Expanding AWOD

[Orion]

You know, if we're changing Potence and Dominate, why not just change all of them? There are only 5 disciplines left, and while celerity and auspex are real words, I think both are associated with WW in the public's eye. Also Obfuscate is a verb. Only Fortitude and Presence really work, and Presence sounds a lot like Authority (to me).

Here's what I recommend:

Potence -> Force (this includes the strength-boosters and the telekinesis)
Presence -> Mystique
Dominate -> Authority
Obfuscate -> Cloak (both "I cloak" and "I use cloak" are acceptable)

The others I'm less sure of.

I like Celerity -> Quickness (though you need a new name for the basic). Other possibilities are Speed and Reflex. Speed would be my favorite, except that "Advanced Speed" sounds odd.

Fortitude can probably stay Fortitude. If we want to change it, um... Vigor? Vitality? Grit?

Auspex is the original name I'd be most sad to see go. It's a cool word for a collection of powers that are hard to describe. The best I can come up with is "Insight" or "Clarity."

[erik]

Auspex is the original name I'd be most sad to see go. It's a cool word for a collection of powers that are hard to describe. The best I can come up with is "Insight" or "Clarity."

How about Second Sight?

[Quantumboost]

Also Obfuscate is a verb.

That discipline's called Obfuscation (a noun) in the actual discipline section of the aWoD doc, but the verb form is used pretty often in other places - non-primary disciplines of monster descriptions, devotion titles, and a few others.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Celerity is an actual word (and a noun), so it doesn't need to change. "Alacrity", however, comes close in feel.

"Obfuscation", as QB said, is a fine word. "Occultation" or "Veil" would be good replacements, though.

I prefer "Dominion" or "Domination" to "Authority", because they sound less legitimate.

"Mystique" does have a certain je ne sais quoi.

For Auspex, I like "Perspicacity", "Divination", and the current "Clairvoyance", but "Observation" really shines when you "use your powers of Observation". Perspicacity and Clairvoyance go better with shit like Telepathy.

Finally, "Casting of Shadows" would be a decent replacement for Obtenebration. If you don't like puns, "Web/Weaving of Darkness/Shadows/Night" could work.

[Orion]

With Presence gone, we can do Auspex -> Prescience

[Username17]

With Presence gone, we can do Auspex -> Prescience

Well, one of the powers is Retrocognition. I'm currently using "Clairvoyance" for the same reason retrocognition and such are in Clairvoyance in HERO.

"Casting of Shadows" would be a decent replacement for Obtenebration.

Right now I'm using "Play of Shadows", which is also a pun.

"Obfuscation", as QB said, is a fine word. "Occultation" or "Veil" would be good replacements, though.

Veil is good because it's as good as Obfuscation but it doesn't sound like something White Wolf did. I'll do that.

Fortitude can stay where it is because Whitewolf dumped it for nWoD anyway. Their new stuff calls the toughening discipline "Resilience". Also: it sucks hard.

-Username17

[Username17]

Ripping IP out of the Obfuscation and Obtenebration disciplines:

Veil
...Now you don't.

Veil is the ability to draw upon one's magical nature to hide things from view. Veil does not affect cameras or other objective traces of a creature's passing, merely prevents observers (even indirect observers) from noticing what is there. Normally, Veil can only take effect while the target is not being observed. If observation is continuous, the observers will not see any change. Onlookers do not normally have any say in what they see as presented to them by Veil any more than they have any choice to not see things that are actually there. Characters who have Clairvoyance powers active or who carefully search the area that the character is in have a chance to perceive through it by making an Intuition + Perception test against the number of hits made to activate the power. Anything a character covered by Veil carries is likewise covered by Veil and anything that the character stops carrying will cease being covered by Veil. An onlooker who notices an object pass into or out of Veil pierces the Veil altogether. Veil is inherently multisensory, onlookers are just as fooled if they close their eyes and listen or try to smell the character as they are relying entirely on their eyes.

Basic Powers

• Hide From Notice While active, the character is not noticed so long as they don't do anything incredibly obvious to give themselves away. Activating Hide From Notice is a Simple Action and requires an Agility + Stealth or Intuition + Survival test. Hide From Notice can be disrupted as if it were a Sorcery with a power source identical to the character using it.
• Mask of a Thousand Faces While active, those who meet the character will treat them as if they were a different person. The character may choose the appearance (including clothing and carried items) freely, but taking any action that would be impossible for the facade allows onlookers to see through the illusion. For example, if a character uses the Mask to appear as a person who had no gun and then fires their gun, people would see them as they really are. Activating Mask of a Thousand Faces is a Simple Action and requires an Agility + Stealth or Charisma + Larceny test. Mask of a Thousand Faces can be disrupted as if it were a Sorcery with a power source identical to the character using it.

Advanced Powers

• Lost and Found By spending a power point, a carried object can continue being covered by Veil after it leaves physical contact with the character. The character makes an Agility + Stealth or Intuition + Larceny test and the Veil remains affecting the object for an hour (time frame increases with additional hits). Lost and Found can be disrupted as if it were a Sorcery with a power source identical to the character using it.
• Hide in Plain Sight By spending a power point, the character may activate other powers of Veil while being observed. All onlookers are entitled to a resistance check as if they had been carefully searching the area, but if they fail to notice the discrepancy, their mind will fill in vague details that excuse the character's disappearance.

Elder Powers

• Silent Cacophony A character with Silent Cacophony can allow their Veil powers to be used by others, so long as they stay within 20 meters per point of Potency of the character. Characters so veiled and veiling can still perceive each other in the same way that a self-veiled character can see themselves.
• Soul Mask A character with Soul Mask can fool magical detection. Making a successful Charisma + Stealth or Intuition + Medicine test, Soul Mask character can appear to feel, think, or be whatever they want others to perceive under magical investigation unless the magical investigator gets more hits activating their power. Changing one's Soul Mask is a Complex action that costs a power point, but continuing to have fake thoughts and emotions pass that are consistent with one's false existence requires no action at all.

Play of Shadows
“Spooky. Seriously.”

Play of Shadows is a sorcerous discipline that governs and depends upon shadows. Darkness is in no short supply in something called the “After Sundown” and areas with no light at all can be thought of as being like some singular giant shadow. Even extremely bright lights cause objects to cast shadows that are really quite noticeable. As such, in a general sort of way, the fact that Play of Shadows requires shadows to function is pretty much a formality. However, if characters are in the process of sky diving or are in the areas of exceptional ambient light, the powers of Play of Shadows can seriously be neutralized. Having Play of Shadows makes a character sneakier and spookier, giving them a +1 bonus to Stealth and Intimidate. This bonus increases to +2 with Advanced, and +3 with Elder Play of Shadows.

Basic Powers

• Eyes of the Night The character can see and hear out of distant shadows. The character can see in darkness at any time (unlike Supernatural Senses, this use does not render the character susceptible to glare), and by spending a power point they can draw their senses from a pool of darkness that is within 100 meters per Potency. The character makes an Intuition + Empathy or Intuition + Perception check, with a threshold based on how accurately they can describe the shadow they wish to peer out of. Eyes of the Night are covert.
• Shadow Casting The character's lighting appears to have been done by professional special effects technicians. They can manipulate shadows and to a lesser extent light as well. This gives a +2 bonus to any attempt to become the center of attention or to escape unnoticed. This bonus increases to +4 with Advanced Play of Shadows and +6 with Elder Play of Shadows. The Shadow Casting can be dispelled as a spell with 3 hits.

Advanced Powers

• Cloak of Shadow The character can wrap light around themselves completely, becoming completely transparent along with everything they are carrying. The character still casts a normal shadow and cannot alter their own shadow while the cloak is in place. Invoking the Cloak of Shadow takes a Complex Action and a Power Point, and requires an Intuition + Empathy or Intuition + Stealth check. The cloak lasts 5 minutes, and net hits increase the timeframe. The cloak works on anything that uses light – including cameras – but has no effect on sounds or smells. The character can dismiss their own Cloak of Shadow at any time as a Simple Action.
• Solid Darkness The character can spend a power point to fashion steel hard tendrils of solid shadow and use them to grasp, carry and tear. The darkness can extend out to a meter per Potency from its source Shadow, and has Strength equal to the Character's Intuition. The source shadow must be within line of sight of the character and the origin of the shadows can move along continuously shadowed paths at the rate of a careful walk. Solid Darkness is completely silent, and can rather easily grab someone by complete surprise. Directing the tendrils of shadow is a Simple Action. Solid Darkness can be dispelled as if it had 3 hits. Solid Darkness vanishes the next time the sun rises. The Solid Darkness can grab or disarm using its own Strength and the Character's Combat skill.

Elder Powers

• Shadow Walk The character can step into one shadow and come out of another one that they can perceive. The transportation itself is a Simple Action that costs 1 Power to activate. No intervening space is used, and nothing can block the movement. The character may take anything and anyone they or their shadow tendrils can carry. Parambulum in Tenebris can be dispelled as if it had 3 hits.
• Shadow Body The character can transform into an intangible shadow form. A body of shadow can pass harmlessly through physical objects save for those of a material they are vulnerable to. Entering or leaving the Shadow Body is a Complex Action. Assuming the Shadow Body takes a power point. Being made out of pure shadow makes it very easy to hide in areas which have any dimness worth mentioning. But it's also super hard to explain from a Vow of Silence point of view. Shadow Body is a Protean Power. Shadow Body can be dispelled as if it had 3 hits.

[Orion]

"darkness is in no short supply in something called the after sundown" methinks you need to run some search replaces to kill errant articles.

EDIT: I really don't think Clairvoyance works as a name for the divination discipline. I have three complaints; the first two are piddly bullshit, the third I think is significant.

1: I know that the dictionary definition is broad enough to cover all the effects, but as a D&D player I expect Clairvoyance to be about vision. D&D-style Clairvoyance effects do exist, but in other disciplines.

2: It's an extremely ugly word, in my personal opinion.

3: It's out of theme. The other disciplines have mostly been named not functionally, but as traits of character. Going by what you've posted so far, you're looking at (clout, presence, authority, celerity, fortitude, veil) while my favored list is (force, mystique, authority, reflex, fortitude, veil).

Either way, they aren't technical terms like Clairvoyance; they're aspects of personality. This lets you metagame ("she's got a lot of clout") and it makes things pretentious in a gothy way instead of a nerdy way.

Therefore, I recommend that the discipline be named Insight. As in, "Any Insights to share?" "I asked you along because I value your Insight" and "He's got a lot of Insight for one so young."

[Quantumboost]

Parambulum in Tenebris can be dispelled as if it had 3 hits.

Should be Shadow Walk

Shadow Body is a Protean Power.

Is "Protean" on the list of terminology that both can and should be kept?

[Username17]

"darkness is in no short supply in something called the after sundown" methinks you need to run some search replaces to kill errant articles.

Good point. Actually in that case, the existence of extra quotation marks made the find and replace function fail. Have to do it by hand, obviously. Shame.

Insight

I'm willing to dump clairvoyance. It's only three syllables and not very hard to say, but it looks much more daunting than that because it is 12 fucking letters long and makes you instantly win at Scrabble. But Insight doesn't fly at all. The described power allows you to collect information from outside of your self. That would be good with names like Observation or Inspection, but is on at least one major axis the exact opposite of Insight, which is coming to conclusions based on things you already know.

-Username17

[CatharzGodfoot]

"Silent Cacophony" is a cool name that unfortunately sounds too much like "Sound of Silence" (the Frozen Note power). "Enveloping Veils" or "Masquerade" sound more like Veil powers.

[Maxus]

Insight

I'm willing to dump clairvoyance. It's only three syllables and not very hard to say, but it looks much more daunting than that because it is 12 fucking letters long and makes you instantly win at Scrabble. But Insight doesn't fly at all. The described power allows you to collect information from outside of your self. That would be good with names like Observation or Inspection, but is on at least one major axis the exact opposite of Insight, which is coming to conclusions based on things you already know.

-Username17

'ESP' might fit the bill there.

[Winnah]

discernment may also work

[Username17]

discernment may also work

Good call.

-Username17

[Orion]

The word "discernment" is now owned by Evangelicals. don't fight them for it. Meanwhile Insight means "seeing into things" not "seeing inside yourself." Merriam-Webster says it is "the power or act of seeing into a situation : penetration"

Not only does this perfectly fit Divination, Telepathy, and Retrocognition, it metaphorically fits with the basics, allowing you penetrate (or pierce) darkness or magic. Sure, it's an extension of the word, but it is
exactly the kind of extension that allows you to lift cars with your Clout.

[Username17]

.
Persona non Grata

Some things you're better off not knowing about. Some objects, too.

The realm of horror is a pretty big place, and it's full of crazy crap. And lots of that stuff is unique. So while the rules make a good starting point for the creation of characters, they are only that: a starting point. Each individual person and twisted tale of tormented tools is going to be – at least ideally – crafted individually. This chapter contains some samples that have been made ready to use in the game, as well as some pointers on how to go about making your own.

It is important to note that the various nouns selected here are merely examples, and while it is fine to grab them for use in your own campaign, it is well within the prerogative of the MC to modify them or write them out entirely. People in the world of After Sundown believe in these people, places, and things in roughly the same way that people believe in Madison Wisconsin or the President of the United States: they probably have never been there or met them personally, but their existence doesn't seem implausible and other people talk about them as if they were real. However, on the far side of the Vow of Silence it is notably difficult to go check C-Span or the equivalent. The normal clues that someone is enlarging upon a tale or a description of a person simply don't apply when discussing a supernatural creature – when they got angry maybe they literally caught fire. So it's pretty easy for a story to get exaggerated after multiple repetitions. The Wolf Mother of Ergenekon probably wasn't really 6 meters long (although she may have been).

People
No you should've stayed out of my way. Do not test me, 'cause I'm the fucking king of the world!

Making NPCs is likely the part of storytelling that the MC will be called upon to do the most. Many times, players will take the action to some place unexpected. Maybe they will have a throwdown in a bowling alley, or decide to follow up on some minor rumors about the docks. It is a good idea to have a cast of characters who can be used with modest adjustments in lieu of other characters who suddenly become important. Some of this can – and should – be done in the form of having a script of random bullshit for non-player characters to make small talk with. The use and re-use of common small talk phrases by random people in various parts of the chronicle can quickly become a running gag, which frees the PCs to explore in a more sandbox fashion.

What follows are some sample characters. It is entirely intentional that these characters are entirely recognizable rips from popular culture. Ultimately when creating NPC cast members of your own, you will want to transform ideas in your mind into the numbers and abilities that represent a character in After Sundown. Therefore it is more useful as an example for the sample characters to be ones which you could plausibly be familiar with the idea in addition to the stats themselves.

Dean
Dean spent several years as a slave soldier to the King of Three Shadows after he sold his soul to get a family member raised from the dead. Since escaping from Limbo, he spends most of his time traveling the country and killing monsters, which has earned him a place as a respected hunter in the Stellar Oracles, but a noted name on the shit list of several Makhzen Princes.
Dean is a Fallen. He is rather brash and tends to leap into danger as soon as he sees the barest opportunity to do so. In combat he will activate Quickness immediately, and when investigating things he will generally mimic a governmental authority figure. Dean's Powers grant him a +2 bonus to Socialization and a similar bonus to people asking about him later, and he almost never shies from this, grabbing the center of attention with Atract any time he enters a bar. He gains a +2 bonus to soak damage against weapons that are not iron, and personally has a true name that he does not use (Taxiarch Μιχαήλ) and knows the true name of everyone he runs into. Dean deals with a Master Passion of Rage, though admittedly, not very well.

• S: 4; A: 5; I: 3; L: 1; W: 2; C: 5; Edge: 3; Potency: 1.
  Skills: Athletics 4; Combat 6; Drive 3 [+2]; Larceny (Palming) 5; Perception 3; Stealth 5; Survival 3;
  Bureaucracy (Government) 2; Empathy 3; Expression 1; Intimidation (Fear Mongering) 5; Persuasion (Fast Talk) 3; Tactics 6
  Electronics (Wiring) 2; Medicine (First Aid) 1; Operations (Repair) 2; Rigging (Lockpicking) 4; Research 1 (Archives); Sabotage (Explosives) 4
  Backgrounds: Bar Scene 6, Ballistics 6, Credit Fraud 5, Hell Mouths 4, Infernal Politics 4, Christian Splinter Groups 3, Cars 3, Sports Teams 2, Chemistry 2
  Powers: [Fallen] Attract, Repel, Deny the Gauntlet, Mask of a Thousand Faces, Patience of the Mountain, Learn the Heart's Pain, Suggestion, Quickness, Dismissal, Desire Reflection, Façade of Nonchalance, Bind the Name
  Advantages and Disadvantages: Attractive, Diplomatic Incident, Feared by Children
  Equipment: Shotgun [4], Colt 1911 (silver bullets) [3], Badass Jacket, Numerous hidden knives [1], sand (including sand cartridges for the shotgun), salt (including salt cartridges for the shotgun), Lockpick set, Chevy Impala

Jack
Jack is a trucker who has been married many times and lived many different lives in many different cities. And that's even before you factor in the fact that he has begun to remember past incarnations of himself, where he apparently used to be a warrior in ancient China. He is openly skeptical that these “memories” are anything other than particularly vivid and weird dreams, but nonetheless finds himself embroiled in some seriously weird shit. Driven by a constant feeling that things are not right, Jack seeks out and gets new relationships frequently. And while he frequently just drifts off from his previous lives and interests (and has a legacy of failed marriage to show for it), he doesn't specifically do anything bad, and maintains a friendship with all of his ex-wives.
Jack is a Reborn. Jack has a Master Passion of Despair. Jack's disciplines grant him a +2 bonus to Socialization and a similar bonus to people asking about him later, an ability he calls upon only if the subtle approach fails. Jack often tries to get through confrontation without drawing upon magical powers at all, but if he feels in danger he will reset things and go into full speed mode. After all, as Jack always says “it's all in the reflexes.”

