Creeds
Before your character was imbued, they were a normal person. They had a life, dreams, and pursuits. They also had ideas, values, and beliefs. Perhaps they were devoutly religious and extended charity and goodwill to others. Perhaps they eschewed religion, but had faith in their own ability to accomplish goals and expected others to do the same. Maybe they accepted aspects from a variety of faiths and looked for bigger answers from there, with an understanding of numerous religions and cultures. Maybe they worked hard for the sake of work or relied on the efforts of others to get them through, or chose random targets in life and strove toward them.
It's important to know who your character was before. Once they became a hunter, their former values and beliefs persist. In fact, they often determine their course and purpose in coming to grips with the true world, the existence of monsters and the hunt itself. A charitable person might now believe in offering forgiveness or aid to monsters whom they feel are deserving. A driven person might see self-sacrifice as their greatest weapon against the unknown, or they might find no tolerance for the evil they perceive and seek to destroy it utterly. An open-minded person might believe that there's good and evil in monsters and humans, and wonders if there's a greater purpose to than putting down the supernatural.
It's therefore essential to know who your character was as a normal person -- what they believed in and hoped for. Those values determine their approach to the hunt in terms of your characters creed. Creeds are the roles hunters play in the ongoing war with the unknown, the philosophies that hunters observe regarding the horrific world to which they are exposed, and the attitudes the chosen have toward the monsters they face. Also, creeds represent the direction that hunters give to pursuing and fulfilling the percepts of their Virtues.
What do all these explanations and guidelines mean in a story, though? Your character's creed, chosen during creation, is no social classification or organizational group to which they belong. Your character isn't part of a creed as they might be in a profession or club. Their creed is an in-game interpretation of how they go about and perceives their mission.
Your character's primary virtue -- Zeal, Mercy, or Vision -- indicates what they uphold as the goal of the war -- perhaps to destroy the supernatural and reclaim the world or to try to preserve whatever's good in creatures before the world comes to an end. Their creed is the means by which they hope to fulfill that goal, the direction they take. Although hunters can have the same primary Virtue, say Zeal, those of different creeds seek to accomplish the same goals in different ways. An Avenger intends to tear down the supernatural one creature at a time, by tooth and nail if necessary. A Defender seeks to preserve something worth saving in the world. They want the unknown destroyed, but not at the expense of whatever they value. A Judge seeks to make sure that the right course of action is taken, that the creatures who truly need to be destroyed are done in, while balance and perspective are maintained among hunters themselves.
So, when you create your character, don't decide "I wanna play one of those people who sacrifices himself all the time." Rather, decide who your character is as a person -- before they became a hunter -- and then choose a creed that suits that identity. Or let the Storyteller assign your character a creed based on their first instinctive reaction to the unknown.
Because the hunt is so personal, hunters don't widely recognize creeds as classifications among their kind. The chosen simply seem to pursue different agendas: Some that coincide and others that clash violently. Only among hunters who communicate often, such as individuals on hunter-net, have lines begun to be drawn between hunter factions. These divisions are less conscious than they are unconscious; contributors to the site tend to break off into circles of the like-minded, where they share their triumphs and frustrations and search out ways to convince the others that they have the answers to the questions that plague all hunters. The vague divisions that exist between camps are evident in one title or identifier that’s used universally.