Camarilla Club Info Section

Information Section

What is this club?	Who can join?	Whom should I contact?
Club Charter	Constitution	Membership Handbook
13 Questions	Chapter History	Character Sheets
The Cam Structure	Prestige and Membership Class	Online Forums
Ordeals

What is this club?

The Camarilla Club at Carnegie Mellon is a chapter of White Wolf's national fan club, the Camarilla. Our chapter's name is House of the Unknown (HotU). Our focus is on running live action roleplaying (LARP) games every weekend and participating in other gaming activities, including table top games, collectible card games, and miniatures games. Though our club offers a variety of roleplaying opportunities, as well as other kinds of gaming events, we also support non-gaming activities, such as our spring and summer soccer league, cosmic bowling, barbeques, parties, and whatever else the members decide they want to do that week. We also support several charities and participate in community service.

Who can join?

Membership in our chapter of the Camarilla is open to college students and CMU affiliates. Anyone can join the National Camarilla; all you have to do is contact the Domain Coordinator of the domain in your area. Pittsburgh is in the Domain of Steel Shadows. See the constitution for more information.

Whom should I contact?

You can contact any of the officers for more information. Alternatively, you could show up to a game or other event and talk to members there.

Club Charter

House of the Unknown Charter

Preamble

The purpose of the House of the Unknown (HotU) is to promote Live Action Role-playing of White Wolf's Minds Eye Theater games, within the National Camarilla Fan Club, for members of the Carnegie Mellon community. Furthermore, the HotU seeks to encourage social interactions between members through other mutually enjoyable events and to provide a means by which those members who are interested may participate in community service.

Membership Standards

In keeping with this purpose, HotU holds to the following membership standard. No member of the National Camarilla Fan Club may join HotU as a member unless they are also a member of Carnegie Mellon's Camarilla Club. Also, in keeping with the purpose of HotU, the CC of HotU is selected as whomever is elected to the position of President of the Carnegie Mellon Camarilla Club, unless that person is ineligible to be CC. As well, the CST of HotU is selected as whomever is elected to the position of Vice-President of the Carnegie Mellon Camrilla Club, unless that person is ineligible to be CST. Should either officer be removed from office in either organization, that officer agrees to resign from office in the other. If the President or Vice-President of the Carnegie Mellon Camarilla Club is ineligible to be an officer in HotU, the officers will be chosen by the general membership in accordance with the Tome of the Camarilla.

Written by Michael D. Strauss

US2002023736

Ratified by HotU 12/3/02

Constitution

The constitution relates the fundamental structure and guidelines on which we base our club operations.

The Camarilla Membership Handbook

The Camarilla Membership Handbook describes what it means to be a member in the national fan club.

Here is the most up-to-date version:
PDF - December 2003
HTML - December 2003

Thirteen Questions

--Item & justification for item
--Terse, complete character history
--Character sheet fairly complete.
--The following questions answered...
1. What does your character hope to accomplish in the near future; why these particular goals?
2. What are your characters long-term goals?
3. What is the real reason the character is in his/her current domain?
4. What gives your character reason to continue existing?
5. What are his/her greatest joys and fears?
6. Which emotions are the primary drives for your character?
7. How does your character view the mortal world and its events?
8. What major events shaped your character's past; what were the pivotal moments?
9. What are your character's relations with his/her clan/tribe?
10. How will this character make the game more enjoyable for others?
11. What will this character add to Sanctioned play?
12. Why do you want to play this concept in particular?
13. How will you be like a storyteller in the play of your character?

--The agreement to the following statements.

"I agree that the ability to play this character concept is a privilege and not a right. I understand that a storyteller may revoke the ability to play this character if I as a player abuse this privilege. I also understand that I may be denied the ability to play this concept merely because of game balance/overabundance/conformity with the campaign. I have the right to ask and receive the reasons for denial of character concept or revoking of character."

--Contact information to DC or CC that has your prestige records to confirm MC level.

Chapter History

House of the Unknown was founded in 1996 by CMU undergraduates Michael Krotscheck (CC), Adam Phelps, Mike Strauss (CST), Jared Moxowitz, Evan Benoit, Tom Lotze, Gwen Schmidt, and Chris Carter. In the beginning, there was only one venue: Garou and Cam/Anarch was considered a hybrid game. These were dark times, and we do not speak of when we had a Garou sheriff. Mage, Changeling, Wraith, and all the other venues had not been heard of yet. Then a mighty finger descended from the clouds and pushed the reset button.

In any case, parties were had, XP accumulated, in-jokes circulated, and rules-sets marked the passage of time. Some officers got bitter and members moved away, but still, new people joined and the membership grew. Around 1999, House of the Unknown had the largest membership out of any chapter in the United States. At this point, the overworked officers finally gave in to reality and promptly exploded. Pittsburgh became the home of two new chapters: Circus Silenti and House of the Wicked, who started the Changeling and Sabbat venues, respectively. House of the Wicked later ceased to exist. The two remaining sister chapters are now ruled under the auspices of the Steel Shadows Domain, and everyone lived happily ever after.