• S: 3[+1]; A: 4; I: 4; L: 2; W: 5; C: 2; Edge: 3; Potency: 1.
  Skills: Athletics 2; Combat (Knives) 4; Drive 6; Larceny (Security Systems) 3; Perception 4 [+4]; Stealth 3 [+1]; Survival 2
  Animal Ken 1; Bureaucracy 2; Empathy (Other Peoples' Troubles) 4; Expression 3; Intimidation 4 [+1]; Persuasion (Acting) 6; Tactics 3
  Artisan (Carpentry) 2; Electronics (Radio) 1; Rigging (Plumbing) 6; Operations (Repair) 4; Research (Databases) 1; Sabotage (Thorough Destruction) 2
  Backgrounds: Truckin 6; Cars and Trucks 5; Chinese Monsters 5; Gambling 4; Construction 4; World Crime League Finances 3; Small Town Life 3, Corporate Jobs 3, Food Service 2
  Powers: [Reborn] Quickness, Nimble Feet, Supernatural Senses, Sensory Damper, Summon Spirits, Vigor, Attract, Shadow Casting, Shifting Sands, Retrocognition, Rapid Thought, Blur
  Advantages and Disadvantages: Loyalty, Haunted, Distinctive Appearance
  Equipment: A six pack of Pabst, Machine Pistol (wooden bullets) [2˟], A very nice knife [2], Crowbar [2], Baseball Bat [2N], MAC Truck, a spare suit

Marionette
Marionette is a harlequin clown from Southern France who made her own elaborate performance enhancing drugs that eventually drove her quite mad. She isn't exactly certain that she isn't a human anymore, but she rarely takes the makeup off and continues to inject herself with “performance enhancements” of various sorts. She is a hanger-on to supernatural politics, preferring to promote the world as some kind of massive clown stage where people apparently get fed to hyenas.
Marionette is an Icarid. A natural contrarion, Marionette gains a +4 bonus to argue against any course of action, and a +4 bonus to soak damage against weapons that are not iron.

• S: 2[+1]; A: 6; I: 3; L: 4; W: 4; C: 1; Edge: 3; Potency: 1.
  Skills: Athletics (Acrobatics) 6; Combat 4; Larceny (Disguise) 6; Perception 2[+2]; Stealth 6
  Animal Ken 6 [+2]; Bureaucracy 3; Empathy 1; Expression (Dance) 6; Intimidation (Tormenting) 2; Persuasion 1;
  Artisan (Metalworking) 3; Rigging (Ropes) 3; Medicine (Poison) 6; Research (Old Books) 2; Sabotage (Explosives) 6[+2]
  Backgrounds: Circus Life 6; Chemistry 6; Surreal Humorists 5; ETA 4; Gambling 4; Gloomy Poetry 4; Children's Programming 4; Wine 2
  Powers: [Icarid] Hide From Notice, Mask of a Thousand Faces, Supernatural Senses, Curse of Failure, Clinging, Revive the Flesh, Walk of Flame, Tongue of the Beast, Dark Night of the Soul, Hide in Plain Sight, Holistic Ventriloquism, Indomitability
  Advantages and Disadvantages: Experimenter, Weapon Finesse, Delusional (Nihilism), Frivolous, Prideful
  Equipment: Silver Rapier [3], Flash Bombs, Smoke Bombs, Playing Cards, Silver Bells, Fishing Line, Squeaky Toy, Lighter, Can of Gasoline.

Dante
Dante is not supernatural, and doesn't actually believe that the supernatural exists at all. He is the manager of a Quick Stop, and would be almost wholly uninvolved in the machinations of monsters save for the fact that he is a Luminary.

• S: 3; A: 2; I: 4; L: 4; W: 1; C: 4; Edge: 3
  Skills:Athletics 2; Drive 2; Larceny 1; Perception 3; Stealth (Inconspicuousness) 3;
  Animal Ken 2; Bureaucracy (Corporate) 5; Empathy 4; Expression 3; Intimidation 2; Persuasion (Whining) 5;
  Artisan 5; Electronics (Computers) 4; Rigging (Refrigeration) 2; Research (Culture) 5
  Backgrounds: Science Fiction 5, Food Service 5, Hockey 4, Periodicals 4, New Jersey 3, Pornography 2, Town Savages 2, Recreational Drugs 2
  Equipment: Hockey Stick [2N], Car, Today's Newspaper, Pornographic Video, Beef Jerky.

Chris
Chris is a bystander. He works at the SK8R|, and he pours beers. Chris is an Extra, and is of primary note in that his stat line can be used with minor adjustments for all kinds of extras who work in different parts of the realms of horror.

• S: 3; A: 2; I: 2; L: 2; W: 1; C: 3
  Skills: Athletics 3; Combat 1; Drive 1; Larceny 1; Perception 2; Stealth 1;
  Bureaucracy 4; Empathy 2; Expression (Guitar) 3; Intimidation 4; Persuasion 3;
  Rigging (Pressurized Fluids) 4; Operations (Mechanical Bull) 3;
  Backgrounds: Skating 6, Food Service 4, Drinking 4, Sports 3, Politics 3, Organic Food 2, Recreational Drugs 2

The Black Isz
There are a cadre of Mirror Goblins who work for a vicious killer: a dangerous Baali named Artemis Pender. The player characters may never meet Artemis Pender or learn what it is that he is doing – but his Mirror Goblin agents are sufficiently numerous that they may be encountered many times. A typical group will be between 4 and 6 of the Isz, and be dispatched with some identifiable (if baroque) mission. Abilities vary slightly within an Isz pack, but one of them might look like this:

• S: 3 A: 4 I: 2 L: 2 W: 1 C: 3
  Skills: Artisan 1 (Painting); Athletics 2; Combat 3; Larceny 4; Perception 2; Sabotage 1 (Traps); Stealth 2; Survival 4; Tactics 2
  Backgrounds: Gibbering 4, Infernal Politics 3, Rare Art 3, Human Laws 2
  Powers: Quickness, Mask of a Thousand Faces, Touch of Darkness
  Advantages and Disadvantages: Swarming, Fiercely Competitive
  Equipment: Trench Coat, Spray Paint.

Animals
Lions, tigers and bears?

People are a form of animal. Vampires are humans. Humans are apes. Apes are monkeys. Monkeys are mammals. And mammals are animals. However, not all animals are people, and indeed most of them are not. Animals get a separate entry precisely because their capabilities, while generally much more limited than a human's, are incredibly varied. It's just not particularly helpful to attempt to use the same system to generate a hippo and a hamster.

Animals have wildly different speeds than that of a human. And so what is given is simply the creature's speed during a draining sprint. For simplicity, animals move proportionally less fast than that when doing other kinds of movement. Remember also that real life 70 kilogram humans often only have 1 or 2 in an attribute, so don't be terribly surprised if many animals have values that are very low. Inherent in the dicepool system is an assumption of basically human norms, and creatures significantly outside those norms have numbers that are significantly outside those values. The game simply does not have the granularity to differentiate the strength of animals that are not as strong as a person – and that's most of them (people are pretty strong).

Rat
Game mechanically not particularly different from a hamster or a mouse. Or pretty much any rodent. Or a small lagomorph like a bunny. These creatures are not individually threatening unless they happen to carry disease, and even then can be “defeated” by an old woman with a broom. Small animals like this suffer wounds as if any attack had inflicted 3 more wound levels. Even a small firearm is generally overkill. They are very small though, so the threshold to hit them from any range past Near is increased by 1. Rats are a frequently used magical spy because they are so ubiquitous.

• S: 0; A: 3; I: 2; L: 1; W: 3; C: 1
  Skills: Athletics 2; Combat 1; Perception 2; Stealth 4; Survival 3
  Speed: 45m

Bat
Bats are cute little nocturnal insectivores. Or sometimes hematophages. Tiny animals like this suffer wounds as if any attack had inflicted 3 more wound levels. They are very small though, so the threshold to hit them from any range past Near is increased by 1.

• S: 0; A: 3; I: 3; L: 1; W: 1; C: 2
  Skills: Athletics 4; Combat 1; Perception 4; Stealth 2; Survival 2
  Speed: 200m (Flying)

Raven
Ravens are creatures of ill omen, mainly because they eat carrion, but also because a raven is always thinking about how to peck your eyes out. Ravens are small, and suffer wounds as if any attack had inflicted 2 more wound levels than its base value. Attacks against them from farther than Short range have their thresholds increased by 1. Ravens are popular as familiars for witches and the like, because they can be taught to speak simple human words. Also they can fly.

• S: 0; A: 3; I: 3; L: 1; W: 3; C: 1
  Skills: Athletics 3; Combat 3; Perception 2; Stealth 1; Survival 2
  Speed: 250m (Flying)

Cat
House cats are important to many magical beings as a symbol of status. Cats are small, and suffer wounds as if any attack had inflicted 2 more wound levels than its base value. Attacks against them from farther than Short range have their thresholds increased by 1.

• S: 0; A: 3; I: 3; L: 1; W: 2; C: 1
  Skills: Athletics 3; Combat 3; Perception 2; Stealth 2; Survival 2
  Speed: 120m

Cobra
Various deadly snakes are a mainstay of horror and adventure fiction. Why does it have to be snakes? Because they are creepy looking and don't make footfall noises when they move. Cobras and vipers and rattlesnakes are poisonous, and largely interchangeable from a storytelling standpoint. Poisonous snakes are small, and suffer wounds as if any attack had inflicted 2 more wound levels than its base value. Attacks against them from farther than Short range have their thresholds increased by 1.

• S: 1; A: 3; I: 1; L: 1; W: 2; C: 1
  Skills: Athletics 2; Combat 3; Perception 2; Stealth 4; Survival 2
  Advantages and Disadvantages: Double Jointed
  Speed: 40m

Large Dog
It is important to note that a large and scary dog is still genuinely on the small side for an actual human being, and that while a dog's teeth are frightening, they are not actually as deadly as a baseball bat or a crowbar in the hands of an angry dude. A large dog's teeth and claws amount to a 1N weapon. While a dog can indeed perform a fatal mauling, this is generally not accomplished without many seconds of worrying (that's the thing dogs do where they grab something in their mouth and shake it).

• S: 2; A: 3; I: 3; L: 1; W: 2; C: 1
  Skills: Athletics 3; Combat 4; Perception 4; Stealth 2; Survival (tracking) 2
  Speed: 150m

Alligator
Aligators are the pit monster of choice, because while they aren't super fast and have profound difficulties getting out of a pit, they are pretty deadly and terrifying. The jaws of an alligator are a 2 damage weapon, and alligators have a point of armor. A couple of hungry alligators in a pit can make short work of most victims, making them an ideal death trap for any insane cultists or world conquering madmen.

• S: 5; A: 1; I: 1; L: 1; W: 3; C: 1
  Skills: Athletics 2; Combat 4; Perception 2; Stealth 2; Survival 2
  Speed: 50m
  Advantages and Disadvantages: Combat Paralysis

Places
I am the master of all I see, so long as all I see is that which I have mastered.

Mystical locations are amongst the least destabilizing of all possible special magics. The fact that they are large compared to a person and completely non-transportable means that they can be worked into one story without necessarily having a strong impact on any later stories.

The Pet Cemetery
You all know the legend of the pet cemetery where if you bury someone “just right”they come back from the dead. And maybe (like, almost every time) it goes horribly wrong and the person or animal comes back as some sort of hideous monster that probably eats people or something. That sort of thing exists in After Sundown. It's a kind of Shadow Gate, and the thing that makes it of interest is that they aren't continuously open, so they aren't spraying a horde of poltergeists all over everything, nor does it necessarily come with a giant zombie apocalypse. The idea is that there are things you have to do in order to activate the Shadow Gate, and even then only for brief periods. So while it can be used to transform the corpse of a Luminary into a Revenant, and by extension can be used to start a zombie outbreak deliberately, it doesn't have to be. And that's great news for supernaturals who want to send people and things back and forth to Mictlan and don't want a never ending ghost storm or zombie tide. These “locked gates” are, while certainly dangerous, highly prized.

• A Locked Shadow Gate requires some “key” to “open.” While open, it can function as a two way passage to The Gloom, and it can manifest Necromancies like a normal Shadowgate would. The one from the King novel of the same name opened for one hour the midnight following someone making a stack of rocks in front of it. This was used to raise the dead, with different corpses coming back as per Reanimation, and others coming back as per Resurrection. The very unpredictability of it (and the fact that zombies created in this manner are completely uncontrolled) is why those in the know about supernatural events generally suggest not trying to bring loved ones back with a Locked Gate. A Locked or Open Shadowgate both constitute a rating 3 Destiny.

The Goblin Market
It's a wretched hive of scum and villainy to be sure, but an invaluable source of information and rare goods. Step through the mirror and you find yourself in a grungy and ash strewn marketplace where foul abominations sell horrid things to one another. For the right number of kittens, you could get yourself rare spices, dubious information, or a group of shady mercenaries from all over the world. There are a number of egresses from the Goblin Market, and while all of their Limbo sides are within the marketplace, their human world sides are all over the place.

• The Goblin Market is a Mirror Nexus, a small area of the Dark Reflection that is connected to several mirrors in different parts of the mortal world. Most of those gate mirrors are actually quite immobile (such as the lake surface), or transient (such as the ), but there are a few entrances that are portable enough for someone to own one. Like any Mirror Nexus, the Goblin Market can be used to travel around the world at tremendous speed (albeit only to specific places linked by the mirrors in it). Some Mirror Nexuses are basically unknown, which means that unlike the Goblin Market, a character cannot go there in order to do shady commerce or perform some sort of information gathering montage. However, these have the added advantage that the characters can travel through them without being seen by dozens of Trolls and hundreds of Mirror Goblins who are all of dubious and negotiable loyalties. Any of the handful of Mirror Nexuses, whether currently occupied or not, constitutes a Rating 4 Destiny.

Yggdrasil
It is the greatest tree, from whence dreams of power come. And it has roots in the dreams of all who wield authority. Yggdrasil is a towering tree of specifically indeterminate type. It grows somewhere in the Deep Maya, and it is taller than the limits of vision in that strange place. Supposedly it is somehow watered by the idea of authority, and drinking its sap or eating its seeds gives one delusions of might. The Deep Maya is pretty locationally unstable, and when in the presence of the mighty arboreal construct this property is exacerbated – returning to the world of mortals could leave one anywhere. At least, anywhere that there are people sleeping who hold power over others.

• Climbing its branches you can end up in the location of any source of temporal power where people are sleeping nearby. So you can pop into the White House in the middle of the night or into the Indian Parliament during a particularly boring speech. By climbing the tree with deliberate intention, one can arrange to end up near a specific hall of power (such as the Tienanmen Square Parliament Building or the Covenant Grand Chapel in Rome), but not to the extent of showing up in a specific person's bedroom. The accuracy is to within a couple dozen meters, and when the character appears in the mortal world they seem to simply mist in. The seeds and sap of the tree are poisonous and cause delusions of grandeur. But they are also extremely valuable in a number of special Bitter Fruit recipes, and can be used to make potions that sap the will, inspire loyalty, or make someone appear physically attractive. Yggdrasil is a Rating 6 Destiny.

Things
Is that what I think it is? I thought it was only a legend!

After Sundown uses roughly the same system of magic item creation as Dwarf Fortress. People periodically get overtaken by strange moods (or macabre or fey moods as the case may be), and then they gather weird materials together, lock themselves in a workshop, and make a perplexing masterpiece. This masterpiece is generally of surpassing quality and thus considerable value as an object of art or history, and also frequently cursed.

The Necronomicon
It's a creepy tome that is filled with demonic magic. Each page is velum with a brown ink that could seriously be blood forming its writings in a mad and tangled hand. Those who read from its dread pages gain dark insight and go mad. Sometimes in that order.

• Magic tomes are pretty common as rare and unique magical objects go. What they basically do is let someone who studies them for extended periods of time learn some sort of evil sorcery. This has the clearest effect of giving a character an excuse to learn a couple of sorcerous disciplines, so that if they are afforded the opportunity to learn a sorcerous discipline, they can choose to pursue one of the sorcerous disciplines described in the pages. Magic tomes have additional effects when they are read by humans. Luminaries can turn into Witches, and Extras become cultists. Generally, a major magic tome will cover two or three sorcerous paths, and convert Luminaries into the most closely associated kind of Witch. The Necronomicon itself covers the Descent of Entropy, the Progress of Glass, and the Song of Swarms. Luminaries who read it become Baali. Other Infernal grimoires include De Vermis Mysteriis, The Bible Black, The Book of Nod, and Unaussprechlichen Kulten; while Orphic grimoires that can change a man into a Khaibit include Secrets of Life and Death, Cultes de Ghoules, Beyond the Setting Sun, and The Book of the Dead; and Astral grimoires that can transform a Luminary into a Dryad include The King in Yellow, Allessehen Auge, The Endless Nightmare, or The Voynich Manuscript.
  Any of these books is a Rating 1 Destiny, as is any similar book you make for your campaign.

Shamshir-e Zomorrodnegar
It's a scimitar whose hilt is encrusted with emeralds. It has been prophesied that it alone can fell the great Efreet Fulad-zereh, and that it will inevitably do so. Needless to say, pretty much everyone who takes an especial interest in the wellbeing of Fulad-zereh (for good or ill) wants to have control this scimitar. There are of course numerous weapons out there that are the fated killers of various powerful supernatural monsters. Carnwennan the dagger, Clarent the sword, and Luin the spear were all famously used to slay various specific beings. But only the Shamshir-e Zomorrodnegar is fated to kill Fulad-zereh.

• These weapons have several properties that are of especial interest to the creature they are targeted against. The first is that they cause aggravated damage to the creature in question and ignore the soak bonuses of the target's Powers and Edge. The second is that if they are used to attack their destined foe, the attacker gains +3 dice on all attacks. The third is that when a character holds the weapon, they know where the targeted foe is as if they were being summoned whenever they speak the creature's name. No creature has more than one fated bane weapon targeted against them at a time, and they are usually reticent to destroy it because if they do so outside of the auspices of a specific mighty ritual of vast power, another weapon somewhere in the worlds instantly gains that property.
  Shamshir-e Zomorrodnegar, or any bane weapon, is a Rating 1 Destiny.

