Rules - Vampire: The Masquerade

Welcome to Vampire: The Masquerade – Heritage. This is the Europe of the year1300 – but not quite like in the history books: Behind the plots of the mortal rulers and the visible ebb and flow of history, there is another world to discover. A world of immortal, blood-craving monsters directing those flows, guiding -and sometimes forcing- events ever more towards whatever corrupt intent they are pursuing.

And what’s more: You are one of them.

It is the nature of this world that unless one were Caine, the first vampire himself, one can never be sure that what one perceives as a masterful plan sprung from the imagination of one’s own mind is not in fact the result of a subtle nudge towards what another, even more powerful and secretive entity has conceived.

In this Europe, creatures like Mithras, Vampiric Prince of London, born millenia ago in Persia -or Cappadocius, the ancient methuselah of the Clan of Death- wield the true power.

Will you be able to carve out your own place among these mythical monsters, shaping your Heritage according to your true desires?

Or will you fade back into the darkness?

WORK-IN-PROGRESS: The game is still in development. This means that all artwork, gameplay and design is preliminary and not reflective of final quality. Especially note that the “generic nude” characters are placeholder artwork and will be replaced by unique artwork in the full game.

LIMITED CONTENT: This demo contains only a very small part of the full game. Included are a “Custom Game” mode as well as the first 3 games of the campaign. Expect 21 campaign games, 6 new battlegrounds and dozens of new and different unlockables in the full game!

USER INTERFACE / COLOR BLIND FRIENDLINESS: Unfortunately, the current prototype is NOT very user-friendly, especially to those with color blindness issues, troubled eyesight and VtM beginners. We are aware of the shortcomings and working on fixing them. Feedback appreciated.

ERRATA: There is a mistake on the rule card for Battleground A (War of the Princes). Removed envoys (in step 3) are removed from the game (not moved back to their home region).

PLAYING SHEET, UPGRADE STICKERS and CAMPAIGN BOOKLET: This content is included but under heavy testing and NOT APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE BY WW!

POWER AND INFAMY TOKENS: Have been replaced with red/yellowish acrylic diamonds for this version.

VtM Heritage is a game of Vampire Intrigue, with a campaign spanning centuries and unique characters that evolve over the course of that campaign.

Each individual game has a very simple structure:

For 10 rounds, players choose 1 Character each round to add to their personal display (Their Bloodline). They enact their effects according to the gameboards (Battlegrounds) in play. Characters may form groups (Coteries) to carry out one special powerful action per turn (a Scheme).

Missions tie each individual game into the meta-game. They provide points that count towards one of the seven chapters of the campaign.

Via missions and at the end of the game, characters may gain status. This gives a powerful effect in the current game. But even more importantly these characters will remain changed for all future campaigns. In this way, the choices of all players shape the future games they will play.

At the end of each game, Victory Points are gained according to the rules on the Battlegrounds and Characters and the player who earned the most of these is the winner of the match.

Clans:
In Vampire: The Masquerade all vampires belong may trace their lineage back to one of several ancient and incredibly powerful vampires, the Antediluvians. Those who share the same ancestor, belong to the same clan and thus share certain characteristics bestowed on them by their shared blood.

In Heritage, the players themselves are elder vampires who do not reveal what clan their own blood binds them to. Instead, they may choose each game anew which of the clans they want to employ to further their goals currently.

The choice of clan has a big impact on the playing experience, so here is a quick overview on the clans that are currently available:

Ventrue

Clan of the nobles, rulers and warlords. Their wish to uphold a sense of honor and “noblesse oblige” sometimes conceals their unrivaled desire to lead and rule but it never truly diminishes it.

In VtM: Heritage, the Ventrue excel at influencing other players’ actions and amassing power on their own characters.

Tremere

Clan of mages and usurpers. A young clan that is known for employing blood magic, diablerie and a strict hierarchic structure.

In VtM: Heritage the Tremere are dangerous not only for other clans, who might feel the power of their blood magic but also for their own fledglings and neonates who often need to take some risks for “the greater good”.

Nosferatu

Clan of the deformed, masters of the underground. Driven to the shadows by their hideous looks, the Nosferatu are the spymasters of the dead.

In VtM: Heritage the Nosferatu are good at gathering information about other players and using that to gain an edge on the most dangerous of their opponents.

Malkavian

Clan of seers and lunatics. All Malkavians are irredeemably insane. Whether this is the cause or the consequence of the special insights that guide their prophecies is not clear.

In VtM: Heritage the Malkavians both embrace randomness and rise above it. They are good at giving destiny a nudge and gaining first access to the most powerful and valuable characters in the game.

Gangrel

WIP

Toreador

WIP

Brujah

WIP

Characters are the main playing cards of VTM: Heritage. On each turn, a player adds one character from a center row of cards to their Bloodline (their personal display of cards). Each Character has a certain set of attributes, indicated by the colored gem slots on the card, as well as a type.

