I have been reading a lot of homebrew stuff, especially the works of LostLight. But one thing I've noticed in a lot (not all, but a lot) of the homebrew Hunter stuff is that the Compact Endowments are often supernatural in nature in a noticeable way. I still love a lot of what I've seen, and a lot of the effects I've seen are cool ideas, but that feels like it goes against the ethos of the Compact Endowments from Compacts and Conspiracies. Rather than just complain at those things, though, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at something that feels more in line. But, to avoid going off in the wrong direction, I decided to develop my own design guidelines for these effects.
To me, a compact endowment should not be overtly supernatural. It may resemble a supernatural effect or hint at a supernatural nature (see The Prayer), or have a mechanical effect that could be achieved through a limited variation of a supernatural effect (the Network Zero “private feed” endowment is a mundane version of a limited scrying window, if you think about it, but through a mundane medium) and thus take some inspiration from a supernatural merit or ability, but it should never be obviously supernatural in nature. It also may play off of some ties to the supernatural (Bacchanal allows social bonuses to supernatural interactions; Unearthed Secrets gives you free “secrets” about what is usually a supernatural entity or phenomenon), but shouldn’t give the PC direct control over a supernatural effect or only be explainable as a magical or supernatural effect (the Prayer is a good example - it could represent inspiration from a higher power, bu it could just as easily be self-induced inspiration drawn from praying, much as meditation can have mundane benefits). Some merits from supernatural groups (especially Secrets of the Covenant Invictus Merits in 2E) may be appropriate to draw from, if they deal with mundane phenomena.
I also see the idea that a dot of a Covenant Endowment is worth more than one but less two mundane merit dots. This seems a bit extreme, but keep in mind that they are fairly limited in terms of who can learn them – most players won’t be in more than one Compact at a time, and if you follow the sidebar in the 1E core book, those that are will have limited access to the other endowments. A two-for-one deal is equivalent to what you see from MCI (albeit on a smoother progression as opposed to how MCI gives more benefits the further you go), and Professional Training is fairly potent as well – but you can only have it once. And, in our canon examples from Compacts and Conspiracies, we see similar rates in some cases, especially when the benefits are static. It’s not exact, but consider Unearthed Secrets; it could easily be rewritten in 2E to be a dot of Occult-focused contacts per Endowment dot, as well as a set of free, limited-focus Clues – sort of similar to what you gain from Investigative Prodigy. Now, they don’t have to be two whole merits each mixed together (especially if one is particularly powerful), but the idea makes sense in my head as a possible baseline. At the very least, it should feel a little more potent than a general merit such as Allies or Contacts at the same level.
However, that additional power should come at the cost of being specific. Unearthed Secrets only gets you hints or secrets about supernatural monsters and hunters, and even then it’s usually more specifically about weaknesses and powers and less about dark secrets of a mundane nature; their archives also don’t have much to give on dirty cops and slum lords and other mundane forms of corruption that don’t dip into the supernatural. In addition, the benefits can be only partial aspects of a merit (hence why I said "more than one and a half, less than two"). A focus on a given area of information is one way to limit something; limiting access to a particular aspect of a social merit is another. Bacchanal doesn't give you Status, but it does give you the option to pick a social group, monster group, or the Abbey itself, and gain a social bonus with them - one of the aspects of Status, without the full access Status in such a group would give.
One other element is that more flexible Endowments can provide points that can be spent on benefits; you have examples that give a pool of points that can be used for certain benefits. The more flexible the spending, the fewer or more specific the benefits tend to be. Bacchanal gives a lot of options, but they have to be decided upon before the party; some affect the party itself (though this can be useful, such as getting to interact with a celebrity) while others last past the party for the story. However, this all has to be decided by the time the party happens, and though it doesn’t say so, there’s an implication that such parties can’t be thrown all the time (I’d likely limit it to once a story, since many of the benefits last for a story). Thus, you can throw it at the beginning of a story and get the benefits for a while, but lose out on knowing what will be useful, or you can wait and throw it afterwards to get benefits that are more tailor fitted but for a shorter time frame. Conversely, “Your Friends and Neighbors” (YFaN) only gives the dot rating in benefits as Merits, but they can change out each and every session. The same benefit can keep longer if needed, but you make that choice at the beginning of the session. It also doesn’t give you two options per point, like some others do, and you can’t divvy up the points between benefits (I do have some ideas for changing YFaN, some modifications to All-Seeing Eye for 2E, but the principal is still a sound one - more flexibility in when you can spend them, fewer options on what they can buy). The Prayer can be refreshed once an in-game day, but has a very small list of things to pick from.
