Physical Flaws

You’re addicted to some activity or substance that interferes to some degree with your
daily life. Perhaps you crave sex, drink constantly, or can’t stop playing
video games. Whatever the nature of the addiction, it drives you to irrational
and possibly dangerous extremes. A harmless habit, after all, isn’t really a
Flaw.

The value
of this Flaw depends upon the hazards of the addiction. A craving for some trivial
enjoyment (games, tobacco, social media) is worth one point, but a drive to
secure something illegal, dangerous, or both (cocaine, fight clubs, child porn,
etc.) is worth three points.

Severe addictions usually have a sense of moral wrongness about them as well, and they
can cause social difficulties beyond the financial, legal, and physical and/ or
psychological costs of the habit. The Flaw might come from any source –
Ecstatic practices, psychological neurosis, physical compulsion, and so forth –
that inspires deep-seated attachment to something troublesome.

**Vampire:**

**3pt. Flaw**

You suffer from an addiction to a substance, which must now be present in the blood you
drink (or you automatically frenzy, as per the Prey Exclusion Flaw).

This can be alcohol, nicotine, hard drugs, or simply adrenaline. This substance always
impairs you in some fashion (see “Poisons and Drugs,” p. 301, for particulars).

### Aging

**2, 4, 6,8 or 10 pt. Flaw**
You ain’t as young as you used to be… or perhaps you’re a little too young. The years
have taken their toll on your physical capacities, and while the spirit may be willing,
the body most certainly is not.

System-wise, this Flaw reflects the diminished capabilities of a body that is either too old
or too young to employ its full adult potential. For every two points in this
Flaw, the character loses one dot from a Physical Attribute (Strength,
Dexterity or Stamina), either because his body is aging past its prime, or
because it has not yet developed to mature capacity.

In the latter case, a young child (see the Flaw: Child) should also take 4 points in
this Flaw, with an older child taking 2 points. Adolescent characters,
obviously, have no such physical limitations due to age, although they could
have other sorts of health issues, as described under the Flaw: Impediment.

Previous editions of this Flaw – that is, ones that were written by authors in their 20s
or early 30s – maintained that a character must lose one dot of Physical
Attributes for each decade over 40. As this author (currently in his 50s, and
in better shape than he was at half this age) can attest, that’s nonsense. A
person can maintain, or even exceed, a young adult’s physical capabilities well
into middle age, and mages – who employ Life magicks, yoga, and other forms of
physical conditioning – often age even better than most people do. Considering
that a skilled mage can live for centuries with little (or no) loss of her
physical abilities, this Flaw is not bound to a character’s chronological age,
only to her physical health in relation to that age. Even so, ancient mages can
get pretty frail. For health problems related to greater stages of decrepitude,
see Impediment, above.

### Bad Sight

**1 or 3pt. Flaw**

Your sight
is defective. The difficulties of any die rolls involving the use of your
eyesight are increased by two.

As a
one-point Flaw, this condition can be corrected with glasses or contacts; as a
three-point Flaw, the condition is too severe to be corrected.

### Blind

**6pt. Flaw**

You cannot
see. Characters can compensate for the loss of vision by becoming more attuned
to other sensory input, but visual cues and images are lost to them.

Difficulties
of all Dexterity-based rolls are increased by two.

Oddly,
vampires with Aura Perception are still able to use this ability, thought the
information is interpreted via the other senses. On the other hand, vampires
who need make eye contact to enact powers like Dominate against you are only at
a penalty to do so.

### Child

**1 to 3pt. Flaw**

Awakening
often hits before legal maturity. This wasn’t a problem in the old days, but
within modern society a young mage has certain built-in limitations: physical
size, life experience, legal status (or lack thereof), and the challenges of
being taken seriously in a grown-up world. Perhaps you’re a child prodigy… or
an adolescent whose reality truly is beyond understanding. In any case, this
Flaw represents the social, legal, and physical obstacles of being a kid.

