This page supercedes the True Faith in the book.

True Faith is a special Trait that only a few people in the World of Darkness possess. While many mortals are more or less devoted to a belief in some form of higher being or purpose, only a small number have the burning zeal, the profound conviction that can protect them against creatures like vampires. Note that, while most vampire legends portray the Damned being repelled by crosses and the like, Faith can manifest in any religious form. A devout Jew might be able to ward off vampires with her Star of David, or a Taoist might be able to intone special prayers, while a Christian lacking True Faith finds his crucifix impotent against the undead.

The True Faith trait requires a Divine Mission before each point can be bought, next to the XP cost.

True Faith is treated as a Discipline for bookkeeping purposes, but some different rules apply than would for a normal Discipline. First off, Kindred cannot have True Faith at all without the True Believer merrit. Once they have taken this merrit, each rank in True Faith costs XP as if it were an out of clan Discipline.

For PC's some special rules apply: instead of training as is required with other Disciplines, True Faith requires a Divine Mission be successfully completed before the first (or next) point can be learned - that is, instead of finding a trainer, you must complete a Divine Mission for each point.

A Divine Mission is a quest of a spiritual nature which to some degree is related to your faith and which expresses its interests for the greater good. Such a quest should pose a challenge to your faith, which you must reconcile with your beliefs so they can grow stronger through them. Moreover, to complete a Divine Mission, you must go beyond the normal definition of basic success in the completion of the quest, doing so while staying in line with your faith. Finally, you cannot set out on a quest with the goal of it being a Divine Mission, but rather a quest will turn out to be a Divine Mission upon completion

For example, an American Muslim from Los Angeles might go on hajj to Mekka. While this is a religious themed quest, it is not necessarily a Divine Mission. However, on the route there, he might be kidnapped by extremists of his faith, who judge him based on his national background. If he escapes captivity by slipping from his bonds before completing his hajj, he has completed the quest, but he has not completed a Divine Mission - he was not challenged in his faith and he did not go beyond the normal definition of success.

However, if he speaks to the Imam leading the extremists, being challenged in his own faith and challenging the Imam in turn, in a mutual, deep and profound debate about the interpretation of the Koran, and he convinces the Imam and his followers to abandon the path of extremism and seek to do good, in accordance with the American Muslims faith, this would certainly qualify as completing a Divine Mission - the American Muslim was challenged in his faith (quite literally in this case) and he went beyond the normal definition of success.

As an alternative example, a devout Catholic priest might discover rumours about a child sex-slavery ring, and set out to right this wrong. Upon investigation, he discovers that it is a group of Catholic priests, including the Cardinal he serves, who are involved in this shady business, leaving him with the problem of defying the local church leaders or allowing this sin to go unpunished. He might decide he needs to defy his superiors and go to Rome with evidence, getting the corrupt Cardinal defrocked. In this case, his faith might have been challenged, seeing those who represent his faith and whom he looks up to being so corrupted. However, he did not go beyond the normal definition of success and as such, this would not qualify as a Divine Mission.

However, if the devout priest also seeks out the victims of the child sex-slavery ring, gets them out of their respective situations and helps them reconcile and deal with what happened to them, this could then qualify as a Divine Mission. Note that it is not required that the victims return to the Catholic Church - that would just be an added bonus.

In general, Divine Missions should be granted if the character acted as if they were an agent sent by their God to help humanity, and they became closer to their God through that action. Whether they accomplished this through brilliant problem solving, extreme skill or raw perseverance doesn't matter.

The following merrit is proposed to replace the True Faith merrit listed in the book. It places the additional requirement of a Divine Mission (see below), the character still needs to buy their first point of true faith (instead of getting it for free) and it no longer grants True Faith to all willpower and all virtue checks.