Prestation

Prestation is the vampiric system of keeping track of trading favors for favors, thus creating a web of obligation that helps keep them from constantly being at one anothers' throats. Since being owed a favor causes a vampire to become invested in one of their fellows, prestation creates a way to allow the territorial and fractious vampires to care about one anothers' well-being and the general functioning of society. It is considered sacrosanct in most sects, and carries heavy penalties, both social and otherwise, if reneged upon.

Boons

When a vampire does a favor for another vampire, the one who performed the favor is owed repayment, which is referred to as a boon. Vampires may owe boons to any other vampire for any reason as long as the two agree upon the fact and report it as such. There is no limit to the number of boons a vampire can owe or be owed; elders who have had centuries to build their webs of influence may have extensive networks of favors they can call in at a moment's notice, while younger vampires may discover that they are on the opposite end of the spectrum, endlessly running errors for others to try to work off their mountainous debts.

Not all boons are created equal. There are five commonly accepted levels of boons, which may use different terminology but remain largely consistent across sects:

• Trivial Boon: Trivial boons are repaid with minor offerings and petty benefits; to many vampires, they are more like giving one another meaningless politeness gifts than true debts, although all the usual rules apply. A vampire might work off a trivial boon to someone by checking a news item for them, taking a ghoul home for the night when they're busy, or attending a social gathering at their request.

• Minor Boon: Minor boons are more significant but still not terribly important in the grand scheme of things, and are the most common kind of boon exchanged, leading to a thriving errand-for-barter system among younger vampires especially. A vampire might work off a minor boon to someone by getting them a human to feed from for the night, running an errand to the next town over, or not telling someone a key piece of information to preserve an advantage for someone else.

• Major Boon: Major boons represent a significant investment on both sides; they can be called in for major assistance and resources, and most vampires balk at giving them away unless forced. A vampire might work off a major boon to someone by purchasing them property and getting them paperwork for it, participating in a hunting pack looking to tangle with other supernatural creatures, or selling out a friend or loved one for someone else's benefit.

• Life Boon: Life boons are, for most vampires, the most valuable and horrifying of debts. A life boon can be called in for literally anything: from suicide to demon-summoning to leaving the country to assassination, there is no request the holder of a life boon can make that can be declined. Most vampires accordingly do almost everything in their power to avoid owing such a boon, and the unlucky ones who do usually had to make a choice between writing a blank check or imminent disaster.

• Blood Boon: Blood boons are rare; an outdated convention that has been forgotten in most of the modern sects, the term refers to a life boon that is automatically transfered to a vampire's closest living relative. This means that if a vampire dies without fulfilling their bargain, the onus is now on their sire, childe, broodmate, or other relation to fulfill it in their stead. This is fully just as binding as a regular boon, and since there are few blood boons floating around and most have been carefully held by their owners for centuries, often those who owe them don't even find out about it until someone arrives to collect.

While boons have a set "value" when they are being repaid, they do not necessarily need to correspond to how much help the original favor was. Vampires have been known to shamelessly extort higher-value boons from others when they are in dire straits; after all, while letting someone hide out in a building you own for half an hour isn't much of an inconvenience for you, they may have no choice but to offer up their firstborn to get it if failure would destroy an important project or imperil them somehow. Some vampires go so far as to engineer situations from which they can rescue others to force them to owe prestation, although such gambits do not always succeed.

Notably, vampires do not recognize any concept of "fairness" when it comes to prestation, nor do they have any interest in adjusting boons to match a situation. A vampire who has been asked to do something terrible to pay off a boon shouldn't have incurred it in the first place if they didn't want to be at someone's mercy, and anyone who argues that the request is more valuable than the original service would be ignored or laughed at for being so bad at making the bargain in the first place. There are no rules about what a vampire can ask another to do to clear a debt, including heinous ordeals such as sexual coercion or torture; even diablerie is an allowable ask that the other vampire will be forced to comply with (although it is likely that both they and their tormenter will be in a lot of trouble with their sect shortly thereafter if they do).

On the other side of the political coin, discharging a boon is not a valid defense for breaking a law or otherwise doing something to incur an official's displeasure, and will not protect a vampire from dealing with the consequences in any way. (Of course, outing another vampire as forcing you to do something illegal to fulfill a boon may get them in hot water with you, but it won't get you out.)

Only vampires are recognized as being able to receive or repay boons; humans, including ghouls, and other types of beings are not privy to the system and are dealt with on an individual basis as a given vampire sees fit.

