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."

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

Splat Lore may be used to identify NPCs belonging to that particular Splat or evidence suggesting the presence/activity of its members. This is to be understood as having somehow ICly learned identifying information, such as the fact that so-and-so is a Vampire, or that Mages really do use potions and this here sure looks like a potion to you, or these claw marks look like something a Werewolf would leave behind.

Splat lore does not confer supernatural abilities to identify a member of said splat. Due to its generalized/all-purpose nature, the difficulty for any and all Splat Lore rolls should be 8 or higher. At the ST's discretion, a lore roll might require more than one success to confer appropriate information, or be narratively inappropriate.

For example, you receive a series of cryptic letters from someone who keeps signing 'Nico Conti'. You have Vampire Lore, so you ask the ST, "Do I recognize the name Nico Conti as a vampire?" Behind the scenes, Nico Conti is in fact a vampire, but he's some neonate jackass from Toledo, Ohio. Hardly a man of import. It doesn't make narrative sense to confirm up the identity of some random neonate who is from a place your character has never been. Alternatively, let's say Nico Conti is a Nosferatu jewel thief with a reputation. In that case? Roll them fuckin' bones, mate.

Available Splat Lores

  • Vampire Lore
  • Mage Lore
  • Spirit Lore - purchase Cosmology instead.
  • Psychic Lore
  • Sorcerer Lore

Also technically available, but we don't run these game lines:

  • Wraith Lore
  • Werewolf Lore
  • Changeling Lore

Society Lore

Class Lore

Clan Lores

Craft Lores

Convention Lores

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