Page 44 - Chronicles of Darkness

Sample actions: Find a shortcut (Wits + Streetwise), Get and double-dealing. Even suspicious people can’t
the word on the street (Manipulation + Streetwise), Work tell when he is lying.
the black market (Manipulation + Streetwise)
Sample Specialties: Black market, Gangs, Navigation, •••• Expert: This character can pull off complex con
Rumors, Undercover work games with style. She can lie to your face without
Sample contacts: Bartender in a Rough Part of Town, a flinch or a flicker of doubt.
Drug Dealer, Undercover Cop ••••• Master: Everyone likes and trusts this character.
Levels: Everyone.
• Novice: This character knows his neighborhood
very well, and knows who to go to get the informa- Merits
tion he needs.

•• Professional: At this level of Streetwise, a character Merits represent a character’s unique abilities and assets.
knows where to ditch a hot car and who might be They can cover anything from her wealth to her uncanny
able to handle a specific minor favor. ability to knock out her opponents.
••• Experienced: Insiders and true fixtures of the Renaming Merits
street scene have this level of the Skill. A character
with three dots in Streetwise knows who can make Each Merit has a name suggestive of its usage. If you
the proper introductions and who can actually get want to customize a Merit while still accomplishing the same
things accomplished. goal, give it a different name. For example, Retainer suggests
something very specific. However, you could just as easily call
•••• Expert: This character never gets lost in her town. it Ward, and while it does the same thing in game terms, the
And it is her town. She knows everyone, and implication is different. Striking Looks could just as easily
everyone knows her. be called Sex Appeal, Bruiser, or Trustworthy, and give the
exact same game advantages. Consider renaming Merits to
••••• Master: There isn’t a secret in town that this char- help further define your character.
acter can’t access. A character at this rank doesn’t
just know who to go to in order to get things done Style Merits
– he is the one people go to.
Merits marked as Style Merits allow access to specialized
Subterfuge maneuvers. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the next in
its sequence. So if a Style Merit has a three-dot maneuver
Subterfuge is the fine art of deception. With Subterfuge, and a four-dot maneuver, you must purchase the three-dot
a character can lie convincingly, recognize when she is being version before accessing the four-dot.
lied to, or convey hidden meaning in what she says. She can
hide her own motivations and emotions. Generally, this Skill Sanctity of Merits
is used to trick others, but some characters learn it in order
to avoid being tricked themselves. While Merits represent things within the game and about
Sample actions: Conceal emotions (Composure your character, they’re really an out-of-character resource, a
+ Subterfuge), Disguise (Wits + Subterfuge), Lying function of the character creation and advancement mechan-
(Manipulation + Subterfuge) ics. Merits often represent things that can go away. Retainers
Sample Specialties: Detecting lies, Hidden meanings, can be killed. Mentors can get impatient and stop dispensing
Hiding emotions, Long cons, Misdirection wisdom. So while Merits may represent temporary facets of
Sample contacts: Con Artist, Crooked Politician, Out- your character, Merit dotss continue to exist. At the end of
of-work Actor any chapter where your character has lost Merits, you can
Levels: replace them with another Merit.
For example, your character has three-dot Retainer, a loyal
• Novice: The character has an excellent poker face, dog, and an eldritch horror eats that dog out in the woods.
and rarely reveals what she is thinking. At the end of that chapter, you may reallocate those Retainer
dots. You may choose to purchase Safe Place, to reflect your
•• Professional: At this level, a character can pull character’s choice to bunker down from the monster, and
of a good bluff or short con, often getting away perhaps Direction Sense (one dot) so your character is less
without the victim even knowing they were had. likely to get lost in those woods in the future. When the
character leaves his Safe Place, you can replace those two
••• Experienced: A character with this level in
Subterfuge can keep track of complex webs of lies dots with something else.

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Merits