Backgrounds

Backgrounds describe advantages of relationship, circumstance, and opportunity: material possessions, social networks, and the like. Backgrounds are external, not internal, Traits, and you should always rationalize how you came to possess them, as well as what they represent. Who are your Contacts? Why do your Allies support you? Where did you meet your Retainers? What investments do you possess that yield your 4 dots in Resources? If you’ve put enough detail into your character concept, selecting appropriate Backgrounds should be easy.

Although it’s uncommon to make rolls involving Background Traits, your Storyteller might have you do so to see if you can obtain information, goods, or favors. For example, you might have to roll Wits + Resources to keep your stock portfolio healthy, or Manipulation + Contacts to wheedle that extra favor from your smuggler “associate.”

Certain Backgrounds may be “pooled” among characters in a coterie. See Pooling Backgrounds for more information.

Some Backgrounds lend themselves to joint ownership. Specifically, the members of a coterie may choose to pool their individual stores of Allies, Armory, Communal Haven, Contacts, Domain, Herd, Influence, Resources, and Retainers.

You and the other players choose 1 Background as the anchor that holds the shared assets together. For example, this Background might be Domain, with the physical place the characters claim as their haven and for hunting, which also acts as a meeting ground for the mortals they deal with, a repository for their wealth, and so on. Any of the poolable Backgrounds can serve in this role, however: Herd might be this coterie’s key to sustenance and stability.

No Background pool can have more dots assigned to it than the Anchor Background does at any time. If the Background is damaged by events during play or between sessions, other assets drift away from the characters’ control, and it takes effort to win them back.

Any character contributing to the pool may pull their stake out at any time. The dislocations guarantee some damage: The character gets back one dot less than they put in.

As the Anchor Background rating rises again, so do the ratings of those anchored to it, as a result of storytelling directed toward the goals of improving lost Backgrounds.

Under normal circumstances, a coterie can’t change its Anchor Background, nor can it acquire a new Anchor Background. While it may choose to abandon a certain Background asset over the course of a chronicle (and thus free itself of the limitations of the pooled Backgrounds in question), the fact that Backgrounds change value only as a result of the story’s events means that the coterie must acquire new Backgrounds in that manner, rather than through freebie or experience points.

In the end, most vampires end up following personal goals over the course of their unlives. Pooled Backgrounds are a great way for young Kindred to gain an initial advantage as neonates in the World of Darkness, but they quickly become outdated or even liabilities as the Kindred formerly attached to them pursue their own, private agendas.

Pooled Backgrounds are shared resources; essentially the coterie’s communal property. Anyone who contributes to the pool (no matter how much ze contributes) has equal access to it. Even if the character donates to only one of the pool’s associated Backgrounds, ze still has equal access to it. Not everyone can use the pool simultaneously, though. A Herd pool of 7 dots can grant access only to the same, finite number of vessels. Just how those points are split up depends on the circumstances and agreements between the characters.

At the Storyteller’s discretion, players can agree to place individual access limits on shared Backgrounds, to reflect any agreements their characters have made with one another. Sometimes being the Kindred who contributed fewer Backgrounds than the others comes with its own considerations.

By pooling points, a coterie can get Backgrounds that surpass the normal 5-dot limit. This arrangement is normal, and it reflects the advantages of cooperation. A group can secure a larger domain or maintain a larger network of allies and contacts than a single vampire can. There is no absolute upper limit on the level to which a pooled Background can rise, but things can get downright ludicrous if you aren’t careful. It’s usually best for the Storyteller to impose a 10-dot limit on the Anchor Background (and thus on all others).

The Storyteller should also take into consideration the scaling of Backgrounds, increasing their reliability rather than their quantitative value as the ratings escalate among the coterie. For example, if an average player group of 4 players each contributes a single dot or 2 to a shared Resources pool of 6, the effect shouldn’t be that they’re collectively the world’s secret Kindred billionaires, but rather that they’re of more modest means, and that those means are more difficult to wrest from them by other jealous vampires. This is a question of balancing player expectations with elements of the story, so be sure to set some guidelines for what the shared Backgrounds actually represent before the chronicle begins.

Age

You have survived as a vampire for far longer than many Kindred — enough to be considered an elder according to the fickle, deadly others of your kind. This Background is not necessarily a simple reflection of your age; it reflects the number of years you have functioned away from the slumber of torpor. If you have fallen into torpor, you may actually be older than even this Background indicates...

