How this works

Status is very important in Motor City Burning. At its core Status tells other kindred how to act in a social setting. More importantly it's a representation of how you should be treated in a social setting. The following terms are going to be used to determine the level of status granted.

• • Acknowledged
  
• •• Recognised
  
• ••• Valued
  
• •••• Respected
  
• ••••• Admired

Status can be used as a set of bonus dice to any intimidation checks. If you are Admired in Vegas then you have your 5 bonus dice to your Presence + Intimidation total.

Certain Positions grant you bonus dice for status. They are as follows:

• +1 Harpy/ Herald
  
• +2 Hound
  
• +3 Sheriff/ Keeper of Elysium
  
• +4 Priscus/Primogen/Seneschal
  
• +5 Prince

The Harpy gets a bonus of his/her Manipulation or Presence (Whichever is LOWER + Politics. No one is immune to the words of a Harpy, not even a prince.)

To find out what someone's status is roll Intelligence + Politics versus their Resolve + Politics.

Now what does this all mean?
If the Prince Admired (+5) In Detroit wants to chime in on status, he has a total of ten points to allocate that can either be used to raise or lower a kindred's status. You have a number of status points to give or take away each month based on your current city status plus the bonus for a position if you hold one. If you hold no status, you don't get to vote. This is where manipulation comes into play. If you want status, plot, scheme, and manipulate your way into getting it.

The Status boards will be open for the final seven (7) days of each month. During that period you can use all of your status points to grant and remove status. Examples will be given so you know what to do. When the boards are closed each character will have their scores added up and divided by the number of people granting status. The score will be rounded appropriately and that will determine their new status for the month.

Also note everything you post in the status boards is considered public and can be used against your character. Also you can only comment or vote as long as you have points to spend. You can say that you chose to raise or lower status or leave it alone. If you vote to leave it alone, your vote will be counted as a 0 vote.

Prestation a.k.a. Boons

(excerpt from The Blood pages 114-116)

The Rite of Prestation

Vampires gain Status over others through an elaborate ritual of favors and boons called prestation. Prestation is based on the simple premise that when a vampire receives an important gift or favor, he is beholden to its bestower and honor bound to return the favor. The greater the favor, the greater the debt. Until he pays back the obligation in kind, he is in the debt of the bestower, who has the right to call the debt due at any time. The bestower can call due the debt by requesting a service up to the size of the original favor, and sometimes more. On the surface this all appears little more than the straightforward commerce common to mortals. However, this polite façade conceals a deadly truth. Vital issues of Status and position are at stake.

By accepting the boon, the receiver automatically loses Status. In some cases, merely asking for a favor causes the vampire to drop in Status. The bestower in turn gains Status by granting the boon (it is, after all, a demonstration of power). The Status gained is commensurate with the magnitude of the favor, and the Status of the vampire aided. Helping a neonate learn to survive provides less Status than saving the prince from certain destruction or embarrassment. The bestower rises in Status in comparison to the receiver until the favor is returned and the balance of Status restored.

As a result of this curious system, many Kindred are not eager to call their favors due, especially when the one to whom they granted the favor is an eminent or influential member of the community (a truly perverse example of how twisted relations between vampires can become). They instead leave the beneficiaries of their largess to twist slowly in the wind, unable to regain their former Status. A clever Kindred can milk the respect gained through prestation for far more than the original favor was worth. He can keep other vampires in their place, and can even lord it over higher-Status vampires.

If a compensatory favor is not requested immediately, the receiver remains in the debt of the bestower. He cannot act against the bestower, and must maintain a courteous façade at all times. Meanwhile, the bestower can lord it over the receiver. However, the bestower must be careful to avoid giving the receiver the opportunity to cancel the debt by incurring a like debt to the recipient.

In terms of the Status rules, the giver is considered to be of the same Status as the one who owes the favor. While this change in the Status rules only affects the bestower and the receiver (allowing a Lick to treat as a peer the individual who formerly "outranked" him), others may pick up on it as well, and the character's overall Status might be affected. Though this is normally only temporary, sometimes it can be made permanent through astute and clever ploys and moves.

