Bad Breeding
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Your character is part of a bloodline or family line regarded as brutish, crass, pedestrian, dirty, or otherwise ignoble to Ventrue tastes (and the customs they promote throughout Kindred society). This peculiar counterpart to the Good Breeding Merit carries with it a distinct negative connotation to those Lords who concern themselves with ancestry and parentage, but that negativity is subjective – this trait is still a Merit, after all.
This Merit represents your character’s ability to use traditional preconceptions of his social worth to his own advantage. As scum, your character can get away with rudeness that would not be tolerated from a more civil monster. It isn’t considered crass or shameful for your character to be seen in the presence of prostitutes or common hoods. Your character may be able to admit (or fake) a degree of ignorance without losing face, because, after all, how would a Kindred of such poor breeding know anything about the Bishop’s plans for the city?
In game terms, this Merit grants a bonus to Social dice pools when, at the Storyteller’s discretion, the reputation of your character, his sire, his clan, or his bloodline influences the Kindred or ghoul he is trying to affect. You may choose to invoke a bonus up to the number of dots your character has in this Merit, depending on how aggressively your character takes advantage of other’s preconceptions. Remember, though, that this is a Social Merit – a white-trash reputation doesn’t actually grant your character any special knowledge or training with cars or guns.
The bonus from this Merit is useful only against characters who care about lineage, reputation, and breeding among the Damned. Even then, it is limited by the overriding importance of Status. While your character (through your clever play) may be able to balance a reputation from Bad Breeding with the respect he’s due through Covenant Status, Kindred of great rank are likely to care about their authority, not your character’s breeding. A character with more dots of Status than you have in this Merit is not subject to your Bad Breeding bonus. (For example, the Prince doesn’t find your character’s lowly behavior intimidating – everyone is lowly compared to him.)
This Merit represents your character’s ability to use traditional preconceptions of his social worth to his own advantage. As scum, your character can get away with rudeness that would not be tolerated from a more civil monster. It isn’t considered crass or shameful for your character to be seen in the presence of prostitutes or common hoods. Your character may be able to admit (or fake) a degree of ignorance without losing face, because, after all, how would a Kindred of such poor breeding know anything about the Bishop’s plans for the city?
In game terms, this Merit grants a bonus to Social dice pools when, at the Storyteller’s discretion, the reputation of your character, his sire, his clan, or his bloodline influences the Kindred or ghoul he is trying to affect. You may choose to invoke a bonus up to the number of dots your character has in this Merit, depending on how aggressively your character takes advantage of other’s preconceptions. Remember, though, that this is a Social Merit – a white-trash reputation doesn’t actually grant your character any special knowledge or training with cars or guns.
The bonus from this Merit is useful only against characters who care about lineage, reputation, and breeding among the Damned. Even then, it is limited by the overriding importance of Status. While your character (through your clever play) may be able to balance a reputation from Bad Breeding with the respect he’s due through Covenant Status, Kindred of great rank are likely to care about their authority, not your character’s breeding. A character with more dots of Status than you have in this Merit is not subject to your Bad Breeding bonus. (For example, the Prince doesn’t find your character’s lowly behavior intimidating – everyone is lowly compared to him.)
A Note on the Breeding Merits
It is not somehow more scandalous for a character of Good Breeding to be caught with a hooker, for example. It may be scandalous for a character of good or bad breeding, but a character with the Good Breeding or Bad Breeding Merit knows how to spin his reputation to protect himself from scandal. With these Merits, your character is better able to escape some of the consequences of his actions by hiding behind his breeding.
“What do you expect,” they say about the Gangrel with Bad Breeding, “they eat dogs.” Meanwhile, when the Ventrue with Good Breeding is caught doing the same thing, they say, “Those fops slum it down here just to see what it’s like, I think.”
Prerequisite: Cannot have dots in Good Breeding. Only certain bloodlines and clans in the city qualify as “ill bred” for the purposes of this Merit, but the precise identity of the scorned varies from city to city. The Storyteller has final say on what clans or bloodlines make a character eligible for this Merit in the local city.
Drawback: When you choose to make use of the Bad Breeding bonus in a given scene, your character is taking advantage of stereotypes and preconceptions. Those same preconceptions can work against him. Later, the Storyteller may penalize a dice pool by imposing a modifier equal to the bonus you invoked earlier, depending on how other characters in the scene regard yours. The bonus to Intimidation you drew from your reputation as an ill-tempered Savage might penalize a Persuasion roll later.
Associated Clan: Ventrue
Drawback: When you choose to make use of the Bad Breeding bonus in a given scene, your character is taking advantage of stereotypes and preconceptions. Those same preconceptions can work against him. Later, the Storyteller may penalize a dice pool by imposing a modifier equal to the bonus you invoked earlier, depending on how other characters in the scene regard yours. The bonus to Intimidation you drew from your reputation as an ill-tempered Savage might penalize a Persuasion roll later.
Associated Clan: Ventrue