Assets

From Edge of Darkness Wiki

Assets essentially represent Sites and Subjects that are reduced to the barest shorthand. Assets are the main commodities of Primacy. Assets represent mortal men and women under the character’s influence. Assets may be motivated by money, blackmail, intimidation, the Blood or Disciplines — it doesn’t really matter at this stage. What matters is that these people do the characters’ bidding eagerly, miserably, warily, and shamefully.

Contents 1 Acquiring Assets 2 Protection and Loyalty 2.1 Protection 2.2 Loyalty 3 Game Statistics

Acquiring Assets

Assets are the usage of the following Merits: Allies, Fame, Resources, Retainers, Sites, and Status. Any purchase of one of these Merits may be designated a Primacy Asset.

• Status only refers to Status in one of the Spheres of Influence. Venue-specific faction Status cannot be used.
• A five dot (●●●●●) Retainer may optionally be designated an Agent rather than an Asset. An Agent counts against the total Assets allowed, but cannot be used as an Asset. They are one or the other.

The number of Assets a character can control is equal to their Willpower + Advantage (Blood Potency, Gnosis, Primal Urge, Wyrd).

• Willpower represents how much time and effort they put into cultivating and maintaining Assets
• Advantage represents how well they leverage their various options to cultivate and maintain Assets

Remember to declare which applicable Skill is being tied to a Primacy Asset when activated. This Skill cannot change.

Protection and Loyalty

Beyond just dots, Assets may be affected by two additional traits: Loyalty and Protection. Protection guards an Asset against physical harm, specifically attacks from other vampires and their minions. Loyalty inspirits an Asset, helping it to resist coercion, seduction, and bribery. These are simple binary conditions: An Asset is protected or it isn’t. An Asset is inspired or it isn’t.

• A character can protect or inspirit a number of Assets at a time as determined by his Influence dots (see table on Influence page).
• An asset can be simultaneously protected and inspirited.

Protection

Assets can be attacked. Some vampires are content to snuff out an opponent’s advantage if it can’t be stolen away. Men in dark suits drag an enemy Asset from his bed and back to their master, where the vampire lord devours him. Desperate junkies stab the enemy Asset in his driveway in exchange for a hit from their master. An unidentified gunman shoots the Asset in his car, and then disappears into the city.

• If a vampire believes an Asset is at risk, she can assign it Protection. Protection steels an Asset against attack and making it more likely to survive attempts on its life. If the vampire has Assets in Brawl, Firearms, or Weaponry, the player may reflexively contest any attacks on the Asset by rolling Presence + the appropriate Skill, reflecting the power with which the vampire has motivated her muscle. (This is a free attack action; see Primacy.)
• If the vampire has none of the appropriate Assets, she simply assures the Asset that everything will be all right or devises a plan to keep the Asset safe until help can arrive. Increase the target number to kill the Asset by the vampire’s dots in Intelligence or Presence (player’s choice).

Loyalty

Assets can be turned away from their masters. Some vampires aren’t content to go through another Kindred to get what they want. They resolve to make the Asset theirs. Men with suitcases full of cash show up on the Asset’s doorstep. An envelope of incriminating pictures turns up in the mail. The vampire herself looks the Asset in the eye and commands him to come with her.

• If a vampire believes an Asset to be at risk of coercion, she can inspirit it and steel its Loyalty. If the vampire has Assets in Intimidation, Persuasion, or Subterfuge, the player may reflexively contest any coercion of the Asset by rolling Manipulation + the appropriate Skill, reflecting the strings the vampire is pulling with her Assets.
• If the vampire has none of the appropriate Assets, she does her best to keep the Asset happy enough to stay (or too frightened to leave). Increase the target number to coerce the Asset by the vampire’s dots in Strength or Manipulation.

Game Statistics

If a character’s Asset appears “on stage” in a street-level scene with an Agent, they’ll need traits of some kind to help determine how long they live or how slowly they die. Assets are not full-fledged characters in a mechanical sense (though they can and should develop personalities over time if possible), so the method for creating them is simple:

• An Asset’s rating equals the dots in the relevant Skill. A four-dot Larceny Asset has four dots in Larceny, for example.
• The trait category — Mental/Physical/Social — of the Asset’s Skill is the primary category for the Asset’s Attributes and Skills minus whatever dots must go into the Asset Skill. Therefore the Larceny Asset has 5 dots in Physical Attributes and 11 dots in Physical Skills with four of those dots going to Larceny.
• An Asset cannot have more dots in any Skill than it has in its Asset Skill.
• Assets do not have Merits.
• Assets do not get templates or lesser templates and so cannot be Kindred or ghouls.
• All other design choices for the character are the same as for any starting World of Darkness character.

See Also Agents • Assets • Influence • Primacy • Resources