Draft
The Tainted
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 179
Corruption and Free Will
The Wyrm cannot force any living creature to swear loyalty to it. Even Black Spiral Dancers, Buzzards, Skull Pigs, and other Changing Breeds who belong to the Wyrm ultimately do so by choice. Of course, this choice may not be entirely free, and such choices can almost never be undone. Some creatures grow up with the Wyrm whispering to them in the back of their minds, surrounded by mentors or parents who use some combination of threats, brutality, and temptation to encourage them to embrace corruption. Ultimately, however, each individual must make his or her choice.
For many, the choice is an exceptionally final one. Garou who dance the Black Spiral, Skull Pigs who devour Wyrm-tainted bones, and Rokea who willingly accept balefire into their bodies and minds become not merely servants of the Wyrm, but living avatars of corruption. No force short of death can undo such a drastic and final choice. Even thinking of going against the Wyrm’s desires requires a great effort. Rejecting the Wyrm would kill them. Other members of the Changing Breeds who fall to the Wyrm retain slightly more of their free will, but their choice is still brutally final.
The few members of tainted groups like the Scabs or Black Spiral Dancers who reject the Wyrm usually do not survive long. Their teachers and fellows view refusing to accept the Wyrm as a betrayal punishable by death. Most take the easy and final escape of suicide, but a very few flee from their own kind. These creatures live lonely lives, battling with insanity and fearing discovery by either the Changing Breeds or agents of the Wyrm. A handful find ways to spy upon the Wyrm’s other minions and pass messages to members of the Changing Breeds, but other shapeshifters will never embrace or even trust them. These rebels have not fallen to the Wyrm, but their upbringing still taints their bodies and minds sufficiently that none of the Gaian Fera will ever accept them. Most eventually either kill themselves, or give into the corruption in their blood.
The Tainted
Becoming an agent of the Wyrm is sometimes the result of a swift and hideous choice, but more often, the path to corruption is far slower and more complex. The Wyrm can warp the minds and bodies of anything that it comes into contact with. Contact with some of the most potent of the Wyrm’s toxins will taint any who manage to survive. Others spend too long in a Wyrm Caern, a Hellhole, or in Malfeas itself and become physically or mentally tainted; coming too far under the influence of an Urge Wyrm is a sure-fire route to mental taint. A shapeshifter or occultist might attract the attention of a powerful Bane, or perhaps even one of the Maeljin Incarna, and find that it has formed a connection to her mind through which it can poison her thoughts. Some attract attention by fighting against Wyrmspawn, others because they are powerful or important individuals who demonstrate a vice or weakness that the Wyrm can exploit.
Physical Taints
The Wyrm corrupts everything it touches, including the bodies of its victims. These physical transformations and sickness can include everything from deformities like those common to metis Garou to wounds that refuse to heal and which even a werewolf’s regeneration cannot repair. Such transformations cause victims pain and disgust at the fact that their body now contains visible and often hideous traces of the Wyrm. Someone afflicted with this sort of taint owes no allegiance to the Wyrm, and it cannot affect him in any way, except by the problems his affliction causes him. Minions of the Wyrm can sense these tainted individuals, and they show up as Wyrm-tainted to Garou using Sense Wyrm to investigate the sickness or deformity.
Afflicted with hairlessness, a withered limb, masses of writhing warts or something even more disturbing, the victims of these problems often search for cures and solutions. However removing deeply embedded physical traces of the Wyrm is exceptionally difficult. While certain spirits and rites have the power to cure completely Wyrm afflictions, finding such cures takes a great deal of time and effort. The Wyrm can offer a cure, either sending a Bane or Black Spiral Dancer, or appearing in the victim’s dreams. This cure might fade over time, or cure only part of a larger affliction. In either case, only continued service to the Wyrm can cure a physical deformity permanently, and even then, only as long as the heads of the Hydra find benefit in doing so.
Mental Taints
Sometimes exposure to especially strong manifestations of the Wyrm provides a conduit into the mind of an individual, allowing one of the Urge Wyrms to corrupt her thoughts and dreams. She can also attract an Urge Wyrm’s attention by giving in to excesses of a particular emotion, receiving taint simply because she gives in to her vices one time too often.
Urge Wyrms cannot forcibly corrupt someone, but they are insidious and persistent. The victim hears an aspect of the Wyrm whispering advice and commentary in the back of her mind. In addition to being an uncomfortable and confusing experience, Urge Wyrms seek out individuals who have personalities they can most easily influence. Someone inclined to fear would most likely be contacted by Foebok, just as a greedy individual would hear Vorus in his head.
Mental Taint Effects
Mental corruption has two effects. First, the victim must make a Wits + Primal Urge roll with a difficulty of at least 6 in situations where giving into the Urge Wyrm’s emotion would make sense. A character who fails this roll must give in to the emotion for the rest of the scene. In order to free herself of the compulsion for a single turn, she must spend a point of Willpower.
The tainted individual also regularly hears whispers from the Urge Wyrm, attempting to persuade her to surrender to her base urges and embrace corruption. Vorus might whisper that the character should take what she desires and that the world owes it to her because of all she has done. Unless she succeeds in a Wits + Enigmas roll (difficulty 8), the character doesn’t recognize that these thoughts come from an outside source. If the character is aware of the existence of Urge Wyrms, or has an ally who understands what might cause her symptoms, the difficulty of this roll decreases to 6.
The Path of Corruption
In return for a cure or because of ceaseless whispering by an Urge Wyrm, sometimes one of the Changing Breeds signs on the metaphorical dotted line and swears allegiance to the Wyrm. That sort of clean and final choice is relatively rare. In cases like the Balefire Sharks, where the choice is to serve the Wyrm or die, a few of the Changing Breeds value life more than loyalty and honor, but most are unwilling to so obviously betray everything they believe in. The Wyrm can however be both subtle and patient. In return for curing an affliction, the Wyrm may ask an individual to perform some small service. A bane may ask someone to arrange to have a captured Black Spiral Dancer escape before she can be questioned and killed, or make a call to warn a Pentex employee of a planned raid on one of the company’s facilities. Often, this task is both easy and essentially free of risk. If she performs the task, she had aided the Wyrm, but just as importantly, she has started on the path of corruption.
When corrupting someone who suffers from a physical taint, an agent of the Wyrm approaches the target and offers a cure, for a price. If the individual performs the first task, in short order there’s a second, usually just as risk free but perhaps a bit more difficult and involved. In return, the dream voice, Bane, or Black Spiral Dancer cures some of the less obvious but lingering symptoms of the character’s affliction. Each task comes with a promised reward, but the tasks become more difficult and dangerous as time goes on. If the victim’s allies ever discover his betrayal, the Wyrm’s agents will offer to help the victim escape without asking anything in return — this time. After a while, the tasks requested bring nothing in return beyond not informing the character’s pack or other allies of what he has done. Somewhere in the midst of performing these “small favors,” the individual performing them belongs to the Wyrm, but the exact point where this happens may not be obvious except in retrospect, which is exactly the way agents of the Wyrm prefer it.
The path of mental corruption is far simpler. The Urge Wyrm continues to whisper warnings and suggestions that to at least some degree align with the character’s unconscious desires, slowly leading him to betraying his principles and falling to the Wyrm. If he covets another Garou’s klaive, Vorus might suggest that he steal it, whispering that the klaive’s owner doesn’t deserve it and reasons why he should hate the klaive’s owner. Sykora might suggest that a character’s romantic rival is plotting to kill her or that her friends are about to betray her and that the character must strike first if she wishes survive. If the character follows through on these urgings, she eventually becomes an agent of the Wyrm.
Avoiding Corruption
Physical and mental taints can never force anyone to swear allegiance to the Wyrm. Although the process can be difficult and potentially humiliating, almost everyone who is tainted by the Wyrm can eventually throw off this taint. Accomplishing this feat typically involves two steps. The first step is admitting to someone who understands and can help that the character has become corrupted and requires aid. For obvious physical changes, this process is simple, but most Garou feel great shame at becoming corrupted, as well as no small amount of fear that they might soon fall to the Wyrm. As a result, many attempt to conceal any physical transformations that can be hidden. The Changing Breeds regard mental taint even less well, looking askance at anyone who admits that they hear the Wyrm’s whispered threats and promises, believing them to be already fallen or at best unworthy of any trust or responsibility. Worse, most shapeshifters believe that only individuals who were previously weak or corrupt are tainted by the Wyrm.
Admitting what is wrong and seeking aid can undo both physical and mental corruption, but it is only the first step. The next step is finding a cure, a process that usually requires significant effort. The path to accomplishing any such cure is far from easy. In the early days of being tainted, a simple Rite of Cleansing might suffice to wash the Wyrm’s stench away. Beyond that point, a wise and experienced Theurge might know some method of purifying the victim, but this purification often requires a journey deep into the Umbra. She might have to find a fount of pure Wyld energies to cleanse her mind and body, or bargain with a powerful spirit in return for its help curing her of the Wyrm’s mark.
Regardless of the cure, the Wyrm will not let go without a fight. Agents of the Wyrm may try to discredit anyone the victim goes to for help, or simply attempt to kill them and frame the tainted one for the murder. Others use far subtler forms of trickery, sending Banes disguised as friendly spirits, or offering a Rite of Cleaning that intensifies the victim’s taint unless she does something for the ritemaster.
Redemption for the Fallen
Someone who falls to the Wyrm suffers irrevocable changes. Her will is no longer fully her own and her mind — and in some cases her body — is now sustained by the Wyrm’s corrupt energies. She has no way back; no one who makes this choice can ever unmake it and return to being a whole person. Any of the fallen who struggle against their fate: face either failure or death as their only options.
Some experiences, like walking the Black Spiral Labyrinth or feeding on Wyrm-tainted flesh make any who survive them completely unable to even consider betraying or working against the Wyrm. Individuals who fall to the Wyrm through less extreme forms of corruption can work against their dark master, but only with great difficulty and greater cost.
When anyone who has fallen to the Wyrm betrays it, banes and other creatures associated with the Corrupter know of what has happened. Some fomori, and other Wyrmspawn like the Balefire Sharks, rely on the Wyrm’s corrupt energies to survive. Were one to turn against the Wyrm it would soon suffer a painful death, as the power that sustains them suddenly cuts off.
Otherwise, the Wyrm’s minions try to destroy the betrayer. Those who manage to escape or survive gradually become physically and mentally ill as the strain of working against the Wyrm wracks their minds and bodies. All the Wyrm’s servants understand this price, although many only learned it after they swore allegiance to it. The few who bitterly regret their choice and are willing to help make amends often choose to betray the Wyrm in a way that ends in their death. Myths tell of a silver lake in the Umbra that could bring them redemption, but many die before they ever find it.
Banes
Each thing upon Gaia radiates out into the Umbra, announcing its nature and giving rise to spiritual representations. For each tree, river, and house, there is a spirit; for each moment of joy, bright ripples spreading out through the world of spirits and perhaps giving birth to an Epiphling.
But also, there is a spirit for the flash of murderous rage, the long, simmering, and life-draining depression; for the polluted creek, the rotten tree, and the broken home. Once, some Garou believe, these things were part of the natural cycle of the world, but if so, that was long ago. The Wyrm’s talons hold Gaia in an iron grip and its coils choke the cosmos, and all things that are destructive or corrupt come to dwell in its shadow. If they do not serve it today, then its minions will see to it that they join its ranks tomorrow.
Banes, then, are the revealed face of the Wyrm in the spirit world. They are a category of spirits bearing their patron’s hideous touch and the taint of its nature. It encompasses both “born” children of the Wyrm, as well as formerly Gaian spirits that have fallen into corruption. Few Garou believe in the possibility of purifying a Bane, and indeed, in most cases, there exists no prior “pure” state for a Bane to return to. As a result, Banes are the most elemental enemies of Gaia’s warriors, a foe against whom no quarter can ever be asked or offered. The only answer is to move forward, claws and fangs bared. The enemy’s numbers are limitless; the Garou can only hope their determination is the same.
Spirit Charms
Spirits have a number of powers called Charms at their command. Some are spiritual reflections of werewolf Gifts, while others are powers that a spirit could teach a Garou — with sufficient cause.
The following Charms are a starting point for Storytellers. Many Charms can reflect a whole host of different phenomena that happen to have the same effects. The Blast Charm, for example, could represent thorns shooting from a nature spirit, shards of glass thrown by a glass elemental, or electrical discharge from a lightning spirit.
Be creative when assigning Charms to spirits.
Common Charms
All spirits have the following Charms. They’re notable only in their absence — a spirit that’s weakened or being punished may not be able to use one or more of these Charms.
Airt Sense
W20 Core, pg 366
Description: The spirit has a natural sense of the “airts” (directions) of the spirit world, and can travel about without much difficulty. The spirit can create or find spirit tracks at will. The Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Gnosis if it has to locate a particular place or individual in the Umbra. Even spirits aren’t infallible, and a botch can lead them to an unforgiving Realm.
Materialize
W20 Core, pg 366
Description: The spirit takes physical form on Earth. The spirit’s Gnosis must be equal to or greater than the area’s Gauntlet rating. The spirit appears the same in the material world as it does in the Umbra. The spirit uses its Traits in the same way as it would in the Umbra, rather than having Attributes and Abilities. Materialized spirits do possess health levels like other corporeal beings. If a spirit dies in the material world, it returns to the Umbra and enters Slumber, just as if the spirit had lost all of its Essence in the Umbra. Most spirits won’t use this Charm except in extraordinary circumstances; the modern world is far from welcoming to their kind.
Realm Sense
W20 Core, pg 366
Description: The spirit can sense what transpires in its Domain both in the Umbra and on Earth. Sensing a specific area requires a successful Gnosis roll. Though this Charm is usually associated with Naturae (woodland spirits of Gaia), most spirits bound to an area possess this ability. Spirits without direct ties to a location on Earth may have this Charm, but are only able to sense their dens in Near-Umbral Realms or home Domains.
Re-form
W20 Core, pg 366
Description: The spirit can dissolve its body in order to travel through the Umbra to their home Domains. It takes a spirit a full turn to try to re-form. The Storyteller must roll the spirit’s Gnosis successfully for this Charm to succeed. Spirits use this Charm to flee their enemies.
Specialty Charms
These Charms are commonly possessed by a wide variety of spirits.
Armor
W20 Core, pg 366
Description: By spending two points of Essence, the spirit gains a soak pool equal to its Gnosis for the remainder of the scene.
Blast
W20 Core, pg 366
Description: The spirit can attack from a distance — breathing fire, unleashing ear-splitting sound, hurling shards of glass, or spitting razor-blades. The Storyteller spends a point of Essence and rolls the spirit’s Rage as a damage dice pool, dealing aggravated damage. The spirit does not need to roll to hit, and the attack cannot be dodged.
Cleanse the Blight
W20 Core, pg 366
Description: The spirit can purge spiritual corruption in its vicinity. The Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Gnosis; the difficulty depends on the strength of the Blight. Most spirits can only use this Charm in an area that reflects their nature.
Control Electrical Systems
W20 Core, pg 366
Description: The spirit exerts control over an electronic device. The Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Gnosis (difficulty 3–9 depending on the system’s complexity). The spirit can shut the system down, control it as though it were standing at the controls, and even overload the system.
Create Fires
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit can create fires. The Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Gnosis (difficulty 3 for a torch-sized flame, 6 for a bonfire, or 9 for an inferno). Without a source of fuel, the fire only burns for one turn.
Create Wind
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit can create or quell winds. The Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Gnosis (difficulty 3 for a strong breeze, 6 for a storm, or 9 for a tornado).
Dreadful Presence:
W20 Core, pg 182
Description: This Charm is available only to Incarna avatars, and is constantly in effect. All spirits hostile to the Incarna avatar lose two dice from all their dice pools while they remain in the avatar’s vicinity.
Flood
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit can raise the natural water level in an area. The spirit spends a point of Essence to flood an area. The size depends on the power of the spirit — a Jaggling using this Charm could flood several blocks or a small town, while a Gaffling could flood a building or a city block. Flooding a larger area could require the spirit to expend more Essence.
Freeze
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit drastically lowers the temperature of its immediate area. Reduce the spirit’s Rage by one for the remainder of the scene. Everyone in the area suffers the spirit’s new Rage in dice of aggravated damage. Using this Charm may have additional effects, at the Storyteller’s discretion.
Healing
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit can heal physical beings. The Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Gnosis (6 to heal lethal damage, 8 for aggravated). The target heals a number of health levels equal to the spirit’s Gnosis. A spirit can only use this Charm once per scene per target.
Illuminate
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit can light an area reaching to 20 yards (20 meters) from its body, or change the color of lights in the area. Doing so doesn’t normally require a roll.
Open Moon Bridge
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit can open a moon bridge to a desired location. This charm can operate anywhere, and does not need a caern present. The moon bridge has a total potential distance of 1000 miles (1600 km).
Peek
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit can look into the physical world from the Penumbra.
Savage
W20 Core, pg 182
Description: By spending one Essence, the spirit adds two dice to all damage rolls for the remainder of the scene.
Shapeshift
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit can look like anything it desires. This Charm only changes the spirit’s form, not its abilities or powers. The Storyteller must roll the spirit’s Willpower if it tries to appear as a specific being.
Shatter Glass
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit can break all of the glass in the area. The Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Gnosis (difficulty 6).
Short Out
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit can short out electrical systems, damaging the circuits. The Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Gnosis (difficulty 6).
Swift Flight
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit can fly at three times the normal speed, up to 60 + (Willpower x3) yards or meters per turn.
Tracking
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit can follow its prey unerringly, though it must spend a point of Essence to do so.
Umbraquake
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The Umbra shakes with such force that everyone standing is thrown to the ground. Everyone in the area suffers half the spirit’s Rage in dice of bashing damage.
Updraft
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit can lift a man-sized creature into the air with a gust of wind. The Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Willpower (difficulty 6).
Bane Charms
The Wyrm grants these Charms to its minions. Creatures allied to Gaia cannot (and would not) learn Gifts related to these Charms.
Awaken the Blight
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 146
Description: A Crimson Pestilent may spend two Essence to use this Charm on a person afflicted with some manner of disease. The Bane makes a contested roll of its Rage against the target’s Stamina; if the Bane wins, whatever ailment the target suffers from flares up, and their next roll to resist or recover from the effects of the ailment suffers a penalty equal to the Bane’s Gnosis. A fever might spike to life-threatening temperatures, while a cancer metastasizes and spreads like wildfire throughout the body.
Blighted Touch
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: If the spirit deals damage on an attack (including using the Blast Charm), the target must make a reflexive Willpower roll. If she fails, her negative characteristics dominate her personality for the next few hours. If she botches, the change is permanent.
Nihilach Blighted Touch
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 148
Description: The Nihilach’s version of Blighted Touch is different from that of other Banes. Rather than bringing the worst elements of the target’s nature to the fore, this Charm instead induces a deadening lassitude and crippling depression. Effort seems futile, dreams unattainable, and the world a sick and pointless joke at best, a gauntlet of needless indignities as prelude to meaningless nothingness at worst. A botch attempting to resist this Charm is capable of sending a Garou spiraling directly into Harano.
Carrion Walk
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 149
Description: This Charm is similar to Possession, but can only be used upon a corpse. Any corpse will do: a dead Pentex employee, a road kill raccoon, a slaughtered steer, and — on one horribly memorable occasion — a freshly deceased elephant can all host a Rot Walker. The cadaver must still have some flesh on its frame (so no possessed dinosaur skeletons), and it cannot already be possessed or animated by other means (putting vampires off-limits). A corpse animated by Carrion Walk uses the traits it had when alive, rather than the controlling Bane’s spirit traits, but uses the Bane’s Essence instead of a health track. Carrion Walk puts a tremendous strain on the corpse being possessed; the necrotic energies of the Bane rapidly accelerate the process of decay, so that most possessed shells become flyblown horrors in short order. Few cadavers manage to last for more than a week before devolving into an immobile stew of bones and pulpy meat.
Corruption
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit whispers a suggestion to the target, and the target acts upon it. The Storyteller rolls Gnosis (difficulty of the target’s Willpower). This Charm can be used across the Gauntlet.
Darkweaving
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 151
Description: This Charm more than anything else defines a Rust Spider. Darkweaving’s effects are permanent, and stain the spirit’s every works with an indelible trace of Wyrm-taint. When a tainted Pattern Spider reinforces the Gauntlet, it weaves in blackly glistening, Wyrmish strands of spiritual effluvia, which Banes find it easier to pierce (–1 to the local Gauntlet for Wyrm spirits only). When they work on the great Pattern Webs that span cities, the strands they weave act as efficient superhighways for Banes. When a Hunter Spider scans for enemies in need of destruction, they heed the distress cries of Banes and treat them as a summons of the Weaver. When a Net-Spider ushers data packets from place to place, it subtly taints them, imparting a negative tone to digital communications, or promoting data loss or corruption in vital transactions. The individual effect of this Charm upon any action is small, but the cumulative result is a spirit that remakes Gaia into the Wyrm’s image as efficiently and tirelessly as its brothers and sisters calcify the world into the Weaver’s design.
Dissolution
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 146
Description: The Bane may pay one Essence when attacking a target to coat its claws or fangs with a hideous spiritual acid. The difficulty to soak such an attack is 9.
Dream Warp
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 149
Description: The Nighthag spends one Essence to corrupt a dream with the intent of disturbing the sleeper and driving a wedge between her and one of her loved ones. The target does not regain Willpower from this troubled sleep.
Everybody’s Secret
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 146
Description: This Charm is similar to the Shadow Lord Gift: Whisper Catching, save that it encompasses every secret event or exchange to occur within a building. The echoes of domestic violence, perversion, and hate slowly work their way through the building’s ducts and corridors. Eventually, everyone who lives in the building knows the secrets of everyone else: perhaps they drift under a door, or through an air conditioning vent, or rattle about in an old elevator as it carries tenants up through the building’s black throat. Speaking of the secrets of a building learned through Everybody’s Secret is extremely difficult, requiring a point of Willpower and a Willpower roll (difficulty 9); failure causes the desired words to die in the tenant’s throat, and a certainty to fall down around him that it’s just not the business of anyone from outside the building.
Incite Frenzy
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit can cause a werewolf to enter a frenzy. The Storyteller rolls Rage (difficulty of the target’s Willpower). Any success causes a frenzy; six or more successes causes the werewolf to fall into the Thrall of the Wyrm. All normal frenzy rules apply.
Innocuous
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 147
Description: Harpies excel at hiding in plain sight. By spending one point of Essence, witnesses overlook a Harpy and its nest. This Charm doesn’t make the Bane or its taint invisible, but rather keeps anyone from noticing it. Only those specifically looking for something out of place will have a chance of seeing the spirit, and even then an observer must succeed at a Willpower roll (difficulty 9) to overcome the effects of the charm. The effect lasts for one scene.
Lightning in the Meat
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 150
Description: This Charm allows the Rot Walker to spend one Essence per day to re-animate the brain of a corpse possessed with Carrion Walk. There must be a brain present for this to work. While the body’s soul has long since moved on to whatever awaits beyond the veil of death, a residue of memories and personality still dwell in the wrinkles of the mind, and it is this shadow of the deceased that the Rot Walker resurrects, up until the body falls apart. The revived persona knows nothing of the possessing Bane, and may even believe itself alive at first. It is likely to try to head back to familiar surroundings, such as the house where its grieving family awaits. Some Rot Walkers resume control at this point; others prefer to simply let the lightning continue to drive the meat, watching the corpse and its loved ones go through the agony of decay, dissolution, and a second and final demise.
Possession
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit may inhabit a living being or inanimate object. The Storyteller rolls Gnosis (difficulty equal to the victim’s Willpower, or 4 for an object). The possession takes the time indicated:
| Successes | Time Taken |
|---|---|
| 1 | Six hours |
| 2 | Three hours |
| 3 | One hour |
| 4 | 15 minutes |
| 5 | 5 minutes |
| 6+ | Instantaneous |
The spirit can take no other actions. If it does, or is engaged in spirit combat, the link is broken. A spirit that possesses a human can warp and change the victim’s body, making a fomor (see W20 Core, pg 428 for more on fomori). Possession is permanent.
Thinbone Possession
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 152
Description: A Thinbone’s Possession Charm is different from that of other Banes. Thinbones are incapable of creating fomori through permanent possession, or of directly controlling the host. Instead, a possessing Thinbone consumes everything the host eats before it can nourish him. Once the host begins starving, the Thinbone uses its Corruption Charm to whisper suggested meals that might sate the host; each time the host partakes of such a meal, the Thinbone gains one point of Essence. Soon after, the gnawing hunger returns and the host’s starvation continues. Thinbones never suggest ordinary food to their unlucky host; instead, they recommend the host consume something he values. A devout Christian might be compelled to tear out the pages of his Bible and eat them, one by one, while a fashionista sits down and methodically eats every outfit and shoe in her closet. The strongest of Thinbones turn their hosts against loved ones, starving the possessed individual into a cannibal feast. Once the host starves to death, the Thinbone departs to begin the cycle anew.
Sleaze Aura
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 149
Description: The Bane can lend the effects of the Gift: Persuasion (see W20 Core, pg 153) to anyone who goes along with the suggestions it whispers through Corruption, so long as they continue following those suggestions.
Smoke
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 151
Description: By spending a point of Essence, a Shattered Hart can snort out a cloud of sulfurous smoke that shrouds the Bane in darkness. Increase the difficulty of all rolls to hit the bane by one, or two for Garou in Lupus form due to the stench. The Shattered Hart can see clearly through the smoke and suffers no penalties.
Yawning Void
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 148
Description: This Charm stands as the most fearsome of the Nihilach’s powers. It activates reflexively by paying one Essence whenever something dies in the Nihilach’s presence, be it a discorporate spirit or a murdered Garou, and the death need not be at the Nihilach’s hands. The billowing emptiness of the Nihilach’s body unfolds into a sheer, sanity-scraping void that draws in the soul of the slain. Anything swallowed by the Yawning Void is gone forever. A Garou hero will not persist as an ancestor spirit, nor be returned to Gaia’s embrace and reincarnated. He, like anything else swallowed by this Charm, will simply cease to be.
Weaver Charms
These Charms are granted by the Weaver. A spirit with one of these Charms can use Airt Sense to travel via the Pattern Web.
Calcify
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit binds a character into the Pattern Web. The Storyteller rolls Willpower, contested by the target’s Rage. Each success subtracts one dot from a Physical Attribute of the spirit’s choice (or Essence in the case of spirits). When the target’s Essence or Attributes drop to zero, the target is held in the Pattern Web. Werewolves must be freed by their packmates, while Wyld energy can disrupt the Pattern Web to free spirits.
Solidify Reality
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit extends and strengthens the Pattern Web. The Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Gnosis. Each success increases the target’s Essence (or effective health levels) by one per success. The effects last for a day. A target can only benefit from one use of this Charm at a time; all further uses before the effects wear off automatically fail.
Spirit Static
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit increases the Gauntlet in an area by one. Up to three spirits may work in concert (increasing the Gauntlet by three). The spirit must remain in the same area and is distracted, reducing all of its dice pools by 2.
Wyld Charms
Break Reality
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit can change something’s Umbral form: turning water into acid, turning part of a wall into a door, or even changing a couch into a steak dinner. The Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Gnosis (difficulty depends on degree of change), with one element of the target changing with each success. On a failure, the spirit loses a point of Essence. On a botch, it loses a point of Gnosis as well.
Disorient
W20 Core, pg 367
Description: The spirit can alter landmarks and directions. The Storyteller rolls the spirit’s Gnosis (difficulty 6 or the Gauntlet rating, whichever is higher).
Abliphet
These city-dwelling Banes appear to be a hideous fusion of Weaver and Wyrmish forces. They make their lairs atop tall buildings designed for human habitation: apartment blocks, tenements, and even the occasional run-down hotel are the normal hunting grounds of Abliphets. They extend spiritual tendrils down through the hidden ducts and vents of the building and slowly turn the building they’ve chosen as their prey into a hotbox of tension, despair, and rage. No one in such a cursed building can keep a dark secret to himself; no one can keep their mind off the failings of their neighbors; but equally, none can bring themselves to take the building’s problems outside of its borders. Once the building has collapsed into a spiritual Wound or self-destructs in an orgy of domestic violence, murder, or arson, the Abliphet moves on to find new prey.
Rage 9, Gnosis 9, Willpower 6, Essence 25-35
Charms: Airt Sense, Blighted Touch, Control Electrical Systems, Domain Sense, Everybody’s Secret, Illuminate, Shatter Glass, Short Out
Image: An Abliphet is a massive Bane: A huge, jellylike, white-and-purple thing squatting at the top of a building. If possible, Abliphets lair in attics or storage spaces, but in a pinch they will squat on the roof, open to the elements. Most of the Bane’s substance takes the form of long, pulsing veins, bladders, and tubes dangling down through the substance of the building. They choke its Umbral ducts and pipes writhe invisibly along the walls of its elevator shafts. It is through these pipes and arteries that it conducts the building’s dirty secrets after processing them in its main body.
Background: No one is quite sure where Abliphets come from, but they’re among the most destructive Banes of the modern urban environment. The Hakken of Japan are well-acquainted with these horrors, where they exist in unparalleled numbers, finding the nation’s ant-hive overcrowding much to their liking.
Storytelling Notes: Abliphets are good for running the Werewolf equivalent of a haunted house story, or a combat raid. Finding out about the Bane’s presence is only the beginning of a pack’s troubles; running the gauntlet of the thing’s environment-manipulating Charms to actually reach it is a job in itself. In worst-case scenarios, an Abliphet may act as a central misery-focus to attract lesser Banes, and a pack may find itself stumbling into a run-down tenement full of spiritual shock troops and even some fomori.
