So, you'd like to make a character for our game, no? Excellent! Here you will find the rules we're using for character creation; you can also download a copy of them (along with the House Rules) over on our Important Documents page if you want to. In any case, be aware that we've made a simple assumption in these character generation rules -- we've assumed you know the basics of character creation from Laws of the Night: Revised. We're trying to stick relatively close to those rules, but we have made some changes, obviously. Of course, if you aren't familiar with the character creation rules from Laws of the Night: Revised, contact the Storytellers and we'll do our best to help you out.

Step One: Inspiration

Character creation begins with thinking up a concept for a character, figuring out what that person is like, some personality traits, their overriding Nature and Demeanor, their Clan and so on, essentially creating a personality before creating statistics. A character's background -- who they are, where they've been, what's known about them, what they've done -- is often times much more important than the actual Attributes, Abilities and Disciplines that character has, so we'd prefer people to think more about backgrounds than mechanics at first.

We are currently accepting characters from the six main Camarilla Clans, along with Gangrel and Caitiff. In our game world, Justicar Xavier of the Gangrel did state that he was withdrawing the Gangrel from the Camarilla, but not all Gangrel have "gone independent," and there are still many Gangrel within the Camarilla, refusing to acknowledge Xavier's command. We are also allowing Anarch characters in as well, but they must also be from the main Clans (or Gangrel or Caitiff). Also, since the game has been running for some time now, it should be understood that all new characters are just coming to the city or have not been in St. Louis for any extended periods of time previously.

All characters are assumed to be no more than fifty years old (e.g., either embraced or made a ghoul around the 1950s or later), unless they purchase the Age Background (q.v. below). When it comes time to choose your character's Nature and Demeanor, realize that we are allowing the Natures and Demeanors from Laws of the Night: Camarilla Guide and Laws of the Night: Sabbat Guide as well as those listed on pages 71 and 72 of Laws of the Night: Revised. Just realize we'll probably want a very good explanation for why your character might have some of the Sabbat Natures and Demeanor, such as Sadist, Stalker and Torturer. Finally, all characters are assumed to be on the Morality Path of Humanity.

Step Two: Attributes, Abilities and Disciplines

As stated above, all characters are assumed to be no more than fifty years old (unless they by the Age background). Accordingly, all characters are assumed to have starting Attributes of 7/5/3, 10 Starting Abilities, 5 Starting Lores, a pool of 18 Discipline Points, 5 Backgrounds, a Starting Generation of 13th, and 5 Freebie Points (q.v. below).

Begin by prioritizing your character's Physical, Social and Mental Attributes into Primary, Secondary and Tertiary areas of focus and then choose the actual Traits for your character's Attributes. The Primary Attribute gets the highest number of Traits (7), and we're certain you can figure out the rest. The actual Traits, and what they're good for, are listed on pages 79 through 85 in Laws of the Night: Revised. Since we are trying to use Attribute-specific bidding in our game, what a trait is and what it does is important, so you might want to read up on these things before picking them. Also, please note that there are additional Traits listed in the Laws of the Night: Sabbat Guide, but we are not using them for this game (for PCs, at least), as they are Sabbat-specific and emphasize characteristics that are somewhat anathema to the Camarilla or Anarchs.

Once your Attributes are out of the way, it's time to pick your character's Abilities! The majority of Abilities are listed on pages 86 through 93 in Laws of the Night: Revised. We are allowing characters to have Ability Specializations at character creation, by the way. There are additional Abilities listed in Laws of the Night: Camarilla Guide and Laws of the Night: Sabbat Guide that you can choose. Just realize that we'll probably ask for good explanations for why your character has such Abilities as Torture and Fire Dancing. By the way, we've added two Abilities (Archery and Diplomacy), and we're doing Linguistics a little differently than in the book; there's more on these things in the House Rules.

Additionally, your character gets a number of free Lores at character creation. This is to represent the arcane knowledge and pieces of data that your character has acquired over their existence. We have decided to be strict about what characters know about the World of Darkness (after all, it's not as it the characters have sourcebooks and gaming aids to read to explain things to them), and are limiting the amount of knowledge characters can have about certain supernatural aspects of the world -- in short, if your character doesn't have some Lore about some things, your character doesn't know anything about them. However, as compensation, we are allowing characters to start with some free Lores. Please be aware that Lores and Abilities are not interchangeable at character creation; you are starting with 10 Abilities and 5 Lores, not 15 Abilities, some of which have to be Lores. There is more about Lores in the House Rules; please refer to that if you have questions about Lores.

