Server Rules &

Expectations
i. Foreword
Our narrative takes place in and around three cities in southern Louisiana, set in the year 1996: New Orleans,
Baton Rouge, and Houma; the first of which is based off the existing New Orleans by Night city sourcebook from
Vampire: The Masquerade’s second edition. Because of that book’s rather dated status, we have taken certain liberties
with it and do not expect you to read New Orleans by Night, nor is all information in it public knowledge.

New Orleans
New Orleans is a Camarilla enclave situated within territory long held by the Uktena tribe of werewolves. A tense
but longstanding treaty delineates its borders to both parties, and while kindred have little to fear of garou within
the city, venturing outside its limits is a mistake few vampires survive to make again.

The city’s contents more than makes up for its cloistered nature  it is a sprawl of implacable gothic edifices
glittering in the night, of blind alleys and vast graveyards unlucky kine find their lifeblood lost in; it is a place
of jubilant nightlife let loose as the sun sets, of elders lounging in their private parlors while neonates squabble
fist-and-fang over necks on offer in the Rack. New Orleans extends a hand bearing opportunity so bright it would
blind you to the dangers that beset you from all sides.

Since its founding, New Orleans has grown to be a vacation spot for those capable of surmounting (or ignoring)
the challenges of traveling while dead, and thus plays host to an ever-changing cohort of itinerant vampires as
the months roll by  particularly during February-March for Mardi Gras, and October for the Swamp Festival.
The Prince, Marcel Guilbeau, tolerates these arrivals and keeps a loose domain; all except the Sabbat (for obvious
reasons) and the Setites (due to repeated attempts to claim the region since the 1700s) are welcome.

The French Quarter fields the highest concentration of kindred activity (although most make haven near the
Mississippi-facing ports or in the Garden District) just as it carries the bulk of New Orleans’s mortal nightlife:
it boasts nine Elysiums and numerous informal gathering spots over its 422-acre span, as well as some of the easiest
feeding in the city. Conversely, the aforementioned port of New Orleans, in its 50-mile stretch along the Mississippi,
is much the opposite sort of hive: home to itinerants, the untrusted, and the forbidden, it offers in mystery and
danger what the French Quarter provides in culture and blood.
Baton Rouge
Baton Rouge is the state capital of Lousiana. It has a relatively small population, no more than 450,000
inhabitants, and is located less than 90 minutes outside of New Orleans. It is, however, a prosperous hub due
to its location upon the Istrouma Bluff, which makes its business quarter flood proof. Baton Rouge has a heavy
colonial past, having been ruled alternatively by the French, the British, and the Spanish. In modern nights,
Baton Rouge is a predominantly African-American city, a rich cultural hub with a booming economy secured by
the petrochemical industry and a strong pharmaceutical sector. Looking west, it is impossible to miss the city’s
industrialization. Large concrete towers and petrochemical installations fill the skyline with thick steam visible day
and night. Baton Rouge is a Catholic city assailed by a growing Baptist population. The arts scene is blooming as
well, which is said to create tensions in the courts as the Toreador struggle for more power and significance in the city.

Baton Rouge is a staunch Camarilla city held by Prince Lawrence Meeks, a Nosferatu who was for a long time a
fixture in the political life of New Orleans. The city has been a stronghold of Camarilla ideals dating back to the
end of World War II, when Prince Meeks claimed praxis. Anarchs and other rabble are not welcome within the
city, a state of affairs kept ruthlessly by the Scourge. Respect of the Traditions is what lets the Camarilla thrive,
Meeks believes, a philosophy the entire city has to live by.

Baton Rouge is a small city with a handful of kindred allowed to be in residence at any given time. You will find
very few independents within its walls. Those present are often on clan business, oftentimes concluded within a
few months at best. The Prince seems to have an incredible knack of knowing who has overstayed their welcome. If
you speak to anyone who was in New Orleans before WWII, they all speak of rumors of Meeks heading some sort
of spy network for Prince Doran. Rubbish, if you ask Meeks. If you ask at all, that is.