Depending on
the value of this Flaw, your character might be a young child (3 points), a
pre-adolescent young person (2 points), or someone near the verge of adulthood
but not quite there (1 point). In the first two cases, you should also take
Short to reflect a growing body… and in all cases, your ability to run with the
mages is going to be limited by your age and the ways in which people react to
it.

**Vampire:**

**3pt. Flaw**
You were a
small child (between five and 10 years old) at the time of your Embrace,
leaving your Physical Attributes underdeveloped and making it difficult to interact
with some aspects of mortal society.

You may not
have more than two dots in Strength or Stamina at character creation, except
when raising Physical Attributes with blood points, and the difficulties of all
die rolls when attempting to direct or lead mortal adults are increased by two.
Characters with this Flaw should also take the Short Flaw.

### Deaf

**4pt. Flaw**

You cannot
hear. While you may be more resistant to some applications of Dominate, you
also may not listen to electronic or vocal media, and the difficulties of many
Perception rolls are increased by three.

### Deformity

**3pt. Flaw**

You have
some kind of deformity — a misshapen limb, hunchback, or clubfoot, for example
— which affects your physical abilities and interactions with others. A
hunchback, for instance, would lower a character’s Dexterity by two dots and
increase the difficulty of die rolls relating to social skills by one.

It is the
responsibility of the Storyteller to determine the specific effects of the
deformity chosen.

### Degeneration

**3, 6 or 9 pt. Flaw**

Your body
is falling apart. A curse, disease, flawed biotech, corrupting magicks, or some
other affliction is rotting your physical form, and although Life magick can
repair the damage to some degree, this degeneration remains permanent unless
the Flaw is somehow removed.

In its
three-point variation, this Flaw reflects an inability to heal injuries without
the aid of magick or medical technology. Until treated by Life Sphere Effects
or medical intervention, the character cannot recover heath levels lost to
injury, disease or other factors.

At the
six-point level, the character suffers a constant stream of injuries even
without outside trauma. Whenever he’s at full Health, that character loses one
health level every two weeks until he is either healed or he dies. As described
above, he cannot heal on his own.

At the
nine-point level, that Health loss is essentially ag­gravated damage, and
cannot be healed except through vulgar Life-Sphere Effects.

Obviously,
this Flaw is meaningless in one-shots or short-duration games. It should be
taken only by characters (and players) involved in long-term chronicles.

### Disease Carrier

**4pt. Flaw**

Your blood
carries a lethal and highly contagious disease. The disease can be anything
from rabies to HIV, and Kindred who drink your blood have a 10% chance of
becoming a carrier as well.

You must
spend an extra blood point each night on awakening, or you will begin manifesting
symptoms of the disease (increased chance to frenzy for rabies, reduced soak
rolls for HIV, etc.).

### Disfigured

**2pt. Flaw**

A hideous
disfigurement makes your appearance disturbing and memorable. The difficulties
of all die rolls relating to social interaction are increased by two.

You may not have an Appearance rating greater than 2.

### Dulled Bite

**2pt. Flaw**

For some
reason your fangs never developed fully, or they may not have manifested at
all. When feeding, you need to find some other method of making the blood flow.
Failing that, you must achieve double the normal number of successes in order
to make your bite penetrate properly.

A number of
Caitiff and high- Generation vampires often manifest this Flaw.

### Easily Intoxicated

**2 pt. Flaw**

Shit really
fucks you up fast. The flipside of Alcohol /Drug Tolerance, above, this Flaw
renders you especially susceptible to intoxication. Your Stamina rolls to
resist the effects of drugs or poisons (though not disease), as described in
the Drugs, Poisons, and Disease section of Mage 20, suffer a +3 modifier to the
usual difficulty involved.

Contrary to
popular conception, this does not make you a good candidate for the Cult of
Ecstasy because you don’t control the drugs – the drugs control you.

