Allies/Contacts

Removed, and replaced by the various Influences options. Note that while other backgrounds only cost 1 freebie point per level during character creation, Influences cost 3 freebie points per level.

Fame

Largely as per the Vampire: the Masquerade rulebook – this effect of this is largely social.

Generation

As per the Vampire: the Masquerade rulebook. However, please the restrictions placed on this background in the Character Generation section.

Herd

Your available blood in any given time in session is calculated as D4+3, plus your character’s levels in the Generation and Herd background. The refs may adjust this level up or down by a point or two if you are judged to have had a particularly active downtime that requires either greater than usual blood expenditure, or would leave less time to hunt, or if you’ve hard a particularly quiet downtime. Regardless, while most characters are likely to turn up reasonably well fed, characters without this background are unlikely to ever be fully-fed.

Influences

The single “Influence: background has been removed, and replaced with a variety of more specific options, which operate markedly differently, and are one of the cornerstones of downtime. Please see the Influences and Downtimes sections for more information.

Mentor

Characters with a Mentor may ask them to assist with one of their Influences in each downtime – the downtime system will automatically roll your rating in this background, against difficulty 7, and successes will be added to your character’s rating in your chosen influence. Over use of this background may result in the temporary, or even permanent loss of levels.

For characters with access to Necromancy or Thaumaturgy, Mentors can also provide the ongoing training that these disciplines require. They can train a character up to their rating in one primary path, one less in a secondary, and two less in one tertiary path. The Mentor’s paths are assumed to be the same as the characters, unless otherwise specified at character creation.

Resources

The background works largely as advertised – this covers your general standard of living and disposable income, whether from an actual job (a little unlikely, given that Vampires can hardly hold down a regular 9-5), investments, or however your character acquires cash. In the interests of bringing the background in line with the British economy, and the decade’s worth of inflation that have occurred since the game was published, here’s approximately what each level represents in Interregnum.

• Subsistance living/student lifestyle. Place of residence: a one bedroom flat in a crappy area, 250 quid a month disposable income after bills etc.
• Personal comfort/normal gainful employment. Residence: 2 bedroom flat in a decent area. 500 quid a month disposable income.
• Successful wealthy professional – Mid range lawyer/doctor/etc. Residence: 4 bedroom detatched house in a good area. 1500 quid a month disposable income.
• Even if you never worked again, this would be very comfortable. Residence: A slightly larger house somewhere very nice, plus a second home somewhere decent. 5000 pounds a month disposable income.
• Even if your descendants were to do nothing but shove their inheritance up their nose from cradle to grave, it would last a generation or two. Stupid wealth. Several very nice homes around the world, 25,000 a month disposable income.

Please note that this wealth is not a substitue for the Finance background, or vice-versa. While the higher levels of this background would make it possible for someone to buy businesses, if they are bought with personal wealth, then they require time and effort in downtimes to run, or to find someone to else to run. If they are bought with the Finance background, then it is assumed they are being run by contacts and allies according to the characters wishes. The Finance Influence is the ability to use wealth (possibly even other people’s) effortlessly and without personal risk. Resources is merely a measure of personal cash on hand. While either one can make it easier to acquire the other, it’s perfectly possible to have high levels of one, and low levels of the other.

Retainers

Each level in this background adds another week to your characters available time in a given downtime month. For more information, please see the Downtimes section.

Sect/Clan Status

Characters with sufficiently high ratings in these backgrounds can attempt to use them to get assistance from appropriate NPCs in their downtimes. Like the Mentor background, overuse of these may result in temporary or permanent loss of status.

Each of the 13 clans has certain areas of influence that they are considered to specialise in, and you can buy these for a lower XP cost (See the XP section for details.), although the actual areas your character is personally interested in are entirely up to you.

Each character begins play with two dots to spend on clan influences. You can buy more, and also other influences with your freebie points.  Note that while other backgrounds only cost 1 freebie point per level, Influences cost 3 freebie points per level.