Houma
Founded in 1832, and officially incorporated in 1848, Houma sits close to the southernmost tip of Louisiana,
many miles due Southwest from New Orleans. Despite its relatively small size at under 35,000 residents, and
it being fairly young compared to other cities in the state, Houma’s history has had a remarkable amount of
strife and violence packed into it. It was named after a local First Nations tribe that lived in the area, who were
chased out by colonists to make home for slave labor-fueled sugar plantations. During the Civil War, in 1862,
two Union soldiers were killed and another two injured as they were passing through Houma to New Orleans; in
response, the Union marched in with 400 soldiers, seizing livestock, burning down homes, and arresting residents
en masse. The following year, violence would break out again, as the Battle of Lafourche Crossing claimed many
lives and terrorized many local townsfolk. More recently, on January 24th 1970, a gas line exploded, claiming three
(confirmed) victims, and destroying much of the city’s downtown district.

Houma is much more than just its tragedy, though. Being geographically isolated in swampland, thick and dense
even by the standards of the rest of the Louisiana Delta, freedom from outside influence allowed Cajun culture to
thrive and grow; French and Cajun Creole are still spoken there commonly today. In the 70s and following the
reunification of Vietnam, a sizable population of South Vietnamese refugees immigrated to Houma; many of them
easily found work as fishermen in shrimpers, and they remain a notable part of Houma’s culture to this day. Just
within Downtown Houma (officially recognized as a historic district by the National Register of Historic Places),
locals can visit the Bayou Terrebonne Waterlife Museum, the Folklife Culture Center, the Regional Military
Museum, Southdown Plantation, and the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center. There are also enough rave halls, jazz
clubs, and dive bars playing host to DIY punk shows, that you won’t have a hard time finding somewhere to hang
out on any given night.

Houma may be a small town with a relatively small history, but it has a lot packed into it, nonetheless. More so than
Houma’s mortal population could ever know.
ii. Code of Conduct and Expectations
Players should be respectful of others and their differences  for many players, the server is a safe environment,
and we do not want this to change. Racism, sexism, discrimination, and hate speech will be met with a ban.

While misunderstandings are expected in a text-based server, we expect players to settle their differences in a calm
and proactive manner. Players are expected to remain polite and respectful between themselves and storytellers in
case of conflict, and everyone should try to work towards a resolution agreeable to all parties involved. If need be,
please seek out a storyteller for mediation if the involved parties are unable to come to an agreement.

The storyteller staff are held to the same standards. In addition, we have put into place additional mechanisms to
ensure fairness for all:
q Storytellers are not to adjudicate rule calls in scenes they are playing in.
q Storytellers do not run combat scenes in which their characters are involved.
q Storytellers recuse themselves from discussions on rule changes that positively effect their characters.
q If at any time a player has doubts about the behavior or conduct of a storyteller, the player should reach out
to another storyteller, who will relay the complaints anonymously to the team. A resolution will be sought
that is adequate to all parties. Logs of the inter-storyteller conversation are to be made available at request.

iii. Book List

Players are allowed character material exclusively from the Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition
canon. While storytellers may opt to use material from books outside that line to build NPCs and other setting
elements, that use in no way establishes a precedent or constitutes implicit approval for players to be able to use
such material.

The V20 Guide (in the #resources channel) is a quick-reference document which covers the full spread of material
in Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition. Some Discipline variants and revisions, but no Clans, from
Vampire: The Dark Ages 20th Anniversary Edition are allowed on an extreme case-by-case basis (and are generally
included in the house rules already).

1. Narration
Please use italics to indicate descriptions, actions, and the like. Wrap dialogue in quotes. Show, rather than tell,
your character’s internal monologue. Always narrate your character’s actions in the third person. Compress your
interactions with your character’s NPC cohort (ex. retainers) as much as possible.

2. Let's Talk Consent

Do not hesitate to inform storytellers and other players if events in a scene are moving towards potentially touchy
subjects. We would very much rather not recon events that have already transpired, and would rather veer away
from potentially touchy subjects before they are fully on screen.

Obtain consent before ghouling or blood bonding another character, or before doing anything sexual, graphically
violent, or otherwise violational in nature. Ask for consent, or spoiler text, if describing something that may make
someone uncomfortable  as a rule of thumb, if it’s not shown on prime-time TV, you might want to double-check
it with other players in the scene first. Fade to black, or, failing that, pull back and summarize when appropriate.
The more explicit you are, the less explicit you should be.
3. Conflict, Consequences, & Resolution
PvP is allowed.

