Where the Sun Doesn't Shine

This article talks you through designing your Lair. Every vampire needs a Lair. On each table you can roll or just choose. Rolling is fun because it forces you to rationalise odd results and often produces ideas that are more complex and intriguing than the stuff we come up with when we're not being challenged. But either way: it's up to you.

Security

This system gives you a Security Usage Die, which we can roll to see how safe you are between adventures.

• d4 is very precarious: you are easily tracked down, lots of people notice your odd ways and gossip about you
• d6 is a bit more secure: you are hard to find, not many people know where you are
• d8 is very secure: you are hidden from prying eyes
• d10 is a intense security: you are locked away during the daytime and very difficult to find
  
• d12 is a mystery: you are a rumour, a legend, a folk tale
  
• d20 is an enigma even to other vampires
  

When the Security Die completely exhausts, trouble has arrived. Perhaps hunters are on your trail or vampire enemies have tracked you down, perhaps a hapless visitor intrudes on your slumber. This will be dealt with at the start of each session. If you deal with the problem, your Security Die resets to its starting value.

Actions in play might affect your Security Die, forcing you to test it when enemies follow you or you give away information about yourself.

Obviousness

1-2	Public	Security d4
3-4	Private	Security d6
5-6	Secret	Security d8

A public Lair is a proper address. You get post delivered to it. It might be a business address, like a shop or a warehouse, or a townhouse. It will have running water, electric lights and perhaps a telephone.. A private Lair is the same sort of thing but it doesn't have a postal address or a streetfront entrance; nonetheless, ordinary people know of it and could visit it. It might be a shut up business, an abandoned house, an old kiln, a caravan or a lorry. It might lack the conveniences of electricity and plumbing. A secret Lair is hidden from the public: it's an underground sewer, a sealed crypt in a graveyard, a secret cellar or an abandoned box car on a railway siding.

Isolation

+1 for a private Lair, +2 for a secret Lair

1-2	Neighbourly
3-5	Lonely
6+	Remote

A neighbourly Lair has mortals living or working around it. This could be because there are other tenants in your building, people living next door or customers or employees who come to the site during the day. A lonely Lair is a bit off-the-beaten-track and you don't have to worry about anyone observing you come and go. A remote Lair is somewhere really quite far away from human activity and you have to travel for perhaps an hour to arrive in the bustle of the city.

• For a neighbourly Lair, your Security Die exhausts on a 1-3
  
• For a remote Lair, your Security Die exhausts on a 1
  

Grandeur

+1 for a private Lair, +2 for a secret Lair

1-2	Grand
3-5	Spartan
6+	Crude

A grand Lair has modern conveniences and comforts: carpets, upholstered chairs, books, a nice bed, perhaps a grammaphone and a radio. A spartan Lair just has the basics: a bed, a chair or two, perhaps a bookshelf and a couple of pictures. A crude Lair isn't really a human home at all: it's probably just got sheets or sacking to sleep under (or under) and a few crates for personal belongings.

Grandeur doesn't affect your Security Die directly, but your security cannot be higher than d6 if you are living in Grand conditions or d8 if you are living in Spartan. Vampires with a need for d10 or better security must exist in squalor or privation.

Staff

+1 for a private Lair, +2 for a secret Lair

1-2	Dedicated
3-4	Occasional
5+	None

It's nice to have help. Staff are mortals who do tasks for you without realising what you are. Dedicated Staff work for you personally and you pay their wages: they are maids and butlers and chauffeurs. You cannot keep such staff once your Morality Die becomes a d10. Occasional Staff don't work for you directly; perhaps they come by weekly or service the building: they are cleaners, gardeners, landlords (OK landlords aren't 'staff' but they will fix things if you ask them). This also includes more regular staff who don't interact with you personally and who go in dread of you or people who don't realise they work for you (such as workers who carry out their business next to your Lair and protect and maintain you without realising it).. Even this level of support is impossible once your Morality Die is d12.

• Dedicated staff are a security risk: downgrade your Security Usage Die by one step
  
• You must have some staff if you are living Grandly.
  

Protection

-1 for a public Lair, -1 for a neighbourly Lair

1-	Locked
2-4	Sealed
5-6	Fortified (7th level only)

A locked Lair is just that: you have a locked door between you and the outside world. A sealed Lair is a bit more secure: there might be several doors to get through or doors that are really big and heavy, like vault doors. A fortified Lair is like a castle or dungeon, with walls round it, moats or pits to cross, portcullises, murder-holes, etc. Maybe you built it yourself or maybe you moved into somewhere that already had these features.

• Increase your Security Usage Die by one step for a sealed Lair and two steps for a fortified Lair
  
• You must be 7th level to acquire a fortified Lair

Work the Numbers

Add up all your dice rolls (after modification) - or add up the numbers corresponding to your choices. This score reveals your Humanity:

9-	Humane
10-24	No effect
25+	Inhumane

Humane vampires are in touch with their humanity through their engagement with mortals. Once per night, when rolling their Morality Usage Die, the die only exhausts on a 1.

Inhumane vampires are out of touch with mortal life, since they live in isolation and/or squalor. Once per night, the first time they are forced to roll their Morality Usage Die, it exhausts on a 1-3.

Work out your Humanity and your Security Die and what it exhausts on. Then write a paragraph describing your lair and post it on our page.