Every dot of Age gives a character a certain amount of extra freebie points to reflect zir greater acumen, but this wisdom comes at the expense of Humanity. Note that the progression is not linear — truly ancient vampires learn with much more difficulty than younger ones, as stasis grips them in their unchanging state.

Note: This Background is included as a Storyteller’s option for elder chronicles, and is not mandatory for Storyteller characters of advanced age. By all means, create your elders to suit the story; this system is included to make sure players’ elders start out with a common frame of reference, should you allow them. Although this Trait may theoretically rise above 5 (for unimaginably old characters), Storytellers should give serious thought to their game before allowing it.

Allies

Allies are mortals who support and help you — family, friends, or even a mortal organization that owes you some loyalty. Although Allies aid you willingly, without coaxing or coercion, they are not always available to offer assistance; they have their own concerns and can do only so much for the sake of your relationship. However, they might have some useful Background Traits of their own, and could provide you with indirect access to their Contacts, Influence, or Resources.

Allies are typically persons of influence and power in your home city. They can be of almost any sort, depending on what your Storyteller will allow. You may have friends in the precinct morgue, at a prominent blog, among the high society of local celebrities, or at a construction site. Your Allies might be a clan of nomads who move their mobile home camp around the area, or they might be a family of generations of police officers. You may even count the mayor themself among your friends, depending on how many dots you spend on this Trait. Your Allies are generally trustworthy (though they probably don’t know that you’re a vampire, or even that vampires exist). However, nothing comes for free. If you wind up drawing favors from your friend in the Cosa Nostra, xe’ll probably ask you to do xem a favor in kind in the future. This often leads to the beginning of a story...

Allies may be pooled among a coterie of characters.

Alternate Identity

You maintain an alternate identity, complete with papers, birth certificates, or any other documentation you desire. Only a few may know your real name or identity. Your alternate persona may be highly involved in organized crime, a member of the opposite sect, a con artist who uses alternate identities for their game, or you may simply gather information about the enemy. Indeed, some vampires may know you as one individual while others believe you to be someone else entirely.

Arcane

Certain Kindred are inherently unknowable, and those around them often fail to notice them, let alone their undead states. Some vampires have the ability to remain anonymous. This strange ability generally manifests as a strange nepenthe, whereby the person trying to remember the Kindred experiences only a strange nostalgia, absent of any detail.

A vampire with a high Arcane Trait may attempt to vanish from view, or ze may simply seem too ordinary to notice. This is not similar to Obfuscate, per se, and it certainly does not help in combative (or potentially so) situations — the Kindred won’t be disappearing into a puff of smoke or lingering invisibly before anyone’s eyes. If someone searches for the Kindred, xyr quest may well prove fruitless: Somehow, no one remembers zir, or the camera was out of tape, or the guard was too far away to give a reliable description.

A vampire’s Arcane score subtracts 1 die per dot from any dice pools used to actively search for zir — most often Perception or Investigation pools. A Kindred may choose to “turn off” Arcane if ze so wishes, thereby enabling others to find zir, as is sometimes beneficial. This is a passive Trait, not an active one; it does not help on Stealth rolls or other overt attempts to hide from others. It simply makes the vampire hard to find, whether ze’s lying in the back seat of a car or hidden in a crypt three continents away.

No character may take the Arcane Background if they have any Status, Clan Prestige or Fame, or vice versa. Likewise, Arcane does not have any effect for Kindred of the 8th Generation or lower — elders are simply too unnatural to slip so easily from the minds of others.

Note: This Background is as often a detriment as it is a blessing, and it sometimes conflicts with other Backgrounds. An Arcane Kindred with Resources may well have to hunt down their stock dividends while an Arcane Mentor may prove more trouble to find than they’re worth.

Armory

Your character has managed to amass a functional armory along with the ability to maintain all of the weapons within it. Each level of the Armory Background yields access to more potent weapons (along with proper ammunition) and the resources to properly maintain and clean them.

