Character Creation
This is not meant to be the end-all be-all of character creation. Use this as a base resource for generating a new PC in conjunction with the “Laws of the Night – Revised” rule book and our house rules.
There will be a lot of terminology in here that is explained in the rulebook. The lexicon starts on page 21 for reference. Base character creation rules start on page 62.
Background – Who are you?
You should first think about the following questions when creating your character and answer the following questions. This will assist you in writing a background that you can submit for additional starting experience to help flesh out your character more.
What did you do while you were a mortal?
Were you a cashier at a store, a mechanic, a thief, a lawyer? What kind of profession did you have? Using this information can help you begin to narrow down certain abilities to purchase at creation and help answer the next questions.
Who embraced you?
Was it your boss, a lover, some random person walking down the road? Your sire, or the person who embraced you, doesn’t need to be a player’s character in the game or a non-player character that staff controls. If you choose a player’s character, please reach out to that player ahead of time and talk with them about your character.
Why were you embraced?
Did your sire see some potential in you in your crafts, or were they trying to preserve your beauty? What about your character made you stand out to your sire so much that they felt the need to bring you across and embrace you?
What are your goals as a vampire?
Everyone has a reason for doing the things they do. Starting out with a brand-new character outline a few goals you’d like to accomplish so you have something to strive for out of the gate. Do you want to be a combat expert, or a researcher? Do you want to invent new and exciting things in your craft of choice, or do you want to hoard books and learn all there is to know about this world your character lives in and collect lore? These goals can, and will, change over time as you develop the character further through role play.
What is your name?
Once you answered the above questions, choose a name for your character. Is it your mortal name that you carry with you, or are you starting a new life and changed your name? Choose a name you feel suits the concept of your character, or one you just happen to like the sound of.
Building your Sheet – Where to begin?
After you build as basic background, the next major decision is choosing the vampire clan that suits you most. A more in-depth description of each clan is described in “Laws of the Night – Revised” starting on page 30. Below is a brief list of the clans that we allow in play for starting characters with additional information on the clans. This is not an all-inclusive list of all the clans available, but due to rarity and approvals for other clans as well as complexity of play, we’ve removed them from this list for first time characters. Information on each discipline listed below starts on page 132.
Sect – Political Affiliation
For the purposes of our game, for a new character we recommend you choose Anarch as your sect. New characters should be either Anarch or Independent. We do not allow Sabbat characters in our game.
Nature and Demeanor
After you’ve chosen your clan, choose your Nature, the underlying drive of your character, and Demeanor, what he appears to be to others. This list can be found starting on page 73 under Archetypes.
Attributes
Once you choose your Nature and Demeanor, you can begin by choosing your attributes. Attributes are you physical, mental, and social adjectives that describe your character. You get 3, 5, and 7 traits to begin with to spread between the physical, mental, and social attributes.
For example: If you’re character is a bruiser, it would make sense to make your physical traits start at 7. Maybe he’s not really that mentally acute, so you would put mentals at 3, and finally finish with socials at 5.
If you were a computer programmer, your mentals might be 7, socials at 5, and physicals at 3.
Eventually through experience you will buy up these traits, so this is not a permanent decision.
Negative traits that are not a part of a clan disadvantage will give you 1 free point to spend later per negative trait. Be warned: to remove these traits it costs 2 experience per trait to remove them and they can be used against you by other characters. We do not recommend first time characters buying negative traits.
Traits can be found starting on page 79 at the bottom of the page under Attributes.
Abilities
From here you can choose 5 abilities for your character. Abilities and their descriptions start on page 85 at the bottom of the page. Do not forget to add any free abilities you gain as a clan advantage.
In addition to your clan advantages, Anarch characters get a free dot of the ability Lore: Anarch. Camarilla characters get a free dot of the ability Lore: Camarilla.
All characters get one free dot the ability Lore: Kindred and one free dot of the appropriate lore for their clan.
Backgrounds
Backgrounds flesh out your hold on the mortal world. You get 5 points to spend in this category. Backgrounds and their descriptions start on page 93. Backgrounds cannot be bought above level 3 without storyteller approval.
The Generation background controls how powerful your character is. A generation chart can be found on page 95.
Derangements
Derangements are mental conditions that you roleplay as a part of your character. Each derangement you start with outside of clan disadvantages gives you 2 free points to spend later. A character with more than 5 active derangements is unplayable. Derangements start on page 214.
Morality
All new characters start on Humanity for their path. You get one free dot of Courage, one free dot of Self-Control, and one free dot of Conscience. You get to spend 7 total points extra spread across these 3 morality traits. The total amount of Humanity you have, your path rating, is the total of your Self-Control and Conscience divided by two rounded down.
Disciplines
You get three free BASIC levels of disciplines to start. They must be your clan’s disciplines. You can buy two levels in one discipline and one level in another, or buy the first level in all three of your disciplines. The choice is yours.
