub, a vent in the back of a busy dock warehouse, a sidewalk grate down a dark but oft-traveled alleyway. Or, it might be somewhere not commonly traveled, but somewhere that the Nosferatu can sometimes lead prey: think of a Nosferatu who answers a classified ad and asks the person to show up and bring the merchandise to a spot just in front of a hidden trapdoor. Of course, not every Trapdoor is literally a trapdoor: some even drop down from ceilings. Story Use: The trapdoor works for those Nosferatu who want food: wriggle your way down the tunnel and wait for passersby full of sweet blood. But it can work also for Nosferatu thieves (dart out, grab a purse, disappear once more into the darkness). Worse, though, it can also work for those who wish to gain entrance to the Necropolis: any who discover the way in might be able to muscle aside the hidden door and enter the dark tangle of the Nosferatu kingdom. Of course, doing so presents its own dangers for the intruder… System: Using the Trapdoor for feeding purposes necessitates that the character succeed on a Grapple roll, and this roll gains a bonus equivalent to the dots purchased in Trapdoor. The target gets a chance to detect surprise, but suffers -3 dice to the Wits + Composure roll. Successes gained on the Grapple roll can translate directly into points of Vitae gained, with the Kiss sealing the deal and the mortal going slack as the Haunt hungrily feeds in the dark of the tunnel. A Trapdoor can be found only by those looking for it: it necessitates a Wits + Investigation roll, and this roll is penalized by a number of dice equal to the dots purchased in Trapdoor. A Necropolis can be home to several Trapdoors, meaning this Merit can be purchased several times. A Haunt may even have her own Trapdoor that other Nosferatu don’t know about.
True Worm (•••) Book: Nosferatu - The Beast That Haunts The Blood, p. 109 Effect: Certainly not every Nosferatu lurks and lingers beneath the ground, and even those that do rarely make it a permanent home. They still have apartments, or live in gutted water-towers or in some teetering Victorian at the edge of the city. However, some do live and lurk in the subterranean darkness for weeks on end, and over time they become accustomed to this place of forever night, an underground strata where sunlight never comes. Those so accustomed needn’t actually slumber when the sun rises. The Nosferatu can still feel when the sun rises, however: his muscles tighten, his skin grows a bit waxy, a bit tough. This only applies when the Nosferatu is at least 30 feet below the surface of the world above and runs no chance of seeing the sun. Sewer tunnels that open up to the street still could have faint shafts of sunlight poking through: but the tunnels beneath the tunnels likely have never seen that kind of light. If the character is in an area where the sun touches or has touched even in a tiny way, the pull is too deep, and he must find a place to slumber or go deeper to remain conscious. At sunrise, the Nosferatu still expends a single Vitae as if waking for the first time that night: his muscles unclench, his skin eases. Drawback: While active during the day, the Nosferatu is at half his normal Speed (round up). In addition, a Haunt character possessing this Merit is especially harmed by sunlight. The Nosferatu suffers +1 Health point per turn when exposed to any of the sun’s rays (see “Sunlight,” pp. 170-171, Vampire: The Requiem).
Undead Menses (•••) Book: Gangrel - Savage And Macabre, p. 115 Effect: A woman’s menstruation has in some primal societies or traditions been tied to the lunar cycles, to the tides, to magic as a sacrifice of blood. It represents a woman at the height of her power: she is fertile and capable of the creation of life, symbolized by the seemingly supernatural ability to bleed without being weakened or dying. It’s also a grave taboo in many cultures, particularly those that are male-dominated. The blood is seen as threatening. It is indicated as shameful, arguably because men seek to repress (or simply not
admit to) a woman’s power. It is blood that an infant does not feed upon; it is blood that leaves the body and does not create life. For some, that is frightening. Some Savages still bleed like this regardless of (or more appropriately, in spite of) their unliving state. The blood that flows is black, thick, a musky elixir. It does not come once a month as it does with humans, but instead flows whenever the vampire wills it: by expending a point of Vitae, she may expunge this undead menses from her body. The blood expelled in such a way has a few different functions: if used in the blood magic of Crùac, it grants the Savage a +1 bonus to the roll to empower the ritual. If fed to a mortal being, it acts as a mild hallucinogen (-1 to all relevant dice pools) in addition to providing the other effects intrinsic to Vitae. Finally, the blood itself acts as a potent marker for other Savages or those with Auspex. Marking an area with the blood gives off a heady aroma long after the blood dries or is washed away (for a number of weeks equal to the marking vampire’s Resolve score). If a Gangrel vampire or a vampire possessing any dots in Auspex comes across that mark during this time, the vampire’s player may roll Wits + Survival to sense the mark and its nature. Some Gangrel use their undead menses to write messages in this way (symbols or short words) to their brethren. Drawback: The vampire can only access this undead menses once per day for “free.” Gaining the blood (i.e. more than a single point of Vitae expelled) more than once per day is possible, but the vampire feels her insides twist up and cinch, as if something has been damaged. And it has; she takes one point of aggravated damage per point of Vitae menses expelled beyond the first.
Unliving Anchor (• to •••••) Book: Nosferatu - The Beast That Haunts The Blood, p. 109 Effect: The Nosferatu is ghost-touched, literally acting as a specter’s anchor in this world. Why is this? It’s most likely because the ghost is tied somehow to the Nosferatu. If the Nosferatu claimed the person as a victim accidentally, that person may continue in this world, fettered to the Haunt. The ghost may have once been a member of the Nosferatu’s own family, perhaps even a wife or a child that “lives on” as a specter, bound to the immortal vampire. It is possible, though, that the ghost has no actual connection to the character. Perhaps the character somehow convinces the ghost that he is someone other than he truly is, or perhaps the specter is grief-struck and lonely and gloms onto the Haunt because it senses a kind of “kinship in death.” This Merit works similarly to the Retainer Merit (p. 116, World of Darkness Rulebook). Each acquisition of this Merit grants the character one spectral follower that claims him as anchor. Dots spent in the trait indicate the strength and ability of the ghost at hand. One or two dots suggests something akin to the power level of an apparition. Three dots are likely equivalent to the dice pools (though not necessarily the demeanor) of a poltergeist. Four dots suggests something on par with a deceiver, while five dots is closer to the level of a skinrider. (All such spectral types can be found on pp. 214-216, World of Darkness Rulebook.) The ghost, however, has a number of Numina equal to the dots purchased in this Merit: no more, no less, regardless of the suggested trait levels. For the most part, the ghosts do as the Nosferatu bids, though certainly they cannot affect the world as a human retainer would. In addition, the Nosferatu gains no bonuses to communicate with the spirit, and may have to work to get his messages or commands heard (or felt). Drawback: Ghosts are persistent and somewhat invasive. The ghost will perform tasks as the Nosferatu bids, but keep in mind this is a two-way street. From time to time, the ghost will demand that the Nosferatu do its bidding. It may have an ancient enemy it seeks to dispatch or may want something far simpler, like to have the character visit its grave and put a certain type of flower upon it. A good rough guideline for Storytellers is that for every three commands the Nosferatu gives the ghost, the ghost will give one in return. If the Nosferatu fails to perform such a task, assume that the Merit loses a dot. This loss of a dot might represent the ghost literally losing power, or it might instead indicate that the ghost is unwilling to devote the breadth of its abilities for the Nosferatu’s needs. Dots can be regained through story and the appropriate experience points. If all the dots disappear, assume that the ghost is either gone forever, or is now hostile toward the character.
Unyielding Mask (••• or ••••) Book: Nosferatu - The Beast That Haunts The Blood, p. 110 Effect: Many Nosferatu wear masks—literally. Porcelain masks. Plague masks. Gas masks. One Haunt might wear a sacred animal mask (bearing the vicious countenance of a bat or enraged dog), while another might wear something that evokes eerie beauty (perhaps feminine beauty, even on the face of a male
Nosferatu). Leather bondage mask? Sure. A plaster death mask of an American president? Could be. A Mexican luchadore mask topped with a knot of real hair, stolen from some victim somewhere? Absolutely. Why would they wear such masks? Different reasons for different Damned. The Haunts recognize that they’re… bizarre if not necessarily in appearance then in the vampire’s aura, and a mask may help to conceal more overt deformities (though it can also heighten the sense of strangeness, which is fine for many Nosferatu). Others use masks to frighten enemies, given that a freakish ceramic countenance can do a lot to accentuate the terror such a creature causes. Some are shrinking violets and try to hide from the world behind masks. Some… well, they just like the anonymity. A mask allows the Haunt to be someone different. Something new. Perhaps even inhuman. A normal mask worn by a Nosferatu might offer a minor (+1) equipment bonus: the frozen screeching rictus of a monkey mask might offer +1 to Intimidation, for instance, while a beautiful and delicate dramaturgical mask might grant a +1 to Expression in the right circumstances. That’s all well and good. But it doesn’t require Merit dots. What does require the purchase of a Merit is what’s called an “Unyielding Mask.” In this case, it’s a mask that’s literally affixed to the face. For the most part, permanently. Perhaps it’s bolted to the face. Or the skin has been peeled back and stitched or stapled to the fabric. Or the Nosferatu used his own Vitae as a coagulant glue, bonding it to his pallid flesh. It’s important to note that the mask gains its power not simply from being a frightening or beautiful mask, but because it literally bonds with the Nosferatu’s eerie aura and his disturbed flesh. At three dots, Unyielding Mask protects against any Discipline that attempts to mentally or socially coerce the Nosferatu (Dominate, Majesty, Nightmare), earning the Nosferatu a +2 to the rolls to resist or a -2 to the foe if no such resistance roll is expected. At four dots, the Unyielding Mask allows the Nosferatu to gain a persistent +1 to a Social Skill of the player’s choice. As above, Intimidation and Expression are viable, but so is any Skill. Subterfuge might gain a bonus from a snake-like mask (serpent’s tongue and all that), while Animal Ken might gain its bonus from being soothing or frightening in some primal, wild way. Drawback: The Unyielding Mask can be targeted and destroyed. Assume that any mask has a Durability of 3 and has a number of Health equal to the Nosferatu’s own, halved (round down). Bashing damage does not affect the Unyielding Mask, but lethal and aggravated do. The Nosferatu cannot heal the mask directly, but the mask does heal one point of damage when the Haunt awakens for the first time in the evening (and expends the single Vitae to do so). If the Mask is destroyed, it confers a single aggravated level of damage to the Nosferatu.
Vassal (• to •••••) Book: Damnation City, p. 203 Prerequisite: Domain Size • per Merit, Fealty Flaw Effect: This Merit functions essentially the same as the Tenant Merit but with a separate drawback. Your character cannot have more Vassals and Tenants in any combination than he has dots in the Domain Size Merit. Drawback: A vassal’s authority over his territory can come into conflict with the lord’s authority over his. When the Storyteller deems your character’s vassal is exerting his authority over the territory more loudly than your character or plotting to gain more power from (or over) him, your dots in this Merit serve as a penalty to your character’s Social dice pools to influence other Kindred within the domain. (If this Merit is being used in a Primacy chronicle, it can also interfere with one’s use of Assets who reside within your character’s domain.)
Vice Over Virtue (••) Book: Ancient Mysteries, p. 68 Prerequisite: Blood Potency 3, Humanity no greater than 5, Undead at least 100 years Effect: The character regains Willpower through her Vice the way other characters regain it through Virtue — by fulfilling her Vice truly and profoundly, the character may once per session regain all spent Willpower points. It goes the other way, though — now, she can regain a single point of Willpower at a time by briefly fulfilling her Virtue. Elder or historical vampire characters sometimes find that the Beast’s whims have overwhelmed the needs and values of their human side, and this Merit ultimately represents that time in a vampire’s Requiem when her more callous, selfish urges are truly paramount. Giving into one’s Virtue is now
little more than paying lip service to it, performing virtuous actions more because they suit one’s needs rather than because they are the “right” thing to do. Drawback: This isn’t a mechanical drawback so much as a caution to players taking this Merit for their characters: a character who favors Vice over Virtue is more likely to give into the eventual blood-slick slippery slope of Humanity loss.
Virtue’s Twin (•••) Book: The Invictus, p. 188 Prerequisite: Vampire, House Membership ••• Effect: All members of a House must purchase this Merit for it to be effective. For purposes of determining torpor duration, all vampires of the House are considered to share the Humanity rating of the Kindred with the highest Humanity. If, for example, the vampires of the Tremalions have Humanity ratings of 4, 5 and 7, all of them are considered to have Humanity 7 for the purposes of determining the length of a voluntary or involuntary torpor. If the highest Humanity of the participants drops while one member is torpid, the length of that torpor must be recalculated using the new highest Humanity in the House. Determine the torpid vampire’s new torpor duration and subtract the time already spent in torpor; that is the Kindred’s rough remaining time to spend in torpor.
Vitae Connoisseur (•) Book: Ancient Mysteries, p. 68 Prerequisite: Blood Potency 3+ Effect: Kindred have the opportunity to sample tastes of blood from cultures and people from all over the world. Some vampires sample more than others, and develop a taste for favorite “flavors” in the blood. Your character has evolved such an affinity for a particular rarefaction of mortal blood. Possible examples of your character’s favored Vitae include specific ethnic origins, attractive young men, people who are terrified, or any number of other specific traits. When your character has the opportunity to feed from his preferred victim, he regains a spent point of Willpower, as if he had succumbed to his Vice. A vampire with this Merit may only regain Willpower this way once per night.
Voyeur (••• to •••••) Book: Daeva - Kiss Of The Succubus, p. 117 Prerequisite: Must be a Daeva. Effect: Passion shackles more than the Damned. Many mortals behave just as the Daeva do, without any supernatural calling in their blood. Once per game session, the Daeva may watch someone else act out the vampire’s Vice, and regain 1 Willpower. The rules which govern the mortal regaining Willpower from their own indulgence apply to the vampire as well: the Vice must be indulged fully, and at some risk to the character. Simply watching two mortals have sex won’t give a vampire any Willpower back. On the other hand, watching a man have sex with his sister-in-law while his brother is downstairs cleaning the guns certainly qualifies. The Vice of the mortal does not matter. The Daeva must watch the act more or less to completion. She doesn’t have to watch an accountant fudge every row of a ledger, but she needs to be there when he perpetrates his initial fraud, or when he finally comes to claim his ill-gotten gains. She can be a participant in the act; in fact, at •••, the Daeva must actively corrupt or tempt the mortal in order to receive Willpower. At •••••, the vampire need merely observe the act from beginning to end. However, it must be the mortal himself who is moved to temptation, and the mortal himself who is at risk. The vampire regains no Willpower if she has received Willpower from another source during the same scene.
Will of the Dynasty (•••) Book: The Invictus, p. 188 Prerequisite: Vampire, House Membership ••• Effect: This Merit reflects the degree to which identities begin to merge when Kindred become part of a cyclical dynasty. Telling (or forcing) the Kindred to do anything that would harm or betray a member of his House is tantamount to asking him to perform that same action against himself. Telling him to kill a member of his House is equivalent to telling him to commit suicide, for example. All rolls to compel the Kindred to take an action that threatens or endangers his House allies (through Skills, Disciplines, magic or any other means) are automatically modified as though the character had spent a Willpower point. That is, either the character’s dice pool to resist such compulsions gets a +3 bonus or the character’s Resistance Trait is temporarily increased by 2. Likewise, the character gains these bonuses when a member of his House attempts to betray, mislead or lie to him.
Zeal (••) Book: Ancient Mysteries, p. 68 Prerequisite: Resolve ••• Effect: Your character believes. He’s experienced something in his unlife that allows him great faith in something — a god, a cause, or a goal. His zeal is obvious to anyone he encounters, and this can work for or against him. This Merit provides two effects, one public and one personal. The public effect is that your character can influence those around him. The player gains a +1 to Social rolls where the character’s zeal would be helpful. If the character is a fervent Christian, for instance, the player could apply this bonus to whip up church support for the character’s cause. The personal effect is that your character can substitute his Resolve rating for a lesser Attribute score once per chapter. For instance, in a fight, the character might substitute his Resolve rating for his Strength in order to strike down an unbeliever. In a debate, he might substitute his Resolve for his Manipulation to doggedly cling to his points, even in the face of opposing logic. Drawback: Zeal is often mistaken for (or equated with) fanaticism, which instantly turns off some people. Depending upon the group that your character is attempting to influence, this Merit could lead to either admiration or contempt. The player applies a -1 penalty when dealing with people who do not share the character’s convictions. In addition, if the player fails a Social roll (other than an Intimidation roll) using this Merit, all further attempts to deal with the same targets suffer a -3 modifier, as the vampire appears over zealous.
Merits List
The following list was meant to be used with the Requiem for Rome Book. However, most of the physical merits were put in the general World of Darkness section.
Debate Style: Reason (• to •••••) Book: Requiem For Rome, p. 108 Prerequisites: Intelligence •••, Academics • Effect: Your character has extensive practice and training in formal logical thought, either in life or undeath. She may be a philosopher, military tactician or scholar. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special debate maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. So, your character can’t have Dilemma until she has Reference. The maneuvers and their effects are described below. Only one maneuver can be performed in a given turn. Reference (•): Your character is so skilled at carefully tying his statements to known or assumed truths that everything he says is just that much more difficult to attack. His wording is precisely chosen to remind the audience of accepted truths, even if the statement itself is not necessarily accurate. At the beginning of any turn, you may declare that the character is using Reference, and add a +1 to his Integrity for the turn. Your character can only use Reference if his argument that turn is based on Intelligence or Wits. Dilemma (••): Your character knows how to word an argument so that the opponent is forced to make a choice between two statements, both of which actually damage her side of the debate. You must declare that the attack is a Dilemma, and make an Intelligence- or Wits-based roll as normal. If the roll is a success, the roll does not contribute progress toward the target number for victory, but the opponent is momentarily occupied in attempting to unravel the dilemma and may not apply her Integrity to the next argument leveled against her (which may be from your character in the following turn or from some other source beforehand). Kairos (•••): Your character has an advanced sense of “Kairos,” or the “opportune moment.” He knows exactly how debate flows, and is well experienced in taking advantage of that flow to keep the audience on side, even when making use of unconventional tactics. Any time he makes a successful Intelligence- or Witsbased argument, he may declare it is a “Kairos” statement and follow it up by switching tactics without suffering the normal +5 penalty to his target numbers. Once Kairos is used, the debater’s tactics are considered switched from then on. If he wants to change tactic again without penalty, the debater will have to use Kairos again. Hyperbaton (••••): Your character is capable of laying carefully constructed verbal traps designed to make an opponent look foolish, and even to open herself to an unexpected, weakening reply. When the opponent makes an attacking argument, your character may make a Defensive Argument in response (doubling his Integrity), and then suddenly answering with a quick, Wits-based reply that comprises a surprise attack. This reply is made at a –1 penalty. However, it does not subtract the opponent’s Integrity as normal. Drawback: If your character is the target of any further arguments this turn, he cannot apply his Integrity against them. In addition, if the character was not already making use of the Deft Argument tactic, then Hyperbaton is a change of tactic and will invoke the +5 modifier on his target numbers. Elocutio (•••••): The character is so well trained and so familiar with the rules of reason and logic that he is able to make arguments that attack multiple opponents’ positions with a single statement. Make a normal Intelligence- or Wits-based attack roll for the character. This roll receives a dice penalty equal to the number of opponents attacked with this argument (to a maximum of –5 dice). Successes achieved on this roll are applied to the cumulative totals for defeating all of the targeted opponents. Drawback: To perform an Elocutio attack, you must expend a point of your character’s Willpower before you make the initial attack roll. The Willpower does not grant an additional +3 bonus to the roll. If the attack fails, the Willpower is wasted.
Debate Style: Rhetoric (• to •••••) Book: Requiem For Rome, p. 110 Prerequisites: Presence •••, Expression •
Effect: Your character has extensive practice and training in formal techniques of public speaking and debate, either in life or undeath. He may be a politician, philosopher, diplomat or someone who just takes pleasure in arguing politics at the local tavern. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special debate maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. So, your character can’t have Ambiguous Statement until he has Ad Captandum. The maneuvers and their effects are described below. Only one maneuver can be performed in a given turn. Ad Captandum (•): Your character is skilled at creating simple, short statements with surprisingly effective emotional impact. This “sound bite” delivery makes it that much easier to influence any audience. When your character makes use of Ad Captandum training, she gains a +1 bonus to any Presence- or Manipulation-based argument. Ambiguous Statement (••): Your character knows how to craft loaded statements that make it difficult for an opponent to deny while maintaining an appealing stance. The opponent is essentially tricked into associating his position with something indefensible: arguing against the audience’s virtues, for instance, or attacking an unassailable subject (such as the gods). When making an Ambiguous Statement, your character may substitute her Manipulation for her Integrity until her next turn. Synonymia (•••): Your character knows how to strengthen a statement with a formal trick that involves stringing a series of synonyms together in rhythmic speech, underscoring the point and making sure that everyone in the audience understands it clearly. Some of the terms inserted into the Synonymia may not actually be exactly identical in meaning to the original statement, broadening its meaning and making it more difficult to attack. The argument (which must be based on Presence or Manipulation) is made at a –2 penalty. If the argument is successful, the next argument leveled against the speaker is made at a –3 penalty. Apologue (••••): Your character is a skilled and clever raconteur. She can enthrall an audience with her entertaining delivery (so long as the argument is based on Presence or Manipulation), getting the point across and impressing them all at the same time. No matter how many opponents level arguments against her, you may apply her full Integrity to all arguments in a single turn. Innuendo (•••••): Your character has achieved unparalleled skill in rhetoric, placing her among legendary speakers and politicians. Her subtlety is such that she can conceal a direct personal attack in an apparently innocent statement, swaying the opinion of the audience without damaging her own position. She may perform a Humiliating Attack (gaining the +3 bonus) on a Presence or Manipulation argument roll without sacrificing her Integrity for the turn or losing Integrity for the rest of the debate. Drawback: To perform an Innuendo attack, you must expend a point of your character’s Willpower before you make the initial attack roll. The Willpower does not grant an additional +3 bonus to the roll. If the attack fails, the Willpower is wasted.
Noble Heritage (•• or ••••) Book: Requiem For Rome, p. 111 Effect: Your character is a legal descendant of an influential Roman family. Citizens of the Roman Empire and the Camarilla will be star-struck by the association with his lineage, and may be more easily influenced or cowed because of it. For two dots, your character is part of a well-known and respected line. He gets a +1 modifier to all Presence or Manipulation rolls when dealing with a legal citizen of the Roman Empire or a member of the Camarilla in good standing — so long as that individual knows the vampire’s heritage. For four dots, your character is part of one of the most revered or powerful lines in Roman history. He gets a +2 modifier on the relevant rolls. Drawback: Your character is expected to behave with nobility and grace, embodying the qualities of his line. If he is caught participating in criminal or otherwise disgraceful activity, he is likely to be judged more harshly than others; in those cases, the bonus he would normally enjoy becomes a penalty until he is cleared of suspicion.
Patron (• to •••••) Book: Requiem For Rome, p. 111 Prerequisites: Status: Camarilla or Status: Wing ••• Your character is engaged in the practice of Kindred clientela, and one or more less powerful vampires are beholden to him. Because of the favors he has done for them in the past (generous material gifts, official endorsement allowing entry to a Wing of the Camarilla or other direct, beneficial expressions of political support), the lesser Kindred are considered the character’s dependent, and are forced to do your charact’s bidding in an attempt to work off the debt. So long as your character provides the dependent with muchneeded gifts, that dependent will never be able to escape the obligation.
Each acquisition of this Merit grants your character one dependent, who can be called upon to perform duties or provide information at any time. This dependent must be younger and less powerful than your character — she should almost always be a single-Status neonate. You or the Storyteller should detail your dependent with an identity, background and character sheet of her own. The Storyteller usually plays your dependent. Dots spent in this Merit indicate the severity of the debt owed by the dependent to your character. One dot suggests a series of small favors that must be repaid in kind. Two dots indicates a foundation of assistance and gifts that have accumulated into a serious debt. Three dots represents a history of favors that would justify timeconsuming or difficult requests. Four dots represents favors that change the course of a vampire’s Requiem for the better, necessitating great effort to repay, and five dots represents gifts or favors that arguably saved the dependent from Final Death, allowing your character to demand massive repayment. Since the dependent is working to pay off a debt of favor, the Storyteller determines how much your character can expect of her dependent. If there’s any doubt, the Storyteller could call for a Manipulation + Persuasion roll, with a bonus equal to your character’s rating in the Patron Merit. Penalties might be applied based on the importance or danger of the request. Asking a vampire to do something already within the bounds of her role imposes no modifier, while asking her to do something that could cause her to lose Status imposes a –3 penalty, and asking for something that could result in exile or Final Death is –5. Frequent favors asked of the same dependent also imposes a penalty as the dependent grows tired of being called upon. Drawback: Dependents are not automatons, waiting for your character to call for help. Dependents have their own Requiems and desires. A patronage is a two-way relationship. Calling for aid without dispensing more favors allows a dependent to pay off her debt, and she may abandon your character if the Storyteller feels that the dependent’s duty is done. To prevent this eventuality, your character will have to continue to do the occasional favor for the dependent as well.
Status: Camarilla (• to •••••) Book: Requiem For Rome, p. 112 In the society of Roman Kindred, the single governing organization of the Camarilla reigns over all affiliations and sects: to be a vampire citizen of Rome, one must pay tribute and service to its leadership. Mechanically, Camarilla Status works as a border-less version of City Status in Vampire: The Requiem. Camarilla Status represents a character’s reputation throughout the Camarilla as a whole, without distinction for the particulars of political affiliation, and may be added to dice pools for social interactions between Kindred of the Camarilla. • citizen, new Embrace •• accomplished citizen or minor noble ••• feared/greatly respected citizen or accomplished noble •••• cornerstone of Camarilla society ••••• true embodiment of the ideals and accomplishments of Kindred Rome
Status: Wing (• to •••••) Book: Requiem For Rome, p. 112 The whole of the Camarilla is gathered together in four “Wings,” each of which plays an important role in the operation of Roman Kindred society, as well as providing a system of classification for its citizens. Mechanically, Wing Status works exactly as Covenant Status in Vampire: The Requiem. Wing Status represents a character’s reputation with respect to accomplishments on behalf of the members of a Wing of the Camarilla, or embodiment of that Wing’s ideals. Wing Status may be added to dice pools for social interactions between members of the Wing in question. Every Camarilla vampire is assigned a Primary Wing: usually, the one she is inducted into after Embrace — although, in some cases a second or third choice can surpass the first. In general, whichever Wing a vampire holds highest Status in determines which special abilities she can benefit from. A vampire with Wing Status: Cult of Augurs 3 and Wing Status: Senex 1 may learnand perform the rituals of the Veneficia, for example, but not gain the experience cost break for Merits thatthe Senex provides. • The character is officially considered but is known to only a few members. •• The majority of the Wing in the city recognizes the character’s face and can recall his exploits. ••• The character’s deeds are known to all in the local Wing. Some members elsewhere in the Roman lands may recognize his name or face and may have heard of him. •••• Word of the character’s exploits has traveled far, and his name is known to Kindred throughout the Roman territories. ••••• The character’s name and face are synonymous with his Wing of the Camarilla; his exploits are taught to new members of the Wing.
Merits List Altar Stone (• to •••••) Book: The War Against The Pure, p. 183 Effect: The character is in control of an altar stone. This stone acts as a vessel for Essence. The altar stone produces no Essence of its own. To give it Essence, the character sacrifices a living creature upon it. Upon the creature’s death, the altar gains a number of Essence equal to the creature’s normal Health score (sacrificing a dog would yield between four and seven points of Essence depending on the Size and therefore Health of the animal). The character, or any other member of his race, may draw Essence from the stone once per day by rolling Harmony. Successes gained equal Essence points taken. The altar can only hold a number of Essence equal to the altar’s Merit points times two. Moreover, only one creature can be sacrificed to the altar per week. Several characters can contribute to an Altar Stone’s Merit points. (Note that killing animals upon the altar doesn’t count as “torturing prey” unless the character actively torments the animal. Killing humans, animal representatives of the shapechanger, or other shapechangers is a Harmony violation, however.) Drawback: The altar suffers Essence bleed. After a number of days equal to the points spent in this Merit, the Essence begins bleeding off the altar, depleting it by three per day. If the Altar Stone Merit has •••, then on the fourth day the altar begins to bleed. (Spirits can claim this Essence only after it bleeds off — many therefore gather around it in the hopes of feasting.) Also, when an altar stone goes dry either from taking Essence or bleeding Essence, the altar must be “reawakened” with a Willpower point, or the altar will hold no Essence.
Ancestral Vessel (• to •••••) Book: Lodges - The Faithful, p. 104 Prerequisites: Lodge of Voices Effect: The Lodge of Voices possesses secret rites allowing them to tap into the wisdom of the AncestorShadow. This Merit does not allow a character to channel a specific ancestor. The accumulated knowledge of departed Uratha, however, allows a character with this Merit to accentuate his own experience with theirs. A character with this Merit may attempt to channel the knowledge of an ancestor-spirit as a reflexive action. Spend one Essence and roll a number of dice equal to your character’s Ancestral Vessel dots. Each success allows you to add one die to the dice pool of a specific Skill. That Skill may change with each application of the Merit. The Storyteller has final say on what Skill may be augmented. Ancestral knowledge isn’t likely to be useful with the Drive or Computer Skills, for example, while it could be with Medicine, Crafts (using older materials), Intimidation, Brawl or even Firearms (especially with bows). A character can attempt to boost a Skill he does not possess, but lacking a good frame of reference for the knowledge he suddenly gains, the unskilled penalty still applies. Example: Jon’s character runs afoul of an odd spirit. The Storyteller tells Jon to roll his character’s Intelligence (3) plus Occult (0) to identify it. Jon decides to use his character’s Ancestral Vessel Merit to channel some of the ancestors’ knowledge on spirits, and manages one success. His dice pool for the roll is now 4, but because the character has no dots in Occult, the unskilled penalty still applies (–3 for a Mental Skill). This means, though, that Jon has 1 die remaining the pool, whereas without the help from the ancestors he would be rolling only a chance die. Bonus dice last for the remainder of the scene. Ancestral Vessel can be invoked only once per game session, whether it succeeds or fails. If the effort fails, no other attempts can be made in that chapter.
Animal Magnetism (•••) Book: The Rage - Forsaken Player's Guide, p. 105 Effect: Your character is a focal point for everyone in the room. Through a combination of pheromones and body language, she has an edge of danger that’s hard to resist. Her primal, powerful nature hides just under the surface, and when she wants to, she can let it out. Your character lowers the penalty from her Primal Urge
by two when making a Presence or Manipulation roll to distract or seduce someone who would normally be attracted to her gender. Drawback: Being the center of attention is not always a good thing. People who are attracted to you will keep flirting or trying to strike up conversations when you’re alone, and everyone who isn’t attracted to you will likely resent you. You suffer a –1 modifier to rolls made to deal with people who aren’t attracted to your gender.
Anonymity (•• to ••••) Book: Blood Of The Wolf, p. 46 It is becoming harder and harder to be anonymous in today’s world as our personal information swells government and business databases. Many Uratha become increasingly worried about Big Brother always looking over their shoulders and prying into their business. Some Uratha even go so far as to disconnect themselves from many of society’s conveniences in an attempt to shut out its prying camera eye. This Merit reflects the special abilities and knowledge it takes to do so. Prerequisites: Resolve •• and Larceny •• or Subterfuge •• Effect: Your character manages to stay off the radar of most government and financial databases via an assortment of methods. At two dots, it is assumed that the character uses nearly every legal means at his disposal: dealing in cash, not having credit cards, not having a driver’s license, de-listing phone numbers, not having a phone, having no permanent address (other than possibly a PO box) and so on. At higher levels, he must employ some illegal methods to keep himself secret: creating false identities, stealing others’ identities, seeking to actively destroy data gathered by others and so on. Each dot subtracts one from Investigation rolls made to discover information about the character. Drawbacks: A character with Anonymity may not purchase Fame. Furthermore, he should have trouble spending Resources more than once a month since it is assumed that he does not have ready access to electronic banking, credit cards and so on. Anonymity may also influence the types of Status allowed by a Storyteller, because many organizations are not going to allow persons who cannot prove their identities to join their ranks. It is possible to lose the effects of the Anonymity Merit if the character is arrested, although the character can manage to regain the effects by having his criminal record erased one way or another.
Auspice Blessing (•) Book: The Rage - Forsaken Player's Guide, p. 103 Prerequisite: One auspice Affinity Skill at •• Effect: Whenever your character can see her auspice moon — or at least where it should be in the sky — she is filled with confidence in the role that Luna has given her. Irraka slip that little bit more silently when the new moon is out, and Elodoth argue that bit more eloquently when bathed in the light of the half-moon. You gain a +1 equipment bonus to one Auspice Skill when your auspice moon is in the sky. This Skill must be rated •• or higher. Available at character creation only. Drawback: The effects of this Merit only work when the sun is down, and your character can see where her moon would be in the sky (clouds don’t affect this Merit, but buildings do, for instance). If the character’s moon isn’t above the horizon after sundown, she must be able to see the sky directly above her.
Be Zoar (••) Book: The War Against The Pure, p. 183 Effect: Some animals cough up a calcified ball of hair or fiber, and ancient civilizations all the way through the Middle Ages considered such biological detritus to be an excellent talisman against evil, poison and sickness. The bezoar kept by the character may be from the character (i.e., he threw it up at one point, likely after consuming a hearty kill) or another shapechanger. Three types of bezoars exist, and the character may choose one effect to accompany his talisman: • The character gains +1 on any resistance rolls when opposing supernatural powers that would affect his mind (such as the Forsaken Gift, Loose Tongue). • The character heals wounds lost to aggravated damage a little faster. Instead of taking a week (seven days) to heal one point of aggravated, it only takes five days to heal one point. • The character gains +3 dice when making a Stamina + Resolve roll to resist poisons and toxins. Some poisons or toxins don’t allow a character to roll to resist, but if the character possesses this type of bezoar, he is afforded a chance to resist reflexively (though in such cases, he does not gain the +3 bonus; the chance to resist is reward enough).
Beginner’s Luck (••) Book: Signs Of The Moon, p. 29 Effect: Some people just happen to be pretty decent at most anything they attempt. An Irraka with this Merit only suffers from a one-die penalty (rather than the normal three) when her player attempts a roll for a Mental Skill in which the character has no dots. Those blessed with this sort of universal adroitness often get flustered when they genuinely screw up; if a character with this Merit dramatically fails a Mental Skill roll, he loses a point of Willpower. Normally, this Merit is only available at character creation, though a Storyteller may waive this requirement for a character just undergoing her First Change (particularly if she is chosen of the New Moon).
Demolisher (• to ••) Book: Blood Of The Wolf, p.62 Prerequisites: Strength ••• or Intelligence ••• Effect: The character has an innate feel for the weak points in objects. When attempting to damage an object, he ignores one point of the object’s durability gained via reinforcement per dot in this Merit.
Ephemeral Reckoning (•• or ••••) Book: The Rage - Forsaken Player's Guide, p. 103 Effect: Whether through hours of study or an innate knack, your character has more insight than most into the Shadow. Something inside her picks up on spiritual resonance without her consciously noticing. At the two-dot level, your character can make a reflexive Intelligence + Occult roll once per scene to determine the resonance of a given area. Dramatic failure indicates misleading information, failure offers nothing, success gives the main resonance of an area and an exceptional success shows the subtle layers of resonance before her. At the four-dot level, she can make a similar reflexive roll to pick up on the resonance of a source of Essence that she has found. Only one roll of either kind can be made per scene, though with the four-dot version of this Merit she may try again if the first roll is a failure (see “Successive Attempts,” the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 132).
Eyrie (•••) Book: Territories, p. 47 Effect: You know the best lookout points and lines of sight within your pack’s territory. You receive +2 dice to all Perception pools while within your own territory, and if you attack a foe at range, you receive +1 die to your pool to do so. This Merit can only be learned by a werewolf with a defined territory.
Far-Runner’s Intuition (•••) Book: Signs Of The Moon, p. 30 Prerequisites: Uratha, must be Irraka, Streetwise •• and Survival ••, shared Totem Merit at 10 or more dots Effect: In the course of her work, an Irraka is more likely to have to run apart from her pack than a werewolf of any other auspice. Some New Moons eventually develop an uncanny sense that enables them to home in on those with whom they share a pack totem, helping them to discern the precise direction and rough distance between themselves and those to whom they are bound. On a successful Wits + Streetwise (for urban environments) or Wits + Survival (for wilderness environments) roll, the Irraka knows which way she must run to find a given packmate and, in general terms (a few minutes, several hours, about three days, etc.), how far away from her he is.
Fetish (• to •••••) Book: Werewolf: The Forsaken Core, p. 79 Effect: Your character possesses a fetish, a tool or weapon empowered by a spirit bound within. Perhaps she inherited it from a relative, received it from another werewolf, crafted it herself as part of her initiation or took it from a fallen ally during the prelude. Whatever the reason, your character begins play with a fetish that is already attuned to her. The fetish has a level equal to the dots in this Merit. One dot of Fetish is equal to three talens (small, minor fetishes; see p. 205), which may be multiple copies of the same talen. You may purchase multiple fetishes during character creation as long as the total dots in this Merit do not exceed five. You could put four dots into Fetish by assigning your character a Spirit Drum (one dot) and a Mask of Life (three dots), but your
character could not begin play with a four-dot klaive and a Fireflash (two dots). Further fetishes can be acquired through roleplay as the chronicle progresses, but cannot be purchased by experience points. Sample fetishes are provided in Chapter Three (pp. 204-209).
Fighting Style: Fury Choir (• to •••) Book: Signs Of The Moon, p. 174 Prerequisites: Werewolf, member of Lodge of the Fury Choir This Fighting Style is the result of observation of Lunes and how they fight. It takes best advantage of the werewolf’s ability to shapeshift reflexively, meaning that a werewolf using it is going to burn through Essence quickly. Of course, since a Rahu can shapeshift reflexively on the full moon, this Fighting Style becomes much deadlier during this time. Dots purchased in this Merit allowed for special combat maneuvers. Each dot is a prerequisite for the next, so a character can’t have Savage Ambush until he has Shapeshift Dodge. Shapeshift Dodge (•): The character changes form quickly to dodge an attack, usually to Urhan form, and then positions himself so as to take greatest advantage of his now off-balance foe. The character must change to a smaller form reflexively before his opponent rolls to attack. The character’s Defense in the smaller form is doubled and he can take no further action that turn, just as if the character had Dodged (see p. 156 of the World of Darkness Rulebook). If the attack misses, the player receives a +2 modifier to attack the opponent on the character’s next action. Savage Ambush (••): The character bursts into Gauru form, gutting his opponent before the victim knows what is happening. The character must change to Gauru form reflexively and then make an attack as usual. The opponent’s player rolls Wits + Composure (Danger Sense applies, but the opponent also takes a penalty equal to the werewolf’s Composure). If this roll fails, the opponent does not apply his Defense to this attack. The werewolf must be within reach of the opponent, but Gauru form has a considerable reach, which is why the opponent so rarely anticipates the attack. Moonlight’s Revelation (•••): It’s impossible to surprise a Ralunim. While werewolves aren’t quite so omniscient, the members of the Lodge of the Fury Choir have learned to “feel” moonlight. As long as moonlight touches the werewolf (whether from the actual moon, moonlight generated by a Lune or by a packmate using the Moonlight Gift), he applies his full Defense against all incoming attacks, including Firearms.
Fighting Style: Savage Fury (• to •••••) Book: The War Against The Pure, p. 183 Prerequisites: Strength •••, Wits •••, Primal Urge ••• Effect: This fighting style isn’t a trained style. Shapechanger characters do not learn it so much as stoke the predator’s fury within, using the pent-up anger to unleash brutal, savage attacks. Note that this “style” works in all forms, even human. While the character may be wearing human flesh, the animal within always lurks close to the skin. Dots purchased in this Merit allow characters access to specific combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the subsequent maneuver. So, your character cannot possess Predatory Defense before he has Beast’s Blunder. The Merit’s maneuvers and their effects are described below. All Maneuvers are based on the Brawl Skill. Caged Fear (•): Wild animals don’t like to be caged. They do what they must to escape behind held or leashed. In this case, the character gains bonuses against grapple attacks. She gains +1 Defense against all incoming grapple attempts. Moreover, if held in a grapple, she can choose to replace her Strength with her Dexterity in any roll attempted to get herself free. She wriggles, squirms and thrashes violently about to escape. Beast’s Bluster (••): Beasts fight with more than just claw swipes or crushing jaws. They bark, howl and hiss. They radiate authority in their body language, seen in the way two bull elk face one another, or in the way that dogs circle one another before a fight. This “move” allows a character to forgo an attack for a single turn and make a Presence + Intimidation roll as he postures and asserts his dominance through sound and movement. Hairs stand on end and his very stance indicates feral supremacy. He directs it against a single foe. Success on this roll indicates that this foe loses one Willpower point, and in the next turn, suffers a –2 dice penalty on her attack if it’s against the character. Exceptional success on this intimidation attempt doubles that attack penalty, and the foe still loses a Willpower point. The character can still apply his Defense against incoming attacks if performing this maneuver. Drawback: Performing this move costs a Willpower point. Beast’s Bluster can only be used against a foe once during a scene (though it may be applied against multiple foes in a given scene).
Predatory Defense (•••): For the remainder of the scene, the character gains a Defense bonus equal to half his Primal Urge score (round up). The way he moves is almost intuitive, as if every hair on his body senses incoming attacks. This only applies to persistent Defense used against incoming attacks. It does not modify the way a character applies any Dodge. Drawback: Opening oneself to this tactic costs a Willpower point. Moreover, if at any point during the scene the character must roll for Rage, he does so with a –2 dice penalty. This ability requires bringing the dark, uncontrollable animal side dangerously close to the surface. Baiting (••••): Some animals know how to bait one another — they stand a certain way to indicate weakness or give off pheromones indicating false fear. A character declares that he’s baiting at the beginning of a turn, and makes a reflexive Strength + Subterfuge roll to appear frail or damaged. During the turn in which the character baits a single foe, he gains +2 Defense against incoming attacks from that foe. The following turn, provided the baiting was successful and the opponent attacked, the character gains a +3 bonus to attack as he uses the element of surprise (“He’s not weak, but strong!”) against his opponent’s misstep. Because this tactic doesn’t supernaturally convince a foe to attack, the Storyteller may allow the foe to make a reflexive Wits + Empathy roll to contest the baiting and determine the true nature of the character’s feigned weakness. Drawback: Baiting costs one Willpower, and can only be used once per game session. Furious Assault (•••••): The character makes an all-out attack per p. 157 of the World of Darkness Rulebook. This attack is ruthless, a frenzy of bloodthirsty destruction — a rain of fists, a rending whirlwind of claws, a skull-crushing clamp-down of jaws or mandibles. Instead of gaining the normal +2 for the all-out attack, however, the character can add his Primal Urge core to the attack roll. Drawback: The shapeshifter puts the whole of his bestial spirit into this attack and forgoes his Defense for that turn. Moreover, he must roll immediately — whether the attack is a success or failure — to resist whatever Rage plagues his people. The roll to resist Rage is made at –3 dice. With this attack, the animal within becomes too hungry to ignore.
Fighting Style: Tooth and Claw (• to •••••) Book: The Rage - Forsaken Player's Guide, p. 103 Prerequisites: Strength ••, Dexterity •••, Stamina ••• and Brawl •• Effect: Your character has spent a long time in her Urshul and Urhan forms, becoming acquainted with the body and senses available in her inhuman forms. Rather than training, instinct has spurred her to practice hunting and killing prey. Very few people expect a werewolf to be fully adept with the flexibility offered by her lupine shapes, expecting her to rely on natural strength and speed the same as in Gauru form. Your character bucks that trend, having tested all her body’s forms to their limit. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers that must be bought sequentially. Your character can’t have “Slip Through” until she has “Hunter’s Eye.” The maneuvers and their effects, most of which are based on the Brawl Skill, are described below. These maneuvers can only be used by a werewolf in Urshul or Urhan form. Hunter’s Eye (•): Your character’s eyes are naturally drawn to signs of weakness, which normally indicate the easiest prey in a group. Your opponent’s Defense is counted as one lower for the duration of the scene if you spend at least one turn observing him. Slip Through (••): Your character is used to darting around an attacker, confusing him by attacking from many angles at once. Make a normal attack roll, penalized by the opponent’s Defense. This attack does not strike the foe or do any damage; but if you roll even one success, your opponent is distracted as he works out where you will attack from next. Your opponent does not apply his Defense against the next attack he suffers. Pounce (•••): Your character leaps at her opponent, bearing him to the ground with her full weight. Make a normal attack roll. If you roll more successes than your opponent’s Size, he falls to the ground under you. Getting up counts as an action (see “Going Prone,” the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 164). Close-combat attack rolls against a fallen opponent receive a +2 bonus. Drawback: Your character’s Defense suffers a –2 penalty on the turn you make this attack. Fury (••••): Your character knows how to go all-out, striking with both claws and teeth at the most vulnerable spots on an opponent’s body. She can make both a claw attack and a bite attack against the same opponent in the same turn. The bite attack receives a +1 bonus. Drawback: Your character cannot use her Defense on the same turn she intends to use this maneuver. If she uses Defense against attacks that occur earlier in the Initiative roster, before she can perform this maneuver, she cannot perform the maneuver in the turn. She is too busy ducking out of the way of incoming attacks. Throat Tear (•••••): Your character’s jaws are powerful enough to tear a creature’s throat out with a single bite. Do not apply the +2 bonus for size of teeth and jaw to the attack roll (other bonuses apply normally). Instead, if the roll is successful, apply the modifier as automatic successes for the purposes of damage. Drawback: Spend one Willpower point per attack. Note that this Willpower expenditure does not add three dice to the attack.
Fighting Style: Wolf pack (• to ••••) Book: The War Against The Pure, p. 44 Prerequisites: Primal Urge •, Dexterity •••, Stamina •• and Brawl ••• Effect: Your character has learned the art of fighting as a wolf in a pack, with an emphasis in wearing down the prey, tripping and setting up your packmates to deliver decisive strikes. The Uratha developed this style of fighting Uratha long ago. It is based upon the principles of pack fighting and surges in popularity at times when packs must take on mightier foes. (The reclamation of the Rocky Mountain region saw some packs practicing this fighting style.) Not surprisingly, this fighting style grows more potent based on the number of packmembers who practice it. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. So, your character can’t have Bite the Hand until he has Slow the Prey. The maneuvers and their effects are described below, most of which are based on the Brawl Skill. Fighting Style: Wolfpack can be used in Urshul and Urhan forms. Untrained Uratha can attempt some of these maneuvers at the Storyteller’s option, but only when in Urhan or Urshul forms, and they suffer a –2 dice penalty to all dice pools. Worry (•): Wolves are experts at distracting foes. This combat maneuver may take the form of feints, extremely loud yelps or false retreats to allow one’s packmates to maneuver into better positions for attack. This counts as an attack action. The effect of Worrying is that a single Uratha counts as two opponents when figuring a target’s Defense. For example, a magath with a Defense of 4 is being attacked by two Uratha. One Worries the target. When calculating the monster’s Defense for the second attacker, the Storyteller applies a – 2 dice penalty instead of –1. Experienced Uratha (those with this Merit) can often see through this ruse and may reflexively make a Primal Urge roll. Each success cancels the extra benefits of Worrying for a single attacker, on a one-to-one basis. Note: It does not change the base modifier for fighting multiple foes, just the advantage of Worrying. Trip/Bowl-Over (••): The object of these maneuvers is to knock over the opponent. A Trip is trying to destabilize the opponent by either pushing or pulling him and must be executed as an overpowering grappling maneuver (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, pp. 157–158) — meaning the aggressor must already have achieved a hold. In this case, a Trip is a contested Strength (or Dexterity, if higher) + Brawl roll. If the attacker wins, he renders his opponent prone without going prone himself and is considered to have broken the hold. A tie means that both contestants fall and become prone; when the target wins, he escapes the hold. A Bowl-Over is trying to use the attacker’s mass and momentum to knock the target off balance. An Uratha executes a Bowl-Over by moving up to twice the character’s speed, and at some time passing beside the target, clipping its legs. This maneuver is a full action and requires a Strength + Brawl roll; the difference between the attacker’s and the target’s Sizes becomes a bonus or penalty to the roll. For each point by which the attacker is larger or smaller, add or subtract one die. Four-footed animals add two dice to resist Trip or Bowl-Over maneuvers. Should the maneuver succeed, remember that an attacker gets a +2 dice bonus to hit a prone target in close combat. Slow the Prey (•••): The werewolf targets an opponent’s legs rather than his vitals — especially the juicy hamstrings. She suffers a –2 dice penalty to her attack roll, but every point of damage done also lowers the opponent’s speed by 1. Prey suffering these effects may spend a Willpower point to ignore the movement penalty for a round. Hindrance from Slow the Prey disappears once the damage done by this maneuver heals. Joint Attack (••••): Your character can take advantage of the distraction and effort inherent in fending off someone else’s attack to slip through the target’s defenses. By delaying his initiative to one when an ally is making an attack (regardless of who actually acts first based on compared Dexterity + Composure and rolloffs), your character can make a Joint Attack. Each ally attacking the same target on the same initiative reduces the combined penalty the character suffers from Defense and Armor by one. Only a character with Joint Attack gains this benefit, but an entire pack of werewolves all with Joint Attack can all benefit from mobbing a single target. Drawback: At least one werewolf with Joint Attack must spend one Willpower point so that all characters with the Merit may benefit from the tactic. Note that this Willpower expenditure does not add three dice to the attack.
Flayed Lune (••••) Book: Blasphemies, p. 136 Prerequisite: Bale Hound Effect: The character has either been granted use of an Iduth-Su, or has created one of the Flayed Ones himself. These unfortunate beings were once Lunes, but after being exposed to the obscene Rite of Dead Light they have become barely sentient creatures, completely subservient to the Bale Hounds. The Moon-Skin is visible in the Hisil as what appears to be a few shreds of silver light, flickering and rippling over and over in the vague outline of the Lune it once was.
These wretched beings are hidden by the Bale Hounds, often in deeply infected Wounds, and sustained by the Asah Gadar nearby in exchange for bestowing Gifts upon the Maeljin’s werewolf servants. Any MoonSkin is capable of granting Mother Luna Gifts, Eclipse Gifts, Tainted Moon Gifts and any Gift associated with the auspice choir that the Lune once belonged to, as long as the Bale Hound has the required number of experience points necessary to purchase the Gift he wishes to learn. The character must still be of the appropriate auspice to learn Auspice Gifts; a Bale Hound who was drawn from the ranks of the Pure cannot learn Auspice Gifts at all. Disadvantage: The Iduth-Su are in a constant state of critical injury, kept extent only by the Essence that the Bale Hounds feed them. The Iduth-Su are unable to hold Essence, and thus cannot spend the daily point of Essence to sustain themselves. To maintain a Moon-Skin, a Bale Hound must feed it a point of Essence per night at moonrise. If even one moonrise slips by without this expenditure, the Lune dies (probably with great relief) and dissipates. In areas where more than one Bale Hound is present, the Asah Gadar usually share a Moon-Skin and take turns feeding the poor creature the Essence it requires. This involves shedding one Health point’s worth of the donating Hound’s own blood over the being’s flickering, ebbing form and spending an Essence point, which is transferred to the Iduth-Su during the process. If a Bale Hound is alone in the area and seeks to maintain this Merit, she must ideally learn of some way to siphon a great deal of Essence in the local region, either through loci or learning a way to drain Essence from Wounds. Also, the Iduth-Su are extremely difficult to create and maintain, and the Bale Hounds don’t take kindly to members who allow the Iduth-Su to die through carelessness, or those Hounds who create Iduth-Su in great numbers and risk drawing Mother Moon’s watchful attention. An Asah Gadar who behaves in either manner can expect serious reprisals from his fellow Hounds.
Heal Like Stone (••) Book: Blood Of The Wolf, p. 22 Prerequisite: Werewolve Effect: Your werewolf is skilled at subduing his regenerative ability. He might fall into a meditative trance or just have a particular aptitude for grinning and bearing it. When determining how long your character can resist (or control) his regeneration, add two to Resolve when referencing the Resisting Regeneration chart. For example, if your werewolf’s Resolve is 1, he can stop himself from regenerating for four minutes before you need to make a roll. Only werewolves may take this Merit.
Howl Code (•) Book: Lodges - The Splintered, p. 40 Prerequisite: Membership in the Lodge of the Black Woods Effect: Your character has learned a number of special vocalizations and code-sounds intended to imbue a howl with a hidden meaning. These sounds are notable to any werewolf who hears them, but are an artificial construct devoid of emotional emphasis. The howl code for “An elder summons you” will only sound urgent if the werewolf howling personally injects a note of urgency into the howl. Using howl code, you may imbed relatively simple concepts into a howl. “Danger from the north,” “a hunt is called,” “the roads are unsafe,” “all is well,” “the Pure are near” and “danger from the Shadow” are all sufficiently simple; “a rogue car-spirit is causing trouble on the highway” is not. This Merit could theoretically be taken by a non-werewolf character who has been inducted into a social lodge such as the Lodge of the Black Woods. In such a case, the Merit would allow the character to understand the encoded meanings in a fellow lodge member’s howl, but the character would not be able to howl his own coded messages unless he is able to mimic a wolf’s howl accurately (such as a mage shapeshifting into wolf form).
Legend (• to •••••) Book: The War Against The Pure, p. 69 Legends abound among the Forsaken, especially about what the world was like before the spirits went mad. They say that, then, the People could bind spirits into their tools. These fetishes were objects of utility and power, and helped keep the world a safe and right place. Likewise, the People could hunt down spirits and force boons out of them, increasing the werewolves’ powers and enabling them to better protect the world. For any given purchase of the Merit: Legend, the character remembers one particular tale with crystal clarity. It resonates with him somehow, and he longs for the age when it was true. The player chooses one fetish or Gift of equal value (three-dot legend for a three-dot fetish or Gift) that inspired his character, though it’s still just a legend. Once per story, when the character’s remembered fetish or Gift would have come in
handy (but, of course, is now gone), the character feels a flash of inspiration. Learning innovation to overcome her difficulties, she finds a way to do whatever she would have used the fetish to do. Mechanically, the character gains one bonus die per dot of the lost fetish or Gift (and correspondingly, the legend) in an attempt to do something similar to the lost power. A werewolf lamenting the loss of a flash fire might decide to kick sand into her enemy’s face instead for a similar result; that attempt gains a one-die bonus because it was a one-dot fetish. One who listened, bright-eyed, to stories of creating water from nothing might gain a one-die bonus to the Survival roll for finding water in an unexpected place. That said, fetishes do still exist. They are just rare and hard to control. Not every player will want to give up the fetish for mundane inspiration. For any permanent fetish, there remains the possibility that the bound spirit was unable to escape. Make sure that any player who wants to keep a fetish is aware that using one properly will be very, very difficult, and that using one without an exceptional success on the activation roll will be dangerous. That said, having and using a misbehaving fetish can be an interesting source of plot advancement. Besides attracting spiritual freedom fighters, misbehaving fetishes rarely work the way they are supposed to. A fetish compass designed to locate the nearest locus might instead point toward the nearest encampment of Beshilu or duguthim, sending the pack into fight after fight instead of toward the Gauntlet, as the pack desires. A fetish fork that makes lies undetectable could force the werewolf to speak truth, creating awkward situations and furthering the story.
