Backgrounds
Allies
Mortal associates, usually family or friends
Contacts
The information sources you possess
Fame
How well-known you are among mortals
Haven
A place to sleep safely by day
Herd
The vessels to which you have free and safe access
Influence
Your political power within mortal society
Influence (Church)
Mask
A false identity, complete with documentation
Mawla
A Kindred who advises and supports you: a mentor, patron, or confederate
Resources
Wealth, belongings, and income
Retainers
Followers, guards, and servants
Status
Your standing in undead society
Merits
Ashfinders
Influencer (• •)
You’re a social media sensation, with a follower count in the hundreds of thousands — minimum — hanging on your every post. They take your advice, purchase the products you hawk, and rally to any cause you point them towards. Once per story, you can call on them to perform a simple nonviolent action for you. It may be something like donating money to a crowdfunding campaign, flooding an elected official’s phone lines, or lighting a candle in their window on a certain night. Note that this only acts as a Merit for as long as your influencer status and actions are those of a mortal. If you start communicating Kindred secrets via the internet, you will earn a two dot Adversary Background (representing the vampire sent to silence you) and a two dot Enemy Background (representing mortal scrutiny, probably in the form of an Inquisitor).
Memories of the Fallen (Thin-Bloods) (• •)
Partaking of Ashe grants the user memories of the Kindred who died to make the drug. You’re extremely receptive to the visions you have under its influence, keenly feeling the echoes of their power and experiences. On Blood Alchemy rolls relating to Ashe, 9s count as 10s
Bahari
Gardener ()
As a faithful Ba’ham, you lead a Garden of your own. You guide new initiates, lead rituals, and direct those who walk in your Garden to carry out the Dark Mother’s will. This Merit acts as a selective form of the Herd and Influence Backgrounds, where the adherents (mortal and Kindred) feed you willingly, providing they receive the religious teachings and guidance of the Bahari, and you gain the region specified as territory. If ever you fall out of favor with the cult, this Merit goes with your reputation.
Gardener (•)
Small Garden — 1-5 mortal adherents, located in a small, private space. The garden is no bigger than a few potted plants or containers.
Gardener (• •)
Growing Garden — 5-10 mortal adherents, 1-2 other Kindred, located in a slightly bigger private space. This may be a rooftop garden in the city or a backyard greenhouse in a rural area.
Gardener (• • •)
Community Garden — 10-30 mortal adherents, 3-5 other Kindred. The garden is a larger plot of land, about an acre. This may be part of a city park or a town green.
Gardener (• • • •)
Sprawling Garden — 30-50 mortal adherents, up to a dozen Kindred. The garden covers a large swath of land: an entire city park, an orchard in the country.
Gardener (• • • • •)
Major Garden — over 50 mortal adherents, more than a dozen Kindred, several of whom may branch out into Gardens of their own and oversee Rituals. The garden’s territory covers an entire city, or several towns in rural areas.
Dark Mother’s Song (• •)
Your words make the listener’s pain and grief resonate like a struck harp. You drive them to deeper and deeper insights and plant the seeds of justice and vengeance in their hearts. Add three dice to Manipulation rolls when you’re convincing others to take up the worship of Lilith.
Bonding
Bond Resistance (•)
Your Blood rebels against control. Add one die to your dice pools to resist a Blood Bond per level you take of this Merit (maximum three).
Short Bond (• •)
Blood Bonds on you lose their Bond strength more rapidly than normal, decreasing at both the full moon and new moon (i.e., by two each month) if not reinforced.
Unbondable (• • • • •)
You cannot be Blood Bound. If you’re ever short of cash, you can probably sell your vitae to alchemists, too.
Church of Caine
Fire Resistant (•)
You’ve participated in the Sacrament of Firewalking (Cults of the Blood Gods, p. 64) several times. As a result, your body is able to withstand exposure to flames outside of the ritual setting. You may take convert Aggravated Health damage to Superficial Health damage, up to your Blood Potency in Health boxes.
Church of Set
Fixer (• •)
With little more than a brief conversation, you know what people want. Even when — especially when — it’s something they ought not have. You procure questionable goods for your clients. If word of such acquisitions got out, they’d be ruined. You keep their secrets because it’s good business, but sometimes that leverage comes in handy. Once per story, call in a favor from or threaten to expose a former client who has something you need. This may be using their political pull, granting access to restricted files, or even require the client to perform a criminal act. Once you’ve called in a favor from this client, they can’t be leveraged in this way again.
