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

Lores are a difficult thing to tackle in the World of Darkness. Lores fall under two categories in Sabbat: Political and Occult. Political Lores are lores you would roll on your Politics check; Occult, those that you would roll on your occult. Fairly Straight-forward.

In general, a lore is rolled on an Intelligence + Occult/Politics Check, but the difficulty varies based on information.

Insider vs. Outsider Lores

These are Free Occult/Politics specialties you get at character creation and account for 3 items. These items are your clan, your sect, and your supernatural type. Everyone gets these at character creation unless they take the flaws that negate them (New Kid, for example, or Victim of the Masquerade). For a Sabbat Tzimisce Vampire, these three specialties are the standard: Sabbat (Politics), Cainite (Occult), and Tzimisce (Politics/Occult). For a BSD werewolf who has grown up in a cairn, it would be Shifters (Occult), Black Spiral Dancers (Occult/Politics), and Spirits (Occult)

An Outsider Lore would be anything that you don't have contact with regularly or have little knowledge about without taking time to learn.. Things like Demon Lore, Spirit Lore, etc. These lores you are not allowed to roll without a specialty, except to get information on the level 1 tier, which you may get if you score a success on a dif 10 check on any of them.

Insider lores are always determined by the STs, and can change for different concepts, but in general, you should be familiar with the above.

Specialties in Lore

Any Lore you have a specialty or secondary in conveys a benefit to you in a descending difficulty. The difficulty to roll for information on the Lore chart is 4+the level of the lore you are looking for. So, at level 5, it would be a difficulty 9 check.

3 successes is considered a total success, but 1 and 2 successes convey parts of the information you seek. If you seek very small bits of information, the STs may decide to convey all of it at lower successes.

All characters at Emerald Coven Chronicles will receive the Occult Specialties of their Nature (usually Cainite) and their clan for free, as well as the Politics specialty of their sect (usually Sabbat). A character must have at least one dot of Occult and/or Politics at creation to gain these free specialties.


The Lore Chart

For the most part, we would use the chart from Camarilla, located here.

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.