In general, how prestation affects Status is completely up to the Storyteller. Play it how she calls it.

The Scope of the Debt

Prestation takes many different forms. Saving a life carries a great debt. Not only does the vampire saved owe an immense favor, but all vampires who depend on the saved, or owe him favors, are suddenly indebted to the savior. Saving the prince's life means all the vampires in a city owe the savior a debt (though, in most cases, only a very small one).

Defeating an enemy causes all those threatened by that enemy to owe a favor in return. Protecting a vampire from being unmasked or discovered by mortals is worth a great favor. Helping out in the nightly course of a vampire's business is not worth much, unless the vampire desperately needs the help.

Prestation works in minor ways as well, especially within clans. If one vampire throws a great party, the guests all feel an obligation to reciprocate, and always feel somewhat humbled in the presence of the party-giver, who is entitled to feel a certain smug self-righteousness until her guests reciprocate. The party-giver cannot place herself above a high-ranking vampire, nor will her slight prestige boost accord her major favors from all her guests, but she can expect them to act slightly deferential and respectful around her.

Because of prestation, small services are a great way for a neonate to ingratiate herself with her betters, though it may earn her the contempt of her peers (who will accuse her of bootlicking).

Granting a Boon

The ability to grant a boon is a demonstration of power. Thus many Kindred constantly search for ways to provide "assistance" to their fellows. Conversely, the inability to grant a requested boon can cause a serious loss of Status.

Kindred are often offered favors by others and, when this occurs, there can be a number of different reactions. It is dangerous to accept another's boon, especially from those of lower Status, as one never knows when the debt might be called due. Moreover, once the boon is given, its recipient has no say in what will be requested in return.

There are three different ways in which a vampire can react when a boon is offered. They are:

• 1. Acceptance: The vampire accepts the boon, and is bound by prestation to the giver.
  
  
• 2. Refusal: The vampire immediately and forthrightly refuses the gift of the boon. This is often a case of one-upmanship. The vampire has just publicly announced that he does not need the other's boon. The other may lose Status because of the humiliation.
  
  
• 3. Negation: The character refuses the gift of the boon, but in such a way so as to avoid insult (which can be very difficult) - "Only that I may be of further service to you, my prince." By so doing, the vampire may gain Status.

Returning a Boon

A debt can be voided in a number of ways. It all depends on what the bestower wants from the indebted vampire, and when she wants it. Of course, if a vampire can find a way to return the favor before being asked, the debt can be nullified on the vampire's own terms. The following are five different ways by which a boon can be returned:

• 1. Trivial: The bestower asks a trivial favor in return, such as the other's presence at a party. The nature of the debt will affect whether a boon is trivial or substantial. Asking for a trivial boon will gain the asker some minor Status, for being able to grant the boon in the first place and for requesting such a minor repayment.
  
  
• 2. Balanced: The favor returned equals the debt owed. Once it is paid, all is again equal and as it once was (May also be referred to as a Minor Boon.)
  
  
• 3. Substantial: The bestower asks for a compensatory favor that is within the ability of the indebted to grant, but may cause the indebted some difficulty. Such a boon must be met, regardless of the cost, but may gain the (formerly) indebted some Status upon completion. (May also be referred to as a Major Boon.)
  
  
• 4. Overwhelming: The favor asked exceeds the debt owed by an overwhelming degree. If the boon requested is too ridiculous, then the indebted may refuse without loss of Status, or may agree, thus causing the bestower to incur a prestation debt in turn.
  
  
• 5. Life boon: Granted only in the most extreme cases - usually when a Kindred saves the existence of another without having any formal obligation to do so. Allies don't owe each other life boons; such a debt is owed only under exceptional circumstances. A life boon cannot usually be repaid through multiple lesser boons.

