The Influences (and a description of their spheres of influence):

Adders: Each influence has a Primary Ability, which complements it. These Abilities are:

These abilities are Influence "Adders." Each time you spend an Influence to which you have a complementary Ability, you may add the Ability score to the Influence expenditure as if they were Influences up to the number of appropriate influences spent (ie. if you spend 5 Commerce influence, you may use up to 5 Financial ability). Adders do not count towards to paying the Contact Cost of an item, only for the Actual Price. In the case of extended actions, such that the action occurs over multiple games and/or downtimes, the Adders may be used once a month for the action, so long as each time the Adder is used it is matched with influences of the appropriate number and type. The advantage of Adders is that they are never spent away. The downsides are they cannot be used alone, lent to another, and are not efficient point-wise unless you have access to at least an equal number of the Influences and Ability. NB: If you are not an "influence character" and do not plan/wish to spent a significant amount of time dealing with Influences, you are encouraged to NOT buy these abilities. They can be somewhat complicated and require some forethought to use effectively.

Nota Bene: Most actions in this document refer to a number of "influences" required or spent. Whenever the document refers to "influences" you may assume that it is referring to "Influences + Adders." The sole exception to this is when paying the Contact Cost to get items. In this case, "influences" means actual influences, before Adders are figured in.

All items have an Actual Price and a Contact Cost. The Contact Cost is one or more influences which must be spent to gain access to the item. The type of influence required to pay the Contact Cost is determined by whatever the "Primary" influences are for the item. The amount of the Contact Cost will vary depending on the rarity of the item. Contact Cost must be paid in influences, nothing else will work. Once you have access, you must spend enough cash and/or influences to cover the Actual Price of the item. At this point, any influence will work at its standard cash value to cover the price of the item (after all, businessmen are always happy to have favors from other ‘influential people’). The influences spent to cover the Contact Cost do count as influences spent, so Adder abilities are activated to help cover the Actual Price.

Purchasing specially modified items may dramatically increase the cost of an item. In many cases (such as Potence Reinforcement) these modifications may only be made at the time the item is created. At least half of any modification cost must be paid in the primary influence for the modification (usually Industry). In general, modifications must be made over downtime. Any increase in cost is an increase to the Actual Price. The Contact Cost remains constant and must be paid as normal. Reinforced items that are weakened by damage may be repaired by paying the cost difference between their weakened level of reinforcement and their original level.

Sample modification costs are as follows:

Note: Costs for reinforcement are not cumulative

Using influences to get "stuff" will always take a minimum of 10 minutes above and beyond the time spent in line at the influence desk. It will actually take 2 minutes per influence in the cumulative Contact Costs to represent the time required to go there, get the items and come back. Every additional influence or $500 will lower the wait by 2 minutes to a best of 10 minutes.

Modification of structures is usually done after original construction. The rule of thumb for a structure is an Actual Cost of $1000 per 25’ of outer wall, single story. Thus, a 25’x25’ room costs $4000 (4, 25’ wall segments). Adding a second floor or basement would cost and additional $4000. Reinforcing this one room to 2B would cost an additional $48,000 (1200% of $4000).

Using influences to get money is one of the standard uses of an influence. During the game, simply go up to the influence desk and for each influence you spent towards money, you will receive $500 in Athens By Night money. You may use your Adders as normal to get cash, but you can only use them to get money once each game, and you must still spend the necessary influences along with them.

To get cash over downtime, you just write how many of your influences you will spend to get money in your downtime. You will have $1,000 added to your character’s bank account for the next game. Note, this money is not available over the month, you can only access it as of the next game. If you have Adder abilities, you may add them to the number of influences you spent for cash, but only once each downtime.

Using influences to get things done is less complicated than getting Items, but it is also more nebulous. Tell the STs what you want to do, and they will give you a base price. This price may be as general as "15 influences" or more specific such as "University x2, Industry x5 and Commerce x3." The price can also be variable, such as "either 50 of any influence or 15 University." Oftentimes there are multiple influences which will get a job done, but some may work better than others. For example, it would take Bureaucracy to change government policy, but Law Enforcement could also do it. You want a parking ticket fixed, Law Enforcement and Bureaucracy would both work. Law Enforcement would get it thrown out, Bureaucracy would "lose" the ticket and Commerce could just pay for it. Occult and Medical will likely not help you out in that situation though. Generally speaking, a downtime influence is equivalent to $1,000 and vice versa. Thus, if the requirement is simply 10 influences, then $10,000 will work as well, or any combination of the two. However, if the requirement is Commerce x10, then cash may not be spent at any ratio without Narrator/ST approval.