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 145
Crimson Pestilent
Crimson Pestilents are Banes of sickness, parasites, disease, and dysfunction. Their deepest delight is to witness flesh in revolt against itself, and so they congregate where humans breathe in toxic chemicals, re-use needles, drink from parasite- or mercury-tainted waters, and drink irradiated water. They revel in sudden flare-ups of Ebola and evangelize cancers. Moreover, when they find a human afflicted with the marks of the Wyrm, one whose flesh is sick and fighting against itself, they set the terrible red tendrils of their power upon that person, and empower the sickness.
Rage 6, Gnosis 3, Willpower 8, Essence 17
Charms: Airt Sense, Awaken the Blight, Blighted Touch, Materialize, Swift Flight
Image: Crimson Pestilents appear as winding red fogs from a distance; upon closer inspection, one sees them as composed of millions of hair-fine blood vessels, all twisting and writhing around one another.
Background: Crimson Pestilents are a new menace, first sighted in the 1960s. They were extremely rare until the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, when their numbers swelled, now they fester throughout the world. Black Spiral Theurges believe they are the breath of the Wyrm, exhaled into the world.
Storytelling Notes: Crimson Pestilents are particularly loathsome Banes, striking as they do at the weak and the wounded. They’re best used as a reminder that the Garou must remain vigilant, and that in the final days, even a hospital or medicine lodge may be part of the battlefield.
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 146
Halassh
Heavy-hitting shock troops of the Wyrm, Halassh are straightforward killers. Pentex and the Black Spiral Dancers both make frequent use of Halassh as spiritual muscle; they have few other uses, but then, muscle is useful enough. Halassh rarely attempt to manifest unless bid to do so; they prefer to hunt other spirits, disdaining mortal prey.
Rage 8, Gnosis 2, Willpower 8, Essence 18
Charms: Airt Sense, Armor, Dissolution, Materialize
Image: Halassh are hulking terrors, broad-shouldered, bare-skulled, with huge claws and fangs and wild, staring eyes. Their pale hides seem pitted and acid-scarred, and they stand nearly as tall as a Crinos Garou does.
Background: Halassh are spirits of powerful corrosives, spilled carelessly. Pentex entices the spirits to guard its installations through haphazard disposal of dangerous chemicals; the Black Spiral Dancers simply summon and bind the things. The spirits have no particular great agenda; they simply hate anything that is pure, and seek to rend it with their claws and fangs.
Storytelling Notes: Halassh are heavy line-breaker troops compared to the “standard infantry” of the Scrag. They exist to provide combat challenges — nothing more, nothing less — although the hideous wounds they inflict may also pose a challenge for the healers of the Garou nation.
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 146
Harpies
Silent stalkers of human and Garou alike, Harpies circle the sky, scanning for any sign of dissension and jealousy upon which to feed. Unhealthy rivalries soaked with envy attract the Banes, who then find an adequate place up high and out of sight in which to build their nests. From their vantage points, they spy on the goings on about them, leaving their nests to steal small items of value . The trinkets end up back in their nests, where the spirits wait for opportune moments to place them in strategic locations to implicate others in the theft, sowing distrust in even close relationships.
Rage 5, Gnosis 7, Willpower 10, Essence 22
Charms: Incite Rage, Innocuous, Materialize, Peek
Image: Harpies appear as falcons with mangy green feathers that never sit flat. Thick overgrown talons clasp at their perches as they constantly shift, never quite able to hold their balance. A Harpy’s eyes glow brilliant toxic green in the darkness, shining with malicious intelligence. Their nests are crafted from branches and leaves of nearby foliage, gnawed from still living limbs. The bark twists and withers from the agony of its final moments of life, looping in with other dead branches to create a woven wall. Such nests hide various tokens of import that the Harpy has stolen; letters, thumbdrives, talens, and the occasional fetish have all found their way into a Harpy’s talons.
Background: Carved from the essence of captured Falcon spirits, Harpies are terrors for Garou to behold, especially the Silver Fangs. Harpies prefer to nest high in the Umbra above septs or on the top of office buildings where they watch for victims. Pentex employees have fallen to the corrupted falcon spirits more than once, and the corporation finds the Banes to be a nuisance at best. Black Spiral Dancers, however, take a wicked glee in observing a sept over which a Harpy has nested. The birds steal whatever they can from the Garou, taking utmost caution when doing so. They then place the valuables with others, inciting blame for theft. When tempers start to flare within the sept, the Harpy waits for an opportune moment to throw as much of the sept into chaos as it can. The Bane is fond of turning Garou against their elders, and its favorite targets are the strict hierarchies of the Shadow Lords and Silver Fangs.
Storytelling Notes: Harpies target any sept that has dissension boiling within its boundaries. Items go missing, Garou blame one another, and Harpies are patient enough that the descent into chaos can take weeks or even months. If a pack has been doing particularly well and is basking in its success, a Harpy might start turning others in the sept against them, especially the younger packs. A packmate could find himself framed for numerous thefts, leaving it up to his fellows to clear his name and find the true thief.
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 147
Nihilach
The Nihilach, blessedly rare, figure prominently in the tales of modern Garou. Pessimists hold that these Banes are spirits of the Apocalypse itself, manifesting to pave the way for the coming of the Wyrm. Others hold that they are the talon-tips of the Corrupter, gaining its first all-destroying hold upon Gaia directly. The Silent Striders know the truth, but do not speak it. It is no better than the rumors. Nihilach appear at portentous moments in the war against Gaia, usually moments when a significant piece of the Mother is about to die. First, they stand and watch, impassively surveying the course of events; and then they move in to fight. That is the only mercy of the Nihilach — that they eventually condescend to do battle with Gaia’s warriors. These great Banes are terrible, all-consuming forces in battle, and many brave Garou cannot even muster the strength to raise a claw against them. Nevertheless, those that do fight discover that the Nihilach are not invincible. In that fact alone, the Garou strive to find hope.
Rage 10, Gnosis 4, Willpower 9, Essence 30-50
Charms: Airt Sense, Armor, Blast, Blighted Touch, Materialize, Re-Form, Yawning Void
Image: Nihilach look like very little, in a way. They’re null impressions on the world around them, a shadow that drinks light, understood as impressions rather than details. They’re tall, standing higher than a Garou in Crinos, and when they act, there is the understanding of long, painfully thin limbs. Nothingness hangs about them like a shroud, and that shroud gives the impression of a wide, powerful body. A Nihilach cannot properly be said to have a face, but those looking where a face should be often glimpse impressions of those they have known in the past, individuals they associate with memories of loss and regret. Nihilach are silent, making no noise as they stand and watch, nor when they swoop in to attack.
Background: The Silent Striders, with their greater understanding of the Dark Umbra, understand what the Nihilach are. They’re Banes of Oblivion, the annihilation that waits beyond the hunger of the Wyrm, when the Destroyer has eaten even itself. That they are beginning to appear in the Umbra and upon the face of Gaia is the direst of many dark omens in these final days.
Storytelling Notes: The presence of the Nihilach is an existential threat, a whispered promise that there will be no world beyond the Apocalypse, no recovery, no new age to rise from the ashes of the old. They challenge both the martial prowess and the convictions of the Garou, and best brought forth at the climax of a chronicle, to underline the import of whatever disaster the Garou fight to avert. To win a battle where a Nihilach took the field is to have definitively prevented Gaia from moving deeper into the final night from which there is return, and that is an act worthy of celebration.
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 148
Nocturna
The Nocturna, also known as a Nighthag, is a defiler of hopes and dreams. These Banes wander the Umbra in search of particularly potent dreams or noteworthy dreamers. When they’ve found an appropriate sleeping victim, they poison that individual’s sleeping hours, twisting his dreams into visions of despair and distrust. A dream of success and wealth might suddenly become a nightmare of ruin and failure due to the betrayal of a loved one. The common refrain of these dreams is the downfall of the sleeper, always at the hands of a trusted friend, lover, spouse, parent, packmate, or other close ally.
Rage 6, Gnosis 7, Willpower 5, Essence 18
Charms: Airt Sense, Dream Warp, Materialize, Peek
Image: Nighthags appear as beautiful women with long tangled hair, wickedly hooked claws, and a mouth full of pus.
Background: The Garou believe Nocturnae to be tiny fragments of the nightmares of the Wyrm itself, shaken loose from its dark dreams to roam the Umbra. Nighthags tend to form a particular attachment to a single victim, revisiting him repeatedly until she destroys a relationship with one of her loved ones, egged on by mounting fatigue and paranoia. If a Nocturna’s target steadfastly refuses to give in to the dire portents of her dreams, the Bane eventually grows frustrated; one night it will materialize and kill whichever loved one its victim seems most loathe to abandon, and then frames her for the crime.
Storytelling Notes: While Nighthags present little direct threat to the Garou in a physical confrontation, they rarely bother with mere violence. Garou are a special prize for a Nocturna. A werewolf living outside the safety of a caern is a boiling cauldron of Rage and hair-trigger instinct at the best of times, and given to believing in dream-omens in a way most modern people aren’t. If the Garou themselves seem unlikely to fall for a Nighthag’s manipulations, then their Kinfolk make even more inviting targets.
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 148
Raptor
Raptors are Banes that feed off of pain and lust — not affection or simple sexual desire — but a twisted and desperate need for dominance and conquest. Their targets of choice are those who view others as mere objects existing for their own gratification. The Bane whispers across the Gauntlet, urging humans to act on their desires, and enhancing them with an aura of false confidence and persuasiveness. The Raptor picks a particular human as its “special project” and doesn’t let go, riding a wave of one-night stands, abusive relationships, and broken hearts to the Raptor’s desired conclusion: rape, depravity, and murder. It moves on once the host is a hollowed-out shell, leaving behind a shadow of a human being, something moving through a routine of abuse in the hopes of reigniting some feeling in the burnt-out cinder that used to be his soul.
Rage 5, Gnosis 8, Willpower 6, Essence 19 (plus upto 10 more if the Bane has fed recently)
Charms: Airt Sense, Corruption, Materialize, Sleaze Aura
Image: A Raptor looks like a great, fleshy flower atop an array of slim, well-toned legs of both genders.
Background: This Bane feeds from the lusts of its host, the act of consummation, and then the pain of the host’s victims when he casts them aside; it needs all three in order to feed. The more profound the victim’s residual sense of use or violation, the more Essence the Raptor gains. A regular one-night-stand with someone as worn-down as the host himself is worth only a single point, while ruining someone else’s life might be worth five all at once.
Storytelling Notes: Once, Pentex tried to bond Raptors to various products, including cosmetics and colognes. The Raptors refused to cooperate, and now despise Pentex-created Enticers. A Raptor will go out of its way to guide its host into an Enticer’s path, with the intent of using and ruining the fomor, even killing it, if possible.
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 149
Rot Walker
While not the mightiest or cleverest of the Wyrm’s children, the Banes known as Rot Walkers are among the most disturbing. They are spirits of decay: not of death, but of the corruption that follows, not of endings, but of unresolved conclusions left to fester. They are the Wyrm’s promise for the future, a world inescapable even in final dissolution: a world where there is no afterlife for valiant heroes, but only an eternity of shuffling footsteps and putrid meat.
Rage 5, Gnosis 4, Willpower 7, Essence 16
Charms: Airt Sense, Armor, Blighted Touch, Carrion Walk, Lightning in the Meat, Tracking
Image: A Rot Walker in the Umbra looks like a collection of rotting corpse-parts from a variety of different animals, bound together with gut and sinew. One might be a crude centaur made of the rotting lower parts of a horse, topped by a decaying human torso and a half-flayed cattle skull; another could be a dead hound, creeping along on a multitude of mismatched and rotting arms and legs.
Background: The Silent Striders were the first tribe to encounter Rot Walkers. When they speak of these Banes at all, they say that they were once lesser spirits of death that watched over the moment when spirit and corpse separated. Curious, they listened at cracks between their domain and the Low Umbra of the dead; whatever whispers came through to them changed them forever, filling their eyes with darkness and their forms with decay. Now they are harbingers of the world beyond the Apocalypse, a soulless land of ugly, senseless destruction; and of meat silently rotting beneath a red and wounded sun.
Storytelling Notes: Rot Walkers are opportunists, taking whatever corpse seems most interesting to them at any given moment, but they take especial joy in presenting the Garou with evidence of their handiwork. If a werewolf loses control and kills an innocent in the grip of Frenzy, a Rot Walker will ensure she meets her victim again, she may even go so far as to restore the victim’s control of the corpse, so she can ask the werewolf why she had to die. Rot Walkers also enjoy dragging dead Kinfolk out of their graves.
Uktena Theurges have catalogued the existence of a similar, weaker Bane known as a Meat Puppet, which animates only the remains of the young, such as dead children and drowned kittens. Meat Puppets possess Carrion Walk, but not Lightning in the Meat.
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 149
Rust Spider
Rust Spiders aren’t really a single variety of Bane. Instead, they’re the catch-all name that both Garou and Black Spiral Dancers use to refer to those cases where the spirit-servants of the Weaver — Pattern Spiders, Net Spiders, Chaos Monitors, and so on — are corrupted by the vile essence of the Wyrm, yet retain their basic shape and function.
Rust Spiders seem to serve two masters, rather than tumbling completely into the grasp of the Wyrm as most corrupted spirits do. That distinction is, in truth, what makes a Rust Spider a Rust Spider, rather than just another urban-conceptual Bane. A former Pattern Spider continues to weave according to the Weaver’s design.
A former Net-Spider continues to herd data packets to and fro across the networks where it makes its lair. Corrupted guardian spirits, such as Hunter Spiders, show the greatest deviance in their behavior, for they always allow Wyrm-tainted spirits free passage, and never treat them as enemies.
Rust Spiders keep the traits they had prior to their corruption.
Charms: Rust Spiders continue to use the Charms they originally possessed as Weaver spirits. In addition, they gain Blighted Touch and Darkweaving.
Image: The average Rust Spider closely resembles a Pattern Spider, or whatever sort of spirit it was before its corruption. Indeed, from a distance it might even be mistaken for one. Upon closer inspection, the spirit’s altered nature is unmistakable; its shining body is corroded and pitted, while unwholesome organic growths replace formerly mechanical elements. The overall first impression is that the spirit has contracted some form of biomechanical cancer, and its movements bear this out. They’re shuddering and jerky, lacking the elegant clockwork precision that is the usual hallmark of the Weaver.
Background: Some Rust Spiders are “naturally occurring,” appearing at the peripheries of blights, Pits, and other badly Wyrm-tainted areas of the Umbra. More often, Black Spiral Dancers create Rust Spiders through the Gift: Claws of Corrosion (see p. 121). This is often part of establishing an urban Pit, transforming the city’s spiritual antibodies into guardians and reinforcements for the spiritual power of the nascent Wyrm-caern. Because many Rust Spiders are non-aggressive if left alone, less-experienced Garou are sadly apt to overlook them, treating them almost as a background detail. Only those canny in the ways of the Wyrm are likely to recognize dense concentrations of Rust Spiders as a likely sign that a Pit is somewhere nearby.
Storytelling Notes: Rust Spiders work well as set pieces for urban stories, showing that the war for Gaia is bigger than a simple clash of Wyrm vs. Garou. Even the cold, terrible purity of the Weaver is a target for the Wyrm’s poisons as the Apocalypse looms. This is a particularly sobering threat for Glass Walker characters.
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 150
Shattered Harts
Raging through once pristine Umbral landscapes, Shattered Harts find sustenance in agony and misery. They prefer to feed from the pain of Gaian spirits that have been subjected to the desecration of once sacred land. Insane and violent, the Harts roam their hunting grounds, attacking anything that would end the misery in which they bask. When there aren’t any adequate victims, a Shattered Hart spends its time inflicting further injury on the weaker Banes and creatures in the area.
Rage 10, Gnosis 8, Willpower 6, Essence 24
Charms: Armor, Materialize, Smoke, Tracking
Image: A Shattered Hart resembles a stag spirit with an over-exaggerated muscle structure similar to a bull’s. Its hide is oil-slicked and reflects all light in a sickly yellow hue, regardless of the source. Stark white eyes gleam from under antlers that twist in a tight gnarl over its head; these overgrown antlers are covered in inch-long thorns. Wisps of smoke curl from the bane’s nostrils. They have no permanent places of rest, but wander their territory endlessly, always on the hunt for intruders.
Background: When the Wyrm’s minions capture a Stag spirit and carve out its Gaian essence, they create a Shattered Hart. With only emptiness inside, the spirits seek to fulfill themselves by wreaking the agony they faced back upon the world. Shattered Harts haunt Blights and Hellholes that exist in the wilderness. They feel at home anywhere Pentex has leveled forests or started a fracking operation. Rarely materializing, the banes stalk the Umbra, attacking anyone or anything it perceives as a threat to it or its territory. Only when they detect an overwhelming threat in the physical world will the spirit materialize to attack it. A Shattered Hart will lash out at any Garou, including the Black Spiral Dancers.
Storytelling Notes: Shattered Harts work well to add a new level of horror to Hellholes and Blights. All Garou go into such places knowing they’re going to face banes, but not necessarily banes crafted from Gaian spirits they revere. Black Spiral Dancers take delight in taunting Shattered Harts and leading them to packs or septs with large numbers of Fianna.
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 151
Thinbone
The Banes known as Thinbones are insatiable spirits of hunger, born in places of terrible famine. Unlike many conceptual Banes, Thinbones don’t hang around the places of their creation, but instead seek out places of richness and opulence — lands of plenty. It is here that they hunt, using humans to feed their own insatiable appetites and to amuse their bizarre whims. Thinbones are at least easy for the Garou to spot once they arrive in an area, as their victims’ deaths are usually strange enough to make local headlines.
Rage 7, Gnosis 7, Willpower 5, Essence 19 (up to 25 if possessing a host)
Charms: Airt Sense, Corruption, Materialize, Possession, Tracking
Image: Thinbones look like tall, genderless, emaciated humans with elongated features dominated by an eternally gaping mouth. Their long, thin bones protrude through their flesh in places, whittled down to sharp points.
Background: Once uncommon, Thinbones have proliferated in the second half of the twentieth century. This puzzles many Garou, for famine has always been a great scourge of humanity. There seems no obvious reason for the sudden increase in this Bane’s numbers. Thinbones lust after the incredible power of caerns, but have no means of consuming them. They will target off-duty caern guardians if at all possible.
Storytelling Notes: As solo Banes, Thinbones present little physical threat to a mighty werewolf; instead, they are opportunities for the Garou to act as heroes, saving the unfortunates that Thinbones possess from a terrible, demeaning, prolonged death. On the other hand, Thinbones tend to target those in positions of privilege and plenty; certain Garou (such as Bone Gnawers and Red Talons) may not want to help the spirit’s victims.
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 152
Spawn of the Wyrm
If Banes and their twisted flesh-puppets were the Wyrm’s only creations, the work of the Garou would be much more straightforward, if no less daunting. However, the Wyrm’s polluted loins are fecund indeed, and multitudes of horrors walk the Earth, stamped by its taint. Some of these are twisted things the Wyrm has spawned upon the face of Gaia; its servants at Pentex made others. Each is a threat unto itself.
Heart Eaters
The monstrosities known as Heart Eaters are an old, old work of the Wyrm: rare, subtle, and insidious. They’re strange things, neither Banes nor fomori nor the product of any other Wyrmish artifice of which the Garou are aware. They seem to exist only to reap a harvest of death and betrayal, and to worship the Maeljin known as Empress Aliara.
Heart Eaters are soft-bodied, writhing, flexible things. No creature of Gaia could feel anything save revulsion for a Heart Eater. However, the Heart Eaters understand the emotions and relationships of others all too well. Possessed of an uncanny empathy and a genius for relationship dynamics, Heart Eaters find it easy to sniff out deep bonds between others. When they find a particularly deep or vital bond, they go to work. Heart-Eaters are a sort of skin-walker, eating an individual’s heart and brain to absorb their identity. They then wear the skin of their victim and masquerade as them, the better to get close to the victim’s paramour.
Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2, Charisma 5, Manipulation 5, Appearance 0 (uses host-skin’s Appearance), Perception 4, Intelligence 3, Wits 4
Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics 2, Brawl 2, Empathy 5, Expression 4, Performance 5, Subterfuge 5
Traits: Rage 5, Gnosis 8, Willpower 7
Health Levels: OK, –1, –1, –2, –2, –5, Incapacitated.
Attacks: Strength +3 bite (lethal), Strength tentacle attack (bashing, out to 10 feet), Strength +1 sting (lethal, see below)
Powers: Body Barbs, Clean Scent, Empathy, Extra Limbs, Sting
- Clean Scent: The Heart Eater may spend one Gnosis point per scene to hide its Wyrm-taint from detection.
- Empathy: With a Wits + Empathy roll (difficulty 5) the Heart Eater can discern not only whom an individual loves passionately, but if the object of the target’s desire feels the same way. By consuming an individual’s heart and brain and spending two Gnosis points, the Heart Eater can perfectly impersonate the victim. They instinctively mimic the victim’s personality, mannerisms, and even habits, and have access to the victim’s memories. This access is instinctive rather than deliberate, however. The Heart Eater can’t “rifle around” in the victim’s memories selectively. Instead, memories arise and present themselves as necessary for the Heart Eater to maintain its masquerade.
- Sting: The Heart Eater can inject a paralytic toxin into its victim through the tips of its tentacles. Unless the target makes a Stamina roll against difficulty 9, they will be rendered unable to move for the rest of the scene. Injecting a dose of toxin costs one point of Rage.
Image: When a Heart Eater emerges from a stolen skin, it is a hideously malformed thing that only fits the description of “human” by a great act of generosity. The monster is mottled mold-green and maggot-white, its body plump, segmented, flexible, with collapsible flesh, and many-jointed limbs. Its face consists of two perfectly human eyes, which can change colors at a whim, set in the midst of puffy flesh and a great, sharp-fanged, lipless maw. Two long, stinger-tipped tentacles extend from the flesh of the thing’s lower back; it wraps them around itself when sliding into a skin. The monster is able to compress its body radically, so that it always fits into any flayed skin it has stolen, and the hideous secretions that coat its flesh are able to preserve a stolen skin almost indefinitely.
Background: No one knows where the Heart Eaters come from. They feature in Uktena songs that date all the way back to the War of Rage, making them one of the Wyrm’s most enduring horrors. Heart Eaters have always primarily been found in the Americas, with only a very few ever stalking the towns and woods of Europe. They feature prominently in the cautionary songs and foe-litanies of the Pure Tribes, but were almost unknown to European Garou during the era of the Wyrmcomers. As a result, the Heart Eaters reaped a great and terrible harvest among their new and unwary foes up until the twentieth century, when shared knowledge informed all the Garou Nation of these creatures.
Storytelling Notes: Heart Eaters are willing to play the long game when wearing a loved one’s skin. They’re cowardly things, more interested in destroying hearts and shattering sanity than in simple murder. As a result, they often leave the paramours of their victims alive after paralyzing them, “disrobing” in front of a horrified captive audience. The greatest of Heart-Eaters may stalk a preferred target throughout his life, returning to check on him every few years, waiting patiently for him to fall in love again, and then repeating their masquerade. Supernatural beings, already alienated from the rest of the world, are particularly tempting targets.
Heart Eaters are mostly solo operators, seeming to reserve their Wyrmish devotion exclusively for Empress Aliara, but will work occasionally with other Wyrm-horrors or even Black Spiral Dancers if they can be convinced that their allies are also true servants of Aliara. Heart Eaters are especially dangerous when working alongside others, restraining their natural impulses in order to act as long-term deep-cover spies within Kinfolk families or even septs of the Garou.
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 152
Thunderwyrms
Vast and deformed children of the atomic age, Thunderwyrms are among the more recent Wyrm-birthed monstrosities, and among the largest. Massive, pale, bloated terrors, Thunderwyrms live only to consume and grow. They sleep deep beneath the ground for many years before the need to feed drives them to the surface in an orgy of destruction: trees, cars, livestock, a Thunderwyrm can digest almost anything, but only living things truly satisfy the monster’s massive appetite.
Attributes: Strength 8, Dexterity 4, Stamina 8, Charisma 0, Manipulation 0, Appearance 0, Perception 3, Intelligence 1, Wits 2
Note: The Attributes listed above reflect the statistics for an average (30-foot) Thunderwyrm. Strength and Stamina increase substantially the larger the creatures grow, and there appears to be no upper limit on how much they can grow. Grandmother Thunderwyrm is allegedly strong enough to shatter concrete by rippling her skin.
Abilities: Athletics 5 (cannot dodge), Brawl 5
Traits: Rage 6, Willpower 5
Health Levels: OK, OK, OK, –1, –1, –1, –2, –2, –2, –3, –3, –4, –4, –5, –5, Incapacitated
Attacks: Bite (Strength lethal), Roll (Strength bashing — more than 3 successes indicates the target is pinned under the creature’s bulk), Body Slam (Strength + 3 bashing)
Powers: Armor (four extra soak dice), Burrow (as the Garou Gift, but with no cost)
Image: Thunderwyrms range in size from merely huge to unspeakably gigantic. The most commonly encountered normally stretch 30 feet in length, and almost eight feet wide. The largest, and presumably oldest, is Grandmother Thunderwyrm: she spans the length of two football fields and is almost three hundred feet around. Rumor has it that she contains an entire Wyrm caern in her gut. The smallest Thunderwyrm yet seen — presumably newly hatched — was only the length of a man.
These pillars of pale grey flesh constantly secrete a thick, mucus-like substance to speed their way through the earth. They move through muscular contractions, and by eating everything ahead of them and defecating the earth out as they pass, leaving little trace of their presence. Thunderwyrms resemble earthworms with enormous mouths filled with row upon row of jagged teeth. Some are aquatic and develop rubbery black hides more like a leech.
Background: According to the Uktena, the first Thunderwyrms were born from the radioactive soil at the Trinity nuclear test site. Reports of Thunderwyrm attacks are rising in frequency. A new generation of the things appears to have recently hatched, and Thunderwyrms are born hungry.
Storytelling Notes: Encounters with Thunderwyrms are rare, and generally in rural areas. Many Thunderwyrms follow trends in their attack patterns: only coming out during storms, for example, or repeatedly stalking favored locations. The marks they leave on the ground strongly resemble the patterns left by tornadoes. While their digestion-trails are badly Wyrm-tainted, they leave no chemical digestive residue in the soil for scientists to examine.
Thunderwyrms are perfect for stories where “something” is beginning to terrorize a small farming community, or isolated desert town. If the Garou don’t step in, a hungry Thunderwyrm — or its newly hatched brood — might devour the entire settlement.
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 153
Skull Pigs
The Skull Pigs are twisted horrors, the only surviving trace of the once powerful Grondr. Once charged with cleansing Gaia, the wereboar’s fallen descendants became their opposite. Skull Pigs attempt to befoul or devour everything they touch. They eat carrion and draw sinister strength from the flesh of the dead, though they can subsist on almost anything: including garbage, toxic waste, or even radioactive corpses. Skull Pigs dig through graveyards seeking human bones, devouring them to regain their Rage. When they eat bones of Wyrm-creatures, the Pigs gain a malevolent cunning that makes them all the more dangerous. The Skull Pigs can smell such tainted remains, and devouring such a feast raises a Skull Pig’s intelligence within only a few minutes.
Attributes: Strength 7, Dexterity 4, Stamina 8, Charisma 0, Manipulation 0 (2-4), Appearance 0, Perception 2, Intelligence 1 (2-5), Wits 3
Abilities: Alertness 2, Athletics 5, Brawl 5, Intimidation 4, Primal-Urge 3, Stealth 2, Survival 4
Powers: Regeneration (as Garou)
Traits: Rage 5, Willpower 3
Health Levels: OK, OK, –1, –1, –1, –2, –2, –2, –5, Incapacitated
Attacks: Body Slam, Tusks (Strength +3)
Note: Each meal of Wyrm-tainted bones increases the Skull Pig’s Intelligence by 1, to a maximum of 5. These increases last for one year. Eating the bodies of especially powerful fomori, or devouring large numbers of them at once, makes these increases permanent. An intelligent Skull Pig learns at least one Black Spiral Dancer Gift per dot in Intelligence. Because of their toxic diet and innate corruption, the flesh of a Skull Pig is poisonous; any creature biting one suffers a point lethal damage per turn for the next six turns (see “Poisons and Drugs,” W20 Core, pg 258-259).
Image: Skull Pigs resemble huge, somewhat emaciated wild boars that stand six feet at the shoulder and are almost seven feet long. Their bristles are coarse and malformed and they stink of grave-rot. The deathly pale flesh covering their skulls is so thin, and the bone structure so distinctive, that it’s easy to get the impression that they have no flesh to their heads at all. Despite their deathlike appearance, they obviously possess a wiry strength.
Unlike many of the Wyrm’s creatures, Skull Pigs do not have obvious sores or deformities like withered limbs. Corrupted so long ago, the Skull Pigs have fully adapted to the Wyrm’s foul energies. They have lost the ability to change shape, and are born and grow up as nothing more than clever animals. They must devour flesh poisoned by the Wyrm to regain the intelligence once common to all of their ancestors.