When it comes to selecting Disciplines for your character, you have pool of 18 Points to spend on Disciplines. The complete listing of Disciplines takes up Chapter Four of Laws of the Night: Revised, and certain Clans are known for having certain Disciplines. We only have a few guidelines for selecting your Disciplines.

• In general, we ask that you stick to Clan Disciplines, but you are allowed to pick non-Clan Disciplines within reason. We will veto egregious abuses of this (e.g., non-Gangrel having Protean, non-Tremere having Thaumaturgy, anyone wanting Valeren or Bardo), so please use common sense when selecting your Disciplines.

• If you are playing a Malkavian, you must make a choice. You can have either Dementation or Dominate as a Clan Discipline. You are not prevented from having both Disciplines, but only one can be a Clan Discipline. The other must be considered an out-of-clan Discipline. If you don't specify what your choice is, the Storytellers will make it for you, based on your Discipline selections.

• If you are playing a Caitiff (and more power to you for doing so), you may choose three of the eight "common" Disciplines (Animalism, Auspex, Celerity, Dominate, Fortitude, Obfuscate, Potence or Presence) to serve as your Clan Disciplines. These Disciplines must be chosen during character creation.

• If your character has Thaumaturgy, please be aware of the changes to that Discipline in Laws of the Night: Revised regarding Paths and what levels of Paths a character can learn at any one time. Additionally, your character has some free Rituals given to them during character creation; your character receives a "free" Ritual for each level of Thaumaturgy they have (i.e., a character with two Basic levels of the Path of Blood receives two Basic Rituals) at character creation. After creation, Rituals can only be gained by either increasing your Primary Path (which gives you a free Ritual of the appropriate level) or by spending XP. Also, Tremere are asked to pick Paths of Thaumaturgy from either the Laws of the Night: Revised or Laws of the Night: Camarilla Guide to serve as their primary paths; the paths listed in Laws of the Night: Sabbat Guide or Laws of the Night: Storyteller's Guide are considered rare, uncommon and otherwise not normally Paths that Tremere start off with without massive amounts of explanation in your background.

• Characters cannot start the game with Combination Disciplines. It is possible to gain those Disciplines during play, but please be aware that doing so is a long and arduous process, involving lots of role-playing and character exploration, finding a teacher and so on; Combination Disciplines aren't just something you develop on your own.

• When selecting Disciplines, be aware that Basic Discipline costs 3 points, an Intermediate Discipline costs 6 points, and an Advanced Discipline costs 9 points. If you are playing a character capable of having Disciplines more powerful than Advanced Disciplines, check with the Storytellers regarding the costs of those Disciplines.

We have made some minor changes to some Disciplines, altering them from what is described in the Laws of the Night: Revised. Please see the House Rules for more details.

Also, for those people interested in playing ghoul characters, the creation rules are very similar to making a standard Kindred. Ghouls are assumed to be no more than fifty years old, unless they take the Age Background. Ghouls are also assumed to have starting Attributes of 7/5/3, 10 Starting Abilities, 3 Starting Lores, 5 Backgrounds and 5 Freebie Points. Further, ghouls automatically start with the first Basic level of one of the "Physical Disciplines" (e.g., Celerity, Fortitude and Potence) and have a pool of 12 Discipline Points to get further Disciplines with. A ghoul can learn any Discipline his Domitor has (with the exceptions of Thaumaturgy and Protean, which ghouls cannot learn), but there are restrictions based on the Domitor's Generation. Any ghoul can learn a Basic Discipline for 6 points; ghouls who have Domitors of the 10th Generation or higher can learn Intermediate Disciplines for 12 points; ghouls who have Domitors of 7th Generation can learn Advanced Disciplines for 18 points. No ghoul can learn a Discipline beyond Advanced, and they can only learn Disciplines that their Domitor has. Finally, these rules only apply to player character ghouls; non-player character ghouls are usually merely Retainers or Allies of a particular Kindred and therefore remain without defined stats.