The Legacy of Thomas Craine
The room is full of books. Dusty old tomes filled with mildewed pages and cryptic writings from generations of goetic researches. There are numerous falsehoods in their crinkled pages, and yet there are some quite poignant discussions on the land of the dead. Many of the books are penned by Thomas Craine himself – some of them when he was still alive.

• A magical library generally contains the source material for five sorcerous disciplines. In the case of Thomas Craine's Legacy, it contains all paths of Orphic Sorcery. But beyond that, one can do library research in such an environment, giving it a substantial edge in identifying things over any single enchanted tome. The Legacy is a good place to research locations and inhabitants of Mictlan.
  A Magical Library is a rating 2 Destiny.

The Wings of Needless Sorrow
It is an amulet made of obsidian that has been cut to resemble a stylized bird in flight. The Wings are filled with hatred, and are drawn to suffering. The bearer of the amulet will see calamity after calamity, with the sick and dying plaguing their existence like a literal disease of which they cannot be cured.

• The amulet senses the future, is evil, and subtly adjusts the bearer's behavior so that the amulet is brought into contact with as many crimes, accidents, and human misery as possible. If the bearer has the opportunity to take two different routes to the convenience store, they will always end up choosing the one where they witness a traffic accident. This sort of thing can actually be immensely useful to a Scooby Gang, since they can just have the bearer point to a road map at random and they'll end up driving to a place their skills are needed.
  The Wings of Needless Sorrow are a rating 2 Destiny.

The Bull of Despondent Glory
It is a scroll of vellum made from human skin and written in a dense Latin script. Supposedly it was written up by the Covenant Anti-Pope Typhus II in the 11th century. Much of the second half is completely illegible, but as time goes by it sharpens, and words can be discerned.

• The Bull of Despondent Glory is a True Prophesy. That means that a bunch of things that are written in it will come true, and a bunch of things have come true. Entries appear in it irregularly, but when important stuff is going on, a number of entries may come to focus all at once. While it is a True Prophesy, some of the events described did not (at least apparently) actually happen as predicted. Still, with an accuracy above 80%, it's pretty uncanny. And not a few supernatural creatures believe that it is always right and that history is merely wrong (or perhaps deliberately obfuscated) in those instances where history and the Bull conflict.
  The Bull of Despondent Glory is a rating 3 Destiny.

Preah Khan
It's a jewel and pearl encrusted broadsword of clear quality. The blade is a dull and dark gray as heavily tarnished silver, but the blade is sharp enough to shave with and does not appear to need sharpening. Legend has it that the metal was forged out of naga venom somehow and that it is still toxic. But the big thing is that owning it makes you the rightful king of Cambodia. Whoever holds the sword to the banks of the Mekong can make the river shrivel, swell, or even flow backwards. This sort of grotesque displays of magic are generally frowned upon by the World Crime League, and not a few supernatural creatures want the Preah Khan to stay missing.

• Preah Khan is an excellent sword, inflicting a base 3 damage, and every wound it inflicts is aggravated (even to mortal people). Khmer people will treat the holder as if they had the status of a king even if they do not know why. Even if they aren't even Cambodia, the wielder of Preah Khan can get the royal treatment in donut shops all over the Bay Area. And then there's the whole “controlling the Mekong River” thing. If word gets out that someone has Preah Khan, the owner can expect numerous enemies. Preah Khan is a Rating 4 Destiny and comes with Rating 4 Stalkers.

Standardizing Nonstandard Magic
No seriously, that's something you can't do that you actually can't do.

Cursed knives, ancient curses, stellar alignments, and mighty rituals of vast power are all an integral part of the Modern Gothic Horror genre, but they are also generally specific enough that they do not readily translate into hard and fast rules. Nonstandard magics should be different enough to drive stories and provoke interest, but not different enough to undermine the consistency of the setting. Powerful enough to be worth chasing after, but not so powerful that they invalidate other life choices.

Ritual Magic
More magic can do more things. If you draw upon more magic, you can do more things. But more things can happen when more magic is used.

What Ritual Magic does is allow characters to use powers that they never actually wrote on their character sheet. As such it is almost by definition unbalanced, and needs to be kept under a strict leash. A mighty ritual that allows a character to use an Advanced Discipline when they don't have it is problematic, and a mighty ritual that allows a character to draw upon an Elder Discipline they don't actually know is even more so.

The provisions for a mighty ritual of vast power can be basically anything, and it is up to the MC to determine what they specifically are in any specific case. Within the context of the story, the characters read through a bunch of mystical books in a library and find the formula for a relevant and possible sounding ritual, but in a very real way any possible ritual is essentially custom placed by the MC with (ideally) the chronicle going on in mind. Here are some guidelines:

• A Ritual whose effects are of sufficient importance to be worth questing an entire story for should have requirements that are sufficiently difficult that they actually take up the whole story to put together.
• A Ritual whose effects are merely a stepping stone towards completing a story should have requirements that the players can plausibly get together as part of a story.
• Any Ritual should have requirements that for whatever reason the players are unlikely to be able to repeat for credit. At least, not often enough to become routine or get annoying. Stellar alignments are great for this, because by definition they won't come again for some arbitrary (and probably large) amount of time.

Items of Great Power
The ring wants to be found.

Magical objects, like tools of science, could do practically anything. They are limited primarily by your imagination and the suspension of disbelief of the audience. That second one is important, and it is good to remember that no item has ever been powerful enough that the world would not have turned out the way it did. There is no gong that cures all the whooping cough on Earth, because pertussis still exists. There's no pearl that sinks Japan, because Japan is still demonstrably above the sea. There is no cauldron that makes an unbeatable world-conquering army, because no one conquered the whole world. No matter how impressive any magic item is, it is in some very important way less world changing, less powerful than a hydroelectric dam or an atomic bomb. And yes, that leaves a great deal of wiggle room, but it is important to keep perspective that there are no magic items that could allow their owner to overwhelm a powerful country like the Russian Federation by force of arms.

Which does not mean of course that any particular item of power is not a big deal. There is no everfull purse that produces enough gold to destabilize world metal prices, but there may very well be a goose that lays golden eggs of sufficient quantity to make the owner spectacularly filthy rich. And while no magical weapon reaches the heights of city destruction achievable by nuclear fusion, there are many magical weapons that are exceedingly impressive for their size, and capable of feats of murder all out of proportion to their probable police response. You could probably get a license to own, and in Texas concealed carry the masterpiece of Daniel Colt.

Magical objects should be valuable, which means that the things they do should in general be things that a comparably sized electronic object would not do with the introduction of a few AA batteries. While there are stones that make light by magic, those are not really worth talking about in a modern context unless you are showing the paucity of ancient wonders and superstitions (in which case, go nuts). Magic items are not reproducible (or at least, not mass reproducible). If you find a magical perpetual motion machine, you can't make tonnes of ostensibly identical copies that collectively generate limitless power and change the world. If you are given such an item you may well be able to keep a secret base operating “completely off the grid” but magic is not going to be an answer to fossil fuel dependency. But an important thing to consider when making a magical object is that in general it should be doing something that is not replicable by store bought materials and thus worth searching for and fighting over. Magical objects transcend what a normal tool is capable of, and since tools can already do some amazing things, that's a pretty big deal. Here are some short and pithy guidelines for making a magical object:

• Magical objects should do something that is clearly magical, not simply have enhanced properties that might be achieved by making an object out of better steel or burning through batteries faster.
• Magical objects may in fact be cursed, and a lot of them are. But remember that any curse that is more impressive than the nominal effect will be used for whatever it is the curse does (turn people into murderers, summon chimerae, whatever), if at all. An item where the curse exceeds its nominal utility is essentially useless for its nominal utility and you shouldn't make it like that.
• Magical objects in general should do something different from normal disciplines. This is so that people who got actual disciplines don't feel like suckers when someone else finds a magic mirror that does the same thing. For that matter, any item that is as impressive or more so than a genuine discipline should be presented as being very rare and impressive – and they should not be easily acquired or retained .
• Bonuses are boring. It isn't that people don't like having a +2 bonus to Athletics because they are wearing magic shoes, but those sorts of effects are basically indistinguishable from simply having larger numbers in those dicepools in an entirely mundane fashion. In general, magic shoes should do something different than merely doing the thing you normally do, but better.

Getting Items of Power
See an evil penny and pick it up, all the day... something something.

An item of power can serve as one of two main roles in a chronicle: either as a plot point or as a resource. In either case, the amount of effort it takes to acquire them should be roughly commensurate with how much effort would be required to get to a similarly useful resource or plot twist by other means. A minor artifact is a simple Rating 1 Destiny Resource, and could easily be a toss-off to show that “something was up” in the same way that handing out a Rating 1 Financial Resource might be. For example, if the coterie breaks into a loft and the villains aren't there, they might find a simple magic dagger or cursed wand to show that – indeed – they had the right loft (and also to make it not seem like the players had wasted their time only to find that the enemy had already been on the move). The MC could just as easily use a stolen painting or a pile of bloody watches to show the same thing, but sometimes a monkey's paw that mysteriously curdles milk and sours juice it is pointed at is just more interesting.

A plot device can be basically anything. Even a tattered scarf could plausibly be the clue that reveals the true murderer or the fetter that binds an important ghost. So a magic item whose purpose in the story is to advance the Chronicle should be restricted merely by how important the plot point is, and what stage the characters are in the story. The special mirrored surface out of which an ancient and powerful Asura can walk might take much heartache, legwork, and sacrifice to get to if doing so is the culmination of a multi-story chronicle. On the other hand, if said Asura is just someone who is going to give a clue as to where the coterie needs to go fly to in order to find the ruins of the Troll city that the Shattered Empire hugs have taken Caitlin, then the player characters might just need to break into a museum at night and touch the thing.

Most magic items are in fact built. At least, at some point. And they are created through mighty rituals of vast power. And the mighty ritual of vast power should be roughly as difficult to research and pull off as going through the story and finding an artifact of similar utility. Items gained without a story just don't have much of a story to them – and the story is after all what people are actually there for. Whether the story is that you went into the bog and listened to the old hag and took the silver pentagram that can be used to break a shadow gate after you proved your worth; or that you went into the bog and listened to the old hag, and got told how to make the silver pentagram that breaks the shadowgate after proving your worth is rather meaningless of a metagame distinction. But it feels different, so the MC should mix it up a bit and have players end up conducting the mighty rituals of power that make these things at least sometimes.

Additional Abilities in Powers
Didn't think I could do that, did ya?

There is no special rule that each Power has to have precisely two powers available at Basic, Advanced, and Elder levels. And indeed, some Powers have a third ability listed in one of the mastery levels in the basic rules. Furthermore, future material may well come with alternate Discipline powers for characters to have. Or, as a MC you could write some of your own.

Adding new abilities to Powers can be a cool way to spice things up. But it can also dilute the setting, and make characters more powerful. All things being equal, the larger a number of Power abilities a player has to sort through, the more work it is going to be and the more powerful a result they are likely to get by cherry picking the right combination of abilities. New abilities should probably not use radically different dicepools than other powers in the same Power, because otherwise you are going to be moving towards a world where someone can max one attribute and one skill and get a very high dicepool in a wide variety of different powers. Similarly, a new ability should not do something radically different from other abilities in the same Power.

But above and beyond the simple balance issues that arise from increasing the set size of potential abilities, there's also the concept of setting strain to worry about. There is, for example, no ability that currently allows a character to travel to the dark side of the moon. And while there's nothing inherently overpowered about collecting moon rocks or building a secret base there, it would still be a very large problem to add such an option to the game. So long as there's no way to get to Luna, the moon is outside the playspace entirely, and players do not have to discuss their enemies having gone to the moon – nor do they have to invest in powers to potentially go there. One of the primary things that make games fall apart is the simple proliferation of other places that all need their own powers to reach. If one were to add the distant planet of the Pods, the mythical homeland of the Demons, and a few garden variety Alternate Earths, the game would become very cluttered and confusing.

• Example: Building on the huge strength facet of Clout, an extra Elder ability can be stuck in that makes the user bigger than Giant Size does. This is the signature power of Nabau, the enormous Makhzen Mehtar of Kuala Lumpur (and yeah, he has the “can't turn it off” version). This power is a reasonable extension of Clout because it is different enough from previously published powers to notice, and yet it does not overly increase the utility of any skill, nor does it bring something into the conceptual space that is completely unprecedented (Kaiju are already this huge).
  
  Titanic Size: The character gets super huge. Like 8-12 meters in raw hugeness. While in Titanic Size, the character's Strength is increased by 20 and they have 3 points of armor. Transforming takes a Complex Action and 8 Power Points, and lasts until the end of the scene. Titanic Size is a Protean Power, and does not stack with Giant Size. Some creatures get Titanic Size “always on” where they never shrink down to human size.

New Powers and Sorceries
I have mastered the art of Obscurica, and I can do things you doubtlessly think are impossible.

I strongly suggest not making new universal or sorcerous powers. It's not that you can't make a new Power that is balanced, because you totally can. It's that new Powers undermine the foundation of the game as a shared storytelling medium. The coherency of the world comes apart a little bit every time a new discipline is introduced. At the limit of adding infinite Powers, no action that any character takes with magic has any context – even if none of the new Powers is substantially over powered or deceptively worthless, the game still becomes essentially unplayable. However, I am equally aware that a substantial number of groups will for reasons base or noble choose to ignore that advice and write new disciplines into the story. This can actually be fine. A 23rd Power is not the same thing as the 101st discipline, and the conceptual coverage of the disciplines in After Sundown is essentially arbitrary. It's entirely possible to add a new Power or two without breaking anything. But remember: it is a slippery slope and you seriously can't just keep adding new disciplines forever without breaking the world. Don't be afraid to put your foot down. Just because you let one player bring a new discipline into the game and it would be “fair” to allow another player the same opportunity doesn't mean that placing more straw on your camel is a good idea.

But if you are going to make a new discipline of Power, keep some things in mind:

• Sorceries are still Astral, Infernal, or Orphic. You may think you have a cool idea for some fourth power source, but dowsing and preparing counterspells for 3 flavors of magic is already hard to keep track of. A fourth power source means that monster hunters will have a whole new set of equipment in addition to all the crap they have to carry around with themselves. And that's bad.
• A new Power should have 2 Basic, 2 Advanced, and 2 Elder Abilities in it. If you can't think of that many powers for it, you should seriously consider the idea that you don't have a Power worth writing up or disturbing the status quo for.
• You already have a set of a powers that you can draw upon for ideas in the form of the disciplines already printed. If you have a Basic Ability in a Power, go ahead and compare it to the Basic Abilities of Powers already printed.
• Each new Power will be taken by probably one character at most in your game. So you should make sure that the dicepool choices for the abilities are pretty static through the whole writeup.
• Powers that are collections of heterogeneous abilities are in general hard to keep track of and you shouldn't make them. It might be tempting to make a Power that is simply the list of abilities displayed by some sorcerer in a book you liked, but such “stuff from the attic” powers confuse players. A new Power should if anything be more clearly themed than one of the ones in the basic book – the players won't have it in the book to go back to so it needs to be more memorable on its own merits.

Subtypes: Bloodlines, Strains, and Schools of Thought
We are defined by our similarities as well as our differences.

It is sometimes useful to a story to have a bloodline of Vampires or a family of Leviathan who represent a recognizable clade. It is tempting to write additional powers for such groups or to trade basic powers of their type for other powers in order to make them stand out and “feel unique.” This is a terrible plan, and you shouldn't do it. A subgroup doesn't need to feel unique, because every character is by definition a unique individual to begin with. A group actually needs something to promote a feeling of group identity, because that doesn't just happen. An easy and effective way to do this is to give everyone in the defined group one or more of the same selections of optional Powers. An entire family where everyone is super strong, or every member can see ghosts has obvious traction, and relates members of the family one to another.

These kinds of subgroups can be pretty small – often appearing in only one city and being of merely sufficient size to be interesting actors in a single storyline. And they have different names depending on what they are a subgroup of. A line of Vampires where each of the children ends up with specific “optional” Powers that the progenitor also had is called a “bloodline.” A line of Lycanthropes where each newly risen victim has a specific and recognizable power shared by their attacker is called a “strain.” Related Leviathan whose abilities manifest in a similar way are called a “house” if you want to be fancy and a “tribe” if you don't. A group of Witches who learn their similar powers in a similar way is called a “school.” Animates who are built by the same technique are rare indeed, but are called a “version.” Transhumans don't really have a name for this sort of thing, because they experience it very differently. The Reborn only happen like this in groups of 2-4 people whose past lives intersected in all kinds of ways (usually as lovers or enemies – or both), and the process is called “fate linking,” but there is no special name for the people whose fates have been so linked. People who become Fallen by being cast into the Dark Reflection together or having had their soul yanked by the same demon or artifact may well get similar powers – and they are called a “chain.” The Icarids have pretensions to science and do not have consistent nomenclature for the phenomenon. Each competing mad scientist has their own theory of how it works, and the fact that a process repeated on another mad luminary produces the same result is in no way surprising or noteworthy to the luminaries who did it – and they end up calling themselves whatever it is that they call the results of their process according to their personal nomenclature.

So the Sawyer Tribe is a group of closely related Troglodytes who are all fearfully strong. Every one of them has Devastation as one of their Powers. And if a player wished to make a character who was born into the Sawyer Tribe, they would select Devastation as one of their additional Powers upon applying the transformation. On a less hoboriffic note, within the Ulmi there is a core of dedicated immortal necromancers who teach the original Venetian necromancer's secrets of power. This is the Ulmi School, and those luminaries who are trained in it become Khaibit who have Patience of the Mountains. The Sisters of Cacophony is the name given to a lesbian Strigoi who calls herself Cacophony and the exclusively female bloodline she has founded, with each new inductee manifesting with Missing Voice and Death Note.

I fought the Law...
Twinkies are the best friend I ever had.

Actions that characters take have consequences. And not just in the direct Aristotelean sense of how when you push on an object it move. Both directly, and indirectly in the form of reactions and reprisals from others, actions will set other actions in motion. And perhaps no reaction gets as much justifiable consideration as the reactions of Justice and Revenge.

