Backgrounds

Backgrounds

Backgrounds describe advantages of relationship, circumstance, and opportunity: material possessions, social networks, and the like. Backgrounds are external, not internal, Traits, and the player should always rationalize how the character came to possess them, as well as what they represent. Who are your Contacts? Why do your Allies support you? Where did you meet your Retainers? What investments do you possess that yield your four dots in Resources? You don’t have to do all of that at first – but be ready with an answer when the Storyteller asks during play, or be ready to suggest an answer that ties into the ongoing storyline.

Backgrounds are discrete, not progressive, Traits. The same Background can be acquired multiple times.

Allies

Allies
Allies are mortals who support and help you: family, friends, or even a mortal organization that owes you some loyalty. Although Allies usually aid you willingly, without coaxing or coercion, they are not always available to offer assistance; they have their own concerns and can do only so much for the sake of your relationship. Usually, Allies appear about once per story. Allies can be almost anyone in your home city, depending on what your Storyteller will allow. You may have friends in the precinct morgue, at a tabloid newspaper or gossip blog, among high society, or at the railroad yard. Allies are generally trustworthy (though they probably don’t know that you’re a vampire, or even that vampires exist). However, nothing comes for free. If you wind up drawing favors from your friend in the Russian Mafia, he’ll probably ask you to do him a favor in kind in the future. Enemies are the opposite of Allies and are taken as Flaws. You can use the Mortal Template rules to create Allies or Enemies when you buy them or first call on them, and you can write them down on the Relationship Map, though many groups leave this process up to the Storyteller. Build Allies or Enemies from a budget of points based on their Effectiveness and on their Reliability. The maximum points in one Ally is six. Ally or Enemy groups appear in numbers equal to the number of player characters. All Enemies are rated two fewer dots than their Effectiveness; a Gifted mortal Ally costs three dots as an Ally, but only provides one dot as a Flaw. Enemies all have the same Reliability: whenever the Storyteller thinks they should show up, but probably at least once per story. Effectiveness {{#fornumargs: number	value	{{#loop: varname	1	{{#var: value }}	• }} }} Weak mortal, likely useless in a violent or potentially violent situation. {{#fornumargs: number	value	{{#loop: varname	1	{{#var: value }}	• }} }} Average mortal or a tightknit group of Weak mortals (neighborhood kids who solve mysteries, church group, NGO chapter) {{#fornumargs: number	value	{{#loop: varname	1	{{#var: value }}	• }} }} Gifted mortal or a dangerous group of Average mortals (a street gang, a celebrity entourage, a blue-collar union local) {{#fornumargs: number	value	{{#loop: varname	1	{{#var: value }}	• }} }} Deadly mortal, a Gifted mortal with magic or other supernatural powers, or a well-armed group of Gifted mortals (a private security squad , a lawyer contingent, a Russian Mafia bratva) Reliability {{#fornumargs: number	value	{{#loop: varname	1	{{#var: value }}	• }} }} When you call on them, they appear half the time. {{#fornumargs: number	value	{{#loop: varname	1	{{#var: value }}	• }} }} When you call on them, they appear within 1-10 hours (roll a die). {{#fornumargs: number	value	{{#loop: varname	1	{{#var: value }}	• }} }} When you call on them, they appear as soon as possible. Mortal Templates Use these templates to build Storyteller-played characters when even Quick Character Generation takes too much time. If desired, use Advantage points to buy more Skills. weak mortal ■ Attributes: Two at 2, the rest at 1 ■ Skills: Three at 2, five at 1 ■ Advantages: None average mortal ■ Attributes: Two at 3, three at 2, the rest at 1 ■ Skills: Three at 3, four at 2, five at 1 ■ Advantages: up to 3 points (2 points maximum Flaws) gifted mortal ■ Attributes: One at 4, two at 3, two at 2, the rest at 1 ■ Skills: Two at 4 (one with a Specialty), four at 3, four at 2, four at 1 ■ Advantages: up to 10 points (4 points maximum Flaws) deadly mortal ■ Attributes: Two at 5, two at 4, two at 3, the rest at 2 ■ Skills: One at 5, three at 4, five at 3, six at 2; three Specialties ■ Advantages: up to 15 points (no Flaws)