The type indicates what kind of profession or interest the character follows. This influences what Schemes they can take part in.

There are 4 types:

warlike

clandestine

wealthy

scholary

The attributes are loosely based on the personality of the characters. They influence what upgrades characters can receive, they impact the battlegrounds and what amount of influence points is gained.

In this demo each set of them is linked mainly to a different battleground:

Elitist/Arrogant
vs. Egalitarian/Humble

Battleground: Of Clans High and Low

Calm/Kind/Passive
vs. Cruel/Driven/Active

Battleground: The Beast Within

Geographic Origin (Loosely:
East/South/North/West

Battleground: The War of the Princes

Character Cards are double-sided. They start on their monochrome side. This means that they have not yet become a “recurring” character in the game. They are mere mortals (in the center row) or weak, young vampires (in your bloodline).

While characters are on their monochrome side, there is a glimpse of their potential visible at the bottom of the card but this ability is not active.

When fulfilling missions, players may have characters gain status. When a monochrome character gains status, they are turned on their upgraded side, which activates their abilities (this could be more than is shown on the human side).

There are many different terms for characters in the game, having to do with their position in vampiric society and their power and experience. These terms are used to differentiate which characters can be targeted by different effects.

Here is an overview to get you started:

When you fulfill missions, this is a chance for a Vampire of your bloodline to gain status. There are two ways to gain status:

A) You may elevate a neonate or fledgling to ancilla status: Take the card from its sleeve and turn it around. Then you may

1) Apply your current clan‘s sticker.
2) Use the marker/name sticker to give it a name.
3) Immediately execute any active abilities.

B) You can improve a vampire who has already attained Ancilla-status by bestowing an additional boon on him. Choose a sticker from the sticker sheet that is available to you and place it on the character you want to improve.

Note: Some elevated characters give End-Game Scoring Bonuses. These are indicated with an “*” after their name on their Vampiric side and next to the ability. That way players can easily find relevant characters during scoring.

Note: Some playing groups may prefer delaying the name giving/clan sticker step until the end of the game to keep up the game flow.

Bloodline:

Players arrange the Characters they play into a display not unlike a family tree (Childer are placed below their Sires). Note: The maximum number of childer a sire can have is 3.

Elevated vampires that are not of your Clan can still join you and they are placed in the bloodline tree as usual. But when they are added below a character, they are this character’s Ally and not a childe. Thus they may not gain childer of their own in this match.

Coteries & Schemes:

Players may form groups of characters to enact schemes. These groups are called coteries. Coteries may only be formed by a sire and all of their direct childer. Coteries consisting of only 1 character (the sire) are possible.

To form a coterie, exhaust a character by placing one of your clan tokens as a coterie marker on a character without one. This is the Coterie Leader (CL). You may now enact a scheme using this Character and all of their direct childer (all these together are the Coterie Members (CM)).

Usually Schemes come with a requirement of which character types are needed to carry them out. If you do not have the appropriate character, 2 characters that share a different trait may be used instead (For example: You might use 2 warriors to fulfill the requirement for a scholar).

Note: You may only form one coterie per turn.

Special Case: Reaction Schemes

Reaction schemes can be enacted at any time when the condition described on the card is present. They do not count against your limit of 1 Coterie/Scheme per turn.

You still need a character to form a coterie to enact them. (So for example the above card could only be used to defend a character that does not have a coterie marker yet).

The Battlegrounds are the game boards of VTM: Heritage. They represent important individual or collective struggles of vampiric society. This demo (Version 0.6) includes the first 3 battlegrounds and the full game will include 9 of them.

Each character has a set of attributes that affects each battleground in play, allowing a player to influence them to potentially earn victory points or trigger other beneficial or negative effects.

Comprehensive rules for Setup, Gameplay and Scoring can be found on the rules card for each individual battleground. Here is a quick overview of the 3 battlegrounds in this DEMO:

The full game of VtM: Heritage will come with quite a few envelopes for different purposes that players may use to manage game material:

– Player Envelopes allow players to store any rewards they earned between games.
– Clan Envelopes contain the game materials for each individual clan and any additional material unlocked during the campaign.
– The Torpor Envelope is used to store removed characters, unfulfilled mission cards and other unused material. [NOT IN THIS DEMO]
– Unlockable Envelopes are used to store things that players can unlock, mainly via Mission Chains or at Chapter Resolution.

Missions are goals for players to achieve that impact the world beyond the current situation. If a Player fulfills a mission with their bloodline, they may turn it around and gain the reward. Usually this includes the possibility for a vampire to gain status. Additionally, in campaign games, fulfilling Missions grants points towards winning the current chapter of the game. Winning chapters allows players to make vital decisions about the overall continuation of the game, so it is very important for players to try to win games and also fulfill Missions.

