The spreadsheet is operated by a script, utilizing a timestamp that controls its dependent drop-down lists. Don't worry if you didn't understand that--it isn't important. What is vitally important is that you fill it out row-by-row and not column-by-column. That means across, not down, when selecting actions. If you want to clear a cell of its contents, select the cell and hit 'backspace', then navigate to another cell.

Downtimes are due every Wednesday; do your best to fill them out. The staff will attempt to fix errors on Wednesday as long as they are somewhat understandable. Share your downtime sheet with staff.

What are the Tabs Already Provided?

Player is the sheet on which all your character's actions should be hosted. Retainer sheets are for your ghouls doing things alongside you.

How to add Tabs/Rename Tabs on the sheet

The script is directly working with the tab names! Don't rename your tabs or add tabs to the sheet or it won't work.. unless you follow these instructions.


If these instructions are not able to have you manage this properly, do not change anything and just fill it out and make a copy of the entire sheet for every different player. Thanks



Date & Name

The date is always the upcoming Saturday on the Calendar. Always in this format: MM/DD/YYYY ; Your name needs to be individualized, and has to be the same every time you are entered into the sheet. If you have a first and last name, I suggest you use it, because like a sign-in name, the character name HAS to be individual, or it screws up the staff's sheet. Make sure you put your ghoul's full names as well when you fill out a sheet for them!

Downtime Type

There are 7 types of downtime actions at this time. The formatting is specific, Feeding works while Feed, Eating, Consuming Blood all do not ect. The setting on this category is Strict Validation, so you cannot choose anything but the drop-down menu options. The options are as follows:

Grow: Growing a Discipline, Atributte, Background, Ability, or Learning a combo discipline/ritual all happen here
Instruct: Helping someone else grow! Make sure to fill out the "If Targeting Another" with their name!
Maintain: Keeping up with your or another's backgrounds. Ghouls can be very useful in maintaining their dominators holdings
Feeding: Creatures of the night gotta eat!
Action: Crafting, Researching, Investigating all fall here. There is an Other category for actions that will take up time, but don't fit anywhere else, like performing pack Ritae or Vicissitude Modifications.
Special: "Other" is a catch all here. Special actions do not take up down time but might have other effects. if your character, for instance, uses earth meld every day, that would be recorded as 7 Special actions, as they don't take up a downtime action to bury yourself to sleep (But it does take up blood, see below); This is also the heading for if you are not spending an action teaching someone, but they are learning from you; they need to drink a point of your blood to learn unless they are caitiff.
Game: This is your invisible downtime action; the one you go to game for. This is to keep track of how much blood was spent or drank during scenes at the previous game, or make note of backgrounds you were approved for or lost during said game; this is so the sheet knows what's up.

Category

The category is the second column, and is dependent on your choice in the Downtime Type column. This column is also Strict Validation and cannot have anything written in. Some Categories require a type, and some require you to write in your type or leave it blank. This column is left blank for Game.

Attribute - Have to select type, connected to grow and instruct
Ability - Have to select or write-in type, connected to grow and instruct
Background - Have to select or write-in type, connected to grow and instruct, and Maintain
Gentle - Leave type blank, connected to Feeding
Rough - Leave type blank, connected to Feeding
Animal - Leave type blank, connected to Feeding
Brutal - Leave type blank, connected to Feeding
Investigation - Connected to "Action", used to track down some one, or research information. This is your coverall "Find out more" action. Should be explained more to ST's in the Special Notes column!
RitualCreation - Have to write-in type, connected to "Action", used for creating new rituals; Special Notes should include your dice pools!
ComboCreation - Have to write-in type, Connected to "Action", used for creating new rituals; Special Notes should include your dice pools!
Craft - Have to write-in type, Connected to "Action", used for creating most mundane stuff. Special Notes should include your dice pools!

Type

This drop-down is self-explanatory. If ever there is not an option that matches what you are doing, leave this blank. If you leave this blank, you need to fill out 'Total Actions Needed, if non-standard'.

Define Type

Sometimes you will have to fill this out. If the thing you are doing is not listed in the "Type" drop-down menu, you must use this (Like secondaries or special skills, such as Art of Memory). If you are doing a Background, you will have to define it. A Library needs to be defined as "Occult", an Ally needs to be given a name. These have to be the same entry each time you are targeting. You cannot misspell your ally's name. You cannot call it Occult Lab and then Occult Library the next reference. Make sure you choose a term and stick to it. Don't call that ally "Kiyasid Child" and then later give him a name. GET THE NAME.

Current Level

This is the current level of the thing you are growing or maintaining; it means nothing in any other case. If you aren't growing or maintaining something, leave this space blank.