It is expected that before any sort of altercation unfolds, players touch base with each other about it and their
expectations for the scene if they had not already done so in advance  that is, in-character pretext is not enough to
attack a character out of nowhere. Note that this is not a means by which a player can have their character escape
the consequences of their own actions by not consenting to (possibly violent) reprisal for said actions, it merely
ensures that an out-of-character discussion is occurring about those actions and their consequences (and presumes
that all players involved are being fair-minded about the circumstance).

Consenting players may narratively mediate a violent encounter between themselves towards a mutually acceptable
outcome, without involving mechanics or dice. If all parties do not consent to the narrative or desire systems
involvement, then a storyteller needs to be on hand to adjudicate. If no storytellers are available, the scene is paused
until one can step in to resolve combat, or the involved players adjudicate a narrative resolution between themselves.

It is expected that players understand some actions can have social or political consequences for their characters,
rather than just ones rooted in physical altercation  particularly actions that are social or political by their nature
(such as teaching proprietary Disciplines, minor violations of the Traditions, breaches of decorum, and similar).
If you take provocative actions, you explicitly open yourself up to other characters’ responses. For a low-stress
experience, think carefully about any potentially controversial actions before taking them.

The way to avoid unpleasant consequences is to not take actions that would invite them in the first place, not to
protest the reactions of other characters or NPCs to those actions after they have happened. Note that this also
applies to social Flaws such as Enemy  just as we expect that you will roleplay Flaws that directly impact your
character, so should you expect that social Flaws will be roleplayed at your character.

As the game is oriented towards character-on-character social interaction, we ask that you remember the person, and
distinguish them from the character they play.

4. Let's Not Do The Time Warp Again

The passage of time in game is nebulously handled, intentionally so. Events and scenes are presumed to happen
before or after one another as they occur in real time, but the amount of time between them is highly mutable
unless noted otherwise by the scene’s storyteller or agreed upon by the scene’s participants.

Do not use out-of-character knowledge to benefit your character’s future (or present). Avoid any interactions with
historical events, both in roleplay and in your character’s backstory, past the role of an anonymous bystander.

5. Scenes
Players may only have their characters in a single scene at a time. If the scene they are in becomes paused, they
may ask a storyteller for permission to start or enter their character into another scene  but if that scene becomes
paused, tough luck. Additionally, this permission may be refused if either scene threatens the character to the point
of possible incapacitation or worse.
 Character
Creation
1. Proposal
Before putting your character down to a sheet, please prepare a synopsis  a paragraph or a series of bullet points
that covers the character’s broad concept (Clan, history, personality) and any oddities such as rare Merits or Flaws.
When concepting a character, it’s also worth considering their short-, medium-, and long-term goals, why they are
in the city they are in, and how the rest of their character centralizes around any particularly high Abilities and
Backgrounds (ex. Resources 5 should be supported by dots in Finance; Influence 5 should be supported by dots in
Politics and Leadership, etc.)

Notify a storyteller when you have this idea in mind, so they can open a private channel for you to discuss your
prospective character with the staff team. You will use this private channel for all future communication with staff.

Once your character has been discussed to the staff’s satisfaction, you may begin filling out a sheet for that character.
Please do not submit a sheet before your character concept is approved.

2. Material
We use a custom spreadsheet-based character sheet, in order to make both a character’s initial approval and ongoing
auditing much easier for the staff to manage. You can find versions of it in the #resources channel prepared for
Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. If you do not own a license for Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice is free and can
open it. Our preference is that you use the Google Sheets version.

