Supernatural Powers & Splat Modules

Every character in the World of Darkness — mortal or monster — is built from the same bones: Attributes, Skills, Specialties, Willpower, and the seven points of Advantages that make you who you are. What separates a vampire from the woman she hunts is not a longer list of traits. It is a splat module bolted onto those bones.

What a Splat Is

A splat is the module that makes a character type itself. Vampire, werewolf, mage, demon, mummy, homebrew — each is a set of rules that attaches to an ordinary character and answers one question: what can you do that mortals cannot, and what does it cost you?

The core rules in this book are universal. The splat files are the exceptions. Nothing in the core framework is sacred to a splat: a werewolf's file can rewrite how Health works, a mage's can rewrite what a failed roll means, a vampire's can rewrite what it costs to act on your Convictions. When a splat file and the core rules disagree, the splat file wins. That sentence is the most important rule in this chapter.

What Every Splat Defines

Every splat module names the same seven pieces, whatever its flavor:

• Power meter. A tracked pool with a name (Hunger, Rage, Mana, Faith) and rules for how it rises and how it falls — tracked on your sheet's meter field, with the meter's name and current value. The meter is both your fuel and your leash: you spend from it to work powers, and its rise is the price you pay for being what you are.
• Power families. Groups of related powers built on the same idea — Auspex for the vampire's senses, for example. Each family contains powers ranked at levels 1 through 5. Level 1 is small, instinctive, cheap; level 5 is the apex of that family, something that bends the scene around you.
• Activation roll and cost. Using a power usually means rolling the power's rating plus a fitting Attribute or Skill, and paying a cost from your meter. The Power file says exactly what you roll and what it costs.
• A failure rule. When a power roll fails and shows 1s, the failure escalates into the splat's signature consequence. For vampires and werewolves that can mean frenzy — the Beast or the rage taking the wheel. For mages it is paradox, reality pushing back on the one who twisted it. You will learn your splat's failure rule by heart, because you will meet it eventually.
• A bane. The shared weakness every member carries. A vampire's file lists fire and sunlight as aggravated sources; each splat has its equivalent, and its file says exactly what it is.
• A humanity-like scale, often. A ladder from human to monster, tracked 10 down to 0 on your sheet's morality field. Vampires call theirs Humanity. Whatever it is called, it measures how much of yourself survives what you do to keep existing — and it can be lost faster than it is earned.

How the Meters Differ

The meter is the personality of a splat. Four of the classic ones, briefly:

These are sketches. Your splat file is the law: it says exactly what raises the meter, what lowers it, and what happens at the top.

Activation at the Table

Here is what activation looks like in play. You are a vampire with Auspex 1. Something moves in the dark across the street, and you want to see it clearly. The Power file says: cost one Rouse check; no roll — the power simply takes hold.

The Rouse check is a single d10: it comes up a 7, so nothing happens — the power takes hold, and the dark stops hiding anything from you. Your Auspex runs for the scene.

Now take the other night: you are at Hunger 5, desperate and sloppy, and a power roll comes up 2, 1, 1, 5. No successes — and it has two 1s. Your splat's failure rule fires: the Auspex flickers and the Beast's vision floods in, and because you are Hungry, that is not a plain failure — it is a Bestial Failure. For a heartbeat you are not in control of what you do with what you see. That is the splat's escalation, and it is why every vampire learns to fear their own roll.

You can always spend a Willpower point to add three dice to a power roll, exactly as you would to any other pool. Willpower is the one resource no splat can take from you.

Mortals — A Splat With Nothing

The mortal splat is the empty module. No meter, no power families, no bane, no failure rule — no meter or morality values on the sheet at all. The example character Sarah Chen, built elsewhere in this book, is a complete mortal: her sheet is the core rules and nothing layered on top.

That is not a punishment. No splat means no leash — no Beast in your ear, no rage waiting on a trigger, no paradox at the end of your mistakes. A mortal spends Willpower as freely as anyone, keeps the full seven points of Advantages, and lives in a world that has not yet put a meter on their soul. If you play a mortal, play it as the character who looks at the things that go bump in the night and keeps their hands steady anyway.

Creating a Supernatural Character

Character creation runs in the same order as always: concept, Attributes, Skills, Specialties, Ambition and Desire, Convictions, then Advantages. Only after Health and Willpower are computed do you apply the splat module. The splat grants its meter (starting where its file says — write it into meter, with the scale's name and value into morality), its starting powers, and its bane — and from the moment it is applied, its rules layer over the core rules wherever they differ.

This is also how you should read the rules when a question comes up at the table. If the splat file says something specific about a situation, the splat wins. If the splat is silent, the core rules apply. Conflicts between the two are resolved in the splat's favor before the dice ever hit the table.

Powers and Experience at the Table

Powers are stored as their own files, one per power. Each names its splat, its family, its level (1–5), its cost, its roll, its duration, and its effect. Your character sheet references the powers you know through its powers field — and the sheet only offers powers whose splat matches yours, so a vampire can never buy a mage's arts by accident.

You learn powers and grow your character with experience points. Sessions award about 10 XP each. The framework's costs:

So that first Auspex power costs 5 XP — roughly half a session. Its level 3 sibling costs 15 XP, about a session and a half of play, and that is exactly how it should feel: the deeper you reach into a family, the more of your life it takes to own. Splat modules may override these costs where they differ — a splat that treats one family as its birthright often makes those powers cheaper, or outright free at character creation.

Powers make you more than you were. The meter is the price, and the failure rule is the interest. That tension — power and price — is the whole game, and every splat in the World of Darkness is a different answer to it.