Freebie Points
You now have 5 freebie points to spend. You get one additional freebie point for each non disadvantage negative trait, and two freebie points for each non disadvantage derangement, and up to 5 points in flaws you may have purchased (see below). Costs are as follows
Merits and Flaws
Merits and Flaws give extra flavor and bonuses to your character. You can buy a maximum of 5 points in merits at character creation with the cost being 1 point of freebie points, after wards it’s 2 freebie points per point of merits.
Flaws give you 1 point per point in the flaw up to 5 points in flaws. Buying more than 5 points in flaws does not give an advantage other than flavor for the character.
Be warned: While being called Merits, some of them have responsibilities tied behind them. For example: Speaker of the Dead means Wraith will flock to you. Flaws must be roleplayed and staff can use flaws as plot points for your character.
Blood, Willpower, and Generation
After choosing backgrounds and spending your freebie points set your generation to 13 minus the number of points in the generation background. A character with 3 points in the generation background would be 10th generation.
Using the generation chart on page 95, set your maximum blood and starting willpower based on your generation.
Congratulations! You have a character! Submit the character to us and we will go through and make sure that all the points line up and make any suggestions or corrections to assist you.
Staff Recommendations
As a general rule, we recommend the following purchases for a starting character:
There will be a lot of terminology in here that is explained in the rulebook. The lexicon starts on page 21 for reference. Base character creation rules start on page 62.
Background – Who are you?
You should first think about the following questions when creating your character and answer the following questions. This will assist you in writing a background that you can submit for additional starting experience to help flesh out your character more.
What did you do while you were a mortal?
Were you a cashier at a store, a mechanic, a thief, a lawyer? What kind of profession did you have? Using this information can help you begin to narrow down certain abilities to purchase at creation and help answer the next questions.
Who embraced you?
Was it your boss, a lover, some random person walking down the road? Your sire, or the person who embraced you, doesn’t need to be a player’s character in the game or a non-player character that staff controls. If you choose a player’s character, please reach out to that player ahead of time and talk with them about your character.
Why were you embraced?
Did your sire see some potential in you in your crafts, or were they trying to preserve your beauty? What about your character made you stand out to your sire so much that they felt the need to bring you across and embrace you?
What are your goals as a vampire?
Everyone has a reason for doing the things they do. Starting out with a brand-new character outline a few goals you’d like to accomplish so you have something to strive for out of the gate. Do you want to be a combat expert, or a researcher? Do you want to invent new and exciting things in your craft of choice, or do you want to hoard books and learn all there is to know about this world your character lives in and collect lore? These goals can, and will, change over time as you develop the character further through role play.
What is your name?
Once you answered the above questions, choose a name for your character. Is it your mortal name that you carry with you, or are you starting a new life and changed your name? Choose a name you feel suits the concept of your character, or one you just happen to like the sound of.
Building your Sheet – Where to begin?
After you build as basic background, the next major decision is choosing the vampire clan that suits you most. A more in-depth description of each clan is described in “Laws of the Night – Revised” starting on page 30. Below is a brief list of the clans that we allow in play for starting characters with additional information on the clans. This is not an all-inclusive list of all the clans available, but due to rarity and approvals for other clans as well as complexity of play, we’ve removed them from this list for first time characters. Information on each discipline listed below starts on page 132.
- Brujah: Rebels. They fight against the man with a fiery passion unmatched by most.
- Disciplines: Celerity, Potence, Presence
- Advantages: You start with one free dot of the Politics ability and one free dot of Political influence OR one free dot of the Academics ability and one free dot of University influence OR one free dot of the Streetwise ability and one free dot of Street influence.
- Disadvantages: You are one trait down when resisting frenzy.
- Malkavians: Lunatics. Malkavians are insane, which makes them unpredictable and simultaneously useful.
- Disciplines: Auspex, Dementation, Obfuscate
- Advantages: You start with one free dot in the Malkavian Time ability and one free dot in the Awareness ability.
- Disadvantages: You have one permanent derangement that cannot ever be bought off.
- Nosferatu: Sewer dwellers. Collectors of lore and trader of favors.
- Disciplines: Animalism, Obfuscate, Potence
- Advantages: You start with one free dot in the Stealth ability and one free dot in the Survival ability.
- Disadvantages: You cannot buy any Social Appearance traits and have the negative social traits Repugnant x3 which can never be bought off.
- Toreador: Artists. High society dwellers who admire high quality crafts and beauty above all else.
- Disciplines: Auspex, Celerity, Potence
- Advantages: You start with two free dots to spend in the following abilities: Academics, Crafts, Performance, or Subterfuge.
- Disadvantages: When viewing anything with a crafts level of 3 or better you become entranced with the item and must spend a mental trait to break the entrancement.
- Ventrue: Business professionals. Controllers of corporations and money movers.
- Disciplines: Dominate, Fortitude, Presence
- Advantages: You start with one free dot in the Resources background and one free dot in either the Finance, High Society, or Political influence.
- Disadvantages: You choose one type of blood to feed on, and can only feed on that blood. For example, only blonde women, only business owners, only someone using drugs, only widows, etc..