Human Law

The militaries of the world have literally millions of soldiers under arms, and it is essentially impossible for any man to fight them alone. And yes, even paramilitary forces such as police and investigative units have so may members that no one could plausibly face them alone. The 123 core precincts of New York have over 40,000 police officers and train hundreds of new cadets every year. Even a highly effective serial killer simply could not take out police as fast as the state hired more. And yet it is manifestly true that people get away with committing crimes every day. Your chances of getting brought to justice for killing a man in cold blood are about 2 in 3, and in ages past the rates of case solving were much less.

So how can it be that a man can get away with a crime if they can't actually fight the state and win? Well, mostly by dint of the fact that the the number of people involved in actually enforcing the law is very much less than the number of people the law is being enforced on. While 40,000 police officers sounds like a lot (and it is), those same 123 precincts contain 8 million total residents and an equal number of visitors every day. Law enforcement simply cannot spare limitless resources to a single crime, nor can they reasonably expect to punish all crimes or even know about all crimes. Crime in human societies is defined and punished in order to hold society together. Murder is a crime in every nation because it tears society apart to attack individual members of it. Treason is an even more serious crime because it is an attack on society itself. And a good thing to keep in mind is that a whole lot of things are criminalized not because they are actions that harm society in any measurable way, but because the act of criminalizing them purchases the loyalty of people who want people who do them to be punished. That is to say that so called “victimless crimes” don't really tear society apart, but that the act of persecuting people who do them can bind the rest of society together. That kind of logic has driven the creation of laws for thousands of years – if you crack open a bible you can find the law against wearing the kinds of shirts that the neighboring tribes wear (Deuteronomy 22:11).

But in any case, as a supernatural creature, most player characters are going to at various times break laws. So not getting caught is going to be a pretty important thing to consider for a lot of characters. The actual laws of individual municipalities are available for you to look up, and are often a surreal trip

• No report, no crime. Remember that the police are not omniscient. They only investigate crimes that they know about. This does not mean that murdering every person you steal from is some kind of magic talisman against police interference – far from it. People generally have schedules, so even if the body is never found, people still get reported when they are merely missing. However, it's important to note that if you steal something in a manner that the owner does not know that it is gone, or is afraid to report that it is gone (for any of a number of reasons), then the cops will not get called, and from the standpoint of the government it is just like no crime occurred.
• The Police have shit to do. Crimes that are “minor” compared to the amount of work needed to do anything about them are likely to be ignored. That means that if you are caught shoplifting and you flee to Indonesia, the police are unlikely to follow you. But hey, Javert chased Jean Valjean for 17 years for stealing a loaf of bread, so there is no guaranty that the cops will lay off just because it would be totally ludicrous for them not to.
• The Police try not to rock the boat. The purpose of the police force is to maintain society, not to tear it down. Investigations that seem like they will cause more damage to society than they will fix will usually not even get started. Major pillars of the community can be suspected of some pretty heinous things without any serious police inquiry. This is how priests can get away with molesting children for years without the authorities actually doing anything. However, it's important to remember that political power is not the same as untouchability. Powerful people often have powerful enemies, and law enforcement may feel itself forced to act if they actually have overwhelming evidence given to them.
• The Police cannot punish everyone. There are a lot of people in the world, and basically all of them did something that they wouldn't want their neighbors to know about. And the police can't cover it all. What this means is that they will generally only act when they are sure that a specific person did a crime. This means that ambiguity is your friend. Even if there is a question of whether one of two different suspects perpetrated a crime, most human justice systems will allow both to walk free. However, remember that police are people too, and often get totally irrational “hunches” that one person or another is a criminal and will do whatever it takes to make something stick.

To make a long story short: basically when you go out into the wilderness and blow the crap out of a bunch of zombies and then murder the necromancer who raised them, you've committed like a dozen felonies, but neither you nor anyone else is going to jail for it. None of those people were in any database as being alive, so their deaths won't get reported anywhere either. No witnesses are around who will talk to the police (squirrels do not count), so even if they eventually found a bunch of bodies that were dug up and filled with shotgun pellets, the authorities wouldn't have any leads to follow and the case would be as cold as the cadavers.

Syndicate Law

Supernatural law differs little in basic intention from its mortal counterpart. Essentially it is there to keep society and those within it safe and to perpetuate itself as a social organization. Where the Syndicates differ from most modern concepts of legal systems is that they are actually just there to preserve a very small clique. The World Crime League isn't particularly concerned with whether Thailand continues to exist, or even how many people die in Kuala Lumpur (their capital). All they care about is preserving the organization of the World Crime League and their own membership – which is only about 150,000 world wide. Which means that the World Crime League seriously does not have rules against many of the traditionally thought of “natural” crimes. They don't care if you steal, or rape, or murder. They only care if you endanger the apple cart. It's exactly the kind of system you'd think would be invented by pragmatic, immortal, man-eating monsters. Which of course it was.

So what is it that the bogeyman fears? What things could you do that would threaten the existence of supernatural society? Well, lots.

• The Vow of Silence. Back in the “old nights” the “Tradition of Misdirection” was simply a set of informal rules that you couldn't tell normal people what worked and what didn't work as regards fighting supernatural creatures. Because even the ancient vampires understood that they would have a hard time fighting a hundred mortal humans with wooden spears in the daylight. Back then it was perfectly acceptable to openly be a Vampire Queen or whatever, but spoiling the mystery of how vampires worked to the peasantry was considered an attack on every single other vampire, and would be met with reprisals and concerted disinformation campaigns to reconfuse the issue.
  
  The Vow of Silence has generally replaced the Tradition of Misdirection in modern nights. Hiding the weaknesses of monsters has become a bigger and bigger deal in most parts of the world as human populations and human technology have expanded so much in the last two centuries. These nights, giving away to the “general public” that vampires are real at all is generally considered to be as bad as telling people the specific types and weaknesses of vampires was in ages past. The 18th and especially 19th centuries were marked by some awe inspiring blood baths of supernatural creatures at human hands – the Wolf Khans are apparently all dead. And the reaction of most Syndicates has been to hide more than just their specific Achilles Heels, and in modern nights the general assumption is that human scientists could figure out the weaknesses of Werewolves or Strigoi quite rapidly if they ever started investigating the matter. So if someone were to leave strong evidence of the supernatural, most Syndicate responses are going to be to discredit that evidence (by destroying it, making it look faked, suppressing it in the news, or whatever), and to punish those involved to the point that it encourages others to not do that kind of thing in the future. And yes, if a Makhzen Prince has to do a lot of work to suppress some Vow of Silence Breech, they are well within their rights to have the perpetrator killed.
  
  But not everyone sees it that way. The Shattered Empire and the Covenant Domain of Ciudad de Mexico hold that the “good old nights” where a Witch could have their own Witch Tower and have a fearful populace come groveling to them when they wanted some magic done can be achieved again in the here and now. These groups hold to the old ways of Misdirection where freaking the mundanes is acceptable and even in cases encouraged, but this does not mean that the wearing of masks is not practiced – just that the masks worn are those of prophets, gods, and demons rather than masks of mortal men. Needless to say, this is quite a sticking point between Syndicates and domains – with the proponents of the “new” Silence claiming that the proponents of the “old” Misdirection are inviting the downfall of everyone by opening themselves up to scientific inquiry, while the proponents of the “old” Misdirection counter back that the “new” Silence endangers everyone because the big secret can't be kept forever and in the absence of a body of misinformation the truth will become weaponized in mortal hands.
• The Peace. Wild West style combat and intimidation doesn't really work to keep society together – it drives people away and it drives supernatural creatures away too. And while there have been Syndicates in the past based on the “might is right” principle where the strongest were allowed to eat the smaller at any time, those Syndicates are simply not around any more. The fact is that for any Syndicate to hold together it has to offer a better shot at surviving to the end of one's immortality than simply hiding under a rock in the wilderness. Otherwise, rational supernatural creatures are just going to run for the hills. And so it is that Syndicates find themselves charged with protecting their members – and quite often protecting their members from other members. This means firstly that murdering other members is highly discouraged, but it also means that every Syndicate has a forum for handling grievances such that creatures will feel properly (or at least minimally) satisfied without chopping anyone's head of.
  
  Rules in any Syndicate tend to be pretty draconian, since they are designed by and to appeal to literal ancient monsters from before anyone had written A Theory of Justice. But it is important to remember that even these rules are not as kill crazy as unfettered mob justice.
• Respect. Being a member of a Syndicate isn't just a list of “Thou Shalt Nots.” It's also a set of perks. First of all, it lets you hang out with creatures that are actually in your peer group, which is awesome, but membership also straight up has privileges. Members of the World Crime League can call upon the organization to give them legal council and they can use the exclusive Syndicate pool.
  
  But perhaps the biggest perk that any Syndicate can offer is the respect and obedience of other members of the Syndicate. And that in turn becomes one of the most important concessions that one makes by joining a Syndicate. The Makhzen promises its members that if they work their way up to Prince of a domain that they'll be able to make the rules for that domain, and that other members of the Makhzen will follow those rules. And thus, every member of the Syndicate is expected actually honor the perks that other members have earned within the Syndicate. You have to act like everyone else has their carrots for you to receive yours. Telling the Quartermaster of a World Crime League territory to go fuck themselves can get your pool privileges revoked – or even get you booted from the Syndicate's protection altogether.

Rules governing these concepts are expressed differently in different Syndicates. For example, in the Makhzen, each of those three concepts is expressed as two separate “traditions.” The Vow of Silence is the “Tradition of Lies” (basically: “Don't talk about fight club”) and the “Tradition of Truth” (basically that you tell the creatures in the Syndicate – and only them – what's going on and how things work). The concept of The Peace is the “Tradition of Hospitality” (that you let other supernatural creatures into your city and social circle) and the “Tradition of Hostility” (that killing supernatural creatures is a right and duty reserved to the Syndicate to be used against – and only against – creatures that break the Traditions). And the concept of Respect gets broken up into the “Tradition of Accounting” (that every member is due the respect owed their status in the Syndicate) and the “Tradition of Domain” (which is basically the same thing, but includes the idea that the Princeps defines the rules and status within their domain). Other Syndicates use different formulations, but all of them cover those three concepts on way or another, because it's the essential glue that keeps supernatural society together.

[Quantumboost]

Members of the World Crime League can call upon the organization to give them legal council and they can use the exclusive Syndicate pool.

You probably mean "legal counsel" here, not "legal council". One means advice/to advise, the other means a bunch of jedi.

[Username17]

.
Character Options

& Motivations

You are special, just like everyone else

Resources and Obligations
“Whoever dies with the most will presumably have the most left when they are resurrected.”

Characters in the realm of horror spend more time than you might think running around naked. That's fine and all, and meshes well with a certain kind of story. But much of the time, characters really do have physical objects and social connections at their disposal in addition to their personal abilities and the contents of their mind. In After Sundown, these resources are itemized and written down in order to formalize reserves that a character can draw upon during their adventures. Individual advantages that a character has are assigned a value based on their presumptive potential utility and categorized by what kind of story advantage they grant. Resources can be physical things, but they can also be more ephemeral things of value such as friendships or society's recognition of ownership. Characters may also have fetters that tie their hands, demands placed upon them by society either out of need or hostility. These are called Obligations.

Resources
That's what I got, what you got?

Resources are not necessarily fungible nor are they necessarily transferable. While a character's Finance Resources can usually be traded away (that being most of the point), even in those cases they may instead be stocks or property rights that may be difficult to transfer quickly and/or draw attention when title is given away at all. Friendships can almost never be sold away, and minions are not generally happy to have the subject brought up in anything but the crudest of jests.

Depending on the parameters of the campaign, a starting character in After Sundown is normally expected to have a 1-point Resource, a 2-point Resource, and a 3-point Resource (and no, you can't trade those all in for a 6-point Resource, but thanks for asking). With the MC's permission, a character can begin play with additional Resources, so long as they “pay” for these resources by taking Obligations of equal size. That is, a character might have an extra 3-point Science Resource (access to the FBI finger print database perhaps) but also be saddled with a 3-point Stalkers Obligation (presumably the Bureau keeping tabs on their movements). Players may not take two 1-point obligations to pay for a 2-point resource, nor may they take a 2-point Obligation to pay for two different 1-point Resources.

Assets

Assets are people, or beasts, or supernatural monsters who will act as backup for you in dangerous situations should need arise. Assets become more useful (and thus higher rated) if they are harder core, and also if you can tell them more about your situation without breaking the Vow of Silence.

Rating	When the shit hits the fan, you can call...
1	... loyal, badass dogs ... friends with hunting licenses
2	... a team of cops ... a pack of gangbangers
3	... your Alfredesque butler ... the national guard
4	... a ghoul family ... the CDC
5	... the Ghostbusters ... a pack of werewolves
6	... a black helicopter NWO strikeforce ... a troll general

Contacts

Contacts are people who you can rely upon for information or as sources of goods. Generally speaking, any character actually knows many people, not just one. And some of them will be more “useful” and others less. For the purposes of the chronicle, the character's main contact is not necessarily their best friend, but likely the shadiest or best connected person they know.

Rating	So, you know a guy who...
1	... deals drugs or pimps ... is a bartender or pawn broker who “hears things”
2	... smuggles contraband ... works in the government
3	... does inventory for the National Guard ... smuggles people
4	... censors news broadcasts ... runs a criminal syndicate
5	... is the governor ... is a major functionary in a Syndicate
6	... other people dare not speak the name of ... has the president's cell phone number

Destiny

Destiny is access to special magical methods of problem solving. Enchanted lands and objects are all over the place in the realm of horror, and many of the dark and hidden events of the past and future have been written down. Finding these places, objects, and writings of power is a serious goal for many supernatural creatures – and with good reason. Information is power, and well, power is power too. And when this power affects a supernatural world, it becomes useful and relevant to the interests of creatures that live in that world. Sometimes a source of magic will have enough gold or obvious age in it that it might be sold in a pawn shop for Euros. However, in almost all cases the market price of such items is so small in human terms compared to its utility that Witches who find out that someone sold something of Destiny will laugh at them.

Rating	You have in your possession...
1	... an ancient tome of demonology ... an enchanted sword
2	... a set of sorcerous tomes ... a sought-after cursed amulet
3	... the location of a shadow gate ... a set of cryptic true prophecies
4	... an entrance to a mirror nexus ... a scrying pool
5	... a sack of weather ... the secret charts of the Stellar Oracles
6	... the burnt copy of the Library of Alexandria from Limbo ... Yggdrasil

Finances

Finances need not literally be bank accounts in dollars or euros, piles of gold or drugs works pretty well for that. A resource is financial in nature if its primary utility is that it can be traded in the human world for goods and services. Indeed, the characters probably have several different things that are tradable. Rather than itemize the value of their watch and each piece of jewelry, each level of Finances gives an example of something that might be the biggest ticket item they have for trade. So a character whose largest item is their car can still probably scrape together the cash to buy some kit kats or whatever without having to sell it.

Rating	You own...
1	... a vehicle ... a lot of drugs.
2	... a house ... military weapons.
3	... a small business ... precious metals
4	... a successful business ... a freighter ship
5	... major stock in a corporation ... a cocaine plantation
6	... major stock in a mega-corporation ... a minor nation

Languages

Speaking (or in the case of ancient languages, sometimes merely reading) another language is very much unlike other forms of resources, in that it is something which is almost entirely internal. Yes, if the world passes you by long enough, you won't be able to understand what kids these days are saying – but it's still substantially slower to desert you than other social connections.

It is of great importance that characters can and do get the Languages resource multiple times, learning different languages each time. In the real world, language is an enormously complicated subject and people's facility with any particular language is a highly variable sliding scale running from Shakespeare to “Fire Bad!” But for purposes of the game, characters who can speak a language are able to summon all of the eloquence imparted by their Persuasion and Backgrounds in every language that they “speak”. The ability to conjure up simple phrases such as “¿Donde está el baño?” or “Lehněte a svlekněte se prosím.” is free. As such, Resource values of more than 3 are more than a little bit pointless.

A character does not specifically need to know a language in order to get something translated. Some time with an automated translation can get you a humorously inaccurate translation of many pieces of text (especially short text). And given some time, many Contacts or Science Resources can translate specific languages on your behalf. The Language Resource allows the character to know that language personally. And yes, characters just get full knowledge of a language with a single Resource – which is somewhat unrealistic, but people in this genre speak an awful lot of languages sometimes, and the rules need to reflect that.

Rating	You know...
1	...a foreign language fluently
2	...two foreign languages
3	...three foreign languages

Science

Science is access to special mundane methods of gaining information and solving problems. The panopticon operates blind in many areas, and the Syndicates of the world work to ensure that it stays that way. Nevertheless, the amount of information available at the hands of humans is shocking in its complexity and completeness. Someone with the right clearance could crack a lot of the world's conspiracies right open if they knew what to look for. This rightfully frightens many supernatural creatures, but having access to even small parts of the panopticon can make a character's research and investigations be much more productive.

Rating	You have access to...
1	... DMV records ... academic journal publications
2	... a city forensic laboratory ... unedited news feeds
3	... the FBI finger print database ... Hamburger University
4	... top secret FSB intelligence ... the NSA phone taps
5	... the spy satellite network (EoG) ... CERN
6	... Area 51 ... the probability manipulator

Secrets

Secrets are a lot like finances, but for the supernatural world. Secrets are things that have market value within the World Crime League or the Camarilla but which for whatever reason would be difficult to sell for acceptable value in mortal markets. Like with finances, it is entirely possible that the character has multiple items including enough kittens to make small purchases. The examples are for the most valuable item a character with that level of Secrets might own.

