[Houserules] Harmony 1.5

[moonwhisper]

This is a set of rules I made in an attempt to mix First Edition with Second Edition Harmony trait.
The goal is to capture the 2nd edition's balance between Flesh and Spirit within the Morality-like system of 1st. I think one benefit of this system is that it re-introduces the threat of becoming a degenerate, low Harmony Zi'ir monster, which we kinda lost with 2e.

The best way to describe Harmony 1.5 is visually: if, conceptually, Harmony 1e is pictured as a column (10 being the perfect top, and 0 the degenerate bottom) and Harmony 2e is a horizontal line (0 being left-side Flesh, 10 being right-side Spirit), then this home-ruled Harmony would be a pyramid (more or less). At the top, the Uratha is perfectly centered between Flesh and Spirit. As his Harmony drops, he starts drifting more towards one side or the other.

Mechanically, assume Harmony to work like it did in First Edition. By committing actions considered sins against harmony, the character risks a degeneration roll.Each Harmony sin has a tag, telling the direction towards which the character is degenerating: Flesh or Spirit. Whenever a character’s Harmony drops, the player must note the Flesh/Spirit tag of the committed sin.

The Flesh/Spirit axis is mechanically governed by a new Trait, called Balance. Balance is represented by 9 empty dots, telling on which side the character’s Harmony is drifting: left dots represent Flesh, right dots represent Spirit.

• As long as the Harmony level is 6 or more, the character has achieved balance. The player marks a X on the central dot.
• Whenever Harmony drops after committing a sin tagged Flesh, the player moves the X mark one step to the left.
• Whenever Harmony drops after committing a sin tagged Spirit, the player moves the X mark one step to the right.
• Whenever Harmony increases, the player moves the X mark one step towards the central dot.

It is possible for a character to have low Harmony and a centered Balance: it means that she is a truly degenerate beast, unconcerned by neither material or spiritual world.

Whenever Harmony drops towards Spirit, the character may obtain a spiritual Ban instead of a Derangement.

Harmony and Balance may influence some rules and rolls, for example when crossing the Gauntlet, depending on the direction of the transition.
The modifiers range from 1 to 3 in the following way:

• One step from center: no modifier;
• Two steps from center: ± 1;
• Three steps from center: ± 2;
• Four steps from center: ± 3;

If the Balance’s mark is on the right side, transition from the Shadow to the physical world gets a bonus and the opposite way gets a penalty. If the Balance’s mark is on the left side, penalties and bonuses are reversed instead.

Other 2e rules dependent on Harmony (such as shapeshifting) can be easily converted to corresponding Balance dots. On the other hand, 1st ed rules that require an Harmony roll can still do so.

For completeness, I will add a list of possible sins with the corresponding Flesh/Spirit tags. This is of course very debatable, feel free to modify it as you see fit.

Harmony	Threshold Sin
10	Not shapeshifting for more than 3 days (Spirit) Staying outside the Hisil for 3 days (Flesh) Staying inside the Hisil for 3 days (Spirit)
9	Carrying a silver weapon (Flesh) Not obtaining your own food (Flesh) Not meeting your pack for more than 3 days (Spirit)
8	Disrespect to a spirit or elder Uratha (Flesh) Staying outside the Hisil for 1 week (Flesh) Staying inside the Hisil for 1 week (Spirit)
7	Spending too much time alone (Spirit) Significantly violating a tribal vow (Flesh) Discorporating a spirit needlessly (Flesh)
6	Killing a human or wolf needlessly (Spirit) Mating with other Uratha (Flesh) Inflict Lunacy on a loved one (Spirit)
5	Kill a werewolf in the heat of battle (Spirit) Staying outside the Hisil for 1 month (Flesh) Staying inside the Hisil for 1 month (Spirit)
4	Revealing the existence of werewolves to a human (Spirit) Using silver weapons against a werewolf (Flesh)
3	Torture (Spirit) Murdering a werewolf (Spirit) Profanate a Locus (Flesh)
2	Feed on humans or wolves (Spirit) Betray pack (Spirit) Spend too much time without hunting (Flesh)
1	Kill a packmate (Spirit) Discorporate the pack totem (Flesh) Feed on werewolves (Spirit)

[nofather]

The goal is to capture the 2nd edition's balance between Flesh and Spirit within the Morality-like system of 1st. I think one benefit of this system is that it re-introduces the threat of becoming a degenerate, low Harmony Zi'ir monster, which we kinda lost with 2e.

They were reintroduced in Shunned by the Moon, where you can have Zi'ir formed via low or high Harmony.

How do you regain Harmony? And is there a limit to the amount of Bans you can get? Mechanically it would seem limitless.

[Scriptorian]

Thematically, I like it. It does away with some of the odd things I don't like about 2e Harmony, like how a good solution to being stuck at high Harmony is to go and eat a bunch of people.
However, mechanically, I think it's a tad too messy for me, you're basically are now tracking twice as many integrity analogs. Though I can imagine it being more desirable if there was 1e content I wanted to integrate.

[moonwhisper]

They were reintroduced in Shunned by the Moon, where you can have Zi'ir formed via low or high Harmony.

How do you regain Harmony? And is there a limit to the amount of Bans you can get? Mechanically it would seem limitless.

You regain Harmony the same way you would in 1st Ed, by spending xp. In-game, this is done by "making amends", spending time or performing actions that bring you closer to Flesh/Spirit (depending on what you lack most) that wouldn't be considered "sins" or breaking points. Basically, even if you don't use Touchstones, I think playing scenes that could qualify as "meaningful interaction with a Touchstone" can help regaining Harmony.
If you wish to use this system with 2e rules, then Harmony would cost 2xp per dot, which is the price for 2nd Ed. Vampire Humanity and Mage Wisdom.

And yeah, I forgot to mention it, with this system you can introduce Touchstones to 1st edition (not to confuse with the Rite). I would allow them as a Merit (●●), which grants +2 to degeneration rolls towards either Flesh or Spirit. The Merit can be taken twice, once for Flesh and once for Spirit.

As for Bans, I seem to remember they were already included in first edition. They're just an alternative to derangements, so the answer is "the same maximum amount of derangements you can have". Keep in mind that you would only gain Bans when your Harmony drops, and they would disappear when you regain the associated Harmony level.
But if you wish to have a hard limit on Bans, then we could take the rules of Vampire Banes from Requiem 2nd ed. and set the maximum amount to 3.