The base price comes down to a judgment call by the Narrator/ST based on the rationale of the player on how they are achieving their goals. Putting money and influence above and beyond the base price into an action will cause it to succeed better while spending less may lead to a success, but a poorer one (if not an outright failure). Like most actions, "getting something done" does not have to take place during one game or Downtime. The price can be paid over a greater period of time, usually with no penalty.

There are two different ways to counter the expenditures of others with your influences. The first and simplest is to counter something specific. Any influence countering costs an explanation on HOW you’re stopping them and the actual influences used to counter the action. All payment into stopping the action will remove the effectiveness of their action on a one-for-one basis, though some limitations apply to the type of influence used. For example, spending 10 Medical to stop an attempt to purchase guns is not likely to be very effective. In order to counter someone’s expenditures in this way, you must have a "line in" on his action. This knowledge may be that you discovered the information during a downtime investigation or that you were told in game of the action. If you attempt to counter an action that the other person does not take, then your influences and cash are still considered spent. Thus, it is usually a good idea to make an Investigate action along with the Counter action. The more specific and more correct your "line in" on the other person’s action, the better chance you have of stopping the action. A "line in" can be as simple as convincing an ST you know something will be happening to as definitive as having previously researched the action.

Secondly, you can spend your influences to restrict all activity of some sort (i.e. all gun-running, obtaining blood through medical influences). This is much more difficult as you are attempting to restrict city-wide influence expenditures, and you will be affecting the mortal world, not just the Player Characters. This action may only be accomplished over Downtime, and cash will not help here. The effect of this action will not take place in the month it is done, but instead will affect prices during the next game and over the next Downtime. If you wish to continue the effect past then you will have to continue paying the price. The effects of this action will be announced to the players at the beginning of the next game. The negatives of this action will affect every character, including your own. Costs and effects are variable based on ST decision. Examples are: Spending Medical x10 à next game and DT it takes Medical x2 to get a single blood. Spending Underworld x10 à next game and DT the Contact Cost of all Firearms weapons is raised by 1.

It is often a good idea to hide certain actions, be they your influence actions, someone else’s influence actions, the existence of an ORG, a breech of the Masquerade, etc. After all, you never know when another Kindred is trying to find your Haven, when the police are on the trail of your drug running, or who is watching for blatant feeding. Hiding an action, organization, etc. is pretty simple. You simply spend your influences and say "I am hiding X." For the most part, if you spent more influences to hide your action than your opponent spent to investigate the action, then they do not find the information. However, if the investigator spent more the hider, than the investigator will learn something about the action (see "Using influences to investigate actions" for more details).

Of course, some actions are harder to hide than others. Spending influences to hide that you bought a gun this month is fairly easy. However, hiding the fact you’ve been buying guns for 8 months straight, four guns a downtime is much harder. Hiding the fact that there is gunrunning in Athens is much, much harder. For the most part, the number of influences spent is the most important component in determining whether or not the hidden action is uncovered. However, the end effect of this effectively contested action (wherein you are hiding something and another is investigating it) may be affected by the relative scope each person is involved in, the abilities used, the "cunning plans" involved, etc.

If multiple people are hiding something either as a group or as individuals, their actions will stack to stop others from investigating, even if they are not actively working together. It should be assumed mortal authorities and the media are usually investigating illegal actions and ‘interesting’ stories. The amount of the effective Investigate action by the media or police will vary based on the event they are investigating.

Quite often, your character will need information. When this happens, you will make an Investigate action to search for the needed information. The search for information can be as simple as looking into one person’s background or as complicated as screening all mortals in Athens to find Hunters, ghouls, and hidden vampires. A simple action will usually cost fewer influences than a difficult or complex action. It is much easier to investigate one person you know exists than to research the entirety of Athens. Also, if the action, event, person, place, or thing you wish to Investigate has been Hidden by influences, abilities or disciplines, then it can be just that much harder to find.

At its base, you declare what you are investigating and spend the influences to do so. If the action was hidden, then all money and influences spent will start to peal away any barrier between you and the information. Once the secrecy barrier has been breached, or if the action was not hidden at all, the amount of information discovered is dependent upon how much additional resources were put into investigating, plus the intangibles of scope, disciplines, and abilities as determined by ST ruling. Once a secrecy barrier has been breeched, and at least one additional influence is spent, you are considered to have a "line in" as mentioned elsewhere. If you are required to have specific information, the amount extra required to gain that information is still up to the STs, but you do have your "line in."

