Arbitration
A
rbitration is a sort of mini-game we designed to
give the political aspect of Vampire something
of a tangible component. It is specifically made
so that it only provides organic play based on a political
objective, rather than being a numbers or stats based
system. Through it, any guest of the Grand Elysium
can present the court with a geopolitical or judicial
issue that their own Prince for whatever reason refuses
to arbitrate. The court’s arbitrator then decides a
number of Elders who are considered relevant to the
issue, and the player is tasked with convincing them
to support him on the issue by providing him/her with
an endorsement. If enough do, the character’s issue
is resolved favorably, or in the case of two different
players vying for different results, the one with more
endorsements is declared the winner.
The arbitration process can therefore be summarised
in three steps.
Step 1- the issue
To be part of Arbitration, a character must present the
court with an issue they have. Players are allowed to
make up these issues as they wish, but some, notably
some pre-written characters, have such issues written
into their backstories. In order for an issue to be viable,
it needs to meet some simple prerequisites:
-The issue pertains to something within the Austro-
Hungarian Empire’s territory.
-The local authority (your Prince, etc.) has for what-
ever reason refused to make a ruling on the issue. Al-
ternatively, there is no authority who can arbitrate it,
such as in cities without a Prince.
-All relevant parties in the issue are present at the Ely-
sium. This only pertains to things that are specifically
disputes between two or more Vampires, all of which
must be present.
-It can either be geo-political in nature (Domain
disputes, title claims, etc.) or judicial (vendettas, old
crimes, compensation).
Step 11- the arbitrators
Once a character has a relevant issue, he may bring it to
the court’s officially appointed arbitrator (specifically,
the Nosferatu Primogen of Emona, Egon Kalker),
who will promptly review it and assign Elders that will
then rule on it. These Elders will be chosen based on
their relevance in the issue. For example, if an issue
concerns something in Trieste, an Elder from Trieste
is likely to be one of the chosen. The number of Elders
chosen will depend on the gravity of the issue, but it
will always be an uneven number, with a minimum of
three.
Step 111- endorsement hunting
Once the relevant Elders are decided, the character
who presented the issue, and his opponent, if he has
one, are free to approach them at any point during
the event and convince them to rule in their favor.
The Elders are not easy to convince, and will more
than likely have tasks for said characters to perform
in order to win their favor. Once a specific Elder is
adequately convinced, they will present the character
with an Endorsement, which will be a physical card.
When a player collects enough Endorsements, they
may present them to the court arbitrator, who will
conclude the issue.
Example
The issue:

Iron Boris, a Gangrel from Lviv, has come to the

Grand Elysium specifically to have a squabble that
has dragged for decades officially arbitrated. He is
in a dispute over a large Domain on the outskirts of
Lviv with a Tremere, Bella Petrova, who is attending
the event for the same reason. The Prince refuses to
decide between them since he wishes neither of the
two to gain in power and keeps finding reasons to
postpone a ruling. Despite their mutual animosity,
the two are eager to resolve their grudge, and
since Portia has been declared Prince of Princes
for the duration of her Elysium, now is the perfect
opportunity.

The arbitrators:

They bring their issue to Egon Kalker, who assigns

three Elders to rule on it. Since few Vampires from
Lviv or its surrounding areas have arrived, there is
nobody present directly linked to the issue. The
assigned Elders are thus Zlato, envoy of the Ravnos,
many of whom pass through Lviv frequently, as
well as the Ventrue Elder Laszlo Nadasdy and the
Lasombra Antitribu Darius, both of whom are
expected to be objective in their rulings.

Endorsement hunting:

Boris and Bella can now curry favor with the Elders.
Through the night, Boris manages to convince
Nadasdy that him claiming the land would benefit
them both, but Bella receives help from her Clan
and convinces both Darius and Zlato to endorse her
through a series of favors and pranks respectively.

Resolution:

Having won more than half of the total

Endorsements, Bella returns to Kalker. Boris is
also summoned to witness the ruling, which is
then promptly made: the Domain belongs to Bella
Petrova of the Tremere.