Flaws
Excommunicated (• •)
Once, you belonged. Something you did caused the leadership to cast you out and make you persona non grata among your peers. They’ve stripped your access to the cult’s support systems and resources.
At two dots, subtract two dice from all rolls dealing with the cult or its members.
At five dots, cultists actively try to destroy you: tanking your finances, undermining your reputation, and even calling a Blood Hunt if you dare enter their territory.
Faithless (• •)
You don’t actually believe any of the cult’s doctrines.
You’re only in it for the benefits, but true progress and power require a degree of commitment and you’re not willing to subject yourself to indoctrination. Keeping up appearances requires an exhausting degree of vigilance; it’s only a matter of time before someone asks you to prove your faith.
Characters with this Flaw lose two dice on all Resolve rolls associated with acting for the cult and may learn no powers, Rituals, or purchase Loresheets associated with this cult higher than Level 2.
Allies
Enemies (•)
Enemies are the opposite of Allies and are taken as Flaws.
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.
Archaic
Archaic (• •)
You haven’t been able to adapt to the present, or you have been long in torpor. You cannot use computers or cell phones, and your Technology rating is permanently 0. The Storyteller may penalize other dice pools involving very modern technology by one die
Living in the Past (•)
You haven’t grasped the modern mindset, or you just don’t want to. You have one or more seriously outdated Convictions, e.g. “The Pope’s word is law,” “Women are delicate flowers,” “Lower classes exist only to serve,” or “Burn your enemies’ baggage.” These archaic moralities maintain your Humanity but are odious to many; you lose one die from Social test dice pools involving such archaic beliefs except with vampires your age and older, who may admire your steadfast virtue.
Ashfinders
Ashe Addiction (• •)
The need to relive other Kindred’s memories and wield their power is a constant clamour in your mind. In addition to the Ashe Addiction rules in Cults of the Blood Gods (p. 46), after a failed Blood Alchemy roll, the character suffers a two dice penalty to all actions for the rest of the chapter.
Bonding
Bond Junkie (•)
The Bond feels sweeter to you once it happens. Subtract one die from your dice pools to act against a Blood Bond.
Bondslave (• •)
You bond instantly with the taste of another’s vitae; only one drink of blood binds you, not three. Either you begin as your sire’s thrall, or consult with the Storyteller to come up with a reason that first bond has broken. Possibly your sire has been staked or in another city for more than six months?
Long Bond (•)
Blood Bonds on you lose their Bond strength more slowly than normal, decreasing by one for each three months without being reinforced.
Church of Caine
Schism (Lasombra) (•)
One of your great-grandsires was among the members of the Night Clan participating in purging the Church of Caine several centuries ago.
Others within the Crimson Curia eye you warily, lest you share your predecessor’s views in modern nights. Suffer a two dice penalty on Social rolls with other members of your cult.
Church of Set
False Alarms
The hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Your skin crawls. You feel the weight of unseen eyes upon you, even when you’re certain you’re alone.
Your danger sense is not only always on, it’s in constant overdrive... and it’s not always right. All failed Awareness rolls count as total failures (Vampire: The Masquerade, p. 122). The Storyteller may name up to three people or pieces of equipment in the scene the character believes is watching them. Any or all may be utterly benign.
Cult of Shalim
Empty (• • •)
You’ve carved away all of your fleeting, temporal joys. No bonds of love or lofty ambitions remain. While within the cult, hollowness is good, that emptiness radiates from you in a way that disturbs the uninitiated.
People try to extricate themselves from your presence quickly, making it hard to have more than superficial conversations with them. Subtract two dice from Social rolls.
Domain
Disputed Domain (Chasse) (• •)
Your cult’s domain overlaps with a rival organization’s territory, causing frequent tension and conflicts over resources.
A group of Bahari may butt heads with members of Gorgo’s Nest, or Church of Set square off against the Cult of Mithras.
Whenever you encounter its members, immediately roll to resist fury frenzy. For each subsequent encounter, subtract one die from the roll.
