Backgrounds

Below is a listing of backgrounds avaliable in this game. All credit to the staff of CoAL for this list. LiteST or myself must have descriptions of all backgrounds for approval and for them to be used in game.

Allies
Allies are mortal men and women who support the character. They may be members of his family, friend (from before or after his embrace), fellow members of an organization to which he gives allegiance, or related to him in some other way. Whatever the case, they provide him with aid willingly and without coercion. They are not always available – in crucial moments the ST may limit their availability in varying degrees – and they are not bound to provide aid to the point of suicide.

The details of your character’s allies depend on your imagination and your Storyteller’s approval. Temporal and religious authorities, people prominent in commerce or a professional, family figures and the like are all possibilities.

* One ally of moderate influence and power in the immediate community
** Two allies, both of moderate power locally and some influence in the county or region
*** Three allies, one of whom wield significant power, official or otherwise
**** Four allies, one of whom is extremely influential
***** Five allies, one of whom is a major force in an important institution and can provide aid from far away

Contacts
Contacts are people who are willing to provide the character with information, though they are unlikely to offer any service beyond that. Each level of Contacts includes a specific individual, for whom you should work out a description, and a surrounding “halo” of lower-grade connections throughout a social stratum. If you have a specific contact in the local cathedral, for instance, you can also get at least rudimentary information out of some vicars, deacons, and alter boys in the area. If your contact is the harbormaster, you can count on getting some information from sailors, longshoremen, and tavern-keepers nearby. The difficulty of rolls to extract information from these secondary contacts is always greater than ones involving the individuals with whom your character deals with more often.

When your character needs information in the utmost hurry, roll Wits + Contacts against difficulty 7. Each success produces a distinct piece of information relevant to the topic. Your character needs potentially useful people in the area for this to work, though. To gather information over time, your character can put out queries and wait for the results to trickle back in. Roll Charisma + Contacts against difficulty 7. Each success produces one specific piece of information and takes a week to come in. You can shorten this time, but the difficulty of the die roll increases to 8 if three days and 9 for one day.

* One major contact and two or three secondary contacts
** Two major contacts and about five secondary contacts
*** The major contacts and eight secondary contacts
**** Four major contacts and twelve secondary contacts
***** Five major contacts and a great many secondary contacts (almost anyone in the general field of experience in the area may share some information)

Domain
Domain is physical territory, almost always within a town or city, to which your character controls access for the purpose of feeding. She cannot keep the living inhabitants from going about their business, but she can keep watch herself. She can also have allies or servants specifically look for unfamiliar vampires and alert her when they find some. Domain refers specifically to the land 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 Cainite society – vampires who lack significant domain seldom earn respect – but it isn’t an automatic entitlement to status among Cainites.

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

* A family home or a farm and its outlying properties – enough for a basic haven
** A Church or other large structure, a pier and adjacent warehouse, or a bridge and ford – some place with ready but easily controllable access to the outside world
*** A city block or buildings around a country crossroad – some place with opportunities for concealment but less thorough security
**** A labyrinth, network of cisterns, the estates on a hill overlooking a town, or the inns and watch posts on each side of a mountain pass – a place with both prospects and security
***** A ghetto district, self-sustaining border garrison, or multi-family farm holding

Generation
Generation measures the number of vampires in a direct line between the character and Caine, the First Vampire. Younger vampires are, on average, higher generation. However, those of low generation continue to embrace childer and sometimes the youth may have power powerful blood than a elder.

Generation is not a purchased background in this game, but rather it is assigned by staff.

* 11th Generation. Blood pool of 12, can spend 1 blood point per turn.
** 10th Generation. Blood pool of 13, can spend 1 blood point per turn.
*** 9th Generation. Blood pool of 14, can spend 2 blood point per turn.
**** 8th Generation. Blood pool of 15, can spend 3 blood point per turn.
***** 7th Generation. Blood pool of 20, can spend 4 blood point per turn.

Herd
Herd is the deliberately derogatory term among Cainites for mortals who readily let the character (and vampires she allows to join in) drink their blood. Motives for this submission range widely, from believers who are convinced that the character is a dark angel granted divine authority over them to ambitious schemers who regard the humiliation and fatigue as the price of admission to the vampire’s favor for negation and power over rivals. Its hard to give one’s herd detailed orders: They are addicts to the experience of feeding, not much use as allies or contacts (unless you also buy those backgrounds to refer to the same individuals). They do not automatically share all their territory and goods, either. Those benefits require separate purchases of Domain and Recourses.