Contacts

Contacts
You know people – human people – from many different walks of life. Contacts primarily provide you with information in their areas of expertise, and they may want to exchange favors of various kinds. For different kinds of help, use your Influence (p. 187) in the mortal world, or call on your Allies (p. 184) or Mawla (p. 192). A Contact is someone in an excellent position to get information. They might be a police dispatcher, rather than a homicide lieutenant, or a congressional staffer, rather than a senator. Information brokers, gossip columnists, underworld fixers, and reporters make excellent Contacts. You can define your Contacts when you buy this Background or as you need to introduce them in play. Whenever you create them, make sure to add them to the Relationship Map. {{#fornumargs: number	value	{{#loop: varname	1	{{#var: value }}	• }} }} One Contact who can do or get something cheap or common for you (Resources 1). Examples: a weed dealer, a car salesman. {{#fornumargs: number	value	{{#loop: varname	1	{{#var: value }}	• }} }} One Contact who can do or get something useful for you (Resources 2). Examples: small-time gun dealer, veterinarian. {{#fornumargs: number	value	{{#loop: varname	1	{{#var: value }}	• }} }} One Contact who can do or get something expensive or hard for you (Resources 4). Examples: security systems expert; police lieutenant in homicide, narcotics, or other useful field.

Fame

Fame
You know people – human people – from many different walks of life. Contacts primarily provide you with information in their areas of expertise, and they may want to exchange favors of various kinds. For different kinds of help, use your Influence (p. 187) in the mortal world, or call on your Allies (p. 184) or Mawla (p. 192). A Contact is someone in an excellent position to get information. They might be a police dispatcher, rather than a homicide lieutenant, or a congressional staffer, rather than a senator. Information brokers, gossip columnists, underworld fixers, and reporters make excellent Contacts. You can define your Contacts when you buy this Background or as you need to introduce them in play. Whenever you create them, make sure to add them to the Relationship Map. {{#fornumargs: number	value	{{#loop: varname	1	{{#var: value }}	• }} }} One Contact who can do or get something cheap or common for you (Resources 1). Examples: a weed dealer, a car salesman. {{#fornumargs: number	value	{{#loop: varname	1	{{#var: value }}	• }} }} One Contact who can do or get something useful for you (Resources 2). Examples: small-time gun dealer, veterinarian. {{#fornumargs: number	value	{{#loop: varname	1	{{#var: value }}	• }} }} One Contact who can do or get something expensive or hard for you (Resources 4). Examples: security systems expert; police lieutenant in homicide, narcotics, or other useful field. Flaw : Infamy You are famous for something horrible. At the very least, the Difficulty of most reaction tests increases by the amount of the Flaw; at worst, the authorities attempt to kill or capture you whenever you appear. Flaw : Dark Secret You can also take Dark Secret, a milder version of Infamy. The Dark Secret Flaw provides one fewer point than the equivalent Infamy, as your black deeds remain unknown to all but you and perhaps one or two very motivated enemies. The one-dot version of Infamy also provides one point as a Dark Secret, because it’s easier to uncover than a truly life-threatening secret. â–  Flaw: (••) You are a Cleaver or serial breacher of the Masquerade, have been Blood Hunted out of another city, or have grievously offended this domain’s ruler. â–  Flaw: (•) You owe a big debt to bad people or have made yourself generally odious. Alternately, your spouse, lover, or close family member has Infamy ••. Advantage • A select subculture knows who you are and admires you. •• You are a local celebrity, recognized by a plurality of the city. ••• Most people in the country know your name, at least. •••• Everybody who even vaguely cares about social trends or your field knows something about you. ••••• Your Fame reaches mass national or even global audiences. You are a major movie star, stadium-filling rock act, or former president

