VSS

Death Knell

# Part 1: VSS

**VSS Boundaries:** Boston and Surrounding areas.

“**VST” Name:** Dan/Aaron

“**VST” Email: boston.lost.vst@gmail.com**

**Domain Code:**  MA-003-D

**Templates Allowed:** Changelings and Faetouched

**Territory Boundaries:**  This Chronicle will leave the players to fend for themselves and earn what space they want for their own.

**Theme:**  Discovering the past and overcoming its challenges.

**Mood:**  Curiosity and fear.

**Setting Books:**  Chronicles of Darkness 2.0, Hurt Locker, Changeling: the Lost, & Oak Ash & Thorn

## **Chronicle Teaser**:

“Success sometimes may be defined as a disaster put on hold.”

― Nadine Gordimer

“Our real discoveries come from chaos, from going to the place that looks wrong and stupid and foolish.”

― Chuck Palahniuk

# Part 2: Styles of Play

## Overall Game Emphasis

- Physical: 3/5

- Social: 2/5

- Mental: 4/5

## Individual Game Components

Each component gets numbered on a scale from 1 to 10 based on how prevalent it will be in the game overall. A 1 indicates a component is never present, whereas a 10 indicates a component is always present.

- Action (Combat/Challenges): 6/10

- Character Development (Personal Dilemmas/Choices): 6/10

- Darkness (PC Death/Corruption): 5/10

- Intrigue (Politics/Negotiation): 3/10

- Mystery (Enigmas/Investigation): 8/10

- Gameplay taking place in the Real World:5/10

- Gameplay taking place in the Hedge: 5/10

- Gameplay taking place in Dreams: 5/10

- Pacing (how quickly do stories start, develop and come to an end): 5/10

- CvC (Character vs. Character): 3/10

- CvE (Character vs. Environment): 9/10

# Part 3: Description of Venue

## VST Venue Philosophy

Changeling can be the darkest game of them all. The Lost can never feel safe. Every mirror and every door can spell the end of the free life. That person you talk to can be a turncoat or a madman. But if you trust no one and close yourself, then you are in a prison of your own making.

The tragedy of being Lost is personal, their life full of paranoia and danger.

At the start of the game the freeholds of Boston will be nonexistent, the hedge wild and unexplored, resources scarce and danger abundant. You can change it, but the road to success will be quite challenging. The risk of losing a character is very real if you are not careful, especially if you venture into the hedge alone. As this is clearly stated from the start of the game, do not expect additional warnings of possible dire consequences.

# Part 4: Storyteller Mechanics

## Successes

### Normal Pulls

Rather than rolling dice, the system utilized will feature cards from 1 to 10. A 10 is pulled again (if you have 9/8 again, etc you pull those again as well).  Successes are derived from the (card value + Skill + Attribute + Wild card +/- environment - 5)/3 rounding down.

Pulling an Ace as the first card in a skill check results in an automatic failure. Upon an automatic failure another card is drawn, if it is another Ace the failure upgrades into a Dramatic Failure.

(For those that don’t like the math, here’s numbers)

8  : 1 Success

11: 2 Successes

14: 3 Successes

17: 4 Successes

20: 5 Successes

+3: +1 Success

### Clarity

Clarity attacks will always have an exceptional success on three successes rather than five.

## Character Creation Guidelines

Characters are subject to Storyteller review before entering play during games. A complete character record, as defined by the Membership Handbook, is required for characters being portrayed in the venue.

Character sheets should also be balanced. Characters with clear min-maxing may not be allowed to enter the game. Appropriate concepts for the venue will also be taken into consideration. Outright antagonistic concepts which have no allies locally are unacceptable and unplayable. With a limited storytelling staff, it is not practical to jeopardize one storyteller to play for one person.

While loner concepts work as the protagonist of a book or film, LARP is not the sort of venue where you have a star, a co-star or two, and a host of supporting characters. LARP is, above all, ensemble cast storytelling. All characters in the story are equally important. In order to fully participate in the telling of an ensemble-cast story, your character should have at least some measure of interest in others, and at least one long-term goal that requires reliance on or cooperation with others in the local venue.

The Venue favors investigators, explorers and pioneers – think Indiana Jones.