Some common factor ties the herd together, whether its shared membership in a monastery or chivalric order, being members of one or a few extended families, residence along a particular street given over to the practitioners of one trade or something else.

Each level of herd rating provides an automatic blood point per night your character chooses to feed, in addition to the vagaries of regular hunting.
* 3-5 vessels
** 7-10 reliable vessels
*** 15-25 reliable vessels
**** 30-50 reliable vessels
***** 75-100 reliable vessels


Mentor
Most Cainites are pretty left to their own devices after release by their sires. Mentor reflects the continuing presence of an older vampire who takes an interest in the character, providing advice, aid, and recourses (depending on the mentor’s interests). The Mentor is not a magic cure for all character problems – a sufficiently determined fool convinces the mentor to take his support elsewhere. Nor is the mentor at the character’s beck and call, since he presumably has matters of his own to attend to. He is a good source for letters of introduction, historical perspectives on current problems, and other relatively discrete, specific assistance.

The mentor is often your character’s sire, retaining social ties after release. It can be any other elder whom the character encounters along the way, however.
* An ancilla with little influence, though good wisdom
** A respected elder
*** An influential and well-connected Cainite of the area
**** An elder with significant power in surrounding mortal society and strong connections to other Cainite communities
***** One of the significant vampires of the age.

Note: PCs may petition for one of the staff played NPCs to be their mentor. However, staff will only allow it if you are suited to that character. If staff rejects your petition, please understand that we may not explain the reasons why but that it has nothing to do with our level of like for your character but rather how well our NPC would like your character.

Resources
Resources are valuable goods whose disposition your character controls. In the currency scarce Medieval world, these assets may be actual money, but they are more likely to be property of some sort – land, grazing rights, animals, tax claims in kind as well as money and so on. Remember that vampires don’t need to arrange for any food except blood and that their actual needs 9as opposed to wants) for shelter and the like are very easily accommodated. Resources for vampires go mostly to pay for luxuries and for the associated expenses of developing and maintaining other backgrounds. A character with no dots in Resources has enough clothing and supplies to get by, but little margin for luxuries.

* Sufficient. You can maintain a typical residence in the style of the social class you choose and seem unmiserly, even if fits of largesse come seldom. You can maintain a servant or hire specific help as necessary
** Moderate. You can display yourself as a member in good standing of your chosen community, with the occasional gift and indulgence seemly for a person of quality. You can maintain a small staff of servants. A fraction of your resources are available in letters of credit, readily portable jewelry, and other forms that let you maintain a standard of “living” at the one-dot level wherever you happen to be, for up to six months.
*** Comfortable. You are a prominent and established member of your community, with land and property, and the reputation which lets you draw on credit at very generous terms. Trust is as much a key resource as any particular valuable commodity at this level. You can maintain a one-dot quality of existence wherever you are without difficulty, for as long as you chose.
**** Wealthy. Troubadours spin tales about the richness of your clothes, the health of your livestock, and the beauty of your home. You hold more than many of the local authorities (and need to deal with their jealousy from time to time). When you travel, you can maintain a three-dot existence for up to a year, and a two dot existence indefinitely.
***** Extremely Wealthy. Midas, Croesus, and you, at least in the popular mind. You have vast and widely distributed assets, with huge staffs and connections to every level of society through a region. You travel with a minimum of three-dot comforts, more with a little effort. Kings and cardinals sometimes come to you for loans.

Retainers
Retainers are servants and companions with personal bonds of loyalty to your character. Depending on the character, they may be actual servants, fellow veterans of a crusade, fellow members of a monastic sect, childhood friends, and the like. They may be ghouls, bound to the character by the ties of blood, or may not, depending on the character’s preferences.

Most retainers are of average ability and competence. In game terms, they have two dots in most attribute, perhaps three in one or two relevant abilities. If you want to acquire one or more particularly competent retainers, you an do so by putting multiple dots into one. Please see the Retainer Building guidelines below.

* One retainer
** Two retainers, or one of unusual competence (three attributes at three dots, most professional abilities at three dots and one at four)
*** three retainers, or two above average retainers, or one remarkable retainer (built to the same total as a starting character)
**** Four retainers, or two above average and one typical, or one remarkable and two typical
***** Five retainers or three above average or two remarkable

Influences

Influence measures the degree to which your character can make her wishes count in mortal society. In most cases, she’s acquired influence through multiple means, including persuasion, bribery, intimidation, direct manipulation of minds and emotions, and passing herself off as a mortal when necessary. It takes time to accumulate more than a dot of two of influence in a community of any size. Influence license to do whatever strikes your character’s fancy. It’s always easier to get institutions to do what they’re already inclined to. (Dark Ages Vampire Corebook 2002)

The amount of total influence within London is limited within each sector. Only staff knows what that limit is, but influences do have the potential of becoming full within game and some may already be full. Remember that you will need to give a good justification for influences, especially high levels of them. We will expect an explanation of how you maintain hold of each influence you have.

