Lores

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Overview

Lores determine what your character knows about the greater World of Darkness, and thus works like an Occult rating when it comes specifically to that subject. Thus, Lore is rolled to interpret clues and recognize objects and people where narratively relevant/appropriate. When a storyteller is dropping a clue related to a Lore you have, they may prompt you to roll the appropriate Lore to properly interpret that clue. You can also proactively ask to roll lores to confirm your educated guess(es) instead of waiting for a ST to prompt you.

Examples: The ST tells you, "you find a little, red marble that feels strangely slick." You try to figure out what it is. The ST has you roll Intelligence + Tremere Lore (if you have it). So you roll, succeed, and voila, the ST tells you: "You recognize this as a small, enchanted supply of vitae created by the Principle Focus of Vitae Infusion ritual." Meanwhile, Jimbo is doing some investigative work looking for the Syndicate on a tip that some corporate bigwigs are showing up at The Fancy Dinnerparty. Jimmy rolls Syndicate lore to see if he recognizes anybody in the crowd as his targets, succeeds, and the ST tells him, "You recognize a portly bearded blond man from some dossiers, you're certain that's So-And-So."

The Lores descriptions (where they exist in specific detail) will sometimes prescribe that you know about a certain concept or superpower, like explaining what Rotschreck is or Paradox. This is because the Lore descriptions are written as if the one who has that lore rating is an outsider. If you belong to whatever classification a Lore is about, you do not require that Lore in order to know about it. You are entrusted to play whatever level of knowledge about your own character's affiliations you have chosen, whether it is someone who barely knows what the hell is going on or a cultured historian. Please be advised this is specific to your Craft or Clan and the society you belong to (e.g. the Camarilla, the Sabbat, etc). Your Nosferatu in the Camarilla can be very well-versed about the Camarilla and the Nosferatu, but would need to purchase the lores of clans not his own in order to be in on those secrets.

Book Content And Appropriate Use

Many games have turned to a Lore system such that you must have Lores to be able to accomplish certain things. Doing that is a way to combat people just having their characters know everything in the books for no actual IC reason that makes any sense. However, as a principle, Modern Nights strays away from making the whole game follow a rule just to handle a handful of problem players. You are trusted to properly portray knowledge your character has and respect the official book content when it says that something is a secret (or a jealously guarded one). When a player fails to do so, we will handle that individual player.

Here are some examples of what that looks like when it happens:

Vinnie Verbena puts in a +request to create a spell specifically for detecting vampires. On investigation, it turns out Vinnie has neither vampire lore nor any IC experience with vampires and no mention of vampires in his backstory. Hell, nobody he RPs with are vampires. Staff tells Vinnie, "Hey, unless there's something I'm missing here, you have no IC basis to be doing this."

Maggie Malkavian is RPing with Henry Hermetic, who has not given her any reason to suspect that he's anything more than human. Maggie reads Henry Hermetic's aura to see if he's lying. When she does, she sees the magickal sparks in Henry's aura. She goes, "Oh! You're a mage!" Henry's player is unhappy with her jumping to such a speedy conclusion and calls in staff. On investigation, Maggie has never had any experience with mages and never heard of 'em. No Mage lore, her backstory doesn't mention mages. Staff tells her: "Maggie does not currently know that Henry is a mage, even looking at his aura, because she doesn't know anything about mages, much less enough to properly identify this phenomenon as specifically a mage's aura. You're welcome to RP finding his aura bizarre and significant, because it is! You're welcome to investigate further. But she can't just immediately go, 'Oh, he's a mage.'"

Ernie Etherite busts open the doors to the chantry. He tells everyone, "There's a progenitor lab in the hills! We have to go destroy it, right meow!" Everyone listens as Ernie explains a plan. He warns the chantry that we must all be careful, then starts going into detail and essentially regurgitates everything out of the convention book to illustrate the dangers and what they can expect. Staff says, "Yo, uh, I can see you knowing some of this, but not all of it. Why does Ernie have a concerningly intimate knowledge of how the Progenitors work in detail, exactly?"