The clan influences are as follows:

• Brujah – University, Underworld
• Malkavian – Health, Street
• Nosferatu – Bureaucracy, Street
• Toreador – High Society, Media
• Tremere – Occult, Legal
• Ventrue – Politics, Finance

• Lasombra – Church, Politics
• Tzimice – Occult, Underworld

• Assamite – Underworld, Transportation
• Followers of Set – High Society, Politics
• Gangrel – Industry, Transportation
• Giovanni – Health, Occult
• Ravnos – Media, Transportation

While London is huge, and a great prize for Kindred, there is a finite amount of influence available in each sphere for all the PCs (and cetain NPCs) in the game, and as it become more scarce, it is possible that your character will lose influences as well as gain them in the course of play, as the characters compete for them. – if for instance, your character is controlling a major gang via the Underworld influence, and another character has them arrested or killed to make way for their own gang, you will lose levels of influence, either temporarily or permanently. If you are judged to have lost the levels permanently, you will get some XP back to compensate you for the loss – for more information about this, please see the XP section.

Below, you’ll find a guide to what each influence is, and what you can expect to be able to achieve in a month with a given level of influence. This text is shamelessly taken, and slightly modified from the White Wolf’s Laws of the Night. Please, don’t sue – if we didn’t make this information easily available to new players, they’d be hopelessly confused…

Bureaucracy
You can manage various government agencies and bureaus. By dealing with social programs and public servants, you can spin red tape, bypass rules and regulations or twist bureaucratic regimentation to your advantage. Bureaucracy is useful in operating or shutting down businesses, faking or acquiring permits and identification papers and manipulating public utilities and facilities. Government clerks at the city and county level, utility workers, road crews, surveyors and other civil servants are potential contacts or allies.

1. • Trace utility bills
   • Fake a birth certificate or driver’s license
2. • Disconnect a single small residence’s utilities
   • Close a small road or park
3. • Fake a death certificate, passport or green card
   • Close a public school for a single day
   • Shut down a minor business on a violation
4. • Initiate a phone tap
   • Fake land deeds
   • Initiate a department-wide investigation
5. • Start, stop or alter a city-wide program or policy
   • Shut down a big business on a violation
   • Rezone areas
   • Obliterate records of a person on a city or county level

Church
Though the modem church has arguably less control over temporal society than it did in the Middle Ages, its policies still exert considerable influence over the direction of politics and communities. Knowing the appropriate people allows insight into many mainstream religions, such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Shinto or Buddhism (fringe or alternative groups, such as Scientology, are considered Occult). When you exercise Church Influence, you can change religious policy, affect the assignment of clergy and access a variety of lore and resources. Contacts and allies affected by Church Influence would include ministers, priests, bishops, Church-sponsored witch-hunters, holy orders and various attendees and assistants.

1. • Identify most secular members of a given faith in the local area
   • Pass as a member of the clergy
   • Peruse general church records (baptism, marriage, burial, etc.)
2. • Identify higher church members
   • Track regular church members
   • Suspend lay members
3. • Open or close a single church
   • Find the average church-associated hunter
   • Access private information and archives of a church
4. • Discredit or suspend high-level church members
   • Manipulate regional branches of the church
5. • Organize major protests
   • Access ancient church lore and knowledge

Finance
Manipulating markets, stock reports and investments is a hobby of many Cainites, especially those who use their knowledge to keep hidden wealth. Though your actual available money is a function of your Resources, you can use Finance Influence to start or smother businesses, crush or support banking institutions and alter credit records. Clearly, such power over money is not to be trifled with – fortunes are made and destroyed with this sort of pull. CEOs, bankers, stockbrokers, bank tellers, yes-men, financiers and loan agents are found among such work.

1. • Learn about major transactions and financial events
   • Learn about general economic trends
2. • Learn the motivations for many of the financial actions of others
   • Trace an unsecured small account
   • Raise capital to purchase a small business (single, small office)
3. • Purchase a large business (a few small branches or a single large office or important service)
4. • Manipulate local banking (delay deposits, some credit rating alterations)
   • Ruin a small business
5. • Control an aspect of city-wide banking (shut off ATMs, arrange a bank “holiday”)
   • Ruin a large business
   • Purchase a major company

Health
Some vampires rely on connections in the medical community to acquire blood. Necromancers and practitioners of arcane arts may also require body parts or medical data to further their studies. Furthermore, maintaining the Masquerade often calls for alteration of medical records or faking ofparticular diseases; some Cainites even specialize in the study of blood-borne ailments. All of these sorts of research and development fall under the purview of Health Influence. Coroners, doctors, lab workers, therapists, pharmacists and specialists are just a few of the folks found in this field.