Downtimes Used

The amount of downtime actions used. This tallies how many downtimes are spent on an action and eventually calculates it as finished at the end. Make sure you only put numbers here. This should be left blank if your downtime type is Special or Game.

If Targeting Another

If you are maintaining another's holdings, helping another grow a background or research a combo discipline, etc., or instructing someone, their name goes here. Make sure you put their name as they would write their name. If they write "Eugene Pander" and you write "Eugene", it won't work, so be sure to ask.

Instruction

If you have the Instruction ability to the appropriate level AND A SPECIALTY THAT APPLIES, put "3". If you have the Instruction ability to the appropriate level and do not have a specialty, put "2". Leave blank if you do not have the Instruction ability to an appropriate level.

Blood Cost

Fill this out with cost of blood for actions; usually used in the Feeding, Game, and Special actions, but can also be used in the maintenance actions on retainers, and various others. If you are gaining blood, enter a negative number. If you are losing it, put in positives. A person with efficient digestion would enter -15 in this column if they fed brutally.

Special Notes

This is where you enter instructions about what you are doing in an investigation, or dice pools if you are researching something, or any other random things that are pertinent to the goal you are trying to achieve with the action you have described in the row you are filling out. It is a catch-all 'inform the STs' box, so use it.

Total Actions Needed, if Non-Standard

Any system that calculates its downtime actions by anything less than a perfectly standard formula will need this column to be filled out. The most prominent example of this is Combo Disciplines, which require 5x in-clan + 7x out-of-clan actions, and are different from each package. Backgrounds for Neonates would fall under this category, as well, as they take half time.

Emerald Coven Chronicles uses a system to track the amount of blood spent by each character.

First you must choose your feeding severity. Gently means taking no more than a single point from each victim (this is extremely uncommon in the Sabbat and may lead to loss of Sabbat Status if discovered as it is seen as a weakness). Roughly means taking enough that they will live but will probably require medical attention (even in the Sabbat this is the most common feeding severity on the justification of not shitting where you eat). Brutally means killing people and draining them dry. Feeding Brutally gives the character a body card for each feeding action that they must dispose of in some way.

Here is where our feeding system differs from the Camarilla Sphere. Emerald Coven Chronicles assumes that however you choose to feed, you are a vampire and know how to do so effectively. The only variable is the amount of time each week you wish to spend feeding. Each character chooses and assigns a regular number of downtime actions each week that they wish to spend on feeding. For each downtime action spent feeding, a static amount of blood is gained depending on the character’s feeding severity.

Animals only = 1 blood per feeding action
Gently = 2 blood per feeding action
Roughly = 5 blood per feeding action
Brutally = 10 blood per feeding action

Any blood gained in excess of generational maximum may be taken as an item card and stored either medically or mystically preserved for later use.

Each character’s blood debt is tracked weekly. Each character’s blood debt starts at 7 and is increased for any regular uses of blood during the week such as feeding a ghoul (blood debt increased one week each month during the maintenance action for the background), using disciplines such as Earth Meld regularly, or any healing that may be needed. A character’s weekly blood debt directly subtracts from any blood left in the character’s system after game each week, potentially taking the character to negative numbers. The character must spend downtime actions feeding to overcome this blood debt and begins play each week with an amount of blood equal to the difference.

For example, Greg the Gangrel feeds roughly. He does not keep any ghouls but does haven by use of Earth Meld each day. This means his weekly blood debt is 14. The first week he spends some blood at game and ends the game session with 7 blood left in his system. Over the week, he loses his blood debt of 14 from his pool leaving him at -7 blood. Greg must spend a minimum of 2 downtime actions feeding to have any blood in his system at the next game. Now he wants to have more than 2 blood so he decides to take 4 downtime actions to feed this week. This gives him 20 blood which overcomes his total of -7 and leaves him with 13 blood to start the next game with.

Now let’s say the next week, Greg goes and fights some Anarchs. He spends 5 blood over the course of the fight and leaves the fight having taken 3 levels of Aggravated Damage. That means that this week, his blood debt greatly increases in order to heal that damage. Each level of Aggravated damage requires 5 blood to heal, adding 15 to his usual blood debt of 14 for a total of 29. He had 8 blood left in his system at the end of the night leaving him with a weekly total of -21. In order to start with a decent amount of blood at next game, this week Greg decides to spend 6 downtime actions feeding, gaining a total of 30 blood, leaving him with 9 blood to start the next game with.

