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Phase 1: Core Concepts & Human Life

Follow the Core Character Concept steps RMU with VTM adjustments.

Setting: VTM: The setting for the Chronicle, what kind of role the Coterie plays

Age and Generation: VTM: How old are the players, and what generation

Sect: VTM: Select the Vampire society for the Coterie

Coterie relationships: VTM: What brings and keeps the Coterie together

Race: RMU: Use the template of Human, Mixed

Culture: RMU: Select one of templates [Cosmopolitan, Rural, Urban], additionally decide the character’s culture/nationality (e.g. Finnish). Also add 1 rank in Technology.

Name & Date of Birth: Name your character, specify when they were born, and at what age they were turned

Profession: RMU: Use the No profession skill cost template. Set any combination of 10 skills as the Professional Skills

Clan: VTM: Select your Vampire Clan

Core Values & Beliefs: VTM: Set core moral and ethical values. Create 1-3 Convictions. Pick as many mortal Touchstones as you have Convictions (write down the names to the relationship chart). Write down your Ambition: what was your greatest aspiration as a human?

Stats: Generate stats at RMU's default Superior power level: roll each stat normally, rerolling any result of 10 or less, and take two stat boosts— each boost may replace one stat's rolled temporary and potential values with the Superior averages (56 / 78), or replace your highest temporary stat with 90. If the table prefers the point-buy variant, Superior grants 15 stat points RMU.

Culture Skills: Set skills from culture

Phase 2: Embrace & After

Status & Mask: Who are you now? Are you legally dead? What is your name? Do you maintain a Mask or hold down a job?

Blood Potency: VTM: Set the Blood Potency based on the generation

Humanity: VTM: Set Humanity to 7

Disciplines: VTM: Pick two Clan Disciplines. Assign 2 Levels (Ranks) in one, and 1 Level (Rank) in another. Pick the powers for each level. A character with Blood Sorcery also knows one Level 1 ritual for free (see Blood Sorcery's Rituals page).

Predator Type: How you usually hunt — a reflex, not a mandate. Pick one type below VTM: add 2 ranks to one of its skill specialties, gain one Level in one of its Disciplines, and apply its other grants. Granted Advantage and Flaw dots are VTM dots from the Phase 3 catalog, on top of your normal pools.

Alleycat: A combative assault-feeder: stalk, overpower, drink. Specialty: Influence (Intimidation — stick-ups) or Unarmed (grappling). Discipline: Celerity or Potence. Lose one dot of Humanity; gain three dots of criminal Contacts.

Bagger: You steal, buy, or procure cold blood instead of hunting. Specialty: Locks (lockpicking) or Trading (black market). Discipline: Blood Sorcery (Tremere only) or Obfuscate. Gain the Iron Gullet Merit (3) and an Enemy Flaw (2) — someone thinks you owe them. Ventrue may not pick this type.

Blood Leech: You feed on other Kindred — by hunt, coercion, or payment. Specialty: Unarmed (Kindred) or Stalking (against Kindred). Discipline: Celerity or Protean. Lose one dot of Humanity; raise Blood Potency by one; gain the Dark Secret Flaw (2 — Diablerist) or Shunned (2), and the Prey Exclusion Flaw (2 — mortals).

Cleaver: You feed covertly from a mortal family you still keep — add them to the Relationship Map; the Camarilla forbids it. Specialty: Influence (Charm — gaslighting) or Influence (Duping — cover-ups). Discipline: Dominate or Animalism. Gain the Dark Secret Flaw (1 — Cleaver) and the Herd Advantage (2).

Consensualist: You never feed against free will — blood-drive cover, kink scene, or honesty. Specialty: Medicine (phlebotomy) or Influence (Charm — willing victims). Discipline: Auspex or Fortitude. Gain one dot of Humanity; gain the Dark Secret Flaw (1 — Masquerade Breacher) and the Prey Exclusion Flaw (1 — non-consenting).

Farmer: You feed only from animals. Specialty: Animal Handling (one animal type) or Survival (hunting). Discipline: Animalism or Protean. Gain one dot of Humanity; gain the Feeding Flaw (2 — Farmer). Ventrue may not pick this type, and it is unavailable at Blood Potency 3 or higher.

Osiris: A celebrity or cult figure feeding from fans and worshippers. Specialty: Lore: Occult (your tradition) or Performance Art (your field). Discipline: Blood Sorcery (Tremere only) or Presence. Spend three dots between the Fame and Herd Backgrounds, and two dots between the Enemy and Mythic Flaws.