1. • Access a person’s health records
   • Fake vaccination records and the like
   • Use public functions of health centers at your leisure
   • Get a single Blood Point of mortal blood
2. • Access some medical research records
   • Have minor lab work done
   • Get a copy of a coroner’s report
   • Instigate minor quarantines
3. • Corrupt results of tests or inspections
   • Alter medical records
4. • Acquire a body
   • Completely rewrite medical records
   • Have minor medical research performed on a subject
   • Institute large-scale quarantines
   • Shut down businesses for “health code violations”
5. • Have special research projects performed
   • Have people institutionalized or released

High Society
The glitterati at the top of society move in circles ofwealth and elegance, Many Kindred find such positions alluring, and they indulge in the passions of the famous and wealthy. Access to famous actors, celebrities and the idle rich grants a certain sway over fashion trends. Combined with Fume, a modicum of High Society Influence turns a vampire into a debonair darling of the most exclusive social circles. Among these circles, one finds dilettantes, artists of almost any stripe, old money families, models, rock stars, sports figures and jetsetters.

1. • Learn what is trendy
   • Obtain hard-to-get tickets for shows
   • Learn about concerts, shows or plays well before they are made public
2. • Track most celebrities and luminaries
   • Be a local voice in the entertainment field
3. • Crush promising careers
   • Hobnob well above your station
4. • Minor celebrity status
5. • Get a brief appearance on a talk show that’s not about to be canceled
   • Ruin a new club, gallery, festival or other posh gathering

Industry
The grinding wheels of labor fuel the economies and markets of the world. Machines, factories and blue-collar workers line up in endless drudgery, churning out the staples of everyday living. Control over Industry Influence sways the formation of unions, the movements of work projects, locations for factories and the product of manufacturing concerns. Union workers, foremen, engineers, construction workers, manual laborers and all manner of blue-collar workers exist among these ranks.

1. • Learn about industrial projects and movements
2. • Have minor projects performed
   • Arrange small accidents or sabotage
3. • Organize minor strikes
   • Appropriate machinery for a short time
4. • Close down a small plant
   • Revitalize a small plant
5. • Manipulate large local industry

Legal
Since many of the operations that Cainites undertake are at least marginally illegal, a good amount of sway over judges and lawyers is indispensable. Those Kindred who dabble in law often pull strings in the courts to make sure that the questionable practices of Cainite society go unnoticed and unpunished. Of course, a little Legal Influence is also excellent for harassing an enemy’s assets, too. Such Influence ranges from law schools and firms, to lawyers, judges, DAs, clerks and public defenders.

1. • Get free representation for minor cases
2. • Avoid bail for some charge
   • Have minor charges dropped
3. • Manipulate legal procedures (minor wills and contracts, court dates)
   • Get representation in most court cases
4. • Issue subpoenas
   • Tie up court cases
   • Have most legal charges dropped
   • Cancel or arrange parole
5. • Close down all but the most serious investigations
   • Have deportation proceedings held against someone

Media
Directing media attention away from vampire activities is a key component of the Masquerade. Putting specific emphasis on certain events can place an enemy in an uncomfortable spotlight or discredit a rival. With Media, you can crush or alter news stories, control the operations of news stations and reporters and sway public opinion, with DJs, editors of all varieties, reporters, cameramen, photographers and broadcasters at your disposal. At Storyteller discretion, Media Influence may also allow access to the more technical areas of television, radio or movies.

1. • Learn about breaking stories early
   • Submit small articles (within reason)
2. • Suppress (but not stop) small articles or reports
   • Get hold of investigative reporting information
3. • Initiate news investigations and reports
   • Ground stories and projects
4. • Broadcast fake stories (local only)
   • Kill local articles or reports completely

Occult
The hidden world of the supernatural teems with secrets, conspiracies and unusual factions. Obviously, a vampire is aware that there are strange things out there by dint of his very existence (after all, if vampires exist…), but hard knowledge of such things is a function of Abilities. By using Occult Influence, you can dig up information to improve your knowledge, get inside the occult community and find rare components for magical rituals. Cult leaders, alternative religious groups, charlatans, occultists, New Agers and a few more dangerous elements can be found here.