The scope of this Background varies a bit by region, as weapons-control laws differ. What an American can buy in a department store, for example, might be the sole domain of the military in Eastern Europe and available only via the black market in Brazil; players who wish to invest dots in Armory should consult with their Storytellers to determine how it will work in the chronicle’s locality. The Storyteller may require you to invest a few points in another Background (such as certain types of Influence or legal or military Allies) to prevent the Armory’s confiscation by the authorities. An Armory can vanish in a fraction of the time it took to amass it, especially if it ends up on the news or video-sharing sites with footage of a VAMPIRE BLOOD GANG MASSACRE down by the warehouses.

Players may opt to pool Background points for a shared Armory.

Black Hand Membership

You are a member of the feared Black Hand, the body of soldiers and assassins that serves the Sabbat fervently. Having this Background indicates that you are a full-fledged member of the organization, and you have all the responsibilities and benefits that accompany membership.

You may call upon members of the Black Hand to aid you, should you ever need it. Of course, this ability is a two-way street, and other Hand members may call upon you to aid them. Thus, you may find yourself assigned to perform assassinations, lend martial aid, or even further the political ends of the Hand as a diplomat or spy. You may also be required to attend crusades that take you away from your pack. All members of the Black Hand must heed the call of another Hand member, especially the superiors of the faction.

Being a member of the Black Hand is a prestigious matter, and other members of the Sabbat respect the organization. When dealing with other Sabbat, should you choose to reveal your affiliation with the Hand, you may add your rating in this Background to any Social dice pools, even after Status or other Abilities have been taken into account. Most Hand members, however, choose not to reveal their allegiance. The Black Hand is also remarkably adept at hunting down Sabbat who claim membership in the sect but do not truly belong — liars, beware.

Clan Prestige

Clan Prestige is an additional Background Trait used to keep track of a vampire’s standing within their clan. Clan Prestige bears absolutely no relation to a Kindred’s regular Status; a vampire can be highly respected by other Nosferatu but despised by the Camarilla as a whole, or a Brujah Prince might be well-respected by their peers, but loathed by their clanmates as a sell-out. Normally a vampire can only acquire Clan Prestige for zir own clan, but on rare occasions one of the Kindred has done enough service for one of the other lineages to earn Clan Prestige from them as well. Examples of this would be a Toreador who, despite their sensibilities, regularly feeds gossip from Elysium and the salons to the Nosferatu, or a Gangrel Archon who, in the course of performing their duties, foiled a Sabbat plot to assassinate a Ventrue Prince.

Clan Prestige normally runs up to a rating of 5, though elders and legendary figures (such as those found in the appendices of clanbooks) can have Clan Prestige up to 10. Clan Prestige cannot be bought with experience. It can only be bestowed through roleplaying by the elders and other members of the clan in question. Furthermore, infamous or stupid acts, or the influence of the Harpies, can strip a vampire of Clan Prestige easily. Respect within one’s clan is hard to earn and easy to lose, and the way in which Clan Prestige is handed out should reflect that.

Communal Haven

Elders are often too selfish to consider the benefits of “cohabitation”; centuries of betrayal naturally generate a certain suspicious nature as it pertains to other vampires. Anarch packs that have learned the value of mutual cooperation and enlightened self-interest, however, sometimes establish Communal Havens for mutual security and comfort.

A Communal Haven is a secure location controlled and owned by the coterie. This is a place an Anarch who invests Background dots in it can lie low, train, and plan zir next move. A Communal Haven could be as simple as an unfurnished apartment, as flashy as a mafioso’s penthouse, or as complex as a military base.

Of course, social conventions for the shared space might be complex or simple, depending on the personalities of the Kindred involved. Vampires sharing a Communal Haven can easily come into conflict unless some custom exists. Is it cool for Licks sharing the Communal Haven to offer it as crash space for others? Is it okay to bring blood dolls there? If something goes wrong, who’s in charge of disposing of the bodies or cleaning up the mess? Who takes care of keeping the location secret in the event that someone opens their goddamn mouth?

Note that this Background is different from the Domain and Resources Backgrounds. Typically, Domain is “turf,” while this is an actual Haven (which may well stand on contested domain...).

Players who elect to purchase this Background must divide their points among three different categories, described below. The purchase of this Background may be pooled as per the Background pooling system.

These rules can also be used for an individual Haven, though that may be more difficult for a single Kindred to afford.

Luxury

Luxury is a measure of the quality of appointments inside the Haven. The level of Luxury ranges from spare to opulent, corresponding closely to a Resources Background of equal value.