Sandman: You feed from sleeping victims who never know you exist. Specialty: Medicine (anesthetics) or Stalking (break-ins). Discipline: Auspex or Obfuscate. Gain one dot of Resources.

Scene Queen: You feed on a subculture that believes you are one of its own. Specialty: Etiquette (your scene — mapping still open), Leadership (your scene), or Trading (your scene). Discipline: Dominate or Potence. Gain the Fame Advantage (1) and a Contact (1); gain either the Influence Flaw (1 — disliked outside your subculture) or the Prey Exclusion Flaw (1 — a rival subculture).

Siren: You feed during, or while feigning, sex. Specialty: Influence (Charm — seduction) or Influence (Duping — seduction). Discipline: Fortitude or Presence. Gain the Looks Merit (2 — Beautiful) and an Enemy Flaw (1 — a spurned lover or jealous partner).

V5's Persuasion specialties land on Influence (Charm) per the proposed mapping, and Etiquette's home is likewise still open — see the open calls on Attributes & Skills.

Phase 3: What is your Story?

Beliefs by Night: VTM: Write down the character’s updated Ambition (or a twisted Cainite version)

Loresheet: VTM: Choose a Loresheet to unlock its Advantages

Advantages: Choose up to 7 dots of Advantages — Merits and Backgrounds — from the VTM catalog (pp. 179-194), plus whatever your Predator Type granted. Advantage dots are their own economy: they are never bought with or converted to DP, and they work as VTM writes them, read through the standard bridges where they touch rolls (one die = +10, one Difficulty step = 20 points).

Flaws: Choose at least 2 dots of Flaws from the same catalog (VTM pp. 179-194).

RMU Talents & Flaws: A separate, parallel system — not converted into the dot pools above. Talents are bought with DP during the skill buy, tiered and capped per talent at the Superior power level; RMU Flaws refund DP. Use them as RMU writes them RMU.

Phase 4: Sea of Time & The Mirror

Sea of Time: RMU: Fledglings and Childer start at level 1. Advance to levels 2-3 for Neonate characters.

Appearance: VTM: At least think about the appearance of the character based on Stats. Additionally, you may come up with a sketch or illustration of the character

Quirks: VTM: Make some notes about the strange and possibly interesting things that define the character

Phase 5: Finishing Touches

Calculate Base Movement Rate, Skill Bonuses, Defensive Bonus, Endurance, Starting Wealth, Equipment and Encumbrance, Armor Type, Initiative, and Willpower.

Hitpoints: RMU: calculated as Big (1.5x, one size category up) — see Core Concepts, Health & Damage

Unarmed: Bite: add 1 rank

Hunger: VTM: Mark down \({2}+ {1}d{3}\) Hunger points

Phase 6: Building The Coterie

The coterie pool: Every character brings 1 free dot to the pool — 2 in groups of three or fewer, at the Storyteller's call. Players may add their own leftover Advantage dots, and the coterie may take shared Flaws for extra dots if every player agrees. Spend the pool together VTM.

Domain: The coterie's hunting ground — a feudal grant from the Prince, or turf. Each Domain Trait dot costs one pool dot:

Chasse: How rich the hunting is. Hunting maneuvers inside the domain start at Absurd (-70) with one dot, easing by +20 per additional dot (five dots: Light, +10) VTM. Chasse also sketches the domain's size:

Chasse	Geographic equivalent
1	One city block, one suburban gated community
2	Two to four blocks; a park and its entrances; one small site (landmark, hospital, mall)
3	Eight blocks along a major street; one medium site (airport, major employer, casino, college)
4	A neighborhood or district, a square kilometer, one major site (large university, amusement park)
5	Three neighborhoods, or a large group of features ("all parks on the South Side")

Lien: How integrated the coterie is. Add \({10}\times{Lien}\)to a member's rolls to deal peacefully with the domain's mortals, find someone or something within it, or pick up the word on the street. Lien never modifies hunting rolls.

Portillon: How secure the domain is. Subtract \({10}\times{Portillon}\)from an outsider's rolls to enter, investigate, or surveil the domain without the coterie's knowledge. An intruder's Absolute Success (176+) may lower the Portillon against that intruder until they are dealt with. Portillon never protects Havens.

A coterie without a Domain poaches its dinners at grave risk, or hunts on a letter of passage honored by the local authorities.