Local (••) Book: Territories, p. 47 Effect: You are so comfortable within your pack’s territory that you blend right in with local humans. They accept you as one of their own. You receive +1 die on all Social rolls when dealing with humans in your territory. Humans in your territory unconsciously suspect that there’s something strange about you, but know that you are one of them — humans in your territory receive +1 to their effective Willpower to resist Lunacy that you cause. If you are seen alone in Urshul form in your territory, for instance, the Willpower 5 observer reacts as though he had Willpower 6. If you and your three packmates (who lack this Merit) all shapeshift within sight, the same guy would respond to you all with his base Willpower 5. This Merit can only be learned by a werewolf with a defined territory.
Mercy Of Luna (•••) Book: Signs Of The Moon, p. 30 Prerequisites: Uratha, must be Irraka Effect: New Moons are often expected to interact with the herd for the good of the pack, though the feral power of a werewolf’s Primal Urge, seething just below the surface, can make dealings with humans — even the wolf-blooded — difficult, at best. Some Irraka, however, are gifted with a facility for temporarily clouding their more bestial natures, enabling them to assuage the fear that normal people quite rightly feel toward the Forsaken. By spending a point of Willpower as an instant action, the Irraka may reduce his Social Attribute/Skill penalty for Primal Urge (see Werewolf: The Forsaken, p. 76) by one die per dot of Cunning Renown, to a minimum of a zero-die penalty, for the remainder of the current scene.
Metabolic Control (••) Book: The Rage - Forsaken Player's Guide, p. 105 Prerequisite: Stamina ••• Effect: Your character has more control over his body than most werewolves. This allows him to stop his body from regenerating, at least for long enough to set a wound. In addition, this Merit allows the werewolf to slow down other aspects of his physique. When normal people are out of breath, werewolves normally aren’t. When normal people are shocked by injury, werewolves normally aren’t. This Merit allows your character to appear no better than a normal human, slipping under the radar of anything that would hunt him. Camouflaging himself in this way takes a Stamina + Survival roll, with a success indicating that your character has suppressed his metabolism for one scene, or one day for an exceptional success. Drawback: Preventing regeneration in a particularly stressful situation may require spending a Willpower point, at the Storyteller’s discretion.
Moon-Centered (••) Book: The Rage - Forsaken Player's Guide, p. 103 Effect: No matter your character’s auspice, the sight of the full moon fills him with a powerful rage that yearns to be unleashed. Mother Luna’s face fully revealed spurs him to release the rage within in the only way
he knows. On nights of the full moon, your character adds one to his Stamina + Primal Urge when determining the number of turns spent in Gauru form only. This counts as the natural duration for the purposes of Gifts and other effects that alter the duration. Drawback: Your character is on edge in the light of the full moon until he can release the rage within. All Composure rolls suffer a –1 penalty during the full moon until he can take Gauru form. Changing forms just once is enough to offset this penalty for the duration of the phase (usually three nights).
Naturally Deceptive (•••) Book: Signs Of The Moon, p. 30 Prerequisites: Uratha, must be Irraka, Cunning •••• Effect: For some New Moons, lying, cheating, and stealing are as easy as breathing. When spending a point of Willpower on one of her three auspice specialty Skills (Larceny, Stealth, or Subterfuge), the Irraka adds dice equal to her dots in the Cunning Renown, rather than the customary three dice.
Nimble Defender (••••) Book: Territories, p. 47 Effect: You know the best spots from which to defend yourself in your pack’s territory. When in your pack’s territory, you receive +1 to your Defense score. In addition, you receive +1 die to Athletics rolls to move around within your territory (to keep your footing, climb or keep your balance, for instance — you know that Old Man Ratcliffe’s roof is slippery, but your foes do not). This Merit can only be learned by a werewolf with a defined territory.
Old Blood (• to •••) Book: The War Against The Pure, p. 184 Effect: Something about your character gives off a wild resonance, as if his blood were old and his roots were deep. This aura grants him a kind of de facto clout over other shapechangers both of his kind and of other races. Each dot possessed adds a +1 modifier to your character’s Persuasion or Intimidation rolls when dealing with any other shapeshifter creature. The aura he gives off is palpable, even if others don’t consciously recognize it. Drawback: Each dot possessed also confers a –1 die penalty to any Socialize roll when dealing with other shapechangers. Socializing requires a kind of comfort level, and other beast-men find such intimate social situations uneasy when your character is included. His old blood announces that he’s a top predator, not an amiable chap.
Pack Affinity (• or •••) Book: The Rage - Forsaken Player's Guide, p. 156 Effect: Either because packmembers have spent so long in each other’s company or through a powerful totem bond, packmembers have a better understanding of one another. They will find themselves finishing each other’s sentences, or all sharing the minor aches and pains of one member. Some packs even share a form of primitive communication, through a combination of these shared feelings and body language. For one point, each packmate who possesses this Merit gains an unconscious awareness of the others’ general states of mind. All Social rolls among packmates have a +1 bonus as long as one of them possesses this Merit. For three points, each packmate who possesses this Merit can communicate with others who also possess this Merit without using words. A combination of body language and the general low-level empathy between packmates allows them to send simple messages of up to three words maximum without anyone else being able to eavesdrop. These messages are normally of the form of “Danger,” “They hurt Jack” and so on. Drawback: Characters with the three-dot form of this Merit suffer the highest wound penalty of all of their packmates, whether they themselves are injured or not. There’s a price to pay for such close ties.
Pack Tactics (varies) Book: The Rage - Forsaken Player's Guide, p. 156 Effect: The packmates have trained together, learning how best to use their combined skills to strike at powerful opponents or groups that threaten to overwhelm them, to dominate others before a fight begins or to get their way without ever being seen. This training has paid off, and the packmates have a number of options that are unavailable to other groups when they work together.
The pack can pick one pack tactic for each point put into this Merit. This Merit is shared by all members of the pack; all members of the pack can use the tactics whether they put points into this Merit or not. The pack cannot select pack tactics that require more werewolves than are part of the pack. The prerequisites of each tactic must be met by one member of the pack who possesses this Merit (hence, a tactic with prerequisites of Manipulation ••• and Intimidation ••• would require one packmate to have both traits).
Path Finder’s Blessing (••••) Book: Signs Of The Moon, p. 30 Prerequisites: Uratha, must be Irraka Effect: Irraka are frequently tasked with finding loci, troublesome spirits, and other phenomena native to the Shadow Realm. Some are particularly blessed by Luna in this respect, rolling four bonus dice for Pathfinder’s Sense (see Werewolf: The Forsaken, p. 83), rather than the normal two. Such a Stalker feels somewhat more at home in Shadow than in the material world and her player rolls one fewer die on all rolls for the character to cross through the Gauntlet when departing the Shadow. As with Beginner’s Luck, above, this Merit is usually available for character creation only, though a Storyteller may allow it to be purchased later, particularly in the case of a character that Changes over the course of a chronicle.
Predator’s Gaze (••) Book: The Rage - Forsaken Player's Guide, p. 105 Prerequisites: Presence •• and Intimidation •• Effect: Your character has a tendency to look at people as if they were prey animals. Her body language is domineering, and in conversation, her eyes focus on the throat or another weak spot. People want to get out of her presence, and while that can be annoying, it can also be very useful for getting things done quickly. Your character gets a +1 bonus to all Presence or Manipulation rolls when convincing people to leave her alone or get things done quickly. A shopkeeper will serve her first, just to get her out of the store, and a street gang will suddenly decide that mugging her might not be the best plan they ever had. Drawback: Looking on people as prey doesn’t help with making friends and influencing people. People look askance at anyone who hangs around with you voluntarily, and you’ll likely be the first name in people’s heads whenever they hear of a violent crime in the area. After all, you sure look and act the type.
Prey Charm (•••) Book: The War Against The Pure, p. 185 Effect: Your character keeps around a talisman made from some part of a prey animal (likely the kind of prey hunted by the shapechanger’s own animal). It might be a rabbit’s foot, a coyote ear, a desiccated fish skeleton or even a bunch of dead wasps in a jar. It’s always worn as some kind of jewelry, often around the neck or dangling from a bracelet (though it’s possible it could serve as something unconventional such as a keychain). Once per game session, the charm provides its “luck” for a character at a moment of the player’s choosing. The player may re-roll a failed roll, and gain +3 dice to the re-roll.
Prophet’s Voice (•••) Book: Lodges - The Faithful, p. 79 Prerequisites: Lodge of Prophecy, Uratha or wolf-blooded, Resolve •• Some people seem tuned in to the myriad possibilities that the future offers, and can predict with eerie accuracy what a given person’s destiny might entail. Humans have developed hundreds of different methods of seeing the future, but most agree — some people have the gift, others do not. Your character has the gift. You might decide that your character has a focus for her prophecy or that it comes through dreams, hallucinations, momentary flashes of insight or even automatic writing. Whatever the case, once per story you may activate this Merit. Spend a Willpower point and the Storyteller rolls your character’s Resolve + Occult. (Thus, you can never be sure whether or not the information you receive is helpful, harmful or merely interesting.) Rolls Results Dramatic Failure: The character completely misreads the omens and predicts a future that is not only dead wrong, but damaging to the querent if he follows her advice. If he survives, he might well return to seek revenge. Failure: Your character sees nothing. Whether she admits her failure to the querent is her business.
Success: The character sees a vision involving the subject. The Storyteller should give you the details of this vision, but it will be heavily veiled in symbolism. If your character sees the subject of her vision being struck by lightning, that may mean that the subject is due for a run of extremely bad luck or for a burst of inspiration. You may roll Intelligence + Occult for a hint as to the meaning of the symbols; success on this roll means the Storyteller should clarify or help you to figure out the meaning of the vision. Exceptional Success: Your character sees the future in stunning clarity. The vision is relevant, but usually very brief. A vision might take years to come to pass, or become relevant within minutes. The character (and the player) has no way to know, nor does she have any control over what facet of the subject’s life the vision covers. Prophet’s Voice is an extremely fickle blessing, and, although the player has control over when to use it, the character only knows that sometimes what she sees comes to pass. Prophet’s Voice can usually only be purchased at character creation, but members of the Lodge of Prophecy can develop this gift on their own. The process of doing so requires extended trips into the Hisil, searching out conceptual spirits of time and foresight. Spirits such as this typically have no concept of past or present, meaning that they see Uratha as the children of Father Wolf, his successors and his murderers all at once. As such, a werewolf might be welcomed one moment and brutally attacked the next. Even so, the insight these spirits can provide into the arcane patterns of time and symbolism can, given practice, enable a werewolf to prophesize.
Protectorate (Varies; Special) Book: Forsaken Player's Guide, p. 174 Effect: Those werewolves committed to a protectorate find that by belonging to one, they are afforded certain advantages that those outside of the alliance cannot necessarily access. This can mean anything from grounds and space sanctified for rituals, a strong loci or simply mundane bonuses such as medical facilities or Internet access. Only those who exist as a part of the protectorate in good standing gain the advantage of this Merit. Those who have been exiled — or dwell within the alliance borders with a haze of distrust hanging over their heads — may not receive the bonuses afforded. This Merit is shared by all members of a protectorate, but only those who contribute Merit points toward the domain upkeep can have access to the benefits provided (unless the Storyteller decides otherwise). Dots placed in this Merit can be spent by characters on changing or improving a given protectorate. See below for how one can spend these points.
Spending Protectorate Points Points taken in the Protectorate Merit all go toward a total pool of points that can be spent on forming the domain to the werewolves’ advantage. Perhaps they have on-site facilities that help contribute bonuses to various rolls, or maybe they have a series of traps that add an extra measure of brutal security or maybe they simply have a powerfully wild tract of land that provides a bounty of good hunting. As players, your level of contribution can be matched to the needs of the story. If you’re seminal in the founding of the protectorate, you should have a strong measure of control when helping decide where all the Protectorate points go, with input and advice from the Storyteller. On the other hand, if you’re just joining a protectorate, don’t expect to decide where all the points go, since the Storyteller has already been working on the theme and function of a given domain. However, should that be the case, you should still decide how their points are spent. You’re the ones contributing some level of function to the fold, and so you decide how it gets spent. If you decide that some of the points go toward a small cache of books, and thus can add a +1 bonus to the protectorate werewolves’ Academics roll, then that’s your choice. Below are the ways in which you can spend your characters’ Protectorate points. Unless otherwise noted, characters cannot purchase above a cumulative bonus of +5 dice on any of the expenditures. Ultimately, the Storyteller needs to be the one to approve such purchases, ensuring that they make sense given a protectorate’s particular parameters. (If there are no roads in the domain and none can be built, then a bonus to Drive rolls in the protectorate doesn’t make sense, does it?) Essence: Three Protectorate points per point of Essence. Essence purchased with these points counts toward points any protectorate member can put in her own pool once per story. To gain these points in her Essence pool, she must simply sleep for a full eight hours inside somewhere inside the domain. (Of course, she must have room in her Essence pool, and cannot go above the maximum Essence dictated by Primal Urge.) The exact origin of this “free” Essence is up to the characters. It may be just a general recharge accessible from the aggregate werewolves, totems and spirits. It might come from a powerful fetish, locus or rite. A character needn’t take all of her accessible free Essence at once — if three points are available, she can draw one point one night, and two the next night. A given protectorate cannot offer more than five Essence to a single werewolf per story.
Example: The Gutthrush pack brings with it a potent totem, the Praying Buzzard, who shares a little dollop of Essence with the rest of the protectorate. It’s only one point of Essence, but at some point during the story any member of the clutch can draw upon that single point to help replenish lost power. Location Bonuses: Two Protectorate points per die. Location bonuses go toward establishing a protectorate suitable for the needs of the congregated Forsaken. The bonus goes toward hunting and tracking rolls only. Packs may be able to sense when foliage is disturbed, or be more likely to find footprints or identify odd smells in the dirt (or upon the concrete, if more urban). Example: The pack helps to change the protectorate a little bit in both the Shadow and in the physical world. The packmembers help get rid of odd, muddling smells (by cleaning up garbage and chemicals), and also help to forge various small trails through the domain so that the werewolves can move more quickly when hunting prey. They spend four Protectorate points, garnering the territory an additional +2 bonus on all hunting and tracking rolls (see pp. 178–180, Werewolf: The Forsaken). Ritual Bonuses: Three Protectorate points per die. Bonuses purchased in this manner help ritemasters perform the rituals sacred and important to the Forsaken. Bonuses applied can be the result of having a spiritually consecrated “ritual space,” or perhaps by garnering the good will of local spirits. This bonus can not be purchased above a +3 modifier. As for all bonuses gained, they only apply to werewolves casting rituals within the protectorate’s boundaries. Example: Blackblood Jack, a member of the Motor City Meatheads, wants to throw a little love toward the protectorate. So, he builds a kind of ritual space for the ritemasters of the clutch — since they’re mostly Iron Masters, he makes a “garden” of car parts, hissing furnaces and scraps of murky iron. Therein, ritual casters can be removed from the rest of the domain and find a kind of peace. Blackblood’s pack spends three points to give the domain a +1 rite-casting bonus. Security Bonuses: Two Protectorate points per die. Bonuses bought in the protectorate’s security go toward any character’s Initiative when acting in a fight against anybody who isn’t a member of the protectorate. This could be the result of good sight lines, video surveillance or simply an intimate knowledge of the lay of the land. Also, any attempts to find or gain entrance to the protectorate’s sacred spaces (or the entire protectorate if the domain is way away from civilization) are hampered by this bonus. The bonus acts as a negative modifier against those seeking to intrude upon the protectorate’s sacred places (loci, sleeping werewolves, fetish stockpile, etc.). The security might be as the result of a concealed cave entrance, a steel door or even a homemade labyrinth. Attempts to find and break into such areas are made at –1 die per bonus purchased. Example: The protectorate has made security its number one priority, being the home of a powerful locus and a number of unusual fetishes. The jungle domain is already untamed, but the packs endeavor to make it even meaner: they dig out and then conceal pit-traps, create looping trails that go nowhere and hide a number of their fetishes in various steel lockboxes buried at strategic locations. The various packs contribute eight total points toward this goal, garnering them a +4 Initiative bonus against intruders, and also causing a –4 penalty on intruder rolls to find and uncover alliance resources. Skill Bonuses: Three Protectorate points per die. Skill bonuses are reflected by various resources that help contribute to specific tasks. A Drive bonus might be the result of good roads or a map detailing various shortcuts and hazards. A Computer bonus might indicate that a pack pipes in a T1 line so that the protectorate has fast and unfettered access to the Net. A library might lend a bonus to Academics, Investigation or Occult rolls, whereas a small lab might help with Medicine or Science-based tasks. Bonuses may also come from a simple innate familiarity of the domain: if the werewolves learn where every creaky step or path of brittle twigs awaits, that might be enough to garner a +1 to Stealth rolls. Unless the Storyteller allows otherwise, this bonus is available to a werewolf only when she’s inside the protectorate. This bonus cannot be purchased above a +3 modifier. However, no Social Skills can be modified in this way. No physical facility or amendment to a protectorate can help forge new Social skills or advantages. Example: The Leeds Point Devils, a small pack of Hunters in Darkness, just joined the Pine Barrens Protectorate and wants to do the pack’s part. Together, the packmembers contribute nine Protectorate points and spend them on Skill bonuses (a total of +3). They add a +1 bonus to all Medicine rolls in the domain because they help build a small cache of first-aid kits and various stolen pharmaceuticals. The pack also helps train the various packs on how to use the domain to their advantage when fighting — how to duck behind the thick trees, how to step lightly among the jagged rocks, how to lead an opponent into an uneven fighting ground. This helps them add a +2 bonus to Brawl rolls in the given domain.
Protectorate Flaws No domain is flawless. Every tract of protected land, whether 10 crowded city blocks or 10 square miles of abandoned desert, has its pluses and minuses. The city might have a great hospital (+1 to Medicine) but awful roads (–1 to Drive). The desert might be a hunter’s playground (+1 hunting/tracking bonuses) but hostile spirits occasionally make trouble (–1 to ritual rolls).
Assume then that, for every 10 full points put toward the protectorate by its Forsaken, take one Flaw from the list below. New bonuses (i.e., points spent) can help mitigate pre-existing Flaws. For example, if hostile spirits cause the aforementioned –1 to ritual rolls, if a pack creates a sacred space (and makes friends with a few of those angry ephemera), maybe they can add a +1 bonus, thus negating the penalty. It shouldn’t go the other way, however, without the approval of players. If players spend points to add a +1 Medicine bonus, a later Flaw shouldn’t obviate that purchased bonus. If that does happen, they should be at least given the option to move their bonus to another Skill (explaining it accordingly). Note that Flaws can be cumulative. If 30 total points are spent by the alliance packs on a given protectorate, three Flaws are the result. All three Flaws can be put toward the Hampered Skill. If so desired, the same Skill can be affected. (If a computer network continues to age and degrade system by system, the penalty toward Computer rolls may begin to stack cumulatively.) Flaws apply only when a character is within the protectorate itself. They do not carry over. Also, while players may be allowed to select appropriate Flaws, the characters should not be allowed to invoke meaningless or nonsensical iterations. For instance, characters with a protectorate in the middle of desolate tundra should not be allowed to choose the aforementioned Computer penalties — there are no computers there, and the penalty becomes meaningless. Flaws needn’t trouble all the alliance werewolves all the time, but should be meaningful given the function and use of the domain. Act of Upkeep: No territory can exist without work put into it — whether this means harvesting fruit for food, hunting for meat or simply keeping out the humans, every domain requires some level of maintenance. This Flaw goes above that, requiring every pack to perform some kind of concerted effort to keep the domain in its current condition. Perhaps the spirits require constant supplication. Maybe someone needs to sweep the locus for spirits leeching Essence. Upkeep may be more physical: digging out a location from heavy snow or cleaning sand from machines such as trucks and generators. Or, social: placate pissed-off natives with gifts and prayer, or deliver a monetary stipend to the local wolf-blooded family who owns most of the land upon which the protectorate rests. Point is, with upkeep, every pack gets some kind of important job at least once a week. Failing to accomplish the job in due time creates a kind of agitated tumult within the protectorate Uratha. If the upkeep is neglected for more than a few days, any rules benefits of the protectorate are temporarily halved in effect. Bad Location: The area isn’t suited to hunting/ tracking. Perhaps the domain is simply a crowded metropolitan area, muddling the senses with a blur of motion and city-stink. Maybe it snows all the time, covering up potential tracks and scents. Whatever the case, it causes a –1 penalty to hunting/tracking rolls. Crowded: The packs exist together in a domain that’s too small. Perhaps territory gets lost to another pack or protectorate, or is taken by enemies or simply bought by enterprising mortals (to whom the Forsaken cannot reveal their nature). The result is that, when the protectorate lands shrink, the Uratha are forced closer together. Too many packs in uncomfortable proximity leads to hot tempers. Assume a –1 modifier to all Social rolls when dealing with one another until the domain can be expanded. Hampered Skill: Assume a –1 penalty toward one Mental or Physical Skill. Perhaps a fire destroys a local library (–1 Academics), or maybe characters caused so much trouble at the hospital that they and their “friends” aren’t allowed back in (–1 Medicine). Troubled Rituals: Rites are harder to cast; ritemasters suffer a –1 penalty when performing rites. This can be the result of various unfortunate effects. Characters may have earned the ire of angry local spirits. Maybe the area sees a sudden surge in population growth. Perhaps the environment simply becomes overly distracting (the sounds from a nearby factory are too loud, chemical odors from a nearby town drift over the protectorate or the domain becomes a sudden refuge for biting gnats).
Other Rules The following rules may also apply to a pack and its relationship to the protectorate: • Protectorate Merit points can be purchased with experience points. Assume that each point costs three experience points. • Characters contributing points to a specific function can change the function of those points, but doing so requires both time and cost. For instance, if a character or pack contributing three Protectorate points originally had those points dedicated to a cache of medical supplies (+1 to Medicine rolls), the pack may find that less useful than expected and would prefer instead to devote the points to a communal gun locker (+1 to Firearm rolls). This takes time equal to one week per point shifted. In this case, it’s three Protectorate points, and so it requires three weeks. During those three weeks, neither bonus is applicable. The medical supplies are gone, and the guns aren’t yet in place. Also, completing the shift costs one more additional Protectorate point — characters may already have one “free” unfettered point hanging around, but if the pack doesn’t, it must purchase a point for three experience points, which then goes toward that cost. (The added point also contributes to the “one Flaw per 10 points” equation, as noted above.) • If a pack leaves the protectorate, the pack takes any contributed points with it. Perhaps the pack took the medical supplies, or maybe the pack’s constant teaching and upkeep on the protectorate lands simply withers
in the pack’s absence. Flaws earned from those contributed points, however, remain. (In this way, protectorates that see a high “turnover” rate begin to suffer unnecessarily as the packs potentially leave some measure of harm in their wake, but no reward.)
Scout (••) Book: Territories, p. 48 Effect: You are exceptionally talented at scoping out an enemy’s territory, so long as you are not interfered with and don’t attack. You receive +1 die to Perception and Stealth dice pools in a rival werewolf’s territory.
Secret Paths (••) Book: Territories, p. 47 Effect: You know better than anyone else how to move around your own territory unobserved. You receive +2 dice to Stealth pools while in your pack’s territory. Moreover, if you have one turn to prepare, you can quickly rig up a good hiding place that gives an additional +2 dice to Stealth pools and one point of cover. This Merit can only be learned by a werewolf with a defined territory.
Shield-Bearer (•) Book: The War Against The Pure, p. 89 Effect: Your character has trained in the art of fighting with weapon and shield, striking accurately without giving up the protection of the shield. When using a shield, he suffers only a –1 die penalty to attacks instead of the usual –2. This Merit is not cumulative with the effects of Ambidextrous.
Short Cuts (•) Book: Territories, p. 47 Effect: You know the best, fastest routes through your pack’s territory, even if they involve going across rooftops or through basements. Once per session, if your path is blocked by an obstacle within your own territory, you can declare to the Storyteller that you know a shortcut that lets you bypass the obstacle without slowing you at all. This Merit can only be learned by a werewolf with a defined territory.
Staunch Defender (•••) Book: Territories, p. 48 Effect: You are especially fierce when defending your pack’s territory. When in your pack’s territory and fighting an invader to that territory, receive a bonus die to all attack pools made with claws and teeth. This Merit does no good against any humans, other werewolves or other supernatural creatures that live within your pack’s territory, or spirits that belong there (or that you have summoned there). Your ferocity in defending your territory gives you –1 die to resist Kuruth while doing so. This Merit can only be learned by a werewolf with a defined territory.
Strong Bloodline (•) Book: The Pure, p. 111 Prerequisite: Ivory Claw Power within the Ivory Claws passes hereditarily, rather than purely by Renown or challenges. An Ivory Claw with this Merit has many noteworthy ancestors and a clear claim to their lineage. Strong Bloodline provides one point of conditional Purity Renown, for the following purposes: • Determination of leadership within the Ivory Claws tribe • Admission into Ivory Claws lodges • Adding Purity to Social dice pools when dealing with fellow Ivory Claws
Synergistics (••) Book: Tribes Of The Moon, p. 150 Prerequisite: Rituals ••• Effect: Sometimes a ritual is impractical — crowded urban centers can make it difficult to hunt openly, for instance. Synergistics allows the ritualist to alter the materials and components needed for a ritual without changing the underlying rite. A burned-out circuit board takes the place of a skull, a symbolic hunt takes the place of a real one. Some Iron Masters use this ritual to wrap their spirit magics in the trappings of a human
religion, wielding the powers of the spirits through the prayers of a Christian or the divinations of a Shinto priest. The character reduces the penalties for altering the form of a rite by 3 (see Lore of the Forsaken, p. 108) Drawback: Once she’s changed a rite, a werewolf suffers all normal penalties for attempting to use the normal form of the rite.
Synergy (••) Book: The Rage - Forsaken Player's Guide, p. 156 Effect: Your character has spent a lot of time working with his packmates, to the point where they are more effective working together than with other people. They know how to apply each other’s strengths in general, rather than in specific trained situations. If your character is involved in a standard teamwork roll (not including pack tactics) with other members of his pack, and everyone involved has this Merit, you get a +1 die bonus to your roll. Drawback: If your character is involved in a standard teamwork roll (not including pack tactics) without any other members of his pack, you suffer a –1 penalty.
Territorial Familiarity (• to •••) Book: Blood Of The Wolf, p. 99 Effect: Your character has spent a great deal of time in a specific area and has a preternatural familiarity with the area. He has a detailed map in his head, never loses his sense of direction, always knows how and where to find food in his “territory” and can evade unwanted attention there for an almost unlimited length of time. He adds a +2 to all Survival rolls made while in the chosen region. One dot in this Merit means your character’s territory is the size of one or two city blocks. Three dots (or two for werewolves) expands the radius to several square miles. Though this Merit is included in a chapter on life in the wilderness, it is of equal utility in urban settings. A bum who has been sleeping on the same street corner for years or a youth who knows exactly which yards to cut through near his house might have a one-dot version; a cop who’s been on the same beat for 20 years or an architect who designed every last piece of a sprawling mall over the last 10 years might have the Merit at three dots. When the region denoted by this Merit is altered significantly, the quality of Territorial Familiarity can be reduced (if possessed at three dots) or lost altogether (in either case). A teenager who returns from his scholarship at college to learn that the tenements where he grew up have been replaced by a strip mall would lose his Merit. A park ranger whose park was ravaged by a wildfire might have the Merit reduced or lost. In the latter case, the Merit might return as the forest recovered. Werewolves, naturally territorial creatures, purchase the three-dot version of Territorial Familiarity at a reduced cost of two dots.
Totem (Varies; Special) Book: Werewolf: The Forsaken Core, p. 79 Effect: Werewolves lead a uniquely dangerous existence. They are closely tied to the spirit world and must frequently face dangers that human beings cannot conceive. To help deal with these obstacles, Uratha forge pacts with various spirits for mutual aid and assistance. Many packs take this practice to the next level, binding a spirit to their pack to serve as a patron — their pack totem. A pack’s relationship with its totem is something like a compact between wartime allies. The totem looks after the pack, and the pack works to aid and honor the totem in a relationship as old as the world itself. This Merit is shared by all members of the pack; each member who contributes Merit points to Totem reaps the benefits, and the totem becomes stronger. Dots placed in this Merit are spent on the pack totem, increasing its power in a number of ways. Full systems for creating a pack totem are found in Chapter Three, pp. 186195.
Trained Senses (••) Book: Signs Of The Moon, p. 30 Prerequisites: Resolve ••• Effect: Many Irraka act as the eyes and ears of their packs in tense situations. Some develop particularly discerning senses, able to filter out distractions and concentrate on only the details of significance. The player of a character with this Merit ignores up to two dice of penalties, from any source, on a Wits + Composure roll for perception. By spending a point of Willpower, the player may ignore a penalty of any size for a perception roll, as the character grits his teeth and focuses in on only what he absolutely needs to see, hear, and otherwise sense.
Vicious Attacker (•••) Book: Territories, p. 48 Effect: You have no respect for other werewolves’ territory and see their territorial claims as a challenge to your own dominance. When invading another werewolf’s territory, you receive +1 die to attacks made with claws and teeth against that werewolf or his allies. This Merit does not provide you with any benefit against humans or supernatural entities that live in your opponent’s territory, unless they specifically take up arms to help those werewolves. (If the local police attack you because you appear to be a shotgun-toting maniac, you get no benefit from this Merit; if a werewolf’s spouse attacks you because you are fighting his wife, this Merit does apply.) This Merit provides you no benefit if you are fighting another werewolf in neutral ground or in territory he does not claim as his own.
Watched (• to •••••) Book: Blood Of The Wolf, p. 126 Prerequisites: Wolf-Blooded (any rating) Effects: The character is important to a werewolf or a pack of werewolves. This is usually because the character is a direct relation, but sometimes Uratha ask their packmates to watch over their children or siblings, should the werewolf die prematurely. In any case, the character has a sort of feral guardian angel. The degree to which the uragarum is protected depends on the number of points spent on this Merit. One dot means that the werewolf or pack isn’t local or is busy with other concerns, and only checks in on the character once a month or so. Unless the character knows about her protectors (at the player’s and Storyteller’s discretion), she has no protection from immediate threats unless the werewolf happens to be in the area when something unfortunate occurs. Alternately, one dot could indicate that the character’s protector is young, weak, stupid, elderly or is in some other way sub-par, or that he simply doesn’t care about the wolfblood all that much. Two dots indicates that the protector takes his responsibility seriously, and looks in on the wolf-blood at least twice a month. Again, this is better protection against an ongoing threat than an enemy who simply appears one night, fangs glistening, but it’s certainly better than nothing. A three-dot Watcher visits the wolf-blood once a week or so. This level indicates either a pack of young or mostly disinterested werewolves or a single but experienced or dedicated Uratha. The werewolf might even give the uragarum a method of contacting him should anything urgent arise (but Uratha take an extremely dim view of “crying wolf” and wasting the protector’s time often results in a lowering of this Merit’s rating or in the Merit disappearing altogether). For four dots, the wolf-blood enjoys the dedicated protection of a pack or a seasoned and loyal warrior. This level of devotion usually indicates a parent-child relationship. The wolf-blood probably has a way to contact the werewolf, and if the Uratha is sufficiently talented, it might even take the form of a Running Rabbit talen. Woe unto anyone who crosses the wolf-blood with this level of Watched. Finally, for five dots the uragarum enjoys the protection of the Lodge of the Shepherd (p. 106). The members of the lodge look in on the character at least once a week, normally more frequently, and she probably has some sort of spiritual protection in her home (whether she knows about it or not). Drawbacks: The major advantage of this Merit is also its biggest drawback — the character is periodically in close proximity to werewolves. The Uratha might mean well, but one bad day can lead to an unfortunate incidence of Death Rage, and the wolf-blooded always come out the losers in such instances. Also, enemies of the Watcher might follow him right to the wolf-blood’s door (although a werewolf willing to put in the effort to watch over a human is usually conscientious enough to avoid such mishaps). If the wolf-blood ever becomes a werewolf, this Merit disappears. Traditionally, the Merit dots spent are lost, although the Storyteller may choose to allow the player to retain and reassign one or more of the Merit dots spent to a new Merit such as Allies or Contacts (representing the same werewolves).
MerItS LISt
Additional Familiars (••) Book: Tome Of The Watchtowers, p. 154 Prerequisite: Thyrsus Path Just as Odin had Hugin and Munin and Sleipnir, some Thyrsus mages are able to have multiple familiars. The mage may continue to buy additional familiars after character creation. The mage’s player must buy them all separately with experience points, but there’s no limit to the number of familiars a mage with this Merit may acquire. Though many familiars would slow the mage’s growth in other areas, a mage could theoretically surround herself with a veritable brood of familiars in this way.
Alchemical Lab (• to •••••) Book: Tome Of The Mysteries, p. 146 Prerequisite: Sanctum Your character maintains a laboratory suitable for both the spiritual experiments and the production of gross materials arising from the occult practice of alchemy. The lab is equipped with a mix of ancient and contemporary equipment. Forges, furnaces and cauldrons produced to medieval specifications may sit in a climate-controlled environment, monitored by thermostats and carefully vented to the outdoors according to modern industrial safety practices. Your lab may recall the dank basement of a Renaissance castle but is just as likely to resemble a whirring bank of antiseptic, automated machinery straight from the factory fl oor of Merck or Schering-Plough. A computerized database may track your inventory of herbs, metals and pharmaceutical ingredients, or you might simply find what you need by memory, sorting through jar after jar jumbled together on cobwebbed, dusty shelves. Your dots in this Merit serve as an equipment bonus when creating gross matter, the range of substances that retain and then deliver other spell effects. Additional dots also increase the chances that you’ll have all necessary ingredients on hand when you set out on a new project. For details, see “Producing Gross Matter,” below.
Ancient Echoes (• to •••••) Book: Banishers, p. 40 Prerequisites: Awakened (Banisher or Storyteller’s permission); must be purchased with bonus Merit dots at character creation Effect: Some mages have stronger connections to the past than others. While many mages may eventually be able to track their ancestry back to survivors of the Fall of Atlantis, few have direct remembrances of actual experiences just before, during or just after the Fall. Mages with this Merit, however, can capture snatches of memories of life in Atlantis or other events of their past history in the Fallen World. This Merit may reflect reincarnation or memories of the fallen grafting themselves onto a new body; this Merit is most common among Banishers who experience some measure of memetic transmission. Mages with this Merit sometimes gain insights into their craft or into some aspect of the relationships among the orders. Banishers with this Merit perceive it as either a blessing or a curse (or sometimes both) for it not only gives them insights into the workings of their targets but also reminds them of a past they fervently wish to either ignore or destroy. Déjà vu (•): The character experiences a sudden sense of having done or witnessed something in a past life up to 200 years ago, i.e., something that happened during the Victorian era (19th century) or later (20th century). The character may receive simply a feeling (“I feel as if I’ve walked down this street before when it
was cobblestones instead of asphalt.”) or a more profound “memory.” (“I followed a man into this library and through this hallway once before — long ago. There was a locked door and then the restricted books section.”) Memory’s Thin Walls (••): The character’s memory or seeming memory extends back as far as 400 years (the 17th century). The more recent the memory, the more vivid its details are to the mage. (“I remember watching fascinated as a child while some of my uncles shoved heavy crates of tea into the waters of the harbor.”) or (“I remember the stars were in the same position in the sky when a man darted across my path fleeing something indescribable and unspeakable — much like that!”) Memory’s Open Door (•••): The character can remember something (or something similar) having occurred as far back as the 13th century. (“I’ve seen the signs before in this very house — a plague house!”) Mages can sometimes experience premonitions based on past events at this level of the Merit. (“The earth shook here once before, and I feel it growing restless again.”) Stepping Backward (••••): The character’s memory can extend as far back as the beginning of the Common Era (1st century) and the amount of detail remembered may seem to place the character back in time, though this is certainly not an instance of time travel. (“I was known as Eudoricus, and even then I hunted down those who sought to reinfect the purity of the Supernal with the taint of the Fallen World.”) Echoes of Fallen Atlantis (•••••): At the highest level of this Merit, the character seems to remember aspects of Atlantis itself. Banishers usually find clues for a possible starting point to track down a specific artifact or the key to locating an “old soul” in the modern world. Mages with this level of the Merit sometimes receive insights into the ways of old Atlantis. Both mages and Banishers sometimes experience this level with hallucinatory-like intensity or as a waking nightmare; the memories are far more symbolic than literal, which makes it a frustrating affair to attempt to visualize Atlantis as it was.
Ancient Lands Awakening (••••) Book: Grimoire Of Grimoires, p. 23 Prerequisites: Charity or Hope Virtue. This Merit can be taken only at character creation. Effect: Your character underwent an Awakening spurred on by one of the grimoiremanuscripts of The Ancient Lands Pentalogy. All your beginning rotes must be chosen from the grimoire-manuscript that triggered that Awakening. You do gain 3 additional dots of beginning rotes, however. Additionally, the grimoire-manuscripts often find their way to those who have experienced Ancient Lands Awakenings. Generally speaking, the destiny of the books will arrange for them to come into the hands of those who were Awakened by one of them when they gain an additional dot of Gnosis. Once play begins, Storytellers are encouraged to arrange for other manuscripts to coincidentally come into the hands of characters with this Merit every time such characters increase their Gnosis by 1 dot. Characters with this Merit pay 1 less Experience point to learn rotes from The Ancient Lands Pentalogy grimoire-manuscripts. Finally, because all who are Awakened by these books seem to possess the same generosity and desire to help others that characterize both Lenore and the protagonist Soter, any mage who underwent an Ancient Lands Awakening who fulfills his Virtue by helping Sleepers using his magic also gains a point of Mana in addition to recovering all his Willpower.
Ancient Signs (•••) Book: Guardians Of The Veil, p. 58 Prerequisite: Occult •••, Guardians of the Veil Status • Effect: Your character knows how the Guardians of the Veil implanted certain symbols and tokens of authority throughout history. These symbols still have power today, so the Guardian can use them to claim authority in secret societies that use such symbols. Make a Wits + Occult roll; each success adds one die to social dice pools used to interact with any secret society that uses Guardian symbols. This aids the character’s attempts to convince the society that she is a member or pretend to hold higher status than she currently possesses. In the modern day, a vast number of organizations that do not necessarily even have an ongoing Guardian infl uence still use signs and tokens designed by Guardian Cultors. Drawback: If the deception is discovered or the Wits + Occult roll fails, no other Guardian can use this Merit on the secret society the character has attempted to cheat. Its members either now consider the old signs to be unreliable or have abandoned them before your character tried to use them.
Artifact (••• or Higher) Book: Mage: The Awakening Core , p. 80 Effect: Your mage has an item that originated in a Supernal Realm or that has been directly touched by Supernal power. Artifacts cannot be created by mages — their manufacture lies beyond the power of anyone in the Fallen World. An Artifact’s powers mimic those of magical spells, and they can sometimes be mistaken for imbued items. An Artifact’s base Merit dot cost is equal to 2 dots plus the dot-rating of the Arcanum power it mimics, plus one dot per additional power. If it has more than one power or simulates a conjunctional spell, use the highest Arcanum dot-rating simulated. Base Cost: 2 + highest Arcanum dots +1 dot per additional power Artifacts have the following properties: Legendry: Every single Artifact is unique and legendary, meaning that it has a historical or mythical significance that can be researched, even if its origin or use is obscure and largely forgotten in modern times. Some rare Artifacts are new enough to be unknown to most mages, but even these sometimes appear in others’ dreams or prophecies. A known Artifact can bring its wielder a degree of renown — either good or bad, depending on the Artifact’s legendry. This can act at times like one dot in a sort of Status Merit (see pp. 88-89), although it applies only when the Artifact is of interest to the person its wielder tries to influence, such as a master with whom an audience is requested. The Status lies with the Artifact, not the bearer; if others desire to see it, they might grant the mage audience. The drawback of this legendry is that others might lust for the Artifact and seek to take it from the mage. Awakened use only: Only mages can use Artifacts. Sleepers and most other supernatural creatures lack the necessary sympathetic connection to the Supernal World. Unbreakable: All Artifacts have a Durability that’s two points higher than normal for their materials and manufacture. Function: Persistent or contingent. A persistent power is always active. The power does not have to be cast by the user to take effect; he simply needs to hold the Artifact or wear it. These include talismans of protection against spirits, mirrors that reflect the Shadow Realm version of whatever room they’re in, or cloaks of invisibility, hiding any portion of the wearer covered. The user must use or wear the Artifact to benefit from the power, but the power cannot be turned on or off with a switch or command word. If one or more of the Artifact’s powers is persistent, add one dot to its total cost. A contingent power needs to be activated for each use. It might be a sword that becomes supernaturally sharp when it tastes blood, a carpet that flies when the proper words are spoken, or even a gun made of bones that fires enervating Death energy with each pull of the trigger. The effect’s Duration depends on the default Duration of the spell it mimics, usually transitory (one turn) or prolonged (one hour/scene). Once this period expires, the mage may use the same trigger to use the power again. A trigger is an instant action and can be defined as anything performed within the proximity of the item: verbal commands, gestures and so on. When a trigger is activated, the Artifact’s spellcasting dice pool is rolled. It is equal to its wielder’s Gnosis + the highest Arcanum dot rating used to determine the Artifact’s Merit dots, based on the highest rated power (as described above). Mana: Some powers require Mana. Use the descriptions for the spell mimicked to determine any possible cost. All Artifacts hold up to 10 Mana points + 1 per spell (so an Artifact with three powers holds up to 13 Mana). A user can draw points from the Artifact to fuel its powers rather than spending his own. This pool is self-replenishing; they are restored at a rate of one point per Merit dot per day, although a mage can spend his own Mana to restore the points more quickly, or use Prime magic to transfer them from a Hallow or some other source. (See the “Channel Mana” spell, p. 224.) The wielder can also use the Artifact’s Mana to power his own spells, as if he were drawing on his own Mana reserves (he is still limited by his Gnosis for the amount he can spend per turn). He does not need to use the Prime Arcanum to acquire them, but he does need to be in contact (physical or sympathetic) with the Artifact. Paradox: Artifact powers can invoke Paradoxes just like the spells they mimic, and vulgar effects that are witnessed by Sleepers invoke Disbelief (see p. 274). Example: The Cave Lord’s Talisman is an Artifact in the form of a medallion that allows its wearer to grow bear claws upon activation (a contingent power). This mimics the Life 3 “Transform Self” spell, p. 187. It would be rated at five Merit dots (2+ 3rd-dot Arcanum = 5). Remember, though, that the fifth dot costs two dots, so the total cost would be six Merit dots.
Acquiring an Artifact once play begins does not cost Merit dots; characters must gain them through roleplaying actions. If an Artifact is ever lost, stolen or destroyed, the player loses the Merit and the points he spent to gain it.
Astral Adept (•••) Book: Magical Traditions, p. 57 Prerequisite: Magical Tradition (Taoist); or Sleepwalker plus Taoist Skill package (see “Becoming a Taoist,” p. 51) Effects: An expert at astral projection can meditate her way past the Astral Threshold without the need for a Demesne, Hallow or Mana. For each stage of Astral Space entered, however, the mystic’s player must roll an exceptional success. Reaching the Anima Mundi, therefore, would require three exceptional successes in the course of the extended Meditation roll.
Athenaeum (• to •••••; Special) Book: The Mysterium, p.66 Prerequisites: Mysterium Status •, Sanctum •+ Effect: You can convert each dot in this Merit to two dots in the following Merits: Laboratory, Library and Scriptorium. You must use these dots to purchase at least two different Merits from this list. You may stack these Merit dots with the same dots from standard versions of each Merit, but the derived Merits cannot rise higher than five dots (though there may be some ancient or secret exceptions to this rule). Drawback: The materials that compose each Merit must occupy the same basic location. The Library must occupy the same building as the Scriptorium, for example. If you move component Merits purchased with Athenaeum dots to different locations, you can recover only half of their value as you lose the efficiency of combining resources. Athenaeum materials and facilities also require space to be properly organized: at least one dot of Sanctum Size per two dots of Athenaeum (not component Merits). Special: It’s possible for members of a close-knit group (typically, a Mysterium caucus) to share this Merit. Members each contribute one or more dots and are considered to have common access to the Athenaeum.
Atlantean Hesychia (•) Book: Secrets Of The Ruined Temple, p. 111 Prerequisite: Awakened, High Speech Effect: Your character has acquired an indepth understanding of Atlantean hesychia. While any mage can learn and perform basic meditative rituals, master hesychians can travel to Astral Space with greater ease. Each Composure + Wits roll made as part of the extended meditation action to enter Astral Space takes only 15 minutes for your character, instead of the usual 30 minutes. In addition, your character can try to enter Astral Space from Hallows rated less than 5; for each dot below 5 the Hallow is rated, add four successes to the meditation roll’s target number. A character with this Merit still cannot enter Astral Space outside a Demesne or Hallow
Blood of the Oath of Ruin (••) Book: Intruders - Encounters With The Abyss, p. 131 The integration of the Abyssal substance of the Oath of Ruin into the minds, bodies and souls of the Harpers has left them twisted and scarred, but such patronage has also resulted in its own curious boons. Those closest to the central bloodline of the family, whose metaphysical pollution runs thickest, occasionally manifest certain preternatural capabilities. This Merit allows the character to sense the presence of Abyssal phenomena (including, but not limited to, intruders of any sort, Paradox, Scelesti, everything save other “pure-blooded” Harpers) out to a distance of 100 feet or so. This sense typically manifests in some unpleasant way: nosebleeds, burning hives, intense stomach cramps and the like. Regardless of the pain or discomfort inherent in the character’s perception, he gains a +1 bonus to all rolls involving Physical Skills made while in the presence of Abyssal phenomena.
In exchange for this dubious gift, the character must take a permanent derangement, as well as a Physical Flaw or else one of the following Social Flaws: Deformity or Speech Impediment. (See the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 218, for explanations of the various Flaws)
Body-Ravaging Magic (•••) Book: Banishers, p. 41 Prerequisites: Awakened (Banisher or Storyteller’s permission); must be purchased with bonus Merit dots at character creation Effect: The mage can expose her body to the raw power of the Supernal Realms, opening a more potent channel for the energies of improvised spells. If she willingly suffers up to as many points of resistant bashing damage as the lower of her Resolve or Composure, she can add dice equal to the damage she suffered to the pool of one instant, improvised spell, cast at the time of the injury. Alternatively, she can suffer resistant lethal damage to enhance improvised extended spells. Once again, she can only suffer as much resistant lethal damage (and add as many dice) as the lower of her Resolve and Composure. She must suffer these injuries for each dice roll — not once for the entire casting. Body-Ravaging Magic manifests differently for every Banisher. Some suffer spontaneous burns, cuts and contusions. Classic stigmata and spiral burns over the chakras have been reported. Others cough or cry blood, or simply tremble and turn pale. Drawback: Injuries and limitations aside, this Merit can’t add dice to rote versions of a spell.
Cartomancer (• to •••) Book: Keys To The Supernal Tarot, p. 13 Prerequisites: Awakened, Occult Specialty — Tarot, Wits ••• Effects: A cartomancer is never without a Tarot deck. In the myriad possibilities of the Tarot lies true magical power and a way to make Awakened magic fit a bit more seamlessly into the Fallen World. A mage can become a cartomancer without training by another mage, but must still fulfill the perquisites. The Cartomancer Merit is progressive. Each dot is a prerequisite for the next dot. So your character cannot have the “Interpretive Draw” ability unless she first has the “Divinatory Eye” ability. • Divinatory Eye: This level of the Merit represents basic familiarity with the Tarot with respect to Awakened magic. This has two effects. First, the character gains a +2 to all attempts at divination, including spells that attempt to see the future or uses of the Dream Merit, if she uses a Tarot deck in the attempt. Second, the character can dedicate a Tarot deck as a magical tool. She can also dedicate individual cards as Arcana tools, but she needs a way to find a particular card quickly in a crisis situation if this is to help. •• Interpretative Draw: Before casting a spell, the character draws one card from her Tarot deck. Depending on what the card is, it can help her cast the spell or warn her against it. The system for this can either be a dice roll or a literal random draw from a Tarot deck. If you choose to use a random draw from a deck, the Storyteller and the player must interpret the card in relation to the spell being cast and the situation at hand. If the card indicates that the casting is favorable, apply the bonus as described below under “Success.” If the card is something extremely favorable, the Storyteller may deem it an exceptional success. But by the same token, if the draw indicates something truly disastrous, the character suffers a failure or a dramatic failure. The dice pool, should you choose to use that system, is Wits + Occult. Drawing and interpreting the card is an instant action, meaning that the character casts the spell on the following turn. Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The spell is the wrong choice for the situation. If the mage chooses to cast it, the player rolls a chance dice. A dramatic failure on this roll is treated as a Havoc Paradox, whether or not the spell was vulgar in aspect. Failure: The spell isn’t the best choice, but it might work. Apply a -2 to the character’s casting attempt if she chooses to go through with it. Success: The spell is a good choice given the situation. Apply a +2 to the character’s attempt. If the character has the High Speech Merit and chooses to spend the next turn chanting, this bonus stacks with the High Speech bonus for a total of +4. Exceptional Success: The spell is exactly appropriate for the circumstance. The player receives a 9-again bonus on the casting roll. ••• Instinctive Draw: The character can now use the Interpretative Draw ability as a reflexive action, meaning that she can draw, interpret, and cast in the same turn. Alternately, the character can draw, interpret,
and then chant in High Speech, thus gaining the High Speech Merit along with the bonus from this Merit (if any) on the following turn. Although the mage does not have to cast the spell if the draw isn’t favorable, she can only make one draw per spell, even if the draw is a reflexive action.
Celestial Name (• to •••••••) Book: Legacies: The Ancient, p. 114 When a planetary god gives a Stargazer a new name, it confers a minor, honorary rank in the spirit court of that planet. The new name acts as a password to enter that court: the mage still must obey all the court’s rules, but at least hostile henads may give the mage a chance to talk. The Hermetic also gains a +1 bonus to all dice pools for interacting with spirits of that court, whether magically or socially. For instance, the mage gains the bonus to summon this class of henads, to compel them or banish them, or to attempts to persuade or negotiate with the spirits using mundane Skills. The ThriceGreat does not gain the bonus for outright attacks on the spirit (including use of the third Attainment). Given time, power and successful negotiations with highranking spirits, a mage could parlay a Celestial Name into actual Status in the planetary court. This would confer greater authority over lower-ranking spirits but also mean obligations toward higher-ranking spirits, so Thrice-Great are cautious about pursuing this route. A Celestial Name is pure privilege. Status in multiple spirit courts also tends to cause conflicts of interest, while the point of Celestial Names is to collect them from all seven planetary courts.
Countermagic Stance (• to •••) Book: Mage Chronicler's Guide, p. 177 Prerequisites: Awakened, one dot in the applicable Arcanum Effect: A countermagic stance weakens spells that use a particular Arcanum. Purchase this Merit separately for each Arcanum. Each dot reduces one spell factor rank of the mage’s choice from any spell of that Arcanum that targets him. This is a reflexive action. This Merit is effectively one dot higher when it’s either connected to the mage’s Ruling Arcanum or the incoming spell is a rote the mage knows. These benefits stack. For example, if an Obrimos knows Forces Countermagic Stance ••• and an enemy casts a “Telekinetic Strike” at her that inflicts four points of bashing damage, she can strip all four points (factors) from the spell. If she actually knew “Telekinetic Strike” she could even nullify a spell that inflicted five points of damage.
Daimon (•••) Book: Tome Of The Watchtowers, p. 66 Effect: “Daimon” is the original Greek word from which the modern English “demon” is derived. The Greeks regarded the daimon as an intermediary between the gods and man, distinct from the free-roaming malevolent spirit of Mesopotamia. Comparable to other Paths’ guardian angel, faerie kin, power animal or ancestral protector, the daimon shares an intimate personal link with the bearer of this Merit, but also partakes of the Supernal Realm that is the daimon’s birthplace. A mage’s daimon is far older than the mage, at least in an ontological sense, and has access to knowledge, wisdom and modes of thought or being that are beyond mortal ken. Mages of any Path can purchase this Merit. This Merit acts similar to the Dream Merit (p. 82 in Mage: The Awakening). The mage with this Merit, however does not need to spend an hour in sleep or trance to receive a clue from his daimon. He merely spends one turn in meditative concentration, and the Storyteller rolls his Wits + Composure in secret, with the same results as described for the Dream Merit, except that success provides only one clue. This clue comes from the daimon, and similar to dream clues, is cloaked in allegory and metaphor.
Destiny (• to •••••) Book: Mage: The Awakening Core, p. 81 Prerequisite: Awakened Effect: Your character’s thread stands out in the skein of fate. It may be cut short through tragedy or catastrophe, but until then, she has the ability to weave it into a sound pattern of her choosing. She is fated for great triumphs, and this Merit helps her achieve them. Like any true hero, she finds success a little more
easily than mere mortals. In true heroic fashion, she also has a fatal flaw — no matter how strong her Pattern might be, it has one weakness others can use to tear it apart. For each chapter in a story, you have a pool of “destiny dice” equal to twice the number of dots your character has in this Merit. For instance, a character with 2 dots of Destiny has four dice in his destiny pool. Each time you use one of these destiny dice, you can add it to any one dice pool. You can use them all on one dice roll, or split them up between different dice rolls. Either way, once you use them, they’re gone until the next chapter or game session. For example, a player whose character has Destiny 3 (giving him six dice) might choose to add two dice to a Brawl roll and then four to an Occult roll. The next game session, he might apply six dice to a single Intimidation roll. The bonus can apply to Mental, Physical or Social rolls, or to spellcasting rolls. You can even use these dice on a Skill for which your character has no training (although she still suffers the penalties for untrained Skill use). Drawback: Your character’s blessing has a price: her bane. There is one type of person or situation that can bring her down. This bane can be summed up in one sentence, generally describing what her downfall will be. The Storyteller must either declare or approve this bane during the course of the game. For instance, a hero may have been told to “Beware the Queen of Hearts” (perhaps a reference to the woman who will seduce and destroy him), while another may be warned, “Wolves will devour your soul.” The reference may be literal or figurative, but it should never mention a specific time or place. Whenever the bane comes into play, the character’s dice pools are penalized by one die per Destiny dot he possesses. This applies only to dice pools for directly dealing with the bane or for resisting its attacks, spells or even Social rolls to intimidate or persuade the character. For example, if the character’s bane mentions wolves, anytime he encounters a “wolf” (whether that’s an actual werewolf or a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” depending on how the Storyteller interprets the bane), dice pools are penalized.
Dream (• to •••••) Book: Mage: The Awakening Core, p. 82 Effect: Your character has a connection to primordial forces in the world, ancient truths that can be seen and comprehended only in dreams. He gains insight into secrets through reverie and visions, finding answers to questions he couldn’t normally get by mundane means. This might be through the collective unconscious, universal mind, poetic reverie or even an imagined journey to a fictional dreamscape. Through effort of will, he can even channel this insight into action. Behind the lie of the so-called real world, dreams reveal the world as it really is… from a certain point of view. Once per game session, your character can use his Dream ability to gain a supernatural insight concerning a question or topic. Activating this ability requires at least one hour spent in sleep, trance or an activity exclusively focused on accessing an altered state of consciousness. The Storyteller then rolls the character’s Wits + Composure in secret. The results are: Dramatic failure: A nightmare. The character can interpret it any way he wants, but it probably leads to more trouble than solutions. Failure: Meaningless images. Success: One or more clues (one per Dream dot), although they must be interpreted. Exceptional success: One or more clues (one per Dream dot), and a suggestion about their interpretation provided by the Storyteller. The information conveyed is hidden behind allegory, symbols and archetypes. Dreams rarely answer questions directly, typically relying on symbolism and imagery to convey information. A mage seeking a specific person’s location wouldn’t see his address, but landmarks nearby could lead the way: a river, a tower or even the face of a man walking by at dusk. The answer has the potential to resolve the problem. It’s a tool for the Storyteller to help drive events of the story.