Lore Points

You get a set of lores determined by your splat and how long your character has been around for free. Then you get an amount of additional points which is determined by how long your character has been aware of the supernatural world, to a maximum of 40 points (so you can max out 8 subjects). If you want to waive some or all of your Lore points, you can.

There is Splat Lore (Vampire Lore, Mage Lore, Werewolf Lore, etc.) for each game line. There is Class Lore (Mage Traditions, Vampire Clans, Werewolf Tribes, Changeling Kiths, etc.) There is lastly Society Lore (Camarilla, Sabbat, Technocracy etc., the secret societies)

Your character automatically gets 1 dots of Splat Lore, 1 dot of Class Lore, and 1 dot of Society Lore for any groups that correspond to their character. If, at character generation, your character has Necromancy, thus inherently interacts with wraiths, then you get a dot of Wraith Lore. Dots of Spirit or Spirit Manipulation does not confer Spirit Lore. Instead, please purchase the Cosmology ability.

Then your character gets additional points to spend on whatever you like, determined as follows:

  • Vampires and Psychics: 1 point for every 10 years they’ve been supernaturally aware.
  • Mages: 1 point for every 5 years they’ve been Awakened + 1 dot per Arete.
  • Hedge Witches: 1 point for every 5 years they’ve been supernaturally aware.

You may purchase Lore ratings up to 5 in your own Splat Lore, Class Lore, and Society Lore without question.

When purchasing Lore Ratings of 3, 4 and 5 on lores that represent antagonists, you need to supply an IC backstory reason for learning this information and couple it with points of flaws equal to the amount of points of Lores you took. This also applies for purchasing Lores belonging to other splats (like a Vampire taking Mage lore and vice versa). If you are a Mage and take "Technocracy Lore 5", or "Malkavian Lore 5", you'd need to come up with 5 points of flaws that represent the story of how you came to know about this, like Enemy, Hit List, and/or Under Surveillance. It can be a singular, 5-dot flaw or a combination of flaws.

Splat Lore

Level Zero

If you are supernatural yourself, know such a thing could definitely for a fact exist. If you are not supernatural, you have no idea the splat exists.

Level One

You know they exist. You know the stereotypical description of them. You know where they could be typically found (in general, you don’t know any specific individuals or specific locations, but like, 'vampires usually live in densely populated areas'). You know which of their folkloric weaknesses are fact and fiction.

Level Two

You recognize the names of their societies (e.g. “the Camarilla”, “the Sabbat”) and can give a rough description of the feature faction (the Camarilla for Vampire, the Nine Mystick Traditions for Mage, the Garou Nation for Werewolf, etc.). You recognize that they have subgroups and may recognize the names of their subgroups (e.g. “Society Of Ether”, “Shadow Lords”) but cannot speak in detail on them.

Level Three

You can describe the supernatural trait that powers this Splat’s superpowers (e.g. “quintessence”, “gnosis”, “vitae”, “glamour”), as well as any supernatural phenomenon that governs the ease or consequences of using superpowers (e.g. “generation”, “banality”, “rage”, “paradox”). You can describe the underlying cause(s) for the same (e.g. “Paradox is caused by…”) and you have the vocabulary for what they call their powers (“disciplines”, “gifts”) and understand their general nature (e.g. “gifts are granted through spirits”, “disciplines are powered by vitae”, “mages have paradigms and avatars”). You have an understanding that each individual may have powers unique to them, (“e.g. “some but not all vampires can mind control you”), but cannot explain individual powers.

Level Four

You can describe this splat’s most important rules (the Litany, the Protocols, the Traditions) and identify, at an overview level, the splat's overarching internal struggles or most popular beliefs (e.g. "the Camarilla and Sabbat are bitter enemies, they seem to all think that they're descendants of the biblical Caine and that the Antediluvians are gonna come eat them in a judgement day"). You have an understanding of the individual, affinity powers that each individual class has ("there are Nosferatu, they know obfuscate") and, where relevant, any major and obvious issues plaguing those types ("Nosferatu are hella ugly, Malkavians are crazy").

Level Five

You can describe the splat’s history and metaplot as discussed in the core rulebook, but not the ancillary material.

Society Lore

Class Lore

Clan Lores

Craft Lores

Convention Lores

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