Haven (VTM)

A haven is the residence and intimate domain of a vampire, where he or she slumbers during the day and may labor during the waking night. By necessity, such havens must be secret locations, highly secure, or (ideally) both, or else the vampire runs the risk of destruction at the hands of witch-hunters and rivals &mdash; or, worse still, the resident might become the victim of diablerie. Many vampires keep their ghouls or other retainers on hand to watch over their havens, especially if other Kindred know the site to be a vampire's haven.

In game mechanics, the haven is represented by a traditional one-to-five-dot Background, although it can be altered by certain Merits.

Notable variations on the haven include:


 * Chantries: The strongholds, libraries, and occult workshops of the Tremere. Not all chantries serve as regular havens for the Warlocks who are headqurtered there; some will instead spend their days in personal havens nearby. The notable exception is the chantry's Regent, who will almost always dwell in the most secure portion of the chantry's heart; the same holds true for any higher-ranking members of the clan's Pyramid. Likewise, those Gargoyles who still serve the Tremere will rarely make their havens beyond the chantry's walls unless specifically stationed elsewhere.
 * Communal havens: A haven shared collectively by a pack of Sabbat Cainites. Some larger cities, such as Montreal, hold communal havens expansive and secure enough to simultaneously shelter multiple packs &mdash; or even all of the city's Cainites.
 * Labyrinths: Sprawling underground havens, named for the Labyrinth at Knossos that was built by King Minos (who may himself have been a Toreador). Such labyrinths have become increasingly less common since the Dark Ages, as the modern world has less free space underground to built such elaborate personal havens, thanks both to the increasing Kindred population and to the expansion of underground train and sewage systems. Thus, in modern nights, the labyrinth has been largely supplanted by the proliferation of warrens (see below).
 * Temples: Group havens of religious sects of vampires, such as the Followers of Set, the recently-vanished Children of Osiris, vampire faiths like the Cainite Heresy or the Bahari, or other, more obscure blood cults. As with chantries, those who worship here will often have primary residences elsewhere, though this was rarely the case with the obscure Children of Osiris.
 * Warrens: The havens and domain of a city's Nosferatu, which are often linked to one another via tunnels and catacombs known only to the Sewer Rats themselves. Warrens are often home to spawning pools, where vitae is pooled and Animalism utilized to create grotesqutely overgrown, fiercely loyal ghouled animal guardians. A city's warrens will sometimes be referred to collectively as the "Nosferatu Kingdom".