Please view the Allies, Using Them and Allies, Available Lists sections. They would have been on this page, but it is much too long to add here.

Please note: If a character wishes to use an ally more times than allotted amount, they will immediately lose one dot in that ally level with no XP refund. There are other situations, which would be impossible here to list to completion, that may cause a character to lose allies - a good example of ways to lose an ally regardless of level off the top of the head is getting them all shanked in an attempt to do some task.

Allies may not have willpower used in their rolls. Allies are subjected to a Resolve x5 max total dots.

Players may not have more than 3 allies at creation at a level 1 amount, as per the rules on the Actions Guidelines page.

Carthian interest groups are not purchased as individual 1 point merits as declared in the Carthian covenant book, instead they are purchased like a 1-5 merit. For instance, if you chose to take three interest groups, you would have to pay a total of 12xp for them (2+4+6).

Common Sense is now a creation only 2 point merit.

The Contacts merit represents individual people that your character can go to in order to obtain information. For each dot of Contacts your character possesses, you may choose one Allies field (Atlanta Society, Bureaucratic, Church, Computers, Financial, Health, Law & Enforcement, Media, Occult, Street, Transportation, and University) that your character maintains a Contact in. Contacts do not provide services or aid – the purview of the Contacts merit is information.

Gaining information from Contacts requires a Presence + Appropriate Skill + Modifiers roll.

Here is a list of appropriate skills: Atlanta Society - Socialize; Bureaucratic - Politics; Church - Academics; Computers - Computers; Financial - Academics or Politics; Health - Medicine or Science; Law & Enforcement - Politics or Streetwise; Media - Socialize; Occult - Occult; Street - Streetwise; Transportation - Politics or Streetwise; University - Academics

Applicable modifiers are:
Allies in Similar Field = + Level of Allies -1
$100 Bribe = +1
$250 Bribe = +2
$500 Bribe = +3
$1000 Bribe = +4
$2500 Bribe = +5

Dramatic Failure yields no result, and alerts all characters with a Contact in the same field to your character’s attempted use of Contacts and your character’s identity.
Failure yields no result.
Success on the roll reveals all Allies uses that took place over the past 7 days that correspond to the Contacts field that was rolled, with the exception of Secret Allies uses. The identity of the individuals that did the uses is not revealed.
Exceptional Success on the roll reveals all Allies uses that took place over the past 7 days that correspond to the Contacts field that was rolled, including Secret Allies uses. The identities of the individuals that did the uses are also revealed, unless the uses were done in Secret.

A roll may only be made for a given field of Contacts once per week. For example, if a character had Contacts 2 (Health and Street), a character could make a roll for each field during the week, but could not roll twice for Health. Contacts refresh on Sunday.

Domain has it's own page, which you can reach by clicking here.

This is a Suspire.org Created Merit. This merit is not in any book.

Requirements: Cruac
* Ghouls may take Garden if their Domitor has Cruac.

Some Acolytes are well-known for their gardening skills, and some have taken it to a level where it can actually affect the moods of those who happen to come inside and stay for a term. For each purchase of this merit, a character may designate +1 to +3 OR -1 to -3 (according to the merit's level) of either the Composure or Resolve attribute. This merit may only be purchased once per garden, but it may be purchased multiple times as additional gardens require. This merit requires that the gardener maintain a strict alignment and care to the garden - requiring at least 1 hour per month of care. If a garden is destroyed, the bonus (or detriment) no longer applies. This bonus is given as positive or negative dice to a pool; it does not raise the stat in question.

Haven Size
Resources can cover physical property that you own and live at, with the size and elegance reflective of your resource rating for your primary residence only. If a secondary (or more) haven(s) are wished, the character must appropriate correct funds or purchase the Haven Size merit per additional home.

Additionally or alternatively, you may purchase the Haven Size merit if you have low resources, or none at all (as you would need to take the Haven Size merit to justify a structure - cave, hand-me-down house, etc... without funds). This Resources change does not apply to Haven Location or Haven Security.

Haven Security
Haven Security, in addition to the benefits outlined in the book, also has benefits in terms of hiding your haven (an individual trying to locate your haven must score a number of successes exceeding your Haven Security to locate it; you can combine hiding paper trails with Haven Security for increased hiding ability).