Background: All of the Changing Breeds know that the War of Rage brought about the Grondr’s extermination. So enraged were the members of one of the last Sounders (packs) of Grondr, by the Garou’s slaughter of their Breed that their lust for vengeance and their hatred of the Garou attracted the attention of Lord Steel, the Maeljin Incarna of hatred. He offered these Grondr the chance to survive the werewolves’ onslaught and for them and their descendants to strike back against their enemies. The wereboars accepted this foul deal and they and their descendants became agents of the Wyrm.
Today, Skull Pigs roam in packs of three to seven. Often family groups, packs drive off young or elderly males, who form their own especially violent and predatory packs. Ordinary Skull Pigs have an evil cunning, but are only slightly more intelligent than gorillas or chimpanzees. However, if they are able to feed on the bones of a creature tainted by the Wyrm, they become fully intelligent and more actively malevolent. Intelligent Skull Pigs can be almost as dangerous as Black Spiral Dancers, but still lack the ability to change shape.
Storytelling Notes: Even the unintelligent Skull Pigs will attack Garou, though they ignore humans who are not obviously easy prey. Most humans either do not remember seeing a Skull Pig, or believe that they have seen a normal, if often terrifying wild boar or feral pig. They inflict Delirium the same as seeing a Garou’s Crinos form.
Ordinary Skull Pigs have keen senses and are skilled and ever-hungry pack hunters. They can smell weakness, and make a special effort to prey upon the weak. Intelligent Skull Pigs revel in tainting the land and corrupting or killing other Changing Breeds, especially the Garou. Despite now being creatures of the Wyrm, intelligent Skull Pigs retain a faint racial memory of the destruction of their kind at the hands of the Garou.
In addition to becoming intelligent, Skull Pigs who devour Wyrm-tainted remains also gain the ability to imitate perfectly sounds and voices. They use this ability to trick humans and members of the Changing Breeds into thinking that an ally or comrade is calling for help. The pigs then lie in ambush when their victim comes to help. Skull Pigs can use their hooves to dig tunnels, and the intelligent members of their Breed occasionally construct large warrens to act as traps. They collapse these tunnels upon enemies who enter attempting to slay the Skull Pigs.
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 154
The Fallen
The Black Spiral Dancers are the only tribe of Garou that has fallen to the Wyrm, but they are far from the only members of the Changing Breeds fallen to corruption. Agents of the Wyrm work to corrupt individuals as well as groups. Every year, a few individuals among the Changing Breeds forswear their duty to Gaia and become servants of the Wyrm. Some are willfully blind to the consequences of their actions and choose corruption because they so firmly believe the ends justify the means that they lose sight of the ends they seek to accomplish. Others might ally with the Wyrm to save their own lives, or carry previous taint by the Wyrm and fell due to shame and self-loathing. A few simply decide that they want to be on what looks to them like the winning side in the coming Apocalypse.
Antara: The Spider-Queen’s Fallen
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 156
Queen Ananasa rules the werespiders. The Tenere, Kumoti and Hatar each obeys one of the Triat, as decided by the Queen. Even the Kumo have their place in the Ananasa’s web, corrupting and killing to her ultimate design.
Not the Antara. Also known as Breakers, the Antara walked Queen Ananasa’s web, obediently following the strands until they saw her trap for what it is. Refusing ensnarement they entreated the Wyrm for power and broke free of the webs. While the Hatar follow the Wyrm’s original purpose, the Antara follow the Wyrm into freedom.
The Antara believe Queen Ananasa uses the Ananasi for her own goals, not Gaia’s. Why should they serve when they can choose their own path? Breaking free of the Queen’s web opens their eyes — they understand corruption is inevitable, and everything must fall. Entropy is unceasing — even the most debased and degraded can erode further. The Antara see freedom in what others call the Wyrm’s madness. It is insanity on a cosmic scale, and only the uncontrolled can begin to understand it.
The Antara know that everything will eventually be of the Wyrm. They didn’t choose the Wyrm because they want to increase its power and speed its inevitable victory — although their existence does both. The Breakers choose the Wyrm’s power to gain freedom from the Queen’s machinations and to experience everything life has to offer before the Wyrm takes it all.
Antara are the hedonists of the Ananasi. Much like the Kumo, they revel in emotional release, often acting in spontaneous, seemingly irrational ways. The Antara see no kinship with the Kumo, and even their apparent irrational behavior is driven by perceptions and goals that are alien to other Ananasi. The Kumo are given to the Wyrm’s service by Queen Ananasi and still serve her plans — duped into believing they serve only the Wyrm. The difference between the Antara and Kumo is invisible to other werespiders, evoking deep anger within the Breakers. To the Antara the difference is immense. Where the Kumo still indirectly serve the Queen, the Antara are free of her webs. Their independence and lifestyle aligns them with the Wyrm but they do not serve it. Their act of breaking from Queen Ananasa is a victory for the Wyrm, and every free action they take damages the threads of her plans. Their existence empowers the Wyrm but the Antara serve only their own whims.
The Antara are free of manipulations and control. They command their own destinies, and they will fight to the death before they submit to any other master, including each other. They reject others binding them, but love to ensnare victims in their webs. In freeing them, the Wyrm may have doomed itself to a prison of its own making. The inescapable core of their being as Ananasi is to weave and build and control. The Antara will inevitably even seek to bind the Wyrm.
More than other werespiders, Breakers are solitary. They will sometimes work with other Antara, or other Ananasi, but they chafe under anyone giving them instruction or controlling their actions. For a Breaker to follow another requires tremendous strength of will to not murder the transgressor. Antara only follow if they independently believe it will further their own goals.
The Shadow War
The Antara don’t just think they’re free. They are free. They see the threads of Queen Ananasa’s webs and the corruption of the Wyrm more clearly than anyone else. What they don’t understand is that they play a more important role in the war against the Wyrm than anyone knows.
When the Wyrm kidnapped Queen Ananasa it was incapable of destroying her, but the Wyrm is patient and understands the rules governing the Triat better than any lesser being ever could. Its corruption is insidious. The Wyrm knows how the purest objects are those most quickly tarnished. Perfection attracts degradation. It could not kill the spider queen, but while she languished in her self-made tomb in the heart of Malfeas she could not prevent the Wyrm’s corruption slowly seeping through her web.
When the Garou recovered Ananasa’s prison-orb from Malfeas, the Queen could already feel the Wyrm’s tendrils seeking a way into her mind. When the werewolves cracked it open she could not tell whether she was already corrupted — what if it was so subtle she never recognized that her decisions were not her own?
Fighting the Wyrm’s touch from her thoughts, Queen Ananasa made the only choice she knew the Wyrm couldn’t predict or counter. She introduced random flaws into her web that only her most independent children could find, although Ananasa has no influence on which qualities lead an individual Ananasi to the Wyrm. These clever, wicked children desert their Queen, but in doing so they sever the threads binding them to any master. She cannot choose who should walk this path — that would give her influence and make the choice untrustworthy. The Antara are truly free agents, and their nature must lead them to turn on the Wyrm as surely as they turned on the Queen.
Unfortunately, the Wyrm is not as easily deceived as Queen Ananasa believes. The Wyrm knew of her impending escape and manipulated events to further its goals. It allowed the Garou to succeed, setting opposition that was merely devastating instead of impossible. It could not mar Ananasa’s opal shell but it believed the manipulated and misguided Garou heroes might succeed. The crack in the shell gave the Wyrm access to Ananasa, and a hook into her mind.
Both the Wyrm and Ananasa believe the freeing of the Antara was the first act in the next stage of their shadowy war. The actions of the Antara may decide in these final days who is victorious – the master manipulator or the supreme seducer.
Creating Breakers
Antara creation is the same as for other Ananasi. They still have the markings showing which member of the Triat they originally served — their fall to the Wyrm does not include any visual sign for others to notice.
Antara may purchase any Ananasi Gift as though it was favored. Queen Ananasa relinquishes all restrictions on these rebellious children, as this is the only way she can ensure they act fully of their own will and are free of her influences. Though this harms the resistance provided by her faithful Ananasi, the Queen has to hope that eventually the gambit will be rewarded when they bind the Wyrm within their webs.
Histpah: The Liar-Kings
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 157
The Bastet are Gaia’s eyes, hunting out secrets in hidden places, guided by their cunning and grace to enter the darkness and emerge triumphant. The werecats are Gaia’s beautiful, proud children. They were born last of the shapeshifters and embody perfection. The Bastet play a coy game with Cahlash, the Father of Night and Author of Mysteries, following him into the unknown but always keeping themselves aloof and in control. The Garou call Cahlash the Wyrm, the embodiment of corruption.
The Bastet know better. Cahlash is the ancient embodiment of the Balance Wyrm, not the modern, lesser, form. This vanity is the Bastet’s greatest downfall; though the cats believe they have control, with every venture into the darkness the Wyrm tempts them with the promise of the greatest secret of all. Every triumphant return brings with it the possibility that the Bastet has opened her eyes to the truth and joined the ranks of the Histpah. The most curious Bastet discover the final obstacle to unlocking Cahlash’s truth is to bind an unbreakable geas into the essence of their being to never reveal a secret’s answer. Thus over-curious Bastet willingly corrupt their Gaia-given purpose.
Having witnessed the new Histpah accept the geas, Cahlash reveals the truth as he knows it. All of Creation is irrelevant. The Wyrm was never the embodiment of balance; the Wyrm is bigger than anything else, it is the void within which everything else sits. The Wyrm conceded tiny parts of its unknowable self to permit the Weaver and the Wyld to exist as brief diversions in its infinite expanse. These two, lesser, elements of the Triat are no more capable of ever being balanced than a Bastet is balanced by one of her claws. Gaia herself is even less significant than the Triat; she is a momentary experiment in the Wyrm’s brief diversion. This diversion was never meant to be permanent and it has run its course, so the Wyrm returns it to the nothingness from which it came.
The Histpah emerge from the darkness full of truth and knowing they can never reveal this or anything else to anyone ever again. To any other creature this would be a nuisance, but the Bastet were made to uncover secrets and bring truths to the light. The Histpah have sold out their purpose and ability to ever again feel the satisfaction of fulfilling their duty, all in exchange for the ultimate nihilistic understanding of the pointlessness of existence.
The Histpah can’t reveal the truth they’ve learned, and they can never share the answer to any other secret. They are still Bastet and they still yearn to know what hides behind the secrets they encounter, but now they must hoard the truths they’ve worked so hard to uncover.
The Cycle of Lies
Most Histpah soon learn that their geas does nothing to prevent them sharing falsehoods as though they were true and they turn their Bastet instincts to spreading misinformation. The spiritual stain they feel in spreading lies is insignificant to the ever-building pressure of denying their natures. They also learn that the pressure only eases if the recipient of information believes it to be true. Other Bastet are canny, skeptical creatures and are unlikely to accept a secret that doesn’t feel right. Most Histpah soon learn how hard it is to fool their own kind, and must take drastic action to prevent their secret from spreading to the Bastet. This is the Histpah’s wretched existence until she dies; a cycle of lies, misinformation and murder to keep hold of the outlet she so desperately needs.
Some Histpah, desperate for release, delight in revealing what they know to helpless victims who will soon die by the Bastet’s claws. This outlet relieves a tremendous amount of stress for the werecat, but many Histpah have learned to their regret that fate sometimes conspires to give their doomed victims a chance to escape, in turn dooming the incautious Histpah. Whether this ends the victim or the werecat, the Wyrm is sated as long one dies.
No tribe of Bastet is more likely to fall victim to Cahlash’s temptations than the others — Father Night intimately understands the curiosity of the werecats and knows how to twist his tantalizing secrets to attract the attentions of any tribe. The Bastet themselves tend to believe Bubasti fall to the Wyrm more than the other tribes, but this is simple prejudice spread by the Histpah to protect their own fallen existence. In fact, the Bubasti are better at uncovering their fallen cousins than other tribes but they have difficulty sharing this knowledge due to the mistrust. Cahlash delights when his fallen children use Bastet pride and arrogance to turn suspicion on innocents.
Cahlash still whispers to fallen Bastet long after they learn his secret. He listens to confessions in the darkness and knows where cunning hunters may find new secrets. Histpah who know that a secret exists but have not learned it may listen to Cahlash’s whispers for clues. Roll Wits + Occult (difficulty 7) with each success giving the Histpah a clue where the answer may be found. This could be the location of a vault, the name of a lost tome, or the image of someone who knows the secret. Cahlash will never directly reveal the answer to the Histpah but will tease the werecat with tantalizing hints. Should the Histpah follow the clues to learn the secret, she is no more capable of revealing it than any other she knows. A fallen werecat can only listen to Cahlash’s whispers once per secret.
Creating Histpah
A Histpah character is made the same as any Bastet character but has an additional Yava. The Histpah may never reveal the true answer to a secret. This applies to all forms of communication — the Histpah is prevented in word, thought or deed from sharing the truth.
Histpah can be tricked into revealing an answer — for example by another character presenting a series of choices and watching the Histpah’s involuntary reactions carefully to discern the truth. Unfortunately for the corrupted werecat, even involuntary revelation violates the terms of her geas.
Any violation of this Yava starts to unravel the Histpah’s existence. She suffers one level of unsoakable aggravated damage per day and appears increasingly translucent until she dies and fades away to nothingness, becoming a secret whose existence Calash has scrubbed from history. Other Bastet may have vague memories of the Histpah and search for proof she existed, but such secrets are very hard to find.
The Histpah may halt the dissolution by destroying everyone who learned the secret she carelessly revealed. Though individual Histpah may find such killing distasteful, few are willing to sacrifice themselves when others could die in their place. Fortunately for the Histpah, the nature of her curse leads her in the direction of the closest victim, but how she gets there is up to her.
The doomed werecat can indulge in straight-forward murder if only one person knew the secret, but if more than one person knows, or if those people told others, the Histpah must slaughter her way to safety or accept the dissipation of her being.
Buzzards: Raven’s Lost Children
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 158
Every pair of wereravens must deliberately create their children using the Rite of the Fetish Egg. As the child matures, this egg begins to crack. It hatches when the youth nears adulthood, transforming the young human, or raven into one of the Corax. At least, things should work that way.
The Rite of the Fetish Egg is extremely difficult and demanding. Many Corax only perform it once in their lifetime, and so they protect the fetish egg with their lives. Corax consider their duty to guard the eggs of their children to be one of their most sacred responsibilities, but sometimes even the most dedicated guardians fail. Occasionally, Black Spiral Dancers or other agents of the Wyrm discover a wereraven’s Umbral nest and steal the fetish egg — usually from the cold dead talons of its guardian.
Deleterious Effects
The thieves carry the egg back to Malfeas. Once there, the spiritual thread connecting the fetish egg with the raven or human who would grow up to become a Corax begins to fray. After several weeks, the spiritual thread snaps. If heroic wereravens rescue the fetish egg before this connection vanishes, all is well, and the young Corax eventually undergoes her First Change, experiencing nothing worse than periodic nightmares.
However, once the connection snaps, the young human or raven becomes catatonic. Most die soon after. At the same time, the egg begins to decay, soon leaving nothing but an empty shell. The thieves plan a far more terrible fate for the egg. In Malfeas, they place it in a foul birthing pit along with a stolen human infant.
Here, the thieves perform the Rite of the Broken Wing, a hideous mockery of the Rite of the Fetish Egg that connects the stolen and dying egg to the infant next to it. Completing this relatively simple ritual requires the ritemaster it to shatter systematically every bone in the left wing of a captive bird. Although agents of the Wyrm can use any bird, most prefer to use a raven — or a captive Corax.
If the Rite of the Broken Wing fails, the egg dissipates and the infant dies. If it succeeds, it binds the two together in a horrible imitation of what should happen to a young wereraven. The damage to the egg and the corrupt energies of Malfeas both serve to warp the final creature. The Corax call these cursed unfortunates Buzzards or Scabs.
Growing Up Scabby
The Rite of the Broken Wing instantly triggers the infant Buzzard’s First Change. Rather than becoming a wereraven as a young adult, the trauma instantly overwhelms the child with the bizarre torture of feeling his body warp and twist in unnatural ways. The shock of this transformation and the sudden combination of human and raven drives the Buzzard permanently insane. Then, to ensure its full corruption, other Buzzards either raise it in Malfeas or take it to earth where Black Spiral Kinfolk or other willing agents of the Wyrm raise it to be a mad and dangerous soldier of corruption.
Regardless of where they grow up, a Buzzard’s corrupt guardians train the young Scab as a spy and assassin. He studies the arts of subterfuge and sabotage and learns to be a sneaky and careful observer. His mentors also teach them everything they know about Corax life and customs.
A few of the less obviously deformed or insane Buzzards can successfully pass for Corax for a short time. Their erratic behavior prevents them from accomplishing any sort of extended deception. Eventually even the most careful Buzzard strikes other Corax as being wrong in some fundamental way. Instead, the bulk of a Scab’s training about the Corax enables him to spy successfully unseen upon wereravens, to understand what he learns, and to kill any lone Corax that he encounters.
Madness and Malformation
Created using a perversion of the wereraven’s sacred birthing Rite and nurtured amidst the twisted energies of Malfeas, Scabs lack the elegance and internal harmony of normal Corax. They are inherently clumsy and discordant individuals. Rather than giving them the best of both species, the Rite of the Broken Wing pits human and raven drives and psychology against one another. Most Buzzards suffer nervous tics and inappropriate mannerisms, and are naturally ungainly while flying and walking. Some Corax who have met Scabs claim they walk like a bird, fly like a human and generally consist of the worst features of each. Buzzards are also prone to violent outbursts of temper, alternating between fits of rage, depression, and euphoria.
Creating Buzzards
Buzzards are in most ways identical to Homid Corax. They share the same addiction to shiny things, the same compulsion to gossip and share what they learn. A few of the most insane Buzzards share all of their knowledge with everyone they encounter, to the point of becoming another insane person standing on a street corner ranting about the End of Days.
They also share the same physical traits, including hollow bones and a vulnerability to gold. Buzzards differ from Corax in only two major ways. They cannot gain Raven’s patronage as a Totem, and they each suffer a physical deformity, their bodies reflecting their twisted origins.
Most have the same deformities found in metis Garou, like incomplete transformations or a total lack of feathers. Other Buzzards have afflictions that more obviously come from the Wyrm, such as rotting flesh, large numbers of warts, extraneous fleshy growths, or a tendency to vomit up large numbers of live worms. Almost all have somewhat ragged feathers, leaving some behind after every transformation. In human form, even Buzzards who are not obviously deformed have a somewhat skeletal appearance and look arthritic, sickly, and generally unattractive. Buzzards can never possess an Appearance higher than two.
Despite suffering such horrors, they’re not fomori and they haven’t traveled the Black Spiral Labyrinth. Instead, they are simply deformed, insane, and generally malevolent Corax. They still possess Rage, Gnosis, Renown, and all other standard Corax traits. They can learn the tribal Gifts of the Black Spiral Dancers, but lack any innate powers associated with the Wyrm.
Mnetics: The Eaters of Secrets
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 160
The Mnetics have many names, most of which they gave themselves. Dumenkara, Mindborn, Sasahai, Katikasasa, Vanus, and more, all which relate in some way to twisting the Mnesis. They do this partly to confound the Mokole and give the appearance of enemies everywhere, but they also use different names for their own amusement, because they like the way they sound, and, ultimately, because none like the name ‘Addict’.
The Mokolé guard Gaia’s memory. They witness history and wait for the turning of the age. They’re not naïve enough to hope the other changing breeds learn from past mistakes and use this knowledge to avoid the same tragic paths. Maybe the Mokolé once had this hope for the young breeds in ages past, but the Mnesis’ endless parade of repeated mistakes demonstrates its futility. So the Mokolé watch the world dying around them and await the next Apocalypse. Whatever happens, the Mokolé believe they will emerge out the other side to continue watching and remembering for Gaia.
The Mnetics know the other Mokolé’s faith is beautifully tragic, and wish they could remember which of their kind twisted the Mnesis to so completely fool the weresaurians. The Mnetics have opened their eyes to the truth that memories are ephemeral, malleable things no harder to reshape than a ball of soft putty. Mnesis isn’t the secure vault the Mokolé believe it to be. Even the unfallen Mokolé know that memories from ages past are difficult to dream with clarity. They trust in the similarity of symbols and ideas shared by streams. If every Mokolé of a given stream dreams the same, the Mnesis must reflect the truth.
This is wrong. Just ask the Mnetics, who manipulate memories and twist the gossamer threads of recollections as easily as other Mokolé breathe. They know first-hand how unreliable memory is, as they rewrite history every day. This knowledge makes most fallen Mokolé live for the present. Mokolé often have a reputation for being mired in the past, but the Mnetics buck this trend. They adopt new technology to better understand how to twist, pervert and use it to their advantage. Many develop an interest in photography and recording technologies, to better understand how to edit and delete these records that are beyond Mnesis. The Mnetics have a particular love/hate relationship with the internet and social media. They love the many methods of lying, twisting and distorting the truth on a massive scale, but loathe the externalizing of humanity’s knowledge and experiences — their memory — as it makes it difficult for the Mnetics to permanently destroy something so widespread. Fortunately the nature of today’s media means people often accept lies as truth, and the way media, politicians and entertainers spin facts to better reflect the message they want, not the truth as it is, gives the Mnetics a niche to control.
It is the Mokolé trust in Mnesis that leads some to reject what they thought to be true and join the Wyrm. Such a simple foundation of faith is an easy target for the Wyrm — often merely demonstrating the lie is enough to tip a faithful weresaurian from his purpose. Deleting something the Mokolé would be sure of, twisting a memory to render important details incorrect, or inserting a new memory that is clearly fantasy but absolutely true to the victim are common weapons used to tear apart the weresaurian’s purpose, leading them to abandon Gaia and choose the Wyrm.
Other Mokolé fall from the addictive rush they first experience altering memory. Some try to forget an act so terrible it must be buried, others wish to relieve the pain of a tragedy they cannot face. These small tweaks begin innocently enough, but each time the justification for a new alteration becomes easier to make, and soon the new Mnetic is altering the memories of others to protect his secret, and twisting his own recollection of the event to feel better about it. Eventually they become solipsistic nihilists, trapped forever in the now because the past is one great canvas of superficial, pretty lies.
The existence of the Mnetics is an infectious meme to other Mokolé, memory worms that burrow inside and plant doubt in the Mokolé’s suitability to serve as Gaia’s memory. Mnetic numbers grow faster than the fallen of any other Changing Breed, as the fallen weresaurians hope to bring the entire species to extinction with this modern day Apocalypse. Few Mnetics regret their decision to fall. The weresaurians ruthlessly practice their Gifts on their own memories, changing regrets to relief, and excising unpleasant and unwanted recollections. As a result, the Mnetics are unreliable witnesses but have one of the most positive outlooks of any shapeshifter.
Other Changing Breeds have Gifts that alter, suppress or fool the memories of their victims, but these do not affect the true Mnesis and the Mokolé look upon them with disdain. A Mokolé may be irritated to learn her mind was violated by another Breed, but she knows a healing sleep will cleanse her memories as they wash through the tides of Mnesis. This attitude instils great faith in Mnesis, which makes the Mnetics’ manipulation of the memory source all the more devastating, and shocks an ever-increasing number of weresaurians into falling to the Wyrm’s blissful embrace to escape the realization.
The Mnetics have a special affinity with the Innocents, who also twist and remove Mokolé memories. Many Mnetics who didn’t experience their crisis of faith at the hands of another Mnetic experienced their first doubts of Mnesis from the powers of Innocents. The stillborn spirits both love and hate their fallen cousins. They delight in tormenting the once-Mokolé by twisting their memories when they think they can do so without being noticed, but also teach memory-corrupting powers to their Mnetic partners.
The Mnetics tend to work well together, as they have the best defenses against the memory tampering of their own kind. They also don’t tend to care if their memories are accurate — it’s no trouble to edit them afterward. Clutches may work together for years with each member having a very different recollection of the experience. Mnetics are also notoriously difficult to interrogate — if they think capture is inevitable, they quickly erase their memories or rewrite them to prevent giving up their co-conspirators or to reveal their plans. Mokolé find it particularly frustrating when they finally capture one of their fallen kind, only to discover his last remaining memory is to tell them he deleted it all.
The Mnetics hide in plain sight, twisting the memory of those around them to forget when they’re gone. Some delight in confounding others through their tinkering. For two decades covering the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, a group of Mnetics convinced Mokolé, Garou and most of the Pentex board of the existence of a particularly depraved member of their kind who engaged in vile acts within the Atrocity Realm. Calling their creation Braney, hundreds of people believed that a fallen No-Sun Mokolé called Deep Purple Dark was the dark inspiration behind the children’s television show. Each of these witnesses swore that they had seen poorly-copied, smuggled tapes of ‘Braney’ performing depraved acts of torture and violation, and pointed to ‘innocent’ events within the children’s show that they said were hidden references to the filth. ‘Braney’ never existed, but Deep Purple Dark did. The Mnetics wanted to see how far and for how long they could twist perceptions. When they grew bored of their game, they made sure various hunters suddenly knew how to find Deep Purple Dark and bring him to ‘justice’. Deep Purple Dark’s full confession before his execution helped reassure the Mokolé that they had the right person. The Mnetics clutch is now pondering who their next victim will be, and how far they’ll push it this time.
Secret, precious memories are the most vulnerable to the Mnetics and are those considered most interesting. Memories that everyone recalls are harder to change or eliminate because of their distribution through the Mnesis. Those held by only a few — or ideally just one person — are targeted by Mnetics for surgical strikes.
Creating Mnetics
Mnetics are mostly the same as other Mokolé and follow usual character creation rules. Mnetics may learn the Steal Mnesis and Corrupt Mnesis powers normally restricted to Innocents (W20 Changing Breeds, pg 142), who delight in the partnership with the fallen reptiles and sometimes act as totems.
A Mnetic may alter her own memories at will through a Mnesis quest, taking several hours. She may attempt to alter the memories of those she meets with a Manipulation + Mnesis roll. The difficulty depends on how many people share the memory — difficulty 5 for memories known only to the victim, difficulty 6 if known by less than 10 people, difficulty 7 for 10 to 100 people, and difficulty 8 for more than 100. The Mnetic can reduce the difficulty by 1 by touching the victim while attempting the alteration.
The Mnetic may attempt to quickly alter the Mnesis of members of her clutch, stream, or Mokolé she can physically touch. The player makes a Manipulation + Mnesis roll (difficulty 7 for clutch, 8 for stream), resisted by the victim’s Perception + Mnesis (difficulty 7). Each success for the Mnetic allows one minor alteration.
With more time and extended Mnesis quests, the Mnetic may more slowly alter her stream’s Mnesis. She makes an extended Manipulation + Mnesis roll (difficulty 6) per night of Mnesis quest. Every 10 successes allow her to make a minor alteration to the collected pool of memory, such as changing the name of a storied hero. Alternatively, she can save those successes to attempt to gain 50 successes, to make a major Mnesis alteration, such as having an ancient human civilization existing alongside the dinosaurs. The Storyteller is the final arbiter of what constitutes a minor or major modification. Rolling a botch at any time during this extended roll leaves a memory stain that everyone sharing that Mnesis can find — some may have the skill and clarity to follow the stain back to the Mnetic.
Bitter Grins: The Hollow Laughter
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 162
The Bitter-Grins — also called the Nokhomi — want to see the conclusion of the greatest prank of all. Long ago, the Wyrm looked at the balance between the Triat and saw that its siblings took that balance for granted. With a bitter grin, the Wyrm designed a prank to teach its siblings the value of what they had.
The Wyrm spoke to the Weaver and teased her that the Wyld had greater dominion over Gaia. Though this was untrue and the three forces were balanced, the Weaver listened to the Wyrm and grew jealous of her sibling. Everywhere the Weaver placed order the Wyld crept through, desecrating the fixed structures with teeming life and chaos. What the Weaver did not see was the Wyrm conspiring with the Wyld to subvert the order and break its cohesion. The Wyrm nipped at the structures to make cracks through which the Wyld energies couldn’t help but spring through.
Enraged by what she perceived as inequality, the Weaver desperately covered dynamic Wyld with static forms, with little success. The Wyld kept breaking through. The Weaver lamented to the Wyrm and the Wyrm grinned and enacted the second part of his plan. He empathized with the Weaver but conceded he had to obey his nature and weaken the order she imposed on the world. The Weaver snapped and enacted her plan to ensnare the Wyrm in her webs and defeat the Wyld. Her anguish blinded her to seeing that this was the Wyrm’s plan all along.
Trapped within the Weaver’s webs, the Wyrm was able to alter its nature — something it could not achieve while the Trait was balanced. It whispered to itself in the darkness and changed, gaining dominion over corruption and decay. With this newfound influence the Wyrm degraded the Weaver’s bonds. Free of its bonds, and able to affect the demeanor of a force gone mad, the Wyrm threw itself into the role, corrupting and perverting everything that it had once balanced.
This is what the Nokhomi know — the Wyrm cannot be defeated because the Wyrm is not really fighting. It is playing a prank on everyone and everything and any action besides complete surrender is pointless. The Weaver is too stubborn and staid in its ways to learn from the prank, and the Wyld is too capricious and fickle to comprehend the lesson offered to it.
The fallen Nuwisha understand the joke better than anyone else, even old Coyote himself. They know that the Wyrm fell victim to its own prank, and that is the funniest joke of all. It did once want to teach its siblings, but its new nature as corruptor twisted its vision. Now the Wyrm drags everything to oblivion because it can’t stop the decay any more than the Weaver can loosen up or the Wyld can settle down.
The Apocalypse can’t be stopped — it’s the punchline of the whole tragic triumvirate, and the fallen werecoyotes weep at how fucking pointless and hilarious they find the whole drama.