### Fifteenth Generation

**4pt. Flaw**

Your vitae
is so weak that only six of your 10 blood points can be used for Disciplines,
healing or raising Attributes. For these functions, you must expend two blood
points to obtain the effect a normal vampire would achieve with one. (The cost
for nightly rising remains a single blood point.) What’s more, you cannot create
or sustain ghouls, create a blood bond, or sire a vampiric childe. You can use
the remaining four blood points to survive through the day and wake up each
night, nothing more.

You cannot raise
any Discipline above three dots. The weakening of the Curse of Caine has
compensations, though (which distinguish this Flaw from the Thin Blood Flaw
itself). Sunlight does lethal damage to you, instead of aggravated damage as it
does to other vampires

You can hold down mortal food and drink for an
hour or so; other vampires vomit immediately if they try (unless they have the
Eat Food Merit). Strangest of all, once in a while you might actually have a child
the normal, human way... though it will hardly be a normal, human child.

### Flesh of the Corpse

**5pt. Flaw**

Your flesh
does not fully regenerate itself once it is damaged. While you are able to heal
yourself to the point of regaining full functionality, your skin still retains
the cuts, tears, bullet holes, and other visible damage that you have incurred.

Depending
on the nature of the damage, this Flaw will make social dealings exceedingly
difficult, and may decrease your Appearance dots over time (even to 0).

### Fourteenth Generation

**2pt. Flaw**
You were
created five or fewer years ago by a member of the Thirteenth Generation.
Though you have 10 blood points in your body, only eight of them may be used to
heal wounds, power Disciplines, raise Attributes, etc. You can still use the
final two blood points for other purposes, though. The blood point costs of nightly
rising, creating and sustaining ghouls, and creating blood bonds remains the
same as for other vampires.

You cannot
raise any Discipline above four dots. Taking this Flaw precludes you from
taking the Generation Background, and you may not start with Status, either.

You are
likely a Clanless Caitiff, for your blood is probably too thin to pass down the
distinguishing characteristics of a Clan. Most Fourteenth-Generation vampires
should also take the Thin Blood Flaw.

### Glowing Eyes

**3pt. Flaw**

You have
the stereotypical glowing eyes of vampire legend, which gives you a -1
difficulty on Intimidation rolls when you’re dealing with mortals.

However,
the tradeoffs are many; you must constantly disguise your condition (no, contacts
don’t cut it); the glow impairs your vision and puts you at +1 difficulty on
all sightbased rolls (including the use of ranged weapons); and the radiance
emanating from your eye sockets makes it difficult to hide (+2 difficulty to
Stealth rolls) in the dark.

### Hard of Hearing

**1pt. Flaw**

Your
hearing is defective. The difficulties of any rolls involving the use of
hearing are increased by two.

### Horrific

**5 pt. Flaw**

Well past
Monstrous, you’re hideous to the point of inspiring nightmares. Unless you mask
your true form with serious magick, people and animals run screaming from your
presence. Physically, you’re not merely misshapen but repulsive on a primal
level – the sort of terror that sent Lovecraft’s heroes over the edge. You
might not actually be a Nephandus or Marauder, but folks who know what those
words mean will assume that you are one. A normal life is, for you, impossible.
Whether due to Paradox disfigurement   malignant disease, extreme body modifications
(cybernetic, artistic, or otherwise), severe scarring, or similar acts of malevolent
fate, you look like John Cobb threw up on you, then ran.

System-wise,
this Flaw inflicts a +3 difficulty modifier to any social roll that involves
not scaring the shit out of people, and lowers the difficulty by -3 if you are.
Your Appearance Trait is stuck below zero, and faint-hearted or weak-willed
Storyteller characters may be faced with “Things Man Was Not Meant to Know” if
they wind up spending time with you.

### Impediment

**1 to 6 pt. Flaw**
Due to some
physical condition, you’re less able to deal with certain situations than most
other people seem to be able to do. And if all of that sounds very conditional,
that’s because the specifics of this Flaw depend a lot on the following
circumstances:

* What sort of condition you have.
* How much it gets in your way.
* Whether or not other people can tell that it gets in your way.