Influences may be used to determine who else is involved in various spheres of influence. In this case, by spending 10 of the influence you are investigating, you will get the names of any characters and ORGs who have an influence or are spending a lot of that influence, assuming they are not hiding their influence use. If they are hiding their influences, then you will not be able to find them without having a starting point with which to begin breeching their influence barrier.

Ultimately, the STs will make the decision on what is discovered. If hiding or investigating is done during a game, you must speak with a ST about the action. The narrower your focus, the easier it will be to obtain useful information. Also, in general, it is easier to notice large actions than small ones.

Herd is not an influence, look under Herd. Medical is a special exception. When used to get blood, each Medical is usually worth 1 blood. This will take standard time at the desk for influence use. Influences other than Medical may not be spent to get blood directly, although they can make hunting safer. Spending one influence will allow you to bypass a single detection test for feeding encounters.

Influences and Ritual Research:
(All references to influences in this section refer to Downtime influences)

Rituals are a special subset of the influence system. Generally speaking, only Occult influences will be of use in researching and creating rituals as well as investigating or hiding ongoing research. As always, creative enough action may allow other influences to be used. Money is generally ineffective at aiding ritual creation and learning. The common rituals (i.e. those specifically listed in the rules as "common" rituals) only require an influence expenditure of approximately 25 for basic, 50 for intermediate, or 75 for advanced (the precise amount is determined by the STs). Uncommon rituals will cost more based on the ritual’s scarcity (i.e. Nectar of the Bitter Rose would be difficult, while the Vaulderie will likely be impossible off pure influences, though it may put you in touch with someone willing to deal).

If you are creating a new ritual and have had it approved by the Storytellers, then the creation of the ritual will cost approximately 40 for basic, 80 for intermediate, or 120 for advanced. All of the above costs may be modified to an extent based on having access to Occult libraries, creativity in the ritual making/researching process, having access to supplementary materials, etc. Also, some things simply are not possible (like the "I point as you and you blow up" ritual). Additionally, some rituals may require certain prerequisites to create (i.e. before you can make Pavis of the Funky Animalism, you’d need to know Pavis of the Foul Presence; and you can’t make a ritual to break the Vaulderie without actually having the Vaulderie).

Each participant in the research may use either Ritualism or Mysticism Ability as an influence adder in ritual research and creation, but not both. At the end of the research, one participant in the research may learn the ritual. Purchasing the ritual may be delayed for a few months and cases of dispute over who learns the ritual are handled at ST discretion.

As, generally speaking, only Occult may be used to research/create rituals, then, generally speaking, only Occult may be used to Counter researching/creating rituals.

Having a teacher, a Tome, or a Scroll with the ritual in it will circumvent any requirement for researching the ritual. It must simply be studied over Downtime. However, using a Tome or Scroll in this manner requires the student to posses one more than the required Ritualism needed for that level of ritual (ie. basic rituals would require 3 Ritualism, intermediate 5, and advanced 7. Note, purchasing a ritual that you have researched or read from a Tome or Scroll does not count as teaching or being taught. You may still learn or teach other skills during the same Downtime.

Scrolls containing one ritual each may be created at the cost of 15 Occult for basic rituals, 25 for intermediate, 35 for advanced. You must know the ritual to create a scroll for it (anyone with Ritualism x2 can create a scroll). Also, at the time of the Scroll’s creation, any ingredients necessary to cast the ritual must be spent, including Blood, Willpower and XP costs. Anyone with one above the prerequisite level of Ritualism ability may cast a ritual via the scroll, although the scroll will then burn to ashes. You may also learn from a scroll, but it will still burn to ashes afterwards. No, there are no e-scrolls.

Creating an Occult tome will cost 5 Occult influences. Inscribing rituals into it will cost an additional 20 influences for Basic, 40 for Intermediate, or 60 for Advanced. You may not Inscribe a ritual you do not know. Rituals may not be cast out of a tome. Tomes are for learning only. No more than 3 XP worth of rituals may be in any one tomb. No, there are no e-tombs.

Ritualism will help in scroll and tomb creation, mysticism will not.