Dreamland (• to •••••) Book: Legacies: The Ancient, p. 21 Prerequisite: Awakened, Dreamspeaker Legacy Effect: The mage may freely visit one or more locations in the Dreamtime. These Astral locations arise from the psychic resonance associated with a place. Some Dreamspeakers say that the Dreamborn came to rest in such places, and that Dreamlands are the echoes of the Dreamborn’s own fitful dreams. Others say that ancestors won these places from the Dreamborn at the dawn of time, or that they merely arose after millennia of rites and initiations in the sacred place. Dreamspeakers can know multiple Dreamlands. Each one
represents one Merit dot. A character does not require this Merit to reach a Dreamland, but he cannot access its wisdom without first purchasing this Merit. Each Dreamland contains one dot of the Library background (see Mage: The Awakening, pp. 85–86). This usually doesn’t represent Astral books and scrolls, but visions of wise ancestors and Dreamborn who are willing to share their knowledge. This lore can often reveal histories — both mundane and supernatural — of the region that are otherwise unrecorded in any book or living memory. Drawbacks: Dreamlands are at least 20 miles apart from one another. Each Dreamland’s physical location also has one essential feature that, if destroyed or changed (by construction or landscaping, for example), cuts off access to the Dreamland until the problem is repaired.
Enhanced Item (• to •••••) Book: Mage: The Awakening Core, p. 82 Effects: Your mage has an object whose properties have been supernaturally altered, either for increased Durability, Structure, Size or an equipment bonus, or to give it some special property, such as to make steel transparent or flexible. Enhanced items are made with the Matter Arcanum (see pp. 194-204). Any special properties that would require the use of other Arcana (such as Forces to make a sword that glows) must be achieved by imbuing the item instead; see “Imbued Item,” below. The cost depends on the enhanced item’s properties. Property Increased Durability Increased Structure Increased Size Increased equipment bonus Special property
Merit Dot Cost 1 dot per +2 Durability 1 dot per +2 Structure 1 dot per +2 Size 1 dot per +1 dice modifier* 1 dot per Arcanum dot needed to achieve the property
* If the enhanced equipment bonus is more than double the item’s normal equipment bonus, the enhanced item causes Disbelief when Sleepers witness its use. Enhanced items have the following features: Function: Persistent only. A persistent power is always active (i.e., of indefinite Duration). The user simply needs to hold the item or wear it. No Paradox: Enhanced items’ properties do not invoke Paradoxes, although they might invoke Disbelief in Sleepers if their properties are clearly impossible. Example: A katana normally has a +3 equipment bonus, but Zeno carries a special katana. It sports a +2 enchanted equipment bonus (for a total bonus of +5 dice) and a +2 Durability (for a total of Durability 6). It costs him 3 Merit dots. An item can be both enhanced and imbued. See “Imbued Item,” below. Simply add the cost of all enhancements and imbuements together to determine the item’s total Merit cost. Acquiring an enhanced item once play begins does not cost Merit dots; characters must gain such items through roleplaying actions. If the item is ever lost, stolen or destroyed, the player loses the Merit and the points he spent to gain it.
Extemporaneous Affinity (•,•••• or •••••) Book: Banishers, p. 41 Prerequisite: Awakened Effect: The mage has developed the ability to cast improvised spells of greater potency than is usual. This could be the result of an absence of formal magical training or representative of a mage who prefers to shape spells on the fly. At one dot in the Merit, the character gains a +1 die bonus to improvised spellcasting; at three dots, the character gains a +2 dice bonus, and at five dots, the character gains a +3 dice bonus. Only improvised spells gain the benefit of bonus dice. This Merit is intended to represent a character who has been using magic for a decent length of time without much in the way of formal magical education. Banishers who prefer to burn books rather than read them are also likely candidates for this Merit.
Familiar (••• or ••••) Book: Mage: The Awakening Core, p. 82 Prerequisite: Awakened Effect: Your character has a magical bond with a spirit that aids him, one that is either in Twilight (that is, immaterial and invisible) or embodied. Twilight familiars have no bodies: they are spirits existing in an ephemeral state of existence called Twilight. Embodied familiars inhabit a physical body in the material world. A Twilight familiar is bought for three dots; it is a spirit originating in the Shadow Realm, also known as a “fetch.” Twilight familiars can temporarily manifest like ghosts (see “Manifestations,” p. 210 in the World of Darkness Rulebook), but their ephemeral bodies are otherwise invisible and intangible to the physical world. A Twilight familiar must manifest or use Numina to affect anything in the physical world — except for its bonded mage, whom it can touch at will (its mage can also see and speak with the familiar even when he is not using a spell that allows him to see Twilight). Twilight familiars exist on the material side of the Gauntlet, although they can accompany their masters across into the Shadow, or travel there themselves if their Numina allow it. An embodied familiar is bought for four dots. It takes the form of an earthly creature. Many of the legendary stories of sorcerers with cunning animals companions — cats, rats, bats are actually references to embodied familiars. Familiar Traits Whether immaterial or embodied, a familiar is considered to be a rank 1 spirit (a “squire”; see “The Spiritual Hierarchy,” p. 317). The Storyteller designs the spirit’s traits. Each familiar begins play with at least one dot in each Attribute, with extra dots as listed below. See “Spirits,” pp. 317- 322, for rules concerning spirit traits. Twilight Familiar Traits Attributes: 3/3/2 (allocate dots in any order among Power, Finesse and Resistance) Willpower: Equal to Power + Resistance Essence: 10 (10 max) Initiative: Equal to Finesse + Resistance Defense: Equal to highest of Power and Finesse Speed: Equal to Power + Finesse + “species factor” (same as its earthly counterpart) Size: 5 or less (same as its earthly counterpart) Corpus: Equal to Resistance + Size Influence: 2 dots (choose one) Numina: Choose one Ban: The fetch has one Ban, chosen by the Storyteller Most mages with a fetch have a respectable command of Spirit Arcanum, since its spells are useful for influencing the familiar. It is possible to have a fetch without knowledge of Spirit magic — or even knowing what the fetch really is — but such a relationship may torment the mage more than it helps him. When a fetch manifests, use the following modifiers: Location Wilderness Demesne Hallow Place associated with the spirit’s Influence Ley line nexus Handmade structure (wooden bridge, shed) Parking lot Modern commercial building Modern industrial building Modern laboratory Embodied Familiar Traits Attributes: 5/4/3
Modifier +3 +3 +2 +2 +1 +1 -1 -1 -2 -3
Skills: 9/6/3 Willpower: Equal to Resolve + Composure Essence: 10 (10 max) Initiative: Equal to Dexterity + Composure Defense: Equal to lowest of Dexterity and Wits Speed: Strength + Dexterity + “species factor” (based on its animal type) Size: 5 or less (based on its animal type) Health: Equal to Stamina + Size Influence: 2 dots (choose one) Numina: Innocuous (see below), and choose one more Ban: The fetch has one Ban, chosen by the Storyteller. Embodied familiars live in the material world in a physical body, although it might be a rather strange body. They are often clever and loyal animals, the black cat or cunning rat of sorcerous legend. All embodied familiars have the Innocuous Numen (see pp. 321-322). It is very good at not being noticed by others. Anyone but its bonded mage suffers a –2 penalty on perception rolls to notice the familiar, unless it does something to draw attention to itself. A familiar’s bonded mage is considered to be its anchor to the material world, although there is no limit to how far a familiar can travel from its mage. It does not lose Essence for every hour it spends in the physical world or Twilight. It must follow all the other rules concerning Essence, however, including spending one Essence per day. If it is reduced to zero Essence, it falls into slumber (see “Essence,” p. 319), but it is not transferred back into the Shadow Realm as long as the mage-familiar bond still exists. Like other spirits, it can gain Essence by being in proximity to something that it reflects, or its mage can spend Mana points to give it Essence. The master and familiar have an empathic connection; each can automatically feel the emotions of the other. (Magical effects that damage or manipulate the familiar through an emotional attack don’t damage or manipulate the master.) All familiars have a Sensory sympathetic connection to their bonded mage, meaning that a mage’s scrying spells can use the familiar’s senses in place of a scrying window, with no sympathetic penalty. This makes familiars superlative spies. Even more useful, however, the mage can spend his familiar’s Essence points as Mana points, no matter how distant the familiar is from the mage. He can also spend his own Mana points to give his familiar Essence. Improvement: To improve a familiar, a mage’s player must spend some of his character’s experience points on the familiar.
Fighting Style: Adamantine Hand (• to •••••) Book: Adamantine Arrow, p. 53 Prerequisites: Five dots of Fighting Style Merits (at least one of which must have ••• ranks), Awakened, Arcanum • (see below), Adamantine Arrow Status •• Effect: Your character has learned to manipulate magical energies with physical techniques, above and beyond rote mudras. You must purchase this Fighting Style separately for each Arcanum (so there is the Death Hand, the Hand of Space and so on). Your character must have one more dot in the associated Arcanum than the dots of the maneuver you wish him to learn. Just as other Fighting styles, you must purchase each maneuver in order. This rule applies, separately, to each style. For example, a character with Adamantine Hand: Forces ••• and Adamantine Hand: Life • can progress to Adamantine Hand: Forces •••• or Adamantine Hand: Life •• — not •••. The names below are often used in old texts, but every school has a unique, cryptic name for each technique. Thunder (•): Your character can sense the weak points in Shielding Practice spells without even using magic. Her psychic senses intuitively seek out flaws in these defenses, and she knows how to physically slip through them. If an opponent employs a Shielding spell using the Fighting Style’s Arcanum, reduce the spell’s effect by one point against the character’s spells, Brawl strikes or Weaponry attacks. Drawback: The character must make physical contact with a hand or held weapon, even when casting a spell, in order to benefit from this maneuver. Diamond (••): Your character can alter her Shielding spells if they belong to the Fighting Style’s Arcanum. She dodges away from weak points in her shield and concentrates its strength in a reduced area. She can increase the strength of her shield by one point against one oncoming attack per turn, but suffers a one-point reduction in shield strength against all other attacks in that turn. She can improve or degrade the shield against different attacks or opponents on each turn.
If your character learns the third rank of the Fighting Style’s Arcanum, she can change the adjustment to +2/–2 if she wishes. She can apply this benefit to advanced spells that protect others, but only if she’s adjacent to the individual or group she’s protecting. Drawback: Using this maneuver costs one point of Willpower per scene. Star (•••): Your character may cast a spell from the Fighting Style’s Arcanum and perform a physical action in the same turn. The spellcasting roll suffers a –1 die penalty. Drawback: This maneuver costs one point of Willpower per turn. Your character may not combine this maneuver with other abilities that grant multiple actions. Blood (••••): Your character can sacrifice her own life force to enhance a spell from the Fighting Style’s Arcanum. She can choose to suffer as many points of aggravated damage as her Resolve. Each point of damage coverts into a bonus die on her spellcasting for that turn. She can also choose to make the damage resistant to magical and Mana-based healing to give the spellcasting roll the 9-again quality. Drawback: This maneuver costs one point of Willpower per use. Abyss (•••••): Your character hones the bond between her soul and body to such an extent that she can channel Supernal energies physically, without tempting of the Abyss. She does not suffer Paradoxes when she casts spells using the Fighting Style’s Arcanum if she channels them through physical contact. In combat, she must successfully initiate a grapple to use this maneuver on a moving target.
Friend of Beasts (• or ••) Book: Tome Of The Watchtowers, p. 154 Prerequisite: Thyrsus Path The mage has less of the human world about him and sees the world more as an animal thanks to the mage’s journey to the Primal Wild. Animals sense this, whether by scent or some other awareness, and they accept him as one of their own. When rolling Animal Ken, the character’s player adds three extra dice to the dice pool being rolled. A mage taking the single dot version of this Merit is unable to hide his bestial nature around others and loses two dice from all Socialize rolls.
Feral Mien (•••) Book: Tome Of The Watchtowers, p. 154 Prerequisite: Thyrsus Path Effect: There’s something bestial and untamed about the mage, as though she’s been living with a pack of wolves or swimming with sharks. She has a pronounced animalist tendency in the way she moves, or in certain mannerisms she possesses. Her voice may have a lot of growl or purr in it, or the way she moves might be lithe like a cat or subtly predatory on an unconscious level. Whatever the specifics, the player gains three additional dice on all Intimidation and Seduction rolls. Many mages with this Merit also have the Friend of Beasts Merit .
Geomancer (•) Book: Sanctum And Sigil, p; 99 Prerequisite: Occult Skill Specialty in Geomancy Effect: The character has a sense for the ley line energies in the local landscape, and can apply certain principles to its particular conditions to alter the ley lines’ shape and/or flow through construction, architecture, interior design, landscaping and pretty much any activity that goes on in the place. What this means is that the character can make an extended-action Intelligence + Occult roll to figure out what steps need to be taken in the area to affect its ley energies. The target number depends on the size of the area. A single room might require only five successes, while the entire house might need 10 successes; a city block might require 20 or more successes. The time per roll is one day, during which the character studies the area and contemplates how geomantic principles might apply. Possible tool modifiers include classic geomancy manuals (+1 or +2, depending on quality), dowsing rods (+1) and even satellite imagery (+2). Dramatic Failure: The character completely misunderstands the meaning and portent of certain features of the area. If his project is implemented, it will have the opposite effect than that desired (ley flow will weaken rather than get stronger, a line will be repelled rather than attracted, etc.). Failure: The character fails to grasp how any activity might alter the area’s ley line landscape. Success: The character has a blueprint for how to alter the shape and/or flow of ley lines in the area.
Exceptional Success: The character’s blueprint is so efficient it can save the project time and money, cutting in half the amount of work required. Generally, altering a line requires construction that involves raising or lowering the ground level, or placing and/or removing structures. Altering the flow requires more subtle affects involving placement of objects in the area and even the look and feel (color and imagery) of buildings and objects. In other words, this means getting permits for construction, hiring architects and workers and buying materials. Not every mage can afford this kind of endeavor. Most of them try to manipulate private builders or City Hall into doing it for them. In addition to planning mundane projects for the alteration of ley lines, the geomancer can attempt to find undiscovered or dormant Hallows based on where he thinks they might occur, given particular conditions in an area. He can study a region to extrapolate the potential location of Hallows, and then investigate the locations he pinpoints to see if he was right. There are no set rules for this; it mainly involves the Storyteller feeding the geomancer clues that might lead him to the proper spot. The Storyteller must decide whether or not a Hallow is really possible at such a place or if it’s just a dead end — or a trap that the geomancer’s rivals, following the same clues, have set to spring upon him.
Geomancer (•) Book: Secrets Of The Ruined Temple, p. 51 Prerequisite: Occult Skill Specialty in Geomancy Effect: The character has a sense for the ley line energies in the local landscape, and can apply certain principles to determine how the ley lines’ path, intensity and resonance are affected by construction, architecture, interior design, landscaping and pretty much any activity that has occurred in the place. The character can make an extended action Intelligence + Occult roll to figure out what has affected the ley energies. The target number depends on the size of the area, and how far back the character wants to trace the geomantic changes. Atlantean-era sites lie in the distant past, and the local net of ley lines may have undergone dozens or even hundreds of changes. In such cases, 20 or more successes might be required to map the effects of time — even considering that powerful mystic sites tend to bend the local energies and attract ley lines through all the changes. The time per roll is one day, during which the character studies the area and contemplates how geomantic principles might apply. Possible tool modifiers include classic geomancy manuals (+1 or +2, depending on quality), dowsing rods (+1) and even satellite imagery (+2). Dramatic Failure: The character completely misunderstands the meaning and portent of certain features of the area. If exploration proceeds along these lines, the investigators find themselves in some dire predicament (clinging to cliffs, exploring unstable caves, trespassing upon military bases, etc.). Failure: The character fails to grasp how the area’s ley landscape has altered. Success: The character has a timeline for how the shape and/or fl ow of ley lines in the area have changed. Exceptional Success: The character’s knowledge is so precise that other effects are possible, such as uncovering possible nodes or revealing the logic behind the initial network of ley lines. Other uses of geomancy can be found in Sanctum And Sigil.
Gesture Lore (• to •••••) Book: Tome Of The Mysteries, p. 94 Prerequisites: Awakened, Dexterity 3, Occult 3 Effect: Mages are usually forced to use the gestures that are “coded” into a particular rote. Once willworkers learn one version, it’s impossible to learn another by any method short of relearning the rote entirely. On the other hand, some mages might be adept at translating one set of gestures into another. These mages can see how an asana might replace the mudras or nata they originally learned. This is a useful skill because each type of gesture has its own inherent limitations. Mages using mudras must devote at least one hand to them instead of carrying an object, for example. Use the following Merit to simulate this ability. For each dot in this Merit, a mage can substitute one other gesture type for that mandated by a rote that she learns. For example, a mage who knows a version of “Numinous Shield” that requires mudras could cast a version that uses asanas (or pranayama as well, if she had two dots in this Merit). Choose one type of gesture (from asana, darshana, mudra, nata and pranayama) for each dot purchased. The mage can substitute the gesture inherent to a given rote for any of those selected. In addition, the mage can pass on the rotes she knows using one of the alternate gesture forms she has studied instead of the form she learned it in.
Drawback: This is only effective for rotes the mage knows, and only for personal castings of these rotes. Furthermore, no matter how many gesture sets she knows, a mage can only pass on one of them while teaching a given rote.
Ghost Familiar (•••) Book: Summoners, p. 39 Prerequisite: Awakened Effect: The willworker has a magical bond with a ghost within the immaterial state of Twilight. Unlike a normal familiar, ghost familiars may not be embodied, though they can attempt to manifest (The World of Darkness, p. 210), as normal. Even while insubstantial, however, a ghost familiar may touch, and be touched by, the mage to whom it is bound. Likewise, the bound shade may speak with the willworker and hear her words, without the need for any other magics. Ghostly familiars exist on the material side of the Gauntlet, but can travel with their masters into Shadow, or go there themselves, if they possess the appropriate Numina. The act of bonding with a ghost in this way frees the restless shade from reliance upon its anchors: it may still travel to them, as normal (The World of Darkness, pp. 209–10), but it no longer needs them. Even if all of its anchors are destroyed, the ghost remains within the material realm, rather than descending to the Underworld. Further, the ghost may now range as far from its master as a normal familiar might, and the familiar bond bestows a modicum of self-awareness upon even the dimmest residual shade. Such ghosts regain a bit of personality (through proximity to the Supernally-fortified souls of the mage to whom they are bound); enough to interact on the same level as a more conventional familiar. A ghost familiar spends and receives Essence in the same manner as a fetch, though the ghost familiar can only gain Essence from its bonded willworker or through proximity to a place resonant with death. The empathic connection conveyed by a normal familiar bond exists between a mage and her ghost familiar. Likewise, the ghost familiar constitutes a Sensory sympathetic tie for its bound mage, and the willworker can spend the shade’s Essence as points of Mana. Ghost familiars are built as fetches, with the following exceptions: • A ghost familiar retains its Virtue and Vice, and benefits from them, as normal. (Note, however, that the ghost familiar’s Morality score, and any derangements associated with degeneration, are lost when the familiar bond takes hold; the ghost no longer needs its Morality trait to function normally.) • A ghost familiar has no Influence or Ban. • A ghost familiar has two ghost Numina (The World of Darkness, pp. 210–2), rather than one spirit Numen. • As above, ghost familiars attempting to manifest do so according to the rules that govern ghosts, rather than those for normal fetches.
Glyph Lore (• to ••••) Book: Tome Of The Mysteries, p. 97 Prerequisites: High Speech Merit, Awakened, Intelligence 3, Occult 3 Effect: For each dot in this Merit, a mage automatically comprehends one type of High Speech glyph from any culture. The categories are: Classical (normally only selected by mages who do not hail from Western Diamond orders), Illuminated, Palimpsest and Vulgar. No matter the selected form’s cultural origin, the mage’s player doesn’t need to roll dice to comprehend it. In addition, the mage can use runes to extend duration and inscribe the rotes she knows using any form she has selected for this Merit instead of the form she learned it in. Drawback: This is only effective for rotes the mage knows, and only for personal castings of these rotes. Furthermore, no matter how many types of High Speech she knows, a mage can only pass on one of them while recording a given rote.
Goetic Familiar (•••• or •••••) Book: Grimoire Of Grimoires, p. 96 Prerequisite: Awakened; successful casting of the Goetic Manifestation spell Effect: Your character has a bond with a spirit drawn, in part, from within his own consciousness; specifically, from within the part of himself driven by wickedness and iniquity. This familiar, like an ordinary
familiar, may exist in either Twilight (for 4 Merit dots, making it a goetic fetch) or in the physical plane (for 5 Merit dots, making it an embodied goetic familiar). Except as noted below, the demonic familiar is created using the base familiar creation rules given on p. 83 of Mage: The Awakening, and the caster may build her demon in any way she likes (Attributes, Skills, Numina, etc.), save for the entity’s Influence, which is automatically set to correspond to the character’s Vice, and its Ban, which is never to pass up any opportunity to guide the mage (and anyone else it can) toward indulging in the willworker’s particular Vice. Because some part of the character’s baser nature is drawn out of him and incarnated in an external form, the mage benefits from a +2 modifier to all rolls to shrug off mundane or supernatural manipulation through appeals to his Vice. If a power used to attack the character through his Vice is resisted rather than contested, then the +2 bonus to contesting the effect instead becomes a -2 penalty to the aggressor’s dice pool to use said power against the character. Note that, unlike other familiars of its type, an embodied goetic familiar may take on a wholly human shape or one only subtly different from human. No self-proclaimed scholar of the Key knows why this is, but speculation is that the small quantity of human spiritual essence within the familiar grants it the ability to incarnate in a human shape. Small deviations tend to be archetypically “demonic” in nature: red (or otherwise abnormally-colored) eyes, nubs of horns upon the brow, too-sharp canine teeth, reddish or slightly metallic skin tone, the faint smell of brimstone or burning incense, etc. A familiar marked with these characteristics is (at any time other than Halloween or a costume party, anyway), naturally, a threat to the Veil, unless disguised through other means. Similarly, as a creation of Vice, even an embodied goetic familiar may take on a genuinely demonic appearance, such as that of a twisted little imp, a hellhound, or another such clearly unnatural shape (to a maximum Size of 5). Wise goeticists are advised to keep these entities well out of the sight of Sleepers (and, if they don’t wish to be branded as Scelesti, probably out of the sight of other willworkers, as well), lest the Guardians of the Veil come calling. While subject to the limitations of its form (a scaled and tusked mastiff, though certainly intimidating, cannot use a pen to write, for instance), a goetic familiar in the shape of a human or a demon does not enjoy any especial benefits on account of its shape beyond those normally possessed by an embodied familiar. The same as normal familiars, goetic familiars may be improved with Experience points (subject to the normal limitations and trait caps of rank 1 spirits, unless otherwise noted): Trait Attribute Skill Skill specialty Numen
Experience Point Cost New dots x8 (fetch) or x5 (embodied familiar; capped at 5) New dots x3 (embodied familiars only; capped at 5) 3 (embodied familiars only) 25 (up to 4 Numina for fetches or 5 for embodied familiars)
Note that changes to a spirit’s Attributes may alter other characteristics, such as Health or Speed, and adjust those traits accordingly. Goetic familiars may not have their Influences increased. A mage who already has a familiar (Twilight or embodied) may still acquire a goetic familiar of either sort, but may only ever have one goetic familiar, regardless of type.
Graduate of Otranto (•••) Book: The Mysterium, p. 72 Prerequisites: Acanthus Path, Mysterium Status •, graduate of the Scuola di Otranto Effect: Graduates of Otranto understand doom. Add +2 dice to their spellcasting pools when they cast the “The Evil Eye,” “Monkey’s Paw,” “Forge Doom” and “Great Curse” spells. At the Storyteller’s discretion, this applies to other curses as long as they use the Fate Arcanum. The mage can voluntarily forego this benefit and avoid its associated drawback, below. Drawback: If the mage uses this Merit’s benefit, she takes a bit of the target’s doom onto herself. The mage gains an extra Paradox die, even if the spell was covert and appeared plausible. Special: This Merit is an example of the type of Merits available to students of academy Athenaea. Storytellers should invent others to reflect the unique experience of studying at a particular academy.
Guardian Ghost (•• to •••••) Book: Sanctum And Sigil, p. 85
Prerequisite: Sanctum Effect: A wise mage fears what he doesn’t see as much as what he does see. While an empty corridor in a sanctum may look like an easy opportunity for a quick raid, it’s entirely possible that spiritual forces are guarding it, hiding in Twilight. A Twilight ghost has been anchored to an object or room within the material sanctum and commanded to guard the entire sanctum against intruders. The ghost will only heed the commands of its masters (i.e., anyone who has contributed Merit dots toward the purchase of this Merit); the ghost will treat all others as hostile unless commanded by its master to exempt a person from its ire. The masters do not need to be able to converse with the ghost (it can understand their commands), but they can’t see it or hear it without using the Death 1 “Speak with the Dead” spell, unless the ghost uses a Numen like Ghost Sign or manifests. (They can command it to do so.) The dot rating of this Merit represents the power of the ghost. Dots •• ••• •••• •••••
Attribute Dots 5 10 15 30
Max Essence 10 15 20 25
Numina 1 2 3 4
The player or Storyteller creates the ghost, distributing its Attribute dots among its Power, Finesse and Resistance traits, and choosing its Numina. Drawback: Ghosts can be controlled by other mages using the Death Arcanum. They can also be driven out by an exorcism, which even a Sleeper can perform. (See “Exorcisms,” p. 214, in the World of Darkness Rulebook.) If that happens, all dots in this Merit are lost.
Guardian Retainer (• to •••••) Book: Sanctum And Sigil, p. 85 Prerequisite: Sanctum Effect: This Merit is exactly like the Sleepwalker Retainer Merit (see p. 116 of the World of Darkness Rulebook), in that it gives the mage a Sleepwalker servant, but this one is trained mainly for combat. Usually a minimum of two dots is needed to make a guardian of any value. (One dot might provide a good lookout but does not represent a worthy fighter.) The guardians can be sentries, soldiers, undercover agents, black suits or watch men — whatever role is needed to defend the sanctum. They take their orders from anyone who is a legitimate owner of the sanctum (i.e., anyone who has contributed Merit dots toward the sanctum’s Size or Security). A sanctum’s Size describes how many bodies can be comfortably sequestered inside the sanctum. Generally, you can fit two guardians per room. Any more than that and morale might be less than desired, giving the guardians a chance to simply break and run if the action gets too heavy. Drawbacks: Guardian Retainers will only defend the sanctum, not perform errands like other Retainers; this is the price for their willingness to die defending the sanctum.
Guardian Spirit (•• to •••••) Book: Sanctum And Sigil, p. 86 Prerequisite: Sanctum Effect: A Twilight spirit has been fettered to an object or room within the material sanctum and commanded to guard the entire sanctum against intruders. The spirit will only heed the commands of its masters (i.e., anyone who has contributed Merit dots toward the purchase of this Merit); the spirit will treat all others as hostile unless commanded by its master to exempt a person from its ire. The masters do not need to be able to converse with the spirit (it can understand their commands), but they can’t see it or hear it without using the Spirit 1 “Spirit Tongue” spell, unless it uses a Numen to materialize. The dot rating of this Merit represents the power of the spirit. Dots •• ••• ••••
Rank 1 2 3
Dots Attribute 5 10 15
Max Essence 10 15 20
Numina 1 2 3
•••••
4
30
25
4
The player or Storyteller creates the spirit, distributing its Attribute dots among its Power, Finesse, Resistance and Influence traits, and choosing its Numina. The player or Storyteller also chooses its Ban. Drawback: Spirits can be controlled by other mages using the Spirit Arcanum. The spirit’s masters must provide the spirit with one Essence point per day (using Prime to convert Mana, or taking it from another source) or else the spirit will become surly. It can still be commanded, but it will seek to be freed from its bondage. If the spirit cannot harvest properly aspected Essence at the sanctum, the spirit will slowly lose Essence each day until falling into slumber and forced across the Gauntlet. If that happens, all dots in this Merit are lost.
Guise of Death (•••••) Book: Summoners, p. 184 Prerequisites: Gnosis 5, Stamina 4 Effect: An unfortunate number of summoning rituals call for human sacrifice. The magical power generated by sacrificing a human, combined with the ritual itself, acts like a beacon to a summoner’s call. Thankfully, most mages find the idea of human sacrifice repellant and work to discover alternatives. Mages that are strong of Art and willing to mutilate themselves rather than commit murder, have found that by coating a soul stone with a liberal quantity of their own blood can generate the same sort of power that results from sacrificing a human. In practice, this requires the character to inflict five points of lethal damage on himself to produce the quantity of blood required to negate the cost of human sacrifice. The blood is drizzled all around the ritual area, including soaking the soul stone. A soul stone withers and decays each time it is used to negate the cost of human sacrifice. Each use decreases the Structure of the soul stone by one and the damage caused may not be repaired in any manner (magical or mundane). Use of another mage’s soul stone to replace ritual human sacrifice is an act of hubris for mages of Wisdom four or higher (roll three dice).
Hallow (• to •••••; Special) Book: Mage: The Awakening Core, p. 83 Prerequisite: Sanctum Effect: A Hallow is a nexus of magical energy, a place that generates Mana each day. Such locations are vital to mages. Your character has one within his sanctum’s premises. The sanctum’s security determines how well it is guarded from access by uninvited mages. Hallows tend to be situated in high places, especially where the stars are visible at night. Mana seems to flow readily there, although that isn’t always the case; dark glens and hollows covered by a canopy of trees or steep peaks can still host such energy. Nonetheless, they occur most often on mountaintops, hills or at the tops of skyscrapers, giving birth to the legend of mages in their towers. A Hallow generates a number of points of Mana equal to its dots each day. A mage can transfer the power from his Hallow to replenish his own Mana points by performing an oblation (see p. 77) or using a Prime 3 spell. Each Hallow is tied to a particular time of day when this replenishment can take place — sundown, sunrise and midnight are the most common. If this Mana is not harvested, it congeals into tass, usually in the form of spring water or growing plants, or it’s imbued into stones or other objects. Some mages forbid others from harvesting free Mana, cultivating it into tass that can be stored and used later. See “Tass,” pp. 78-79. A Hallow’s Mana shares the place’s quality of resonance. Resonance quality in opposition to a spell’s effects — calm resonance for an attack spell, violent resonance for a healing spell — might levy anywhere from –1 to –2 penalties on spellcasting rolls. For this reason, mages do not let their Hallows become polluted with foreign or impure auras. They work to maintain proper resonance quality. Additionally, a Hallow’s close vicinity (five yards per dot rating) is always suffused with power. This power obviates the need to spend one point of Mana for any mage within the vicinity. Essentially, mages need not spend that one point even when it’s required, such as for improvisational spellcasting, but must spend any points in excess that are still required, such as when casting an improvisational spell that inflicts aggravated damage. This example would normally cost two points, but it costs only one within the Hallow’s vicinity. This suffuse power cannot be siphoned into something else using Prime magic or into the mage’s personal store of Mana. Special: Characters who share a sanctum can also share Hallow dots, with each contributing to its power. Cabals that do this usually work out a schedule by which each member can access the Hallow’s Mana,
ensuring that none takes too much. If they suffer a falling out, one or more might be banned from access to the Hallow. Those who are banned lose whatever dots they contributed. Shared Hallows should be marked with an asterisk (*) on your character sheet. See the description of the Sanctum Merit for details on how to allocate dots.
High Speech (•) Book: Mage: The Awakening Core, p. 84 Prerequisite: Awakened Effect: Your character knows the rudiments of the Atlantean High Speech. He can utilize it in spellcasting for a burst of power (see “Words of Power,” p. 117), as well as to extend a spell’s Duration using runes (see “Atlantean Runes,” p. 119). If your mage begins play as a member of an order, he learns this Merit at no cost. If he is not a member of an order, he must purchase this Merit using his initial Merit dots or with experience points (assuming there is someone who can teach it to him). High Speech can be spoken and comprehended only by the Awakened. Sleepers’ minds cannot process it. They might hear an Atlantean phrase as a series of nonsense words, or even silence (the speaker’s mouth moves but no sound comes out). Particularly willful Sleepers might catch bits of it, but even then it might sound like a tape played too slow with the bass turned way up.
Homeward Bound (•••) Book: Grimoire Of Grimoires, p. 104 Effects: You have an unerring sense of how to get “home” from any place on earth or in any other dimension. While this Merit confers pinpoint accuracy, whether the character is across town, across the universe or across the Gauntlet, it does not guarantee safety from dangers encountered along the way. Once per session the character may use this Merit, though it may not always be necessary to do so. The number of successes in a Wits + Survival roll determines the general safety of the path home. Dramatic Failure: The path you sense is misleading, taking you directly into the way of some hazard, living or not, that is immediately threatening. Only when it is dealt with (fought, overcome or avoided) may you attempt again to locate the way home. Failure: Something blocks the attempt. You must wait and rest for at least 2 hours before trying again. Success: You know which direction to go. The dangers along the road are not removed, and your sense of direction won’t help you avoid them, but you know a reliable path home. Exceptional Success: The path you sense is particularly choice, perhaps free of some dangers that would otherwise be expected, or with an opportunity for an interesting gain along the way. Drawback: This Merit works only in one direction. Having come home using this Merit, your character may not use this ability to backtrack and return whence he came.
Identity Anchor (••) Book: Tome Of The Watchtowers, p. 153 Prerequisite: Thyrsus Path One of the perils of taking on another shape is the risk of becoming so lost in the new shape that the mage forgets her true identity. This Merit grants the mage an unerring knowledge of who she is that goes right down to the core of her being. The flesh may take this form and that form, but the mage always knows who she is and how to get back to her native form, whether the magic that made her assume the new shape is her own or a spell cast on her by another.
Image of Perfection (•••) Book: Legacies: The Ancient, p. 125 Prerequisite: Echo Walker, Death 2 Effect: The Echo Walker has developed a goal for herself, an image of her own soul merged with the glory and might of the Ones Before. This image is her muse, her daimon and her constant guide, beckoning her on through any moments of doubt or uncertainty. She becomes unable to consider that any action taken in pursuit
of this goal is immoral or harmful, no matter how others might be affected. Such Echo Walkers often have constructed reasons or excuses as to why this is the case, usually with some variation on the “greater good” or the “ends justifying the means.” What it boils down to, however, is that the mage’s lust for power outweighs her morality. This doesn’t prevent the mage from losing Wisdom, of course, but does help in avoiding the insanity that comes with Wisdom loss. After gaining this Merit, whenever the Echo Walker loses a dot of Wisdom due to an act of Hubris, the player can spend a Willpower point to change the dice pool to avoid gaining a derangement to the character’s Resolve + Composure rather than her new Wisdom rating. The character’s Image of Perfection keeps her focused and, if not exactly sane, than at least functional. This serves to make Echo Walkers very dangerous, however, as they become true sociopaths given enough time.
Imbued Item (•• or Higher) Book: Mage: The Awakening Core, p. 84 Effect: Your mage has a magical item with one or more powers. The Prime Arcanum was used to imbue a spell into the object so that its wielder has that power at his disposal (see pp. 225-226). An imbued item’s base Merit dot cost is equal to one dot plus the dot rating of its Arcanum power, plus one dot per additional power. If it has more than one power or uses a conjunctional spell, use the highest Arcanum dot rating involved. Base Cost: 1 dot + highest Arcanum dots + 1 dot per additional power. Imbued items have the following properties. Function: Persistent or contingent. A persistent power is always active. The power does not have to be cast by the user to take effect; he simply needs to hold or wear the item. These include amulets of luck, magical body armor or goggles that let the wearer peer into the Shadow Realm. The user must use or wear the imbued item to benefit from the power, but the power cannot be turned on or off with a switch, command word or the like. If one or more of the imbued item’s powers is persistent (i.e., of indefinite Duration), add one dot to its total cost. A contingent power needs to be activated for each use. The mage squeezes the gun’s trigger or utters the staff’s magic word and calls forth its magic. Duration depends on the default Duration of the spell mimicked by the effect, and is usually transitory (one turn) or prolonged (one hour/scene). Once this period expires, the mage may use the same trigger to use the power again. A trigger should be an appropriate instant action, anything performed within the proximity of the item: verbal commands, gestures and so on. When the trigger is activated, the imbued item’s spellcasting dice pool is rolled. It is equal to its wielder’s Gnosis + the Arcanum dots used for the power. Mana: If a contingent power requires Mana, the item must either have its own Mana pool or the mage must supply the points himself. Some imbued items have their own Mana pools. This costs an additional Merit dot and the item holds up to 10 Mana points + 1 per spell (i.e., an imbued item with two spells can hold up to 12 Mana). Its user can draw points from the imbued item to fuel its powers rather than spending his own. This pool is not self-replenishing. Once the points have been used up, the mage must spend his own Mana to restore the imbued item’s points, or use Prime magic to transfer them from a Hallow or some other source. Unlike an Artifact, an imbued item’s points can be used only to activate its powers, unless the mage uses the “Channel Mana” spell (see p. 224) to place the item’s points somewhere else. Sleepers: Even a Sleeper can use an imbued item. If its power is persistent, he need only hold or wear it. If it’s contingent, he need only perform the proper trigger. The spellcasting dice pool rolled is equal to the highest Arcanum dot rating used to determine the Imbued Item’s Merit dots, based on the highest rated power (as described above). Since Sleepers do not have Gnosis, it cannot be added to the dice pool. Needless to say, Sleepers must rely on an item’s own Mana pool to fuel its powers. Paradox: Imbued items’ vulgar powers can invoke Paradoxes, even when wielded by Sleepers. The dice pool is equal to half the item’s Merit dots (round down). (If the item is created during play with the Prime 3 “Imbue Item” spell, pp. 225-226, the Paradox dice pool is based on the Gnosis of the imbued item’s creator.) Items that produce vulgar effects before the eyes of a Sleeper witnesses will also invoke Disbelief (see p. 274). His own inability to accept the magic undermines the magic. Example: A ring that allows a mage to turn himself invisible on a contingent basis would cost four dots (1 + a 3-dot Forces spell), while a sword with a persistent power that allows it to cut through iron would be rated at five dots (1 + a 3-dot Matter spell + 1 dot for indefinite Duration). An item can be both imbued and enhanced. See “Enhanced Item,” above. Simply add the cost of all imbuements and enhancements together to determine the item’s total cost.
Acquiring an imbued item once play begins does not cost Merit dots; characters must gain these items through roleplaying actions. If an item is ever lost, stolen or destroyed, the character loses the Merit and the points he spent to gain it.
Law of Embodiment (•••••) Book: Tome Of The Mysteries, p.77 Prerequisite: Gnosis 3, knowledge of at least five rotes Effect: The mage who has studied the occult Law of Embodiment understands the deep secrets of the point of manifestation, where the Supernal macrocosm connects with the Fallen microcosm and true magic happens. These magicians are very skilled with rotes, and capable of performing mundane and magical actions nearly simultaneously. First, the mage must adapt a rote he knows to this purpose. Even if he cannot normally create the rote, he can adjust any rote that he learns by spending one experience point per rote. Once he has done this, he can Embody that rote in action. The process is relatively simple: the Embodied rote’s Imago is created in the Awakened will first, and then with only a slight pause, the action is carried out in the physical world. When dealing with instant actions, there is some measure of delay; to outsiders, it appears as though the mage spends one turn focusing, and then acts, his action having both physical and magical purpose. (In game terms, the mage loses his place in the Initiative roster. He now acts last in the turn, after everybody else has taken an action.) In such an instant, an Adamantine Arrow might focus his will and then lash out with an eagle-claw fist at his opponent, infl icting both punching damage and casting the spell “Life Force Assault.” The mage rolls the rote’s Attribute + Skill dice pool (Dexterity + Athletics, in the case of the “Life Force Assault” rote). If it is successful, he then rolls his Arcanum dice for the spell (Life, in the case of “Life Force Assault”). The successes from the two rolls do not mix — the mundane action is resolved separately from the spellcasting action, even though they take place simultaneously. If the mundane roll fails, the spellcasting portion of the action cannot be performed (the Arcanum dice are not rolled). A target’s defense is considered separately for both rolls. First, the mundane dice roll is affected by any condition that would normally affect such an action — the target’s Defense against melee attacks, any modifiers for cover or concealment, range penalties, etc. Second, the spellcasting roll is affected by any defense the target is normally allowed (a contested roll, or subtracting a Resistance Attribute from the casting dice pool). An Embodied casting might not be as effective as a normal casting if the caster’s mundane dice pool isn’t very good, but since a mundane action is accomplished at the same time, it can prove worthwhile for certain spells — especially those that require the caster to touch the target (so long as the rote Skill used is Athletics, Brawl or Weaponry).
Library (• to •••••; Special) Book: Mage: The Awakening Core, p. 85 Prerequisite: Sanctum Effect: Your character maintains within his sanctum a personal collection of useful information, which can help with both natural and supernatural research. Whether it’s in the form of musty occult tomes, encrypted computer files, sacred scrolls, visual art or stranger media, this library includes reference works that can help the mage understand the realm surrounding him. The library also offers insight into supernatural and occult topics that mortals cannot comprehend. In both fields of knowledge — mundane research and occult lore — this collection relates to one or more fields of specialization. Each dot in this Merit represents one field of study or area of knowledge in which your character has a wealth of tomes, computer files or scrolls, and from which he may draw information. If he has Library 3, his dots might be assigned to demons, cryptozoology and Greek mythology, respectively. Topics can include arcane lore that most people don’t know about or that has been forgotten since antiquity. Ordinary people have libraries as well, of course, dealing with less exotic specialties. The study of the supernatural is different from ordinary research, however. Many occult tomes refer to magical insights that only mages understand, allegories to magical philosophy, ciphers and diagrams that make little sense to Sleepers, or even inscrutable incunabula that can be deciphered only by willworkers with certain Arcana. Aging magical tomes don’t typically use indices, keywords or cross-referenced page numbers — they’re as arcane as the mages who use them.
Gaining information from a library is a research task, as described on pp. 55-56 of the World of Darkness rulebook, except that a mage spends only 10 minutes per roll when researching from his library. Success doesn’t guarantee exactly the information for which she looks. Libraries aren’t all-knowing, and they don’t always provide one definitive answer to a question, since multiple authors may have different points of view on the same subject. The Storyteller is perfectly justified in saying that a particular library simply doesn’t reveal something. Any mage may allow another mage the privilege of consulting his library, but unless this consultant has put points toward the Merit, 30 minutes are spent per roll researching his topic. A library is located in a sanctum and is protected by that sanctum’s security. See the “Sanctum” Merit, pp. 86-87. Special: Characters who share a sanctum can also share Library dots, with each contributing to its areas of knowledge. These characters each receive the full benefits of the library, and may invite others to use the facility, so long as all parties agree. It may happen that mages suffer a falling out, in which case one or more might be asked to forfeit their library privileges by the others. Those who are banned lose whatever dots they contributed, unless an agreement is worked out to split the library, allowing outcasts to take their areas of knowledge with them. Shared libraries should be marked with an asterisk (*) on your character sheet. See the description of the Sanctum Merit for details on how to allocate dots.
Long Shifting (•••) Book: Tome Of The Watchtowers, p. 154 Prerequisite: Thyrsus Path The mage is particularly comfortable in the animal forms he assumes, and his magic lasts longer than other mages who lack his mastery of shapeshifting. A mage with this Merit can worry less about awkwardly timed transformations back to human form (while the mage is flying as an eagle, for example), and he need not worry about the strain of repeated casting under circumstances where recasting a spell might be difficult. For purposes of determining how long the mage can remain in a magically assumed form, count the mage’s understanding of the Life Arcanum as two higher than it actually is. This explicitly gives the mage access to Advanced Prolongation (see Mage: The Awakening, p. 120) for all spells that shift his own flesh.
Lu (• to •••••) Book: Magical Traditions, p. 54 Prerequisites: Taoist Skill package (see “Becoming a Taoist,” p. 51), Taoist Status •, Mentor ••• Effects: A character with this Merit can call upon a roster of minor spirits. Unlike Familiars, each spirit in a lu performs only one feat, and only when specifically invoked through the proper ritual. A lu might be seen as a sort of collective Familiar — both in the sense of powers spread among a collection of spirits, and in the sense that all the Taoists of a particular school might call upon the same lu. The size of a school’s register of spirits may vary. A very large lu, however, is a sign that a school lost Awakened leadership long ago, never had it in the first place, or just pads out the register with multiple names for the same spirits to sound more impressive. The number of spirits in a lu (or the number of applications, if one spirit can be invoked for multiple functions) is actually quite modest — no lu exceeds the 24 magical feats offered by the register of Chang Dao-Ling. • •• ••• •••• •••••
One spirit, for one magical service Three services Six services Twelve services Twenty-four services
The Storyteller decides what services a Taoist can obtainfrom a lu. At one or two dots of lu, a Taoist can obtain only minor services, from spirits of rank 1. For three to four dots of lu, a Taoist can invoke spirits of rank 2 and obtain somewhat greater services. Only at five dots of lu can a Taoist direct rank 3 spirits to perform feats of considerable power. Typical feats for the spirits of a lu include luck, protection from various hazards or curing disease. To invoke the spirits in a lu, a Taoist writes the proper talisman for that spirit at an hour whose eight defining numbers (a pair for the hour, day, month and year) harmonize with the spirit’s nature and function.
The Taoist also burns an offering of incense and makes particular mudras while he imagines elementallycharged qi flowing from the proper part of his body into the talisman. The whole process takes an hour. Once he completes the talisman, the Taoist may burn it, bury it or otherwise treat it like any other talisman. When a character invokes his register of spirits, his player rolls Dexterity + Academics + Spirit – the target spirit’s Rank, to see whether the Taoist correctly draws the talisman and performs the associated ritual.
Luxury (•• or ••••) Book: Seers Of The Throne, p. 52 Many Seers of the Throne possess this Merit. It doesn’t represent flexible resources but the ability to live a privileged lifestyle without spending money. Seers acquire this through blackmail, favor trading and investments in businesses and other organizations that cater to the elite. Effect: Your character lives like a millionaire or better, regardless of her actual Resources. She wears fine clothes, drives expensive cars and can always get a spot at exclusive restaurants and resorts. She doesn’t pay for any of it through cash transactions. Instead, her social ties and backers provide these creature comforts. The •• version of this Merit provides the luxuries someone with US$5 million in assets (or Resources 5) could enjoy without breaking the bank. She always flies first class or in a chartered plane. There’s a Porsche waiting for her at the airport, and she can always get past the bodyguards at a nightclub. The •••• version of the Merit provides the kind of lifestyle that alternately fascinates and disgusts the rest of the world. The character has jets and helicopters at her constant disposal, rubs shoulders with celebrities and can count on a staff of assistants willing to cater to her every legal whim — and a few illegal ones (recreational drugs and prostitutes, for example). Drawback: Your character’s luxuries ultimately belong to somebody else. They are for her personal use. She can have guests, of course, but can’t support them for an extended period of time. If she tries to resell or earn money using this Merit she finds that she either can’t move her borrowed assets, or is punished with the loss of this Merit. This Merit cannot be used to acquire weaponry or illegal items.
Magical Components (• to •••••) Book: Mage Chronicler's Guide, p. 45 In a Punk genre game, indie mages create components: symbols and occult techniques they can use to enhance their spells. This compensates for their lack of formal magical training, but learning to use them requires some tutelage — usually, rough and tumble tips from other indie mages. This is represented by the Magical Components Merit. Prerequisites: Awakened, not a member of any order, Seer Ministry or equivalent faction (Storyteller’s discretion as to what qualifies). In a Punk genre chronicle, membership in such a formal tradition sets a mage in his ways, keeping him from learning this Merit. This Merit may or may not disappear after formal tutelage in a traditional magical society — the final decision is left to the group and Storyteller. Effect: The mage can perform special actions to add power to an improvised spell. The mage’s total Merit dots govern the maximum strength she can gather from a single component or the combined effect of multiple components, measured in component points. Once gathered, component points can be expended in a number of ways. Base Components Base components are the building blocks of a powerful improvised spell. Mages gather these at or near the moment of casting. The Storyteller should consider allowing additional components besides the ones described here. Art (1 to 2 points): The mage creates a work of art that acts as a physical extension of the spell’s imago. This can be a drawing, painting, sculpture, song, poem — any original work (though it can be a remix or cutup of somebody else’s art). It doesn’t need to be particularly good for a one-point bonus, but a two-point bonus requires exceptional success (5 or more) on the applicable Attribute + Skill roll. Arcane Experience (3 points): The mage draws on his experience with the supernatural for inspiration instead of investing it through study and contemplation. Accordingly, the player spends one point of Arcane Experience to empower the spell with a three-point component. Ecstasy (1 to 3 points): The mage undergoes an intense mind-altering experience. She might experience significant (and perhaps impairing) effects from a drug, complete the spell at the moment of orgasm, or cast while suspended from hooks piercing her skin. At one point, the ecstatic experience is mild enough that it won’t seriously inconvenience the mage. At two points, it’s enough to inflict a mild disadvantage, such as a momentary –2 penalty to mundane dice pools. At three points, the ecstatic experience makes it difficult to
perform any action other than spellcasting. It imposes a –4 penalty to mundane dice pools or an equivalent drawback. Performance (1 to 3 points): At one point, the mage dresses in a way that ritually invokes the spell’s power, or slaps together prefab artistic elements for display. At two points, the mage actually weaves the spell’s Imago into a performance. At three points, this performance must involve multiple participants or an audience of uninvolved bystanders. Component Modifiers Once the mage has gathered magical components, modify the total in his pool according to the following guidelines. Commitment: If the spell supports the mage’s stated ideology or other creed, add one to the total component points. If the spell violates the creed, subtract one point. Passion: If the spell would satisfy the character’s Virtue or Vice, add one to the total component points. Repetition: If any of the spell’s components are reused in roughly the same form as before during the same chapter, reduce the total components gathered by one point for each reused component. Component Effects Players spend gathered components on the benefits below during the applicable stage in the spellcasting process. Again, the Storyteller is encouraged to add additional benefits where appropriate. Arcane Inspiration: The mage can spend four component points to cast as if he possessed one dot in an Arcanum he doesn’t possess — one dot higher than usual, or one dot in an Arcanum he doesn’t know at all. This cannot be used on the mage’s inferior Arcana. Factor Bonuses: If the spell succeeds, the mage can spend components to add additional spell factors after the fact, even if these were not originally entrenched in the spell’s Imago, on a one-for-one basis. Mitigate Combinations: Two component points nullifies the –2 penalty for combining an additional spell (Mage: The Awakening, p. 129).
Magical Tradition (••) Book: Magical Traditions, p. 23 Prerequisite: Awakened, Occult 2, Academics or Occult Skill Specialty representing the tradition Effects: Your character has studied a particular Sleeper occult tradition, its body of beliefs and spellcraft, and can glean special magical benefit from working within that tradition. Knowledge of a tradition itself is represented by the Academics or Occult Skill Specialty, while this Merit represents a special kind of knowledge available only to the Awakened that allows a mage to learn the rote spells of that tradition. Whereas Sleepers cannot evoke magical results from these rotes (although they might erroneously believe the spells do work in some unseen fashion), mages with this Merit can divine the Supernal echoes reverberating in the tradition’s myths and symbols, and so gain special magical benefit from them. When casting a magical tradition rote, the mage gains the following benefits: • Sleeper Acceptance: When the Storyteller is checking for a Paradox for a vulgar spellcasting, he does not add the +2 dice bonus for Sleeper witnesses. • Conditional Duration: Tradition rotes benefit from the Fate 2 “Conditional Duration” modifier (see Mage: The Awakening, p. 150). Even if the casting mage does not know Fate 2, he can incorporate a conditional duration into the tradition rote casting. • Spell Tolerance Mitigation: Tradition rotes seem more tightly woven into the fabric of the Fallen World; they don’t cause as much mystical interference as other spells or rotes. The first tradition rote cast upon someone does not count toward that person’s Spell Tolerance. Any successive tradition rotes cast upon him will count normally — until the first spell expires, and then the next active tradition rote in line inherits its Spell Tolerance mitigation effect, and so. So, the first one’s free, the rest levy a cost as normal. Naturally, however, these benefits do not come without a price. The drawbacks of culture-bound magic are as follows: • Foci: The mage must use a culturally appropriate focus to cast the tradition rote. Suggestions are provided in the descriptions of the magical traditions in chapters one through four. • Environment: Some rotes require that the spell be cast at a particular time (midnight) and/or in a particular type of place (cemetery). • Tradition rotes cannot be cast as a combined casting with non-tradition rotes. • All those participating in a group casting ritual must know the relevant Magical Tradition Merit (in addition to the usual Arcana requirements), although only the group leader must know the rote. Each time this Merit is purchased, it applies to a different magical tradition. This Merit may be purchased only once per dot of Gnosis.
Mana Self Sacrifice (•) Book: Banishers, p. 41 Prerequisite: Awakened (Banisher or Storyteller’s permission); must be purchased with bonus Merit dots at character creation Effect: The mage can transfer Mana to other Awakened characters through physical contact, but only if that Mana comes from Pattern Scouring (see Mage: The Awakening, pp. 77–78), performed at the moment of transfer. Just as other forms of Pattern Scouring, this requires a full turn, during which the mage can do no more than move her Speed.
Manifestation Machine (• to •••) Book: The Free Council, p. 131 Prerequisites: Awakened and Familiar ••• Effect: Your character has an object with an unusual spiritual quality that facilitates his familiar’s manifestation in the material world. Some mages describe this quality as being like an antenna that receives the familiar’s spiritual “signal,” while others suggest these objects actually reach into Twilight and serve as “hand-holds.” Whatever the cosmological truth is, the effects are undeniable. Each dot in this Merit grants your character’s fetch a +1 die bonus on manifestation rolls within about 10 to 15 yards. The object has a Size equal to its Merits dots or larger. Even if the Manifestation Machine is a stella the size of a car (or is actually a car) it cannot be worth more than three dots for the purposes of this Merit. You must work together with the Storyteller to determine what this object is. In general, assume a Manifestation Machine object has Durability and Size equal to its dots and Structure equal to twice its dots. Outside of the Free Council, these kind of “spiritual receivers” are also known as Twilight buoys, spirit flags, fetch channels and myriad other names, any of with are suitable substitute names for this Merit as well.
Masque (•) Book: Guardians Of The Veil, p.69 Prerequisite: Manipulation •••, Guardians of the Veil Status • Effect: Your character has trained to master a particular Greater Masque. When the character has the token of that Masque, she is entitled to the bonus the Masque grants (see the “Trained Benefit” entry for each Masque). Furthermore, when she wears or uses the Masque’s token while using the Masque identity as a disguise, you gain a +2 dice bonus to disguise attempts associated with the Masque’s identity. You may purchase this Merit multiple times. Each purchase represents training in a different Greater Masque or a different identity within the same Greater Masque (with each one favoring different Skills). Drawback: Whenever you are capable of using this Merit’s benefits, your character is so immersed in the Masque that she also acquires the Masque’s Drawback. See the Masque Drawback entry for each Greater Masque. The Masque’s benefit and its drawback dice modifiers do not apply to magical or other supernatural tasks.
Master Exorcist (••) Book: Tome Of The Watchtowers, p. 153 Prerequisite: Thyrsus Path Prerequisite: Spirit ••• Due to the mage’s deep understanding of the Spirit Arcanum, the mage has an innate understanding of the techniques spirits use to invade material bodies, allowing him to more easily break those bonds. Any tie a mage with this Merit performs an exorcism, his player adds three additional dice to the pool. This Merit also grants the mage three additional dice to resist being possessed himself.
