Atouts

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.

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.

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.

If given access to an alchemical (or chemical) laboratory, the character may transmute a simple, common, non-precious substance into another simple, common, nonprecious substance. This ritual requires 1 hour of work.
Cost: 1 Willpower
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Occult
Action: Instant
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: An accident occurs, possibly causing mild burns or a minor explosion. The material is lost.
Failure: The material remains the same.
Success: The material is transmuted.
Exceptional Success: The final product is imbued with a mystic energy. It can be used to inflict Bashing wounds against dematerialized ghosts.
Suggested Modifiers
–1 Per point of Size of the original material over 1
–1 Per point of Durability of the original material
–1 Per dot of Resources cost of the new material
–1 Poor laboratory equipment
–1 No sample of the desired substance

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.

Your character does not suffer the -2 penalty for using his off-hand in combat or to perform other actions.

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 four-dot 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.

Your character has devoted years of practice to the bow. She may be a competitive archer, a low-tech 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).

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.

This Fighting Style applies to an array of flexible weapons, including the nunchaku, chain whip, rope dark, three section staff – even a length of rope. Your character’s choice of weapon does restrict the use of certain maneuvers, however:

• If your character’s weapon uses rope instead of chain, an opponent with a sharp, sturdy blade (a combat knife or better) nullifies the benefits of Impenetrable Defense – she can cut right through it. At the Storyteller’s discretion, this doesn’t apply to flexible weapons with very short rope lengths, like the nunchaku.
• To use the Outside Choke maneuver your character needs a weapon with at least six inches of loose chain or rope between its segments.
• To use Whirl and Thrust, your character’s weapon needs to have a weighted striking surface like a wooden segment or iron ball.

Schools: Okinawan kobudo has made the nunchaku a famous weapon, but it is also used in Filipino martial arts.
The surujin is another Okinawan weapon that consists of a rope with weights at both ends: a relative of the Chinese meteor hammer. Chinese martial arts include fighting chains, ropes and difficult weapons such as the rope dart. Older Japanese martial arts teach the use of chain weapons as well. These kusarijutsu methods are usually taught as part of a larger, all-encompassing martial art.
Of course, Asian cultures don’t have a monopoly on flexible weapons. European foot soldiers have used flails for centuries and you might find a tradi- tional sailor who still knows how to make and use a monkey fist.

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.

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.

By staring at and focusing on an individual for one minute, you can read the eddies and currents of a target’s soul.
Cost: 1 Willpower
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Empathy vs. target’s Composure + Blood Potency
Action: Instant and Contested
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: You receives misleading information.
Failure: Nothing happens.
Success: The character can observe a target’s aura as per the Auspex power Aura Sight (p. 120, Vampire: The Requiem), save she cannot use it to differentiate between supernatural creatures and need not take penalties for how carefully she’s examining the aura. She gleans only a single emotion (the strongest), and gains a +1 bonus to all Social rolls with the target.
Exceptional Success: As success, save the bonus to Social rolls is +2.
Suggested Modifiers
+1 Character possesses a bit of hair, blood or clothing from the target.
+1 Character observes the target in the reflection of a mirror over a century old.
–1 The subject is a habitual or pathological liar.

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.

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.

A Note on the Breeding Merits

This is important: The Good Breeding and Bad Breeding Merits do not describe any actual quality of your character’s blood. They do not represent any predisposition to a particular behavior in the way that the Inherited Skill Merit does. They do not measure how well bred or how trashy your character is thought to be, to any degree. These Merits reflect a binary state – good or bad – but do not measure how far from center your character’s reputation is, either way. What these Merits describe is your character’s capacity for taking advantage of that good or bad reputation.

It is not somehow more scandalous for a character of Good Breeding to be caught with a hooker, for example. It may be scandalous for a character of good or bad breeding, but a character with the Good Breeding or Bad Breeding Merit knows how to spin his reputation to protect himself from scandal. With these Merits, your character is better able to escape some of the consequences of his actions by hiding behind his breeding.

“What do you expect,” they say about the Gangrel with Bad Breeding, “they eat dogs.” Meanwhile, when the Ventrue with Good Breeding is caught doing the same thing, they say, “Those fops slum it down here just to see what it’s like, I think.

