Backgrounds HR

Militia
The World of Darkness is a dangerous place, and many Kindred find having some mortal muscle backing up their plays in the Jyhad puts their minds at ease, just a little bit. Some elder’s hold private armies of highly trained mercenaries, many modern embraces have ties to large mortal gangs or other organized militant criminal elements. Many do not trust the loyalty of their troops earned by such temporal means as respect, contracts, or piles of cash. These Cainites bond these combatants with blood, turning them into Ghouls, though this means they simply cannot provide enough blood to support as large organizations. The relationship between a Kindred and their private militia varies with the means by which they keep them controlled, but regardless these individuals are fighters first, and rarely have much tact.

System: For each dot of this background you purchase you must make 2 decisions to quantify the type of militia you are recruiting. First you must decide the level of proficiency of these NPC’s. You may choose them to be 1-point, 3-point, or 5-point stock NPC’s. 1-point NPCs provide 8 NPCs per dot of this background, 3-point NPCs provide 4 NPCs per dot of this background, and 5 point NPCs provide 2 NPCs per dot of this background. In addition, you must decide if these NPCs will be Ghouls or not. Making these NPCs ghouls all but ensures their loyalty, allows them to deal with the supernatural without risk of breaching the Masquerade, and provides the normal benefits of being a Ghoul (for more information on how Ghoul stock NPCs work look on page 105, Building Retainers). The downside to this is that you receive half the amount of NPCs per dot purchased. So Ghoul 1-point NPCs are acquired at 4 per dot, Ghoul 3-point NPCs are acquired at 2 per dot, and Ghoul 5 point NPCs are acquired at 1 per dot. While not all of these NPCs have the same specializations, though all NPCs from each dot must have the same specializations. Thus you can have 4 Ghoul 1-point NPCs with specializations in Firearms, and another 4 Ghoul 1-point NPCs with specializations in Melee. Along with this not all dots of this Background must be purchased equally. A Kindred with 4 dots of this Background could have 1 Ghoul 5-point NPC captain, 2 Ghoul 3-point NPC lieutenants, and 16 non-Ghoul 1-point NPC foot soldiers, half with Firearm’s specialization, the other half with Stealth specialization. These NPC militia are NOT retainers, they are not always on hand, and they cannot perform downtime actions unless those actions are pertain to combat of some sort (this could be providing security, attacking a location, or roughing somebody up). You should also have the appropriate means to support your militia depending on how you define them. A mercenary force requires money, and thus you must have enough Resources to pay them, Ghouls require blood, and thus the amount of Downtime actions to feed are increased (this is usually offset by the Herd Background), Militia kept to help guard one’s Haven need accommodations, and thus your Haven should have the appropriate investments. The Storyteller has the final call on whether a player has the means to sustain their Militia, though usual 1 dot of Militia should be supported by an equal amount of dots in the appropriate means to keep them.