Myrmidon Oath Tongue (••) Book: Seers Of The Throne, p. 218 Prerequisite: Awakened only
The oath the first Myrmidons took to the General applies to their entire dynasty, and is the reason the Praetorians trust the secretive Proximi more than they even trust one another. The Myrmidon Oath-Tongue is a special codelanguage learned by Praetorian Mages that incorporates elements of the High Speech and the First Tongue of Spirits. A Myrmidon must obey all orders given in the Oath-Tongue, even to the point of his own death, unless the order is impossible to accomplish.
Mystery Initiation (• to •••••) Book: The Mysterium, p. 102 Prerequisite: Mysterium Status of at least equal the rating in this Merit. Effect: All mages of the Mysterium go through the stages of initiation in the Atlantean Mystery that is the secret core of the order. Not all of them truly internalize the process, however. To some, it is simply an acknowledgement of the respect they are accorded, and an acceptance of further responsibility in the order. To others, however, undergoing the initiations into the Mystery unlocks some new understanding. Each initiation comes with a Mystery Revelation, some mechanical benefit that reflects the enlightenment that comes to those magi who deeply understand and connect with the Mystery communicated through the initiatory rites.
Nimbus Sense (••) Book: Banishers, p. 42 Prerequisite: Awakened (Banisher or Storyteller’s permission) Effect: The mage’s supernatural “sixth sense” (see Mage: The Awakening, p. 110) is especially attuned to other Awakened souls. He automatically senses another mage’s nimbus whether it’s uncloaked or not. Occultation and spells designed to conceal the mage’s nimbus or Resonance automatically defeat this ability, but otherwise, it constantly functions within the character’s line of sight. Banishers with this Merit can easily pick mages out in a crowd. When a mage loses control of her nimbus after satisfying a Vice, a character with Nimbus Sense is struck with a sudden, distorted vision of the mage satisfying her Vice in other contexts — especially when she used magic to do so. In one case, the shadows flicker to suggest the mage’s silhouette, satisfying her Lust. In another, the Banisher sees a rapid succession of bloodied faces: victims of the mage’s Wrath. These visions are based on real events, but might play out in an abstract or symbolic fashion. A character with Nimbus Sense can spend a turn sifting through these impressions for useful details. He can even sense the presence of a mage’s nimbus in places where she satisfied her Vice in the past, long after she’s left the area. Make a Wits + Empathy roll and use the guidelines below to determine the results. Dramatic Failure: The character ascribes the wrong Vice to the target or believes that she did things that never really happened. Failure: A montage of confusing images yields no solid insights. Success: The character knows the target’s Vice and how she might have satisfied it within the last day, or senses the nimbus of a mage who satisfied a Vice in the area up to a day ago. Exceptional Success: The character knows how his target satisfied her Vice within the past week, or about a particularly dramatic incident that occurred a month or more ago, especially if the incident involved magic. He can also sense if a mage’s nimbus flared in response to satisfying a Vice in an area, within the same time limit. Suggested Modifiers: Target has a Wisdom score of 5 or less (+1 for every dot lower than 6) Drawback: Making contact with another mage’s soul is a disturbing experience if one is unprepared. If the character doesn’t anticipate meeting another mage, witnessing her nimbus causes nausea and disorientation. He suffers a –2 penalty to Physical, Mental and Social dice pools the first time he senses an unfamiliar nimbus, unless she takes the time (a turn of concentration) to brace herself for the experience.
Oathbound (• to •••••) Book: Adamantine Arrow, p. 63 Prerequisites: Awakened, Adamantine Arrow Member Effect: Your character can make a vow so powerful that it has supernatural consequences. She makes the vow more important than herself, down to her most trivial or powerful personal desires. Her oaths influence all of her thoughts and actions. Some Arrows discover inner peace in service, but most battle with their vows.
This Merit does not represent a specific oath. Instead, this Merit measures the mage’s psychic capacity for keeping oaths. Arrows train to increase this by meditating, practicing ascetic discipline and the studying the order’s secret philosophical texts. Each dot in the Merit provides the capacity to retain (or “bind”) one point’s worth of oaths. The Arrow can fill some or all of her capacity with one especially intense oath or a number of minor ones, as long as their point values don’t exceed her total Oathbound Merit dots. Calculate the cost of the oath by adding its binding strength to the listed additional costs. Oaths have an effect based on their binding strength alone; do not count additional costs. Drawbacks: If the character binds an oath during the chronicle, doing so requires one point of Mana (regardless of the oath’s point total) and 16 hours of secluded, uninterrupted study and meditation. A new character can fill her capacity at no cost, but doesn’t have to. In the latter case, the mage is assumed to have bound these oaths before play began. Bound oaths are public matters. Order mages do make secret vows from time to time, but they aren’t covered by this Merit. The Arrow has 24 hours after taking the oath to tell others about it. The Arrow cannot ask or imply that witnesses should keep the oath a secret. If the Arrow doesn’t meet these conditions, the oath doesn’t bind to her soul, and she loses it. Arrows lose bound oaths in one of three ways:completion, rejection or violation. ● Completing the oath occurs whenever the oath’s conditions can no longer apply. Her liege dies, for example, or she completes a quest. The oath is no longer relevant, and dissolves at no penalty to the mage. Arrows can also specify that an oath end after a preset time (such as a year and a day) or event, but must include such conditions when they publicly declare their oaths. ● The mage can reject the oath, but it isn’t easy. This requires 16 hours of uninterrupted contemplation and one point of Mana per binding point of the oath. The Arrow finalizes the rejection by spending a Willpower point and informing others that she’s rejected her oath. ● Violating a bound oath can have devastating effects. The Arrow immediately loses a point of Willpower and suffers a point of resistant lethal damage. This happens every 24 hours until the mage has lost Willpower points and suffered lethal damage equal to the oath’s binding point total +1. The mage looks weak and sick. Violating an oath is also a tremendous dishonor. The order lives and dies on its word. If a mage makes that meaningless, she endangers her comrades.
Occultation (• to •••) Book: Mage: The Awakening Core, p. 86 Prerequisite: Awakened, no Fame Merit dots Effect: A mage’s spells come with a mystical stamp of his personality — his aura. Mages with this Merit “hide their light under a bushel.” Their resonance is so subtle that only expert or extended scrutiny can root it out. This effect even extends into the mundane world, making a mage incognito to Sleeper society. When a sorcerer attempts to read the aura of one of your character’s spells, subtract a number of dice equal to your character’s dots in this Merit. This same penalty applies to any roll to analyze the aura of your character’s magic. See “Resonance,” pp. 277-289. In addition, Occultation protects your character from spells that attempt to directly affect him at sympathetic range. His Occultation dots are subtracted from the caster’s dice pool. See “Sympathetic Spells,” pp. 114-116. At the Storyteller’s discretion, this Merit can also affect other supernatural abilities to find the creator of a magical effect. For example, a vampire using Spirit’s Touch to analyze the results of a magical spell should have difficulty finding the occulted mage who cast it. When this trait applies, subtract a number of dice equal to the mage’s Occultation dots from the activation roll for that supernatural ability. Occulted mages tend to live on the fringes of mundane reality, as though they are an anomaly or aberration. Sleepers have trouble keeping track of their identities and activities. Records regarding an arcane mage tend to get lost, and the authorities are challenged to investigate his activities. Since most Sleepers find it hard to gather information about the mage, they won’t know many details about him. This also makes it harder for mages to research information about the mage through mundane sources. Whenever someone makes a roll to gather information about your character, your Occultation dots are subtracted from the researcher’s dice pool. Drawback: If your character ever becomes well known to the public (such as getting caught on camera and being shown on television night after night), he loses his Occultation until the public at large forgets him (which could take many years, depending on how famous or notorious the mage became). Likewise, if he maintains a public persona at all among Sleepers, even to the degree of having many Sleeper friends, he cannot maintain his Occultation. The mage must constantly cultivate this Merit, working to remain away from the attention of Sleeper society. It does not affect his standing in Awakened society.
Otherwordly Eyes (••) Book: Tome Of The Watchtowers, p. 154 Prerequisite: Thyrsus Path, Spirit • The mage has trouble staying focused on this side of the Gauntlet. His attention wanders, and he seems perpetually distracted — because he is. Shamans with this Merit have an easier time focusing on events on the other side of the Gauntlet, but at the cost of attending to the material world around them. A mage with this Merit gains two extra dice for all rolls to sense events in the Realm Invisible, but at the cost of two dice from all perception dice pools pertaining to anything in the material realm. This otherworldly awareness can be used in any scene, but once invoked, this Merit cannot be dismissed for the rest of the scene. This is a common Merit (some might say affl iction) for those mages of the Dreamspeaker Legacy.
Otherworldly Lore (••••) Book: Summoners, p. 184 Prerequisite: Gnosis 3 Effect: Through a combination of extended study and practical experience, some mages learn certain tricks for dealing with particular types of otherworldly entities. When purchasing this Merit, Otherworldly Lore must be assigned to a certain type of ephemeral being (ghosts, Shadow Realm spirits, goetic demons, entities from a given Supernal Realm, Gulmoth, Underworld creatures, etc.). When dealing with creatures of the specific type encompassed by her Otherworldly Lore Merit, a mage benefits from the 9-again rule with respect to all rolls — whether magical or mundane; combatrelated, social, investigative, or whatever — made upon or against a being of that type. A character may only have one instance of this Merit, representing a resolute dedication to dealing with a given “species” of entity, until she attains her sixth dot of Gnosis, whereupon she may purchase the Merit a second time. At 10 dots of Gnosis, she may purchase a third instance of Otherworldly Lore.
Portable (•) Book: The Mysterium, p. 141 Archaeomancers, Reclaimants and other mages who travel extensively have learned to adapt their ability to set up a sanctum to a form that can be erected and taken down as needed to suit their nomadic ways. While portable sanctums require effort to create and are limited in some fashions, they give traveling mages a measure of safety that they might otherwise find sorely lacking. The creation of a portable sanctum requires a knack for knowing how to combine mundane materials and supernatural sympathies to create a whole that is stronger and more secure than any of the elements would be separately. While not precisely a spell, the creation of a portable sanctum does require a great deal of concentration, time and effort. Those who frequently travel from one location to another, staying for days or weeks at a time, are those most likely to use a portable sanctum. An archaeologist who is out on a dig for several months may erect a portable sanctum to protect the Artifacts he hopes to discover. Likewise, a diplomat sent to parlay with a foreign Consilium may set up a portable sanctum in his hotel suite, giving her a modicum of sanctuary and privacy from prying eyes. A mage who is “on the run” and pausing only to catch a few hours sleep is unlikely to spend the time or energy required to create a portable sanctum in the cheap motel he is planning on leaving at dawn, although if the situation is dire enough, he may choose to sacrifice a few hours’ travel for the extra security a portable sanctum may offer. The creation of a portable sanctum is reflected in game mechanics by an extended roll. The player rolls an extended test of Wits + Crafts or Larceny with modifiers based on how defensible and hidden the location they have chosen is. A simple tent might offer a –3 modifier, while an abandoned military bunker might give a +3, with a standard wooden room serving as the “standard” (with no modifier). Each roll is one hour, and successes are used to “buy” the sanctum’s traits as the area is set up, starting with Portability and Size and then moving into any applicable Sanctum Traits the mage’s player wishes, to a maximum of the Sanctum Merit’s normal ratings. The Portable Merit can be combined with the following other Sanctum Merits: Size, Security, Guardian Ghost*, Guardian Retainer* or Guardian Spirit*. Because of this Merit’s transitory nature, the Portable Sanctum Merit cannot be combined with the Sanctum Gauntlet Merit. (Note that those traits marked with an asterisk must be completely “purchased” through set-up in order to take advantage of them.)
Because of the impermanent nature of portable sanctums, they can be difficult to maintain. For every dot of Portable Sanctum in use, the Storyteller should roll that many dice each day. The Portable Sanctum loses one dot in one of its traits per success on that roll. If the sanctum is being used by more than one person, add one dice per person to this roll. For example, a mage who has a Sanctum of 8 (Portable 1, Space 1, Security 4, Guardian Spirit 2) receives word that he’s offended a local vampire. The mage begins work in the afternoon, setting up his sanctum in a brick pump house near the sight of the archaeological dig he’s been working on. On his first roll, the mage’s player roll two successes, allocating them to Portability and Size; by the end of the first hour, the mage has unpacked the small trunk of motion sensors, checked the angles on the room’s entrances and windows, and generally gotten a feel for the place and figured out what he needs to do to secure it. The next hour (with the player rolling two more successes, which are placed into Security), the mage begins setting up his precautions, filling locks with grit to make them harder to pick, placing small mirrors in perfect locations to help spot those trying to sneak up and burning the specialized incenses that make the sanctum harder to find with magic. Then, with an hour until sunset, he decides to place the sanctum’s interior into the configurations that will draw the guardian spirit bound to it; his player rolls again, placing the three successes he rolls into bringing the Guardian Spirit trait into play, and then placing a third point into Security. A Mage may possess a portable sanctum and a permanent one, buying them separately as if spending points on both a shared sanctum and a personal one. Portable sanctums are personal, however, and cannot be bought as a shared sanctum.
Potent Familiar (••) Book: Tome Of The Watchtowers, p. 154 Prerequisite: Thyrsus Path Owing to the mage’s (or perhaps his mentor’s) facility with the Spirit Arcanum, or perhaps some especially difficult vision quest the mage completed in the Realms Invisible, the Shaman’s familiar is more powerful than most beginning familiars. This may be just the advantage a mage needs to survive the difficult early days after his Awakening. This Merit provides the mage with 15 extra “experience points” that he can use only to upgrade his familiar. This Merit may be purchased multiple times, but may only be purchased at character creation. After that, the mage must raise his familiar’s stats by spending experience points accrued during play.
Predator’s Innocence (•••) Book: Tome Of The Watchtowers, p. 154 Prerequisite: Thyrsus Path A wolf does not degenerate when it kills its prey; likewise, the Thyrsus mage doesn’t suffer when she makes a clean and natural killing. A character with this Merit does not need to make degeneration rolls for simple killing, especially in self-defense. If the mage shows particular malice, if she tortures the subject before killing him or if she kills for morally questionable reasons, then the Storyteller might rule that a degeneration check is necessary. Note that just because the mage’s Wisdom doesn’t suffer doesn’t make killing right or acceptable by society’s standards, and a mage who makes a habit of killing will have other consequences to worry about. If the Storyteller judges that the player is just using this Merit as an excuse to have his character kill wantonly, the Storyteller is free to take this Merit away.
Ractain Strain (•••) Book: Intruders - Encounters With The Abyss, p. 166 Your character is a member of the Ractain Strain of Memory, Meditative Mind and Direction Sense Merits. In addition, bearers are unusual-looking to the point that most people consider them slightly unattractive. These characters gain a –1 die penalty to all Presence and Manipulation rolls involving attempts to use their looks to entertain, persuade, distract or deceive others. Purchasing the Striking Looks •• Merit cancels this penalty, and purchasing the Striking Looks •••• provides the same benefits that the Striking Looks •• Merit provides to most characters. If the character purchases the Unseen Sense Merit, she gains the benefits of the version of this trait possessed by all mages (see Mage: The Awakening, p. 110), so that even if the character is not a mage she is sensitive to all supernatural phenomena. The character is also likely to be nearsighted (and so may have the
Poor Sight Flaw; see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 219). Because werewolves notice the difference in smell between bearers of the Ractain Strain and other humans, there are no werewolves or wolf-blooded among this population, but they can become vampires, mages and ghouls as easily as anyone else.
Relationship (• to •••••) Book: Mage Chronicler's Guide, p. 129 Effect: The character has a reciprocal relationship with a Storyteller character, in which he has at least some emotional investment — the more dots, the more significant the relationship. This relationship is a source of strength and aid. It could be a parent, a sibling, a child. It could be a lover or an ex-lover. The relationship doesn’t have to be a positive one: that ex-wife who you’ve got to see every week because she’s got custody of the kids is still important to you, even if love turned horribly sour long ago. Your feelings for your going-right-off-the-rails teenage son may be appallingly conflicted, but he’s still central in your world. Each relationship requires a separate purchase of this Merit. Once per scene, you may add your dots in the Relationship Merit to one dice pool, provided that you can give a plausible rationale as to why the relationship should aid you. Sometimes, this is simple: when you’re trying to convince your ex-wife that you need to see the kids a day early because you’re going to be out of town (and no, you can’t tell her you’re off risking your life), add your relationship dice to your Manipulation + Persuasion roll. The relationship might be at stake in some way: you’d get the bonus while trying to convince the headteacher of your deadbeat teenage son’s school not to expel him for truancy and the stuff they found in his locker. Players are encouraged to be creative with their rationales for getting the dice. You can get the bonus relationship dice while using magic, but again only in a circumstance when the player can justify the bonus. Drawback: Relationships are reciprocal, and complicated. The Storyteller character with which you have the relationship gets the same bonus on dice pools when it’s relevant to you. Also, relationships need to be kept alive. You actually need to have some contact with the character with whom you’ve got the relationship — phone, face-to-face contact, whatever — or risk losing dots in the Merit. The Storyteller can decide what constitutes a reasonable interval for lack of contact. Finally, if the subject of a character’s Relationship Merit dies, the Merit is lost.
Ritual Synergy (••• or •••••) Book: Tome Of The Mysteries, p.74 Prerequisite: Gnosis 3 (for •••) or Gnosis 5 (for •••••) Effect: Some mages learn the techniques of ritual synergy, a form of group ritual that allows those involved to contribute individual parts of a magical working to form a greater whole than any of them can manage alone. Normally, each of the participants of a group ritual must have the ability to cast the spell on his own; mages with this Merit can break those rules. With Ritual Synergy •••, the mage leading the ritual must have the ability to cast the spell, but those participants who also possess this Merit do not need to know how to cast the spell themselves. The leader rolls his normal dice pool, but each participant’s dice pool is equal to his own Gnosis. Any mages who know the primary Arcanum used in the spell can add their dots to this dice pool. (The spell might require Death 3, but one of the participants knows only Death 1; he can still add his Death dot to the dice pool.) Each of the participants, including the leader, must also spend a point of Mana at the beginning of the ritual. Example: A cabal wishes to join together into a group ritual casting of Space 2 “Scrying.” However, only one member of the cabal knows Space 2. Luckily, the mages have all learned this Merit at three dots, allowing the mage with the requisite Arcanum lore to act as the group leader while the others assist, even though they do not themselves know how to cast the spell. With Ritual Synergy •••••, the mage leading the ritual need not know how to cast the entirety of the spell; other participants with this Merit can contribute their personal Arcanum knowledge to conjunctional or combined spells. All participants roll their relevant dice pools (using the Arcanum they are contributing) and spend a point of Mana. Example: Adept Solis wishes to cast a conjunctional Fate 4 + Space 2 “Gift of Fortune” spell (see p. 157 in Mage: The Awakening). He knows Fate 4 but not Space 2. He teams with a fellow mage who does know Space 2. They each know the Ritual Synergy Merit at five dots, so each can contribute his personal Arcanum knowledge to the whole of the casting.
Rote Mastery (••) Book: Mage Chronicler's Guide, p. 177 Prerequisites: Awakened, member of an order Effect: This Merit represents exceptional training in a single rote. Purchase this Merit separately for each rote. By spending an additional point of Mana on the spell, the mage gains the rote benefit (re-roll failed dice) while casting it. (Yes, the character gets the rote benefit on a rote. If this is confusing, read the listing for Rote Action under “Systems Permutations” on pp. 134–135 of the World of Darkness Rulebook.)
Rote Specialty (• to •••) Book: Banishers, p. 42 Prerequisites: Awakened; not a full member of any order Effect: Each dot in this Merit confers one Skill-based Rote Specialty. This Specialty adds a die to the pool for rotes that use the listed Skill. Drawback: Fully initiated members of an order effectively possess the maximum number of dots in this Merit and can’t take it again. Some order apprentices might have only one- or two-dot Rote Specialties. If they leave order training early, they might forge a unique path, picking up their own rote skills.
Sanctum (• to •••••; Special) Book: Mage: The Awakening Core, p. 86 Effect: A sanctum is a mage’s stronghold, a place where he can practice his Art away from the eyes of Sleepers and spies. Legends tell of wizard’s towers, witch’s huts and sorcerer’s caves, but the reality is usually more prosaic: a penthouse apartment, an old estate or even a nondescript suburban tract house. All sanctums are not created equal. A warehouse might have sufficient space, but it might not be secure against unwanted visitors. A hidden cave has adequate security, but it might be dark and cramped. Great time and effort is spent finding suitable sanctums, and their value is represented by two factors — size and security. Players who choose this Merit must also choose how to allocate these two factors when spending dots. For instance, two dots may be spent on Sanctum Size, with a third spent on Sanctum Security. Sanctum Size is important to characters who need a place to safely store their possessions and valuables. A sanctum with no dots in Size is just large enough for its owner and perhaps a single companion, with minimal if any storage capacity — a cramped apartment. By spending points to increase a sanctum’s Size, a player allows for accoutrements and personal effects. Larger sanctums can be anything from mansions to mountain hideaways to vast subterranean catacombs. Note, however, that sanctums of considerable size are not necessarily easy to maintain. • A small apartment or underground chamber; 1-2 rooms •• A large apartment or small family home; 3-4 rooms ••• A warehouse, church or large home; 5-8 rooms, or large enclosure •••• An abandoned mansion or network of subway tunnels; equivalent of 9-15 rooms or chambers ••••• A sprawling estate or vast network of tunnels; countless rooms or chambers Of course, Sanctum Size does not prevent intrusion by Sleepers (police, criminal organizations, social workers). Players wishing to ensure privacy and safety may choose to spend dots on Sanctum Security, thus making it difficult for others to gain entrance. Sanctums with no dots in Sanctum Security can be found by those intent enough to look, and offer little protection once they have been breached. Each dot of Security subtracts one die from efforts to intrude into the place by anyone a character doesn’t specifically allow in. This increased difficulty may be because the entrance is so difficult to locate (behind a bookcase, under a carpet) or simply difficult to penetrate (behind a vault door). Also, each dot of Security offers a +1 bonus on Initiative for those inside against anyone attempting to gain entrance (good sight lines, video surveillance). Characters for whom no points are spent on Sanctum at all might have their own small, humble chambers, or perhaps they share the space of a master or order. In any event, they simply do not gain the mechanical benefits of those who have assigned Merit dots to improve the quality of their homes. Each aspect of the Sanctum Merit has a limit of 5. In other words, Sanctum Size and Sanctum Security may not rise above 5 (to a maximum of 10 points dots on this Merit, total).
Special: It’s possible for the Sanctum Merit to be shared among characters in a close-knit group. They might simply be devoted to one another and willing to pool what they have, or perhaps their mutual reliance on an individual or trust could bring them together to share what they have in common. To share this Merit, two or more characters simply have to be willing to pool their dots for greater capability. A shared rating in the Sanctum Merit cannot rise higher than five dots in any of the two aspects of the trait. That is, characters cannot pool more than five dots to be devoted to, say, Sanctum Size. If they wish to devote extra dots to the Merit, they must allocate those dots to Security. Shared Sanctum dots can be lost. Cabal members or associates might be abused or mistreated, ending relationships. Group members might perform actions that cast themselves (or the group) in a bad light. Money might be spent or lost. If any group member does something to diminish the sanctum, its dots decrease for all group members. That’s the weakness of sharing dots in this Merit. The chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The Storyteller dictates when character actions or events in a story compromise shared Sanctum dots. Characters can also leave a shared sanctum. A rift might form between close friends. A character might be killed or lost in the Shadow Realm. Or one could be kicked out of the sanctum by the others. When a character leaves a sharedsanctum relationship, the dots he contributed are removed from the pool. If the individual still survives, he doesn’t get all his dots back for his own purposes. He gets one less than he originally contributed. So, if a character breaks a relationship with his cabal, his two Sanctum dots are lost by the group, but he gets only one dot back for his own purposes. The lost dot represents the cost or bad image that comes from the breakup. If all members agree to part ways, they all lose one dot from what they originally contributed. The Storyteller decides what reduced dots means in the story when a character leaves a shared sanctum. Perhaps no one else picks up the character’s attention to Sanctum Security, leaving that score to drop. Maybe a portion of the sanctum falls into disuse or even collapses, causing an effective drop in Sanctum Size. Whatever the case, a plausible explanation must be determined. A character need not devote all of her Sanctum dots to the shared Sanctum Merit, of course. A mage might maintain a separate sanctum outside the communal one represented by the shared trait. Any leftover dots that a character has (or is unwilling to share) signify what she has to draw upon as an individual, separate from her partners. For example, three characters share a sanctum and expend a group total of five dots. One character chooses to use two other dots on a private sanctum. Those remaining two dots represent a sanctum entirely separate from what she and her partners have established together. To record a shared Sanctum Merit on your character sheet, put an asterisk next to the name of the Sanctum Merit and fill in the total dots that your character has access to thanks to his partnership. In order to record his original contribution, write it in parentheses along with the Merit’s name. It is not important to note on which aspect of the Sanctum Merit those points are spent; this allows greater flexibility should a character ever decide to withdraw from the community arrangement. The result looks like this:
MERITS Sanctum* (2) ••• Sanctum •• Retainer ••• In this example, the character shares a Sanctum Merit dedicated to the cabal’s communal shelter. He contributes two dots to the relationship, and the group has a total of four dots that are made available to each member. The character also has his own private Sanctum Merit rated 3, which he maintains by himself. And, the character has Retainer rated 2, which is also his own Merit.
Sanctum Gauntlet (• or ••) Book: Sanctum And Sigil, p. 86 Prerequisite: Sanctum Effect: A sanctum is more than brick and mortar, flesh and blood. The Shadow Realm surrounds it, enabling creatures unseen to lurk in spaces outside the world we know. Unless these spirits have the strength to Materialize across the Gauntlet inside the sanctum or the ability to peer at its inhabitants, the Shadow Realm is of little consequence to mages unconcerned with shamanic magic. The Strength of the Gauntlet in a sanctum depends on just where the sanctum is located. The Strength of a sanctum in the midst of a modern downtown is probably 5. A sanctum out in the wilderness might be Strength
2. The Storyteller determines the beginning Gauntlet Strength based on the sanctum’s location. This Strength can be modified up or down by buying Merit dots. Gauntlet Strength* –2 –1 +1 +2
Merit Dot Cost 2 dots 1 dot 1 dot 2 dots
* Minimum Strength of 1. A Verge cannot be created around the sanctum with this Merit.
Sanctum Materials (Varies) Book: Sanctum And Sigil, p. 86 Prerequisite: Sanctum Effect: Materials dots are used to enhance various sanctum features, described in “Elements of a Sanctum,” p. 83-84, such as increasing the thickness of interior walls (Security dots determine the thickness of the outer walls), adding doors and windows and even strengthening these structures. The costs per dot are listed with the various features, above. A mage who wants to increase the Materials involved in her sanctum must (as part of the story) spend time and effort on the additional construction. If this is not conveniently handled during downtime, she must find workers, someone to shop for the additional materials and so on. The Storyteller determines the time it takes to make these additional improvements.
Scriptorium (•• to •••••; Special) Book: The Mysterium, p. 67 The Scriptorium’s name comes from the workspaces of monasteries and ancient scribe houses. The Mysterium uses this term to designate a facility where mages distill general magical knowledge into formal rotes. Scriptoria contain thaumatology texts, useful workspace and esoteric features such as mystic diagrams and geomantic layouts said to improve concentration. Prerequisite: Sanctum • Effect: Mages who compile rotes at a scriptorium can learn them more efficiently than elsewhere. Similar to the Sanctum Merit, Scriptorium has two aspects. These are Scriptorium Subjects and Scriptorium Depth. Divide Merit dots between each aspect, with a minimum of one dot in each one. These aspects govern the types of rote study that a given scriptorium can cover. Each dot in Scriptorium Subjects encompasses one of the 10 Arcanum. Each Scriptorium Depth dot represents the maximum rote rank in any Scriptorium Subject. Mages who study applicable rotes in a scriptorium pay half the usual experience cost: only one point per dot of the highest Arcanum. Rotes that aren’t covered by the Scriptorium’s Subjects or Depth require the usual experience cost. Drawback: A scriptorium isn’t for the uneducated. An Awakened scholar needs academic training in order to make efficient use of the scriptorium’s resources. This mandates Academics dots equal to the highest Arcanum rank in the rote she wishes to research. Without these research skills, the student pays the normal price for the rote. A mage who invests experience in a scriptorium cannot add Subject Arcana that he does not know and can’t raise its depth higher than his highest Arcanum rank. This limitation doesn’t apply to the mage’s starting Merit dots because these might represent a gift from another mage with different abilities. Special: Similar to other collective Merits, several characters can combine dots to share a Scriptorium. This may not raise the Scriptorium’s Subjects or Depth to more than five dots. Again, some legendary Athenaea might hold exceptions to this rule.
Seventh Son/Daughter of a Seventh Son/Daughter (••••) Book: Magical Traditions, p. 122 Effect: Your character was born on the verge of Awakening and has a natural affinity for magic. He seems to live a charmed life, since his status as seventh son of a seventh son is known to everyone in the community, or at least to friends of the family. He may Awaken in the normal course of events, either due to some traumatic event or through a natural occurrence. He may even join the community of Pentacle mages, associating himself with an order and fulfilling a role appropriate to his Path. The real benefits of his birth order, however, come when he embraces the Appalachian hoodoo tradition as his method of working magic. Here, his affinity for magic really shines and he pulls ahead of his Atlantean peers. This Merit, when used in conjunction with hoodoo magic (and the Magical Tradition Merit), provides the following benefits for the caster: • +1 dot to any protection spell against attacks using Mind, Prime or Spirit. The mage treats his magical defense as being one dot stronger than it would be otherwise. • +1 to the dice pool for any rolls involving scrying, divining or locating. • Once per story, the character can roll Wits + Composure and gain an effect similar to the Time 1 “Perfect Timing” spell (see Mage, p. 258), representing natural good luck.
Skald Cant (•) Book: Legacies: The Ancient, p. 86 Prerequisite: Skald, Composure 2, Expression 2 Effect: Your character knows the secret language of the Skalds; he can use it to communicate privately with other Skalds and prove his membership in the Legacy, if necessary. Though an eavesdropper who tries to piece the language together might be able to decipher some of a conversation held in the Skald cant, each word is so laden with meaning that only a prodigious feat by a master linguist could completely translate a phrase or text. The language also serves as an effective memory aid. By spending a turn to concentrate, the Skald can perfectly remember the events of a single scene or the information (usually a song or epic) that he spends up to a day memorizing. After that, when calm, the character may recall those events perfectly without any dice roll, and the player may ask the Storyteller to fill in details he might have forgotten. This Merit gives no aid during stressful situations, like combat; trying to remember details then requires an Intelligence + Composure roll, just as normal. Additionally, this language is somewhat pleasing to spirits, whether because of its rhythm or its origins. At the Storyteller’s discretion, using Skald Cant to deal with spirits can offer a +1 dice bonus when applying Social Skills to spirits, including rotes that use those Skills.
Slayer (•••) Book: Summoners, p. 185 Prerequisites: Awakened, Occult 4, Brawl 4 or Weaponry 4 Effect: Mages know the risks involved when they decide to conjure up entities from other planes of existence, yet they continue to do so. Each time a summoner botches a casting or allows an entity into the material realm as part of a pact, someone has to clean up the mess. Usually, nearby cabals are up to the task and if not, the Consilium is. In cities where the problem of summoned creatures gone amuck is a frequent occurrence, the Consilium may take to training slayers specifically to deal with the threat. A slayer receives intensive training on how to combat otherworldly menaces and their negligent masters if necessary. Every slayer is already an accomplished combatant in his own right before the training begins; a mage that has learned how to effectively combine magic and brute physical force. Training a slayer takes upwards of a year, during which time the character learns a large amount of summoning lore, allowing him to identify weaknesses in the things he will fight. When confronted with an alien threat, if the character spends one turn observing the entity he can attempt to determine where the thing came from and how best to fight it by rolling Intelligence + Occult. Each success reduces the entity’s Defense by one for any attacks made or directed by
the character. With an exceptional success, the character remembers exactly what kinds of weapons are best used to combat the entity, as well.
Sleepwalker Retainer (• to •••••) Book: Mage: The Awakening Core, p. 88 Effect: Your character has a single Sleepwalker who has been magically initiated into the secrets of the order. He is aware of the existence of magic, and your character has recruited him as an assistant. Your character can openly practice magic in his presence without fear of betraying the Mysteries. This Merit works the same as the “Retainer” Merit (p. 116 in the World of Darkness Rulebook), except that the mage’s retainer is a Sleepwalker. For details on Sleepwalkers, see p. 334.
Spirit Status (••, •••• or •••••) Book: Tome of the Watchtowers, p. 154 Prerequisite: Thyrsus Path As masters of spirit lore and ambassadors to the spirit courts, Shamans often have additional clout they can bring to bear when performing magic that controls spirits. Whether the mage is the beneficiary of some old pact he or a mentor made or due to some item he possesses, the mage has standing in the spirit courts far beyond what most mortals can aspire to. Every two points of this Merit negates one –1 modifier from the Spiritual Hierarchy table (see Mage: The Awakening, p. 317) when casting magic that affects spirits. With five dots, this Merit negates up to three dice worth of penalties.
Status (• to •••••) Book: Mage: The Awakening Core, p. 88 While certain Merits detailed in the World of Darkness Rulebook focus on recognition in mortal society, certain Status concerns itself with the social orders of the Awakened and represents recognition among other mages. Status is divided into two areas — Consilium and Order. Players must choose one of these two areas for each Merit dot spent. (Enterprising Storytellers may come up with additional types of Status, and clever players might have unique applications as well. As such, Status is designed as a sort of “umbrella” Merit under which new types can be created.) Consilium Status represents a vested responsibility and according acknowledgement in the affairs of the Consilium of the region. Certain individuals rise to the top of the social strata, exemplary because of their efforts in the name of their cabal, Consilium or in the area as a whole. Hierarchs, Heralds, Sentinels and other “officers” fit this description, but the Merit can also apply to mages who are popular but who eschew politics. Their opinion holds sway even if they don’t involve themselves in a particular Consiliar function. Consilium Status is most often based on accomplishment. A character must earn his way into the title or esteem of his fellow mages. While this often involves being recognized for worthy deeds, it can also be a result of careful politicking and gossip. In general, mages of other cabals recognize a mage’s Consilium status and give him respect (although they do not necessarily heed him or reveal secrets). • “Rising star”; Leigeman (or –woman) •• “Accomplished individual”; Sentinel ••• “Much deserved reputation”; Herald •••• “Example to the Wise”; Provost ••••• “Benefactor of the Awakened”; Hierarch or Councilor Order Status represents rank, achievement and responsibility in a magical order. It is concerned with the order’s goals and accomplishments. It is not enough to be powerful or exemplary of the order’s ideals. The group is concerned with what its members have done to benefit its cause and combat its rivals. Those mages who enjoy the greatest order-based recognition are often the core members of their order in a given region, those who call the local caucuses and around whom others rally. These mages instigate or mediate conflict with other orders or cabals, generally looking to further certain idealistic goals and to establish themselves or other members in positions of influence in the Consilium hierarchy of their region. A character must have at least a single dot of Order Status in order to gain the benefits of any special abilities of that society. In other words, a character must have at least one dot of Order Status in order to learn
the rotes of her order. (A character’s beginning six dots worth of rotes are an exception. They were presumably taught by the order to win the mage’s loyalty). If a character leaves an order after learning some of its secrets, she does not lose any of those abilities for which experience points were spent, such as rotes or Rote Specialties, but she may not learn additional abilities without finding a new teacher. In addition, some orders punish those who violate their oaths and spread their secrets. Order Status is not so specifically tied to certain titles. It is more a notion of an individual’s accomplishments. • The character is known to a select subset of the order — a spy network, perhaps. •• The majority of the order in the region recognizes the character’s face and can recall her exploits. ••• The character’s deeds are known to all in the order, even in nearby regions. Many members of other orders recognize her face. •••• Word of the character’s exploits has traveled far, and her name is known in cities around the country. ••••• The character’s name and face are synonymous with her order; her exploits are taught to new members of the order. Status can serve as a mixed blessing, however. Those who enjoy the most renown might be able to use it to their advantage, but they are also visible targets for their enemies. High Status dots make it almost impossible to pass unnoticed, but they can open doors that would otherwise remain blocked. Status works like a “social tool” in that it adds to dice pools for Social interactions between members of the sub-groups given. That is, Order Status adds to dice pools for interactions with members of the same order, and Consilium Status affects those who are recognized residents of the given region. Consilium Status, however, may be ignored by enemies of the Consilium. Status does not add to die rolls predicated upon magic, only for mundane social actions. Dealing with Status can be a mire of responsibility for characters, though clever characters can turn it to their advantage. They may actually have a variety of Status. It is not uncommon for someone to have Consilium Status and Order Status. A character may, on occasion, have more than one form of Order Status. This occurs almost exclusively at low levels, where a character is often beneath the notice of most other members of his group. A character may never have more than three dots total in Order Status among multiple orders. A double agent, for example, might have two dots worth of Order Status (Silver Ladder) and a single dot of Order Status (Adamantine Arrow), representing his true allegiance to the Silver Ladder and the fact that he’s in on the ground floor of the Adamantine Arrow. (He can feed information back to his Ladder fellows.) A character may even have a single dot of Order Status in three different orders — perhaps he’s somewhat accomplished in each, but has yet to determine where his true loyalties lie. Naturally, a character with Status in only one order is not beholden to the three-dot limit. A character with dots of Order Status in multiple orders does indeed gain access to those groups’ special benefits. Orders expect certain things of their members, however, and if other mages find out that the character plays multiple sides against the middle, he might see that Status vanish in a single day when he’s called upon to account for his treacheries. Such is also the reason that cumulative Order Status is limited to three dots. By the time a character gains a certain degree of Status in a single order, he sticks out like a sore thumb if he turns up among another order’s members. (An exception to this might occur if the character is truly some sort of deep-cover agent or other mole, but that circumstance is best handled at the Storyteller’s discretion.)
Stranger No More (•••••) Book: Grimoire Of Grimoires, p. 104 Effects: No society or civilization is too strange for you; within a matter of minutes you can adjust to your surroundings so that you cannot be distinguished from a “native.” The language comes fluently to you for as long as you remain within the society, though your facility with the language is only average; in an environment where the majority of people are illiterate, this Merit provides no literacy. This Merit also grants no retention of language; the ability to understand a language fades as soon as you leave an area where that language is spoken by the majority of people. The Merit also confers some instinctive mimicry of clothing, mannerisms and demeanor of those around you; you may not understand the reasoning behind a particular local gesture or be able to explain it to a friend, but you use it reflexively when it would be expected. This provides distinct advantages when trying to hide from someone by blending in with the local culture or when visiting a place where the “natives” are hostile to outsiders.
Summoner’s Soul (•••) Book: Summoners, p. 186 Prerequisite: Awakened Effect: A minority of mages Awaken with a quiescent connection to other realms, which, if developed, shows itself as an inherent talent for summoning magics. On a level far below conscious thought, the mage has an instinct for the rules that govern other realities. Awakened scholars refer to this gift (or curse, if you like) as a Summoner’s Soul. Every mage with a Summoner’s Soul is mystically inclined towards one realm over the others, while still being more naturally adept with summoning magic in general than most mages. A player should choose the realm to which her character is linked when selecting this Merit. A mage tied to a Supernal Realm in this manner must select his Path Realm; this inborn connection is probably what drew such a willworker to his particular Watchtower in the first place. When spending Willpower on a summoning spell attuned to entities from his character’s favored realm, the player of a mage with a Summoner’s Soul receives five bonus dice, or four bonus dice with respect to summoning spells that call upon other realms. When dealing with entities from his favored realm, all of the willworker’s Social Skill rolls receive two bonus dice as a result of this special bond. But this may only be selected at character creation or with Storyteller approval.
Summoning Circle (• to •••) Book: Summoners, p. 185 Prerequisites: Sanctum (Size) • or more Effect: Throughout the ages, willworkers have used bounded spaces to set their summonings apart from the outside world. In part, they do this for safety’s sake, but also to cultivate within themselves a sense of the gravity of the act, to separate this powerful form of magic from distractions, whether internal or external. Over time, many of these ritual spaces have become enhanced with their own uncanny character, sliding partway out of this world and partway into others. A summoning circle must be attuned to a given realm (a particular Supernal Realm, the Abyss, Shadow, the Underworld, etc.); once set, this choice cannot be changed, though a mage may have more than one summoning circle (up to two at Gnosis 3, three at Gnosis 6, and four at Gnosis 9), with each corresponding to its own distinct world. For each dot of a single instance of this Merit, a willworker adds one die to all rolls to summon entities from the realm to which the summoning circle is attuned. In other words, a mage with a onedot summoning circle (Arcadia) adds one die to a summoning spell intended to call down an Arcadian spirit, while one with a three-dot summoning circle (the Abyss) adds three dice to any roll to call an Acamoth or Gulmoth. Note that the bonus dice only apply to attempts to summon the appropriate otherworldly beings, not to any dice rolls necessary to control them, forge pacts, or the like. Because of the sometimes delicate work necessary to properly maintain a summoning circle, one may only be constructed within a mage’s sanctum. A summoning circle can be part of a shared sanctum, but this Merit (and the structure that it represents) is personal in nature and may not be shared within a cabal.
Supernal Anchor (•••••) Book: Summoners, p. 186 Prerequisite: Gnosis 5 Effect: The primary reason for which mages craft soul stones is the creation of a Demesne, a space attuned to a willworker’s Path Realm and which functions, effectively, as a Fallen World extension of that world for the purposes of turning vulgar spells into covert ones. Some mages, however, aren’t content to divide their spirits in this manner, regardless of how useful it might be to have a Paradox-free chamber or two in which to cast some of their most powerful magics. One answer to this conundrum is to be found in the process of creating a Supernal Anchor. A mage with this Merit can use a Supernal spirit appropriate to his Path to create what is, effectively, a soul stone attuned to his Watchtower. The mage need not be the one to summon the spirit, but it must correspond to his Path for him to use this Merit to coalesce the entity into a soul stone. In order to do so, the mage must defeat the entity in combat (reducing it to zero Corpus or otherwise beating it to the point of helplessness), whereupon he can reflexively reshape the being into a corporeal fragment of the world in which his Watchtower stands. The spirit becomes imprisoned in this new form (and within the Fallen World), acting as
a soul stone belonging to the mage for all intents and purposes, save that he cannot be held in thrall by losing the stone, as it is not actually a piece of his own soul. Crafting a Supernal Anchor is a dire act of hubris, requiring a mage with Wisdom 1 or greater to roll against degeneration (two dice).
Supernal Companion (•••••) Book: Summoners, p. 186 Prerequisite: Awakened Effect: Smart mages that decide to pursue Supernal summoning magic start by calling up something small that can easily be dealt with, in case something goes wrong. More often than not, the mage sends these minor entities home after a cursory examination, impatient to move on to bigger and better things when she is sure her magic works properly. Other mages find themselves enamored of the creatures that they summon and decide to use such entities as familiars. In addition to the experience points cost of this Merit, which indicates time spent in study learning exactly how to bind a Supernal creature to her, the mage must complete the Supernal summoning ritual to call her new familiar (see p. 68). Binding a Supernal entity requires the mage to spend one dot of Willpower and to reveal her real name to the creature. Supernal Companions are created using the guidelines shown in Mage: The Awakening on p. 83 for Twilight familiars. A Supernal Companion spends most of its time in Twilight but can manifest at its master’s side by spending a point of Essence (this ability is separate from the single Numen allowed to familiars at creation). In addition to the other benefits gained by a mage for owning a familiar, she can drain up to two Essence from the Supernal Companion for an equal amount of Mana once each day. Note that the process of binding a Supernal entity to oneself in such a manner permits the being to survive indefinitely away from its realm of origin. Forcibly subjecting an unwilling Supernal spirit to the familiar bond (and many of them are, indeed, unwilling to be confined to the material realm), however, is an act of hubris, requiring any mage with a Wisdom of 3 or greater to roll two dice to resist degeneration.
Supernal Resistance (•• to •••) Book: Banishers, p. 42 Prerequisite: Awakened (Banisher or Storyteller’s permission); must be purchased with bonus Merit dots at character creation Effect: Nearly all Banishers go through life wishing they had never Awakened. Their new lives bring them misery, and they must constantly guard against the temptation to use magic, just to experience the feel of the Supernal Realms once more. Some Banishers go further with their repudiation of magic than others. Their continual denial of their abilities transcends mere psychology to become an unconscious resistance to all magic. They have woven the aura of the Fallen World around themselves so tightly that they are better able to deny the effects of magic used against them. At one dot, this Merit gives the character +1 bonus die to add to her pool for resisting magical effects. At three dots, the Merit increased the bonus to +2 bonus dice.
Tendogakure Hyoho (•••) Book: Grimoire Of Grimoires, p. 71 Prerequisite: Awakened, studied the Gogyo Hiden Bujutsu Effect: The mage’s destiny is shielded from others as if he is constantly affected by the “Occlude Destiny” spell (Mage, p. 156) with a Potency equal to his Composure. This conceals and shields his mundane destiny as well as any Destiny Merit he might possess. Much like a Legacy Attainment, this is not considered to be Awakened magic.
Tetsujin Undo Hyoho (••••) Book: Grimoire Of Grimoires, p. 69 Prerequisites: Awakened, knows the rotes “Cleanse the Body,” “Body Control,” “Self-Healing,” and “Self-Purging” as taught by the Gogyo.
Benefits: The mage constantly benefits from the equivalent of the rote “Organic Resilience,” except that it adds armor based upon the lower of the character’s Strength or Stamina. It is not a magical effect; it doesn’t count toward the mage’s spell tolerance or as a spell for the purposes of stacking magical effects with the exception of Life Shielding spells. Drawbacks: The mage can never again benefit from “Organic Resilience” or other Life spells that bestow armor. Furthermore, his internal energies run “hot.” His body consumes a point of Mana every sunrise. If the mage doesn’t have any Mana on hand his body automatically scours itself of a point of Stamina.
Thrall (•••) Book: Mage: The Awakening Core, p. 89 Effect: Your mage physically controls another’s soul stone (see p. 277), making that willworker his thrall. By custom, your character can demand up to three favors before he must return the stone. These favors can be as weak or as daunting as he desires, although if they are particularly difficult or dangerous the thrall can petition the Consilium for redress. Possession of a soul stone gives your mage an Intimate sympathetic connection to its owner and allows him to tap the owner’s Mana without casting a Prime spell. Roll Gnosis + Presence – the soul stone creator’s Resolve and take one Mana per success. Such theft can be done only once per day, and is considered one favor toward the three allowed. The Storyteller works with the player to determine who the thrall is. The more powerful or politically connected the thrall, the more potent the favors he can provide, but the more dangerous it is to anger him. One day he will be free of his obligation, and although by custom he cannot seek direct revenge or demand a duel, he almost surely manipulates events to enact his vengeance for him. Conversely, if your character’s favors benefit the thrall and don’t violate his dignity, he might gain a grudging respect. After the three favors are completed, your character is expected to return the soul stone to the rightful owner, freeing the thrall. If he does not free his thrall after the three favors are completed, he can be punished freely by any other mage, even a mage not of his order or the Consilium. Some mages set daunting favors, ensuring that their thralls will almost certainly never complete the requirements for freedom. Doing so is considered bad form. The thrall can take his case to the Consilium, but most officers hesitate to intervene unless the thrall’s master endangers their interests or challenges their authority through his flaunting of custom. More often, mistreated thralls must rely on their own cunning to turn the master-thrall relationship.
Void-Scourged (•• or ••••) Book: Summoners, p. 187 Prerequisite: Awakened Effect: The Abyss insinuates itself into the lives of the Awakened in many different ways, but seldom as obvious as with those with the Void-Scourged Merit. Perhaps her initial journey to a Supernal Watchtower was beset by terrible spirits, or maybe she had one too many close calls with Acamoth and their servants in the years since, but some mages learn to harness the power of the marks that the Void leaves seared into their souls. Void-Scourged willworkers receive a two-dice bonus to all rolls to summon or socially interact with Acamoth and Gulmoth (whether to negotiate a deal or to intimidate such a being into complying with the mage’s wishes). Furthermore, whenever a Void-Scourged mage comes within 10 yards per dot of Gnosis of an Abyssal entity, the Storyteller reflexively rolls Wits + Composure for her, with bonus dice equal to the spirit’s Rank. On a success, the character is aware of the presence of an Abyssal being, though she cannot pinpoint its location, or determine its nature or power without the use of other abilities. This Merit costs two dots at character creation and four if purchased later.
Merits List Acid Stomach (•) Book: Strange Alchemies, p. 55 Effect: A Promethean’s “Superlative Constitution” already guarantees that she can eat nearly any kind of organic matter, from filet mignon to a car-crushed raccoon. With this Merit, the Promethean can eat most inorganic matter, too. Whether the “food” is a roll of quarters, a handful of sand or a broken bottle, if the Promethean can get it into his mouth and down his throat, then it counts as food. Drawback: This Merit doesn’t give any bonuses to chewing. The object has to be small enough to fit in her mouth and for peristalsis to carry the item down her throat. The Storyteller may also deem that an object’s composition does damage to the mouth and throat. Glass shards or jagged metal, for instance, could hurt the Promethean. Still, this Merit grants some resistance to this punishment; any damage sustained from eating non-organic material is limited to one point of bashing damage.
Azothic Object (• to •••••) Book: Strange Alchemies, p. 55 Effect: The generative act would, upon initial examination, have one effect: the flare of Azoth within a once-dead body. This moment, in which a Promethean awakens “on the slab,” can have residual effect upon the monster’s immediate surroundings, too. That initial blaze of Radiance within can lash out, like a sun-flare or an arc of electricity, and imbue an object in the room with unique properties. A crude and rusted straightrazor may suddenly gleam with a newly-sharpened edge. A brittle antique bottle that once held a draught of bitter vinegar and antimony may suddenly become nearly unbreakable. A Stradivarius violin may call to the Promethean, and when he wields it, it sings and keens with eerie beauty. This object, whatever it may be, is attuned to the Promethean. Equipment bonuses, if any, apply only to the character; a flicker of his Azoth waits within that item. If another tries to use it, be that person Promethean or mortal, the object’s bonus not only does not apply, but the user suffers a –2 penalty. The Merit’s cost depends on the Azothic Object’s unique properties: Propnnnerty Increased Durability Increased Structure Increased equipment bonus 9 again
Merit Cost 1 dot per +2 Durability 1 dot per +2 Structure 1 dot per +1 die modifier* 5 dots
*The Azothic Object’s equipment bonus cannot be more than double the item’s normal equipment bonus. Example: Vox Vulgus’ creator broke into the sewers beneath Philadelphia to give her perfect body life. When the spark of Azoth blazed within, the Divine Flare lashed out and touched the creator’s set of lock picks. At character creation, Vox’s player gives her four dots in this Merit. The lock picks would normally add +2 dice to appropriate Larceny rolls, but with the flare of Azoth, the picks improve dramatically. The player spends two of the four points on the equipment bonus, granting the lock picks an additional +2 bonus (for a total of a +4 equipment bonus). She also spends two dots on Durability, granting the picks +4 Durability, thus making them inordinately resilient to damage. Drawback: The Azothic Object is supernaturally tied to the Promethean character who takes this Merit. If the character loses the object, her player must make a Resolve + Composure roll every time she sleeps. Failure on that roll means she suffers nightmares about the object, and for 12 hours upon waking, suffers a –1 penalty on all rolls. (A dramatic failure incurs a –2 penalty.) This ends once the object is found. If the object is ever destroyed, the character’s Azoth flares up within her and burns her from the inside. At the moment the object is destroyed, the character suffers lethal damage equal to the dots spent originally in this Merit.
Companion (••• or ••••) Book: Strange Alchemies, p. 55 Prerequisite: Ephemeral Flesh Bestowment Effect: Whether he wants it or not, the Promethean has a bond with a spirit that aids him and supports him. The ectoplasmic humour within the Promethean attracts the spirit. Like calls to like. The kind of spirit that would follow something as grotesque as a Promethean is not always the kind of spirit that a Promethean would have following him. Many are revolting or demonic in appearance and behavior, a small imp that does its master’s bidding, but cannot be commanded to leave. At rest, it sits invisibly on its master’s shoulder and whispers obscenities, lies and unpleasant truths into his ear. The companion being is either in Twilight, invisible and immaterial, or it is embodied. A companion in Twilight has no body. An embodied companion possesses the body of an animal or bird in the material world. The spirit doesn’t suffer from Disquiet, even in the form of an animal or bird. It costs three dots to buy a Twilight spirit as a companion. A Twilight spirit can manifest like a ghost (see “Manifestations,” the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 210), but only the Promethean whom the spirit follows can see it or talk to it. The Promethean can always see the spirit. It’s like a (hideous and sometimes unwelcome) imaginary friend for the Promethean. Embodied companions cost four dots. The animal an embodied companion possesses is ordinary, but as the spirit body, the creature takes on a distinctly unhealthy look. A dog becomes yellow-toothed, mangy and fleabitten. A rat grows to enormous size and develops an evil glint in its eye. A cat gains scars and weals in its fur. A crow’s feathers become matted and stinking. The spirit can embody itself in any animal up to the size of a large dog. Whatever the animal is, the Promethean can understand anything the companion says to him in this form. To everyone else, the companion’s talk just sounds like animal noises. A companion is a Rank 1 spirit (see Promethean: The Created, p. 255), whether it is immaterial or embodied. The Storyteller and the Promethean’s player should work together to design the spirit’s Traits. A companion begins play with at least one dot in each Attribute, with extra dots as listed below. See Promethean: The Created, pp. 255–256 for the rules that govern spirit Traits. Twilight Companion Traits Attributes: 3/3/2 (allocate dots in any order among Power, Finesse and Resistance) Willpower: Equal to Power + Resistance Essence: 10 (10 max) Initiative: Equal to Finesse + Resistance Defense: Equal to highest of Power and Finesse Speed: Equal to Power + Finesse + “species factor” (usually 5) Size: 3 or less Corpus: Equal to Resistance + Size Influences: 2 dots (choose one) Numina: Choose one Numen. These can be picked from the following Ghost Numina: Ghost Sign, Ghost Speech, Magnetic Disruption, Phantasm or Telekinesis (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 211). When a companion manifests, use the following modifiers: Location Its master’s lair Wasteland In front of people suffering from Disquiet
Modifier +2 +1 for each level of the Wasteland effect +1 for each level of Disquiet
Although the companion obeys its master without hesitation, the companion finds its powers are easier to use if Disquiet or Flux have affected the area around the Promethean. The companion, if left to its own devices, tries to convince its master to stay in one place and interact with humans, allowing Disquiet to build up and the Wasteland to spread. Embodied Companion Traits Attributes: 4/4/3 Skills: 8/5/3 Willpower: Equal to Resolve + Composure Essence: 10 (10 max) Initiative: Equal to Dexterity + Composure Defense: Equal to highest of Dexterity and Wits Speed: Strength + Dexterity + “species factor” (based on its animal type) Size: 4 or less (based on its animal type) Health: Equal to Stamina + Size
Influence: 2 dots (choose one) Numina: Choose one of the same Ghost Numina available to Twilight companions. A companion can travel as far as it wants away from its master, although its master (or rather, the ectoplasmic humour within its master) is its anchor in the material world. No matter how far away the companion wanders, it knows when its master needs it. The companion loses one Essence per day, and needs to feed on Essence to survive. The companion gains one Essence per day from being close to something it reflects (so a spirit born of trees gains a single point every day it stays near trees, and a spirit that reflects violence gains a single point by being close to a place where violence regularly happens, such as a street in a particularly bad neighborhood, or a boxing ring or the house of a man who beats his wife). Once a day, the companion can draw Essence from an appropriate source. Roll Power + Finesse. This roll is modified by the same modifiers that affect manifestations. The companion gets one Essence for every success. A Promethean can also spend Pyros to give the companion Essence, channeling the Divine Fire through his ectoplasmic humour. Each point of Pyros the Promethean spends gives the companion one Essence. If the companion loses all of its Essence, the companion falls into slumber. A Twilight companion vanishes, absorbed into the Promethean’s ectoplasmic humour until the Promethean awakens it by spending a point of Pyros. On the other hand, the Promethean can spend his companion’s Essence points as Pyros, using his companion’s Essence to draw the Divine Fire back down through his humours. Improvement: A Promethean’s player can improve his companion’s Traits by spending some of his character’s experience points on the companion. It costs the same number of experience points to raise a companion’s Traits as it does a Promethean’s. Power, Finesse and Resistance are Attributes, and cost (new dots x 5) experience points to raise.
