Whether you represent a single vampire or a group of vampires, your goals are the same. Form unholy alliances with one another, gather power and prestige, rule the night.

There are 41 Sites of Power in North America. One measure of power and prestige is controlling more than your fair share of these sites. Another is crushing those who oppose you.

It's part role-playing, part strategy, part mystery solving and part diplomacy. You run a group of vampires and send your directions to them once a week by email

Free: Play one vampire

Ten dollars a quarter: Play a Vampire Peer and his group of followers (250 Empire points)

Twenty dollars a quarter: Play a Vampire Noble and her faction of followers (500 Empire points)

Thirty dollars a quarter: Play one of the Vampire Lords and his court (1000 Empire points)

• If you choose an individual vampire from the Blood of Lilith (see below) you get 250 empire points. Doing this you can play for free as if you paid for a group.

• Recruitment bonus. If you recruit players, you get credited 50% of their fees towards your play. For example, if you recruit a faction, you get credit a quarter for as long as the recruited player plays. Recruit a Noble, and play a Peer for free. Recruit two Vampire Lords and play a Vampire Lord for free.

• If a player improves his position to the point where he has jumped to a better category (for example, a 100 prestige Noble climbs to the 200 prestige of a Lord) the players fees do NOT increase.
• If a player's position is reduced to a lower category (a 200 prestige Vampire Lord diminishes to 100 prestige of a Noble) the cost IS reduced as well, until they regain their former glory.

• A player may purchase any number of Peers, Nobles and Lords when they begin playing, and may add one per year, should they choose.
• A player playing a free individual may not play multiple characters.

Each vampire grouping will have several statistics.

• Prestige: Prestige points are an ongoing measure of your success as measured by the esteem of the vampiric community. Prestige points are not spent. Periodic updates as to the prestige value of all players will be circulated, so everybody knows who is the greatest among them.
• Loyalty: Loyalty of your followers affects their ability in combat, their chance of desertion in combat and their chance to be recruited by a rival spymaster.
• Unspent Empire Points: Empire points are spent on parts of your vampiric empire.

Unspent Human Influence Points: Your ability to influence humans will affect the ability of humans to discover and interfere with your activities. Human influence is tradable amongst vampires: ("You want a favor from me? I can arrange that. But, it is going to cost you...)