Influences are handled every two weeks, starting on Sunday, March 15. Please preface all actions with the key term of the action, listed below. Influence actions should be sent to both Bishops Gate and me, Avalon HST. You do not need to send in influence actions every influence round, though you are welcome to.

Basic actions
Below are the action types one can attempt with influence. Remember that no action is foolproof and dice will be rolled to see if an action succeeds, how long an action will take, or how effective it is.

Action, Generic – use influence to do an action in your influence realm. Example actions and their corresponding level are listed under each type of influence. Other similar actions are also possible.

Assist – You may assist someone else’s influence action or gain influence for another person. When doing this, your dice are always halved, rounded down, and in some assist actions may not be possible even when they work fine as standard actions. Assists will have to be explained logically and show coordination with the other character’s goals.

Attack – This is where you use your own influence to attack the influence of another. This can be used to attack a specific individual or to attack the influence group at large. Please be specific in your plans, as they will effect the difficulty of your attempt and who your attack effects. If you wish to grow the influence you attacked, you must do so after the attack is successful. However, you will be at an advantage because you understand what exactly was hit in the broader realm of each influence.

Grow – This is where you grow your influence to a higher level. This requires an explanation of how your character is gaining more influence. Grow actions are done per two weeks. You can break them up. Higher levels of influence take longer to grow.

Growth of an influence requires you to spend XP. Please review our XP costs for backgrounds in the XP Rules section. We will automatically deduct these points at the end of a successful growth.

Hide – You are using your connections to make it less obvious you have your hands in an influence. This counteracts investigation attempts. You can hide that you possess influence levels in a particular realm, and this may counteract investigations made within your influence sector that round. You may also hide it was you that did a generic action, growth, investigation, or attack. You will also need to explain how you achieve your hiding goals.

You may dedicate as many dots of influence and appropriate backgrounds as you wish, though you may not use above 5. Those dots will count as dice for the purpose of counteracting an investigation attempt. Difficulty modifiers may be adjusted if an action is particularly noteworthy.

Investigate – This allows you to see what is going on within a realm of influence and who else might have pull in the influence in question. Note that you will not get names of involved individuals but may possible get descriptions of several individuals, both cainite and mortal for you to look through.

You can also investigate to see who might be involved in a specific influence action or search for a specific person (via a physical description). You may dedicate dots of influence and appropriate backgrounds as you wish, though you may not use above 5. Those dots will count as dice for the purpose of looking into the person or action. Difficulty modifiers may be adjusted if an action is particularly noteworthy.

Important Notes
Staff would like to note that there is no maintenance action. It is assumed that you maintain your influence because that maintenance is what the influence rating represents. However, if you go idle in play for a long period of time and do not inform staff that you are unable to post, your influence levels will decrease and be much more easy to attack.

Backgrounds may in some cases be used in conjunction with influences, where it makes sense.

If you lose a level of influence, you do not lose the XP and freebies spent on the influence. These go into an influence pile to spent on regaining influence. They cannot be used for other purchases.

Church
In the Middle Ages, the Church has considerable control over temporal society, and its policies exert considerable influence over the direction of politics and communities. Knowing the appropriate people allows insight into the mainstream faiths of Christianity (Catholicism), Judaism, and Islam. When you exercise Church Influence, you can change religious policy, affect the assignment or clergy and access a variety of lore and resources. Contacts and allows 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 for 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. Dip into the collection plate (250 coins). Access private information and archives of a church
4 Discredit or suspend high-level church members. Frame someone as a possible witch or demon for church investigation.
5 Borrow or access church tomes the public does not know exist. Access ancient church lore and knowledge.

Court
Your mortal ties lead one way or another, by blood marriage, coercion, wealth, or talent to the elite over the unwashed masses. You don’t necessarily have a direct link to nobility, but with the Court Influence you might find yourself invited to revels where such nobility can be present.

