New Players Resource

Quick Start
1. Download Membership Handbook
2. Download Hanbook Addendum
3. Download Camarilla Constitution
3. Download Prestige Template
4. Renew your membership
5. Take your Ordeals

Welcome to the Camarilla! We are an international gaming organization dedicated to the enjoyment of White Wolf's World of Darkness. We support a global live-action roleplaying chronicle as well as social events, community service, and charity fundraising. We're glad to have you with us. This page is your quick guide to getting the most out of your membership.

Step One: Join Your Local Chapter

The Camarilla is a global club, but it lives and breathes on the local level. Your first step should be to contact the club chapter in your area. First and foremost, this allows you meet other members nearby and to hear about local club games and events. It also allows you to set up your character in the global chronicle with local roots, giving you contacts and an "in" to the ongoing stories.

To make contact with your chapter, just go to our list of US chapters and look up the one nearest to you. Then, just email the chapter coordinator and introduce yourself. He or she will provide you with all of the information you need. (If the search comes up with a "domain" instead of a "chapter," don't worry. Domains are just especially large chapters or groups of chapters; this just means there's already a large group in your area.)

Organization of the Camarilla
The Camarilla is a global organization that lives and breathes on the local level, so we’ll start locally. The key organization units are as follows:

•Chapter: The smallest group in the Camarilla, a chapter is a group of members who have gathered to play together in one or more venues. Independent chapters are for groups that form in an area without an established Camarilla domain and report directly to the regional coordinator or Storyteller. Other chapters are divisions of large domains. Each chapter elects a chapter coordinator and a venue Storyteller for each venue they want to participate in; these officers report to their domain coordinator and domain Storyteller.

• Domain: The next step up, domains are slightly larger in geographic area and membership numbers than chapters. Most domains regroup several chapters in the same geographic area, but some have no sub-divisions and are essentially especially large chapters. All Camarilla members who reside within the geographic boundaries of a domain (a city or other distinct region) are members of that domain. Each domain elects a domain coordinator and a domain Storyteller. These officers oversee the coordinators and venue Storytellers of any chapters in the domain, and report to the regional coordinator and Storyteller.

• Region: The United States is divided into eight geographic regions which regroup all the domains and independent chapters (and members) in these areas. The domain coordinators and Storytellers in a region elect a regional coordinator and regional Storyteller. Regional officers report to the national coordinator and Storyteller.

• Nation: The Camarilla is made up of a series of affiliate nations, each of which has a national coordinator and national Storyteller who oversee club activities in their country. National officers report to the global office. In the United States, the national coordinator and national Storyteller are elected by the regional officers.

• Global: Overall oversight of the Camarilla and its chronicles falls to the global officers, who are appointed in consultation with all affiliate nations. The Camarilla’s Club Director oversees all coordinator activities while the Master Storyteller does the same for the chronicles.

Step Two: Get Into the Game

Our global live-action chronicle extends throughout the world. Once you create a character, you can portray it at local games, online, at any appropriate game hosted in the United States, or in any city in the world that offers a sanctioned venue. Players and Storytellers from around the world weave a common story that links individual games together into a massively multiplayer game environment with thousands of players. The events at your local game can cause ripples across the nation and around the world. There's a world waiting for you, so just step in!
You can create a character for as many of the venues (a.k.a. game lines) supported in our chronicles as you like.

* Your First Character: The best way to make your first character is to work directly with the Storyteller at your chapter or domain. She'll be able to walk you through the process and help you refine your concept. She can help make sure your character fits into the chronicle's established history and introduce you to other players (and their characters) so you can forge some links before your first game. The Storyteller can also help you if your concept requires some special approvals - such as playing a vampire form a rare bloodline or who is especially old. It's usually best to start with a basic character that doesn't require any approvals.

That being said, there's no reason you can't get a head start. Characters in the Camarilla are designed using the Mind's Eye Theatre rulebook plus the appropriate supplements for each venue. Global chronicles require a little more paperwork than small local games, so there are a few more steps in making your character. The character database is where you can store your characters.

The various venue and chronicle pages(see the navigation column on the left) have some additional information and a variety of tools and aids to help you make the most out of your character.

