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.
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.
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).
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.