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.

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 all-out 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 points (for a total of four) 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.

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.

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.

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 to 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.

Prerequisite: Covenant Status (Carthians)

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.

Prerequisite: Carthian Pull can never exceed a character’s Covenant Status (Carthians).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 to 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 possseses 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 the 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 reasons 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.

Prerequisite: Covenant Status (Carthians)

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.

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.

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.

Your character is not only proficient with firearms, but has trained extensively to maintain her accuracy in the stress of combat (see “Marksmanship in Combat,” p. 51, for a discussion of these challenges). 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 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 firearm attacks your character makes within close-combat range (see p. 155 of 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.

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.

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 face-to-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)

Prerequisite: one or more tiers of Coils

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.

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.

Prerequisite: Covenant Status (Carthians)

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.

By ritualizing for 10 minutes (including the consumption of raw flesh), the character can curse a target.
Cost: 1 Willpower
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Persuasion vs. target’s Composure + Blood Potency
Action: Instant and Contested
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The curse rebounds upon the character and he suffers its effects.
Failure: Nothing happens.
Success: The target suffers a penalty equal to the character’s dots in Manipulation to a number of dice pools related to a specific activity (a job interview, driving, fighting, etc.) equal to the character’s Persuasion. This curse remains for 24 hours.
Exceptional Success: As success, save the penalty applies to all rolls of the designated type for 24 hours.
Suggested Modifiers
+1 Character possesses a photograph or video of the target performing the activity to be cursed.
+1 Character possesses a tool the target uses for the activity to be cursed.
–4 Target possesses the Luck Magic Merit.

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.

Prerequisite: Covenant Status (Carthians)

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.

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 all-terrain 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.

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 Inferno, p 127). Stats for the Imp Familiar can be found in the sidebar below.

Imp Familiar Traits
Attributes: 5/4/3 (divide among Mental, Physical and Social)
Skills: 9/6/3 (divide among Mental, Physical and Social); the familiar receives a free dot in Brawl, Larceny or Stealth
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 + 5
Virtue: Choose Virtue
Vice: Any. Most familiars share their master’s Vice, but not all. A familiar regains all spent Willpower by fulfilling its Vice once per chapter, just as a mortal does for fulfilling her Virtue.
Morality: Familiars have no Morality score.
Size: 3 or less
Health: Equal to Stamina + Size

Vestments: Choose two Innate Vestments from the imp’s primary Vice category.

Innocuous: Embodied familiars are very good at not being noticed by others. Anyone but its bonded master suffers a –2 penalty on Perception rolls to notice the familiar, unless it does something to draw attention to itself.

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 (and thus he is aware of any damage or physical sensation to his own body). Ending this viewing is a reflexive action and requires no roll.

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.

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); the demon regains 1 point of spent Essence per day spent in its master’s presence. A familiar can also regain spent Essence by witnessing (or causing) acts related to its Vice.
Initiative: Equal to Finesse + Resistance
Defense: Equal to highest of Power and Finesse
Speed: Equal to Power + Finesse + 5
Virtue: Choose Virtue
Vice: Any. Most familiars share their master’s Vice, but not all. A familiar regains all spent Willpower by fulfilling its Vice once per chapter, just as a mortal does for fulfilling her Virtue.
Morality: Familiars have no Morality score.
Size: 5 or less
Corpus: Equal to Resistance + Size

Born of Sin: The Twilight Familiar is a base creature, born of sin and capable of calling that sin out in others. The familiar can manipulate the presence of its Vice, enhancing or manipulating its manifestation in a creature, mortal or otherwise. The target need not have the same Vice as the demon; he must merely be experiencing the emotion. A character whose Vice is Pride can still feel Lust for a beautiful woman, or Envy of a neighbor’s new car, for example. The demon cannot create a Vice where none exists. Enhancing a Vice, making an individual feel the emotion more strongly, requires the expenditure of 1 point of Essence and a contested roll of Power + Finesse versus the target’s Resolve or Composure, whichever is higher. The familiar can produce a moderate shift with a success; mild attraction might become infatuation, or infatuation might become full-blown obsession in the case of Lust, but mild attraction cannot be turned into full-blown obsession directly. An exceptional success, however, allows the demon to fan even the tiniest spark of Vice into an inferno. The changes last for one minute per success. The demon cannot enhance the same Vice in the same target more than once per scene.

