Location Merits

## Location Merits

### Safehouse (• to •••••, linked merits)

Each aspect of the Safehouse can be considered a separate Merit, to
determine experience cost. The Safehouse Merit may be shared among characters
in a cell. The cell may have built the place from the ground up, or a single
hunter might have found or purchased it and improved as he met the other
characters. To share this Merit, two or more characters pool their dots for
greater capability.

### Safehouse Size

Size is perhaps the simplest defining characteristic,
governing the amount of raw space the safehouse encompasses.

x Barely any space; only a pair of characters can fit
inside comfortably.

• A studio apartment; one to two rooms.

•• A large apartment or small family home; three to four
rooms.

••• A warehouse, church or large home; five to eight rooms,
or large enclosure.

•••• A mansion or very large home; equivalent to nine to 15
rooms.

••••• A sprawling estate, interconnected tunnel network;
countless rooms or chambers.

### Safehouse Cache

Each dot allocated to Safehouse Cache translates to one hidden cache of
weaponry & equipment stashed somewhere in the safehouse. A cache can hold
five Size points worth of equipment, so while one might be a weapons locker
with two shotguns and a pistol (and a few boxes of ammo for each, which is
negligible as far as Size goes), another might hold surveillance equipment (a
set of wire taps, binoculars, night-sight goggles and maybe a pistol for good
measure).

It is possible, too, to combine two or more dots of Cache into one
space, for a total Size of 10 or more. Equipment doesn’t have to be stored in a
cache, of course — a large safehouse can have entire rooms devoted to storage.
Equipment that is stored in a cache, however, is effectively hidden from
anything but a devoted (or supernatural) search.

Mundane interlopers receive a -5 modifier to any attempt to find a
cache (on a dramatic failure, the searcher finds and triggers a trap, instead,
if the safehouse has any). If the players wish, this modifier can instead apply
to attempts to access the Cache. The gun safe might be in plain view, but it’s
not at all easy to crack open without the proper combination.

### Safehouse Secrecy:

One of the biggest advantages a hunter can enjoy is, ironically, one
that his prey tries to cultivate as well: anonymity. If the monsters don’t know
where to find the hunters, they have a harder time killing them. Dots in
Safehouse Secrecy indicate how far removed from the hunters the safehouse is,
from a legal (and paper trail) standpoint. These dots impose a negative penalty
on any attempt to find the hunter through the property, or vice versa.

The descriptions of the different dot ratings below are
just examples; it’s up to the player to decide what the Secrecy represents.

x The hunter rented or bought the place using his real
name, credit card or bank account.

• The hunter went through an intermediary, but cosigned a
loan at some point.

•• Some effort toward concealment; an assumed name or
paying in cash.

••• Considerable difficulty in tracing the property — the
hunter might just be squatting.

•••• The hunter never goes back to the place if he doesn’t
have to, never gets there by the same route, and his real name never appears on
any of the documentation.

••••• The property has a real owner who lives there full
time, is aware of his rights and, if necessary, can show cops around the place
while casually denying that he’s ever seen the hunter before.

### Safehouse Traps:

Sooner or later, a safehouse is going to be compromised. Hunters know
it, even if they don’t want to admit it. That’s why many of them build traps
into their safehouses, in hopes they can kill a supernatural intruder — or at
least deter him long enough to get away. A trap can take a myriad of forms.
Opening a door to a promising-looking room reveals a shotgun aimed at chest
level, which promptly fires.

Walking up the stairs on the left side is safe, but on the right side,
they’re rigged to collapse. Looking behind a painting causes an ax to swing
down from the ceiling, just about at head level. A trap can also be designed to
destroy part (or all) of the safehouse — at the flick of a switch, the place
goes up in flames, collapses or explodes (see sidebar for what this means in
terms of the Merit). A trap can either inflict damage equal to the dots
allocated to it to a single target, or can inflict less damage to a large area.

