Dwelling Merits

Domain Merits

 * Amenities (•+)
 * Although Hollows cannot have access to some high-tech facilities such as phone service, Internet connections or satellite broadcasts, some of the more impressive Hollows make up for it with minor magical touches. These magical elements should not mimic anything as powerful as Contracts, but can provide basic household services and serve as excellent descriptive details and flourishes to create exactly what the player desires for the look and feel of their Hollow. A game board with living chess or gwybdyll pieces that can play against a living opponent is a perfectly acceptable entertainment amenity, for example, as might be a battered arcade cabinet that changes every new moon to a different video game never seen in the mortal world.
 * • A couple of homey touches, but otherwise quite plain
 * •• A comfortable Hollow with a few notable features and decent fare
 * ••• An elaborate Hollow with quite a few clever details and an excellent supply of refreshments and diversions
 * •••• An impressive Hollow containing abundant mundane delights and even one or two noteworthy minor magical services as well
 * ••••• A lavish dwelling with nearly every comfort of modern living as well as quite a few magical conveniences
 * Cache (•+)
 * A lot of space is good for a very large cell, or for a cell that chooses to live in its safehouse, but it can also make the inhabitants paranoid. After all, if there are 10 rooms in the place, who knows what’s in the other nine at any given time? Hunters find that having some weapons at their fingertips lessens this paranoia somewhat (or it might make it worse, because what if the monsters find the stash?).


 * Each dot allocated to Safehouse Cache translates to one cache. A cache can hold fi ve Size points worth of equipment, so while one might be a weapons locker with two shotguns and a pistol (and a few boxes of ammo for each, which is negligible as far as Size goes), another might hold surveillance equipment (a set of wire taps, binoculars, night-sight goggles and maybe a pistol for good measure). It is possible, too, to combine two or more dots of Cache into one space, for a total Size of 10 or more.


 * Comfort (•+)
 * Comfort represents how long it's owner/user may within it's bounds before becoming found or becoming a nuisance, and needing to move on.
 * • One week.
 * •• Two months.
 * ••• Three years.
 * •••• Forty years.
 * ••••• Five hundred years.


 * Doors (•+)
 * Hollow Doors reflects how many entrances and exits a Hollow has, which can be equally important if a character is cut off from her normal access point in the real world or finds herself in need of a quick escape route while staying in the Hollow. Without any dots in Hollow Doors, a Hollow is assumed to have one entrance in the real world and one small entrance in the Hedge — the Hollow can be reached through either side. (A character may waive either of these “free” entrances if he only wishes the Hollow to be accessible from one side.) With each dot in Hollow Doors, the Hollow has one additional point of entry/exit, either in the real world or through the Hedge. For example, with the expenditure of multiple dots, each motley member might have a door in his own residence that allows him access to the group’s private Hollow. Note that these doors must be tied to static access points in either realm — these places do not change.


 * Location (•+)
 * How close it is to food sources, and other appealing locations.
 * +01 die to locating a useful or needed item or supply near your home location.


 * Secrecy (•+)
 * One of the biggest advantages a hunter can enjoy is, ironically, one that his prey tries to cultivate as well: anonymity. If the monsters don’t know where to find the hunters, they have a harder time killing them. Dots in Safehouse Secrecy indicate how far removed from the hunters the safehouse is, from a legal (and paper trail) standpoint. These dots impose a negative penalty on any attempt to find the hunter through the property, or vice versa. The descriptions of the different dot ratings below are just examples; it’s up to the player to decide what the Secrecy represents.
 * x The hunter rented or bought the place using his real name, credit card or bank account.
 * • The hunter went through an intermediary, but cosigned a loan at some point.
 * •• Some effort toward concealment; an assumed name or paying in cash.
 * ••• Considerable diffi culty in tracing the property — the hunter might just be squatting.
 * •••• The hunter never goes back to the place if he doesn’t have to, never gets there by the same route, and his real name never appears on any of the documentation.
 * ••••• The property has a real owner who lives there full time, is aware of his rights and, if necessary, can show cops around the place while casually denying that he’s ever seen the hunter before.


 * Security (•+)
 * Decreases the chances of others to enter without permission or take over the land you rule.
 * -02 Dice to any unauthorized entity to enter. +01 to initiative for those inside against anyone attempting to gain entrance (good sight lines, video surveillance, ect); per dot of security.


