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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A woman’s menstruation has in some primal societies or traditions been tied to the lunar cycles, to the tides, to magic as a sacrifice of blood. It represents a woman at the height of her power: she is fertile and capable of the creation of life, symbolized by the seemingly supernatural ability to bleed without being weakened or dying. It’s also a grave taboo in many cultures, particularly those that are male-dominated. The blood is seen as threatening. It is indicated as shameful, arguably because men seek to repress (or simply not admit to) a woman’s power. It is blood that an infant does not feed upon; it is blood that leaves the body and does not create life. For some, that is frightening.
Some Savages still bleed like this regardless of (or more appropriately, in spite of) their unliving state. The blood that flows is black, thick, a musky elixir. It does not come once a month as it does with humans, but instead flows whenever the vampire wills it: by expending a point of Vitae, she may expunge this undead menses from her body.
The blood expelled in such a way has a few different functions: if used in the blood magic of Crùac, it grants the Savage a +1 bonus to the roll to empower the ritual. If fed to a mortal being, it acts as a mild hallucinogen (-1 to all relevant dice pools) in addition to providing the other effects intrinsic to Vitae. Finally, the blood itself acts as a potent marker for other Savages or those with Auspex. Marking an area with the blood gives off a heady aroma long after the blood dries or is washed away (for a number of weeks equal to the marking vampire’s Resolve score). If a Gangrel vampire or a vampire possessing any dots in Auspex comes across that mark during this time, the vampire’s player may roll Wits + Survival to sense the mark and its nature. Some Gangrel use their undead menses to write messages in this way (symbols or short words) to their brethren.
Drawback: The vampire can only access this undead menses once per day for “free.” Gaining the blood (i.e. more than a single point of Vitae expelled) more than once per day is possible, but the vampire feels her insides twist up and cinch, as if something has been damaged. And it has; she takes one point of aggravated damage per point of Vitae menses expelled beyond the first.