1. • Contact and make use of common occult groups and their practices
   • Know some of the more visible occult figures
2. • Know and contact some of the more obscure occult figures
   • Access legally available resources for most rituals and rites
3. • Know the general vicinity of certain supernatural entities and (possibly) contact them
   • Access vital or rare material components
   • Access occult tomes and writings
   • Research a level 1 or 2 ritual from your sect
4. • Research a level 3 or 4 ritual from your sect
5. • Unearth a level 5 ritual from your sect
   • Access minor magic items

Police
“Honi soit qui mal y pense” is the motto of the police, but these days,Kindred and kine alike may have cause to wonder exactly that does not cover. That said, Police Influence can be very handy to assist with the Masquerade, to protect one’s holdings or to raid the assets of another. After all, attitude won’t save the anarchs whose haven is the target of a daylight raid. Police of all ranks, detectives, clerical staff, dispatchers, prison guards, special divisions (such as SWAT or homicide) and local highway patrol make up these ranks.

1. • Learn police procedures
   • Hear police information and rumors
   • Avoid traffic tickets
2. • Avoid minor violations (first conviction)
   • Get “inside information”
3. • Get copies of an investigation report
   • Have license plates checked
   • Have police hassle, detain or harass someone
   • Find agency secrets
4. • Access confiscated weapons or contraband
   • Have some serious charges dropped
   • Start an small investigation
5. • Arrange setups
   • Instigate major investigations
   • Have officers fired

Political
Deal-making is second nature to most vampires, so they can get along very well with other bloodsuckers – that is, politicians. Altering party platforms, controlling local elections, changing appointed offices and calling in favors all falls under the purview of Political Influence. Well-timed blackmail, bribery, spin doctoring or any sundv tricks are stock in trade on both sides of this fence. Some of the likely contacts and allies include pollsters, lobbyists, activists, party members, spin doctors and politicians from rural zoning committees to the mayors of major cities or members of Parliament.

1. • Minor lobbying
   • Identify real platforms of politicians and parties
   • Be in the know
2. • Gamer inside information on processes, laws and the like
   • Meet small-time politicians
3. • Sway or alter political projects (local parks,renovations, small construction)
4. • Enact minor legislation
   • Dash careers of minor politicians
5. • Get your candidate in a minor office
   • Enact encompassing legislature

Street
Ignored and often spat on by their “betters,” those in the dark alleys and slums have created their own culture to deal with life and any outsiders who might come calling. When calling on Street Influence, you use your connections on the underside of the city to find the homeless, gang members of allsorts, street buskers, petty criminals, prostitutes, residents of the slums or barrios, and fringe elements of so-called “deviant” cultures.

1. • Open an ear for the word on the street
   • Identify most gangs and know their turfs and habits
2. • Live mostly without fear on the underside of society
   • Keep a contact or two in most aspects of street life
   • Access small-time contraband
3. • Get insight into other areas of Influence
   • Arrange some services from street people or gangs
   • Get pistols or uncommon melee weapons
   • Control a single medium-sized gang
4. • Mobilize groups of homeless
   • Get hold of a shotgun, rifle or SMG
   • Control a large gang, or several smaller gangs.
5. • Control several large gangs
   • Arrange impressive protests by street people

Transportation
Most Cainites make their havens in defensible parts of cities. Traveling across the wilderness is difficult, with the problems of daylight and marauding Lupines. Without this Influence, the vampiric world shrinks into islands of “civilization” with dangerous wastelands in between. Getting access to special supplies and services can also take a measure of Transportation. All these things can be controlled with a bit of sway over truckers, harbors, railroads, airports, taxis, border guards, pilots and untold hundreds, as well as more mundane aspects like shipping and travel arrangements.