Missions are parts of larger Mission chains that allow players to focus on certain historical happenings or geographical regions. Fulfilling and gathering all missions of a certain chain is a process that takes place over several games or even chapters. Once a player manages to gather all missions of a chain, they are often granted an additional bonus.

Campaign Missions come with “CLAIM” and “FULFILL” requirements. When a player fulfills a “CLAIM” requirement, they may take the card to their personal play area or hand and only they will be able to fulfill the mission from then on.

NOTE: Players may never have more than 1 claimed but not fulfilled mission.

NOTE 2: Claimed but unfulfilled mission cards cost the claiming player -10 VP at the end of the game.

NOTE: Some Missions or other effects require you to pay Power. To do so, simply remove power from any one or several characters in your bloodline.

Generic Missions:

Generic Missions are used in Custom Games. Their only effect is to allow players to bestow Status on one of their characters.

Unlike campaign missions, Generic missions only come with a “fulfill” requirement. When a player fulfills a generic mission, they simply upgrade one of their characters and remove the corresponding mission from the game.

WIP Note: Generic Missions will be fleshed out more for the final game.

During the course of the game, characters commonly accumulate Power and Infamy. Each Power token on a character counts as an additional VP at the end of the game. Each Infamy counts as -1 VP. Additionally, many powerful negative abilities only affect characters that have at least 1 Infamy token.

During a game, characters can be put into Torpor. This means that the character in question has been gravely injured and is incapacitated.

Turn it around (the card, including the sleeve is turned around to show just the sleeve backside; Power and Infamy remain in place). Characters in torpor do not gain victory points from Battlegrounds via their attributes, cannot sire new childer and cannot be used for coteries. Their Power and Infamy still give/subtract points normally at the end of the game.

Note: Paying, Distributing or Stealing Power: Pay = remove from any of your own characters. Distribute = Take from stockpile and place on characters as indicated, Steal = take from one character and place it on another.

Campaign Setup:

a) Place the main gameboard in the middle of the table and arrange the Battlegrounds next to it, within easy reach of all players. Leave all other Battlegrounds and Gameboards in the box.

b) Check the mission deck: If there is a Setup Instruction Card on top of it, follow the instructions on that card before proceeding. Read any chapter/game introduction and proceed until you have placed the topmost 5 mission cards on the mainboard. [For this DEMO it might be good to give all players a quick overview on which missions are in play and what the CLAIM/FULFILL requirements are for each of them].

c) Follow the Setup instructions on the individual battleground instruction cards or see the Appendix.

d) Starting with the players with the lowest number of total campaign points, all players choose a clan and receive that clan’s Clan Envelope with the respective material (In the beginning: 12 Clan Scheme cards, 1 Clan Leader, 1 score marker, 1 clan morality marker (beast within battleground)). In case of ties you may bid starting power to settle. Clan Scheme cards are shuffled and then placed in a draw pile within easy reach of the corresponding player.

e) All players may take all materials from their player envelope and add them to their clan materials. Add 3 Power to each Clan Leader.

f) Shuffle the character deck and place 5 characters on the character board. If there are any upgraded characters (cards that are turned to their vampiric side) drawn, shuffle them back into the deck and draw again, until there are only unelevated characters on the board.

g) All players may draw 3 starting scheme cards from their Clan Scheme Deck.

Custom Game Setup:

Follow the instructions in 3.1) but instead of using the mission deck use 5 of the generic missions, randomly drawn.

Each player, in clockwise order, takes these steps (in any order!):

a) RECRUIT: Add a character from the central row to your bloodline (Pay with Power from any of your characters if you recruit the first or second character from the left). Then check all battlegrounds and apply the effects of the character’s attributes according to the rules of the individual battlegrounds.

b) Optionally START A SCHEME: Choose any Character without a Clan Marker and exhaust it by placing a Clan Marker on it. This Character plus all its direct childer form the coterie. You may now use this coterie to activate any open schemes or clan scheme card whose requirements are matched by the Coterie.

c) Optionally claim one of the available Mission Cards. You may only have 1 claimed, unfulfilled mission card at a time. Claimed but unfulfilled Mission cards count -10 VP at the end of the game.

NOTE: Whenever there is a free space in the central character row, refill by moving all characters to the rightmost available slots and then refilling the leftmost slot with a card from the deck.

NOTE 2: Remember that elevated characters that are not of your clan are Allies. As such, they cannot gain any childer of their own!

NOTE 3: Reserving cards: Some effects allow players to reserve cards in the center row. To do so, players may simply place on of their clan tokens on the corresponding card. No other player may recruit this card until the reserving player’s next turn, at which point the clan marker is removed again.

After all players have made their turn, move the round marker on to the next space. After round 10, the game ends.