Oathkeeping

Most Kindred willingly adhere to the restraints of prestation. The whole idea of prestation hinges on whether or not the receiver publicly acknowledges the debt. This is a signal to others, demonstrating whether the receiver plays by the rules or not. Those who do not play by the rules are distrusted ("Your word is not good enough for me!") and may lose Status. In some cases, the receiver may (however reluctantly) be forced to acknowledge the debt, no matter how said debt weakens him. For example, if a neonate risks Final Death for a prince, that prince had better reward such behavior if he does not want to be humiliated.

Oathbreaking

Prestation is not enforced by any code other than the code of honor. A vampire is no more bound by prestation ties than by any other promises she makes. No one will kill her for oathbreaking, but the friends and clan of the aggrieved vampire may make her life difficult. Those bound to the aggrieved vampire by ties of prestation area also expected to snub and shun the vampire who refuses to acknowledge the debt.

Status lost by an offender will be considerable, but will vary according to the circumstances and the number of individuals who side with the offender. The offender will usually lose at least one Status point, and may well lose many more.

Sometimes a vampire will swear vengeance against an oathbreaker. Ironically, those with great Status, like the prince, are the least likely to try to squirm out of returning a favor. They stand to lose a lot of Status if they break their word, and Status is what helps them hold onto their power.

Refusing to honor a boon generally enrages vampires, causing them to strike back with all their ability. Refusing to honor a debt to a minor vampire may earn the oathbreaker only personal revenge, but shafting an elder can provoke attacks from all the members of the elder's clan within the city. The injured party is still not allowed to kill the offender, but he can make unlife very difficult for the offender - sabotaging his feeding grounds, exposing his covert plots and attacking his ghouls.

Ostracism

The strongest revenge is ostracism. This punishment is reserved for powerful acts of betrayal. If the wronged vampire reports the oathbreaking to the other Kindred, and makes his case well, he may persuade his own clan, the other clans and sometimes the offender's clan to ostracize the oathbreaker.

The offending vampire is shunned by the Kindred, and loses Status with her peers. No one will work with her or help her. She is a pariah until she makes full restitution. No one will trust her. In tightly knit vampiric circles, ostracism can be worse than a Blood Hunt.

(excerpt from Mind's Eye Requiem)

Disputes and Formalities

Kindred who owe each other any sort of debt often seek to formalize it by having a Harpy record the type of boon owed, which is then made known to the Harpy (or Harpies) of any city where the Kindred in question intend to reside for an extended period. This procedure protects the vampires involved as the Harpy acts as arbiter. When disputes arise, the Harpy decides whether a particular service is appropriate to repaying a favor and can act (using her status points, see p. 286) to punish an offending party. A Harpy usually acts to compel those who refuse to repay boons owed, but can also restrain those who demand service out of proportion with what they are owed. Kindred holding or owing boons can petition the Prince in defiance of a Harpy, although doing so is usually only likely to lead to complication or embarrassment. Harpies and Princes cannot arbitrate boons that they hold or owe; those matters are supervised by another Harpy.

The boons of blood-hunted Kindred are voided when the blood hunt is either called off or they are destroyed.

Transferring Boons

A Kindred who holds a boon (to whom a favor is owed) may transfer it to another Kindred. Such a change is usually done to repay a debt owed to the recipient or to incur a debt from him, but can also be a particularly vicious means of bringing someone into disrepute. While a Sanctified Cardinal may not object to owing a boon to a member of the First Estate, the debt might be shameful if it was known that the Invictus transferred the boon to a Hierophant of the Circle of the Crone. Domains that do not honor boons are considered disreputable, usually held by revolutionaries or the unaligned. If a Kindred owing boons is destroyed or sent to torpor for a very long time without having been guilty of a vampiric crime, the holders of the boons may justifiably petition the Harpies to transfer those boons to any Kindred who put the unfortunate vampire down.

Carthian
Ascendancy Benefits: Ascendant Carthians find it easy to interact with the mortal world and co-exist with the mortals in the domain. By calling in a favor or otherwise greasing the mortal wheels, Carthians can find an improvised haven somewhere in the city on very short notice, not needing to return to their normal homes. They cannot be left without shelter unless they are taken outside the city. Such improvised havens do not grant any of the benefits of the Haven Merit however.

