Larp:House Rules

A note on Intolerance/Hatred/etc.

While there is certainly bigotry against real-life groups in the World of Darkness setting at-large, I do not feel that it is appropriate for that to be a part of our setting. Characters who have an intolerance, bigotry, or hatred of any kind of marginalized mortal social group (whether represented with flaw points or not) will not be approved.

Beast Traits

Something has changed on Caliburn Island. It's hard to pinpoint what it is, but the Beast within seems stronger than usual. More on edge. While controlling the beast used to be completely trivial, it is now slightly—just slightly—more difficult. It's hard to tell if something is even wrong. Maybe you've just started waking up on the wrong side of the bed. At least, that's what you tell yourself.

Until further notice: All Kindred characters awaken with 1 beast trait automatically. You may mitigate this under the following conditions:

- Characters with the Clear Sighted, Blase, Moral Compass, Calm Heart, or Iron Will merits are unaffected UNLESS they also possess the flaw Short Fuse or have 3 or less dots in morality. (Other merits might also mitigate the effect, at ST discretion. Just ask.)

- Characters who spend a Downtime action performing selfless, humane acts (or acts in accordance with your Morality path, if applicable) may enter play with 0 beast traits.

Passage of time

For the purposes of durations of statuses, effects, and deadlines, a "month" consists of two full games and two rounds of downtimes. The game or downtime in which the timer starts is not included unless the timer starts within the first half hour (of game) or the day after game (for downtimes).

Hardy Island Kindred

Kindred may teach themselves the first 2 dots of Celerity, Potence and Fortitude, at out-of-clan cost, without a teacher. They may begin play with no more than 3 of such self-taught dots.

Starting Disciplines

Characters may not begin play with any discipline above level 4.

Elders and their supporters

Without those over whom they hold influence, an Elder is nothing. It is through the oldest tradition of patronage that Vampires grow their privilege and power.

To reap the full benefits of their status, Elders must have supporters—Ancilla and Neonates who have, through boons or other connections, given some allegiance to an Elder’s position. An Elder may have any number of supporters, but a Neonate can only support one Elder and an Ancilla can support two.

An Elder with no supporters is considered, socially, an Ancilla, and only has the Abiding Status Confirmed. As long as the Elder has at least one supporter, they are considered to be socially an Elder, but they may not utilize the Passive benefits of their Abiding status unless a certain number of their supporters is present:

Supporters Present	Result
0	The Elder may only use the passive bonus of Confirmed.
1	The Elder may use the passive effect of Privileged.
2	The Elder may use the passive effect of Established.

Elders with the merits Reputation, Paragon, Prestigious Lineage, Architect of the Tower, or Social Nobility are always considered to have at least one (non-present) supporter, and are never considered an Ancilla for having no supporters.

Breaches of Elysium

An Elysium that has been breached will only lose its sanctity if the Keeper and/or Prince does lot levy an appropriate punishment upon a perpetrator within 30 days. Note the use of “a perpetrator” and not “the perpetrator”—if Elysium is breached and the person responsible is unknown, then this rule only requires someone to be punished for it.

Giovanni

Giovanni are considered a Common clan in this setting.

Mental and Social abilities: Power Range

Mental and Social powers which can normally target a Vampire in a damage-induced Torpor (including being staked) are limited to Line-of-Sight. Certain powers which are used to track a vampire (such as Illuminate the Trail of Prey) may still be used at storyteller discretion.

Further: A clarification recently asked: Awareness allows you to use powers that affect only yourself while in Torpor. This does not include Obfuscate, which specifically is a mind-affecting power that affects others.

Influences

Influence actions can be used more flexibly than stated in the book, so long as the use is of the same power level as the provided example.

Influence actions require a number of actions equal to the level of the action. For example, a character with four dots of an influence can do one level 4 action, or two level 2 actions, or a level 1 and a level 3, or four level 1.

Influence actions refresh every game, not every month.