Step Three: Backgrounds

The major Backgrounds (Allies, Contacts, Fame, Generation, Herd, Influence, Mentor, Resources and Retainers) are fully listed in great detail on pages 93 through 105 in Laws of the Night: Revised, so feel free to read up on them, as those Backgrounds have not been changed at all. However, in addition to the backgrounds listed in Laws of the Night: Revised, we are adding four Backgrounds for this game that might be of interest to players; they are Age, Alternate Identity, Haven and Reputation/Status.

• Age: Simply put, this background makes your character older than the average starting character; you were Embraced (or ghouled) way back in the day, and therefore have had more time to learn Abilities, Disciplines and other skills that the standard starting character has not had the time to pick up. Of course, everything has a cost, so a character that is exceptionally old has drawbacks.

Age Rating	Character Age	Additional Freebies	Starting Generation	XP Multiplier	Additional Penalties
x0	50 years	0	13th	N/A	N/A
x1	51 - 150 years	7	13th	1.5	N/A
x2	151 - 250 years	14	13th	2	N/A
x3	251 - 350 years	21	13th	3	Certain Abilities capped at x2
x4	351 - 450 years	28	12th	5	Certain Abilities capped at x1; Maximum Humanity is 4
x5	451 - 550 years	35	11th	7	Certain Abilities not allowed; Maximum Humanity is 3

Most of this chart is self-explanatory, although there are some things that need further clarification.

A character's age is the time they've been a supernatural being overall; for example, if they were ghouled back in 1912 and then Embraced in 1954, they would use the 51 - 150 years old statistics, while an eighty-year old Embraced in 2004 would use the 50 years old one. The XP Multiplier associated with a character's Age rating come into play when trying to improve that character with XP after the start of the game. After all, as the saying goes, "you can't teach an old dog new tricks," so accordingly it is harder for an older character to learn new things, and all their XP costs are adjusted accordingly (e.g., a character with Age x5 must spend 7 XP to acquire a new Ability, while a character with Age x2 must spend 2 XP to get the same ability, and character with Age x0 spends only 1 XP). Lores are an exception to this; all Lores cost only 1 XP to gain or increase (after all, as you get older, you do get wiser, no?).

Certain "modern-day" Abilities are also harder for older characters to learn; for example, someone who has been around for 250 years is probably not going to have Computers x5, as the concept of hacking is utterly foreign to them (hacking, as it is thought of now, having only been around 30 years) -- it's likely that they'll have a retainer to handle these "modern-day" tasks instead of learning how to do them themselves, no? Rather than create a list of Abilities that are deemed "modern-day," the Storytellers will be asking people to use common sense, and taking these things on a case-by-case basis if and when they come up during character creation.

Finally, as characters get older, it becomes harder and harder to resist the Beast within, and harder to "care" about humane things -- this is reflected by capping older character's Humanity Ratings. After all, if you've been around for 500 years and have seen countless generations of people live and die, you're less likely to care for them, right?

(And yes, the Storytellers are aware that these limitations and rules on Age essentially make it so that someone can start the game exceptionally powerful, but quickly become outstripped by younger characters who do not need to spend as much XP to learn things as Elders do, or who can figure out how to manipulate the modern-day world better than the Elders can. It is a design choice to do this; it helps highlight the Elder/Neonate conflict that is one of our themes for this LARP.)

• Alternate Identity: This background represents the depth to which a character has prepared persona for purposes of either dealing with the modern-day "real" world or for "going undercover" in the world of the Camarilla. All characters are assumed to start the game with Alternate Identity x0, which means that they have at least one or two people in other Camarilla cities willing to support their claims of who they are (in case other Kindred are investigating a character's background) and at least some sort of "real world" paperwork claiming that they exist (like a driver's license or a Social Security card). Of course, these "real world" documents might not be very good and might fail a background check (e.g., if a cop pulls you over for speeding, he might quickly ascertain that your characters' drivers license is a fake), or the people in other Camarilla cities willing to vouch for you might not be well-respected (e.g., the Ventrue Primogen willing to vouch for you was recently embroiled in a scandal and is viewed as untrustworthy), but that's the drawback to only having Alternate Identity x0.