Size

Size represents the amount of living space in the Haven. While the following breakdown gives suggested sizes and room counts, players are encouraged to be creative if they so wish — imagine an open warehouse layout of no true “rooms,” or a network of “under repair” blacked-out skywalks that have access points to various locations downtown.

Security

Security represents how tough it is to breach the haven. Each dot of Security either adds 1 to the Difficulty of any roll made to penetrate the haven or adds 1 to the number of successes required to gain access. (Players and Storytellers should agree on this function before the story begins.)

Contacts

You know people all over the city. When you start making phone calls around your network, the amount of information you can dig up is impressive. Rather than friends you can rely on to help you, like Allies, Contacts are largely people whom you can bribe, manipulate, or coerce into offering information. You also have a few major Contacts — associates who can give you accurate information in their fields of expertise. You should describe each major contact in some detail before the game begins.

In addition to your major Contacts, you also have a number of minor Contacts spread throughout the city. Your major Contact might be in the district attorney’s office, while your minor Contacts might include beat cops, DMV clerks, club bouncers, or members of an online social network. You don’t need to detail these various “passing acquaintances” before play. Instead, to successfully get in touch with a minor contact, you should roll your Contacts rating. You can reach 1 minor Contact for each success. Of course, you still have to convince xem to give you the information you need, assuming xe can get it.

Contacts may be pooled within the characters’ coterie.

Domain

Domain is physical territory (usually within the chronicle’s central city) to which your character controls access for the purpose of feeding. Some Kindred refer to their Domain as hunting grounds, and most jealously guard their Domains, even invoking the Traditions of the same name to protect their claims. As part of this Background, the character’s claim to the Domain is recognized by the Prince or some other Kindred authority in the city where it is located.

The Kindred who claims the Domain can’t keep the living inhabitants from going about their business, nor does ze exercise any direct influence over them, but ze can keep watch zirself and mind their comings and goings. Ze can also have Allies or Retainers specifically look for unfamiliar vampires and alert zir when they find some.

Domain refers specifically to the geography (in most cases a neighborhood or street) and properties on it, as opposed to the people who may dwell there (which is the emphasis of Herd). Domain plays an important part in Kindred society — vampires who lack significant Domain seldom earn respect — but it isn’t an automatic entitlement to status among the Damned.

You may designate 1 or more dots in Domain to increase the security of your character’s territory rather than its size. Each dot so assigned to security provides a +1 Difficulty penalty to efforts to intrude into the Domain by anyone your character hasn’t specifically allowed in, and a -1 Difficulty bonus to efforts by your character to identify and track intruders in the Domain. A Domain of 1 dot’s size and 2 dots’ security, for instance, is small but quite resistant to intrusion, as opposed to a Domain rating of 3 dots’ size with no extraordinary security.

Each level of Domain reduces the Difficulty of hunting checks by 1 for your character and those whom the character allows in. It also adds to your starting (not maximum) blood pool. If you use the Domain security option, each dot of Domain security raises the Difficulty of hunting checks by 1 for uninvited vampires.

Domain (both size and security) can be used with pooled Background points.

As noted previously, characters in a coterie can share their Domain resources for better results. 6 to 8 dots secure all of a small town or a distinct city region as a Domain. 10 to 15 dots secure an important but not geographically huge city sector, such as “the docks,” or “Highland Park.” A large city itself might be a hundred-plus Domain points, as with Atlanta, Dallas, Geneva, or Baghdad. A city such as New York, London, Paris, Rome, Sao Paolo, or Shanghai would require many hundreds of Domain points.

Fame

You enjoy widespread recognition in mortal society, perhaps as an entertainer, writer, or athlete. People may enjoy just being seen with you. This gives you all manner of privileges when moving in mortal society, but can also attract an unwanted amount of attention now that you’re no longer alive. The greatest weapon fame has to offer is the ability to sway public opinion — as modern media constantly proves. Fame isn’t always tied to entertainment: A heinous criminal in a high-profile trial probably has a certain amount of fame, as do a lawmaker and a scientist who has made a popularized discovery.

This Background is obviously a mixed blessing. You can certainly enjoy the privileges of your prestige — getting the best seats, being invited to events you’d otherwise miss, getting appointments with the elite — but you’re sometimes recognized when you’d rather not be. However, your enemies can’t just make you disappear without causing an undue stir, and you find it much easier to hunt in populated areas as people flock to you (reduce the Difficulties of hunting rolls by 1 for each dot in Fame). Additionally, your Storyteller might permit you to reduce Difficulties of certain Social rolls against particularly star-struck or impressionable people.

