Merits are special capabilities or knacks that add individuality to your character. They’re purchased during character creation or with experience points over the course of your chronicle.
The Merits in this chapter are organized alphabetically into three broad categories: Physical, Mental and Social. Some apply to your character’s basic traits to enhance them in particular situations. Some have prerequisites that must be met before they can be purchased. For example, a character with the Gunslinger Merit must have a Dexterity of 3 and Firearms of 3 or higher to be able to accurately fire two weapons at the same time. By the same token, some Merits apply drawbacks that balance out their inherent advantages. A character with the Fame Merit, for example, is treated like a star wherever he goes — but has a hard time blending into the crowd when he wants to.
Each Merit has a number of dots (•) associated with it. These dots represent the number of points that must be spent to purchase the Merit. Some Merits allow for a range of dots (say, • to •••). These allow you to purchase a low rating if it’s appropriate to your character concept, or you can start with a low level and increase it over time with experience points.
A character is born with some Merits or develops them early in life, while others can be acquired through trail and error, training and effort later in life.
The first kind can be acquired at character creation only and are labeled as such. The second kind can be acquired during play with experience points.
Merit dots must be purchased sequentially with experience points. You have to buy • and then •• before your character can have ••• or more.
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.
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: 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.
Prerequisite:Daeva
Passion shackles more than the Damned. Many mortals behave just as the Daeva do, without any supernatural calling in their blood.
Once per game session, the Daeva may watch someone else act out the vampire's Vice, and regain 1 Willpower. The rules which govern the mortal regaining Willpower from their own indulgence apply to the vampire as well: the Vice must be indulged fully, and at some risk to the character. Simply watching two mortals have sex won't give a vampire any Wilpower back. On the other hand, watching a man have sex with his sister-in-law while his brother is downstairs cleaning the gun certainly qualifies.
The Vice of the mortal does not matter. The Daeva must watch the act more or less to completion. She doesn't have to watch an accountant fudge every row of a ledger, but she needs to be there when he perpetrates his initial fraud, or when he finally comes to claim his ill-gotten gains. She can be a participant in the act; in fact, at •••, the Daeva must actively corupt or tempt the mortal in order to receive Willpower. At •••••, the vampire need merely observe the act from beginning to end. However, it must be the mortal himself who is moved to temptation, and the mortal himself who is at risk. The vampire regains no Willpower if she has received Willpower from another source during the same scene.