Device (•• to •••••) Book: Saturnine Nights, p. 59 Prerequisite: Unfleshed Effect: The Device Merit covers any number of built-in devices and capabilities that one of the Unfleshed may possess. This is a useful catch-all category to reflect anything from built-in communications devices to the ability to interface with computers to integral weaponry. This Merit should be purchased for each such device. These devices should simply be normal equipment installed in the Unfleshed — truly advanced technologies such as lasers, wallcrawling systems and so on should be purchased as Bestowments and Transmutations. This Merit may only be purchased at character creation — once the Divine Fire has taken hold, the only changes it permits are those that make the Unfleshed more human. When the Unfleshed deploys or uses this Device, it causes the Unfleshed’s disfigurements to be revealed, as though it were using Pyros. When the Unfleshed draws on its technological heritage in this fashion, the Pyros cannot hide the Unfleshed’s true nature. • Headware Communications: This Device grants the Unfleshed to use some form of mechanical communications naturally. Some examples include cell phone (••, ••• for satellite-based communication), GPS (••) or high-powered radio (•••, •••• for satellite-based communication). • Concealed Weapon: The design of the Unfleshed includes a concealed blade or raised striking surface that can be deployed for purposes of violence or utility. The weapon’s damage depends on the rating of the Device. The weapon inflicts the rating of the Device in bashing damage, or the rating of the Device –1 in lethal damage. These generally mimic normal weapons (compare with those on p. 170 of the World of Darkness Rulebook). At the Storyteller’s option, for a cost of one dot more, these weapons may use some kind of special effect (such as Knockout, or 9 again) if they are based on a weapon that possesses that trait. • Internal Projectile Weapon: The Unfleshed has a built-in firearm. It used the same traits as a normal firearm, including the necessity for ammunition. The type of weapon depends on the rating of the Device: Light Revolver or Pistol (••); Heavy Revolver or Pistol, Small SMG (•••); Large SMG, Rifle or Shotgun (••••); Assault Rifle (•••••). The Strength requirements for using such weapons are reduced by one. The Unfleshed always possesses a port that can allow it to eject spent shells and load new ones. For a +1 to the cost of the weapon, the design of the firearm is such that it can store 100 rounds; otherwise the weapon stores its normal complement of ammo. • Computer Interface: This device grants the ability to interface with a computer, working much more quickly than a normal computer user might. This reduces the time on Computer based rolls by half, and grants a +1 to Computer rolls at ••, and a +1/dot thereafter. This also grants its bonus to making Research rolls (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 55), assuming there is a computer available during that research.
• Tools: This grants the Unfleshed the ability to use a Skill that requires tools. Each Device applies to the use of a different Skill, and grants a +1 equipment bonus at ••, with a +1 bonus per dot thereafter. Examples include a set of lock picks (Larceny), basic electronics toolkit (Computer) or a built-in med kit (Medicine).
Elpis (• to •••••) Book: Promethean: The Created Core, p. 95 Effect: The Promethean relies on Hope, the final force released from Pandora’s Box, to get him through his Pilgrimage. This aspect of the Divine Fire that calls out to Prometheans, urging them toward Mortality, is called Elpis. Promethean philosophers equate it with a guiding force, a sort of teleological principle calling from the future, drawing the Promethean down the proper paths to the New Dawn. With this Merit, the Promethean can tap into this guiding force and gain clues through dreams and visions that might aid his Pilgrimage. Once per game session, the character can use his Elpis ability to gain a supernatural insight concerning a question or topic relevant to his Pilgrimage. Activating this ability requires at least one hour spent in sleep, a trance or another activity that focuses exclusively on accessing an altered state of consciousness. The Storyteller then rolls the character’s Wits + Composure in secret. The results are: Dramatic Failure: A nightmare. The Created can interpret it any way he wants, but it probably leads to more trouble than solutions. Failure: Meaningless images. Success: One or more clues (one per Elpis dot) that might help him to achieve a Pilgrimage milestone, although they must be interpreted. Exceptional Success: One or more clues (one per Elpis dot), and a suggestion about their interpretation provided by the Storyteller. The information is usually conveyed in brief visions of people, places or things that are somehow important to one of the character’s milestones, as determined by the Storyteller. (See “Summa Perfectionis: The Pilgrimage” on p. 190.) The exact role the subjects of these visions will play remains unclear, though. The Promethean might see a rare, medieval book behind glass. After some research, he learns it is in a museum in Chicago. He travels there and breaks into the museum at night, trying to steal the book, only to be confronted by a Promethean who makes his lair there. The Storyteller knows that this Promethean is the key to the milestone, not the book; the book merely led the character to this encounter. But will the character realize this? Elpis is not a means of gaining an exact roadmap to Mortality. It’s a tool for the Storyteller to help drive events of the story, especially if the character is lagging behind on his Pilgrimage.
Famous Face (• to •••) Book: Strange Alchemies, p. 56 Effect: The Promethean’s body (or at least the face) used to belong to someone well-known. Prometheans are often ignorant of the nuances of human culture, and don’t often take into account who owned the bodies they use to create their progeny. The Promethean gains a +1 die pool bonus on Persuasion and Intimidation rolls when dealing with people who knew who the dead person was. Reminded of a famous (or infamous) figure, they feel an involuntary shiver, especially since a Promethean who has no idea who his body once belonged to acts as if there’s nothing weird. Meeting a dead idol (or a dead serial killer) can be a creepy experience, although most people will rationalize the meeting: “Man, didn’t she look like that supermodel chick who killed herself a couple months ago?” Drawback: Elvis is dead. No one used Elvis’ body to make a Promethean (the same goes for Kurt Cobain, Marion Monroe and Princess Di). Still, stories about Elvis turning up in supermarkets and out-of the ways diners have circulated for years. The supermarket tabloids lap up Elvis sightings, and a report could have an out-of-the-way area crawling with hack journalists. Although a Promethean with a familiar face might find it easier to scare people, all it needs is for someone not to be sensible and rational when he meets the Promethean, and decide that yes, she really was a dead celebrity.
Fighting Style: Brute Force (• to ••••) Book: Strange Alchemies, p. 57 Prerequisites: Strength •••, Brawl ••• Effect: This fighting style isn’t a trained style. Promethean characters do not learn it so much as embrace the monster within, and use the monster’s pent-up rage to unleash brutal, powerful attacks. This so-called style is particularly common among Frankenstein and Tammuz Prometheans, but all Created possess
Torment. Even when Torment isn’t affecting the Promethean at a specific moment, he always possesses it as a dormant but persistent fury. Dots purchased in this Merit allow characters access to specific combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the subsequent maneuver. So, your character cannot possess “Crush and Bite” before he has “Falling Pillar.” The Merit’s maneuvers and their effects are described below. All Maneuvers are based on the Brawl Skill. Falling Pillar (•): With this move, the Promethean holds both hands together in a single fist, and drops both arms upon his victim — the motion is like a stone pillar crashing down. The attack, made with a Strength + Brawl roll, gains the 9 again bonus. Drawback: Spend one Willpower point to activate this attack. This point does not confer three additional dice to the attack. Also, both hands must be free for the attack to be successful. Crush and Bite (••): This maneuver is used only during a successfully maintained grapple. If the character succeeds on a grapple with his opponent, any Strength + Brawl rolls made in an effort to do damage to the subdued opponent inflicts lethal damage, not bashing. (The character needn’t truly “crush and bite,” and may instead choke, head-butt or even smother. The damage is still lethal.) Juggernaut (•••): The character uses his entire body as a weapon. He barrels forward, smashing his head into his opponent and throwing the rest of his weight into the attack. This is an “all-out attack” per p. 157 of the World of Darkness Rulebook. The character foregoes his Defense, but gains a +4 bonus to the roll as opposed to the normal +2 bonus. Normal all-out attack rules apply. Drawback: The Promethean puts everything into the attack. If the player fails this roll (i.e., the attack misses), she must check for the character to resist Torment. Bone Cracker (••••): The character grabs a foe’s limb with both hands, twisting as if wringing water from a dish rag. This is a targeted attack, and is made at –2 dice (due to targeting an arm or leg). If the attack does damage equal to or exceeding the target’s Stamina, however, the bone breaks and the damage becomes lethal. A broken bone also forces the target to lose a dot of Dexterity until those lethal levels heal. Lowered Dexterity also takes away from the target’s Initiative modifier, Speed, and possibly Defense. Drawback: Both hands must be free for this attack to succeed. Also, the attacker loses his Defense for the remainder of the turn.
Fighting Style: Multi-Limbed Combat (• to ••••) Book: Pandora’s Book, p. 50 While possessing more than two arms would certainly seem to have obvious benefits in battle, for individuals untrained in hand-to-hand-to-hand combat extra limbs can prove as much a distraction as an advantage. Untrained individuals tend to focus on one offense or defense at a time, negating the possible benefits of their plentiful limbs. To counteract this tendency, combat-minded Centimani have, over the centuries, developed their own fighting form that uses multiple limbs to full advantage. While not all Centimani learn this fighting style, it is frequently taught when one of the Hundred Handed meets up with another of like mind and build. A character may also teach herself this ability, although it is much more difficult and time consuming to do so. Prerequisites: More than two prehensile limbs, Brawl •• or Weaponry ••, Dexterity •••, Athletics ••• Effect: While not all of the Centimani are adept at combat, enough emphasis has been put on turning their unique physical qualities to martial use for a specialized fighting form to have developed. For the purposes of this Merit, limbs are limited in definition to those that end in hands. Tentacles only apply if specifically designated. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. So, a character can’t have “Manhandle” until he has “Outnumbered.” The maneuvers and their effects, most which are based on either the Brawl or Weaponry Skill, are listed below. All bonuses given are in addition to the bonuses granted by the Transmutations “Hundred Hands” or “Tentacles.” Outnumbered (•): Most combatants are unaccustomed to encountering opponents with more than two possible avenues of attack. Defending against three or more limbs is simply outside of the realm of experience of most foes, allowing the well-trained Centimanus to cut through an opponent’s defenses by attacking from unexpected angles. For every limb or tentacle over two, the opponent’s Defense is reduced by one. Manhandle (••): By virtue of having more than a normal quantity of grappling extremities, the character’s ability to take other actions while wrestling is drastically increased. While in a grapple, for each limb or tentacle above two, the character may make an overpower maneuver that does not immobilize the target. This is an instant action. Tentacles may be used to grapple or for non-immobilizing overpower maneuvers with the exception of draw weapon, attack with drawn weapon or turn a drawn weapon (see p. 157 of the World of Darkness Rulebook). Weapons disarmed by tentacles are considered to be dropped. Protected Attack (•••): One benefit of extra limbs is the increased ability to avoid leaving oneself vulnerable even when pressing an attack strongly, and characters with Protected Attack have perfected the
ability to deliver an attack without leaving themselves defenseless. This Merit allows the character to Dodge and attack in the same turn. Drawback: A single attack while not dropping one’s guard is complicated enough — multiple attacks are impossible. Protected Attack cannot be stacked with Bountiful Blows. Bountiful Blows (••••): The character’s limbs rain attacks down upon his foes. For every prehensile limb above two, he can make an additional attack per turn upon a single target. Each extra attack is made at a cumulative –1 modifier, thus characters with three prehensile limbs may make two attacks (the second of which is at –1), characters with four may make three attacks (the third of which is at –2), five may make four (the fourth of which is at –3) and so on. In the case of characters wielding weapons that require more than one hand, maximum additional attacks are limited to one per weapon wielded. This maneuver does not give Centimani the ability to wield a shotgun or two-handed sword single-handedly or to attack more than once per turn with any weapon. Drawback: The character cannot use his Defense against any attack in the same turn in which he intends to use this maneuver. If he uses Defense against attacks that occur earlier in the Initiative roster, before he can perform this maneuver, he cannot perform the maneuver this turn. He is considered to have used his extra limbs to aid in his Defense.
Fresh Corpse (••) Book: Strange Alchemies, p.58 Effect: The cadaver(s) used in the generative act were particularly fresh. The transfer of Azoth to the vessel happened within an hour after all parts perished. Thus, the body is capable of a level of physicality that other Prometheans may not be able to achieve. While perhaps not precisely skilled, the character with this Merit can ignore the –1 unskilled penalty associated with a lack of Physical Skills. Available at character creation only.
Good Brain (•••) Book: Strange Alchemies, p. 58 Effect: The brain housed in the Promethean’s body is above average. It may have come from a particularly smart person, or may instead be affected positively by a strange physical anomaly (a tumor, or perhaps a uniquely damaged corpus callosum). Therefore, the character is capable of a level of mental ability that other Prometheans may not be able to achieve. While perhaps not precisely skilled, a character with this Merit can ignore the –3 unskilled penalty associated with a lack of Mental Skills. Available at character creation only.
Hideous Anyway (••) Book: Strange Alchemies, p. 58 Effect: During certain moments, others can glimpse your character’s true grotesqueness, but the fact is . . . he’s ugly anyway. The flesh used to give your character life is in some way hideous. He may be deformed, disfigured or outright awful-looking. Intimidation rolls are made with the 9 again rule in place; that unsightly countenance ensures the potency of your character’s threats. Drawback: The 10 again rule does not apply to Persuasion rolls. Galateids may not take this Merit.
Incorruptible (••••) Book: Pandora’s Book, p. 49 Prerequisites: Composure ••• Effect: While Centimani are immune to the debilitating effects of learning and using Pandoran Transmutations, Prometheans on other Refinements are not, and neither are former Centimani. While the power of Flux is strong, individuals with the Incorruptible Merit are more resistant to the dehumanizing taint of Flux than others. Incorruptible grants a +2 on the degeneration roll to resist the loss of Humanity due to learning or using Pandoran Transmutations, as well as on the roll for derangement afterwards, should the degeneration roll fail. This bonus does not apply to any other degeneration rolls, only those related to using Pandoran Transmutations. Permanent Pandoran Transmutations that result in an automatic loss of Humanity are unaffected by this Merit.
Lair (• to •••; Special) Book: Promethean: The Created Core, p. 96 Effect: A lair is a place a Promethean can retreat to where he can hide or defend himself from others. It can be anywhere, but the Created usually choose places far from the madding crowd of mortals. If they do choose to live close to mortals, their lairs are nondescript and contain multiple means of escape. Since most lairs are
only temporary, meant to serve for only a few months before the Promethean resumes his Pilgrimage, they cost relatively few dots to acquire. When the Promethean abandons his lair, however, he loses the dots. If he later returns to the area, the Storyteller might decide that the lair is still operable, although it loses one of its dots due to lack of maintenance, until the Promethean can put some effort into restoring it. All lairs are not created equal. A warehouse might have sufficient space, but it might not be secure against unwanted visitors. A hidden cave has adequate security, but it might be dark and cramped. A lair’s value is represented by two factors — size and security. Players who choose this Merit must also choose how to allocate these two factors when spending dots. For instance, two dots may be spent on Lair Size, with a third spent on Lair Security. Lair Size is important to characters who need a place to safely store their possessions and valuables. A lair with no dots in Size is just large enough for its owner and perhaps a single companion, with minimal storage capacity — a cramped apartment, for instance. By spending points to increase a lair’s size, a player allows for accoutrements and personal effects. Larger lairs can be anything from mansions to mountain hideaways to vast subterranean catacombs. Lairs of considerable size are not necessarily easy to maintain, though. (NB: The dot ratings for Lair differ from similar Merits from other World of Darkness games.) • A large apartment, small family home, or large underground chamber; 3–4 rooms •• An abandoned warehouse, church, mansion or network of subway tunnels; equivalent of 9–15 rooms or chambers ••• A sprawling estate or vast network of tunnels; countless rooms or chambers Of course, Lair Size does not prevent intrusion by mortals (such as police officers, criminals or social workers). Players who want to ensure privacy and safety may spend dots on Lair Security, thus making it difficult for others to gain entrance. Lairs with no dots in Lair Security can be found by anyone intent enough to look, and they offer little protection once they have been breached. Each dot of Lair Security subtracts two dice from efforts to intrude into the place by anyone a character doesn’t specifically allow in. This increased difficulty might arise because the entrance is so difficult to locate (behind a bookcase, under a carpet) or simply difficult to penetrate (behind a vault door). Also, each dot of Security offers a +1 bonus on Initiative for those inside against anyone attempting to gain entrance (good sight lines, video surveillance). Characters for whom no points are spent on Lair at all might have some small, humble chamber or favorite spot under a bridge. In any event, they simply do not gain the mechanical benefits of those who have assigned Merit dots to improve the quality of their temporary homes. Each aspect of the Lair Merit has a limit of three dots. In other words, Lair Size and Lair Security may not rise above 3 (to a maximum of six dots on this Merit, total). Special: It’s possible for the Lair Merit to be shared among characters in a close-knit group. They might be devoted to one another and willing to pool what they have, or perhaps their mutual reliance on an individual or trust could bring them together to share what they have in common. To share this Merit, two or more characters simply have to be willing to pool their dots for greater capability. A shared rating in the Lair Merit cannot rise higher than three dots in either of the two aspects of the trait. That is, characters cannot pool more than three dots to be devoted to, say, Lair Size. If they wish to devote extra dots to the Merit, they must allocate those dots to Security. Shared Lair dots can be lost. Throng members or associates might be abused or mistreated, ending relationships. Group members might perform actions that cast themselves (or the group) in a bad light. If any group member does something to diminish the lair, its dots decrease for all group members. That’s the weakness of sharing dots in this Merit. The chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The Storyteller dictates when character actions or events in a story compromise shared Lair dots. Characters can also leave a shared lair. A rift might form between close friends. A character might be killed or decide to go to the wastes. Or one could be kicked out of the lair by the others. When a character leaves a shared-lair relationship, the dots he contributed are removed from the pool. If the individual still survives, he doesn’t get all his dots back for his own purposes. He gets one less than he originally contributed. If a character breaks a relationship with his throng, the group loses both of the Lair dots he contributed, but he gets only one dot back for his own purposes. The lost dot represents the cost or bad image that comes from the breakup. If all members agree to part ways, they all lose one dot from what they originally contributed. The Storyteller decides what a reduction in dots means in the story when a character leaves a shared lair. Perhaps no one else picks up the character’s attention to Lair Security, leaving that score to drop. Maybe a portion of the lair falls into disuse or even collapses, causing an effective drop in Lair Size. Whatever the case, a plausible explanation must be determined. A character need not devote all of her Lair dots to the shared Lair Merit, of course. A Promethean might maintain a separate lair outside the communal one represented by the shared trait. Any leftover dots that a character has (or is unwilling to share) signify what she has to draw upon as an individual, separate from her partners. For example, three characters share a lair and expend a group total of five dots. One character
chooses to use two other dots on a private lair. Those remaining two dots represent a lair entirely separate from what she and her partners have established together. To record a shared Lair Merit on your character sheet, put an asterisk next to the name of the Lair Merit and fill in the total dots that your character has access to thanks to his partnership. In order to record his original contribution, write that amount in parentheses along with the Merit’s name. It is not important to note on which aspect of the Lair Merit those points are spent. This allows greater flexibility should a character ever decide to withdraw from the community arrangement. The result looks like this:
MERITS Lair* (2) •••• Lair ••• Allies ••• In this example, the character shares a Lair Merit dedicated to the throng’s communal shelter. He contributes two dots to the relationship, and the group has a total of four dots that are made available to each member. The character also has his own private Lair Merit rated 3, which he maintains by himself. And, the character has Allies in the police department rated 2, which is also his own Merit.
Pilgrim (••) Book: Magnum Opus, p. 53 Prerequisite: Promethean; must have experienced (but not necessarily yet completed) the Revelation Those Prometheans who have experienced part of the Seer’s Pilgrimage are often its most ardent adherents, possessed of a nearly missionary fervor to tell the stories of the Seer. They are also quite focused on learning more about the Seer — though this focus is most often on the Cycle associated with their Refinement. Effect: When you gain the opportunity to tell the story that has had such an effect on your Pilgrimage, you gain a point of Willpower. Should one of the Prometheans you tell this or any Seer legend to experience the Revelation, you regain all your Willpower. Finally, if you succeed in gaining inspiration at a Shrine, you gain one more Vitriol than normal from the experience.
Pilgrim (•••••) Book: Strange Alchemies, p.58 Prerequisites: Elpis ••, Humanity 6 Effect: The character has a kind of destiny. He can feel it in his Azoth, in the way that it stirs his humours within the crucible of his dead body. The Divine Fire within seems to drive him more purposefully than it does others. This feeling may exist within from the moment he is created, or may dawn slowly over time like a slowly stoked flame. The result is that, whenever the character completes a milestone, he gains one more Vitriol for the act than normal. Drawback: The character must maintain a Humanity 6 or above to keep this Merit. If his Humanity drops below that, the Merit is lost and can only be regained when the character’s Humanity becomes 6 again. A character may not possess both the Pilgrim and Shepherd Merits at the same time.
Repute (• to •••) Book: Promethean: The Created Core, p. 97 Effect: Prometheans hear many stories from other Prometheans on the road, and many of these stories concerns the exploits of others of their kind. A Promethean with this Merit has had some of his exploits told to others. These legends don’t even have to be true, but they are popular enough to be told and retold to Prometheans on their Pilgrimages around the country or even the world. When other Prometheans encounter the reputed Promethean, their players roll Intelligence + the Promethean’s Repute dots to see if they recognize him. Once someone recognizes him, the Promethean can add +1 per Reputedot to any Socialize roll made to influence or befriend those who know his legend. He can also use those who recognize him as temporary allies, as if they were bought through the Allies Merit (p. 114, World of Darkness Rulebook). They are worth one dot each — capable of rendering minor favors — and can be used this way only once per person (i.e., one minor favor per person), unless the Promethean spends experience points to codify his relationship with them into the Allies Merit.
With one dot in this Merit, the Promethean is mildly famous among his own kind. They won’t recognize him on sight (based on his description in the legends), but they might come to realize who he is once they’ve spent more than a few turns with him. With two dots, the Promethean might be recognizable on sight, and with three dots, his renown positively colors the Measure, the initial opinion other Created make of him. Drawback: Prometheans who recognize the renowned character and from whom he has asked a favor, might seek to enlist his aid. This is usually due to his obvious ability to accomplish the task requested, based on the legends told about him. If he refuses too many of these requests, he might lose Repute dots as word gets around of his selfishness.
Residual Memory (• to •••••) Book: Promethean: The Created Core, p. 97 Prerequisite: Promethean Effect: The Azoth does not always wash clean every remnant of dross in the body it sparks to life. Some Prometheans experience faint memories of their bodies’ former inhabitants, stored in the flesh. A Frankenstein’s hand might sometimes seem to have a will of its own, during which times the Wretched remembers experiences that belong to the hand’s former owner. An Ulgan might remember events that occurred to his body before it was rent by spirits and used to spark artificial life. Each dot represents one distinct Skill the residual memory retains from the body’s former life (chosen when the player chooses this Merit). A player whose character has Residual Memory 3 might choose to devote it to Academics, Firearms and Streetwise, if the player feels the body’s former inhabitant knew those Skills to a decent degree. The player could even devote his Residual Memory to Skills for which he has no training (although the character still suffers the penalty for untrained Skill use). For each chapter in a story, the character has a pool of “memory dice” equal to twice the number he has in this Merit. For instance, a character with two dots of Residual Memory has four dice in his memory pool. Each time he uses one of these memory dice, he can add it to any one dice pool related to the Skills his residual memories retain. The memories of the body’s former self are asserted, providing the Promethean with abilities he himself might not have but which he won’t remember after having used them. He can use these memory dice all in one dice roll, or split them up between different dice rolls. Either way, once they’ve been used, they’re gone until the next chapter or game session. For example, the character with Residual Memory 3 (giving him six dice) might choose to add two dice to an Academics roll and then four to a Streetwise roll. The next game session, he might apply all six dice to a single Firearms roll. The bonus can apply to mundane use of these Skills, but not to Transmutation rolls. (The body’s former inhabitant knew nothing of Transmutations.) Drawback: Whenever the character has spent all of his available memory dice for a chapter, he might also remember one of the former inhabitant’s derangements. The player chooses one mild derangement when he purchases this Merit. On the turn following the use of the final memory die, the player rolls the Promethean’s Humanity. If he succeeds, there is no effect. If he fails, the derangement becomes active for the scene.
Shabti (•••) Book: Strange Alchemies, p. 58 Prerequisite: Revivification Bestowment Effect: The Promethean — most likely an Osiran — owns a “Shabti,” a small, fairly intelligent creature that follows his commands and guards him when he rests. It takes the form of a little unformed man, maybe a foot tall, made of clay or of some kind of ceramic. It might be the color of blue faience, or brightly painted, like an Egyptian tomb ornament. The Shabti has been animated with the same Azoth that created the Promethean, channeled through his conceptual journey to the land of the dead. The Shabti has an empathic link with its master. No matter how far away the Shabti is from its master, it knows what the Promethean is feeling. The Shabti can say a few words, and can repeat perfectly things it has heard said, even if it doesn’t understand what it has heard. It has grasping hands, and can, if its master wishes, bear small objects or use weapons. A less scrupulous Promethean could use his Shabti as an assassin, able to enter an enemy’s home through small cracks, and strangling him in his sleep. The Promethean can spend one Pyros to be able to see through the Shabti’s eyes for a scene. While sharing the creature’s perceptions, the character can’t perform any other action, but is aware of what’s going on around him and can choose to abandon looking through the Shabti’s eyes. A Shabti, being made of inanimate material, doesn’t heal naturally, but its master can heal any wounds the Shabti has taken using Pyros. One Pyros heals one point of aggravated damage, or two points of lethal or bashing damage.
If the Shabti dies, the Promethean loses the Merit, although he can use the Revivification Bestowment to resurrect the Shabti in the same way that he could resurrect another Promethean. Making a new Shabti involves a great deal of effort, as the Promethean spends days crafting a new Shabti figure out of faience, metal or clay, contemplating its shape and design, and infusing it with tiny amounts of Azoth (in game terms, he’s just spending the 12 experience points necessary to buy the Merit over again). The player and the Storyteller should work together to create the Shabti’s Traits, using the following as a guide. Shabti Traits Attributes: 4/3/3 Skills: 6/5/3 Willpower: Equal to Resolve + Composure Initiative: Equal to Dexterity + Composure Defense: Equal to lower of Dexterity and Wits Speed: Strength + Dexterity + species factor 2 Size: 1 Health: Equal to Stamina + Size Improvement: A Promethean’s player can improve his Shabti’s Traits by spending some of his character’s experience points on the Shabti. It costs the same number of experience points to raise a Shabti’s traits as it does a Promethean’s.
Shepherd (••••) Book: Strange Alchemies, p. 59 Prerequisites: Elpis •, Repute ••, Humanity 6 Effect: The character’s very presence is a stable guiding hand. His throng recognizes it, though perhaps not consciously. The character may appear wise and particularly astute when it comes to helping others along the Pilgrimage, but he may appear as confused as the rest. Something within him, however — a yearning, transformative part of his Azoth — helps urge others along. Your character is likely to offer more help than other Created when it comes to the throng seeking out the completion of new milestones. He may not always be right, but he’s always on point and concerned with the shift from half-souled creature to human being. This generally means the character is less concerned with his own Pilgrimage, however. It is possible that a Shepherd character chooses to forego the New Dawn, staying in Saturnine Night and acting as a bodhisattva for other Prometheans. As a result, whenever a Promethean completes a milestone using the Shepherd’s advice or aid, that character gains one more Vitriol than is normal. Note that this does not apply to the character who possesses this Merit. The Shepherd must help the character with the milestone in some way — guiding him into the situation, assisting in the fight, helping to choose the body for a new Promethean. Drawback: The character must maintain a Humanity 6 or above to keep this Merit. If his Humanity drops below that, the Merit is lost and can only be regained if repurchased when the character’s Humanity raises above 6. A character may not possess both the Pilgrim and Shepherd Merits at the same time.
Unpalatable Aura (••) Book: Promethean: The Created Core, p. 98 Prerequisite: Promethean Effect: Pandorans instinctively do not like the tenor of the Promethean’s Azothic radiance. While its effect on them is the same — it awakens them from Dormancy — they’d prefer to choose a different target from which to gain their Pyros sustenance. If given a choice, such as if there are more Prometheans present than the one with this Merit, they will most likely attack the other Prometheans first. If the Promethean with this Merit is the only food source available, this Merit will not prevent them from attacking, but it does give subtract two from the result of their Initiative rolls when first determining initiative ranks in an encounter with the Promethean.
Weatherproof (•) Book: Strange Alchemies, p. 59 Effect: Although Prometheans don’t really age and can go almost indefinitely with only bugs, roots and tree bark for food, most still feel the cold and the heat. Most still have to keep warm. A Promethean with this Merit doesn’t feel the cold or heat at all. Extremes of temperature cause no penalties. A plunge into arctic seawater and a mid-August afternoon walk in Death Valley are all the same to
the Promethean. The Promethean suffers no penalties from extremes of cold and heat. Penalties that don’t depend on the Promethean being directly affected by the weather (such as from poor visibility, for example) still affect the Promethean. Available at character creation only.
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Merits List =
Age Reversal (•) Book: Grim Fears, p. 84 Prerequisites: Wyrd 4 Effect: The changeling ages backward instead of forward: a 50-year-old man gets younger by the day — one year of life is equal to one year reversed (instead of turning 51, he turns 49 on his birthday). This has little mechanical effect, though certainly it’s possible that a player will seek to affect stats accordingly as a character grows younger — Willpower might drop, for instance, but Physical stats might increase a bit. (Why is this such a low-dot Merit? Ultimately, because in the day-to-day game, it doesn’t have a lot of effect. Maybe a year passes and the character appears a bit younger, but it’s only the type of thing that really shows itself over a long chronicle — and even then, it doesn’t have any huge systemic effect on the character, instead incurring a more narrative effect. Plus, the drawback is worth figuring into the cost.) Drawback: Not only does the character still one day die (he’ll eventually be a baby and will continue to age backward until his frail infant body cannot support his life outside a womb), but in addition, the character does not find his life expectancy grown any more (according to Wyrd) once he purchases this Merit.
Arcadian Body (••••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 87 Prerequisite: Three or more dots on the affected Attribute Effect: Your character’s body was significantly changed by her time in Arcadia. Some combination of the transformations inflicted upon her by her Keeper and your character’s life in Arcadia altered one of her Attributes so that it can now be increased to an inhuman degree. The fifth dot in this Attribute costs only one of the dots you have at character creation, and your character can raise this Attribute to a maximum of six dots by spending experience points. Changelings can only purchase this Merit once. Available at character creation only. The basic form of a changeling’s body is set once the changeling comes back from Arcadia.
Arcadian Metabolism (•••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 87 Effect: Your character adapted to Arcadia better than most changelings. Perhaps he was in Arcadia an especially long time, or possibly the faerie fruit in his portion of Arcadia was especially potent. Regardless of the reason, your character gains additional benefit from eating goblin fruit. He regains one point of aggravated damage, two points of lethal damage or four points of bashing damage for every goblin fruit he consumes. The worst damage always heals first. However, your character can heal aggravated damage in this fashion only once a day. Characters who possess this Merit also often possess the Long of Days Merit. Drawback: Your character’s unusual metabolism is not an unqualified blessing. His body chemistry is subtly different from that of an ordinary mortals. Medicine rolls to help him all receive a –1 penalty. In addition, he can no longer survive without infusions of food touched by Arcadia. If your character does not eat at least one piece of goblin fruit every week, he suffers one point of bashing damage that cannot be healed except by eating goblin fruit. Your character suffers an addition point of bashing damage for every three additional days that he does not eat a piece of goblin fruit. However, eating a single goblin fruit cures this damage and has its normal affect upon the character. Characters with this Merit who are kept from goblin fruit for too long eventually sicken and die.
Archive (• to •••••; special) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 87 Prerequisite: Hollow Effect: Your character maintains, within his Hollow, a personal collection of useful information that can help with natural and supernatural research. Whether it’s in the form of a musty collection of occult tomes, a talking skull with several lifetimes of information at hand or a Glamour-powered computer network, the archive includes reference materials that can help the changeling learn about the world around him. The archive also offers insight into supernatural and occult topics that mortals cannot comprehend. In both fields
of knowledge — mundane research and occult lore — this collection relates to one or more fields of specialization. Each dot in this Merit represents one field of study or area of knowledge in which your character has a wealth of tomes or computer files (or perhaps a supernatural resource) and from which he may draw information. If he has Archive •••, his dots might be assigned to computer operating systems, medieval history and goblin fruits, respectively. Topics can include arcane lore that most people don’t know about or that has been forgotten since antiquity, as well as fae lore that humanity has never known. Gaining information from an archive is a research task, as described on pp. 55–56 of the World of Darkness Rulebook, except that a changeling spends only 15 minutes per roll when researching in his archive. (This time cannot be further reduced by the Brownie’s Boon Merit, below.) Success doesn’t guarantee exactly the information for which he looks. Archives aren’t all-knowing, and they don’t always provide one definitive answer to a question, since multiple authors may have different points of view on the same subject. The Storyteller is perfectly justified in saying that a particular archive simply doesn’t reveal something. A changeling may allow another changeling the privilege of consulting his archives, but unless this consultant puts points toward the Archive Merit, the standard 30 minutes per roll are spent researching his topic. Archive areas of study include but are not limited to Fairy Tales and Folklore, Herbalism, Trods, Tokens, Goblin Fruit, Hedgebeasts, Goblin Markets, Court History (with each Court being a separate topic), Local Changeling History, Orders and, of course, almost any mundane topic from Archaeology to Zoology. An archive is located in a Hollow and is protected by the Hollow’s wards. See the Hollow Merit on p. 94 of Changeling: The Lost. Special: Characters who share a Hollow can also share Archive dots, with each contributing to its area of knowledge. These characters each receive the full benefits of the Archives. It may happen that changelings suffer a falling-out, in which case one or more might be asked to forfeit their research privileges by the others. Those who are banned lose whatever dots they contributed, unless an agreement is worked out to split the Archives, allowing outcasts to take their areas of knowledge with them. Shared Archives should be marked with an asterisk (*) on your character sheet. See the description of the Hollow Merit for details on how to allocate dots.
Bastion (• to •••••; special) Book: Swords At Dawn, p. 108 Prerequisites: Must belong to a motley, Wits Specialty in Oneiromancy. Effect: A motley must have at least three members to construct a Bastion. Like a shared Hollow, a Bastion is created through experience point expenditure by the troupe as a whole rather than a single individual. The general shape and look of the Bastion can be decided by the motley as a whole, but the details depend on the changeling with the highest Wyrd rating. A Bastion is psychoactive in the same way as the Hedge and adapts itself to the highest Wyrd present. A changeling of the Autumn Court might cause the Bastion to decorate itself in gold, red and brown of fallen leaves, and the walls take on the look of burnt wood. Bastions are created by dreamscaping the shared dream of the motley (see Changeling: the Lost, p. 195). This creation process is an extended action instead of a contested action and is performed as a Teamwork action with a target number of 20. Each roll of the extended action represents one full night of work. Once constructed, the Bastion is a permanent addition to the dreams of the motley, even dreams they don’t share with each other. No matter what the dream is about, the Bastion will always appear in some way, either as a prominent feature or just a misty image in the distance. Mechanically, a Bastion is built in basically the same way as a Hollow and the maximum rating of any single feature is 5 dots. Bastion Size and Amenities both follow the same rules as those presented for Hollows (see Changeling: the Lost, p. 94). Unlike a Hollow, Bastions only have one external door, which acts more as a useful point of reference than an actual portal in and out of the Bastion. Only members of the motley that created the Bastion may enter it (peacefully anyways) and they may do so simply by picturing themselves inside as an instant action. Once inside, a changeling may not leave the Bastion until the dream has ended. In place of Wards, Bastions have Battlements. Each dot of Battlements is worth 10 points of damage that a besieger must overcome to win entrance. Only environmental attacks (see Changeling: the Lost, p. 198) have any effect on Battlements. Once a single dot of Battlements is reduced to zero, the dot rating of the Bastion Battlements is reduced by one. Repairs can be made to the Battlements either instantly with experience point expenditure (new dots x2), which represents the changeling putting a bit of herself into the Bastion or through the same sort of extended action Teamwork roll that created the Bastion in the first place. Repairing a single dot of Battlements requires 10 successes and each roll is equal to one night. In addition to increased protection, each dot in Battlements past the first allows more changelings the opportunity to strike back at their attacker from arrow slits or other similar defensive positions. Only Personal Attacks that take the form of ranged weapons may be used from the Battlements.
• No attacks are allowed •• Allows one changeling to attack ••• Allows three changelings to attack •••• Allows five changelings to attack ••••• Allows the entire motley to attack
Bloodied Ground (Milestone) Book: Autumn Nightmares, p. 103 Circumstance: The changeling must kill his fetch on the “human” side of an open gateway to the Hedge. Both the Hedge and the mortal world must be visible to the changeling when the fetch dies. Effect: The site where the fetch died becomes a special, even sacred, place for the changeling. Whenever the changeling is in the Hedge and trying to find his way out, he can picture that spot and instinctively find his way to it. The player receives a +3 to Hedge navigation rolls to find the place where the fetch died (see p. 219 of Changeling: The Lost).
Broken Mirror (Special) Book: Changeling: The Lost Core, p. 259 Type: Milestone Effect: Regardless of the fetch’s true nature, whether the fetch is capable of genuine compassion or is become as solipsistic as the Other that spun it of wood and shadow and rusty wire, killing a fetch isn’t easy for a changeling. Destroying the duplicate of a changeling (or, worse, one’s own) feels entirely too much like destroying the changeling in question, or like destroying a part of yourself. Such a task is a breaking point for changelings of Clarity 5 or higher (p. 92). However, the act of personally destroying one’s own fetch is also a turning point of sorts. The killing may erode the changeling’s sense of self, but it also places him in a greater mastery of his own fate. And as Arcadia’s orphans, fate is more than a simple abstraction to the Lost. The player may invoke the Broken Mirror Merit once per story to gain three additional dice on a roll, just as if he had spent a Willpower point. This Merit does not count as a Willpower expenditure, and can in fact be used on a roll that is also augmented with a Willpower point, for a total of six dice. A changeling who personally kills his own fetch gains this milestone Merit, without having to purchase it with experience points. This Merit can be gained only in play; it cannot be given to a character during character creation, even if his fetch died during the course of his prelude. Players who want to simulate killing their fetches as part of backstory may choose to purchase extra Resolve or Composure at character creation instead.
Brownies Boon (•) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 88 Similar to the legendary brownies or shoemaker’s elves, you possess the ability to complete mundane tasks in record time. For any long-term work project of mundane (not supernatural) nature, you may halve the required time to complete a task as long as you are not being watched by anyone. Thus, a character with this Merit could repair a car in half the time but could not shape the Hedge more quickly. In addition, you may spend a point of Glamour to halve the time again, to a maximum of three points of Glamour and 1/16th of the normal time for any particular task.
Charmed Life (••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 88 Effect: While in Arcadia, your character gained some minor measure of the enchantments that many of the True Fae use to protect themselves from harm. Once per scene, if your character suffers damage from an attack that would kill him or even just inflict one or more points of aggravated damage, your character has the option of spending one point of Willpower to cause the attacker to have to reroll this attack. The second roll is the one that affects the character. This Merit may function even if the character is unconscious, but does not function if the character has no more points of Willpower to spend. Also, this ability can only function once for any single attack roll.
Court Goodwill (• to •••••) Book: Changeling: The Lost Core, p. 93 Effect: This Merit reflects how well liked and respected you are in a Court other than your own. While members of a given Court will always be true to their own members and agendas above all, they are more
likely to give you the benefit of the doubt in a dispute, or come to your assistance if it does not undermine their own position. Unlike Mantle, which represents a supernatural quality as well as a political one, Court Goodwill is entirely a social construct, and depends entirely on the opinions of the members of that Court. Mistreat them, and Court Goodwill can disappear in a flash; cultivate their friendship, and they might rally to your defense when no one else will. Court Goodwill adds to dice pools for social interaction with members of the Court in question (though not supernatural powers based on Social rolls). Each two dots (rounding up) add a +1 die bonus to relevant rolls with members of that particular Court, so a changeling with Court Goodwill (Autumn) •• adds a +1 die bonus to Social rolls with a member of the Autumn Court. The Merit also allows one to learn some of that Court’s Contracts, though the highest levels are generally reserved for members alone. As with Mantle, loss of Court Goodwill does not prevent the changeling from using any Contracts that she no longer meet the prerequisites for, though she suffers the usual penalties (see p. 124). This Merit may be purchased multiple times, representing a character’s relationship with a different Court each time. A player cannot purchase Court Goodwill (Courtless); the Empty Hearts are not a social entity in their own right. Lastly, a character cannot purchase Court Goodwill with his own Court that is the province of the Mantle Merit. Because Court Goodwill is a purely social construction, a changeling may choose to ignore an attempt by another character to apply Court Goodwill to a roll they are involved in, essentially snubbing him despite his reputation in their Court. For example, if an Autumn changeling tried to apply Court Goodwill (Summer) •••• to a roll against member of the Summer Court, the target could declare that he was ignoring the character’s reputation and thus deny the Autumn changeling those two bonus dice. However, such disrespect is a serious insult. Unless the snubbing character can prove there was a valid reason to do so the outsider was throwing his weight around in a supremely petty fashion, for example, or trying to use his leverage to get the character to act against the best interests of the Court more often than not, the momentary satisfaction of the slight costs the character dearly within his own Court. It might even result in a reduction of his Mantle rating as his reputation as a member of that Court slips, not to mention earn him the ire of the Court whose member he snubbed.
Cuckoos Egg (Special) Book: Autumn Nightmares, p. 103 Type: Milestone Circumstance: The changeling kills his own fetch with absolutely no witnesses, including animals. The character must then carry a piece of the fetch with him at all times to retain this Merit. Effect: The character can step into the fetch’s life more easily with this Merit. Any rolls made to recall details about the fetch’s life, recognize people close to the fetch or otherwise behave as the fetch would receive a +3 modifier. Over time, of course, the character can gradually integrate the fetch’s life with his own goals, desires and mannerisms, but the Cuckoo’s Egg (as the piece of fetch-matter is called, regardless of what form it actually takes) makes this transition much easier. Drawback: Other changelings, Mirrorskins especially, prize Cuckoo’s Eggs because any changeling possessing the Egg enjoys the benefit. A rival might steal the Egg and try to take over the changeling’s identity, even for a short while.
Devotee (• to •••••) Book: Equinox Road, p. 14 Prerequisite: Wyrd 7 Effect: You have followers. And not necessarily because you want them, either. No, these humans have caught glimpses of your mien past the Mask, and they’ve come to… well, worship you. They’re not ensorcelled (unless you choose them to be), but once in a while they catch a hazy aura of your truly aweinspiring or monstrous mien, and as a result they think you’re quite special indeed. It’s probably because they’re damaged; these aren’t healthy people. But they’ll follow you into the gates of Hell. They’ll do pretty much whatever you want — and that means throwing themselves in front of a bus or strangling their own mother at your behest. This Merit functions like the Retainer Merit (p. 116, World of Darkness Rulebook). Each acquisition of this Merit equals one zealous Devotee (and several acquisitions pretty much means you have a cult that puts you at its holy center). Your character doesn’t necessarily need to do anything to pick up a Devotee; they simply glom onto her because somehow they saw her mien or sensed her power. Dots spent in this Merit indicate the training, capability or flexibility of the zealot. (Again, see the Retainer Merit for comparable aptitudes.) Drawback: In addition to the drawback of the Retainer Merit, it’s important to note yet again that Devotees are damaged. Each suffers from at least one severe derangement. In addition, while a Devotee zealously
throws himself into completing the changeling’s commands, sometimes they have… creative ways of interpreting instructions. A Lost asks one of his zealots, “While I’m busy across town going through Bethany’s closets, I need you to occupy her for the next few hours so she doesn’t come home.” The cultist does as demanded, but interprets “occupy her” as meaning “put her in the hospital.” Technically, it worked. But that might not be what the Lost wanted, precisely.
Disenchanting Kiss (••••) Book: Swords At Dawn, p. 92 Prerequisite: Wyrd •••••, Clarity 9+ Effect: Your character is a saint among the Lost. Her perceptive senses are otherworldly, easily sheering the false from the true. Furthermore, she has been chosen by fate for her kindness and sanity in an insane world to act as a balm for the orphaned survivors of Faerie. With but a kiss, an expenditure of a point of Willpower and four points of Glamour, and a successful Wyrd roll, she may immediately end any lingering effects from a power that controlled the character’s emotions or mind. This is an instant action. Drawback: The character must maintain a high Clarity to benefit from this Merit. If her Clarity ever falls below 9, she permanently loses the Merit. She may buy it again later if she raises her Clarity again above 9.
Dual Kith (•••) Book: Winter Masques, p. 98 Prerequisites: Wyrd 2 Effects: Your character benefits from the blessings of two different kiths. Upon taking this Merit, you may select an additional kith, subject to any restrictions set by the Storyteller. You gain the benefit of both kiths’ blessings, and your appearance may reflect both aspects.
Dual Kith (•• or •••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 88 Effect: Your character’s kith is in some fashion a blending of two existing kiths. For two dots, your character is a blending of two kiths associated with her seeming. A Beast associated with an especially agile flying insect such as a dragonfly, who combines features of a Skitterskulk and a Windwing, is but one of many possible examples. Other possibilities include an Elemental associated with human-created electricity, who combines features of a Fireheart and a Manikin, or a Fairest who is an especially graceful and elegant dragon, who combines features of the Dancer and the Draconic. The changeling gains the blessing of both of the kiths she is associated with and can use both equally easily and well. For three dots, your character is one of the rare changelings who blends together traits from two kiths associated with different seemings. Your character might be an Airtouched who is so attuned to the winds that she can float and glide like a Windwing Elemental, a Flowering whose association with plants is so strong that she has some of the traits of a Woodblood Elemental. Alternately, your character might be an especially bestial Farwalker who appears as a hairy, humanoid predator with traits of a Hunterheart Beast. Your character can belong to only a single seeming, but she also possesses the kith blessings of both kiths. No other benefit of the other seeming is transferred; your character is still a member of one seeming, with all that entails. This Merit can be taken only once. Available at character creation only. A character’s kith may be unusual, but it never changes. You cannot blend your character’s kith at a later time. [Note: An alternate approach to blending or evolving kiths appears in Winter Masques.]
Enchanted Mortal (••) Book: Equinox Road, p. 107 Effects: The character is an enchanted mortal who was abducted into Arcadia and was rescued before more than the most basic transformations could be performed on them. As a result, they are treated as if they are permanently ensorcelled. This Merit is lost if the character ever gains a supernatural template.
Enchanting Performance (••••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 88 Prerequisite: Expression ••• Effect: Your character’s fae nature causes her to be an especially magnetic and compelling performer. She reduces all situational penalties to any Expression or Persuasion rolls used as part of a performance by a number of points equal to her Wyrd, to a minimum of zero. In addition, by spending a point of Glamour, your character can cause her performance to be particularly moving. Spending this Glamour causes her performance roll to gain the rote quality; if the performance roll is successful, it stirs a single emotion
appropriate to the subject matter in the audience. This emotion can be as simple as joy and as complex as the anger of being betrayed by someone especially close. This emotion is not overpowering and does not compel anyone to perform any action, but everyone who pays attention to the performance feels it.
Fae Mount (•, ••, ••• or •••••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 89 You have earned the favor of a supernatural steed that can be called upon to act as a riding mount for you at any time you are in the Hedge. The Fae Mount comes to you anywhere in the Hedge when called (perhaps via a particular whistle or summoning rhyme). While the steed has no particular knowledge of trods and must be directed by its rider, the steed can travel up to twice the normal speed for a mundane horse while in the Hedge. The one-dot version of Fae Mount provides the Hedge equivalent of a simple steed. Use the statistics for Horse on p. 203 of the World of Darkness Rulebook, although the actual description may vary as suits the fantastic nature of the Hedge. Possibilities include, but are certainly not limited to, a motorcycle made of brass and obsidian, a steel-boned skeletal mare, a small hut that walks on chicken legs or a slithering shadowserpent). The steed has no supernatural powers other than the ability to manifest when summoned. The two-dot version adds a minor supernatural ability. Choose from the following, or create your own, subject to Storyteller approval: the ability to run across water as if it were solid land, the ability to fly (Speed 12 and can bear a rider or burden up to 300 pounds), firebreathing (treat as a Torch attack per the Fire rules on p. 180 of the World of Darkness Rulebook), the ability to carry up to three additional passengers of Size 6 or smaller, or a poisonous bite (Toxicity 4, see rules on Poisons and Toxins on p. 181, the World of Darkness Rulebook). The three-dot version gives the mount two of the aforementioned traits, or any four abilities of similar level, subject to Storyteller approval, or some combination thereof. The five-dot version gives the steed three of the aforementioned four traits as well as the ability to leave the Hedge and travel in the mortal world. While manifested, the Fae Mount is visible to human eyes (albeit as a mundane mount closest to its nature; a walking hut may look like a pickup truck with a large sleeper add-on, for instance). The Fae Mount may remain in the physical world for a scene before the Fae Mount must find its way back into the Hedge, there to rest for a day and a night before the steed may leave the Hedge again. The steed may open a portal to the Hedge if its rider feeds the steed a Glamour, but the steed has no control over where the portal may lead.
Fae Pet (•• or ••••) Book: Autumn Nightmares, p. 71 Effect: This Fae possesses a real-world animal pet (two-dot version) or an unearthly Hedge-dwelling hobgoblin (four-dot version). The animal pet can be any beast local to the area. (In other words, the Fae could have a wolf in Alaska, but not in Miami. The Fae could have a pelican or alligator in Miami, however, which he could not possess in Alaska.) The hobgoblin pet can be any moderately powered monster from the Hedge. Briarwolves are a popular choice, as are Hedge Beasts. The pet does whatever the Fae demands, even putting itself at risk for the fiend. Curiously, this Merit is less about having a trained animal and more about the Fae’s preternatural sway over beasts and creatures. If the Fae’s current pet is killed, she can summon a new one after 24 hours have passed (and summoning either type of pet must be done within 500 yards of an existing Hedge gateway). Hobgoblin pets can leave the Hedge, traveling with the Fae into the human world. However, hobgoblin pets suffer one point of lethal damage per turn when seen by any human. The damage stops building once the hobgoblin can hide itself somehow. (This damage manifests in various ways: sizzling skin, popping blisters, fur falling out in bloody clumps.) Animal pets can also enter the Hedge, but once within the Hedge, they’re subject to the strange psychoactive effects. An animal pet in such a realm may perish from the brunt of such madness, may turn into a rabid beast or could instead become something stranger — such as a hobgoblin.
Faerie Favor (•••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 90 Effect: One of the Gentry owes your character a single favor, for reasons that may seem to make little sense to her. It may be a dark secret such as turning over another child or changeling to the Other, or as innocuousseeming as offering a piece of bread to a withered old woman at a crossroads. The Fae in question has given
his word to provide one and only one service for your character — a promise made out of a sense of obligation, not out of kindness or respect. This service can include transport to anyplace in the Hedge or the mortal world (through the Hedge) in less than an hour, one use of the Fae’s powers on any mortal or changeling or temporarily working to stymie a rival Other in its hunt. This favor does not extend to Arcadia or those who reside there, though the Fae may agree to rescue a certain individual from Faerie in exchange for an additional task from your character (which is unlikely to be pleasant). Your character has a small token that he has been instructed to break when he wishes to call this Fae and ask for the favor. Once broken, this token cannot be re-used, and even if your character asks for no favor, the Fae cannot be called again. Drawback: Most changelings who find out about this favor assume (sometimes correctly) that your character is a loyalist or a privateer.
Faerie Healing (••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 90 Effect: Your character can heal others with goblin fruit as effectively as she can heal herself, including mortals and normal animals. The exact manner in which this healing occurs depends upon the particular character. Some characters must feed the fruit to their patient, others eat or touch the fruit and then must touch their patient and some characters must extract the juice from the fruit and combine the juice with some commonly available ingredients such as ginger or honey. You may select the particular method, but once it is selected, you cannot change this method. All characters with Faerie Healing have one specific method in which they use goblin fruit to heal others, and various methods have distinct advantages and disadvantages. For example, making a specially blended juice out of the goblin fruit allows your character to carry an innocuous thermos of fruit juice wherever she goes, while laying hands on the patient’s bare skin does not require the person to consent to some unusual action such as eating a strange-looking fruit. Regardless of the method used, the patient regains a single point of lethal damage or two points of bashing damage per fruit consumed, as if the patient were a changeling eating goblin fruit. Your character cannot use goblin fruit to heal the dead, including humans who have died of their wounds, ghosts or vampires.
False Heart (Special) Book: Autumn Nightmares, p. 103 Circumstance: No specific circumstance; the changeling kills his own fetch. Effect: Among the detritus left behind when the fetch dies is an object about half the size of a fist — a stone, a wooden box, a ball of string, etc. This object holds a tiny portion of the Glamour used to create the fetch, and the changeling can use this Glamour to supplement his own Glamour. The False Heart holds three points of Glamour. The changeling must replenish these points by sleeping with the False Heart under his pillow (or otherwise on his person) for at least six hours. The Glamour for the False Heart must come from the changeling’s own pool, meaning that it can only be replenished if the changeling has at least three points of Glamour. The changeling can spend the Glamour from the False Heart normally, and only that changeling can retrieve the Glamour.
Fatebound: Bean Buyer (•••) Book: Swords At Dawn, p. 89 Prerequisite: Wyrd •••, Streetwise ••• Effect: Like Jack the Giant Killer, your character has the tendency to purchase things that no other rational individual would pay for. And like Jack, whose magic beans sprouted into a magnificent beanstalk that ascended to the heavens, your purchases usually work out. Once per story, upon being tricked or swindled (not necessarily into buying something) you may spend one point of Glamour to tweak fate. The item or swindle becomes a blessing in disguise, granting the character a significant advantage. Drawback: Unfortunately, just as Jack found that his incredible beanstalk led him to man-eating giants, your character’s own luck has a tendency to sour quickly. Whenever the character uses an advantage he gained from this Merit, he invariably runs afoul of an enemy. The enemy always gains access to the character by way of the advantage. Example: Old Lady Mudfingers out in the Hedge offers to show Kayla, a Bean Buyer, a secret trod that leads to an opulent Hollow left abandoned by the former Autumn King… for a price. Kayla, thrilled at the opportunity, ponies up a rare oddment for the old Wizened, who takes her deep into the Hedge before promptly vanishing. Now alone, Kayla begins to despair. Her player evokes this Merit and spends one point of Glamour. The Storyteller takes a short break to do some quick thinking.