Generation

This Background represents your Generation: the purity of your blood, and your proximity to the First Vampire. A high Generation rating may represent a powerful sire or a decidedly dangerous taste for diablerie. If you don’t take any dots in this Trait, you begin play as a 13th Generation vampire. Greater details can be found in the Generation chart in Systems and Drama.

At the Storyteller’s discretion, you may take more than 5 dots in this Background. Each additional dot decreases your Generation by 1. Consult the Generation chart for the size of your blood pool and how many blood points you may spend per turn.

Herd

You have built a group of mortals from whom you can feed without fear. A Herd may take many forms, from circles of kinky clubgoers to actual cults built around you as a god-figure. In addition to providing nourishment, your Herd might come in handy for minor tasks, though they are typically not very controllable, closely connected to you, or particularly skilled (for more effective pawns, purchase Allies or Retainers). Your Herd rating adds dice to your rolls for hunting.

Players may purchase a pooled Herd with Background points.

Influence

You have pull in the mortal community, whether through wealth, prestige, political office, blackmail, or supernatural manipulation. Kindred with high Influence can sway, and in rare cases even control, the political and social processes of human society. Influence represents the sum of your opinion- or policy-swaying power in your community, particularly among the police and bureaucracy. In some cases, cultivating Influence is a path to generating Resources (see below).

Some rolls may require you to use Influence in place of an Ability, particularly when attempting to sway minor bureaucrats. It’s easier to institute sweeping changes on a local level than a worldwide scale (e.g., having an “abandoned” building demolished is relatively easy, while starting a war is a bit more difficult).

Influence can be used with pooled Background points.

Leverage*

Information is power, and if that information is highly private and potentially damning, then all the better.

Through hacking, trading, snooping, or (most likely) sheer dumb luck, you have discovered some shameful dirt on a Kindred of importance in your city. This could be anything from a minor embarrassment to a potentially fatal indiscretion — the severity is not represented by the character’s Leverage rating, and should instead be worked out with the Storyteller during character creation.

This means that a neonate could potentially begin the game having learned a grievous secret about the Prince (if the Storyteller allows it). However, a neonate in such a position would be unable to act upon that information directly, and it would be unwise to even hint at zir knowledge. Even the Prince’s rivals would be unlikely to trust zir word; a neonate delivering the Prince’s secrets is, most likely, working for the Prince.

Of course, a cunning Kindred can play the long game — waiting until ze is in a safe position to reveal zir knowledge, or better yet, find ways to profit from what ze knows without revealing it.

Memento de Morte

Death leaves its mark on the world around it. Cold spots, places where the light seems too pale, the colors washed out and faded. Sometimes, something seeps into the items surrounding a death in such a way that it taints them forever. The fainting couch in a Victorian serial killer’s parlor, or the portrait that hung on the wall of his abattoir, for example. The blackened wood floorboards at Uncle Vittorio’s estate, reclaimed from a plague ship lit aflame to cleanse its still-living passengers. Books wrapped in the flesh of the monk who inscribed them, carved from his still living body, and bound by him in his last moments of life. But the most common mementos of death are murder weapons. The scalpels of serial killers and the sabers of war criminals. Bludgeons and .38 Bulldogs, nooses and punch bowls. The more death that has drenched the item, the more power it absorbs.

This Background gives you one or more of these mementos of death, allowing you to benefit from the ambient energies when using Necromancy. You must have the relic (or relics) with you to receive the bonus. Many Necromancers have a special sanctum set aside for their ritual work for this reason.

Mentor

This Trait represents a Kindred or group of Kindred who looks out for you, offering guidance or aid once in a while. A Mentor may be powerful, but xyr power need not be direct. Depending on the number of dots in this Background, your Mentor might be nothing more than a vampire with a remarkable information network, or might be a centuries-old creature with tremendous influence and supernatural power. Xe may offer advice, speak to the Prince or Archbishop on your behalf, steer other elders clear of you, or warn you when you’re walking into situations you don’t understand.

Most often your Mentor is your sire, but it could well be any Cainite with an interest in your wellbeing. A high Mentor rating could even represent a group of like-minded vampires, such as the elders of the city’s Tremere chantry or a Black Hand cell.