1. • Know what goes where, when and why
   • Travel locally quickly and freely
2. • Track an unwary target if he uses public transportation
   • Arrange passage safe (or at least concealed) from mundane threats (robbery, terrorism, sunlight, etc.)
3. • Seriously hamper an individual’s ability to travel
   • Avoid most supernatural dangers when traveling (such as Lupines)
4. • Shut down one form of transportation (bus lines, ships, planes, trains, etc.) temporarily
5. • Reroute major modes of travel
   • Smuggle with impunity

Underworld
The world of crime offers lucrative possibilities to strong-willed or subtle leaders. Guns, money, drugs and vice -such delicious pastimes can be led by anyone talented or simply vicious enough to take them. U&urkd Influence lets you call on such favors for all manner of illegal dealings, and its ranks are filled by the Mafia, La Cosa Nostra, drug dealers, bookies, Yakuza, tongs, hitmen, fences and criminal gangs.

1. • Locate minor contraband (knives, smalletime drugs, petty gambling, scalped tickets)
2. • Obtain pistols, serious drugs, stolen cars
   • Hire muscle to rough someone up
   • Fence stolen loot
3. • Obtain a rifle, shotgun or SMG
   • Arrange a minor “hit”
   • Meet someone in “the Family”
4. • Make white-collar crime connections
5. • Arrange gangland assassinations
   • Hire a demolition man or firebug
   • Supply local drug needs

University
Institutions of learning and research are the purview of the University Influence. Access to the halls of learning can help you with any number of resources, from ancient languages to research assistance to many impressionable young minds. School boards, students from kindergarten through college, graduate students, professors, teachers, deans, Greek orders and a variety of staff fill the ivy-covered halls.

1. • Know layout and policy of local schools
   • Have access to low-level university resources
   • Get records up to the high school level
2. • Know a contact or two with useful knowledge or Abilities
   • Have minor access to facilities
   • Fake high school records
   • Obtain college records
3. • Cancel a course
   • Fix grades
   • Call in faculty favors
   • Discredit a student
4. • Organize student protests and rallies
   • Discredit faculty members
5. • Falsify an undergraduate degree

• Using Influence – Using your contacts you make things happen in the world
• Personal Actions – What your character actually does personally during the four week period
• Learn and Improve – You can spend experience points (XP) to improve you abilities, sometimes this will also take up some of your four week time from Personal Actions.

Don’t worry if you’re new to all this, we are always happy to go through any rules with you and explain exactly how it works, email us, or grab us before a game.

Influences

Your character knows people who can get things done in a particular field, called an Influence. The higher your level of influence the more you can accomplish. Unless you are actively prevented from contacting anyone in a given downtime, presumably by a third party, then you can use your influences – they represent people you know who owe your favours, or that you have blackmail material on, or something else. Regardless, if your character can reasonably be assumed to be able to speak on the phone, you may use your influences – it does not take any appreciable amount of time out of your month. You can find out more about exactly what you can do with your influences here.

Personal Actions

These are activities your character undertakes personally such as meetings, following people etc. You can only undertake one “action” per week. Night-to-night things like personal grooming, basic feeding, shopping, paying the bills and so on don’t count as actions – you can assume a certain amount of normal spare time, just like real life.

Some actions will take longer than a week. If you run out of weeks, perhaps because the refs think that the first action you’ve noted down would take two or three weeks, then later actions will not happen: if you are unsure how long something might take, then, please ask us. We won’t always tell you, as your character may not be reasonably expected to know how long some activities might take. In game, as in life, you have to prioritise your activities.

Usually you will get four weeks in a downtime. However, some factors can increase or decrease this time.

For every dot in the Retainer background you gain a “task” which functions more or less like an extra week in your month as your ghoul does things for you.  As with your own weeks, if the first task in your downtime is judged to be long or complex, other tasks more moved down, and may not get accomplished.  This applies even if you have multiple ghouls – if you set one to doing a 2 week task, then another may be required to help, or simply become distracted or jealous when you focus your attention on the first ghoul’s efforts.  (This is not entirely realistic, we admit, but we feel it is a situation where game balance it required ahead of realism.)

Obviously, there are certain tasks they cannot accomplish such as study for you, and they may be more likely to get hurt or caught doing particularly risky actions. Still, they are an extra pair of competent and loyal hands.

For each dot of Path/Humaity rating below 6, you lose a week. So a rating 5 character only has 3 weeks per month, a rating 4 character 2 weeks, and so on. This represents your character’s increasing descent into insanity as they fall to the Beast. This means that low humanity characters find it harder to, and in extreme cases cannot, improve or learn new skills, but low rating characters are allowed to spend time to increase their Path/Humanity rating, even if they have no weeks available – see below.

