TEXT: 3 
  
  ™
  987-1-588463937  WW55211  $0.00 US
  www.worldofdarkness.com
  This Free RPG Day-
  exclusive quickstart for the 
  World of Darkness contains 
  everything you need to play 
  through a scenario (except 
  for some 10-sided dice).
  There are times when the rational world seems, if only for a second, to fall away.  
  TThe leaves rustling in the trees on a still day.
  The movement just past the corner of your eye. 
  We are taught to ignore the foolish impulse to react. 
  But for those who look too long, too closely, 
  there is another world pulsing 
  Unimaginable things skitter by in the darkness,
  and sometimes
  they intrude on the reasonable, ordered world. 
  They seep from the shadows,
  they rattle their chains
  and they force you to look.
  If you’re lucky--
  very, very lucky--
  you’ll survive what you see.
  But you’ll never be the same again.
  just behind the façade of the one we know. 
  ISBN: 978-1588463937
  9 781588 463937
  9 0 0 0 0
  
  ™
  Christopher Lee Simmons
  
  2 
  Credits
  Credits
  Authors: Christopher Lee Simmons
  World of Darkness created by Mark Rein•Hagen
  Developer: Eddy Webb
  Editor: Genevieve Podleski
  Art Director: Priscilla Kim
  Book Design: Priscilla Kim
  Interior Art: Sam Araya, John Bridges, Avery Butterworth, An-
  thony Carpenter, Kari Christensen, Erica Danell, Jim DiBartolo, 
  Travis Ingram, Vince Locke, Jeremy McHugh, Peter Mohrbacher, 
  Durwin Talon, Cathy Wilkins
  Cover Art: Sam Araya
  © 2011 CCP hf. All rights reserved. Reproduction without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden, 
  except for the purposes of reviews, and one printed copy which may be reproduced for personal use only. White Wolf, Vampire 
  and World of Darkness are registered trademarks of CCP hf. All rights reserved. Vampire the Requiem, Werewolf the Forsaken, 
  Mage the Awakening, Promethean the Created, Changeling the Lost, Hunter the Vigil, Geist the Sin-Eaters, Storytelling System 
  and Parlor Games are trademarks of CCP hf. All rights reserved. All characters, names, places and text herein are copyrighted 
  by CCP hf. CCP North America Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of CCP hf. The mention of or reference to any company or 
  product in these pages is not a challenge to the trademark or copyright concerned. This book uses the supernatural for settings, 
  characters and themes. All mystical and supernatural elements are fiction and intended for entertainment purposes only. This 
  book contains mature content. Reader discretion is advised. 
  Check out White Wolf online at http://www.white-wolf.com 
  PRINTED IN CANADA.
  
  3 
  Contents
  ™
  Table of Contents
  The System 
  4
  A Nightmare at Hill Manor 
  2 9
  Appendix 
  54
  Pregenerated Characters 
  57
  
  4 
  The System
  If evil spirits could 
  perceive that they 
  were associated with 
  man, and yet that they 
  were spirits separate 
  from him, and if they 
  could flow in into the 
  things of his body, 
  they would attempt 
  by a thousand means 
  to destroy him; for 
  they hate man with a 
  deadly hatred.”
  — J. Sheridan Le 
  Fanu, "Green Tea"
  The System
  “If evil spirits could 
  perceive that they were 
  associated with man, 
  and yet that they were 
  spirits separate from 
  him, and if they could 
  flow in into the things 
  of his body, they would 
  attempt by a thousand 
  means to destroy him; 
  for they hate man with 
  a deadly hatred.
  — J. Sheridan Le Fanu, 
  "Green Tea"
  Everyone has had the sense at least once in their lives that things aren’t right 
  with the world. There are times when the rational world seems, if only for a sec-
  ond, to fall away. The leaves rustling in the trees on a still day. The movement just 
  past the corner of your eye. The way the darkness at the bottom of the basement 
  staircase seems to crawl and writhe if you stare at it too long. We are taught to 
  ignore the foolish impulse to react. It’s just your imagination, they say. There is no 
  monster under the bed, in your closet, outside your window. It’s all in your head. 
  Better to just shrug it off and go on with your safe and sheltered life. 
  But for those who look too long, too closely, there is another world pulsing 
  just behind the façade of the one we know. Elegant, deadly things stalk the alleys 
  and nightclubs of the city. Darkling beasts lope in the margins between physical 
  and spirit. Men burn their fingers grasping at lightning, but still manage to mold 
  it into vibrant beauty. Faded shades long for their living loved ones or rage at the 
  injustice of their existence. 
  Unimaginable things skitter by in the darkness, and sometimes they intrude 
  on the reasonable, ordered. They seep from the shadows, they rattle their chains 
  and they force you to look. If you’re lucky—very, very lucky—you’ll survive. 
  But you’ll never be the same again. 
  The World of Darkness is a stylized version of our world—one in which 
  monsters exist. Players take on the role of mortals in that world, working and 
  playing in ignorance of the deeper shadows that hide terrible creatures. Vampires, 
  werewolves, ghosts and other bogeymen exist alongside mortals, each race hidden 
  from the world at large. Their machinations use mortals; their unholy appetites 
  devour them. But not all mortals go quietly into that dark night. Not all of them 
  are lucky enough to be recruited by an occult organization that knows the truth 
  about the things that go bump in the night, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t 
  fight back against the unknown. The World of Darkness core rulebook allows 
  you to tell the stories of those who do not seek out the ghouls and goblins that 
  dwell in the shadows, but rise to the occasion when those monsters encroach 
  upon the light.
  The Game 
  The World of Darkness is a Storytelling (or roleplaying) game. In it, a group 
  of players cooperates to tell a story. Each player takes on the role of a single 
  character, except for the Storyteller. This player essentially takes on every other 
  role, describing the world to the other players, acting out the parts of other 
  characters and determining what challenges the players’ characters face. Play-
  ers roll dice to determine whether their characters can overcome the obstacles 
  before them. In a typical exchange, the Storyteller describes the scene in which 
  the players’ characters find themselves. (“You approach the basement door at 
  the end of the darkened hallway. On the other side, something scratches softly. 
  What do you do?”) The players in turn describe their characters’ actions, usu-
  ally in the first person. (“I sneak up to the door and try to listen for identifiable 
  sounds.”) The Storyteller then describes the results of the action, and he and 
  the players go back and forth until the scene is resolved. Dice are rolled when 
  players have their characters try things that aren’t guaranteed success. Jumping 
  out of a moving car without getting hurt would require a dice roll; leaving a 
  stationary one wouldn’t. 
  The System
  
  5 
  Rules
  This booklet contains everything you and five of your 
  friends will need to play your first game in the World of 
  Darkness, except for some pencils, paper for notes and 
  several 10-sided dice. (These specialty dice are available 
  in most hobby shops and are sometimes called “d10s.”) 
  Those of you who are going to be players should read over 
  the character backgrounds in the back of this booklet and 
  choose the one you want to play, unless the Storyteller 
  allows you to make up your own character. The Story-
  teller should read the rest of the booklet in preparation  
  before playing. 
  example). Any die that comes up 0 (considered a 10) counts 
  as a success and can be rolled again to potentially get another 
  success; this is called the 10-again rule. If you roll no successes 
  at all, your character has failed that action. 
  Dice Pools: The number of dice you roll to attempt 
  something is called your dice pool. It is usually made up of 
  the total of one Attribute and one Skill on your character 
  sheet, along with modifiers imposed by adverse conditions 
  or any special equipment your character uses. 
  Modifiers: The Storyteller determines what modifiers 
  apply to any dice pool. These either add to or subtract from 
  the number of dice rolled in the dice pool. Modifiers usually 
  come from tools used, Merits the character has (see p. 16) or 
  general circumstances. The Storyteller should grant or impose 
  a bonus or penalty if the circumstances are especially favorable 
  or deleterious, usually ranging from +5 to -5 (although modi-
  fiers tend to be closer to +2 to -2). For example, an attempt 
  to climb a wall that is slick with rain and slime could suffer 
  a -2 penalty, whereas doing so on one with a few handholds 
  could gain a +1. 
  Chance Die: If modifiers reduce your dice pool to zero 
  or below, you should roll a single die called a chance die. A 
  10 rolled on a chance die generates a single success, while 
  any other result is a failure. Rolling a 1 on a chance die indi-
  cates a dramatic failure, and the Storyteller should describe 
  especially troublesome results (a gun jamming, a blowout 
  during a car chase, etc.). 
  Actions: Almost anything a character does is considered 
  a simple action. You determine the dice pool, roll the dice and 
  see whether you succeed or fail. In combat you can perform 
  one simple action per turn. 
  Sometimes you’ll be asked to take an extended action, 
  which represents doing something over a period of time, 
  like researching something in a library or searching a room. 
  In this case, each roll of the dice represents a fixed amount 
  of time (usually 10 minutes, but it varies for some more 
  involved actions). You accumulate successes from roll to roll 
  until you run out of time or get a certain number described 
  in the text. 
  Some actions can also be contested, which means two 
  people are working against one another, such as in an arm-
  wrestling match or when a character tries to sneak past a 
  watchful guard. In a contested action, each player (or the 
  player and the Storyteller) rolls the dice pool for his character, 
  and the person with the most successes wins. 
  Finally, some actions are reflexive, which means they 
  happen automatically and don’t take up any time. You can 
  perform them and still perform a simple action that turn. 
  Teamwork: Characters can aid one another to achieve 
  the same goal. They might work together to assemble an 
  engine, break down a door or exorcise a ghost. Choose 
  which character is the primary actor. A normal dice pool is 
  assembled for him based on the action, such as Dexterity + 
  Medicine to administer first aid. The same roll is made for 
  each secondary actor. Any successes collected from assistants 
  What about the others? 
  By default, the World of Darkness casts 
  players in the role of mortals, unprepared for the 
  full consequences of encounters with the super-
  natural. These are not elite agents tasked with 
  thinning the monstrous herd or religious fanatics 
  called to rid the world of an unholy blight. At least, 
  not yet. Mortals from the World of Dark-
  ness can surely be recruited into any number of 
  monster hunting organizations. For that, you want 
  Hunter: the Vigil. 
  Or perhaps your character gets too close to a 
  bloodsucker and is embraced into the damned 
  existence of Vampire: the Requiem. Maybe 
  they discover their true, bestial nature in Were-
  wolf: the Forsaken. Your characters might 
  hear the call of the Watchtowers and become 
  powerful magicians in Mage: the Awakening. 
  They could be taken by the unknowable Fae and 
  escape back to our world with Changeling: 
  the Lost or become bound to a ghostly partner 
  in Geist: the Sin-Eaters. 
  For information on those games and more, visit http://
  www.white-wolf.com, or look for our free quickstart 
  downloads at http://www.drivethrurpg.com. 
  Rules 
  World of Darkness uses a set of rules called the Sto-
  rytelling System. The rules are not complex, but there are 
  a few basics that form the foundation of the system, and 
  you should take a moment to familiarize yourself with them 
  before diving in. 
  Rolling Dice: When rolling dice in the Storytelling 
  System, you do not add the numbers together. Instead, any 
  single die that comes up 8 or better is considered a success. 
  You usually need only one success to accomplish a task, but 
  more is always better (causing more damage in combat, for 
  
  6 
  The System
  are added to the primary actor’s dice pool as bonus dice. So, 
  contributors’ rolls are made before that of the primary actor. 
  A dramatic failure on a secondary’s roll levies a -4 penalty 
  to the primary actor’s roll—it hinders rather than helps his 
  chances. The primary cannot decide to abandon his action 
  if a contributor’s roll contributes few successes or a penalty. 
  He must proceed. 
  The Storyteller decides how many secondary actors can 
  participate in teamwork, and can limit the actors however 
  he desires. Three people might find space around a patient 
  in order to provide first aid, for example, while five people 
  might be able to work together to build a house.
  Success: Each die that rolls an 8, 9 or 10 yields one suc-
  cess. (Exception: A chance roll must produce a 10 to succeed.) 
  In an instant action, a player must roll at least one success 
  for his character to accomplish a task. In an extended action, 
  the number of successes required (accumulated over a series 
  of rolls) depends on the task. In an attack roll, each success 
  produces one point of damage.
  Example: Nicky (one of the characters included in the 
  scenario) is entering a bad neighborhood, and he doesn’t 
  want to offend the gang who claims this turf. To remember 
  who’s in charge, the Storyteller asks Nicky’s player to roll 
  Intelligence + Streetwise. Since Nicky has an Intelligence of 
  2 and a Streetwise of 2, he rolls four dice. They come up 4, 
  9, 6, and 3; Nicky has achieved one success. As a simple ac-
  tion, one success is all he needs. Nicky remembers that this 
  area belongs to a group called the Westside Kings, and may 
  act accordingly. 
  Exceptional success: Whenever five or more successes 
  are rolled, the character achieves an exceptional success. This 
  achievement sometimes provides an extra perk over and above 
  the effect of having multiple successes.
  Example: Let’s say Nicky tried the same roll from above, 
  to find out if he remembers which gang controls the neigh-
  borhood he just walked into. In this case, he rolls amazingly 
  well: 9, 8, 8, and 10. He rerolls the 10 (see “Rolling Dice,” 
  above for the 10-again rule), and gets another 9, bringing his 
  total up to five successes. Nicky not only remembers that this 
  is Westside Kings turf, he remembers to that the Kings are 
  beefing with another set called the Benjamins, whose colors 
  are green. He changes his green shirt out with a spare in the 
  trunk of his car, so as to avoid offending any Kings he hap-
  pens to run across.
  Failure: A dice roll that yields no successes is a failure 
  — the character does not succeed at his task.
  Example: Again, we revisit Nicky’s roll from above. In this 
  case, Nicky rolls 4, 2, 6, and 3. Nothing came up a success; 
  Nicky fails. He racks his brain, but he can’t remember whose 
  turf he just entered.
  Dramatic failure: A result of 1 on a chance roll causes a 
  dramatic failure, a catastrophe worse than a normal failure. 
  The character’s gun might jam or he might wind up shoot-
  ing a friend by accident. The Storyteller determines and 
  describes the result.
  Example: Once more, we revisit Nicky’s Intelligence 
  + Streetwise roll to recall whose turf he just entered. This 
  time, however, he hasn’t been around for a while, and things 
  change fast in the criminal underworld. In addition, he’s had 
  a little too much to drink. The Storyteller determines that 
  he gets a -2 penalty due to his ignorance of the area, and a -2 
  from the five drinks he had only minutes ago. His dice pool 
  reduced to 0, Nicky’s player has no recourse except to roll a 
  chance die. And he rolls a 1. The Storyteller rules that Nicky 
  remembers— incorrectly —that this area is the domain of the 
  Benjamins, so he takes off his jacket, the better to show off 
  his green shirt.
  Turns and Scenes: A turn is a 3-second period used to 
  track time passing in combat. A scene is a longer period of 
  time, usually as long as it takes for everyone to do what they 
  want in a particular place.
  Character Sheets
  This booklet includes character sheets and backgrounds 
  for five characters that the players may use in the included 
  scenario, “A Nightmare at Hill Manor.” These sheets contain 
  all the game numbers that define a character’s capabilities, 
  divided into a variety of traits. Most traits are rated from one 
  dot (•) to five dots (•••••), much like a star rating system 
  for movies. Different traits represent different things. 
  Attributes represent inherent capabilities such as 
  Strength, Intelligence or Presence. Nearly every roll uses one 
  of these as a basis for the dice pool. 
  Skills represent learned abilities, like Firearms or Medi-
  cine. A word or phrase in parentheses next to a Skill indicates 
  a Specialty—an area of the overall Skill in which the character 
  is particularly talented. If you are asked to roll a dice pool in 
  which your character doesn’t have the right Skill, you suffer 
  a penalty of either -1 (for a missing Physical or Social Skill) or 
  -3 (for a missing Mental Skill). If, on the other hand, you have 
  a relevant specialty in the Skill, you get a +1 modifier. 
  Health determines how wounded your character is, and 
  it has both dots and points. Your character’s dots are filled in 
  on your character sheet, and they represent the total number 
  of Health points available to him when he is uninjured. His 
  lost Health points are recorded in the corresponding boxes, 
  denoting his current state of health. (See “Health and Dam-
  age” on p. 22 for how to mark off Health points and the 
  effects of wound penalties.) 
  Willpower represents your character’s reserves. You 
  can spend one point of Willpower on any roll, and you 
  get three additional dice in your dice pool. You may only 
  spend one point on a single roll. Alternatively, you can 
  spend a point to raise your Defense trait by two against a 
  single attack. Willpower is valuable, and it’s regained by 
  acting in accordance with your character’s Virtue and Vice. 
  (See “Virtues and Vices” on p. 13 or individual character 
  descriptions for details) It is ranked from 1 to 10, unlike 
  most other traits. 
  
  7 
  Morality is a measure of your character’s moral, ethical 
  and even psychological standing and wellbeing. Morality is 
  ranked from 1 to 10 like Willpower, and can be lost due to 
  degeneration by performing unethical or criminal acts. See 
  “Morality” on p. 23 for more information. 
  Merits are special advantages a character has, such as 
  Contacts, Resources, or Striking Looks. (See “Merits” on p. 
  16 for a small selection.) 
  Defense and Initiative Modifiers are traits used in 
  combat, and are explained below. 
  Speed is the number of yards a character can move in 
  one combat turn and still perform an action. A character 
  can run up to twice his Speed rating in yards in a turn if he 
  sacrifices his action. Speed will most likely come into play 
  in a chase. 
  Attributes
  The following is a short summary of what each At-
  tribute entails and how it may be applied. Some tasks rely 
  on your character’s Attribute dots alone and these traits 
  are rolled or even combined to determine how well he 
  performs certain tasks. Such feats are typically ones any 
  impaired person can perform such as holding one’s breath 
  or lifting objects, and don’t require any special training 
  or expertise. 
  Mental Attributes 
  Intelligence: The inherent capacity to digest, compre-
  hend and remember information. Intelligence is valued by 
  planners, theorists, scholars and leaders. It is used whenever 
  your character requires brute mental power, such as when 
  she wants to remember something, research an ancient tome, 
  hack a computer or solve a puzzle. 
  Wits: The ability to think on one’s feet, under pres-
  sure or duress. Wits also encompasses an eye for detail 
  and your character’s ability to react and adapt to changing 
  situations. Wits is useful for entrepreneurs, charlatans, ath-
  letes, tacticians, lawyers and criminals. It is used whenever 
  your character needs mental finesse for noticing details or 
  subtle changes in her environment, from investigating a 
  crime scene, to determining whether she is surprised by 
  the creature slinking through the bushes ahead. The lower 
  of a character’s Wits or Dexterity determines his Defense 
  score. (See p. 21.)
  Resolve: The focus and determination to see your 
  character’s wishes done. The capacity to stay on target and 
  ignore distractions, resist coercion or bullying. This Attribute 
  is vital to resisting supernatural forms of mental control; it 
  acts as a defense of the mind. Resolve is valuable to leaders, 
  motivators, soldiers, athletes, police, organizers and writers. 
  It is used by your character whenever he is resisting coercion 
  or concentrating. Resolve contributes to your character’s 
  Willpower trait. (See p. 6.) 
  Physical Attributes 
  Strength: Physical might. Sheer bodily power. The 
  capacity to lift objects, move items, hit things and people, 
  and do damage. Strength is a measure of muscle. This trait 
  is instrumental to laborers, thugs, athletes, brawlers and law-
  attributes
  Lifting/Moving objects
  Dice Pool: Strength (+ Stamina)
  Action: Instant
  Lifting and moving objects involve brute force: 
  might over matter. In some cases, however, Stamina 
  plays a part. Power alone doesn’t have immediate 
  effects, but power combined with the endurance 
  to apply it does.
  Working together, people can combine their might 
  to accomplish task. Add all participants’ Strength 
  scores and refer to the chart below to gauge 
  what can be moved just by spending an action (no 
  Strength roll is necessary). To exceed this limit, a 
  Strength + Stamina roll is required, with successes 
  achieved added to your character’s Strength score 
  to determine what kind of task he can accomplish 
  in that action. In a group effort to move something 
  really heavy, a Strength + Stamina roll is made 
  for each supporting participant. Successes rolled 
  are added to a primary actor’s roll as bonus dice. 
  (See “Teamwork,” p. 5 for full rules on cooperat-
  ing this way.)
  If your character’s modified Strength total exceeds 
  that required to lift an object, it can be relocated 
  as desired. If his Strength total matches that which 
  is required to lift an object, it can be moved about 
  a yard.
  The chart indicates how much a character can lift, 
  but that amount represents a focused, one-time 
  act. That weight isn’t what he can walk around 
  holding and wearing, day to day. Your character 
  can realistically carry around 25 pounds per dot 
  of Strength without penalty. If he attempts to 
  carry more, every action involving physical exer-
  tion incurs an automatic -1 penalty for every 25 
  pounds of excess gear that he has. Furthermore, 
  every 25 pounds he piles on beyond what he can 
  carry reduces his Speed by one. Perhaps he can 
  actually lift everything he’s wearing and holding, 
  but he can’t go anywhere with it. The Storyteller 
  makes the final call on what your character may 
  realistically carry.
  
  8 
  The System
  enforcement agents. Your character uses her Strength score 
  whenever pure physical power is required, such as in hand-
  to-hand combat, when breaking down barriers, and when 
  lifting/moving objects. Strength is one of the Attributes that 
  determine your Speed. (See p. 7.) 
  Dexterity: Quickness. Response time. A delicate touch. 
  Dexterity indicates how quickly and with how much finesse 
  your character responds to his physical world. While high 
  Wits dots helps your character spot trouble, high Dexterity 
  dots help him react to it, whether with a counteraction or 
  to simply get the hell out of the way. Dexterity is invaluable 
  to criminals, sports stars, surgeons and dancers. It is used 
  whenever your character requires physical finesse, like when 
  you need to hit something with accuracy, avoid something 
  or keep your balance on the rolling deck of a storm-tossed 
  ship. Dexterity helps to determine your Speed. (See p. 7.) 
  The lower of a character’s Wits or Dexterity determines her 
  Defense score. (See p. 21.) 
  Stamina: Sturdiness. Steadfastness. Sheer physical re-
  silience. Stamina is a measure of how tough your character 
  is. It indicates how far she can push her body, and how 
  much physical abuse she can endure. Bouncers, brawlers, 
  triathletes, survivalists, heavy lifters and workaholics thrive 
  on Stamina. Your character uses Stamina whenever she 
  needs physical resistance, such as when resisting poisons, 
  holding her breath or staying awake on a long stakeout. 
  Stamina is a factor in determining your character’s Health 
  dots. (See p. 6.) 
  Social Attributes 
  Presence: Bearing. Stature. Assertiveness. Presence 
  suggests the power of your character’s command over the 
  attention of others. This trait is essential to leaders, en-
  forcers, interrogators, models, politicians and salespeople. 
  Note that physical attractiveness alone is represented by 
  the Striking Looks Merit (p. 21), which grants bonus dice 
  to Presence rolls. Your character uses Presence when trying 
  to impose her will on others by being socially aggressive 
  or powerful. 
  Manipulation: Charm. Persuasiveness. Charisma. 
  The capacity to play upon the desires, hopes and needs of 
  others to influence them. Manipulation reflects your char-
  acter’s finesse in social situations. It’s the tool and trade of 
  businesspeople, politicians, and publicists. Your character 
  uses Manipulation when he’s trying to win smiles, to put 
  people at ease or to gain favors. Where Presence is getting 
  your way through force, Manipulation is more subtle. 
  Composure: Poise. Dignity. The capacity to remain 
  calm and unfazed in tense and threatening situations. 
  This trait is a measure of emotional fortitude, restraint 
  and calm. It is vital for leaders, soldiers, moderators, 
  socialites and anyone whose movements are in the public 
  eye. Composure is pivotal for resisting social influence 
  and supernatural forms of emotional control. Compo-
  sure, along with Resolve, is a factor in determining your 
  character’s Willpower (see p. 6). Composure is also added 
  to Dexterity to determine your character’s Initiative at the 
  beginning of a fight (see p. 21). 
  Skills
  A character’s Attributes measure his innate physical, 
  mental and social qualities—how strong he is, how quickly 
  he thinks on his feet and how well he interacts with other 
  people. The different ways in which a character can apply 
  these Attributes are determined by his Skills. A character’s 
  Skills reflect the education and training he’s acquired over 
  the course of his life, and are a reflection of his origins 
  and interests. 
  Skill Specialties 
  Skills represent broad bases of knowledge and physical 
  training in a given subject. An auto mechanic doesn’t just 
  know about fixing engines, for example, but is versed in 
  repairing tires, replacing windows and painting the body. In 
  addition to this broad foundation of knowledge, characters 
  can specialize in a particular aspect of a Skill, giving them an 
  edge in a particular application due to their increased focus. 
  Rolls involving a Skill Specialty gain a +1 modifier over and 
  above any other situational modifiers. So, if your character 
  has Crafts, but also has a Specialty in Automobiles, you gain 
  a +1 bonus when he works on cars. 
  You are limited only by your imagination when devising 
  your character’s Specialties, although their focus should be 
  fairly specific. A character possessing the Drive skill might 
  focus on sports cars, trucks, off-road or high-speed driving. 
  Each Skill listed below has a number of suggested Specialties 
  to give you an idea of the possibilities. 
  Strength 
  Feat 
  Lift
  1 
  Lift a chair 
  40 lbs.
  2 
  Lift a large dog 
  100lbs.
  3 
  Lift a public mailbox 
  250 lbs.
  4 
  Lift a wooden crate 
  400 lbs.
  5 
  Lift a coffin 
  650 lbs.
  6 
  Lift a refrigerator 
  800 lbs.
  7 
  Overturn a small car 
  900 lbs.
  8 
  Lift a motorcycle 
  1000 lbs.
  9 
  Overturn a mid-sized car 
  1200 lbs.
  10 
  Lift a large tree trunk 
  1500 lbs.
  
  9 
  Mental Skills 
  Mental Skills are applications of a character’s insight, 
  acumen and focus, such as examining a crime scene for 
  clues, unraveling an enigma or diagnosing an illness. 
  These Skills are almost entirely gained from a period of 
  formal education, and most characters with high Mental 
  Skills can claim a degree or even a doctorate in their field 
  of study. These traits are generally associated with your 
  character’s Mental Attributes, but can also be paired with 
  Physical Attributes for hands-on applications such as 
  performing surgery (Dexterity + Medicine) or computer 
  repair (Dexterity + Crafts). 
  Untrained Skill Use: If your character doesn’t have 
  the necessary Mental Skill required for an action, she can 
  still make the attempt. Roll her Attribute alone, but with a 
  -3 penalty. 
  Academics 
  Academics is a broad-based Skill that represents a char-
  acter’s degree of higher education and general knowledge in 
  the Arts and Humanities—everything from English to history, 
  economics to law. Dots in this Skill do not directly correlate 
  to a given level of education. Your character could have 
  entered a doctorate program but spent more time partying 
  than studying, resulting in fewer dots. Conversely a self-taught 
  individual who read voraciously and studied intensively could 
  have higher dots without ever earning a diploma. 
  Possessed By: College graduates, executives, lawyers, 
  librarians, scholars, students 
  Suggested Specialties: Anthropology, Art, English, His-
  tory, Law, Religion, Research 
  Computer 
  Characters possessing this Skill have the necessary train-
  ing or experience to operate a computer. At high levels (3 or 
  more), a character can create his own computer programs. 
  People with high levels in this Skill are familiar with a variety 
  of programming languages and operating systems. 
  Note that dots in Computer do not apply to manu-
  ally fixing or building machines, only to operating them. 
  Construction and repair is the province of the Crafts Skill 
  (see below). 
  Possessed By: Businesspeople, professors, programmers, 
  students, sysadmins 
  Suggested Specialties: Artificial Intelligence, Data Re-
  trieval, Graphics, Hacking, Internet 
  Crafts 
  Crafts represents a character’s training or experience 
  in creating works of physical art or construction with his 
  hands, from paintings to car engines to classical sculpture. 
  Characters possessing this Skill typically have the knowledge, 
  but not necessarily the tools or facilities to make use of their 
  capabilities. A character might be an exceptional mechanic, 
  for example, but still needs to sweet-talk his boss into open-
  ing up the garage after hours to work on his friend’s car. 
  Crafting a piece of art or creating an object is almost always 
  an extended roll, with the length of time and number of suc-
  cesses required determined by the complexity of the piece. 
  The Storyteller has final say on the time required and the 
  number of successes needed for a particular item. 
  Possessed By: Contractors, mechanics, plumbers, 
  sculptors, welders 
  Suggested Specialties: Automobiles, Aircraft, Forging, 
  Jury-Rigging, Sculpting, Sewing 
  Investigation 
  Investigation is the art and science of solving mysteries, 
  examining seemingly disparate evidence to find a connec-
  tion, answering riddles and overcoming paradoxes. It not 
  only allows your character to get into the head of a killer 
  to grasp his motives or plans, it allows her to look beyond 
  the mundane world to guess at answers to mysterious 
  problems, or to have a “eureka” moment that offers insight 
  into baffling circumstances. Your character might realize 
  that all murder victims have the same digits jumbled in 
  their phone numbers, she might interpret a dream that has 
  striking similarities to events in the real world, or she could 
  recognize why an intruder took the time to paint a room 
  red. Certain individuals such as law-enforcement officers, 
  forensic specialists, scientists and investigators are trained 
  in the art of examination, while others simply develop the 
  knack through years of practice. 
  Investigation-based rolls are typically made when a char-
  acter actively studies a situation. Dots in Investigation don’t 
  skills
  skiLL Dots 
  Skills are rated from 1 to 5, with each score 
  suggesting your character’s relative level of profi-
  ciency and knowledge in that area. 
  Dots 
   
  Proficiency Level
  •  
  Novice. Basic knowledge or techniques. 
  •• 
  Practitioner. Solid working knowledge 
  or techniques. 
  ••• 
  Professional. Broad, detailed knowledge 
  or techniques. 
  •••• 
  Expert. Exceptional Depth of knowledge 
  or techniques. 
  •••••  Master. Unsurpassed depth of knowl-
  edge or techniques.  A leader in the field. 
  
