Books & Boundaries | ecc-dark-seattle

CHARACTER: THE BECOMING: BOOKS AND BOUNDARIES

What Have You Gotten Yourself Into

You're probably wondering what kind of characters you can play in our game. This page seeks to answer that question. We are a Theatrical LARP, focused on role-playing rather than the more physical aspects of LARP, so we don't use boffer weapons for combat. Combat is instead, purely decided based on turn-based rules administrated by staff, using dice or dice-rolling apps. This section talks about where to view and learn the rules of the game and how to define some general character types that you can play. Some of this is defined randomly, using bead draws. Much of it is decision-based, allowing you to select the attributes, abilities and powers you'd like for your character in detail.

Don't worry about knowing all of the rules to start. We'll help you if you need it. Feel free to email us with questions at any time, or drop by the game to chat. - ECC Staff - storyteller@emeraldcitychronicles.com

BOOKS WE USE

To start, ECC uses Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition rules (V20) for character creation and play.

As such, the following books are approved for use in game for reference:

V20 Core Rulebook	V20 Companion
Lore of the Clans	Lore of the Bloodlines
Anarchs Unbound	Rites of Blood
Dread Names Red List	Children of the Revolution
Dust to Dust	Black Hand: Guide to the Tal Mahe Ra
Beckett's Jyhad Diary	Hunters Hunted II
Of Predators And Prey	Endless Ages
Ready Made Characters

The current books that are available for V20 - Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition are as follows:

Vampire: The Masquerade, 20th Anniversary Edition (commonly called the V20 Corebook)
V20 Companion
Lore of the Clans
Lore of the Bloodlines (Restricted)
Anarchs Unbound
Children of the Revolution
Rites of the Blood
Dust to Dust
The Hunter's Hunted II (NPC only)
Dread Names Red List
V20 Ghouls & Revenants
The Black Hand: A Guide to the Tal' Mahe' Ra (Not for PC use)

More details are available about each book by clicking on the gallery to the left. In addition to the available books above, you'll notice there will be a number of other books released in the next year or two that will update a number of things from the Revised editions to the newer V20 era rules. We'll update this book list as new things are approved for play.

Beckett's Jyhad Diary - Under Review
Endless Ages Anthology, Of Predators And Prey - Not rulebooks, just stories from the setting.

Staff has no plans to adopt any Vampire: Dark Ages content for player use at this game in the future as this game is focused around the fictional Camarilla city, Dark Seattle, set in the fictional era described in the core material as the Modern Nights.

You can purchase these books in hard copy or in .pdf format from the good folks over at DriveThruRPG.com

CAMARILLA CITY - MODERN NIGHTS

Game Scope and General Boundaries - The Camarilla in the Modern Nights

Emerald City Chronicles is a Camarilla vampire Modern Nights game set in the fictional city of Dark Seattle, or Classic World of Darkness (cWod) Seattle, so the large majority (over 60%) of the approved character concelpts will be from Clans traditionally recognized as members of the Camarilla Sect and be part of the in-character organization (Sect) known as the Camarilla. A small number of Independents, Anarchs and Probationary Sect members will be allowed, but are subject to caps. Some Sects (such as Sabbat, or the very obscure Tal'mahe'Ra or Inconnu) are logically outside the scope of a Camarilla-focused game and most of those are flatly considered antagonists.

Alternatives to Camarilla Modern Nights - Other Games of EC

If you do wish to play in another type of game, we offer that under the Emerald Chronicles umbrella as a seperately, there's currently a Changeling game, an nWod Mortals game and a Werewolf game available as well. Please feel free to contact the storytellers for alternate game-related inquiries. To contact us, it's storytellers@emeraldcitychronicles.com for this Camarilla vampire Modern Nights chronicle. More details about each alternative 'sphere' of roleplay are available on our message boards, or on our parent site, www.emeraldchronicles.com (links opens in new window).

Initial bead draw and Rarity - Caste, Concept and starting XP

Part of our character creation proccess involves some aspects of randomness. Managed by the storytellers, there exist three bags of beads that are built to the demographics that we want game to be. That guideline is 15/25/60, where 60 represents cannon average (common), 25 represents moderate deviation (uncommon) and 15 represents gross deviation (rare). The three bags determine starting Caste, Concept and XP for each new character. You may draw one bead from each bag. You may only draw once every 3 months. (If a character perishes prior, players may choose to play Common, Common, Common concepts until that time, and gain Experience points for playing that may be applied to any character in the Camarilla Vampire game.)