Don’t worry, you’re not going to have to keep track of all this yourself. Our downtime system will do it for you.

Spending XP

Learning new skills and powers has a time cost as well as an XP cost. XP costs are listed here.

• Influences: One week for levels 1-4, and 2 weeks for level 5.
• Attributes or Abilities: Number of weeks equal to the new rating you will have. This training can be split up over several downtimes, and the weeks do not have to be consecutive, but your XP is spent straight away and you only get the rating once the training is done.
• Increasing a Disciple, Virtue or Path of Enlightenment rating: Twice your new rating in weeks without interruption – the weeks spent on this must be consecutive. If you are interrupted, then you lose half the weeks you have accumulated to that point. You can attend court, use your influences and live a low-key life, but nothing else. It is, however, possible for you to raise your humanity/path even though at very low levels of those there would be no free weeks in your month – to go from rating 1 to 2 takes 2 full months of downtime, and rating 2 to 3 takes a further month. (Plus, obviously, the requisite XP.)
• Thaumaturgical or Necromantic Path rank: One and half times the new rating in weeks, rounding up. As above, this time must be consecutive and cannot be interrupted.
• New Thaumaturgic or Necromantic Ritual: A number of uninterrupted weeks equal to the level of the ritual.
• Willpower: One week per level of new rating. Again, this time must be consecutive and cannot be interrupted.
• Increasing a background takes a variable amount of time, depending on the background and level, and your character’s personal circumstances – ask us.

We will attempt to be generous when considering how outside events interrupt you learning new skills. Minor upheavals will make no difference. Major upheavals include: serious injury, specific action by another player with the intent to disrupt you, torpor or the destruction of your haven.

You can spend XP to improve your character’s existing abilities, or to learn entirely new ones.

The costs for this are as follows

• Attribute – 4 times the new level.
• Ability (Talent/Skill/Knowledge) – 2 times the new level.
• New Ability – 3 XP.
• Virtue – 2 times the new level.
• Humanity/Path Rating – 2 times the new level.
• Willpower – the new level.
• Clan Influences – 2 times the new level.
• Other Influence – 3 times the new level.
• New Influence – 3 XP
• Clan Discipline – 5 times the new level.
• Other Discipline – 7 times the new level.
• New Discipline – 10 XP
• Thaumaturic or Necromatic Path – 4 times the new level.
• Thaumaturic or Necromatic Ritual – 2 times the ritual’s level.
• New Path – 7 XP.

So, for example, to raise an Attribute from 3 to 4 costs 16 XP.

Improving Influences

Even if your character is not particularly interested in their clan’s traditional areas of influence, it is still easier for them to raise them with XP than the out-of-clan areas that they may be more interested in – your character already has Clan mates who they can ask for introductions and advice about how to go about increasing one’s sphere of influence in those areas. For details about which influences considered Clan influences, please consult the Influences Page

Learning Disciplines

A member of a given clan will always find that certain abilities come more naturally to them than others. Clan Disciplines are therefore cheaper, and do not generally require specific training to improve – solo practice is generally enough to improve Clan Disciplines. This is also true of the physical disciplines of Celerity, Potence and Fortitude – even if your character cannot buy them at Clan Discipline costs, they do not require a tutor. Any other Disciple requires a weeks training per level of discipline you are attempting to acquire from someone who already possesses the requisite level of the discipline in question – so half the time you spend learning the discipline is spent with a tutor, the other half in practice and solo study.

In the event that your character commits Diablerie on a member of another Clan, the refs will assign you one extra Clan Discipline than can be bought more cheaply and without training, chosen at random from those possessed by the deceased character.

Thaumatury, Necromancy and magical paths

Characters who possess these disciplines have one primary path which is bought at the costs for a discipline. In the case of the Tremere, this is the Path of Blood, in the case of other clans, the player may pick a primary path. A character may not possess a rating in another path or learn a ritual whose level that is higher than the level of their primary path. If the Primary path is bought at the costs for an in-Clan Discpline, it does not require training. Otherwise, all paths and rituals require specific training.