It takes fifteen minutes at base to find a "victim" for feeding. All uninjured humans have 5 blood in them, 2 of which may be taken safely. Taking a third point will kill them without medical attention, while taking 4 will leave a corpse with blood in it. Taking all five leaves a drained corpse (and that 5^th point doesn’t taste real good either – lose 1 Control). Use of Herd bypasses feeding entirely, the Narrator crosses off a Herd and you get one blood, no time required. Use of any power which will aid in feeding will drop the time per victim to 10 minutes (i.e. Entrancement, Majesty, Mesmerism, Command, Obfuscate, etc.). Hunting for animals in the woods via Wilderness Lore or skanky animals in the sewers via Sewer Lore will give out 1 blood per five minutes, 1 per ten minutes if the animal isn’t killed. Times may be adjusted based on specific actions.

There may or may not currently be "Feeding Encounters" in place at the Influence Desk. These encounters will be active based on the In Game actions of characters. If they are currently in place, the Narrator on scene has instructions on what do to. If the feeding takes place in the Sewers or Woods, the Narrator on scene has instructions on what to do in the Sewer and Forest Encounter boxes.

A character may spend influences to get access to victims. In this case, the Feeding Encounters are bypassed, but the standard feeding time must still be spent. Each influence spent allows the character to ignore the Feeding Encounter test for one victim. Using Medical to get blood is a separate type of action.

Influences bought with experience represent the vampire’s direct control over portions of the mortal community. ORGs are an extension of the influence system, designed to represent the ability of a vampire spread his web over mortal society. ORGs may represent businesses you create and the power they gain. ORGs may represent sections of the community over which you have control, and what you now control through them. ORGs may be political lobbies or a local church. ORGs may be a homeless shelter or a cult. In truth, an ORG can be anything you can justify as an ORG. A character with Commerce influences has access to and control over the financial system in Athens By Night. However, before the ORG system was created, we never had a way to represent the full extent of a character’s influence. That same Commerce influence may now be used to create an ORG, possibly a business like a coffee shop downtown. In the past that coffee shop has been nothing more than a prop, a location which could never generate even cash flow. However, by putting more influences and cash into the business (i.e. by investing in it), you are able to generate influence in the coffee shop. The shop might gain University to represent all the students who gather there, Herd to represent some more willing customers, Bureaucracy to represent the pull every downtown business has on the ACC government, Underworld to show the drugs you’re dealing out the backdoor, or anything else you can justify. Some ORGs are more intuitive than others. A law firm would likely have Law Enforcement influences, maybe some Bureaucracy. A brothel would likely be Underworld, but could branch out into Bureaucracy easily enough. In truth, if you can think it up and justify it, you can create an ORG capable of just about anything.

Each ORG is created in the same way. Over downtime a proposal must be submitted to the Storytellers, which will usually be accepted so long as you don’t try to call your ORG the FBI or the Pentagon. Ten influences or $10,000 will cover the creation of the ORG. At this point the ORG exists and gets a character sheet of its very own, with you listed as owner. You may at any time transfer this ORG sheet to another character, either in writing at the influence desk or in your downtime. Once the ORG is created, additional costs may be assessed to create the background of the ORG. A good general rule is, if you don’t pay for it, you don’t get to use it. Your ORG may be an apartment building, but it’s just a vehicle to create influences if you don’t spend the influences to buy/build the structure itself. If you don’t pay for the building, you cannot rent apartments to PCs, you can’t have meetings there, and you cannot store your guns there. You can still create influences through it though. This part really comes down on a case to case basis, and the $10,000 base creation cost will cover a reasonable portion of the background.

Once you have an ORG you can build influences and possibly special abilities into. For each influence spent into an ORG for the purpose of "building influences," one partial influence of that type will be recorded on the ORG sheet. Once there are ten partial influences of the same type on the ORG Sheet, 10 Partial influences will be removed and 1 permanent influence will be added. If the ORG is a DT ORG, then that influence may be spent as a normal influence during downtime. If the ORG is an In Game ORG, then the influence may be spent as a normal influence during the game. Partial influences have no use other than to keep track of how close the ORG is to a permanent influence. Money may not be spent to create influences, only Downtime influences (not In Game influences) may be spent to create more influences.

With Storyteller approval, ORGs may gain special abilities. These costs will be decided upon by the STs. Special abilities could be things such as the ability to repair chain mail with cash instead of influences when the ORG has a forge and the appropriate skill. Generally speaking, abilities in an In Game ORG may only be used during the ABN game, while DT ORG special abilities may only be used over downtime.

You may NEVER build Primary "Adder" abilities in an ORG. While you may build some of the benefits from them (such as the ability to store blood as with the Medicine ability) you may NEVER build the ability to "Add" to your influences as an Adder does. Also, you may not use the Universal influence to create other influences, nor may you create Universal influences in an ORG.