It is not possible to repay a boon without consent of the debt holder; a vampire can wait hand and foot on someone for a year and still owe them a minor boon if they didn't actually ask them to do so and agree that it would erase the boon.

Boons in the European Sects

Prestation is robust in the European sects, especially in the Camarilla, which tends to view it as an integral and sacred part of the political landscape. Camarilla vampires who agree upon an exchange of boons must speak to the Harpy (or, in large domains with more than one, one of the Lesser Harpies) to report the boon and allow it to be recorded. Once it has been, the Harpy keeps the record in perpetuity until the boon is discharged, which they must be informed of by the person to whom it was owed.

Since prestation is constantly in flux, most Harpies keep extensive records of recent changes, and in many cases take on Lesser Harpies purely to help with all the bookkeeping. Since vampires may change territories or return after hundreds of years away, Harpies also communicate with one another across domains, confirming for their foreign counterparts when a boon was registered in their territory or should be struck from the record.

The Sabbat also uses prestation, but for them it is much more of a widespread game, one in which members of the sect do anything and everything they can to try to maneuver others into having to owe them. Sabbat members often gain boons specifically so that they can use them to harm or humiliate someone else, and much of the sect considers owing someone a boon a sign of weakness and lack of self-sufficiency that should be aggressively punished.

Prestation is uncommon among Anarchs, but it does exist, especially since the sect is considered to fall under the umbrella of the Camarilla and its members must frequently interact with them. The sect as a whole prides itself on cooperation and group success, so boons are generally offered only for unreasonable requests or very personal needs, with everything else considered informal aid.

Boons in the African Sects

The Ashirra are utilitarian users of prestation; they recognize its function and importance, especially when interacting with members of other sects, but they do not invest it with the almost religious sanctity that their northern neighbors do. Notably, many of the clans that make up the Ashirra have loyalty-oath systems of their own that supersede prestation, and as a result may consider it more of a secondary auxiliary social convention rather than one that majorly shapes their society.

The system of prestation among the Laibon is a time-honored tradition and very widespread; most Laibon vampires consider that a fledgling is not truly a member of the sect until they both owe and are owed at least one boon, and being owed a boon by someone important or impressive is often a mark of status, making it common for such boons to be held for a long time instead of repaid quickly. They do not, however, allow the trading of boons across sect lines; having been repeatedly mistreated by European vampires that did not consider boons owed to them to be binding, the Laibon now return the favor and simply refuse to engage with anyone they do not trust.

Depending on the domain, many Laibon cities even tie owed boons to a vampire's Status; quite literally, they may become known for boons that link them to others as much as for their own deeds.

Boons in the Asian Sects

The Cradle of Civilization is rigidly formal about prestation; when the oldest members of a society still hold boons from before recorded history, they have a vested interest in making sure that the system remains working and uncorrupted. Boons are ritually offered even for small, unimportant, or incidental tasks, and the fulfilling of a boon is often an event that attracts other vampires to see someone formally perform the requirements. Interestingly, the Cradle allows dischargement of boons through single combat: a vampire who challenges another to a formal duel and wins is relieved of their obligation to repay their opponent, but they must do so publicly, and if they lose and survive may not attempt to do so a second time.

The Shining Kingdoms are similarly severe about their prestation, but they examine the purpose behind boons more than most other sects; it is possible for boons to be commuted up or down one step in "value" if a formal complaint is made and they are found to be unreasonably out of balance. In theory, this is meant to prevent vampires from using emergencies and threats to extort higher boons from others than they should, but in practice it is unusual for such a petition to be heard, let alone granted.

The Jati use prestation very similarly to the Camarilla, with the exception that there are additional complex rules regarding which clans and bloodlines can owe boons to which others, political artifacts of an ancient caste system that some Jati vampires are unwilling to let go of. Being owed by a member of a group considered higher in standing likewise elevates a vampire's own standing, while owing favors to those beneath them can hurt it, leading to very few boons between levels and a lot of hasty fulfillments when the opportunity arises.

Boons in the American Sects

Boons are considered a useful and important currency among the Quiet Nations, who, like the Laibon, use them to solidify societal bonds within their own sect but refuse to do so outside it. Members of the Quiet Nations tend to go vastly out of their way, even risking serious injury or death, to avoid being in a position to have to owe a boon to a member of another sect, and those that do owe them tend to leave their home territories entirely, residing wherever their debtor is until the boon can be repaid.