  10 
  The System
  give a character sudden insight or capability in the realms of 
  other Skills, however. She can’t miraculously identify chang-
  ing brushstrokes in a painting, for example. That would be 
  the realm of Academics or Crafts. But she might identify 
  how the placement of paintings throughout a house creates 
  a pattern and imparts a message. 
  Possessed By: Criminals, doctors, forensic examiners, 
  police officers, scientists, scholars, librarians 
  Suggested Specialties: Artifacts, Body Language, Crime 
  Scenes, Cryptography, Dreams, Autopsy Diagnoses, Puzzles, 
  Riddles, Scientific Experiments 
  Medicine 
  The Medicine Skill reflects a character’s training and 
  expertise in human physiology and how to treat injuries and 
  illness. The trait represents knowledge of human anatomy 
  and basic medical treatments. Characters with a low level in 
  this Skill (1 to 2) often possess only rudimentary first-aid train-
  ing, while characters with high levels (3+) are the equivalent 
  of nurses, physicians or surgeons.
  Possessed By: Medical students, paramedics, physicians, 
  psychiatrists, surgeons 
  Suggested Specialties: Emergency Care, Pathology, 
  Pharmaceuticals, Physical Therapy, Surgery 
  Occult 
  The Occult Skill reflects a character’s knowledge and 
  experience with the world’s various legends and lore about the 
  supernatural. A character with this Skill not only knows the 
  theories, myths and legends of the occult, but can generally 
  discern “fact” from rumor. Characters may come by this Skill 
  in a variety of ways, from oddball college courses to learning 
  legends and myths from superstitious family members. 
  Possessed By: Anthropologists, authors, neo-pagans, 
  occult scholars, parapsychologists 
  Suggested Specialties: Cultural Beliefs, Ghosts, Magic, 
  Monsters, Superstitions, Witchcraft 
  Politics 
  Characters possessing this Skill are not only familiar with 
  the way the political process works, they’re experienced with 
  bureaucracies and know exactly who to call in a given situation 
  to get something done. Your character keeps track of who’s in 
  power and how she got there, along with her potential rivals. 
  He has a grasp of the issues of the moment and how they affect 
  the political process, and he knows whose palms to grease. It’s 
  possible that your character acquired this Skill by running for 
  political office at some point, or by working on a campaign 
  or as a public servant. Or he could simply be someone who 
  follows the news and understands the money trail. 
  Possessed By: Bureaucrats, civil servants, journalists, 
  lawyers, lobbyists, politicians 
  Suggested Specialties: Bribery, Elections, Federal, Local, 
  State, Scandals 
  Science 
  This Skill represents your character’s understanding of 
  the physical and natural sciences: biology, chemistry, geol-
  ogy, meteorology, physics and so on. Science is useful not 
  only for understanding how the world works, but it helps 
  characters make the most of the resources at hand to achieve 
  their goals. A character with a strong Science background 
  could describe the chemical process for plating metals, for 
  example, allowing another character with Crafts to make a 
  silver-edged steel sword. 
  Possessed By: Engineers, scientists, students,  
  teachers, technicians 
  Suggested Specialties: Biology, Chemistry, Geology, 
  Metallurgy, Physics 
  Physical Skills 
  Physical Skills are applications of a character’s might, 
  endurance and coordination, such as climbing a mountain, 
  driving a car or shooting a gun. They are most often paired 
  with a character’s Physical Attributes in various combina-
  tions, but can also be paired with Mental Attributes when 
  the character tries to draw on his Skill to identify an object 
  or answer a question. Intelligence + Firearms is required to 
  identify a particular rifle, for example, or Intelligence + Sur-
  vival to read a map. Physical Skill scores represent a combina-
  tion of personal experience and formal training rather than 
  extensive schooling. You can’t earn a degree in fist-fighting, 
  but you can graduate at the top of your class in the school of  
  hard knocks. 
  Untrained Skill Use: If your character doesn’t have the 
  necessary Physical Skill required for a roll, he can still attempt 
  the action. Roll his Attribute alone with a -1 penalty. 
  Athletics 
  Athletics encompasses a broad category of physical train-
  ing, from rock climbing to kayaking to professional sports such 
  as football or hockey. The Athletics Skill can be applied to any 
  action that requires prolonged physical exertion or that de-
  mands considerable agility or hand-eye coordination. Examples 
  include climbing a high wall, marching long distances and leap-
  ing between rooftops. In combat, the Skill is combined with 
  Dexterity to determine the accuracy of thrown weapons. 
  Possessed By: Professional athletes, police officers, 
  soldiers, survivalists, physical trainers 
  Suggested Specialties: Acrobatics, Climbing, Kayaking, 
  Long- Distance Running, Sprinting, Swimming, Throwing 
  Brawl 
  Brawl defines your character’s prowess at unarmed com-
  bat, whether he’s a black belt in karate, a hard-bitten street 
  tough or a college student who’s taken a few self-defense 
  courses. Characters with this Skill know how to hit an op-
  ponent, where to hit for maximum effect and how to defend 
  
  11 
  themselves from attack. It can mean using fists, but also el-
  bows, knees, shoulders, head butts, wrestling, joint locks and 
  choke holds. Characters with a several dots could be familiar 
  with multiple techniques of unarmed combat. Expertise in 
  such techniques is reflected in the Fighting Style Merits (such 
  as “Kung Fu” on p. 17), which are based on Brawl. 
  Brawl is added to your character’s Strength to battle 
  people in unarmed combat. 
  Possessed By: Bikers, boxers, gangsters, police  
  officers, soldiers 
  Suggested Specialties: Blocking, Boxing, Dirty Tricks, 
  Grappling, Kung Fu, Throws 
  Drive 
  The Drive Skill allows your character to operate a vehicle 
  under difficult or dangerous conditions. Characters don’t 
  need this Skill simply to drive a car. It’s safe to assume in a 
  modern society that most individuals are familiar with auto-
  mobiles and the rules of the road. Rather, this trait covers the 
  training or experience necessary to operate at high speeds, to 
  tackle hazardous road conditions and to push a vehicle to the 
  limits of its performance. Drive is the difference between a 
  typical suburban parent with a minivan and a police officer, 
  car thief or racecar driver. 
  The Skill also applies to piloting and controlling boats; 
  your character’s Drive dots are applied equally to handling 
  boats. In order for your character to be able to pilot a plane, 
  he needs a Pilot Specialty in the Skill. With that, efforts to 
  control a plane call for a Drive-based roll, plus one die for 
  your character’s Pilot Specialty. A character with the Drive 
  Skill who does not possess a Pilot Specialty cannot effectively 
  operate a plane. His efforts to fly are based on Attribute alone, 
  at a -1 untrained penalty. 
  Note that dots in Drive do not apply to manually fixing 
  or building vehicles, only to operating them. Construction 
  and repair is the province of the Crafts Skill (see p. 9). 
  Possessed By: Car thieves, couriers, delivery drivers, 
  emergency responders, police officers, racecar drivers 
  Suggested Specialties: High-Performance Cars, Motor-
  cycles, Off-Road, Pursuit, Shaking Tails, Stunts 
  Firearms 
  Firearms allows your character to identify, operate and 
  maintain most types of guns, from pistols to rifles to military 
  weapons such as submachine guns, assault rifles and machine 
  guns. This Skill can represent the kind of formal training 
  provided to police and the military, or the basic, hands-on 
  experience common to hunters, criminals and gun enthusi-
  asts. Firearms also applies to using bows. Your character can 
  use guns and bows equally. 
  Note that dots in Firearms do not apply to manually 
  fixing or building guns, only to wielding them. Construc-
  tion and repair is the province of the Crafts Skill (see  
  p. 9). 
  Possessed By: Criminals, gun dealers, hunters, police 
  officers, soldiers, survivalists 
  Suggested Specialties: Autofire, Bow, Pistol, Rifle, 
  Shotgun, Sniping, Trick Shot 
  Larceny 
  Larceny is a broad Skill that covers everything from 
  picking locks to concealing stolen goods and everything 
  in between. Most characters obtain this Skill the hard way, 
  by committing crimes and often paying the price for their 
  mistakes. Some individuals such as government agents and 
  members of the military receive formal training in bypassing 
  security systems and stealing valuable assets. 
  Possessed By: Burglars, commandos, government agents, 
  private eyes, locksmiths 
  Suggested Specialties: Concealing Stolen Goods, Lock-
  picking, Pickpocketing, Security Systems, Safecracking 
  Stealth 
  The Stealth Skill represents a character’s experience 
  or training in avoiding notice, whether by moving silently, 
  making use of cover or blending into a crowd. When at-
  skills
  
  12 
  The System
  tempting to sneak silently through an area or to use the local 
  terrain as concealment, roll Dexterity + Stealth + equipment. 
  When trying to remain unseen in a crowd, Wits + Stealth is 
  appropriate. The Storyteller may make Stealth rolls secretly 
  on your behalf, since your character usually has no way of 
  knowing he’s been noticed until it’s too late. If your char-
  acter attempts to avoid notice by a group of alert observers, 
  a contested roll versus the observers’ Wits + Composure + 
  equipment is required. 
  Possessed By: Criminals, hunters, police officers,  
  private investigators 
  Suggested Specialties: Camouflage, Crowds, Moving in 
  Darkness, Moving in Woods 
  Survival 
  Survival represents your character’s experience or train-
  ing in “living off the land.” He knows where to find food and 
  shelter, and how to endure harsh environmental conditions. 
  The more capable your character is, the fewer resources he 
  needs in order to prevail. A master survivalist can walk into 
  a forest, desert or mountainous region with little more than 
  a pocketknife and the clothes on his back and survive for 
  weeks if necessary. 
  Note that Survival is not synonymous with Animal Ken 
  (see p. 12). The former helps your character stay alive in the 
  wilderness, living off the land with whatever supplies he has 
  brought with him. The latter involves understanding animal 
  behavior and interacting directly with animals. Your character 
  could be knowledgeable about creating shelter and gathering 
  plants to eat (Survival), but might know nothing about antici-
  pating the actions of a bear in his camp (Animal Ken). 
  Possessed By: Explorers, hunters, soldiers, survivalists 
  Suggested Specialties: Foraging, Navigation, Meteo-
  rology, Shelter 
  Weaponry 
  As the name implies, the Weaponry Skill represents 
  your character’s experience or training in fighting with ev-
  erything from beer bottles to pipes, knives to swords. While 
  formal instruction in Weaponry is uncommon (restricted 
  to military and law-enforcement training and a few martial 
  arts), any character who has grown up on the street or spent 
  a lot of time in seedy bars has had ample opportunity to 
  learn this Skill. 
  A character’s Weaponry is added to his Strength to stage 
  armed attacks. For more information, see “Combat,” p. 21.
  Note that dots in Weaponry do not apply to manually 
  fixing or creating weapons, only to wielding them. Con-
  struction and repair is the province of the Crafts Skill (see  
  p. 9). 
  Possessed By: Bikers, criminals, martial artists, police 
  officers, soldiers 
  Suggested Specialties: Improvised Weapons,  
  Knives, Swords 
  Social Skills 
  Social Skills are applications of your character’s bearing, 
  charm and poise, such as negotiating with a bank robber, 
  wooing a crowd or telling a faultless lie. These Skills most 
  commonly represent innate capabilities honed by years of 
  experience rather than by any formal training. These Skills 
  are generally paired with your character’s Social Attributes, 
  but can also be used with Physical and Mental Attributes 
  in cases such as bodily threats (Strength + Intimidation) or 
  orchestrating a complex deal (Wits + Persuasion). 
  Untrained Skill Use: If your character doesn’t have the 
  necessary Social Skill required for a feat, he can still make the 
  attempt. Roll his Attribute alone at a -1 penalty. 
  Animal Ken 
  Anticipating and understanding human emotions is 
  one thing, but being able to interpret and recognize the be-
  havior of animals is something else entirely. Your character 
  intuitively grasps or has been trained to read animals to know 
  how they react to situations. The Skill also involves innately 
  understanding how the animal mind operates, and what may 
  appease or enrage beasts. The knack often coincides with a 
  respect for animals, but it could derive from the analytical 
  observation of a lab scientist or from years of abuse inflicted 
  by a callous animal handler. 
  Animal Ken could be applied to grasp the thoughts or 
  intentions of supernatural animals, if the Storyteller allows. 
  Sometimes these beings have human or greater intelligence 
  and cannot be read by this Skill alone. 
  Possessed By: Animal rescue workers, hunters, long- time 
  pet owners, park rangers, ranchers, trainers, veterinarians 
  Suggested Specialties: Animal Needs, Imminent Attack, 
  Specific Kind of Animal, Training 
  Empathy 
  This Skill represents your character’s intuition for reading 
  people’s emotions. For some, it’s a matter of observing body 
  language and non-verbal cues. Others employ an extraordinary 
  sense that helps them divine a person’s true mood. As the 
  name implies, Empathy also involves the capacity to under-
  stand other people’s views and perspectives, whether your 
  character agrees with those positions or not. This is useful in 
  everything from negotiations and crisis counseling to reading 
  faces in a crowd and looking for potential trouble. If a subject 
  actively conceals his emotions or motives, make a contested 
  roll versus the person’s Wits + Subterfuge + equipment. 
  Possessed By: Counselors, diplomats, entertainers, 
  profilers, psychiatrists, police officers 
  Suggested Specialties: Emotion, Lies, Motives, Personalities 
  Expression 
  Expression reflects your character’s training or experi-
  ence in the art of communication, both to entertain and 
  
  13 
  inform. This Skill covers both the written and spoken word 
  and other forms of entertainment, from journalism to poetry, 
  creative writing to acting, music to dance. Characters can use 
  it to compose written works or to put the right words together 
  at the spur of the moment to deliver a rousing speech or a 
  memorable toast. Used well, Expression can sway others’ 
  opinions or even hold an audience captive. 
  When composing a poem or writing a novel, roll Wits 
  or Intelligence (depending on whether the work is poetic or 
  factual) + Expression. When reciting to an audience, roll Pres-
  ence + Expression. Playing an instrument involves Intelligence 
  + Expression for a known piece, and Wits + Expression for an 
  improvised one. Dance calls for Dexterity + Expression. 
  Possessed By: Actors, ballet dancers, journalists, musi-
  cians, poets, rock stars, writers 
  Suggested Specialties: Classical Dance, Drama, Exposés, 
  Musical Instrument, Newspaper Articles, Speeches 
  Intimidation 
  Intimidation is the art and technique of persuading 
  others through the use of fear. Your character can intimidate 
  someone with a show of brute force (Strength + Intimidation), 
  through more subtle means such as verbal threats (Manipu-
  lation + Intimidation), or simply through menacing body 
  language (Presence + Intimidation). It can be used to get other 
  people to cooperate (even against their better judgment), 
  back down from a confrontation, or reveal information that 
  they’d rather not share. 
  Possessed By: Bodyguards, bouncers, gangsters, execu-
  tives, police officers, soldiers 
  Suggested Specialties: Bluster, Physical Threats, Stare-
  Downs, Torture, Veiled Threats 
  Persuasion 
  Persuasion is the art of inspiring or changing minds 
  through logic, charm or sheer, glib fast-talking. Though it 
  can be taught to varying degrees of success, most characters 
  with the Skill possess a natural talent and have honed it over 
  years through trial and error, practicing their delivery until 
  it rolls effortlessly off the tongue. Persuasion is the Skill of 
  convincing others by force of personality alone, making one’s 
  point through carefully chosen words, body language and 
  emotion. 
  Possessed By: Con artists, executives, generals, lawyers, 
  politicians, salesmen, sexual predators 
  Suggested Specialties: Fast-Talking, Motivational 
  Speeches, Sales Pitches, Seduction 
  Socialize 
  Socialize reflects your character’s ability to interact with 
  others in a variety of situations, from chatting people up at 
  bars to comporting himself with dignity at state dinners. 
  This Skill represents equal parts gregariousness, sensitivity, 
  etiquette and custom. Knowing how to make friends is no 
  less important than understanding how to treat guests in 
  formal situations. Characters with low dots might be naturally 
  entertaining or approachable, but unschooled in the finer arts 
  of social interaction. Or they could be punctilious with their 
  manners but difficult to approach. Conversely, characters 
  with high dots could have the social graces of a practiced 
  diplomat or raconteur, knowing just what to say and when 
  to say it in any given situation. 
  Possessed By: Diplomats, entertainers, executives, 
  politicians, salesmen 
  Suggested Specialties: Bar Hopping, Dress Balls, Formal 
  Events, Frat Parties, State Dinners 
  Streetwise 
  Characters possessing this Skill know how life on the 
  streets works and are adept at surviving by its harsh 
  rules. Streetwise characters can gather information, 
  make contacts, buy and sell on the black market, and 
  otherwise make use of the street’s unique resources. 
  The Skill is also important for navigating urban dangers, 
  avoiding the law, and staying on the right side of the  
  wrong people. 
  Possessed By: Criminals, gangsters, homeless people, 
  private investigators, police officers 
  Suggested Specialties: Black Market, Gangs, Rumors, 
  Undercover Operations 
  Subterfuge 
  Subterfuge is the art of deception. Characters possessing 
  this Skill know how to lie convincingly, and they recognize 
  when they’re being lied to. Subterfuge is used when telling 
  a convincing falsehood, hiding one’s emotions or reactions, 
  or trying to pick up on the same in others. The Skill is most 
  often used to trick other people, but characters also learn it 
  to avoid being tricked themselves. 
  Possessed By: Actors, con artists, grifters, lawyers, 
  politicians, teenagers 
  Suggested Specialties: Con Jobs, Hiding Emotions, Ly-
  ing, Misdirection, Spotting Lies 
  Virtues and Vices
  All characters have strengths and weaknesses, noble 
  aspects and dark sides to their personalities. While 
  most people try to cultivate virtues and eschew vices, 
  both are intrinsic elements of identity and both equally 
  reinforce a sense of self, whether we like to admit it  
  or not. 
  Every character starts play with one defining Virtue 
  and one defining Vice, chosen during character creation. 
  Virtue and Vice may clearly reflect your character’s back-
  ground and concept, or they can be used to contrast his 
  outward nature to create sources of conflict that make for 
  excellent roleplaying. When a character’s actions in dif-
  virtues and vices
  
  14 
  The System
  ficult situations reflect his particular Virtue or Vice, he 
  reinforces his fundamental sense of self. If the Storyteller 
  judges that your character’s actions during a scene reflect 
  his Vice, he regains one Willpower point that has been 
  spent. If the Storyteller judges that your character’s ac-
  tions during a chapter (a game session) reflect his Virtue, 
  he regains all spent Willpower points. Note that these 
  actions must be made in situations that pose some risk to 
  your character, whereby he stands to pay a price for acting 
  according to his Virtue or Vice. Everyday expressions of, 
  say, Faith or Pride are not enough to reaffirm a character’s 
  determination or sense of self. 
  Your character does not gain extra Virtues or Vices dur-
  ing play. The fundamental qualities that define him do not 
  change. Nor are they compounded with more such traits. 
  Virtues
  Charity
  True Charity comes from sharing gifts with others, 
  be it money or possessions, or simply giving time to help 
  another in need. A charitable character is guided by her 
  compassion to share what she has in order to improve the 
  plight of those around her. Charitable individuals are guided 
  by the principle of treating others as they would be treated 
  themselves. By sharing gifts and taking on the role of the 
  Samaritan, they hope to cultivate goodwill in others, and 
  the gifts they give will eventually return to them in their 
  hour of need. 
  Your character regains all spent Willpower points 
  whenever she helps another at the risk of loss or harm to 
  herself. It isn’t enough to share what your character has in 
  abundance. She must make a real sacrifice in terms of time, 
  possessions or energy, or she must risk life 
  and limb to help another.
  Possessed By: Philanthropists, saints, 
  soup-kitchen workers 
  Faith
  Those with Faith know that the 
  universe is not random, meaningless 
  chaos, but ordered by a higher power. No 
  matter how horrifying the world might 
  be, everything has its place in the Plan 
  and ultimately serves that Purpose. This 
  Virtue does not necessarily involve belief 
  in a personified deity. It might involve 
  belief in a Grand Unified Theory whereby 
  the seeming randomness of the universe 
  is ultimately an expression of mathemati-
  cal precision. Or it might be a view that 
  everything is One and that even evil is 
  indistinguishable from good when all dis-
  criminating illusions are overcome. 
  Your character regains all spent Willpower points when-
  ever he is able to forge meaning from chaos and tragedy. 
  Possessed By: Detectives, philosophers, priests, scien-
  tists, true believers 
  Fortitude
  A person’s ideals are meaningless unless they’re tested. 
  When it seems as though the entire world is arrayed against 
  him because of his beliefs, a person possessing Fortitude 
  weathers the storm and emerges with his convictions intact. 
  Fortitude is about standing up for one’s beliefs and holding 
  the course no matter how tempting it may be to relent or give 
  up. By staying the course—regardless of the cost—he proves 
  the worth of his ideals. 
  Your character regains all spent Willpower points when-
  ever he withstands overwhelming or tempting pressure to alter 
  his goals. This does not include temporary distractions from 
  his course of action, only pressure that might cause him to 
  abandon or change his goals altogether. 
  Possessed By: Dictators, fanatics, gumshoes 
  Hope
  Being hopeful means believing that evil and mis-
  fortune cannot prevail, no matter how grim things be-
  come. Not only do the hopeful believe in the ultimate 
  triumph of morality and decency over malevolence, they 
  maintain steadfast belief in a greater sense of cosmic 
  justice—whether it’s Karma or the idea of an all-knowing, 
  all-seeing God who waits to punish the wicked. All will 
  turn out right in the end, and the hopeful mean to be 
  around when it happens. 
  Your character regains all spent Willpower points 
  whenever she refuses to let others give in to despair, 
  
  15 
  even though doing so risks harming her own goals or 
  wellbeing. This is similar to Fortitude, above, except that 
  your character tries to prevent others from losing hope 
  in their goals. She need not share those goals herself or 
  even be successful in upholding them, but there must be a  
  risk involved. 
  Possessed By: Anti-globalization activists, entrepreneurs, 
  martyrs, visionaries
  Justice
  Wrongs cannot go unpunished. This is the central 
  tenet of the just, who believe that protecting the innocent 
  and confronting inequity is the responsibility of every 
  decent person, even in the face of great personal danger. 
  The just believe that evil cannot prosper so long as one 
  good person strives to do what is right, regardless of  
  the consequences. 
  Your character regains all spent Willpower points when-
  ever he does the right thing at risk of personal loss or setback. 
  The “right thing” can be defined by the letter or spirit of a 
  particular code of conduct, whether it be the United States 
  penal code or a biblical Commandment. 
  Possessed By: Critics, judges, parents, role models 
  Prudence
  The Virtue of Prudence places wisdom and restraint 
  above rash action and thoughtless behavior. One main-
  tains integrity and principles by moderating actions and 
  avoiding unnecessary risks. While that means a prudent 
  person might never take big gambles that bring huge re-
  wards, neither is his life ruined by a bad roll of the dice. 
  By choosing wisely and avoiding the easy road he prospers 
  slowly but surely. 
  Your character regains all spent Willpower points 
  whenever he refuses a tempting course of action by which 
  he could gain significantly. The “temptation” must in-
  volve some reward that, by refusing it, might cost him 
  later on. 
  Possessed By: Businessmen, doctors, priests, scientists
  Temperance
  Moderation in all things is the secret to happiness, 
  so says the doctrine of Temperance. It’s all about balance. 
  Everything has its place in a person’s life, from anger to 
  forgiveness, lust to chastity. The temperate do not believe 
  in denying their urges, as none of it is unnatural or unholy. 
  The trouble comes when things are taken to excess, whether 
  it’s a noble or base impulse. Too much righteousness can be 
  just as bad as too much wickedness. 
  Your character regains all spent Willpower when he 
  resists a temptation to indulge in an excess of any behav-
  ior, whether good or bad, despite the obvious rewards it 
  might offer. 
  Possessed By: Clergy, police officers, social workers 
  Vices
  Envy
  An envious person is never satisfied with what she has. No 
  matter her wealth, status or accomplishments, there is always 
  someone else who seems to have more—and she wants it. Envious 
  characters are never secure or content with their place in life. They 
  always measure themselves against their rivals and look for wayts 
  to get what they deserve. They might be considered paranoid or 
  just consumed by a self-loathing that they project onto others. 
  Your character regains one Willpower point whenever 
  she gains something important from a rival or has a hand in 
  harming that rival’s wellbeing. 
  Possessed By: Celebrities, executives, politicians 
  Gluttony
  Gluttony is about indulging appetites to the exclusion of 
  everything else. It’s about dedicating oneself to sensual plea-
  sures or chasing the next high. A glutton makes any sacrifice 
  to feed his insatiable appetite for pleasure, regardless of the 
  cost to himself or those around him. He might be considered 
  a junky or even a kleptomaniac (he steals things he doesn’t 
  need just for the thrill of it). Your character regains one spent 
  Willpower point whenever he indulges in his addiction or 
  appetites at some risk to himself or a loved one. 
  Possessed By: Celebrities, junkies, thieves 
  Greed
  Like the envious, the greedy are never satisfied with what 
  they have. They want more—more money, a bigger house, 
  more status or influence—though they may already have more 
  than they can possibly handle. Everything is taken to excess. 
  To the greedy, there is no such thing as having too much. If 
  that means snatching someone else’s hard-earned reward just 
  to feather one’s own nest, well, that’s the way it goes. 
  Your character regains one Willpower point whenever 
  he acquires something at the expense of another. Gaining it 
  must come at some potential risk (of assault, arrest or simple 
  loss of respect). 
  Possessed By: CEOs, lawyers, stock brokers 
  Lust
  The Vice of Lust is the sin of uncontrolled desire. A lusty 
  individual is driven by a passion for something (usually sex, 
  but it can be a craving for virtually any experience or activ-
  ity) that he acts upon without consideration for the needs or 
  feelings of others. A lusty individual uses any means at his 
  disposal to indulge his desires, from deception to manipula-
  tion to acts of violence.
  Your character is consumed by a passion for something. 
  He regains one Willpower point whenever he satisfies his lust 
  or compulsion in a way that victimizes others. 
  Possessed By: Movie producers, politicians, rock stars 
  virtues and vices
  
  16 
  The System
  Pride
  Pride is the Vice of self-confidence run amok. It is the 
  belief that one’s every action is inherently right, even when 
  it should be obvious that it is anything but. A prideful per-
  son refuses to back down when his decision or reputation is 
  called into question, even when the evidence is clear that he 
  is in the wrong. His ego does not accept any outcome that 
  suggests fallibility, and he is willing to see others suffer rather 
  than admit that he’s wrong. 
  Your character regains one Willpower point whenever 
  he exerts his own wants (not needs) over others at some 
  potential risk to himself. This is most commonly the desire 
  for adulation, but it could be the desire to make others do 
  as he commands. 
  Possessed By: Corporate executives, movie stars, 
  street thugs 
  Sloth
  The Vice of Sloth is about avoiding work until someone 
  else has to step in to get the job done. Rather than put in the 
  effort—and possibly risk failure—in a difficult situation, the 
  slothful person simply refuses to do anything, knowing that 
  someone else will step in and fix the problem sooner or later. 
  The fact that people might needlessly suffer while the slothful 
  person sits on his thumbs doesn’t matter one bit. 
  Your character regains one Willpower point whenever 
  he successfully avoids a difficult task but achieves the same 
  goal nonetheless. 
  Possessed By: Couch potatoes, trust-fund heirs, 
  welfare cheats 
  Wrath
  The Vice of Wrath is the sin of uncontrolled anger. The 
  wrathful look for ways to vent their anger and frustration on 
  people or objects at the slightest provocation. In most cases 
  the reaction is far out of proportion to the perceived slight. 
  A wrathful person cut off on the freeway might try to force 
  another driver off the road, or a wrathful cop might delight 
  in beating each and every person he arrests, regardless of the 
  offense. Your character regains one spent Willpower point 
  whenever he unleashes his anger in a situation where doing 
  so is dangerous. If the fight has already begun, no Willpower 
  points are regained. It must take place in a situation where 
  anger is unwarranted or inappropriate. 
  Possessed By: Bullies, drill sergeants, street thugs 
  Merits 
  Merits are special capabilities or knacks that add indi-
  viduality to your character. Some apply to your character’s 
  basic traits to enhance them in particular situations. Some 
  have prerequisites that must be met before they can be pur-
  chased. For example, a character with the Gunslinger Merit 
  must have a Dexterity of 3 and Firearms of 3 or higher to be 
  able to accurately fire two weapons at the same time. By the 
  same token, some merits apply drawbacks that balance out 
  their inherent advantages. A character with the Fame Merit, 
  for example, is treated like a star wherever he goes—but has a 
  hard time blending into the crowd when he wants to. 
  Each Merit has a number of dots (•) associated with 
  it. These dots represent the number of points that must be 
  spent to purchase the Merit. Some Merits allow for a range 
  of dots (say, • to •••). These allow you to purchase a low 
  rating if it’s appropriate to your character concept, or you 
  can start with a low level and increase it over to time with 
  experience points. 
  Mental Merits 
  Danger Sense (•) 
  Effect: You gain a +2 modifier on reflexive Wits + 
  Composure rolls for your character to detect an impending 
  ambush. This kind of roll is typically made prior to the first 
  turn of a surprise attack. 
  Your character has a well-developed survival instinct that 
  warns him of impending danger. Perhaps he’s adept at reading 
  subtle clues in his environment or he possesses an uncanny 
  “sixth sense” when it comes to avoiding trouble. 
  Eidetic Memory (•) 
  Effect: You do not normally need to make a roll for your 
  character to remember an obscure fact or past experience, 
  unless he is under stress (such as in combat). Under stress, 
  there is a +2 modifier on any Intelligence + Composure or 
  other Skill-based roll (say, Academics, to remember a fact) for 
  memory recall. Available at character creation only.
  Your character has a near-photographic memory, 
  being able to recall vast amounts of observed detail with 
  astonishing accuracy.
  Encyclopedic Knowledge (••••) 
  Effect: Your character is a veritable font of useful (and some-
  times useless) information on a wide variety of topics. Chances 
  are he can come up with an anecdote pertaining to any situation 
  based on something he’s read, witnessed or seen on TV. 
  You can make an Intelligence + Wits roll any time your 
  character is confronted with a situation or phenomenon 
  outside his normal realm of experience. If the roll is success-
  ful, he may recall a “factoid” that he’s heard at some point 
  that may shed light on matters. 
  Language (•) 
  Effect: Your character knows an additional language 
  besides his own, one that he can read, write and speak with 
  fluency. If he wishes to convince others that he is a native 
  speaker, however, the Storyteller might call for an Intelligence 
  