Bear in mind that this Trait isn’t a “Get out of Jail Free” card. Your Mentor won’t necessarily arrive like the cavalry whenever you’re endangered (and if xe does, you’re likely to lose a dot or more in this Background after rousing xyr ire). What’s more, xe might occasionally expect something in return for xyr patronage, which can lead to a number of interesting stories. A Mentor typically remains aloof, giving you useful information or advice out of camaraderie, but will abandon you without a thought if you prove an unworthy or troublesome protégé.

Military Force

You have accumulated some sway over a group of fighting soldiers. Whether as the leader of a populous gang or the dignitary of an entire nation, an armed force obeys your command. Although the nights of the vampiric warlord are long past, many elders cultivate some degree of military might, though they do so now with discretion and subtlety, to avoid the ire of others of their kind.

Military Force might not necessarily mean that the vampire has armed legions at their beck and call. Far more likely, especially in the modern nights, the vampire may suggest “police actions” or may influence brushfire conflicts in certain nations. A vampire may, under extreme duress, be able to enforce martial law, but such behavior attracts attention, and their influence would no doubt wane significantly afterward.

This Background is most suitable for elders, and Storytellers should feel free to extrapolate this Background past the 6th dot for vampires who have influence over truly frightening martial power.

Rank*

You serve (or served) and achieved a notable rank within a particular military organization. This can, under the right circumstances, open lines of supply or communication that might otherwise be unavailable.

It is unlikely (though not necessarily impossible) that you are still actively serving — most likely, you have been discharged. It could even be possible that you are listed as MIA, though if this is the case, attempting to use your rank to access military resources and facilities could lead to dire complications.

Regardless, you are still able to throw your weight around a little, and those of lower rank are likely to treat you with respect.

Note: Common sense applies; an ex-colonel is unlikely to have a low Leadership rating, and all ex-military will have Firearms, Survival, and similar Abilities.

Resources

Resources are valuable goods whose disposition your character controls. These assets may be actual cash, but as this Background increases, they’re more likely to be investments, property, or earning capital of some sort — land, industrial assets, stocks and bonds, commercial inventories, criminal infrastructure, contraband, even taxes or tithes. Remember that vampires don’t need to arrange for any food except blood and their actual needs (as opposed to wants) for shelter are very easily accommodated. Resources for vampires go mostly to pay for luxuries and the associated expenses of developing and maintaining Status, Influence, and other Backgrounds. A character with no dots in Resources may have enough clothing and supplies to get by, or ze may be destitute and squatting in a refrigerator box under an overpass.

You receive a basic allowance each month based on your rating, so be certain to detail exactly where this money comes from, be it a job, trust fund or dividends. (Storytellers, decide for your locality and any relevant time period what an appropriate amount of cash this monthly allowance is.) After all, a Kindred’s fortune may well run out over the course of the chronicle, depending on how well ze maintains it. You can also sell your less liquid resources if you need the cash, but this can take weeks or even months, depending on what exactly you’re trying to sell. Art buyers don’t just pop out of the woodwork, after all.

Players may purchase Resources for their characters with pooled Background points.

Retainers

Not precisely Allies or Contacts, your Retainers are servants, assistants, or other people who are your loyal and steadfast companions. Many vampires’ servants are ghouls — their supernatural powers and Blood Bond-enforced loyalty make them the servants of choice. Retainers may also be people whom you’ve repeatedly Dominated until they have no free will left, or followers so enthralled with your Presence that their loyalty borders on blind fanaticism. Some vampires, particularly those with the Animalism Discipline, use animal ghouls as Retainers.

You must maintain some control over your Retainers, whether through a salary, the gift of your vitae, or the use of Disciplines. Retainers are never “blindly loyal no matter what” — if you treat them poorly without exercising strict control, they might well turn on you.

Retainers may be useful, but they should never be flawless. A physically powerful ghoul might be rebellious, inconveniently dull-witted, or lacking in practical skills. A loyal manservant might be physically weak or possess no real personal initiative or creativity. This Background isn’t an excuse to craft an unstoppable bodyguard or pet assassin — it’s a method to bring more fully-developed characters into the chronicle, as well as to reflect the followers for which the Kindred are notorious. Generally, Retainers are more like Renfield than Anita Blake. (If the player and Storyteller agree, a player may create a more competent single Retainer by combining more points in this Background, putting more eggs in one basket, as the saying goes.)

