Anarch Rep

Anarchs pride themselves on being above the petty social games of the Camarilla or the savage infighting of the Sabbat, where wars spanning centuries have been waged about perceived slights against one’s good name and a single scandal or defeat can spell the end of a centuries-old Kindred.

However, this is not to say that Anarchs don’t play games of their own regarding standing within the Movement and the respect of their peers; they just go about it a bit differently than their fellow Kindred do.

Unlike the sects, an Anarch’s Reputation is not based on position, rites or generation - indeed, even a ghoul can have a Reputation among the Anarchs. Rather, revolutionaries gain or lose Reputation by their deeds alone, as judged by their comrades-in-arms.

In an abstract sense, this should mean that merit and personal achievement on the part of dedicated revolutionaries are rewarded without the vicious trappings of conventional status games.

In practice, however, it means that some Anarchs spend as much time building and defending their Reputations as many sect members spend pursuing Status in the eyes of their peers. They become like inner-city gang lords who mock the country clubs and society snobbery of the city’s elite, only to turn around and viciously destroy those who offer them even the slightest hint of disrespect.

Or as one Anarch sage wryly noted: “A lot of the neonates keep using a high school metaphor that depicts us as the rebels and outsiders pitted against the fashionable Camarilla in-crowd or the tough Sabbat jocks. They forget that even the outcasts still have a pecking order.”

Seeing only the possible gains that come from carving out their own niches, these Anarchs fail to realise that they are perpetuating the same power games they claim to despise, selling out their principles for the sake of a name that inspires respect.

Make no mistake, however - even Anarchs who pursue such good standing with their peers recognise that it is still fundamentally different from the more rigid and codified systems of the sects. When your approval rests in the hands of the mob, however sympathetic that mob may generally be, you’re standing on thin ice, and Anarchs concerned with their Reputations are well aware of it.

While an Anarch’s Reputation may carry throughout the Movement and inspire fear or respect in revolutionaries across the country, individuals still suffer no penalty whatsoever for ignoring it except whatever punishment the Anarch can bring down on the upstart. In other words, a Reputation is worth as much pull as the audience wants to give it, so canny Anarchs don’t try to ride Reputation alone, or they risk losing it quickly. It’s a simple truth: If you abuse your Reputation, you will lose it.