Each background point spent on Alternate Identity, however, indicates a more thoroughly backed-up Identity. Either the character has more (and better detailed) paperwork for their "real world" identity or more (and better respected) people willing to verify claims concerning their background. For example, while a character with Alternate Identity x1 might only have a driver's license, Social Security card and a bank account or two to back up their "persona," someone with Alternate Identity x5 might have massive amounts of paperwork (a decade's worth of tax records, multiple financial accounts, very detailed birth records, credit cards, and so on) to verify that they are whom they say they are. Or, for example, someone with Alternative Identity x1 might have only a minor Whip or a few unimportant Kindred in a city willing to vouch for them and verify that they are who they say they are, while someone with Alternate Identity x5 might have an Archon or a well-respected Prince willing to support the character's claims.

It should be noted that this background can be allotted between different identities, if the player wants (e.g., a character with Alternate Identity x5 could have, in addition to their normal, "true" background persona, five other backgrounds at x1, or one at x5, or one at x2 and one at x3). Also, this background can be used to create both "real-world," mortal backgrounds and Kindred backgrounds (e.g., a character with Alternate Identity x5 has, in addition to their normal, "true" background persona, a mortal-world persona at x2, a secondary Kindred persona at x2 and a third Kindred persona at x1). Finally, it should be noted that all characters are assumed to have some sort of backing for their "true" persona (e.g., some respected people willing to vouch for them, some sort of driver's license or real-world paperwork), but the exact "rating" of that backing will be determined by their character's background -- after all, a 400 year old Kindred is unlikely to have Social Security card under their true name, while a 50 year old Kindred is unlikely to have an Archon willing to vouch for them.

• Haven: This background reflects both the quantity and quality of the character's havens. All characters are assumed to have at least one relatively secure haven (considered Haven x0) at the start of the game, be it a very-well defended hotel room, a small apartment, or even a basement somewhere. For each background point you spend on Haven, you gain either another haven, or your existing havens become more secure. You can pick and choose how you want to allocate this background (e.g., a character with Haven x5 could have six separate havens each at x0, one impregnable haven at x5, or a relatively secure haven at x2 and a very well-protected haven at x3 or so on in various permutations). A basic haven (i.e., the default Haven x0) has been modified somewhat to give a Kindred shelter from sunlight, basic protection from strangers, and maybe even an escape route in case of emergency, but not much else in terms of security or safety. For the most part, the exact nature of what sort of security systems, protections and sun-proofing at in a particular Haven at a particular Haven rating are not entirely relevant as, 95% of the time, people aren't going to be bothering a character in their Haven, so really the exact security and defenses of a Haven aren't broken down with game-mechanics. Of course, if someone does attempt to engage another character in their Havens, the Storytellers will take Haven ratings into account if and when needed.

There is also a variation of Haven background known as Communal Haven -- this is a Haven that multiple people maintain (such as a Tremere Chantry or the collective warrens in the sewers favored by many Nosferatu). However, since it is assumed that few characters will be creating Communal Havens at the start of the game, it's not a Background that can be purchased at character creation (except in extreme circumstances, like the aforementioned Tremere Chantry or Nosferatu warrens). The technical rules covering Communal Havens are explained in depth later in the House Rules.

• Reputation/Status: Each background point you spend on Status is just that -- a Status Trait for your character, be it Anarch Reputation or Camarilla Status. All Camarilla characters (except for Caitiff) start off with the Status Trait of Accepted, which means that at some point in their past, they were made a proper member of the Camarilla. Caitiff can buy Accepted, provided they explain it in their backgrounds; they cannot purchase other Camarilla Status without purchasing Accepted first. Gangrel characters have the option of being Camarilla characters or not; after all, when (former) Justicar Xavier withdrew the Clan from the Camarilla in 1998, some Gangrel made a point of staying in the Sect, and retained Accepted. Gangrel who left the Camarilla are considered independent (unless they join the Anarchs or re-join the Camarilla) and therefore are not considered to have Status.

  All formal Anarch characters start off with the Reputation Trait of Committed, which means at some point in the past they have formally repudiated the Camarilla (or Sabbat) and joined the Anarch Movement. Characters new to St. Louis are not Acknowledged to reside within the City (and can therefore be harassed by the Sheriff or other people in power) and must have that Status granted to them accordingly. All characters that have resided in St. Louis for sometime (according to their backgrounds) will be assumed to have been Acknowledged at some point in the past (unless there is a specific reason for them not to have been). Please see our House Rules for more on Status -- including the difference between Accepted and Acknowledged, along with notes on Anarch Reputation (as Anarch Reputation is very different from Camarilla Status).