Changeling should expect a great deal of trouble in Boston as they cause ripples in local social structure and thus attract attention of the Denizens of the World of Darkness.

Each character is created using the outlined rules in the Changeling: the Lost Corebook (Pg. 89). There is no additional XP awarded for any Membership Class. Completing the Character

Creation form awards your PC an additional 3 XP The CCD can be found here.

No Characters could have been taken before December 21 2012 and no Character can have been released before December 28th 2019.

Some Merits are restricted at character Creation for Setting purposes. These are

Allies, Contacts and Status: Cannot be higher than 3

Court Goodwill: Can only apply to active Courts

Entitlement: Must be earned at game

Mantle: Must be earned at game

Mentor: All mentors must be mortals.

Mystery Cult Initiation: Must be earned at game

During Character creation, no Court Contracts can be purchased.

## Starting Glamour

As the freeholds of Boston are currently non existent, acquiring Glamour is dangerous and expending it is a common necessity.

Unless otherwise adjusted by Storyteller, characters begin games with 25% of their maximum glamour pool, rounded down. Between games, as a downtime action, players may supplement their glamour pools. The rules for downtime actions are below.

As events happen in game, this can be changed by player actions. If a Freehold is developed we specifically have plans to increase the base based on how it is designed. We will update the VSS as these events occur.

## Experience Award Guidelines

Standard Award for attending a game is 3 XP.

The XP Floor is the current earned XP total.

# Part 5: Additional Mechanics

## Determining the current Monarch of the Seasonal Courts

As there is currently no freehold in Boston, there are no current Monarchs. Changelings will be able to find the old Courts in play and build their own freehold, using the rules from Oak Ash and Thorn or making it on their own. Details on how the monarchs change will be determined when the Freehold is made and we will update the VSS when that occurs.

As it stands, we are using a model of Threat based on how complete the Freehold is. One Court will be revealed early; all other courts must be discovered and incorporated in Game by player actions.

## The Hedge and the Real World

As per Changeling the Lost 2nd Ed, we are using the earthly geographical locations to determine the “Local” Hedge. As such, we have ~~stolen~~ borrowed the city map from other venues and written specific Hedge attributes for those locations. Players can work to somewhat pacify the Hedge and declare control and hollows based on real world towns. We are mostly using this so we know where everyone is in relation to events happening.

## HedgeSpinning

Hedgespinning has been altered to fall more in line with the setting. Instead of a flat pool of 8 we have modified it to be represented solely by the PC’s Wyrd score and any relevant modifiers.

## Downtimes

Downtimes: Each character receives 3 downtime actions per month. There are no other means with which to increase these.

Five Action Categories

1. Investigation
	1. Looking into events, usually in the past
		1. This action is a simple action designed to introduce plot to the characters using an appropriate Attribute + Investigation.
2. Glamour Recovery
	1. Start game at 25% glamour + roll.
		1. The roll is determined by the player and their method of acquiring glamour. It is always an Attribute + Ability for the roll.
3. Patrolling/Secure
	1. Monitors location currently/Defends location
		1. Patrolling is a way to keep abreast of changes in either the Hedge or the Real World as well as blunt attacks that might occur on locations.
		2. Defending is a manner in which aggressive actions can be prevented from happening in your location. A defend action takes a relevant stat pool and uses it as a resisted check against any actions attempting to infiltrate, subvert, or control an area. It is always indiscriminate.
4. Improving Self
	1. Merits and Contracts
5. Spy/Hide on actions
	1. Spy on another’s action/Hide you or your own
		1. Spying and hiding are actions that require no rolls, they just do as they say.
		2. Hiding obfuscates another action, making it impossible to be spied upon. This must be another action that is clearly defined. The hiding action also hides itself from other spying attempts
		3. Spying observes an unprotected/unhidden action at random from the selected player. The Spying player may specify a specific action to try to observe. If that action was taken by the targeted player and remained unhidden, the Spying player would have a success. If it was hidden, then the Spying player would receive nothing.
		4. If more Spy actions are used than hide actions are available, the staff will alert the Spying player that something is amiss, but not reveal the action that was taken
6. Payment
	1. Goblin Markets, Deals, Contracts, etc
		1. This action contains all of the others that were not listed above and most frequently will be used for tracking the payment of debts and contracts and other miscellanies.