The Herd background greatly increases one’s efficiency and ability to feed. Herd allows the vampire to feed a number of times per week equal to his Herd rating without taking a downtime action to do so. However, Herd can only be used so often before it is damaged. Herd may be safely tapped a number of times per month equal to the character’s Medicine Knowledge x their Herd rating. Each time it is tapped beyond that number requires that an additional action be spent and a successful Intelligence + Medicine roll at difficulty 8, requiring a number of successes equal to the times this Herd has been tapped in excess of the safe number to prevent some of your Herd from dying and reducing the Background a level.

The Fame background grants bonus blood for each feeding action as people flock around the character. For each feeding action taken by the vampire, he gains an additional amount of blood equal to his Fame background. So a vampire with Fame 3 feeding roughly would gain 8 blood for each feeding action. Fame does not benefit a vampire feeding Brutally, nor does it benefit feeding actions from the vampire’s Herd.

Similar to the idea of Learning Times, increasing one’s traits takes time and effort represented by the expenditure of downtime actions. These actions are spent learning and practicing the new trait until it is fully understood. With the exception of out of clan disciplines and some Specialties, no trait requires a teacher, though having a teacher makes the process faster.

Here is the basic system. Raising a trait will take a certain number of downtime actions based on the type of trait and the level it is being increased to. If you have a teacher, their level of mastery in the trait being taught determines the amount of time taken off of the learning process.

In order to teach, the teacher must have a rating of at least 3 in the relevant trait. As part of your learning process, each action that the teacher spends instructing reduces the required learning time for the student by an amount equal to their rating in the relevant trait -2. Therefore if a character is learning Firearms from a master with Firearms 5, each downtime action spent by the teacher during the process reduces the number of required downtime actions for the student by 3.

In addition to this, a new appropriate Specialty of Instruction may be taken in any Attribute or Ability. This treats the teacher’s rating in that Ability as one higher for the purposes of teaching. So if that same Firearms master had the Specialty of Instruction in Firearms, each action he spent teaching would reduce the required number of actions by 4.

The learning requirements for each type of trait are presented below:

Disciplines 

Blood Magic

Combination Disciplines 

Merits

Willpower 

Virtues 

Specialties 

Backgrounds do not cost experience points to acquire or increase after character creation. Instead, they take time and actions to acquire and maintain. Each background has set conditions and usually a number of actions required to acquire or raise its rating.

In addition, each Background must be maintained to prevent it from deteriorating. A contact will lose interest if the character falls of the face of the earth and ceases communication, Herd will disperse if not kept organized, and Resources will lose money if not regularly monitored. The actions to maintain a background do not necessarily need to be taken by the character themselves. Many kindred leave such menial tasks to their ghouls. However the one maintaining the background must make all necessary rolls.

The specific requirements for each background are spelled out in the General Backgrounds section and Proprietary Backgrounds section.

In order to teach, the teacher must have a rating of at least 3 in the relevant trait. As part of your learning process, each action that the teacher spends instructing reduces the required learning time for the student by an amount equal to their rating in the relevant trait -2. Therefore if a character is learning Firearms from a master with Firearms 5, each downtime action spent by the teacher during the process reduces the number of required downtime actions for the student by 3.

In addition to this, a new appropriate Specialty or Ability of Instruction may be taken. This ability is described here

Combo Disciplines and Rituals are taught using the Occult Skill

Performing rituals as a pack is an important part of life in the Sabbat. Whether it be a regular Vaulderie, Games of Instinct to build unity, or a Fire Dance to build enthusiasm, any time a pack wishes to perform a Ritus during downtime, all participants must spend a downtime action to do so. Ritae performed during game sessions do not take up actions.


For every Ritus, you must spend 3 downtime actions and have a teacher to learn it. It costs no experience, but you do have to send it in as a "spend". Everything that is a change to your sheet must be sent in.


Almost every pack has individual Ritae that the pack priest has created to bolster his pack. Ritae like this come in two types: Mechanical and non-mechanical. If the Ritae gives a mechanical benefit, it must be researched as a Blood Magic Ritual, level determined by the ST that okays the mechanical benefit. The 13 Auctoritas Ritae would be considered level 10 rituals. Powerful Ritae like these are rare and hard to make, and will require a "masterpiece" quest. Ritae considered level 6 or above should require a rare or difficult component piece. A level 5 Ritus may be a Ritus that conveys the abilities of a 1 pt merit while in the scene that the ritae is performed. Yes. These are not very powerful. Ritae rarely are, and if they are, they are difficult. Most individually made Ritae are level 5 and below.

This is a sort of catch-all category for other actions a character wishes to take during the week. If a character wanted to investigate a crime scene for instance, that would take an action. If he then wanted to make use of his findings and go pay a visit to a suspect, that would take an action as well. Actions required for midweek scenes are at Storyteller discretion, though an action is usually about 3-4 hours. The Storyteller will inform the player of how many actions he is using by continuing with midweek tasks.