After the 10th round, tally up the influence points on the point-track. For each player:

1) Add points from all Battlegrounds

2) Add/Subtract points for Power/Infamy tokens on characters

3) Add/Subtract points for character abilities. (Look for characters with a “*” after their name.

4) Subtract 10VP for any claimed but unfulfilled mission cards.

The player with the highest influence point total is the winner.

Campaign Metagame:

0) All players may have one vampire of their bloodline gain status.

1) The Game Winner increases their Arrogance score on their Player Sheet by 1 and reduces their Determination score to 0. They may also increase their clan affinity to the clan they played by 1.

2) Then the player with the lowest point total increases their Determination score on their Player Sheet by 1 and decreases their Arrogance score by 1.

3) All players may increase their score on their Player Sheet in each category mentioned as a tag on their fulfilled missions by one.

4) Winner and 2nd place may enter their names into the Campaign Chronicles. If this concludes a chapter, the chapter winner is determined by summing up the campaign points for that chapter. The chapter winner then follows the instructions on the chapter page.

Custom Game Metagame:

All players may have one vampire of their bloodline gain status.

1) Place any newly unlocked cards in their respective places:

a. Fulfilled missions and rewards go to the Player Envelopes, New Clan Schemes go to the Clan Envelopes, New Characters go to the character deck.

b. Place all unfulfilled mission cards from the current game in the torpor envelope. There will be no more chance to fulfill them in the current campaign.

Of Clans High and Low

Background: The Vampiric Clans of the Middle Ages were split into nobles and low-born much like human feudal society. Clans like the Brujah and Ventrue epitomize the noble lineages, while the Nosferatu and the Gangrel are typical low-class clans. Every Character will tip the balance of this struggle slightly, according to their personality.

Related colors:

Setup: Place the Tracking Marker in the neutral space of the struggle track.

Rules: Whenever a character is played/activated, move the marker 1 space in the direction of the color of that character (either red or green).

Once the marker reaches the 7th space of any color, a decisive strike has taken place. All characters of that color gain 1 Power. The marker is then reset to the 0 space.

Scoring: At the end of the game, determine the winning side. All players gain 2 VP for each character in their bloodline that shares the color with the winning side.

Accompanying Scheme: Rebellion and Counterrebellion

The Beast Within

Background: Even in the middle ages, the Vampires were fighting to keep their beast contained. More important than what path they chose to achieve that goal was to stay on the path and not be indecisive. That’s why in this battleground consistency is rewarded above all else.

Related colors:

Setup: Turn the Clan Morality Markers (Blue/Yellow Sided Clan Markers) on the side of the Clan Leaders morality attribute and place them on the starting slot indicated on the board.

Rules: Whenever you play/activate a character check your clan marker on this board.

A) If your played characters’ color matches the token color, your resistance to the beast improves:

a. If you are on the dark side, you may move your token to the light side.

b. If you are on the light side already, move your token 1 step up.

B) If your played color doesn’t match the token color, your resistance to the beast decreases:

a. If you are on the dark side, you must flip your token to the color played and move 1 step down. Draw 1 Clan Scheme Card.

b. If you are on the light side, you must flip your token to the color played and move to the dark side. Draw 1 Clan Scheme Card.

Scoring: Every Clan gains Victory Points as indicated by their position on the board.

Accompanying Scheme: Explore the Ways of the Beast

The Beast Within

Background: The Fiefs of the Black Cross, the Courts of Love, the Sea of Shadows and the Tzimisce Voivodate are fighting for supremacy in the medieval vampiric courts, sending out envoys and trying to dominate. If you help them, you may gain great favors.

Related colors:

Setup:

1. Place the 7 envoys (cubes) of each faction in their respective home regions.

2. After finishing the general setup, mix 1 decisive moment battleground card into each half of the character draw deck.

Rules:

1. Each time the color is played/activated, you may move 1 envoy of that color (not back into its home region).

2. Envoys with (single or shared) majority gain control of a court.

3. Whenever you move an envoy into a court where it gains or maintains control, you may remove 1 envoy of another non-majority color from there (remove it from the game).

4. At the end of the game, the color with the majority of controlled courts is the winning color.

5. TIES: If there is a tie, both colors profit. So if there is a tie for winning faction, both colors gain 2vp. If there is a tie in a province, that province counts for both colors.

Scoring: Every Player gains 2VP per Character of the winning Color and 1VP per Multicolor character.

Accompanying Scheme: Palace Intrigue

Demo Instructions

Demo Notes

Game Overview

Important Material and Terms

Vampire Side

Human Side

Gaining Status, Upgrades, Character Abilities

Battlegrounds

Envelopes

Missions and Mission Chains

Power, Infamy and Torpor

Setup

Round / Turn Overview

Game End

Metagame

Cleanup

Detailed Battleground Instructions