You must do Caste, Concept and XP rarity bead draws in person, at game. Staff will never draw for you, nor will we ever allow others to draw on your behalf.
To begin building a character before you arrive (which is recommended) please first build a Common, Common, Common character, and then you can 'spend-up' to the rarity you draw.

Your character's Caste is a representation of the things she has access to buy with XP, or freebies at character creation and beyond. Your Caste is your potential within the Camarilla effecting your character's max Status, Generation and general respectability.

Common Generations: 11, 12, 13, 14 & 15
Uncommon Generation: 9th and 10th
Rare Generation: 8th

Common Status cap: 2
Uncommon Status cap: 4
Rare Status cap: 5

C A S T E

Your character's Concept is a representation of the things that could make your character odd compared to standard Camarilla in-canon characters, such as an uncommon Clan or a capped merit, unusual discipline, etc.

There are lots of specific things that are listed by fluctuating rarity level, like:

Some Clans with rarity based on how many there are in the game already at the time you enter play (soft capped).
Pretty much any Bloodline.
Specific Disciplines, any Combo-Disciplines, any Magic, some Merits or Flaws with rarity based on how many there already are in play at the time or Sect divergance.

C O N C E P T

Your character's XP bead draw is simply an amount of bonus XP you get to start with at character creation.

Common XP: 25
Uncommon XP: 75
Rare XP: 125

Note: Every Character at Emerald City Chronicles is capped at earned 400 XP. The above bead draws do not count toward this cap. Barring that total however, once a character has 400 earned XP on it's sheet, that sheet is 'full' and can never be advanced beyond that. This is our way of stemming unlimited power bloat that can, over years of play, proove unbalanced.

X P

BEAD DRAW EXAMPLES

PERMUTATIONS PODCAST - BEAD DRAWS

COMMON DRAWS

A common level bead pull from the Caste bag will allow for Generation 15-11.
A common level bead pull from the Concept bag will be base standard Camarilla concepts and Clans capped at 2 status (the background, not including Titles).
A common level bead pull from the XP bag will be 25xp.

UNCOMMON DRAWS

An uncommon level bead pull from the Caste bag will allow 10th and 9th Generation and Status is capped at 4 (the background, not including Titles)
An uncommon level bead pull from the Concept bag will be moderate deviations from canon like a Brujah with an out of Clan discipline, a capped merit, or a Setite with magic.
An uncommon level bead pull from the XP bag will be 75xp

RARE DRAWS

A Rare level bead pull from the Caste bag will allow up to 8th generation, capped at 5 Status.
A Rare level bead pull from the Concept bag will be gross deviations from a standard Camarilla city canon, like a Brujah with thaumaturgy, a rare bloodline, or a unique item.
A Rare level bead pull from the XP bag will be 125xp.

When you draw an XP bead, that's the XP you get to spend, but when you draw an Caste bead, it just gives you access to higher level Status and Generation backgrounds, but you still have to spend XP and/or Freebees points on those backgrounds.
Beads can be traded among players, but trades must be logged with the STs.
Again, proxy bead draws are not allowed. Staff will never draw for you or allow another player to draw for you. Feel free to design a common/common/common character and modify from there based on the beads you draw in-person however.

Note that Caste rarity doesn't necessarily have to do with the classic Neonate, Ancilla, Elder age splits - but it could if you choose. You could just as easily play a very old Elder who was in torpor a long time and has only just joined the Camarilla if you end up with a common Caste bead, or you could trade up with someone else for a better Caste. Put simply: character age is not restricted by the bead pull you have, however, whatever Caste you draw for that character is the Caste that character will exist in for its entire existence. While upward mobility within vampiric society is possible, it takes generations (hundreds of years) to accomplish and is well outside the scope of this game.

Here is an example of a character creation:

Peggy Player and Grady Gamer want to make characters. She pulls from the bead bags a rare Caste bead, a common Concept bead, and an uncommon XP bead. Her initial concept for herself was a punk biker Gangrel, therefore her character's pedigree, Generation and age doesn't really matter much. She trades her Caste bead to Grady Gamer (who drew all Commons and would like it for his hoity-toity Ventrue concept) in exchange for starting play with a Major Boon over Grady's shiny new character, Vincent Ventrue. She builds a character and registers her bead swap with her and Grady this with Staff who says "game on", and Greta Gangrel is born. Meanwhile, Grady Gamer buys up the Status and background to 5 with starting build points and spends most of his Freebies to lower his character's Generation to 8th because of his rare Caste bead that he traded for. He stats out the rest of his character sheet and writes up a Boon card for Peggy's Gangrel, and Vincent Ventrue is ready to enter Dark Seattle.