Due to the nature of our enviroment, we have made some concessions for the Herd merit. We will allow excess blood to be used completely from the pools once in awhile (it resets automatically on Sundays). We have based the amount of "excess blood" per Herd level. Naturally, this could apply to a character's carefully cultivated stock of viniculum'd mortal family, or cracked-out blood doll slaves - it's really up to the character in question:

•	4
••	8
•••	12
••••	16
•••••	25

This merit is a creation of Suspire.org. This merit is not in any book.

You can read more on this merit on the full write-up page linked off of the sidebar underneath the House Rules General Merits link, or you can click this link for more information on the Instruction Merit.

You may not use willpower on Instruction rolls.

Languages are purchased as 1 dot merits. Your character is assumed, as it's main language, to speak English. Other languages it knows should be purchased as a language merit.

Learning Languages
Roll: Intelligence + Academics (for Research) for 1 roll per day, 25 succ required.
Possible Modifiers: Research Equipment (dependant on equipment); Other Languages Known (+1-5)

Creating Languages
Roll: Intelligence + Expression, 1 roll per day, 25 succ required.
This roll may be teamworked.

As per the book but with a bit more definition; We will require a small stat sheet of your Mentor (see below) which will need to be approved by a Storyteller who will then answer questions on what your mentor(s) can and can not do. Please make your Mentor sheet according to this example.

Mentors for Ordo Dracul coils are special and are not stat'd according to the following rules:

Mentor 1*	A young individual, specialized in a particular field, very likely. Attributes 5/4/3; Skills: 11/7/4; Merits: 7; Specialties: 3 One 4, Two 3's allowed in skills.
Mentor 2**	An experienced individual, with a wide variety of abilities. Attributes: 5/4/4; Skills: 12/8/5; Merits: 10; Specialties: 4 Two 4's, Three 3's allowed in skills.
Mentor 3†	A significantly experienced individual, with broad knowledge of abilities. Attributes: 6/5/4; Skills: 13/9/6; Merits: 13; Specialties: 5 One 5, Two 4's, Four 3's allowed in skills.
Mentor 4††	A major figure, with excessive amounts of experience and knowledge. Attributes: 6/5/5; Skills: 14/10/7; Merits: 16; Specialties: 6 Two 5's, Three 4's, unlimited 3's in skills.
Mentor 5§	Holy shit, this guy is retardedly powerful, how'd you get so lucky? Attributes: 7/6/5; Skills: 15/11/8; Merits: 20; Specialties: 7 Three 5's, unlimited 4's.
*	If a vampire, allowed to have 5 disciplines, three at least from their in-clan.
**	If a vampire, allowed to have 7 disciplines, three at least from their in-clans.
†	If a vampire, allowed to have 10 disciplines, five at least from their in-clans.
††	If a vampire, allowed to have 15 disciplines, six at least from their in-clans.
§§	If a vampire, allowed to have 20 disciplines, eight at least from their in-clans.

For Mentor Devotions, you must use "2" discipline dots (and the mentor obviously needs the required disciplines).
For Mentor Rituals, the scale is this: Mentor 1 has 1 ritual per level of sorcery. Mentor 2 and 3 have 2 rituals per level of sorcery. Mentor 4 or 5 have 3 rituals per level of sorcery. It doesn't matter the actual ritual level in question, as long as it doesn't exceed the score of the Mentor's Sorcery Level.

Mentors may not have the Allies, Contacts, Haven, Geomantic Nexus Potency, Resources or Domain merits.

Cost: Half-Cost
Requirements: Occult 2

For each level in Occult Library, the character may select a specialty (this would stack with any specialty that the character may possess in Occult) and the character is allowed to have a +2 equipment modifier on any Intelligence + Academics or Occult research on that subject.

We have changed how the Resources merit works in our game. Understandably, for a TT enviroment, Resources costs without a definitive set $$ amount is alright, however, in our enviroment, with characters possibly lending other characters a grand here or there, it can become confusing quickly and also a pain to keep track of ("so what does a grand get me, anyway?"). Therefore, we have altered the resources merit to custom suit our enviroment.

•	$235/m – $2,500 assets
••	$950/m – $10,000 assets
•••	$2850/m – $50,000 assets
••••	$9500/m – $500,000 assets
•••••	$47,500/m – $5,000,000 assets

The numbers there on the monthly side have been reduced to account for “frivolous” monthly spends outside of the norm for things like beer, tattoos or piercings, clothing... things that we don’t need people to come and tell a Storyteller each time they make a purchase. Naturally, those with more money are more inclined to make such purchases. Things that are on the Item Cost Charts, havens, property or even arrangements for in-game parties are not covered by the auto deduction. If unsure about this, please speak with a Storyteller.