  17 
  Fighting Finesse (••) 
  Prerequisite: Dexterity ••• and Weaponry •• 
  Effect: Your character prefers to fight with a chosen 
  weapon in a manner that favors agility over power. With 
  that one weapon (a rapier or katana, for example), you may 
  substitute your character’s Dexterity for Strength when mak-
  ing attack rolls. 
  This Merit may be purchased multiple times to gain 
  agility with more weapons, one for each purchase. 
  Fighting Style: Kung Fu (• to •••••) 
  Prerequisite: Strength ••, Dexterity ••, Stamina •• 
  and Brawl •• 
  Effect: Your character is trained in one of the many 
  forms of Kung Fu, conditioning his mind and body for the 
  purposes of focus and self-defense. He may have begun his 
  training at an early age, following in the footsteps of family 
  or friends, or he may have joined a school as an adult for the 
  purposes of exercise or protection. 
  Dots purchased in this Merit allow access to special 
  combat maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for 
  the next. So, your character can’t have “Iron Skin” until 
  he has “Focused Attack.” The maneuvers and their ef-
  fects are listed below, most of which are based on the  
  Brawl Skill. 
  Focused Attack (•): Physical conditioning and accuracy 
  allow your character to deliver blows at vulnerable spots on 
  targets. Penalties to hit specific targets are reduced by one. See 
  “Specifying Targets,” p. 22. Even when a specific part of an 
  opponent is not targeted, armor penalties to your character’s 
  Brawl attacks are reduced by one. 
  Iron Skin (••): Your character has hardened her body to 
  physical blows, allowing her to withstand repeated hits with 
  minimal effect. She has an effective armor trait of 1 against 
  bashing attacks only. 
  Defensive Attack (•••): Your character has mastered 
  the ability to fight defensively. When using this maneuver, 
  you character gains +2 to his Defense for the turn, but any 
  attack he makes suffers a -2 penalty. He can move no more 
  than his Speed while performing a Defense Attack maneuver 
  in a turn. 
  Whirlwind Strike (•••): Your character can unleash a 
  storm of blows against an opponent. He can make one extra 
  Brawl attack for each point of Dexterity that he has above 2 
  in a single action. Each extra attack is made at a cumulative 
  -1 modifier. Thus, he can perform a total of two attacks at 
  Dexterity 3 (the second of which is at -1), three attacks at 
  Dexterity 4 (the third of which is at -2), and four at Dexterity 
  5 (the fourth of which is at -3). All attacks must be on the 
  same target. 
  The drawback is that your character cannot use his 
  Defense against any attack in the same turn in which he 
  intends to use this maneuver. If he uses Defense against at-
  tacks that occur earlier in the Initiative roster, before he can 
  + Expression roll, contested with a reflexive Intelligence + 
  Academics roll by anyone who is suspicious. 
  You must specify which language your character is famil-
  iar with when purchasing this Merit. You may take this Merit 
  multiple times, with a different language for each. 
  Unseen Sense (•••) 
  Prerequisite: Mortal (non-supernatural); Wits •• 
  Effect: Your character has a “sixth sense” when it comes to 
  the supernatural. Perhaps his hair stands on end, goose bumps 
  race along his arms, or a shiver runs up his spine. Regardless of 
  the manner, his body reacts to the presence of unseen forces. 
  He can’t see or hear anything, and in fact he might not know 
  at first what causes this reaction. It might be a response to a 
  specific type of supernatural phenomenon such as ghosts or 
  vampires, or it might be a general sense that something isn’t 
  right. Over time and with a little trial and error, he might be 
  able to quantify what his body tries to tell him. 
  The specific type of supernatural phenomenon to 
  which your character is sensitive must be determined when 
  this Merit is purchased. It can be something as vague as a 
  creepy feeling when in the presence of ghosts, or something 
  as specific as a sudden chill when a vampire is nearby. The 
  Storyteller has final say on the exact nature and trigger of 
  your character’s sixth sense, and can keep its nature secret if 
  desired, leaving you to figure it out during play. 
  Only mortal, mundane characters can possess this Merit. 
  The pivotal moment of becoming or being changed into a 
  being with supernatural capabilities eliminates it. 
  Physical Merits 
  Brawling Dodge (•) 
  Prerequisite: Strength •• and Brawl • 
  Effect: Whenever your character performs a dodge (see 
  “Dodge,” p. 21), you can choose to add his Brawl Skill dots to his 
  Defense instead of doubling his Defense. He essentially draws on 
  his training in blocking and evading attacks rather than relying 
  on his raw ability alone. While this might provide little benefit 
  to a brawling novice, it can give the advanced fighter an edge. 
  Brawling Dodge applies against incoming Brawl- and 
  Weaponry-based attacks, against thrown-weapon attacks, and 
  against Firearms attacks made within close-combat range. 
  Your character can move up to his Speed and perform a 
  Brawling Dodge maneuver in a turn. 
  A character can possess both the Brawling Dodge and 
  Weaponry Dodge merits, but only one can be used per turn. 
  Fast Reflexes (• or ••) 
  Prerequisite: Dexterity ••• 
  Effect: +1 Initiative per dot.
  Your character’s mix of sharp reflexes and steady nerves 
  helps him get the drop on adversaries. 
  Merits
  
  18 
  The System
  perform this maneuver, he cannot perform the maneuver 
  this turn. He is too busy bobbing and weaving out of the 
  way of attacks. 
  Lethal Strike (•••••): By focusing his might and 
  concentration, your character can kill or maim an opponent 
  with a well-placed strike. A strike inflicts lethal instead of 
  bashing damage. You must spend one Willpower point per 
  attack. Note that this Willpower expenditure does not add 
  three dice to the attack. 
  Fleet of Foot (• to •••)
  Effect: Your character’s athletic training has given her 
  the ability to run quite swiftly when necessary. She gains +1 
  Speed per Merit dot spent. 
  Gunslinger (•••) 
  Prerequisite: Dexterity ••• and Firearms ••• 
  Effect: Your character’s capability and experience with 
  firearms is such that he can accurately fire two pistols at the 
  same time. Your character still suffers the -2 offhand penalty 
  for shooting with his second hand, but he can shoot both 
  pistols as a single action during a turn. The second attack is 
  also at -1 penalty. Your character may shoot at two different 
  targets if he wishes, but the amount of concentration required 
  negates his Defense for the turn. 
  This Merit can only be used with pistols. 
  Your character cannot use his Defense against any at-
  tack in the same turn in which he intends to use this Merit 
  on two separate targets in the same turn. If he uses Defense 
  against attacks that occur earlier in the Initiative roster, be-
  fore he can perform this maneuver, he cannot perform the 
  maneuver this turn. He is too busy bobbing and weaving out 
  of the way of attacks. 
  Iron Stamina (• to •••) 
  Prerequisite: Stamina ••• or Resolve ••• 
  Effect: Each dot eliminates a negative modifier (on 
  a one-for-one basis) when resisting the effects of fatigue 
  or injury. For Example: A character with Iron Stamina 
  •• is able to ignore up to a -2 modifier brought on by 
  fatigue. See “Fatigue,” p. 23. The Merit also counteracts 
  the effects of wound penalties. So, if all your character’s 
  Health boxes are filled (which normally imposes a -3 
  penalty to his actions) and he has Iron Stamina •, those 
  penalties are reduced to -2. This Merit cannot be used 
  to gain positive modifiers for actions, only to cancel out 
  negative ones. 
  Your character can push his body well past the limits 
  of physical endurance when he has to, pressing on in the 
  face of mounting exhaustion or pain. Perhaps he trained 
  himself to go without sleep for days at a time in order 
  to get through college, or a lifetime of sports has taught 
  your character how to play through the pain no matter 
  how bad it gets. 
  When your character does finally rest, he sleeps like 
  the dead. After staying awake for an extended period, your 
  character is extremely difficult to wake until he’s slept for a 
  minimum of 12 hours, regardless of the situation. 
  Natural Immunity (•) 
  Prerequisite: Stamina •• 
  Effect: Your character gains a +2 modifier on Stamina 
  rolls to resist infection, sickness and disease. His immune 
  system is exceptionally effective at resisting infections, viruses 
  and bacteria. Your character can probably count on one hand 
  the number of times he’s been seriously ill. 
  Quick Draw (•) 
  Prerequisite: Dexterity ••• 
  Effect: Your character can draw a pistol and fire or pull 
  a melee weapon and attack without penalty as a single action 
  in a turn. If a weapon is hidden on your character’s person 
  (under a coat or in a purse), it can be drawn and used in the 
  same turn without the normal loss of Defense. A separate 
  Quick Draw Merit must be acquired for use with firearms 
  and melee weapons. 
  Quick Healer (••••) 
  Prerequisite: Stamina •••• 
  Effect: Your character’s healing abilities are remarkable, 
  allowing him to bounce back quickly from injuries that would 
  leave most people bedridden for months. 
  Your character recovers from injuries in half the time 
  that others do. One point of bashing damage is healed 
  in eight minutes. One point of lethal damage is healed 
  in one day. One point of aggravated damage is healed in 
  four days. 
  Strong Lungs (•••)
  Prerequisite: Athletics ••• 
  Effect: Your character is practiced at holding his breath 
  for long periods of time. He might be a pearl diver or escape 
  artist, capable of staying underwater without aid for longer 
  than most people believe is possible. 
  When determining how long your character can hold 
  his breath, add two to Stamina when referencing the Hold-
  ing Breath chart. For example, if your character’s Stamina is 
  2, he can hold his breath for four minutes before you need 
  to make a roll. 
  Weaponry Dodge (•) 
  Prerequisite: Strength •• and Weaponry • 
  Effect: Whenever your character performs a dodge (See 
  “Dodge,” p. 21), you can choose to add his Weaponry Skill 
  dots to his Defense instead of doubling his Defense. He 
  essentially draws on his training in parrying and evading at-
  tacks rather than relying on his raw ability alone. While this 
  
  19 
  might provide little benefit to a fencing novice, it can give 
  the advanced fighter an edge. 
  Weaponry Dodge applies against incoming Brawl- and 
  Weaponry-based attacks, against thrown-weapon attacks, and 
  against Firearms attacks made within close-combat range. 
  Your character can move up to his Speed and perform a 
  Weaponry Dodge maneuver in a turn. 
  A character can possess both the Brawling Dodge and 
  Weaponry Dodge Merits, but only one can be used per turn. 
  Social Merits 
  Allies (• to •••••) 
  Effect: Allies are people who are willing to help your 
  character from time to time. They may be associates, friends 
  of convenience or people who owe your character a favor. 
  Each acquisition of this Merit is dedicated to one type of 
  ally, whether in an organization, society or circle. Examples 
  include the police, City Hall, criminals, unions, banks, uni-
  versity faculty and hospital staff. In order to have alliances 
  in more than one venue, you need to purchase this Merit 
  multiple times, each trait with its own dots. Thus, your char-
  acter might have Allies (Police) ••, Allies (Criminals) ••• 
  and Allies (City Hall) •, each acquired separately at character 
  creation or during play. 
  Each dot that your character has indicates how deep his 
  influence runs in that group. One dot might mean he can 
  ask for minor favors, such as being spared a parking ticket if 
  alliance is among the police, or being allowed to see an article 
  before it goes to press if alliance is among reporters. Three 
  dots garner considerable favors, such as a building permit 
  “going missing” at City Hall, or a strike resolution being 
  wrapped up early among union leaders. Five dots allow for 
  dangerous and even overtly criminal favors, such as a stock 
  being sabotaged on Wall Street or the answers to an exam 
  being shared by a university professor. 
  The Storyteller has final say over what is an acceptable 
  request and what is not. If there’s any doubt, the Storyteller 
  could call for a Manipulation + Persuasion roll, with a bonus 
  equal to your character’s Allies dots. Penalties might also ap-
  ply based on the importance or danger of the request. Asking 
  someone to do something already in the bounds of their role 
  imposes no modifier, while asking them to do something that 
  could get them suspended imposes a -3 penalty, and asking for 
  something that could get them jailed or killed is -5. Frequent 
  favors asked of the same group also impose a penalty as group 
  members grow tired of being called upon. 
  Similarly, a roll of Manipulation + Persuasion + Al-
  lies dots could determine how many police answer your 
  character’s call for help, or how many longshoremen turn 
  up when your character needs a show of force (one per 
  success rolled). 
  Allies doesn’t have to be defined in terms of specific 
  individuals over whom your character has sway. He could 
  simply know a variety of people among city reporters and 
  he can call upon them in general from time to time. You 
  should, however, explain why your character has influence 
  in a particular body. Maybe he worked there himself at one 
  time and still has friends in the organization. Or he has done 
  a group a favor and its members still owe him. 
  Allies are not automatons, waiting for your character to 
  ask for help. They have their own lives and needs. An alli-
  ance is a two-way relationship. Calling for favors makes your 
  character indebted to his friends, and they are sure to call 
  such favors in when they need help. The Storyteller can use 
  such debts as inspiration for future stories. 
  Contacts (• to •••••) 
  Effect: Contacts provide your character information in 
  a particular area of awareness. Each dot in this Merit repre-
  sents one arena or circle in which your character has a web of 
  connections and from which he may draw information. If he 
  has Contacts •••, his dots might be assigned to computer 
  hackers, couriers and big business, respectively. Contacts can 
  include individuals whom you or the Storyteller defines, but 
  more likely they comprise an array of people from whom your 
  character can draw information with a phone call, email or 
  face-to-face query. The benefit from Contacts is strictly in 
  information-gathering. Contacts do not come perform ser-
  vices for your character or rush to his aid. Those actions are 
  the purview of other Merits such as Allies and Retainer. 
  Gaining information from contacts requires a successful 
  Manipulation + Persuasion or Socialize roll, depending on 
  the relationship between your character and the people in 
  question. Penalties might apply if the information sought is 
  little known (-1 to -3), confidential (-3), or if sharing it could 
  get people in trouble or harmed (-3 to -5). Success doesn’t 
  guarantee exactly the information for which your character 
  looks. Contacts aren’t all-knowing, and the Storyteller is 
  perfectly justified in saying that a particular contact simply 
  doesn’t know something. 
  Fame (• to •••) 
  Effect: Your character has a measure of recognition in to-
  day’s media-saturated society, possibly as a performer, athlete, 
  politician or other sort of public personality. He’s frequently 
  identified and can often get star treatment. On the other 
  hand, it’s difficult for your character to go places without 
  getting recognized, and the media watches him carefully. 
  Each dot adds a +1 modifier to your character’s Socialize 
  (or Persuasion, where applicable) rolls among those who are 
  impressed by his celebrity status. 
  The more famous your character is, the more easily he 
  is recognized by the public. The Storyteller should apply the 
  same +1 modifier per dot to a general Wits + Composure 
  roll to see if he is recognized by anyone on the street. An 
  exceptional success indicates that one or more people are 
  loyal fans who approach him for autographs, pictures and 
  long conversations. 
  merits
  
  20 
  The System
  Resources (• to •••••) 
  Effect: This Merit measures your character’s material 
  resources, both possessions and wealth. All characters are 
  assumed to have a job or a source of income (trust fund, 
  parents) that is sufficient to cover their basic needs: food, 
  shelter and transportation. Dots in this Merit represent 
  disposable income—wealth and assets that can be liquidated 
  for more money in case of emergency. 
  The number of dots indicates your character’s general 
  level of wealth. One dot suggests lower disposable income: 
  $500 a month and approximately $1,000 worth of assets. 
  Two dots suggest moderate disposable income: $1,000 a 
  month and approximately $5000 worth of assets. Three dots 
  suggest significant disposable income: $2000 a month and 
  maybe $10,000 worth of assets. Four dots suggest substantial 
  disposable income: $10,000 a month and $500,000 worth of 
  assets. Five dots suggest significant wealth: $50,000 a month 
  and as much as $5,000,000 worth of assets.
  Resources can be used to determine if your character 
  can reasonably afford a purchase or expenditure. Equipment, 
  weapons and items throughout these rules are assigned costs 
  in dots. The Storyteller can assign cost dots to other items 
  during play based on what’s here. If your character has the 
  same or more dots in Resources, he can afford the item on his 
  disposable income. That doesn’t mean he has a blank check 
  with which to buy everything he sees. He might be able to 
  afford one or two items with a cost equal to his Resources 
  dots in a single month. Items with lower costs can be acquired 
  more often. The Storyteller has final say on what’s too much 
  or what’s too often. 
  Your character’s Resources dots aren’t spent and don’t 
  go away. They represent available cash at any given moment. 
  The only means by which your character’s Resource dots 
  might decrease is if story events conspire against them. 
  Perhaps your character’s fortune is wiped out, he loses his 
  job or his company is subjected to a hostile takeover. The 
  Storyteller therefore influences how your character’s dots 
  might decrease, and whether they can be salvaged. 
  Retainer (• to •••••) 
  Effect: Your character has an assistant, aide, indentured 
  servant or fanatical follower on whom she can rely. You need 
  to establish how this trusty companion was acquired. He may 
  be paid exorbitant amounts of money that buy his unwavering 
  loyalty. He might owe his life to your character (or to your 
  character’s predecessors). Your character might blackmail 
  this person or threaten his family with harm if services are 
  not rendered. Or your character might have a supernatural 
  hold over this poor person. Regardless of the circumstances, 
  this person is constantly loyal and follows almost any order 
  without question. 
  A retainer can be called upon to perform many duties 
  without fail. A bodyguard might be willing to hurt other 
  people on a mere command. A dedicated street kid might 
  hang on your character’s every word and get her information 
  or contacts without being asked. Unless your character has 
  direct control over a retainer’s mind, however, this person 
  can’t be made to perform any task. He might not risk his own 
  life unduly or perform a task that violates his own morals. You 
  or the Storyteller should detail your retainer with an identity, 
  background and character sheet of his own. The Storyteller 
  usually plays your character’s retainer. 
  Each acquisition of this Merit grants your character 
  one follower. Dots spent in the trait indicate the training, 
  capability or flexibility of the aide. One dot suggests a child, 
  an automaton or a madman with limited capabilities and 
  freedom of thought. Two dots indicate an ordinary person 
  over whom your character has sway. The servant is completely 
  mundane and has no particular training above the human 
  norm (he has two dots in all of his Attributes and Skills). 
  Three dots represent a capable employee with a range of 
  training at his disposal (three or four of his traits have three 
  dots). Four dots represent a valued and irreplaceable assistant 
  (Someone with a handful of traits with four dots each). Five 
  dots indicate an extraordinary follower. He is exceptional in 
  many ways (five dots in a couple of traits, and four in many 
  others) or he may be capable of supernatural feats. 
  Retainer is different from Allies in that no roll is ever 
  made to get results from an aide. He performs the task 
  requested, unless subjected to repeated abuse or an utterly 
  intolerable assignment (as decided by the Storyteller based 
  on the assistant’s personality). 
  If your retainer is ever hurt he may be incapable of service 
  while recovering. If he is killed, he’s lost forever unless super-
  natural in origin. A retainer who possesses his own will and 
  who is forced to perform a duty that offends his sensibilities 
  or defies his morals may abandon your character, temporar-
  ily or permanently. Points spent to acquire a retainer who is 
  killed or driven off are lost. 
  Status (• to •••••) 
  Prerequisite: Varies (see below) 
  Effect: Your character has standing, credentials, author-
  ity or respect within an organization, group, company or 
  social body. He might have an official position or title, or 
  might simply be revered and honored within the group and 
  therefore accorded a degree of authority. Your character might 
  be a company vice president, a police sergeant or lieutenant, 
  an army corporal or a nurse at a hospital. Or he could be a 
  lowly member of the group whom everyone likes or who has 
  won some acclaim and is allowed more standing than he is 
  officially entitled. 
  Each acquisition of this Merit is dedicated to one type 
  of authority, whether in an organization, society or circle. 
  Examples include police, City Hall, criminals, unions, 
  banks, a university faculty or hospital staff. In order to have 
  authority in more than one venue, you need to purchase this 
  Merit multiple times, each trait with its own dots. Thus, your 
  character might have Status (Police) ••, Status (Criminals) 
  
  21 
  ••• and Status (City Hall) •, each acquired separately at 
  character creation or during play. You would need to explain 
  how he reconciles all this authority in the setting. The afore-
  mentioned character might be a dirty police sergeant who has 
  paid his dues in civil elections and gained some recognition 
  among city officials. 
  Status represents the privileges and liberties that your 
  character is authorized to take within the confines and definitions 
  of his group. Increasing dots reflect increasing clout. A cop 
  with Status 1 can enter the suspect lockup and interroga-
  tion rooms, while a cop with Status 4 can enter the evidence 
  locker without supervision or get involved in a crime-scene 
  investigation without specifically being called in. 
  While Status might allow your character to give orders to 
  underlings, the Merit doesn’t automatically get results. Subor-
  dinates or co-workers might resent their assignments, dislike 
  your character or have personal agendas that interfere with 
  your character’s needs. Efforts to get things done through 
  official channels still call for Manipulation + Intimidation, 
  Persuasion or Socialize rolls, whichever Skill is appropriate 
  to the request, circumstances and your character’s standing 
  within the organization. Bonus dice equal to your character’s 
  Status dots. Penalties might apply if your character browbeats 
  someone (-1), uses threats (-2), skirts the limits of his authority 
  (-2) or exceeds his authority (-3 to -5). 
  Your character’s standing in a given organization is 
  dependent on the fulfillment of his duties and on abiding 
  by the regulations required of members. 
  Striking Looks (•• or ••••) 
  Effect: Your character is exceptionally attractive by 
  modern standards; heads turn and conversations stop when 
  she enters a room. 
  For two dots, your character gets a +1 modifier to all 
  presence or Manipulation rolls when she attempts to use her 
  looks to entertain, persuade, distract or deceive others. 
  For four dots, your character’s looks are angelic; she 
  gets a +2 modifier. 
  The more attractive your character is, the harder it is for 
  her to avoid notice in public. Witnesses to any criminal acts 
  are much more likely to remember your character’s appear-
  ance, and easily recognize her in a lineup. Your character is 
  also likely to receive a great degree of unwanted attention in 
  social situations. 
  Combat 
  It is an unfortunate truth that violence is a common 
  side-effect of existence in the World of Darkness. Life is pre-
  carious enough in a world where vampires and werewolves 
  don’t stalk the city streets. Here, you sometimes have no 
  choice but to fight to survive. When a fight breaks out, it can 
  be important to keep track of who is doing what, and how 
  badly the combatants are hurting each other. 
  First, the Storyteller tells the players their characters 
  are entering combat. Until the combat ends, everyone acts 
  turn-by-turn, with each character getting one chance to act 
  each turn. 
  Next, have everyone roll Initiative, which is the result 
  of the roll of a single die + the characters Initiative modi-
  fier as listed on the character sheet. This is a rare case in 
  which you add the number that comes up on a die to 
  the value of your trait, instead of rolling a dice pool and 
  looking for successes. 
  Starting with the character with the highest Initiative 
  result and continuing to the lowest, each character gets to take 
  a single action (usually an attack). The player can choose to 
  yield her character’s action until later in the Initiative queue, 
  or until the next turn if she wishes. The Storyteller resolves 
  each character’s action before asking the next player what 
  her character does. 
  If a character attacks another character, the attacker rolls 
  the appropriate Dice Pool: 
  Unarmed Close Combat: Strength + Brawl, minus 
  target’s Defense and armor (if any) 
  Armed Close Combat: Strength + Weaponry, minus 
  target’s Defense and armor (if any) 
  Touching an Opponent: Dexterity + Brawl, minus 
  target’s Defense 
  Ranged Combat (Guns and Bows): Dexterity + Fire-
  arms, minus target’s armor (if any) 
  Ranged Combat (Thrown Weapons): Dexterity + Athlet-
  ics, minus target’s Defense and armor (if any) 
  Add bonus dice based upon what weapon is being used 
  or what effect is being performed, then subtract penalties 
  for circumstance conditions. The player rolls the remaining 
  pool. Each success equates to a Health point of damage 
  inflicted, the type of which is determined by the nature of 
  the attack. The Storyteller describes the attack and wound 
  in narrative terms. 
  Once everyone has acted, a new turn starts and the player 
  with the highest Initiative gets to act again. Players do not 
  make new Initiative rolls every turn. 
  Complications 
  Avoiding Damage in Close Combat: Your character’s 
  Defense trait represents his instinctive ability to duck and 
  weave and make an enemy’s close-combat attacks more dif-
  ficult, and so serves as a penalty to incoming attacks. If your 
  character hasn’t yet acted this turn and is willing to forgo 
  that action, he can dodge, which doubles his Defense for 
  the rest of the turn. 
  If your character is attacked multiple times in the same 
  turn, however, it becomes harder for him to avoid being 
  hurt. For every attack targeted at him past the first, reduce 
  the character’s Defense by 1 (to a minimum of 0). If your 
  character is dodging, the doubled Defense reduces by 1 for 
  each additional attack. 
  combat
  
  22 
  The System
  Avoiding Damage in Ranged Combat: Unless a ranged 
  attacker is only a few feet away or is throwing a weapon, 
  Defense doesn’t apply. To avoid damage in a firefight you 
  can either hide behind something solid or fall prone to the 
  ground. Falling prone constitutes a character’s action for the 
  turn but levies a -2 penalty on ranged attacks. Anyone within 
  a few feet gets a +2 bonus to hit a prone character, though. 
  Concealment and Cover: If your character is partially 
  concealed behind an object, she is harder to hit with ranged 
  attacks. The penalty goes from -1 (crouching behind an office 
  chair) to -3 (poking up out of a foxhole). If you are completely 
  concealed, the attacker suffers no dice pool penalty but has to 
  score enough successes to shoot through the intervening ob-
  ject (called the cover). Piercing an object reduces the number 
  of successes rolled by a number based upon the durability of 
  the cover: from 1 (for wood or thick glass) to 3 (for steel). If 
  this penalty reduces the number of successes to 0, the attack 
  fails to penetrate the cover and you take no damage. 
  Improved Weapons: Combatants invariably grab 
  whatever items come to hand to use as weapons against one 
  another, especially when they come to a fight unarmed and 
  opponents prove to be well-armed. Use of an improvised 
  weapon, like a bottle or a wooden plank, incurs a -1 penalty 
  due to the awkward nature of fighting with an item that isn’t 
  built for combat. 
  Range: Every ranged weapon has three ranges listed in 
  yards, in the format “short range/medium range/long range.” 
  An attacker suffers no penalty when her target is within the 
  short range. If the target is at medium range, she suffers a -2 
  penalty. At long range, this penalty goes to -4. 
  Specifying Targets: Sometimes your character wants to 
  direct an attack at a particular part of an opponent, or at an 
  object carried by an opponent in order to achieve a specific 
  effect. Since smaller targets are harder to hit in this way, the 
  Storyteller must impose penalties to the attack roll based on 
  the size of the intended target. A torso might be at -1, a leg 
  or arm -2, a head -3, a hand -4 and an eye (or the “off” but-
  ton of a machine) -5. If no successes are gained, the attack 
  misses altogether. 
  The results of a successful attack are determined by the 
  Storyteller. A successful Strength + Athletics roll might be 
  required for a victim to hold onto a held object, with a pen-
  alty to the effort equal to the damage done in the attack. A 
  successful attack staged on a body part might ignore armor, 
  because none is worn there. A blow to the head with a blunt 
  object that normally inflicts bashing damage might inflict 
  lethal damage, or cause the victim to be stunned. 
  States of Being
  Combat is about hurting and killing opponents. You 
  therefore need a means of gauging your character’s physi-
  cal condition during and after a fight, whether he’s simply 
  bruised and battered or crippled or dead. But there are other 
  states of being (and forms of injury) beyond those resulting 
  from combat. All forms of harm may befall your character, 
  from fire to disease to electrocution. And yet, when he’s faced 
  with the horrors that lurk in the night, and supernatural 
  creatures threaten his very existence, he may dismiss the pain 
  as best he can and forge ahead against the unknown. 
  Health and Damage 
  There are three types of damage, each more serious 
  than the last: bashing, lethal and aggravated. Bashing damage 
  generally results from blunt or stunning attacks. Lethal damage 
  often comes from cuts, gunshots and more serious attacks. 
  Aggravated damage is the result of especially vile supernatural 
  attacks, extremely damaging effects or from sources that play 
  upon a supernatural weakness, such as a werewolf’s weakness 
  to silver or a vampire’s weakness to sunlight. Mortals, like 
  the characters you play in default World of Darkness setting, 
  very rarely suffer aggravated damage, but the creatures they 
  encounter might. 
  Marking Damage: When a character suffers damage, 
  the player marks off that number of Health points, starting 
  with the box under the leftmost dot of his Health trait and 
  proceeding left to right. The symbol used depends upon the 
  type of damage. 
  Bashing damage is marked with a slash (/) in the first 
  available empty box. So imagining that Thomas (one of the 
  characters in this scenario, who has seven Health dots) had 
  just taken one point of bashing damage, his Health boxes 
  would look like this: 
  Lethal damage is marked with an X, and it pushes any 
  existing bashing damage right on the track (so that it always 
  appears to the left of bashing damage). If Thomas next took 
  a point of lethal damage, his track would be: 
  Aggravated damage is marked with a large asterisk (*) 
  by adding a vertical bar to an X. It also pushes any existing 
  lethal and bashing damage right on the track (so that it 
  always appears to the left of lethal or bashing damage). If 
  Thomas next suffered a point of aggravated damage, his 
  track would be:
  No More Health: Marking off a character’s last Health 
  box usually means the character has become incapacitated. 
  If that rightmost wound is bashing, he falls unconscious. If 
  that rightmost wound is lethal or aggravated, the character 
  quickly bleeds to death. Note that this would mean the 
  character has no bashing damage at all, since it will always 
  be the rightmost. Some supernatural creatures may react 
  differently to damage. 
  Additional Damage: An unconscious or severely bat-
  tered person can still be damaged by further attacks. Without 
  *
  
