New Merits from Block by Bloody Block[

New Merits
What follows are a handful of new Merits that can be
used in coordination with this product.
City Knowledge (• to •••••)
Effect: The character can conjure up information about the city at a moment’s notice. This includes tidbits about history or the city’s layout, or simply unusual or interesting facts about the metropolis.
The character’s player can make an Intelligence + Streetwise roll, with a number of bonus dice equal to the dots purchased in this Merit.

Reputation (•• or ••••)
Effect: This works similarly to the Fame Merit (p. 115, World of Darkness Rulebook), except it applies to a Social Skill other than Socialize or Persuasion. The character’s cultivated a reputation, for good or bad, that affects Empathy,Expression, Intimidation, Streetwise or Subterfuge rolls.
The two-dot version of this Merit confers the 9-Again quality to rolls involving the chosen Skill, while the four-dot version elevates that benefit to 8-Again.
This is tricky, of course, and should be described appropriately: a character who has a reputation for lying doesn’t gain the potent quality to Subterfuge rolls, because people already expect him to lie. No, for the hunter to gain a Subterfuge bonus, the reputation must be one that suggests he’s trustworthy,loyal or honorable. It might be a total sham, but nobody said a
reputation had to be accurate. Perception is everything.
This Merit applies to only one Social Skill, chosen at the time of purchase.
Drawback: This Merit won’t work on everybody, and the Storyteller has a right to deny its benefit. A character with a reputation for being able to “read people” or “give advice” will earn the Empathy bonus when dealing with people who were capable of picking up on that reputation—a famous psychotherapist with a book deal might be able to affect a good portion of the populace, but won’t get squat when dealing with the homeless, foreigners or any who might not have been exposed to the media saturation surrounding the character.


Territorial Knowledge (• to •••••)
Effect: The characters know one of the city’s territories (pp. 11–63, though the Storyteller may have others she’s using in this story) intimately. Maybe the character grew up there, maybe she works there, or perhaps she’s been making recon missions into that domain for the last year or so. (It’s even possible that this is something supernaturally-born: consider a Lucifuge hunter whose infernal dreams carry him through a given territory as if flying on the back of a raven.)
The character gains several benefits for that territory.
These include:
• The effects of the Direction Sense Merit, but only within that territory; if the character already possesses the general Direction Sense Merit, the effects do not stack together.
• A +1 Drive bonus per Merit dot purchased, representing that the character knows how to navigate this territory with an automobile.
• A +1 Initiative bonus per Merit dot purchased, though this Initiative is only usable when in combat inside that chosen territory.
Note that a character may purchase this Merit several times over to represent knowledge of myriad domains, though never more than once for a single territory.