The start of a new story resets the dice pool.
Visibility (• •)
Someone’s got it in their heads that the cult’s bad news. Whether they’re right or not, any spaces associated with the cult are watched. This may take the form of a lone conspiracy theorist posting members’ comings and goings on social media, a handful of bored teens holding up signs outside the meeting-place of the cult’s self-actualization classes, or a full-on protest attracting journalists and TV cameras.
Increase the difficulty on rolls to hunt in the Domain by 2.
Fame
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.
Dark Secret - Examples (• •)
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.
Debt (•)
You owe a big debt to bad people or have made yourself generally odious. Alternately, your spouse, lover, or close family member has Infamy ••.
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.
Feeding
Methuselah’s Thirst (•)
Your Hunger can only be fully slaked by the blood of supernatural creatures. (Alchemists may be able to thicken the Blood of thin-bloods enough to sate you.) Otherwise, it constantly remains at a minimum of 1. (Or higher, depending on Blood Potency (see p. 215).
Organovore (• •)
You can slake Hunger only by eating human flesh and organs, especially those rich in blood such as the heart, liver, lungs, placenta, and spleen. (Most organovore Kindred these nights make smoothies from the organs first.) Only the heart provides Resonance, if any.
Prey Exclusion (•)
You refuse to hunt a certain class of prey: drug users, women, children, policemen, innocents, a given minority or ethnic group, etc. If you feed on such prey, you gain Stains as though you had violated a chronicle Tenet. Witnessing other Kindred feeding on the object of your exclusion without interfering might also give Stains, at the Storyteller’s discretion. Ventrue with this Flaw gain an additional restriction, making their choice of vessels extremely narrow.
Vegan (• •)
You feed only on animal blood. You must spend two points of Willpower to drink human blood. Ventrue may not take this Flaw.
Vein Tapper (•)
You find the act of feeding extremely personal and cannot take blood from mortals while being observed. This means you often feed from the unaware and go out of your way to find (or create) drugged or unconscious victims.
Haven
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.
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.
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.
No Haven. (•)
You must go to some effort (at least a basic test) to find a new resting place every morning.
Herd
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.
Influence
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.
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.
Influence (Church)
Condemnation (• •)
A transgression or insult against your superiors renders the Kindred or coterie pariahs. A grand show of devotion is required to gain better standing. Further failure risks replacement, expulsion, or excommunication.
Out of Favor (•)
Your performance has fallen short of expectations and your superiors are unhappy. Any requests for resources/favors from the cult hierarchy suffer a two dice penalty.
Linguistics
Illiterate. (• •)
You cannot read or write. Your Academics and Science Skills are capped at 1, and you can have no specialty in them incorporating modern knowledge.
Looks
Repulsive (• •)
You lose two dice from all relevant Social dice pools.
Stench (•)
Your breath and body odor are supernaturally foul, redolent of open graves and rotting flesh. Even Nosferatu object to your stink. You can take minor steps to minimize the stench, such as splashing on plenty of cologne, but that causes other problems. Lose one die from seduction and similar Social dice pools, and lose two dice from Stealth pools against opponents who can smell, unless you are upwind.
Transparent (•)
For whatever reason, you aren’t a good liar, and it shows. You either have a terrible poker face or your parents instilled in you a strong urge to be truthful even when it hurts.
Lose one die from any pools requiring Subterfuge. You cannot gain dots in Subterfuge.
Ugly (•)
You lose one die from all relevant Social dice pools.
Mask
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.
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.
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.
• Neonate
•• Ancilla
••• Elder
•••• Primogen or Anarch Revolutionary Council member
••••• Prince or Baron
Mithraic Mysteries
Failed Initiate
You faltered while taking one (or several) of the Seven Steps, and your Pater has assigned a Mawla to ensure your future success. While it reflects the cult’s investment in you, this Mawla watches — and scrutinizes — your every move. She may interrupt your plans at whim, offering instruction and demand you prove yourself at inconvenient times.