  23 
  beyond 24 hours, make a Stamina + Resolve roll. If it fails, 
  he falls asleep. If the roll succeeds, your character remains 
  alert and active. Spending one Willpower on a roll adds three 
  dice to the effort. No more than one Willpower point can 
  be dedicated to a single roll to remain awake. 
  Burning the candle at both ends impairs your character’s 
  performance. For each six-hour period in excess of 24 hours 
  in which he foregoes sleep, his dice pools suffer a cumulative 
  -1 penalty. He has trouble focusing and might suffer mild hal-
  lucinations. This penalty also applies to successive Stamina 
  + Resolve rolls to remain awake. 
  If your character performs physically demanding activi-
  ties such as running, conducting combat or performing a 
  magical ritual while he stays awake, the Storyteller can impose 
  an additional 1 to -3 penalty on your rolls to remain awake. 
  The longest a person can go without sleep is a number of 
  days equal to the lowest of his Stamina or Resolve, at which 
  point he passes out. 
  Once your character does sleep, it’s for eight hours, plus 
  one hour for each six-hour period (in excess of 24 hours) that 
  he forced himself to remain active. 
  Holding Breath
  Dice Pool: Stamina 
  Action: Reflexive
  A character can hold her breath for a number of turns 
  based on her Stamina dots, as follows:
  further Health boxes to mark off, you represent this damage 
  by upgrading existing wounds. Any new bashing wound 
  upgrades an existing bashing wound to lethal (make the 
  leftmost / into an X), while new lethal damage can upgrade 
  older wounds to aggravated (make the leftmost X into an 
  asterisk). Additional aggravated damage also converts a point 
  of bashing or lethal damage to aggravated (make the leftmost 
  / or X into an asterisk). 
  Healing: Mortals recover from damage with rest and 
  medical attention. Left to heal naturally, characters recover 
  one point of bashing damage every 15 minutes, one point 
  of lethal damage every two days, and one point of aggravated 
  damage every week. Lost Health is recovered from right to 
  left on the character sheet. 
  Deprivation 
  People go hungry and without proper drinking water 
  every day in the World of Darkness. They might eke out 
  a meager existence in poor or war-torn countries, or could 
  struggle to survive in inner cities where brown water drips 
  from corroded pipes. Or a person might fall ill, be uncon-
  scious, or be imprisoned and starved for days on end. He 
  could even send his spirit on an incorporeal journey during 
  which his body languishes. Regardless of the circumstances, 
  denied proper food and water for an extended period, a 
  mortal being suffers. 
  Your character can go a number of days equal to his 
  Stamina before being inhibited by lack of water. Once that 
  threshold is exceeded, he suffers one point of bashing damage 
  for each day that passes. He can go without food for a number 
  of days equal to his Stamina + Resolve. After that point, he 
  suffers another point of bashing damage a day. Denied both 
  food and water, he suffers two bashing wounds a day. 
  Health points lost due to deprivation cannot be healed 
  until your character gains access to a sustained supply of food 
  and/or water. If he has gone without both and comes upon 
  a water supply alone, the Health he has lost to thirst heals 
  normally. Still denied food, however, he continues to lose 
  Health to starvation and cannot heal damage lost to it until 
  he gets a steady food supply, too. 
  Fatigue 
  Sometimes the demands of dealing with the world 
  and the threats it poses do not allow for such luxuries as 
  sleep. Your character may need to remain vigilant or on 
  guard over a person or item. He may need to get across the 
  country as soon as possible, but an airplane ticket is out of 
  the question. So, just how long can he remain awake and 
  to what effect? 
  Your character can push himself beyond normal limits, 
  but exhaustion soon impairs his abilities. Almost anyone can 
  go without rest for 24 hours, but to continue on is challeng-
  ing. For every six-hour period that your character persists 
  morality
  Stamina 
  Time*
  • 
  30 seconds
  •• 
  One minute
  ••• 
  Two minutes
  •••• 
  Four minutes
  ••••• 
  Eight minutes
  * If your character is in combat, she can hold her 
  breath for one turn per Stamina dot.
  When she has reached her normal limit, a Stamina roll 
  is made to continue. Each success grants 30 extra seconds 
  (or one extra turn per success in combat). When she can no 
  longer hold her breath, she begins suffocating/drowning. 
  She suffers one lethal Health wound per turn.
  Morality 
  Base Value: 7 
  Morality reflects a character’s sense of compassion for 
  his fellow human being and basic respect for the rule of law. 
  This isn’t an absolute value. As people grow and change over 
  time their perspectives on society and morality often shift. 
  Some individuals strive to become more compassionate and 
  
  24 
  The System
  virtuous, while others, driven by desperation or embittered 
  by dire circumstances, reject their old convictions and adopt 
  a more callous and selfish approach to existence. 
  Your character’s Morality is not fixed. Depending on 
  his actions, it can increase or decrease during play. A start-
  ing character has a Morality of 7—a basic respect for the law 
  and a realistic sense of compassion for other people. He 
  believes in the need to uphold the law, and treats others as 
  he would expect to be treated himself. He has the potential 
  to become more selfless and virtuous, or has a long way to 
  fall into the depths of human barbarity. The course he fol-
  lows depends entirely on the choices he makes during the 
  course of the chronicle. 
  Each Morality rating has a threshold of sinful behavior 
  from your character must refrain in order to avoid degenera-
  tion to a lower moral state. 
  run out and she is about to be thrown out of her apartment. One 
  evening she walks downtown and notices that someone has left 
  their wallet in their open car. Desperate, she reaches through the 
  car window and steals the wallet. This crime (petty theft) is equal to 
  the threshold of her current Morality, so a degeneration roll must be 
  made to determine if Joan loses a Morality point. Petty theft allows 
  for a roll of four dice. 
  If Joan had committed an impassioned crime such as man-
  slaughter to get some money (a sin more severe than Joan’s 7 Morality 
  can tolerate), her player would have rolled three dice to see if Joan 
  suffered degeneration.
  As a character’s Morality slips ever lower, she becomes 
  more deranged and perhaps more of a monster, capable of 
  virtually any depraved act. When a Morality point is lost be-
  cause of a sin perpetrated, roll your character’s new Morality 
  trait as a dice pool. If the roll succeeds, she finds some kind 
  of balance or existence at her new state of spiritual and ethi-
  cal standing. If the roll fails, she manifests a derangement. 
  Derangements are mental and emotional ailments or condi-
  tions, in this case brought on by your character’s stress, grief 
  or even remorselessness over acts performed. Derangements 
  are detailed later in this section. 
  If your character develops such a condition, you and 
  the Storyteller can decide which is appropriate based on the 
  circumstances. An avoidance condition might set in whenever 
  your character enters a situation that reminds her of the sin 
  she committed. If she decided to harm a child and paid the 
  emotional price, being around children thereafter might 
  cause her to escape. Note that the conditions detailed later 
  each have a mild and severe form. Your character probably 
  starts with a mild ailment in any new derangement, unless 
  something horribly traumatic occurs and you feel that she 
  should descend directly into a severe problem. 
  On your character sheet, write the derangement gained 
  on the line associated with the Morality trait to which she has 
  fallen. If your character manifests a fixation when she drops 
  from 6 to 5 Morality, write “Fixation” on the line associated 
  with 5 Morality. 
  Example: Let’s say that the degeneration roll made for Joan’s 
  theft fails. The four dice turn up no successes. That means her 
  Morality drops from 7 to 6. A check must now be made to see if 
  she suffers mental or emotional damage for her sin. Her player rolls 
  her new Morality of 6 as a dice pool, with a 1, 3, 3, 5, 6 and 7 as 
  the result. No successes. That means Joan does indeed manifest a 
  derangement. The player and Storyteller decide that Joan exhibits 
  depression, and that’s entered on the line next to 6 Morality on her 
  character sheet.
  Repeated degeneration and Morality rolls that fail cause 
  your character to incur more and more or worse and worse con-
  ditions. If you want to minimize the diversity of ailments that 
  she manifests, focus on increasingly intense ones, acquiring the 
  mild form of any condition first and then assigning the severe 
  one the next time your characters incurs another problem. 
  If a character descends so far that her Morality drops 
  to zero, she can no longer be played in any meaningful way. 
  Morality  Sin
  10 
  Selfish thoughts. (Roll five dice.) 
  9 
  Minor selfish act (withholding charity). 
  (Roll five dice.) 
  8 
  Injury to another (accidental or other-
  wise). (Roll four dice.)
  7 
  Petty theft (shoplifting). (Roll four dice.) 
  6 
  Grand theft (burglary). (Roll three dice.) 
  5 
  Intentional, mass property damage 
  (arson). (Roll three dice.) 
  4 
  Impassioned crime (manslaughter). 
  (Roll three dice.) 
  3 
  Planned crime (murder). (Roll two dice.) 
  2 
  Casual/callous crime (serial murder). 
  (Roll two dice.) 
  1 
  Utter perversion, heinous act (mass 
  murder). (Roll two dice.) 
  Losing Morality Dots -  
  Degeneration Rolls 
  If a character commits a sin equal to or worse than the 
  threshold of his current Morality trait, roll the number of 
  dice associated with the sin performed to avoid degeneration. 
  If the roll succeeds, the character’s overall sense of compas-
  sion remains intact, and his Morality does not change. If 
  the degeneration roll fails, your character’s sense of right 
  and wrong is altered by his experience and he loses a point 
  of Morality. His soul hardens to the needs of others and he 
  becomes inured to greater acts of selfishness or violence. 
  Example: Joan has a Morality of 7. Referring to the chart, 
  she does not risk degeneration unless she commits a deliberate act 
  of petty theft or worse. She loses her job during play. Her savings 
  
  25 
  She becomes a true monster, inflicting pain and suffering on 
  everyone around her without the slightest hint of remorse 
  and no hope of redemption. At that point control of the 
  character passes to the Storyteller. 
  Derangements
  Derangements are behaviors that occur when the mind 
  is forced to confront intolerable or conflicting feelings, such 
  as overwhelming terror or profound guilt. When your char-
  acter is faced with impressions or emotions that he cannot 
  reconcile, his mind attempts to ease the inner turmoil by 
  stimulating behavior such as megalomania, schizophrenia 
  or hysteria as an outlet. People in the World of Darkness, 
  unwittingly tormented, persecuted and preyed upon by 
  incomprehensible beings, often develop these ailments 
  by the mere fact of existing. Alternatively, regret, guilt or 
  remorselessness for inflicting abuses eats away at mind and 
  soul. The night’s creatures are not immune to such pres-
  sures, either. Existence as an unnatural thing overwhelms 
  what little humanity these beings might have left, driving 
  them mad.
  Each of the following ailments is defined in terms of 
  mild and severe. The first might apply to your character if an 
  action or experience imbalances him, but he remains func-
  tional. The second can apply if a previously mild condition 
  intensifies with more irreconcilable behavior or spectacles, 
  or if a single act or scene is so mind numbing that only full-
  blown insanity and dysfunction can result. If treatment or 
  reconciliation occurs and ailments are alleviated, a severe 
  case of a condition must be addressed and overcome before 
  a mild case of the same derangement.
  Derangements
  Depression (mild): If your character fails to achieve a 
  goal (not just fails a roll, but fails to accomplish some per-
  sonal, desired end such as getting a job or saving a friend’s 
  life), he might go into a bout of depression for the remainder 
  of the scene. A dramatic failure that occurs in any activity 
  might also bring on a bout of depression. Regardless of the 
  circumstances, make a reflexive Resolve + Composure roll. 
  If the roll fails, your character loses one Willpower point 
  and cannot spend any Willpower points for the remainder 
  of the scene.
  Melancholia (severe): Severe depression. In addition to 
  the above effects of a failed Resolve + Composure roll, all dice 
  pools suffer a -2 penalty for the remainder of the scene.
  Phobia (mild): Your character is scared of a particular 
  type of person, place or thing such as lawyers, heights or spi-
  ders. When that trigger is encountered, a reflexive Resolve + 
  Composure roll must be made successfully or your character 
  suffers a bout of fear, moving away from the object of her 
  phobia. If she must be near it, she can tolerate being no closer 
  than her Speed in yards. If it approaches her, she must move 
  away at least her Speed in distance in her next action. She 
  cannot easily target the trigger with close combat or ranged at-
  tacks. Such attacks suffer a -5 penalty as your character shakes 
  just looking at it. If space or circumstances don’t allow her 
  to maintain her distance, she freezes like a deer in headlights 
  until she finds an opening by which to escape. (Her Defense 
  still applies if attacked and she can choose to dodge and can 
  take cover from Firearms attacks, but she can take no other 
  actions while “frozen.”)
  Hysteria (severe): This condition operates as a phobia, 
  but on a failed Resolve + Composure roll your character 
  cannot be in the same room with the object of her fear. She 
  must run away from it immediately, and cannot tolerate 
  being within sensory range (sight, sound, smell) of it. If the 
  trigger comes within sensory range, she must run away at full 
  running Speed as soon as she can take an action. She cannot 
  target it for an attack under any circumstance. If it touches 
  her, make another Resolve + Composure roll for her to not 
  freak out and run as far away as she can, thinking of nothing 
  else until she’s left the subject far behind. (Even if this roll 
  succeeds, your character must still leave the room or area.) 
  If any of your Resolve + Composure rolls suffer a dramatic 
  failure or your character is unable to escape, she faints and 
  loses consciousness for the remainder of the scen  her, your 
  Resolve + Composure roll suffers a -3 penalty. If it touches her 
  where she can’t see it but she can feel it — a spider dropping 
  on her neck or in her hair — the penalty is -5.
  Narcissism (mild): Whenever your character succeeds 
  at a reasonably remarkable goal (such as hacking into a well-
  protected computer or knocking a challenging opponent 
  unconscious) it might go to his head and pump up his over-
  weening ego. Roll Resolve + Composure to avoid a bout of 
  vanity. On a failed roll, your character becomes self-focused. 
  Any task he attempts that isn’t focused on him or his needs 
  and wants suffers a -3 penalty when participating in teamwork 
  efforts (p. 5). He also suffers a -1 penalty for any Social roll 
  Mild 
  Severe
  Depression 
  Melancholia
  Phobia 
  Hysteria
  Narcissism 
  Megalomania
  Fixation 
  Obsessive Compulsion
  Suspicion 
  Paranoia
  Inferiority Complex 
  Anxiety
  Vocalization 
  Schizophrenia*
  Irrationality 
  Multiple Personality*
  Avoidance 
  Fugue*
  * Your character must experience a life-altering 
  trauma or supernatural tragedy to acquire one 
  of these extreme derangements. They cannot 
  normally be acquired by failing a Morality roll un-
  less the sin performed is truly gut wrenching or 
  horrific, such as murdering one’s own children.
  
  26 
  The System
  due to his self-involvement.
  Megalomania (severe): The effects of Narcissism apply, 
  except that the penalties intensify by one. Your character is 
  also highly competitive. He cannot allow himself to fail a 
  contest (even a contested roll). If he does, he obsesses about 
  it and works to arrange a rematch when it’s most beneficial 
  for him regardless of the circumstances. If your character 
  ever loses a contest to someone he feels is socially inferior, he 
  loses one point of Willpower due to shame and self-loathing 
  (which is at the heart of his megalomania; he secretly fears 
  that he’s a fraud).
  Fixation (mild): If your character fails or succeeds at 
  an important action such as leaping between buildings or 
  making a getaway in a sports car, he might fixate on his loss 
  or victory. Roll Resolve + Composure after such an event 
  for him to avoid this unhealthy obsession. If your Resolve 
  + Composure roll fails, roll a single die. For that number 
  of scenes, the character suffers a -1 penalty on any task not 
  related to his fixation, to the possible exclusion of more 
  important goals. He fixates on what he believes caused him 
  to lose or win his goal, whether it’s an opponent, a broken 
  shoelace or the model of car driven. 
  Obsessive Compulsion (severe): The trauma, guilt or 
  inner conflict that causes this derangement forces your 
  character to focus nearly all of his attention and energy on 
  a single repetitive behavior or action. Obsession relates to 
  an individual’s desire to control his environment — keeping 
  clean, keeping an area quiet and peaceful, or keeping un-
  desirable individuals out. A compulsion is an action or set 
  of actions that an individual is driven to perform to soothe 
  his anxieties — placing objects in an exact order, constantly 
  checking to make sure a weapon is loaded, praying every few 
  hours to give thanks for surviving that long.
  Effect: Determine a set of specific actions or behaviors 
  that your character follows to the exclusion of all else (even 
  if doing so interferes with his current agenda or endangers 
  his life or others’). The effects of obsessive compulsion can 
  be negated for the course of one scene by making a successful 
  Resolve + Composure roll at a -2 penalty. If your character 
  is forcibly prevented from adhering to his derangement, he 
  may lose control among enemies or allies and attack either 
  (or both) indiscriminately.
  Suspicion (mild): Anytime your character suffers inten-
  tional misfortune at the hands of another, he might become 
  extremely suspicious of everyone’s motives toward him. He 
  might crash as a result of being cut off in traffic or receive 
  little help from assistants in a teamwork effort (see p. 5.) 
  Roll Resolve + Composure for your character to resist the 
  suspicion compulsion. Combat does not necessarily trigger 
  this derangement. A roll is made only if combat is the means 
  by which someone intentionally prevents your character 
  from achieving a goal. If the roll fails, your character’s trust 
  is undermined for the remainder of the scene, regardless of 
  whether or not the person or persons who did him wrong 
  meant any harm. He questions everyone’s sincerity and 
  doubts that anyone tries to help him, even if someone saves 
  his life. He suffers a -1 penalty on all Social rolls. Note that, 
  even though your character is suspicious, he can still be taken 
  in by con men and hucksters. He gets no special bonus to 
  resist their attempts to sway him even though he suspects 
  them of being as bad as everyone else.
  Paranoia (severe): Your character believes that her 
  misery and insecurity stem from external persecution and 
  hostility. Paranoids obsess over their persecution complexes, 
  often creating vast and intricate conspiracy theories to 
  explain who torments them and why. Anyone or anything 
  perceived to be “one of them” might be subjected to violence. 
  A character who suffers from paranoia automatically suf-
  fers a -2 penalty on Social rolls. The character is distrustful 
  and wary of everyone, even close friends and family. The 
  slightest hint of suspicious behavior is enough to provoke 
  a Resolve + Composure roll to retain control (made at a -2 
  penalty). A failed roll indicates that your character flees or 
  attacks an offender.
  Inferiority Complex (mild): Whenever your character 
  is subjected to a stressful situation in which the result of a 
  single choice or dice roll can determine success or failure, she 
  might be overcome with such self-doubt that she threatens 
  the outcome. She might need to tell a convincing lie to get 
  out of a dangerous situation or cut a wire to disable a bomb. 
  Roll your character’s Resolve + Composure for her to remain 
  composed. If your roll fails, the weight of the momentous 
  choice is too much for your character and she becomes flus-
  tered. Once in this state, any rolls made for the remainder of 
  the scene — including the momentous act itself — suffer a -1 
  penalty. In addition, a Willpower point cannot be spent on 
  the singular roll that inspires her bout of inferiority.
  Anxiety (severe): As Inferiority Complex, but your 
  character’s general anxiety plagues things so badly that she 
  suffers a -2 penalty on all rolls for the remainder of the scene, 
  and Willpower points cannot be spent to bolster any rolls 
  in that period.
  Vocalization (mild): Whenever your character is stymied 
  by a quandary and must make an important decision about 
  a course of action, or is under extreme stress, she might talk 
  to herself without realizing it. Roll Resolve + Composure 
  to avoid this discomforting habit. If you fail, your character 
  vocalizes her internal monologue but only realizes it if it’s 
  pointed out by others, at which point she can stop for one 
  turn per dot of Wits that she has. After that period, she 
  forgets herself and starts doing it all over again. This behav-
  ior persists for the remainder of the scene. Your character 
  vocalizes even if opponents or rivals can hear. It’s hard to 
  keep her thoughts and feelings secret when she speaks them 
  aloud. For example, a rival might demand that she reveal 
  the location of a hidden heirloom. She smirks and thinks 
  to herself (and unwittingly speaks aloud), “You’ll never find 
  it in my hidden wall safe.”
  Schizophrenia (severe; extreme): Conflicting sets of 
  feelings and impulses that cannot be resolved can cause 
  your character to develop schizophrenia, which manifests as 
  a withdrawal from reality, violent changes in behavior and 
  
  27 
  hallucinations. This derangement is the classic sort, causing 
  victims to talk to walls, imagine themselves to be the King of 
  Siam, or to receive murderous instructions from their pets. 
  A character with this derangement is unpredictable and 
  dangerous. He automatically suffers a -2 penalty on all Social 
  rolls and may be aggressive or violent toward people who 
  confront him with trauma such as accusations, disturbing 
  truths or heated arguments. Make a Resolve + Composure 
  roll for your character to avoid escaping or attacking the 
  source of trauma.
  Irrationality (mild): Whenever your character is threat-
  ened with violence or suffers extreme tension by being 
  persecuted, challenged or accused, she might react without 
  logic or reason. The persecution, challenge or accusation 
  needs to bear some realistic threat to your character’s well-
  being, whether related to finances, emotional security or 
  social standing. Roll her Resolve + Composure to keep her 
  cool. On a failed roll, your character’s only way to comfort-
  ably deal with confrontation is to act crazy or over the top, 
  in wild hopes that she will scare away her oppressor or at 
  least mitigate her own fears. This behavior persists for the 
  remainder of the scene. For example, if a bouncer demands 
  to know what your character is doing in an off-limits part 
  of a club, she might overreact and get in his face. Make a 
  Wits + Composure roll for her to be able to take any action 
  that removes her from the scene or that directly diffuses the 
  situation (such as accepting a hand offered in a conciliatory 
  handshake). The truly ironic part about this behavior is that 
  during such a bout, your character cannot initiate violence, 
  but only respond to it if it occurs. She can threaten or cajole 
  challengers, but can’t take the first swing. (That, in fact, is 
  what her crazed behavior tries to avoid.) 
  Multiple Personality (severe; extreme): More properly 
  known as Dissociative Identity Disorder, the trauma that 
  spawns this derangement fractures 
  your character’s personality into one 
  or more additional personas, allowing 
  her to deny her trauma or any actions 
  the trauma causes by placing the blame 
  on “someone else.” Each personality is 
  created to respond to certain emotional 
  stimuli. An abused person might develop 
  a tough-as-nails survivor personality, 
  create a “protector” or even become a 
  murderer to deny the abuse she suffers. 
  In most cases, none of these personalities 
  is aware of the others, and they come 
  and go through your character’s mind 
  in response to specific situations or 
  conditions. A character with multiple 
  personalities can manifest different Skills 
  or perhaps increased or diminished 
  Social Attributes for each identity (the 
  number of dots allocated to your char-
  acter’s Social Attributes are rearranged 
  by anywhere from one to three).
  Avoidance (mild): When confronted with a situation 
  or person associated with a previous, significant failure or 
  trauma (a long-term rival, an ex-wife, the house in which 
  one suffered a painful childhood), your character prefers 
  not to face the situation and might do everything he can 
  to avoid it. Roll Resolve + Composure for him to master 
  his nervousness. On a failed roll, your character does 
  everything in his power to avoid the situation, short of 
  harming himself or others. He might escape the scene or 
  disguise himself as a bystander to sidle away. If he must 
  confront (or can’t escape) the situation, any rolls made 
  suffer a -1 penalty.
  Fugue (severe; extreme): Victims suffering from fugue 
  experience “blackouts” and loss of memory. When subjected 
  to a particular variety of stress, your character goes into a state 
  similar to sleepwalking, and performs a specific, rigid set of 
  behaviors to remove the stressful symptoms. Decide on the 
  kind of circumstance or exposure that triggers this state, be it 
  the death of a defenseless person by his hand, a confrontation 
  with a specific sort of creature or confinement in a small, dark 
  room. Make a Resolve + Composure roll when your character is 
  subjected to his trigger. If the roll fails, roleplay your character’s 
  trance-like state by performing a sequence of behaviors that 
  he performs almost robotically. He might repetitively untie 
  and tie his shoes, walk to the corner of the room and refuse 
  to come out, or curl into the fetal position. If the Storyteller is 
  not satisfied by your character’s reaction, he might take control 
  of your character for the duration of the bout. The spell lasts 
  for the remainder of the scene. At the end of the fugue, your 
  character “regains consciousness” with no memory of his ac-
  tions. If outsiders (including friends and enemies) interfere 
  with or try to prevent your character’s mechanical activities, 
  he may attack them in order to carry on.
  derangements
  
  28 
  The System
  Creating Your 
  Own Characters 
  This quickstart includes a number of characters designed 
  to complement the included scenario and allow you to get 
  started immediately. It’s always possible that you or your friends 
  won’t find characters that appeal to you. Or maybe you just pre-
  fer to have a more direct hand in the destiny of your character. 
  The World of Darkness is about your imagination. The horrors 
  lurking behind the shining veneer of normalcy are all the more 
  terrible if the character you play is one of your own design. 
  Step One: Choose Background 
  First, create your character’s concept. To help get a 
  handle on your character’s identity and motivations, you 
  might come up with a short, two- or three-word descrip-
  tion of her. This usually, but not always includes some 
  idea of a career: “burnt-out cop,” “night-stalking jour-
  nalist,” “discredited scientist,” “neighborhood drunk,”  
  “idealistic gang-banger.” 
  Keep in mind that your idea (often called high concept 
  or elevator pitch) isn’t a straitjacket. Burnt-out cop describes 
  Die Hard’s John McClane and The Shield’s Vic Mackey, but 
  they’re extremely different characters. This is just shorthand; 
  a launch pad for your ideas. Two people can have exactly the 
  same experiences, yet react to them in ways that completely 
  alter the shape of their lives. 
  Step Two: Select Attributes 
  Your character’s innate capabilities are called Attributes. 
  These nine Attributes are separated into three categories: 
  Mental, Physical and Social. Prioritize the three categories 
  by how important they are to your character’s concept. Dis-
  tribute 5 dots in the most important (Primary) category, 4 
  dots in the next most important (Secondary) and 3 points 
  in the final (Tertiary) category. Your character begins with 
  one dot in each Attribute automatically, already filled in on 
  the character sheet. Dots spent now are in addition to these 
  starting ones. The fifth dot in any Attribute costs two dots to 
  purchase. For more information, see “Attributes” on p. 7. 
  Example: Merritt wants his character to have a Dexterity 
  of 5. This costs him five dots. His first dot is free and his fifth one 
  costs two.
  Step Three: Select Skills 
  Skills are your character’s learned capabilities. Like Attri-
  butes, there are three categories: Mental, Physical and Social. 
  Prioritize the three categories and distribute 11 dots among 
  the primary category, 7 dots in the secondary category and 4 
  dots in the final category. Each category has eight Skills. The 
  fifth dot in any Skill costs two dots to purchase, and there 
  are no free starting dots in any skill. For more information, 
  see “Skills,” p. 8. 
  Step Four:  
  Select Skill Specialties 
  Your character’s focused areas of expertise. Take three 
  Skill Specialties of your choice. You can assign each how 
  you like, whether each to a separate Skill or all three to a 
  single Skill. There is no limit to how many Specialties can 
  be assigned to a single Skill. For more information, see 
  “Skills,” p. 8. 
  Step Five:  
  Determine Advantages 
  Advantages are traits derived from your charac-
  ter’s Attributes: 
  Size: 5 for most humans. 
  Defense: The lowest of Dexterity or Wits. 
  Health: Stamina + Size. 
  Initiative: Dexterity + Composure. 
  Morality: 7 for Starting characters. 
  Speed: Strength + Dexterity + 5. 
  Willpower: Resolve + Composure. 
  Virtues and Vices: Choose one of each. See “Virtues 
  and Vices,” p. 13. 
  Step Six: Select Merits 
  A character may be customized using Merits, which 
  represent enhancements and background elements. Spend 
  7 dots on Merits. As with Skills and Attributes, the fifth 
  dot in any Merit costs two dots to purchase. Note that many 
  Merits have prerequisites. For a selection of available Merits, 
  see “Merits,” p. 16.
  Step Seven: Final Touches 
  To round out details on your character sheet, 
  fill in the name of the chronicle in which your char-
  acter will participate (provided by the Storyteller), 
  and the name of his group of companions (if any). 
  Finally, list all equipment he carries. He is now ready 
  to confront whatever fate awaits him in the World  
  of Darkness. 
  