These aren’t exact and hard rules, mind, but they are guidelines to keep in mind for me, and feel like a good place to start while working on these (and making a few unofficial updates to previous material to account for 2E and overall balance).
Given that, let’s look at a Compact and develop a mundane Endowment for them. The supplements I know best are Witch Finder and Slashers; of the various options from those, one sticks out me as being a good starting point: the Keepers of the Source.
So the big things about the Keepers are that they want to protect the environment from those who would violate it for power - specifically magically, but I'm sure a mummy's cult digging for a lost artifact may draw their attention too. They are more mystically inclined than many compacts; they have a benefit that gives them a supernatural merit (not unheard of among Compacts, but not that common either). So, they may have some mystical information somewhere as well. But libraries and occult contacts are the purview of the Loyalists of Thule. The environmentalist angle is what sets the Keepers apart from other groups - that, and the fact that they have an option for a specialty in protesting. Given their ties to environmental groups, they also may have some supporters who aren’t monster hunters but can help with legal issues or organize protests. And they may need traps for their ambushes.
Given this variety, and their nature as needing to adapt to strange circumstances, it seems likely that they should have something akin to YFaN or Bacchanal, over Unearthed Secrets – flexible spending or assignment of benefits rather than something fairly static. I think Bacchanal makes more sense as a model overall, so I’m going to go with that as a model.
Protest Rally (Rated 1-5)
Once per story, you may organize a rally related to an environmental cause in your area. No roll is required; your time in the Keepers has given you enough clout and skill to get something going on an infrequent basis. When the protest happens, it attracts roughly 20 people per dot in the Endowment. In addition, you receive two points to spend on various benefits; these points must be spent by the time the protest has started, reflecting benefits garnered from the protest. A hunter may assign up to their rating in Protest Rally in a given category towards a specific target, unless otherwise specified; for example, a character with three dots can only assign 3 into Political Sway towards Democratic politicians, but they also can assign three points in Political Sway towards a specific interest group.
I have some other ideas. I also want to play with the idea of the Conspiracies brought down to Tier 2, and what their Compact Endowments might look like. I am not the best at balancing mechanics, but I feel that this is an interesting design space to work in. Any thoughts or other examples? Any canon Compacts you want to see get this treatment?
To me, a compact endowment should not be overtly supernatural. It may resemble a supernatural effect or hint at a supernatural nature (see The Prayer), or have a mechanical effect that could be achieved through a limited variation of a supernatural effect (the Network Zero “private feed” endowment is a mundane version of a limited scrying window, if you think about it, but through a mundane medium) and thus take some inspiration from a supernatural merit or ability, but it should never be obviously supernatural in nature. It also may play off of some ties to the supernatural (Bacchanal allows social bonuses to supernatural interactions; Unearthed Secrets gives you free “secrets” about what is usually a supernatural entity or phenomenon), but shouldn’t give the PC direct control over a supernatural effect or only be explainable as a magical or supernatural effect (the Prayer is a good example - it could represent inspiration from a higher power, bu it could just as easily be self-induced inspiration drawn from praying, much as meditation can have mundane benefits). Some merits from supernatural groups (especially Secrets of the Covenant Invictus Merits in 2E) may be appropriate to draw from, if they deal with mundane phenomena.
