Clout [ Tribebook: Shadow Lords — Page 62 ]
Prerequisites: Shadow Lord
You have influence within the tribe, and you can use this influence to occasionally gain favors or rally allies when making a push to accomplish a goal of value to the tribe. This Background both represents your ability to influence events within the tribe and your ability to sway others to your way of thinking, counting on their talents to bolster your own when staging a coup or trying to win support for your ideas at a moot. While the Background can be used to gain allies, the people gathered do not remains so for long and have no special affection for you. Rather, it happens that your goals and their s coincide for the moment, and so they will support you while they find it convenient to do so.
For each level of Clout you possess, you may exert your influence one time per story. This may net you a nugget of information, or it may gain you an ally for one endeavor. The Storyteller determines how likely it is for any particular request to be granted; you can propose that you can wrangle a boon out of an elder, but the Storyteller may well decide it's more likely that you can draw on someone of your own Rank. You may use Clout to win favors from non-Shadow Lords as well, but the likelihood of doing so successfully (Storyteller's discretion) is further reduced. However, the downside to this is that Clout carries with it a cost: As you draw upon others for aid during the course of a story, they will also call upon you for aid in equal measure. Accordingly, each dot of Clout you possess leaves you open to a request for favors from others over the course of the story; you won't automatically receive as many requests as you have dots in the Background, but the possibility is there. Note that refusing to give a favor may damage your Clout, especially if the request is not entirely unreasonable.
1 One favor/ally per story.
2 Two favors/allies per story.
3 Three favors/allies per story.
4 Four favors/allies per story.
5 Five favors/allies per story.