For character creation purposes, characters have the ability to spend up to their resources' max assets for their character’s equipment and vehicles that they would have coming into the game. Primary havens do not apply for this initial creation equipment check (as they have their own rules - see the Haven section above), however, any other haven will have to be worked out of funds.

As a side note, our system automatically adds your resources for the month on the 1st of each month, so there is no need to see a Storyteller about getting that added. However, if you are given funds or "donate" funds through in-character interaction, you and the other character(s) will need to come speak with a Storyteller in gamehelp to get your sheet's funds corrected appropriately. Naturally, purchases will deduct from your total and will be handled by a Storyteller.

Asset totals are a liquid amount of equity, items and other "stuff" that you own which can be all sold at the drop of a hat - lowering your Resources rating to 0, but giving you that much cash until it is spent.

It bears mentioning that Invictus characters get allotted double the Assets for creation and double the monthly take, as we try to emphasize the fact of Invictus monetary superiority.

Finally, there are acceptable ways to possibly get a cost lowered; streetwise rolls for a black market pickup, or computers maybe for an ebay find. Those aren't particularly the only ways possible, but it will be up to ST discretion as to whether or not your way will be applicable. Each success on a roll of this kind takes 5% off of the total cost. Possible in-game ramifications may occur, naturally (a hot, read: stolen, BMW that you got through streetwise might come back to bite you when the cops pull your ass over...).

Since the book-version of retainers is not very conducive to our environment, we’ve had to make some dramatic changes to the merit and how it’s done. Retainers have statistics of their own, which are based according to their level.

Retainers have 5 “archetypes” which may be chosen to use as the base stats for your retainer. When you create your retainer, you should reference which base stats you have chosen for it. Keep in mind your retainer doesn’t have to actually be one of these types (they could be a Politician, a Thug or whatever), just use the base stats you want to start with to create their sheet.

The “base” stats are considered to be Level 1 retainers for that archetype.

You can find the base archetypes here.

The following stats are added onto the base stats, per level – they aren’t added onto each other (that’d get loco fast).

Level 2: +1 Attribute Dot; +2 Skill dots; One Specialty; +2 Merit Dots
Level 3: +2 Attribute Dots; +3 Skill dots; One Specialty; +3 Merit Dots
Level 4: +3 Attribute Dots; +5 Skill dots; Two Specialties; +5 Merit Dots
Level 5: +4 Attribute Dots; +7 Skill dots; Three Specialties; +7 Merit Dots

Level 1 Retainers may have 1 Discipline, which must be a Physical from the Domitor’s clan. Level 2,3 and 4 retainers may have 2 Discipline, one of which must be a Physical from the Domitor’s clan - the other may be from the Domitor's spread (except Bloodlines). Retainers 5 may have 3 Discipline dots, one of which must be a Physical from the Domitor’s clan - the others may be from the Domitor's spread (except Bloodlines).

Some restrictions apply:

• NPC Retainers may not have the following merits: Mentor, Resources, Retainer and Carthian Interest Groups.
  
• A character may only have a max of Resolve x 5 Human Retainers at any time.
  
• Retainers may not purchase a level of any Ally higher than their Retainer level.

Animal Retainers use statistics based on books or Storyteller creation. You may see the beastiary of animal retainers here.

You should create your Retainer Sheet based on this example.

Vampire Statuses (City/Clan/Covenant) have no cost in experience points for all characters they apply to; this merit is regulated by the Storytelling staff and is not purchased by player-characters.

City/Clan/Covenant Status does add to some mundane rolls (ie. not with Disciplines). Your highest status that applies (they don't stack) could be used. Please view the Common Rolls page [?] if you would like examples of rolls that use a Status modifier.

Status	Dice Bonus
Status 0	0
Status 1	1
Status 2	1
Status 3	2
Status 4	2
Status 5	3

Striking Looks applies only on Presence or Manipulation rolls to entertain, persuade, distract or deceive others; example rolls include: Expression, Persuasion, Politics, Socialize, and Subterfuge rolls.

Striking Looks does not apply on Discipline Rolls.