Mythic merits and flaws
Folkloric Bane (•)
You take Aggravated damage from a folkloric bane.
Folkloric banes include:
◻ Ultraviolet light (damage as direct sunlight)
◻ Silver or silver-plated weapons (damage as weapon damage: simply touching a silver coin or silverware does one point of Aggravated damage)
◻ Holy water (damage as fire)
Folkloric Block (•)
When faced with a folkloric block, you must shrink away from it or spend a Willpower point to push through it.
Each folkloric block you take counts as a separate one-point Flaw.
Folkloric blocks include:
◻ Holy symbols presented by any believer (even without True Faith)
◻ Crossing visible running water (not recommended in certain cities, such as Amsterdam, Stockholm, or Venice)
◻ Crossing a threshold to a home uninvited by the owner
◻ White animal
◻ Garlic
◻ Wild roses
◻ Spilled seeds you haven’t counted
Stake Bait (• •)
You meet Final Death when staked through the heart, rather than entering torpor.
Starving Decay (• •)
Your undead body is constantly on the verge of reverting to a corpse and only staving off Hunger keeps you from decaying.
At any point in which your Hunger is 3 or higher your body shrivels and decays, incurring a two-dice penalty to physical tests as well as social interactions with mortals, not to mention risking the Masquerade.
Stigmata (•)
You begin to bleed from open wounds on your hands, feet, and forehead when you reach Hunger 4. This attracts attention, leaves traces, and may penalize some dice pools at the Storyteller’s discretion.
Twice Cursed (• •)
You are cursed with additional Bane, making you labor under additional weight borne out of your clan founder’s flawed nature. Take your clan’s variant Bane (see p. 56) in addition to your regular Bane. The Storyteller can prohibit this Flaw if the second Bane would cause problems for, or lack impact in, the chronicle.
Nephilim
Yearning (• • •)
Your master is gone from your life. Perhaps she was Beckoned.
Perhaps you broke off contact, or she did, or someone else came between you. No matter how much time has passed, you still wish you were at her side, pursuing her goals.
When your plans come into conflict with those your master set down for you, spend two points of Willpower to work counter to her wishes. For extended actions, spend one point for each roll. If you have no Willpower points left to spend, your next action must be in pursuit of your master’s goals.
Resources
Destitute (•)
You have no money and no home.
Retainers
Stalkers (•)
You have a tendency to attract people who become a tad too smitten with you for your own good. A former retainer retains their memory of you and a desire to reconnect. They may be hungry, love-maddened, desperate, opportunistic, or any combination or variation. Should you get rid of them, another soon appears.
Status
Shunned. (• •)
You’re completely loathed by this sect. You betrayed them, crossed a local leader, or fought them in the past. Members of this group will actively work against you if they can.
Suspect. (•)
You’re not good with this sect at all. You weaseled out of a boon, broke an oath, or did something similar. You can try to stay out of sight and out of mind, but unless you somehow make amends, you suffer a two-dice penalty to all Social tests involving the offended faction.
Substance use
Addiction (•)
Lose one dice from all pools when the last person you fed from was not on your drug, except pools for actions that will immediately obtain your drug.
Hopeless Addiction (• •)
Lose two dice from all pools when the last person you fed from was not on your drug, except pools for actions that will immediately obtain your drug.
Thin-Blood Merits and Flaws
Baby Teeth (•)
You never developed fangs, or the ones you’ve got are useless for feeding. You either need to cut your victims open, or you extract their blood with a syringe.
Bestial Temper (•)
You are afflicted with the Beast equal to a full vampire. You need to test for frenzy as per the normal vampire rules.
Branded by the Camarilla (•)
In some cities, the rulers simply hunt down and destroy thin-bloods. In other cities, the merciful Sheriff merely brands them, forcibly and painfully, to remind them of their place. (Many are then hunted down and destroyed, often on perceived slights or simple whims.) You have such an unhealing brand, and the Camarilla makes sure to keep its eyes peeled for the moment you step out of line. You can take Camarilla Contact with this Flaw; the Camarilla thrives on double-dealing of this sort.