Knowing that nothing matters, the Bitter-Grins work towards ever more perverse and destructive pranks against their fellow shapeshifters. The unfallen Nuwisha prank other Changing Breeds so they can understand and learn to overcome their flaws. The Nokhomi only ever try to teach one lesson to their victims — surrender. Only when Gaia’s warriors, eyes, ears, and other pointless functions realize the futility of their purpose and cease their fruitless struggle can the Wyrm strangle his siblings and dismember their rotting corpses. Then the pain can stop and the Bitter-Grin’s laughter will cease.
Until then, the Nokhomi exult in telling the ultimate joke, driving their victims to despair and surrender by destroying their treasures and perverting their loves. Their preferred targets are other Nuwisha and their best prank is aimed at Coyote himself. The Nokhomi believe if they can pervert enough of their brethren the old bastard may open his eyes to the truth and fall with his children. The Bitter-Grins giggle to themselves at night as they think of Coyote turning his wicked talents to the Wyrm’s service. Some Nokhomi think Coyote’s aspect Xochipilli has already fallen, and works from within to corrupt the old dog.
The Twisted Totems of Coyote
The Nokhomi still follow the many faces of Coyote, but they interpret the role of each aspect through their fatalistic lens. For unknown reasons, most Coyote totems don’t abandon their fallen followers. Most Bitter-Grins laugh that this is a sign of Coyote’s inevitable fall, but some wonder if the old trickster is setting up his fallen children for some incredible prank.
Chung Kuel: Luck is an illusion that disguises brief respite from the inevitable doom. These Nokhomi hasten despair by ensuring a cascade of ever larger problems beset their enemies.
Kishijoten: These Bitter-Grins use gentleness to lull enemies to drop their guard, before striking with an explosive punchline.
Kokopelli: Celebrating to excess makes enemies unwary. Nokhomi who follow Kokopelli develop prodigious tolerance for drugs and alcohol, to better play their lethal tricks on intoxicated victims.
Loki: Ferocious Bitter-Grins who follow Loki urge their temporary allies to overcommit — before betraying them and laughing at the ensuing slaughter.
Oghma: Bitter-Grins who retain the hidden history of their fallen kind, they study to identify weaknesses in the Nuwisha and lead them to doom, making them the most successful at corrupting their blind cousins.
Ptah: Ptah is the only totem to refuse patronage to the Nokhomi, but they gain the last laugh, as they are unbound by the pact limiting Nuwisha on earth. Nokhomi may return to the physical as they choose, and in doing so force an unfallen Nuwisha to take to the Umbra.
Raven: Some of the most cunning Nokhomi, they walk among Garou and lead werewolves to war with their own kind and slaughter innocents in Gaia’s name.
Ti Malice: Bitter-Grins find easy kinship with Ti Malice’s treachery. They favor influential figures with truth of purpose and strength of character as their prey, for the highest stars have the farthest to fall.
Xochipilli: Nokhomi believe Xochipilli is already of the Wyrm, playing a risky game in convincing unfallen Nuwisha to follow it and further the Wyrm’s goals. The Nokhomi find this hilarious but few follow the totem themselves, out of respect for the epic prank it plays.
Creating a Bitter Grin
Bitter-Grins are exactly like other Nuwisha, but have opened their eyes and chosen the Wyrm. Nuwisha who follow Ptah before they fall lose its patronage and must choose another totem. For reasons known only to Ptah, the totem does not tell other Nuwisha of the new Bitter-Grin.
The Mad Destroyers: Forsaken by Rat
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 163
The Wyrm is insane and hates the Weaver for ensnaring it in her web. Both its madness and its loathing of the Weaver give it common cause with at least some wererats. Ratkin are prone to madness and many of them consider the Weaver to be an even greater threat than the Wyrm. The rulers of most Ratkin nests wish to build up their numbers before they strike at humanity, and are content that the Apocalypse will arrive soon enough. A few wererats have grown tired of waiting. The ones who glory in the idea of watching the entire world burn, or who fixate on plans to destroy humanity sometimes find like-minded allies among the legions of the Wyrm.
Thurifuge, the Maeljin Incarna of disease, takes the most interest in recruiting Ratkin. He finds work for most of them in his Duchy in Malfeas, where they create ever more deadly plagues. He also assigns some of them to work in Pentex medical research facilities back on Earth.
A Corrupt Courtship
Black Spiral Dancers regularly look for hints that one of the Ratkin holds Wyrmish sympathies, as do Mad Destroyers who have already embraced the Wyrm. If an agent of the Wyrm encounters a wererat pack that seem like they could be possible recruits, he attempts to befriend them and aids the pack in their attacks on the Weaver. Some Black Spiral Dancers also arrange ambushes or other threats and then “rescue” the wererats from the supposed danger.
The agent of the Wyrm spurs the potential recruits to increasingly more violent attacks on targets associated with the Weaver, preferably attacks that cause a maximum of death and suffering or that release various persistent and deadly toxins. Some of the most violent Ratkin gladly accept a gift of nerve gas — produced by one of Magadon’s many subsidiaries — and use it to kill people in sealed office buildings or subway tunnels, not considering the lasting corruption that results. The tempter then congratulates them on their efforts and tries to make them proud of the death and suffering they have caused. Some packs recoil in horror at such treatment, but others grow bolder and increasingly violent.
The tempter’s next step is to convince the pack to attack a target related to the Wyld. If the pack goes through with the attack, striking against that which they are supposed to hold dear, the tempter reveals her true nature and purpose and offers the new recruits considerably more power. At this point, many Ratkin, overcome at the horror of working with the Wyrm, strike out at their former ally. If their tempter survives this attack, he makes certain that other shapeshifters learn the truth about the Ratkin’s actions and delights in the ensuing carnage.
Other wererats either hate the Weaver sufficiently to not care who they are working with, or believe they have already fallen and serve the Wyrm either to survive or out of hatred the world. The most violent and dangerous Ratkin believe that their desire to bring about an apocalyptic end to humanity dovetails perfectly with the Wyrm’s goals, and enthusiastically join the ranks of the fallen.
Creating Fallen Ratkin
Mad Destroyers are exactly like any other Ratkin, except that they’ve chosen to work for the other side. None of them was born corrupt, they all choose their fate. In addition to their ordinary Gifts, Mad Destroyers can also learn Black Spiral Dancer tribal Gifts. Rat turns her back on them, so the Mad Destroyers can only make a connection to Wyrm Totems.
Balefire Sharks: The Defiling Sea
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 164
In 1955, a nuclear blast killed more than three quarters of all of the immortal Rokea. While the blast vaporized the oldest sharks as well as all of the other Rokea who were near the center of the gathering, some sharks took a lethal dose of radiation but did not die immediately. Covered with hideous burns and suffering from fatal radiation sickness, the vast majority died within a day or two of the blast. Tentacled minions of Lord Kerne, the Master of Hellfire, approached these dying weresharks and offered them a chance to survive by embracing the radiation that was killing them. Out of many hundreds of dying sharks, only a handful accepted this hideous offer, but these few, maddened sufficiently by their pain and fear, swore allegiance to the Wyrm — despite knowing that the same force that was killing them now asked for their loyalty.
The balefire elementals sent to aid these traitorous weresharks healed them, but in the process also warped and twisted them. As a result, all of these Rokea bear marks of their ordeal and their transformation. In addition to large and terrible scars, all of them also possess some warped features like an additional eye or fin, or some malformed body part that grew back twisted when they healed from the bomb blast.
In return for their life, these Balefire Sharks pledged loyalty to the Wyrm. Because Gaia charged the weresharks to survive, not to fight the Wyrm, most had few regrets about this alliance. Swearing allegiance to creatures allied with the deadly radiation of the atomic blast that killed them was a very different matter. Only the most desperate Rokea made this terrible choice. Some soon regretted their decision but like all bargains with the Wyrm, this one was far easier to make than to break. The nature of their transformation means that most Balefire Sharks have difficulty even considering disobeying Lord Kerne’s orders and any who attempt to forswear the Wyrm swiftly die from radiation sickness.
The balefire elementals ordered these sharks to patrol the polluted waters around nuclear power plants and factories producing toxic chemicals, keeping them safe from anyone on land or sea who would interfere with their operation. Balefire Sharks can exist comfortably in both fresh and saltwater, as long as this water is radioactive or otherwise polluted. As a result, a few Balefire Sharks now patrol areas in the Great Lakes, Lake Baikal, the Caspian Sea, and other similar bodies of water.
Since the mid-1950s, many of the Balefire Sharks have learned more about the land, so that they can better protect factories and power plants. Most, however, still have little real understanding of human technology or society. Instead, their methods of providing protection remain exceedingly direct. They attack and devour anyone who interferes with a location they are guarding. The Wyrm affected their minds as well as their bodies, altering their loyalties so that most of them see nothing wrong with killing other weresharks who threaten their charges. Most Balefire Sharks are now far more comfortable with other minions of the Wyrm than with non-corrupted Rokea. The corruption that balefire inflicts upon a creature has driven a few Balefire Sharks entirely mad. These creatures take every opportunity to spread the radiation that nourishes them all across the oceans.
Instead of protecting nuclear sites from interference, they destroy reactors and rip open radioactive waste dumps in order to spread poison across a large area. These insane Balefire Sharks are sometimes too indiscriminately destructive for the Wyrm’s more careful and subtle agents. On a few occasions, agents of the Wyrm have found ways to pass messages to either Rokea or members of another Changing Breed, encouraging them to slay a Balefire Shark whose indiscriminate destruction and overt pollution has gotten in the way of some of the Wyrm’s plans.
Habitat
Balefire Sharks lack the freedom of the open seas because they need to feed on radiation too often to stray far into open waters. In addition, all but the most thoughtless or self-serving Rokea is horrified and enraged at seeing a wereshark who has become a radioactive monster. Almost all Rokea feel a strong desire to attempt to kill the Balefire Shark and then to dispose of its body on land or in one of the deepest undersea trenches. Most Balefire Sharks give up the wide-ranging travels of their former Breed and lurk near a particular corrupt location. Some become the guardians of Wyrm Grottos, protecting the vile location from outside interference and using it to summon banes and fomori that go forth to do the Wyrm’s bidding. Others protect coastal nuclear power plants from interference. These Balefire Sharks bask in illegal radioactive discharges into the ocean, and spend time both on land and in the water making certain that none of the Changing Breeds can interfere with the reactor.
Nothing like the blast that killed most of the Rokea has happened since the 1950s, but periodically weresharks encounter radiation seeping into the ocean. Some become fatally ill from this exposure and balefire elementals seek them out and offer to heal them. Like in 1955, a few choose to become Balefire Sharks.
Creating Balefire Sharks
Balefire Sharks have all of the traits of ordinary Rokea, except that they can regain Gnosis in any body of polluted or radioactive water and they are immune to the effects of any of the four elemental Wyrms. They possess the same Gifts as other Rokea, but can also learn Black Spiral Dancer tribal Gifts. In addition, they can only possess Wyrm Totems and summon Banes, since other spirits refuse to deal with these corrupt creatures.
Balefire Sharks require regular exposure to radiation to survive. At least once a month, every Balefire Shark must spend at least one full day in an undersea Wyrm Grotto associated with the element of balefire or swimming in a source of moderately strong radiation. Spending time in an intense source of radioactivity also allows them to recover all of their Gnosis within an hour. Only the cracked reactor core of a sunken nuclear submarine or other similarly massive sources of radiation are powerful enough to allow the Balefire Shark to accomplish this feat.
Xibalan: The Chittering Darkness
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 166
The Xibalan denied the truth of what they had become. They believed they served Bat as his only true followers, who understood his enduring service to the Wyrm. They thought his temporary service to Gaia was a brief period of daylight in his existence before he rediscovered the beauty of night. The Xibalan were his heralds, who explored the endless darkness to mark a path for Bat to find his way home.
The claws of the Garou proved the Xibalan correct.
Small groups of Xibalan emerged from every Camazotz population. Ironically, the South American Camazotz who drew the Shadow Lords’ ire were the least corrupted population. These Camazotz openly practiced blood rituals and sacrifices and brought the rites out of the darkness. This openness let them quickly identify and destroy the few Xibalan who couldn’t resist the Wyrm’s lure.
The other Camazotz tribes across the world performed blood magic in secret, limiting participation in the mysteries to werebats who were initiated into the cults only after careful scrutiny. These cults attracted the Wyrm’s attention and many individuals accepted its offer of additional power — they believed the Wyrm’s whispers of Bat’s imminent return to its embrace, becoming Xibalan, the fallen bats. Several new Xibalan tried converting their cult members to the Wyrm’s cause. While some were successful, more fled the claws and shrieks of the loyal Camazotz.
The Xibalan were as social as the rest of the Camazotz and listened for chitters of other werebats, to try and join their swarms. The Xibalan remembered the lessons from the hidden blood cults and set up their own groups, teaching other Camazotz the ways to power — modifying what they taught to include greater influence and appreciation for the Wyrm in the hopes of ensnaring promising new disciples to spread the word and forge Bat’s path back to the darkness. In this way the Wyrm’s influence spread throughout the Camazotz population.
The Xibalan were a persistent weeping boil to the Camazotz breed. Though they never accounted for more than one-tenth of the werebats, their teachings and beliefs seemed impervious to permanent eradication. Loyal Camazotz worked tirelessly to locate and destroy the Xibalan but there always seemed to be some who would escape and restart the infection no matter how thorough the Camazotz were or how carefully they planned — almost as if Bat himself helped ensure some of his fallen children always existed, just in case.
The number of Xibalan seemed to ebb and flow with the state of Bat’s mind and his dedication to Gaia. When Bat’s faith in the Celestine wavered, the Xibalan population thrived. When he regained confidence and committed himself to her cause, the Camazotz seemed better able to find and destroy Xibalan nests.
When the Garou destroyed the South American Camazotz, Bat’s most pure and uncorrupted children, the spirit’s identity fractured. The Xibalan flew from their earthly hiding places to be by his side and fight the loyalist Gaian Camazotz who would keep him divided. They helped convince Bat of the futility of the struggle. When the Australian Camazotz lost hope — as the Garou nation slaughtered the Bunyip — the Xibalan flew ahead of the fallen Bat into the depths of the Wyrm’s strongholds in the Umbra, never to be heard from again. Whether they’re truly gone, or just masters of killing everyone who discovers their existence remains to be seen.
Bloodbats
The Xibalan may be gone but their legacy lives on. Garou and Fera alike tell of giant bats whose jaws drip with acidic blood, and whose shrieks herald madness. These Bloodbats are all that’s left of the Camazotz. Some Mokolé and Ananasi claim that they are all that remains of the Gaian Camazotz who tried to stop Bat falling to the Wyrm. Others believe that the Bloodbats are nothing but a vicious mockery, an attempt by the great deceiver to dishearten the Garou by reminding them of their great folly.
Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 7, Stamina 4, Charisma 0, Manipulation 2, Appearance 0, Perception 4, Intelligence 1, Wits 4
Abilities: Alertness 4, Athletics 2, Brawl 3, Intimidation 3, Primal-Urge 2, Stealth 5, Subterfuge 3
Traits: Rage 5, Willpower 4
Health Levels: OK, OK, –1, –1, –2, –2, –5, Incapacitated
Attacks: Bite (Strength + 1 aggravated), Wing Swipe (Strength + 1 lethal)
Powers: Burning Blood*, Regeneration, Terrifying Shriek*
- Burning Blood: A Bloodbat’s acidic ichor can burn even Garou flesh. In addition to making the Bloodbat’s bite deal aggravated damage, anyone who successfully bites a Bloodbat suffers three dice of aggravated damage as caustic fluids burn her mouth and throat. Damage from this power (including a Bloodbat’s bite damage) is always soaked at difficulty 9.
- Terrifying Shriek: A Bloodbat can unleash an ultrasonic shriek that instills primal terror in anyone who hears it. Spend a point of Willpower and roll Manipulation + Subterfuge. Everyone within twenty yards of the Bloodbat suffers the Delirium, even if they are normally immune. Reduce the victim’s effective Willpower by one for each success rolled.
Image: Bloodbats are black bats the size of a human being, with wicked talons on their wings. Their heads look like a cross between bat and wolf, much like some Black Spiral Dancers. Their jaws contain too many needle-like fangs, which constantly drip acidic blood. Each Bloodbat has a unique pattern of burn-marks where their own blood has dissolved their fur.
Background: Whether descended from the Xibalan or not, the Bloodbats are a recent appearance in the World of Darkness. Nobody had encountered one until three years ago, when a Bloodbat attacked a clutch of Mokolé in Australia. Since then, they have grown in number, and their attacks have grown more frequent.
Storytelling Notes: Bloodbats prefer wild, shadowy places where they can hide in the dark, swooping out to attack their prey. They create a cacophony of sounds to distract their prey, then send them fleeing with a terrifying shriek, and swoop down to pick off stragglers.
Creating Xibalan
The Xibalan no longer exist — they died out with the rest of the Camazotz. No evidence contradicts their research. No stories tell of the Xibalan past the final fall of Bat. The fallen werebats are dead and gone, never to trouble Gaia’s children again. What everyone knows so often has an exception. Storytellers wanting to put the lie to this received wisdom should use the rules for Camazotz in W20 Changing Breeds for Xibalan characters.
The Mockery Breeds
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 167'
Now and then, things go right for Pentex. Neuro Dynamic Laboratories is a Pentex front established several decades ago for the primary purpose of conducting corporate asset raids against Developmental Neogenetics Amalgamated, and finding something useful to do with any research it managed to steal.
Much to the sorrow of the Garou and all other things that are of Gaia, Pentex considers the program a rousing success. Until recently, NDL was officially a sub-operation of Project Iliad, Pentex’s fomor-creating operation, with the internal company code-name of Project Lycaon. The purpose of Project Lycaon is nothing less than the artificial creation of a Changing Breed under Pentex’s direct control. They want a more cooperative and pliable alternative to the temperamental and arrogant Black Spiral Dancers, able to provide Pentex with easy access to Wyrmish magic on par with that of the Dancers, and also capable of fighting the Garou head to head.
Project Iliad was initially unaware of NDL’s overall aims. This changed in the whirlwind of exposés, smears, and lies as part of the latest election to the Board of Directors (W20 BotW, pg 62). Discovering that part of his operation wanted to do away with the need for Black Spiral Dancers, Francesco was incensed. He would have destroyed Project Lycaon if it hadn’t split away in a flurry of mergers and backroom deals. In the end, NDL split away from Project Iliad, becoming its own entity under the control of Sir Frederick Appleton — himself the result of one of NDL’s experiments.
To date, none of NDL’s major projects has fully succeeded in realizing these goals, but none has been abject failures, either. Pentex continues to funnel research funds into Project Lycaon, and continues to keep word of it well away from the company’s Spiral allies.
War Wolves
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 167
The abominations known as War Wolves were Project Lycaon’s first successful project. Using genetic material from several captured werewolves as well as copious amounts of stolen DNA research, Pentex scientists managed to create perfect, custom-built killing machines, able to get close to their Garou targets and strike with the advantages of both surprise and overwhelming force. War Wolves have no higher intelligence, and certainly nothing resembling morals; they have no need for understanding, only an in-born hunger for the flesh of the Garou.
Attributes: Strength 4 (7), Dexterity 4 (3), Stamina 4 (5), Charisma 1, Manipulation 1, Appearance 1, Perception 3, Intelligence 1, Wits 2
Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics 4, Brawl 2, Primal-Urge 3, Stealth 3, Survival 4
Traits: Rage: 8; Willpower: 6
Powers: Immunity to the Delirium; Regeneration, Shapeshifting*
- Shapeshifting: War Wolves are capable of only one transformation: from Lupus (their natural form) to Crinos, and back again. Shapeshifting is always automatically successful and immediate, and costs the War Wolf one point of Rage. The number in brackets for their Physical Attributes is for Crinos form.
Image: War Wolves appear to be emaciated, drooling wolves with ragged pelts. In Crinos form, they are rangy and savage. They smell rank and ill, and reek of the Wyrm to spiritual senses. Unfortunately, they also smell enough like wolves to be able to work their way close enough to wolf Kin that once their victims realize something is wrong, it’s much too late.
Background: War Wolves were Neuro-Dynamic’s first answer to the Garou: genetically altered dogs and wolves with immunity to the Delirium and the ability to fight on the same level as the Garou. These “artificial werewolves” have a very selective diet, and remain constantly hungry until they encounter either Kinfolk or Garou. Other meat nourishes them, but does not satisfy. Pentex goes to great pains to steer War Wolves away from Black Spiral Dancer Kinfolk, but the Spirals are naturally secretive about the location and numbers of their kin. Accidents are inevitable.
The Wolves’ shapeshifting is semi-mystical in nature, but because they aren’t half-spirit like true Garou, they can’t manage any forms other than Lupus and Crinos. They can’t use Gifts, have no Gnosis, and the spirit word doesn’t consider them shapeshifters in any way by the spirit world, yet they share the Garou’s weakness to silver. They are also incapable of stepping sideways.
Storytelling Notes: War Wolves hunt in packs, and the rare nature of their preferred prey means that when encountered, they will almost invariably be starving. These mongrel horrors are perhaps Pentex’s greatest insult to the Garou to date, and can provide terrifying stories beginning with the characters finding gnawed bones and racing against the clock to find out what is hunting their Kin, and to avenge them against the creators of the War Wolves.
Anurana
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 168
It’s difficult to say quite what drove the creation of the Anurana. Officially, they were supposed to shore up a critical deficiency in Pentex maritime security, acting as a counterbalance to the Rokea; they might have also been deployed in the sewers to flush out Bone Gnawer packs, or to patrol heavily polluted rivers, lakes, and estuaries around Pentex factories. Privately, the Pentex Board of Directors suspects that personnel from the disastrous Freakfeet fomor project (see W20 BotW, pg 132), reassigned from Project Iliad to Project Lycaon, simply wanted another shot at doing things right.
In the end, they screwed up again.
The Anurana are the result of a mixture of repurposed NDL technologies based on those that created the War Wolves and improved techniques from the Freakfeet project. The aim was to create a breed of true shapeshifters under Pentex control, codenamed the Anurana (a portmanteau of order: Anura, genus: rana, presumably because “werefrog” didn’t sound sufficiently intimidating). The project was a limited success, but the Anurana proved entirely uncontrollable. Hypnotic, mystical, and Bane-implant conditioning all failed utterly, and the first generation of test subjects, sent out on a scouting mission to investigate Rokea activity off the coast of New England, never returned.
They survived, though, and now thrive in the wild. The Anurana have a strange, lingering connection to Pentex, and stalk its facilities and personnel to this day, preferring to dwell and breed in the pollution-rich waters near the Wyrm-corporation’s factories. This does not make them allies of the Garou, however; the Anurana are terrible things, designed to thrive in the polluted waters of the Apocalyptic world, and fiercely attack any who attempt to cleanse the tainted places the Anurana call home. They have a kind of understanding with the Balefire Sharks who also patrol those horrific waters.
Traits: Anurana vary as much as any other “shapeshifter,” though they have a distinct tendency toward low Intelligence and Appearance ratings, and toward high Brawl, Primal-Urge, Athletics, and Willpower. Their particular features are as follows:
Breeds: Anurana have only two Breeds, homid and metis, as they are entirely incapable of reproduction with any kind of earthly amphibian. Homid Anurana begin with Rage 3, Gnosis 1, Willpower 5; the more powerful, monstrous Metis Anurana begin with Rage 5, Gnosis 2, Willpower 3.
Forms: Anurana have three forms: Homid, Anuran (roughly equivalent to Glabro), and Dagon (roughly equivalent to Crinos).
The trait modifiers for Anuran are Strength +1, Dexterity +1, Stamina +1, Appearance –2. The character can swim at his full movement speed as though he were on land. The character can hold his breath for up to (Stamina) hours.
Dagon form modifiers are Strength +2, Dexterity +2, Stamina +2, Appearance 0. The character gains claw and bite attacks as a Garou, can swim at twice his normal movement speed, and triples his leaping distances. The character can operate underwater indefinitely. Witnessing a character in Dagon form induces the Delirium in humans.
Powers: Anurana can step sideways by submerging themselves in polluted waters, or emerging from the same. They regenerate damage at the same rate as Garou, but do not suffer any vulnerability to silver or any other substance. They are immune to the Delirium. The Anurana are not part of the Pact with the spirit world, and no spirits will consent to teach them Gifts. Even Banes look down on these pretend-shapeshifters. Instead, Anurana have a number of innate, fomor-like powers in Dagon form. These include: Eyes of the Wyrm, Frog Tongue, Maw of the Wyrm and Nimbleness.
Image: Anurana in Homid form seem distinctly off. They suffer from a number of subtle malformations. Wide-set eyes, broad thin-lipped mouths, tiny or huge ears, and elongated fingers are all common for them.
In Anuran form, a werefrog’s bodily and facial hair vanishes, and any hair on their head becomes slick and patchy. Their limbs elongate and bulge with rubbery muscle. Their fingers and toes develop webbing, and their skin takes on a grayish or greenish cast. Eyes bulge, lips vanish, and the skin develops a distinct sheen.
A werefrog in Dagon form is both absurd and terrifying — a great hulking hunch-backed frogman, with staring eyes, a huge mouth, and long gangling arms and legs. Something of the fish is present in this form as well, for some reason, the form’s limbs terminate in wicked, webbed talons, and its mouth is crowded with tiny needle teeth.
Background: The Anurana haven’t spread very far beyond the confines of the American East Coast, at least as far as Pentex is aware. The details of their reproduction help to slow their spread, while also precluding any sort of normal life away from their polluted nests. Anurana have no Kinfolk and are incapable of producing any; most pregnancies borne or caused by an Anurana end in a singularly hideous miscarriage, as the swirling stew of altered genes and polluted magic simply fail to come together to produce anything viable; the final product is a rush of briny water, malformed bones, and dead frogs. On the rare occasions when a werefrog’s spawn manages to survive to full term and birth, the result is always Anurana.
Anurana Metis are worse. They’re much less likely to fail in utero, but are born sterile, deformed, and monstrous. Rather than an infant, an Anurana metis is born as something like a cat-sized tadpole with a human-ish face; they reach full maturity in only five years, and are able to abandon their immature form in favor of shapeshifting into Homid, Anuran, and Dagon forms after only three years. They have, as best Pentex can tell, a life expectancy of little over two decades.
Storytelling Notes: Given their penchant for abducting Pentex employees as breeding stock, Garou briefly may consider thinking of the Anurana as allies. Nothing could be further from the truth; the “werefrogs” are a slap in the face to Gaia’s design, a new almost-Changing Breed manufactured in a Pentex laboratory. The Anurana harass Pentex simply because they don’t like getting poked, prodded, or intruded upon.
The Anurana are outsiders in the war for Gaia, and routinely snubbed or even hunted during their forays into the spirit world, but they’re slowly learning about the various powers and factions of the supernatural world. They know enough to understand that the Garou will stop at nothing to destroy them, once the werewolves become aware enough of the Anurana to realize they’re something other than unusually resilient fomori. Some werefrogs are formulating plans to strike first, while the most cunning of their kind ponder what elements they may be missing that Gaia’s shapeshifters have. Perhaps breeding with normal humans has been a mistake; perhaps Garou Kinfolk already carrying changing blood is what they need.
Samsa
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 169
Project Metamorphosis aimed to produce the ultimate corporate espionage tool — a swarm-based shapeshifter that could infiltrate anywhere and immediately pass information back through the link shared by every member of the swarm. NDL’s product marketing personnel sold the idea of an assassin concealed in a hundred different places in a room, waiting for a target to arrive before reforming into a single killing form.
Unfortunately, the NDL scientists could not meet these goals. They have created a human/insect hybrid, but it cannot separate into a swarm. Instead, the Samsa are mind-shattered eight-foot tall bipedal cockroaches that are terrified of the dark. Pentex closed Project Metamorphosis as an abject failure, leaving NDL with several dozen prototype Samsa gibbering with fear in their cells.
Traits: Samsa are highly variable but tend toward high Stamina and low Appearance. Samsa also tend toward high Alertness, Streetwise and Survival. High Willpower is useful, but their mindset rarely supports such strength of character. All Samsa have the Paranoia Derangement (W20 Core, pg 486) and must choose a second Derangement.
Breeds: Samsa have two Breeds, homid and metis. Homid Samsa begin with Rage 2, Gnosis 4, Willpower 3, while metis Samsa begin with Rage 3, Gnosis 2, Willpower 4.
Forms: Samsa have only two forms: Homid and Ungeziefer. Homid Samsa invariably have a disheveled and confused appearance, and a feverish madness in their eyes. Ungeziefer are nightmarish eight-foot tall bipedal cockroaches with greenish-brown armored carapaces and clicking mandibles.
Ungeziefer trait modifiers are Strength +3, Dexterity +1, Stamina +3, Appearance 0. Their serrated exoskeleton permits claw attacks (Str +2 L) but they cannot bite. Ungeziefer inflicts the Delirium on vulnerable witnesses.
Each time a Samsa takes Ungeziefer she chooses two traits from the following list. The majority are fomori powers function as per W20 Core, pg 430-439 except as noted; Antenna and Swarm are unique to the Samsa. They can manifest different traits with the first transformation each scene, but keep those traits until the scene ends.
• Antenna: Add 3 dice to Perception rolls, and can etect spirits only as Sense the Unnatural (W20 Core, pg 436).
• Armored Carapace: Samsa armor cannot soak aggravated damage caused by insecticide.