Go to Ground (•)
The Church of Set teaches its members to be mobile, ready to slip away into the shadows if persecutors come calling. You’re prepared to disappear with a moment’s notice: exit routes mapped out, go bag prepared. Add two dice to rolls to evade pursuit.
Vigilant (• •)
The Church of Set has an unfair reputation for paranoia, when in fact they instill in every initiate the need to keep eyes in the back of one’s head, having been subject to persecution for centuries. Staying alert keeps the cult safe. Once per chapter, if the Storyteller is having an SPC surveil you or about to ambush you, they will ask you to make a Wits + Awareness roll (Difficulty variable, dependent on whether the person or device monitoring you is hidden, and if a person, how many successes they roll on Dexterity or Wits + Stealth). Success allows you to detect the person or thing keeping you under watch. Failure means you don’t spot the spy, but you do still possess the feeling of being watched.
Clan Coterie
Banu Haqim: Call to purpose (• •)
Once per session, the Banu Haqim motivates a coterie-mate they can see with a rousing statement reminding her of her Convictions or even an intense stare that calls her to action. The coterie-mate gains the effects of a Willpower point that must be used immediately, such as to reroll three dice or to briefly master a frenzy. This “Willpower point” isn’t taken from the Banu Haqim, and must be given to a coterie-mate (the Banu Haqim cannot use it on themselves.) See Vampire: The Masquerade, p. 158, for more information on using Willpower.
Brujah: Boot and Rally (•)
Sometimes the best way out of a bad situation is to try again, harder, and have a frenzy-prone coteriemate impress upon you the error of your ways. Once per session, the Brujah inspires a flagging coteriemate, who may then reroll all regular dice on a failed Physical Skill test.
Gangrel: Pack tactics (• • •)
A lone wolf against an enemy risks much, but a pack of wolves working together can take down even the largest and most dangerous prey. When in combat, so long as you have another member of your coterie alongside you, you more effectively harry your common foe: Anyone attacking the same enemy as you adds a single die to their dice pools for Brawl or Melee attacks. This Merit is non-cumulative; no matter how many Gangrel with it gang up on some poor fool, it offers only a single additional die to each of them.
Hecata: Ars Moriendi (• •)
Almost all members of the Hecata clan are at least cursorily familiar with death and the dead. Once per session, the Lazarene is able to mask the corpse of someone killed by a member of the coterie. They can disguise foul play in the case of a mortal corpse, or protect the Masquerade by making the remains of a destroyed vampire (usually a brittle skeleton unless the vampire was very young) draw less attention, usually by efficiently disposing of it. These are quick-and-dirty fixes, though, and will not divert someone already on their tail, but they can provide some proverbial breathing space to the coterie.
Lasombra: At any Cost (• •)
The Magister sets a ruthlessly effective example for their coterie-mates. Once per session, a member of the Lasombra’s coterie can choose to add two successes to a test made. The test is then considered a messy critical, including appropriate negative consequences.
Malkavian: Everyting is connected (• • •)
The Malkavian is able to extract secrets from the most unlikely sources, such as discerning the location of an elder’s vault from someone’s casual exchange about the weather or unearthing an adversary’s deepest fears from the way they take a right at an intersection. Once per session, the Malkavian has the ability to let another member of their coterie substitute one Skill pool for another of their choice (that they possess) in a test involving the gathering of information. The Oracle is then able to interpret the results, gaining the same information as the original pool would have yielded, depending on the margin of success as usual.
The Ministry: Discerning (•)
Once per session, the Ministry Kindred may discover something superficial a Storyteller character wants, so long as any member of the coterie has spoken to that character during the session, even if the Setite wasn’t present. This may relate to the individual’s Desire or Ambition or it could relate to a specific course of action they were undertaking (but should not expose any deep schemes or mysteries, especially if the coterie is unaware of them). The character who interacted with the Storyteller character in question describes the encounter.