Literally
speaking, an impediment interferes with your path by “blocking your feet.”
System-wise, this Flaw reflects any sort of impairment that’s based in your
character’s physical situation. That includes neurological and internal
chemical conditions like autism, dyslexia, chronic fatigue, significant
allergies, and other maladies that may be “invisible” to others but which are
rooted in the physical body, as opposed to in the psyche or the spirit. Such
conditions might be linked to psychological and /or spiritual health too; those
elements are interrelated, of course. For the purposes of this Flaw, however,
an Impediment is something that hampers the character’s ability to function in
the physical realm.

Story-wise,
an Impediment can be any body-based condi­tion – obvious or not – that
interferes with your character’s ability to do stuff. Examples of obvious
Impediments include a missing limb, a limp, a bent spine, missing teeth, heavy
scarring, deformed features, and the like, while “invisible” Impediments would
include chronic pain and /or fatigue, poor eyesight, asthma, internal tumors,
sensory processing disorders, and so forth. The more that condition impedes
your character, the more this Flaw is worth:

**1 point:** Like chronic headaches, impaired
vision, minor arthritis or a few missing teeth, the Impediment presents
occasional inconveniences but is not a major hassle in your life unless something
worsens the condition or removes the things (glasses, dentures, pain reliever)
that you use to compensate for it.

**2 points**: As with dyslexia, high-functioning
Asperger’s syndrome, chronic fatigue or pain, poor or deteriorating eyesight,
or other internal obstacles, your Impediment presents constant but not
insurmountable problems. In certain situations, you may suffer a +1 to
difficulties that deal with that element of your life.

**3 points:** Your Impediment – severe migraines,
signif­icant autism, allergies or asthma, missing fingers or an eye,
near-deafness, palsy, Tourette’s syndrome, deterio­rating limb(s), and so forth
– significantly impairs several elements of your everyday life. System-wise,
you add +1 to difficulties related to your Impediment.

**4 points:** An inescapable Impediment – missing
limb, profound deafness or autism, near-blindness, malformed bones or
connective tissues (as with EDS, mentioned above), severe arthritis, gnarled
hands or feet, and sim­ilar obstacles – forces you to try working around that
condition on a daily basis. Under most circumstances, you add +2 to
difficulties related to that Impediment, and certain situations (like a nasty
allergic reaction) might damage your health and endanger your life.

**5 points:** Thanks to a profound physical
condition – partial paralysis, constant and severe pain, advanced cancer, the
inability to hear or speak, muscular-skeletal deterioration, major sight-loss,
and other maladies – you’re unable to function in most ways that people take
for granted. Add +2 to physical difficulties unless you’ve got a reliable way
to compensate for that handicap, and assume that you simply cannot do certain
things at all.

**6 points:** For whatever reasons, your
condition is so ad­vanced and severe that you need major work-arounds in order
to function in the everyday world. Many physical feats are beyond you, and you
add +2 or even +3 to difficulties of things you can do but only with a major
effort.

The Flaw
reflects practical impairment in the character’s life; if your mage has a
cybernetic arm that acts like his original arm only better, then that character
is not impaired until or unless that arm breaks down. If someone cures this
condition with magick or some other treatment, then the character loses this
Flaw.

All forms
of Impediment are not created equal, and so one “blind” person can function in
the seeing world better (that is, with fewer points in the Flaw) than another
visually-impaired person (with more points in the Flaw) can do. The
Impediment’s value may also reflect several different conditions that, taken
together, impede that character’s ability to function “normally” more than any
single condition does. As an example, this author has dyslexia, dyscalculia,
poor vision, and two chronically injured knees; does this stop him? No. Does it
slow him down in certain respects? It sure does, and so the total of his “Flaw”
would reflect the amount of difficulty that these conditions, all told, present
in daily life.