* Your First Game: Your first Camarilla game could be a local game put on by your chapter or a huge national convention with hundreds of members in attendance. In either case, the key is to remember that roleplaying is a social activity. Make sure to introduce yourself to other members; they'll be happy to have you aboard. Especially in large live-action games (where hundreds of people are playing all at once), it's a good idea to get a sense of who's who in character before doing anything rash. There are years of play ahead of you in this chronicle-take the time to see the story in action before trying to upset the applecart.

Your local coordinator or Storyteller will let you know when the next local game is, but you can also consult the events calendar to find a game. Another great way to get playing is to join one of the many mailing lists and discussion forums. The out-of-character lists are great for meeting other members and looking for ways to connect your character to others. If you want to play a Blood Talon werewolf who spent time as a trucker in the Midwest, go on the lists and you're bound to find other Blood Talon players and players who have some connections to the intestates through the heartland. Could your characters be old friends? Or bitter rivals?

Your local venues Storyteller can also send you a copy of the venue style sheet. This document includes a quick rundown of the style and special rules that might apply in the game.

Step Three: Keep Playing

With a chapter to meet with and a character to portray, you're pretty much all set. But the whole point of the Camarilla isn't attending a single game, but to participate in a sprawling chronicle and develop your character over years of play. You can also get involved in the club's organization, its charity events and much more.

The Membership Handbook has many more details on the ins and outs of the Camarilla and the My Information page gives you a snapshot of all your characters and activities in the club. Here are few items that may come up, and how to get more information on them:

* Code of Conduct: The Camarilla is a fun and cooperative roleplaying group. For us all to have fun, a climate of respect and good nature needs to reign (although our characters may be backstabbing fiends, of course…). With that in mind, the Camarilla has a clear Code of Conduct that is always in force at official events. You should make sure you are familiar with it.

* Chronicle & Venues: Camarilla game play is in the live-action Global chronicle. A venue is the stories and characters within a chronicle that concern a particular character-type. The venues correspond to the core games that make up the World of Darkness: Vampire: The Requiem, Werewolf: The Forsaken, Mage: The Awakening, Changeling: The Lost and Geist: The Sin-Eaters.

* Venue Style Sheet: Each chapter has a venue style sheet for each venue that it plays. These sheets are a standard rundown of what special rules may apply to games in the chapter and venue, what key themes or game style (action, intrigue, etc.) are favored in the venue and so forth. When you attend a Camarilla event or visit another chapter, you can consult their venue style sheets to get an idea of what to expect in play. The officiating Storyteller can provide you with this information.

* Experience: Characters in our chronicles develop over time and earn experience points. You spend those on bettering your characters' traits, whether that means their Skills or their supernatural Disciplines. The basics of spending experience are the same as in the published game books, with a few tweaks as outlined in the venue and chronicle pages.

* Approvals: There are many things in the World of Darkness that are meant to be rare - obscure bloodlines of Kindred, secret lodges of Uratha, and so forth. To keep these things rare and special, the Camarilla uses a system of approvals. Whenever you want your character to gain (or start as) something rare, it requires a Storyteller to sign off on it. The rarer (or more disruptive) the item in question, the further up the Storyteller chain the request has to go. The five levels of approval are Low (your chapter Storyteller), Mid (the domain Storyteller), High (the regional Storyteller), Top (the National Storyteller) and Master (the Master Storyteller). There's nothing wrong about requesting an approval item - but you will need to justify having the item and show that you have thought about it and will be responsible in its use.

* Prestige and Member Class: The Camarilla thrives on the participation and efforts of its members, and to reward members who show up to every game, who serve as coordinators and Storytellers and do so much more, the Camarilla awards prestige. As you gain prestige, you will eventually rise in member class (everyone starts at member class 1). Higher member class gets more experience points for your primary characters. You can track your prestige and member class on the My Prestige page and learn more about all this in our Introduction to Prestige and Member Class.

* Organization: The Camarilla is divided into a variety of organizational units. Local groups are called chapters, which either groups together all the players in an area or groups together those with a particular interest. Slightly larger are domains, that cover major cities or other contiguous areas. Some domains include multiple chapters. The United States is further divided into eight regions which oversee the domains and chapters within them. Every country has its own national officers as well - managed directly by White Wolf in the United States and by affiliates in other countries. Finally, the club has a global office that oversees issues affecting the entire membership. Each of these levels has a coordinator (who manages out-of-character matters) and a Storyteller (who oversees the chronicle). Follow these links for more information on the club's structure and its various officers.

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