1 Learn what is fashionable (e.g. Far Eastern Drugs, spices). Learn about celebrations far in advance
2 Be known on sight by the local elite. Barrow 150 coins as idle cash from rich contacts
3 Crush promising arranged marriages. Spread damning gossip
4 Hobnob well above your station surrounding cities
5 Obtain invitations to important and royal celebrations

Health
Healthcare in the Medieval Ages is primitive at best. Depending on your religious or personal medical preference, you might end up with the black plague, legless from gangrene or dead with leeches draining cold blood out of your body. Common types of healers include herd doctors, witches, midwives, and wise men and women. In Western Europe, healthcare is largely regulated by the Church. Monks and nuns regularly treat the sick and injured, and some treatments or practices (such as autopsy) are outlawed by the Church doctrine.

1 Easily access the services of midwives and village healers. Access to a single Blood Trait.
2 Access to healers with a limited capacity to treat mundane ailments. Access two Blood Traits.
3 Access to a supply of non-fatal poisons. Access to healers with a descent capacity to treat mundane ailments. Access to three Blood Traits.
4 Access to a limited supply of fatal poisons. Abuse noble funding (250 coins), Access to four blood traits.
5 Access to healers with a great capacity to treat mundane ailments. Have bodies exhumed without religious condemnation. Have people quarantined as lepers or plague carriers. Access to five blood traits.

Learning
In an age where the quest for learning and knowledge is taking on a new significance, those who have access to knowledge are powerful indeed. Someone with this Influence can control the amount of knowledge dispensed to the peasantry – and the percentage of truth dispensed. Within this sphere of Influence, one finds the tutors, scholars, monks, minstrels, archivists, clergy, and many young impressionable minds.
1 Access to a limited variety of books. Control information dispensed to a small audience
2 Know a contact or two with useful knowledge of skills.
3 Obtain access to the historical archives of minor nobility
4 Get certain literary works banned. Control knowledge of an individual institution.
5 Obtain access to a large variety of books and tomes

Occult
The hidden world of the supernatural teems with secrets, conspiracies, and unusual factions. 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, charlatans, Gypsies, witches, would-be-occultists, and a few more dangerous elements can be found here.

1 Contact a make use of common occult groups and their practices. Know some of the more visible occult figures.
2 Know and contacts some of the more obscure occult figures. Access resources for most rituals and rites
3 Know the general vicinity of certain supernatural entities. Access vital or rare material components. Milk impressionable peasants for 250 coins. Access some occult tomes and writings. Research a basic ritual.
4 Research an Intermediate ritual. Access to lore sources regarding supernatural entities.
5 Unearth Advanced rituals. Learn enough about local supernatural groups to indirectly contact them.

Political
Bribing influential nobles and attracting favorable merchants are just a few of the antics that falls under the purview of Political Influence. Well-timed blackmail, bribery, or any sundry tricks are stock in trade on both sides of this fence. Some of the likely contacts and allies include nobles, sages, landowners, and merchants.

1 Be in the know as to the politics of state. Identify real platforms of politicians and parties.
2 Have contacts among those in power (e.g. bailiffs, members of the court of the city, etc)
3 Gain information on and from secret meetings. Spend a warrant reward (1000 coins).
4 Gain the prince’s ear on a major issue. Sabotage the reputation of another through political intrigues.
5 Suspend minor laws temporarily. (tax on every third animal brought to down)

Street
Ignored and often past upon by their “betters”, those in the dark alleys and slums, where plague and pestilence scurries along by the gutter, 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 lepers, thieves of all sorts, ruffians, petty criminals, prostitutes, residents of the cheap side of town, actors, and fringe elements of co-called deviant cultures.

1 Open an ear for the word on the street. Identify most cutthroats and know their turfs and habits.
2 Live mostly without fear on the underside of the city. Keep a contact or two in most aspects of street life. Access small-time weaponry.
3 Get insight into other areas of Influence. Arrange some services from street people ruffians. Get knives or other uncommon melee weapons.
4 Mobilize groups of peasants. Beg or hold a “collection” (50 coins). Get a hold of a greatsword, broadsword, shield, or crossbow.
5 Control a single medium sized gang of thieves and ruffians. Arrange protests by peasant people.

Transportation
Transportation Influence can mean the difference between a major skirmish and riding through town unmolested. Getting access to special suppose and services an also take a measure of Transportation. Most all of these things can be controlled with a bit of sway over horses, ports, as well as more mundane aspects like shipping and travel arrangements. For many Cainites, Transportation can mean the difference between arriving safely at one’s destination or arriving at all Travel is dangerous and difficult in the Dark Medieval, and this Background can help a Cainite avoid most of the worst perils, such as Lupines.

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, witch-hunters, etc.)
3 Seriously hamper an individual’s ability to travel. Avoid most supernatural dangers when traveling.
4 Shut down one form of transportation temporarily. Route money your way (200 coins)
5 Reroute major modes of travel. Smuggle with impunity.