  29 
  A Nightmare at 
  Hill Manor
  A Nightmare at 
  Hill Manor
  Characters  
  and Background 
  The characters in “A Nightmare at Hill Manor” are all 
  tenants in the same apartment building. They’re familiar with 
  each other because of that proximity, and know each other 
  well enough to get together for biweekly poker games put 
  together by Janice from 6C. Beyond that, a nod in the hall, 
  a hand getting furniture into the old-fashioned elevators or 
  maybe a few short conversations here and there is the extent 
  of their interactions. The one thing they all have in common 
  is living in the same apartment building. 
  All of the characters have been in the apartment building 
  long enough to have a vague sense of the history of the build-
  ing, if only from reading the plaque from the local historical 
  society on the wall outside: 
  This scenario is meant as a crash-course introduction 
  into the strange and terrifying things that lurk in the shadows 
  of the World of Darkness. “A Nightmare at Hill Manor” can 
  serve as a stand-alone story or as a launching point from 
  which you can begin chronicles of your own devising. Hill 
  Manor Apartments can exist in whichever city you choose, 
  though its nature (a multi-story apartment building) lends 
  itself best to large urban centers, and might require some 
  modification or hand-waving if you choose a smaller town 
  to host the characters. 
  This portion of the booklet is meant for the Storyteller’s 
  eyes only. If you are planning to take on the role of one of 
  the characters (or one of your own devising) in “A Nightmare 
  at Hill Manor,” please stop reading now. Storytelling games 
  are much more enjoyable if you experience the plot twists 
  and surprises along with your characters, so don’t spoil the 
  fun for yourself. 
  Preparing  
  For Play 
  First, read through the rules at the beginning of this 
  booklet, just to get an idea of how the mechanics of the 
  game work. Then take a look at the character sheets at 
  the end of the booklet and note the characters’ different 
  capabilities and advantages. We don’t expect you or the 
  players to memorize everything right out of the gate, but 
  if you give the characters a quick once-over in conjunction 
  with the rules, the numbers will make more sense in game 
  play. Let the players read over their characters’ backgrounds, 
  roleplaying hints and traits, and answer any questions they 
  might have. Help them understand how the rules work with 
  regard to the dots and numbers on the character sheets. 
  Also, read through “A Nightmare at Hill Manor” at least 
  once before attempting to act as Storyteller. We’ve tried to 
  make it as easy as possible on you, but you should have an 
  idea of what’s coming up. Plus, players will always make 
  decisions that you–and we–didn’t see coming. That’s great! 
  That’s part of roleplaying. It does, however, require you to 
  think on your feet. 
  If you know how the plot progresses, you can take 
  what the players do and allow those decisions to steer the 
  game toward a satisfying conclusion, rather than having to 
  say, “No, you can’t do that because it would take us too far 
  off track.” 
  About the FormAt
  The format we use for scenes in this quickstart 
  is our Storyteller Adventure System (or SAS for 
  short). To keep this quickstart lean and focused, 
  we haven’t included many of the core premises 
  and Storyteller suggestions that are at the heart 
  of the SAS. If you want to learn more about how 
  our stories work in this system, be sure to read 
  the free SAS Guide: 
  www.white-wolf.com/sas
  The plaque also includes a familiar relief portrait of 
  Josiah Hill’s profile that local children call the “Hill Penny.” 
  a nightmare at hill manor
  Hill Manor apartMents
  RegisteRed HistoRical landmaRk
  this building stands on the grounds of the 
  original Hill Manor, home of Josiah Hill and 
  his family.  the Hills were benefactors of our 
  community in its earliest stages.  Without 
  their philanthropy and the jobs it provided, 
  the city as we know it may not exist today. 
  the original manor house was tragically  
  destroyed in a fire.  Construction of these 
  apartments was completed in 1929. 
  
  30 
  nightmare at hill manor
  Treatment 
  “A Nightmare at Hill Manor” starts with the characters 
  at their biweekly poker game. It’s late getting started because 
  of construction on the road outside the apartment building. 
  Janice gets everyone set up in the common area and ready 
  to go, but needs to get snacks. So the group gets settled and 
  plays a few hands before they hear two gunshots from upstairs, 
  followed after a short interval by a third. Janice returns, 
  distracted and acting odd. She says something strange is 
  happening, and wants the others to come see it too. She did 
  not hear the gunfire. 
  Janice says that she saw Keenan from 6F heading up 
  the stairs towards the top floor earlier, but he never came 
  down. She hasn’t seen anyone else other than the characters 
  and the maid. 
  The characters find out that trying to go down to the 
  lobby simply doesn’t work. The stairways loop back on 
  themselves and the elevator won’t open lower than the 
  fifth floor. All the windows are black, and seem to open 
  into a void. Cell phones and telephones don’t work. The 
  building is, for all intents and purposes, sealed off from 
  the outside world. 
  The characters can either explore the floors they can 
  access, hoping to find other “survivors,” or they can head 
  upstairs to the penthouse to see if Keenan is up there and 
  what condition he’s in. Most people either weren’t home 
  or fell through the same void that made the rest of the 
  world seem to disappear. In their searches, the characters 
  encounter many strange, haunted zones: rooms or hallways 
  where time seems to work differently, where the air is as 
  thick as water, or where the temperature drops to freezing. 
  They also encounter the shades of past tenants, members of 
  the Hill family or their servants, twisted and torn by their 
  harsh silver prison. Finally, they find others who survived 
  the event, whatever it was. But some of them are possessed, 
  violent and without reason. The characters must either find 
  ways to avoid the possessed entirely, incapacitate them or 
  kill them. 
  Eventually they make their way to the penthouse, which 
  is locked. The only keys to the floor outside of the owner’s 
  are kept in the maintenance office on the fifth floor, guarded 
  by the feral remnants of the maintenance crew. After retriev-
  ing the keys, the characters return to the penthouse, where 
  they find Keenan dead by self-inflicted gunshot wound, and 
  the body of the penthouse’s owner, killed by two shots to 
  the chest. Up here, they can hear a storm outside, and near-
  constant strikes on the lightning rod on the roof. The spirit of 
  Brian Sullivan (also known as Sullivan Barnes) remains, and 
  the room visibly pulses with a strange energy. He can answer 
  some questions, but his time is short. He focuses on telling 
  the characters what they can do to get out of this alive. They 
  need to take Josiah Hill’s pocket watch up onto the roof, and 
  destroy it by attaching it to the lightning rod so that nature 
  may take its course. 
  The only problem with that plan is Hill’s crazed ghost 
  is on the roof, where he tries to possess one of the characters 
  to wrest the watch free and kill the others. 
  Theme: Trapped! 
  The theme of “Nightmare at Hill Manor” is one of isola-
  tion. The characters can’t get out of the building. As far as 
  they can tell, there is no “out” to get to anymore. 
  We live in an age of constant connection. Everyone 
  has any number of invisible tethers grounding them and 
  connecting them to their loved ones and friends. Here, 
  there is no one the characters can reach out to. The apart-
  ment building is a self-contained hunting ground for the 
  tortured, unhinged shades newly freed from their own 
  prison. Separated from the world, from friends and lovers, 
  the characters have no way of knowing that this isn’t perma-
  nent. They don’t know if something happened to them, or 
  to the rest of the world. Are they the last few people alive? 
  Are they dead, trapped in hell or limbo? The only thing to 
  do is keep moving. 
  Mood: Horror  
  and Terror 
  Horror movies are often misnamed. Horror is a slow, 
  existential fear that builds. Terror is the immediate fight or 
  flight reaction of seeing a maniac with a chainsaw lumbering 
  through an old farmhouse. “A Nightmare at Hill Manor” can 
  provide both experiences, depending on your preferences. 
  The scenario is designed to combine the two, but it should 
  be relatively simple to fiddle with the knobs and adjust the 
  mix to fit your group. 
  In horror, the anticipation is nearly everything. Linger 
  when the characters realize they are trapped in a building by 
  forces they don’t understand. Let them try to push and pull 
  at the edges of the trap, no matter how futile you know it is. 
  Give the characters a little lead and watch the predicament 
  wear at them. 
  Play up the weirdness of the haunting. Small noises 
  in the distance. Strange, localized temperature variations. 
  The chair that was on the right side of the door when the 
  characters walked in is on the left when they look back. The 
  familiar is twisted and turned into the alien. 
  Make sure you tie these hauntings into the characters’ 
  past. Remind them of their conversations with Maureen 
  when they first see her clouded eyes staring out from that 
  contorted face. When he’s chasing them down the hall, let 
  them see echoes of how Mark always limped a little when he 
  ran to catch the elevator. 
  On the other hand, terror is the stock and trade of the 
  bulk of contemporary scary movies. Flashier, in-your-face 
  scares that start the adrenaline pumping and leave you shout-
  
  31 
  ing at the characters to RUN! Ratchet up the terror by giving 
  them sudden, shocking scares. 
  Make each trip into the hall a harrowing run from 
  apartment to apartment, a blood-drenched search for safety 
  from marauding ghosts that never comes. The possessed, 
  rage-fueled creatures that roam Hill Manor Apartments are 
  embodiments of terror. Vicious, unrelenting things stalk-
  ing the characters for amusement. They aren’t even eating 
  their prey, like zombies. They kill for the sheer joy of it, the 
  rush of being able to touch and rip and tear after so long 
  imprisoned in the crushing trap of Sullivan’s ward. There 
  are no shreds of humanity left, and nothing in their eyes 
  but clouded cataracts. 
  Background 
  “A Nightmare at Hill Manor” does not rely on the 
  characters ever discovering the whole story. However, it is a 
  good idea for you as a Storyteller to know the history of the 
  building so as to better understand the motivations of the 
  mad ghosts within. It will also help you to improvise when the 
  players go off the beaten track and do something we didn’t 
  plan for, which is inevitable. 
  Hill Manor Apartments 
  When the city was younger, this land all belonged to 
  Josiah Hill and his family. They lived in a sprawling man-
  sion surrounded by vast stone walls bearing the legend, “Hill 
  Manor.” A private family, the Hills hosted few guests and 
  kept themselves to themselves. Their considerable impact 
  on the burgeoning city was cut tragically short when a fire 
  tore through the manor, leveling the building and leaving 
  no survivors. 
  The Hill Manor Apartment building was eventually built 
  on the razed land. Here and there, the architect incorporated 
  salvaged metalwork and tile taken from the gutted mansion, 
  and the keystone of the building bears the original engraved 
  Hill Manor sign. 
  Josiah Hill fled here, stalked by a thing he didn’t 
  understand—something that lived beyond the edge of vision, 
  just out of reach of the keenest hearing. He did not see it, 
  did not hear it, but he felt it. It stood at the bottom of the 
  stairs in the crawling darkness, but it fled when he turned 
  up the gas. It whispered while he slept, but went mute when 
  he awoke. Driven to distraction, unable to sleep or concen-
  trate, he traveled the world looking for somewhere he could 
  find peace. 
  When he came upon the town he would settle in, he 
  did not plan to stop. But a local named Sullivan Barnes 
  saw, if not the stalking creature, the marks it left upon 
  Hill. He offered the harried man a respite from the slink-
  ing thing. Hill began to build his Manor based on Barnes’ 
  occult instruction. The land was turned and leveled, and 
  a silver dust was mixed into the earth, creating a pattern 
  of protection, a mystical ward against the thing that tor-
  background
  
  32 
  nightmare at hill manor
  tured Josiah Hill. The land itself was taught to shun the 
  malevolent creature. Here, Hill was safe, so long as he 
  didn’t leave the grounds of Hill Manor. Sullivan became 
  his most trusted friend. He was given free rein over the 
  manor, but he chose to live in a small cottage on the 
  southern lawn. 
  Local fringe lore paints Sullivan as some kind of 
  warlock, leading a satanic cult of dissolute, jaded gentry 
  in debauched rites while holding Hill under his thrall. In 
  truth, while he was a wizard, the truth is that most wizards 
  live relatively quiet, boring lives. The only way in which he 
  took advantage of Hill’s gratitude was by using his consid-
  erable resources to gather a collection of obscure books. 
  Sullivan spent most of his prime “debauched rite” time 
  reading and studying. 
  Hill’s family orbited around him, a veritable soap opera 
  of strife and backstabbing as they jockeyed to be named the 
  patriarch’s heir. As the family, staff and assorted hangers-on 
  grew, so too did the manor. The Hills annexed the lands 
  around their estate, but Hill remained solely in the original, 
  warded lands. Portions of his own house became a foreign 
  land to him. 
  Finally, the creature found a way to reach him indi-
  rectly. One night, a maid in one of the annexed wings 
  heard a whisper. She listened, straining to understand 
  the words, and was caught. The thing moved through the 
  annex clothed in the housekeeper’s flesh, but the ward 
  was strong. It could not enter the core of the house. So it 
  started a fire. The annex burnt, and tongues of flame paid 
  the warded earth no heed. The entire house was destroyed. 
  Only Sullivan Barnes survived, in his cottage separated 
  from the house. 
  At the reading of the will, it turned out that Hill had left 
  everything to Sullivan. With no surviving relatives to contest 
  the will, he took ownership of the razed land for a full month 
  before he sold it to the company that would eventually build 
  the Hill Manor Apartment building. 
  The Haunting of Hill Manor Apartments 
  Over time, the construction workers working on the 
  high-rise apartment building reported a number of strange 
  events. They saw things they couldn’t explain or forget. A 
  number of employees died after falling from great heights 
  while the building’s skeleton was being erected. Other 
  accidents plagued the site, but in a time of lax safety regu-
  lations, the construction continued. Finally, the building 
  was finished. Sullivan Barnes was the first paying tenant. 
  He took up residence in a penthouse apartment on the 
  top floor. 
  Sullivan Barnes had discovered that his ward was too 
  good. The ghosts of the Hill family, the servants, everyone 
  who died on the property–in the blaze or afterward–were 
  trapped in the ward. They could not move on. Moreover, 
  it hurt. There was no respite for these shades. They went 
  mad with pain, and began to take it out on the construc-
  tion workers working on the building. When Barnes in-
  vestigated, he saw echoes of people he had known in life, 
  twisted in agony. He saw the crazed remnant of his friend, 
  Josiah Hill. And he knew that this was his fault. When the 
  building was finished, he bought the top floor with the 
  money he had made selling the land, and he moved in. 
  He sought a way to free his old friend and the others, but 
  until then Barnes created a ritual space in his new home, 
  one that he could use to bind and suppress the ghosts 
  haunting the warded site. 
  Though he has lived an extraordinarily long, magically 
  extended life, he has only held the deranged spirits at bay. 
  They are still trapped in the cage he unwittingly created. 
  Until tonight. 
  Sullivan’s New Friend 
  Almost a year ago, one of the characters’ neighbors, 
  a young man named Keenan, met Sullivan, now living 
  under the assumed identity “Brian Sullivan.” The old 
  man was trying to wrestle groceries into the elevator, and 
  Keenan helped him out. Over time, the pair formed a 
  friendship. Keenan visited Brian, and they played chess 
  and talked. Sullivan was starved for companionship after 
  focusing for so long on the magical problems before him. 
  Keenan’s simple normalcy was a welcome respite from 
  a search that had proved fruitless for almost a century. 
  Sullivan also felt that his time was coming to an end. 
  Though he was a wizard, he did not have the power to 
  extend his life indefinitely. He was becoming infirm, 
  physically and mentally. 
  As he weakened, so too did his protections. The 
  firelight that kept the coyotes away flickered, and a ma-
  levolent, maddened ghost took notice. Josiah Hill, once 
  Sullivan Barnes’ friend, now viewed him as a captor. 
  The burning agony of his death went on and on, turn-
  ing fondness into seething hatred. And Hill saw a hole. 
  Keenan, trusted by Sullivan, was the key. Subtly, Hill 
  began to toy with the young man, compelling him, cajol-
  ing and tempting him. Every ghost has an anchor, a thing 
  that symbolizes their connection to this world. Hill’s is 
  an antique pocket watch that belonged to him in life, a 
  family heirloom that had been passed down from father 
  to son in the Hill family until the family line ended. The 
  watch was passed on to Sullivan, who kept it in memory 
  of his dead companion. Sullivan’s end began with a small 
  betrayal: Keenan started to covet the watch. He didn’t 
  know why. It was beautiful, yes, but there was more to it 
  than that. He needed that watch. The old man would never 
  notice it was gone. Keenan gave in to Hill and stole the  
  pocket watch. 
  As the story begins, Josiah Hill possesses Keenan for 
  the final time. He knocks on Sullivan’s door and, clothed 
  in the young man’s form, is welcomed. He takes out the 
  gun that he compelled Keenan to buy, and he shoots his 
  old friend twice. 
  
  33 
  Characters 
  Janice Poole,  
  the Den Mother 
  Quotes: “Come on, 
  it’ll be fun!” 
  “We’re nothing if we 
  don’t have friends.” 
  “Her name’s Naomi, 
  and she lives up in 6F. I’ll 
  introduce you.” 
  Background: Janice 
  has always been the glue that binds the community together. 
  She makes the effort to go from door to door and invite her 
  neighbors to various social gatherings she puts together. She 
  works as a secretary in an architect’s office. She moved to the 
  city from a small town—the kind, she says, where everyone 
  knew one another like family. She misses that connection, 
  so she does what she can to foster a microcosm here in Hill 
  Manor Apartments, her own small town in the big city.
  Description: Janice is an average looking woman in her 
  mid-to-late 30s. She has shoulder-length brown hair and wears 
  glasses. She’s been told she looks like Tina Fey, and though 
  she denies it, she secretly loves the idea. 
  Storytelling Hints: Anyone else would be a busybody, 
  but people feel like you legitimately care about them. Look 
  players in the eye when you talk to them, and listen actively. 
  Make them feel like they are the only thing you are paying 
  attention to when they talk. 
  Virtue: Hope 
  Vice: Envy 
  Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 2, Strength 2, Dexter-
  ity 2, Stamina 2, Presence 3, Manipulation 2, Composure 3 
  Skills: Academics 1, Computer 2, Crafts 2, Investigation 2, 
  Athletics 2, Survival 1, Weaponry 1, Empathy 3, Expression 
  2, Persuasion 3, Socialize 3
  Health: 7 
  Willpower: 5 
  Morality: 7 
  Size: 5 
  Speed: 9 
  Defense: 2 
  Initiative: 5 
  Brandon Oliva 
  Quotes: “Dude, there’s go-
  ing to be a great show tonight. 
  You should check it out.” 
  “I’ve got a work order here for 
  a clogged toilet. Got a minute?” 
  “GRAAAAAAAAAAAA!” 
  Background: Brandon is the youngest member of the 
  maintenance staff. He’s the most likely to have talked with the 
  players about their musical tastes, or current movies. He spent 
  his nights before this practicing his drums in a soundproofed 
  room in the basement with his punk band. 
  Description: Brandon has curly black hair, currently 
  matted and dirty with blood and dust. His tattooed arms have 
  scrapes and scratches on them, and a piece of wood from what 
  looks like a door sticks out of his left forearm. 
  Storytelling Hints: Brandon is being controlled by an 
  insane spirit. He is, for all intents and purposes, feral. 
  Note: The shade possessing Brandon does not affect his 
  statistics, except his Willpower (the possessed Willpower is 
  noted in parentheses next to his normal trait). If you choose 
  to start your story earlier or the characters drive the spirit 
  out by knocking it unconscious or using one of Sullivan’s 
  blessed objects, his statistics remain the same. 
  Virtue: Fortitude 
  Vice: Wrath 
  Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 2, Strength 2, Dexter-
  ity 3, Stamina 3, Presence 3, Manipulation 2, Composure 1 
  Skills: Crafts 3, Science 1, Athletics 3, Brawl 2, Stealth 2, Weap-
  onry 1, Expression (drums) 2, Intimidation 3, Streetwise 2 
  Merits: Barfly 1, Fast Reflexes 2, Mentor 1, Resources 1 
  Health: 8 
  Willpower: 3 
  Morality: 7 
  Size: 5 
  Speed: 10 
  Defense: 3 
  Initiative: 4 
  Orlando Oliva 
  Quotes: “No problem. 
  I’ll have it fixed as soon as 
  the part comes in.” 
  “Have you submitted a 
  work order?” 
  “If you guys want to play 
  for some real money, come 
  sit in on our poker game.” 
  Background: Orlando’s been a maintenance guy for 
  years, in one way or another. He fixed cars first, then got a 
  job repairing appliances at a complex out in Jersey before 
  wandering down to Florida for a bit. His life is a series of 
  temporary homes and jobs. He’s been raising Brandon alone 
  since his wife left a few years back.
  Description: Orlando’s a stocky guy with more salt 
  than pepper in his hair and goatee. His skin is tanned and 
  his arms are covered in the tiny scars and burns that come 
  with the job.
  Storytelling Hints: Orlando is possessed by a ravening 
  spirit. He is, for all intents and purposes, feral.
  characters
  
  34 
  nightmare at hill manor
  Note: The shade possessing Orlando does not affect his 
  statistics, except his Willpower (the possessed Willpower is 
  noted in parentheses next to his normal trait). If you choose 
  to start your story earlier or the characters drive the spirit 
  out by knocking it unconscious or using one of Sullivan’s 
  blessed objects, his statistics remain the same. 
  Virtue: Fortitude 
  Vice: Wrath 
  Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 1, Strength 3, 
  Dexterity 2, Stamina 3, Presence 2, Manipulation 2, Com-
  posure 2 
  Skills: Crafts 4, Athletics 2, Brawl 4, Firearms 1, Stealth 1, 
  Weaponry 3, Intimidation 4, Socialize 3
  Merits: Ambidextrous 3, Brawling Dodge 1, Language (Span-
  ish) 1, Resources 2
  Health: 8 
  Willpower: 3 
  Morality: 7 
  Size: 5 
  Speed: 10 
  Defense: 2 
  Initiative: 4 
  Ben Holt 
  Quotes: “Do like the poster 
  says, man. Keep Calm and 
  Carry On.” 
  “I am so tweeting this.” 
  “This is some fucked up shit, 
  right here.”
  Background: Ben is a graphic 
  design major over at the Univer-
  sity. He moved here from a smaller town, not that he’ll admit 
  to that. He loved city life, and the coffee shops and blogs he 
  frequented bred him into the archetypical urbanite hipster. 
  Description: Ben’s a skinny white guy, with close-
  cropped brown hair and a hairline already in danger of retreat. 
  He wears horn-rimmed glasses and skinny Rag and Bone 
  jeans. He’s wiry, from riding his fixed-gear bike everywhere.
  Storytelling Hints: Ben is totally scared out of his wits. 
  But he’s trying to cover by looking “cool.” He’s the ultimate 
  ironic, disaffected hipster. If he had one in his wardrobe, he’d 
  wear a Night of the Liv ing Dead shirt just to make people 
  think this wasn’t affecting him as badly as it is.
  Virtue: Justice 
  Vice: Pride 
  Attributes: Intelligence 3, Wits 3, Resolve 1, Strength 
  2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 3, Presence 2, Manipulation 2, 
  Composure 2 
  Skills: Academics 2, Computer (Graphics, Internet) 4, 
  Crafts (Jury-Rigging) 3, Politics 1, Science 1, Athletics 2, 
  Brawl 2, Firearms 1, Weaponry 1, Expression 2, Socialize 1, 
  Subterfuge 1
  Merits: Eidetic Memory 2, Language (French), Language 
  (Spanish), Resources 3
  Willpower: 3 
  Morality: 7 
  Initiative: 4
  Defense: 2 
  Size: 5 
  Speed: 9 
  Health: 8 
  Weapons/attacks
  Type 
  Dmg 
  Range 
  Shots Dice Pool
  Revolver, Lt. 
  2 
  20/40/80 
  6 
  5
  Aluminum Katana 2(L) 
  — 
  — 
  5
  Sullivan Barnes 
  Quotes: “You must under-
  stand, we had no idea.”
  “It wasn’t my fault.”
  “It’s time. I hope you can 
  free us all.”
  Background: Sullivan 
  Barnes was a magician, but he was 
  only interested in the theoretical 
  aspects. He had no inclination 
  toward an adventurous lifestyle. 
  He was born in the last century, 
  when the city was just a small town. He was initiated into the 
  magical arts when he was in his early twenties, and he learned 
  quickly. With the proper focus and dedication, he could have 
  become a great wizard. Certainly his mentor saw his potential 
  and tried to encourage it. But Barnes was quite content to 
  stay in his provincial town and live out his life reading books 
  about the magic that fascinated him. Eventually, even his 
  mentor gave up on the academic-minded student.
  When Josiah Hill came to town, Barnes was finally 
  spurred into action. He talked to the haunted young man, 
  and found in him something that he admired. Hill seemed 
  exotic, and his experiential knowledge had a very different 
  flavor than what Sullivan had absorbed from his ancient 
  tomes. It was as if he had spent his life eating oatmeal, only 
  to be presented with filet mignon. He had to help him. 
  ghosts? hoW Do they Work?
  You may notice, looking at the statistics for 
  Sullivan and Hill that their traits and abilities are 
  not the same as the mortals you’ve seen so far. 
  These changes, as well as other ways in which 
  ghosts differ from mortals and how mortals can 
  deal with them, are detailed in the appendix. 
  
  35 
  So Sullivan scoured his tomes and found the necessary 
  ward. He chose to turn it into the earth, mixing silver and 
  soil rather than creating a more mobile—now that he had 
  found Hill, he didn’t want him to leave. 
  Description: Alive, Sullivan looked to be in his twilight 
  years. He could have passed for a rough seventy. His long, 
  white hair is kept in a ponytail, and he wears a pair of antique, 
  tarnished silver glasses. 
  Dead, Sullivan Barnes’ body looks every day of two 
  centuries old. A hawkish nose juts out from beneath a bushy, 
  heavy brow. Thick, white stubble peppers the intricate map 
  of his face. His skin is almost translucent, dry and brittle like 
  parchment. He is stooped and shrunken by the years. 
  As a ghost, Sullivan looks much as he did alive. He looks 
  a little bewildered and infinitely sad.
  Storytelling Hints: You are disoriented by age, recent 
  death and the new pain of the ward. It’s not that you’re senile, 
  it’s just that remembering things that happened thirty years 
  ago is difficult for most people, and you have a few centuries 
  worth of memories to sift through. At this point, it’s com-
  pletely possible that your memories of Hill and his family are 
  less than accurate. To your mind, Hill was a saint, corrupted 
  and destroyed by you. The first real, practical magic spell you 
  ever cast on someone else’s behalf ended up destroying them. 
  That guilt is what has kept you going all this time. If the play-
  ers can free Hill (and coincidentally, you) from this prison, 
  you’ll do everything in your power to help them. 
  Virtue: Fortitude 
  Vice: Sloth
  Attributes: Power 4, Finesse 4, Resistance 3 
  Willpower: 7
  Morality: 4 
  Initiative: 7
  Defense: 4 
  Speed: 18 (species factor 10) 
  Size: 5 
  Corpus: 8 
  Essence: 10 
  numina and abilities 
  Enhanced Ghost Speech (dice pool 9): Sullivan is 
  capable of speaking directly to mortals when he manifests. 
  Spend two Essence points and roll Power + Finesse. If the roll 
  succeeds, he may speak for the rest of the scene. 
  Magnetic Disruption (dice pool 8): Sullivan’s manifesta-
  tion causes electronic equipment to malfunction due to an 
  intense magnetic distortion. No roll is required. If Sullivan 
  manifests successfully, his presence disrupts electronics 
  within 4 yards. 
  Manifestation (dice pool 9): Sullivan may manifest 
  within one yard of his anchor (the pocket watch) automati-
  cally, with no roll required. Otherwise, he must roll Power 
  + Finesse, with a base penalty of -3 dice to do so. If there is 
  more than one mortal present, each person after the first 
  imposes a -1 modifier to the roll.
  Josiah Hill, the  
  Crazed Specter 
  Quotes: “This… is my land.” 
  “WHO DO YOU THINK 
  YOU ARE?” 
  “We will… have… our… revenge!” 
  Background: Josiah Hill was a 
  powerful man, once. His family rose to prominence through 
  real estate deals around the nascent United States. He should 
  have had a comfortable, lavish life. But one day, the hair on 
  the back of his neck stood on end. He knew someone was 
  there, watching him. Everywhere he went, they followed. 
  The feeling of being watched never left him. Late at night, 
  he heard whispering; it was too quiet to make out words, 
  but loud enough to drill into his head and keep him from 
  sleeping. 
  Nobody believed him. There wasn’t any proof, after all, just 
  a few things moved out of place, a hair adhered to the door and 
  its frame split. Nothing that unequivocally proved the presence of 
  an intruder. But he could not escape the thing, no matter what 
  he did. He lodged with friends, but it was there. He went on 
  holidays, and it stood in the darkness of foreign places. He trav-
  eled by boat, by wagon and by horse, and it was always there. 
  He could not find respite for more than a few days at a time. 
  Description: Hill’s ghost is that of a shattered man. He 
  looks like patchwork, burned and withered flesh giving way to 
  raw, bleeding muscle. His only covering is a smoldering thing 
  draped over him. There is a distinct smell of charred flesh. The 
  hair on his head is alight in a crackling, ever roaming smolder. 
  His teeth are black and glowing, and his eyes are boiling in 
  their sockets, the vitreous humor spilling out and scalding the 
  flesh of his checks. When the lightning strikes him, he glows, 
  translucent, as the electricity crawls through his veins. 
  Storytelling Hints: Yours is not the voiceless rage of 
  the lesser ghosts below. While you are no less broken by 
  your time of torment, you have maintained a semblance of 
  your old wits and intelligence. You are constantly wracked 
  with the agony of your torment, and it takes you a minute to 
  think about anything that isn’t directly connected to killing 
  another person, but you can think, and you can speak. This 
  does not mean you can be reasoned with. You have no interest 
  in the living world beyond punishing it for the wrongs it has 
  caused you to suffer. Speak to the characters. Speak through 
  the characters. But do not back down from killing them or 
  your plans to destroy every life in the building, including 
  the other ghosts. 
  Virtue: Justice 
  Vice: Wrath 
  Attributes: Power 5, Finesse 4, Resistance 5 
  Willpower: 10 
  Morality: 3 
  Initiative: 9 
  Defense: 5 
  characters
  