As noted in #resources, most cells (typically any cell that is not light grey) of the character sheet are locked, and not
intended for players to modify. If you modify any of these cells, it can compromise the functionality of the sheet;
you will need to delete your current character sheet and pull a fresh copy to fill in from scratch to ensure that the
sheet isn’t broken.
3. Options
What you may play is generalized to the thirteen Clans listed on Vampire: The Masquerade p. 20, Caitiff, variants of
the blood (p. 428-439) and, sparingly, bloodlines. You may also play a mortal, ghoul, or revenant. Certain Clans
may become unavailable depending on player population  we endeavor to keep updated statistics for which Clans
are at maximum occupancy, as well as the total distribution of Clans and Sects, in the #overview-and-setting channel
for the city in question.
q Characters may not start as Sabbat or (mortal) hunters. Sabbat clans (ex. the Tzimisce and Lasombra), Caitiff,
thinblooded vampires, and members of the 14th and 15th Generation should not expect to be welcomed by
the Camarilla, excepting circumstances covered by roleplay, Merits, or Backgrounds.
q Your first character may not be a bloodline (other than the Samedi or Daughters of Cacophony), and if your
bloodline character dies or is retired, your next character cannot be from a bloodline. Bloodlines are available
at a rough ratio of 1 per 15 players, and generally, only one of each bloodline should be in play at the same
time (excepting the aforementioned two). Bloodline options are limited to the Daughters of Cacophony,
Gargoyles, Kiasyd, Nagaraja, Salubri, Samedi, and True Brujah.
q Ghouls may use the “In the Master’s Footsteps” system (Ghouls & Revenants, p. 121) to possess two of their
regnant’s Clan Disciplines, rather than the conventional Potence + 1 in-Clan Discipline. Clan signature
Disciplines (ex. Vicissitude, Protean, any bloodline Discipline) are rarely taught, but can be at the regnant’s
discretion. Additionally Ghouls & Revenants p. 120 describes Generational limits for Discipline dots.
q No new character may be older than the year 1900 (i.e. older than 95 cumulative years).
q The following Abilities specialize at the first dot: Expression, Crafts, Performance, Academics, Law, Occult
(which additionally specializes at each odd dot), Science, and Technology. Other Abilities specialize as usual.
q Characters may only start with a (Courage + Freebies) Willpower of 8. This can be raised with XP.

4. Process
The character creation rules below can be found in more detail on Vampire: The Masquerade p. 80-82 for vampires,
Ghouls & Revenants p. 115-116 for ghouls and revenants, and Hunters Hunted II p. 34-35 for mortals.

Vampires
Base distribution: Attributes (7/5/3), Abilities (13/9/5, maximum 3 in any given Ability before freebies),
Disciplines (3), Backgrounds (5), Virtues (7), Freebies (15), Merits and Flaws (7 points of Flaws maximum).

Freebie costs: Attribute (5 per dot), Ability (2 per dot), Discipline (7 per dot), Background (1 per dot),
Virtue (2 per dot; does not raise Humanity or Willpower), Humanity (2 per dot), Willpower (1 per dot).

Caitiff Disciplines: Two or three of Auspex, Animalism, Celerity, Dominate, Fortitude, Obfuscate, Potence,
Presence (the “core eight” Disciplines), and zero or one of Chimerstry, Dementation, Necromancy, Obtenebration,
Protean, Quietus, Serpentis, Thaumaturgy, Vicissitude (Clan-specific Disciplines). Examples of acceptable spreads:
Auspex, Animalism, Fortitude (three from group 1), Animalism, Dominate, Dementation (two from group 1 and
one from group 2); example of unacceptable spread: Obfuscate, Quietus, Thaumaturgy (two from group 2). If you
take a Discipline from group 2, your sire is of the Clan that Discipline originates from.

Nota Bene: Via the initial dot allocations and freebie points, you may not end the character creation process with
more than three dots in any Discipline or more than two dots in the Status or Domain (size) backgrounds, and
Domain (size) dots may not be purchased without at least one dot of Status.
Ghouls
Base distribution: Attributes (6/4/3), Ability (11/7/4, maximum 3 in any given Ability before freebies),
Disciplines (1 + Potence 1 or two Disciplines at 1 from your domitor’s disciplines, except Blood Sorcery),
Backgrounds (5), Virtues (7; 5 for revenants), Freebie points (21), Merits and Flaws (7 points of Flaws maximum).

Freebie costs: Attribute (5 per dot), Ability (2 per dot), Discipline (10 per dot), Background (1 per dot),
Virtue (2 per dot; does not raise Humanity or Willpower), Humanity (1 per dot), Willpower (1 per dot).

Mortals
Base distribution: Attributes (6/4/3), Abilities (11/7/4, maximum 3 in any given Ability before freebies),
Background (5), Virtues (7), Freebies (21), Merits and Flaws (7 points of flaws maximum). This does not prevent
mortals from taking Supernatural Merits, Flaws, and Numina.

