Backgrounds

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

•Weak mortal, likely useless in a violent or potentially violent situation.
• •Average mortal or a tightknit group of Weak mortals (neighborhood kids who solve mysteries, church group, NGO chapter)
• • •Gifted mortal or a dangerous group of Average mortals (a street gang, a celebrity entourage, a blue-collar union local)
• • • •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

•When you call on them, they appear half the time.
• •When you call on them, they appear within 1-10 hours (roll a die).
• • •When you call on them, they appear as soon as possible.

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.

Contact

•One Contact who can do or get something cheap or common for you (Resources 1). Examples: a weed dealer, a car salesman.
• •One Contact who can do or get something useful for you (Resources 2). Examples: small-time gun dealer, veterinarian.
• • •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

Mortals know your name and eagerly seek out news of your activities. You might be a movie star, rock star, or other celebrity. Fame grants pull in mass and social media; you have more ways than most to manipulate the thoughts of the populace. You likely have ways to mask the fact that you’re never seen during the day, such as a body double. In some circumstances, the Storyteller may allow you to use Fame in a Social test dice pool instead of another Trait, especially to get into an otherwise exclusive venue or event. “Do you know who I am?” doesn’t work everywhere, but it does work. Each level of Fame subtracts one from the Difficulty of Social tests against your fans and from many hunting tests, depending on your predation strategy – you have less trouble attracting prey. Fame has its downside, of course – it’s harder for you to tail someone unobtrusively, for example, and who wants groupies hanging around the door to their haven all day tagging its location on Instagram? You should look into taking Disguise as a specialty. By default, Fame applies among mortals, but you can also buy Fame that applies among Kindred for the same cost. Some vampires, such as Dracula or Elizabeth Bathory, might have both! Vampires may admire, or at least be more interested in, a Kindred who was famous or infamous in life: Arthur Rimbaud, Crispus Attucks, Billy the Kid, and the like.

Fame

•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.

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

•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 singlefamily 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.

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 de activate it, but it allows you to pass. Discuss the limits of your w ard 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.

Holy Ground

•Your haven exists in a place of significance to your cult.
You may keep an apartment once owned by a respected Pater or claimed an alcove in the catacomb where the cult’s founder is said to have slept. Other cultists view you as the custodian of a holy place. Once per story, you may call on a small group of cultists to help defend your haven if it’s threatened.

Shrine

•Tabletop Shrine — The space is no bigger than a desktop or small table, with items that easily fit in a drawer or a box you can stow beneath a loose floorboard: a few candles, a ritual bowl, a small vial of Vitae. You may perform Level One rituals, if they can be done solo.
• •Moderate Shrine — You’ve devoted a room solely to worship, complete with a small altar and several items relevant to your faith. You may perform rituals of Level Three and below and can accommodate one or two other worshipers in the space.
• • •Large Shrine — You’ve spent considerable time and resources on making the shrine as close to your faith’s temples and basilicas as you can. You may perform rituals of Level Four and below and can accommodate up to 10 other worshipers in the space.
If you also have the Security System Merit (Vampire: The Masquerade, p. 189), add one additional die to rolls to resist unauthorized entry into the shrine.

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.

Herd

•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

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 (•••••).

•Well-connected: 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.

Influence (Church)

This Background represents a coterie’s collective standing within its diocese or its influence in the broader cult and what resources it can draw upon. They can buy the Influence Background as normal and customize it, or purchase the following with their dots in Influence:

Devout Following.

•The congregation may be rallied for a purpose true to the cult’s teachings. Mortal worshippers roused to public protest or Kindred raised to hunt a heretic.

Charitable Offerings

• •Donations from a wealthy and numerous congregations allow the diocese to operate self-sufficiently. Grants an equivalently ranked Haven as a meeting place and each member of the coterie may, once per story, count an additional dot of personal resources.

Extremist Cell

• • •A group of skilled humans or neonates recruited to act as a saboteur cell for the diocese purposes, (see Cults of the Blood Gods, p. 84). The coterie must make provision for funding the cell’s activities and be prepared for any consequences of cell’s actions that they authorize at the storyteller’s discretion.

Well-Integrated.

