Page 94 - Hunter - The Vigil

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CHANGING FIELDS
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kitchens or shelters, and the Vagrants who take sanctuary in such
Vagrant places may end up with a new faith and a rifle in hand. Some Va-

I ain’t nobody’s collateral damage or acceptable losses. I got a grants are Lucifuge, maddened by horrific nightmares and driven to
soul the same as any sonofabitch. a lost life…until the Devil’s children come calling. Ashwood Ab-
Lots of people write Vagrants off as worthless. They’re the bey runs a curious “recruitment drive” once per year. They pick up
ultimate underclass — homeless, often jobless, and seemingly a single Vagrant from the streets and give him a gradual taste of the
worthy only of society’s derision or pity. Every city has them, good life: food, wine, clean linens, steam baths. The taste, of course,

huddled in shelters and doorways for warmth or begging for gets stranger and stranger, and if the Vagrant seems to find the mad
cash to buy food. All too often, the only people to notice pleasures to his own predilections, the Abbey extends an invite.
when one Vagrant goes missing are the other bums. Monsters Background: A Vagrant knows whatever she knew before
can easily feast on Vagrants like they’re an open buffet with living on the streets, but she picks up some other skills pretty damn

free salad bar. Some of them survive their encounters with the quick. She has to know how to find warm places to sleep when the
shadows. Some of them decide to fi ght back. snow comes in, which shelters are worthwhile and which lead to
Few come to the “vagrant life” the same way. A family of people vanishing, and where she can get a good meal. Often, she
illegal immigrants sleeps alongside a dot-com coder who didn’t picks up on everything that’s going on around her while waiting
see the bubble bursting. Their only common factor is that they for the next guilt-ridden professional to drop her some pennies.
live on the streets, taking one day at a time. Some are drug Most Vagrants build up their Stamina. Surviving is very hard
addicts, some are mentally ill — most who have one problem if you get sick easily, and if you’re already sick when you hit the
have the other to look forward to — but many are clean. Most streets, you either dig deep or you die. High Wits and Compo-
people don’t care to make the distinction. They overlook street sure are a must to know what’s going on around you. Other At-
people, and after a while, the Vagrants get used to it. They band tributes depend on her previous life; an athlete is going to have
together, with disparate origins but shared problems. They look a very different spread to a banker. After hitting the streets, most
out for each other simply because the others look out for them. focus their Skills on Animal Ken, Brawl, Intimidation, Larceny,
Some fight. Some attack other Vagrant gangs. But a group sur- Medicine, Stealth, Streetwise, Subterfuge and Survival. Holdover

vives a lot longer than one man alone. Skills often include Computer, Investigation, Athletics, Politics or
Despite what proponents of the free market would like to Science. Contacts, Iron Stomach and Natural Immunity are often
think, many Vagrants can’t just “get a job.” They don’t have the features of a Vagrant’s Merits. A lot of Vagrants have Flaws that are
things that jobs need — fixed addresses, telephone numbers, very common, especially Derangements and Addictions.

bank accounts and the like. The myth of working up from fl ip- Concepts: Dot-com burnout, homeless ghost-talker, il-
ping burgers or pushing a mop is for many just that: a myth. In- legal immigrant, junkie with visions, schizophrenic, shaman
stead, Vagrants need other ways to survive. Some beg for money, of the rust, subsistence thief
others scavenge or steal whatever catches their eye. When one Asset Skills: Streetwise and Survival
goes missing, his fellows ask questions. The cops may never fi nd Professional Training:
Trash
any extra bodies, but some bums know where they’re all buried. • • Trash
Whether they survived a monster attack or saw a cult •• Bum
•••
Vagrant

dragging their best friend off for a human sacrifice, some ••• Vagrant
Vagrants know the score. People and things are preying on •••• Hobo
Rat King
•••••
them, and it’s only a matter of time before they succeed. A ••••• Rat King
Vagrant has to fight back. Intelligent spider colonies looking

lords out on a hunt for “foxes” (codename for human prey) Changing Fields
to hollow out a human body, crazed organ thieves, or rich old
— in the end, it doesn’t matter. She’s used to desperation, to Few people have one job their whole life. A Soldier
making hard decisions in the blink of an eye, because if she leaves the military and joins the police force, putting his skills
doesn’t, she dies. to use. An Artist makes a big name for herself, and uses her
A Vagrant knows her part of the city like few others.
She goes wherever she can by any means she can. She knows new fame to move in social circles that were once above her.
A Laborer heads to college, needing to re-train. An Athlete
who’s dealing in what and what they’re charging. Hell, on loses his leg to a cackling slasher, leaving him to fi nd another
a particularly flush day she may just partake — or lift some- means to support himself.

thing from the dealer. If she joins a group of hunters, she has However it happens, a character may come to a point in
skills from her life before the streets as well as everything she’s her own story when she changes Profession. Sometimes, that
learned since then to bring to the table. Of course, she may change happens in downtime, for reasons unrelated to the hunt.
end up sleeping on the table if the weather gets too cold, but Other times, her new vocation comes as a direct result of her
them’s the breaks. Vigil. Again, it doesn’t always have to do with making money:
Cheiron sometimes kidnaps Vagrants to test Thaumatech-
nology on them, and if the strange grafts take, they’re recruited as a hunter who earns a paycheck setting up emergency “hot-zone”
bunkers for VALKYRIE may continue to earn that paycheck but
agents. Other groups sometimes recruit directly from the streets. still change his Profession from Technician to Artist if he begins
The Malleus Maleficarum and the Long Night often run soup

to embrace his inner creative side more and more. Profession can
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