E M E R A L D  C I T Y  C H R O N I C L E S

 

Background Costs and Spends

• Some backgrounds may cost XP to activate for certain uses.

• Backgrounds may be reduced through roleplay at any time and may need to be re-purchased at that level with the appropriate learning times and costs. Botches are a common reason a character could lose a background point. 

• Some backgrounds could represent a particular person or group of people with specific resources that could be made permenantly unavailable if the background or people are successfully attacked or destroyed in some way by rival player characters, NPC antagonists, or pure bad luck (botches, etc.)  

• Backgrounds cost the same as Abilities if purchased with XP. 

• Domain and Influence can't be purchased at character creation. Domain dots are granted by the Prince and Influence must be gained once a character has arrived in the city.

 

Pooled Backgrounds

As described in the v20 corebook on pg. 118 there is a list of appropriate backgrounds (Allies, Contacts, Domain, Herd, Influence, Resources & Retainers). Exactly as suggested in the core book, Anchors are limited to 10 and ratings above 5 increases their reliability and dice rolled where applicable, rather than their quantitative values. No pooled background may be higher than the coterie's Anchor. No more than 7 characters may contribute to a background pool. Please note Communal Haven is not included in this list (it works separately on its own rules).

 

Designate an Anchor background as per the book. Any of the pooled backgrounds listed above is appropriate. The highest level of that background registers the starting level of the Anchor (or any other pooled background). For each Coterie member that has an equal rating to the primary - that increases it's effective rating by 1. You must contribute to the anchor to allow your character to access the pool of coterie backgrounds. Your contribution doesn't have to actually increase the anchor. Any background that you give to your character's Coterie disappears from your character's sheet and goes on a separate Coterie Sheet. (or note-card)

 

Allies and Retainers pool in a unique way as they represent specific individuals rather than nebulous values. Allies and Retainers add numerically, that is to say point for point. Thus, three coterie members contributing Allies 2 creates an Ally of 6. However, since they pool easily, they are also easily attacked; should an Ally or Retainer die at any level, it reduces the rating by one. Allies 10 is just as fragile as Allies 1 if they aren't protected. 

 

As pooling backgrounds don't increase the mechanics, just the dice associated with them (and add stability), coteries need to keep the associated items attached to each Background. That is to say, Allies, Retainers and Influence may certainly be pooled, but the coterie only has access to those things which the character originally had. For instance, if you have Influence 10 with your coterie, the coterie doesn't have spheres of influence the contributing members don't have. Further, Retainers contributed to the pool only have the skills they knew before being contributed; they don't get re-written once they are common property.

 

Example: The head of the Dusk Blossoms Coterie Theresa Toreador has Herd 4 and her two coterie mates Grady Gangrel and Marty Malkavian each have Herd 3. Their Anchor has a rating 4. However, if Grady Gangrel raises his Herd ratings to 4 as well, the Anchor will go up by one and their Anchor will be Herd 5. If Marty Malkavian also raises his Herd rating to 4, now the Coterie's Anchor is rated at Herd 6. Everyone in the coterie may access all of each others poolable backgrounds at a rating up to 5 and their Herd anchor is now roughly 1x more unassailable and reliable than a standard Herd background. A greater feat than what any other single vampire could hope to have.