Manipulating a Vice, changing its target, requires the expenditure of 2 points of Essence and a contested roll of Power + Finesse versus the target’s Resolve or Composure, whichever is higher. Success allows the demon to slightly alter the target of a character’s emotion. For example, a character feeling Sloth toward his work might have that laziness redirected toward laziness regarding investigating those weird sounds in the basement, or a man proud of his status as a player might instead be made to focus that Pride upon his ass-kicking prowess— which might cause problems if he’s never been in a fight in his life.

Numina: Assign three Numina.

Anchor: The demon’s master is considered to be its anchor to the material world, although there is no limit to how far a familiar can travel from its master. See Anchors on p. 209 of the World of Darkness Rulebook.
When a familiar manifests, use the following modifiers:

Location - Modifier
Profane or blasphemous site (desecrated church, massacre location) - +3
Place associated with the demon’s Vice - +2
Occult location (ley line nexus, pagan temple, etc.) - +1
Within line of sight of a holy symbol (cross, Star of David, statue of Buddha) - –1
Within line of sight of a church synagogue, temple, etc. - –2
Holy ground - –3

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 pur- chased 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 char- acter (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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 vic- tim 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 pres- ents itself, the victim must reflexively spend one Will- power 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.

Prerequisite: Covenant Status (Carthians)

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.

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).

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.

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: To perform this maneuver, the character must spend a Willpower point, which must be spent as soon as she decides to apply twice her Defense to an incoming enemy attack.If the character 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 she makes her initial attack roll. The Willpower does not grant her the additional +3 to attack. If the initial attack roll fails, the Willpower point is wasted and the Moulinet may not be added.

Fencing is one name for the general art of fighting with a lighter sword: one that can be held one-handed, even if it is possible (and preferred, in the case of a katana) to use two. The methods used for each sword may be widely dissimilar, but the important consideration is the mechanical effect – the rationale comes afterward. That’s why World of Darkness: Armory uses the same rules for kendo as Western fencing. The maneuvers may have different names, but behave in the same way across many styles.

Schools: Use the Aggressive Light Sword Fighting Style to represent special training in the Chinese jian (or “tai chi sword”), the saber, cutlass or scimitar, and the shorter medieval arming sword – any Size 2 blade. (Size 3 weapons are the province of the Langschwert/Heavy Sword Fighting Style).
This Fighting Style also applies to any stick that’s three to four feet long. It can be used in conjunction with a cane (for singlestick or French la canne fighting), Trinidadian stick fighting or Irish shillelagh.

Special Drawback: Even though this Fighting Style’s rules apply to many different weapons, the varied methods mean that you are at a disadvantage when applying it to a sword (or long stick) that isn’t used in your particular school of fighting. A fencing master won’t be able to easily use his version of the Fighting Style with a katana. If your character uses a maneuver in conjunction with an unfamiliar weapon, you suffer a –2 penalty to your character’s Weaponry dice pool. This does not apply when your character’s just trying to hit an enemy – just when he’s trying to use a specific maneuver. This makes the Thrust (•) maneuver useless with unfamiliar weapons

Assume that each school can apply this Fighting Style to up to three weapons. For example a kendo player could apply this to the katana, wooden bokken (club) and bamboo shinai, while a classical kenjutsu stylist might be able to use the katana, bokken and wakizashi. To broaden your character’s ability with this Fighting Style, select the Student of the Blade Merit.

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.

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).

This general striking style emphasizes speed, agility and defense. Practitioners block, bob, weave and pick their shots whenever they see their opponent’s defense falter. The core rulebook’s Kung Fu style is a specialized version of this Merit.

It uses the following maneuver progression:

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.

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.

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 at-tack 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.