Please realize that, at the start of the game, your character can only start with one Background at x5 (e.g., you can have Resources x5 or Age x5 or Mentor x5, but not Age x5 and Status x5). The sole exception to this is the Influence Background; since there are technically fifteen different areas of Influence in a city, a character can have multiple influences (e.g., a single character could have Influences of Church x3, Finance x4 and Occult x2) which might make their overall Influence Background higher than x5 (e.g., the character mentioned above would technically have Influence x9 as a background). However, a character cannot start the game with a single area of Influence (e.g., Street influence, Church influence, Media influence) higher than x5 (and this does include free influences granted by virtue of Clan Advantages).

Further, when it comes to Influence, please remember that a character can only have a number of Influences equal to the sum of their Attribute Traits plus any retainers they have (e.g., a character with 7 Physical Traits, 5 Social Traits and 3 Mental Traits and two Retainers can only have 17 Influences total without either increasing their Traits or getting more retainers).

Also, we just wanted to point out that, although you cannot begin the game with any Background higher than x5, you can increase some of your Backgrounds beyond a rating of x5 during the course of the game through role-playing and various other things. The highest any single background or individual Influence can increase to is x10.

Step Four: Virtues, Humanity and Willpower

As stated earlier, all characters -- even ghouls -- are assumed to be on the Morality Path of Humanity. As such, they have three Virtues that rule their relation to the dread Beast within them that causes Kindred to rage and destroy and lose touch with Humanity. These three Virtues are Conscience, Self-Control and Courage. Conscience represents how well a character adheres to their morality, while Self-Control represents the ability to resist frenzies, and Courage represents how well a character can overcome the fear created by things that can destroy them.

Characters automatically start the game with one Trait in each of those Virtues (i.e., Conscience x1, Self-Control x1, Courage x1), and then have seven Traits to distribute between those Virtues (for a total of ten traits in three Vitrues). No Virtue can have a rating higher than five, ever, although they can go down to zero (but only during play).

A character's Humanity rating is determined by adding up the character's Self-Control and Conscience and then dividing by two, rounding up. A character's starting Willpower is equal to their Courage. The highest a character's Willpower can be is determined by their Generation (see the Generation Chart on page 95 of Laws of the Night: Revised).

For those players who insist on having characters on Morality Paths aside of Humanity (and have talked the Storytellers into allow their characters be on other Paths), please be aware that there are some Morality Paths that do not use the Virtues of Conscience and Self-Control; they use Instincts and Conviction instead. When assigning Virtues in those cases, players do not start with a free Trait of Instinct or Conviction (e.g., instead of having ten traits in three Virtues, they will only have eight or nine traits, depending on the Path).

Step Five: Freebie Points

Since no two characters are the same, players are given Freebie Points to spend however they want to improve their characters. All characters start with five Freebie Points, while the Age Background gives additional Freebie Points as well. If you desire, you can generate more Freebie Points for your character by selecting Negative Traits and Flaws. You may only take up to five Negative Traits, but you can only take up to three Negative Traits per Attribute category (e.g., your character can only have three Negative Mental Traits, but two other Negative Traits). You can also take up to seven traits worth of Flaws; the cost of a Flaw equals the Freebie Traits it generates. There are additional Flaws listed in the Laws of the Night: Camarilla Guide and Laws of the Night: Sabbat Guide; these Flaws are permitted -- sort of. While no Merits or Flaws are immediately forbidden, you should read the House Rules for more details on Merits and Flaws.

You can also gain two Freebie Points by giving your character a Derangement. You can only take one Derangement at character creation (aside of Malkavians, who must have a Derangement and gain no Negative Traits for it; they can take a secondary Derangement for two Free Traits).

You can also gain two Freebie Points by "sacrificing" one of your Morality Traits. You can only do this once.

So, in theory, a character can gain up to 16 Freebie Points by taking five Negative Traits, Seven Flaws, adding a Derangement and sacrificing a Morality Trait. However, the Storytellers reserve the right reject characters who abuse the system to generate Freebie Points, so think twice before you start trying to "min/max" your character.

Now that you know how to get more Freebie Points, how can you spend them? Look at the chart below to see, folks!

Step Six: The Final Frontier

Now that you've gone through and crunched all the numbers, write up your character and send it to the Storytellers! Include your background, so we know where you're coming from with the character, okay? We will then contact you within a few days to approve the character (or suggest changes to make the character fit in with the game-world better).