Players can spend pooled Background points on Retainers.

Rituals

You know the ritae and rituals of the Sabbat, and you can enact many of them. This Background is vital to being a Pack Priest — without this Background, ritae will not function. This Background is actually a supernatural investment, drawing on the magic of the eldest Tzimisce sorcerers. Sabbat vampires who are not their pack’s Priests should have an outstanding reason for acquiring this Background, as Pack Priests are loath to share their secrets with more secular members of the sect.

Spirit Slaves

This trait represents a hold you have over a ghost, or several ghosts. Usually this hold is in the form of catene, or fetters — either something that the ghost valued highly in life, or possibly a random object or place to which the spirito has been attached via a Necromantic ritual. Regardless, you have a hold over the spirit and can bully it by threatening its fetter. Alternatively, you might have information about the spirit’s goals and can control it by aiding or impeding it.

All Spirit Slaves are assumed to have statistics similar to a recently deceased ghost. However, higher levels of this Background might reflect more powerful spirits at the Storyteller’s discretion.

Stash*

Sometimes, you need to keep something safe, but without people linking it back to you. Perhaps some documents, jewelry, weapons, heroin, or a staked Sheriff you can’t adequately explain.

This Background represents some form of safe storage your character (currently) has access to. The size and security of the Stash is denoted by your rating in this Background, and while examples are given for each, the players and Storyteller should feel free to concoct suitably devious or thematic security measures for higher level Stashes. Unless the Storyteller decrees otherwise, the Stash starts empty. Items listed below are for size reference only.

Status

You have something of a reputation and standing (earned or unearned) within the local community of Kindred. Status among Camarilla society is as often derived from your sire’s Status and the respect due your particular bloodline as it is by personal achievement. Among the Sabbat, Status is more likely to stem from the reputation of your pack or the zeal of your outlook. Elders are known for having little respect for their juniors; this Background can mitigate that somewhat.

High Status within the Camarilla does not transfer to Sabbat society (and will most likely make you a notorious target for your sect’s rivals), and vice versa. Similarly, Autarkis generally have 0 Status, unless they have somehow garnered so much power and attention that they are considered forces to be reckoned with. You may have occasion to roll your Status in conjunction with a Social Trait; this reflects the positive effects of your prestige.

Note that Caitiff characters may not purchase Status during character creation. Caitiff are the lowest of the low, and any respect they achieve must be earned during the course of the chronicle.

Anarch Status

You have a reputation within the local community of Anarchs. Status among the Anarchs reflects memorable deeds and general popularity. Despite the intention of the Status Perfectus and other early Anarch manifestos, a hierarchy of who’s calling the shots has emerged in many Anarch domains, representing a maturing of the sect’s ideals (or a betrayal of them, depending on which Anarchs you’re speaking to).

Vehicle*

Vehicles serve many purposes — transport, weaponry, bargaining chips, cover, and even projectiles; sometimes all in the same night. A character with this Background owns, or at least has access to, a vehicle. Higher ratings indicate either a vehicle with better performance, or one with larger capacity. The specific make, model, and circumstances of ownership should be worked out with the Storyteller when this Background is acquired.

Obviously, a character with dots in the Vehicle Background will require the Drive Skill if ze plans to operate the vehicle personally.

The table below lists two example vehicles for each rating — those represent the highest performance vehicle available and the largest capacity vehicle available, respectively. For further information on operating vehicles (as well as some examples), consult Systems and Drama.

Wardrobe*

How we dress is a vital part of the image we project to the world — it is, therefore, also a very useful tool of deception. Whether used to distract, impress, blend in, or offend, an expansive Wardrobe can be a useful asset. It is assumed that most characters have enough clothes to get by (usually determined in part by their Resources rating), but most are unlikely to have much in the way of designer or specialist outfits, unless they have a specific reason to own a particular uniform or a tuxedo.

Characters with this Background, however, have expended time, money, and energy collecting outfits throughout their unlives. Any elder characters with this Background may well have pieces in their collection which are antique and irreplaceable.

To see if a character has something appropriate for a given situation, players should roll Perception + Etiquette. The base Difficulty is determined by how specific of a situation the character is trying to dress for, and is reduced by 1 for each dot of Wardrobe the character possesses.