Destroy Defense (•••••): Your character uses clever combinations, feints, sidesteps and perhaps furtive grabbing (called “sticking” or “trapping” in some martial arts) to progressively destroy your opponent’s ability to defend himself. Whenever he successfully hits an unarmed target with a Brawl attack, he reduces her Defense by 1 against his next attack. This is cumulative across multiple, successive attacks, up to a maximum Defense penalty equal to the lower of the attacker’s Wits or Dexterity. After that, the target recovers her full Defense, and the character must try to impose this penalty once again.
Your character can use Destroy Defense across multiple rounds as long as he does nothing except deliver successful Brawl attacks. If he misses or performs any other action, the running penalty imposed by the Merit automatically “resets” to 0.
The target retains her full Defense against other attackers; she’s only extraordinarily vulnerable to the maneuver user’s Brawl attacks. This maneuver does combine with Combination Blows or Whirlwind Strike. Destroy Defense’s penalty is cumulative with the normal Defense penalty against multiple attacks, if it applies.

Schools: Common Evasive Striking arts include Bruce Lee’s Jun Fan Kung Fu (or “Original Jeet Kune Do”), American or Hawaiian Kenpo, rapid-fire kung fu styles like wing chun and Filipino panantukan boxing. Remember that specific styles may have specialized maneuvers (see p. 106 ).

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.

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 hell-familiar. 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.)

+1 Initiative per dot

Your character’s mix of sharp reflexes and steady nerves helps him get the drop on adversaries.

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.

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, the 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 practitioners know how to move and flow with the combat in 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.

Filipino martial arts include more than stick fighting, but the methods listed under its Fighting Style in World of Darkness: Armory are a suitable core template for any sophisticated school of the club. Note that this core styles relies on using the properties of a stick to defend, disarm and bind opponents. To simply strike with it is a variant of the core Light Sword Fighting Styles. Experienced Filipino martial arts practitioners will often know that style as well, if not additional styles reflecting the diverse possibilities in their system, making a true escrima, kali or arnis school a compound Fighting Style (see p. 95).

The Filipino method integrates weapons and empty-handed training, but the core style does not. For this reason, it is strongly suggested that for consistency’s sake you remove this benefit from the Fighting Style and use the new Merit: Weapons to Empty Hands instead. If existing characters already use this benefit, give them the Merit for free.

Schools: Sticks and clubs are universal weapons, so there are many schools devoted to mastering them, but not all of them have this style’s particular orientation. Police learn the style’s maneuvers to employ the PR–24 side handle baton in the field. Various Chinese and Japanese schools teach cudgel-based disarms and grappling as well.

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.

+1 Speed per dot

Regardless of your character’s physical build, he can run quickly when he chooses to.

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).

This Striking sub-style concentrates on offense and raw toughness. Practitioners develop the conditioning to absorb blows and the specific strength needed to dish out serious damage. The core rulebook’s Boxing style is a specialized version of this Merit.

It uses the following maneuver progression:

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.

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.

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.

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.

Schools: Common Aggressive Striking Arts include “hard” karate styles such as Shotokan and Uechi-ryu, Hung Gar kung fu and old school bareknuckle boxing. Remember that specific styles may have specialized maneuvers (see p. 106 ).

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

A Note on the Breeding Merits

This is important: The Good Breeding and Bad Breeding Merits do not describe any actual quality of your character’s blood. They do not represent any predisposition to a particular behavior in the way that the Inherited Skill Merit does. They do not measure how well bred or how trashy your character is thought to be, to any degree. These Merits reflect a binary state – good or bad – but do not measure how far from center your character’s reputation is, either way. What these Merits describe is your character’s capacity for taking advantage of that good or bad reputation.

It is not somehow more scandalous for a character of Good Breeding to be caught with a hooker, for example. It may be scandalous for a character of good or bad breeding, but a character with the Good Breeding or Bad Breeding Merit knows how to spin his reputation to protect himself from scandal. With these Merits, your character is better able to escape some of the consequences of his actions by hiding behind his breeding.

“What do you expect,” they say about the Gangrel with Bad Breeding, “they eat dogs.” Meanwhile, when the Ventrue with Good Breeding is caught doing the same thing, they say, “Those fops slum it down here just to see what it’s like, I think.

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.

Your character has trained to grapple using old school, no holds barred catch wrestling (Olympic style wrestlers learn the first two maneuvers), Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or Russian sombo. 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 grapple. 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, he can immediately render the opponent prone (see The World of Darkness, p. 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 from her and 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 it’s 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.