  36 
  nightmare at hill manor
  Speed: 19 (species factor 10) 
  Size: 5 
  Corpus: 10 
  Essence: 15 
  numina and abilities 
  Animal Control (dice pool 9): Hill is able to exert his will 
  over an animal, controlling it completely. Spend one Essence 
  and roll Power + Finesse, subtracting the animal’s Resolve 
  from the Dice Pool. Success means Hill is able to command 
  the animal to perform any task he desires, to the limit of the 
  animal’s physical abilities. Hill can control the animal for the 
  duration of the scene if desired. He can control up to 4 animals 
  simultaneously, provided he has sufficient Essence. 
  Compulsion: (dice pool 9): Hill is able to exert his will 
  over a living person, commanding him to perform actions 
  like a puppet. Spend one Essence and roll Power + Finesse in 
  a contested roll versus the victim’s Resolve + Composure. If 
  the ghost fails or ties the roll (or the mortal wins), the victim 
  is unaffected. If the ghost wins the roll, it seizes control of 
  the victim and can command him to perform any acts the 
  spirit desires, within the victim’s capabilities. The victim can 
  attempt to throw off Hill’s control each successive turn with 
  another contested roll. Use the victim’s own dice pools to 
  determine the outcome of his actions. Hill can compel up to 4 
  victims simultaneously, provided he has sufficient Essence. 
  Ghost Speech (dice pool 9): Hill is capable of speaking 
  directly to mortals when he manifests. Spend one Essence 
  point and roll Power + Finesse. If the roll succeeds, he may 
  utter a single sentence. 
  Manifestation (dice pool 9): Hill may manifest within one 
  yard of the pocket watch automatically, with no roll required. 
  Otherwise, he must roll Power + Finesse, with a base penalty of 
  -3 dice to do so. If there is more than one mortal present, each 
  person after the first imposes a -1 modifier to the roll. 
  Possession (dice pool 9): Hill may attempt to possess a 
  living human being and control his or her body for a short 
  time. Spend one Essence point and roll Power + Finesse in 
  a contested roll versus the victim’s Resolve + Composure. If 
  Hill wins, he gains control of the victim’s body for the dura-
  tion of a single scene. Use the victim’s available traits (except 
  Willpower points, which are equal to Hill’s current Willpower 
  points) and dice pools for any action he wishes to take. If the 
  mortal wins or ties the roll, Hill fails his possession attempt. 
  As long as Hill has Essence points remaining, he can continue 
  to make possession attempts against a target. If a possessed 
  body is killed or knocked unconscious, Hill is forced out and 
  must possess another victim if he still wishes to act. 
  Attacks using a blessed object against one of Hill’s hosts 
  damage his Corpus instead of the physical host. 
  Projection (dice pool 9): Hill can directly project his own 
  memories and experiences into the mind of a living character. 
  Spend one Essence point and roll six dice. If the roll fails, noth-
  ing happens. If the roll succeeds, Hill can impart one memory; 
  a single “scene.” This is usually the event that led to the shade’s 
  death. The target experiences the memory over the course of 
  hoW Many can there reaLLy be?
  Keep in mind that the characters are trapped on 
  only three floors of the apartment building. This 
  is a large building, but that still limits the number 
  of madmen and survivors to an extent. Don’t feel 
  too limited, though. Even if there are, say, 20 
  apartments per floor, that’s still 60 apartments 
  with 1-4 people living in each one. Assuming most 
  people were home when the event happened, 
  you’re talking 40-240 possible residents. 
  a single turn, regardless of how long the memory takes. While 
  experiencing the memory, the target is in a fugue state and 
  cannot act. In addition, the disorientation caused by the effect 
  incurs a -1 penalty to all dice rolls in the next turn.
  Terrify (dice pool 9): Hill has the power to strike terror 
  in the hearts of mortals who witness his manifestation. Roll 
  Power + Finesse in a contested roll against the Resolve + 
  Composure of each mortal who witnesses his manifestation 
  firsthand. If Hill loses or ties, mortals in the area are unaf-
  fected and are immune to uses of this power for the remainder 
  of the scene. Mortals who lose flee from him and will not 
  return to the haunted area for at least one hour. 
  Generic Possessed Resident 
  These are not zombies. Their eyes are clouded by the 
  presence of the creature, but they still possess keen vision. 
  They are not dead, despite being inhabited by the dead. Their 
  bodies are vital and alive, perhaps even more capable than 
  they might otherwise be, because the shade possessing them 
  cares nothing for pushing the body beyond its limits and ig-
  nores seemingly unendurable pain. From a rules perspective, 
  the possessed creatures halve all wound penalties. 
  Description: The residents all have the same glazed, 
  filmed-over eyes while possessed. Their clothes have quickly 
  become ragged and stained by violence. 
  Storytelling Hints: You are without reason, but not 
  without cunning. Think of them as sadistic, rabid animals. 
  They can even be quite inventive in their cruelty. 
  Virtue: Fortitude 
  Vice: Wrath 
  Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 2, Strength 3, Dexter-
  ity 2, Stamina 3, Presence 4, Manipulation 1, Composure 1 
  Skills: Athletics 2, Brawl 2, Stealth 1, Weaponry 2 
  Merits: Ambidextrous 3, Fleet of Foot 1 
  Health: 8 
  Willpower: 3 
  Morality: 4 
  Size: 5 
  Speed: 10 
  Defense: 2 
  Initiative: 5 
  
  37 
  Dealing In
  ...And  
  Cashing Out
  The Fifth 
  Floor
  5A - The 
  Maintenance 
  Office
  The  
  Penthouse
  5B - Blood-
  Spattered Ben
  The Sixth 
  Floor
  6F - Keenan’s 
  Apartment
  The Seventh 
  Floor
  The Roof
  scene flowchart
  The Pocket Watch 
  (encounter, p. 43)
  
  38 
  nightmare at hill manor
  Overview 
  The characters get together for their biweekly poker game. 
  Description 
  Read the following out loud: 
  The table’s set up, and the chips are down. You were all a 
  little late, thanks to road construction out front. Janice was even 
  late, and she’s the one who keeps everything organized and sets 
  up the game. But there she is, in her green dealer’s visor, shuffling 
  the deck. She smiles at each of you as you take your seats. 
  “Sorry guys,” she says. “I didn’t have time to get the 
  snacks together. I figured it’d be best if I got you set up 
  and going before I run back down to grab them.” 
  The poker game is set up in the common room on the 
  sixth floor, one of two in the building (the other is on the 
  third floor) that is used for birthday parties, neighborhood 
  watch meetings and other events. The walls are the same dingy 
  beige as the rest of the building, and the plaster is cracked 
  and flaking. The once-green carpet is almost black with wear 
  under the folding table Janice drags out from a storage closet 
  in the corner each game. A cheap chandelier lights the room 
  adequately. It’s not a dive, but it’s not exactly new, either. 
  As for the poker, you have a few options. You can actually get 
  a deck of cards and some chips and go to town, if you know how to 
  play. This is probably the easiest way to encourage your players to 
  become immersed in their characters. For some, it’s easier to do a 
  thing than it is to imagine doing it through an abstracted set of rules. 
  If you prefer not to do that, you can just have the characters roll for 
  each hand (see the “A Simple Hand” action below). That said, the 
  outcome of the poker game is irrelevant to the rest of the story, aside 
  from giving the characters something to talk about and during. 
  Storyteller Goals 
  This scene should let you set up the “normal” baseline 
  before the ghosts start to take over the apartment building. 
  You can introduce a little of Janice, and give the players a little 
  leeway to get into their characters and get to know the other 
  characters a bit as well. Take as long as you feel is necessary 
  for the players to get comfortable before you move on.
  On the other hand, if you’re shooting for terror over 
  horror, you can gloss over this scene with a bit of description 
  and move directly on to “…And Cashing Out.” 
  Character Goals 
  The main goal here is to get to know the characters. Even 
  with all of the background and information written down (or 
  Dealing In
  MENTAL ••             PHYSICAL -             SOCIAL •••
  not, if the player created a custom character for the scenario), 
  there’s no better way of getting to know the character than 
  walking the proverbial mile in their shoes. Sitting around 
  with a few acquaintances and playing a few hands, basically 
  shooting the breeze, is a great way of doing that. 
  Actions 
  A Simple Hand 
  Dice Pool: Manipulation + Subterfuge + Equipment 
  (see below) 
  This is an extremely abstracted set of rules for Texas 
  Hold ‘em. It doesn’t even begin to model the statistics of a 
  real set of hands. Each character antes up ten dollars in chips 
  to buy into the hand. 
  A character can choose one of the following strategies 
  to improve their chances. 
  Cheating: Roll Wits + Larceny. Each success adds +1 
  bonus dice to your pool for the current roll, up to +3. Each 
  opposing player may roll Intelligence + Composure to spot 
  the cheat. If any single opposing player rolls more successes 
  than the cheater, it negates the cheater’s bonus dice.
  Bluffing: Manipulation + Subterfuge. Each success adds 
  +1 bonus dice to your pool for the current roll, up to +3. 
  Each opposing player may roll Intelligence + Empathy to see 
  through your bluff. Any opposing player who garners more 
  successes than the bluffer sees through the bluff, negating 
  the bluffer’s bonus dice.
  Action: Extended and Contested. Each character rolls 
  at each stage/flop. The character who ends the hand with 
  the highest number of successes wins the hand. 
  Hindrances: None.
  Help: Cheating or Bluffing (+1 to +3)
  Roll Results
  Dramatic Failure: The character went for it when he 
  should have folded. He loses anywhere from half his chips on 
  up. If the character was cheating, he is caught in the act. 
  Failure: The character fails to get a decent hand, or to 
  bluff the others into believing he has a decent hand. 
  Success: The character gets lucky on the flop, increasing 
  his chances of winning. 
  Exceptional Success: The character gets extraordinarily 
  lucky on the flop. Winning is almost guaranteed. 
  Conclusion
  This scene moves directly on to “…And Cashing Out,” 
  where the characters’ evening is disrupted by gunfire. 
  
  39 
  Overview 
  The characters hear gunshots upstairs, and then encoun-
  ter the ghost’s trap. 
  Description 
  Read the following aloud: 
  The game’s moving along, and Janice should be back 
  with the snacks any time now. Suddenly, from upstairs, 
  you hear POP! POP!, two gunshots. Then, after a few 
  seconds, POP! a third shot goes off. Almost immediately, 
  there’s a tiny, almost imperceptible shudder in the build-
  ing, a minor earthquake that shakes the poker chips on 
  the table. 
  If you have access to a computer, you might find a flash 
  soundboard or otherwise cue up a gunshot sound effect that 
  you can play suddenly while the players are interacting in 
  character instead, to actually startle them. 
  While the characters are reacting to the gunshots, Janice 
  returns sans snacks and looking a bit disturbed. She didn’t hear 
  the gunshots, but she discovered something else. 
  “Ok, look. I’m sure it’s my fault or maybe the el-
  evator’s broken, but… I can’t get down to my apartment 
  to grab the snacks. Could you come show me what I’m 
  doing wrong?” 
  If anyone grabs their cell to call the cops (or Rachel tries 
  to call backup), they have no service. Landlines are equally 
  dead. Have anyone who goes back to their apartment roll 
  Wits + Composure to see if they notice anything strange 
  about the windows. You might want to make the character’s 
  roll yourself in secret, to maintain the player’s ignorance if 
  the roll fails. It may seem strange to make them roll to notice 
  something as obvious as the world being gone, but in the face 
  of events this strange, people tend to become a bit myopic. 
  A dark window is hardly worth noticing.
  If any player succeeds, read the following: 
  The view through the window is black. There is 
  nothing, no streetlights, no stars in the sky. It doesn’t 
  seem like they’ve gone out so much as vanished. There’s 
  no street below you, no sky above. The building seems to 
  just be hanging in a void.
  Janice leads the character or characters that agree to help 
  her to the elevators. 
  Janice gets in the elevator and pulls the old metal gate 
  closed, latching it firmly. 
  “I don’t know what could be wrong. I mean… You’ll 
  see,” she says pressing the button marked “3.” The eleva-
  tor judders and shakes, under your feet, going down. You 
  watch the indicator sweep past six, five, four, and come 
  to a halt on three. But when she opens the gate, the wall 
  on the outside says “5.” She pulls the gate closed and hits 
  “3” again. Again, the elevator goes down, and again, 
  when the gate is opened, it says “5.” 
  No matter what they do, the elevator only succeeds in 
  visiting floors 5, 6 and 7. If a character stays on the fifth floor, 
  he sees the elevator descend out of view, only to come down 
  from above moments later. 
  Janice stops, sobbing. She leans against the wall and 
  slides down slowly, unable to speak through her tears. You 
  can almost feel the panic and fear rolling off of her. She 
  starts to hyperventilate. She looks around desperately and 
  asks, “Are we in hell?”
  The characters can calm Janice down with an extended 
  Presence or Manipulation + Persuasion roll, if they achieve 
  4 total successes. 
  Once calmed, Janice looks around, as if just 
  realizing something. 
  “Where is everyone else?”
  The fifth floor is the first to become overwhelmed by 
  the lesser ghosts who have possessed some of the tenants. 
  …And Cashing Out 
  MENTAL •••             PHYSICAL ••             SOCIAL ••
  Where are they? 
  Has the building been ripped from its 
  foundation and relocated in some sort of 
  otherworldly dimension? Is it a hallucination 
  or a dream? That’s up to you. Here are some of 
  your options: 
  • The characters have, along with four floors 
  of the building and the roof, been transported 
  somehow into a vast underworld realm by some 
  eldritch mix of Josiah Hill’s undying fury and 
  Barnes’ final demise. 
  • The void outside is an illusion, part of the 
  haunting itself. If someone falls or jumps out 
  of a window, they disappear from view and 
  fall to the pavement below. This is the easiest 
  and most definitive escape from the characters’ 
  harrowing experience. 
  • Everything happens in some sort of shared 
  unconscious space. The characters wake up at 
  the end, freed from Hill’s clutches at the poker 
  table. The building and all the other tenants 
  seem untouched… 
  Ultimately the decision lies with you. You 
  can choose one of these options or something 
  else entirely. That’s the great thing about being 
  the Storyteller. 
  And Cashing out
  
  40 
  nightmare at hill manor
  This makes it the most dangerous place for the characters 
  to be. 
  If they remain—and particularly if they fail to calm 
  Janice or just choose to let her cry and make a racket—give 
  them their first encounter with a possessed resident. They 
  don’t want to eat the character’s brains or flesh, but they 
  do want to kill them in the most sadistic way possible. If 
  the characters run, see the foot chase rules in the Action 
  section, below.
  Once the characters have escaped the possessed resident, 
  read the following aloud: 
  As you catch your breath, you remember: this all 
  started after you heard those gunshots coming from 
  upstairs at the penthouse. But to get there, you’ll need 
  the elevator key. The maintenance guys keep one in their 
  office on this floor. Apartment 5A.
  Storyteller Goals 
  This is when we go down the rabbit hole, so you want to 
  knock the characters out of their comfort zone. One of the best 
  ways to do that is to let them argue amongst themselves. If they start 
  to get too rational, you can use Janice to ratchet up the panic. 
  Character Goals 
  The main goal of the characters in this scene is simple. 
  They just need to figure out the extent of their predicament. 
  Ultimately, this scene is when the characters decide 
  how they’re going to react to the situation and how they’re 
  going to proceed from here. That could create tension and 
  conflict between the characters, as Thomas might want to 
  learn more about what’s going on, while Rachel and Michael’s 
  first impulse will likely be finding anyone else who made it 
  through and save the survivors from the dangerous madmen 
  wandering the halls. 
  Actions 
  Foot Chase 
  Dice Pool: Stamina + Athletics + Equipment (each pos-
  sessed resident has a dice pool of 5)
  Action: Extended and contested (each roll represents 
  one turn of running) 
  A chase is a matter of endurance, reflexes and fleetness 
  of foot. Roll Stamina + Athletics for each participant. This 
  is not quite the conventional extended and contested task, 
  however. Rolls are made for each participant in each stage 
  (in each turn), but the quarry—in this case, the players—has 
  a different goal than the pursuer. The number of successes 
  that must be acquired for the quarry equals the possessed 
  resident’s speed of 10. The possessed resident, however, does 
  not seek to get away. His goal is much more specific: to stop 
  the characters from escaping. He seeks to acquire a number 
  that equals or exceeds one of his quarry’s current total of 
  successes at any point in the chase. If the possessed resident 
  gets that number, he catches up. 
  At your discretion, you might give the players a head 
  start, giving a number of automatic successes at the beginning 
  of the chase. Any successes rolled for one of them throughout 
  the extended and contested task are added to that number 
  from turn to turn, giving the players an advantage throughout. 
  As a rule of thumb, a 5-yard head start is worth one automatic 
  success. So, if Rachel were 15 yards away from the possessed 
  resident when the chase broke out, she would have a founda-
  tion of three successes on which to add her own throughout 
  the chase. In this way, you can handicap the possessed tenant 
  and affect the outcome without fudging die rolls.
  All of a participant’s actions must be dedicated to run-
  ning in a chase. If someone performs a different action in 
  any turn, such as firing a gun, his Stamina + Athletics roll for 
  that turn is forfeit. The character might even perform another 
  action and travel his Speed, but he loses momentum in the 
  race; he adds no successes to his total. 
  The actual distance between quarry and pursuer at any 
  point in a chase is based on the difference of total successes 
  between them. Each success is worth about 5 yards. So, if 
  Rachel has six successes and her pursuer has two, she is 20 
  yards ahead. 
  If a pursuer’s total successes ever equal or exceed a 
  quarry’s in any given turn, the pursuer catches up. The race 
  comes to an end. The pursuer is allowed one free action 
  against the quarry, such as a charge maneuver. The quarry is 
  fully aware of the threat, is not surprised and is entitled to her 
  Defense. Initiative is rolled thereafter for both participants 
  if combat breaks out. 
  Hindrances: Debris littering the hall (-1)
  Help: Athletic shoes (+1)
  Roll Results
  Dramatic Failure: The participant trips and falls. He 
  may suffer a Health point of bashing damage at the Story-
  teller’s discretion. The race is over. 
  Failure: The participant gains no ground in the pursuit.
  Success: The participant gains some ground in the chase, 
  whether fleeing or in pursuit.
  Exceptional Success: The participant gains a great deal 
  of ground through a mixture of luck and capability.
  Conclusion
  If one of the characters is caught by the possessed 
  resident, use the Generic Possessed Resident’s stats on p. 36 
  for the ensuing combat. Otherwise, they escape, and move 
  into “The Fifth Floor,” during their journey to “5A – The 
  Maintenance Office.”
  
  41 
  This event is a good precursor to “The Reek of Decay,” 
  below. Keeping the possessed at a distance helps to build 
  tension. Being chased by a monster is inherently more 
  horrifying than facing it. On a more pragmatic note, every 
  time the characters get into a physical altercation, no matter 
  how simple it seems, there is a chance that one of them will 
  be killed. If you’ve turned up the terror (see p. 30, “Mood: 
  Horror and Terror”), then a high body count may not be a 
  problem. In that case, you may want to follow this event up 
  with an actual combat encounter. If so, use the Generic Pos-
  sessed Resident stats on p. 36.
  The Reek of Decay 
  The characters encounter a dead body. Read the fol-
  lowing aloud: 
  You smell something rank ahead. A bloated body 
  lays sprawled against the wall, its blood soaking into the 
  matted carpet. His stomach is torn across with some kind 
  of sharp, ragged instrument. The intestines loop and coil 
  in his lap and spill out onto the floor, blackening and 
  viscous with congealing blood. His face is crushed into a 
  pulp. Perhaps mercifully, you can’t recognize him.
  Given the disgusting nature of the find, it would be ap-
  propriate to make the players roll Fortitude + Composure to 
  see if their character is nauseated by the body (if so, they might 
  lose a Willpower point due to the nausea). It might be tedious 
  and narratively boring to force this roll every time the charac-
  ters encounter a dead body unless it is a particularly vicious 
  case, but the first few times they encounter something so far 
  outside their comfort zone, it can help drive things home. 
  The characters may also examine the body (see below) 
  to see if they can learn anything beyond the obvious violence 
  of his death. If any player succeeds, read the following aloud: 
  This only started a little while ago, and everything was nor-
  mal before that. The body must be fresh, yet the lividity and 
  bloating marks it as much older, and the blood around it is 
  black and coagulated. The wound on the stomach seems to 
  be the one that killed him, and the intestines seem to have 
  been pulled out through the hole intentionally.
  Hot, Hot, Hot 
  In various places throughout the floor, the temperature 
  is remarkably intense. 
  Read the following aloud to your players: 
  As you walk, you feel as if you’ve walked in front of 
  an open furnace. Your skin feels tight, and sweat beads up 
  on your forehead. As far as you can see, there’s no physical 
  source for the heat. Stepping back, you immediately feel 
  cooler, like a fever has broken.
  Overview
  This is not actually a “scene” per se, but more of a series 
  of options. Think of it as a grab bag of events, if you will, 
  of the various curious effects of the haunting that may be 
  encountered when the characters are wandering the halls of 
  the fifth floor, going from room to room. Feel free to throw 
  any of these effects or encounters at the characters at any 
  time, to break up the rhythm of room-to-room exploration 
  or to interrupt the players’ flow if they get too comfortable 
  with their plans. Events marked “unique” are intended to be 
  one-time occurrences. Others are static or recurring. In the 
  case of recurring scenes, you should feel free to switch things 
  up, changing up the description to keep things fresh, rather 
  than “oh, that again.”
  In other scenes, we’ve documented what’s in a few of 
  the apartments on each floor. There are many more apart-
  ments than we have room to describe, and that’s by design. 
  Those other apartments are yours to run with, to tailor 
  to your group. This personalization can help enhance the 
  experience for players or storytellers who have played in or 
  run this scenario before.
  Description
  Read the following aloud, the first time the characters 
  visit the fifth floor: 
  Once you escape the crazy bastard long enough to 
  take note of your surroundings, you realize that the fifth 
  floor is a horror show. Broken lights flicker and dark stains 
  streak the walls. Cackles and growls can be heard in the 
  distance. Wandering is foolhardy, since the tenants down 
  here seem to have gone violently mad. 
  The Stench of Blood 
  Read the following to the players: 
  Your nostrils fill with the sickly-sweet smell of rotting 
  blood, but you can’t find the source of the scent. The 
  walls have scuffs and smudges on them, even a big scrape. 
  However, there’s no blood. The smell is almost enough to 
  turn your stomach. As you continue, you feel something 
  drip onto your upper lip. Your nose is bleeding.
  Distant Possessed 
  Read the following aloud: Suddenly, you hear the riot-
  ous laughter of the insane and a wet gurgle. The acoustics 
  here are vague; it could be around the corner ahead, behind 
  you, or on the other side of the building entirely. There’s no 
  telling where the creature is.
  the fifth floor
  The Fifth Floor
  MENTAL • - •••             PHYSICAL • - •••             SOCIAL • - ••
  
  42 
  nightmare at hill manor
  Survivors
  While it’s important to keep the characters (and the 
  players) off-balance, it is also important to temper their fear 
  with hope. Otherwise you run the danger of causing a sort of 
  fatigue to set in. A good way to give them hope is to remind 
  them what they’re fighting for. Let them save someone.
  These are, essentially, extras to your players’ stars. 
  You’re free to add quirks and personality traits of your 
  of 70°F to just over 100°F in a patch of space only a 
  few feet wide before dropping precipitously back to the  
  normal temperature. 
  A Murder of Whispers 
  Choose a player at random and read the following: 
  All of a sudden, you hear a whisper in your ear. You 
  turn, and there’s nothing there. The others don’t seem to 
  hear it, but the voice seems to be all around you. You can’t 
  make out the words; they sound like nonsense. The first 
  voice is joined by another, then another, and so on until 
  there is a cacophony of whispers filling your head with a 
  throbbing pain. You suddenly feel the urge to lash out, to 
  rip and tear at the walls, at the others.
  The player should make a roll to resist the compulsion 
  (see below). This is not full possession, but rather a kind of 
  influence— a prodding compulsion from a fairly weak ghost, 
  but no less dangerous for that. 
  If the character fails to resist the compulsion, they are 
  at the mercy of the shade for at least a turn. The ghost will 
  use the character to attack the others at random. Unless the 
  character suffered a dramatic failure, they may regain control 
  as soon as the next turn. For any attacks or other actions, use 
  the character’s dice pools. Note that the ghost, while cunning, 
  is not in its right mind, and will not necessarily choose the 
  character with the most amount of martial skill. It may not 
  even want the one who will be the best fighter, because if it 
  kills all of the characters too quickly, it won’t have the fun 
  of seeing them demoralized and beaten as they are picked 
  off or forced to kill one another. 
  A Shade in Survivor’s Clothing (Unique)
  The characters will confront many maddened ghosts and 
  save a number of survivors over the course of their search 
  for answers. As a rule, the ghosts are crazed to the point of 
  mindless brutality, and the survivors are confused and afraid. 
  But this time, the characters discover what they believe to be 
  a survivor. She is thankful, so thankful that the characters 
  have saved her. She waits for the proper moment and tries 
  to get time alone with one of the survivors the characters 
  have already saved. Only then does the shade possessing her 
  reveal its true colors. In this way, she slowly whittles away at 
  the survivors until she is caught or they are all dead. 
  It is important not to show your hand when in-
  troducing the shade in survivor’s clothing. You don’t 
  want to spend more time describing her or her salvation 
  than other survivors, because it can signal the players 
  that she “means something,” and her strength lies in  
  her ordinariness.
  The phenomenon of localized temperature changes is 
  well-documented in hauntings, but it’s usually a difference 
  of no more than a few degrees. In this case, the feeling is 
  more dramatic. If the characters find a thermometer, the 
  temperature jumps from a reasonable room temperature 
  
  43 
  own, and these bit players might even become the players’ 
  favorite characters in the story. Sometimes it works like 
  that. To further personalize the scenario, you might make 
  a survivor or two yourself using the character creation 
  rules on p. 28. Otherwise, just assume that the survivors 
  are fodder. They should be largely useless in a fight, to 
  emphasize the player characters’ role as protagonists of 
  this story.
  The Pocket Watch (unique)
  The characters finally find the lost pocket watch (see 
  “6F – Keenan’s Apartment” on p. 47 for more information). 
  This event assumes that the characters have already visited 
  the Penthouse and Keenan’s Apartment. It is the key to the 
  final climactic battle of the story, so don’t fire this event 
  off until you’re ready for the characters to confront Hill 
  on the roof.
  Read the following aloud: 
  Under the debris, you notice the gleam of gold. 
  When you clear it away, you find what you’ve been seek-
  ing— the pocket watch! The casing is adorned with the 
  Hill family crest on the front and an engraved message 
  on the back: “Tempus omnia sed memorias privat — S.B.” 
  Its hands still tick, but they tick backwards. Fitted into 
  the cover’s interior is a faded sepia photograph of Josiah 
  Hill and Sullivan Barnes standing side-by-side. The 
  search is over.
  The pocket watch’s inscription translates to “time steals 
  all but memories.” If any character speaks Latin, such as 
  Thomas, he can translate the inscription without a roll. Fail-
  ing that, any character might roll Intelligence + Academics 
  to translate it.
  Storyteller Goals
  This floor is the most immediately, physically danger-
  ous. If you’re aiming to tell a horror story, pump up the 
  descriptions to evoke personal, emotional connections 
  between the characters’ memories of tenants from this 
  floor from before the “event,” and transpose them with the 
  torn and bloody remnants of the halls and rooms. If you’re 
  shooting for terror, keep the halls packed with adrenaline-
  pumped, fear-inducing action. Ravening, sadistic stalkers 
  are constantly racing down the halls after the characters, 
  turning the room-to-room search for survivors into a series 
  of harrowing chases separated by unpredictable apartments; 
  one is a bastion of safety where the characters can catch 
  their breath while the next is a terrible encounter with a 
  crazed ghost.
  If you know something that specifically creeps out 
  your players without actually upsetting them, use it. If they 
  shiver after watching Japanese horror films, perhaps one of 
  the tenants is a girl in a long, stained white nightgown with 
  disheveled black hair that alternately limps and crawls down 
  the hall toward them.
  Character Goals
  In the various encounters the characters might experi-
  ence on this floor, their primary goal is to survive from room 
  to room, gathering survivors along the way. 
  Actions
  Examining the Body 
  Dice Pool: Wits + Medicine 
  Action: Instant 
  Hindrances: Poor lighting (-1) 
  Help: Flashlight (+1) 
  Roll Results
  Dramatic Failure: The character finds himself disturbed 
  by examining the body in such detail. Make another Fortitude 
  + Composure roll to resist being overcome by nausea. 
  Failure: The character notices nothing odd about 
  the body.
  Success: The character notices that the body is in a far 
  more advanced state of decay than it should be, considering 
  how long it could possibly have been dead.
  Exceptional Success: The character notices that the 
  body is actually slumped on top of the weapon that must 
  have exposed its viscera. It’s a pitted and gouged work-
  man’s chisel.
  Resisting the Compulsion 
  Dice Pool: Resolve + Composure 
  Action: Contested (vs. the ghost’s dice pool of 6 rolled 
  by the Storyteller) 
  Hindrances: N/A 
  Help: N/A 
  Roll Results
  Dramatic Failure: The victim fails to resist the voices 
  utterly, ceding control to the puppeteering shade. He may try 
  to resist again with the same contested roll in two turns. 
  Failure: The victim fails to resist the voices, ceding 
  control to the puppeteering shade. He may try to resist again 
  with the same contested roll next turn. 
  Success: The character resists the voices, freeing himself 
  from the violent impulses. 
  Exceptional Success: The character shrugs off the violent 
  impulses completely, and may not be targeted again for the 
  rest of the scene. 
  Conclusion
  The first time the characters enter this floor, they should 
  proceed to “5A – The Maintenance Office.” Otherwise, they 
  are moving from room to room, searching for survivors and, 
  eventually, Josiah Hill’s pocket watch. 
  the fifth floor
  
  44 
  nightmare at hill manor
  Overview 
  The characters find the maintenance crew, or what’s 
  left of them. 
  Description 
  Read the following aloud: 
  The door to the maintenance office hangs open, and 
  you hear rustling within. An iPod lies on the ground just 
  outside the door, its headphones still blaring punk music.
  If the players enter quietly or defensively, read this:
  Brandon and Orlando, the two maintenance men, are 
  pushing and shoving at each 
  other, fighting over a corpse 
  slumped against the wall. 
  They make angry growling 
  noises and speak in bro-
  ken gibberish. The corpse’s 
  clothes are torn and bloody, 
  apparently from a wound in 
  his throat. One eye hangs 
  free from its socket. Brandon 
  stops fighting for the corpse 
  and looks up, his eyes cloudy 
  and faded. He screeches 
  and bounds over the desk 
  toward you.
  If they enter with weap-
  onry, kicking the door open, 
  or otherwise make a lot of 
  commotion, read this: 
  The two maintenance men scatter to either side, 
  leaving a corpse slumped against the wall. Orlando, the 
  older one, scurries into the back room, while Brandon 
  screeches and bounds over the desk toward you.
  Storyteller Goals 
  Brandon and Orlando are, essentially, gatekeepers. They 
  hold the keys to the penthouse, which is itself the key to 
  surviving the night. If you need to, tweak things so that the 
  pair are a challenge, but not so powerful that they become 
  an insurmountable obstacle. 
  5A - The Maintenance Office 
  MENTAL ••             PHYSICAL ••••             SOCIAL –
  Character Goals 
  The characters need the keys to the penthouse. They 
  should be looking for them (Brandon and Orlando each 
  have a set of keys attached to their belts, but there is also a 
  locker in the back room with copies of the keys on hooks). 
  The players can roll Wits + Investigation to search for the 
  keys after dealing with Brandon and Orlando. 
  Actions 
  This scene is almost entirely combat. 
  Brandon’s tactics are straight-forward. He’s likely 
  to dive right in and attack 
  head-on. Orlando, on the 
  other hand, has been pos-
  sessed by a more patient 
  spirit. He’ll retreat deeper 
  into the offices and wait 
  in ambush for the charac-
  ters. If Brandon is gravely 
  injured or killed, roll Or-
  lando’s Willpower using 
  his unpossessed traits. If he 
  garners three successes, he 
  ejects the possessing shade. 
  Once free, Orlando may 
  still attack the characters 
  (particularly the one who 
  hurt or killed his son), dis-
  oriented as he is by grief and 
  the possession. The attacks 
  are noticeably different from the feral, maddened assaults 
  the characters have experienced, and they can attempt to 
  reason with Orlando in this case.
  Conclusion
  From here, the characters should be able to enter any 
  apartment in their search for survivors. They can try to save 
  the survivors who are in immediate danger, at which point 
  you can send them into room 5b, to meet “Blood-Spattered 
  Ben.” Alternately, they can head directly up to “The Pent-
  house,” and investigate the gunshots.
  