Once per month, every ascendant Carthian can also call on her resources to attract a small crowd of mortals (between 8 and 15 people, depending on how many would be available in the area). These humans help out in an activity of the Carthian's choice, whether staging a protest outside an elder's haven or building a simple structure for a community group, so long as the activity is fairly innocuous and in line with the Carthian's rhetoric. This activity cannot involve anything immediately illegal beyond what might be expected of non-violent protesters. A sit-in is reasonable, but an armed uprising or robbery is not. The mortals also have no particular loyalty to the Carthian in question, so do not risk their lives or a lengthy jail sentence unless other means are used to convince them.

Circle of the Crone
Ascendancy Benefits: Circle members find it very easy to develop small groups of mortal followers. Most of these people are typically convinced that they're involved in nothing more than a pagan worship circle. By making requests for help in ritual research or observances, a Circle member can use these mortals to help out with large rites (provided they don't violate the Masquerade), or to perform tedious and mundane research and acquisition of materials involved in rites. Ascendant Acolytes thus gain the equivalent of two dots of the Allies Merit in the field most useful to pursuing their research. So, an Acolyte whose occult studies focus on the lessons of the plant world might gain an Ally in the park service or the city's botanical garden. This is a separate instance of the Allies Merit and does not combine with any similar Merits a character may already have. This Merit cannot be used for tasks that are overtly supernatural or illegal.

While engaged in rituals and similar observations, Acolytes also gather great spiritual strength from their faith. The knowledge that their covenant is dominant in a city - represented by ascendant status - strengthens the faith of those in the Circle of the Crone, allowing each member to regain a spent point of Willpower each week as they perform their rituals (during downtime).

Invictus
Ascendancy Benefits: When the Invictus is Ascendant, members of the First Estate are protected from the vampiric games of rumor and innuendo. An Invictus Prince cannot lose any City Status dots during a month in which his covenant is ascendant, and Harpies who are not themselves members of the First Estate must spend two points of Status for every point of City Status they wish to remove from a member of the Invictus. Finally, no member of the Invictus can have his last dot of City Status stripped from him, unless the Prince or Master of Elysium doing so is a member of the covenant.


Ordo Dracul
Ascendancy Benefits: When the Ordo Dracul is ascendant, the Dragon's confidence in their mystical abilities and the supremacy of their territory is so unshakable that they are socially unflappable. For every dot of City Status she has at the beginning of the month (before any ascendancy bonus), a Dragon may ignore the effect of a single Social (instant or extended) action performed against her that is not supernatural in nature.

What's more, each Dragon can select a discreet territory (no more than a few city blocks) and claim it as her personal fiefdom when the covenant is ascendant. The Dragon effectively becomes regent of the area. Others who hunt there must either pay a tribute or leave at the Dragon's discretion. The Dragon may not lay claim to a place already claimed by another unless she has a higher Corporation Status (after the ascendancy bonus). The Ordo normally uses this privledge to ensure that members have access to all the best wyrm nests at which to perform their mystic rites, though it has certainly seen more petty application. When the covenant falls from ascendancy, all claims to territories are lost unless individual Dragons can defend them.

Lancea Sanctum

Ascendancy Benefits: When the Lancea Sanctum is ascendant, the covenant's deep-seated belief in the righteousness of its cause combines with its influence in the city to strengthen the Sanctified ability to carry on the fight. Once per week, a Sanctified character may pray to Longinus and regain a spent point of Willpower. This prayer takes a full minute if done during a game session and approximately an hour if performed during downtime.

In a city where the Lancea Sanctum is ascendant, all Sanctified characters are further considered exempt from the authority of all Kindred officers save the Prince and Harpy - unless the officer in question is also Sanctified. The Master of Elysium cannot strip covenant members of Corporation Status and the Sheriff cannot order them about. This exemption does not provide any supernatural protection, it is merely considered unthinkable (and a sin against the city) to attack an ascendant Sanctified

Daeva
Eminence Benefit: Daeva almost never fail to get invitations to the most exclusive parties, and as a matter of course, eminent Daeva are automatically welcome at any social occasion - either mortal or undead - that they wish to attend.