Schools: As the core description mentions, the most common versions of this style are used by Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu stylists and mixed martial artists. Olympic style wrestlers don’t learn the listed higher dots, but might have specialized maneuvers to replace them. Some pro-wrestling schools teach real catch as catch can wrestling along with ring showmanship. In the wrestling world, “legit” grapplers enjoy a certain amount of prestige – and bring the real pain to anyone to tries to mess with them.

Remember that specific styles may have specialized maneuvers (see p. 106).

Prerequisites: Combination Blows Fighting Style Maneuver (Boxing or Aggressive Striking •••), Takedown/Throw Fighting Style Maneuver (Grappling ••)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Your character is seven or more feet tall and over 250 pounds. He is +1 Size (and thus +1 Health).

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.

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.

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).

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.

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 long-forgotten 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.

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.

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).

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 result is 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 [[healing times]].

Roll Results 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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

Prerequisite: Vampire or ghoul

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 level of 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.

Many vampires have the ability to control minds through supernatural means; however, those who do not still have the urge to control. Some, especially members of the Shadow Cults, learn how to create trance states in people. If Nitokris’ cultists lie so still while she eviscerates them, it’s partly because of the brainwashing, but partly because of the hypnosis.

A character with this Merit can hypnotize others using the Occult or Medicine Skills. The character must choose which of the two Skills the Merit is tied to, and writes 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 which 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; it can be bought by any character.

Hypnotizing a Subject
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Occult or Medicine + equipment (hypnotist) — subject’s Resolve + Blood Potency (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.

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 post-hypnotic 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).

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Judo is an Olympic sport. People all over the world study this martial art. The quintessence of modern gendai budo, it retains a strong sense of tradition while adopting cutting edge training methods.

Dots purchased in this Merit provide access to special combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next. Judo maneuvers are based on the Brawl Skill and work in conjunction with unarmed combat and athletics.

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.

Nage-waza (“Throwing Techniques;” ••): Your character may use a grappling overpower to render an opponent prone without falling prone herself – but if she chooses to fall prone, she may simultaneously damage her opponent while rendering her prone. Furthermore, she excels at gripping clothing. If the opponent wears anything heavier than a t-shirt on his upper body she gains a +1 equipment bonus to perform each of the above maneuvers. If the opponent wears a gi (a karate or judo-style uniform), this increases to +2.

Sutemi-waza (“Sacrifice Techniques;” •••): Your character uses her own bodyweight to drive her opponent to the ground, falling prone along with him. If she uses an all-out attack (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p.157) you may add her Athletics skill to a roll instead of the usual +2 to render her opponent prone while using the nage-waza option that allows her to simultaneously damage an opponent and render her prone, while falling prone herself.

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.

Tokui-waza (“Favorite Technique;” •••••): Through constant practice and competition, your character had made one throw into a specialty. It’s not easy to apply it every time, but when the opportunity appears, few people can resist her technique. If her opponent scores zero successes to establish a hold, escape one or use an overpowering maneuver and the character secures a hold herself, she creates an opening for the technique.

If you score even one success on one of the nage-waza based overpowering actions (render an opponent prone while standing, or render both combatants prone while inflicting damage), add the character’s Athletics Skill as extra successes.

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.

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 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 counter-attack 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.

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 at-tack 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.

Prerequisite: Covenant Status (Carthians)

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.

Your character is skilled in the German two-handed 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.

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 roll, contested with a reflexive Intelligence + Academics roll by anyone who is suspicious.

The Kindred who believe that eating a mortal’s liver can substitute for a period of normal feeding have it wrong. Devouring a human liver, still hot and dripping from the victim’s body, merely enables a vampire to subsist on less potent forms of blood. A vampire whose Blood Potency restricts her to human blood can subsist on animal blood once more; Kindred who must drink the Vitae of their fellow vampires can go back to merely mortal blood — for a while.

Liver-eating carries a number of restrictions. First and foremost, the vampire needs a living, human victim to kill. Aside from loss of Humanity, the character faces the practical difficulties of committing a murder, hiding the body and making sure the police can never tie the crime back to her.