As Kayla tries to find her way home she discovers a Thorncompass, a minor token that aids in navigating the Hedge. Unfortunately for her, it does so by directing her towards the nearest changeling. This time it just happens to be her old nemesis Cold John.
Fatebound: Cloistered Spinner (•••) Book: Swords At Dawn, p. 90 Prerequisite: Wyrd •••, Crafts ••• Effect: Unlike the spinner from Rumpelstiltskin, you actually have a knack for turning useless dross into something special or valuable. You may spend one point of Glamour to turn garbage or junk into something of value. This item must be something that could conceivably be created from the raw material, but it inevitably comes out more impressive than anyone would expect from what went into it. The player rolls Dexterity + Crafts as an Instant action. The finished product either provides na equipment bonus equal to the number of successes rolled or can be sold or traded as an item with a Resources value equal to the successes rolled. Note that a character that rolls no successes still creates an item, but that it is not of high enough quality to grant a bonus or be sold for significant profit. Drawback: Unfortunately, every time a character uses this ability, fate ensures that she loses something important to her of equivalent value to the item constructed (though not necessarily in monetary terms). It may be a favored weapon or a family heirloom, but it can just as easily be a firstborn child or close friend. Example: Casper, a Cloistered Spinner, finds himself jailed in a moldering basement by the dominant Summer Court. Glancing around, he notices the space is filled with dust and cobwebs. Casper’s player spends one point of Glamour and rolls Dexterity + Crafts, garnering 2 successes. Gathering the dross, Casper twines it together into a surprisingly strong rope (with na equipment bonus of 3). He uses the rope to escape through the nearby window. When the Summer Knights find that Casper has escaped, they become infuriated. They know he has a sister he cares for, so they hunt her down, throwing her into the same cell her brother lately inhabited. His sister’s freedom has been traded for his.
Fatebound: Cowherd And Weaver (•••) Book: Swords At Dawn, p. 90 Prerequisite: Wyrd •••, Resolve ••• Effect: The character has a lover from whom the world conspires to keep him separated. Only fate protects the union. Once per story, the character may spend a point of Glamour when forcibly separated from his love. Fate conspires with the character to reunite him with his lover, regardless of circumstance. He gains some bit of knowledge or insight into the whereabouts of his lover, and his lover finds some method to escape her own circumstances. This Merit does not automatically deliver the characters into one another’s arms; it simply paves the way with a hint and a minor twist of good fortune. Drawback: The world conspires against the lovers out of jealousy for their relationship. Both characters lose the 10-again rule on all social dice pools when together, partly due to their absorption with one another and partly due to the annoyance it inspires in others.
Fatebound: Evil Stepsister (•••) Book: Swords At Dawn, p. 90 Prerequisite: Wyrd •••, Manipulation ••• Effect: The character has authority over an individual (possibly but not necessarily represented by the Retainer Merit), and, like Cinderella’s vicious stepsiblings, she abuses it. This abuse is not without purpose, however. Once per chapter, the character may spend one point of Glamour while being cruel to the individual she has authority over to ensure that he has some ability or item that will prove useful in overcoming the character’s obstacles. This may be as simple as possessing a skill the character lacks or as esoteric as knowing an ancient nursery rhyme that provides the clue to opening an even older vault. Drawback: Alas, the Evil Stepsister never prospers. Once per story (usually near the climax) the wrongs levied against the underling come back to harm the character. These abuses come back to haunt the character at the same time… usually the worst possible time. The wrongs may come in the form of an accident or may come at the hand of one of the character’s enemies.
Fatebound: Fair Prince (•••) Book: Swords At Dawn, p. 91 Prerequisite: Wyrd •••, Court Mantle ••• Effect: The Fair Prince is beloved by his people. He is charming, gallant and brave (if a Spring Courtier), strong and courageous (Summer), brilliant and intense (Autumn) or quiet and manipulative (Winter).
Thoroughly beloved, he gains a bonus of 2 dice on all social rolls with members of his Court and 1 die with changelings of other Courts. Furthermore, his charming personality affects his interactions with non-fae: Persuasion rolls against non-fae benefit from the 9-again rule. Drawback: The Fair Prince is the very symbol of his Court. Unfortunately, that makes him the antithesis of another Court. Members of this other Court loathe the character, hinder him whenever possible, and may make plans to dispatch him (if they can do so without getting caught for murdering a popular figure). The character does not benefit from the above social bonuses with members of that Court, and may never gain the Court Goodwill Merit with that Court. Use of that Court’s Contracts by the hated character may inspire members of the offended Court to violence. The offended Court is determined by the character’s Court. Spring opposes Autumn, Summer opposes Winter, and Dawn opposes Dusk (and vice versa in all cases).
Fatebound: Fisher King (•••) Book: Swords At Dawn, p. 91 Prerequisite: Wyrd •••, Court Mantle •••••, Possession of Court Crown (p. 97, Changeling: The Lost) Effect: Like the wounded monarch of myth, the character has become closely tied to that which he rules. As the King prospers, so does his land. When the character holds power, the strength of his body determines the strength of his reign. So long as the character has not suffered a lethal or aggravated wound, his Social Merits function at twice their usual potency (if applicable). This doesn’t mean that a Fisher King with Resources 2 has the equivalent of Resources 4, but rather that he has Resources 2 twice over (and thus can afford twice as much equipment). Similarly, a Retainer 3 does not become a superhuman Retainer 6, but rather can accomplish the work of 2 three-dot retainers. Allies are willing to do twice as much and Contacts uncover double the usual amount of information. If the character loses a single Health Level to damage worse than bashing, he loses these benefits until he heals the damage. Drawback: As the land withers, so does the King. A Fisher King suffers one lethal Health Level of damage whenever a member of his Court dies. Furthermore, a Fisher King who fails to maintain a strong rule or whose rule is divided by insurrection finds his orders ineffectual and his own body wracked with pain. Not only does he lose the benefits listed above, but he suffers wound penalties based on the extent of the unrest under his rule. These penalties do not stack with usual wound penalties, and neither do they fade until the King has resolved whatever issues plague his rule. Iron Stamina does not reduce these penalties. modifier -1 -2 -3
Situation General mild discontent or a small group of active and dedicated revolutionaries Widespread major discontent or a medium-sized group of active revolutionaries Full-blown civil war
Fatebound: Mobled Queen (•••) Book: Swords At Dawn, p. 91 Prerequisite: Wyrd (•••), Court Mantle (•••••), Possession of Court Crown Effect: The Mobled Queen is wrapped in the magic of her Court, shrouded in its potent emotions as if they were vestments sewn from desire, anger, fear or sorrow. She knows those emotions like none other, her very blood inundated with their energy. The Mobled Queen gains a bonus of 4 dice to all activation rolls for Contracts that are affinity to her Court. Furthermore, she gains an additional +1 when harvesting Glamour that resonates with her Court’s representative emotion. Drawback: The Mobled Queen’s pain drives her magic, but it also limits her, burning her mind with unearthly passions. She suffers a –1 penalty when rolling to resist garnering a Derangement after having lost Clarity. Furthermore, each time she benefits from this Merit in a given scene, she suffers a cumulative –1 penalty to all other actions (to a maximum of –5) from emotional distress. This penalty does not apply to Contract activation rolls or resistance rolls. The Mobled Queen may not choose not to benefit from this Merit, though she can certainly choose not to use her Court Contracts.
Fatebound: Monkey Heart (•••) Book: Swords At Dawn, p. 91 Prerequisite: Wyrd (•••), Wits ••• Effect: The clever monkey is no simple ass; while the donkey can be convinced to meet the lion a second time, the monkey refuses to walk knowingly back into danger. The character has a portion of the monkey’s wiles. He gains a +5 bonus on rolls to notice traps or avoid being surprised by an adversary who has attempted (successfully or not) to trap or ambush him in the past.
Drawback: Of course, the monkey’s cleverness comes from experience. The character suffers a –2 penalty on all rolls to notice traps or avoid being surprised the first time a given adversary attempts to trap or ambush him.
Fatebound: Mortal Enemy (•••) Book: Swords At Dawn, p. 92 Prerequisite: Wyrd (•••), Resolve ••• Effect: Sometimes the Wyrd ties two individuals together in a bond of enmity, driving them to strike at one another time and time again, until one or both are left broken and bloody on the cracked asphalt. Your character has established just such a bond with another changeling of similar power. Fate paves the way for you to clash with your hated opponent, and you gain three phantom dice each chapter that you can apply to any roll directly related to finding and confronting your enemy (though not to any roll against the enemy herself). These dice can be applied together on one roll, separately on three different rolls or split two and one. They can even be applied to combat if, for example, your character is fighting the enemy’s guards. When you actually face your enemy, fate guards you and empowers you. You barely duck fatal blows and your own swings strike with legendary precision. You gain +1 Defense from your enemy’s attacks and +2 to all attack rolls against her. Drawback: Just as you are bound to your enemy, so is he bound to you. He gains the exact same advantages as you do, but his are directed towards killing you, making him quite the enemy indeed. If you ever kill your enemy, you regain any spent Willpower. You lose the Merit, however.
Fatebound: Star-Crossed Lover (•••) Book: Swords At Dawn, p. 92 Prerequisite: Wyrd (•••), Presence ••• Effect: The Wyrd also binds fates of lovers together, but tests that love constantly with every imaginable hardship. Your character has a true love — she need not be a changeling or love the character in return but must be something capable of sharing the love — and his need for her is so desperate that it has been imprinted on fate. When working to protect or save his love, the character gains a single automatic success when spending Willpower on a roll rather than the usual three dice bonus. Furthermore he regains one spent point of Willpower in any scene in which he directly protects her from danger. Drawback: Unfortunately, the character’s true love gets the bad end of the deal. She is often in danger, regularly targeted by the denizens of the World of Darkness, perhaps because the character cares about her, perhaps for some other ineffable reason. When the love is in trouble, the character suffers a –2 distraction penalty to all actions that don’t directly relate to saving her. If the love ever dies, the character loses the Merit.
Fetch-Bane (Special) Book: Autumn Nightmares, p. 103 Type: Milestone Circumstance: The changeling kills his fetch with a weapon. He might stab his fetch to death with a sword, throttle it with a rope, beat it with a club or even shoot it with a bow or a gun. The changeling must kill the fetch that weapon alone, though; he can’t shoot the fetch and then slit its throat as it lies bleeding. Cold iron weapons cannot become fetch-banes. Effect: The weapon used to kill the fetch becomes a token called a fetch-bane. When activated, the weapon’s damage either becomes lethal (if it is normally bashing) or increases by two (if it is normally lethal). Action: Reflexive Mien: The weapon shows evidence of the killing committed with it. A knife or cudgel drips with blood, a rope smells of chafed flesh and a gun smokes. Drawback: A fetch-bane cannot be used in self-defense. If a character attempts to use a fetch-bane in a fight in which he is not the aggressor in a fight, the fetch-bane turns in his hands, imposing a –3 penalty on all attempts to use it. Catch: The character must start a fight with someone that he knows personally within the next 24 hours. The fight must be physical, unprovoked and without warning (i.e., the character cannot say to a member of his motley, “I have to punch you now, please punch me back once and we’ll call it a day”). If the character does not do so within 24 hours of using the fetch-bane, the weapon leaps into the character’s hand and attacks the nearest person (the character makes a normal attack roll against the victim, and must deal with the consequences).
Fighting Style: Dream Combat (• to •••••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 90 Prerequisite: Wyrd •••, Empathy ••• Effect: Your character has honed her oneiromachy skills to a high degree, allowing her to push the envelope of dream-battle and take the dream-bound combat beyond the reach of less experienced or dedicated oneiromancers. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers that are only applicable for oneiromachy (dream-battles). Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. So, your character can’t have Double Team until he has Stunning Blow. The maneuvers and their effects are described below. Stunning Blow (•): Your character’s dreamonslaught is overwhelming, literally stunning your opponent to the point of inaction. If successes inflicted in a single attack equal or exceed a target’s Wyrd, the victim loses his next action. Attacks of this strength are often accompanied by appropriate special effects in a dream, from shockwaves to tendrils of grasping fog that seem to stall the stunned opponent for a moment. Double Team (••): Not content with a single avenue of attack, your character is adept enough with oneiromancy that he can coordinate an environmental and a personal attack against his target at the same time. The second attack suffers a –1 penalty. Drawback: Your character cannot use his Defense against any attack in the same turn in which he intends to use this maneuver. If he uses Defense against attacks that occur earlier in the Initiative roster, before he can perform this maneuver, he cannot perform the maneuver in the same turn, his attention is too focused on protecting himself. Blind Spot (•••): Your character’s control of the dream environment is so great that it allows him to attack from the vantage point most detrimental to his opponent. He must use the lowest, rather than the highest, of her Finesse Traits (Wits, Dexterity or Manipulation) as her Defense and the lowest, rather than the highest, of her Resistance traits as her armor. Wyrd Armor (••••): Your character’s mastery of the dream-realm protects him in battle. He may add his Wyrd to the highest of his Finesse Traits to serve as his Defense and to the highest of his Resistance traits to serve as his armor. Coup de Grace (•••••): Even as your character’s opponent fades from the dream-arena, he is capable of delivering a final blow. At any time that an opponent in a dream-combat is beginning to waken (i.e., has dropped to or below 0 Willpower), he may deliver one final dream-attack (environmental or personal) against her as she wakes. She may not use her Defenses or armor against this attack.
Fighting Style: Hedge Duelist (• to •••••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 91 Prerequisite: Wyrd ••• Effect: While any changeling can step into the Hedge to duke it up with an opponent, for some, Hedge battles have become an art form. Characters with the Fighting Style: Hedge Duelist Merit have dedicated time and effort into perfecting combat within the Hedge’s unique environment, turning the Hedge Duel into an (often lethal) art form. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special combat maneuvers that are applicable only to combat within the Hedge (not Arcadia), and only in formal duels. See p. 225 of Changeling: The Lost for criteria on how a Hedge Duel is begun. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. A character can’t purchase Briar Bite until he has mastered Quick Count and Cruel Blow. The maneuvers and their effects are described below. Quick Count (•): In a traditional pistol duel, opponents walk in opposite directions, counting to 10 before turning and firing at each other. This often means that whoever has the quicker reflexes gets the benefit of the first shot. Experienced Hedge Duelists seem to be able to get the “drop” on their opponents more often than not, perhaps simply by quick reaction times, or perhaps through some subtle manipulation of the Hedge’s time flow. With Quick Count, your opponent gets a +2 bonus to her Initiative when beginning a Hedge Duel. If Storytellers are using the alternate Initiative rules on p. 151 of the World of Darkness Rulebook, the bonus applies to each Initiative roll. Cruel Blow (••): Demoralizing an opponent is an effective, if unscrupulous, tactic for Hedge duels, and your character has perfected it. When targeting an opponent’s mind (see p. 226 of Changeling: The Lost), she has an uncanny ability to choose whatever words will do the most damage. Add either your character’s Empathy or the victim’s (whichever is higher) to your character’s Manipulation + Subterfuge rolls against the victim’s Clarity or Resolve + Composure. Briar Bite (•••): For an expert Hedge Duelist, the Hedge itself becomes its own, oft lethal, weapon. By spending a Glamour, a Hedge Duelist is able to use the Hedge against his opponent without regard for the opponent’s own powers. When your character uses the Hedge to strike at a rival, your opponent’s Wyrd is treated as two less for purposes of defense (to a minimum of 0).
No Mercy (••••): Normally, a character suffers no more than a –2 penalty for losing all of her Willpower to a Hedge Duel opponent’s mind-attacks. Characters with the No Mercy maneuver, however, give no quarter to their opponents’ weakened state, pursuing the mental abuse to the point where it can totally incapacitate their foes. Once an opponent has been reduced to 0 Willpower, each successive strike at his mind with the No Mercy maneuver increases his dice penalty by 1. Using this tactic calls for a Clarity roll if the attacker’s Clarity is 7 or higher (roll three dice). In addition, opponents who end a Hedge Duel with more than a –2 penalty thanks to this punishment suffer from a mild derangement (or an upgrade of an existing derangement from mild to severe) for the next 24 hours. Those who end a Hedge Duel with a –5 or greater penalty or less Willpower suffer the derangement or upgrade for an entire week. When an opponent reaches a –10 penalty, he are no longer able to function and falls to the ground in a quivering, fetal ball. It is considered exceptionally poor form to kill an opponent who has been so incapacitated, even if the duel was announced as being to the death, so adroit Hedge Duelists will often attempt to pause their mind attacks just short of this threshold if they intend on killing their victim. (Killing a victim who is incapacitated in this manner calls for a degeneration roll if the attacker’s Clarity is 2 or higher. Roll two dice.) Hedge Wrath (•••••): The Hedge is not a nice place. The fact that it seems to cooperate more freely with changelings who come into its fickle environ for the purposes of harming each other is just one example of its cruel nature. For those who are able to harness this cruelty, however, the Thorns are an incredible weapon. With Hedge Wrath, your character is able to sacrifice her own Willpower to fan the Hedge’s lethal potential even higher. She may spend a Willpower point to enhance any Hedge Duel attack in which she is reshaping the Hedge to strike at her enemy; the usual benefits apply. In addition, if that attack is an exceptional success, all damage the attack does is aggravated, rather than lethal.
Fighting Style: Social Maneuvers (• to ••••) Book: Grim Fears, p. 63 Prerequisites: Presence •••, Manipulation •••, one Social Skill at •••• Effect: Your character is trained in the art of social manipulations and able to twist a victim around his thumb for purposes of getting what he wants. This might be something the character develops naturally, but it can be taught. Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special “social combat” maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. Your character can’t have “Stick and Move” until he has “Sugar Lips, Honey Tongue.” The “maneuvers” and their effects are described below. Note that the positive effects of each “maneuver” may end upon one dramatic failure by the character or several consecutive Social failures. Sugar Lips, Honey Tongue (•): Your character’s first interaction with a target is a mind-blowing yet convincing compliment — the goal being to knock them off balance a bit before going in for the “kill.” Using this “move” necessitates first keeping a close eye on the target for at least 20 minutes, reading body language, determining vulnerabilities: what parts confirm her self-esteem, or what is it about her self-image that needs boosting? Upon delivering the compliment — and it must be the first thing your character says to the target — you roll your character’s Manipulation + Socialize versus the target’s Presence + Composure. Your roll gains a bonus equal to half of your Empathy score, however, rounded up. Success on the roll means the target suffers –3 dice to any further Social Resistance traits or rolls. Stick and Move (••): Being too aggressive in some social situations can be the deathblow to one’s manipulations; hence, it is often necessary to retreat from the conversation, to feign disinterest or distraction. This forces the victim to be the aggressor (though, admittedly, the false aggressor), thus investing the victim in your character’s well-being. Roll Presence + Subterfuge versus target’s Wits + Empathy. Success indicates that you can use the victim’s own interests and desires against her: for the remainder of the scene, you gain a bonus to all Social rolls equal to half the victim’s Presence score (round up). Drawback: this necessitates the expenditure of a single point of Willpower to engage. New Approach (•••): Any time it looks like your character has lost a Social contest, you may spend a Willpower point to force that contest to be re-rolled, gaining a “second chance,” of sorts. Chip Away (••••): Your character can continue to put the target off balance through denials, assertions, compliments, insults — whatever tools he has in his arsenal. Once per turn, your character may make any Social roll and spend a Willpower point. In doing so, you do not gain +3 to that roll, but instead force a –1 Social penalty upon the target by continuing to unbalance the conversation. This penalty is cumulative, and can build to a maximum of –3 dice. Drawback: if you fail a Social roll after successfully engaging this tactic, the target gains the upper hand again and the Social penalty disappears. You may not try this move again on that target during this game session.
Gentrified Bearing (••••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 92 Prerequisite: Wyrd ••• Effect: Your character’s bearing and aura carry some of the stamp of the True Fae. As a result, hobgoblins and the True Fae are capable of mistaking your character for one of the Gentry. Hobgoblins that interact with your character for a scene or more may make a Wits + Composure roll, with a penalty equal to the changeling’s Wyrd to realize that your character is not Gentry. Sapient hobgoblins may avoid your character or act significantly deferential, if not necessarily obedient. However, they are likely to become quite vindictive if they realize they’ve been tricked. The True Fae have a chance to be fooled only if they see your character at a distance or only find evidence of her previous presence in a location. Closer contact, such as touching her, hearing your character speak or being able to smell her scent will dispel the illusion. Still, it may buy a few moments’ precious respite if the Other would rather avoid any entanglements with rivals at the time.
Glamour Thief (••••) Book: Swords At Dawn, p. 92 Prerequisite: Wyrd •••, Empathy ••, Occult •• Effect: Sometimes the Wyrd blesses (or curses) a changeling with a little additional power above and beyond what is possible for other changelings. Such creatures can siphon Glamour from other Lost, stealing it for their own use. This works precisely as harvesting Glamour from the emotions of mortals, save that the roll is contested by the subject changeling with a Wyrd roll. If the character overcomes the subject’s roll, he takes from the subject a number of Glamour equal to the successes rolled; if he rolls fewer or an equivalent number of successes, he garners no Glamour at all. Stolen Glamour comes out of the subject’s Glamour pool. The sensation of having Glamour stolen is similar to the pain of being beaten with cold iron. Drawback: Glamour taken from a changeling seems more concentrated with wild magic than that stolen from a human. A character that drains Glamour from another Lost suffers from an active derangement (either one of his own, one of the subject’s or one of the Storyteller’s choice) for a number of scenes equal to the number of Glamour points stolen. Furthermore, such an act of vampirism is a breaking point for changelings with Clarity 6 or higher (three dice).
Goblin Merchant (• or •••) Book: Goblin Market, p. 34 Effect: Your character has convinced the local Goblin Market to let you sell wares to other Market-goers without having to worry about being price-gouged by the other vendors or forcefully removed by the Market toughs. For •, these are the only benefits. At ••• you’ve paid your membership in full and gain the protection of Market law. Drawback: Selling wares at the Goblin Market is hardly a respectable profession. In most freeholds, this results in a loss of face among the other changelings. Goblin merchants find that the Court Goodwill Merit is limited to ••• for them. At the Storyteller’s discretion other social merits, such as Status and Allies, may be subject to similar restrictions when purchased to reflect ties to freehold society. Changelings find it difficult to hide their association with the Market; aspects of the Market always seem to seep into their mien.
Goblin Vow (• to •••••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 38 Effect: Your character has an innate connection to some very specific purview of Wyrd reality that emulates, to a lesser degree, the Others’ connections thereto. This allows her to craft pledges with that purview off the cuff, without the need for another individual to serve as a witness or agent of the Wyrd. For each dot your characters has in this Merit, she has a connection with one purview of the Wyrd. These purviews are very specific. “Animals” is too general a purview, as is “canines,” but “dogs,” “wolves,” “coyotes” or “jackals” are all appropriate purviews. Similarly, “nighttime” is too broad a purview, but “dusk,” “dawn,” “midnight” or “moonless nights” are all acceptable. A changeling with the Goblin Vow Merit can craft a pledge just as she would a one-sided pledge, choosing the task, boon and duration, which must equal out to a zero sum. (Note the missing sanction, which requires that the tasks are strong enough to equal out to both boon and duration. Thus, most Goblin Vows are very short in duration.) Elements of the pledge are all based on one of the particular purviews the character possesses, with the task serving that purview in some manner and the boon being some aspect of that purview the character can benefit from.
Purview Favors: Similar to a traditional favor boon, the changeling in a Goblin Pledge asks a favor from the other entity in the pledge. However, unlike a traditional boon, the other party is not a mortal or changeling but a purview of the Wyrd itself. This allows a great deal of flexibility in the nature of the favor, but it must be in keeping with the purview itself. Purviews of fire, such as candles, fireplaces or bonfires, for example, might grant warmth, summon a small flame, illuminate an area or give protection from burning. Darkness purviews, such as various aspects of night, might hide one from attackers, grant restful sleep or even lull a bored enemy into dozing off. Midnight, however, could not grant one sharp claws or protection from hunters who are using scent, rather than sight. Disadvantage: Unlike normal pledges, Goblin Pledges contain their own innate sanctions, which are separate from the balancing equation of task, boon and duration. Goblin Pledge sanctions are activated by the Wyrd, should the pledger fail to follow through on her tasks after making the pledge, and are equal in severity to the task total + 1. Example: Annie Lida, a young Skitterskulk who has the Goblin Vow Merit •••• (Black Velvet, Cemeteries, Earthworms and Moonless Nights) finds herself being chased down a dead-end multi-story alley by an illintentioned gang of thugs. Exhausted and injured, her options are few. She can’t climb over the walls; they’re too tall. It’s too late to double-back out of the alley, and every Contract that she has that might help her requires the use of Glamour, which she is out of. She looks up and realizes that the night sky is clear and dark — the moon is new and invisible. Desperate, she crafts a Goblin Pledge: “Dark night, dark night, hide your daughter from their sight. If I live through the day, I will break every lit streetlight I see for the next month.” She expends a point of Willpower to invoke the pledge, and finds herself shrouded in nightdarkness. The thugs look for her, but can’t pick her out of the shadows and eventually leave the alley in search of easier prey. In this case, Annie’s pledge task (breaking every lit streetlight she sees for a month) is a medial endeavor (– 2), the pledge’s duration is a day (+1) and the boon was fairly minor (+1). (Had she asked for the ability to harm the thugs, it might have been a medial task, or to kill them, a greater one.) Annie has no control over the sanction of the Goblin Vow. She leaves the alley, still shrouded in darkness, and for the next three weeks, is fastidious about shooting out every lit streetlight she sees with her pellet gun. However, just before the task is completed, she finds herself in the street as night is falling, and as the lights come on, she chooses to go out with some friends rather than spend the evening destroying streetlights. The Wyrd is evoked with the breaking of the pledge, and the Storyteller chooses a greater curse sanction (see p. 182 of Changeling: The Lost) for the next day (the duration of the pledge). Sample Wyrd Purviews Below are some of the potential Wyrd purviews that a Storyteller might allow a character with the Goblin Vow Merit to take. Note that the bolded categories are too broad to be taken as purviews, and are offered merely for ease of organization. If a Storyteller feels a particular purview is too restrictive or too broad, she is welcomed to create her own guidelines for what a purview can and cannot cover. Ideally, purviews should be narrow enough to not be useful in every situation but not so restrictive as to never be useful. Animals: Stray Cats, Tigers, Birds of Prey, Ravens, Songbirds, Insects, Whales Buildings and Structures: Schools, Garages (Mechanical), Working Farms, Morgues, Hospitals Emotions: Righteous Indignation, Unrequited Love, Phobic Fear Items: Sports Cars, Trucks, Telephones, Books, Knives, Cash Plants: Algae, Ivy, Kudzu, Moss and Lichen, Oak Trees, Roses Time/Seasons: Midnight, Noon, Dusk, Dawn, Solstice, February 29th Weather: Hurricanes, Moonless Nights, Monsoons, Blizzards
Harvest (• to •••••) Book: Changeling: The Lost Core, p. 94 Effect: Glamour is a precious commodity, and one of the first things many changelings do upon coming to terms with their new existence is try to find some way to secure a steady supply. This Merit represents a relatively stable and consistent source of Glamour that the changeling is considered to have ready access to, allowing her to more easily refresh her supply of Glamour in times of need. This does not guarantee that the changeling will always be able to find the exact amount she needs — in all its forms, Glamour is an unpredictable energy at best — but it does give her a bit more security than a changeling who never knows where his next bit of Glamour will come from. Each dot of Harvest adds one die to certain rolls related to gathering Glamour. A character must specify what type of Glamour-gathering activities this Merit represents when it is purchased. The different types available include but are not necessarily limited to Emotions, Pledges, Dreams and Hedge Bounty. Thus a character adept at gaining Glamour from mortals would take Harvest (Emotions), while a changeling receiving Glamour due to upholding pledges would possess Harvest (Pledges) and a savvy scrounger who knows where some of the best groves in the local Hedge can be found would have Harvest
(Goblin Fruits). The bonus applies only to rolls related to that type of collection, so a changeling with Harvest (Dreams) would receive no bonus on a roll to gain Glamour from a mortal’s waking emotions. The actual source of the Glamour can vary considerably, from a reserved room at the back of a local nightclub where the changeling brings her conquests (Emotions) to a secret glen in the Hedge where the goblin fruits ripen (Hedge Bounty). This Merit may be purchased multiple times, but only once per type of Glamour gathering. Note that the changelings receiving Glamour from pledges with mortals are still limited to the maximum number of vows determined by their Wyrd rating (see p. 176).
Hedge Beast Companion (• to •••) Book: Autumn Nightmares, p. 132 This Merit represents a positive relationship between the changeling and the hobgoblin in question. The Hedge Beast is not a servant or slave, although it is likely to aid the character in whatever reasonable ways the Hedge Beast can in exchange for the changeling’s aid, support and protection. The hobgoblin is not likely to put itself into overly hazardous positions; safety and support are a large part of why Hedge Beasts take companions in the first place. Especially in the human world, however, people tend to ignore animals, allowing the Hedge Beast opportunity to witness or overhear many things that might otherwise be hidden from the hobgoblin’s Lost companion. Unlike humans, Hedge Beasts do not begin with an assumption of one point in each Attribute. An insect companion may well have a Strength of 0, while a skitterish ferret may have no composure whatsoever. A companion is built according to the following guidelines; Hedge Beasts more powerful than these assuredly exist, but are not in need of changeling protectors, and therefore do not seek out such relationships. • Attributes 15 points total, Skills 18 points total, Merits up to five points, two dots of Contracts, Wyrd 1 •• Attributes 18 points total, Skills 21 points total, Merits up to seven points, four points of Contracts, Wyrd 2 ••• Attributes 21 points total, Skills 24 points total, Merits up to nine points, six points of Contracts, Wyrd 3 It should be remembered that unique and exotic Hedge Beasts may be more difficult to explain to the mundane world. Cats and dogs are seen as common companions, and can even be registered as service animals to facilitate their presence in public places. Rats and other rodentia, birds, lizards or snakes may elicit a bit more attention, but are still likely to pass without too much problem. Insects, fish and horses may be a bit more difficult to explain, while animals seen as dangerous (wolves, big cats or bears) or endangered (Tasmanian devils, lemurs or many birds of prey) may not only draw huge amounts of attention but the wrath of the human authorities as well. Likewise, horses and other “beasts of burden” as well as large animals of other sorts may be difficult for an urban changeling to house. Since the Hedge Beast is entering into the companion relationship predominantly for protection and sanctuary, boarding the creature away from the changeling, or having it remain within the Hedge for the majority of the time is dissatisfactory treatment. Changeling characters who lose their companions through neglect, abuse or disrespect, or those whose companions are killed receive no refund of their Merit points. Depending on the circumstances and whether the situation was their fault or simply bad fortune, characters may or may not have earned enough respect amongst other Hedge Beasts to encourage another to seek out their companionship. If so, the characters do not need to pay again for their new companions, but this circumstance is at the judgment of the Storyteller. Changelings and companions can enter into pledge bonds that will strengthen and define their relationship. This is not implied by the Merit; any pledge bonds can be formed in the usual fashion.
Hedge Gate Sense (•) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 92 While the Lost can enter the Hedge by creating a gateway almost anywhere, there are times when it’s safer to find an established way into the Hedge. Even more so, however, there are times when it’s important to be able to find an established way out of the Hedge. This Merit represents an increased sensitivity to the presence of gateways into and out of the Hedge. When attempting to find one’s way out of the Hedge, a character with this Merit can cut the time required to find an active gateway in half. As well, changelings with this Merit may make a reflexive Wits + Wyrd roll to notice an active gateway into the Hedge — a doorway that has been used as a gateway will glimmer with an ethereal light, or the stones that form an active gateway arch might seem to pulse slightly when the changeling nears.
Hidden Life (• to •••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 92 Prerequisite: No dots in Fame, Wyrd equal to Hidden Life
Effect: The True Fae are occasionally known as the hidden folk because they are only seen when they wish to be, and your character shares some of this ability. Anyone attempting to gather or obtain any information about your character, by either supernatural or mundane means, must subtract a number of dice equal to your character’s dots in this Merit from all rolls to perform such activities. Mortals must also subtract an equal number of dice from all rolls to remember any information about her or her actions, including what your character looked like. Changelings with the Hidden Life Merit often live on the fringes of mortal society, since their records can easily become lost. While police officers forgetting to write up reports of minor crimes your character committed can be extremely helpful, having the company your character works for lose her paycheck is far more problematic. Drawback: If your character is ever noticed by the media or otherwise gains any significant degree of fame, she temporarily loses the Hidden Life Merituntil her fame or notoriety fades. Fortunately, given the nature of this Merit, this occurs more swiftly than normal. However, changelings who are public figures, such as TV personalities, actors or politicians, cannot have this Merit, since they make themselves far too obvious for people to forget them.
Hob Kin (••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 92 Prerequisite: Hollow •+ Effect: The roughly humanoid hobgoblins knownas hobs are relatively ubiquitous in the Hedge. Whilealmost none have anything mortals or changelings would regard as friends, hobs treat their own kind somewhat less ruthlessly than they treat others. For some reason, hobs react to your character as they react to their own kind. The reason for this reaction could include everything from your character having performed a service that aided several important hobs to your character having something in her nature that makes hobs react to her as one of their own. Your character may have no idea why hobs react as they do. This reaction does not alleviate the need for your character to do favors for hobs. Hobs never do anything for free; doing so would violate every precept of their nature. However, among their own kind, hobs have a quid pro quo arrangement, where a service is paid for by a favor of roughly equal magnitude. Instead of having to pay vast amounts for a simple but vital service, your character generally only needs to pay a hob what the service is worth. As a result, your character is free to have one or more hobs guard her Hollow in return for allowing them to live in it when they desire or to give her warning about the approach of the Gentry and er dangerous residents of the Hedge, if your character is willing to aid these same hobs against similar dangers.
Hobgoblin Trainer (••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 93 The character is capable of training hobgoblins to serve her temporarily. Training requires an extended, contested roll. As most hobgoblins have intelligence greater than that of an ordinary animal, the changelings must use Persuasion. However, the often animalistic urges that drive a hobgoblin can be a potential asset to changelings used to dealing with animals. The changeling’s player rolls her Presence + Persuasion or Intimidation. If the changeling has Animal Ken •• or •••, she receives an additional +1 to the roll; if she has Animal Ken ••••+, she receives +2 to the roll. The hobgoblin must succeed on a Resolve + Composure roll. Each is competing to secure a number of successes equal to the hobgoblin’s Wits + Intelligence roll. Each roll is equal to an hour of training and interaction between the two. This interaction is not simple and requires different measures for different creatures. For the sake of a good story, we recommend playing out each hour as a kind of give-and-take between beast and changeling — the creature paces, nips at the changeling’s hand, but maybe the changeling discovers that a swift backhand to the nose curtails the creature’s will for a time. If the hobgoblin gets the success first, the creature’s will cannot be broken. The hobgoblin may attack or skulk off into the Hedge, done with such foolishness. If the changeling wins, she breaks the hobgoblin’s spirit and can give it some limited instruction. Instruction can never be overtly complex, but it can be more than what a normal animal would understand. “Guard the Hollow” works, or even “locate a specific token.” Note that it’s no guarantee the creature will be successful in a task, but it will try. Also note that few hobgoblins will totally sacrifice themselves for a given purpose unless that’s in the hobgoblin’s dreamforged demeanor. Such training holds for only one day per a character’s Wyrd score. The exception to this is if the player spends the changeling’s experience points on the Retainer Merit, with the hobgoblin now representing a changeling’s Retainer. (This Retainer is only in the Hedge, and still necessitates a regular relationship
between changeling and creature — she can’t just “program” the beast to do as it’s told forever. It must be rewarded or punished, and dealt with like any animal or slave.)
Hollow (• to •••••; special) Book: Changeling: The Lost Core, p. 94 Effect: A door under the old town bridge that opens up into a quiet forest grove. A broken-down old shack that contains a fabulous mansion for those who know the right secret knock. A town high in the mountains that can only be found by the outside world but once a century. All of these are examples of the pockets of reality that changelings call Hollows — places in the Hedge that have been cleared of thorns and shaped into a stable location for inhabitation. Some Hollows are little more than a clear patch of grass in the midst of the great Thorn maze, while others are dwellings quite elaborate and fantastical. Changelings actively create many of these locations through sweat and toil, while other Hollows are simply found and adopted in an almost fully formed state. Although Hollows are always a welcome refuge from problems of the mortal world and Hedge alike, not all Hollows are created equal. A tiny cave in the Hedge might be easily overlooked by enemies but also be cramped and contain few escape routes. A fantastic Victorian mansion might be able to house an entire motley and be packed with all manner of amenities, but without the proper wards, the mansion will also act as a beacon for all manner of freeloaders and other undesirable entities. A Hollow’s strengths and weaknesses are thus tallied according to four factors — size, amenities, doors and wards. Players who choose this Merit must also choose how to allocate these four factors when spending points. Thus, a player who spends four dots on this Merit might choose to allocate two to Hollow Size, oneto Hollow Amenities and one to Hollow Wards. Hollow Size is perhaps the simplest defining characteristic, governing the amount of raw space the Hollow encompasses. A Hollow with no dots in Hollow Size is barely large enough for a pair of changelings to fit comfortably, and has little if any storage space. • A small apartment, cave or clearing; one to two rooms. •• A large apartment or small family home; three to four rooms. ••• A warehouse, church or large home; five to eight rooms, or large enclosure •••• An abandoned mansion, small fortress or network of subway tunnels; equivalent to nine to 15 rooms or chambers ••••• A sprawling estate, fantastic treetop village or intercom nected tunnel network; countless rooms or chambers Having a lot of space doesn’t always do much good if there isn’t anything occupying it, which is where Hollow Amenities comes in. Reflecting the relative luxuriousness of the Hollow as well as how well-stocked it is with supplies and other material comforts, this rating gives an idea of how elaborate the Hollow is as well as what a character can reasonably expect to find within it at a given time. (A character who wants a humble cabin doesn’t need to allocate much here, but a character who wants an elaborate treetop village stocked with delights should be ready to invest quite a bit.) A Hollow without any dots in Amenities contains few if any buildings or possessions — it might be big but it’s mostly empty space. At the other end of the spectrum, a retreat with five dots in amenities is likely fully stocked with all manner of luxuries, and while most of these Amenities are made of ephemeral dreamstuff and thus cannot travel across the Hedge or even that far from their origin within it, they still make for a very pleasing stay. (In other words, Hollow Amenities cannot be used as a substitute for other Merits such as Resources or Harvest, and if the character wants the things found in his Hollow to travel outside of it, he must purchase the appropriate Merits to represent these riches.) While a high Hollow Amenities rating often entails a high Hollow Size rating, exceptions do occur for example, a changeling might not invest much in Hollow Size, but then make that small cabin a veritable wonderland full of excellent food, interesting books and a magical fireplace that keeps itself at the perfect temperature all the time. Likewise, a motley might invest a lot in Hollow Size to get a giant Victorian mansion, but without much spent in Hollow Amenities, it will be sparsely furnished and likely a bit rundown. Although Hollows cannot have access to some high-tech facilities such as phone service, Internet connections or satellite broadcasts, some of the more impressive Hollows make up for it with minor magical touches. These magical elements should not mimic anything as powerful as Contracts, but can provide basic household services and serve as excellent descriptive details and flourishes to create exactly what the player desires for the look and feel of their Hollow. A game board with living chess or gwybdyll pieces that can play against a living opponent is a perfectly acceptable entertainment amenity, for example, as might be a battered arcade cabinet that changes every new moon to a different video game never seen in the mortal world. • A couple of homey touches, but otherwise quite plain
•• A comfortable Hollow with a few notable features and decent fare ••• An elaborate Hollow with quite a few clever details and an excellent supply of refreshments and diversions •••• An impressive Hollow containing abundant mundane delights and even one or two noteworthy minor magical services as well ••••• A lavish dwelling with nearly every comfort of modern living as well as quite a few magical conveniences Hollow Doors reflects how many entrances and exits a Hollow has, which can be equally important if a character is cut off from her normal access point in the real world or finds herself in need of a quick escape route while staying in the Hollow. Without any dots in Hollow Doors, a Hollow is assumed to have one entrance in the real world and one small entrance in the Hedge — the Hollow can be reached through either side. (A character may waive either of these “free” entrances if he only wishes the Hollow to be accessible from one side.) With each dot in Hollow Doors, the Hollow has one additional point of entry/exit, either in the real world or through the Hedge. For example, with the expenditure of multiple dots, each motley member might have a door in his own residence that allows him access to the group’s private Hollow. Note that these doors must be tied to static access points in either realm — these places do not change. Of course, a changeling might have the most gigantic and elaborate Hollow imaginable, but unless it is properly warded and secured against intrusion, it will most likely be lost to opportunistic scavengers in short order — or worse yet, subject to an unpleasant visitation from the Others. Thus, it is wise to invest at least a few dots in Hollow Wards, representing the precautions both mundane and magical that protect the Hollow from unwanted visitors. Each dot invested in Hollow Wards subtracts one die from all attempts by unwanted visitors to find or break into the Hollow; in addition, those inside receive a +1 die bonus per dot on their Initiative compared to those attempting to break in. Lastly, the more dots invested in Hollow Wards, the less likely the location is to be found by True Fae or creatures from the Hedge; each dot subtracts one die from any rolls made to find the Hollow. Characters whose players spend no points at all on Hollow simply do not have access to any sort of special location in the Hedge. They might come as guests to another’s dwelling from time to time, but if they wish to have regular access to any particular location, they must purchase this Merit on their own or pool points with other changelings who already own an existing Hollow. Characters with no Hollow points simply do not enjoy the mechanical benefits of having spent dots on a better living space in the Hedge. Each aspect of the Hollow Merit has a limit of 5. In other words, Hollow Size, Hollow Amenities, Hollow Wards and Hollow Doors may not rise above 5 (to a maximum of 20 points spent on this Merit). The combined pool of points is used to determine the cost in experience points for raising the Hollow Merit during play. Special: The Hollow Merit may be shared among characters in a close-knit group. They might simply be a motley whose members are devoted to one another and are willing to pool what they have, or perhaps their mutual reliance on an individual or trust could bring them together to share what they have in common. To share this Merit, two or more characters simply have to be willing to pool their dots for greater capability. A shared rating in the Hollow Merit cannot rise higher than five dots in any of the four aspects of the trait. That is, characters cannot pool more than five points to be devoted to, say, Hollow Size. If they wish to devote extra points to the Merit, they must allocate those dots to a different aspect of the Merit, such as Wards or Doors. Shared Hollow dots can be lost. Motley members or associates might be abused or mistreated, ending relationships. Group members might perform actions that cast themselves (and the group) in a bad light. Ravaging creatures from the Hedge might damage part of the location, or some True Fae could discover the Hollow and decide to make it their personal residence for a time. If any group member does something to diminish the Hollow, its dots decrease for all group members. That’s the weakness of sharing dots in this Merit. The chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The Storyteller dictates when character actions or events in a story compromise shared Hollow dots. Characters can also leave a shared Hollow. A rift might form between close sworn comrades, or perhaps a character falls in battle. Or one could simply be kicked out of the Hollow by the others. When a character leaves a shared- Hollow relationship, the dots he contributed are removed from the pool. If the individual still survives, he doesn’t get all his dots back for his own purposes. He gets one less than he originally contributed. So, if a character breaks a relationship with his motley, his two Hollow dots are lost by the group, but he gets only one dot back for his own purposes. The lost dot represents the cost or bad image that comes from the breakup. If all members agree to part ways, they all lose one dot from what they originally contributed. The Storyteller decides what reduced dots mean in the story when a character leaves a shared Hollow. Perhaps no one else picks up the character’s attention to the Hollow’s mystical defenses, causing Hollow Wards to drop. The Hollow might not be tended as fastidiously, causing a drop in the Hollow Amenities
value. Maybe a portion of the Hollow falls into disuse or even collapses, causing an effective drop in Hollow Size. Whatever the case, a plausible explanation must be determined. A character need not devote all of her Hollow dots to the shared Hollow Merit, of course. A changeling might maintain a separate Hollow of her own outside the communal one represented by the shared trait. Any leftover dots that a character has (or is unwilling to share) signify what she has to draw upon as an individual, separate from her partners. For example, three characters share a Hollow and expend a group total of five dots. One character chooses to use two other dots on a private Hollow for herself. Those remaining two dots represent a Hollow entirely separate from what she and her friends have established together. To record a shared Hollow Merit on your character sheet, put an asterisk next to the name of the Hollow Merit and fill in the total dots that your character has access to thanks to his partnership. In order to record his original contribution, write it in parentheses along with the Merit’s name. It is not important to note which aspect of the Hollow Merit on which those points are spent, as this allows greater flexibility should a character ever decide to withdraw from the community arrangement. The result looks like this:
MERITS Hollow* (2) ••• Hollow •• Allie ••• In this example, the character shares a Hollow Merit dedicated to the motley’s communal refuge. He contributes two dots to the relationship, and the group has a total of four dots that are made available to each member. The character also has his own private Hollow Merit rated •••, which he maintains by himself. And, the character has Ally rated •• that is also his own Merit.
Kiss Of Life (••••) Book: Swords At Dawn, p. 24 Benefit: When you use your Sap the Vital Spark kith blessing, instead of using the stolen life energy to heal yourself, you may “store” the healing potential and deliver it to another character with a touch (despite the name of the Merit, this touch doesn’t have to be a kiss). Healing another character has the same effect as healing yourself (you heal one point of lethal damage or downgrade a point of aggravated damage to lethal damage). At any time, you can choose to use this stored healing to heal yourself. If your Wyrd is high enough that you can use Sap the Vital Spark more than once per scene, you can store up multiple points of healing and distribute them as you like with a touch. If you do not use the healing by the end of the scene, the vital energy dissipates.
Lethal Mien (••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 94 Prerequisite: Wyrd 3 Even while protected by the Mask, some aspect of the Fae’s mien has evolved to become offensively oriented and can be used as a weapon. This might be long nails, claws, teeth, hooves, spines or some other “natural weapon” or something wholly supernatural, such as icy or fiery skin, an “iron hand” or a secretion that acts as a low-level contact poison. The changeling inflicts lethal damage when brawling instead of bashing. If the changeling already has an innate lethal attack thanks to his kith (such as a Hunterheart’s claws or a Gristlegrinder’s bite), the damage rating of that attack is increased by 1. Thus, a Hunterheart would inflict one lethal damage, and a Gristlegrinder would have a three lethal damage bite, though it would still require a grapple. The changeling is able to handle objects without harming them; claws are perhaps retractable, or perhaps precise enough that the changeling is able to still manipulate items.
Long of Days (••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 94 Effect: Your character shares some of the ageless nature of the True Fae. Your character gains the longevity and infirmity bonuses of a changeling with a Wyrd four points higher than hers actually is. If your changeling had a Wyrd of 2, she has the longevity and infirmity bonuses of a changeling with a Wyrd of 6. The only limit on this Merit is that the maximum bonus remains that associated with Wyrd 10, +130 years
with a +4 infirmity bonus. Characters who possess this Merit and a Wyrd of 6 or more all have the same maximum longevity and infirmity bonus.
Manymask (• to •••••) Book: Equinox Road, p. 14 Prerequisite: Wyrd 7 Effect: For most, the Mask is a set thing — some innate reflection of one’s humanness or an unconscious costume of mortal skin and features. Some changelings learn how to project a whole new Mask, while others learn how to keep a mental and mystical closet of several Masks one can wear. For each dot purchased in this Merit, assume that the character has another Mask. This Mask is of the player’s design, and is very likely formed consciously on the part of the changeling (though some changelings, especially those with multiple personalities, may forge them unawares). Each Mask must be of the same gender and same Size (a 90 lb. wisp of a girl must have all of her Masks be reflective of a 90 lb. wisp of a girl), but otherwise, all other cosmetic features are up for grabs. One might be buff and mustachioed, another might be a pale slip who looks more like a chemo patient than a circus strongman. To slip into another Mask, the changeling merely needs to spend a point of Glamour as an instant action, and can do this as many times in a chapter (game session) as her Wyrd score.
Market Familiarity (• or •••) Book: Goblin Market, p. 14 Your character is a Market regular and has no difficulty finding or entering the Market except under unusual circumstances. At •, the character’s familiarity applies to a single local Market. She can locate and attend that Market no matter how often it changes location or password. At •••, the character’s expertise extends to Goblin Markets in general. The character has a knack for rooting out the location of the Goblin Market in even the least familiar of freeholds. Non-changelings may not purchase this Merit.
Market Sense (•) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 94, Goblin Market, p. 33 The Goblin Markets are notorious for trading in anything, and while keeping track of currency exchange rates in the mundane world can be difficult enough, trying to translate how many enamored sighs a knife that glows in the presence of child molesters is worth is a Herculean task. While value is a relative term, those with the Market Sense Merit can generally tell whether a certain transaction is roughly equal or not. It doesn’t force a fair deal, and a changeling who dares to tell a hob that he’s being cheated on the basis of a “hunch” may well have social ramifications to deal with. Characters with this Merit receive a +3 bonus to any rolls made to see through cheating in a trade or to resist any powers that would occlude (interfere) the character’s perception of a deal’s fairness.
Market Stall (••••) Book: Goblin Market, p. 34 Prerequisite: Goblin Merchant (•••) Effect: The character has purchased a stall at the Goblin Market, usually to the tune of price •••••. The stall allows for storage of goods and is protected by the magic of the Market. When the Market is open, characters attempting to steal anything stored within the stall suffer a -4 dice penalty. Items on visible display do not benefit from this protection. When the Market is closed, stealing from the stall is impossible. Unfortunately, when the Market is closed, the character can’t access his stall, either, so he’s advised not to leave anything in there he might need in the interim. Furthermore, owning a stall allows a vendor to take advantage of another magical property of the Market: he can buy and sell abstractions as if they were physical property. This means he can extract an abstraction (such as a memory, a Skill, or even experience points) from a permitting character and store it, use it himself, or sell it to someone else. For more on abstractions, see pp. 28-29.
Mantle (• to •••••) Book: Changeling: The Lost Core, p. 97 Mantle represents a mystical connection with the elements and emotions that a particular Court embodies. The higher a changeling’s Mantle rating, the more he has come to embody that Court’s ideal — even if he is a hermit who doesn’t involve himself in local politics, a character with a high Mantle is still given at least
grudging respect by his peers because of his obvious commitment to the values his Court cherishes. From a descriptive perspective, as a character’s Mantle rises, his fae mien reflects this ascendance, displaying both literal and figurative signs of the season. A character with Mantle (Autumn) • might be followed by a slight brisk breeze, for example, while one with Mantle (Autumn)••• might have illusory leaves kicked up as she walks and at last at Mantle (Autumn) •••••, the character might be illuminated by late afternoon light and surrounded by a reflective hush similar to that found in a library. Specific examples of how a Court’s particular Mantle increases can be found in the “Courts” section in Chapter One. These trappings are not visible to mortals and have no real game effect, but should be used to enhance a character’s description and convey a sense of how rooted in her Court she has become. As a sign of brotherhood, Mantle adds to dice pools for social interaction with members of the Court in question. Each dot adds a +1 die bonus to relevant rolls with members of that particular Court. This Merit does not add to dice pools predicated on supernatural powers. Characters with no Court cannot purchase Mantle. Mantle also serves as a prerequisite for learning certain Court-related Contracts. A character may learn clauses from the relevant Contract path of his Court, which generally require a certain amount of Mantle to learn, though he must still meet any other prerequisites as well. Should his Mantle fall or he adopt the Mantle of a new Court, he might no longer meet the prerequisites for some of his old Contracts; in that case, he must spend additional Glamour to activate those Contracts. (See “Changing Seasons,” p. 94, and the note on Contract prerequisites, p. 174). Each Court has certain mechanical and descriptive benefits for all its members developing a Mantle rating, as outlined in the Court descriptions in Chapter One. In addition to those benefits, each Court has a benefit reserved for its leader, an advantage most commonly referred to its “crown.” A crown can only manifest in a freehold where there are at least a handful of members of a particular Court and they are able to choose a common leader, and generally manifests only during the appropriate physical season. Occasionally, a crown will manifest during the off-season if a Court is especially prominent or powerful in the area, as the Hedge reflects the Court’s potency, or a changeling who is elected leader of the freehold might manifest his crown out of season if he is sufficiently popular. Note that the leader of a Court is not always the member with a highest Mantle rating. Ultimately, the Storyteller is the final arbiter of when and how a crown appears, but as a rule, only one crown may manifest in a given freehold at a time. Blessing of the Green (Spring): A character who wears the crown of Spring may spend a Willpower point to bestow the Blessing of the Green, allowing her to add her Mantle rating as bonus successes to a single roll related to gathering Glamour. The changeling may use this ability up to a maximum number of times per session equal to her Mantle dots. A particular character may only benefit from one use of this ability per session, however. The Spring fae may cast this blessing on herself, or she may choose to bestow it on another with a touch, in which case the blessing must be used before the next sunrise or it is lost. Challenge of the Black Spear (Summer): This benefit applies in one-on-one situations such as duels. By spending a Glamour point, the character with the crown of Summer receives a bonus to his Initiative rating equal to his Mantle dots for the duration of the duel, and is not considered surprised by ambushes or other unexpected trickery, though if the duel shifts to mass combat this Initiative bonus drops to a simple +1. The changeling may use this ability multiple times per session, up to a maximum number equal to his Mantle rating. However, this ability may only be used once against a particular foe per combat. Harvest of Whispers (Autumn): Once per session, the Autumn leader may take a minute to reflect on what she has learned so far that session (and consult the Storyteller as to whether or not a particular bit of information qualifies for this ability), and then perform the Harvest of Whispers. For each valuable secret, important truth, revelatory fact or other significant piece of information she has uncovered this session, up to a maximum number equal to her Mantle rating, the character receives two Glamour points that are placed in a special pool apart from her regular Glamour points. These harvested Glamour points can be spent only to power Contracts, activate tokens, facilitate dream travel or cross into the Hedge. These points cannot be used for any other purposes, including seeming abilities, and cannot in any way traded or given away; anything left in this pool fades to nothingness at the end of the session. This ability may allow the character to effectively exceed the limit of Glamour points she can possess as dictated by her Wyrd, but the number of Glamour points she can spend per turn is still limited normally. Furthermore, as long as a character exceeds her normal limit of Glamour, she is considered especially noticeable by beings that can detect Glamour or magical energy, so unless she wishes to attract undue attention, it is also best to ready a concealing Contract or two to help dim this radiance. It is important to note that only new information learned that session can be used for the Harvest of Whispers even if a character learned something just last session, it’s old news and doesn’t qualify. Those who don the crown of the Autumn Court are expected to always be seeking out new and interesting information, not rest on the body of knowledge they’ve already accumulated. The Storyteller is the final arbiter of whether a piece of information is new, valuable or important enough to qualify for this ability. Feast of Ashes (Winter): Once per session, a changeling wearing the crown of the Winter Court may devote himself to the Feast of Ashes, converting one point of Glamour to one point of Willpower, up to a
maximum number of points equal to the character’s Mantle rating. He may even exceed his normal limit of Willpower points in this fashion, though any excess points are lost at the end of the session. In addition, for the remainder of the scene in which this ability is activated, the changeling’s Willpower rating is effectively increased by a number equal to his Mantle rating, making it extremely hard for others to undermine his confidence in his ability to survive.
