Alternate Identity

Alternate Identity (•, •• or ••••)

Effect: The number of dots spent on this Merit determines how convincing and in-depth the documentation surrounding this new life actually is. Alternate Identity (•) represents an identity that passes casual inspection, but not much else - a character can go shopping and get around in most daily situations, but any kind of trained scrutiny such as from a police officer or bureaucrat immediately identifies this identity as a fake. Alternate Identity (••) creates an identity that will pass most forms of relatively cursory professional inspection, but cannot stand up to a sustained investigation. A police officer that pulls your character over will not automatically pick up anything unusual if she runs the character’s license plates or calls up his name in a database. However, if your character is arrested and the police begin a formal investigation his identity will quickly unravel. Alternate Identity (••••) represents an identity that is essentially as real as any identity can be - it takes a truly dedicated, competent and time-consuming search by trained professionals to uncover any hint that the character isn’t exactly who he claims to be, at least as far as his documentation is concerned.

This Merit may be purchased multiple times at multiple ratings, each time representing a different identity. Also, an identity may also be upgraded later with the appropriate in-game explanation and experience expenditure. In the case of certain Merits such as Resources or Status, it might also be worth noting to which identity these Merits are tied, since a character may not easily be able to access or maintain them if that identity is compromised.

Drawback: Although one-dot Alternate Identities require no maintenance, both of the more thorough versions do. If someone checks on a legal identity, they will immediately become suspicious if the person has no legal address or magazine subscriptions, pays no taxes and has no phone number. Similarly, if all of this data exactly matches your character’s primary legal identity, many people soon realize both of these identities belong to the same individual. Therefore, your character must take time and spend money to maintain any two or four-dot Alternate Identities.

Having the identity make frequent trips to remote locations and similar inventive dodges can reduce the frequency of this maintenance. The amount of maintenance needed to keep a two-dot identity looking legitimate is fairly minimal, requiring only a few hours of work every month. However, keeping a four-dot identity believable requires at least several hours of work every week. Failure to perform this upkeep on an identity causes it to be reduced to the next lowest level. However, alternate identities never fall lower than one dot. Paying Experience Points to upgrade an identity represents the effort needed to build it back up. Characters can also pay criminal organizations to maintain alternate identities, but doing so causes its own problems, including both the cost and the possibility of blackmail.

Rules for this merit on Original Sin

This merit is available for all character types. Remember though that a reason is necessary to purchase it.

If your character is using a nickname name, you do not have to buy the 1 dot version of this merit. Just saying you are someone else isn't that difficult. However, if your character has changed their name in constant usage, then the 1 dot is required; also, a cheap fake ID that a high school student might obtain would fall under 1 dot (because it works for getting into clubs, but fails under hard scrutiny). The 2 dot version is enough to obtain travel documentation into our out of the United States, or to fly anywhere within the United States. Ground travel within the country and city do not require identification. However, crossing the border to Canada does require a photographic ID of some sort, which falls under the 2 dot version of this merit.

If any merits are specifically tied to a particular ID, please note that in the Merit box on the character sheet. Otherwise it is assumed all identities can access them (Resources by way of online banking access or cash, for instance; however using credit cards or ATM cards is a form of identification and are tied to an identity). The ST who approves your character is the final arbiter of whether a merit can be tied to an identity, or if merits on the sheet must be tied to some identity.

Characters without this merit must list their legal name as the character name.