Thralls

These are your character’s close personal attendants, those that they rely upon to serve them as they sleep, to interact with the vampire or mortal communities on their behalf, or to slake their thirst as it sets in. They come in three flavours; Ghouls, Retainers and Herd. 

Thralls do not have explicit stats, but Retainers and Ghouls will have some level of competence with the job assigned. If you want a statted lackey, then this should be created with the Ally background.

For each point in this background you will need to decide whether it is assigned to Ghouls, Retainers or Herd. This can be changed over time, but it is only possible to transition one point per downtime period.

Retainers: These are mortals who work for your character, acting to manage their assets or their household, and act as a go-between with the mortal world. Each point put into retainer grants your character one retainer; each retainer will need a name and a job, for which they can provide a small bonus when supporting a relevant downtime action.

Ghouls: These individuals are similar to retainers, but they are physically much more capable and have the ability to learn a limited amount of vampiric abilities. They will also drink your character’s blood on a regular basis and so are blood bound to them, meaning that your character can rely upon their loyalty. As they are ghouled, they are also able to act as your character’s proxy or go-between with vampiric society more than retainers.

Each point put into ghouls grants an additional ghoul, for each you will need to specify a name and job, for which they can provide a bonus when supporting a relevant downtime action. However, your character will need to feed their ghouls, and so there will be a negative impact on their feeding checks based on the number of ghouls maintained. 

As part of keeping the focus on player characters, we are maintaining a small NPC crew.  Therefore, ghouls gained through the Thralls background will not be available in session except in very rare circumstances

Herd: This is a pool of mortals that your character has cultivated to feed from. For each point you put into the herd, your character will have a much larger number of mortals than ghoul or retainer points would grant who are simply there to slake their hunger, giving a bonus on hunter tests each downtime. 

Where your character’s feeding style allows it, they may also choose to bring some of their herd to session, for snacking on offscreen. It is worth noting that the herd brought to session may be targeted by others, so are not necessarily safe. You do not need to name your character’s Herd members or care about their job; there are always more humans, after all.