Nosferatu: Contextual Contact (• •)
Nosferatu Kindred often know more about their contacts than the contacts themselves, being able to leverage niche skills and hidden talents of their associates and others’. Once per session, a member of a coterie that has a Nosferatu with this Merit can add the highest single Contact rating of another member of the coterie to any one test to recover information (such as recovering deleted data, using social engineering to acquire a login password, or rifling a physical file cabinet). The contact needs to be involved in some way, but the test is allowed to fall outside their usual area of expertise for this test only. A Contact can only be used once per story for this purpose.
Ravnos: Cryptolect (• • •)
Being forever on the move means having to find new ways to communicate with allies. Using coded language, onomatopoeia, and gestures, this Merit provides the Ravnos and their coterie with their own pidgin for the express purposes of communicating with each other — practically no one outside the coterie understands it, short of expert surveillance. The coterie’s cryptolect is not eloquent or robust, but can be used to convey high-level concepts quickly and securely, and isn’t identifiable as any other language. It also requires face-to-face presence to function, as its gestures and signs diminish when observed over phone or video calls. Leaving the coterie or losing its Ravnos member means the Kindred are no longer up-to-date on the cryptolect and can’t use it to communicate subsequently.
Toreador: All Access (•)
Whether it’s the premiere of a film by a budding auteur, a fundraising gala for an aspiring politico, or the dive bar that suddenly has a dress code because it doesn’t like the looks of you, you know how to get yourself in — even without an actual invitation. Once per game session, when a coterie is faced with a barrier to enter a mortal event or facility, they can get past the bouncers or security guards by being on the guest list or having a connection to whatever passes for owner or patron. This applies only to situations with some kind of door staff or guest list; it doesn’t circumvent security systems, mystical wards, or the like, and the Storyteller is of course free to block entry if this would somehow short-circuit a story (but should then provide the players with a juicy clue instead).
Tremere: Multi-level Lorekeeping (• •)
Despite the Tremere reputation for jealously hoarding occult knowledge, many vestiges of the notorious Pyramid actually facilitate the sharing of such among scholars of the forbidden. Once per game session, a single Kindred in a coterie with a Tremere who has this Merit can use a Loresheet Advantage that someone else in the coterie possess, including clan-specific Loresheets, at the Storyteller’s discretion. This additional Loresheet Advantage is usable only for the game session, and any knowledge supposed by the Loresheet Advantage is not retained thereafter by the borrower.
Tzimisce: Old-world Hospitality (• •)
Enter freely and of your own will. At the beginning of a session, any members of the coterie who stayed at the Tzimisce’s haven when the previous session concluded restore an additional Superficial Willpower damage.
Ventrue: Kindred legacies (• •)
The Ventrue understand that a vampire’s legacy carries with it an accounting of the deeds of their progenitors. For some Blue Bloods, this emerges via written histories while others may have certain sires or scholars among their acquaintances. However it manifests, once per session, a member of the coterie with a Ventrue who has this Merit may ask the Storyteller to reveal a piece of relevant information about the history of a single vampire with whom they’ve come in contact. This could be something specific, such as “the Ministry club owner smuggled fugitive Anarchs out of town after an uprising in LA,” or more mysterious such as “the allegations levied against that Kindred’s greatgrandsire having committed diablerie were untrue, but his childe still carries the shame to this night.”
Cult of Shalim
Gematria (•)
The Cult of Shalim uses a coded cipher called the gematria in their missives. You understand the system and can encrypt or decrypt messages using it.
Insidious Whispers (• •)
The Embrace cracks a person’s very core, throwing into question everything she believed before her death. Many Kindred shore up their senses of self with ambitions, dreams, and ideals to see them through the long nights. As a Shalimite, you flow like water into those cracks, widening them until they split. When you make a Social roll to undermine a character’s Conviction (based on you guessing or interpreting it or something close to it), 10s count as immediate critical successes without needing to roll two.
Domain
Built-in Flock (Chasse) (•)
The cult maintains a front that attracts mortals such as a Shalimite self-help center or Cinder Institute-sponsored retreats. Once per week, coterie members may visit this establishment to feed.
Mithraeum (Chasse) (• •)
Your coterie’s domain overlaps with the local Mithraeum. Your coterie acts as enforcers for the cult’s protection racket, and in exchange gains access to its resources. Reduce the Difficulty on hunting rolls in your domain by 1.