Influence

Influence

You have pull in the mortal community, whether through wealth, prestige, political office, blackmail, or supernatural manipulation. Kindred with high Influence can sway, and in rare cases even control, the politics and society of their city, especially the police and city bureaucracy. By default, Influence applies most within one group or region of your city. Groups can be large, even diffuse: organized crime, media, religion, the police, city government, etc. Regions should be larger than neighborhoods or all but the largest individual domains: Brooklyn, the Rive Gauche, the South Side, the Ginza, etc. Your Influence applies to the city as a whole at one dot less than it does within your group or region. Using local Influence in another city in the same area, state, or province might be possible at an additional one-dot penalty, and so on. So, a vampire might be Powerful (••••) in Hollywood, Entrenched (•••) everywhere in Los Angeles, merely Influential (••) in San Diego or San Francisco, and just Well-Connected (•) in Chicago or New York. The Storyteller may require you to use Influence in place of a Trait in some dice pools, particularly Social tests attempting to sway minor bureaucrats or the equivalent in your group. This Background helps you have an “abandoned” building demolished (or preserved), not start global wars. If the Storyteller wants to run a game of globe-spanning masterminds, they may recalibrate Influence to potentially apply nationally (••••) or even globally (•••••) ■ Flaw: (••) Despised. One group or region of the city lives only to thwart you and your faction. Subtract two dice from dice pools attempting to convince a neutral actor to support you politically or do you a favor. The Storyteller should take any opportunity to involve your haters in the story. ■ Flaw: (•) Disliked. Subtract one die from Social test dice pools involving any group in the city except your Contacts and Allies or other explicitly loyal supporters. Advantage • Well-connected: You’re guaranteed a respectful hearing. •• Influential: People want to do you favors. ••• Entrenched: Mortal power-brokers and factions hesitate to oppose you. •••• Powerful: Without a good reason to do otherwise, functionaries and foot soldiers obey. ••••• Dominant: Lesser figures try to figure out what you want and do it first.

Haven

Haven

Like all Backgrounds, the Haven Background is entirely optional. A vampire with no dots in Haven has a suicide’s grave, a room in an abandoned motel, a rented office, or an apartment with windows blacked out with plastic bags. They can still remain safe and hidden by day in this relatively small and insecure haven by default. The Storyteller may allow a player character to default a somewhat better haven from another Background such as Resources, Status, or Influence. Of course, if those Backgrounds go away, so does the character’s nice haven. A character with none of those other Backgrounds, however, can still have a perfectly reasonable haven as long as they have this Background. For instance, a character might not have enough money to afford a 20- room Victorian mansion in today’s economy, but if their great-grandmother left them one that had been fully paid for, there’s no reason they can’t remain in residence as it slowly dilapidates. Base ratings in Haven abstract the haven’s size, security, and privacy. All of those factors affect the chance of spotting, penetrating, and surveilling the vampire’s actual resting place. Add +1 to the Difficulty of, or one die to dice pools resisting, such efforts for each dot of base Haven rating. Kindred know their havens intimately. For each dot of base Haven rating, add one per dot to dice pools to notice danger (including awakening rolls, p. 219) while in your haven. Base Haven ■ Flaw: (•) No Haven. You must go to some effort (at least a basic test) to find a new resting place every morning. Advantage • Small haven, but more secure and private than the default. Examples: basement apartment, crypt, locked storeroom in a warehouse. •• Good size, security, or privacy. Examples: a single family home or row house, wolf enclosure at the zoo, branch sewer tunnel. ••• Very large, secure, or private. Examples: a compound outside town, a bank building, a decommissioned subway station. Haven Merits and Flaws You can add Merits and Flaws to your Haven if you wish. They stack with the base Haven rating to produce the total dots in this Background for projects and other uses. Remember, you can make Haven a shared Background among your coterie – easily the best way to afford a Haven with lots of features. ■ Flaw: (••) Compromised. Your haven has been raided once before, perhaps before it was yours. It probably appears on someone’s watchlist. Invaders or spies can add two dice to their pool to penetrate or surveil your haven. If you ever do get on the Inquisition’s radar, you should think about moving out. ■ Flaw: (•) Creepy. Your haven looks like the den of a serial killer, which in fairness is probably exactly what it is. Unknowing neighbors might phone in a tip to the cops or just talk about the creepy place they saw. Your dice pools on Social tests to seduce or otherwise put human guests at ease are at a two-dice penalty. ■ Flaw: (•) Haunted. Your haven has a supernatural manifestation in it that you do not control or really even understand. It might just have a ghost, but a Haunted haven could hold a dimensional portal, a cursed meteorite, or anything else you can’t get rid of. Obviously, someone who does understand the manifestation could use it to breach your haven’s security. The Storyteller defines any other effect of the haunting, imposing at least a one-die penalty to affected pools used in the haven per dot of Haunted taken as a Flaw. Merits • Hidden Armory: Each dot in this Merit adds a stand of arms to your haven’s supply: one pistol and one long firearm, with ammunition. They are as secure from discovery as your resting place. • Cell: Your haven has a dedicated, locked place to store two prisoners, with a base Difficulty to escape of 5. Each extra dot either allows you to store twice as many prisoners (up to a maximum of 32, only in very large havens) or adds +1 to the escape Difficulty. This Merit is not available in small havens. • Watchmen: You have either private security or criminal thugs guarding your haven. Each dot of this Merit supplies four Average guards and one Gifted boss (see Mortal Templates, p. 185). If guards would be conspicuous here, buy this Merit cautiously. • Laboratory: Your haven has an equipped laboratory with a dedicated industrial sink, gas jet, reinforced floor, etc. Each dot of this Merit adds one to the dice pool for rolls related to one Science or Technology specialty or to Alchemy dice pools for thin-bloods using the Fixatio method (p. 284). This Merit is not available in small havens. • Library: Your Haven has a dedicated library on the occult, Cainite legends, city history, vampire lore, or the like. Each dot of this Merit adds one to the dice pool for research rolls for one Academics, Investigation, or Occult specialty. Small havens limit this Merit to a maximum of one dot. • Location: Your haven nestles in one of the most fashionable or otherwise exclusive areas of the city, in the Rack, on a small island, or otherwise in a prime spot. Add two dice (or +2 to foes’ Difficulty) to bonuses on the relevant die rolls from either Chasse (p. 195) or from your base Haven rating (pick one). If neither modifier precisely maps to what you have in mind, work out with your Storyteller when you can expect a two-dice bonus to occur. For example, a Haven close to Elysium might grant a two-dice bonus to Etiquette tests in Elysium and on tests to pick up on court gossip. • Luxury: High-definition flat screens, designer furniture, objets d’art, or other expensive details give you a two-dice bonus to Social tests dealing with mortal guests in your haven. If you don’t have at least three dots of Resources (•••), your décor was gained illegally. • Postern: Your Haven has a rear exit, secret tunnel, grating in the cellar leading into the sewers, or other unobtrusive way out. For each dot of this Merit, add one die to your dice pools to evade or escape surveillance near your haven. • Security System: Your haven has a better-than-average security system. For each dot of this Merit, add one die to your dice pool to resist (or alert you to) unauthorized entry into your haven. • Surgery: Your haven has one room equipped as a field surgery or better. Add two dice to relevant dice pools, generally Medicine, for tests performed in your haven. This Merit is not available in small havens. • Warding: Your haven possesses some kind of magical ward barring supernatural forces. You may not be able to deactivate it, but it allows you to pass. Discuss the limits of your ward with the Storyteller. Each dot of this Merit adds one to the dice pool to resist supernatural scrying, as well as whatever other entry the Storyteller allows it to prevent. The Storyteller may require you to possess Occult 3 or better, or Blood Sorcery, to buy this Merit.

