Shadow Cult Initiation

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Shadows in the Dark - Mekhet

Effect: Your character has received initiation into one of the Shadow Cults of the Mekhet (for example, the Moulding Room, the Followers of Seth or the Moirai). On the first occasion you meet another member of the cult, you gain a bonus to Social rolls for the duration of the scene, equal to your dots in this Merit. Interacting with that individual from that point on is based solely on your own abilities. Other benefits come from Initiation into a Shadow Cult, depending on the cult and the number of dots the character has gained in his or her Initiation.

By Invitation Only

Anyone who joins a Shadow Cult must have been invited first, and very few Kindred outside Clan Mekhet have ever been asked to join.
What that actually means in game is that if you play a Mekhet vampire and you’d like your character to join The Moirai, or The Followers of Seth, or The Moulding Room, you ask your Storyteller about it, and you both agree out-of-game on a story element to introduce one of those conspiracies in-game. So that when the time comes for your character to do a favor for one of those shadowy conspirators, or gain their trust, he can – at which point they invite him, and he goes through the initiation in the story, and you spend the experience points out-of-story.

Prerequisite: Mortals can only take one dot in this Merit. Ghouls can take up to two dots. Only Kindred can take the Merit at three or more dots.
Drawback: Initiation into a Shadow Cult carries with it duties, and failure to perform those duties can cause dots in this Merit to fall, although benefits gained from initiations (such as access to the cults’ proprietary Disciplines) don’t go away once learned or otherwise paid for. A character with more than one dot of Initiation into any Shadow Cult can become initiated into others, but can never gain more than one dot in any other cult.