The Teteoh are extremely rigid about boons, refusing to allow even a little margin for error; once the boon is registered, any attempts to abrogate it only lead to suspicion and consequences. Boons are often used as ambassadorial tools, and in times past were offered from the leadership of one city to another as a sign of good faith or request for diplomatic discussions. Teteoh who owe boons to others are usually keen to repay them quickly, as the longer they remain unpaid the more likely it is that they may be considered dishonorable for maintaining the debt instead of repaying it.

Only the Teteoh also maintains a sixth type of boon: the People's Boon, a high-level boon granted to a vampire for outstanding or surprising service to their community, which could be by anything major including misdirecting hunters, procuring new hunting grounds for blood, or warning everyone of disaster in time to respond. A people's boon is roughly equivalent to a major boon, except that any current member of the vampire's community may be called upon by them to fulfill it. Vampires can only opt out of being part of the community's decision to repay someone by permanently moving to a new territory, and such blanket favors are very rare.

The Drowned Legacies are probably the least concerned about prestation of all the sects; since they traditionally operated in isolated pockets, there was little need for the system simply because there were few interactions to create boons from in the first place. This has begun to change now that major cities have attracted large groups of vampires, but the system remains rough, with fractious neonates often being punished or killed for trying to game a system they have little investment in.

Boons in Other Sects

While other sects assume that the Australian vampire clans have some sort of prestation system, they are few enough and reticent about their customs enough that outsiders still have little idea how they relate to one another behind closed doors.

Prestation is used in the Inconnu about the same way it is in the Camarilla; similarly, the Tal'Mahe'Ra largely follow the pattern established by the larger Sabbat whole.

Independents and Autarkis can owe prestation to others as much as any other vampires, but they are often viewed with suspicion by members of established sects, and are likely to find themselves pressured to repay boons very quickly by nervous debtors who don't trust them not to disappear.

Boonbreaking

Many young vampires underestimate the importance of the prestation system; after all, vampires are notorious liars, so they are surprised to discover that lying about being willing to repay a boon is anathema to most of them. The reasons are simple: if no one can trust anyone else to repay their debt, then none of the debts are worth anything, and if none of the debts are worth anything, some elders who have been accumulating them for power plays since the dawn of recorded time would suddenly find themselves in possession of absolutely nothing. Attempts to avoid repaying boons, shove them off onto someone else, do a poor job, or otherwise contravene the system are swiftly and harshly punished in order to protect the entire concept from collapsing.

A vampire who refuses to repay a boon when asked is considered a boonbreaker, a permanent stain on their character that will probably dog them for the rest of their undead life. Such vampires are usually reduced in status, and even if they aren't, they are considered uncouth, untrustworthy, and to be shunned, leading to most of them having a very hard time getting anyone to cooperate with or help them. Moving to another domain where their shame is not yet known may sometimes buy them some time, but Harpies are meticulous about their records and it is likely that word would spread to wherever they went not long after.

Boonbreaking is punishable by exile among the Teteoh, which they define as being permanently banned from whatever domain they had been previously living in on pain of death. The Cradle of Civilization and Shining Kingdoms do not provide a direct punishment, but both allow the person whose boon was not repaid to demand a duel to the death in repayment instead.

Fealty Oaths

In earlier centuries, vampires often swore fealty oaths to one another, contracts that essentially allowed one vampire to give the other binding orders in exchange for protection and special treatment. This system has fallen out of fashion in the modern day, much like the feudal lordships it was based on, but especially old vampires may still remember it or even still have fealty bonds to other similarly ancient monsters.

If a fealty oath conflicts with a boon, the vampire is in a quandary; most vampires who still owe fealty to someone consider it paramount and would never break it even under pain of death, but modern vampiric society is much more likely to consider the boon the one that needs to take precedence and act accordingly. In such situations, extensive negotiation, usually involving whomever the vampire owes fealty to as well, may take place to avoid escalating problems.

Transfers

Boons are generally non-transferrable; a vampire owes only the person who did them a favor, not anyone else. Vampires cannot "give" their boons to others, and while it is possible to force someone to fulfill their boon by ordering them to obey someone else, it's much more difficult to force them to do so properly without the official weight of the custom behind them. If a vampire dies, all the boons they owed and all the boons owed to them (with the exception of blood boons) abruptly cease to exist, no matter how important they once were.

Rarely, a Harpy or similar official may allow a boon to be transferred under extenuating circumstances, such as the two vampires being semi-permanently unable to communicate about the debt due to torpor or separation. In such cases, the boon may be transferred to a close relative or a clan representative for the vampire who was owed, in effect passing it up to those above them to make a higher-level decision. Most vampires desperately want the advantage their boons give them, however, so situations in which they are willing to give them up for transfer are almost unheard-of.

See Also

Status