Herd

Herd

You have cultivated a group of vessels from whom you can feed without concern. You can use them to perform basic services, although they are neither as tightly controlled nor as loyal as Retainers. (If needed, build your Herd as a combination of Weak and Average mortals; see Mortal Templates, p. 185.) You can slake your Herd rating in Hunger each week without a roll. (This benefit can be shared among more than one vampire.) Overfeeding endangers your Herd, potentially dropping the rating as members die or flee. ■ Flaw: (••) Obvious Predator. You exude a predatory demeanor, and humans instinctively fear and mistrust you. Lose two dice from any dice pool for hunting except purely Physical expressions of stalking, chasing,and killing. Lose one die from any dice pool for any Social test intended to put humans at ease. You cannot maintain a Herd. Advantage • One to three vessels with random Resonance and no Dyscrasias: You can change one victim’s Resonance once a month with a successful Manipulation + Insight test (Difficulty 4). Examples: graduate students, musical pupils, cleaver family •• Four to seven vessels, half of whom share one Resonance that you pick when you buy this Advantage. Examples: Aging devotees of the city’s fading goth or bhangra scene, fellow club scenesters, large cleaver family ••• Seven to 15 vessels, with two different Resonances that you pick each week when you feed on different Herd members. Examples: rugby team, swinger scene, dance or night school class, night shift employees •••• 16 to 30 vessels: Pick two Resonances every week. Herd maintenance, cover ups, and recruitment take occasional roles in your chronicle. Examples: cult, large brothel, sweatshop ••••• 31 to 60 vessels: Pick three Resonances every week. Herd maintenance and recruitment begins to brush up against the Masquerade. Examples: Large cult, large sweatshop