Rating	Example
1	... a baby behemoth ... a relic from a respected elder
2	... a hideout in the Dreamlands ... a group of unregistered orphans
3	... bottled dreams or nightmares ... a soviet-era nuclear weapon
4	... smallpox ... Rembrandt's Storm on the Sea
5	... the blood of a powerful elder ... an Ifrit in a puzzle box
6	... the burnt copy of the Fat Man recovered from Limbo ... the golden apples of discord

Obligations

Some characters have obligations: things that restrict their ability to act freely. Some obligations are things that the character's ethos demands of them, and others are imposed on the character from without. But the effect is really very similar. If the character's little sister is in trouble with the Glow Skulls, forcing the character to come in conflict with the voodoo gangsters; this is very similar in overall effect to a situation in which the Glow Skulls have it in for the character. While the impetus is very different, in either case the character is drawn into conflict with the Glow Skulls “against their will”. And if they are captured by the Glow Skulls, it is surmisable that they will not be interrogated by Rudenko.

MCs should give potential obligations that players are considering for their characters the fish eye. After all, while an obligation limits the character's choices, in a very real way it limits the choices of every character in the coterie. The other characters are presumably not going to leave one of their own to take on the Glow Skulls on their own. And once they are drawn into that conflict you're basically looking at the rest of the players getting saddled with obligations that they didn't agree to or get any compensatory resources for.

Addiction

Everyone has things they want to do. These are goals, and they are not Obligations. However, some people have things they have to do, even at a cost to themselves. These addictive behaviors can be detrimental to successful completion of other goals. From the simple reality of giving one's self away with cigarette smoke or the glow of the ash all the way to losing one's life savings and whole days of life to the jab of a needle. An Addiction is valued by how much it impacts the character's ability to accomplish other things, rather than on specifically what (if anything) will happen to them if they fail to perform their addictive rituals. Note also that the value of the Addiction in game terms is not meaningfully tied to its long-term affects on the character's health, but merely to their ability to be goal oriented in the context of the story.

Rating	You just gotta...
1	...have one more cigarette. ...finish the bottle of Božkov.
2	...tweak again tonight. ...get to level 70.
3	...expose yourself to strangers. ...spend all your money at the casino.
4	...lie down and have opium dreams. ...see the next dog fight.
5	...bet on bloodsports. ...count all those rice grains.
6	...burn historically significant artifacts. ...strangle another woman.

Debts

Debts are an Obligation in the strictest accounting term: they are resources that the character does not have that they nonetheless owe to someone else. Debts as an obligation are not valued based on their monetary value, and indeed it is entirely possible that at no time during the chronicle will the character actually pay off these debts or even necessarily make a good faith effort to start doing that. A Debt is valued based on how intrusive the collection attempts are to the character's life and actions.

Rating	You owe...
1	...money to credit card companies. ...a new car to your uncle.
2	...gambling debts to mobsters. ...a huge favor to the chairman.
3	...a new liver to the syndicate. ...a magical artifact to the Daziban.
4	...some missions to Russian Intelligence. ...a replacement Van Gogh to the Pinceps.
5	... atonement for the city you destroyed. ...the head of the Gorgon to the Anti-Pope
6	... information about your friends to the Empire. ...one child a month to the Oaken Abyss.

Duty

Duty is a social requirement to do certain things in certain circumstances. It acts as a very effective constraint upon the character's actions, because it is generally speaking something they agreed to do. It isn't just that the player wanted their character to operate with a social limitation in order to afford nifty resources that could be used in other ways – the character for whatever reason has taken on a commitment that they intend to keep. A Duty is worth more the more it interferes with a character's other goals.

Rating	You have made a commitment to...
1	...your job at Taco Temple. In two years you could be manager. King. God. ...your gang. Brothers forever. Westside!
2	...make sure your father can keep the house. ...be on call for the local fire department.
3	...keep your little sister fed and safe. ...perform the duties required of them by the FBI.
4	...protect the interests of the Revolutionary committee. ...your badge at AMP.
5	...find souls for the King with Three Shadows. ...find the Shadow Blade and return it to the Oaken Abyss.
6	...fight for Prelate Lanston's Martyr Force. ...guard the tapestry.

Enemies

Enemies are people (or at least creatures) that actively wish ill upon the character and are willing to act on this by actively interfering with the character's life. Some enemies want to send thugs to the character's residence and beat the crap out of them. Others simply want to ruin the character's career, expose them to the media, steal their number one dime, or in some way do something bad to the character. An enemy doesn't deserve a higher rating just because they want to do something more awful to the character – they deserve a higher rating because through dedication or reach they impose a greater limit on the character's choices. So long as the enemy wishes to do something of sufficient harm that the character will not passively allow it to happen, the rating of the Enemy Obligation is a function entirely of how intrusive they are to the character's story.

Rating	Your enemies...
1	...will send ruffians to break your stuff. ...will shoot at you if you enter their territory.
2	...are hunting you. ...want to expose your plans.
3	...have taken over most of town. ...know where you live.
4	...control the news. ...know what you are.
5	...have sent a powerful assassin to end you. ...know who you care about.
6	...whisper in your dreams. ...are a pack of vampires who want to eat your frickin heart.

Stalkers

The character has one or more people who keep track of their movements. Being stalked is creepy at the best of times, but in an abstract sense someone who collects information on the character and then doesn't do anything with it is not a real problem (well, a smaller problem, in that someone else could subsequently come into possession of the data and then do something with it). The value then of Stalkers as an obligation is determined by how many resources they will use in collecting information on the character coupled with how much the character wishes that information to not be kept. In short: how much the character finds their life actually inconvenienced by trying to keep their secrets and having their secrets escape anyway.

Rating	Your movements are under investigation by...
1	...an obsessive fan. ...a rogue cop.
2	...a perky reporter. ...your parole officer.
3	...a criminal syndicate. ...a monster hunter.
4	...a Military Minister who is sure you are up to something. ...the Mystery Machine.
5	...the smoking man. ...a Marduk Society cleaner team.
6	...a vast conspiracy that monitors all electronics. ...a cartel of ghosts.

Motivations & Passions
“We do what we must, because we can.”

It is important at times to realize that After Sundown is a role playing game, and as such that the characters being played are in fact characters and not the actual people playing the game. Even though a player will routinely use first person pronouns to describe a character's activities (for example: “I call the dog to me” or “I bend down and lick the blood off the floor”) the character and the player are different people. The first person pronoun is used as a storytelling and acting device. The use of the first person pronoun helps bring immediacy and sympathy to the characters, but it doesn't actually conflate the character's unique personality traits with those of the player. Conversely, the MC will usually refer to non-player characters in the third person (for example: “The knife cuts deeply into Her” or “Max begins to cry”), and may well refer to player characters in the second person (for example: “The sputtering of the lamp plunges you into darkness”). This is done because the MC has a lot of characters they are controlling, and it is incomprehensible if all of them identify themselves as “me”. But regardless of what pronouns and sentence constructions are employed, the characters are not the same as the players. They have different abilities and a different fate. The characters can even die and it won't be the end of the world for the players. Most importantly, the characters are characters in a story, and they have different motivations from those of the players.

Every character in the story, like every person in real life, has personal beliefs, fears, goals, and habits that act as strings to their marionettes. In After Sundown, these motivations are formalized into Passions, Ethics, and Ideologies. And they can be of great help when determining what a character's likely responses to a situation might be. But the vagaries of circumstances are too complicated for the game rules to cover in total, and so it falls to players to adjudicate what they think their character's actions would actually be in response to specific events. Not only is this much more immersive and entertaining than simply deterministically generating each character's actions, but it can potentially give a more nuanced, more real response than any table ever could. The fact that each player presumably passes the Turing Test means that they can play a role that also passes the Turing Test. And that's a good thing.

It is unfortunately true that the game world as a whole includes billions of people and most of the background characters will not be given even the barest of motivational sketches. When the characters walk into a 7-11 at 2 in the morning to get slurpees, it's not super important what the guy behind the counter is doing with his life, chances are that his lines in the play will be the barest of pleasantries and he'll get credited as “7-11 Employee”. But this is not always the case. Events have a tendency to spiral out of control and develop quickly in a role playing game, and it is entirely possible that the players will, for whatever reason, end up conversing with the 7-11 employee for an extended period of time, bringing his name, his ideals, and his fears to actual importance. For the MC there are two main ways to handle this fact. The first is to simply write a character on the spot, filling in details as they become important. And the second is to have some “templates” – a set of mundane Extras set up in advance that can be slotted into the story whenever some random person in a bank or a crowd becomes important to the story. Random name tables are incredibly useful for this.

Losing Control: Frenzy and Despondency
“Rar!”

Character's in the realm of horror are often the carriers of some pretty hefty psychological baggage. Burdened by curses and sustained by dark magic, most supernaturals have a pretty tenuous grip on their sanity and even their composure. The beast lurks rather shallowly beneath the surface, and when a supernatural creature transforms into their war form, it does not even do that.

When subject to strong stimuli, a supernatural character my completely fly off the handle and start doing crazy crap. Players are encouraged to roleplay their loss of control to the hilt. While often as not being fairly useless or even detrimental to their own life goals, the erratic and extreme actions of such a character are quite spotlight hogging. Such rampages can make or break a story, and Frenzy tests should be made sparingly.

To control Frenzy a character makes a Willpower test plus an appropriate skill. What skills can be used to add to that test vary depending upon the Passion. For example, a character subject to Fear Frenzy may attempt to control it with a Willpower + Combat, a Willpower + Tactics, or a Willpower + Sabotage test. When a character has already entered frenzy they will eventually calm down. The trigger for potentially calming down is usually related to the trigger that set them off in the first place (for example, a character in hunger frenzy would have a chance to come out of it when they sated the hunger, tough of course if they failed to end it at that point they'd just continue to fruitlessly feed), but a character can attempt to end a frenzy at any time by spending an Edge. The test to end a frenzy uses the same dicepool as the test to prevent one in the first place. The threshold to keep one's self from flipping out is based on the severity of the stimulus, and the threshold to end it once it has begun is the same. All frenzies eventually end, and if a character is provided multiple opportunities to end a frenzy each subsequent attempt is made against a threshold one lower. Characters with a higher Potency are more emotionally unstable and less human, and their thresholds for avoiding/ending a frenzy are increased by half their Potency (rounded down).

Staying around people is emotionally destabilizing for supernatural creatures. There are a lot of stimuli to deal with and there are a lot of disappointments and frustrations. Every month that a supernatural creature attempts to live within mortal society, they should make a frenzy test. The threshold for the first month is 1, but it increases by 1 each additional month. A supernatural character who stays long in society will hulk out eventually. The only ways around this are to run off and meditate or periodically freak out under hopefully controlled circumstances.

Each supernatural type has a most common Master Passion (Despair for Transhumans, Fear for Leviathans, Greed for Witches, Hunger for Vampires, Loneliness for Animates, and Rage for Lycanthropes). But individual characters are by definition individuals, and may choose any Master Passion as befits their character's story and idiom. Some non-playable types can have multiple Master Passions or none at all. Still others have special rules governing their use of passions. The Soulless are in a constant state of rage frenzy that never ends; Akuma are subject to frenzies of rage, hunger, and fear; while the Pods have no passions at all (Master or otherwise).

Frenzy is not completely useless. Whilst in Frenzy, a character's Strength and Willpower are increased by 1. Although they are usually not of much use socially even so.

Master Passion Despair
“Shinj [ʃɪndʒ]

1. -Verb (used without object)
2. to absolutely flip out in existential uncertainty and despair to the point of being unable to accomplish life goals.”

A character with a Master Passion of Despair is prone to fits of despondency that render them unpredictable, both destructive and self destructive. Characters subject to despair frenzy may withdraw for long periods of time and show signs that a mortal would diagnose as clinical depression. But while actually in a despair frenzy the character's actions are often terrifying to behold. Alternately comatose and prone to massive destruction, a despairing character withdraws from or pushes away the entire world. Their own work may be destroyed, as might anything nearby. A despairing rampage is born out of a combination of fear and frustration, and usually tends more to the “simplicity” of mass destruction.

Characters dominated by Master Passion Despair are affected the rest of the time in one of two main ways. Some characters seem to “make up” for their black moods by being relentlessly upbeat the rest of the time. The precipice that such a character falls off as the pendulum swings from their ability to maintain cheerfulness and completely giving up to bitterness and regret is frightening to behold. Other characters run the razor's edge of melancholy all the time. These characters wander through life wearing black eyeliner and noting all glasses as being at least half empty and possibly contaminated by spider eggs. It is important to note that whether the character is characterized better as Eeyore or Stimpy in their normal interactions with the world, that the actual frustrations required to push the character into madness are the same. The manic characters may seem happier on a moment to moment basis, but that joy is fragile – as close to the void as the permanently depressed.

Triggers for a despair frenzy usually take the form of setbacks of some form or another. Triggers to end a despair frenzy are either things that would cheer them up, or the galvanizing action of seeing something that mattered to them destroyed during their frenzy (often as not by their frenzy). Key skills are Survival, Persuasion, and Operations. Master Passion Despair is the usual drive of Transhumans.

Master Passion Fear
“All motivations are merely a subset of fear. A fear of irrelevance.”

A character with Master Passion Fear lives in absolute terror every day of their existence. Harried constantly by the need for a feeling of security that eludes them eternally, they find firsthand that Fear is a cruel and unforgiving mistress. Not a few mastered by fear dig themselves into a figurative (or even literal) hole and become virtually paralyzed with binding paranoia and a crushing fear of the unknown that limits their movements and holds them fast within some real or imaginary fortress, but this is by no means universal. Fear can be a motivator that is easily mistaken for positive, because while it can easily prevent someone from doing needful things, it can also force the fearful hand into action. When not acting is more feared even than venturing into the unknown, the terrorized act with hurried finality. It is important to note that virtually all player characters are going to subscribe to the panicked urgency school of crippling disquietude rather than the torporous catatonia school of life ruining trepidation.

Those laboring under Master Passion Fear are prone to Frenzy and Despondency, but always one more than the other. Each person's personal nightmares drive them to different irrational extremes. Triggers to enter a Fear Frenzy include both what Lemony Snicket would call the “rational fears” (such as being threatened or wounded) and the “irrational fears” (which are deeply personal jitters that are difficult, even embarrassing, to explain to others). Each fearful character should pick some of the latter, things which quicken the pulse and dominate their nightmares. Triggers to hopefully end despondency come when and where the character can find comfort, whether this is a warm bed, a dark hiding place, or the arms of a compatriot. Key skills are Combat, Tactics, and Sabotage. Master Passion Fear is the most common motivation of Leviathans, which in some way accounts for how many of them leave society of all types and simply hide in the wilderness.

Master Passion Greed
“I feed the mouth that bites me.”

A character with Master Passion Greed is dominated by a need to have things. Not necessarily “valuable” things according to disinterested onlookers, and certainly not all things that have value – even to themselves. Greed is at its heart the irrational feeling of the need to acquire, since we don't even notice it (much less condemn it with such a judgmental word as Greed) when people act upon their desires to acquire things that are necessary for their survival or lifestyle. And those characters who are mastered by their greed become fixated on acquiring specific things. At any given time, a character driven by Greed will have something that they “must have” and will take special effort to get it on a regular basis. Actual frenzies may occur when a character gets “very close” to their current goal and suffers a setback. Greed is a fickle mistress, and once a character achieves their goal, it will fall to them to find a new goal and pursue that (although in some cases this may be as simple as “get a lot of money” followed by “get even more money”).

Master Passion Greed can deeply affect a character's life even when they are not in frenzy. The rotating obsessions can lead to a destructive cycle of accumulation and spending. Once the character gains the money they were after, they may well spend it all on boats and other frivolities and then go back to hunting for money.

Of all the master passions, Master Passion Greed works best in children's literature, and you can find a tremendous number of examples of its placement in stories and cartoons for that reason. Players may be tempted to channel Gromgold or Gargemel, and this is not unreasonable. But it's not just antagonist wizards that are like this in stories. Many anime characters such as Lina Inverse can give a good template for the cycle of desire.

Actual frenzies from Master Passion Greed usually involve a destructiveness brought out by sheer frustration. Having gotten so close to their goal only to be thwarted, the character hurls themselves in a last ditch (often obviously futile) attempt to grab on to their desire. Things in the way are blasted with everything at their disposal and clear dangers and social conventions are completely ignored. Think the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Key skills are Stealth, Empathy, and Rigging. Master Passion Greed is the most common motivation of Witches.

Master Passion Hunger
“I want to suck your blood.”

A character with Master Passion Hunger is prone to harsh and painful pangs of emptiness, which slowly eat away at their sense of self when their power reserves are low. These fires of hunger can burn out of control and turn them into desperate, destructive beasts unless or until quenched by sapient flesh, blood, or pain. While this is obviously most commonly an affliction of those who get their power from an actual Feeding schedule or who otherwise prey on sapients, even those who don't rely on power for it can potentially have this passion. It is obviously dangerous in such characters, because unless the character's power schedule is Feeding they will remain low in power reserves (and thus potentially subject to more frenzy) even after chewing on a dude.

The hunger manifests continually in a manner that is just barely noticeable, and the unnerving awareness of the flesh and blood of those around them can easily be mistaken for simple sexual arousal. While actually in a hunger frenzy, the character's actions are more terrifying than simply unnerving. Moving with wild abandon, a hungering character dives upon others in an effort to consume what their pangs drive them to. A hunger rampage is born out of desires both to sate themselves and to cause great pain, and often results in a bloody rending of the victim's flesh.

Triggers for a hunger frenzy usually take the form of depleted Power. Triggers to end a hunger frenzy are either something which makes them lethargic (including simply being full of other foods), or having drained a victim dry. Key skills are Stealth, Animal Ken, and Medicine. Master Passion Hunger is the usual drive of Vampires.

Master Passion Loneliness
“We were meant to be together. If I wasn't made for you, why do I exist?!”

A character with Master Passion Loneliness is prone to excruciating, almost, paralyzing, pain. The pain of feeling incomplete, cut off, and alone. These feelings come rapidly when they are actually alone, and even creep up on them when they are surrounded by other people. Alienation is exacerbated by Master Passion Loneliness to the point of clear instability. They end up doing things to draw attention to themselves out of desperation, stunts that often as not actively push others away. Many with Master Passion Loneliness feel that what is missing from their life is a lover, but friendship or even just acknowledgement is a frequently cited lack as well.