A major advantage of blood magic has always been the ability to scribe the knowledge into written works and thus pass on instruction without ever needing to spend additional time or effort teaching. However, scribing a text does take time, and the more complicated the effect, the longer and more detailed the instructions must be.

Scribing instructions for a Blood Magic Path requires 7 downtime actions for the first level, and then 4x the current rating for each subsequent level.

Scribing a Blood Magic Ritual requires 5x the ritual level in downtime actions.

Note that these are the requirements to painstakingly write out these effects by hand. If copying from an already written source, and able to use modern technology such as a scanner or photocopier, the time required is reduced to a single action to copy any book.

The ritual The Scribe assists with this process, halving the required time to scribe a Path or Ritual into written form.

Researching new Rituals and Combination Disciplines is a staple of power for many Cainites, particularly older neonates and younger ancilla. Having a power that you know is possessed only by yourself gives wonderful leverage as well as bargaining position. However, like anything else, research is very time intensive.

To research a new Ritual requires, first, a component to focus the new ritual. These are usually difficult to get--it's why most people learn their rituals instead of researching themselves. A suitable example would be something a Toreador has fallen in love with for Denial of Aphrodite's gift [medium], while a more potent combo discipline, like Approximation of Loyalty Absolut, might require a Ventrue who would be missed by at least 20 kindred [very hard]. Then, following having the component, an extended Intelligence + Occult roll at a difficulty of 5 + the Ritual’s level, with rolls made periodically depending on the number of actions spent. A total number of successes are required equal to 15x the Ritual’s level. One research roll may be spent per 7 Downtime actions spent on the research process. This can be split among multiple weeks (so if a character wishes to spend 4 actions toward research this week and 13 the next week, then he will be allowed to make 2 rolls in the second week as he has accumulated 14 actions by that point). If a roll fails, no progress is made for that set of actions. In addition, all future rolls in the process are made at +1 difficulty as the researcher must overcome his own mistakes. The researcher may at any time scrap the project and begin again, eliminating the increased difficulty for failure. If a roll botches, the entire process is ruined and must be started fresh. In addition a botch on a ritual research roll is considered a Thaumaturgy botch and usually causes some catastrophic result.

Researching new Combination Disciplines functions in much the same manner. The roll is made at a difficulty of 5 + the highest level prerequisite discipline involved and the required successes are equal to 5x the total number of prerequisite dots that are in clan for the researcher + 7x the total number of dots that are out of clan for the researcher. All prerequisites for the Combination Discipline must be met before any research may begin.

When researching, only the primary researcher may contribute actions to the process, though he may make use of Leadership to assist him on the rolls.

Once successfully researched, the new Ritual or Combination Discipline does not need to be separately learned by the researcher. Once complete, the researcher simply spends the experience points to purchase the new power and from then on it is treated as any other ritual or combination discipline for the purpose of its use and teaching to others.

All homebrewed effects are at Storyteller discretion and must be approved before entering play. Research may be begun as soon as the idea is submitted, but the power may not be purchased or used until it has met final approval from the Storytellers.

This system may also be used to research existing Rituals or Combination Disciplines without the need to go through a teacher.

Successfully completing research of a Ritual also automatically gives the researcher, should he wish, a copy of that ritual in written form without the need to go through the usual Scribing process.

The standard system from V20 (1 point merit per language) will continue to determine the number of languages that a character enters play with. Gaining more languages in game does not require additional xp to be spent. Instead, learning a new language is an extended Intelligence + Academics (with an applicable Specialty of Linguistics) roll based on the number of downtime actions spent. Making a roll requires a minimum of 2 downtime actions to be spent, with each additional action spent in the same week granting an additional die to the roll.

The source of the language being learned and other related languages set the difficulty of this roll. Languages can be learned from either a teacher who already speaks the language in question or from an impersonal source such as books or computer programs. If learning from a teacher, the base difficulty of the roll is 6. If learning from books or other impersonal sources the base difficulty is 8. If learning a language from another PC, any week that the character makes a roll towards the process of learning the language requires that the teacher also spend a minimum of one downtime action in active instruction.

If the language is related to the character's native language, there is no increase in difficulty. If the character knows another language that is not his native language, the roll is at +1 difficulty. If the character knows no languages related to the language being learned, the roll is at +3 difficulty. Language relations are always at the discretion of the ST.