Many a year later, a new generation of players joined, with more spirit and energy than even the fabled DPB. The game went on.

Character Sheets

Here are the character sheets we have for making new characters in LARP venues:

Vampire: the Requiem
Werewolf: the Apocalypse (Garou)
Werewolf: the Forsaken
Mage: the Ascension
Changeling: the Dreaming
Wraith: the Oblivion
New World of Darkness

The Camarilla Fan Club Structure

Groupings

Since the Camarilla is a global organization, they have created a system to manage all the games and members around the world. This system starts with one person, a member. A member is part of a domain. A domain is a group of members that generally live in close proximity and usually hosts multiple venues. For example, our domain is called the Domain of Steel Shadows. It has a Vampire: the Requiem venue, as well as Werewolf: the Apocalypse (until the beginning of Werewolf: the Forsaken), Mage: the Ascension, and Changeling: the Dreaming venues. The members of the Domain of Steel Shadows live in and around Pittsburgh. A group of domains is called a region. Steel Shadows is part of the East Central Region, which contains all the domains in Deleware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C. The United States is divided into regions, and the Camarilla is divided by nation. So if you are a member of the Camarilla Club at Carnegie Mellon University, the train of thought is as follows: you are a player in a venue under Steel Shadows, a domain in the East Central Region of the United States, a nation within the Camarilla.

Leadership

The leadership within the structure above is as follows: for each level there is a coordinator and a storyteller. So, an ambitious young lady could start out as a venue storyteller, then could become the domain storyteller, then could become the regional storyteller, then could become the national storyteller, then could become the master storyteller, putting her in control of the story for the entire world. Alternatively, she could become a domain coordinator, and work her way up to national coordinator. Each position can have assistants, so she could have her boyfriend Donald be the Assistant National Storyteller -- Malkavians (ANST - Malkavians), and she could have her other boyfriend Dale be the Assistant Assistant National Storyteller -- Malkavian Bloodlines (AANST - Malkavian Bloodlines).

Prestige and Membership Class

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First of all, everything is here: USANC Prestige Website.
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Prestige is a way for the Camarilla to measure how much work you have done for the organization. Membership Class (MC) is their way of rewarding you. The more prestige you get, the higher your MC. For example, if you were to donate blood to a local blood drive and help clean up after a game, you would get 25 prestige. Once you got enough prestige, you would go up one MC. When you join, you start at MC 1, and eventually you can work your way up to MC 15. The reason MC is a reward is because it allows you a broader range of character options within the sanctioned games run by the Camarilla. For example, in the vampire venue, at MC 1 you have 50 experience points for character creation, but at MC 9, you would have 230 experience points. Other venues work in a similar fashion. In this way, the Camarilla motivates members to give back to their community by offering in-game rewards.

A sample prestige log can be found here.

For our chapter, every month you send an email to the Assistant Chapter Coordinator for Prestige listing every prestige-worthy thing you have done, with a date. For example:

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Subject: Prestige Report June 2003

Hey Anthony,

6/13/2003 - Brought food to Garou
6/18/2003 - Donated Blood at CMU Blood Drive
6/20/2003 - Played an NPC at Mage
6/21/2003 - Helped Clean up after Cam/Anarch
6/22/2003 - Brought food to the Cam Potluck Dinner

Thanks,

Susan
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Prestige and MC are equated like this:

Membership Class	Minimum Cumulative	Minimum Regional or National	Minimum National	Level of coordinator approval required
1 Associate	0	0	0	None (membership card)
2 Journeyman	100	0	0	Chapter Coordinator
3 Artisan	300	0	0	Chapter Coordinator
4 Contributor	600	0	0	Chapter Coordinator
5 Sponsor	1,000	0	0	Chapter Coordinator
6 Steward	1,500	0	0	Domain Coordinator
7 Benefactor	2,100	0	0	Domain Coordinator
8 Advocate	2,700	0	0	Domain Coordinator
9 Advisor	3,400	100	0	Regional Coordinator
10 Patron	4,100	300	0	Regional Coordinator
11 Mentor	4,800	600	0	Regional Coordinator
12 Luminary	5,400	900	100	National Coordinator
13 Executive	6,100	1,200	300	National Coordinator
14 Fellow	6,900	1,500	800	National Coordinator
15 Trustee	-	-	-	Board of Directors

Online Forums

We use yahoogroups for most of our communication. Here are names and links to the ones related to the Camarilla Club:

d-pittsburgh -- for members of House of the Unknown
steelshadows -- for members of the Domain of Steel Shadows

There is an in-character list for the Vampire: the Requiem game at d-pittsburgh-requiem

Ordeals

Official Ordeals Website

The Ordeals are tests that gauge how aware you are of various aspects of the club, including membership rules, roleplaying, storytelling, and more. Completing an ordeal will grant you more prestige in the club and allow you to hold office.