Sheriff

The Sheriff is the Prince’s right-hand Kindred, responsible for the physical enforcement of Princely decree. Some Sheriffs are diligent masters-atarms while others are thuggish, bloody fuckheads who abuse their authority to torment those beneath their station. A Sheriff may appoint Hounds to assist him (or the Prince may appoint them, in the interests of curtailing a Sheriff’s overt power).

By invoking the authority of the Prince, the Sheriff may, in some domains where stability is more important than the rights of individual Kindred, violate the Traditions themselves. The Sheriff may employ these benefits only so long as the Prince grants her license, but it is sufficiently broad to make for a very versatile trump card, especially when dealing with those who threaten the Kindred order in a domain.

Of course, empowering one’s agents to act above the law is the textbook indicator of tyranny, and the sign of a desperate or oppressive Prince. Such Princes may not last long, but they do so at great cost to their reputations (and those of their Sheriffs) in the long term. In such cases, a Storyteller may rule that a Tradition- breaching Sheriff’s Title Status is actually only 1 instead of 2.

Needless to say, those Sheriffs who breach the Traditions out of their own political expediency rather than in the Prince’s interests may soon find themselves stripped of their titles and starved of blood.