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The Status merit listed in the MET book covers anything that makes you "better" in the eyes of the mundane world. Doctors, cops, clergy, CEOs, gang leaders, journalists, politicians, cult leaders and union bosses all have Status. There's a difference between Status and Allies, which I'll expound upon when I get to downtime actions later on. For now, suffice to say that if you know people who can get stuff done, you have Allies; if you can do it yourself, you have Status.
Vampires get three special kinds of
Status: Clan, Covenant
and City. They're not interrelated, so it's possible to have someone be
incredibly respected by all the Gangrel, yet completely unknown in city
politics, and without membership in a covenant at all.
Having all these kinds of Status
makes for some interesting
conflicting loyalties: like if you've got a covenant-mate who's fleeing
the
Sheriff, do you turn him in and shoot for more City Status, or hide him
to
protect your covenant standing?
Above all, with regard to Kindred
Status, there are two HUGE
things to remember:
Status numbers exist entirely out-of-game. You'll never,
ever, ever say in-character, "I've got more Status than you," or
"That guy has three measures
of standing." The numbers attached to
Status are just an out-of-character guide for players, not quantifiable
units
for characters. If you're taking Status away from someone because he
botched a
hunt and you had to save his ass, you'll tell all the other characters
that he
botched a hunt and you had to save his ass. Then you'll tell me that
you're
taking Status away.
Status is not a "Do What I Say"
button.
Everyone is always free to ignore anyone else's Status. Doing this a
lot can
very well lead to you losing Status yourself, but that's about as far
as it'll
go. No one gets a blood hunt for disrespecting a high-status Kindred or
anything like that...the guy you disrespected might still kill you, of
course,
but it's not considered on par with breaking the Masquerade wide open
or
anything.
By the book, this is kind of the
bastard child of the Status
game. Clans in general aren't very cohesive, compared to the city
organization
and covenants, but there are still reasons to pursue it. Clan members
probably
know a little bit more about what you go through than non clanmates.
Above all, clans can get together in
order to maintain
control of their specialty disciplines. Also, anyone who's looking to
join a
bloodline later in life will be more successful if they're in good with
their
parent clan. Speaking of which, if you're in a bloodline, you're still
a member
of your clan, and you count Status just like that; there isn't any
Bloodline
Status.
Clan Status is rated from 1-5, and
you can buy up to two
dots at character creation.You don't really have to have any, though. The book has a
chart
of sins against Status. If you do something bad at or below your
current level,
you might lose a dot. Like Humanity, these get worse as you go down the
chart;
someone with five dots risks a level if he disrespects an equal-ranked
clanmate, while someone with one can only lose it by open betrayal or
murder of
a clanmate. So, the more you have, the greater the risk, and the more
you have
to play by the rules; this is a good reason alone to trust someone with
higher
Status: he has to play by much stricter rules than you do.
At the same time, you have a list of
praiseworthy deeds for
your clan; these get harder as you go up. You have to do this sort of
thing
regularly to buy a level. You can get your first level just by showing
up to
clan gatherings and not pissing too many people off. For your fifth
dot, you
need to be responsible for helping your clan rise to power in a
significant
way. Basically, that guy with five Clan Status not only can lose it easier,
he has
to move mountains in order to get it back. So when he gives his word to
you as
a clanmate, you can be pretty sure he's not bullshitting you.
Gaining clan status is easy: first,
make sure you're doing
praiseworthy deeds at the level you want to buy or higher. Then, make
sure
people know you're doing those deeds. Then spend the experience for the
next
level.
Losing clan status works a little differently in
CWC than by the book. The rules as written make it nearly impossible to
lose Status unless you've got a truly masisve clan. Therefore, when
conducting a "Status vote" to take a dot of Status away from a Kindred,
the necessary number of "votes" in favor is five times the level of the
sin committed. That way, it's really easier to take someone to task for
the more serious sins.
I don't really
need to expound on why
you should care about Covenant Status, since the book manages that
pretty well.
If anything, you need at least one level in order to get any benefit
from your
covenant. So, for the sorcery wonks of the Sanctified, Dragons and
Crone or the
connected guys in the Invictus and Carthians, make sure you get that
one dot at
least. Any less, and you're technically Unaligned, even if you're
allied with
one covenant or another.
And covenant Status otherwise works
just like it does for
clan. Sin charts, Praiseworthy deeds, rumor-mongering and OOC Status
votes.
The big one. First, it never costs
experience to raise City
Status. That's good. Second, you pretty much never get to choose what
your City
Status is. That's bad. Anyone with a recognized right to hunt in the
city gets
one dot of City Status...so unless your character is completely unknown
when
you start, have one on the house. You can buy one more with points when
you
start out. Anyone who starts out with City Status higher than that gets
it
because I handed it to them.
Then, there’s the pyramid
rule: only one character can have
City Status 5, and only five can have City Status 4. There's room to
move up in
the game, but not a lot of room; pretty soon, if you want to take a
step up the
ladder, you're gonna have to knock someone else off.
There's a list of praiseworthy deeds
and sins against the
city, just like with Clan and Covenant Status. But you can't buy it up
with
experience; you have to do the praiseworthy deed, and someone with the
power to
do so (more on that in a bit) has to award you the dot. Again, they do
this by
telling the Storytellers that they're awarding it, then going into the
game and
spreading talk about all the cool shit you did. Likewise, if you screw
up,
there's no vote. They just tell me to knock a point off and spread the
rumors
about what you did. They can also use the rumors section of the website
or the
in-character mailing lists to air your dirty laundry.
The
Prince: The Prince has temporary
Status points equal to
his permanent, which he can use to grant or strip Status for anyone
who's known
to have “sinned” or done good by the city. He can
give out someone's first dot
or take their last one for free, but if you've got more than one dot,
you have
a little insulation; the Prince still has to spend points to get you
down to
one first. He can Blood Hunt you, but in that case, he risks having
people just
not bother, which makes him look pretty shitty. The Prince can also
nominate a
Harpy, who we'll get to in a second.
Ah, you say...but Chicago doesn't
have to have a Prince! That's fine, but the powers of
a Prince are always there, no matter what the title is. They might be
shared by a council of Regents, or there may end up being two Princes
fighting over control, or there might be a President...basically,
whoever represents the consensus "ruler" of the city gets these powers.
Prince's
Harpy: The Prince chooses
someone to act as Harpy,
being the gossip-monger and all that. The Harpy gets temporary Status
equal to
the Prince's, even if that's more than she has permanently. She can use
points
to grant or remove Status, as long as the appropriate rumor mongering
has been
done regarding your sins or good deeds. All the other good stuff the
Prince can
do is out of the Harpy's means, though.
Prisci
and Prisci Harpy: The Prisci
are the clan elders of a
town (not to be confused with the Primogen, who are a body of advisors
to the
Prince, typically with at least one member of every major covenant in
town).
The Prisci form a counterpart to the Prince, generally because if they
can all
agree on something, it's got to be significant. The Prisci can't award
Status
themselves, but they do decide on a second Harpy, who has as many
temporary
Status as the highest-ranked Priscus, and who has all the same powers
as the
Prince's Harpy.
Master
of Elysium: This guy keeps
track of the
Elysium...duh. He doesn't need temporary Status; he just knocks you
down if you
get caught breaking Elysium, which means any kind of violence, property
damage,
feeding within a reasonable distance or using disciplines directly
against
another Kindred.
In the "typical" city, the Master of
Elysium is
appointed by the Prince. In Chicago, the custom is that these rights fall on whomever controls a given
Elysium
and/or organizes gatherings there, so there are a number of Masters, each looking after their own Elysium.