 * Size (•+)
 * Improves the breadth of the area given, and how many people it covers.
 * x Barely any space; only a pair of characters can fit inside comfortably.
 * • One to two rooms.
 * •• Three to four rooms.
 * ••• Five to eight rooms, or large enclosure.
 * •••• Equivalent to nine to 15 rooms.
 * ••••• A sprawling estate, interconnected tunnel network; countless rooms or chambers.


 * Torture Suit (•+)
 * A torture suite is an isolated place where Hunters may preform activities that are of a questionable nature, from Brainwashing to Physical torture.


 * Interrogation, torture, brainwashing, deprogramming: all gruesome and disturbing acts that require, among other things, a safe place from prying eyes. Dots in this Merit represent just such a space, preferably one the hunter has control of, like a storage unit for which she is the primary key-holder or a secluded cabin she owns. This can be a space she doesn’t own (police interrogation room, boiler room at the elementary school where she works as janitor, a secret room in the basement of her apartment building), but still must be one she controls semi-regularly for the Merit’s effects to apply.


 * Dots in this Merit are unrelated to Size, but are instead related to the space’s intimidation factor: a spare room in a small apartment isn’t that foreboding, but a dark room with a bare bulb next to a hissing heater and a wall full of sharp implements might just do the trick. For each dot purchased in this Merit, the hunter gains +1 to appropriate Intimidation-based Interrogation rolls (including torture, brainwashing or deprogramming events). Note that a Torture Suite can be a part of a hunter’s safehouse, though it doesn’t need to be.


 * Traps (•+)
 * A trap can either inflict damage equal to the dots allocated to it to a single target, or can inflict less damage to a large area. Once a trap is tripped (provided it doesn’t destroy the place), any hunter who contributed dots to the safehouse can reset it with minimal work. This is what differentiates traps represented by this Merit from others that the characters might build themselves during the course of the chronicle; no rolls or special effort are required to reset a Safehouse Trap. Again, though, if the trap is designed to destroy large sections of the safehouse, that damage can’t be repaired without significant effort and expense, if at all. Any trap that deals damage to the Safehouse Size can be rigged to go off after a short delay, giving the hunters time to flee.
 * x The hunters haven’t bothered setting traps. Perhaps they’re afraid of setting them off themselves.
 * • A trap that infl icts one point of lethal damage to a target (concealed knife, caltrops) or three points of bashing damage  to a small area (electrifi ed fl oor, mild poison gas).
 * •• A trap that infl icts two points of lethal damage to a target (spring-loaded knife, concealed pistol trap) or infl icts six bashing damage to a small area (falling sandbags, fi re-hose trap), or a trap that incorporates fi re and thus has a chance of igniting targets and the house.
 * ••• A trap that infl icts three points of lethal damage to a target (falling ax, poisoned needle on a doorknob) or eight bashing damage to an area (collapsing staircase), or a trap that damages a portion of the safehouse, reducing its Size  by one (explosives; anyone caught in the blast takes two lethal damage).
 * •••• A trap that infl icts four lethal damage to a target (shotgun trap, pit with spikes) or 10 bashing damage/two lethal damage to an area (concussion grenade trap, deadfall trap), or a trap that reduces the Safehouse Size by one to three dots (anyone caught in the area suffers three points of lethal damage).
 * ••••• A trap that infl icts fi ve points of lethal damage to a target (spring-loaded sharpened stake, blowtorch trap) or 12 bashing damage/three lethal damage to an area (bouncing Betty, acid spray), or a trap that completely destroys the safehouse, no matter how large (anyone caught inside suffers four points of lethal damage).


 * Wards (•+)
 * Of course, a changeling might have the most gigantic and elaborate Hollow imaginable, but unless it is properly warded and secured against intrusion, it will most likely be lost to opportunistic scavengers in short order — or worse yet, subject to an unpleasant visitation from the Others. Thus, it is wise to invest at least a few dots in Hollow Wards, representing the precautions both mundane and magical that protect the Hollow from unwanted visitors. Each dot invested in Hollow Wards subtracts one die from all attempts by unwanted visitors to find or break into the Hollow; in addition, those inside receive a +1 die bonus per dot on their Initiative compared to those attempting to break in. Lastly, the more dots invested in Hollow Wards, the less likely the location is to be found by True Fae or creatures from the Hedge; each dot subtracts one die from any rolls made to find the Hollow.