The Attributes tab contains not only the attributes of your character, but also your Abilities and any other associated Traits such as Willpower, Health, Speed, etc. It includes space for your character's name and concept, vice and virtue as well as blanks for the player's name and campaign. Depending on the type of character you are creating, you may also have several other items to indicate what type of mortal or supernatural character you are playing, whatever major organization they may have membership within, and (sometimes) a space to indicate your level of specialization or special membership in another organization.
Vault of Darkness also presence a thumbnail view of your selected Portrait. This is automatically generated when you add a portrait to your character in the Gallery. See below for notes on the Gallery tab.
Most characters will have nine attributes here. Although up to ten dots can be selected for each of these nine attributes, most characters are limited to five at most. Supernatural characters, however, have the potential to purchase attributes beyond five dots if they increase their supernatural trait (such as Blood Potency, Primal Urge, or Gnosis) beyond 5 dits.
Some character have only three attributes, however. These are typically non-player characters such as ghosts, spirits, and zombies. When this kind of character is chosen, only three attributes are displayed: Power, Finesse, and Resistance. Dots can be assigned to these attributes as appropriate to their character type.
The listed Abilities have blanks in which you can add Specialties. Right-click to see a list of example Specialties that may apply to the skill you have chosen, or simply add your own. When typing in more than one Specialty in a blank, it is recommended to separate your list with commas for readability. If you add Specialties by selecting them from the contextual menu of example Specialties, commas will be added automatically to help separate the list of Specialties. A long list of Specialites can quickly move beyond what easily visible in the small fields, but if you simply move your mouse over the field, Vault of Darkness will display all listed specialties in the Info field at the bottom of the character sheet.
If the character type you have chosen is not allowed to have Abilities, such as a spirit, this area will not appear.
The total amount of Health, Willpower and similar traits you have are indicated with dots. Below these areas are small squares that can be filled when a point is spent by clicking on them. They are refreshed when you click on them again.
Health works a little differently since it can have four states -- empty (no damage), bash (indicated by a box half-filled with blue color), lethal (a box with a red "X"), and aggravated (indicated by a box with something similar to an asterisk in it). You can toggle through these various states manually if you like, but you may find it faster and more efficient to use the provided buttons. The red slash button adds a point of bash, the red X a point of lethal, and the red asterisk-like mark a point of aggravated damage. The buttons with green-colored counterparts heal the indicated damage. This allows you to very rapidly add and remove damage from the character with a quick series of clicks.
Note that you can turn on Lock Dots but still spend Willpower points, modify Health, and spend whatever spendable supernatural attribute your character may possess. You can also modify any edit fields such as your Specialty fields and fields in other tabs that can be used for taking notes. Lock Dots strictly locks the dots in place -- nothing else is affected.
Note that some kinds of character can take Resistant forms of the aforementioned damage. There is currently no way to note this in Vault of Darkness. Resistant damage is simply damage that cannot be healed through supernatural means.
Some traits don't have dots associated with them. They include calculated traits such as Size, Speed, Initiative, and Defense. If you have a special ability that grants a bonus to one of these traits (as several Merits do, for instance) you can manually change the numbers here. However, be aware that if an Attribute upon which the trait in question depends changes, then the total here will be recalculated and you will have to modify the number again to account for you bonus from a Merit, power, or special ability.
Lastly, if your character uses Renown, then that will also be shown on this tab.
This tab includes not just slots for you to place Powers and Merits, but also a place to note your character's Morality (or a variation thereof). In addition, there are six blanks for Derangements, a field for details of any derangements your character has accumulated, a space to note any special abilities your character may have beyond powers and merits, and a reference list box for your powers. Some types of characters may also have a special list field that can contain subt-types of powers such as rituals or rotes.
The Morality section works like most other areas. To adust your character's Morality, you just click the highest dot and Vault of Darkness will fill in (or remove) the rest of the dots.
Most characters have a variety of Merits available to them. If they don't, this field will not appear. You can see a list of available Merits by right-clicking and selecting form the contextual menu that appears. You may select any Merit listed. If you do not qualify for the Merit due to prerequisites not being met, Vault of Darkness will inform you what prerequisites you still need to fill, and prevent you from taking the Merit until those prerequisites are met.
Powers work in a similar way. You can either type in what you like, or you may select from a list of powers that pops up when you right click in the field. If powers are available they will be listed in up to three sections separated by a line. The first section lists any powers you might qualify for due to your specific type of supernatural. The second section lists any additional powers you may qualify for due to the organization to which you belong (if any). The third section gives you the complete list of powers available to your character type.
The Special Abilities field is popuplated automatically if your character has special powers, weaknesses, or notes listed in the database. You may also edit this field with your own notes, but be aware that if you later change the type of character you are playing, this field may be overwritten if new data becomes available from the database as s result of your selection.