• Claws
• Darksight: Even when Samsa can see in pitch blackness, it doesn’t stop the voices.
• Extra Limbs: All Ungeziefer have an extra pair of limp, useless arms. With this the arms are as capable as their primary set.
• Wings: Samsa are clumsy fliers. They have Dex –2 while airborne.
• Swarm: Each turn, dozens of cockroaches fall from beneath the Samsa’s carapace. These cockroaches obey the Samsa’s spoken commands.
• Wall Walking
Powers: Samsa are incapable of stepping sideways but they hear nearby spirits whenever they enter deep shadow or darkness — feeding the Samsa’s paranoia and dread. Samsa are only immune to the Delirium in Ungeziefer form — in Homid they are as vulnerable as any human.
Samsa heal at the same rate as Garou. They are not vulnerable to silver but suffer aggravated damage from insecticides in Ungeziefer form. Samsa never suffer damage caused by radiation or toxic waste. Samsa all have the fomori powers Animal Control (for cockroaches only), and a unique version of Cause Insanity.
Samsa are as difficult to eradicate as natural cockroaches. When a Samsa takes lethal or aggravated damage in her last health box she automatically spends one permanent Willpower dot and dissolves into a thousand cockroaches scrambling in all directions. All but one cockroach dies within the following hour. This final cockroach has only one health level and is ravenously hungry — each day it must consume twice its body weight, growing in size and regaining another health level. When the Samsa regains seven health levels the now giant cockroach spontaneously shapeshifts to Homid form. The Samsa has no memory of several hours before her near death, and can only recall snippets of her cockroach experience through terrifying nightmares. Each use of this power inflicts another permanent Derangement on the Samsa.
Cockroach spirits will teach the Samsa Gifts if the wretches listen long enough to learn. The Glass Walkers recently discovered this tutelage and are confused and saddened, exacerbated by the fact that their totem refuses to discuss it with the tribe.
Image: Samsa look entirely human in Homid form, with haunted expressions and a tendency to jump at sudden noises. Most Samsa have a mild sensitivity to bright light and a fear of darkness.
In Ungeziefer form the Samsa is an oversized cockroach standing on human-like legs. His entire body is covered in a sickly green-brown exoskeleton and has four arms — the lower pair often hangs limp and useless. The arms end in three-fingered claws where one serves as an opposable ‘thumb’. The Ungeziefer’s mandibles make hissing, clicking sounds that can’t be understood by humans — Samsa can understand and speak these sounds in either form.
Background: Pentex has little use for the Samsa except for psychological warfare or as distractions for other, more important missions. Pentex teams drop Samsa into an area and wait for the inevitable chaos to erupt. Clean-up teams try to recapture Samsa after missions, but are just as happy to hose them down with industrial strength insecticide if they prove difficult.
A number of Samsa exploded into cockroaches when Pentex collection teams tried to recapture them, revealing the Samsa’s last-ditch survival ability. Pentex doesn’t realize what happened, assuming that the thousands of dead cockroaches were just another flaw in the Samsa design — unaware that the werecockroach had escaped the company’s clutches.
These free Samsa are even more insane, unable to cope with, or relate to, the world around them. Although these werecockroaches haven’t yet bred, their genes are true and any offspring will likely be new Samsa.
Storytelling Notes: Samsa will most likely be encountered as a Pentex distraction or as part of a psychological warfare operation. These Samsa are confused, vulnerable and volatile. Anyone attempting to help them will become a victim of their Cause Insanity power. Cockroach may enlist Glass Walkers and other city-based shapeshifters to help the Samsa. His servants noticed the escape of the first Samsa and Cockroach instructed them to follow, watch and try to help. These spirits assist individual Samsa to find each other but the werecockroaches are very unwilling to trust whispering voices from the darkness.
Cause Insanity
The Samsa inflicts her own fears and mental illness on her victim, gaining brief respite in return. The Samsa spends one Gnosis point and rolls Willpower (difficulty 7), adding 2 dice per Derangement she currently has.
Every success passes one of the Samsa’s Derangements to her victim for a scene. The Samsa chooses which Derangement is inflicted. With five or more successes the victim’s mind breaks with the sudden strain and he shuts down for the scene, refusing to act except to try and flee violence.
A Samsa loses access to this power whenever she passes all her Derangements to others. She can use the power multiple times to inflict separate Derangements on different victims, but can’t invoke the power again on a victim already suffering one of her Derangements.
Wait, Cockroach Does What?
Yes, cockroach spirits will teach Gifts to Samsa, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the totem Cockroach is the spirit courts’ great survivor. He intends to exist even if the Wyrm wins. Long after the Wyrm’s minions turn on themselves and devour each other, Cockroach plans to survive with his brood. The Samsa may prove useful in this regard.
Secondly, Cockroach is curious about these new creations. The Samsa stink of corruption, but Cockroach knows his children adapt to survive almost anything. Samsa definitely aren’t his, but he’s intently watching their survival strategies.
Either way, Cockroach is investing in the possible future. The Samsa are deeply paranoid, broken, and loathed even by other Wyrm creatures. Cockroach intends to be the only one Samsa can trust. One day they may even betray the Wyrm and fight for Gaia.
If the Samsa prove to be more trouble than they’re worth, he can always call on the Glass Walkers to destroy the mockery breed. Until then, he refuses to discuss the issue with the Garou, has cockroach spirits teach the Samsa Gifts, and plans as only the greatest survivor can.
Kerasi
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 171
Pentex is very interested in the African continent, with its multitude of nations, constant factional differences, millions of people, and wilderness to destroy. Africa is also witness to the largest, bloodiest shapeshifter war since the Wars of Rage, and the Wyrm gleefully takes part.
The Kerasi are young even for a mockery breed; intended to be shock-troops in Africa where War Wolves would draw unwanted attention. NDL experimented on both white and black rhinoceroses, using techniques learned from other breeds to create the Kerasi.
Pentex considers the Kerasi to be a success second only to the Yeren. NDL is keen to improve upon the initial Kerasi by improving the mental capabilities of the breed and adding a workable Homid form. If they succeed, some factions in Pentex would to elevate the Kerasi above the Yeren, making them NDL’s main focus. This displeases the corporate-climbing wereapes, who will interfere with further development of the breed.
The Kerasi are mystically weak compared with other mockery breeds, but they can disguise their origins as Wyrm-creations better than most Pentex assets. They also breed true — both with other kerasi and with natural rhinoceroses. The Kerasi are fertile with both the white and black rhinoceroses, linking the two distinct species in a decidedly unnatural way. Further, Kerasi mating with rhinoceroses will result in pregnancy more often than natural rhino pairings, and the offspring are almost always Kerasi.
The Kerasi compound misery in Africa by slaughtering human communities where they can, and creating discord for both sides of the Ahadi-Black Tooth war. Their herds travel at Pentex’s behest, and ravage at the company’s command. The Kerasi also breed and experience an independence they never had in the laboratories, and start to wonder why they take orders from Pentex. Their thoughts turn slowly, but each new day may be the one when the Kerasi rebel from their corporate masters and choose their own destiny.
Traits: The Kerasi genes favor physical prowess and tend towards high Strength and Stamina. Despite their reputation for being simple-minded, many Kerasi blend low Wits with high Intelligence, retaining more information than anyone suspects. Kerasi usually have high Athletics, Brawl, and Intimidation.
Breeds: Kerasi have two Breeds, faru (rhinoceros) and metis. Faru Kerasi begin with Rage 3, Gnosis 2, Willpower 5; metis Kerasi begin with Rage 5, Gnosis 2, Willpower 3. Metis Kerasi are fertile but have greater success mating with other Kerasi than with natural rhinoceroses.
Forms: Kerasi have three forms: Bandia (Glabro), Kiforu (Crinos), and Faru (rhino).
Bandia has Strength +3, Stamina +2, Manipulation –2, Appearance –2. Banda’s coarse, leathery skin counts as armor and gives +1 soak die.
Kiforu trait modifiers are Strength +5, Dexterity –1, Stamina +5, Manipulation –4, Appearance 0. Its armored hide gives +3 soak. The Kiforu form may make claw attacks as per Crinos Garou but cannot bite. It can make a gore attack with its horn (difficulty 6) for Strength +2 aggravated damage.
Faru form modifiers are Strength +4, Stamina +4, Appearance 0. Faru can gore with their horn (difficulty 6) for Strength +2 lethal damage — this increases to Strength +4 lethal if the character charges at the target before attacking.
Powers: Kerasi heal at the same rate as Garou, have no vulnerability to silver or any other substance and are immune to the Delirium. Kerasi invoke Delirium in Bandia and Kiforu forms. Kerasi cannot acccess the spirit world or learn Gifts. As well as the inherent power of their forms, they may use the fomori powers Sense Gaia, Sense the Unnatural and Triatic Sense (Wyld).
Image: Kerasi in Bandia form are thick-skinned, barely human slabs of muscle, with bulky, oversized heads, tiny eyes, and a large, bumpy nose with a distinctive proto-horn protruding from it. Their thick, rough skin has an off-colored grey tint that doesn’t hide the massive muscles moving underneath. Bandia can only be mistaken for human in the dimmest light.
Kiforu form is an armored bipedal monster with a giant rhinoceros head, two massive snout-horns and clawed four-fingered hands. It stands between 12 and 14 feet in height and weighs between one and two tons. Solid grey armored plates cover its body and its head is that of a rhinoceros. Its massive primary horn is the deep crimson color of old blood.
Kerasi in Faru form appear as larger, healthier specimens of their parent breed. Metis Kerasi take the appearance of either of their parents, and their primary horn has a red tint. This coloring is subtle, but does give canny observers a ‘tell’ to distinguish Kerasi from natural rhinos.
Background: Pentex uses the Kerasi to sow misery and confusion in Africa. The Kerasi leave devastation in their wake, all without any trace of the Wyrm’s involvement. Human-dominated First Teams go in after each slaughter planting evidence implicating either Ahadi or Black Tooth’s supporters, to increase the war’s hostility and bloodshed. Pentex also facilitated contact with Black Tooth’s senior lieutenants and introduced them to the Kerasi. The wererhinos turned the tide of several hard-fought battles with the Ahadi, with the lieutenants singing the Kerasi’s praises with the plan of introducing them to Black Tooth. Even though Black Tooth is gone, his followers still fight and may win the war with Pentex’s help.
The Kerasi’s ability to suppress its Wyrm taint gives it the potential to be the most successful mockery breed for interacting with Gaia’s servants and infiltrating their groups, but the lack of Homid form and generally low intelligence renders this particularly challenging. NDL scientists are under considerable pressure to improve these deficiencies, but so far every successful increase in mental ability has resulted in the new Kerasi reeking of Wyrm-taint, and no amount of tinkering has produced a human-like form that doesn’t appear monstrous.
One of Pentex’s ‘animal conservation’ subsidiaries has seeded African rhinoceros populations with dozens of Kerasi as part of its public environmental program. The early success of this program gives the appearance of replenished black and white rhinoceros populations, but in reality the Kerasi population thrives, while rhinoceros species are closer than ever to extinction.
Storytelling Notes: Kerasi are short-tempered, brutish and impatient. Garou are unlikely to encounter them outside Africa and any first encounter is likely to be confusing for Gaian shapeshifters as these strange new shapeshifters suppress their Wyrm’s stink. The Kerasi will try to convince other shapeshifters of their allegiance to Gaia, but Kerasi are not notably cunning or persuasive. If persuasion fails, the wererhinos will attack to prevent their secret being exposed.
Kerasi and Black Tooth
Kerasi are active causing confusion and havoc while Black Tooth’s war rages. They have encountered various members of his army — even some of the Endless Storm — but they weren’t introduced to Black Tooth before the Ahadi killed him (see W20: Changing Breeds for more information on Black Tooth’s fall).
Black Tooth’s followers are desperate in the wake of his death and forge alliances with the Kerasi to continue the fight. The Ahadi may have won the war, but the insurgency will linger for many years if Pentex can help it.
Storytellers may choose to bring Black Tooth and the Kerasi together earlier. The Kerasi will be formidable allies for Black Tooth, and may repel the Ahadi’s strike that will kill the Simba. An Africa that experiences this outcome will be a much darker place indeed.
Yeren
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pf 173
All top-level Pentex projections are clear: the Garou are fighting a losing battle, in every sense. In particular, the battle for Earth’s rainforests, reefs, and other “pure” ecosystems is a foregone conclusion: they’re going to vanish. That the majority of the Garou Nation has chosen these sacred places as the grounds to make their final stand suits Pentex fine. They think their victory in the Amazon and in other hotspots is a certain victory. The Board of Directors know the final battles in the Wyrm’s march of triumph will take place in the cities, in the skyscrapers, in the black and heaving heart of the urban jungle that will be all that remains in the end. They suspect the Bone Gnawers and Glass Walkers will be the last tribes standing in any strength (what else is to be expected of the followers of Rat and Cockroach?), and that the ragged remnants of the other tribes will pour into the cities in a desperate attempt to continue their doomed, futile crusade.
With the aid of Project Lycaon, Pentex will be ready for them.
The Yeren are the most advanced and successful result of NDL’s research on behalf of the Wyrm, or so the project’s Directors claim. Yeren are shapeshifters who take on the form of apes, designed to thrive in the modern city, and to hold an edge over the savage and primitive Garou. The Yeren’s instinctive domain is the halls of power. They’re naturally attracted to money and authority. Creatures of appetite and greed, the majority have nestled themselves into the upper-middle management of corporations, banks, and law firms, where they remain in sporadic contact with Pentex. A few Yeren have even begun climbing the corporate ranks of Pentex-owned companies, and most of those few have their eyes on a seat on the Board of Directors. They’re one of the major influences pushing Toads (see W20 BotW, pg 137) out of their traditional niches, and they’re territorial to boot. Yeren bristle when they become aware of other supernaturals dipping their talons into a wereape’s self-proclaimed domain. This makes them natural rivals of the Glass Walkers, and they take a particular delight in using their mastery of political and financial influence to demolish, or re-zone Bone Gnawer septs. Of course, the wereapes’ rapacious greed and territorial instincts also bring them into conflict with vampires, urban Black Spiral hives, and other Wyrmspawn.
In the end, the Yeren want it all: all the money, all the power, all the respect; and they’ll happily backstab, undermine, and eat anyone who gets in their way. They may be the newest players on the battlefield of the Apocalypse, but they’ve already gone all-in. Let the Garou satisfy themselves with glorious, Pyrrhic final charges, and the Anurana with subsistence survival in toxic swamps, closers close, and winners win.
Traits: Yeren traits vary as much as those of the Garou or any other Changing Breed, but there are some generalizations. They tend toward high Manipulation and decent Intelligence or Wits, with physical traits often tertiary. Politics, Leadership and Subterfuge are often high, and many Yeren begin to cultivate Athletics after their First Change.
Breeds: Yeren have only one Breed, homid. They cannot produce metis, and are entirely incapable of reproduction with other primates. All Yeren begin with Rage 3, Gnosis 1, and Willpower 4.
Forms: Yeren have only two natural forms: Homid and Crinos.
In Crinos form, Yeren have Strength +3, Dexterity +2, Stamina +2, Appearance –3, and Athletics +2. The character gains a bite and claw attack like Garou, but these inflict lethal rather than aggravated damage. Witnessing a Yeren in Crinos form induces the Delirium in humans.
Powers: Yeren can step sideways in the same fashion as Garou, but must use fabricated reflective surfaces such as mirrors or chromed installations. The surface of a still pond is of no use to a wereape. They regenerate damage in the same fashion as Garou, suffer no vulnerability to silver or any other substance, and are immune to the Delirium.
Unlike the other “Mockery Breeds” developed by Project Lycaon, the Wyrm’s spirit minions have provisionally accepted the Yeren into the arm of the Pact that grants Black Spiral Dancers their Gifts. Specifically, they’ve been sponsored by Relshab, the Faceless Eater (see W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 126), and gain their Gifts from corrupt spirits of man, the city, consumption, and greed. As a result, Yeren may take Gifts from the homid list, and are developing a number of their own Yeren Gifts (see below). Yeren gain renown for acquiring power, status symbols, and influence, but do so slowly, for even their handful of spirit-sponsors remain wary of these unnatural creatures. No Yeren has currently advanced beyond Rank Three.
Image: In Homid form, a Yeren looks much like anyone else trying to climb her way up the professional ladder: well-groomed, young, hungry. Those spending any degree of time around them discover they have a certain manic intensity that speaks to either immense personal drive or mild psychosis.
A Yeren’s Crinos form is a hybrid of man and primate, the particular ape or monkey whose features crop up in the Crinos form seems to depend on the personality of the Yeren in question. Pentex has recorded monstrous blends of human and orangutan, mandrill, mountain gorilla, and chimpanzee, as well as a number of wereapes of indeterminate species. Their battle form gains over a foot of height and an enormous amount of muscle mass, as well as long, hard nails.
Background: The Yeren have spread far and wide throughout corporate America, and have finally begun to branch out to other countries in recent years. They “reproduce” through something resembling the Corax Rite of the Spirit Egg, save that Yeren are incapable of producing Kinfolk. Instead, they pass on the “shadow of the ape” to potential wereapes. Desirable recruits have certain characteristics, such as overwhelming greed and appetite. The Yeren conduct the rite through a four-day careening debauch, reeling from party to party, and bar to bar. The Yeren and their prospective offspring use and abuse anyone and everything they come across, lurching in and out of blackouts, and as the rite progresses, stumbling in and out of the Umbra, as well, where the new “pledge” steadily fuses his flesh and the nature of his spirit together. The rite culminates in the First Change and a bloody rampage. Often, the sponsoring Yeren has arranged to have Pentex clean up. Anyone with important goals and ambitions nobler than simple greed cannot become Yeren, and probably dies from the conspicuous consumption or becomes a meal for a frustrated Yeren during the rite.
Storytelling Notes: The Yeren are pointless, open-ended greed writ large. They embody everything short-sighted, petty, and rotten that the Garou condemn in human nature when they refer to people as “apes.” Their territoriality keeps Yeren from working in close groups very often (though they network extensively), and this is a blessing for urban Garou; on the other hand, the Yeren are very new, and few Garou are even aware of them as a threat, meaning they often have no idea they’re being targeted by a wereape until the hammer drops.
The Yeren largely support Pentex because Pentex supports them, but they’re not satisfied as pawns and cats-paws. There’s no such thing as a stable relationship of master and servant where Yeren are concerned. Their ambition is without limit, and when they see power they don’t have, they want it for themselves. Pentex may not fully appreciate what it has unleashed upon itself in the form of the Yeren, who appear in the company’s middle management in greater numbers with every passing year.
Yeren Gifts
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 174
The following Gifts from this book and W20 are appropriate for the Yeren Gift list:
Level One: Balance, Bane Protector, Bestowing the Predator’s Shadow, Eye of the Hunter, Falling Touch, Glass Canyon Predator (as Ways of the Urban Wolf), Gorilla’s Embrace (as Falcon’s Grasp), Monkey Tail (as the Level Three Gift), Open Seal, Resist Toxin, Trash is Treasure, Sense Wyrm, Venom Claws
Level Two: Between the Cracks, Blissful Ignorance, Distractions, Glib Tongue, Monkey Leap (as the Level One Gift: Hare’s Leap), Odious Aroma, Nimblefeet (as the Level Three Gift: Catfeet), Taking the Forgotten, Wyrm Hide
Level Three: Beautiful Lie, Bloody Feast, Call the Rust, Feast of Essence, Flame Dance (as the Level Two Gift), Gorge (as the Level Four Gift), Intrusion, Spider’s Song (as the Level Two Gift), Spirit of the Fray (as the Level Two Gift)
In addition, the Yeren have started to develop some Gifts unique to themselves.
Level One
Middleman
Description: The Yeren can push on far past the point of exhaustion, taking strength from the activity around him.
System: The player spends a point of Rage or Gnosis. For the remainder of the scene, the Yeren regains a point of the same trait for every two points spent within the wereape’s hearing range. Middleman only keeps the Yeren fighting on dwindling resources and cannot restore his pool above three points. The character chooses whether to focus on Rage or Gnosis when activating the Gift; both aspects may not be used in the same scene.
Shit Rolls Downhill
Description: The Yeren transfers all blame and negative social consequences for an activity to a chosen victim. The Yeren is praised for success, but the victim will be disciplined for any failure. Any corporate investigation, police enquiry or Garou pack that tries to find the person responsible for the project will discover the victim.
System: The player spends one Gnosis and touches the victim. All non-supernatural enquiries to discover the Yeren’s involvement with an activity will instead find solid evidence of the victim’s responsibility — even if parts of a project succeed the negatives will all point to the victim and obscure the Yeren’s involvement. Anyone using supernatural powers to penetrate this shield add the Yeren’s Gnosis to the difficulty.
Level Two
Fistful of Filth
Description: The Yeren flings steaming gobs of corrosive filth at its enemies. This filth smells like excrement but is produced by the Gift — The Yeren need not supply his own ammunition.
System: The filth is a thrown weapon with traits equivalent to a knife (W20 Core, pg 302). Its corrosive nature continues to inflict 2 levels of lethal damage for a number of turns equal to the Yeren’s Rage. The waste burns through most natural substances including wood and metal; some Yeren have come up with creative uses for this Gift as a result.
Dressing Down
Description: The Yeren berates a subordinate for real or imagined failures and steals her self-worth to boost the ape’s confidence.
System: The player rolls Manipulation + Leadership (difficulty 6). Each success transfers one Willpower point from the victim to the Yeren. The Yeren can’t take more Willpower than the victim has and he can’t be targeted more than once per day. This power can only be used on the wereape’s inferiors.
Artist’s Lament
Description: All creators instil their work with some part of themselves. The Yeren abuses this link by destroying the creation to harm its maker. This Gift applies to anything invested with time and energy by its creator, such as speeches, software, or corporate presentations.
System: The Yeren destroys the creation and the player rolls Gnosis (difficulty equal to the victim’s Willpower). Each success removes a point of an Attribute or Willpower from the victim for the remainder of the scene (though it can’t reduce the trait to zero). These points return at the end of the scene. The Yeren must know the victim for this Gift to work. The Gift works best on unique items — add 1 to the difficulty for mass-produced or widely-published works.
Stranger Things
The horrors spawned from the maddened dreams and loins of the Wyrm know no limits. The enemy’s ranks include wicked spirits, corrupted shapeshifters, possessed and corrupted humans and animals, and even outright monsters.
Then there are the other things, the things that just don’t fit into the big picture. The things the Garou just don’t have a frame of reference to explain. The things that don’t seem to have any origins, and yet are. The things that don’t seem to be part of the war, but whose existence the Garou simply cannot tolerate. The other.
Inquisitors
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, 175
No one knows where the Inquisitors come from or what they’re after. That they have an agenda is clear; they’re no-nonsense creatures, clearly acting with purpose. Inquisitors appear in search of particular bits of information, and are willing to do whatever it takes to acquire it. Nor are they unreasonable beings, or so they insist. They give subjects the opportunity to talk freely, and those victims who answer an Inquisitor’s questions openly and honestly are left puzzled but otherwise unmolested.
Those who try to impede the Inquisitors die painfully.
The Inquisitors reek of the Wyrm, but seem as interested in gathering information on the Corrupter as they are in finding patterns within the madness of the Wyld or plotting out the works of the Weaver. Those few who have compared notes on the Inquisitors suspect they are taking some sort of survey of the strength and deployment of the various forces involved in the Apocalypse, but for what reason? If they are agents of some higher power, then why does that being want the information the Inquisitors gather?
Attributes: Strength 6, Dexterity 6, Stamina 6, Charisma 3, Manipulation 3, Appearance 2, Perception 6, Intelligence 6, Wits 6
Abilities: All save Primal-Urge and Rituals at 4.
Traits: Rage: 5; Gnosis: 5; Willpower: 10
Powers: Armor (as the spirit Charm; cost: 1 Gnosis), Control Electrical Systems (as the spirit Charm; cost: 1 Gnosis), Cyber-Senses (as the Glass Walker Gift), Mind Probe*
- Mind Probe: Inquisitors may extend a series of thin metallic filaments from their fingertips. They use these probes to pierce the skull of a restrained victim and literally to drain away his knowledge. The Inquisitor spends 1 Gnosis and rolls Wits + Enigmas against a difficulty of the target’s Willpower. Each success removes one year of memories the Inquisitor suspects may contain useful information. This process also lowers the victim’s Intelligence by one dot. The Inquisitor may repeat this process until the results satisfy him, or until he runs out of Gnosis.
For humans, all damage done by Mind Probe is permanent; the brain of a person fully drained appears smooth and unwrinkled — a clearly unnatural state. Garou are able to regenerate most of the damage of this Charm, restoring Intelligence and memories at a rate of one dot and one year’s worth of memories per day of rest and recovery. Even for the Garou, a few minor details are unrecoverable: a childhood friend’s phone number, what the character got for her tenth birthday, that sort of thing.
Image: Inquisitors are flat, matte black humanoid shapes. They have no distinguishing features. They have no faces at all, only vague suggestions of where facial features might be. They come in two varieties — roughly male and almost female — but all have identical cold, inflectionless voices. They tend towards nondescript, conservative clothing. They drive black rental cars when they use any sort of transportation at all.
Background: The Inquisitors are an enigma. Everything about their behavior suggests they are creatures of the Weaver, but they positively reek of Wyrm-taint. Pentex has become especially interested in them after the Inquisitors reduced a number of their agents in Dallas, Boston, and London to drooling husks. Whatever their agenda might be, they’ve yet to reveal it to anyone, and they don’t answer questions.
Storytelling Notes: The Inquisitors are meant as an unknown threat, and an opportunity for Storytellers to come up with a dire conspiracy of their own choosing.
Chulorviah
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 176
The abyssal depths of the sea hold mysteries and terror beyond the reckoning of the Garou and beyond the counting of the Rokea. Of all the horrors given up from the sea, the Chulorviah are perhaps the most enigmatic.
Other names for them are Kraken-Born or the abyssal strain; Chulorviah are neither species, nor spirit, nor even disease, though they share the traits of all three. Certainly, they are an infection, but the few Glass Walkers who have autopsied Chulorvian corpses could isolate no biological cause for their condition. Certainly, they are creatures, they live in flesh and expand their numbers by physical reproduction. And certainly, there is a spiritual element to what they are; their elders wield terrible and potent magic, and they know of the Triat, though they seem not to concern themselves with it.
Viewed as an infection, the Chulorviah are peculiar in the extreme. They afflict themselves upon humans, and cephalopods, and really nothing else: there are no whale, shark, or crab Chulorviah. Viewed with spiritual senses, a murky, tattered halo surrounds a Chulorviah, mottled like rotting flesh.
The Chulorviah are clearly intelligent, and carrying out some great and organized plan, but what that might be remains a mystery. They exhibit no particular interest in the doings of the Garou, Pentex, or other elements of the war for Gaia; instead, the Chulorviah quietly infiltrate small seaside communities, corporate offices, and maritime trade routes. In recent years, they have taken a great interest in offshore drilling, working to promote and expand the practice; those few that have fought the Chulorviah conjecture that Kraken’s children seek the unearthing of something lost beneath the bottom of the sea — lost — or deliberately sealed away.
The Chulorviah come in two basic varieties: infected humans and infected cephalopods. Chulorvian cephalopods, known as Petryani, perpetuate the abyssal strain through direct physical injection—piercing flesh with their unnaturally powerful tentacles or beaks. The vector for human infection remains unknown, but appears to be at least somewhat non-physical; some evidence shows it being sexually transmitted, while others have it passed from one person to another by prolonged conversation, or through a long enough period of cohabitation with a Chulorviah.
Regardless of original species, anyone infected simply becomes Chulorviah afterward. Although the Kraken-Born retain full knowledge of their lives prior to infection, they no longer possess any emotional attachment to those thoughts or memories; their loyalty to the strain is absolute.
Markings of the Abyss
All Chulorviah share a few traits in common. They are able to communicate silently with one another regardless of any language barriers through a form of psychic communion similar to the Galliard Gift: Mindspeak. All Chulorviah are fully amphibious, able to survive for unlimited periods above or below the waves, and at any depth. Chulorviah can sense other carriers of the abyssal strain; whenever a Chulorviah sleeps, it awakens with a certain awareness of exactly how many other Chulorviah can be found within 50 miles of its location, where those Kraken-Born are, and what identities they wear, if any.
Finally, all Chulorviah register very powerfully to the Gift: Sense Wyrm. The difficulty to detect a Chulorviah at close range is only 5. The particular sensation they produce when analyzed with the Gift is almost overpowering, like being engulfed in a tide of rot. It’s the kind of aura of corruption one might expect from a Wyrmish Incarna, not a monster little stronger than a fomor. Perhaps each Chulorviah is but a tentacle extruded from some terrible, central mind.
The Enfolded
The lowest among the abyssal strain, the Enfolded are infected humans. They’re generally treated as disposable in the plans of the Kraken-Born, used as manual labor or shock troops in Chulorvian plans. Some have theorized that these wretches represent the future of humanity, should the great work of the Chulorviah come to fruition.
Image: People infected with the abyssal strain continue to look completely human, with only a slight mottling of the skin to show anything is wrong... at first. Over time, more changes creep in. Teeth fuse into a chitinous beak; suckers appear at random, odd points on the body; a small cluster of anemone-like tendrils replaces the Enfolded’s genitalia. Once the Enfolded can no longer pass for human, he returns to the depths to perform unknown services for his cephalopod superiors.