Sometimes the most useful invitations, however, are to the sorts of soirees where emotions run high, intoxicants flow freely and no one is likely to notice a bit of indiscretion in a dark corner. If the Daeva are eminent, Succubi are never considered without a ready source of blood in their home city and require no tests to hunt to full capacity during downtime. Unless a Daeva is under particular pressure, she begins a session of play with her full capacity of Vitae.

Once per month, a player of a Daeva character may also send her character out of play for a full hour and return with her maximum capacity of Vitae. The character must not be followed or otherwise molested for this effect to function and the player must stay out of the game for a full hour.

Gangrel
Eminence Benefit: When the clan is eminent, Gangrel effectively turn their combination of human wariness and animal cunning toward the games of politics. This makes it very difficult to trap, surprise, or isolate them in Kindred society. The Prince, Master of Elysium, nor anyone else can strip a Gangrel of her final dot of City Status. The Prince can still call a blood hunt, however. What's more, any attempt to gain all but the most obvious and public information about a Gangrel through use of the Animalism Discipline fails automatically.

Once per month, a Gangrel's player may ask the Storyteller if a situation his character is about to enter appears to be a trap. Only direct attacks or uses of supernatural powers targeted at the Gangrel are detected as "traps" for the purpose of this benefit. Attempts to lure the Gangrel into a socially scandalous situation are not detected, for example, nor are meetings that are designed to weaken the Gangrel politically.

Mekhet
Eminence Benefit: As long as the Mekhet are Eminent, their knowledge of secrets and sharing of useful information reaches a high. Each Mekhet receives a number of free information snippets about other members of the domain equal to her City Status. The player should ask for this information from a Storyteller. This information is restricted to a subject's dots in certain social Merits: Resources, Status (each type counts as a separate snippet), Herd, and Retainer. A Mekhet can learn a character's dots in Clan Status or Covenant Status even if isn't part of the clan or covenant.

Example: Elijah is a Mekhet with City Status 3 and his clan is eminent. He learns the Lancea Sanctum Status of a zealot who has made his life hell, the wealth (Resources dots) of his Ventrue ally Javier, and the Nosferatu Status of Javier's enforcer Cross.

Nosferatu
Eminence Benefit: When his clan is eminent, the Nosferatu Priscus may use his clout to force a single other Priscus to abstain from voting in any matter to be settled by the assembled Prisci (such as naming a Harpy.) A Nosferatu recognized as a Board Member may do the same in a meeting of the Board of Directors. Refusal to abstain is a sin against the city and usually results in punishment from a Harpy or Division Head. This ability can be used only once per targeted Kindred per meeting.

In addition, the city's Nosferatu gain effective regency over the sewer system, so any clan member may travel unseen to most urban locations, as well as safely go to ground from most city locations. The Nosferatu Priscus may extend this free passage to any number of Kindred from other clans in the domain, but must do so explicitly and in such a way as the rest of the clan is aware of it. Nosferatu (but not other allowed Kindred) automatically succeed in feeding attempts in the sewers during downtime (so long as they feed on animals or mortals), but not during a game.

Ventrue
[i]Eminence Benefit: When his clan is eminent, the Ventrue Priscus may demand to change the vote of another Priscus in any Prisci votes. A Ventrue Board Member may do the same with the Board of Directors. Refusal to change one's vote is a sin against the city and usually results in punishment by a Harpy or Prince. This ability can only be used once per targeted Kindred per meeting.

In addition, Harpies may remove only a single City Status dot from the Prince (if Ventrue), the Ventrue Priscus, and the Ventrue with the highest City Status sitting on the Board of Directors (if any). Harpies may remove only one dot from each over the course of the month.

Finally, any dots in the Resources Merit held by a Ventrue character are largely inviolate while the clan is eminent. The actions of other characters cannot reduce an eminent Ventrue's wealth. (The Storyteller adjudicates this, telling others who attempt to undermine a Ventrue's wealth that their efforts fail.)