This Flaw
serves as a catch-all for previously published Physical Flaws like Blind, Deaf,
and especially the pejorative Lame. Unlike many of the labels applied to such
“handicaps,” the Impediment Flaw does not carry any form of judgment on the
part of the game itself; although characters (and players) might think less of
a “lazy” person with five points in Impediment due to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,
the Flaw itself is not intended in any way to be an insult against people with
such conditions.

On that
note, an unobvious Impediment may present significant social challenges; a
person with Tourette’s Syndrome may seem perfectly healthy even as her brain
misfires, with the only visible symptoms being “inappropriate” sounds or
actions. That mage with CFS could be considered “too lazy to get out of bed” by
people who don’t see her body sabotaging her from the inside out. And so, the
value of the Flaw – with the Storyteller’s approval – might reflect a penalty
to social-based rolls instead of physical ones in certain situations. (“Why
weren’t you at work again?” “I couldn’t take ten steps without falling over.”
“Yeah, right…”)

### Infectious Bite

**2pt. Flaw**
You may not
automatically lick the wounds of your feeding closed. In fact, your bites have
a one in five chance of becoming infected and causing mortal victims to become
seriously ill. The precise nature of the infection is determined by the
Storyteller.

### Infertile Vitae

**5pt. Flaw**
During your
Embrace, something went horribly wrong, causing your blood to mutate under the
stress of dying and rising again. All those you try to Embrace die. No matter
what you do, you may not create any childer.

However,
your blood can still be used in blood rituals like Thaumaturgy and the Vaulderie,
or for any other vampiric needs like making ghouls.

### Lame

**3pt. Flaw**
Your legs
are damaged, which prevents you from running or walking easily. You are forced
to walk with a cane or possibly leg braces, and you have a pronounced limp to
your stride. Your walking speed is one-quarter that of a normal human, and
running is impossible.

### Lazy

**3pt. Flaw**
You are
simply lazy, avoiding anything that requires effort on your part. Preferring to
let others do the hard work, you lounge around.

For any
action that requires preparation, there’s a good chance you didn’t properly prepare.
Difficulty rolls for spontaneous Physical actions (including combat, unless
it’s part of a planned offensive) increase by one.

### Mayfly Curse

**5 or 10 pt. Flaw**
Your lifespan
burns bright and fast. Due, perhaps, to biotech, cloning, or some other inhuman
heritage or modifi­cation, you age far more quickly than normal human beings
do. While this means that you reach(ed) maturity in record time, it ushers in
premature decrepitude. When you live this fast, kid, one way or another, you’re
dying young!

At the
five-point level of this Flaw, your character ages one year for every two
months of earthly time (six years of age for each passing year).

At the
10-point level, he ages one year per week (or 52 years of age in a single
12-month period). Such a character had best watch out for Time-savvy mages; the
Acceler­ated Youth or Decay feat described in How Do You DO That? has horrific
effects on a mayfly, who suffers six to 52 years of aging for each year of time
inflicted upon him.

As the
years rush in, other Flaws like Aging, Impediment, Absent-Minded, and so forth
may pile up on this character as well. Life-Sphere magick cannot negate this
Flaw, which could be interpreted as a manifestation of the Unbelief form of
Paradox, unless the player buys off the Flaw… and perhaps not even then.

### Methuselah’s Thirst

**7pt. Flaw**
You can no longer
sustain yourself on mortal blood and must feed on the blood of Kindred or other
supernatural creatures with potent reserves, such as lupines or fairies.

### Monstrous

**3 pt. Flaw**
A frightening
appearance marks you as an outsider. Regard­less of your true personality and
temperament, some profound deformities, scars, body mods or other characteristics
fill people with terror and revulsion. System-wise, your character has an
Appearance of 0, and probably suffers penalties to social-based rolls to win
people over, while getting difficulty reductions when trying to scare people,
depending upon what he looks like and who he’s dealing with.

**Vampire:**
Your
physical form was twisted during the Embrace, and now reflects the Beast that
rages inside you. Characters with this Flaw appear to be savage monsters and have
Appearance ratings of zero.