Mobile Hollow (• to •••••; special) Book: Swords At Dawn, p. 92 Prerequisite: Hollow (Size) •+, Wyrd 3 Effect: Some Lost are not contented with a secret hiding place tucked deep into the Hedge; they require that their Hollow be able to move, whether because they are nomads, as a security measure, or merely as insurance that it remains hidden. These changelings put great effort into constructing Hollows with wheels (a bizarre carnival carriage of briarwood planks and hedgespun curtains), sails (a decaying pirate vessel that slowly grinds through the earth as a ship plies the sea), or even legs (a small hut with a thatch roof crested by four arches that split at the center to twist down into thorn-crusted spider legs). Some Hollows don’t have any apparent mode of travel. By some quirk of fate they are one place at one moment, and another the next. The mobility of the Hollow depends on the number of dots purchased in this Merit. • The Hollow moves a set distance chosen by the changeling when purchasing this Merit (no more than the changeling’s Wyrd in hours of Hedge travel) in a random direction at a regular interval of no less than a month and no greater than a season. The Speed of this travel depends on the mode of locomotion chosen, but can be as fast as instantaneous. Changelings with such Hollows may find this mobility more a nuisance than an advantage, and most take extreme pains to ensure that they are within the Hollow’s walls at its scheduled time of migration. If not, their own Hollow may be lost to them until such time as they hunt it down again via the usual rules for navigating the Hedge. Once the Hollow has been located again, any doors to the mortal world can be re-established at the changeling’s wont. •• The Hollow can move a set distance chosen by the changeling (no more than the changeling’s Wyrd in hours of Hedge travel) when the Merit is purchased in a random direction at the changeling’s whim. This relocation can only be performed once per month and only when the changeling is within the Hollow. The Speed of this travel depends on the mode of locomotion chosen, but can be as fast as instantaneous. ••• The Hollow can move at up to Speed 10 in a direction chosen by the changeling for a distance chosen by the changeling (no more than twice the changeling’s Wyrd in hours of Hedge travel) once per month. •••• The Hollow moves constantly at Speed 10. Doors into the Hedge tend to leave the character stranded in unfamiliar locations…and passing back through them only leads back into the Hollow if done within 10 seconds. (Navigating the Hedge towards the Hollow suffers a –3 penalty to the usual roll.) Doors into the world do not similarly move, instead remaining fixed. Such doors are typically the preferred manner of entering and exiting the Hollow. ••••• The Hollow can move at up to Speed 10 for an unlimited distance and does so at the changeling’s whim. The changeling chooses the direction and can alter it at her discretion. Hollows moving through the Hedge ignore trods or other established paths; the walls of the Hedge part before the Hollow and close behind it. Furthermore, Hollows avoid other entities in the Hedge, instantly leaving pursuers behind (often by slipping through a Hedge wall that seals behind it) and circumventing any other individuals or obstacles along the way. A Hollow cannot be used as a weapon to ram other entities, nor can it be crashed into other Hollows. Space within the Hedge is subjective enough that even if another Hollow exists precisely where the character’s Hollow is traveling, it can set up a comfortable distance away. Special: Like other aspects of the Hollow Merit, the cost for Mobile Hollow can be split amongst different characters as described on p. 96 of Changeling: The Lost. If the Hollow is shared, the Wyrd prerequisite changes. Instead of being a flat Wyrd 3, the sum of the characters’ Wyrd ratings must equal 6 or more.
Narrative Master (•••) Book: Swords At Dawn, p. 78 Prerequisite: Wyrd 3 Effect: Talecrafting comes naturally to the character; she has an implicit feel for the weave and weft of the tale bound up in fate’s loom. As a result, on any Talecrafting rolls, the character can spend Glamour to gain bonuses on her Talecrafting rolls. This is in addition to the Glamour she must spend as part of the roll already. Each Glamour spent in this way gives her +1 to the roll. She can only spend a number of points of Glamour per turn as dictated on the Wyrd chart (p. 84, Changeling: The Lost). The initial point of Glamour spent on the Talecrafting roll counts toward this limit.
New Identity (•, •• or ••••) Book: Changeling: The Lost Core, p. 98 Effect: Your character has somehow managed to acquire documents supporting a new identity since his return. In this age of background checks, paper trails and bureaucratic scrutiny, this is an incredibly handy resource to call upon, especially for changelings who have returned to find their old lives stolen by their fetches, or who have returned years or even decades after being taken and must forge new lives simply because it is functionally impossible to re-enter their old ones. You are encouraged to work with the Storyteller to determine exactly how your character acquired his new identity. If your character doesn’t seem to have any Merits or relationships that might explain how he got his new identity, presumably he had to ask a favor from someone else who did — if so, what did she want in return? Many great story hooks can come from the process of acquiring a brand-new identity. The number of dots spent on this Merit determines how convincing and in depth the documentation surrounding this new life actually is. New Identity (•) represents an identity that passes casual inspection, but not much else — a character can go shopping and get around in most daily situations, but any kind of trained scrutiny such as from a police officer or bureaucrat immediately identifies her identity as a fake. New Identity (••) imparts an identity that will pass most forms of relatively cursory professional inspection, but cannot stand up to a sustained investigation — a police officer who has pulled the character over will not automatically pick up anything unusual if he runs the character’s license plates or calls up her name in a database, but should the character be arrested and the police begin a formal investigation, her identity will quickly unravel. New Identity (••••) represents an identity that is essentially as real as any identity can be — it would take a truly dedicated, competent and time-consuming search by trained professionals to uncover any hint that the changeling isn’t exactly whom she claims to be, at least as far as her documentation is concerned. This Merit may be purchased multiple times at multiple ratings, each time representing a different identity, and an identity may also be upgraded later with the appropriate in-game explanation and experience expenditure. In the case of certain Merits such as Resources or Status, it might also be worth noting which identity these Merits are tied to, since a character may not easily be able to access or maintain them if that identity is compromised.
No Seeming (••) Book: Equinox Road, p. 107 Prerequisite: Changelings only Effects: Your changeling lacks both a seeming and a kith. As a result, her fae mien is largely identical to her original human form; the fae changes she has undergone are not distinct enough to have rewritten her body into a full seeming. Your character lacks any seeming blessing or curse, as well as any kith. However, retaining her human appearance also gives your character a better grip on sanity. As a result, she gains +1 to all Clarity rolls to avoid losing Clarity or gaining a derangement. Available at character creation only. The basic form of a changeling’s body is set once they come back from Arcadia.
Outsider Fetish (• to •••) Book: Lords Of Summer, p. 150 Prerequisite: Changeling Effects: This Merit allows the character to begin play with a talen or a fetish. Any supernatural character, including characters with both major and minor supernatural templates can use this fetish, but ordinary mortals cannot. Non-werewolves cannot begin play with a fetish rated higher than ••, however. One dot of this Merit indicates that the changeling owns a talen, two dots translates to a one-dot fetish and three dots means the character owns a two-dot fetish. The werewolf must then instruct the character in using the fetish since non-werewolves cannot activate the fetish normally. The character must enact the spirit’s ban in order to gain the fetish’s benefits. In order to use a fetish, the character must enact the spirit’s ban, which can be as simple as sprinkling some salt on the fetish or as complex as reciting a phrase in the werewolf language. The player then rolls Resolve + Occult. Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The spirit wrenches itself free of the fetish, which is promptly rendered useless. The spirit is hostile to the character, but doesn’t necessarily attack. The spirit might well alert other, more dangerous, beings to the character’s presence, depending on how well the character has treated the spirit. Failure: The character performs the ban incorrectly and the fetish doesn’t work. Any subsequent attempts to activate it during the same scene incur a cumulative –1 penalty. Success: The fetish works as described.
Exceptional Success: The spirit in the fetish looks favorably on the character. The next attempt to activate it receives a +1 bonus.
Perfect Stillness (•) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 94 Prerequisite: Stealth • Effect: Your character has learned how to avoid the notice of her Keeper by remaining utterly motionless for hours at a time. Whenever she wishes, she can remain perfectly still for an entire scene. Except for breathing softly and silently, your character can stand without moving a muscle for an entire scene, even if the position she is in would be exceedingly uncomfortable for others. In addition to various other uses of this Merit, if your character remains stationary while hiding, all rolls to notice or locate her are made at a –2 penalty. This Merit is common among Fairest Muses, some of whom spent much of their time in Arcadia as living statues.
Pledgesmith (• to •••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 94 Pledges are a vital part of changeling society, and those who craft them well can gain significant prestige among their fellows. Your character is noted for having an adept way with words, a skill that affords her a small measure of respect from other Lost, and others may seek her out for advice on crafting pledges. This Merit adds one die per level of the Merit to all social interactions involving pledges, either on topics related to them or in the actual crafting thereof (including manipulating a hesitant party into a pledge or creating a pledge that contains loopholes or hidden meanings.)
Prophet Circle (• to •••••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 94 Benefit: Prophecy dreams come to changelings relatively infrequently. Some changelings possessed of particularly strong connection to the Wyrd (i.e., those with the Visionary Dreams Merit on p. 96) can call upon this gift more frequently, but other changelings are not so lucky, and must come up with alternative divinatory methods. This Merit represents your character’s ensorcellment of one or more mortals with a high level of psychic sensitivity. They have no special powers of their own (unless you also choose to buy the Retainer Merit for them), but they have clairvoyant dreams fairly frequently and, thanks to your Pledge of Horn and Bone, you can ride their dreams and witness these visions yourself. Once per story per dot you possess in the Prophet Circle Merit, you may dream ride one of your oathbound psychics and receive a vision that grants supernatural insight about a question or topic. This question may be about the future (“What will happen on the solstice night if the Spring Queen succeeds in her plans?”) or the present (“Where is Jack Tallow hiding?”) or even the past (“How did Jenny Tulips die?”). The prophets you have oathbound are assumed to be pledged to a token, so they don’t count toward your maximum number of vows. As with the Contacts Merit, the Storyteller is encouraged to flesh out these prophets as characters and use them as story hooks. You must spend a point of Glamour to “jump-start” the psychic vision, and roll Wits + Occult to interpret it. The results are as follows: Dramatic Failure: A nightmare. You can interpret it any way you want, but it probably leads to more trouble than solutions. Failure: Meaningless images. Success: One or more clues (one per Prophet Circle dot), although they must be interpreted. Exceptional Success: One or more clues (one per Prophet Circle dot), and a suggestion about their interpretation provided by the Storyteller. The information conveyed is hidden behind allegory, symbols and archetypes. The dreams rarely answer questions directly, typically relying on symbolism and imagery to convey information. A changeling seeking a specific person’s location wouldn’t see his address, but landmarks nearby could lead the way: a river, a tower or even the face of a man walking by at dusk. The answer has the potential to resolve the problem. It’s a tool for the Storyteller to help drive events of the story.
Rigid Mask (••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 95 Prerequisite: Subterfuge •• Effect: Your character is not merely a good liar; he has learned to completely hide his emotions from others. While he may have learned this skill from dealing with a particularly horrific Keeper, your character
can use it equally well back in the mortal world. While this ability does not increase his skill at lying, anyone attempting to see through his lies or figure out what your character’s real emotions are suffers a –2 to all rolls to do so. In addition, all attempts to use devices such as lie detectors or voice-stress analyzers on your character are made at a –4 penalty, because your character can mimic emotions with great skill and has learned to suppress almost all of the physiological cues that would normally reveal his emotions.
Ritual Doorway (•••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 95 Prerequisite: Hollow Doors (•••••) Effect: In addition to its normal doors, a Hollow bearing this Merit can be entered anywhere in the mortal world, as long as a certain ritual is performed. Examples of such rituals include your character lighting three red candles in front of a mirror and saying a particular poem by Yeats or fully immersing herself in a bathtub, pond or other still body of water after anointing herself with special oils and cutting her finger and bleeding a drop of blood into the water. This ritual allows your character to enter her Hollow from any possibleentrance to the Hedge where this ritual can be performed, no matter where in the mortal world this entrance is located. Each ritual is unique to one specific Hollow, and any changeling or True Fae who performs this ritual in the correct manner can gain entrance to this Hollow from anyplace in the mortal world. As a result, changelings whose Hollows possess this Merit are advised to keep their Hollows a closely guarded secret. Characters with this Merit are free to bring others with them when they use this ritual, but doing so risks the people learning the ritual. This ritual is part of the Hollow Merit, and if several changelings purchase a Hollow together, they need to purchase this ritual only once. Although character can use this ritual to enter her Hollow from a distant city or even a distant continent, this Merit does not provide a method of instant teleportation. Every ritual requires proper tools and ingredients, and every ritual should have at least one unusual ingredient, such as a series of seven pennies all minted in the same year, three candles of a particular color or special oils for anointing. In all cases, these ingredients are either used up in performing the ritual or left behind when the character enters the Hollow. Also, the ritual to enter a Hollow requires between five and 10 minutes to perform and cannot be performed while the character is on the run or in combat. The character must have at least five minutes to remain in one place and concentrate on performing the ritual. Also, the character must spend one additional point of Glamour to open a doorway into the Hedge using this ritual. If the ritual is interrupted, the changeling must begin again, and the additional point of Glamour is lost. However, the ritual is sufficiently simple that no roll is needed to perform it. If the ritual is successful, your character immediately enters the Hollow as though she had used one of the Hollow’s normal doorways. However, all entrances created by this ritual are one-way. Characters cannot pass back through entrances created by this ritual. Your character can enter her Hollow from any appropriate location in the mortal world, but can only leave her Hollow via one of its normal doors. In addition, this ritual does not work in the Hedge. While in the Hedge, your character must find one of the normal entrances to her Hollow. Special: Each Hollow with this Merit has only a single ritual that can be used to enter it. However, this ritual can be changed, which is typically done if strangers or enemies learn of the ritual. Changing the ritual requires one or more of the Hollow’s owners to spend a day in the Hollow crafting the new ritual. At the end of this time, the changeling leading this ritual must make a Wits + Occult roll and spend a sufficient number of experience point to purchase this Merit a second time. If several of the Hollow’s owners are present, they can share this expense among them. At this point, the old ritual that previously allowed entrance into this Hollow ceases to work, and only the new ritual can be used. Characters who previously knew the old ritual do not automatically know the new ritual, including the owners of the Hollow who were not present when this ritual was performed.
Second-Hand Skills (• to •••) Book: Goblin Market, p. 26 Prerequisite: Wyrd 3 Effect: The character has aligned her destiny with that of someone who was skilled in a way the character is not. For a small tithe of magic, the character may gain access to this expertise. Upon purchasing this Merit, three Skills are chosen (generally corresponding to the Skills most used by the original owner). Once per chapter the character may spend 1 Glamour to gain a number of additional dots in one of those Skills equal to the dot value of the Merit, for the remainder of the scene. This Merit cannot raise the character’s effective Skill above 5.
Drawback: The Storyteller should determine the details of the fate’s original owner at the time of purchase and explain it to the player (and can add depth to the Market bargaining process). When benefiting from this Merit, characters often adopt some of the mannerisms or ideas of the fate’s original owner. While this is mostly a roleplaying consideration, such behavior can cause penalties to rolls in certain situations at the Storyteller’s discretion. (These should never be more encumbering than a Flaw.)
Seeming (•••) Book: Equinox Road, p. 107 Prerequisite: Fae-Touched Mortals Only Effects: Your character has a changeling seeming, and possesses the associated blessing and curse. Only faetouched mortals can purchase this Merit. Drawback: Having been touched more deeply by the mad nature of Faerie, the character suffers a –1 penalty to all rolls to avoid gaining a derangement.
Shared Guilt (Special) Book: Autumn Nightmares, p. 103 Type: Milestone Circumstance: The changeling’s motley must assist him in killing the fetch. Each character must inflict at least one point of damage on the fetch before it dies. Effect: Because of the changeling’s motley’s help, he knows that the “version” of him that died was the fetch, and that the fetch was false. Each member of the motley must check for degeneration as usual, but as long as one member of troupe succeeds on the roll, none of the changelings loses Clarity. If all of the rolls fail, the breaking point is handled normally (roll Clarity to determine if a derangement surfaces, etc.). Thereafter, once per story, the motley can invoke the Shared Guilt Merit. This requires that all members of the motley wh participated in the slaughter of the fetch have undergone or witnessedthe same breaking point. The degeneration roll is handled in the same way — all of the players make the roll, and as long as someone succeeds, everyone succeeds. Example: Jack Tallow and his motley track down and confront his embittered fetch, Randall Vey (see p. 254 of Changeling: The Lost). They surround the fetch and stab it to death, each member inflicting one wound. All of the players roll three dice for the breaking point of killing a fetch, but as long as one player succeeds, the others do as well. Later in the chronicle, the motley enters the dream of a human rival, and one of Jack’s compatriots goes a little wild, poisoning his dreams and bringing him to harm. Since the entire motley was present, they can choose to invoke the Shared Guilt Merit — all of the players roll two dice, and as long as one succeeds, no one loses Clarity or has to check for a derangement. Invoking Shared Guilt requires unanimous consent from the motley (and the troupe). If the motley feels that the changeling who reached the breaking point acted on his own and that they could not have stopped him, they are quite justified in refusing to take the risk of losing their own Clarity for his sake.
Siren Song (•••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 96 Your character’s voice has an attractive quality, in the literal sense. Whenever she speaks, those within earshot are drawn to her, distracted from whatever they were previously doing. Everyone within earshot suffers a –2 penalty on all actions performed while the changeling with the Merit is actually speaking. This penalty goes away as soon as she stops. While listeners may not actually move closer, their attention is pulled to her in an obvious manner. This Merit does not influence them to obey her or even to like her, but they will be hard-pressed to ignore her when she speaks. This can be useful for attracting a waiter’s attention, distracting an enemy shooter or having one’s side of an argument heard. It can, however, prove unfortunate when speaking to a cab driver en route, trying to carry on a private conversation in a crowded room or speaking within earshot of allies while in a fight. This Merit is always on and affects everyone (friend and foe alike) within earshot. The Siren Song does not carry through radio, electronic or recorded media, however — it must be heard live and unamplified.
Slave (• to •••••) Book: Goblin Market, p. 23 Your character has purchased a slave at Market. The creature is bound to serve you in almost any way imaginable, chained to your will. This chain always manifests in some way in the creature’s appearance: iron collars around the neck and silver cords about the wrist are typical markers, but brands, tattoos and even fur patterns have been known to manifest. So long as the slave’s fetters remain, it must make a successful
Resolve + Composure roll to act against its master. The roll is penalized by -3 dice if the slave attempts to refuse, ignore or disobey a direct order, and -5 if it tries to physically harm the character. Even the most simple-minded slaves have feelings, however, and the Storyteller can reduce (or even waive) these penalties in the face of long-term abuse. The complexity and intelligence of a slave varies based on the value of the Merit. At •, the slave is little more than a magical automaton, such as a lamp that follows its master or a broom that sweeps of its own accord. For ••, the slave is a simple imp or wisp of limited intelligence, capable of carrying out relatively simple tasks but without any significant capacity for problem solving. At •••, the slave has the intelligence (and often temperament) of a child. At this value, a slave can be large enough to provide its master with physical defense and may possess one dot in a single Contract. A •••• slave is a familiar of average intellect and skill, perhaps possessing two dots in a single Contract. Finally, for •••••, the slave is of greater-thanaverage intelligence or strength, able to think critically and creatively about problems and possessed of four clauses from one or two Contracts. At this level, the slave may even be a changeling or non-fae supernatural creature (with four of their appropriate powers), but keeping such powerful creatures as slaves is asking for trouble. Drawback: Besides the dangers inherent in housing abused hobgoblins, owning slaves carries a social stigma among changeling society (composed, as it is, primarily of former slaves). Most changeling slaveowners take care to be discreet in their proclivities, lest they garner a reputation in their Freehold for being no better than the Others. Special: Slaves at the Goblin Market come in two varieties: trained and untrained. The latter are most common and tend to come cheap, and have a value (see p. 28) equal to half the Merit’s rating. The character purchasing such a slave must also pay the usual experience cost of the Merit in order to “break in” the new slave. Trained slaves serve obediently from the moment of purchase (requiring no expenditure of experience), but cost an exorbitant amount. These have a value equal to the Merit’s rating.
Soul Sense (••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 96 Prerequisite: A living fetch Effect: Some Lost conjecture that a portion of each changeling’s soul is imbedded in her fetch. Whether this is true or not, your character feels some extra level of connection to the simulacrum crafted to replace her. Your character always knows the direction and approximate distance to her fetch. In addition, your character has a very general sense of her fetch’s moods and emotions. As a result, your character gains a +2 bonus to all Social rolls when interacting with her fetch. Drawback: Your character also feels when her fetch is in pain and suffers an injury penalty equal to half of the fetch’s (round up). If her fetch is incapacitated due to injuries, your character suffers a –2 penalty to all rolls. If your character’s fetch is killed, your character takes a number of points of bashing damage equal to her Wyrd and must make a Stamina + Composure roll to not fall unconscious for several minutes.
Sublime (•••••) Book: Equinox Road, p. 14 Prerequisite: Wyrd 9 Effect: The character’s mien has become truly otherworldly. Perhaps her human form is gone and she is just a being of pure light or darkness. Maybe she appears as a creature out of myth, or as an angel, or even a goddess. She may be the pinnacle or horror of beauty. While humans still see the Mask, they sense her transcendent nature. Mortal beings may not attack her (unless in self-defense), may not lie to her, and may not attempt to intimidate her. In addition, all humans who can see her must halve their Speed and Initiative scores (round down). Changelings, on the other hand, do not halve Speed or Initiative, but must succeed at a reflexive Resolve + Composure roll to attack her (unless in self-defense), lie to her, or intimidate her. Finally, the Gentry no longer see her as a direct enemy, and they see her as almost a kindred spirit. It doesn’t mean the True Fae won’t attack her, but it’s quite likely they’ll approach her first as something close to an equal. Drawback: She also draws the attention of the Gentry. The Fae want her to come “home” to Faerie, and will do whatever they must to push her in that direction. That means her friends and family are subject to possible torment or death by the Fae, who think she must have her “fetters” to the mundane world removed. In addition, changelings don’t often trust her; why would they, when the Gentry seem so fond of her?
Subtle Liqueur (•) Book: Swords At Dawn, p. 29 Prerequisite: Inebriating Elixir kith blessing
When your use your Inebriating Elixir blessing to ferment a non-alcoholic beverage, the drink’s taste is not altered in any way; imbibers cannot tell that what they’re drinking is alcoholic, much less preternaturally so.
Token (• +) Book: Changeling: The Lost Core, p. 98 Fae lore is replete with stories of objects with magical powers, either “liberated” from former masters in Arcadia, discovered deep within the Hedge or even forged by skilled changeling craftsmen. Though these objects are seemingly mundane to the mortal eye, the Lost see these useful but double-edged objects for what they are. A character with this Merit has one or more such tokens in his possession. Each dot in this Merit translates into one dot’s worth of token, which can be divided up as the player sees fit. Thus, a character with Token •••• could possess one four-dot token, two two-dot tokens, one one-dot token and one three-dot token, and so forth. This Merit can also be used to purchase the expendable tokens called trifles at a cost of three trifles per dot, or even goblin fruits (p. 222) at the same rate. In most instances, a character does not need to spend experience points for tokens acquired during the course of play, only those in her possession at the beginning of the chronicle. At the Storyteller’s discretion, ownership of truly mighty tokens may require a partial or even complete investment of experience points, representing the time required to learn the complexities of using such epic items as well as safeguarding them from potential thieves. For more on tokens, see Chapter Three (pp. 201–210).
Token Maker (•••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 150 Most tokens are crafted by the Fae or found in the Hedge and put to use by those clever enough to recognize their potential. Some changelings, however, learn the ability to create tokens themselves, a useful skill that often puts them in great demand by their peers (and by the True Fae who would prefer such craftsmen remained in their own “employ”). Creating a token is a long and arduous project that requires not only great skill but a commitment of personal energies as well. First, the character must be able to accurately create some sort of plans, recipe or blueprint for the creation. Creating a recipe from scratch is an extended Intelligence + Occult roll, with one day required per roll and total successes required of five per dot in the token.This research cannot be interrupted until complete, or all successes are lost. In some cases, the crafter may be able to discover a plan that some other changeling has created, and work directly from that. Such a discovery may be the focus of a story — and may result in an object with unforeseen quirks reflecting the unknown author. Tokens are created as an extended action (Wyrd + Crafts) with each roll representing two weeks of work and a target number of 25 per dot of Token. Thus a twodot token such as a Lantern of Ill Omen would require 50 successes to create. Token Makers must expend at least one point of Glamour per two weeks into their work, and may expend up to five per month. Each point of Glamour above the first counts as an automatic success toward the total. The character must work for at least eight hours each day; working 16 or more hours a day adds an additional two dice to the roll per week that the character can maintain this schedule. If the crafter leaves off in the middle of her project, accumulated successes remain — but if she fails to pick up her tools again and resume work within two weeks, the successes are lost as the Glamour flees and her inspiration leaves her. Changelings possessing the Workshop Merit below may additionally halve the time per roll (if working on a token made of a material which falls within one of their Workshop’s Specialty areas) should any points in Workshop focus on that specialty. Example: Annie Bumble wants to create a Curious Paw Token (p. 207 of Changeling: The Lost). She’s a passable taxidermist and has a nicely appointed taxidermy table set up in her Hollow (one dot in Workshop: Taxidermy). She sequesters herself in her Hollow to work on it. Because she has a dot in Taxidermy allocated to her Workshop Hollow, she halves two weeks, making her time per roll one week. At the end of the first week of work, she spends one Glamour for the required investment and five more toward automatic successes. Her player rolls Annie’s Wyrd (3) + Crafts (4) + Crafts Specialty: Taxidermy (1) + Workshop (Taxidermy) (3) and gets 4 successes on the 11 dice. Adding in her automatic successes, Annie has now accumulated nine successes toward the 100 required to complete the Curious Paw. At the end of the next week of work, she spends another Glamour (with the option of spending up to five more) and makes another roll, accumulating the successes until she has reached 100 and the Curious Paw is complete. Drawbacks: Token drawbacks are not within the control of their creator. They are a result of the cagey nature of Glamour, and cannot be guided by the token’s maker’s hand or will. As tokens are forged in part out of the maker’s own Glamour, however, the drawback often reflects a connection to the maker in some way. One Darkling craftsman’s token might cause temporary blindness after being used, while another item by the same artisan might attract spiders to the user’s home. For already published tokens, such as those found on pp.
202–209 of Changeling: The Lost or in Chapter Four of this book, Storytellers have the option of using the listed drawback or creating one that more closely ties the token to its creator’s nature.
Tokenmaster (•••) Book: Equinox Road, p. 14 Prerequisite: Wyrd 7 Effect: The character’s Wyrd is truly potent: it radiates from her mien in unseen waves. Those objects she values and touches run the chance of becoming tokens. She must first be in somewhat constant contact with the object for a number of days equal to (10 minus her Clarity score). A knife hung at her belt or a bed she sleeps on at night counts: the coffee maker she uses every morning would not count. At the culmination of that time period, the Storyteller rolls a single die — if that die is a success (8 or above on the roll), the object becomes a token as her Wyrd has inadvertently infused it. It’s not impossible for a truly potent changeling to effectively create tokens left and right… Drawback: …and that’s not always a good thing. First, she has no control over what the objects become— she cannot say, “I wish that this hand-me-down wallet from my deceased father magically makes money appear” and have that happen. The Wyrd does what it wants. Second, tokens can be dangerous, especially if they get into the hands of her enemies or into the hands of foolish humans who trigger dangerous catches.
Unseen Sense, Talecrafting (•••) Book: Swords At Dawn, p. 78 Prerequisite: Wits •••, Academics •• Effect: As per the Unseen Sense Merit on pp. 109–110 of the World of Darkness Rulebook, the changeling has a “sixth sense,” but in this case it’s not related to ghosts or spirits or anything like that, but actually triggers when she comes across na opportunity for Talecrafting. Any time a potential pattern lies in wait, ready to be manipulated with a tweak and twist of fate, the changeling’s hairs raise, she gets goosebumps, she feels her heart race, or she feels some other physical effect. No roll is necessary. It doesn’t tell her what kind of pattern awaits, only that a Hook is ready to be set.
Visionary Dreams (••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 96 Prerequisite: Wyrd ••• Effect: Your character’s dreams can now range forward and backwards in time, providing hints of distant events and possible futures. Sometimes these dreams are of distant or long ago events that have no connection to your character, but often your character’s unconscious seeks out information about people and events that would be of interest to her. All knowledge contained in these dreams contains a mixture of metaphor and whimsy and requires careful thought and interpretation to fully understand. However, your character is always aware when she had had a visionary dream, since such dreams are always unusually vivid and easy to remember. Most of the time, the Storyteller chooses whether your character has a visionary dream and what the content will be. This Merit provides the Storyteller with a way to give your character information that may be unattainable by any other means. Your character can also choose to attempt to have a dream about a specific person or place. Doing so risks the character having confusing visionary and ordinary dreams, and your character has no conscious control about what her dream will reveal. However, if she succeeds, the dream contains some bit of useful information about the subject. To actively call upon this power, a character must spend a Willpower point and roll Intelligence + Wits. She must also have at least five hours of uninterrupted sleep. Characters may not use this Merit more than once per day. Dramatic Failure: Your character has a normal dream about the character that your character mistakes for a visionary dream. The information in this dream is false and misleading, and represents your character’s hopes and fears and not any truth. Failure: Your character either fails to have a visionary dream or her dream contains no information that is immediately useful, such as a dream about an enemy’s fifth birthday party, when the character was hoping for information about the enemy’s marriage. Success: Your character has a dream that provides some clues about the subject your character desires. One image or clue is provided per success. However, these clues come in the symbolism and imagery of dreams and almost always require some interpretation to be deciphered correctly. Exceptional Success: Per normal success, except the clues are significantly clearer and more obvious. Suggested Modifiers
Dreams are independent of time and distance. However, it is far easier to have a dream about a subject your character knows well than about a subject your character is barely familiar with. modifier +1 -1 +2
Situation Your character has a very close connection with the location or individuals involved. Your character has only a casual connection with the location or individuals involved. Your character has no real connection to the location or individuals in question.
Wholesale Wares (• to ••) Book: Goblin Market, p. 35 Prerequisite: Market Stall (••••) Effect: Owning a stall makes running a successful Goblin Market business significantly easier. The character has access to a stable supply of wares that he can sell or trade to visitors or other vendors. More importantly, the merchant knows who in the Market to go to for certain rare valuables, and how best to wrangle a deal from them. Once per chapter, the character may reduce the price of an item she purchases from another vendor by 1 for each dot she possesses in this Merit (to a minimum of 0), as long as the character intents to sell the item in her own stall. This allows her to make a higher than usual profit on the item. Drawback: Goblin merchants typically make these backroom deals to get items out of the Market and into the populace. A merchant who uses an item she obtains through this Merit herself defeats this purpose, typically appearing weak in the eyes of the other vendors. She loses access to this Merit for the remainder of the story, as the other vendors charge her full cost for wares, no matter what she intends to do with them.
Wisdom of Dreams (•••) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 97 Prerequisite: Wyrd ••+ Effect: Your character has especially close ties to humanity’s collective unconscious. When your character sleeps, his dreams can gather any knowledge known to a living human and allow him to make use of it when he awakes. This Merit allows your character to temporarily gain one dot in any Ability Specialty or one dot in any Language that is known to at least one living mortal. Knowledge of this Ability Specialty or Language persists until your character next sleeps and can be used just as any other Specialty or Language. If your character learns a Specialty such as Heavy Weapons or Pilot, where characters without the Specialty suffer special penalties when trying to perform certain actions, this Specialty acts as a normal Specialty and negates these penalties and also provides one additional dot for appropriate rolls. Having a dream to learn such a Specialty requires your character to make a meditation (Composure + Wits) roll immediately before he goes to sleep. Your character must then sleep for at least five hours to gain a Specialty or Language in this fashion. Characters may not use this Merit more than once per day. Dramatic Failure: Your character’s dreams bring him false and useless information, and for the next day, he suffers an additional –1 to any rolls with the chosen Ability. Failure: Your character fails to learn the desired knowledge. Success: Your character gains the desired Specialty or one dot in the desired Language. Exceptional Success: Your character’s dreams are exceptionally vivid and useful. If a Language is selected, he gains two dots in the Language until he sleeps again.
Workshop (• to ••••• special) Book: Rites Of Spring, p. 97 Prerequisite: Hollow, Hollow Size equal to points in Workshop Effect: Your character maintains, within her Hollow, a variety of equipment and tools that can help with the creation of natural and supernatural items. Whether in the form of a forge with metallurgy tools, an artist’s loft, a laboratory filled with beakers and crucibles or an orchard outfitted with the best gardening tools, your character’s Hollow has been outfitted with precisely the right things she needs to have on hand to create. Each dot in this Merit represents a level of equipment for one particular Craft Specialty. Thus, a Hollow with a three-dot Workshop Merit might include a single level of equipment for Blacksmithing, Weaving and Goblin Fruit Farming, or two levels of any one of those and one level of another or three levels in any one Specialty. For each level of Workshop focused on a particular Craft Specialty, changelings using the Workshop to produce items in that Specialty area gain +3 to their Crafts rolls. Possible Workshop Specialties include (but are not limited to) Calligraphy, Woodcrafting, Blacksmithing, Mechanics, Painting, Goblin Fruit Farming and the like. Token Making is not an acceptable Specialty. Because of the diverse nature of tokens, each falls under the Craft Specialty of the particular item, so a Biting Grotesque would be under Sculpting, while a Blood Pennon would be under Sewing.
Special: Characters who share a Hollow can also share Workshop dots, with each contributing to a particular equipment area. These characters each receive the full benefits of the Workshops. It may happen that the crafters suffer a falling-out, in which case one or more might be asked to forfeit their Workshop privileges by the others. Those who are banned lose whatever dots they contributed, unless an agreement is worked out to split the equipment, allowing outcasts to take their tools and materials with them. Shared Workshops should be marked with an asterisk (*) on your character sheet. See the description of the Hollow Merit for details on how to allocate dots.
Wyrdskill (•••••) Book: Equinox Road, p. 15 Prerequisite: Wyrd 6 Effect: As noted on p. 173 of Changeling: The Lost, each changeling gains a free Specialty to Athletics, Brawl or Stealth to represent the minor physical aspects that carry from mien to Mask and give the character an extra edge. With Wyrdskill, a character binds another Skill to his mien and seeming, and at every Wyrd dot gained starting at Wyrd 6, the character receives another free Specialty for the Skill chosen to be bound to one’s Wyrd. The mien literally grows to reflect the Skill: think of a Flowering Fairest who finds her Wyrd score is bound to her Subterfuge score. At Wyrd 6, her player grants her the Specialty of “Seduction” because her dizzying floral scent allows her to lie to get men into bed; at Wyrd 7, she maybe earns the “Swindle” Specialty because she finds that her “hothouse flower” veneer helps her with her many con jobs; and so forth. Drawback: Upon finding that a Skill is bound to her mien and seeming, a character begins to rely on it too much, driven both by its potency and by the Wyrd itself. Other Skills may falter slightly: the experience costs to buy Skill dots or Specialties in other Skills in the same area as her Wyrdskill (Mental, Physical or Social) increase slightly. New Skill dots in the same area are now new dots x 4, and Specialties purchased for Skills in that same area now cost 4 experience points. (So, if her Wyrdskill is Subterfuge, it would cost more to buy new Social Skills or Social Specialties, but not Physical or Mental ones).
Merits List Hunter characters receive seven dots of Merits at character creation, just as other World of Darkness characters do. They have a wider pool of Merits from which to choose, however, particularly third-tier hunters who can choose Endowments (see below).
City Knowledge (• to •••••) Book: Block By Bloody Block, p. 6 Effect: The character can conjure up information about the city at a moment’s notice. This includes tidbits about history or the city’s layout, or simply unusual or interesting facts about the metropolis. The character’s player can make an Intelligence + Streetwise roll, with a number of bonus dice equal to the dots purchased in this Merit.
Deep Rapport, Positive Or Negative (• to •••••) Book: Block By Bloody Block, p. 9 Effect: Deep Rapport is purchased in regards to a single other character, and is considered either positive or negative. The Merit can be purchased many times, with each instance indicating a strong beneficial or harmful relationship with a different character. If this Merit is positive, then the dots taken in the Merit equal the bonus modifier assumed on all Social rolls regarding the other character. Intimidation rolls are an exception; they suffer a negative modifier equal to dots taken in this Merit. If this Merit is negative, then dots purchased in this Merit equal the dice penalty suffered to all Social rolls regarding the target character, with the exception of Intimidation rolls—Intimidation rolls are more easily performed on the target character, taking bonus dice equal to dots taken in this Merit. Dots in this Merit must be purchased one at a time, and a player may not purchase more than one dot per game session (potent relationships are built—or eroded—slowly).
Endowments (• to •••••) Book: Hunter: The Vigil Core, p. 67 Prerequisite: Membership (at least one dot of Status) in a third-tier conspiracy. Effect: The hunter has been entrusted with some of the secrets of the conspiracy to which he belongs. The six Endowment categories and the specific Endowments they can grant are discussed later in this chapter, beginning on p. 150. A character can learn these Endowments in play by purchasing the Endowments Merit with experience points (and probably by fulfilling some story-based prerequisites as well; Task Force: VALKYRIE doesn’t hand out equipment to just anyone, for instance), or at character creation by allotting Merit dots to Endowments. What exactly those Merit dots buy the character varies depending on which Endowment is represented. Advanced Armory, Relics and Thaumatechnology are all Endowments represented by devices and objects. These objects have ratings of one to five dots, and so representing them with the Merit is simply a matter of taking the required number of dots in the Endowments Merit. For instance, if a Cheiron Group character wants the Devil’s Eyes Thaumatechnology Endowment at character creation, the player needs to invest two dots in the Merit. These Endowments don’t run dry or disappear (though some of them might need ammunition — these are called Renewable Endowments, and are described on p. 150), but a character might lose an Endowment in play, or if he chooses to abandon his organization (and the organization has enough time and notice to make sure it gets its equipment back). Elixirs are the oils, potions and other alchemical preparations of the Ascending Ones. Taking dots in this Merit indicates the character has the necessary “tolerance” to the potions to be able to use them without ill effects. An Ascending One can use Elixirs with higher ratings than her own ratingsin this Merit, but suffers a penalty on the Stamina + Elixirs roll tosuccessfully use the substance (see p. 172 for more details).
Castigation Endowments represent the knowledge of the rites of the Lucifuge. For every dot in this Merit, the character can learn one more rite. A character with three dots in Endowments (Castigation), therefore, can learn a maximum of three rites. Any given character, though, can only call upon a maximum of five Castigation rites at a time. Simply knowing the rites creates a strain on the soul and the sanity of the character, and using them requires sacrifice, of blood, will or some other precious commodity. A character can “swap” a Castigation rite that he knows for a new one, provided he learns about the rite from someone who knows it or from a Lucifuge text. Switching out rites requires a rededication of the character’s energy, though, and that takes time. The player rolls Resolve + Occult as an extended action. The target number of successes is 20 minus character’s rating in Endowments (Castigation), and the player makes one roll per day in which the character spends at least four hours studying, fasting, fl agellating or otherwise preparing himself for the change. As the total number of successes climbs, the character suffers nightmares, sweats, spontaneous nosebleeds and other ailments, and then finally peace as the change sets in. Benedictions, like Castigation, represent the character’s ability to know rites, but unlike Castigation, the number of dots in the Endowments Merit doesn’t refl ect how many rites the character knows. A character with the Merit Endowments (Benedictions) at one dot can potentially know every Benediction in existence, if he’s willing to invest the time (and experience points) to learn them. The Endowments (Benedictions) Merit refl ects how well the character can access that knowledge. All the Benediction rituals have different dice pools associated with them, but the character’s Benedictions rating is always part of these pools.
Familiar (•) Book: Witch Finders, p. 183 Prerequisites: Gnosis •, Occult •• Effect: The ritual to summon and bind a familiar is easily learned by any witch with adequate mystical knowledge. The witch prepares for the ritual by gathering items sympathetic to both herself and the familiar with which she seeks to bind. For naturally occurring animals sympathetic items could include the usual blood, hair or claw clippings, while for ghosts, the anchor of the specter is always necessary. Spirits require a physical representation of their nature as a sympathetic device and speaking aloud or transcribing the name the entity, along with some sort of sacrifice, serves as a sympathetic connection for demonic creatures. When the witch has gathered the necessary components, she binds her own sympathetic items to those of her desired familiar and burns them while chanting the name of the familiar. The caster then rolls Resolve + Occult + Gnosis. With a single success on the roll, the witch has successfully summoned and bound the familiar to her and spends a dot of Willpower to seal the union. If the bound familiar of a witch is ever killed, destroyed or permanently banished, the witch loses a dot of Willpower, representing the loss of the bit of herself she bound into her familiar. Witches may only have one familiar at any time. The four main types of familiars available to witches are animal, demonic, and ghostly. Below are instructions for the creation of each type of familiar and the benefits enjoyed by the witch and her familiar as a result of their bonding. Regardless of type, all familiars share an empathic connection with their master; each can automatically feel the emotions of the other. (Magical effects that damage or manipulate the familiar through an emotional attack don’t damage or manipulate the master.) The familiar can always understand its master, no matter what language the master speaks, and vice versa. Additionally, the connection shared between the witch and her familiar allows the master to see through the eyes of her familiar as described below. Through the Eyes: By spending a point of Willpower, the master of an embodied familiar can shift his perceptions to the familiar. He sees what the familiar sees, hears what it hears, and so on. He is oblivious to his own surroundings while viewing through his familiar, but still possesses tactile sensation (thus he is aware of any damage or physical sensation to his own body). Ending this viewing is a refl exive action and requires no roll.
Animal Familiars: Animals are the most common type of familiar owned by witches. Cats, snakes, birds and even some fantastic hybrids all serve as companion and helpmate to witches. Animals bound to witches as familiars are always more intelligent and hearty than other members of their species, as a result of the binding ritual. Examples of mundane animals to provide a basic guideline for what is appropriate in mechanical statistics for an animal familiar can be found in the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 202. Familiar Traits: Attributes should be equivalent to the familiar’s mundane cousins, with a bonus of an additional dot in both Intelligence and Stamina. Willpower, Initiative and Defense are all generated in the usual fashion, keeping in mind that animals choose the greater of their Dexterity or Wits as their Defense. Speed, Size and Weapons/Attacks remain coned sistent with that of other animals of the same type and Health is increased by one level as a result of the familiar’s superior Stamina. Animals have no Virtue, Vice or Morality traits. Skills: Assign 10 dots in pertinent Skills. Animal familiars gain a free Stealth specialty.
Preternatural: Animal familiars enjoy enhanced protection against magical and mundane threats as a result of the bond with their master. Familiars gain an armor rating equal to the Gnosis of their master against any physical attacks and may add the Gnosis rating of their master to any roll to resist or contest magical effects. Additionally, no spell or effect of any kind can turn a familiar against its master. Magical Companion: Witches frequently include their familiars in their magical workings. Any spell cast while in physical contact with their familiar gains +2 dice bonus to the casting pool. Dread Powers: Assign three dots among Dread Powers (see Hunter: The Vigil, p. 276). Any Dread Power can work with creative application (a cat may cause “Ecstasy” simply by rubbing up against a target, for instance). Demonic Familiars: Demonic familiars are imps, lesser demons and minor infernal entities that are summoned up from the darkness to serve a witch. See the familiar entry under the Lucifuge Endowment, “Calling Forth the Pit” for descriptions of these creatures (Hunter: The Vigil, p. 164) and the Familiar Traits sidebar for complete rules. The spell for summoning or banishing a demon is found on p. 158 of this book.
Ghostly Familiars: Ghostly familiars are often ancestors or friends of the witch that have shuffl ed off their mortal coil yet still remain tied to this world because of their love for the witch. These ghosts are usually less powerful than the other poor souls trapped in Twilight, but suffer less confusion about their state of being. Ghostly familiars are created using the rules found for ghosts in the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 208. Regardless of actual age, ghosts bound to serve a witch are allowed a maximum of two Numina. When a witch destroys the anchor of a ghost during the binding ritual she is actually offering up herself as a replacement. The physical body of the witch is the new anchor for the ghost, though the ghost may have additional anchors that allow it to travel away from its master. Ghostly familiars may always manifest at the command of their master, without needing to roll and can always communicate directly with their master through speech, though most other people won’t be able to hear the ghost and may assume the witch is talking to herself.
Favored Weapon (••) Book: Hunter: The Vigil Core, p. 67 Effect: Any given monster may not even notice a hunter’s attempt to stab, slice or club it, but having a weapon to grip when stalking the enemy in a dark place does provide a measure of comfort. You character has a particular handheld melee weapon or firearm that’s served him well in the past, and as long as it’s on his person or within reach and easily accessible, he gains a +2 to Resolve + Composure rolls. The bonus only applies to one specific weapon, and it must be one he’s used in combat while upholding the Vigil. If the weapon is lost or destroyed, or you want to switch the effect to a different weapon, you must purchase the Merit again to gain its benefits (and it necessitates carrying the subsequent Favored Weapon for at least one story before the Merit kicks in). A character can only have one Favored Weapon at a time.
Gifted (• to •••••) Book: Witch Finders, p. 139 Prerequisite: Five-dot Gifts are available at character creation only. A character may not have both the Gifted and Gnosis Merits. Effect: The character has either an inborn or learned paranormal ability. Each time this Merit is purchased the character may select one spell with a dot rating equal to the Gifted Merit rating from the Mysteries section as a Gift. Gifts function exactly like the original spell except that any Source cost is paid instead with Willpower and the Gifted character never gains Source. Substitute the dot rating of the Gifted Merit for Gnosis rating to determine casting dice pool or for any spell effect based on Gnosis. The powers of the Gifted never cause Paradox and characters may purchase multiple Gifts. Drawback: Channeling magic through the body in this unconventional fashion can have unpleasant side effects, especially in the case of the more powerful Gifts. Tier-two spells selected as Gifts cause one point of bashing damage (headaches, strange patterns of bruises) to the Gifted the first time they are activated in a scene, and tier-three spells selected as Gifts cause one point of lethal damage (nose bleeds, heart palpitations) to the Gifted the first time one is activated for the scene.
Gnosis (• to •••••) Book: Witch Finders, p. 135 Effect: The character has an understanding of magic and an ability to wield it. Only characters with dots in the Gnosis Merit have access to the spells of the Mysteries. The Gnosis rating of the character is an indicator
of how much magical knowledge a witch can absorb as well as granting the witch access to higher tiers of Mysteries. Gnosis rating is also added to any contested dice pool to resist magical effects. • Access to Tier One Mysteries. The witch may draw spells from one Mystery of his choice and the Mystery of Lore. •• The witch may draw spells from up to two Mysteries of his choice. ••• Access to Tier Two Mysteries. The witch may draw spells from up to three Mysteries of his choice. •••• The witch may draw spells from up to four Mysteries of his choice. ••••• Access to Tier Three Mysteries. The witch may draw spells from up to five Mysteries of his choice. He also gains the Unseen Sense Merit for free and now suffers from the bane of Paradox.
Indomitable (• to •••••) Book: Night Stalkers, p. 134 Prerequisites: Resolve •••, Composure ••• Effect: Whether due to resolve, strength of will, or sheer bloody mindedness, some people just won’t bend. The hunter with this Merit is altogether less prone to suggestion of any sort, be it mundane or supernatural and gains a bonus to resist outside forces imposing their will on her. Be it by Intimidation, Persuasion, or Dread Powers, the hunter gains a bonus equal to the dots in this Merit on all Composure or Resolve rolls to resist attempts bending her will to someone else’s wishes.
Kin (•••) Book: Spirit Slayer, p. 139 Effect: Werewolves start out life as ordinary people. Whether they later become werewolves through magic ritual, a pact with Satan or because of an inherited genetic abnormality is open to debate, and different hunters have different opinions. It certainly seems likely that some people are predisposed towards lycanthropy, perhaps as the result of a curse that strikes every seventh child. A character with the Kin Merit was born carrying the legacy of lycanthropy in his blood, even though that legacy never came to fruition. Because of this legacy, werewolves respond slightly more favorably to the character than they do to regular humans and the character shares some of this empathy. The character gains a +2 bonus to all Social rolls in his dealings with werewolves, gains the benefit of the Unseen Sense Merit applying specifically to werewolves (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 109) and receives a +3 bonus to resist the effects of Lunacy. Drawback: Mortals with this Merit are typically viewed as potential breeding stock by werewolves and will have to deal with potential suitors at some point. Depending on the werewolf involved, the suit may be presented to the character as a practical arrangement, take the shape of a brief love affair or – and this happens with an alarming regularity – the character may simply be dragged off in the middle of the night to fulfill his “duties.” Even if the werewolves aren’t interested in propagating the species, they still might hang around just to see if the curse ever fully kicks in. This possibility could haunt the hunter. Might he become what he hunts? If other hunters become aware of the character’s background they might be leery of him as well. In addition, the hunter suffers a -1 Social penalty when dealing with normal humans (including most other hunters).
Language: ConLang (•) Book: Night Stalkers, p. 134 Effect: Used commonly in SWAT, Military or SCUBA where silent communication is a necessity, a small catalog of gestures can communicate limited concepts such as “stop,” “listen,” “proceed,” or “surface.” More complex expressions are seen in professional sports where entire playbooks are drilled down to a series of gestures and cadences allowing a team to make adjustments without tipping off their opponents. No matter how deep in the Vigil a cell is, if it wants to survive they should endeavor to come up with ConLang (“constructed language”), a series of code words or hand signs allowing them to communicate in plain sight or hearing range without tipping their hand. This can come in especially handy versus seemingly omniscient vampire masters that can hear pins drop and seem able to smell lies. A series of quick hand signals, similar to the aforementioned SWAT or SCUBA applications need not be very extensive to be incredibly useful to hunters in the field. While this conjures images of black helicopterdeployed soldiers of Task Force: VALKYRIE, a cell of the Long Night or Loyalists of Thule has every reason to develop personal systems of communication (sometimes to keep secrets from other hunters). A closed fist means “stop,” fingers pointing to the eyes means “watch/be aware,” two fingers pointed down in front of the face means “vampire,” two fingers up means “demon,” and so on and so forth. This Merit grants a +1 to Tactic rolls for each member of the group possessing the same Merit. Obviously, more than one hunter must possess this Merit for it to provide its bonus to them. If any of the hunter’s cell does not possess this Merit, they suffer a -1 penalty on same as they find themselves out of the loop. That is to say that if a hunter is the only one in the cell who doesn’t know the code, he’s at a clear disadvantage.
Natural Medium (•••) Book: Spirit Slayer, p. 139 Prerequisite: Presence ••• Effect: You’ve heard the voices ever since you were a kid. You remember the first time you really tuned in on them was during a long, boring car trip. The whispers told you horrible secrets and later that night came the nightmares. Crying and terrified, you told your parents about the things you heard and they took you to see a doctor. Years of pills and psychological treatment didn’t make the voices go away, but you learned to pretend they did, just like you learned to stifle your screams and hide your tears after another nightmare. Spirits are kept locked away from the material realm in the spirit world. From that strange and unruly place they exert their will, influencing mortals to act in ways similar to the nature of the spirit. Every now and then a human is born that shines out through the thin membrane that separates the worlds, drawing the attention of the spirits. People born with this gift (or curse) are sometimes called shamans or witch doctors. Many modern spiritualists prefer the term medium. Eager to more directly influence the realms of flesh, the spirits congregate around these people and speak to them through the barrier. The more attention the medium pays to the spirits, the more excited the spirits become and the more they communicate and work to exert their influence over her. A character with this Merit instinctively understands the language used by spirits and, by concentrating and spending a point of Willpower, can project her thoughts into the spirit world to commune with its denizens. The character also receives the Unseen Sense Merit applying specifically to spirits (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 109) and is immune to possession by spirits (though the medium may voluntarily allow herself to be possessed). Exactly how one becomes a medium is something of a mystery. Each medium has a different theory or story that could possibly explain their gift. Some mediums were born with a caul over their face, some developed their ability after serious head trauma, and a few mediums have cancerous growths in their brains. Whatever the cause, the end result is the same. Drawback: Each time the medium uses her ability to speak with spirits, she excites the spirits that respond. Until the next sunrise, the spirits direct their influence at the medium, attempting to overload her senses and possess her. The character can attempt to resist these influences by rolling Resolve + Composure – the Resistance of the most potent spirit with whom she has recently communicated. If the roll succeeds, the character experiences uncomfortable lurches of sensation and emotion until the next sunrise, but otherwise suffers no ill effects. If the roll is failed, the character is subjected to the Mental Flaw: Nightmares (see sidebar) the next time she sleeps and is considered to have automatically failed the roll to resist.
Null (••••) Book: Spirit Slayer, p. 140 Effect: Because of an accident of birth, ancient family curse, or blessing from a higher power, your character is surrounded by an aura that is antithetical to spirits and spiritual energy. Spirits don’t like being near you and will go out of their way to avoid contact with the character. Simply visiting a Locus is enough to temporarily shut off the flow of Essence from that place while you remain present. Werewolves can sense the unnatural disruption of spiritual energy caused by proximity to your character and they have a harder time using their magical rites and abilities with you around. The character is completely immune to possession or influence by spirits. The aura of spiritual null extends for 10 yards in every direction around the character. Spirits prefer not to deal with the character if they can possibly avoid it, which gives the character a +1 to Intimidation rolls made against spirits. Spirits also suffer a -5 penalty on any attempt to materialize within the aura (this includes attempts to summon or force spirits to manifest), except at a Locus, where the penalty is reduced to -3. Werewolves within the aura must spend twice the amount of Essence normally required to perform a ritual or activate a Dominance that requires expenditure. Characters with the Null Merit are something of an aberration. Every attempt made to quantify or reproduce the phenomenon has, thus far, met with failure. One possible explanation is that Null characters represent a sort of balancing force to the spirit world. It is possible that these characters exist to help maintain the separation between worlds, their mere presence acting to reinforce the barrier. Organizations like the Cheiron Group and the Loyalists of Thule are very interested in finding a way to intentionally create Null humans. Available at character creation only or with Storyteller approval. Drawback: The character suffers a -2 penalty to all Social rolls (excluding Intimidation) when dealing with werewolves or spirits. This penalty is extended to any other hunter that attempts to peaceably contact or negotiate with werewolves or spirits while standing in the aura of the character.
Primal Urge (• to •••••) Book: Spirit Slayer, p. 161
Effect: The character isn’t actually human. The heart of a beast burns within her chest, and manifests primarily by warping her flesh. The Primal Urge rating of the character is a measure of the power of her feral soul, as well as how much dominance she can exert over the spirit world. Primal Urge is also added to any contested dice pool to resist supernatural effects. A character must possess this Merit to shapeshift, and cannot have a Dominion rated higher than her Primal Urge. Drawback: Most people can unconsciously tell that the character isn’t human any more. She suffers a penalty to all Social die pools equal to her dots of Primal Urge. This penalty only applies when the werewolf is dealing with normal human beings (including hunters) — and applies as a bonus if the werewolf is trying to intimidate someone.
