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.
While the Occult ability provides information about both the mundane occult world and very basic supernatural matters, there are some secrets so tightly held that those outside of the involved groups have very little chance of ever stumbling across the information. A human high priestess may know about the beliefs and practices of 13th century Celtic Druids, or even about what herbs are used for cleansing an area of a poltergeist, but no amount of Occult ability will tell her about the in-clan Discipline spread of the Daeva vampire, or the history of the Ordo Dracul. That sort of specialized information is simply not the purview of even the most skilled mundane researcher. The information exists, however, and despite the first Tradition, it will eventually fall into the hands of those who seek it.
The Supernatural Lore Merit represents the sorts of in-depth, obscure or protected information that goes above and beyond what can be obtained through the Occult Ability. Perhaps the character had the fortune (or misfortune) to interview a vampire directly. Perhaps they inherited a book of lore once possessed by their grandfather who hunted werewolves in the 1800s. Perhaps they are a member of another supernatural group and have developed a connection of exchanged information for mutual protection. Regardless of the exact form it takes, the Supernatural Lore Merit represents in-depth information about one particular Supernatural field. Higher dot levels represent more specific or off-limits information.
Players must choose a specific focus for their Supernatural Lore when purchasing it. No more than one type of Supernatural Lore may apply to any particular challenge. A player may purchase multiple instances of Supernatural Lore with different specific focuses. For example, she may have Supernatural Lore (Werewolves) •, Supernatural Lore (Bloodlines) ••, and Supernatural Lore (Fetches) ••. Ultimately the decision about what specific focuses are permissible for a given player to purchase is yours.
Supernaturals do not need Supernatural Lore to learn basic information about their own creature type. Certain truths just resonate, and it doesn’t take Occult or Supernatural Lore to fi gure out, as a vampire, that you have to drink blood or that you want to avoid sunlight and fl ames. Nor is it necessary for a player to have Supernatural Lore to justify knowing information he has encountered directly in game. However, if he’s trying to learn about a certain Bloodline’s weakness, Supernatural Lore: Vampires (general knowledge about all bloodsucking creatures), Kindred (specifi cally covering Kindred vampires), Clans (in general, or specializing in a certain Clan) or Bloodlines (in general or focusing on a certain Bloodline) may be necessary to uncover this well-hidden information.
You as a Storyteller, have final say over what information a certain Lore can cover, and which Lore specialties apply to a given situation.
This Merit can be used in two ways: Remembering or Researching.
The Remembering mechanic is used when a character wants to dredge his memory for a pertinent fact that relates to the situation at hand (essentially like Encyclopedic Knowledge, but for secret supernatural information.) The player rolls Intelligence + the appropriate Supernatural Lore Merit to determine if they are able to remember a pertinent fact based on their current situation. With a single success, the information remembered may be quite trivial. Additional successes indicate the information is more pertinent or useful. A failure indicates no pertinent supernatural information is garnered, and a dramatic failure results in false (and potentially dangerous) information being brought to mind.
Researching can be done aided by the Supernatural Lore Merit as well. In any situation where a character is doing an extended Research challenge about a supernatural topic in which he has Supernatural Lore, he may add the levels of his Merit to each dice roll he makes for the purposes of gathering information on the topic.