Community Outreach (Lien) (•)
The cult performs acts of community service and has earned the residents’ goodwill. It makes frequent donations to food banks or turns abandoned lots into community gardens, though it might hide these activities under a different name. Locals recognize your character or coterie as part of that group. Add one bonus die to rolls when working with mortals in your domain.
Networked (Portillon) (•)
You share access to the cult’s security precautions. If they have security cameras around their temple, you can log in to the live feed. If a security team patrols the block, the guards recognize you as a member. Once per story, the coterie can use this asset in defense of its domain. For example, it may pull footage of an intruder, or ask the patrol to expand their beat for a few nights.
Feeding
Bloodhound (•)
You can smell the Resonance of a human’s blood without tasting it. You still need to be within olfactory range of the person. Make a Resolve + Awareness test at Difficulty 3. Increase Difficulty for perfume or distance; lower it for more intimate contact.
Vessel Recognition (•)
One easy way to piss off a Kindred is to feed off their kine. Kindred guard their herds jealously, and you’ve learned how to avoid them, being able to smell out which mortal belongs to a herd or is a particular Blood Doll. A win on a Resolve + Awareness test at Difficulty 2 lets you smell whether a mortal has been fed on recently. A critical win lets you sense if the feeding is recurring, likely making them part of someone’s herd.
Iron Gullet (• • •)
You can feed from cold blood, rancid blood, and fractionated plasma. None of these provide Resonances. Ventrue may not take this Merit.
Looks
Famous Face (•)
You bear a passing or very close resemblance to someone very well known. Sometimes this works in your favor. Other times this results in “Charlize Theron bit that cop on the neck!” You gain two dice to social tests in circumstances where you can leverage your lookalike status, but suffer a two-dice penalty whenever you try to hide in a crowd or in other areas where you want to avoid recognition.
Ingénue (•)
You look completely innocent and blameless, making others believe in your good intentions much easier. Add two dice to any rolls related to avoiding suspicion or deflect blame, at the Storyteller’s discretion.
Remarkable Feature (•)
You possess a rare, memorable feature such as a striking eye color, atypical pupils, or an unusual complexion, providing a two-dice bonus to social interactions with strangers. (The novelty quickly wears off.) Take a one-die penalty to disguise yourself.
Beautiful (• •)
You add one extra die to all appropriate Social dice pools.
Stunning (• • • •)
You add two extra dice to all appropriate Social dice pools, as above.
Mithraic Mysteries
Bargainer (•)
Mithras was a god of merchants and traders, and as his devotee you see both the value and drawbacks to any deals you broker. Reduce the Difficulty on rolls to assess a transaction by 1.
Bull-Slayer (• • •)
Like Mithras, when you set your sights on a target, you pursue it until it falls. You may suffer setbacks, but you don’t give up — you adapt. During each component of an extended test, reroll up to two failures (providing your equivalent Attribute for the test — Stamina, Composure, or Resolve — isn’t rated at 1, where if it is, you can reroll one failure per component).
Mythic merits and flaws
Eat food (• •)
You can consume food without effort and might even enjoy it, though it gives no nourishment and must be expelled before resting for the day.
Nuit Mode (• •)
Your body doesn’t automatically revert to the death- state each night, enabling you to keep things like new haircuts, tattoos, and other body modifications at your option. You are still able to return to your original death-state, though, and can mend any later modifications as if they were Aggravated damage. This Merit is available only to Kindred of Blood Potency 1 or lower. (If your Blood becomes more potent at any point, the Merit no longer grants any benefit, but if you drop back down to Blood Potency 1 it returns.)
Luck of the Devil (• • • •)
Someone else will always take the fall for your missteps as long as someone’s available to take the blame. Whether this is because of a face everyone loves, a guardian angel, or something far darker, you manage to slip, skate, and dodge out of trouble, though you’re in constant need of new friends as you burn through them like a wildfire. Once per session you can have a misfortune — an attack, an accusation, a blame, or anything in between — directed at you befall someone else close to you. This can be an ally, retainer, coterie mate, or even a Touchstone. The Storyteller is the final arbiter on what counts as a proper misfortune.