Once the vampire rips the liver from her prey, she has to eat it and hold it down. To consume anything except blood, a character must expend one Vitae to keep from immediately vomiting what she swallowed (as described on p. 157 of Vampire: The Requiem). It isn’t enough to hold the raw meat down for a scene before eliminating it, however. To gain the benefits of liver-eating, a vampire must also expend a Willpower point to keep the meat in her stomach until she sleeps. When she rises the next night, the liver is burned away by her Vitae and she can feed on weaker blood for a number of nights equal to 10 + twice her Stamina.

Liver-eating takes practice or training from someone who already knows the art. It therefore constitutes a three-dot Merit. As a character tries to develop the art, however, the Storyteller may ask the player to roll Stamina + Resolve each time the character attempts to eat a liver; failure means the character vomits up her cannibal feast (possibly just as she slipped into her daily sleep) and gains no benefits for the attempt. After the character succeeds three times (or so), the Storyteller can grant that the character has mastered liver-eating and no further rolls are needed.

“THE CRONES WHO RUN THAT PLACE PAY GOOD MONEY FOR LIVERS. NEVERMIND WHAT THEY ’RE FOR.”

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.

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.

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.

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 can- not 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 num- ber 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.

By spending 10 minutes ritualizing, the character can grant himself excellent luck at a specific activity. With a 30-minute ritual, he can grant that luck to another or grant himself superlative luck.
Cost: 1 Willpower
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Occult
Action: Instant
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The character loses the benefit of the 10-Again rule for the specified action.
Failure: Nothing happens.
Success: When using the 10-minute ritual, the character gains the 9-Again rule for a number of rolls of a specific type (driving rolls, firearms rolls, etc.) chosen at the moment of casting equal to his Manipulation. Alternatively, he can spend 30 minutes ritualizing and grant himself 8-Again or another character 9-Again for 3 rolls of a specific type. These “lucky” rolls must be used within 24 hours.
Exceptional Success: As success, save the affected dice pools also gain a bonus die.
Suggested Modifiers
+1 Character possesses a piece of hair or clothing or a sample of blood from someone who excels at the type of action designated.
+1 Character possesses a picture or video of the target performing the chosen activity particularly well.

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 rolls 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]].

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Similar to Covenant Status, Mithraic Status indicates rank within the Mysteries of Mithras. In the narrowest sense, each dot conveys only rank within the Mithraic cult, and if the Mysteries are weak (or very carefully hidden) in a given chronicle, that may be all. Within the cult, members of lower grade are expected to respect those of higher degree; as with other types of Status, Mithraic Status adds to dice pools for interactions with fellow Mithraic initiates. Unlike other Status types, however, Mithraic Status (based as it is on a supernatural bargain) does add to the dice pools predicated on supernatural powers. The Heliodromus of a Mithraic sect would add his Mithraic Status to the dice pool for use of his Dominate Discipline, for example, but only against fellow Mithraists.

• Corax (“Raven”)
•• Nymphus (“Bridegroom”)
••• Miles (“Soldier”)
•••• Leo (“Lion”)
••••• Perses (“Persian”)
•••••• Heliodromus (“Courier of the Sun”)
••••••• Pater (“Father”)

Mithraic Status has nothing to do with any other sort of vampiric Status — a Perses Adept may be nothing but a low-caste nonentity in the sight of the city’s Prince, or in the gossip of his clan. Since Mithraic initiation is a secret, a character can have more than three dots in Covenant Status along with his Mithraic Status. Of course, that is a dangerous double game to play, especially if the covenant involved is the Lancea Sanctum.

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.

Your character is trained in the art of boxing, able to deliver swift, powerful kicks and punchs, 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 school 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Prerequisite: Covenant Status (Carthians), Membership in a Night Doctor clique (see p. 33)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

While many ghouls are little more than unquestioning slaves, your character enjoys the benefit of a special relationship with her regnant, which goes be-yond 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.

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 character) — +1
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 two-dot 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 1-dot 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.)

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 fi guring out practical (not historical) uses for a mystical object (see p. 132 of Chapter 4 for a sample scenario).

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 re-enchanted.
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 andboard 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.