  45 
  Overview 
  The characters discover one of the possessed residents 
  and one method of exorcising the spirit within them. 
  Description 
  Read the following to the players: 
  This apartment is wrecked. Cheap furniture lies 
  in shambles, and blood is splattered on everything. The 
  carpet squelches under your feet, soaked with it. One of 
  the madmen has his back to you, scrabbling at the bedroom 
  door, trying to get in. From the bedroom, you hear a low 
  moan. It sounds male, and in pain.
  “I’ve got a gun, you zombie fucks! Don’t you come in 
  here, or I’ll blow your heads off!” The voice sounds pained. 
  The madman stops scrabbling, and cocks his head to the 
  side. He’s noticed you.
   The madman attacks the players (see the Actions sec-
  tion for more). The man in the bedroom is Ben Holt, the 
  university student who lives here. He doesn’t come out of 
  his room, despite the fight going on. If the characters engage 
  him after the combat and things sound calm, he’ll come 
  back out to the living room. He’s got a snub-nose .38 pistol 
  and a crappy aluminum “samurai sword,” and his clothes 
  are covered in blood just like his apartment. He’s hurt, but 
  there’s no sign that he was bitten or otherwise infected by the 
  possessed tenant he killed. The “infection” doesn’t spread 
  through bites or blood, but it’s unlikely that the characters 
  will know that.
  According to him, he didn’t know what was going on at 
  all until someone knocked on his front door. He answered, 
  and the possessed tenant attacked him. They struggled around 
  the room until Ben fell over the entertainment center and 
  toppled his decorative samurai sword. He yanked it free of its 
  scabbard and slashed his attacker, getting enough wiggle room 
  to run for the bedroom. His once-neighbor grabbed him, and 
  he slashed him again, and once more, until eventually he fell 
  over the destroyed coffee table. Then, Ben retrieved his gun 
  and started fortifying his bedroom.
  If Ben approaches the body, read the following: 
  The body of the madman shudders, and its mouth 
  falls open in a rasping howl. A very faint green mist issues 
  forth, and swirls around the corpse for a moment, before 
  shooting into Ben. He staggers backward, into the kitchen, 
  and begins coughing vehemently. When he looks up, his 
  eyes are clouded cataracts. He screams and launches 
  himself toward you, but slips in the blood on the kitchen 
  floor. Ben falls and cracks his head on the counter. 
  He is unconscious.
  The green mist seeps out of his mouth and fades away.
  If Janice is still with the characters, she will try to stop 
  anyone from killing Ben once he’s unconscious. She points 
  out that the mist was expelled when he was knocked out, 
  and suggests tying him up to test her hypothesis. If one of 
  the player characters seems to be arguing the same thing 
  as Janice, she should back that character up. If you have a 
  choice whether to have a Storyteller character present some-
  thing or to let a player’s character shine, always choose the 
  player character. When Ben comes to, which only takes a 
  few minutes, he is clear of the ghost’s influence. This should 
  signal the characters that they don’t actually have to kill the 
  possessed tenants.
  Storyteller Goals 
  This is an informational scene. Your goal here is to 
  give the characters (and players) a crucial piece of data: the 
  spirits are expelled if their host is knocked unconscious. 
  If you’re aiming for the feel of a traditional “zombie” film 
  using the possessed tenants, that option may not be in the 
  best interests of your game. In that case, just use poor Ben as 
  another combat encounter. Otherwise, you can actually use 
  this scene to inject a bit of humor into a story that remains 
  pretty bleak otherwise. 
  Character Goals 
  The optimal outcome is for Ben to get knocked out, 
  but survive the encounter. Depending on the situation, and 
  the players’ actions, this may not happen. The characters 
  have a chance to learn how to save more people here, but if 
  they fail (or they take too long to make it to this room), you 
  can always teach them the same lesson using a Storyteller 
  character getting knocked out. 
  Actions
  The possessed resident should use the stats for the Ge-
  neric Possessed Resident (see p. 36). He has already suffered 
  three points of lethal damage due to his fight with Ben when 
  he attacks the characters. The maddened ghost is looking to 
  do massive amounts of damage. He’s not thinking strategy. 
  He flails and kicks and punches with little regard to who he’s 
  hitting. He just wants to hit them.
  5B - Blood-Spattered Ben 
  MENTAL •••             PHYSICAL ••             SOCIAL •• 
  5B - blood-spattered ben
  
  46 
  nightmare at hill manor
  Overview
  This is the floor most of the characters (except for Janice) 
  actually live on, and it is the closest thing they have to a safe 
  zone, at least until the possessed things from downstairs come 
  up or the few tenants left on this floor find their way out 
  of their apartments. Since most of the tenants on this floor 
  belong to the players, their abodes are left undescribed, to give 
  them a chance to make their own mark on the characters.
  Description
  The Maid (Unique) 
  Read the following aloud to the players: 
  At the end of the hall, you see someone working. A 
  maid in an extremely old-fashioned uniform is dusting the 
  frames of paintings hung from the wall. She seems to be 
  ignoring you entirely.
  At first glance, the maid appears to be a solid, living 
  person, but upon closer inspection, she is slightly translucent. 
  This is the specter of the maid who set the fire that destroyed 
  Hill Manor. The portraits on the wall are also manifestations. 
  They depict various members of the family over time. The larg-
  est portrait is of Josiah Hill and Sullivan Barnes. Hill sits in a 
  high-backed, old-fashioned chair, while Sullivan stands behind 
  him, looking both mysterious and somehow protective. 
  One of the portraits, the largest, depicts a pair of 
  men: one seated, the other standing with his hands upon 
  the chair’s back. Both men look familiar, one more than 
  the other. Upon closer inspection, the maid’s skin seems 
  to darken and wither into burned flesh. As you watch, 
  her uniform smolders and starts to smoke. The portraits 
  also start to burn with unseen flame, the canvas stretching 
  taut as it is consumed by the spectral heat and turned to 
  ash. The maid turns and looks, not at you, but through 
  you. She seems to be pleading, begging for release.
  If Thomas is with the characters, he recognizes the faces 
  in the main portrait as those of Josiah Hill and Sullivan 
  Barnes; otherwise, the character present with the highest 
  Investigation rating recognizes them. 
  Sighting the Watch
  At the end of the hall, the characters see the possessed 
  resident who took the watch from Keenan’s room—and he 
  has the watch! While this encounter only makes sense to the 
  characters if they know they need the watch, it can add to the 
  strangeness if they see it before they visit the Penthouse. It can 
  also help to nudge the characters if they seem a little lost. 
  Read the following: 
  Something moves in your eye line. At the end of the 
  hall, someone steps into view. Their tattered clothes and the 
  strange way they move marks them as one of the madmen 
  from downstairs. Dangling from his hand is a pocket watch. 
  He sees you, and takes off back around the corner. By the 
  time you reach the end of the hall, he’s nowhere to be seen.
  Survivors
  This floor has a number of survivors as well, from quiet 
  neighbors to known acquaintances of the characters. The 
  survivors here are less aware of what’s going on. Some of them 
  may not even be aware of what’s going on, if they were napping 
  or playing music too loudly when the event occurred.
  Other Events
  Some events from previous floors may also occur on 
  the seventh floor: “Hot, Hot, Hot,” “The Stench of Blood,” 
  “Distant Possessed,” and “The Pocket Watch” are the most 
  appropriate, but you may choose to have other scenes from 
  the fifth floor begin to occur here as time passes and the 
  chaos of the lower floor starts to creep upward.
  When creating your own events, keep in mind that the 
  events on this floor are somewhat low-key. The fifth floor acts as 
  a magnet for the antics of the crazed shades intent on an orgy of 
  destruction, while the seventh floor attracts the more coherent 
  ghosts to batter at the edges of Sullivan’s penthouse protections. 
  That status quo won’t remain for long, but until it changes, the 
  characters are safest on the sixth floor or in the penthouse.
  Storyteller Goals
  This floor is, at least at first, mostly normal. As time goes 
  on, the possessed creatures will find their way up here, and you 
  can start to merge the hallway scenes from “The Fifth Floor” 
  into this one. The characters live on this floor, so if you’re look-
  ing to ramp up the horror or terror, invade their apartments. 
  The sense of violation is terrifying enough, but if it looks like 
  the invader changed things subtly, or took things that were 
  private, you can create a hollow horror in their guts.
  Character Goals
  This floor is—more than the others—the characters’ home. 
  Defending it or trying to solve this before it needs defending 
  is a priority. It’s also a good floor to use as a temporary com-
  mand post and refugee camp for the survivors, at least until 
  the characters discover the safe haven of the Penthouse or 
  the possessed residents from downstairs come up. 
  The Sixth Floor 
  MENTAL • - •••             PHYSICAL • - •••             SOCIAL • - ••
  
  47 
  Overview 
  Keenan is not here, but there are some signs of his fate 
  and why he shot Brian Sullivan upstairs. 
  Description 
  Read this section aloud: 
  The door to Keenan’s room hangs loose from its frame. 
  It looks like a horror movie in here. The walls, furniture 
  and ceiling are covered by the mad ravings of a broken 
  mind. The spidery text appears to have been written by a 
  madman, but there is a common thread here. Nothing here 
  seems to fit the tidy, friendly man you know.
  If the characters have been to the penthouse and are 
  here to find the watch, read the following: 
  The watch must be here, somewhere. It wasn’t 
  on Keenan’s body upstairs. But the place already 
  looks ransacked.
  After searching (you might want to have the players roll 
  Wits + Investigation to maintain tension), the characters find 
  nothing. Read this section aloud: 
  As you search it becomes more and more obvious: 
  the watch is not here. Whoever ransacked the apartment 
  must have taken it. Which means it could be hidden 
  anywhere on the fifth, sixth or seventh floors. This isn’t 
  going to be easy.
  Storyteller Goals 
  This room is the private space of a person subsumed by a stron-
  ger personality. It is a physical symbol of Hill’s possession of Keenan. 
  Try to pick out pieces of the room that show Keenan’s personality 
  contrasted with the maddened specter inhabiting his body.
  Character Goals 
  The characters primary goal in this room is to find the 
  pocket watch that belongs to Josiah Hill, which they learn of 
  from “The Penthouse.” If they haven’t been to the penthouse 
  yet, visiting this room won’t give them much beyond the 
  knowledge that their neighbor was very, very broken. 
  Actions 
  Finding Patterns 
  Dice Pool: Wits + Occult 
  Thomas has devoured books on just about any subject 
  imaginable. Of the characters included with this scenario, he’s 
  6F - Keenan’s Apartment 
  MENTAL •••             PHYSICAL —             SOCIAL —
  5f - Keenan's apartment
  
  48 
  nightmare at hill manor
  the most likely to be able make any sense out of the jumble 
  of ravings on the walls. 
  If a character succeeds, read the following: 
  You do your best to follow the thread, but there is so 
  much chaos. You can only get the gist of it.
  “We are trapped. We will be free. Barnes 
  will pay with his life. THEY WILL PAY FOR 
  THEIR LIVES.”
  If the character achieves an exceptional success, read 
  the following: 
  It’s not easy, but you untangle the thread.
  “The wizard’s trap closed on me with fire. I 
  knew that he shouldn’t have been trusted, but I was so 
  desperate for peace from that thing which stalked me. 
  He bewitched me, he played me for a fool, and I gave 
  him everything he needed to make his magic. I thought 
  it was for my benefit, but with magic, you always pay 
  a price. 
  “He was patient. He waited for the toll to be worth 
  his efforts, until my family had grown fat and complacent 
  in his trap. Then he struck and we were burned and torn 
  from our flesh. Our souls were trapped in the raging 
  storm of his will.
  We may be trapped, but we will be free. The wizard 
  Barnes will pay with his life. ALL WHO LIVE ON MY 
  LAND WILL PAY WITH THEIR LIVES.”
  Action: Instant 
  Hindrances: N/A
  Help: N/A 
  Roll Results
  Dramatic Failure: The character discerns connections 
  and patterns where there are none. What he “learns” is 
  misleading at best, maddening at worst. 
  Failure: The character simply can’t decipher the scrawls.
  Success: The character makes some sense of the crazed 
  writing on the wall (see above).
  Exceptional Success: The character understands a great 
  deal of the spirit’s purpose through his writing.
  Conclusion
  Since the characters do not find the watch, they must 
  search the parts of the building they can reach: the fifth, sixth 
  and seventh floors. We leave the traditional scene-to-scene 
  structure here, and enter the sandbox. Decide what floor 
  they visit first, and go to that scene.
  Where is the Pocket Watch?
  You may place “The Pocket Watch” event 
  wherever you choose. By default, we suggest 
  using the fifth floor (see “The Fifth Floor” for 
  information on p. 41), since it is where the 
  madmen wander most. In the long run, though, 
  its actual location is entirely up to you. It could 
  be on any floor except the penthouse, in any 
  of the rooms. This, even more than the search 
  for survivors, is the driving force behind the 
  characters’ room-by-room search of the building. 
  You can hide the pocket watch in whichever 
  room you like. That way you can choose to 
  reveal the watch whenever your group is ready 
  to move on to the climax of the story, rather 
  than leaving it to the luck of the draw.
  
  49 
  Overview
  As the characters get closer to the penthouse, they start 
  to encounter stronger manifestations. Unlike most of the 
  floors below, the ghosts encountered here are bare of flesh, 
  in all their ectoplasmic glory. On this floor, the characters 
  also begin to feel glimmers of the deprivation the shades have 
  gone through; hunger wracks the bodies of those who spend 
  too long exploring.
  As with the other floors, this scene has a series of events 
  you can choose from to make the characters’ time in the halls 
  of the seventh floor a little more interesting. 
  Description
  Read the following aloud: 
  It’s quiet here—unnaturally so. Everything seems 
  muffled, even your own footsteps sound somehow far 
  away. The walls and carpeting are untouched. The mad-
  men downstairs have left this area completely alone. And 
  yet, you still feel like you’re being watched.
  Blood Flows Up
  Read the following aloud: 
  A body lies sprawled in the hallway, a knife still em-
  bedded in his chest. There is no blood on the floor, though 
  the chest is abraded and slashed. The blood dripping from 
  the body is dripping upward. A large pool of blood is 
  spreading, staining the ceiling above the body.
  The Immolation of Ichabod Hill
  The characters run across the burning form of 
  Ichabod Hill. 
  Read the following aloud: 
  The silence is broken by a horrifying, gurgling scream. 
  Ahead, a man engulfed in flame runs toward you! You 
  suddenly feel as if your exposed skin has a sunburn, and 
  the heat leaves you feeling dehydrated. There’s no time 
  to get out of his way!
  The burning man runs right through you, leaving 
  you untouched. He bursts into a cloud of ash and greasy 
  smoke. The hallway is still again.
  Other Events
  Some events from previous floors may also occur on the 
  seventh floor: “Hot, Hot, Hot,” “The Stench of Blood,” and 
  “Sighting the Watch” are the most appropriate, but you may 
  choose to have “The Maid” from the sixth floor appear on 
  the seventh instead.
  When creating your own events, keep in mind that the 
  events on this floor are more eldritch than physical. They can 
  be deadly, but they’re generally deadly in a more blatantly 
  supernatural way than the relatively easy-to-understand con-
  frontations on the fifth floor. Showcase the strangeness of 
  ghosts with environmental violence. In one room, a character 
  may find themselves drowning in the bathroom haunted by 
  a suicide. In another, the ghost of a man murdered by his 
  wife’s lover might try to compel the characters into paranoia 
  and jealousy, sparking violence between allies.
  Storyteller Goals
  If you’re looking to play up the horror, play with the 
  weirdness of the situation. Focus in on the atmospheric 
  scares, like blood that drips upward. If you’re aiming for 
  terror, startle the players with sudden noises, create more 
  dangerous shades that attack the characters directly or cause 
  property damage through poltergeist activity. Any way you 
  play it, these things are ghosts. There’s hardly a more blatant 
  reminder of the characters’ mortality than this.
  Character Goals
  There are survivors here, and it’s possible the pocket 
  watch was hidden on this level.
  the seventh floor
  The Seventh Floor 
  MENTAL • - •••             PHYSICAL • - •••             SOCIAL • - ••
  ravenous hunger 
  A character who spends any time on the seventh floor will fall prey to a ravenous hunger. He can explore 
  for a number of minutes equal to his Stamina + Resolve. After that point, he begins to suffer the effects of 
  starvation (see “States of Being” for more information). He suffers a point of bashing damage, plus another 
  point of bashing damage for every five minutes he remains on the seventh floor. 
  It is possible to die of starvation in a matter of hours, if the character does not escape. 
  
  50 
  nightmare at hill manor
  created the ward that unintentionally trapped the ghosts in 
  this building. 
  Description 
  When the characters first arrive on the eighth floor, read 
  the following aloud: 
  You step out onto the eighth floor. Your footsteps 
  echo off white tile floors polished to a reflective sheen. 
  A pair of dark green double doors that lead into the 
  penthouse apartment are directly ahead. To the right 
  of the doors is a hallway that leads around the apart-
  ment. Up here, the void is replaced by a violent storm. 
  Bloody rain and bone hail clatter against the windows 
  lining the hallway. Lightning strikes on the roof create 
  a near-constant strobing light show and a crackling, 
  arrhythmic drumbeat.
  The penthouse suite is very different from the rest of 
  the building. Where the floors throughout the rest have 
  tightly-woven carpeting, the floors here are of a deeply 
  lustrous red wood. The foyer looks as if it once looked clas-
  sically elegant, but years of neglect have covered everything 
  but the floor in a thick layer of dust. The floor seems to be 
  immaculate except for the body and the blood. 
  Keenan’s corpse is slumped against the wall to your 
  right, just at the entryway into the main room. Blood splat-
  ters on the wall and the gun on the floor near his hand 
  tell the story. Your neighbor took his own life. 
  A trail of blood leads into the next room. 
  If the characters search Keenan’s corpse, they find noth-
  ing but the keys to his apartment on the sixth floor.
  When the characters follow the trail of blood, read the 
  following aloud: 
  The trail of blood leads to another body crumpled 
  on the marble floor. The body lies on its side, and looks 
  impossibly old. Hair so thin it’s almost spider silk obscures 
  the face. The hands are covered in an elaborate trace work 
  of wrinkles. The floor in here is a vast series of concentric 
  circles and lines, with strange symbols running parallel to 
  many of the patterns. Lightning continues to arc outside, 
  followed by the constant rumble of heavy thunder. A 
  languid swirl of greenish-white light begins to rise from 
  the corpse, and it incorporates into a translucent old man 
  with bullet wounds in his chest.
  He stares at his body for a moment, as if lost. Then 
  he looks at you. “You must help me,” he says.
  Sullivan will do his best to answer the player’s questions. 
  The answers to a few are included below, but your players will 
  come up with questions we haven’t answered here:
  Overview 
  Brian Sullivan’s penthouse is, essentially, the eye of the 
  storm. The only spirit inhabiting these rooms at the moment 
  is Sullivan himself. His mystical protections are still active up 
  here, but they are fading with time and will be gone soon. 
  The penthouse itself does not take up the entire floor. It 
  is easily the largest single space in the building, except perhaps 
  the lobby. But access to the penthouse floor via stairwell or 
  elevator does not immediately place the characters inside Sul-
  livan’s home. The penthouse is lined on one side by a perimeter 
  hallway, and two-thirds of the top floor (behind the penthouse) 
  is used by maintenance as storage. Sullivan Barnes, the magi-
  cian of Hill Manor, uses nearly one-third of the top floor. 
  Once inside, the characters find Keenan’s body, and 
  meet Brian Sullivan, aka Sullivan Barnes, the magician who 
  The Penthouse
  MENTAL •••             PHYSICAL -             SOCIAL -
  
  51 
  Who are you?
  My name is—was—Sullivan Barnes. (You can have 
  the characters roll Intelligence + Composure to 
  recognize the name. A single success is sufficient.) 
  I was trying to keep this from happening. I seem to have 
  failed. But I can tell you what needs to be done.
  What’s happening here? 
  I’m sorry, but I’m just not sure of the specifics. As far 
  as I can tell, my death released all the spirits I’d been trying 
  to help from the wards I put up to protect you from them. 
  I can feel them battering at the protections I’ve placed on 
  these rooms, but you’re safe here for the time being. 
  “Protections”? What are you?
  I am a man. I was a man, at any rate. A seeker 
  of knowledge. If you are more comfortable calling me a 
  wizard, then do so. I am more than that, but that’s the 
  answer you’re looking for, isn’t it?
  You said you can tell us what needs to be done. What 
  is it?
  The spirit responsible for this was once a man I knew 
  well. He came to be trapped here after death, and he’s 
  gone mad. Hill must be stopped. There’s only one sure way. 
  There is an antique pocket watch that boy out there stole 
  from me. He gestures to the foyer, where Keenan’s 
  body is. It must be found. The watch once belonged to 
  Hill. It was his most precious possession, and it is that 
  which ties him to this world now. Get the watch.
  How does it tie him to this world?
  Ghosts need to be anchored to the physical world. 
  They are kept here by unfinished business, by an inability 
  to move on… But there is always something that represents 
  that connection, a physical object that symbolizes their at-
  tachment to this world. If you can find that, and destroy it, 
  the spirit is unmoored and fades into the underworld.
  What do we do once we have the watch?
  It has to be destroyed utterly. The easiest way to do 
  it would be to take it up to the roof and attach it to the 
  lightning rod. Let the heavens destroy that which anchors 
  him to this realm and free you, and all of us.
  What about the people downstairs? They’ve gone crazy.
  They are possessed by angry shades. If you destroy 
  the watch, those ghosts will be ripped from them and 
  returned to the other side of the shroud. In that chest over 
  there, there are a few relics blessed by holy hands that will 
  allow you to harm the ghosts, rather than their hosts. The 
  innocents can be saved.
  Storyteller Goals 
  In this scene, you have three main pieces of informa-
  tion that must be imparted. Everything else is fluff in the 
  sense that it will make the characters (and players) more 
  comfortable. The main pieces of information they need to 
  save themselves and continue the story are that this will all 
  end if the pocket watch is properly destroyed, where to find 
  the pocket watch and that the blessed items in this room 
  will give the characters a better chance to survive. This is 
  not to say that Sullivan’s story is not useful or interesting, 
  particularly if you plan to continue beyond the end of 
  this scenario, but it won’t immediately contribute to the 
  characters’ survival. 
  Character Goals 
  This is the one time the characters will get to talk 
  to anyone with anything resembling an understanding 
  of what’s going on. On the other hand, Sullivan Barnes 
  is an unreliable narrator at this point. His death came 
  at the end of an extraordinarily long life, and his ghost 
  is still trying to get its bearings. Still, humans are wired 
  to try and find out the why, and though many things are 
  left unexplained in the real world, in fiction we have the 
  luxury of control. 
  Conclusion
  From here, the character’s goal is to retrieve Hill’s 
  pocket watch. Their first stop on that journey is to visit “6F 
  – Keenan’s Apartment.”
  the penthouse
  bLesseD reLics
  In the case, there are as many blessed relics 
  (each with a rating of 2 dots) as you require for 
  your troupe. You can describe these in any way 
  you desire. One might be a withered, shrunken 
  hand or paw from some beast. Another might 
  be a set of Buddhist prayer beads. Another 
  could be a rosary, while one is a fetish made 
  of feathers and a raven’s skull. The relics don’t 
  have to belong to any specific belief system. 
  They just have to have been imbued with the 
  blessing of someone who had a powerful faith 
  in that belief system.
  As long as a character is in possession of one of 
  these relics, they may damage manifested ghosts 
  or those that in possession of a physical host. To 
  use a blessed item, make a normal attack roll as 
  you would with a mundane weapon, but instead 
  of adding a damage rating as bonus dice, add 
  the item’s blessing rating (2) to your dice pool. 
  If the attack hits, each success inflicts a point of 
  Corpus damage. If the ghost is in possession of 
  a physical host, the blessed object damages the 
  ghost’s Corpus instead of the host’s Health. (For 
  more information, see “Blessed Items,” p. 56.)
  