Clan Curse (•)
Remnants of your sire’s Blood still flows through your veins, carrying traces of their ancient curse. You must pick a Clan Bane to suffer from, counting your Bane Severity as 1 for this purpose. You can only pick the Brujah or Gangrel Bane if you possess the Bestial Temper Flaw, and the Tremere Bane only if you have the Catenating Blood Merit.
Dead Flesh (•)
Your Blood is not strong enough to completely sustain you, and as an effect, your flesh is in a constant state of putrefaction, with a greenish tint and faint stench of rot. Any medical inspection will immediately identify you as deceased, and you receive a one-die penalty to any face-to-face Social test with a mortal. You cannot take Lifelike if you take this Flaw.
Heliophobia (•)
An overly cautious Sire hammered the reminder to avoid sunlight into you a little too hard, or you saw someone catch fire in a sunrise early after your Embrace. Either way, you fear sunlight as though you were a full vampire. You are susceptible to terror frenzy from sunlight.
Mortal Frailty (•)
You cannot Rouse the Blood to mend, instead healing as a mortal (p. 126). You cannot take Vampiric Resilience if you take this Flaw.
Night Terrors (•)
You sleep as usual, with no memory of any of the dreams you may have had during the day. However, at night those dreams come flooding in at the most inopportune times. During times of stress, or when your Beast is strongest, nightmares pull through and feel excruciatingly real. They may be disjointed hallucinations, or they may be a way for the Storyteller to feed theme or foreshadow events. Once per session, your night terrors onset and you take a one-die penalty to all actions for the rest of the scene.
Plague Bearer (•)
You are still susceptible to mortal sickness: colds, flu, and other more severe infections. Every time you feed you must roll a die for each Hunger slaked, and if any come up a “1,” you’ve caught something nasty. (Effect is up to the Storyteller, but could range from die penalties to slow Health degradation.) Mortal medicine doesn’t cure you; only drinking a functioning immune system by slaking your Hunger to 0 does so. And of course, you run the risk of infecting anyone you feed on, using the same die roll as above.
Shunned by the Anarchs (•)
You broke an unwritten rule or thought yourself equal among equals, where some turned out more equal than others. In whichever case, the Anarchs of the regnum know of you and shun you. They’d rather throw you to the Camarilla than listen to your pleas. You cannot take Anarch Comrades if you take this Flaw.
Sloppy Drinker (•)
Your bite is careless, or your fangs are ill suited to puncture skin cleanly. When feeding, make a Dexterity + Medicine test against a Difficulty equal to Hunger slaked to cover your feed marks before too much blood is spilled. On a failure, the wound is too ragged to close: the mortal may bleed out with Masquerade-threatening neck wounds.
Sun-Faded (•)
You cannot use Discipline powers – including Thin-
Blood Alchemy – in sunlight, and active powers
cease when you enter sunlight. You can use them
indoors by day, with a two-dice penalty, as long as
you avoid any hint of sunlight.
Supernatural Tell (•)
Whether it’s your smell, your aura, or something even subtler, other supernatural entities can sense your presence. They may be curious, hungry, or irritated, but they definitely clock you. Lose two dice from Stealth pools and similar against supernatural opponents including other vampires.
Twilight Presence (•)
You make others uncomfortable around you. Most mortals don’t want to be around you at all, and other Kindred dislike you even more than they do regular thin-bloods. Only thin-bloods can adjust to your weird demeanor. Lose a die from Social pools involving anyone except thin-bloods.
Unending Hunger (•)
Your Beast always hungers for more, never finding sustenance with smaller sips. When feeding in a scene you sate one less Hunger than other thin- bloods. This applies only once per scene.
Vitae Dependency (•)
Your Blood is unable to sustain vampiric powers by itself. Unless you drink enough vampire Blood to slake one Hunger each week you lose your ability to gain and use any Disciplines (including Thin-Blood Alchemy). You regain your powers as soon as you slake at least one Hunger with vampire Blood.