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.

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.

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.

Roll Results 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.”

Failure: Your character wracks his brain but comes up empty.

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.

Your character is exceptionally grounded and pragmatic, and can usually be depended upon to make sound, straightforward decisions after a few moments’ thought.

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.

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.

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 Sense 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. Sense Sympathy doesn’t confer any Discipline bonuses when targeting your character’s regnant.

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 weak-willed 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.

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.

Limitations: 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.

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.

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.

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: Shuriken-jutsu 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.

Your character has the ability to draw forth the sins of other individuals, restoring lost dots of Morality (or the equivalent trait for supernatural characters). The customary technique for doing this is to place a small piece of bread on the chest of the person whose sin you wish to eat, offering a momentary prayer, and then eating the bread, which has absorbed the subject’s guilt. Others rituals, subject to Storyteller approval, may work equally well.

To consume an individual’s sin, spend a Willpower point and make an instant contested roll pitting the Sin-Eater’s Resolve + Occult against the subject’s Resolve + Composure. The Willpower point only makes the roll possible, it doesn’t grant any bonuses to the dice pool. Each attempt requires a complete performance of the sin-eating ritual, which never takes less than thirty minutes.

Success allows the subject to attempt a new degeneration roll for a past sin. The subject makes this new degeneration roll as if his Morality was one higher; if this roll succeeds, the subject gains a point of Morality. Morality may never be raised higher than 6 through sin-eating and derangements are not automatically cured through sin-eating, but with the associated Morality dot returned, recovery becomes possible. At the Storyteller’s discretion, the subject may transcend his derangement if he goes a number of days equal to 10 – his Morality without sinning against his own Morality. Never erase a derangement overcome through sin-eating (see p. 93 of the World of Darkness Rulebook) — only real changes in behavior warrant that.

If the Sin-Eater achieves an exceptional success, both he and the subject enjoy a +2 bonus to their degeneration rolls for the ceremony.

If the Sin-Eater consumes a sin whose motive was driven by his own Vice, he regains a lost Willpower point exactly as if he had indulged the Vice himself. Likewise, if the sin was committed in the name of his Virtue (such as a vigilante killing for Justice or stealing from the wealthy to help the poor for Charity), he regains all of his spent Willpower as though he had acted on that Virtue.

Drawback: When you consume an individual’s sin, you are immediately subject to a degeneration check exactly as though you had committed the sin yourself. If you fail this degeneration check, you must check for a derangement as usual.

Example: Brother Roland, who is not actually a man of the cloth, is a practicing sin-eater at the local retirement home. He’s performing a ritual to consume the sin of a war vet with Morality 3. Roland spends a Willpower point and rolls Resolve + Occult versus the vet’s Resolve + Composure. Roland succeeds, and consumes the vet’s sin. The vet makes a new degeneration roll based on Morality 4 — the moral height from which he last fell — and so rolls three dice. He succeeds.
Roland, meanwhile, must deal with the sin he ate; because it falls beneath Roland’s own Morality of 5, he makes his own degeneration roll based on the same sin and fails. Therefore, Roland’s Morality drops and he must make a derangement check. Over time, Roland’s time with other people’s evils slowly erodes his own mind.

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 one-of-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 Re-solve 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.

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.

Prerequisite: NOT Fame 2+ (==__== #)

Your character is one of those people who just belongs. He can walk into a party not caring 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 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 Storteller'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.

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 unflappable calm reassures animals). The Storyteller has the final word on the chosen Prodigy and its prerequisite.

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 it 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, p. 157), he adds a number of dice equal to his lower of his Strength or Weaponry skill instead of the standard 2 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 it requires an additional Strength + Weaponry roll, but automatically inflicts a point of lethal damage.

Schools: Numerous Chinese, African and European styles teach spear fighting, and fixed-bayonet training is taught to soldiers forces around the world. A skilled fighter can transfer expertise from one to the other. To make the best use of a spear’s length, a practitioner should also learn Fighting Style: Staff Fighting.
Aside from the spear, this Fighting Style applies to glaives, halberds and poleaxes. Specific styles may have specialized maneuvers (see p. 106) to represent everything from Chinese arts that bounce the spear off the ground to the formation fighting skills of ancient phalanxes or Swiss pikemen.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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: To perform this maneuver, the character must spend a Willpower point before she makes her initial attack roll. 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.