A Loneliness Frenzy usually takes the form of a series of drastic and poorly conceived cries for help and attention. These can be incredibly destructive to things around them and even themselves. Petulant and half hearted attempts on their own life are not uncommon. While the goal is always to focus attention of the character and/or to punish others for abandoning them, the logical connection between their rampage and actually encouraging people to socialize with them can be... hard to explain. Loneliness Frenzies can be triggered by any abandonment, real or imagined. Characters with Master Passion Loneliness are prone to the worst sorts of jealousy on the smallest of provocations, and behave clingy and desperate even when relationships are seemingly normal. Key skills are Larceny, Intimidate, and Artisan. Master Passion Loneliness is the usual state of being for Prometheans.

Master Passion Rage
“You're making me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.”

A character with Master Passion Rage is short-tempered, and when their temper goes off they completely lose it: attacking their enemies, destroying the scenery, attacking bystanders, and destroying their relationships. Characters subject to rage frenzy will often lash out at others for perceived slights, both verbally and physically, but it is not until they are pushed into actual frenzy that their true and terrifying potential is unleashed. A raging character uses every power at their disposal to smash everything and everyone they perceive as vexing or hostile. Failing that, they will turn on inanimate objects and even innocent and irrelevant people as their inability to get their hands (or teeth, or balls of fire, or whatever) on something they can readily identify as a threat or a sleight becomes itself a source of anger. A raging rampage is born out of sheer anger, and seeks to remove the source of their anger through the simplest of emotionally-triggered reactions – pure violence.

Characters with Master Passion Rage are incredibly confrontational. Their “fight or flight” reflex pretty much always defaults to “fight” even in the face of extreme danger. They also don't like losing, being thwarted in even small ways, or being ignored. In supernatural society it is taken as a truism that you shouldn't let lycanthropes drive or play cards if you can arrange to avoid it.

Triggers for a rage frenzy usually take the form of a threat to the character's person or pride. Anything that would make a human fly into a rage works too. While threats to a person are usually pretty self explanatory (injuries or threats of violence), injuries to the pride are legitimately different for different people. Players are encouraged to have some “sensitive subjects” that piss them off beyond reason. And we do mean beyond reason. Triggers to end a rage frenzy are either things that would calm them, or the galvanizing action of seeing someone they care about hurt at their own hands (often after the wounds are lethal). Key skills are Athletics, Bureaucracy, and Research.. Master Passion Rage is the usual drive of Lycanthropes.

Driving Passions: Getting Places and Doing Things
“I'm gonna do it. Just you wait and see.”

While most major events in the realm of horror are soul destroying and oppressive affairs, it is not to be ignored that there are indeed things that motivate people to accomplish things. And while even that silver lining must be tempered with its own dark cloud – that indeed many people in the world are motivated to accomplish things that are despicable – it remains a source of beauty, industry, and human achievement. Or supernatural inhuman achievement as the case may be. These motivations represent the Muse in all of us, and in After Sundown are described as a character's Driving Passion.

Accomplishing things governed by the character's Driving Passion means more to the character than other things. And in the grand tradition of genre fiction, meaningful accomplishments are karmically rewarded. In After Sundown, achievement in accordance with a character's Driving Passion allows them to refresh an Edge even if it is not the end of the story. Striving to accomplish a character's Driving Passion can bring out their very best. When a character is apparently near to accomplishing something major with regards to their Driving Passion and they are faced with difficulty they may – once per story – temporarily increase one of their Physical, Mental, or Social attributes (of their choice) for the duration of the scene. Sometimes it can be wise to draw upon this inner awesomeness even when it is available, because it can only be used once per story.

A Driving Passion is like the narrative of the character's life as they would wish it to be. When choosing a Driving Passion, try to think of what would make the character “live happily ever after” or at least end the chronicle on a positive note. They can be things like “win the love of Isolde” or “get into Law School” or whatever it is that the character's big goal is supposed to be. However, things happen and life goes on even after the love of your life has married you or moved to Cleveland with her personal trainer. Sooner or later a character's Driving Passion becomes irrelevant. And when that happens, the character either has to go on listlessly with no real Driving Passion or find something new to propel them forward. Protagonists rarely go long without acquirig a new Driving Passion.

It is entirely acceptable for characters to have their Driving Passions defined reactively by the chronicle. A character might become incensed that the president had been kidnapped by ninjas or cultists were trying to destroy the world and get a Driving Passion to put a stop to that nonsense. Most adventure stories revolve around characters doing exactly that. However, the MC should check a proposed Driving Passion to make sure it isn't stupid. A character might be able to advance a goal such as “eat a sandwich”, but that's not really appropriate in most chronicles because it is too trivial. Of course, if circumstances are such that such a goal requires genuine striving against genuine difficulties (for example: the character is stuck in Limbo and there appears to be no bread), then by all means go for it.

Ethical Taboos: A Line in the Sand
“I'd do that for a dollar... that I would do for a hundred dollars... that I would not do.”

Every person has a set of personal ethics that govern and proscribe how they behave. It is important to distinguish a person's ethics (what they personally will not do) from their ideology (what they personally want to get done). For example: many people want sewage to get treated, but very few people are willing to actually handle the sewage or be around the sewage processing themselves. These kinds of internal contradictions are practically universal and make for great character conflicts and growth possibilities.

But Ethical Taboos aren't purely debilitating, no matter what Nietzsche tells you. In a world with genuine mind control floating around, having arbitrary, even irrational lines that you won't cross can be extremely useful. After all, whatever things you don't want to do are things that you've spent much of your life figuring out how to live without doing, and creatures trying to puppet you around may have no idea what those are, effectively creating minefields of unexpected resistance. Game mechanically, a character whose ethical taboos are brought to the fore increases the threshold to influence them into a course of action by 1 or 2.

Princess Ethics
“That's horrible and I don't want to look at it.”

Many people do not want to look at or participate in things that are ugly or repellent. While they probably have no moral objections to trash being collected, they have an ethical prohibition against doing it themselves. While perhaps not especially praiseworthy according to most ethical calculi, Princess Ethics are reasonably common. The moral of Beauty and the Beast, The Frog Prince, and Cinderella are pretty much all that Princess Ethics are to one degree or another bad; but that should not tell you that Princess Ethics are universally thought poorly of in any society. Indeed, many societies frown on people who abandon Princess Ethics, or even seem to. Just the fact that “Untouchables” exist in many cultures should tell you how prevalent this line of thinking really is.

Nonviolence Ethics
“I can't do that, people could get hurt!”

Nonviolence is when you don't hurt or kill things by your actions in a direct way that you can see. This is very often quite a different concern from taking actions that reduce the overall amount of hurt in the world, or even reducing the amount of violence in their area or even reducing the amount of violence done on their personal behalf. For example, while a person with Nonviolence Ethics will not swing a hammer into the skull of a pig, they are often perfectly happy to eat a eurodog. A severe conflict for the follower of Nonviolence Ethics is being attacked, since of course most people want to survive.

Politeness Ethics
“Of course I don't hate you...”

Mankind, even supernatural kind continues to persist in no small part because of its ability to get along with itself. And one of the strongest forces making this possible is the capacity for politeness. Each person is expected to defer actions that might offend others. And a lot of people do this pragmatically, not wanting to potentially start shit with random strangers. And a lot of other people find this automatic restriction on their activities is truly part of their being. Insulting others or taking a dump on the table is something they won't do.

Privacy Ethics
“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”

The world's panopticon is fairly advanced, with more information collected on each person than any other person could read in a lifetime even if they could find it all in the stacks and stacks of documentation tangled up in other people's lives. And yet, a lot of people don't want to share things about themselves with others. This isn't exactly the same thing as shame, and indeed many people who feel this way are not particularly embarrassed about most of their actions, but simply feel that others knowing about them and especially finding things out about them is an insidious attack. Characters with Privacy Ethics won't talk about their personal life except under the most extreme duress.

Frugality Ethics
I've got food at home. That hotdog guy is not getting my dollar.

The very nature of expending things is that once that has been done, the thing is expended. This finality is a source of genuine fear for a lot of people. The idea of not being able to use something later can be virtually paralyzing. People with Frugality Ethics are opposed to giving up things, even though by never using an opportunity or good it is in fact very similar to never having had it at all.

Hacker Ethics
I may not like what you say, but I'd be modestly upset if someone stopped you from saying it.

People who have Hacker Ethics don't like being told to shut up and they don't like getting rid of DVDs that they haven't watched yet. In a larger sense, they feel that information has a life of its own and should be enabled whenever possible. Hacker Ethics provokes people to have a gut reaction of horror to censorship, even if the ideas being censored are ones they are violently opposed to.

Solidarity Ethics
“I don't care what he done, I ain't no snitch.”

People who have Solidarity Ethics don't want to take actions that betray people. This is not the same as doing their 'duty' or holding up their ends of bargains. So for example, they would be reluctant to turn in one of their friends to the police or even tell another one of their friends that a third friend had wronged them. Passive betrayal, such as merely allowing a third party to harm an ally is not a violation. Solidarity Ethics are quite common among lower classes or persecuted minorities.

Other Taboos
“Whatever this is, I am not eating it.”

There are so many possibilities for ethical taboos that they are quite likely infinite. And it is encouraged for players and MCs alike to make new and specific ethical frameworks for individual characters. Remember that ethics need not be adaptive or even “good”, they are simply things that characters have a mental block against doing. In the real world, some people have taboos against treating people of other ethnicities as equals or treating a woman with respect. These can appear on a character sheet as “Racist Ethics” or “Sexist Ethics” or whatever. And it is important to note that while these may be a character flaw, they are also an important facet of the character's personality. Ethics are a good way to describe the good and the bad about a character, and to flesh them out more fully as a human (or monster).

Ideologies
It is everyone's goal to have things be more like the way they wish that they were.

When we use the word ideology, we naturally think of the big political, religious, and economic ideologies that have shaped the 20th century and created the world we live in. But while the demands and counter demands of Imperialism, Capitalism, Fascism, Communism, and Fundamentalism have certainly torn the world apart and put it back together in a form that would be both unrecognizable and incomprehensible to the people of even the 1800s, these kinds of big ideas are generally not supported monolithically by nations or even individuals. There are few people indeed that argue for pure fundamentalism in any real way (even the Amish make concessions to modern medicine sometimes), and no one outside the looniest of ideologues argues for actually pure Capitalism or Communism without intrusion by the other as anything but a ludicrous rhetorical strategy.

But beyond that, the fact of the matter is that most people don't actually care how it is decided what plots of land will grow lettuce or how it is determined where that lettuce goes to be distributed to various kitchens and delivered ultimately to salad plates. It's not the kind of thing most people think about at all. So when we talk about Ideologies of characters, we are not particularly concerning ourselves with the character's personal beliefs on the extent to which the public should be invested into the oversight of and decision making process that determines the production and distribution of agricultural products, or what form that extent of public interest should take in terms of participation and representation of individuals. We're talking about what people think they should be doing and even more importantly, what they think other people should be doing in their immediate vicinity. A character's ideology determines what actions they find praiseworthy, and what actions they condemn. Some characters think that a person going to war is praiseworthy because it is brave, others because it shows commitment, and still others because it involves killing those people over there. On the other hand, different people think that a person going to war is disappointing because it is violent, others because it implies support for the current regime, and still others because it involves killing those people over there. Every action you can take can be lauded or condemned by rational people for facets about it that are essentially identical. There is truly nothing that a man can do (including nothing) that can be universally seen as good or bad.

A character's Ideology should be ranked, what are the things that people could do that would most offend your character's sensibilities? What are the things that people could do that would most impress your character with that person's virtue? Note that this is the character's actual visceral responses, not the answers they would give to a questionnaire that others might read. Lots of people say they think the ten commandments are important, but how many people are in reality more offended by rape (which is not against any of the ten commandments) than by carving statues (which is)? A good start would be to write up twelve things: six things that your character would be impressed by, and six things that your character would be offended by. Note that just because a character has an ethical taboo against doing something does not mean that they lose respect for other people who do those things. It really can go either way. A character with Princess Ethics might be in awe of people who have the courage to squash bugs and turn to them for help. On the other hand, another character with Princess Ethics may feel that people who do gross things have cooties and thus not want to touch them or be near them for fear of having to think about the gross things that they do. It is entirely common for there to be contradictions available, where the character looks at the same action from two or more angles and gets different decisions on whether something should be honored or despised.

• Example: Eric is a pretty chivalrous guy, and likes to think of himself as an especially manly man. He's wary of people who aren't religious or who don't conform to his expectations of gender roles.
  • Honor: bravery, confidence, pulling your weight, holding your liquor, knowing sports trivia, women who dress sexy.
  • Despise: hurting women, acting gay, renouncing Christianity, hurting people for extended periods of time, snitching to the cops, making things ugly

In general, if a character is being influenced towards or by something that they honor in their personal ideology, the threshold to do so is reduced by one. If the character is being influenced towards or by something they despise, the threshold is increased by one. And these changes are naturally reversed if they are being influenced against or to reject things that they honor or despise.

Changing Ideologies
That was me then, this is me now.

Ideologies do not stay static over time. Characters can be convinced through persuasive argumentation that things they thought were good were bad, or that things they thought were bad are actually good. People can be quite resistant to change, and often someone who is convinced that something is good will just go ahead and continue hating it out of habit. Even if someone agrees on an intellectual level that a group of people is in fact producing more for the economy than they are costing in civil services doesn't mean that they necessarily start liking that group of people, or even stop hating them. Indeed, prejudices run pretty deep and it is entirely frequent for a person to continue parroting arguments they themselves no longer believe rather than abandon ideological positions they've held onto for a long time.

But change does happen. Characters in an After Sundown game are often exposed to tremendously life changing events, and they do change their lives and their goals in response to them. If you've noticed people changing their political affiliations because their son came out as a homosexual or they lost their job due to plant closings, imagine how complete the turnaround can be when a person finds themselves as a member of the living dead who drink human blood to persist from night to night.

Character Advancement

Characters in stories tend to become better as the story progresses. This is part of the character's heroic journey, and also serves to keep the audience interested. After all, once the protagonists have bested one problem, it is much easier to keep the listener's interest if the subsequent problems are bigger. Which in turn requires greater abilities on the part of the protagonists to solve. And so on. This can be seen very well in the movies Alien and Aliens. In the first film, the characters were dealing with one unknown monster and spent most of the movie trying to figure out what to do. But in the second movie, there are instead hundreds of the things, and yet the main character has already bested one in battle – the movie focuses on fighting rather than hiding most of the time. And both of those movies are very good. Indeed, Aliens 3 is one of those apocryphal movies like Highlander 2 that probably doesn't even exist. But if it did, its primary flaw would be having rolled back the progress of the second movie and thereby creating a story that the audience didn't give a crap about.

It is easy for advancement to get out of hand. By the time Spawn beat up the lords of each realm of existence and the creator of the universe, the story really no longer held interest. A power fantasy is only interesting as long as there's still tension. While a fast rate of advancement may feel good, remember that it also advances the timeline towards the point where the game will stop being fun. It's a trade off. Advancement that is too fast or too slow is stultifying.

Acquisitive Advancement
In picking up a santa-sack full of antiques I feel that I learned that I now own a santa-sack full of antiques.

Resources and Status as well as Obligations are gained during the course of normal play. Sometimes these are gained together: if during the course of a story a character boosts a car, they can reasonably expect to have gained a Financial Resource (the car), but may well have gained some Enemies or Stalkers as well by the same act. At other times, a character may end up with a new set of Contacts or a sack of gold totally free and clear.

Generally speaking, characters should use things they find over the course of a chapter with impunity and discuss with the MC what acquisitions are going to be remembered in the next chapter or chronicle at the end of the session. Things that will persist into future chapters are probably worth writing down, as well as formalizing them into numerical Resource values. So if a character ends up with $100,000 in cash and some jade statues in the trunk of a car during a story it is generally worth referring to in those terms for the rest of the chapter; but when play comes to future chapters, it is better to just write it down as:
Resource: Finance 2 (Cash)

Obligations even more so, since the character will often not be aware of newly gained Obligations and that lack of knowledge can cause well appreciated suspense for the player. However, when the game comes to a close, these things should probably be written down (and if you rotate MCs it should definitely be written down).

Status is frequently gained in the aftermath of a story, making the accounting of it at the end of a session rather natural. However it is also true that a character can be promoted to Bishop right in the middle of the action. And that's fine. However, it is suggested that players not bother to write such career changes down on their character sheet (at least, not in pen) until the end of a session. As the saying goes “There's many a slip 'tween the cup and the lip.” and status gained quickly can also be lost quickly. A return to the status quo is perhaps nearly as likely as the retention of status until enough time has passed to be sure that no one is coming to challenge the appointment.

Transformative Advancement
There should be only me!

Transformative Advancement is when a character gains substantial amounts of power and radically changes what they can do – and even what they are. Major life changing breakpoints such as this are very much a staple of the gothic genre. Indeed, every time a Luminary becomes a vampire or lycanthrope, such a transformative juncture has been reached.

The precise moment when a character becomes supernatural is not always clear. Sure you become a Nosferatu when another Nosferatu kills you with blood draining and passes you a power point. And you become a Bagheera when another Bagheera mauls you with a Terminal Wound and you spend an Edge to survive. But for others it's less cut and dried. A character becomes a Fallen when their connection to humanity has been burnt out by Infernal magic, and that can take time. Androids and Troglodytes often discover their non-human status only gradually, sometimes the uncovering of powers is dragged out over the course of multiple chapters.

Regardless of the type of supernatural creature that the character is becoming (or discovering that they have always been), the character gains certain things when they stop being a human Luminary and start being a Supernatural Creature:

• A Potency of 1.
• A Power reserve of 10 (13 after Potency Modifier).
• A Master Passion appropriate to the character's transformation story.
• The 6 Basic and 2 Advanced Powers common to their supernatural type.
• 1 additional Basic Power.
• 1 additional Advanced Power

Whether these new aspects of the character are discovered gradually over several chapters or gained all at once in a flash of insight and despair, these changes are automatic and have no impact on any other sources of advancement the character may have coming.