Traits: Enfolded retain the same traits they had prior to infection
Powers: Basic Chulorviah powers, Immunity to the Delirium, Numbing
Petryanos
Petryani are infected cephalopods who have developed a cold, malign sentience and a talent for mind control. They oversee the implementation of the Chulorvian agenda, moving from useful host to useful host and directing the more numerous Enfolded under their command. While Petryani normally focus on human hosts, they’re not exclusively limited to them; in times of war, a Petryanos may bore into the cartilaginous skull of a shark, or enslave the mind and body of a killer whale to act as a living weapon.
It is worth noting that while Petryani can infect the humans they puppeteer, transforming them into Enfolded, the Petryani prefer to dispose of them once their usefulness is ended. Generally, the Petryanos forces the host to swim far out to see, deep beneath the waves, and then disentangles itself and swims away, leaving the wounded host to drown. Nobody’s certain why the Petryani are selective in the spreading of the abyssal strain. Perhaps they fear exposure; perhaps initiating infection takes some great toll on them; perhaps they simply consider humans unworthy of elevation to the ranks of the Kraken-Born, and make no more Enfolded workers than they need.
Image: Petryani take the form of small cephalopods, most commonly nautili, octopi, and cuttlefish. They possess a few more tentacles than their mundane cousins do; these extras are long and slender, perfect for burrowing through a victim’s skull, and coiling around his brainstem. Petryani are almost never larger than a human head, all told. They can change color at will, and use this talent to conceal themselves both on and off of host bodies.
Attributes: Strength 3-5, Dexterity 5, Stamina 3, Manipulation 4, Perception 4, Intelligence 4, Wits 4. Petryani use the host’s Charisma and Appearance; without a host, they possess 0 in both traits.
Abilities: Alertness 2, Athletics 3, Brawl 3, Enigmas 2, Occult 4, Stealth 5. Petryani may also use the Abilities of its host.
Traits: Willpower: 7
Health Levels: OK, –1, –2, –2, –5, Incapacitated
Powers: Basic Chulorviah powers, Brain-Burrow, Immunity to the Delirium.
To use Brain Burrow, the Petryanos must initiate a clinch and spend a Willpower point. This inflicts one level of lethal damage, as the Petryanos makes a hole in the base or back of the victim’s skull. Afterward, the Petryanos exercises full control over its victim’s body, while the victim’s mind remains fully conscious and helpless. The victim can attempt to gain control of his body for a few moments by spending a point of Willpower and making a Willpower roll at difficulty 9; each success grants one turn of free action. Petryani often deny a recalcitrant victim sleep for days on end in order to deplete their Willpower reserves.
Petryanos possession can be ended through Gifts such as Exorcism, or by driving away or surgically removing the Chulorviah. Simply ripping a Petryanos loose is possible with a successful grapple attempt, but rarely a good idea, as the Chulorviah generally comes away with big chunks of grey matter grasped in its tentacles.
Notes: Petryani generally fight as the host body; in a pinch, they can grapple and bite for +1 lethal damage.
Chulorviah Elder
The changes that drive the Enfolded into the waves do not cease once they abandon the world of light and air. Few survive long in the courts of the abyss, but those that do continue to become stranger and stronger—they grow, and grow, until after hundreds or thousands of years, they become Chulorvian elders. These vast horrors orchestrate the great plans of the Chulorviah, and send the Petryani here and there to carry out the will of the abyssal strain. If the Kraken-Born find it ironic that only the lowliest among them may grow to become the rulers of their kind, they keep their thoughts to themselves.
The Chulorvian elders are timeless and ageless. They claim to inherit the memory of the abyssal strain, and speak of events that happened long before their birth as though they had witnessed them personally. The memories of the Chulorvian elders stretch back and back, ever into deeper darkness, through geological ages. They remember a time before humanity. They remember the time before land or light, when all was simply icy darkness. At the great extremes of their recollection, they do not know if they recall the past or the future; perhaps it is both, and this is the goal toward which the abyssal strain strives, attempting to meet itself across the bridge of time.
Few not of the abyssal strain ever meet a Chulorvian elder and live. Most of those that do are powerful Rokea, who find themselves the target of Chulorvian aggressions ever afterward.
Image: Each elder is an individual nightmare of writhing, cephalopod horror, a cauldron of flesh twisted without rhyme or reason. Chitinous beaks snap, great eyes stare, tentacles writhe and coil and rubbery skin mottles, all these elements placed without rhyme or reason. Almost all retain a few vestigial indicators of the people they once were: a few fingers waggling at the end of a tentacle, or a woman’s lovely green eyes staring out of a nest of rustling mantles. The speech of the Chulorvian elders tolls hollowly in the minds of those they address.
Attributes: Strength 9+, Dexterity 5+, Stamina 9+, Charisma 3, Manipulation 6, Appearance 0, Perception 5+, Intelligence 6+, Wits 4
Abilities: Elder abilities vary wildly. They retain any skills from life, and most are accomplished fighters with Brawl ratings at 4 or 5. All have Occult 6+.
Traits: Willpower: 8+
Health Levels: OK, OK, –1, –1, –2, –2, –2, –5, –5, Incapacitated
Powers: Basic Chulorviah powers, Immunity to the Delirium.
All Chulorvian elders are capable of Mindspeak-style communication with other Kraken-Born from up to 500 miles away. Finally, each elder possesses a unique array of Gifts chosen by the Storyteller, generally between five and 15.
Fomori: The Wyrm’s Conscripts
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 129
Slavering mutants, twisted killers, and hideous blasphemies wrought in flesh—these are the faces of the Wyrm’s conscripts in its war against Gaia. Fomori are what happens when the pure spiritual essence of the Wyrm invests itself in Earthly flesh. Though blessedly few fomori are strong enough to challenge a werewolf one-on-one, the Wyrm’s mutants come in near-infinite variety, and all too often, that element of surprise is enough to spell the end of one of Gaia’s defenders. Whether the fomor itself lives to fight another day is of little import. So long as life and corruption both remain in the world, the Wyrm can always bring forth new fomori.
The Role of Wyrm Taint
The Garou rightly describe many things as “Wyrm tainted,” and one of their most common Gifts helps them to detect the presence of the Corrupter’s spiritual effluvia. Indeed, one of the major purposes of Pentex is to flood the world with Wyrm-tainted products, from toys, makeup, and films to food, drink, and therapeutic retreats. But what does eating Wyrm-tainted food and using Wyrm-tainted products do to a person?
It does a lot of small, subtle things. It makes people a tiny bit quicker to anger, it makes them a little less tolerant of those around them, it makes dark thoughts and selfish urges rise up more easily than they otherwise might. But the biggest and — from the perspective of Pentex — most important result is that Wyrm-tainted individuals are much easier targets for the Possession Charm (see W20 Core, pg 367). Depending on the severity of the Wyrm-taint a person has taken into himself, the difficulty of the Possession Charm lowers by between –1 and –3. As Pentex’s profits rise, the number of fomori grow year by year.
In essence, when the Garou look upon the twisted face of a fomor, they’re witnessing the future the Wyrm has in store for the entire human race.
Playing Fomori?
The “Quick and Dirty Fomori” rules found on page 429 of W20 are useful for generating fomori characters. But what does it mean to play a fomor? What are fomori, from a player’s perspective?
It’s easier to start by establishing what fomori are not — they’re not the X-Men. They’re not misunderstood targets of unwarranted prejudice, sporting badass superpowers. A fomor is a person who has fused, body and soul, with a spirit of pure corruption. Fomori can be complex and even conflicted, but the source of their powers—the Bane within—is a thing of pure and unambiguous evil.
How much impact this has on the fomor varies. Some fomori, such as Freakfeet or Hollow Men, retain the classification of “human” only by the most generous definition of the word. Others retain much of their former personality and code of ethics. Usually, fomori weren’t very nice people before their possession, but that’s not a universal rule, sometimes fomori are just unfortunate. It’s easier for a Bane to curl up and make a home in the soul of the weak-willed or the already-corrupt, but the truth is, a Bane strong enough or lucky enough can infest just about anyone.
From the perspective of the Garou, this makes fomori tragic, but any pity or sympathy for the mutant generally only extends so far as to try to give it a clean, swift death. The Galliards do know tales of Garou packs who worked with fomori — generally possessed Kinfolk — but none of those tales ends well, and all those sung are with shame.
Ultimately, to play a fomor is to play an unfortunate victim of the supernatural world, probably doomed to a short life and an agonizing death. Play it as a blackly funny one-shot splatterpunk romp, or for tragic pathos, depending on the desires of the group. Alternately, fomori can make decent characters for “everything goes” World of Darkness crossover games. If you already have, say, a dhampyr, a ronin Garou, and a Hollow One mage rambling around in a Winnebago, what harm is there in tossing a fomor into the mix?
For those wishing to play fomori, character creation works much the same as Garou, subject to the modifications mentioned above. The Storyteller decides how many powers you can take when making your character, and will hand out new ones at no experience point cost when he decides your inner Bane is asserting itself. Often accompanied with a new, attendant Flaw; because nobody said possession was going to be pleasant.
Fomori Breeds
While the majority of fomori are unique horrors, there are a few commonly recurring “breeds,” either the result of possession by a peculiarly focused type of Bane, or the product of intentional development programs, generally either those of Black Spiral packs, or Pentex’s Project Iliad. What follows are a selection of some of the fomori breeds most commonly encountered by the Garou.
Enticers
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 130
Enticers are subtle by fomori standards. Outwardly, they don’t appear to be the usual slavering mutants Garou stay alert for, they look perfect. Of course, what an Enticer really looks like and what the people around her see is rarely the same thing.
An Enticer is a social predator, carefully groomed and deployed by Pentex to lure the company’s enemies into traps, turn Gaian loyalists into besotted traitors, or act as the leading wedge of a divide-and-conquer operation. The Enticer doesn’t have much of a choice. Pentex binds him in chains of addiction and dependence. Those few “wild” Enticers created outside of the company’s control normally burn themselves out in a downward spiral of parties, flings, and abusive relationships.
Enticers emit supernaturally potent, psychoactive pheromones that cause those around them to perceive the Enticer as their ideal sexual partner, the literal man, or woman of their dreams. Moreover, these pheromones are addictive; those who’ve been around the Enticer for even a short while soon can’t conceive of living without him. Essentially, an Enticer can seduce almost anything.
Attributes: Strength 1, Dexterity 2, Stamina 2, Charisma 6, Manipulation 6, Appearance 6, Perception 3, Intelligence 3, Wits 3
Abilities: Alertness 2, Athletics 2, Brawl 1, Drive 1, Empathy 3, Etiquette 3, Expression 2, Firearms 2, Performance 3, Subterfuge 3
Backgrounds: Allies 4, Contacts 4, Resources 3
Powers: Addictive Presence, Claws and Fangs, Siren’s Veil.
Willpower: 5
Equipment: Luxury clothes, jewelry, and car; a small concealed knife or pistol; cell phone with Pentex handler on speed-dial.
Image: On the rare occasion when someone glimpses an Enticer’s true face, he or she looks like an attractive man or woman, that is until he or she opens his or her mouth, displaying a double-row of barbed fangs.
Genesis: Few Enticers come from “the wild,” but most come from Magadon’s subsidiary Siren Pharmaceuticals. In addition to makeup and cosmetics, Siren targets men with body sprays, moisturizers, shaving creams, hair dyes, and other products advertised as increasing their sex appeal. Ordinary Siren products are simply Wyrm-tainted cosmetic products designed to attract Banes of insecurity and vanity, but a few times a year, Siren sponsors various beauty contests and fashion shows, giving the winner a year’s supply of exclusive, limited-edition products. These are loaded with Wyrm-taint, Banes, and addictive additives; a few months later a Pentex representative swings by to rescue the winner from their life-destroying transformation into a fomor, which should be well underway at this point. The company plies the fomor with more addictive cosmetics, as well as doing its best to supply them with other, harder addictive narcotics, and takes over their finances by putting them on the company payroll, anything to get the Enticer on the company’s leash in the long term.
Pentex also targets models sliding out of their prime who are desperate for some edge to help them hang on. The process seems to work just as well as the more traditional methods. They used to use this as their main source of male Enticers, but in the last few years, the numbers of male and female Enticers have balanced out.
Roleplaying Notes: It’s good to be needed. Most people have their day in the spotlight and then wither away, but not you, everyone loves you, everyone wants you, everyone hangs on your every word, and they always will. That’s good, because it lets you keep living in the style to which you’re accustomed: uppers in the morning, downers to stop at the end of the day, and a whirlwind of self-satisfaction in-between, at least when the boss doesn’t need something taken care of. You don’t like to fight, but you can when you have to, you’d much rather send one of your many admirers off to take care of problems, though.
Ferectoi, the Larvae of the Wyrm
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 131
The Ferectoi, also sometimes known as Bane Children, are princes among the ranks of fomori, standing among the strongest and most stable of the Wyrm’s mutants. Pentex makes frequent use of Ferectoi, and the upper ranks of its division management are peppered with Bane Children. The normal glass ceiling blocking fomori from rising high in the ranks of the Wyrm’s servants doesn’t apply to Ferectoi.
This is because the Ferectoi are perfect creations of the Wyrm’s will. Ferectoi are pre-natal fomori, conceived in a twisted mockery of natural reproduction and born already twisted by the will of the Corrupter. No Ferectoi was ever seduced or enticed into the Wyrm’s service; they were made to be what they are, one and all.
The Ferectoi know it. They’re arrogant, self-assured creatures; mostly raised by powerful servants of the Wyrm such as Pentex executives, Wyrmish mages, or relatively “stable” Black Spiral families, and are well aware of their birthright. They burn with a desire to hasten the Apocalypse and bring about a world where they can display their superiority openly.
Attributes: Strength 4, Dexterity 4, Stamina 4, Charisma 4, Manipulation 5, Appearance 3, Perception 4, Intelligence 4, Wits 4
Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics 3, Brawl 4, Computer 2, Empathy 2, Enigmas 2, Etiquette 3, Intimidation 4, Larceny 2, Leadership 4, Occult 3, Science 3, Stealth 3, Streetwise 4, Subterfuge 4
Backgrounds: Allies 3-5, Contacts 3-5, Resources 2-4
Powers: At least five fomori powers, as Ferectoi are unique. All Ferectoi are able to hide their nature completely. Extra limbs are retractable into the body, for example.
Willpower: 7
Equipment: Most Ferectoi have whatever they need provided for them by powerful patrons.
Image: Bane Children look outwardly human until they choose to reveal their hellish powers. At that point, they may look like anything. No two Ferectoi have precisely the same mutations.
Genesis: A unique monstrosity known as a Breeder Bane produces Ferectoi. The Breeder Bane is a grotesque jar of disconnected anatomy, a self-impregnating monstrosity designed solely to pervert the natural processes of human reproduction.
Breeder Banes manifest to steal the genetic material of sleeping mortals, using their Charms to keep the mortals unaware of their violation (though they may suffer tormented dreams of the experience in years to come). Though they prize human sperm and eggs, they can use any living cells, taking half an ounce of muscle or bone marrow for example. The Breeder Bane must gather both male and female flesh, and then combines them in the Wyrm-tainted cauldron that is its hideous anatomy, gestating a Ferectoi. It later manifests again to give birth to the Bane Child, leaving the twisted babe in the care of mighty servants of the Wyrm. Among those who conspire to kill the world, they consider it a high honor from the Corrupter to find a gravid Breeder Bane on one’s doorstep.
Roleplaying Notes: You may look human, but you’re something greater than those around you are, and you know it. You’re stronger, smarter, more evolved. You have a great role to play in shaping the future. Your only regret is that you have to hide that power so much of the time. You long to unfurl your chitinous limbs, spew balefire upon your enemies, and proclaim your ascendance over a dying and obsolete human race.
Until then, you’re a wolf among sheep, and that has its own pleasures.
Flesh Packs
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 132
The fomori known as Flesh Packs represent one of Pentex’s most impressive technical achievements in the field of spiritual corruption. It is an infectious fomor, capable of spreading its mutant state to others. Unfortunately, Flesh Pack fomori aren’t just infectious, they’re virulently infectious, making them of very limited use outside of contained purge-and-burn operations in remote regions. Of course, many caerns are located in remote, rural areas where outbreak containment is possible...
Once possessed, a Flesh Pack fomor suffers rapid, severe decline of his mental faculties, at the same time the possessing Bane pumps him full of aggression and a growing hunger for raw meat — any kind will do. Most Flesh Pack “alphas” begin by raiding the nearest grocery store, but quickly proceed to devouring neighborhood pets and then neighbors. A growing Flesh Pack is easily capable of depopulating a small town or village, and indeed Pentex has recorded Flesh Packs doing so in Mexico, Chile, Somalia, and Siberia.
Flesh Packs orient around the leadership of an alpha, the original fomor that infected the rest of the pack. This “Patient Zero” is usually a bit smarter and stronger than his fellows are, and is, thankfully, the only one capable of spreading the infection. Unfortunately, the “beta” fomori sense this; and they will sacrifice themselves to protect the pack’s alpha.
Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 2, Stamina 3, Charisma 1, Manipulation 1, Appearance 1, Perception 3, Intelligence 1, Wits 3
Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics 2, Brawl 3, Intimidation 3, Melee 2, Stealth 3
Backgrounds: None
Powers: Claws and Fangs (alpha only), Extra Speed, Immunity to the Delirium, Regeneration.
Willpower: 4
Equipment: Whatever the Flesh Pack has come across that works as a weapon.
Image: Flesh Pack “betas” look outwardly human, but seem anything but normal. They’re disheveled, filthy, and utterly manic with the need to eat. Any meat will do. A flesh pack will descend on a supermarket and tear apart its meat section as readily as they’ll consume the shoppers. They’re never sated, and their regenerative powers will allow them to feast on in agony almost indefinitely, even as their stomachs rupture and re-seal around lumps of raw flesh.
The alpha fomor of a Flesh Pack is bigger than the rest, and develops jagged fangs and bony claws about a week after succumbing to full possession.
Genesis: Flesh Packs spawn from Banes known as Winding Hungers, a kind of cannibal-spirit of gluttony and murder. Winding Hungers are only capable of possessing those who have eaten human flesh, making their fomori blessedly rare. Although when Pentex needs an outbreak badly enough, it’s not averse to slipping a burger made of long pork into a local O’Tolley’s. Pentex targets Kinfolk when possible, in the hopes that they’ll carry the infection inside the bawn of an isolated, self-sustaining caern.
“Beta” fomori are infected when someone survives a bite from the “alpha” fomor. The fomor’s murderous aggression acts as a vector for the Winding Hunger to possess additional hosts while remaining rooted in the “alpha” fomor. Two factors limit the size of Flesh Packs: only the alpha can create more fomori, and the absolute power of the Winding Hunger, which can only muster enough power to spread itself across fifteen to twenty-five fomori in total.
Roleplaying Notes: Hard to think, don’t need to think, need to eat; you’ve never needed anything so bad. Wait, did something move over there? Meat! Does it look familiar? The screams don’t matter, just the blood on your tongue and the flesh ripping between your teeth.
Damnit, you’re still hungry.
Freakfeet
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 132
Freakfeet were among the earliest of designer Fomori, initially created by the Magadon subsidiary Panacea in the late 1970s. They were intended to be an easily controlled, cheaply-produced, self-replicating fomori breed, and to thrive in the abandoned nooks and crannies of the urban wasteland — particularly in the sewers and storm drains which many Bone Gnawers of the time used as supply caches and bolt holes. However, a spate of attacks on Panacea facilities allowed a number of un-indoctrinated Freakfeet to escape, resulting in these urban nightmares reproducing in the wild outside of Pentex’s control.
Despite their variable appearance, all Freakfeet are genetically identical. They are the result of a genetic-spiritual fusion of human and amphibian DNA with a H’ruggling Bane. They’re dull-witted and cowardly but vicious creatures, experts at creeping, slinking, and abducting targets from within their own homes, the better to either feed or grow their home nest.
Freakfeet have their own crude language, it is a deep-throated chittering comprehensible only to other Freakfeet and H’rugglings.
Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 5, Stamina 3, Charisma 1, Manipulation 1, Appearance 1, Perception 2, Intelligence 1, Wits 3
Abilities: Athletics 4, Brawl 3, Primal-Urge 1, Stealth 4
Backgrounds: None
Powers: Fangs, Immunity to the Delirium, Malleate, Rat Head, Slobbersnot
Willpower: 2
Equipment: None.
Image: Freakfeet look like grotesque little toad-monkeys. They’re generally human in outline from the waist up, although with weirdly elongated arms. Their eyes are enormous, popping out of heads bulging up from wide, powerful shoulders; Freakfeet have no necks to speak of. Their legs are tiny, from six inches to a foot in length, ending in enormous feet with long prehensile toes. Freakfeet skin is waxy and rubbery beneath its glistening layer of slime, and these fomori come in a wide array of different colors, of which the Freakfeet are inordinately proud. Although they move with a seemingly awkward lope, Freakfeet are capable of impressive ground speeds.
Every Freakfeet hive has a single “Queen” which is at least three times the size of a normal fomor of this breed, with a grossly bloated and bulbous body and a stinger mounted at the base of her spine.
Genesis: Freakfeet are unusual among fomori, in that the only Banes that create new Freakfeet incubate in the flesh of a Freakfeet Queen. Freakfeet perform home invasions, sliding in through the pipes, or snatch lone individuals off the streets and down into storm drains; these unfortunate souls become the fodder for new Freakfeet. Their captors fuse the abductees to the floors or walls of the local hive, where the Queen injects a spiritual “egg” with her stinger. The new fomor gestates inside the body of the host, eventually tearing free of its parent’s flesh a few weeks later when the possession is complete.
Roleplaying Notes: You have only the haziest memories of the host-flesh. You remember places, faces, names, facts, but have no emotional connection to them. They are likely to be the first things you hunt. You are born hungry. You love sliding through the pipes and drains of the city, collapsing your rubbery skin and using your natural slime to glide smoothly along. You like playing with the malleable flesh of those you capture. You must serve the Queen and you must serve the hive. Food, new brothers, and a bit of amusement are all that you need now.
Gorehounds, Take Two
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 133
Slaughterhouse Video, a small subsidiary of Pentex, is the exclusive producer of Gorehounds. In the past, Gorehound fomori emulated their classic slasher-film heroes — usually unstable to begin with — Bane possession killed most of their higher reasoning and turned them into silent, hulking, nigh-unstoppable murder machines with a penchant for power tools and ambushes.
Times change, though, and the Gorehounds are changing with them. While the “classic” model of enormous, masked, overtly murderous Gorehound remains a going concern, Slaughterhouse has also recently begun creating a “Take Two” version of the Gorehound as well. These creatures are less blatant than the classic Gorehound, and focus less on racking up a huge body count quickly, and more on extracting the maximum possible amount of suffering from each victim. Where classic Gorehounds are crude, The Bane possessing it imbues the new Gorehounds with a sort of hellish cleverness. This allows it intuitively to construct elaborate traps and torture chambers. Possessed of a relentless drive to kill, both types of Gorehounds rarely manage to last very long before going out in a blaze of terrible violence.
Attributes (old): Strength 6, Dexterity 3, Stamina 6, Charisma 1, Manipulation 1, Appearance 1, Perception 4, Intelligence 2, Wits 2
Attributes (new): Strength 3, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3, Charisma 3, Manipulation 3, Appearance 2, Perception 4, Intelligence 5, Wits 4
Abilities (old): Athletics 3, Brawl 4, Intimidation 4, Melee 4, Stealth 5
Abilities (new): Alertness 3, Athletics 2, Brawl 3, Craft 5, Investigation 4, Melee 3
Backgrounds: None
Powers (old): Immunity to the Delirium, Mega-Strength, Mega-Stamina, Regeneration.
Powers (new): Cause Insanity (via prolonged torture), Immunity to the Delirium, Mega-Intelligence, Regeneration
Willpower: 10
Equipment (old): Household implements such as meat cleavers, chainsaws, pitchforks, cordless drills, or screwdrivers, to be terribly misused.
Equipment (new): Chloroform-soaked rag, concealed knife, detailed map of next victim’s house, elaborate torture chamber.
Image: Gorehounds continue to look human, save that the classic model bulks up dramatically after possession. Most fade away from their former identities, adopting a new persona for themselves, and may fashion some sort of crude costume, mask, or pattern of scarring to signify this new identity.
Genesis: In the past, Slaughterhouse Video produced heavily Wyrm-tainted direct-to-VHS slasher films, occasionally with minor banes sleeping inside the tapes, distributed through seedy video stores. These days, business is better than ever. While their Classic Slaughter line has jumped from VHS to the direct-to-DVD market, Slaughterhouse has also expanded with a Grim Reality line of “real” gore documentaries, compiling animal attacks, industrial accidents, and other purportedly genuine compilations of human death and mutilation. The videos have just enough obviously staged fakery to deflect suspicions about their primarily real content.
Slaughterhouse has also jumped enthusiastically into the modern “torture porn” genre, discovering that aficionados of their Blood Trap line of low-budget films are ripe breeding grounds for a whole new kind of Gorehound. Slaughterhouse no longer bothers to pre-package banes with its products. It’s simpler to flood the market with cheap, low-cost Wyrm-tainted DVDs and just let the taint’s clarion call do the rest of the work, attracting appropriate Banes out in the wild. The company is currently experimenting with direct-streaming services as well, and early results look promising; the internet seems as suitable a vector for Wyrm taint as any other does.
Roleplaying Notes: You stopped really feeling pain a long time ago — or much of anything else, for that matter. Now you only feel alive when screams ring in your ears, or when you feel hot wet blood soaking your arms up to the wrists. You’re living the dream; you’re carrying out a mission. It’s all that matters.
Hollow Men
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 134
The ultimate origins of the Hollow Men are a mystery. They are among the oldest of all the fomori breeds. They first appear in Fianna ballads dating back to Roman-era Britain, and that they’re extremely long-lived. Hollow Men serve the Wyrm effectively and with intense drive, having led many great assaults against Gaia down through the centuries.
They’re also among the most disturbing of fomori.
A Hollow Man (or Woman) is an individual who has been possessed by a Scavenger Pack Bane, they are a hollowed-out skin animated by a colony of vermin, little more than a channel for the black urges of the Wyrm.
Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2, Charisma 2, Manipulation 3, Appearance 1, Perception 3, Intelligence 4, Wits 3
Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics 3, Brawl 3, Expression 2, Firearms 2, Intimidation 4, Occult 3, Primal-Urge 4, Stealth 2, Subterfuge 3, Survival 3
Backgrounds: None
Powers: Colony Powers (see sidebar), Dispersion, Immunity to the Delirium, Prolonged Life, Regeneration. Regeneration requires calling more animals from the surrounding area to replenish and mend wounds; if no such creatures are available, the power doesn’t work.
Willpower: 8
Equipment: Heavy trench coat and wide-brimmed hat, revolver.
Image: A Hollow Man can only pass for human at a distance or in poor light. Up close, it becomes clear that they have no eyes, teeth, or tongue. Their skin rustles and surges with the motions of the colony within, and occasionally a member of that colony will peek out through an available orifice, or crawl across the surface of the Hollow Man’s skin. Despite their mutilations, Hollow Men are still able to perceive the world, and to speak, although their voices are the modulated buzzing of hornets, or the chorused hiss of serpents.
Genesis: Hollow Men are thankfully rare, as the circumstances that permit their creation are quite uncommon. Scavenger Pack Banes can only possess a relatively fresh, mostly hollowed out body. The ideal body is one still in the process of dying. The Bane drives packs of its patron vermin, such as rats, snakes, roaches, or wasps, to stampede into the gutted husk and complete the task of hollowing it out. Within a matter of minutes or hours, the new fomor rises and goes about carrying out the Wyrm’s will.
There is some evidence that the Hollow Man population is now on the rise and that they are associating with one another for the first time in the memory of the Garou. A Hollow Man discovered in Phoenix last year kidnapping students and eviscerating them in a foreclosed ranch house, then called termite swarms out of the walls to create new Hollow Men. Reports of similar stories out of New York, Brisbane, and Cairo circulate among concerned Garou as well. It remains unknown why the Wyrm should desire a greater number of these fomori, but whatever it is, it can’t be good.
Roleplaying Notes: You’re empty. You have your old memories, but not your old life. You hate everything, especially the colony that nips at your skin and skitters across your bones. Nevertheless, you need them. Without them, you’d be so empty. So alone. Without the rats in your eyes, you couldn’t see. Without the rats in your head, you couldn’t think. They’re everything to you now. You need them. You hate them. You need them.
Example Colony Powers
Hollow Men are among the upper echelon of fomor power, but the exact nature of that power differs depending on the type of Scavenger Bane possessing them. Some examples are below:
Spider Colony: Venomous bite, Wall Walking, Webbing
Rat Colony: Footpads, Infectious Touch, Rat Head
Constrictor Colony: Maw of the Wyrm, MegaStrength, Rat Head
Normalites
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 135
These tragic horrors are the result of a number of Pentex projects started during the late 1980s to crush the wills of homosexual men and women through “curative therapy” programs. The ultimate result of the program is a Normalite: a faceless, sexless fomor capable of instinctively detecting the presence of supernatural entities, and filled with an equally instinctive desire to destroy them. Pentex First Teams use packs of these baying, featureless monstrosities to hunt Garou and Kinfolk, and then neutralize their Gifts while strike teams take them apart.