Freebie costs: Attribute (5 per dot), Ability (2 per dot), Numina (7 per dot), Background (1 per dot),
Virtue (2 per dot; does not raise Humanity or Willpower), Humanity (2 per dot), Willpower (1 per dot).

5. Blood Sorcery
If your character’s Clan or blood sorcery entry indicates that a particular path of blood sorcery is its primary path,
you must start on that Path:
q Tremere start on the Path of Blood per Vampire: The Masquerade p. 213
q Assamite Sorcerers may start on The Hunter’s Winds, Path of the Evil Eye, Lure of the Flames, or Movement
of the Mind (the latter two per Vampire: The Masquerade p. 440)
q Anarch sorcerers may start on any path within their practice (see Rites of the Blood p. 55, 57, 58).
q Necromancers must start on the first path listed within their practice (Rites of the Blood p. 86).
q Setite sorcerers must start with the primary path of their practice (Ushabti for Akhu, Praapti for Sadhana,
The Flow of Ashe for Wanga, and The Path of Blood for Nahuallotl)

6. Merits & Flaws

The following Merits and Flaws are banned: Child, Enchanting Voice, Hidden Diablerie, Half-Life, and Paragon.

Mortals and ghouls characters can select Merits and Flaws inapplicable to their current state of being (ex. a mortal
selecting the vampire-specific Merit Efficient Digestion). Whatever your character cannot have as a mortal is
considered inactive until they are ghouled or Embraced, at which point it is applied.

True Faith (unlike other Numina) requires the purchase of its related Merit at character creation to access.

The following Flaws prevent access to the Domain (size) background: New Arrival, Infamous Sire, Former Prince,
Botched Presentation, New Kid, Sympathizer, Probationary Sect Member, Blood Hunted, Disgrace to the Blood.

Discipline-related Merits
The Additional Discipline and Blessed by St. Gustav Merits do not provide an extra dot in the Discipline they
add as in-Clan (mirroring True Celerity). Further, the Additional Discipline Merit only allows for the “base eight”
Disciplines: Auspex, Animalism, Celerity, Dominate, Obfuscate, Fortitude, Potence, and Presence.
Legitimate out-of-Clan access to rare clan Disciplines (ex. Thaumaturgy, Necromancy, Obtenebration; excluding
Serpentis and Setite Sorcery, as those are available via the Setite Initiate Merit) is provided by purchasing, at a
rating of 5, either the Boon Merit or the Mentor Background, then either buying the first dot of that Discipline
with freebie points or spending XP on it in-game. Bloodline Disciplines are not available in this way. Access to
Disciplines in this way is at Storyteller discretion.

Taking an out-of-Clan Discipline without the appropriate allowance above automatically grants the character Clan
Emnity or Hunted Like a Dog (at Storyteller discretion), neither of which return freebie points.

7. Logging
Log where every dot went on your character sheet with the tracker mentioned in Character Creation § Material.
XP gains and expenditures are to be similarly logged on the fourth sheet of the tracker, noting the date, amount,
and reason (either where it was received from or what it was spent on).

Each gain or expenditure of XP should be noted on a separate line, and expenditures should either be surrounded
with parenthesis or prefaced with a minus sign to properly mark them as negative values. Each expenditure line
should only be used to note one trait or other XP purchase.

8. Submission
When your character is complete, submit a link to your character sheet in your private channel. The staff will
review it and inform you of any issues.

Once your character is approved, write a brief bio containing any publicly-available information about your
character and post it, alongside a portrait, to the #characters channel. While you may use pictures of real people as
faceclaims for your character, we strongly encourage the use of fictional characters or wholly generated or otherwise
original art. You may use artbreeder.com, thispersondoesnotexist.com, picrew.me or any of a host of other similar
services to obtain art; if you are using a real person’s visage as the base for services like these, ensure it is in the
public domain. Alternately, you may produce your own original works.

Once your first ever character has been approved, you receive a variable amount of XP, based on which city your
character is a part of (presently 25 for NOLA and Houma, and 15 for Baton Rouge). This is a one-time bonus, you
do not receive it for subsequent characters; additionally, it is applied after character creation is finished and thus
cannot be applied to XP expenditures delineated in the part of Character Creation § Material that addresses XP
carried forwards from previous sheets as applied to character creation.