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 andboard 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.

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 “much-deserved 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).

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 perception-related 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 se- lect 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Prerequisite: Covenant Status (Carthians)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Prerequisite: Covenant Status (Carthians)

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.

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.

Shields: The Short Version
A character utilizing a shield for protection gains a bonus to her Defense equal to the shield’s Defense rating but at the cost of 2 dice from attack rolls made while holding the shield (characters with the Ambidexterity Merit suffer only a –2 penalty). A character who concentrates on Defense (and hence doesn’t take an attack that turn) may gain an additional +1 to her Defense. Most shields have a Defense rating of 2, though improvised shields only grant a rating of 1.

More detailed rules for shield use can be found on page 178 of Armory.

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.

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.

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.

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, 20th-Century 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.

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).

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 meta-language, 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 can- not 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.

In regard to dealing with demons, this Merit allows the character to speak and understand the language of demons, allowing her to summon and negotiate with them without using the usual rituals (found in the previous chapter). Demons aren’t necessarily impressed by this knowledge—some, in fact, consider it an affront. Likewise, this Merit does not allow the character to command demons; it simply removes many of the obstacles to talking to them. The game mechanics for using Dragon’s Tongue to call and interact with demons are explained on p. 83.

Dragon’s Tongue can be acquired at any point in a character’s life. Some characters (seventh son of a seventh son) have it from birth, others gain this dubious blessing later, perhaps as the result of a curse or a failed summoning ritual. Dragon’s Tongue can be purchased as part of a demonic pact, though the demon granting it generally works in a clause that prohibits the character from using the knowledge to control or take advantage of that particular demon.

Unlike the other Merits in this section, any character can purchase this Merit. In addition, characters with supernatural templates can purchase the Dragon’s Tongue Merit.

Turan placed the three curses on the ancient vampire houses to teach the believers, not to punish them. The three curses show the way to better serve the blood gods and in turn, better the Requiems of all vampires. The rigorous teachings known as the Enlightened Code of the Lawgiver are thought to have been developed by a member of the Ordo Dracul in 19th-century Delaware. Obsessed with the vampiric traditions and shot through with Kindred chauvinism, the Enlightened Code is the most “scientific” of the moral teachings set forth by those who revere the Lasa. The Enlightened Code is also notorious for driving its more weak-willed adherents into intractable depths of madness.

Based on strict adherence to ‘vampire law,’ the Code revolves around the immutability of the vampiric Traditions. Even the Ordo Dracul has not openly defied that core set of beliefs, for they are more ingrained in vampiric nature than the fear of daylight. If vampires could cleave wholeheartedly to the Traditions and to one another, their Requiems would no longer be plagued with trite psychological tribulations. The blood gods do not want us to suffer; they want us to unlock the mysteries of life and death and they have shown us how we must “live.” Known as “Abiders,” those who follow the Enlightened Code of the Lawgiver study with religious devotion the nature of death and the strange state of torpor. Hoping to scour themselves of mortal qualities, Abiders do not fear Final Death even though they know nothing but oblivion awaits them. By becoming “pure” vampires, they set an example for all Kindred to seek knowledge of the Lasa and themselves.

Pledging (•): If an Abider’s action or inaction while protecting or enforcing the Traditions causes him to make a degeneration check, he receives +1 die on the roll. Enabling another vampire to violate the Traditions in a scene — or violating them himself — costs an Abider one Willpower point.

Testifying (••): An Abider may use his dots in this Merit in place of her Humanity to determine the length of voluntary torpor. In the event of involuntary torpor, consider the Abider’s Humanity rating to be two dots higher, to a maximum of eight dots, when determining the length of her death-sleep.

Affirming (•••): An Abider gains +2 dice on rolls to resist fear frenzy. If an Abider attempts to “ride the wave” in a scene, he loses one Willpower point.

Binding (••••): An Abider may spend a Willpower point to gain one automatic success on one roll to resist fear frenzy. If an Abider succumbs to fear frenzy in a scene, she loses one Willpower point.