In the twenty-first century, much of the developed world is more accepting of homosexuality than it was, thus it’s much harder to start up the programs needed to make Normalites. Production is mostly concentrated in the United States, Italy, and Africa; Russia started a couple of experimental programs, but hasn’t had time enough to show success. Pentex remains dedicated to expanding their presence abroad by any means necessary, however; they’re simply too useful to give up on.
Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 4, Stamina 3, Charisma 1, Manipulation 1, Appearance 1, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3
Abilities: Alertness 3, Brawl 3, Intimidation 4, Primal-Urge 2, Stealth 2
Backgrounds: None
Powers: Homogeneity, Immunity to the Delirium, Sense the Unnatural, Venomous Bite
Willpower: 3
Equipment: Generally none, not even clothes.
Image: A Normalite’s bone structure distorts, allowing it to run on all fours. Its body is hairless, sexless, and without distinguishing characteristics such as scars or tattoos. The Normalite’s pigmentation shifts over time until the fomor is an unearthly paper-white. The Normalite’s facial features disappear save for a gaping mouth; somehow, this fails to impair their keen senses.
Genesis: The first Normalites were the products of a Pentex subsidiary known as Homogeneity, Incorporated, a business centered around “curing” homosexuals of unwanted sexual desires through a $2,000, ten-week course of isolation, religious services, and hypnotherapy. Project Iliad has since diversified, branching out from the original company to sponsor the use of its methods by a number of homosexual “rehab” programs, both Pentex-sponsored and wholly independent. In recent years, it has expanded its operations to include “treatment” of transgendered individuals as well. The banes that create Normalites prey on self-loathing and identity conflicts, and the programs that create Normalites create and magnify these feelings to a disturbing degree. Full possession and transformation takes between six and ten months. The psychological changes begin in a matter of weeks, while physical transformation doesn’t begin until the final month of the process.
In countries where homosexuality isn’t broadly condemned, Pentex funnels significant funds to hate groups, preachers of intolerance, and socially conservative political movements in the hopes of wedging open markets for more projects like Homogeneity, Inc. The Normalites are among their most useful fomori for finding and targeting the Wyrm’s enemies, making further expansion of the program that creates them a vital priority.
Roleplaying Notes: At first, the program seemed like it worked. You realized that your desires were disgusting and wrong, but over time, they faded away. Granted, no heterosexual impulses rose up to replace them, but that was okay, it was enough just to be free, for a while. Then your other desires began to fade as well, even as you became acutely sensitive to the freaks around you. Your rage toward anything “abnormal” grew, even as everything else dimmed out, you managed to become normal, so why couldn’t everyone else? Worst of all were the freaks — and you knew them to be freaks — who seemed completely normal on the outside.
By the time your genitals atrophied away, and your smooth flesh reabsorbed your eyes and nose, all you could think of was to hunt down the other, hate the other, kill the other. That’s when the nice men from Project Iliad came, and showed you how you could help shut down all deviation, once and for all.
Shadowfiends
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 136
Stalking through the dark corners of the world, Shadowfiends are assassins for Pentex. They strike targets chosen by the company with no emotion or remorse. Difficult to find and extremely loyal, almost all Shadowfiends work within the limits of cities and towns, exterminating whichever threats to the corporation and to the Wyrm as a whole. Their targets often include rabble-rousers and activists who would strike down the company’s power. Pentex also trusts the fomori to confront supernatural targets, sending them after Kinfolk and individual Garou, eliminating problems as they arise.
Shadowfiends are physically dark enough that they must use their abilities to lighten their coloration to blend with the shadows in which they hunt. The fomori rely entirely on stealth and silence to complete their Pentex-given missions before slipping away as quietly as they came. Commonly, the only sign of a Shadowfiend’s work is the lack of a struggle and the look of complete surprise left on the victim’s face.
Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 6, Stamina 3, Charisma 2, Manipulation 2, Appearance 1, Perception 4, Intelligence 2, Wits 4
Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics 4, Brawl 1, Firearms 2, Investigation 3, Melee 4, Stealth 5, Subterfuge 3
Backgrounds: Allies 2, Contacts 4, Resources 3
Powers: Chameleon Coloration (Shadowwalking), Darksight, Immunity to the Delirium, Shadowplay, Silent Aura
Willpower: 6
Equipment: GPS tracker; light pistol with silver bullets; silver knife
Image: Shadowfiends appear as lithe humans, their features slightly elongated. The formor’s skin and eyes are pitch black, making them appear as human-shaped voids rather than actual living beings. Shadowfiends tend to shave all of their hair and work naked due to their natural camouflage.
Genesis: A product of Project Iliad, all Shadowfiends are created using a special serum crafted by Pentex’ twisted scientsits. Specialists observe potential participants over the course of at least two months before sending invitations offering a large sum of money simply for attending a special seminar. People who respond are treated to a formal dinner and stay in a hotel where the seminar is held. Pentex specialists filter through the attendees, watching them from cameras and listening to their conversations. By the end of the night, they decide who they want.
Everyone will sleep well the following night from the time-release drug laced through the food at the dinner. Those chosen by Pentex are then injected with the serum that sends the victim into pain-laced nightmares for the remainder of the night. The serum opens the person up for possession, and, by the time morning comes, Pentex has created a monster.
The full unification of the Bane and human takes place over the course of two days in which the skin of the victim turns stark black. Upon completion, the Shadowfiend is fully active and capable, ready to complete its first deadly mission.
Roleplaying Notes: Pentex is everything. You live and breathe the will of the company, and you will do all you can to fulfill its requests. You’re not stupid, however. You take your time, analyze your targets, and when you strike, you do it quietly and without fanfare. You’re curt and only speak and do what’s necessary. Your job is to exterminate the enemies of Pentex, and no one is better suited for the task.
Sons of Typhon
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 137
Sons of Typhon spawn from depraved antics of the Tau Upsilon Phi fraternity on college campuses around the United States. They spend their time in college drinking to excess, skipping classes, and using drugs and alcohol to get laid. They also learn the nuances of social manipulation from the fraternity system, and make important contacts in secret societies. Even though the brothers commonly work against one another for top positions within the fraternity, they meet any outsiders making a move against the fraternity with unified force.
Sons of Typhon put in the minimum effort necessary to pass classes, and commonly try to get on athletics teams to avoid being kicked out. Upon graduation, Pentex recruiters pick the best and the brightest from the fraternity for high paying jobs, while others find their way into lower positions. Once within the company, they take positions in public relations and other departments where their social manipulation abilities are put to best use. The most athletic of the graduates are often recruited for First Teams, while those with a predatory bent sometimes find roles in Pentex’s competitors, moving them towards a hostile takeover.
Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 3, Stamina 4, Charisma 4, Manipulation 5, Appearance 4, Perception 2, Intelligence 4, Wits 3
Abilities: Academics 2, Athletics 3, Brawl 2, Computer 2, Drive 2, Empathy 2, Etiquette 3, Firearms 2, Intimidation 3, Leadership 3, Melee 1, Subterfuge 3
Backgrounds: Allies 3, Contacts 5, Resources 4
Powers: Armored Skin, Disguise*, Immunity to the Delirium, Tongue of Typhon
Willpower: 5
Equipment: Expensive car; concealed pistol; smartphone; tablet
Image: Sons of Typhon typically appear as they did when they were human. In their true visage, they smile literal ear-to-ear smiles, revealing sharp teeth. Their eyes have vertical slit pupils and the irises are either emerald green or blood red.
Genesis: Becoming a Son of Typhon requires being accepted into the Tau Upsilon Phi fraternity, which makes itself as appealing as possible to the campus populace. Heads of the fraternity sift through freshman classes and pass out pamphlets depicting attractive women clinging to members. The fraternity’s promises are simple: a place to belong, have fun, and have access to all the women a man could ever need.
The initiation process, however, is hell. Once a potential member is selected to apply, the brotherhood proceeds to tear down his pride. For two weeks, the applicant is subjected to varied forms of humiliation and pain that range from holding heavy bags at arm’s length until told to stop, to straight-up sexual assault. Failure reflects an inability to comply with authority, something the frat won’t accept. Failed pledges are beaten and shamed in any way the members see fit.
The culmination of the two weeks results in a rave. The parties of Tau Upsilon Phi are legendary, and everyone knows only the best get in. This attracts women that frat members drug so they will do anything and everything the men want. The frat is powerful enough that members never face rape charges, often blaming the victims. While Banes commonly lurk around the fraternity buildings, the initiation raves attract more than usual. The Banes seek out new initiates to meld with in the orgy of pleasure and humiliation, bonding with the freshly depraved souls of the successful initiates.
Roleplaying Notes: The world is your puppet to play with as you please. You love to be on top in every respect of your life. The more people who run around and do your bidding, the better you feel. But you also understand authority, and until you hold the reins, you respect it and follow those who do.
Toads
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 137
Toads first emerged during the 1980s, although nobody is sure quite from where. Neither terrible warriors of the Wyrm nor scheming masterminds, Toads tend to pop up in the forgettable middle management of the corporate world. They’ve proliferated since they first appeared, often serving as key actors in Pentex corporate espionage and asset acquisitions operations, but are now a breed on the decline. More brutally competitive creatures are spilling out of the labs of Project Iliad and Project Lycaon (see W20 BotW, pg 167), and the Toads are looking for a new safe haven.
Unfortunately for them, nobody really likes a Toad. Toads spread misery to those beneath them while coveting the more exclusive positions above them, but generally lack the ambition to work for those titles. Late-night office “accidents” along with a spot of well-placed human resources intimidation may suffice to move a Toad up the corporate ladder, but the higher a Toad climbs, the more of a target it becomes.
Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 2, Stamina 4, Charisma 2, Manipulation 4, Appearance 1, Perception 3, Intelligence 3, Wits 3
Abilities: Alertness 3, Brawl 2, Intimidation 3, Larceny 2, Stealth 2, Subterfuge 4
Backgrounds: Contacts 3
Powers: Barbed Tongue, Immunity to the Delirium.
Willpower: 5
Equipment: Automatic pistol, large car, cell phone, laptop.
Image: Toads seem human at a glance. They’re overweight (but not grossly so), situation-appropriate-but-shabby dressers, with wide-set, bulging eyes. A Toad’s fingers are like damp, clammy sausages, and their complexion starts at bad and gets worse over time.
The true distinguishing feature of a Toad is, of course, his tongue. A Toad’s tongue can extend a full 15 feet and ends in a viciously sharp barb. A Toad can shoot its tongue out to full length in a fraction of a second. When not in use, the tongue collapses into a wad stored in the mouth and throat, sort of like a huge glob of chewing gum; as a direct result, most Toads mumble.
Genesis: Toads seem to have just happened; no program takes credit for them. They’re not considered particularly valuable by Pentex, and the Black Spiral Dancers hold them in open contempt; as a result, nobody is particularly worried about their declining numbers in the present day, or their ongoing exodus from Pentex into the private sector.
Roleplaying Notes: It’s all about control: the power to hire, to fire, to reward and to punish. You enjoy it when others labor to please you, and hate being looked down on. You let disrespect roll off your back like water when it happens, while making sure you always get even later. You’re a bully at heart. You try to avoid any fight where the odds aren’t stacked in your favor.
Fomori Families
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 138
Not all fomori are created. Some are born.
As the number of fomori increase, they encounter one another more frequently. Drawn together by taint, mission, and sometimes chance, fomori typically work towards a common goal — or just as often, tear each other apart. But occasionally, in a fit of domination, lust, or (rarely) sympathy, fomori become sexually involved. The product of such a union is usually human, but not always. Families of fomori who bred true have appeared in remote areas and cities alike. While still relatively rare, the influx of Wyrm taint has their numbers increasing year by year, and with each successful birthing of a new fomori the creatures come that much closer to overrunning Mother Earth.
The first such family arose in a small community in the heart of Wyoming. One of the locals struck a nest of slumbering Banes while digging for a well. The disruption awoke the spirits, which proceeded to wreak havoc on the town. After a day of terror, the Banes had possessed fully half the town. The other half lay about, feeding the ground with their remains. The new fomori, still human enough to be horrified at what they had done, cut off connections with anyone outside the town. They barricaded themselves in with only one another for company.
They soon fell prey to their urges, and soon enough the fomori produced children. As the community degraded in a swirling mass of debauchery and sadism, the children born lived short, horrible lives full of various tortures. It wasn’t until three years later that a child bred true, emerging from the womb with a Bane in its heart. Inspired by the infant fomor, the townsfolk developed rites and rituals to attract more Banes as they partook in bloody orgies. Soon enough, fomori births became more common. Human children suffered as they always had, and though some were possessed after their births, none lived past their tenth birthday.
The community allowed nobody to leave, and as they reached sexual maturity, the new generation joined in the orgies of sex and violence. More offspring spawned from the unholy unions and, after two generations, the town started to slowly expand with a growing fomori population. The Black Spiral Dancers dubbed the town Hell, Wyoming, and the name stuck.
Pockets similar to Hell, Wyoming exist throughout the rural areas of the world. The isolated fomori families are masses of inbreeding, caring not about who has mated with whom. Conceived from taint and sin, the children of such families have the best chance of breeding true. Half are born with a Bane clinging to their soul. The community looks down upon those who aren’t born possessed as second-class citizens and use them as victims for their sick games. They often die after just a few years. Children who do breed true are greeted with enthusiasm and ritual. The young usually inherit a deformity from each of their parents, but the communities need and desire diversity. Over the years, the elders have created a number of rites to give their offspring more power. When a fomor child survives to the age of five, the community gathers for an infernal baptism. They brand gylphs into the skin of the child as the elders call for the Wyrm to bestow favor on the youth. At the culmination of the ritual, the fomor gains a new deformity fitting of her personality.
Outsiders stumbling upon these isolated groups rarely leave. They’re used as twisted playthings or subjected to torture depending on the whims of the families. The fomori commonly kill their victims in brutal survival games or lock them up and torture them until they die — or accept the Wyrm and become fomori themselves. The fomori don’t use captives as breeding stock. The chances of a child breeding true are much smaller with a non-fomor parent. Conceiving children with outsiders is a waste of time and effort. When elders discover forbidden couplings, they carve the unborn out of the mother’s womb. If the mother dies in the process, it is of no concern to them.
Remote communities are not the only places an unwary victim might find fomori families. As their numbers increase in urban areas, so have families started to spread. Ironically, the poor and downtrodden are not the most likely to harbor Bane-ridden families. Instead, the lower-middle class hide most of the urban atrocities.
Deluded into believing that they are an evolution above humans, the urban families strive to keep their powers secret from the public while maintaining seemingly ordinary lives. Members who can pass as human find occupations through which they can spread their taint. Those who can’t take low-level jobs at various Pentex subsidiaries. Company recruiters keep tabs on the families, offering education to any children who can’t attend a normal school due to their deformities.
Urban families do not fall into the mass of inbreeding that is prevalent among their rural counterparts. Instead, their children spread out into the world, through Pentex initiatives and through cults masquerading as family support groups, meeting other humans and fomori with whom to start relationships. Such relationships devolve into hatred, anger, and abuse, but sometimes the two fomori form a permanent link and, despite hating each other, they find themselves drawn back to one another time and again.
Large fomori families are very rare in the cities. The possessed, after all, have access to an unlimited human population. Because their blood is not as strong, they breed true with other fomori only one time in ten. Any offspring conceived with a human has no chance of being born with a Bane in her heart. Due to the lack of inbreeding, the children are all born with one inherited deformity — which can come from either parent — and a new power of their own. Their deformities are not as obvious to casual observation, and they are more likely to pass as normal in society. The children have a chance to accept their Bane and grow with it. Many who survive to adulthood are true horrors, fully accepting of what they are and the powers and deformities they possess.
Inspired by the fomori ability to breed true, Pentex started Project Echidna, using genetic engineering to take spiritual decay into its own hands. All of the Project’s attempts to create fertile fomori in a controlled environment has failed. All children conceived in the labs have either been normal humans or have died in their mothers’ wombs. Frustrated, the company has turned its attention elsewhere.
Hidden in zoo laboratories around the world, Project Echidna employees work fervently to recreate fomori families in various lines of animals. Unlike humans, the experiments have met with some success. They’ve created fertile fomori among carnivores, with the greatest success rate occurring among wolves and the great cats. They keep the offspring away from their parents after birth to stop the young killing their siblings — or the parents feasting upon their children. Project Echidna nurseries have found that fomori animals bred and raised in this manner have more control over themselves than their wild counterparts, making them trainable. The company raises and trains the creatures, keeping them separated, until they reach maturity. Siblings share most of their powers and deformities, and only a select few gain more as they mature. Project Echidna is actively working to make their fomori spawn stronger, keeping the best for future breeding stock, but their funding is being siphoned off into Project Lycaon’s attempts to create shapeshifters.
When the fomori come into their full powers, they are shipped off to different departments and subsidiaries where they commonly act as guard animals. Some make their way into First Teams where they are used to track down Garou in a similar fashion to police K9 units. Black Spiral Dancers will sometimes buy the less deformed creatures and then use them against Garou and Fera alike. Werewolves suddenly ambushed by great cats with strange powers might find themselves placing blame where it doesn’t belong.
Fomarchs
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 139
Standing in direct contrast to the tried-and-true fomori breeds, the atrocities-in-flesh known as fomarchs are a new experiment by Pentex, part of the company’s ongoing efforts to lessen its dependence on other Wyrm-spawn such as the Black Spiral Dancers. Fomori are all well and good as disposable shock troops. They’re cheap, easy to replace, and versatile in their variety of hideous forms, but their benefits are generally their drawbacks. They’re short-lived, generally dying by their third deployment, and most of them have to be housed and trained well out of the public eye due to their hideous mutations. Most of all, they’re weak—very few fomori are capable of standing up to a werewolf in single combat. Fielding them in strike teams only mitigates this problem to some degree, since the Garou normally operate in packs as well.
Fomarchs are a next-generation experiment in “elite” fomori. Pentex designed fomarchs to have fully concealable powers. Each fomarch has, at minimum, the Bestial Mutation power. They should work as solo operatives, or with backup from “normal” fomori. To be considered a success, a fomarch must be free of any drawbacks that severely curtail its life-expectancy, must have powers at least on par with a Ferectoi, must be able to completely conceal its powers by adopting an outwardly-human guise, and must be at least functionally sane. Pentex has attempted a number of methods to create fomarchs, experimenting with multi-Bane possession, binding of exceedingly mighty Banes into hosts, and even with mystic and genetic augmentation of standard fomori. The majority of these experiments have created deformed, hulking failures, which become as fodder for the front lines or the vivisection tables, but each success helps the company zero in on a reliable method to augment its forces with elite special operatives and mighty leaders, at least, so Pentex hopes.
A handful of fomarchs is detailed below; each considered a success by Pentex. All fomarchs are, to date, unique. Pentex has yet to devise a method of reliably creating fomarch “breeds.”
Icomammus
The fomarch Icomammus is a horse-sized, wraith-like being that seems to hover over the ground. Unlike other fomarchs, extreme physical violence isn’t its strength. The threat of Icomammus comes from within. The monster’s body is a semi-translucent shell of deceptive hardness, with the general shape and bioluminescent appearance of a jellyfish, down to the hundreds of whip like stingers that dangle from its body. But the bell-like horror isn’t just an empty cartilaginous ball of mesoglea. As the ghostly fomarch drifts in the wind, the cloudy liquids floating within its body clear, and a gray, human-sized fetus suspended within, lacking a nose or mouth. Its enormous jet-black eyes sometimes cut through the liquor amnii to peer out. Those who catch its gaze can feel Icomammus rifling through their thoughts and memories.
In addition to this telepathic probe, Icomammus supports itself by psychic projection, though its telekinetic gifts do not extend beyond self-propulsion. The rest of its vast psychic powers depend entirely on the delivery of a toxic sting from one of its many tentacles. After injecting a target with the psychoactive venom of Icomammus, the fiend may project illusions intense enough that they become like reality, to the point of doing extreme psychosomatic damage to victims.
Temenathus the Great
The fomarch called Temenathus was adapted from a failed NDL (see W20 BotW, pg 167) project attempting to recreate the extinct Camazotz using a genetic werewolf-fomor hybrid and the spirit of a bat. The charnel beast that resulted was not a proper shapeshifter, but rather a man-bat horror whose slavering, unhinged jaw, and incessant screaming made it one of the most terrifying fomarchs produced by Pentex. Temenathus is a hulking beast with arms that drag the ground, trailing the leathery membranes and long bony fingers of a bat’s wings. Its wings don’t allow flight, but they do support enough of its considerable weight to allow it to glide. With its coal-gray, wolf-like fur, the beast is rather adept at blending into shadows, getting the moon at its back and then descending down on its victims.
Temenathus screams when it moves, its shrieking echoes creating a sonic reference point for its auditory senses. When it fights, it primarily uses the long, diseaseinfested claws at the ends of its human-like hands to slash victims, using its giant unhinging jaw full of bristling needle sharp teeth to rip the flesh from corpses. In addition to its tremendous speed and strength, that rivals some Crinos Garou, Temenathus’s salivary glands can release acid when it bites, allowing it to deliver a festering, and mortal wound. Recently, Temenathus developed incredibly overdeveloped shoulder muscles that open up to reveal soft glands that can squirt streams of this acid up to 10 yards away. Opening its shoulder glands releases such a terrible stench that the smell alone can send victims reeling; allowing even a human nose to detect and track Temenathus for hours after it uses this attack.
Unicorn
The fomarch codenamed Unicorn is a deliberate insult to the Children of Gaia. In many ways, it is more limited than other fomarchs, though Pentex scientists hope to generate arms and legs in the next iteration of the horror. For now, Unicorn remains of use only in aquatic deployments. Having the body of a great white shark with a huge proboscis from the top of its head, and four pectoral fins rather than two, Unicorn is so-named for the gigantic conical chitin spike that juts from its proboscis. This appendage pushes down at the monstrosity’s skull so forcefully that its eyes are sunken beneath their sockets, leaving bloody, ragged holes where they should be.
This headspike is not just a weapon, but also a beacon that makes the Unicorn receptive to sensations generated by Wyrm-based Gifts. As a result, the Black Spiral Dancers can use their Gifts to both lead and track Unicorn. Its horn also leads it to nature spirits, which it can strike from the physical world. Unicorn’s horn contains so much tainted Gnosis that it can strike both physical and Umbral targets with equal facility. Finally, the creature’s horn allows it to hear the prayers and rituals used by the warriors of Gaia. Though limited by where it can swim, it has led Pentex-crewed ships right to the shores of remote islands and hidden coasts sporting the cairns and holdfasts of the Garou and their allies on half a dozen occasions.
Kinfolk whom Unicorn hunts dream of a great glowing-eyed single-horned beast pursuing them through the shadows. Other times, their nightmares feature a great shark-shadow passing under the clouds.
Supernatural Fomori
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 141
Possessing Banes twist human flesh and human minds into a mockery of Gaia’s design, but what happens when a person has already become something other than human? What happens when a Bane tries to possess an already-supernatural beings?
In short: nothing good.
Most Banes simply can’t do it. Supernatural beings tend to have some built-in protection against possession, meaning that only the strongest or most specialized of Banes have a shot at possessing a vampire, mage, or — Gaia forbid — a werewolf. Still, it happens occasionally, and the results can be among the most gruesome things a pack of Garou may ever have to face.
Vampires
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 141
Vampires are hard to possess. Perhaps the Curse of Caine is such a potent form of damnation that any lesser affliction has trouble taking root; perhaps it has something to do with vampires already being dead. Whatever the reason, very few Banes can find any purchase in a vampire’s pale and withered soul. Those that do tend to be Banes of blood and madness, and they can make a vampire’s unlife very short and very unpleasant indeed. Detailed below are two examples of the kind of fomori possible when a Bane manages to curl up in the black and empty pit that was once a vampire’s soul.
Bloodworms
The Garou regard vampires as blood-sucking cannibal corpses, thus obviously making them servants of the Wyrm. Vampires would differ. They have a flowery adage — a beast I am lest a beast I become — that describes their fundamental dilemma. Each vampire wages an eternal battle to hold onto some shreds of the person she used to be, lest she become nothing but a mindless animal howling for blood. However, in order to maintain that control, the vampire must do terrible things to appease her cursed nature, things corrosive to maintaining her soul. It’s a poignant and complex struggle, which plays out over a span of centuries or even longer.
Or, it ends quickly and prematurely when a Bane known as a Thirster manages to slip into a vampire’s soul during frenzy.
It’s an excellent partnership at first. The vampire grows more resilient, and her blood seems more powerful and potent. But her self-control starts eroding soon after, and it becomes much easier for the scent of blood to send her into a killing frenzy. The Bane eats another piece of what’s left of the vampire’s soul during each murderous revel, until there’s nothing left but a creeping, blood-thirsty corpse. That’s when the real renovations begin.
Unlike a normal vampire lost to the Beast, there’s still something controlling a Bloodworm — the Bane. A Bloodworm is a cunning, canny predator, using its mutated body and its vampiric Disciplines to seek out the blood of Gaia’s defenders.
Powers: Blood Gorge, Corpse Hide. After losing all Humanity: Darksight, Rat Head, Slobbersnot, Wall Walking.
Image: At first, the vampire seems no different than she did before possession. Once the Bane finishes eating her soul, the vampire’s body undergoes radical alteration. Her fangs disappear as the Bane repurposes her tongue into a far more effective blood-drinking tool in the form of a three-foot long, jointed siphon ending in a deadly sharp needle, which folds up in the throat when not in use. The vampire’s skin turns deep red, and glistens with a thin layer of bloody lubrication. Her limbs wither into corpselike sticks, after about six months they fall off entirely. The vampire’s torso elongates into a fleshy sack designed to store blood, while her pupils grow to take up almost the entirety of her eyes. Muscular, rasp-like bands line the underside of the torso, allowing the vampire to move with terrifying speed through muscular contraction, and even to ooze up walls and across ceilings.
Roleplaying Notes: You’re an ambush predator, and don’t have any worries in the world to distract you from the hunt for blood. The blood is everything, and when you’re warm and sloshing full of it, you’re content to hide and digest. It’s perfect. You can’t remember why you wanted to fight this.
Draugr
Most young Garou are understandably paranoid about vampire bites, but their more seasoned septmates know that it doesn’t work like the movies, and thank Gaia, or else the world would be up to its neck in Leeches. The vampires themselves are well aware of how difficult it is to create more of their kind, and this lets them hunt and kill with impunity.
Then a Rot Walker enters the picture.
Draugr are among the rarest fomori in the world, and this is a very fortunate thing. Rot Walkers normally only possess the dead, and have little interest in vampires. When such a Bane does turn its attention to a vampire, it normally lacks the strength to adapt its normal form of possession from the dead to the undead. However, on those few occasions when it works, the result is a nightmare: for the vampire, for the Masquerade, and for the sept that has to clear out the Draugr and its brood. Possession by a Rot Walker erases some of the vampire’s distinguishing characteristics. On the plus side, it no longer needs to sleep more than a couple of hours during the day, and sunlight inflicts bashing rather than aggravated damage. Less welcome are the fact that its fangs shorten and dull (inflicting lethal rather than aggravated damage), and its bite no longer inflicts a hypnotic euphoria, it just hurts. Nor can the vampire close its own bite wounds. Given that most vampires bite right into a major artery and then seal the wound, a Draugr leaves its victims bleeding out. What makes the Draugr so dangerous though comes after a victim dies of its bite.
They get back up.
A Draugr victim isn’t a vampire, though it’s vampire-like. Twelve hours after death, the corpse reanimates with most of its mind and personality intact, driven by a strange homing instinct to seek out the Draugr. Though the homing instinct remains, everything else fades quickly. The victim’s psyche breaks down in less than six hours, rendering the corpse a shambling cadaver no smarter than a dog, though it can and will follow simple instructions from its maker. The corpse becomes violent when something gets in the way of finding its creator. Twelve hours after reanimation, the corpse develops fangs like the Draugr’s, and it seeks out blood if left unattended. The corpse avoids sunlight at this point, though it will be another 24 hours before sunlight actually harms it in the same way it does the Draugr. A Draugr-thrall never develops Disciplines, and can’t use the Blood Points it consumes for any purpose other than to keep itself animate for another day, a requirement that begins three days after reanimation. The thrall can be destroyed by filling its health track with lethal damage; it doesn’t experience torpor.
Powers: The Rising. Anyone killed by the fomor’s bite rises as a corpse-servant, as detailed above.
Image: The Draugr looks a little more dead than other vampires do. His complexion is waxy and ashen, his eyes dull, his mouth and hands dry. His eyes become dull and corpselike. His thralls look like exactly what they are: ambulatory, hungry cadavers, which look more and more gruesome as they collect incidental wear and tear, which the blood they consume cannot heal. They give urgent moans upon scenting fresh blood.
Roleplaying Notes: You’re not sure why this is happening — it’s hard to feed, now, and when you kill someone, they come back. You don’t have to sleep so much during the day, which at least gives you time to watch over your growing collection of corpse-servants and to think about what to do with them. You know you’ve become a Masquerade breach waiting to happen, but at this rate, you’re going to have enough loyal muscle to get even with all the other vampires in the city before they start calling for your head. Maybe this could be your ticket to becoming Prince...
Werewolves
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 143
Can a werewolf become a fomor? Absolutely. It doesn’t happen very often, though. Any Garou who isn’t already deep in the Wyrm’s thrall will feel something amiss as soon as possession begins, and the Garou are uniquely capable of stopping the process (generally by stepping into the Umbra and tearing the offending Bane to shreds). Once in a while, though, it happens, and the resulting fomor is one of the gravest and most personal insults to Gaia and the Garou Nation that a werewolf can conceive of.