Creatures in After Sundown normally gain Potency and learn Elder Powers only very slowly. Many Elders only have a single Elder Ability for each century or three of their persistence – or even less. The King with Three Shadows has a Potency of 10, indicating that his Potency gain per century averages out to like ¼ or so. In the default After Sundown chronicle we can expect the number of centuries to pass to be some number very close to zero. Getting Elder Powrs and increasing Potency the “honest” way is simply not going to happen. Characters in After Sundown can gain these powers over the course of a story, but only by grabbing a hold of asymmetric power of some sort.

The destruction of powerful elders gives off a flash of power that empowers those present or leaves dark fluid which will empower those who drink it or some similar rite of power theft that is generally available to several characters at once. Siphoning the power out of an elder is generally frowned upon by supernaturals (even in the Cauchemar Communes) and is called “Titaning” (or by snarkier members of supernatural society that don't care for Chronos references: “Quickening”). Having taken down a Ifrit and gained Potency well before one's time is a fast way to gain respect as well as power – but it also causes many members of supernatural society to regard the characters as dangerous loose cannons no matter what their reason for the battle was.

Similarly, powerful artifacts can be Titanized under certain circumstances, and various tomes and places of power exist that can imbue a character with Elder Powers that would normally take them decades to master. However, it is important to note that characters are not normally going to be “entitled” to gain Potency or learn Elder Powers over the course of the stories. They come as rewards for completing especially difficult chronicles or defeating particularly powerful antagonists.

Karmic Advancement
What goes around will have gone around.

At the conclusion of chapters, characters may advance personally in addition to having advanced their cause over the course of the chapter. Advancement of this sort is difficult to plan ahead of time. No one really knows what lessons they will learn from the future and supernatural creatures don't always get to decide ahead of time what powers they will develop or when they will do so. And so when a chapter ends and the players are ready to do the accounting at the conclusion the MC may deal out cards for players to bid on. They bid with karma tokens. Tokens are gained by the following means:

• Each player may have one or more karma tokens banked from the previous chapter. Any tokens that are not spent are banked automatically.
• Every chapter, each player gains two tokens that they can bid for themselves.
• Every chapter, each player has another token that they can nominate another player to get when they do something awesome. What constitutes something awesome enough to warrant getting a karma token depends upon the style of game being run

When it comes time for bidding, the MC deals out a number of Tarot cards and one of the players can choose one to begin bidding on by bidding a number of tokens for it. Then it is auctioned off, with each player in turn being offered the opportunity to bid more tokens or pass. When everyone has passed, the player with the highest bid spends that many tokens and adjusts their character sheet as dictated by the card gained. Then the player to the left of the one who got the last card nominates another available card by bidding on it or passes the opportunity to the player to their left. This continues until all cards have been sold, none of the players wish to bid on any remaining cards, or no one has any more tokens (no card can be “sold” for less than 1 token).

Karma tokens should be physical objects of sufficient mass to be effectively slid across the table from one player to another, without being big enough to be unwieldy or heavy enough to accidentally hurt people. Poker chips and glass beads are good bets.

Minor Arcana:

Card	Advancement
†2:	A specialization in a Physical Skill
†3:	A new Physical skill at rating 1
†4:	+1 to Perception
†5:	+1 to Stealth
†6:	+1 to Athletics
†7:	+1 to Drive
†8:	+1 to a Physical skill you used this chapter
†9:	+1 to a Physical skill of your choice
†10:	+1 to a Physical skill of your choice
†P:	A specialization in any skill
†N:	A new skill at Rating 1.
†Q:	+1 to any skill
†K:	+1 to any skill
†A:	+1 to any skill or a new skill at rating 1
¤2:	A specialization in a Technical Skill
¤3:	A new Technical skill at rating 1
¤4:	+1 to Electronics
¤5:	+1 to Artisan
¤6:	+1 to Rigging
¤7:	+1 to Research
¤8:	+1 to a Technical skill you used this chapter
¤9:	+1 to a Technical skill of your choice
¤10:	+1 to a Technical skill of your choice
¤P:	A specialization in any skill
¤N:	A new skill at Rating 1.
¤Q:	+1 to any skill
¤K:	+1 to any skill
¤A:	+1 to any skill or a new skill at rating 1.
þ2:	A specialization in a Social skill
þ3:	A new Social skill at rating 1
þ4:	+1 to Bureaucracy
þ5:	+1 to Empathy
þ6:	+1 to Expression
þ7:	+1 to Persuasion
þ8:	+1 to a Social skill you used this chapter
þ9:	+1 to a Social skill of your choice
þ10:	+1 to a Social skill of your choice
þP:	A specialization in any skill
þN:	A new skill at Rating 1.
þQ:	+1 to any skill
þK:	+1 to any skill
þA:	+1 to any skill or a new skill at rating 1.
¶2:	Two new Backgrounds at rating 1
¶3:	A new Background at rating 2
¶4:	+2 to a Background you used this chapter
¶5:	+2 to a Background you used this chapter
¶6:	+1 to a Background you used this chapter and another Background
¶7:	+1 to two Backgrounds of your choice
¶8:	+2 to a Background of your choice
¶9:	+2 to a Background of your choice
¶10:	Gain a Positive Quality
¶P:	Gain a Positive Quality
¶N:	Gain a Positive Quality
¶Q:	Learn a Language
¶K:	Learn a Language
¶A:	+1 to any skill or a new skill at rating 1.

Major Arcana

The Fool:	+1 Edge
The Magician:	Learn a Basic or Advanced Sorcery
The High Priestess:	Learn a Basic or Advanced Sorcery you used this chapter
The Empress:	Learn a Basic or Advanced Universal Power that you used this chapter.
The Emperor:	+1 Willpower
The Hierophant:	Learn an Advanced Power
The Lovers:	+1 Charisma
The Chariot:	+1 Agility
Strength:	+1 Strength
The Hermit:	+1 Intuition
Wheel of Fortune:	+1 Edge
Justice:	+1 Logic
The Hanged Man:	+1 to a Physical, Mental, or Social Attribute
Death:	Learn a Basic or Advanced Orphic Sorcery
Temperance:	Learn a Basic or Advanced Astral Sorcery
The Devil:	Learn a Basic or Advanced Infernal Sorcery
The Tower:	+1 to a Physical, Mental, or Social Attribute
The Star:	+1 to a Physical, Mental, or Social Attribute
The Moon:	Learn a Basic Power or Advanced Universal Power
The Sun:	Learn a Basic or Advanced Universal Power
Judgement:	+1 Edge
The World:	Learn a Basic or Advanced Power of your choice

Key:

Card	Full Name
†P	Page (or Jack) of Swords
¤N	Knight of Pentacles
þK	King of Cups
¶A	Ace of Wands

There are several different methods for determining advancement deals. Generally speaking, a relatively consistent system should be used throughout a chronicle and a campaign. Remember that a Major Arcana is worth about 4 times what a Minor Arcana card is. Bidding is very different when players are spending the same tokens on a +1 to Research and a +1 Logic in the same auction than when they are evaluating only one or the other.

Commensurate Achievement: In this system the MC determines whether they think that a major milestone was passed in the current chapter or not, and accordingly deals out a number of cards that are pre-selected to be either Minor or Major Arcana exclusively. The deck is simply divided and cards from only one type are dealt.

Minimum Awards: In this system, the MC determines how many Major Arcana the last chapter was worth (usually 1 or 2) and then deals out cards from the combined deck until that many Major Arcana appear. There may be many Minor Arcana on the table or none at all. And as such, the number of cards to be potentially bid on may be very much higher or lower than the number of players.

Minimum Coverage: In this system, the MC determines ahead of time how many cards the chapter was worth (usually 1 or 2 more than the number of players), and deals out that many cards from the combined deck. There may be several Major Arcana showing or none at all.

Advantages and Disadvantages
Oh yeah? But can you do this?

Over and above the fact that different people are stronger or weaker, more or less trained than others, there are things some characters can do that others cannot. These vary from simple “stupid human tricks” to feats that defy explanation even by trained stage magicians. From a game structural perspective, an Advantage is like a Power in that it is an ability that you either have or do not have. However, Advantages are available to humans, even Extras, and are substantially less powerful than an actual Power.

Physical Advatages

Ambidexterity: The character can use either hand without penalty. They can fight with two weapons that can both be used in one hand and gain the increase of 1 damage in the main weapon without suffering a penalty to the attack roll. Normally doing so carries a -2 dicepool penalty to the attack.
Direction Sense: The character knows what direction things are from where they are. They know what direction they are facing and roughly how far they are from places that they have been. This can get disrupted by being moved while they are unconscious, but not by being marched around while blindfolded.
Double Jointed: The character can fold themselves up into ridiculous shapes and squeeze through spaces that seem... unlikely. Getting out of a pair of handcuffs isn't even a test – they can just do it.
Extremely Competitive: If another character performs a stunt, such as in a chase or dance fight, the character gains a +2 dicepool bonus to match that stunt. The threshold to convince the character to back down, give up, or drop an issue is increased by 1.
Fighting Finesse: The character can use their Agility instead of their Strength when attacking with Melee Weapons if those weapons can be used in one hand or are flexible weapons.
Natural Immunity: There is some poison or disease that the character is completely immune to the harmful effects of.
Swarming: The character is very good at fighting in groups, and does not suffer penalties for fighting in large groups and does not provide penalties to their allies.

Mental Advantages

Eidetic Memory: The character can remember things that they have seen or heard in incredibly accurate and minute detail. This means that, for example, when they see a slasher walking around dressed as a human after they the same guy dressed as a monster, they will almost invariably recognize them as one and the same.
Experimenter: The character can quit any time. Ingesting chemicals over a long period of time will still cause adaptation and eventually physical dependence, but the character is never psychologically or spiritually addicted to anything.
Time Sense: The character knows what time it is. They know how long it has been since the last time you asked what time it is. And they can decide ahead of time how long they will sleep – they not only do not need a clock, they don't need an alarm clock to manage their lives.

Social Advantages

Attractive: The character is sexually attractive, and it is especially easy for them to make progress through flirtation. The thresholds for convincing people who are sexually inclined towards the apparent sex and species of the character of things by these means are reduced by 1.
Calm Heart: The character doesn't get offended by insults, even deliberate ones. This means among other things that litanies of curses do not count as a trigger for a Rage Frenzy.
Innocence: Human society has prejudices and for whatever reason, people just don't think the character is guilty of “stuff”. Maybe they look small and harmless, maybe they just have an air of extreme respectability. Whatever the reason, people do not want to believe bad things about them. This increases the threshold to convince other people that the character has done something wrong by 1.
Loyalty: The character really likes his friends, or maybe just takes duty to the team very seriously. The threshold to convince them to turn on those they feel loyal to (often including the other characters) is increased by 1. This even applies to magic, and the character effectively gains 1 extra hit to resist Dominate and similar effects if they are being made to turn on their allies. In the case of ongoing domination such as Possession, the bonus hit can retroactively cause the character to resist the effect if they are subsequently let loose on their friends.

Disadvantages

Characters may, with MC approval, take a number of Disadvantages during character creation. Each Disadvantage taken will allow the player to take an additional Advantage.

Physical Disadvantages

Allergy: The character is allergic to something reasonably common, such as mold, pollen, or cats. While in the presence of their nemesis, the character is fatigued.
Blatantly Magical: There is something about the character which is very demonstrably outside the boundaries of human normality. Like possibly little wings on the back or a gaping hole in the chest where churning gears can clearly be seen. While such traits can be covered with clothing or hidden in the dark, it could be a severe problem for the Vow of Silence were such things to be seen by normal people.
Conspicuous Consumption: The character bleeds from the mouth, has weeping sores, or in some other way is obviously very ill.
Deadly Allergy: The character has some generally avoidable, but potentially lethal allergy. If they consume the substance, whether it's peanuts, shellfish, or penicillin, it is treated as a lethal poison.
Distinctive Appearance: The character is easy to describe, possibly because the look wildly different from others, but maybe just because there's something really obvious like a burn mark on their face or a missing eye.
Tunnel Vision: The character can only defend themselves in combat against one opponent at a time.

Mental Disadvantages

Aimless: The character's hopes and dreams feel distant and unreal. Advancing their Driving Passion does not allow them to refresh an Edge.
Anachronism: The character is from another time, or possibly just grew up in an Amish community or a savage region of one of the outlands. And they do not know how machines work unless they are specially instructed on them. The character cannot default when operating 21st century devices.
Compulsive Behavior: The character feels compelled to do some thing over and over again in ways which are maladaptive. This can be comedic, tragic, distinctive, and time wasting. A good example of Compulsive Behavior can be found in the TV show Monk.
Delusional: The character is absolutely certain of something that does not appear to be true and will not be swayed by any evidence to the contrary. This would include most religious beliefs, but the character is not awarded Disadvantages for believing ridiculous things that are believed by a large portion of the population, because such delusions do not negatively impact the character. So if you believe that there are important messages from aliens coded in dog howls, that's a disadvantage; but if you believe that there are important messages from Jesus coded in cheese sandwiches, this is not a disadvantage. Not because it isn't counter-factual and immune to contrary evidence, but because society at large has accepted people with such delusions and made accommodations for them.
Disloyal: The character would sell their grandmother for a hamburger. The threshold to get them to betray their allies (including with magic) is reduced by 1.
Flake: The character is not particularly committed to goals or ideals, and it is easy to convince them to do other things. The threshold to convince them to follow a different course of action is reduced by one.
Illiterate: The character cannot read.
Prideful: The character has an extreme aversion to admitting fault. They will cling to a course of action that is obviously not working, and they will allow their sense of pride to get in the way of personal relationships.
Temperamental: The character is prone to outrageous emotional outbursts. The threshold to resist or end a frenzy is increased by 1.

Social Disadvantages

Diplomatic Incident: Something the character did, or at least something that someone thinks the character did causes them to be unliked by another group that they have to deal with sometimes.
Doomed Romance: Eventually you have to come to terms with the fact that the only common element in all your failed romances is you. The character's love life is a series of train wrecks. For whatever reason, the people they fall in love with turn out to be married, alien impostors, or fated to die grisly deaths.
Eerie Presence: The character's mere presence triggers the spooky sense of normal people.
Feared by Children: Children do not like or trust the character. It's like the character is played by Alan Rickman.
Haunted: Left to their own devices, spirits harass the character. It's entirely possible that no one knows why this is. If a Ghost has a choice of targets, it will attack them.
Infectious Mood: The general disposition of the character is infectious. However, since they are a supernatural creature, and therefore crazy, the moods that they impart in others are similarly maladaptive. The character's Master Passion plays out in Extras who are in their presence for extended periods of time.
Minor: The character is under the critical age in their nation of origin where they are afforded the full rights and responsibilities of an adult. This may make it difficult to get into a club or get them pulled over by the popos while they are driving.
Naive: The character is unfamiliar with modern society for whatever reason, and does not know how to respond socially to normal behavior.
Offensive to Animals: Beasts do not like the character. If a Giant Animal has a choice of targets, it will attack them.
Oppressed Minority: The character is a member of a group that is discriminated against.
Red Taped: The character's experience with mortal government is an unending hellscape of inexplicable delays and senseless harassment. It takes forever for their driver's license to be renewed, they are regularly pulled out of line at airport screenings, and life is frustrating.
Unattractive: The character is physically unattractive, and the threshold to influence anyone through flirtation is increased by 1.

[talozin]

[*] Mask of a Thousand Faces While active, those who meet the character will treat them as if they were a different person. The character may choose the appearance (including clothing and carried items) freely, but taking any action that would be impossible for the facade allows onlookers to see through the illusion. For example, if a character uses the Mask to appear as a person who had no gun and then fires their gun, people would see them as they really are. Activating Mask of a Thousand Faces is a Simple Action and requires an Agility + Stealth or Charisma + Larceny test. Mask of a Thousand Faces can be disrupted as if it were a Sorcery with a power source identical to the character using it.

Do we care that "Mask of a Thousand Faces" is the name for the substantially similar oWoD Obfuscate power?

edit: if so, maybe something like "Mystic Mask" or "Eldritch Facade" would be workable.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Can you clear up the terminology for powers a bit? From what I've gathered, Celerity is a "discipline", Quickness is a "power", and Descent of Entropy is an "Infernal sorcery". But sometimes it seems that things like Quickness are referred to as disciplines, or that things like Celerity are "universal disciplines" and Descent of Entropy is an "Infernal sorcery discipline".


Also, it would be helpful to make more explicit what the disadvantage "Eerie Presence" actually does. Is the character more likely to breach the Masquerade? Will prostitutes refuse to get into their car and cab drivers drive off before they get in? Do people pretend ignore them and cross to the other side of the street? Are people less likely to trust them and invite them to parties?

[Username17]

Can you clear up the terminology for powers a bit? From what I've gathered, Celerity is a "discipline", Quickness is a "power", and Descent of Entropy is an "Infernal sorcery". But sometimes it seems that things like Quickness are referred to as disciplines, or that things like Celerity are "universal disciplines" and Descent of Entropy is an "Infernal sorcery discipline".

Yeah. I'm mostly removing "Discipline" as a game term. Those things are "Powers". So "discipline" just means its natural english meaning of a field of study. So creature types still have core disciplines, but those are just powers. Sorcerous powers can be sorcerous disciplines. That being said, I left the word in a bunch of places I forgot to look. Thanks for the reminder.

Anyway, here's the IP-stripped Carthians:

The Cauchemar Communes
“Tradition is but the illusion of permanence. Change is not just inevitable, it is good.”

Supernatural societies have with necessity been extremely conservative over the generations. And such it was that when the age of enlightenment hit the human world, the supernatural world found itself falling behind. The Cauchemar Communes were founded as a reform movement for the supernatural world to take advantage of the new ideas and opportunities found in human science. The term is French for the common people of the nightmares – which was how non-elder supernatural creatures were thought of in 18th century France. Arranged in a “cell structure”, the Communes nominally hold that all of their membership is equal, save for the Revolutionary Committee members themselves who are substantially more equal.

The Cauchemar hold that advancements in human strength and society are, or at least can be, for the good of the supernaturals. Rather than viewing the world as shrinking, leaving them with less and less space in which to hide, the Communes view the world as growing with more and more humans and cities with which to obscure themselves. The Communes' understanding of the Vow of Silence is one based largely upon anonymity rather than invisibility.

