Retainers and their Use

Retainers brought in with a PC from character creation will be assumed to be ghouls unless stated otherwise. Starting-retainers are encouraged to have their character picture found by the player, though it is understood that retainers acquired during the course of the chronicle will not have this creative luxury. The player should specify what type of ghoul they want to bring in at character creation - either Vassal or Independent. Vassal will be the default choice. Only specific kinds of characters with very good reasons to have them may have a Revenant ghoul. To maintain a ghoul, a character must spend 1 Blood per retainer per month, which will be taken out of the character's "in-game" pool rather than washed away during downtime actions for the sake of balance.

I will build the character sheets for any retainer that a character has invested Background points into. A retainer will be a base-points ghoul unless the player specifies that they wish to invest multiple dots into a single retainer; each dot past the first will be rewarded with an additional 10xp for the retainer, and should be expected to follow the concept of the retainer, though the player still will not have executive control over how the points are spent. A retainer's sheet will not be shared with the players except in the loosest terms, such as Appearance. A player may have more than 5 dots of the Retainer Background AFTER character creation (read: acquire further dots during the chronicle), but should expect to be given the flaw "Overextended" for free as a result of this (same goes for Allies and Contacts).

Retainers may have their own extensions of power into the city via Backgrounds the same way that any other character might have. In order for a Regnant to access their retainer's (or retainers') Backgrounds, the Combine action must be taken as described here. The retainer will likely have their own Influence actions that they wish to undertake, and frankly, this sensible limitation is the best way to balance the enormous benefit that having any number of retainers provides a PC. The ST will portray each retainer in each scene they are called for in; another benefit of having a small chronicle.