I also see the idea that a dot of a Covenant Endowment is worth more than one but less two mundane merit dots. This seems a bit extreme, but keep in mind that they are fairly limited in terms of who can learn them – most players won’t be in more than one Compact at a time, and if you follow the sidebar in the 1E core book, those that are will have limited access to the other endowments. A two-for-one deal is equivalent to what you see from MCI (albeit on a smoother progression as opposed to how MCI gives more benefits the further you go), and Professional Training is fairly potent as well – but you can only have it once. And, in our canon examples from Compacts and Conspiracies, we see similar rates in some cases, especially when the benefits are static. It’s not exact, but consider Unearthed Secrets; it could easily be rewritten in 2E to be a dot of Occult-focused contacts per Endowment dot, as well as a set of free, limited-focus Clues – sort of similar to what you gain from Investigative Prodigy. Now, they don’t have to be two whole merits each mixed together (especially if one is particularly powerful), but the idea makes sense in my head as a possible baseline. At the very least, it should feel a little more potent than a general merit such as Allies or Contacts at the same level.
However, that additional power should come at the cost of being specific. Unearthed Secrets only gets you hints or secrets about supernatural monsters and hunters, and even then it’s usually more specifically about weaknesses and powers and less about dark secrets of a mundane nature; their archives also don’t have much to give on dirty cops and slum lords and other mundane forms of corruption that don’t dip into the supernatural. In addition, the benefits can be only partial aspects of a merit (hence why I said "more than one and a half, less than two"). A focus on a given area of information is one way to limit something; limiting access to a particular aspect of a social merit is another. Bacchanal doesn't give you Status, but it does give you the option to pick a social group, monster group, or the Abbey itself, and gain a social bonus with them - one of the aspects of Status, without the full access Status in such a group would give.
One other element is that more flexible Endowments can provide points that can be spent on benefits; you have examples that give a pool of points that can be used for certain benefits. The more flexible the spending, the fewer or more specific the benefits tend to be. Bacchanal gives a lot of options, but they have to be decided upon before the party; some affect the party itself (though this can be useful, such as getting to interact with a celebrity) while others last past the party for the story. However, this all has to be decided by the time the party happens, and though it doesn’t say so, there’s an implication that such parties can’t be thrown all the time (I’d likely limit it to once a story, since many of the benefits last for a story). Thus, you can throw it at the beginning of a story and get the benefits for a while, but lose out on knowing what will be useful, or you can wait and throw it afterwards to get benefits that are more tailor fitted but for a shorter time frame. Conversely, “Your Friends and Neighbors” (YFaN) only gives the dot rating in benefits as Merits, but they can change out each and every session. The same benefit can keep longer if needed, but you make that choice at the beginning of the session. It also doesn’t give you two options per point, like some others do, and you can’t divvy up the points between benefits (I do have some ideas for changing YFaN, some modifications to All-Seeing Eye for 2E, but the principal is still a sound one - more flexibility in when you can spend them, fewer options on what they can buy). The Prayer can be refreshed once an in-game day, but has a very small list of things to pick from.
These aren’t exact and hard rules, mind, but they are guidelines to keep in mind for me, and feel like a good place to start while working on these (and making a few unofficial updates to previous material to account for 2E and overall balance).
Given that, let’s look at a Compact and develop a mundane Endowment for them. The supplements I know best are Witch Finder and Slashers; of the various options from those, one sticks out me as being a good starting point: the Keepers of the Source.
So the big things about the Keepers are that they want to protect the environment from those who would violate it for power - specifically magically, but I'm sure a mummy's cult digging for a lost artifact may draw their attention too. They are more mystically inclined than many compacts; they have a benefit that gives them a supernatural merit (not unheard of among Compacts, but not that common either). So, they may have some mystical information somewhere as well. But libraries and occult contacts are the purview of the Loyalists of Thule. The environmentalist angle is what sets the Keepers apart from other groups - that, and the fact that they have an option for a specialty in protesting. Given their ties to environmental groups, they also may have some supporters who aren’t monster hunters but can help with legal issues or organize protests. And they may need traps for their ambushes.
Given this variety, and their nature as needing to adapt to strange circumstances, it seems likely that they should have something akin to YFaN or Bacchanal, over Unearthed Secrets – flexible spending or assignment of benefits rather than something fairly static. I think Bacchanal makes more sense as a model overall, so I’m going to go with that as a model.
