☰     The Nightfall Society

Character Creation: Concept & Background

Appropriate Concepts

In general the ST team are open to most concepts, but there are some guidelines below:

• Characters should not be canon characters from existing material.
• Whilst characters that go a little against the grain of their clan or tribe are not disallowed, we will expect justification as to why they would be embraced or how they grew up without being taught clan values.
• If you are wanting to play something more unusual, merits and flaws can help support your application.
• Please note that we do not use the MES points system for elder creation, but we have guidance on playing elders here.

When considering concept, the following are useful items to consider:

• Who were you as a mortal?
• Why were you embraced?
• Who was your sire?
• What have you done since?
• Why do you offer your sect/society?
• What drives you?
• How do you feel about mortals?
• Why have you come to the area?

Character concepts should follow the following guidelines:

• Characters should not be canon characters from existing material.
• If you are wanting to play something more unusual, merits and flaws can help support your application.
• Whilst characters that go a little against the grain of their clan or tribe are not disallowed, we will expect justification as to why they would be embraced or how they grew up without being taught clan values.
• Please note that we do not use the MES points system for elder creation, but we have guidance on playing elders here.
• Characters born prior to 1500 AD require suitable merits or flaws to justify their age, examples being Architect of the Tower, Archaic, Chosen of Appadocius, Illiterate, and Methusela’s Thirst.

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Character Backgrounds

Please do not expect STs to read and absord a 50-page background. Whilst they can be interesting, we have limited time to process everything for the game, and a large quantity of prose is less likely to be retained and is harder to extract important items from than a short background focusing on the main events of the character’s life. Bullet points can be good for highlighting specific areas of interest as well.

There is a list of questions below to help prompt thoughts around backgrounds. Do not feel these are compulsory or need to be answered as they are, they are just there to help give ideas.

• Who were you as a mortal?
• Why were you embraced?
• Who was your sire?
• What have you done since?
• What do you offer your sect/society?
• What drives you?
• How do you feel about mortals?
• Why have you come to the area?

Additionally, your character sheet should support your character background, and vice versa. If you are playing a monastic scholar, we would expect scholarly abilities rather than Brawl 5. If your background has you significantly involved in a major event such as the Convention of Thorns, we would expect related lores to know about it.

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Links to major named NPCs

It is entirely acceptable to have links to a major named NPC, but unless represented by a merit or flaw, they will not go out of their way on your behalf. It is advised that STs should consider carefully the potential impact on their game of anyone with links to any top tier NPCs (Inner Circle, Justicars, Imperator, Regent, Prisci, High King, Tribal Council) or other extremely powerful (physically or politically) named NPCs. This includes considering the possible repercussions should a character with close ties to someone of that power die.

It is also not permitted to play a canon character from the various World of Darkness material.

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Cross-venue

Any cross-venue background links require the permission of the other venue ST, whether they are between only characters or a character and NPCs. Whilst cross-venue is entirely acceptable in play, close collaborative ties are discouraged.

Any intentional cross-venue requires approval from the Lead ST, though in certain cases this may be granted indefinitely between two characters or positions.

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Packs & Coteries At Start

Whilst we are happy for people to come into play as part of an existing pack or coterie, the following restrictions are being noted:

• Any group coming into play should not be large enough to make taking new members unfeasible
• Any group coming into play should have functions that are not fulfilled – e.g. starting Werewolf packs should not have every auspice covered.
• Any group coming into play should be doing so with the aim to try to find at least one or two new members. This can be restricted on type – e.g. a scholarly Sabbat pack might not want members of the Road of the Beast – but should not be overly restrictive.
• Due to the nature of coteries in Camarilla and Dark Ages, members of such groups should view them as alliances rather than friends/family. If a character in an existing neonate coterie is offered a place in an ancilla/elder coterie for example, the political gains should result in them abandoning their existing coterie post-haste.
• It is understood that some packs will be larger due to having members that are irregular, but we do not want to see packs taking up half the game and dictating the game, whilst wanting to be sure that players can find packs to join.

Our goal is to avoid packs coming in as cliques, and to ensure that players coming in with independent characters can find groups to join in the more pack-focused games.