A special list box appears only if the type of character you selected has them. Examples include rituals that some vampires might learn (if the possess a power giving them access to such powers), rites a werewolf might learn (if she possesses the Rituals power) or rotes that Mages can learn. Anything available to the character here will appear when you right-click in the box. Select the power you want and it will automatically fill in for you. Vault of Darkness even keeps notes on powers it knows about. Double-click any power listed here and a floating information window complete with any page numbers, dice rolls, costs, and notes that VoD is aware of will appear. To remove an unwanted selection, simply select the power with a click and press your Delete key.
If you character has powers, Vault of Darkness will attempt to find them in the database. If it does, it will list the various powers available in the Power Reference list box, complete with the associated level. Double-click any power listed here and an Information window will appear with all the information Vault of Darkness possesses on the power. This reference list is generated automatically and on the fly as you gain and remove powers from your character. You do not need to modify this list in any way. Instead, modify the powers you have directly in the Powers section.
As you might expect, this area contains physical description and background information. You may type anything you like in this area.
This area allows you to describe any flaws your chraacter may have. You can access various rich text editing options through the Format menu.
This area is where you can place skills, Merits, and Powers or anything else you can't fit on the first two tabs. You also have access to various rich text editing tools through the Format menu.
Note that when you Import a character, any general or extra Abilities, Skills, Merits and various powers will be found here. You may wish to copy them over to the standard locations in order to access benefits such as the Powers Reference and the ability to spend experience points and have them tracked for you automatically.
The Experience field contains a copy of the information you may have put in on the first tab. Changes in this field affect that field and vice versa. The Spent XP field is a place for you to track experience point expenditures manually, if you like. It is also updated automatically if you have the program track XP expenditures for you. The Spent On field is a fully editable field best used to track what you purchase with Experience. When you have the program track and record Experience for you, it will update this field with a record of things you purchase. Sometimes, if you are purchasing an item with Experience for which the program has no information, Vault of Darkness may not allow you to buy it with the Spend Experience toggle button switched on. Just turn it off, purchase what you need to, and make the appropriate changes to your Spent Experience, Current Experience, and if you like, add an entry to the Spent On field. Please note that VoD separates purchased items with commas, so if you want the program to be capable of rolling back spent Experience points you should not alter the entries the program makes. Vault of Darkness uses the format *Item* to *number* dots, where Item is the Attribute, Ability, Merit, or Power in question and number is what level the item was purchased.
Press a button to toggle the field you wish to use. You can place any information you like here and the program will save the information to the appropriate fields. You can use the Format menu on text here.
Right-click to view a list of options for your character and then select whatever you wish. You can edit any entry by double-clicking any of the fields in the list.
You may enter descriptions of any items you possess here. You can also access a list of equipment available to your character by right-clicking and selecting whatever you like from the contextual menu.
These fields allow you to enter any kind of information you like. You may copy and paste information from other editors, type information, and format you text using the Format menu.
All images places here are saved with your character. Vault of Darkness uses a technique compress the image, then convert the resulting information to text. This means that no extra files need to be saved with your character. All you have to do to share your favorite characters with your friends is transport just one file. All associated images are saved within that using standard XML rules. This means that all users of Vault of Darkness, be they Mac fans or Windows users, can trade their characters and associated images with ease.
Please note that if you use extremely large images, they could increase the files size of your saved character. If the normaly size of your image is bigger than your monitor, then a good rule of thumb is that you probably should save a copy of that in a smaller size for inclusion in your character's gallery.
Vault of Darkness accepts most popular image formats including png, jpg, gif, bmp and pict (Mac only).
You can drag and drop images from most popular formats directly into the portrait region in this tab. A copy of it will be resized and placed in the small portrait area in the first tab as well as appearing here.
There is a row of small image wells across the top of the tab. You can drop the four types of images listed above in any of these image holders. Clicking on them will cause them to appear in the viewing area below the gallery. Clicking the View in Window button will make the image appear in a separate window. This window is resizeable and will also resize the image. This is a simple way to expand large images of (for example) your haven, office, or base of operations.
You may also drag and drop the images between the well to reorder them as you like as well as drop them on the Portrait area to choose another portrait. You may click the red X button to delete any images you don't want.
This tab is available only if you chose a character capable of shapeshifting that has the forms she can achieve defined in her character type.
To see what the stats are for a given form, simply click it in the list box labeled "Click a Form". All stats will be rendered for you in the large field. Your other important stats, such as Health, Willpower, and any Spendable Trait you may have, are also listed on this tab. This is duplicated from the Attributes tab such that any changes you make here will affect the traits on that tab and vice versa.