The checks for this roll are made weekly, in any week that the character has spent a minimum of 2 downtime actions actively studying, accumulating successes until the necessary 20 are acquired. A failure on any of these rolls means that the character has made a misstep in the learning process, learning some bad habits that must be unlearned, increasing the difficulty of all future rolls by 1. A botch on any of these rolls means that the character has learned something completely wrong, raising the difficulty by 2 on all subsequent rolls unless the character chooses to abandon the effort and start again from scratch.

“Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.”
-Tom Stoppard



To craft an item, the player first declares the item they wish to attempt to craft and the quality they wish to craft it at. The qualities are Basic, Uncommon, Rare, Ultra-Rare, or Masterpiece. The player then spends a variable number of Downtime Actions based on the quality of the item. Once all of the actions have been completed, the player makes an Attribute + Crafts roll. If physically crafting an item, the roll will either be Dexterity + Crafts or Strength + Crafts depending on the item. Items created using a mechanical fabricator use Intelligence, regardless of the original Attribute. For Intelligence-based Crafts, the player adds one die per level of either their Computer or Science knowledge as appropriate to the item. The test is made at difficulty 6, modified appropriately for applicable merits.

In addition to the normal roll, Specialties affect crafting more than other systems. A master painter will likely know next to nothing about mechanical engineering. As such, unless the user has an applicable Crafts specialty to the type of item being crafted, all Crafts rolls are made at a penalty of between +1 and +3 difficulty depending on how related his nearest applicable specialty is (+1 if a closely related specialty such as Masonry applying to a sculpture project, +2 if within a general type of craft such as Blacksmithing applying to Carpentry, and +3 if no even tangentially related specialty exists such as Painting applying to Mechanical Engineering).

The different qualities of items are defined below:

Basic: The average item of its kind. Can be purchased in most stores without difficulty.

Uncommon: High quality item. Can only be purchased from specialist dealers and usually extremely expensive.

Rare: Peak of normal human capability. Always custom made to order from a master craftsman. Not available in any store.

Ultra-Rare: Beyond normal human capability without the aid of advanced technology. Human craftsmen have only achieved this level of mastery on a fluke or in truly legendary cases. Not available for purchase anywhere.

Masterpiece: This transcends mundane craftsmanship, creating something so legendary it takes on mystical qualities. This is the Wayland blade, Excalibur’s sheath, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or the Walls of Troy.

*Rare and Ultra-Rare crafts have an additional requirement of investiture in the item. When crafting something of such high quality, the craftsman is putting a piece of themselves in the work. For each action spent on crafting, the craftsman must spend a Willpower point that does not grant an automatic success. Assuming the Craftsman spends one action per day crafting, this comes out as a net even balance as he regains one Willpower point per day automatically. Any more than that and he will start to suffer Willpower loss.

**Masterpieces have their own unique system and requirements which is detailed below in its own section.


The crafter may work on as many projects at once as he desires, however as a static number of Downtime Actions must be spent, this is simply dividing his time between his projects, and each will still take the full amount of time required for the item in question.

As crafting takes place over an extended period of time, no blood expenditures will be permitted. The roll at the end of the process represents weeks of work, not simply a single action. By the same principle Willpower may not be spent to gain an automatic success. Attribute bonuses that last for extended periods of time such as those gained from certain transformations may be allowed at ST discretion, but only if they would not hinder the ability to craft (a Gangrel in Cheetah form may have +3 Dexterity, but a cheetah is not going to be a very efficient craftsman).

A crafted item’s Appearance rating is equal to one half of the successes scored to create it (rounding up). Any item with an Appearance of 4 or higher is considered Entrancing as per the Toreador flaw.

When crafting an item, you must declare your intent to create a given level of quality before the process begins. If you fail to reach the required level of success, the item is a total failure. Likewise, if you overshoot and get far more successes than necessary, you do not gain additional Features that you would have gained for a more ambitious work, though the extra successes will still raise the item’s Appearance.

Leadership may be used on crafting rolls, representing the aid of assistants or apprentices on a larger project. However, the aid of apprentices does not affect the quality of the item and as such does not add dice to the roll as normal. Instead, for every success on an Intelligence + Leadership check to delegate minor tasks and organize assistants, the required number of actions is reduced by one. This check is made at the beginning of the Crafting process if so desired. As usual with Leadership, each assistant must have at least one dot in crafts to aid, and each assistant who attempts to aid must spend a single downtime action to grant this aid, regardless of whether their aid is actually incorporated based on the Leadership roll of the crafter. The crafter must be the one to make the Leadership roll in this case.

Some items such as expendable ammunition and chemical compounds may be made in larger batches. In such cases assume a standard of 10 items per craft check, though this may vary depending on the individual craft involved.