Solo Hunter

You didn't find this life. It found you, through family, through loss, through one night that changed what you knew to be true. You've been doing this without backup ever since. It's not noble. It's just what you do.

Favored Save: Body Save (+1D to Body + Fortitude rolls)

Power Access: None by default. Lineage practitioners access their traditions through their lineage progression (Stage 2), not through this template.

Starting Resources: One established, trusted contact in the hidden world (not a full Network node, a single person who vouches for you and occasionally helps). Personal kit: hunter-grade loadout including one threat-specific material appropriate to the character's history (player and GM determine together). A vehicle.

Lineage Affinity: Human, Skinchanger, Dhampir. The Solo Hunter profile draws toward characters who rely on physical capability and personal knowledge over institutional support. Non-human lineages who operate outside their community structures fit well here.

Progression Track: Solo Hunter

Stage 1 (10 XP), Self-Sufficient
  The Solo Hunter has built enough experience to function without a safety net.
  - Field Improvisation: Once per scene, the hunter may treat any available
    material as a functional substitute for a specific threat-material they
    don't have. (Salt from a restaurant, iron from a railing, improvised
    blessed water.) The substitute functions at normal effectiveness for one
    use. This requires a Wit + Lore roll vs Threshold 2 to identify the
    available substitute; on a failure, the improvisation doesn't work.
  - Category Knowledge: The hunter's hard experience gives them working
    knowledge of one specific threat category (player's choice at Stage 1).
    For threats of that category, the hunter knows the standard weakness and
    destruction method without a roll. On a second encounter with the same
    named threat, the hunter gains +1D to all rolls against it.

Stage 2 (25 XP), Proven Operator
  The hunter has survived long enough that the hidden world has started to
  notice. People know the name.
  - Reputation Pull: Once per session, the hunter's reputation opens a door
    that credentials wouldn't. A hidden-world contact (NPC) provides
    information, access, or assistance they wouldn't give a stranger,
    because they've heard of this hunter. The GM determines the extent based
    on what the reputation plausibly covers.
  - Power Access (Lineage Tradition): If the hunter has a lineage with Power
    Access, they may now access their lineage tradition at 1D (no Talent cost).
    Solo experience and necessity have pushed them to develop what their
    lineage makes available.
  - Second Category Knowledge: As Stage 1 Category Knowledge, for a second
    threat category of the player's choice.

Stage 3 (50 XP), The One Who Came Back
  Most solo hunters don't make it this far. The ones who do have something
  that can't be taught.
  - Against All Odds: Once per session, when the hunter would be reduced to
    0 Health, they instead drop to 1 Health and take their next action
    before losing consciousness (immediate free action, then the normal
    0-Health rules apply). This reflects the hunter's accumulated survival
    instinct; they've been here before and they know what to do with the
    last moment.
  - Threat Sense: The hunter has developed a pattern-recognition that
    functions below conscious thought. At the start of any scene, the GM
    tells the hunter (privately) whether a supernatural threat is present
    and, if so, its general tier (Minion/Standard, Elite, Champion/Legendary).
    This is not a tradition ability and is not blocked by mundane concealment.
    It is experience.