- Gangrel: Nomads. Nature wandering loners who have an affinity for combat and seeking prey. When creating this clan choose one animalistic feature to have at creation.
- Disciplines: Animalism, Fortitude, Protean
- Advantages: One free dot in the Lore: Lupine, Animal Ken, and Survival abilities.
- Disadvantages: Start with one of the following negative social traits: Bestial, Feral or Repugnant.
Sect – Political Affiliation
For the purposes of our game, for a new character we recommend you choose Anarch as your sect. New characters should be either Anarch or Independent. We do not allow Sabbat characters in our game.
Nature and Demeanor
After you’ve chosen your clan, choose your Nature, the underlying drive of your character, and Demeanor, what he appears to be to others. This list can be found starting on page 73 under Archetypes.
Attributes
Once you choose your Nature and Demeanor, you can begin by choosing your attributes. Attributes are you physical, mental, and social adjectives that describe your character. You get 3, 5, and 7 traits to begin with to spread between the physical, mental, and social attributes.
For example: If you’re character is a bruiser, it would make sense to make your physical traits start at 7. Maybe he’s not really that mentally acute, so you would put mentals at 3, and finally finish with socials at 5.
If you were a computer programmer, your mentals might be 7, socials at 5, and physicals at 3.
Eventually through experience you will buy up these traits, so this is not a permanent decision.
Negative traits that are not a part of a clan disadvantage will give you 1 free point to spend later per negative trait. Be warned: to remove these traits it costs 2 experience per trait to remove them and they can be used against you by other characters. We do not recommend first time characters buying negative traits.
Traits can be found starting on page 79 at the bottom of the page under Attributes.
Abilities
From here you can choose 5 abilities for your character. Abilities and their descriptions start on page 85 at the bottom of the page. Do not forget to add any free abilities you gain as a clan advantage.
In addition to your clan advantages, Anarch characters get a free dot of the ability Lore: Anarch. Camarilla characters get a free dot of the ability Lore: Camarilla.
All characters get one free dot the ability Lore: Kindred and one free dot of the appropriate lore for their clan.
Backgrounds
Backgrounds flesh out your hold on the mortal world. You get 5 points to spend in this category. Backgrounds and their descriptions start on page 93. Backgrounds cannot be bought above level 3 without storyteller approval.
The Generation background controls how powerful your character is. A generation chart can be found on page 95.
Derangements
Derangements are mental conditions that you roleplay as a part of your character. Each derangement you start with outside of clan disadvantages gives you 2 free points to spend later. A character with more than 5 active derangements is unplayable. Derangements start on page 214.
Morality
All new characters start on Humanity for their path. You get one free dot of Courage, one free dot of Self-Control, and one free dot of Conscience. You get to spend 7 total points extra spread across these 3 morality traits. The total amount of Humanity you have, your path rating, is the total of your Self-Control and Conscience divided by two rounded down.
Disciplines
You get three free BASIC levels of disciplines to start. They must be your clan’s disciplines. You can buy two levels in one discipline and one level in another, or buy the first level in all three of your disciplines. The choice is yours.
Freebie Points
You now have 5 freebie points to spend. You get one additional freebie point for each non disadvantage negative trait, and two freebie points for each non disadvantage derangement, and up to 5 points in flaws you may have purchased (see below). Costs are as follows
- 1 point per trait in attributes
- 1 point per dot in abilities
- 1 dot per point in backgrounds
- 3 points per basic discipline
- Merits have individual costs. Up to 5 points in merits is bought at a 1:1 ratio. After 5 points it’s 2 freebie points per point in the merit.
Merits and Flaws
Merits and Flaws give extra flavor and bonuses to your character. You can buy a maximum of 5 points in merits at character creation with the cost being 1 point of freebie points, after wards it’s 2 freebie points per point of merits.
Flaws give you 1 point per point in the flaw up to 5 points in flaws. Buying more than 5 points in flaws does not give an advantage other than flavor for the character.
Be warned: While being called Merits, some of them have responsibilities tied behind them. For example: Speaker of the Dead means Wraith will flock to you. Flaws must be roleplayed and staff can use flaws as plot points for your character.
Blood, Willpower, and Generation
After choosing backgrounds and spending your freebie points set your generation to 13 minus the number of points in the generation background. A character with 3 points in the generation background would be 10th generation.
Using the generation chart on page 95, set your maximum blood and starting willpower based on your generation.
Congratulations! You have a character! Submit the character to us and we will go through and make sure that all the points line up and make any suggestions or corrections to assist you.
Staff Recommendations
As a general rule, we recommend the following purchases for a starting character:
- Abilities
- Dodge – Helps not get hit.
- Survival or Hunting – Helps with feeding and getting blood.
- Backgrounds
- Resources – You need money
- Generation – To lower your generation requires killing and eating another vampire. It is a lengthy and dangerous task. Starting out with as low of a generation as possible is beneficial in the long run.
- Herd – When you’re low on blood, herd can help you get more.