Mask

Herd

As stealth predators, vampires have few weapons more potent than their pretense of humanity. The lies the Kindred live constantly shadow your stories, and no description of a lick should omit how they navigate mortal society – what they wear as a Mask. A good Mask explains the character’s nocturnal existence and offers plenty of opportunities to be alone with mortals. Some vampires switch back and forth between Masks, risking deep identity confusion and slip-ups, while others forge single plausible identities and strictly adhere to them for a human lifetime before they switch, adding makeup as they “age,” and faking every aspect of life to look perfectly normal on paper. Others, almost always Nosferatu or unbound vampires, forswear safety for freedom off the grid or on the streets. By default (at no dots) a vampire either has no need of a Mask, such as those recently Embraced and still able to pass as the human they were, or has a single Mask and fake ID that can stand up to a traffic stop or similar surface scrutiny. A zero-dot mask does not pass a background check, much less a proper investigation by the authorities. ■ Flaw: (••) Known Blankbody. Your biometrics, name, history, known associates, and aliases appear in several intelligence agency databases, flagged as a potential terrorist. Any inquisitor can read between the lines and recognize you as a vampire. ■ Flaw: (•) Known Corpse. People know you died recently and react with shock and horror if you appear among them. This Flaw also applies to any database lookups on your identity. Advantage • You have a good fake identity, including a credit card, bank account, credit history, birth certificate, etc., all in your Mask’s name. You can pass a state or provincial-level background check. •• Your Mask can pass a background check with the national police: FBI, Scotland Yard, or the equivalent. If you had a military or intelligence record in life, it has been classified. If you have a two-dot Mask, you can also buy the following Advantages for one dot each: • Zeroed: Someone in high places has purged your real records. You officially don’t exist. • Cobbler: You can make or source Masks. Making a Mask takes three days per dot and possibly exposes you online; sourcing Masks takes one day per dot, but costs something in return. How much depends on your leverage, margin on the Social test, or whatever else the Storyteller decides.

Mawla

Mawla

This Trait represents one or a group of Kindred who looks out for you, offering guidance, information, or aid once in a while. The word comes from medieval Arabic, meaning different things from “a trusted one” to “uncle” to “source of neighborly protection” to “non-Muslim whose oath still binds them.” Western vampires brought the term back from the Crusades, and as the Ashirra and Camarilla find themselves increasingly allied in the Gehenna War, the word enjoys a resurgence in vampire society. A Mawla may act as your mentor. Such a role commonly falls to your sire, if they don’t treat you as property or ignore you. Your Mawla might trade information to mutual beneft, or even come to your aid if you have respected the relationship. A Mawla may be powerful, but their power need not be direct. Depending on the number of dots in this Background, your Mawla might be nothing more than an ancilla with a remarkable information network, or they might be a centuries-old creature with tremendous influence and supernatural power. They may offer advice, speak to the Prince or Baron on your behalf, steer other elders clear of you, or give warning when you’re walking into situations you don’t understand. Your Mawla, of course, expects reciprocity. A Mawla rating could even represent a group of like-minded vampires, such as the elders of the city’s Tremere chantry or a Trotskyite clique amongst the Anarchs in town. (Te plural of Mawla is Mawali.) As a general rule, a Mawla group costs one dot more than a single Kindred of that level: a coven of elder Mawali would be a four-dot Mawla group, for example. Whoever they are, write them on your Relationship Map when you buy them. As a general rule, Mawali provide a helpful word and occasional political pushes or cover, but they don’t fight your battles or call in valuable favors. If they must do so for their own sake to aid you, you probably lose a dot or more of this Background, after arousing their ire. Characters can also acquire one-off Minor Boons (p. 315) from other Kindred, only during character generation. These boons cost half the points (rounded up) of the equivalent Mawla. Adversary  A fellow Cainite who generally wishes you (or more likely your sire, lineage, or mentor) ill, an Adversary is the reverse Flaw of the Mawla Background. Adversaries range from one-dot elders to three-dot Princes or powerful cabals. The Storyteller uses either the Adversary’s Status or some specific other Trait when building dice pools with which to oppose the player characters, not the dots in Adversary. Advantage • Neonate •• Ancilla ••• Elder •••• Primogen or Anarch Revolutionary Council member ••••• Prince or Baron

Resources

Herd

Retainers

Herd

Status

Herd