The Cauchemar message appeals to the young (which in supernatural terms means those born or made in the last 400 years or so), and campaigns for the removal of traditional privileges for the ancient and established monsters of the world. The Communes favor change and a new way of doing things modeled upon human reforms, but that's about as far as they go in agreeing with one another. It is easy to get the distributed Communes apparatus to help tear down something or turn upon a criminal, but relatively difficult to pass effective resolutions. The ideological divides amongst the Revolutionary Committee are fierce and hard drawn, so the group as a whole acts rarely and with much debate on matters of anything but immediate survival.

As a reformist, “bottom up” movement, the Communes have been able to make great inroads in areas that were previously outside Syndicates, and toppled several minor ones (such as the Puppeteers, the Laibon, and the Kingdom of Yomi). Most impressive of their feats was the dismantling and absorption of the Bumin Horde of Ergenekon. The Cauchemar Communes hold a great deal of power in China and many former Soviet Republics, and also in much of the American Midwest, Canada, and France. The Communes hold territory easily containing more human population than any other Syndicate, a fact that is truly frightening to many other Syndicates considering their newness.

Despite their European origins, or perhaps because of the proximity of their founding to the capital of the Covenant, the Communes have made little progress in Western Europe. In 1798 it seemed that the Communes were on the brink of sacking the Heresiarch Council and ending the Covenant Church altogether. However, in the coming years the Covenant made a number of reforms and concessions to various bishops and interest groups and held onto their European holdings all the way to the Alps. The Cauchemar ended up signing onto peace and expanding instead into the lands of those Syndicates that refused to adapt.

Probably Established: 18th century CE, Pyrenees Mountains.

Do we care that "Mask of a Thousand Faces" is the name for the substantially similar oWoD Obfuscate power?

Not really, because that is an ancient stock phrase that means exactly that. I'm a little concerned about Soul Mask though. But for powers that are a bit weirder, I'm going to change a lot more. Here's new Presence:

Magnetism
Alright everyone! Let's hear it... for me!

Magnetism is the power to affect others with the otherworldly charisma of the supernatural, either to attract or repel. Characters with Magnetism are especially adept at making an impression and getting people to like or fear them, and gain a +1 bonus on all Socialization tests based on Charisma or Willpower. At Advanced, this bonus increases to +2, and at Elder it increases to +3. A character using Magnetism makes a large impression, and anyone asking about them later will get a similar bonus to any Socialization tests to find out information about them.

Basic Powers

• Attract The character can “turn on the charm” and become the center of (generally positive) attention. This provides a distraction for everyone else in the room who is prepared for it, and makes a more than decent conversation starter or segue, and ensures the character will be very memorable to everyone around them. Attract can be activated as a Complex Action, and remains active until the end of the scene. The character makes a Willpower + Expression or Charisma + Tactics test to determine how much of an impression they make, and for the remainder of the scene that number of hits can be used as a bonus for any socialization or subterfuge test's dicepool.
• Repel The character can become extremely frightening and intimidating, inspiring fear and shame in onlookers. Using the Repel is a Simple Action and requires a Willpower + Intimidation or Strength + Tactics check opposed by the victim's Willpower or Strength. An affected victim runs away or cowers in terror for at least a number of rounds equal to the net hits. Thereafter, an affected victim is shaken up for the remainder of the scene and suffers a -2 die morale penalty on actions. Repel can be disrupted as if it were a Sorcery with a power source identical to the character using it.

Advanced Powers

• Dismissal The character can wrap themselves in the air of unapproachability, making aggression against them or even refusal of their demands almost unthinkable. By spending three power points, the character's dismissive demeanor takes hold until the end of the scene. The character makes a Charisma + Tactics or Willpower + Intimidation check, and anyone who wishes to summon the nerve to act against them must generate an equal number of hits on a Willpower + Intimidation or Willpower + Survival test. Failure to do so results in a round lost to dithering. The character's orders are also extremely likely to be obeyed (especially if they involve moving away from the issuer), and the hits are added as a bonus dicepool on any Intimidation or Tactics tests to command or demand.
• Summons The character can send a brief telepathic message (no longer than a twitter post) to someone whose name they know so long as that person is in the same world and no more than 10 kilometers away per point of the character's Potency. The target can then send back a brief reply. If the character so chooses, they may also demand the presence of the target by making an opposed Charisma + Bureaucracy or Charisma + Empathy vs. the target's Logic. If successful, the target becomes aware of where the character basically is, and must attempt to figure out how to get there themselves. This compulsion lasts until the next time the sun rises or sets. Issuing a Summons (whether or not the compulsion for a personal appearance is added) costs two power points and requires a Complex Action. A Summons can be disrupted as if it were a Sorcery with a power source identical to the character using it. The disruption can be leveled at the summoning character or the target.

Elder Powers

• Depolarize The character can reduce those who hear their words to frothing lunacy. The character spends four power points and begins speaking. With an expected time of 10 minutes and a Threshold equal to each potential target's Willpower, a listening victim becomes a raving fanatic, their Willpower reduced to zero until the sun next rises or sets. Depolarize carries as far as the character's voice does, even over telephones or television broadcasts. Depolarize uses Charisma + Persuasion or Charisma + Bureaucracy. Additional hits reduce the required timeframe to format minds.
• Siren Song The weak willed are drawn to the character like moths to flame. By spending seven power points, the character can let out a song that instills a compulsion in everyone within a radius up to one kilometer per Potency to come to where the character is. Dangers are ignored, and tasks previously engaged in are abandoned. The character makes a Willpower + Expression or Charisma + Persuasion test, and the threshold to affect any target is its Willpower. The Siren Song can be disrupted as if it were a Sorcery with a power source identical to the character using it, but a handful of salt (or whatever) frees just one victim.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Summons The character can send a brief telepathic message (no longer than a twitter post) to someone whose name they know so long as that person is in the same world and no more than 10 kilometers away per point of the character's Potency. The target can then send back a brief reply. If the character so chooses, they may also demand the Magnetism of the target by making an opposed Charisma + Bureaucracy or Charisma + Empathy vs. the target's Logic. If successful, the target becomes aware of where the character basically is, and must attempt to figure out how to get there themselves. This compulsion lasts until the next time the sun rises or sets. Issuing a Summons (whether or not the compulsion for a personal appearance is added) costs two power points and requires a Complex Action. A Summons can be disrupted as if it were a Sorcery with a power source identical to the character using it. The disruption can be leveled at the summoning character or the target.

Presumably, "Magnetism" should get changed back to "presence".

[Draco_Argentum]

The Goblin Market writeup misses the transient example.

In the I Fought the Law opening "when you push on an object it move." looks like it should be moves.

From the Frenzy section "When subject to strong stimuli, a supernatural character my completely fly off the handle and start doing crazy crap" my=may

[Username17]

Some selected Cult rewrites:

---

The Wreckers
“It is when pirates count their booty that they become mere thieves.”

The Wreckers are an anti-establishment organization that recruits from the dregs and exiles of societies. Lacking a common language, they formed their own system of simple symbols and music to communicate ideas back and forth. This is less of an issue in the modern age when almost everyone can say at least a few words in at least one of the major languages in the world, but in ages past the chances of any two exiles having words in common was pretty small. The symbol for the Wreckers is a black spot, and to this night if someone “gives you The Black Spot” it indicates that the Wreckers have it in for you.

Many feel that the Wreckers are just a bunch of pirates and highwaymen who rob shipments and waylay travelers. And that's kind of true, and was substantially more true in the past. Tonight, the Black Spot members have a set of shared beliefs, but they are pretty confused. The key part of it is to destroy everything that you don't like, as part of the larger plan of sinking everything into entropy and dissolution. They reach out to those who have been wronged and offer vengeance of a sort. Frequent mentions are made of the “Inevitability of the final reckoning.” But at the core, the Black Spot wants to take anarchy to the next level: destroying Truth and connectivity.

But the Wreckers do not just paint themselves with mud and wait for society to fall apart. Instead they plot well in advance and try to seize the reins of civilization and tear them asunder. It is this justification that leads them to attack rails, trucks, and shipping lanes. But they have deeper games they play that involve much more than simple banditry. Infiltration, smear campaigns, impersonation, and so on. Well aware of the power of the monolith that is social cohesion, they work to monkey wrench both institutions and social contracts, and are quite adept at spreading misinformation.

Missions for the Wreckers: The Black Spot hires out a fair number of agents provocateur. Disseminating harmful rumors and starting fights. If there's an organization, you can bet that the Wreckers want you to infiltrate it and sabotage it from within. Terrorism and vandalism are not beneath them, they aspire to these activities.

Sample Adventure: A member of the Fallen Empire has put together the goods to enact a mighty ritual of vast power to try to conquer the world. The Wreckers have no intention of letting anyone unite the world, and have set the player characters up with the means to get into the ziggurat.

The Wreckers as Antagonists: Even if you are with them you're still against them. Pretty much anyone could plausibly be a Black Spot mole playing the long game. And the Wreckers take tremendous pride in this fact, and actively encourage groups to turn on themselves with Inquisitions and McCarthyism. It's difficult to imagine such behavior hurting their cause by removing their agents more than it helps their cause by sowing distrust and conflict on its own.

• Favored Magic: Symphony of Silence
  Favored Resources: Assets, Secrets
  Work: Sabotage, Slander

The Ulmians
“Loyalty to the family. To death and beyond.”

Originally a family of Venetians who turned to dark magic, the Ulmi family became a criminal mob amongst the supernaturals, adding to their ranks a great number of unrelated supernaturals who wanted in on their necromantic protection rackets. Never achieving the wealth or strength of the World Crime League in impoverished and superstitious Europe, the Ulmians never achieved Syndicate status. Upon running into the WCL, they found themselves badly outnumbered in the world of supernatural crime and largely caved in to pressure from the East. The Ulmi mostly went legit and now provide gray market financial services and money laundering to supernaturals with little or no presence in the human world.

The Ulmians are still operated like a mafia family, and they still do a lot of criminal activities. It's just that now they make sure to avoid strongarming other supernaturals – at least without WCL permission. While it is now common for an Ulmi Don to be something other than an Italian Khaibit related by blood to the founders, it is still incredibly rare for anyone without necromantic power to rise to any meaningful level in the organization. The organization is called by those inside “The Family” even though it no longer cares about a prospective recruit's skin color or family background.

Missions for the Ulmians: The Ulmians are a full service outfit, and when you mess with a family client you are messing with The Family, capiche? Very frequently, the Ulmians will send teams to clear up some “misunderstanding” involving one or more Ulmi clients. These sorts of missions will often involve bailing clueless supernaturals out of legal problems with the mortal world or covering up potential Vow of Silence breaches before they come to Syndicate attention. The Ulmians are also quite aggressive in business and may send teams to “persuade” potential clients to sign on with the Ulmians before someone gets hurt.

Sample Adventure: An ancient vampire in good standing with the Covenant has awoken and is trying to do things the “old ways”. The Ulmi want the family member to take his friends off to convince this powerful but dangerously naïve monster to allow family specialists to handle his interface with modern society (and pay the going rates for this service, natch).

The Ulmians as Antagonists: As an essentially criminal organization, it is entirely thinkable that the Ulmians would take time out of their day to put “the squeeze” on one of the player characters, or someone that one of the player characters cares about. Furthermore, their zombie raising can get out of hand relatively easily. Necromancers run amok is the cause for at least 20% of all zombie uprisings according to Covenant records.

• Favored Magic: Necromancy
  Favored Resources: Science, Secrets
  Work: Finance & Bureaucracy

Rolnicy
“All animals are equal. Some are more equal and others less.”

The Rolnicy were originally a sect of Central Asian warrior shamans, but they have since turned on “superstition” and adapted the trappings of modernity and reason in their fiercely hierarchical and monolithic fashion. Adapting to the times, the Rolnicy gave up their shamanistic beliefs in the 1800s for the teachings of the Eastern Orthodoxy, and in the early 1900s gave those up as well for an uncompromising materialism. With each shift has come murders and purges, but while the doctrines have changed beyond ready recognition, adherence to the doctrine of the hour has always been held of paramount importance.

Today the Rolnicy have greatest affinity with the Cauchemar Communes, and have a similar structure, with their own Revolutionary Council (which used to be called the Ecclesiastical Council before it was liquidated and replaced). It has been suggested, even by the Rolnicy themselves, that they would like to replace the Communes Revolutionary Council with their own. Below that, pretty much everyone is designated a Commissar or a Worker. Commissariats are all nominally in charge of something, which is either Enlightenment, Loyalty, or History. Commissars of Loyalty are like judges who also do investigations – like a Makhzen Sheriff. Commissars of Enlightenment are in charge of research, and Commissars of History are in charge of explaining what has happened and what the Rolnicy doctrines have always been to the Workers (especially when these things change on the orders of the Council). All Commissariats have dispensation from the Cult to kill in order to complete any of their tasks (although this is not recognized by the World Crime League, Makhzen, Communes, or Covenant).

The Rolnicy have codified their ancient shamanistic animal magic practices into a forward looking pseudo-science of animal magic. They also have a complex racial hierarchy system that forms a theoretical basis for why Animalism works on the creatures it does and how. Further, they do a large amount of destructive testing on animals, people, and even supernatural creatures in order to attempt to gain more information to validate their theories. Rolnicy compounds are a lot like farms, in that they grow animals of various sorts in large numbers, and most of them are ultimately going to be eaten.

The Rolnicy want what is “best” although best for whom is a question that is somewhat up in the air. Rolnicy orthodoxy disdains the value of the individual, and is explicitly willing to sacrifice members of its own group to further its aims. The protocols call for modernization, but their own work looks like a biological nightmare from a 1950s science fiction movie. Still, their ruthless methodologies have produced results, and their faction may have the only creatures from Earth to know what the little wibbly things inside the Pods do. They are also always in need of fresh meat for their experiments, meaning that they are a useful method of disposing of bodies – something that all Syndicates have called on them to do.

Missions for the Rolnicy: The Rolnicy are desperately afraid that they will somehow fall behind in their research, and are constantly attempting to spy on other magical researchers. Also, they are attempting to take over the Communes. But beyond all that, they really do need a lot of weird animals and people for their research. And their research really does turn up some fucking scary information about Evil Plants sometimes. This makes a good springboard for basic intrigue, kidnappings, and even the occasional “save the world” quest.

Sample Adventure: After a series of disappearances, the press starts raising a stink. And that generates a stink in the halls of the Makhzen. As blame and aspersions start running wild, a Rolnicy Commissariat suggests that perhaps no members of the Syndicate are responsible, and requests aid in tracking down a Chimera in order to prove it. But is there just one Chimera on the loose? On which word does the emphasis fall in the previous sentence?

The Rolnicy as Antagonists: These guys are basically Bolsheviks who do unethical medical research and commit crimes. You've got Boris and Natasha working for Brick Top and Dr. Moreau. I am confident that you can find something to work in as a possible antagonist.

• Favored Magic: Call of the Wild
  Favored Resources: Science, Assets
  Work: Agriculture and Research

The Ash Walkers
“There is nothing that can be seen that cannot be done.”

The Ash Walkers were originally founded in the 16th century by a group of Fallen Transhumans as part of the Great Reformation. They viewed, as Jean Cauvin did, that the Catholic Church was undergoing a change, and they wanted to reflect everything within the Covenant. Like their mortal church counterparts, they failed to take Rome and ultimately fled to Switzerland and even back into the Dark Reflection. In more recent nights and years, the Covenant has sworn off hunting them to the ends of the Earth and beyond, and they in turn have come back from the ashen wastes and entered into supernatural society. But their time as exiles in Limbo has left its mark on the cult history, methodology, and theology.

The Ash Walkers believe in the doctrine of Total Depravity, which holds that man is incapable of choosing righteousness and even philanthropy (being created by a wicked hand) is evil and thus ultimately pointless. The only people who are capable of being saved from the worlds are those who are predestined to be called out of them. And the ones who are predestined for this honor are by definition the ones who have been chosen to gain magical powers and amass great wealth. The cult thus has developed an extremely mercenary attitude towards all things. Personal gain and the amassment of gold and property are the things that justify everything. The things that demonstrably show that one has been destined for riches and ultimately for salvation since before birth.

True to their Calvinist roots, the Ash Walkers believe in “the deal” above any god. Lying, cheating, and stealing are all fine, but actual contracts and ownership are the basis for wealth. And screwing with that would undermine the entire foundation of their ethos.

Missions for the Ash Walkers: The Ash Walkers want only one thing: cold hard cash. However, the things that pass for currency in different places are themselves numerous. The Ash Walkers will cut the team in on pretty much any deal as long as it makes a profit, whether that's a profit in gold or a profit in kittens. Let your imagination run wild, because Ash Walkers see opportunities in places that others see only an endless funnel of madness.

Sample Adventure: An Ash Walker has invested in some land where it was cheap – in Mongolia, and intends to have the natives mine gold for him. Unfortunately, Mongolian Werewolves have other ideas and are taking over for some reason. Anxious to not loose the investment, he's offering a bounty to the player characters to clean up the problem.

The Ash Walkers as Antagonists: Money may not be the root of all evil, and not everything that religion touches turns to ash. But the Ash Walkers do essentially worship money, and they do have a whole thing about turning things to ash. And that pretty much means that any villainy you can imagine someone might perpetuate for personal profit or religious zeal is one that the Ash Walkers are all over. These guys can seriously be the villains from any 80s cartoon show.

• Favored Magic: Progress of Glass
  Favored Resources: Finances, Secrets
  Work: Start up projects, mad schemes.

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Still need: Circle of the Crone reskin.

-Username17

[Orion]

How about "Epionites" or something like that? Epione is the wife of Asclepius. He also has a bunch of daughters. I think Asclepius is a good hook to build the cult off of. He had a real life mystery cult, he's associated with Greek Teleology, and blood magic is the only sorcery that heals wounds.

They can have a cadeucus for their symbol, and they can justify their oppressive politics as "medicine for the body politic" -- that is, as "healers" they are compelled to return things to their "natural states."