Once a trap is tripped (provided it doesn’t destroy the place), any
hunter who contributed dots to the safehouse can reset it with minimal work.
This is what differentiates traps represented by this Merit from others that
the characters might build themselves during the course of the chronicle; no
rolls or special effort are required to reset a Safehouse Trap. Again, though,
if the trap is designed to destroy large sections of the safehouse, that damage
can’t be repaired without significant effort and expense, if at all. Any trap
that deals damage to the Safehouse Size can be rigged to go off after a short
delay, giving the hunters time to flee.

x The hunters haven’t bothered setting traps. Perhaps
they’re afraid of setting them off themselves.

• A trap that inflicts one point of lethal damage to a
target (concealed knife, caltrops) or three points of bashing damage to a small
area (electrified floor, mild poison gas).

•• A trap that inflicts two points of lethal damage to a
target (spring-loaded knife, concealed pistol trap) or inflicts six bashing
damage to a small area (falling sandbags, fire-hose trap), or a trap that
incorporates fire and thus has a chance of igniting targets and the house.

••• A trap that inflicts three points of lethal damage to a
target (falling ax, poisoned needle on a doorknob) or eight bashing damage to
an area (collapsing staircase), or a trap that damages a portion of the
safehouse, reducing its Size by one (explosives; anyone caught in the blast
takes two lethal damage).

•••• A trap that inflicts four lethal damage to a target
(shotgun trap, pit with spikes) or 10 bashing damage/two lethal damage to an
area (concussion grenade trap, deadfall trap), or a trap that reduces the
Safehouse Size by one to three dots (anyone caught in the area suffers three
points of lethal damage).

••••• A trap that inflicts five points of lethal damage to
a target (spring-loaded sharpened stake, blowtorch trap) or 12 bashing
damage/three lethal damage to an area (bouncing Betty, acid spray), or a trap
that completely destroys the safehouse, no matter how large (anyone caught
inside suffers four points of lethal damage).

Any intruder receives
a Wits + Composure roll to notice a trap before it activates:

 Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The intruder activates the trap and suffers all
relevant damage. In addition, roll (the rating of the trap in question + 2) and
apply any successes as additional damage (type as appropriate to the trap).

Failure: The intruder activates the trap and suffers all
relevant damage.

Success: The character notices the trap and can try to disarm it (Wits
+ Crafts minus the dots allocated to that trap, failure sets off the trap,
dramatic failure doubles the damage) or just leave it be.

Exceptional Success: The intruder notices the trap and can attempt to
disarm it (Wits + Crafts, no penalty for the trap rating).

### Torture Suite (• to •••)

Effect: Interrogation, torture, brainwashing, deprogramming: all
gruesome and disturbing acts that require, among other things, a safe place
from prying eyes. Dots in this Merit represent just such a space, preferably
one the hunter has control of, like a storage unit for which she is the primary
key-holder or a secluded cabin she owns.

This can be a space she doesn’t own (police interrogation room, boiler
room at the elementary school where she works as janitor, a secret room in the
basement of her apartment building), but still must be one she controls
semi-regularly for the Merit’s effects to apply.

Dots in this Merit are unrelated to Size, but are instead related to
the space’s intimidation factor: a spare room in a small apartment isn’t that
foreboding, but a dark room with a bare bulb next to a hissing heater and a
wall full of sharp implements might just do the trick.

For each dot purchased in this Merit, the hunter gains +1 to
appropriate Intimidation-based Interrogation rolls (including torture,
brainwashing or deprogramming events).

Note that a Torture Suite can be a part of a hunter’s
safehouse, though it doesn’t need to be

### Esoteric Armory (• to •••••)

Effect: Your character is the go-to guy when one needs a knife carved
from the bone of a martyred saint, a hawthorn stake, rock salt shotgun shells,
the powdered remains of cremated suicides or any number of other things.

No matter how strange the need, you’ve got it covered. After
successfully researching an ephemeral entity’s Bane, compare your dots in this
Merit to the entity’s Rank. If the merit is equal to or greater than Rank,
you’ve got what you need in your Armory.

You should decide along with your Storyteller where the Armory is,
though; a one-dot Esoteric Armory can fit in a large bag, but a four- or
five-dot one will fill a house.

### Library (• to •••)

Effect: Your character has access to a plethora of information about a
given topic. When purchasing this Merit, choose a Mental Skill. The Library
covers that purview. On any extended roll involving the Skill in question, add
the dots in this Merit.