Nephilim
Archangel’s Grace (• •)
You’ve invested considerable time in dance studios, gymnasiums, and dojos owned by fellow Nephilim. The training makes your movements lithe and assured, every gesture an art form in itself. You may use your Performance Skill in place of your Athletics Skill, or vice versa, when engaged in what for mortals would be a cardio-heavy physical exertion such as fighting, fleeing, or dancing.
Substance use
High-Functioning Addict (•)
You add one die to any one category of pool (specify when you choose which substance you use) when the last person you fed from was on your drug.
Thin-Blood Merits and Flaws
Anarch Comrades (•)
You have befriended the members of an Anarch coterie who tolerate your presence or even affectionately treat you as their pet. They cumulatively act as a one-dot Anarch Mawla, as long as you don’t deviate from the party line. Write them on the Relationship Map.
Camarilla Contact (•)
You have caught the eye of a Camarilla recruiter who has promised you admittance and a chance at becoming a real vampire. All you need to do is keep your eyes and ears open, report on your and your coterie’s activities, and be prepared to perform any task asked of you. You have the equivalent of a one-dot Camarilla Mawla who treats you badly. Write them on the Relationship Map.
Catenating Blood: (•)
You can create Blood Bonds and perform the Embrace as a regular vampire. Any vampire you create this way will be a thin-blood.
Day Drinker (•)
Sunlight halves your Health tracker (rounded up), but otherwise simply removes your vampiric abilities, including all Disciplines and Health benefits, and does no other damage. You still suffer from Hunger, however, and sooner or later you’ll need to sleep. If your health drops below your currently sustained damage levels as a result of this, you suffer the effects of Impairment or torpor (depending on type of damage) until you are clear of sunlight.
Discipline Affinity (•)
You have an affinity for a certain Discipline, picked at character creation. You gain a dot in this Discipline and can learn and retain additional dots in it through experience expenditures, as if you were a normal vampire. (The experience point cost is the same as an out-of-clan Discipline.) Drinking blood with matching Resonance does not reward you with any extra dots in this Discipline, temporary or not.
Lifelike (•)
You have a heartbeat, can eat food, and enjoy sexual activities like a mortal. All but the most advanced medical inspections reveal nothing out of the ordinary, assuming they happen at night.
Thin-blood Alchemist (•)
The Duskborn change as they feed. Thin-Blood Alchemy is the mastery of this process. Whether it is spontaneous or a skill learned by comparing notes with other bloodcookers, you have gained one dot and one formula (p. 282) in Thin-blood Alchemy. You can purchase additional dots and formulae through experience as usual.
Vampiric Resilience (•)
You suffer damage as a regular vampire, treating regular puncture and slashing wounds as Superficial damage.
Abhorrent Blood (•)
Something in your Blood makes other vampires unable to stomach it. Whether it is the perverse mix of life and undeath or your history of questionable Thin-Blood Alchemy, other vampires gag and vomit when they try to drink from you. Other vampires abort any bite attempts after the initial damage and anyone who tries to keep drinking from you must spend two points of Willpower each turn that they do so. Mortals and Thin-Blood Alchemy are not affected by this anomaly.
Faith-Proof (•)
Whether you consider yourself an atheist or devoutly religious, you remain too close to mortality for True Faith to affect you.
Low Appetite (•)
When at Hunger 0 or 1, and when rising at sunset, roll two dice on your Rouse Check and take the highest of the two.
Lucid Dreamer (•)
Most vampires don’t dream because they don’t sleep. You dream; you can recall and even sometimes control your dreams. Once per session, if you’re asleep by day you can ask the Storyteller to provide a clue from the previous night’s memories or a hint about the story suitable for dream revelation.
Mortality's Mien (•)
Your mortal nature still outshines your Beast. Your aura does not appear vampiric or supernatural; instead it looks mortal to anyone able to detect supernatural creatures. You can also add two dice to any attempt to make yourself appear mortal in other regards, such as makeup.
Swift Feeder (•)
Maybe you were a phlebotomist in life, or just didn’t like mess. You sip delicately and quickly, neatly slaking one Hunger in one turn, including licking the wound closed. This Merit can only be used once per scene.
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.
Shared Vulnerabilities (•)
Despite your coterie’s precautions, the cult’s own security is lax — a weakness your foes can exploit to get to you. Enemies who take advantage of this add two dice to attempts to intrude on the coterie’s domain.
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.