To destroy an ORG, you have to know it exists. A "line in" of some sort, as detailed in the Investigate influence section, is required to assault an ORG. Assuming the "line in" is achieved, then the assault may be made. Simply inform the STs what you are trying to do the opponent’s ORG and how many influences you are spending. Cash may not be spent to attack an ORG. They will compare those numbers to the ORG defenses. Any influences left in the attack after penetrating the defenses will damage the ORG. This damage is effectively at a 1:1 ratio with the influences spent to create the ORG. Partial and permanent influences may be destroyed, Special abilities may be damaged (and possibly rendered useless), and the defenses may be downgraded. The damage done will be based upon what you declared to the STs your intentions were (ie. destroy it’s defenses, destroy it’s influences, etc.) and how much damage got through. Influence destruction will be spread evenly over all influence types in the ORG, starting with partials, unless specific types are targeted using the same type of influence in assault. Extra influences spent in this manner above those needed to destroy all of that influence are wasted. Once all the Influences (both partial and Permanent), special abilities, and defenses are destroyed, it takes 10 more influences worth of damage to finish completely destroying the ORG (to represent destroying the 10 influences used to create the ORG).

Physically destroying locations and equipment owned by or signified by the ORG will not destroy the ORG, though it may impair its function (possibly even stopping it completely) until the ORG owner replaces the equipment or moves the locale.

ORG Defenses:

There are effectively two layers of defense for an ORG. The first of those layers is effectively a hiding action. As mentioned in the "ORG Destruction" section, the attacker must have a "line in" to be able to attack the ORG. Hiding an ORG is only appropriate in certain scenarios as determined by the STs. The Illuminati is rumored to exist, but there’s no proof – it’s well hidden. Everyone knows the CIA exists and where to find their headquarters, despite how sneaky they are – it’s not hidden. This follows standard influence hiding rules.

If multiple people are attacking an ORG individually, their effects do not stack versus the Hardness. Each attacker must breech the Hardness herself, but all influence effect that gets through will go through Hit Points and damage as if everyone was working together.

If multiple people are making a coordinated assault on an ORG, then their resources stack completely, and simply determine a combined influence effect total to attack the ORG. A coordinated assault must involve one person leading and everyone else agreeing on what they are doing, otherwise it is a group of individual assaults.

At any time, an ORG may be transferred from one player to another either over Downtime or at the influence desk (in writing). However, an ORG is a large, complicated entity. It is not as simple to transfer an ORG as it is to hand over the ORG sheet. Entrancement and Dominate (short of Conditioning) are not enough to force an ORG transfer.

Influences may be transferred from one ORG to another. This action must be done over Downtime and requires the cooperation of both ORG owners. In addition, five Downtime influences of the same type must be spent to make the Transfer. During the month of the Transfer, the ORG influence is not usable by either party.

Special Abilities may or may not be transferable, based on the special ability. If it is transferable, then it is up to StoryTeller prerogative as to the cost to do so.

When it comes to ORG theft, you have two options. You can steal from the ORG, or you can steal the ORG itself. If you are stealing from the ORG, then you must have an ORG to put what you steal into. Only influences are effective.

When stealing from another’s ORG, you must have a "line in" and then you may spend influences to steal influences, special abilities, defenses, or anything else in the ORG. Now, because you are only stealing parts of the ORG, you must know what you are stealing. As such, you can only steal something from the ORG that you know it there, generally from Investigating the ORG. Should you try to steal something that isn’t there, then the influences are just wasted. Your influence assault must be first penetrate the ORG defenses (Hardness and Hit Points) as per the ORG destruction rules. This will destroy the ORGs Hit Points before stealing from the ORG. Any remaining influences will "steal" from the opposing ORG. It costs fifteen influences of effect to steal something that cost 10 influences to originally put in the ORG.

Theft of the ORG itself works via the exact same mechanic as ORG destruction, except it take 2 influences past the ORG’s defenses to "destroy" each influence spent in the creation of the ORG. Also, the influences so "destroyed" are not destroyed. They remain in the ORG, un-useable until either you finish stealing the ORG or are successfully repelled from your attempt. Such an attack is successfully repelled by the owner spending an equal number of influences used to "destroy" each whole influence.

If you are attempting to steal the ORG of a dead or otherwise out of play character, realize that the STs are going to downgrade the ORG by a certain amount based on the amount of time it has been out of play, the amount of direct control by the runner, and other factors.