Nosferatu
and other bloodlines whose weaknesses cause them to start off with Appearance
zero cannot take this Flaw.

### Mute

**4pt. Flaw**

You cannot
speak. You may communicate with the Storyteller and describe your actions, but
cannot talk to player or Storyteller characters unless everyone concerned
purchases a commonly understood sign language (via the Language Merit) or you
write down what you wish to say.

### One Eye

**2pt. Flaw**
You have
only one eye — which eye is missing is up to you. The difficulties of all
Perception rolls involving eyesight are increased by two, and the difficulties
of all die rolls requiring depth perception are increased by one (this includes
ranged combat).

### Open Wound

**2 or 4pt. Flaw**
You have
one or more wounds that refuse to heal, and which constantly drip blood. This
slow leakage costs you an extra blood point per evening (marked off just before
dawn), in addition to drawing attention to you.

If the
wound is visible, you are at + 1 difficulty for all Social-based rolls. For two
points, the Flaw is simply unsightly and has the basic effect mentioned above;
for four points the seeping wound is serious or disfiguring and includes the
effects of the Flaw Permanent Wound.

### Permanent Fangs

**3pt. Flaw**
Your fangs
do not retract, making it impossible for you to hide your true nature. While
some mortals may think you’ve had your teeth filed or are wearing prosthetics, sooner
or later you’re going to run into someone who knows what you truly are. You are
also limited to a maximum Appearance rating of 3.

### Permanent Wound

**3 pt. Flaw**
Due to
lasting injury, Pattern leakage, a Paradox Flaw, or some other physiological
deficit, you suffer from a chronic injury that never heals. This might be an
incurable tumor, endless bleeding, debilitating pain, brittle bones… the specif­ics
are not important. Regardless of the cause, your character is always at the
Wounded health level; even with magickal healing, the injury returns to its
normal state at either sunrise or sunset (your choice) every day. Although this
wound does not deteriorate further unless your character gets injured by some
other source – at which point, another four health levels in damage can kill
your character – this Permanent Wound does not recover to a healthy state until
and unless the Flaw is bought off through a dramatic story-based cure.

**Vampire:**
You
suffered injuries during your Embrace which your transformation somehow failed
to repair. At the beginning of each night, you rise from sleep at the Wounded health
level, though this may be healed by spending blood points.

### Profiled Appearance

**2 pt. Flaw**
You look
like one of those people… y’know, the people that “respectable citizens” expect
bad things from. Depending on the setting of your chronicle, this could involve
physical mannerisms, body art, gender distinctions, individual features, ethnic
heritage, cybernetic modifications, or other elements of your physical body that
you cannot remove and probably don’t want to “fix” anyhow. Problem is, the
people around you are constantly watching your every move, making trouble for
you when they can get away with it, and otherwise causing you grief. The
authorities shake you down on principle, and most folks won’t object to
whatever they choose to do to you.

Although
it’s related to the Social Flaw: Cultural Other (below), Profiled Appearance is
based on your character’s physical features, not on their social behavior.
Although it can be concealed to some degree, your Profiled Appearance is not
something that can be removed without magick, and it reflects an essential part
of your identity. Like Impediment, it does not carry a value judgment in the
game even though it represents the way other characters will view you. If this
feels unfair in the game, imagine how it must feel in real life.

### Repulsive Feature

**2 pt. Flaw**
Some
physical feature of yours turns people away. Maybe you smell bad regardless of
your state of hygiene, possess the proverbial “evil eye,” have an especially
grating voice, suffer from a pervasive skin condition, or have a similarly
repugnant physical characteristic. Perhaps the mere presence of you makes
people’s skins crawl even though there’s nothing discernibly ugly about you. In
any case, this feature discourages folks from sticking around much.

Essentially
the inverse of the Merit: Enchanting Feature, this Flaw represents a
concealable yet disconcerting element of your physical presence.