Protest Rally (Rated 1-5)
Once per story, you may organize a rally related to an environmental cause in your area. No roll is required; your time in the Keepers has given you enough clout and skill to get something going on an infrequent basis. When the protest happens, it attracts roughly 20 people per dot in the Endowment. In addition, you receive two points to spend on various benefits; these points must be spent by the time the protest has started, reflecting benefits garnered from the protest. A hunter may assign up to their rating in Protest Rally in a given category towards a specific target, unless otherwise specified; for example, a character with three dots can only assign 3 into Political Sway towards Democratic politicians, but they also can assign three points in Political Sway towards a specific interest group.
- Political Sway: Protests garner attention, even when those in power claim and wish otherwise. A sufficiently large protest can provide some impact with the government or other political groups who take notice. The hunter throwing the protest may assign points from Protest Rally to gain a social bonus when dealing with a particular group during the story. The group must be defined when the points are spent, and should reflect a mundane political force or group that may be receptive to (or intimidated or impressed by) the protest.
- Increase Scrutiny: The masses may not be aware that witches and wolves are ripping Mother Earth’s lifeblood out of her, but that doesn’t mean they can’t put pressure on a target. Points assigned to this benefit allow the Hunter to block a targeted individual’s access to certain merits, as the protest leads her friends to avoid her and keeps her from getting access to property without being noticed. This functions similarly to the benefit gained from the Allies merit, with points in this acting as the dot rating for comparison purposes. Unlike with Allies, no roll is made, even if the target has more dots than points assigned; instead, it reduces the targeted Merit by the value of the points assigned, rather than completely blocking access.
- This “block” goes down by one each chapter, which may persist past the end of the story. This benefit can target mundane Allies, mundane Contacts, mundane Status, Safe Place, and Place of Power Merits (i.e. Hallow, Locus, and Wyrm Nest); the ST may allow other viable targets in specific cases. If the place of power is in a Safe Place, it can still be targeted, representing that the increased attention called to their actions cause enough social aftershocks that they can’t get the time or focus needed to draw upon the power properly – the phone rings as they try to perform their oblations, alarms go off when protestors trespass and distract them from aligning to the Wyrm’s Nest, or perhaps the resonance is just thrown off by the protests and it takes them time to fix the problem. They still have the Should the points assigned exceed the dots in a targeted Merit, the ST should assign them to another appropriate target to represent bleed over.Should the target not have the targeted Merit, the ST should still assign the points to other merits; however, she should let the Hunter know that the protest didn’t hit as hard as they wanted, and decrease the effect as if one less point was spent.
- Trap Building: Peaceful protests are great distractions, and can buy you time and opportunity to set up something special for later. Points assigned to this benefit grant you allow you to turn an area into a pseudo-Safe Place until the end of the story – it has traps set up per the Merit, and provides an initiative bonus to the hunter. The hunter may designate a number of individuals equal to her ratings in Protest Rally; they are treated as if they have bought dots in this Safe Place for the initiative benefit and don’t risk setting off the traps. The player may choose to activate or deactivate the benefits with a minute’s work per trap – for instance, this can be used to set up traps in an alleyway that don’t threaten the homeless people who normally sleep there, but a few minutes of work can shift the cans around to make the traps active. Note that the location needs to be generally accessible to the hunter; they cannot establish one in the vampire’s secured haven. The location has a number of active traps up to the point value assigned or the Hunter’s rating in Protest rally, whichever is lower; the first one goes off upon entry by a non-protected individual, and anyone protected by the Hunter’s designation may use an Instant action to spring a trap. A given individual may hold their action until another character’s action and use the trap to interrupt them.
- Legal Aid: Sometimes, things go wrong. However, people who organize protests tend to attract lawyers of an idealistic bent who are willing to help out. Points assigned to this can be used to obtain a Retainer who acts as an attorney for the character, as well as legal-focused Staff. The Staff automatically has a focus on Politics, with Academics and Persuasion being the other two options. Only three points can be assigned to either merit, and a character can only have one Retainer and one instance of Staffthrough this merit at a time.
I have some other ideas. I also want to play with the idea of the Conspiracies brought down to Tier 2, and what their Compact Endowments might look like. I am not the best at balancing mechanics, but I feel that this is an interesting design space to work in. Any thoughts or other examples? Any canon Compacts you want to see get this treatment?
Comment