  52 
  nightmare at hill manor
  Overview 
  The characters need to brave a supernaturally power-
  ful lightning storm to destroy the pocket watch that acts 
  as the anchor of Josiah Hill. On top of the pounding rain 
  and erratic, nearly constant lightning, the characters must 
  also face down Josiah Hill himself, at the height of his 
  mad power. 
  Description 
  Read the following aloud: 
  A bloody rain whips across the roof in torrential 
  waves. There are no clouds above, only the same black 
  void you saw through the windows downstairs. Light-
  ning strikes the rod almost constantly, accompanied by 
  thunderclaps that rattle your very bones. Wind plucks 
  at your clothes like an impatient lover. The bloody rain 
  soaks your clothes red as a hail of bone shards clatters 
  on the rooftop.
  In front of you, a…. thing… stands in the scarlet 
  rain, its arms outstretched to the heavens. It might have 
  been a man, once, but now it is a distorted, ragged thing, 
  a patchwork of flesh and bare, bleeding muscle under a 
  smoldering garment. His hair crackles and smokes in the 
  rain, and the smell of burning hair and flesh fills your 
  nostrils. He lowers his arms and turns to you. His face is 
  a nightmare. The eyes boil in their sockets, dripping and 
  running like iridescent tears down his ravaged cheeks. He 
  grins, slowly, his teeth glowing like coal.
  Combat
  Hill is deadly serious here. He will attempt to compel 
  the characters to attack one another before trying to pos-
  sess one of them (the one with the pocket watch will be his 
  primary target) to do the job himself. Hill will also use his 
  projection numen to throw the characters off-guard, making 
  them experience bits and pieces of his life—particularly the 
  part where he was burned alive.
  Storyteller Goals 
  This is the climax of the story, the iconic rooftop battle 
  that seals the fate of the characters, one way or the other. 
  Your job here is to make it awesome. Use evocative imagery 
  to describe the scene. The characters are fighting for their 
  lives against a burning ghost in a rainstorm of blood and 
  bone and lightning on a rooftop, With a little planning 
  on your part, you can give each character a moment to 
  shine in the fight, where they get to do something great. 
  Nicky and Rachel might be the best choices to try and 
  keep Hill’s attention while Thomas tethers the watch. If 
  any of them are hurt, Michael may heroically brave Hill’s 
  wrath to perform triage… And if Thomas fails to tether 
  the watch, he may step up and do it himself, no matter 
  the consequences. 
  Character Goals 
  The characters must banish the spirit of Josiah Hill. His 
  power is what pulled the building into this pocket of strange-
  ness, and it has to be broken before the building returns to 
  any semblance of normalcy. The easiest way for the characters 
  to banish him is to destroy the pocket watch he left Sullivan 
  Barnes by tethering it to the lightning rod between cracks of 
  lightning. This is a risky undertaking, made doubly so by the 
  presence of Josiah Hill himself. 
  Actions 
  Tethering the Watch 
  Dice Pool: Dexterity + Crafts 
  If the characters succeed in tethering the watch to the 
  lightning rod, read the following aloud: 
  You throw yourself away from the lightning rod as 
  soon as you get the watch tied on. And just in time, too! 
  Lightning courses through the iron, and an ear-shattering 
  clap of thunder knocks you all on your asses. 
  Everything slows to a crawl. You see, quite clearly, 
  the lightning spidering along the chain of the pocket watch, 
  the metal bubbling and melting. The face explodes in tiny 
  shards of glass. Gears rain from the watch, themselves 
  bending and melting from the superheated force of the 
  electricity tearing through them. 
  Josiah Hill’s fire flags. The smoldering ruins of his 
  body darken, and start to discorporate. His scream brings 
  back the stars.
  You are home.
  Action: Instant 
  Hindrances: Regular lightning strikes (-1), tearing 
  wind (-1)
  Help: N/A 
  Roll Results
  Dramatic Failure: The character times her attempt 
  badly, and is holding the rod when lightning strikes it. She 
  is knocked back five to ten feet and suffers five points of 
  Bashing Damage from the electrocution. 
  The Roof 
  Mental •••             Physical ••••             Social ••
  
  53 
  Failure: The character fails to tether the watch to the 
  rod. She hesitates out of fear of the lightning strikes or simply 
  misses her chance. 
  Success: The character tethers the watch successfully.
  Exceptional Success: The character tethers the watch 
  successfully. There is no additional reward beyond the satis-
  faction of a job well done.
  Conclusion
  If the characters succeed in destroying the watch or 
  otherwise getting rid of Hill, the apartment building returns 
  to normal, and the shades fade back across the shroud. The 
  dead remain, and the destruction that was wrought is still 
  there. And the characters, well, they have a lot of explain-
  ing to do. One thing that Sullivan didn’t mention to the 
  characters is that the pocket watch was also his anchor. By 
  destroying the watch, the characters consign him and Hill 
  to the same oblivion.
  Aftermath
  The characters in this story have been through an in-
  credibly traumatic event, very few people will believe their 
  experiences. In a way, they are one another’s only outlet. 
  They’re a built-in support group. They might work to inves-
  tigate haunted places, trying to keep something similar from 
  happening to others. Or they might have developed a taste 
  for it. Danger can be addictive.
  It’s always possible that with a little experience under 
  their belts, your players will want to spread their creative 
  wings and abandon the pre-generated characters in favor 
  of making up their own personas to tell stories through. If 
  that’s the case, see “Creating Your Own Character,” p. 28 
  for more information.
  And above all, have fun.
  The roof
  
  54 
  appendix
  Appendix: 
  Rules for Ghosts
  Appendix: 
  Rules for Ghosts 
  Virtues and Vices, just as living characters do. Additionally, 
  they automatically regain one point of spent Willpower at 
  the start of each day. 
  Finally, ghosts have Essence points that are spent to ac-
  tivate their Numina. Most ghosts can have up to 10 Essence 
  points (though truly old ghosts can have even more). 
  The Nature of Ghosts 
  A ghost is an intangible spirit that exists in the physical 
  world. A ghost with Finesse 1 or 2 is only aware of the area 
  around its anchor (see below), while those with Finesse 3 or 
  more can perceive the rest of their surroundings much as a 
  mortal does. 
  Ghosts cannot be seen or felt by mortals unless a spirit 
  makes a special effort to manifest (see below). Even when 
  manifested, a ghost is an ethereal, insubstantial presence. 
  Ghosts with a Power of 1 to 3 often appear as little more 
  than an eerie, glowing mist or ball of light. Ghosts with a 
  Power of 4 or 5 might seem as real and substantial as a liv-
  ing mortal—until someone tries to touch them. Ghosts pass 
  effortlessly through solid objects, even when manifested. By 
  the same token, they can’t physically touch or manipulate 
  physical objects unless they possess a specific power to do so. 
  They are immune to all types of mundane damage, and can 
  see and hear clearly regardless of environmental conditions, 
  whether in total darkness, fog or a raging storm. 
  Anchors 
  Ghosts are bound to the physical world by something 
  that anchors them there, a physical object, place or even 
  person that keeps them from moving on to whatever afterlife 
  awaits. Every ghost has at least one anchor, but some (par-
  ticularly the more powerful) may have a number of them. 
  If a ghost’s anchors are altered (subjected to sanctification 
  or exorcism–see “Dealing with Ghosts”) or destroyed, the 
  ghost can no longer remain in the physical world. It passes 
  on into the underworld and cannot return. For example, 
  when Josiah Hill, from “A Nightmare at Hill Manor” died, 
  his spirit remained trapped by the ward that was created to 
  protect him, but it also had ties to an antique pocket watch 
  that belonged to Josiah Hill that ended in the possession 
  of Sullivan Barnes after Hill’s death. With Barnes’ passing, 
  the ward was shattered, “resolving” that anchor. However, 
  his ties to the pocket watch kept him fettered to the physical 
  Ghosts are the spirits of mortals that linger in the physi-
  cal world. Some are mere echoes of the dead, the residue of 
  a soul repeating a simple pattern of actions over and over 
  again like a looping videotape. Others are true spirits that 
  have become “lost” after death. Unable to continue on into 
  the spirit realms, they haunt their old homes or workplaces, 
  growing ever more lonely and frustrated with each passing 
  decade. Still others cling to the physical realm through sheer 
  force of will, unable to leave behind unfinished business or 
  an unsolved crime. 
  This section provides basic rules for including these 
  different kinds of ghosts in your stories, detailing some of 
  their natures, goals, abilities and powers. Likewise, a few of 
  the methods that mortals can use to combat these spirits or 
  lay them to rest are also covered. 
  Ghost Traits 
  Ghosts have attributes similar to living characters, but 
  they are abbreviated to the three general categories of Power, 
  Finesse and Resistance. Power represents a ghost’s ability to 
  affect its environment, from throwing objects to opening 
  and slamming doors. Finesse represents a ghost’s capability 
  to interact with or manipulate elements of its environment, 
  from noticing the intrusions of trespassers into its “home” 
  to terrifying someone with horrifying illusions. Resistance 
  represents a ghost’s ability to withstand forces that could ban-
  ish or destroy it, from prayers to exorcisms to physical attacks 
  with blessed objects. These Attributes can potentially range 
  from 1 to 10, although only very old and powerful ghosts 
  have traits higher than 5. 
  Ghosts do not have Skills or Merits unless they possess a 
  living body. Nor do they have a Size trait in the conventional 
  sense. A ghost is a being of ephemera, a sort of spiritual 
  matter. As such, it has a “body” of sorts, but one that is 
  insubstantial to material beings and things. This ephemeral 
  body’s relative “health” is represented by a Corpus score. 
  The only weapons with which a mortal can affect a ghost’s 
  Corpus are blessed or enchanted. In most cases, a mortal’s 
  primary method of defeating a ghost is not a direct attack 
  on the shade itself, but rather the destruction of the physical 
  anchors that tie it to this world. 
  Ghosts also possess a Willpower score and Willpower 
  points may be used for them just as they are for mortals. 
  Ghosts regain Willpower by acting in accordance with their 
  
  55 
  rules for ghosts
  world. Only through the destruction of the watch (or other 
  means of resolving the anchor) could he truly be consigned 
  to the underworld. 
  Manifestations 
  When a ghost wishes to interact with mortals or the 
  physical world, it must manifest, focusing its energies into a 
  form just substantial enough to allow it a discernible pres-
  ence. A ghostly manifestation doesn’t necessarily have to be 
  visible. A sentient ghost can choose to manifest invisibly if 
  it wishes, but its presence still leaves traces that mortals can 
  detect. Examples of invisible ghostly manifestations include 
  cold spots, strange or intense odors and heightened magnetic 
  fields. See the various effects from each floor in the included 
  scenario for some examples. 
  Dealing With Ghosts 
  As antagonists, ghosts are difficult beings to confront 
  or thwart. They are immune to virtually all forms of physical 
  damage, can travel through solid objects and if pressed can 
  literally de-materialize beyond mortal reach. 
  Generally speaking, the only way for mortals to deal with 
  ghosts is through the people, places and things that anchor 
  them to the physical world. By addressing the ties that bind 
  ghosts to the Earth, it’s possible to lay them to rest–or send 
  them to the judgment they richly deserve. The included sce-
  nario includes expected methods of dealing with the main 
  ghosts therein, but a short overview of the other options is 
  included here to help you prepare for the inevitable player 
  who wants to do things their own way. 
  Severing Anchors 
  The simplest (but not necessarily easiest) method of 
  dealing with a ghost is to locate its anchors and destroy 
  them. The trouble is, anchors are not immediately obvious. 
  Oftentimes, a ghost itself isn’t aware of what ties it to the 
  physical realm. Discerning what object or objects anchor a 
  spirit requires observation, research and careful investigation. 
  Determining the identity of the ghost is the first step. Then 
  comes investigating the circumstances of its death. If the 
  ghost’s death does not provide sufficient clues to suggest its 
  anchor, more research is required to identify any personal 
  effects that could possibly act as a tie. 
  Once an anchor is identified, all that remains is to de-
  stroy the object, which is sometimes easier said than done. 
  The anchor must be damaged to the degree that it no longer 
  exists in the form that the ghost knew it. The stone of a 
  diamond ring has to be separated from the band, the band 
  melted down, and the stone split. 
  If a ghost’s anchor is a physical location rather than an 
  object, the destruction process can be difficult or even impos-
  sible. If the spirit haunts a particular hotel room, how can one 
  completely destroy a single room and leave the surrounding 
  building intact? Such situations require extraordinary mea-
  sures such as an exorcism. 
  Fulfilling Unfinished Business 
  If a ghost exists to fulfill some obligation or desire that it 
  couldn’t complete in life, it’s possible to lay the spirit to rest by 
  identifying what the ghost wants and resolving the situation. 
  Doing so can involve considerable detective work, identifying 
  the ghost and researching its past, or it might require attempts 
  to communicate directly with the spirit to learn what it wants. 
  Once the ghost’s needs are met, its anchors disappear and it 
  departs the physical world forever. 
  Abjurations 
  Abjurations are prayers or rites meant to banish a ghost 
  from the presence of the faithful, disrupting its manifesta-
  tion and keeping it at bay for a short time. Abjuration calls 
  for a contested Resolve + Composure roll versus the ghost’s 
  Power + Resistance. 
  Characters can acquire the specifics of an abjura-
  tion prayer or rite with a little time and research. What’s 
  most important is the knowledge and focus of the person 
  performing the prayer. To perform an abjuration without 
  suffering any penalties, a character must have a minimum 
  Morality of 8 and a minimum Occult or Academics (Re-
  ligion) of 3. The Morality score reflects the character’s 
  purity of thought and intent, while the Skill dots reflect 
  a minimum degree of experience and training in the per-
  formance of the rite. For every dot of Morality below 8 or 
  Skill below 3, the abjuration roll suffers a -1 penalty. By the 
  same token, every dot of Morality above 8 or Skill above 3 
  offers a +1 modifier, reflecting the character’s extraordinary 
  focus and experience. 
  Dramatic Failure: Your character is utterly overwhelmed 
  by the sheer force of the ghost’s drive and determination. He 
  loses one point of Willpower and can perform no further 
  abjurations for the rest of the day.
  Failure: Your character’s faith or capability is found want-
  ing, and the ghost is unmoved by the prayer. Your character 
  can attempt the abjuration again if he wishes.
  Success: Your character’s faith or capability drives the 
  ghost from his vicinity. The ghost is forced to de-manifest 
  and cannot manifest again within the character’s line of sight 
  until the following day.
  Exceptional Success: The ghost is completely overawed 
  by your character’s faith or capability. The ghost is forced to 
  de-manifest and cannot manifest again anywhere until the 
  following day. 
  Exorcisms 
  Exorcisms are special rites of sanctification that popu-
  lar myth has relegated to cases of demonic Possession, but 
  
  56 
  appendix
  they in fact can be used to uproot and banish any form 
  of spirit from the physical world. Like an abjuration, an 
  exorcism is more about the person who performs the rite 
  than the words spoken, and is primarily a contest of wills 
  between mortal and spirit. A character who performs an 
  exorcism wants a minimum Morality of 8 and a minimum 
  Occult or Academics (Religion) of 3 to avoid incurring 
  penalties on the exorcism roll. For every dot of Moral-
  ity below 8 or Skill below 3, a -1 penalty is suffered. For 
  every dot of Morality above 8 or Skill above 3, a +1 bonus 
  is gained. 
  An exorcism is a contested and extended action, with 
  each roll representing five minutes of incantation and prayer. 
  Roll Resolve + Composure for the character performing the 
  exorcism, and the ghost’s Power + Resistance. On each roll, 
  the side with the most successes (regardless of total successes 
  achieved) causes the other to lose one point of Willpower. 
  The exorcism rolls continue until the character voluntarily 
  abandons the attempt or one side runs out of Willpower. If 
  the character runs out of Willpower, he falls into a catatonic 
  state, ravaged both physically and emotionally. If the ghost 
  runs out of Willpower, it is unable to maintain its hold on 
  its anchor(s) and is banished from the physical realm, never 
  to return. 
  If neither side gets any successes or both sides get the 
  same number of successes in a roll, the battle continues for 
  another five minutes with no one losing Willpower. 
  If multiple people participate in an exorcism, treat the 
  effort like teamwork (p. 5). One participant is the primary, 
  and all secondaries may or may not contribute bonuses to 
  the primary’s roll in each stage of the rite. The primary loses 
  all Willpower for his “side.” 
  Dramatic Failure: Your character (or the ghost) suffers 
  a terrible shock that reverberates to the core of his being. A 
  -2 penalty is imposed on his next roll.
  Failure: Your character (or the ghost) comes up short 
  in the battle of wills.
  Success: Your character (or the ghost) has energy and 
  determination. The opponent loses one Willpower point if 
  you get the most successes.
  Exceptional Success: Your character (or the ghost) 
  inflicts a crippling blow against the opposition’s faith or 
  conviction. If you get the most successes, your opponent 
  loses two Willpower points instead of one. 
  Blessed Items
  Like prayers or rites, blessed or sanctified objects that are 
  infused with faith can be used to physically disrupt a ghost, 
  damaging or destroying it utterly. Blessed or enchanted items 
  are among the only means by which a physical attack can harm 
  a manifested spirit. Damage comes from the faith invested in 
  the object rather than from the force of the swing. 
  A blessed or sacred object can be anything from an 
  ancient wooden cross to a well-worn Qur’an to a set of Bud-
  dhist prayer beads. Blessed items have a ranking from 1 to 
  5, representing the weight of belief imbued in them. Truly 
  blessed items in the modern world are almost always relics 
  from older, more superstitious times. Their blessing is a 
  mysterious power afforded by faith. It is entirely up to the 
  Storyteller to determine if an item is blessed or not. A cross 
  that was carried for years by a saintly missionary might come 
  to possess an aura of faith, while a book used by a popular 
  preacher on a nationally televised show might never acquire 
  such resonance. It is impossible to predict where faith will 
  flower into physical manifestation. Likewise, it’s hard for 
  mere mortals to know whether or not a holy relic is infused 
  with faith until it’s tested against the supernatural. Certain 
  supernatural creatures can sometimes sense a divine aura, 
  but mortals have no such capability.
  
  57 
  pregenerated characters
  Thomas Booth 
  Quote: “Sure, I can help you study. Come over 
  around… seven?” 
  Virtue: Charity. Thomas can’t resist helping those 
  in need. 
  Vice: Lust. Thomas has a definite weakness for the ladies. 
  Background: A bright child, Thomas grew up on the 
  university campus where his parents taught. His mother was 
  an English professor, while his father coached the school’s 
  baseball team. Each of his parents made (what they thought 
  were) subtle attempts to encourage Thom’s interest in their 
  chosen passion, but he never understood why he couldn’t 
  love both. Throughout school, Thomas pursued three things: 
  knowledge, athletics and girls, not necessarily in that order. 
  By the time he actually enrolled at the university he was 
  already well-known to the faculty. They kept an eye on him 
  like family, which turned out to be a double-edged sword. 
  They were glad to help, but just as glad to dish out advice 
  and meddle in his affairs. (“Oh Thomas, I don’t mean to 
  pry, but do you really mean to date her? She’s a C student at 
  best. You can do better.”) 
  Eventually, it became something of a badge of honor 
  for his professors to disapprove of his girlfriends. But that’s 
  where his rebellion stopped. He worked his way through the university and graduated with a degree in English before get-
  ting his masters in library science. 
  For Thomas, the decision was always easy. He knew he wasn’t good enough to go pro, no matter how much he loved 
  baseball. He also couldn’t imagine leaving the halls of academia. It afforded him access to books and kept him on campus 
  which means, at least for now, that it keeps him close to girls. Eventually, he’ll grow up and settle down, but he sees no 
  reason to do that just yet. 
  Thomas moved into Hill Manor Apartments just over a year ago. He likes the place; it’s a far cry from the wood panel-
  ing and old world design of his parents’ house, but the early 20th century architecture of the building feels familiar. Within 
  a month, Thomas was recruited by Janice for the poker game. Another neighbor, Keenan is a student at the university, and 
  Thomas knows him from the library. 
  Description: Thomas is a wiry man of average height, with brown hair. He plays to his strengths, dressing well, with a 
  kind of geek chic that makes him attractive instead of nerdy. He carries himself with a grace and athleticism that surprises 
  people who expect the awkward and clumsy stereotypical librarian. 
  Roleplaying Hints: You’re smart, but not in a pedantic way. You use your observational skills and knowledge to surprise 
  and impress people, particularly girls, not to make them feel stupid. On the other hand, you’re nearly as comfortable on 
  the field as in the library, so you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty. 
  
  Notes         
  Name: 
  Virtue: 
  Faction:
  Concept: 
  Vice: 
  Group Name:
  Intelligence 
  Strength 
  Presence
  Wits 
  Dexterity 
  Manipulation
  Resolve 
  Stamina 
  Composure
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
      Willpower     
       Health        
       Skills                Merits         
  Morality
  Size
  Speed
  Defense
  Initiative Mod
  Armor
       Flaws 
   
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
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  o o o o o o o o o o o o
  o o o o o o o o o o
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  Thomas Booth
  Rough and Tumble Librarian
  Charity
  Lust
  Academics 
  (English lit)
  Computer
  Investigation
  Occult
  Science
  Athletics
  (Running)
  Brawl
  Empathy
  Expression
  Persuasion
  (Flirting)
  Socialize
  Streetwise
  Encyclopedic Knowledge
  Language (Latin)
  Fighting Style 
  (Kung Fu)
  7
  5
  11
  3
  5
  
  59 
  pregenerated characters
  Nishan "Nicky  
  Sims" Sadoyan 
  Quote: “I do what I gotta do.” 
  Virtue: Fortitude. Nicky has a somewhat stoic, “it is what it is” 
  mentality about hardship. 
  Vice: Wrath. Nishan tries to remain hopeful, to believe in an-
  other way, but his life has continually presented him with obstacles 
  that needed to be knocked down. 
  Background: Nishan grew up a nomad. His father kept him 
  moving, from one score to the next, across the rapidly changing 
  landscape of the former Soviet Union. He sat in the back of a Lada 
  Niva playing with toys while his father brokered drug deals in Gori. 
  As a teen, he kept a lookout for Russian authorities while his father 
  broke into a house in Moscow. When they came, he ran. 
  For a while, he bounced around the region on his own, stealing 
  food to get by, squatting in abandoned factories and half-finished 
  “luxury” apartment buildings. Eventually he fell into a smuggling 
  operation and ended up on a ship bound for Canada. From there, 
  he snuck across the border into the United States, and eventually 
  wound up here. 
  Nishan tried to go legit. He called in a favor with someone he’d known in Chambarak, and got himself decent papers. 
  He got a job, working in a convenience store on the late shift. People liked “Nicky,” and Nicky liked people. Everything was 
  going well, life was boring and predictable and oh, so peaceful. 
  Until the robbery. 
  He was there with the fucking gun in his stupid, shaking hand. He was strung out, looking for a score. Nicky knew that 
  was the end of it. A junky like that is more dangerous than a pro—hand over the cash and the pro’ll get the hell out without 
  risking extra charges. “Never trust a junky, Nisha,” his father used to say, so Nicky took the gun away from him. Stupid 
  junky. Now the cops would come, and they’d look too closely at his ID and Nishan would have to move on. Nicky pulled the 
  would-be robber over the counter. He was still beating him when Anton, the store’s owner got there and pulled him off. 
  The cops never came. It turned out that the store was a front, used by Anton and his associates to launder money. 
  Anton was, as he put it, “diversifying.” And he was impressed with Nicky’s performance. Nishan was told that the robber 
  had died from the beating. A shame, but Anton’s friends could channel Nicky’s temper to more profitable ends. 
  Nicky started doing odd jobs for Anton. Nothing big, at first. Acting as a black-market gofer wasn’t what he wanted for his 
  life in America, but got used to it. Eventually he graduated to delivering strange, locked coolers that he suspected held more 
  than a few sodas and ice. Finally, Anton sent Nicky out to do collections. He tried to make it simple. Pay the money or get out of 
  town, he offered, but they always strung him along. “I’ll pay you this Friday,” they’d say, but then they wouldn’t have it. They’d 
  cajole and argue and, when that didn’t work, they’d yell at Nicky. Like he was the one who got them so far in debt to someone 
  like his boss. Like he was hassling them, when he had tried to do them a favor. So he hurt them, like Anton wanted. 
  He started to get used to that, too. 
  As the pay got better, Nicky moved into Hill Manor Apartments. He pays his rent on time, and keeps anything related 
  to work at the convenience store in a lockbox hidden in the back of the freezer. Home is supposed to be quiet, a safe haven 
  away from the inevitable demands Anton makes on him. He wasn’t there a week before Janice started coming around, inviting 
  him to poker games and socials. She’s a nice person, and her poker game is actually kind of fun, when he can make it. 
  Description: Nicky is a thickly built, hirsute man who stands a few inches under six feet tall. He has a perpetual five o’clock 
  shadow even just after shaving. He looks older than he is—the life of a vagabond stray took its toll before he found his way to Hill  
  Manor Apartments. 
  Roleplaying Hints: You do your best to fit in. Nicky doesn’t want to be remembered as “that foreign guy.” Despite 
  your Armenian accent, you try hard to be seen as American. Part of this is an attempt to forget your past and make a new 
  life here in the United States, but another part of it is camouflage. You know Rachel is a cop, and the last thing you want 
  is for her to find out about your extra-curricular activities. You don’t actually want to be a criminal, but you will always do 
  what’s necessary to survive, and crime is where your skills lie. 
  
  Notes         
  Name: 
  Virtue: 
  Faction:
  Concept: 
  Vice: 
  Group Name:
  Intelligence 
  Strength 
  Presence
  Wits 
  Dexterity 
  Manipulation
  Resolve 
  Stamina 
  Composure
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
      Willpower     
       Health        
       Skills                Merits         
  Morality
  Size
  Speed
  Defense
  Initiative Mod
  Armor
       Flaws 
   
  ooooo
  ooooo
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  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
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  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  o o o o o o o o o o o o
  o o o o o o o o o o
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  Nicky Sims
  Small Time Hood
  Fortitude
  Wrath
  Athletics
  (Escape)
  Brawl
  Stealth
  Weaponry
  Streetwise
  Subterfuge
  Language (English)
  7
  5
  10
  2
  4
  Computer
  Crafts
  Investigation
  (Casing)
  Firearms
  Intimidation
  Persuasion
  Larceny
  (Lockpicking)
  Resources
  
  61 
  pregenerated characters
  Rachel O'Hara 
  Quote: “Put on the cuffs and I won’t have to hurt you.” 
  Virtue: Justice. Rachel feels fulfilled when things go 
  right and justice is served.
  Vice: Gluttony. When things get bad, Rachel drowns 
  her sorrows in a bottle of whisky.
  Background: Rachel comes from a cop family. Her 
  father, Joe, was a good Irish Catholic boy, the favorite son. 
  At least, he was until he married a Jewish girl named Irene. 
  His brothers mocked him for it, but his dad just said, “at least 
  she’s not a Protestant.” Irene’s family threatened to disown 
  her for marrying a gentile. So Rachel grew up here, away from 
  the bulk of the family in Boston, just because her dad was 
  tired of getting grief from both sides of the family. 
  Joe was a cop, old fashioned and hard-nosed. Rachel’s 
  granddad once told her that Joe’d been born with the 
  nightstick in his hand. He’d been a cop too until he retired, 
  along with her great-grandfather and his father before him. 
  Joe figured the dynasty was done, but to Rachel, it was 
  never a question. She joined the academy as soon as she 
  was of age. 
  She worked her way up from pounding pavement on 
  the street to her current position as a detective. When she got her detective badge, her granddad told her it was “adequate,” 
  despite the fact that he’d never made detective in his entire career. 
  Rachel moved into Hill Manor apartments with a guy, but they broke up. She liked the place, so she kept it. She even 
  likes the poker game, though she has a feeling Mike’s got a problem.
  Description: Rachel has shoulder-length brown hair that she usually keeps pulled back into a ponytail, and a scattering 
  of freckles across her strong face. Physically, she’s pretty, but the tension in her—the intensity—makes her beautiful.
  Roleplaying Hints: You’re constantly trying to prove yourself. You grew up on the crossroads between two worlds, and 
  you were never quite good enough for either. So you have to be better than both. Given the situation here, your first priority 
  is to gather survivors and protect them while leading your people out of this. 
  
  Notes         
  Name: 
  Virtue: 
  Faction:
  Concept: 
  Vice: 
  Group Name:
  Intelligence 
  Strength 
  Presence
  Wits 
  Dexterity 
  Manipulation
  Resolve 
  Stamina 
  Composure
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
      Willpower     
       Health        
       Skills                Merits         
  Morality
  Size
  Speed
  Defense
  Initiative Mod
  Armor
       Flaws 
   
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  o o o o o o o o o o o o
  o o o o o o o o o o
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  Rachel O’Hara
  Legacy Cop
  Justice
  Gluttony
  Athletics
  Brawl
  Empathy
  Weaponry
  Streetwise
  Status (Police)
  7
  5
  9
  2
  5
  Academics
  Computer
  Investigation
  Firearms
  Intimidation
  Larceny
  Resources
  Politics
  Drive
  Strong Lungs
  Weapons/attacks
  Type 
  Dmg 
  Range 
  Shots 
  Dice Pool
  Pistol, Lt. 
  2 
  20/40/80 
  17+1 
  7
  
  63 
  pregenerated characters
  Michael Nero 
  Quote: “Apply pressure.” 
  Virtue: Faith. Michael has faith that in preserving life, 
  he gives meaning to his own.
  Vice: Gluttony. Michael’s got a weakness for painkillers. 
  Background: Michael’s a hard worker. He always has 
  been. When he was young, Michael spent his summers help-
  ing his grandfather renovate the family’s vacation house. 
  It was his escape from the harsh city and its dangers. He 
  was convinced that everyone in his family was going to get 
  mugged or hit by a drunk driver or any number of other 
  morbid nightmares he had about the city’s horrors. But it 
  was different here. Calm, soothing. He rehung walls with 
  his grandfather, installed new windows and even helped out 
  with the roofing. It was nice to do things with his hands, to 
  see the immediate difference from his work. 
  One day, while he was on the roof, he saw his grand-
  father fall in the yard. He whispered to the boy that it 
  felt like a demon was sitting on his chest. By the time the 
  paramedics arrived, Michael’s grandfather was dead. They 
  tried for twenty minutes to resuscitate him, but there was 
  nothing they could do. 
  Michael never went out to the vacation house again. The family sold it a few summers later, but Michael had already 
  learned a lesson from it and moved on: death comes everywhere. He blamed himself for failing his grandfather. He should 
  have been able to help him. He read up on heart attacks, and if he had only done this, or given him that, he could have 
  saved him. His family thought he was being noble when he started school to be a paramedic. 
  To Michael, death is meaningless violence, fear and indignity. Life has meaning, and must be preserved, if only to stave 
  off the entropy of death. He started riding the night streets with his partner, and soon he discovered that he doesn’t actually 
  have the resources to deal with the constant loss of patients.
  But the pills take the edge off that. 
  Description: Michael has a gaunt look to him, like he doesn’t get nearly enough sleep. His uncombed hair is wild 
  and thick. Three days of stubble is scattered across his cheeks and chin, and the worst part is, it works for him. He’s 
  more attractive when everything’s just slightly askew than he is when he cleans up. Which is basically how he likes it.
  Roleplaying Hints: You look like you don’t get enough sleep because you seriously don’t get enough sleep. Between 
  the wonky hours of driving an ambulance and the dreams, you have severe insomnia most of the time. You’re tempted to 
  blow off the ghost thing as hallucinations, whether from the drugs or the sleep deprivation, you don’t know. 
  
  Notes         
  Name: 
  Virtue: 
  Faction:
  Concept: 
  Vice: 
  Group Name:
  Intelligence 
  Strength 
  Presence
  Wits 
  Dexterity 
  Manipulation
  Resolve 
  Stamina 
  Composure
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
      Willpower     
       Health        
       Skills                Merits         
  Morality
  Size
  Speed
  Defense
  Initiative Mod
  Armor
       Flaws 
   
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  o o o o o o o o o o o o
  o o o o o o o o o o
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  Michael Nero
  Strung Out Paramedic
  Faith
  Gluttony
  Occult
  Drive
  Empathy
  Natural Immunity
  7
  5
  10
  2
  5
  Academics
  Investigation
  Athletics
  Weaponry
  Iron Stamina
  Resources
  Medicine
  (Emergency Care)
  Science
  (Chemistry)
  Brawl
  (Dirty Tricks)
  Streetwise
  Persuasion
  Status (Paramedic)
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Storyteller [multi]/World of Darkness (WoD) [multi]/CofD/Chronicles of Darkness/SAS/WtWf-nWoD_NightmareAtHillManor.pdf