• • • •Someone in the local cult is influential enough in both mortal and immortal circles to provide full immunity from the mundane authorities or partial immunity from the local Camarilla. Once per story, you may call in a favor for a stay of execution or similar forgiveness. Abuse of such influence will likely draw attention.

The Next in Line

• • • • •Success sees the righteous elevated to synod council or even leadership of the cult one of these nights. There are those who look forward to this day and court favor, but there are also those plotting against it. Any rolls for diplomacy within the cult receive a two dice bonus but you gain the flaw Adversary (•).

Mask

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 slipups, 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.

Mask

•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.

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

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 benefit, 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. (The 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 three-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.

Resources

This Background describes your Resources. These benefits are not necessarily financial in nature and are rarely completely liquid, but you can often sell them to gain money. It could take weeks or even months to do so, depend - ing on how much needs to be sold. Especially as the Second Inquisition closes down Kindred bank accounts, vampires increasingly return to holding their Resources in cash – or in gold, art, narcotics, guns, and slaves. Dots of Resources provide an income for you to maintain your standard of unliving, but you must detail the source of your income and the form this Background takes. After all, it might dry up, get stolen, or otherwise vanish during the chronicle.

Resources

•Portfolio Proletariat: You live paycheck to paycheck: apartment, car, camping equipment.
• •Middle Class: Nice apartment or small house, several cars, high-end equipment
• • •Rich: Great condo or nice house, luxury items, highend equipment for several people
• • • •Wealthy: Mansion, helicopter or private jet, very specialized high-end equipment
• • • • •Ultra Rich: Many mansions, “anything money can buy”

Retainers

You have one or more loyal and steadfast servants or assistants. Retainers may be ghouls who are blood bound to you, individuals you have so Dominated over the years that they are incapable of independent action, or individuals you have so overwhelmed with your Presence that they would do anything for you. You must always control retainers in some fashion: a salary, vitae donation, or direct mesmerism. Though typically loyal, retainers may betray you if the reward outweighs the risk or if you have treated them badly. The Storyteller can always call for a scene between you and a retainer. Retainers should act as characters, not puppets. Even ghoul retainers aren’t supermen; the most skilled servants don’t always show the highest loyalty. Everything in Vampire is a tradeoff. Storytellers can use Retainers to add flavor to the chronicle; don’t let them or their misuse damage the story.

Retainer

•Underwhelming retainer: A child, criminal lowlife, or horror nerd follows you around and does your bidding without a Blood Bond. Build them as a Weak mortal.
• •A ghoul, a family servant, a human lover, or a dominated thrall: give them a backstory. Build them as an Average mortal or as a ghoul with no Advantages. For more on Ghouls, see p. 234.
• • •A retainer competent enough to act independently and make lesser problems go away. They are likely a ghoul with traits equivalent to Gifted mortals, on top of their supernatur al abilities.

Status

You have something of a reputation and standing (earned or unearned) within a specified local community of Kindred, probably Camarilla or Anarch. Status among Camarilla society derives as often from your sire’s status and the respect due your particular bloodline as it does from personal achievement. High Status among Anarchs theoretically depends on the character’s contributions, but more often to their degree of connection (by Blood or coterie) to the current Baron or other ruler. Status in one sect does not transfer to the other. By and large, Status held in another city effectively reduces by one dot; an Influential (•••) vampire in Cartagena is only Respected (••) in Buenos Aires. The Storyteller may occasionally call on you to add your Status to a dice pool along with a Social Trait, especially for first meetings and court happenings. In other cases, the Storyteller may allow you to substitute your Status for a Social Trait – but other vampires may notice that you’re skating by on Status, instead of properly using the Etiquette Skill, for example. Caitiff characters begin with the Suspect Flaw and may not purchase positive Status during character creation.

Status

•Known: A properly introduced, welcomed neonate, seen as an up-and-comer.
• •Respected: You have responsibilities now, an average ancilla.
• • •Influential: You hold authority over part of the group, an average elder.
• • • •Powerful: You hold office in the group, such as Sheriff, Harpy, or Scourge.
• • • • •Luminary: You sit at the table of power in the group, a respected member of the Primogen