Professional Training (• to •••••) Book: Hunter: The Vigil Core, p. 67 Effect: Your character has been on the job for a while, and has grown skilled in the areas important to her Profession. This Merit reflects your character’s job experience, natural prowess at the talents important to her line of work and how well she can learn and grow within her field. Each of the Professions listed later in this chapter has two Asset Skills associated with it. Players choose a free Specialty in one of those Skills at character creation, and characters probably have at least a dot in both of the Asset Skills. Characters do not have to begin with a dot in Professional Training, though, in order to choose a Profession. The Professional Training Merit is progressive; a character can’t have Continuing Education until she has Networking. The Professional Training ranks listed in the individual write-ups of the Professions beginning on p. 74 allow a good shorthand for how well trained a given character is. A Hacker character with two dots of the Professional Training Merit can be called a “Programmer,” while one with five dots is a “Genius.” Characters, of course, don’t use this nomenclature, but it can be handy way for players to note roughly how experienced their hunters are. • Networking: Your character has amassed the contact information for people in her chosen Profession. At low levels of the Merit, she is an up-and-comer, asking questions of older and more established colleagues. As her Professional Training increases, people start coming to her with questions, requests for advice and consultations, offers to coauthor papers, and invitations to speak at conventions. In game terms, the character is considered to have the Contacts Merit (see p. 114 of the World of Darkness Rulebook) equal to her rating in Professional Training, in addition to the other benefits that later levels provide. Every time a hunter character gains a dot of Professional Training, the player must choose a sub-field of the Profession for this portion of the Merit. Example: John’s character, a Detective, gains a second dot of Professional Training. John specified that the first dot of Contacts bestowed by this Merit was Police, refl ecting the character’s work with the local cops. With the increase, John decides that since his character has made a name for himself in law enforcement, he now has Contacts in Federal Agencies. Note that the Networking facet of this Merit does not preclude the player from purchasing the Contacts Merit separately, nor does it imply any special relationship with any one particular person in the areas specified. It simply means that the character saves business cards, writes down numbers, buys drinks at conventions or otherwise pays attention to the people he meets. •• Continuing Education: As part of her growth within her field, the character learns new skills that are applicable to what she does. Sometimes, the character finds herself learning things she never thought would apply to her Profession. An Academic might take a class in physiology and find she has a passion for it, signing up for gross anatomy classes, learning first aid and thus gain dots in the Medicine Skill. When the player purchases this dot of Professional Training, the player chooses a third Asset Skill. If the player takes this Merit at character creation, she can take her free Specialty in any of her three Asset Skills. The Storyteller is the final arbiter of whether a given Skill is an appropriate choice. ••• Breadth of Knowledge: A character who settles into the routine of her job never stops learning, but probably doesn’t learn new aptitudes so much as how to make better use of her existing ones. In game terms, this “breadth of knowledge” is best represented by Specialties. Upon purchase of this dot of Professional Training, the cost for Specialties in Asset Skills drops to 2 experience points per Specialty. •••• On-the-Job Training: Schooling is no substitute for experience. A character who has been at her Profession for a long time (and who dedicates herself to it, rather than just coasting or dodging work), progresses efficiently within her field. She learns not just facts, but patterns, tricks, shortcuts and truisms that help her do her job well. In game terms, characters at this level of Professional Training pay only (new dots x 2) for Asset Skills, rather than (new dots x 3). Drawback: The problem is that picking up new Skills is difficult for those who specialize. Buying the first dot of a new non-Asset Skill costs one extra point of experience (four points, rather than three). This increase does not affect raising the Skill further; it just represents a steeper learning curve, because the character has to shake herself out of her routine a bit more than others in order to learn new talents.
••••• A Day on the Job: Characters who achieve this level of competence at their Professions are envied, highly sought after and extremely rare. The character might not be the most Skilled person on the planet (i.e., might not have an Asset Skill at five dots), but she has learned so much about the application of those Skills that she can do her job in her sleep. When the player spends a Willpower point on a roll involving an Asset Skill, and that use of the Skill is something that would fall into the daily purview of the character, the roll can instead become a rote action (rather than the usual +3 dice for spending a Willpower point). Details on the rote action rule can be found in the World of Darkness Rulebook, pp. 134–135. “Daily purview” means that the action is something the character would encounter on a regular basis in the course of his job. A Soldier could use the ability in a firefight. A Detective could use it while searching a crime scene. An Occultist could use it for research, and so on. The exact Skill being used isn’t as important as the way in which it is used. For instance, a Laborer who uses the Crafts Skill to fix cars and other machines couldn’t use this Merit to turn baking a cake into a rote action, even though it’s covered by the same Skill. Note that hunting down and killing monsters isn’t a matter of routine for anyone, and so while a hunter can use A Day on the Job in a fight with a monster, he cannot use it on a Tactics roll (see p. 217). Drawback: While a character can use this Merit to make a combat roll into a rote action, doing so forces the character to concentrate on following through the attack above all else. The character receives no Defense during that turn. Also, the character cannot specify a target (see p. 165 of the World of Darkness Rulebook). In addition, the Storyteller may determine that the scene of combat is simply too out of the ordinary to fall under the “daily purview” rule. See the sidebar entitled “Combat by ‘Rote’” for more information on rote actions in combat. Example: John’s Detective character has, over the course of the chronicle, become extremely well respected, an authority on serial killers and cult-style murders. When called upon to make an Empathy roll to detect a lie, even if that lie comes from a supernatural creature, John can spend a Willpower point and make the roll a rote action. If he were called upon to make an Empathy roll to assess whether a child’s description of an event has been coached or is genuine, he might be able to make this roll a rote action, if he has worked with children under such circumstances often enough in the past. This, of course, is the Storyteller’s decision to make, based on the events of the chronicle and the player’s input.
Reputation (•• or ••••) Book: Block By Bloody Block, p. 6 Effect: This works similarly to the Fame Merit (p. 115, World of Darkness Rulebook), except it applies to a Social Skill other than Socialize or Persuasion. The character’s cultivated a reputation, for good or bad, that affects Empathy, Expression, Intimidation, Streetwise or Subterfuge rolls. The two-dot version of this Merit confers the 9-Again quality to rolls involving the chosen Skill, while the four-dot version elevates that benefit to 8-Again. This is tricky, of course, and should be described appropriately: a character who has a reputation for lying doesn’t gain the potent quality to Subterfuge rolls, because people already expect him to lie. No, for the hunter to gain a Subterfuge bonus, the reputation must be one that suggests he’s trustworthy, loyal or honorable. It might be a total sham, but nobody said a reputation had to be accurate. Perception is everything. This Merit applies to only one Social Skill, chosen at the time of purchase. Drawback: This Merit won’t work on everybody, and the Storyteller has a right to deny its benefit. A character with a reputation for being able to “read people” or “give advice” will earn the Empathy bonus when dealing with people who were capable of picking up on that reputation—a famous psychotherapist with a book deal might be able to affect a good portion of the populace, but won’t get squat when dealing with the homeless, foreigners or any who might not have been exposed to the media saturation surrounding the character.
Safehouse (• to •••••) Book: Hunter: The Vigil Core, p. 70 Effect: The hunter has a place of his own where monsters cannot find him. A safehouse might be the headquarters for a cell, or it might be a personal hideaway for an individual. Hunters often rig a safehouse with traps, hidden weapons, security systems and escape routes, because as impregnable as it might be, monsters are persistent and clever. They’ll probably find the way in, and the best a hunter can do is make it hard on them. A safehouse might be a storage shed that the hunter rents out and uses as a weapons locker, an apartment that is rigged to set the building on fire if he fl icks a switch, or a mansion belonging to his organization that is woefully lacking in security. In game terms, dots spent on the Safehouse Merit need to be distributed among four categories: Size, Cache, Secrecy and Traps. Thus, the storage shed might have no dots of Size or Traps, but several of Secrecy. The apartment doesn’t hold much in the way of Cache (as the owner is afraid to leave
anything there), but has a high Traps rating. The mansion has five dots in Size and probably a few in Traps and/or Cache, but none in Secrecy. Safehouse Size is perhaps the simplest defining characteristic, governing the amount of raw space the safehouse encompasses. x Barely any space; only a pair of characters can fit inside comfortably. • A studio apartment; one to two rooms. •• A large apartment or small family home; three to four rooms. ••• A warehouse, church or large home; five to eight rooms, or large enclosure. •••• A mansion or very large home; equivalent to nine to 15 rooms. ••••• A sprawling estate, interconnected tunnel network; countless rooms or chambers. Safehouse Cache: A lot of space is good for a very large cell, or for a cell that chooses to live in its safehouse, but it can also make the inhabitants paranoid. After all, if there are 10 rooms in the place, who knows what’s in the other nine at any given time? Hunters find that having some weapons at their fingertips lessens this paranoia somewhat (or it might make it worse, because what if the monsters find the stash?). Each dot allocated to Safehouse Cache translates to one cache. A cache can hold five Size points worth of equipment, so while one might be a weapons locker with two shotguns and a pistol (and a few boxes of ammo for each, which is negligible as far as Size goes), another might hold surveillance equipment (a set of wire taps, binoculars, night-sight goggles and maybe a pistol for good measure). Chapter Six of the World of Darkness Rulebook has some examples of equipment and weapons that might be useful, and players should work with the Storyteller to figure out what might fit in a cache. It is possible, too, to combine two or more dots of Cache into one space, for a total Size of 10 or more. Equipment doesn’t have to be stored in a cache, of course — a large safehouse can have entire rooms devoted to storage. Equipment that is stored in a cache, however, is effectively hidden from anything but a devoted (or supernatural) search. Mundane interlopers receive a -5 modifier to any attempt to find a cache (on a dramatic failure, the searcher finds and triggers a trap, instead, if the safehouse has any). If the players wish, this modifier can instead apply to attempts to access the Cache. The gun safe might be in plain view, but it’s not at all easy to crack open without the proper combination. Safehouse Secrecy: One of the biggest advantages a hunter can enjoy is, ironically, one that his prey tries to cultivate as well: anonymity. If the monsters don’t know where to find the hunters, they have a harder time killing them. Dots in Safehouse Secrecy indicate how far removed from the hunters the safehouse is, from a legal (and paper trail) standpoint. These dots impose a negative penalty on any attempt to find the hunter through the property, or vice versa. The descriptions of the different dot ratings below are just examples; it’s up to the player to decide what the Secrecy represents. x The hunter rented or bought the place using his real name, credit card or bank account. • The hunter went through an intermediary, but cosigned a loan at some point. •• Some effort toward concealment; an assumed name or paying in cash. ••• Considerable difficulty in tracing the property — the hunter might just be squatting. •••• The hunter never goes back to the place if he doesn’t have to, never gets there by the same route, and his real name never appears on any of the documentation. ••••• The property has a real owner who lives there full time, is aware of his rights and, if necessary, can show cops around the place while casually denying that he’s ever seen the hunter before. Safehouse Traps: Sooner or later, a safehouse is going to be compromised. Hunters know it, even if they don’t want to admit it. That’s why many of them build traps into their safehouses, in hopes they can kill a supernatural intruder — or at least deter him long enough to get away. A trap can take a myriad of forms. Opening a door to a promising-looking room reveals a shotgun aimed at chest level, which promptly fires. Walking up the stairs on the left side is safe, but on the right side, they’re rigged to collapse. Looking behind a painting causes an ax to swing down from the ceiling, just about at head level. A trap can also be designed to destroy part (or all) of the safehouse — at the fl ick of a switch, the place goes up in flames, collapses or explodes (see sidebar for what this means in terms of the Merit). A trap can either inflict damage equal to the dots allocated to it to a single target, or can inflict less damage to a large area. Once a trap is tripped (provided it doesn’t destroy the place), any hunter who contributed dots to the safehouse can reset it with minimal work. This is what differentiates traps represented by this Merit from others that the characters might build themselves during the course of the chronicle; no rolls or special effort are required to reset a Safehouse Trap. Again, though, if the trap is designed to destroy large sections of the safehouse, that damage can’t be repaired without significant effort and expense, if at all. Any trap that deals damage to the Safehouse Size can be rigged to go off after a short delay, giving the hunters time to flee.
x The hunters haven’t bothered setting traps. Perhaps they’re afraid of setting them off themselves. • A trap that infl icts one point of lethal damage to a target (concealed knife, caltrops) or three points of bashing damage to a small area (electrified fl oor, mild poison gas). •• A trap that infl icts two points of lethal damage to a target (spring-loaded knife, concealed pistol trap) or inflicts six bashing damage to a small area (falling sandbags, fire-hose trap), or a trap that incorporates fire and thus has a chance of igniting targets and the house (see p. 180 of the World of Darkness Rulebook). ••• A trap that infl icts three points of lethal damage to a target (falling ax, poisoned needle on a doorknob) or eight bashing damage to an area (collapsing staircase), or a trap that damages a portion of the safehouse, reducing its Size by one (explosives; anyone caught in the blast takes two lethal damage). •••• A trap that inflicts four lethal damage to a target (shotgun trap, pit with spikes) or 10 bashing damage/two lethal damage to an area (concussion grenade trap, deadfall trap), or a trap that reduces the Safehouse Size by one to three dots (anyone caught in the area suffers three points of lethal damage). ••••• A trap that inflicts five points of lethal damage to a target (spring-loaded sharpened stake, blowtorch trap) or 12 bashing damage/three lethal damage to an area (bouncing Betty, acid spray), or a trap that completely destroys the safehouse, no matter how large (anyone caught inside suffers four points of lethal damage). A note on vulnerabilities: some creatures, such as vampires, suffer aggravated damage from fire. Others have more specialized weaknesses, and hunters might well guess at them or learn them over the course of the chronicle. The Safehouse Traps system doesn’t make capitalizing on these weaknesses a special case — working silver bullets into a gun trap doesn’t put the dot rating up. This is because the creatures get a chance to notice the traps anyway (see below), and because a hunter can’t be sure that a) werewolves really are vulnerable to silver, or if that’s just a story and b) werewolves are going to attack the safehouse, rather than, say, vampires, who don’t care a bit about silver. Any intruder receives a Wits + Composure roll to notice a trap before it activates: Roll Results Dramatic Failure: The intruder activates the trap and suffers all relevant damage. In addition, roll (the rating of the trap in question + 2) and apply any successes as additional damage (type as appropriate to the trap). Failure: The intruder activates the trap and suffers all relevant damage. Success: The character notices the trap and can try to disarm it (Wits + Crafts minus the dots allocated to that trap, failure sets off the trap, dramatic failure doubles the damage) or just leave it be. Exceptional Success: The intruder notices the trap and can attempt to disarm it (Wits + Crafts, no penalty for the trap rating). Suggested Modifiers: Modifier +1 +1 -1 -1 -2 -2 -3
Situation Intruder is actively looking for traps Intruder has successfully surveilled the location recently Dim light Loud ambient noise Intruder is hurried Trap does not require visible apparatus (collapsing staircase, for instance) Total darkness
Each aspect of the Safehouse Merit has a limit of 5. In other words, Safehouse Size, Safehouse Cache, Safehouse Secrecy and Safehouse Traps may not rise above 5 (to a maximum of 20 points spent on this Merit). The combined pool of points is used to determine the cost in experience points for raising the Safehouse Merit during play. Special: The Safehouse Merit may be shared among characters in a cell. The cell may have built the place from the ground up, or a single hunter might have found or purchased it and improved as he met the other characters. To share this Merit, two or more characters pool their dots for greater capability. A shared rating in the Safehouse Merit cannot rise higher than five dots in any of the four aspects of the trait. That is, characters cannot pool more than five points to be devoted to, say, Safehouse Size. If they wish to devote extra points to the Merit, they must allocate those dots to a different aspect of the Merit, such as Traps or Secrecy. Shared dots can be lost. If a hunter dies or leaves the cell (perhaps due to a falling-out over methods), the dots that he contributed are subtracted from the safehouse. The Storyteller decides what reduced dots mean in the story when a character leaves a shared safehouse, but the decision should make sense. Dots representing Size, for instance, should probably disappear last, if at all, and if they do, it might mean that a portion of the
safehouse has become unusable rather than vanishing outright. A character might take equipment with him when he leaves, thus reducing dots in Safehouse Cache, or a death might draw attention to the place, reducing Safehouse Secrecy. A character need not devote all of her Safehouse dots to the shared Merit, of course. A hunter might maintain a separate safehouse of her own outside the communal one represented by the shared trait. Any leftover dots that a character has (or is unwilling to share) signify what she has to draw upon as an individual, separate from the cell. For example, three characters share a safehouse and expend a group total of five dots. One character chooses to use two other dots on a private safehouse for herself. Those remaining two dots represent a safehouse entirely separate from what she and her comrades have established together. To record a shared Safehouse Merit on your character sheet, put an asterisk next to the name of the Safehouse Merit and fill in the total dots that your character has access to thanks to his partnership. In order to record his original contribution, write it in parentheses along with the Merit’s name. It is not important to note which aspect of the Safehouse Merit on which those points are spent, as this allows greater flexibility should a character ever decide to withdraw from the community arrangement. The result looks like this:
MERITS Safe House* (2) •••• Safe House ••• Professional Training •• In this example, the character shares a Safehouse Merit dedicated to the cell’s collective headquarters. He contributes two dots to the safehouse, and the group has a total of four dots that are made available to each member. The character also has his own private Safehouse Merit rated •••, which he maintains by himself. And, the character has Professional Training rated ••, which is also his own Merit.
Status, Compact or Conspiracy (• to •••••) Book: Hunter: The Vigil Core, p. 73 Effect: The character holds membership in a hunter compact (second tier) or conspiracy (third tier). These groups are described fully on pp. 102-149. Organization (Compact or Conspiracy) Status is similar to the Status Merit found in the World of Darkness Rulebook (p. 116), but the arena in which the character is known is much smaller. Even the conspiracies are much narrower and more specific than, say, “City Government.” The Merit, therefore, represents a bit more: it indicates the character’s standing, achievements and reputation within the group. In a second-tier compact, Status indicates how well regarded the hunter is. Other hunters respect the word of a high-Status character, and while they won’t necessarily lay down their lives for him, they regard him as a leader. In game terms, each dot of Status in a second-tier compact grants a +1 modifier to Social rolls made involving other members of that compact. A character with Status (Ashwood Abbey) 3, therefore, receives a +3 modifier to all Social rolls made involving other members of the Abbey. In a third-tier conspiracy, the Status Merit grants the Social bonus, but also gives the character access to Endowments. Even a single dot in Status is enough to grant the character access to these benefits (which are purchased with a separate Merit; see Endowments, p. 150). x A character with no dots in Organization Status, but who still claims membership in an organization, is a prospective • The character has been accepted into the order, but probably hasn’t done anything special. He may or may not have been on a real hunt yet. member. Such members are not usually privy to important plans, and certainly aren’t trusted with expensive equipment (or Endowments, for a third-tier conspiracy). •• The organization in the character’s area knows the character as a trustworthy and dependable hunter. He might be chosen as a second-in-command for a hunt. ••• Members of the organization in other parts of the country know the character’s name, and trade stories of his exploits. At this point, the character needs to be concerned about his reputation becoming a liability. •••• The character is considered a leader in the organization, whether he likes it or not. He can get support (personnel and equipment) to undertake his own hunts without difficulty, but if a hunt under his command fails, he runs the risk of being ousted. Monsters belonging to organized societies might have heard his name (or, more likely, a nickname and a description). ••••• Hunters who live long enough to achieve this level of Status are the stuff of legend, and that’s not a good thing for people to whom anonymity is survival. Of course, a leader like this is considered too important to go on dangerous missions without a lot of support. The character probably runs the organization in his area, and answers only to the leader(s) of the entire group.
Talisman (•, ••• or •••••) Book: Witch Finders, p. 143 Witches often find it necessary to protect friends or loved ones from physical threats. The solution to this problem is the creation of a Talisman to protect their mundane acquaintances. A Talisman is attuned to one owner and if it is sold, traded, or stolen, it loses its power. The owner of a Talisman must spend a point of Willpower to activate its power for one scene. For whatever reason, the magic that goes into the creation of a Talisman causes the magic to malfunction when worn by a witch or other paranormal being. Consequently, only normal humans can benefit from wearing a Talisman. Some Talismans are more potent than others: one dot grants an Armor rating of 1, three dots grants Armor with a rating of 2, and five dots provides an Armor rating of 3. Armor protects against both bashing and lethal.
Territorial Knowledge (• to •••••) Book: Block By Bloody Block, p. 7 Effect: The characters know one of the city’s territories (pp. 11–63, though the Storyteller may have others she’s using in this story) intimately. Maybe the character grew up there, maybe she works there, or perhaps she’s been making recon missions into that domain for the last year or so. (It’s even possible that this is something supernaturally-born: consider a Lucifuge hunter whose infernal dreams carry him through a given territory as if flying on the back of a raven.) The character gains several benefits for that territory. These include: • The effects of the Direction Sense Merit, but only within that territory; if the character already possesses the general Direction Sense Merit, the effects do not stack together. • A +1 Drive bonus per Merit dot purchased, representing that the character knows how to navigate this territory with an automobile. • A +1 Initiative bonus per Merit dot purchased, though this Initiative is only useable when in combat inside that chosen territory. Note that a character may purchase this Merit several times over to represent knowledge of myriad domains, though never more than once for a single territory.
Torture Suite (• to •••) Book: Hunter: The Vigil Core, p. 74 Effect: Interrogation, torture, brainwashing, deprogramming: all gruesome and disturbing acts that require, among other things, a safe place from prying eyes. Dots in this Merit represent just such a space, preferably one the hunter has control of, like a storage unit for which she is the primary key-holder or a secluded cabin she owns. This can be a space she doesn’t own (police interrogation room, boiler room at the elementary school where she works as janitor, a secret room in the basement of her apartment building), but still must be one she controls semi-regularly for the Merit’s effects to apply. Dots in this Merit are unrelated to Size, but are instead related to the space’s intimidation factor: a spare room in a small apartment isn’t that foreboding, but a dark room with a bare bulb next to a hissing heater and a wall full of sharp implements might just do the trick. For each dot purchased in this Merit, the hunter gains +1 to appropriate Intimidation-based Interrogation rolls (including torture, brainwashing or deprogramming events). Note that a Torture Suite can be a part of a hunter’s safehouse, though it doesn’t need to be.
Undondable (••) Book: Night Stalkers, p. 135 Prerequisites: Stamina ••, Resolve ••• Effect: The hunter is highly resistant to the intoxicating effects of vampire blood. Vampires require twice the necessary dosages (six instead of three) when attempting to bind this hunter to its will or improve her disposition toward it through blood. Available at character creation only.
Merits List Ceremonies (•+) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 87 Throughout the ages, countless rituals have been devised for the living to contact, placate, or honor the dead. These rituals rarely have much innate power of their own — but in the hands of someone bound to a geist, they can be invested with deathly power. The adoption of these ceremonies, and to some extent the duties that these ceremonies reflect, are in some ways what defines the role of the Sin-Eater. This Merit represents the number of ceremonies (see page 150) that a Sin-Eater knows and can perform. A character beginning play with three dots of Ceremonies might know three one-dot ceremonies, one one-dot, and one two-dot ceremony, or a single three-dot ritual. In order to learn a new ceremony, the Sin-Eater must usually find an instructor to teach her, though in some cases (particularly with high Synergy) a Sin-Eater can learn how to “create” a ceremony from scratch. For instance, a character might study a particular culture’s rites for propitiating the dead, and with assistance and advice from her geist, finetune a version of those rites that has some supernatural effect when she performs it. When purchasing new ceremonies with experience points, they aren’t treated as expansions of this Merit. Learning a new ceremony costs 2 experience points per dot, or three per dot if the character has no instructor available and must devise it on her own.
Codex (••• or •••••) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 191 The Sin-Eater uncovers a cache of secret lore left by a surviving or extinct krewe from a higher tier. For just over 200 years, krewes have commonly called these caches Codices, after the traditional, Western scholarly name for books from native Mesoamerican cultures. (Modern Sin-Eaters in the Americas often borrow from these traditional cultures, so their historical codices have been important inspirations for krewes with an academic bent.) Not every Codex is a book; some are collections of grave goods, sculptures, or even special corpses. A Codex can also be a memento (see p. 192). If this is the case, add the dots of both Merits to come up with a combined total. Prerequisite: Ceremonially-inducted krewe member. Benefit: The ••• dot version of this Merit teaches Tier Two Supernatural Benefits, while the ••••• dot version teaches Tier Two and Three Supernatural Benefits. The specifics of these benefits are selected from a current or extinct krewe that recorded its knowledge. Drawback: A Codex’s benefits do not progress from the Sin-Eater’s existing krewe benefits unless they come from some larger ancestral version of his own krewe. Merits and other benefits must be acquired separately from duplicates the Sin-Eater has already mastered. They do not count as prerequisites for highertier benefits.
Death Rite (• to •••••) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 187 The Sin-Eater knows how to set himself up as a priest, guru, or spiritual artist who transforms the worship of the living into raw plasm. Prerequisites: Founder of a Tier Two krewe, Flesh Fair Merit. Benefit: If the Sin-Eater gathers people to perform or devote attention to a ceremony, he turns the place in which it happens into a temporary Haunt. Like the Flesh Fair, the Death Rite draws on the krewe’s channel,
including its mythology and ethos, and like it, it can be a serious religious ritual or a frenetic, death-themed rave. The key is sincerity. The participants must be there of their own free will and be open to the idea that something meaningful is happening. They don’t need to know an occult rite is going on. The Death Rite takes at least three hours to perform. The character’s Merit dots govern the greatest Haunt (specifically, in terms of Haunt fluidity; see p. 88) he can create. So do the number of attendees, according to the following table:
Maximum Haunt Minimum Number of People • •• ••• •••• •••••
10 50 100 500 1000
After the Death Rite, the temporary Haunt gradually fades, losing one dot of Haunt fluidity per hour. Drawback: A Death Rite’s benefits don’t stack with a normal Haunt, but do stack with the Flesh Fair Merit.
Deathsoul Initiation (••• to •••••) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 185 The Sin-Eater binds an aspect of the Underworld to his soul. After this, he can unleash these energies, which duplicate the effects of a specific Manifestation and Key combination with a set number of dots. The Sin-Eater need not know the Manifestation or Key. Rather, he learns it from the presence of a krewe founder and the Aspect dwelling within her geist. Prerequisite: See below Benefits: The Deathsoul Initiation contains three ranks: First Rank (•••; minimum Psyche •••): Choose one two-dot Manifestation from a krewe founder, and one •• dot Key from any other founder. The character can exercise one function of this Manifestation/Key combination at the two-dot rank — no higher and no lower, and not in conjunction with any other Manifestation or Key. Second Rank (••••; minimum Psyche •••••): As above, but choose the same Manifestation and Key at three dots each. Third Rank: (•••••; minimum Psyche •••••••): As above, but choose the same Manifestation and Key at four dots each. You must purchase Deathsoul Initiation ranks in order, for the same Manifestation and Key combination. Drawbacks: In addition to standard costs, your must expend an additional point of plasm to use the Deathsoul’s power. Sin-Eaters can only possess one Key Initiation at a time (see p. 188 for rules on abandoning this benefit).
Enhanced Merit (Automatic) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 188 In a faction-level krewe, every loyal member regularly cooperates on common interests — or at least, the objectives laid down by the krewe’s leaders. This makes certain Merits more potent, because a member seeking them out doesn’t need to rely solely on her own efforts, or on those of her immediate clique. Instead, people help her because of her krewe’s reputation, or the krewe sets aside a surplus of its money or connections for any member to use. Prerequisite: Status (Krewe) •• Benefit: Pick one Merit from the following: Allies, Contacts, Mentor, Resources, and Status (in a normal, human organizations) only. The choice applies to the entire krewe. If you purchase at least one dot on this Merit, the Sin-Eater earns a number of bonus dots equal to half of her Krewe Status, rounded up: one bonus dot at Krewe Status •, two at Krewe Status •• and three bonus dots at Krewe Status •••••. Drawbacks: This Merit does not stack with Pooled Merits. If there’s any overlap the player must choose one benefit or the other. This benefit cannot raise a character’s total dots in a Merit beyond five.
Ethos Commitment (Opt-In Benefit) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 185 The Sin-Eater commits to the krewe channel’s ethos. This protects her from the moral and psychological consequences of her actions, but punishes her for straying from the krewe’s doctrine. Benefit: The Sin-Eater’s commitment overrides moral concerns and even if it’s out of tune with her geist, it adheres to the supernatural structure of her channel. If she hits a discord trigger in the course of adhering to her ethos’ duty, the player may reroll failed dice (as per the rote action benefit in the World of Darkness core rulebook) for her Synergy check. Drawback: Violating the krewe ethos’ ban brings harsh penalties. It always represents a Synergy 3 discord trigger, and might be worse if it would already be a trigger of 1 or 2. If it is, the Sin-Eater suffers a –2 penalty to rolls to avoid degeneration. Opting out of an Ethos Commitment is difficult as well. It costs 1 Willpower dot. This can be regained by spending 8 experience points. No Sin-Eater can opt into more than one Ethos Commitment at a time.
Flesh Fair (• to •••) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 185 When the founder calls other Sin-Eaters to his Haunt for a ritual gathering, it flares with power born of an enhanced connection to the Underworld. The classic Flesh Fair is a frenetic celebration of life surrounded by constant reminders of mortality. Prerequisite: Krewe founder Benefit: Add this Merit’s dot rating to the Haunt’s Fluidity rating when it hosts additional Sin-Eaters. The maximum benefit (and dot level the Sin-Eater can harness) is based on the number of Sin-Eaters in attendance:
Additional Haunt Fluidity Dots Minimum Number of Sin-Eaters • •• •••
5 10 20
The Flesh Fair can be a solemn ritual of remembrance or a raucous wake, but it must be a structured event that incorporates the krewe’s values and symbolism that takes at least three hours to complete.
Forge Key (Opt-In) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 189 A Tier Three krewe founder can create new Keys by delving deep into his krewe’s channel, searching for the correct insights and experimenting with them through his own Manifestations. Prerequisites: Psyche 6, two Manifestations at ••••• dots, founder of a Tier Three krewe Benefit: To create a new Key, you must purchase each dot as if buying a Key that’s foreign to your character’s Threshold, but with two restrictions. First, you can only buy these dots with krewe experience points — not standard experience. Second, to purchase the first dot, you must acquire some of the necessary krewe experience points by journeying to the Underworld. This journey is usually for the express purpose of learning how to craft the Key, but the Storyteller may allow exceptions if it suits unfolding events. Once the Sin-Eater masters the fifth dot of the Key, other Sin-Eaters in the krewe may use the Key Initiation benefit to learn it, or your Sin-Eater may teach it normally. Most krewe founders prefer to keep their unique Keys inside the krewe, however, and rarely teach them to outsiders. The Storyteller and player work together to design the systems for each Key, using existing Keys and their play experiences to guide them. The Key should represent a type of ability implicit in the krewe’s channel. A krewe concerned with morality might inspire a Key linked to ethical conduct, while one devoted to cosmic secrets may use darkness and light, or astrology to guide its development.
Haunt (• to •••••; Special) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 87
Effect: Prominently figuring in the death-legends of many cultures are caves, tunnels, cisterns, and doorways that lead into the depths of the Great Below. Sin-Eaters know all too well that such places contain the residue of darkness, stillness, and cold that comes with exposure to death. The lingering remnants of ghostly passage, or the association with death and the dead, can give some places a very real connection to the Underworld in truth. The Mayan term for such a place is a cenote, which refers to an underground cavern with a black pool that leads to the Underworld beneath its frigid, accepting waters. Experienced Sin-Eaters know, however, that these passages to the Great Below can and do occur in all manner of silent places; in addition to the usual suspects, cenotes can form in closets, basements, underground storage chambers, crawlspaces, or even in the industrial depths of an abandoned factory floor with labyrinthine passages amid the sunken machinery. More generally, the Bound refer to these places as low places, Avernian Gates. Those that have been claimed by a krewe or a Sin-Eater, though, are called Haunts. Sin-Eaters who have special access to a Haunt can rely on the power of the place to fuel their plasmic needs while also using the cenote as a soft point to cross into the Underworld. Haunts come in wide and moribund variety. One might be a tiny room with a secret hatch, barely large enough to fit a person, home to a child who became trapped and died down there; another could be a haunted manor that has a grisly subterranean chapel devoted to some Slavic death-god. The utility of a Haunt lies not in its size nor in its opulence, but rather in the power of its connection to the Great Below and in its ease of use. To this end, each cenote has a rating in three different factors: its utility, its fluidity, and its residue. Each factor provides a benefit to the Sin-Eater who has access to the Haunt in question. Each factor is also considered a separate Merit to purchase, with each Haunt having ratings in both categories, although a SinEater need not necessarily purchase scores in both categories immediately. A Haunt is a useful tool, but it has a strong drawback. Sin-Eaters who sleep in cenotes find themselves haunted by ghostly visions and hideous dreams of death, much like the nightmares that afflict users of memorabilia mementos (see page 209). Sleeping at the heart of a Haunt prevents a Sin-Eater from regaining Willpower due to a night’s rest, as the rest in such a place is far from refreshing. A Haunt’s utility represents just how much use it can serve apart from its supernatural focus. It generally accords to the size, accessibility, general security, and helpful mundane accouterments that the location has to offer. A cenote with no dots in Haunt Utility might be a small sub-basement that the krewe can access but does not own, unable to provide any benefits beyond its supernatural power. Three dots in Haunt Utility could represent a solid but slightly decrepit haunted house, not legally owned by the krewe but generally unwanted by others. Five dots might represent a small museum complete with library or a plantation house in the swamp, able to provide room and board for an entire krewe, or host a magnificent Flesh Fair. A cenote’s fluidity represents the strength of its connection to the Underworld. Every Haunt is potentially an Avernian Gate to the Great Below, but some have a particular affinity for such travel. The more that a cenote follows mythic archetypes — containing a limpid pool of black water, an archway, a piece of funerary statuary — the stronger its connection tends to grow. For this reason, Sin-Eaters often decorate Haunts with such morbid representations. Each dot of Haunt Fluidity grants a +1 bonus to all attempts to cross into (or out of) the Underworld at its location, and an additional die toward any ceremonies performed within its boundaries. Note that this bonus is only useful to the Sin-Eater who possesses the appropriate dots; perhaps the Sin-Eater performs tiny rituals there to make a connection with the cenote, or owns several of the pieces of decorative artwork that create the funereal motif. This bonus does stack with the benefit granted by using mementos while crossing into the Underworld (see page 265). Finally, Haunt Residue provides a Sin-Eater with access to additional plasm. While a Sin-Eater can gain plasm by dealing with ghosts or, in desperation, murder (see page 82), cenotes tend to leak ectoplasm into the material world. Ectoplasm that forms at a Haunt almost always does so at night, usually near the “witching hour” (midnight), and generally takes the form of a sticky or slimy residue, clear or yellowish, with a tendency to give off wavering vapors. A Sin-Eater can inhale these vapors to refuel her stores of plasm. Left by itself, plasm quickly dissipates, but powerful cenotes will continue to generate new residue. Each dot of Haunt Residue indicates one point of plasm that the cenote generates each week. Each cenote has separate ratings in Utility, Fluidity, and Residue. Further, a Sin-Eater may well have knowledge of multiple Haunts; in such a case, each cenote’s set of Merits is purchased and tracked separately. Special: A krewe of Sin-Eaters may share a Haunt, and indeed many krewes rely on cenotes as meeting places, locations to stash letters for the rest of the krewe, and centers for the performance of great ceremonies. The krewe may keep a Haunt’s location hidden from other Bound, or they may choose to flaunt their power by hosting Flesh Fairs there. When a krewe purchases a Haunt Merit communally, each Sin-Eater adds his or her dots in the appropriate Merits — Haunt Accessibility, Haunt Fluidity, and Haunt Residue — to the total value of the cenote. The entire krewe then benefits from the improved value of these Merits. For instance, a pair of Sin-Eaters could each donate one dot in each Haunt Merit, thereby granting their krewe a cenote with effectively two dots in each of Haunt Accessibility, Fluidity, and Residue. A shared Haunt like this is usable by anyone who has placed dots into the cenote’s purchase, as well as anyone who is part of a ceremonially-bound krewe with
such a purchaser. Of course, this means that some krewes will have shiftless layabouts who contribute little to the upkeep of a cenote’s usefulness — which is a source of strife in more than one krewe. Should a krewe expel a member from its ranks, all of that member’s shared dots contributed to the Haunt are lost by the krewe; the discord of their ceremonial bond disrupts the flow of energies temporarily. The expelled Sin-Eater retains the Merit dots for his own use, perhaps representing a back-up location discovered or a new place to set up shop, but each Haunt Merit has its rating reduced by one dot. (If the Sin-Eater only contributed one dot in the first place, then that dot is lost.) In the event that a krewe breaks up and each member goes their separate ways, all of the dots of the shared Haunt are refunded to their previous contributors, less one dot each as a result of the breakup, need to find new locations, cost of moving personal effects, hurdles of gaining new access, and so on. Should a Sin-Eater die, all of her contributed dots vanish from the shared Merits of her krewe. Shared Haunts do not rise in value above ••••• in any category, even if the krewe contributes more total dots; excess dots are superfluous, but might prevent the cenote from losing potency if the krewe suffers a sudden loss. A Sin-Eater may also have personal access to a private cenote while contributing to the krewe’s shared Haunt. In such a case, the character simply possesses multiple versions of each Merit. The shared Haunt Utility for the group’s cenote, for instance, would be tracked and purchased separately from the Sin-Eaters own personal Haunt.
Merit
Merit
Haunt Accessibility ••• Haunt Fluidity •• Haunt Residue ••••
Haunt Accessibility-Shared • Haunt Fluidity-Shared ••• Haunt Residue-Shared ••
Key Initiation (Opt-In) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 187 The krewe understands one Key as deeply as individual Sin-Eaters understand the Keys of their Thresholds. By contemplating the krewe’s channel and the efforts of his allies, the Sin-Eater can adopt this Key as his own. Unfortunately, the process of learning the Key leaves a mark on the Sin-Eater’s personality and soul. Sometimes, it even has physical effects. The exact reasons for this vary from krewe to krewe. One krewe has a rite that horribly scars every member. Another krewe’s geists assail them with deeply symbolic nightmares every night, until the truth of the Key erupts within them. This causes a curse or flaw of some kind — it varies from krewe to krewe. Fortunately, Key Initiation is optional; not every Sin-Eater delves into their krewe’s esoterica. No Sin-Eater can learn this benefit multiple times for multiple Keys. Prerequisite: Ceremonially-invested member of a Tier Two krewe Benefit: Select one Key per krewe. This Key must belong to one of the krewe’s founders, and is chosen according to how well it would suit the krewe’s channel. The Sin-Eater can learn this Key without a teacher, and pays the same experience point costs to learn it as a character who gains the Key as part of his Threshold. Drawback: Sin-Eaters can only possess one Key Initiation at a time. Initiation produces a Flaw unique to every member of the krewe who has this benefit. Players and Storytellers should work together to create a suitable Flaw. We recommend the following: Derangement: Initiated Sin-Eaters gain a signature major derangement. This is permanent, and can’t be suppressed with a Synergy increase or ordinary psychotherapy. Empowered Bane: Choose one relatively rare item or substance that symbolizes the bane in the krewe’s destiny (including something made of common substances that is difficult to prepare). If the item is worked into a weapon, it causes aggravated damage to initiated krewe members. Its presence on the Sin-Eater’s person or his target’s person imposes a –2 penalty to Manifestation dice pools. The bane can mutate over time – especially if it gets too common or rare. Weakened Attribute: Choose one Attribute. When initiated Sin-Eaters uses dice pools that involve the Attribute, they do not gain the 10-again benefit. In addition, 1s rolled on these dice pools subtract successes from each roll.
Krewe Fate (• to •••••) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 184
The founders of a krewe exercise subtle influence over its fate. They are closest to the krewe’s channel, where it meets the powers of the Underworld. If a founder invests in this ability she can adjust the success or failure of others’ actions in accord with the channel’s mythology and ethos. Doing so is simple. The founder creates or brandishes a mythic symbol and spends a reflexive action concentrating. After that, events fall into place to assist or block the object of her attention. Prerequisite: Krewe founder Benefit: Founders may spend standard or krewe experience points (but not initial Merit dots) to build Krewe Fate collectively. Each dot in this merit provides a pool of “krewe destiny dice” at the rate of 2 dice per dot. Founders who buy into the Merit can use dice to raise or lower the standard dice pools (that is, those with Attribute + Attribute or Attribute + Skill factors, including bonuses for Equipment or Psyche, if applicable) of any ceremonially-inducted member for the duration of one roll. The founder’s player can make this conditional (“Apply the following 2 dice penalty if Vince attacks a member of the Devil-Eaten Krewe”) and need not be anywhere near the target, but the player must spend dice for conditional expenditures ahead of time. If the target Sin-Eater never takes the action, the dice are wasted. The founder can apply dice modifiers to other founders and any other ceremonially-inducted krewe member except for herself. Each founder’s player can spend no more dice to modify a single roll than that Sin-Eater’s Psyche. The entire pool is open to any founder who invests in it, however. Drawback: If the founder spends dice to knowingly or unwittingly avoid the krewe’s mythic destiny or violate its ethos (by spending dice to succeed in the face of the mythology’s bane, or to act against its ban, for instance), the founder who provided the dice suffers a penalty to her actions equal to the entire Merit’s dots (not the dice). This applies to the same dice pools the Merit can normally enhance, for twice as many significant dice rolls (not casual rolls to sense trivia, or dice rolls that don’t involve risks or story importance of any sort) as she modified during that chapter.
Krewe Status (Automatic Merit: • to •••••) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 189 A krewe’s hierarchy starts with friendships, intimate alliances, and a shared history, but when it grows into a faction, things get less personal. Reputation grows from a means to an end in of itself. Some krewes develop higher mysteries and rites of ascension, but more just use rumors to determine who their most respected members are. Prerequisite: Krewe member or ally Benefit: This is a version of the Status Merit in the World of Darkness core book, and has the same effects as the Merit in that book when applied to the krewe. Every member of the krewe in good standing automatically earns one dot of this Merit when the krewe reaches Tier Two size. Krewe founders gain an additional free dot. After that, events during the chronicle will cause Status to rise and fall due to the decisions of high Status members and the general sentiments of all krewe members. New members might not start with Krewe Status, indicating that they’re probationary members, but ceremonial membership automatically confers one dot for free. Drawback: Like other Status Merits, you can lose dots for failing to do your duty or falling out of favor with a krewe member of a higher Status.
Memento (•+) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 89 The golden death mask of Tut-Ankh-Amen. The rifle with which Lee Harvey Oswald (ostensibly) killed Kennedy. The cremated remains of Nurhachi, first sovereign emperor of the Manchu dynasty. Relics and reminders of such potent deaths (and lives) carry with them the emotive resonance of their history. Each one is a symbol of the power of death, held in tangible form, with memory carried in it just like a ghost that clings to some half-faded, decaying vestige of its former living glory. To a Sin-Eater, such memento mori not only serve as artistic and maudlin reminders of mortality, but as focal points of very real and very tangible power. Every Bound has access to at least one memento: the keystone originally given to her by her attendant geist. Many Sin-Eaters go out of their way to collect additional mementos, often for their utility and sometimes out of a perverse desire to assemble a medley of morbid miscellany. A few krewes even hunt down other SinEaters and their geists for the express purpose of relieving them of their mementos. Due to the utility of mementos, Sin-Eaters are apt to gather as many as they can — but mementos are, after all, signature objects that generally have a unique provenance. This means the demand for mementos far exceeds the supply, with predictable and sometimes violent consequences.
Mementos generally grant access to a Threshold — a symbolic representation of a specific form of death, such as “death by violence” — which carries with it bonuses when invoking ceremonies related to its form of death. Some mementos provide Keys, which grant bonuses when used by a Sin-Eater who shares the same Key; a Sin-Eater with the Pyre-Flame Key, for instance, gains a bonus when using a Pyre-Flame memento to invoke a Manifestation. Six different forms of mementos generally make the rounds of Sin-Eater society. The simplest memento is a charm, a small item imbued with a trace of symbolic death-energy so as to assist in unlocking Manifestations. A vanitas is a memento created by a Sin-Eater to symbolize her personal artistic interpretation of death. A fetter is a ghost’s anchor to which the Sin-Eater has bound the ghost via a special ceremony, thereby granting the item a cold infusion of death via the ghost’s traits. A deathmask is the remnant of a geist given material form; worn by a Sin-Eater, it provides association with the former geist’s own qualities in the form of innate knowledge from the geist’s past as well as a Key associated with the former geist’s keystone. Memorabilia, the most potent of mementos, are unique relics from powerfully symbolic deaths, such as the aforementioned rings, weapons, clothes, and implements associated with the demise of legendary figures from King Arthur to Elvis Presley. Finally, a keystone is a Manifestation of the pact between geist and Sin-Eater, given to the living by the dead as a symbol of the connection between the two. A Sin-Eater’s initial keystone (granted by her geist) is an automatic special Memento Merit with a Threshold and two Keys, provided at no cost. Each additional memento counts as a separate Merit purchase. If a player wants to possess multiple mementos, then the Sin-Eater must have multiple Memento Merits to match. A Sin-Eater who possesses a Charm and a vanitas has two separate Memento Merits: the Charm is a • Memento Merit, and the vanitas is a •• Memento Merit. Unlike other Merits, mementos do not improve via use, practice, or the simple expenditure of experience points. Each type of memento represents a signature item with unique characteristics. A Charm, for instance, is a simple object imbued symbolically with some association with death. It is not possible for a Charm to suddenly “become” a deathmask, a remnant of a destroyed geist. In extremely unusual circumstances, a SinEater might discover that an item thought to be a weak memento is actually something of greater provenance (such as a Charm bullet that later turns out to be a memorabilia, perhaps the bullet that killed Martin Luther King, Jr.). Such an improvement in the value of a memento is fodder for story development, and should not occur simply because the player wants to make a given memento “better.” In addition to the varied powers of mementos, every memento is in essence a battery of death energy. As an instant action with a Resolve + Occult roll, a Sin-Eater can destroy one of his own mementos while in contact with it in order to release its energy and stanch his wounds. The Sin-Eater absorbs the freed plasm, healing a number of Health equal to twice the memento’s Merit rating. The memento permanently loses its supernatural powers (and, since its unnatural resilience disappears, crumbles into dust). Specific examples of mementos, and of the particular benefits they provide to their owners, can be found starting on page 192. • •• ••• •••• •••••
Charm (one Threshold) Vanitas (one Threshold, Willpower refresh) Fetter (one Threshold, one Key, one Numen) Deathmask (one Threshold, one Key, skill bonuses, plasm reservoir) Memorabilia (one Threshold, one Key, equipment bonuses, social bonuses)
Merit Mastery (Automatic) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 190 Thanks to the efforts of your character’s fellow krewe members, she can easily build mundane ties or make use of special resources. These benefits are hers alone, but the krewe’s groundwork makes it possible for her to earn them much faster than normal. Prerequisite: Krewe Status • in a Tier Three krewe Benefit: Choose three Merits from the following: Allies, Contacts, Mentor, Resources, Retainer, and Status (in mundane organizations). All members of the krewe may purchase these Merits at half the standard experience point cost. This benefit does not apply to Merit dots used in character creation. Drawback: This Merit does not stack with Pooled Merits. If there’s any overlap the player must choose one benefit or the other.
Mythic Aspect (••••) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 185
The founder taps into the Aspect behind his geist: the god in the ghost, the legendary ancestor within, or perhaps, the emissary of the deathlords. Prerequisite: Krewe founder Benefit: The geist transmits its Aspect’s mythic abilities to the Sin-Eater. Pick one of the following benefits. This is a permanent choice, and you may not take this Merit twice for both benefits (or multiple times for any other reason). Haunted Skill: Choose one Skill associated with the geist’s Aspect. This is a permanent choice. Once per scene, you may spend one point of plasm instead of Willpower to add three dice to that skill. In Twilight, flows of ectoplasm shape themselves to assist the Sin-Eater; they become weird organic goggles to enhance Investigation for example, or ropes of external muscle to aid Athletics. In the visible world, minor, subtle signs of haunting help him in the same way. Possessed by Excellence: Choose one Attribute associated with the geist’s Aspect. This is a permanent choice. You may call on your geist to enhance it. You may spend one point of plasm to increase this Attribute by two dots for one turn. Alternately, you may spend three points of plasm instead to maintain the two-dot increase for a scene, or increase the Attribute by three dots for a single turn. You may not stack either option’s benefits with multiple expenditures. Invoking either version of this benefit is a reflexive action. Drawback: By using the geist’s Aspect, the Sin-Eater acknowledges that the geist isn’t just a spiritual companion, but an authority — perhaps even a god. In any scene where the Sin-Eater exercises a Mythic Aspect, the player suffers a –2 penalty to Synergy rolls.
Mythic Aspect (••••) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 189 Any Tier Three Sin-Eater can take on a Mythic Aspect, just as if he was a krewe founder, with one exception: the Aspect must belong to one of the founders. It can’t be a unique Aspect. In this way, the character’s geist becomes bound to the founder’s – in a sense, it is an incarnation of the founder’s geist. Prerequisite: Ceremonially-inducted member of a Tier Three krewe Benefit: As listed for the Mythic aspect Merit on p 185. Drawback: As listed for the Mythic aspect Merit on p 185. In addition, the founder who shares the SinEater’s Aspect can share his sensory perceptions if he has met the Sin-Eater before. If they should come into conflict, the Sin-Eater with the higher Resolve + Psyche enjoys a +2 dice bonus to Manifestations directed at the Sin-Eater with the lower total.
Mythic Avatar (•••••) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 186 The Sin-Eater acquires the power to physically merge with his geist’s Aspect, becoming a half-divine being from one perspective, or a half dead monster, from another. Prerequisites: Founder of a Tier Two Krewe, Mythic Aspect, Psyche 5 Benefits: Plasm erupts from your Sin-Eater. It envelops and merges with him, transforming him into a being with the following characteristics: • +2 to Stamina and Presence and +4 to one Attribute associated with the Aspect’s nature. An Aspect of love might lend the bonus to Manipulation, while an Aspect of war could add it to Strength. If the favored Attribute is Stamina or Presence, he gains a + 5 bonus to that Attribute instead of a stacked +2 and + 4. • The Sin-Eater’s unarmed attacks inflict lethal damage. The method varies by Aspect. His hands could be wreathed in flame, or possess wickedly sharp talons. • The Sin-Eater doesn’t suffer from wound penalties. • The Sin-Eater can freely interact with anything in Twilight. Your character activates this power by spending 3 plasm and 1 Willpower. He can hold this Avatar form for a number of turns equal to his Psyche + Composure. Drawback: Like Mythic Aspect, using this ability involves giving oneself up to a geist. The Sin-Eater suffers a penalty of –2 to Synergy rolls while channeling the Avatar.
Mythic Factors (• to •••••) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 189
After ceremonial induction, the Sin-Eater can channel his krewe’s channel into exceptionally potent Manifestations. She learns the correct symbols, meditations, and ritual acts to perfect her connection to the Underworld. Prerequisite: Ceremonially inducted member of a Tier Three krewe Benefits: The Sin-Eater can exercise a number of benefits by acting in ritual accord with his krewe’s channel. These benefits are called factors, and have a one to five dot rating. The character accumulates a factor rating based on actions and symbols consistent with her krewe’s channel. The more effort that’s required, the better the factor is rated. The following table outlines the prerequisites for a factor of a particular rating. The listed examples are not the only ones available; the player and Storyteller should use them as benchmarks. The Sin-Eater can’t use a factor rated higher than his dots in this Merit. Factor Rating Difficulty Required
Factor Rating • •• ••• •••• •••••
Difficulty Required Trivial Effort: The Sin-Eater gestures with a portable, general symbol of the krewe’s mythology, or sacrifices something minor like whisky or Chinese “hell money” by spoiling or burning it. Minor Effort: The Sin-Eater invokes a mythic Aspect with an incantation, delaying the Manifestation by a turn, or uses a mythic symbol that was prepared for this Manifestation alone. Significant Effort: The Sin-Eater destroys a ritually prepared object or an enemy’s shed blood, sprinkled in a particular way. Major Effort: The Sin-Eater ritually wounds himself, suffering a point of lethal damage, or uses up or otherwise spoils an elaborate, cumbersome symbol, such as a design in salt or sand. Extreme Effort: The Sin-Eater destroys a •• dot Memento Mori or better, cuts off one of his own digits or performs some other exceptional act.
If the Sin-Eater successfully uses a factor, he enjoys a number of dots in benefits equal to the factor’s rating. These can be either one or multiple benefits whose total equals the factor rating. Each benefit listed under a given rating has an independent cost.
Factor Rating • •• ••• •••• •••••
Benefits +1 die; 9-again benefit +2 dice; 8-again benefit; recover 1 plasm +3 dice; +1 automatic success if the Manifestation succeeds at all; recover 2 plasm Rote benefit (re-roll failed dice); recover 1 Willpower point; +2 automatic successes if the Manifestation succeeds at all; recover 3 plasm +3 automatic successes if the Manifestation succeeds at all; regain 1 Willpower
Drawback: If the Sin-Eater breaks his channel’s Ban, he cannot use Mythic Factors in that scene or the next scene in which he uses a Manifestation for any meaningful purpose.
Revenance (•••••) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 189 Through its Aspect, the founder’s geist is capable of resurrecting its host, and constantly animates it to a degree. The Aspect serves as a medium by which the geist channels powers it normally cannot access. Of course, it infuses a part of its mythic form into the founder; the Sin-Eaters independence erodes every time he comes back. Prerequisites: Psyche 6, founder of a Tier Three krewe Benefits: This Merit brings a founder back to life as though his geist resurrected him, but with one important exception. The founder’s maximum Psyche does not decrease (though he does lose a Psyche dot as usual). It takes just one scene (or about an hour) for the founder to return to life. In the interim, he appears truly dead. His body must be somewhat intact. Missing limbs and organs may return, but if the body is
reduced to ash or otherwise bereft of most of its human form, the power doesn’t work. The founder also stops aging, though this presents its own complications. Drawbacks: The founder loses a point of Synergy when he comes back to life and his maximum Synergy decreases by a point. Someone else dies in the founder’s place, as with the usual self-resurrection. The founder also no longer ages, but physical wear and tear affects his body. Every decade past the age of 100 reduces the character’s permanent health points by one. The founder can get around this by voluntarily “resurrecting” himself, at which point his current and maximum Synergy depletes as usual. Lastly, this Merit does not function against the event that caused the Sin-Eater’s original Threshold, as long as it somewhat resembles the specific circumstances of his brush with death. A founder with Revenance who almost died of a stabbing can’t return to life after another fatal stab wound, for example.
Sending Forth The Aspect (•••••) Book: Geist: The Sin-Eaters Core, p. 187 The Sin-Eater can send her geist’s Aspect to inhabit the geist of any ceremonially inducted member of the krewe whose geist does not possess a native Aspect itself. The target’s geist takes on the Aspect, and that geist’s Sin-Eater acquires a mix of advantages and disadvantages. The target’s geist becomes a version of the Aspect, colored by its own nature. It may interpret the Aspect in strange ways and afterward, may become disturbed or even enraged at the imposition. Prerequisite: Founder of a Tier Two Krewe Benefits: The target must be within the Sin-Eater’s line of sight, and the Sin-Eater must spend 1 Willpower point and score five successes at an extended Resolve + Composure + Psyche roll, making rolls at intervals of one turn. The target Sin-Eater can resist with his own Resolve + Composure + Psyche roll. If he scores five successes before the founder loses all of her accumulated successes vanish and must spend another Willpower point and start from scratch. The transfer lasts for one hour per success. If the founder scores the necessary successes, the transferred Aspect has the following effects: • The target can use the founder’s Keys at a cost of 1 more plasm point than usual. The founder senses when this occurs and can deny the use of this ability as a reflexive action. • The founder can use his Keys through the target Sin-Eater. She can only employ Manifestations that both Sin-Eaters have in common, though at the founder’s level of ability — but she can attack or manipulate the target with these powers, if she desires, or use them in ways the target disapproves of. This is an instant action for the founder, but is not an action for the target. • The target and founder can communicate through the Aspect. It relays messages in the mind’s eye. These can include speech and sensory information, but not information that any party wants to keep hidden, or information held in the subconscious. This is a reflexive action. Drawback: The founder must concentrate to maintain the transferred Aspect. If he is injured, forced to engage in combat, or uses a Manifestation or ceremony, or suffers some other serious distraction, the transfer ends.