Unlike
Impediment, this Feature affects the way people regard you, not the way your
body functions. That said, you could take both Flaws together, in order to
reflect a physically debilitating condition that has socially awkward effects
as well. The feature in question doesn’t represent overall ugliness, as per
Monstrous and Horrific; instead, it manifests as a single unpleasant physical
distinction.

System-wise,
this Flaw adds a +2 difficulty modifier to Social-Trait rolls whenever this
feature comes into play. Sto­ry-wise, this Flaw renders you physically distinctive
unless you make an effort to hide the Repulsive Feature. If you change shape,
that feature carries over into your other forms, which interferes with disguise
attempts. If the feature transcends visual senses (like, for example, an
unpleasant odor or grating voice), it might betray your presence even if you
can’t be seen. In both cases, this Flaw penalizes your rolls for physical
concealment the same way it penalizes your social interactions.

As some
consolation, the feature could be used to deliber­ately frighten or irritate
people; in that case, the usual penalty becomes a -2 to your difficulty
instead. A Repulsive Feature that has been integrated into your magickal focus
(again, for instance, the “evil eye”) offers the same instrumental benefits
described under Enchanting Feature, with the same potential for mutilation and
a greater incentive for someone to mess you up!

### Short

**Mage:**
**3 pt. Flaw**
Whether
you’re the next Harry Potter or a budding Tyri­on Lannister, you’re shorter
than five feet tall… possibly a lot shorter than that. In game terms, your
character runs at half the normal speed, has problems reaching certain things,
lacks the physical leverage for certain feats, and probably gets a lot of shit
from people who refuse to take him seriously.

**Vampire:**
**1pt. Flaw**
You are well
below average height — four and a half feet (1.5 meters) tall or less. You have
difficulty reaching or manipulating objects designed for normal adult size, and
your running speed is one-half that of an average human.

### Slow Healing

**3pt. Flaw**
You have
difficulty healing wounds. It requires two blood points to heal one health
level of bashing or lethal damage, and you heal one health level of aggravated damage
every five days (plus the usual five blood points and Willpower expenditure).

### Smell of the Grave

**1pt. Flaw**
You exude
an odor of dampness and newly turned earth, which no amount of scents or
perfumes will cover. Mortals in your immediate presence become uncomfortable,
so the difficulties of all Social rolls to affect mortals increase by one.

### Sterile

**Mage:**
**1 pt. Merit or Flaw**
For some
physical reason, you’re unable to sire or con­ceive children. Whether this is a
Merit or a Flaw depends upon whether or not you want to sire or conceive
children.

Generally,
this sort of condition can be easily cured with a little Life-Sphere magick; in
your case, though, it can’t be rectified until and unless you, the player,
discard the Merit or pay off this Flaw.

**Werewolf:**
**4 pt. Flaw**
For Kinfolk
who serve werewolves as perpetuators of the species, inability to reproduce is
a serious Flaw indeed. Not only does it carry a social stigma, it may also
incur abuse, neglect, or even exile. Kinfolk who can’t reproduce lose a great
deal of their value in Garou eyes.

For obvious
reasons, vampire and wraith, who were Kin can’t take this Flaw.

### Thin Blood

**4pt. Flaw**
Your blood
is thin, weak, and does not sustain you well. All blood point costs are doubled
(e.g., using blood-related Disciplines or healing damage), although you only
lose one blood upon rising in the evening.

Furthermore,
you are unable to create a blood bond, and efforts to sire other vampires
succeed only one in five times.

### Tic/Twitch

**1pt. Flaw**
You have
some sort of repetitive motion that you make in times of stress, and it’s a
dead giveaway as to your identity. Examples include a nervous cough, constantly
wringing your hands, cracking your knuckles, and so on. It costs one Willpower to
refrain from engaging in your tic.

### Vulnerability to Silver

**2pt. Flaw**
To you,
silver is as painful and as deadly as the rays of the sun. You suffer
aggravated wounds from any silver weapons (bullets, knives, etc.), and the mere
touch of silver objects discomfits you.