Generally, only the youngest of cubs gets possessed. It’s not a fast or simple process where a werewolf is concerned (the difficulty of possession is always 9), and even making the attempt is usually enough to set the local sept on the warpath. Most Banes are smart enough to realize it’s not worth the trouble. There are always a few exceptions, though, and there is one particular breed of Bane specializing in possessing werewolves.
The Garou aren’t the only shapeshifters on the block, of course. Curiously, the other Fera do not share a uniform resistance to possession. In general, the deeper a Changing Breed’s link to the Umbra, the more possible possession becomes. Those shapeshifters that can’t naturally step sideways into the Umbra tend to be nearly immune to Bane possession.
Finally, the Black Spiral Dancers vary on the subject of Bane possession. A few of the tribe’s most hardcore Wyrm fanatics see the invitation of a Bane into their soul as an act of ultimate communion with their Dark Father. The majority of the Spirals, on the other hand, look on the idea of werewolf fomori with revulsion and horror. Fomori are sick jokes, the lowliest of the Wyrm’s minions, disposable chaff fit only for shock troops and servants. For a Black Spiral Dancer to submit himself to that sort of slavery and indignity is repugnant. Most Banes know better than to attempt to possess a Black Spiral Dancer without an invitation first; the Wyrm’s wolves can be creative indeed in exacting retribution.
Howling Shamblers
One particular sort of Bane, known as a Howling Insanity, specializes in possessing Garou. The Bane still doesn’t have a terribly high rate of success, but Pentex is busy working on a way to standardize the process and make it easier.
The fomori created by Howling Insanities are known as Howling Shamblers, and they’re among the most wretched of the Wyrm’s conscripts. The sheer spiritual poison of the Bane bonded to the Garou’s soul rots the werewolf’s mind and body from the inside out. Derangements blossom soon after possession, even as regeneration-resistant cancers unfurl inside the werewolf’s body. The need to howl becomes a compulsion, and the werewolf’s cry echoes with the voice of the Wyrm. Few Howling Shamblers manage to live more than six months, and there is only the beginning of the horror.
Powers: Howling (as Roar of the Wyrm), Shambling.
Image: A living Howling Shambler tends to look like a crazy homeless person: shaking, filthy, mumbling to himself, and bursting out with periodic howls as the tumors and other diseases eat away at his mind. In Crinos, the Shambler’s fur is mangy and falling out, and his body is covered in weeping sores. After reanimation, the fomor looks like a shuffling, hungry corpse, rotting as it shambles toward its next meal.
Roleplaying Notes: You’re so confused now—a few months ago, you were strong and proud, but now everything seems to be going wrong. It’s — AROOO! — it’s hard to concentrate, and you itch and ache all the time. Sometimes your thoughts don’t line up so well. Sometimes you want to do awful things, like something was whispering in your ear. AROOO! But the wolf’s still alive and well in you, and it wants to hunt and howl.
Mages
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 144
Mages, for all that they dabble in powers Gaia did not intend for humanity, remain fundamentally human. As such, they’re susceptible to Bane possession, and all the horrors that come with it.
Mages do have a few things going for them. Their souls are particularly powerful and resilient. The difficulty to possess a mage is three higher than it would otherwise be. Once possession begins, many mages are capable of wielding magic to contest the Bane’s efforts directly.
On the other hand, mages who deal with spirits don’t always know what they’re getting into, and some foolish or wicked mystics may actively invite Banes into themselves, believing they will be able to command the spirit, or not understanding the bargain they’re making. Either way, the result is a fomor wielding both the degrading blessings of the Wyrm and the mystic power of an Awakened soul.
In the long run, this isn’t a good thing for anybody other than the Wyrm. A mage fomor retains full access to her magic, and gets new powers, to boot. It seems like a great deal. At least until the mage attempts her next Seeking (a kind of mystic trance in which the mage communes with a portion of her soul in the hopes of achieving greater enlightenment). The mage discovers that her Avatar partially fused with the possessing Bane, covered in weeping sores, rugose scales, or some other outward sign of its corruption. A fomor cannot successfully complete any further Seekings. The Avatar doesn’t even offer enlightenment, but instead tempts the mage deeper and deeper into the sick philosophy of the Wyrm. Rather than Ascension, it speaks of the glory of destruction, the purity of annihilation, and the joy of scourging and defiling an ignorant and malleable reality. “Success” on such a Seeking simply allows the mage to escape with her sanity intact; failure bestows a Derangement and costs the mage a dot of Arete.
Worse, the mage’s corruption spreads out into her magic. Her vulgar magic taints the substance of reality with the Wyrm’s taint, acting as a beacon to Banes, who may glean an extra point or two of Essence from the free-floating, tainted energies. Soon, swarms of Banes constantly follow the mage in the Penumbra. If left unchecked for long enough, it may act as a catalyst to despoil an entire city. Certainly, she’s a severe threat to any place of spiritual power she interacts with.
Excising a Bane from its fomor host with magic is a possible, but difficult, and a fomor mage can’t perform the exorcism on herself. Even with the Bane removed, the mage is likely to suffer lingering damage to her soul and magic. If she’s lucky, it won’t persist into her next incarnation.
Changelings
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 144
Those few fae remaining on Earth are strangely resilient to the power of the Wyrm. Their faerie souls shrug off the attentions of Banes without the changeling even being aware of the attempt. It is as though they are another order of being, indifferent to the wars of the Triat.
Yet, changelings are not purely fae. To survive in the magically barren modern world, most of the Earth’s remaining faeries have hidden themselves away in a guise of mortal flesh, and this flesh remains vulnerable to the attentions of the Wyrm’s minions. A changeling who has forgotten, temporarily or permanently, her fae nature is susceptible to Bane possession (though the difficulty to do so is still one higher than normal or two higher in the case of sidhe). A changeling who becomes a fomor in this fashion cannot recall her fae soul so long as the possessing Bane remains in residence. Her true nature remains trapped and slumbering, and in deadly peril. Generally speaking, barring miraculous treasures of the Dreaming, or the assistance of Fianna Theurges capable of driving out the Bane, a changeling fomor is doomed to live out the remainder of its days as an ignorant thrall of the Wyrm.
When a changeling fomor dies, its faerie soul is in terrible jeopardy, and may fall into the jaws of the Wyrm to be destroyed forever. Roll the fomor’s Glamour rating against difficulty 7. If the roll succeeds, the changeling’s soul passes on to its next incarnation as normal, if it fails, the soul is destroyed as surely as if struck down by cold iron.
Everything Else
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 145
What of the other odd residents of the World of Darkness? Generally, they’re out of luck.
Kinfolk are as susceptible to Bane possession as anyone else, to the lament and horror of their Garou relatives. Indeed, Pentex often specifically targets Kinfolk when able; who better to strike against the Garou than those closest to them?
Those blood-addicted servants that vampires know as ghouls are still fundamentally human, and thus similarly vulnerable. So too, might Banes possess those of the strange bloodlines of “ghoul families” known as revenants, and even —hypothetically — the rumored and possibly apocryphal children of mortals and thin-blooded vampires.
Mortals who dabble in the world of the supernatural generally have no special protection from becoming fomori, with the exception of the Imbued, “hunters” of all stripes, from the Society of Leopold and the Arcanum to Strike Force Zero and the Shih, are all vulnerable to possession.
Hedge mages, psychics, and mediums are also at risk of possession. Pentex has a specialized program known as Project Aeneid dedicated to experimenting with psychic fomori. Such individuals do not even enjoy the slight protection afforded to greater supernatural beings, due to the way their gifts require them to open themselves up to the world.
Finally, those fae-blooded individuals known as kinain are considered entirely mortal for the purposes of the possession Charm.
Nope, Doesn't Work
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 144
So what kinds of creatures are Banes simply incapable of tackling at all? Quite a few things.
Among the Fera, both the Nagah and Corax cannot be possessed. The Nagah tricked the whole spirit world into thinking they are extinct, and this spirit-blindness helps them even now. The Rite of the Spirit Egg that creates a new Corax ends up with the wereraven’s spiritual half “possessing” the young shapeshifter, blocking further attempts at possession.
Wraiths, being incorporeal spirits themselves, can’t be possessed by Banes. Even those re-embodied spirits known as the Risen are immune to possession, as they are essentially corpses being driven around by a resident ghost. It seems the body doesn’t have room for a second possession.
The Kuei-Jin are immune to Bane possession as well, possibly for reasons similar to the Risen; indeed, the Kuei-Jin often make use of fomori as lieutenants, lackeys, and ceremonial guards. The same sort of protection also seems to apply to the hsien.
Those hunters known as the Imbued cannot be possessed. Presumably, this is another gift from their enigmatic patrons.
Mummies are completely impervious to Wyrmish possession, thanks to some mystic protection granted by the Spell of Life. There are persistent rumors of “Bane mummies” created thousands of years ago, but those appear to have been raised up through a corrupted version of the Spell of Life.
Finally, demons are entirely immune to possession of any kind.
Playing the Wyrm’s Bastards
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 117
Just to put this up-front: We don’t recommend allowing Black Spiral Dancers as playable characters. The Black Spiral Dancers are monsters. Not heroic monsters, not ferocious avenging angels of nature unbound to seek retribution for the rape and plunder of the Earth, not implacable warriors driven by righteous anger, they’re just monsters. That is both their purpose and their self-justification for not trying to be anything more. They torture, maim, and ruin because doing those things is easy and satisfying on a childish, simple level, and they’ve lost or given away whatever part of them once aspired to something more.
The Black Spiral Dancers are intelligent monsters, capable of reason and emotion and self-reflection, and so they drape their atrocities in self-serving philosophy and lies. They claim to be enlightened, even as they send their sons and daughters to have their minds broken upon the wheel that is the Black Spiral Labyrinth. They claim to be free, even as they do the bidding of the Wyrm’s various avatars. They claim to be predator kings ruling over a dead Earth, the victors of an Apocalyptic war that is already done and over, but they still hunt the Garou, and are hunted in turn. In the stillness of their black hearts, they know that their words are lies and that they are brutes gnawing at the still-beating heart of the world. They believe that their hatred, hunger, and rage are justified, and pretend that their ‘love’ doesn’t ruin and degrade those humans and wolves unfortunate enough to share in their tainted blood. They’re wrong.
The Black Spiral Dancers are broken, twisted things imagining that they stand tall. They’re slaves marveling over the gilding of their chains. They’re the worst excesses and mistakes of the Garou once the urge to do or be something better is taken away.
We don’t recommend playing them. We’ve only gone into as much detail on the Wolves of the Wyrm as we have in this book to give Storytellers a chance to give Garou heroes a good, hard look at the path that leads to damnation, and how easy it is to justify that trip. Perhaps a player wants a character who plans to escape the Tribe and seek atonement and reconciliation with Gaia. If, for whatever reason, a Storyteller finds himself needing to generate a Black Spiral Dancer character on equal footing with a starting Garou the rules to do so can be found on page 425 of W20. Expanded mechanics for Storytellers to represent Black Spiral characters make up the remainder of this chapter.
Do not push for this if everyone at the table isn’t comfortable with it. The Black Spiral Dancers are dark subject matter, even for a dark game like Werewolf. Please be respectful of your fellow gamers’ boundaries, and try to tackle the very real horrors that are part and parcel to the Black Spiral experience responsibly if it’s done at all.
Blessings of the Destroyer
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 118
Few Garou spend much time dwelling on the sacred Pact that grants them their Gifts. A Gift is second nature to a werewolf once bestowed. It seems entirely right and natural. As such, only a few Theurges understand that the Pact is a binding contract between all werewolves and all courts and branches of the spirit world. No right-minded Garou would ever seek instruction from the Wyrm’s foul children, but under the conditions of the Pact, they could.
The Black Spiral Dancers are anything but right-minded Garou, and they have discovered a world of spiritual power offered by the Destroyer’s children that their Gaian brethren could hardly imagine. What follows is a list of Wyrmish Gifts, not merely “Black Spiral Dancer tribal Gifts,” although they’re here too, but an entire constellation of corrupted spirit-blessings suited for all Breeds and Auspices.
Black Spiral Dancer Breed Gifts
Black Spiral Dancers draw Breed Gifts from many of the same sources as the Garou, save that they undertake communion with deeply corrupt or mercenary spirits, or hunt down Gaian spirits and subject them to corruption in order to make proper teachers of them.
Homid Gifts
Black Spiral Dancers have access to the same homid Gifts as Gaian Garou, with the exception of Calm the Savage Beast.
Level One
Aura of Poison
Source: W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 118
Description: The Black Spiral Dancer surrounds herself in a toxic miasma strong enough to cause even a human’s dull sense of smell to pick up the reek of a lethal stew of mercury, sulfuric acid, formaldehyde, and countless other chemicals. The message is clear: the Dancer is death, and should not be trifled with. A Halassh teaches this Gift.
System: After a turn spent concentrating and the expenditure of a point of Gnosis, the werewolf is surrounded by a lethal scent for the rest of the scene. No creature lacking a Rage rating will initiate violence unless attacked first.
Level Two
Power Surge
W20 Core, pg 184, and W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 118
Description: By speaking with electricity spirits, the Garou causes a blackout over a widespread area. An electricity elemental teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends one Gnosis point and rolls Wits + Science (difficulty 7). The number of successes determines how large an area is blacked out. One success would black out a single room, while five would cut the power to a whole neighborhood.
Level Three
Call the Rust
W20 Core, pg 175, and W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 118
Description: By whistling softly through his teeth, the werewolf can summon sudden and destructive rust onto any metal within his immediate vicinity. Guns corrode and jam, knives crumble, and cars become flaking hunks of junk. This Gift is taught by a water elemental.
System: The player spends a point of Gnosis and rolls Wits + Crafts, with a difficulty depending on the amount of metal being corroded. A gun or knife would be difficulty 6, while a car might be difficulty 8.
Level Four
Feast of Man-Flesh
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 118
Description: The Black Spiral Dancers know of the power locked away in the flesh of men. By eating the uncooked flesh of a human being, the werewolf may temporarily borrow that person’s knowledge and skills. A cannibal spirit teaches this Gift.
System: This Gift’s effects are permanent. By eating at least one pound of human flesh, the Spiral Dancer may absorb up to (Gnosis rating) of the following: dots of Abilities the victim possessed (up to a maximum of the victim’s rating in the Abilities in question) or facts the victim knew (chosen by the Dancer’s player). These stolen benefits continue for (Rage rating) days. The Dancer may retain Abilities and information from only one victim at a time. Non-human beings wearing human forms such as homid Garou, changelings, fomori, and vampires do not count as human for the purposes of this Gift, but Kinfolk, ghouls, Imbued hunters, and mages do.
Metis Gifts
Black Spiral Dancer metis have access to the same Gifts as their Gaian counterparts, save for Totem Gift.
Level One
Bleed
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 119
Description: The metis can leak phantasmal blood, manifesting false injuries if she is unwounded, or producing enormous quantities of blood from minor wounds. Many Spirals use this Gift to ‘play dead’ when a battle is going poorly, or to frame innocents for vicious attacks. A Crimson Pestilent teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends one Gnosis point. For the rest of the scene, the character may issue fake blood in whatever quantities she likes, so long as it doesn’t exceed the volume actually contained in her body (assume 10 pints in Homid, 20 pints in Crinos, and 7 in Lupus). She can’t drown her enemies in a tsunami of blood. Since the ichor is fake, she takes no damage; it fades at the next sunse.
Level Three
Nobody’s Bastard
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 119
Description: Nobody wants to recognize a metis, and with this Gift, nobody will. A metis using this Gift is unrecognizable to all who see her. A Bane of abandonment teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends one Gnosis point and rolls Manipulation + Stealth (difficulty 7). If the roll succeeds, nobody who sees the metis will know who she is for the rest of the scene. Observers don’t mistake her for anyone else; they simply see her as an unknown stranger. Their memories remain even after the scene — they don’t suddenly remember that the Garou using this Gift is the stranger.
Visceral Agony
W20 Core, pg 174, and W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 119
Description: The werewolf's claws change to barbed, wicked talons dripping with black venom. While this venom is not itself lethal, it inflicts crippling agony. A pain spirit teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends a Rage point before the character attacks. Any wound penalties suffered as a result of the character's attacks during that turn are doubled (i.e. a foe at Wounded would lose four dice) for the rest of the scene. If the target is resistant to pain (such as in a frenzy) he suffers his normal wound penalties instead.
Lupus Gifts
Lupus Black Spiral Dancers have access to the same Gifts as their Gaian counterparts.
Level One
Ways of the Urban Wolf
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 119
Description: The Black Spiral Dancers are free to indulge in those natural urges that Gaia bids her defenders to restrain: to hunt man through the streets of the cities, to revel in his fear-stench, to drink his blood and eat his flesh. This Gift, taught by Wyrm elementals, makes the Dancer a master of such urban hunts.
System: Reduce difficulty of all Perception, Stealth, and Survival rolls to track and hunt prey in urban environments by 2. The effects of this Gift are permanent. It doesn’t enhance any rolls once combat begins, and can only be used to track intelligent prey such as humans, Garou, and vampires.
Level Three
Thousand Teeth
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 119
Description: Sharp teeth are the hallmarks of the ultimate predator, and the ways of the Wyrm’s wolves celebrate nothing if not excess. The muzzle of a werewolf using this Gift erupts with dozens of extra teeth. Black Spiral Dancers learn this Gift from Scrags, while Gaian Garou occasionally learn it from shark-spirits.
System: The player spends one Rage point and rolls Stamina + Primal Urge (difficulty 5). She enjoys +3 damage dice on bite attacks. The Gift lasts for one bite attack per success; any remaining boosted bites are lost at the end of the scene.
Level Five
Instincts Unbound
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 119
Description: Gaia’s warriors must explain the behavior of their fallen cousins as madness — why else would a wolf seek to despoil the world? The greatest among Black Spiral lupus use this Gift to teach the Garou the folly of their thinking by showing them the joys of unbound freedom. Psychomachiae teach this Gift.
System: The Black Spiral Dancer’s player spends one Gnosis point and one Rage point, and rolls Wits + Primal Urge against a difficulty of her victim’s Willpower. For one day per success, the target cannot resist her instincts. She takes what she wants, kills when the urge is upon her, and gives in to her least impulse. If the target possesses Rage, all Rage rolls are at difficulty 4; if the target is a vampire, all rolls to resist or control frenzy are against difficulty 9. The target may reduce the duration of this Gift by 12 hours per point of Willpower spent.
Black Spiral Dancer Auspice Gifts
Ragabash Gifts
Ragabash Black Spiral Dancers may use the same tricks as their Garou brethren, save for Luna’s Blessing.
Level One
Bestowing the Predator’s Shadow
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 119
Description: It would be fair to say that Black Spiral Dancers have even less tolerance for being tricked or mocked than other werewolves. This valuable Gift helps Dancer Ragabash survive the fallout of their Auspice’s duties by passing their identity onto someone else. Phantasmi teach this Gift.
System: The Black Spiral Dancer must secure a tiny bit of her body on someone else. A bit of spit or blood, or a lock of hair or fur will do the trick. The player then spends one Gnosis point and rolls Manipulation + Subterfuge (difficulty 6). The target will look and sound (but not smell) like the Black Spiral Dancer to everyone but himself for one hour per success.
Level Four
Cassandra’s Blessing
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 119
Description: The Wyrm’ tricksters use division and isolation as instructive tools, particularly against their many enemies. The victim of this Gift’s ‘blessing’ will find that nobody will believe anything she has to say, no matter how much evidence she has to back it up. A Nocturnae teaches this Gift.
System: The Black Spiral Dancer must touch her target. Then his player spends one Gnosis point and rolls Wits + Subterfuge (difficulty of the target’s Willpower). Nobody will believe anything the target says for a number of hours equal to the successes rolled.
Silver Reprisal
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 120
Description: Luna’s servants only rarely extend her blessing to those who have danced the Black Spiral, but some Banes can add their own retributive curse to the Garou’s vulnerability to silver. Rather than protecting the Dancer, as Luna’s Blessing does to Gaian Garou, this Gift causes silver to burn its wielder in the same moment it harms the werewolf. A Furmling teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends one point of Gnosis. For the rest of the scene, anyone who uses silver to inflict damage on the character suffers debilitating pain and burns on the hand used to strike the blow, receiving one level of unsoakable aggravated damage — as if caused by silver, in the case of Garou — per damaging attack delivered. The attacker must make a Stamina roll against difficulty 8 or drop whatever they’re holding in that hand; even if she succeeds, increase the difficulty of all attacks using that hand by 2.
Level Five
Patience of the Wyrm
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 120
Description: This Gift allows incredibly elaborate acts of sabotage and revenge by allowing the Spiral Dancer to dictate the moment her curses strike her foes. A Black Spiral Dancer must petition a Nexus Crawler to teach this Gift.
System: This Gift can enhance any other Gift that affects another character, as long as it does not deal damage. Spend a point of Willpower in addition to the other Gift’s cost. The Black Spiral Dancer then dictates when the enhanced Gift will take effect, either in simple measures of time, or a set of conditions that she can utter as a single sentence. For example, she might lay Cassandra’s Blessing on an enemy spy stating that the Gift will not take effect until the victim attempts to relate what she has learned.
Theurge Gifts
Black Spiral Dancer Theurges have access to the same Gifts as their Gaian counterparts, save for As In the Beginning. It’s possible for a Black Spiral Dancer to learn Mother’s Touch, but it’s rare.
Level One
Poisoned Gauntlet
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 120
Description: The Black Spiral Dancer can breathe spiritual toxins into the wall between worlds, turning the Gauntlet into a deadly trap. A Rust Spider teaches this Gift.
System: The werewolf spends a turn in concentration, and then her player spends one Gnosis point and rolls Intelligence + Occult against a difficulty of the local Gauntlet. Until the sun next crosses the horizon, anyone stepping sideways within (Gnosis x 100) yards of the point where this Gift was used takes one die of aggravated damage per successes rolled. The Gift: Resist Toxin can protect against this Gift’s effects.
Level Three
Feast of Essence
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 120
Description: The Black Spiral Dancer’s claws are covered with barbed hooks, which catch and absorb the tattered power of slain spirits, refreshing the werewolf. A Thinbones teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends one point of Willpower when the character deals a blow that destroys the last of a spirit’s Essence. The character gains Gnosis depending on the power of the destroyed spirit: one point for a Jaggling, two for a Gaffling, and three for any stronger spirit. This cannot raise the character’s Gnosis points above her maximum value, but is in addition to any Gnosis gained by harvesting the depleted spirit.
Level Six
Prelude to Apocalypse — As the Gaian Gift As In the Beginning, this version might be learned by a Black Spiral Theurge and summons Wyrm-spirits of all kinds. No Black Spiral Theurge has yet learned this Gift.
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 120
Description: The Theurge can tear away aeons of the Weaver’s works for a short while. This Gift rips down the Gauntlet entirely, merging the worlds of flesh and spirit as they were in the days of legend. Moreover, this mended region acts as a shining beacon to Gaian spirits, calling a flood of nature-spirits and other allies to assist the Theurge. An avatar of Gaia Herself teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends three points of Gnosis and rolls Wits + Occult (difficulty of the local Gauntlet). The Gauntlet is torn open within the local area. The thinner the Gauntlet, the wider the rip: from a few rooms in the midst of a skyscraper to an entire mile of landscape in the depths of the Amazon. Friendly spirits of the Storyteller’s choosing come flooding out to aid the Theurge — the more successes, the greater the number or power. The Gauntlet is permanently lowered by 1 in an area where this Gift has been used; this benefit doesn’t stack with repeated use.
Philodox Gifts
Black Spiral Dancer Philodox have access to the same Gifts as their Gaian counterparts, with the exception of Fangs of Judgment.
Level One
Acid Talons
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 120
Description: The Black Spiral Dancer’s claws become a vibrant mixture of black, red, and yellow, and burn anything they cut. A Wakshaani teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends one point of Rage. For the rest of the scene, the werewolf’s claw attacks inflict one extra die of damage, and the difficulty to soak her claw attacks rises by 1.
Level Five
Omen Claws
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 120
Description: The Black Spiral Dancer’s claws become blades of anti-light, the area surrounding them suffused with a false glow as a contrast to their nullity. Anyone struck by these terrible claws suffers visions of the Apocalypse. An avatar of the Maeljin teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends one point of Gnosis and rolls her character’s Rage. The Gift’s effects last for one turn per success. Any character that takes damage from Omen Claws must roll Willpower against a difficulty of the Dancer’s (Gnosis + levels of damage inflicted, maximum 9) or be incapacitated by nightmare visions of everything they love tortured by the talons of the Wyrm. The victim cannot do anything when so afflicted, and loses one point of Willpower per turn. The victim’s player may attempt another Willpower roll to break free each turn.
Galliard Gifts
Black Spiral Dancer Galliards have access to the same Gifts as their Gaian counterparts, save for Howls in the Night.
Level One
Howl of the Hunter
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 121
Description: Setting a particular quarry in her mind, the Black Spiral Dancer crafts a howl specifically designed to elicit terror in her prey. If her victim can hear the howl, it strikes terror into his heart, haunting him whenever he tries to find rest. A Nocturna teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends a Gnosis point and rolls Charisma + Primal Urge (difficulty 7). If the desired target hears the howl he will be jolted awake if asleep, and rendered unable to sleep for the next (successes x 3) hours; every time he attempts to rest, the howl will echo in his ears as though uttered from mere feet away. The terror increases the difficulty of most Mental and Social actions by +2 (maximum 9) until the character can sleep.
Level Two
Shadows of the Impergium
W20 Core, pg 186, and W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 121
Description: The Red Talon becomes the embodiment of all humanity's primal fears of the wolf, carrying a heavy miasma of ancient terror about her. A fear spirit teaches this Gift.
System: The werewolf inflicts the Delirium in Hispo form, though observers are considered to be at +2 Willpower when judging their reaction (see W20 Core, pg 262). Anyone who succumbs to the Delirium because of seeing the werewolf in Crinos form is considered to have a Willpower 5 points lower than their true rating (minimum 1) for the purposes of determining their reaction. This Gift's effects are permanent, though they can be suppressed for a scene if desired.
Level Four
Howl of Death
W20 Core, pg 187, and W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 121
Description: A Talon with this Gift may infuse her howl with Rage and pain, causing grievous wounds to one target. The werewolf must be able to see her target clearly, and the target must be able to hear the howl. Only the intended target is affected by the Gift, though anyone else who hears it is disquieted and frightened. A pain spirit teaches this Gift.
System: The player rolls Charisma + Primal Urge (difficulty 6). Each success inflicts one level of lethal damage, which the target may soak if he is able. The damage manifests as massive internal damage, as the targets innards suddenly rupture.
Level Five
Madness
W20 Core, pg 157, and W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 121
Description: Metis struggle throughout their lives to finds a place of dignity and respect amidst a minefield of horror and abuse. This Gift allows her to unleash her inner demons upon others, inflicting insanity and madness. The nature of the derangement inflicted varies from individual to individual, but is always severe, making it impossible for the victim to function normally. Lunes and spirits of trickery and madness teach this Gift.
System: The player spends a Gnosis point and rolls Manipulation + Intimidation (difficulty equal to the victim's Willpower). The target immediately begins to suffer from a Derangement (see W20 Core pg 485). The insanity lasts a number of days equal to the successes rolled. During this time, the metis can increase or decrease the severity of the madness, granting the victim lucidity and then driving him to psychosis. Even after the Gift has ended, the repercussions may haunt the victim for the rest of his life.
Ahroun Gifts
Ahroun Black Spiral Dancers have access to the same Gifts as their Gaian counterparts, save for Full Moon’s Light
Level One
Acid Talons
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 120 and 121
Description: The Black Spiral Dancer’s claws become a vibrant mixture of black, red, and yellow, and burn anything they cut. A Wakshaani teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends one point of Rage. For the rest of the scene, the werewolf’s claw attacks inflict one extra die of damage, and the difficulty to soak her claw attacks rises by 1.
Level Two
Tar Shadow
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 121
Description: The Ahroun’s shadow becomes solid and sticky, trapping unwary foes and making them easy prey. A H’ruggling teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends one Gnosis point. For the rest of the scene, any character making a close-combat attack against the Dancer must make a reflexive Dexterity + Athletics roll (difficulty 8). If they fail this roll, the attacker is stuck in the Ahroun’s shadow until she can pull herself free with a Strength + Athletics roll (difficulty 6). While stuck in place, characters cannot move and all attempts to dodge attacks automatically fail.
Level Three
Visceral Agony
W20 Core, pg 174, and W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 121
Description: The werewolf's claws change to barbed, wicked talons dripping with black venom. While this venom is not itself lethal, it inflicts crippling agony. A pain spirit teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends a Rage point before the character attacks. Any wound penalties suffered as a result of the character's attacks during that turn are doubled (i.e. a foe at Wounded would lose four dice) for the rest of the scene. If the target is resistant to pain (such as in a frenzy) he suffers his normal wound penalties instead.
Level Five
Strength Without Limit
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 121
Description: Wyrmish power suffuses the flesh and bones of the warrior who uses this Gift, exaggerating his power beyond the limits of his body. His muscles bulk up until they tear through his skin, and his flesh peels back from wildly elongated teeth and claws; even his nerves thicken until they pulse like veins. An avatar of the Maeljin teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends two points of Rage and the character suffers one level of unsoakable aggravated damage. For the rest of the scene, the werewolf adds one dot to each physical Attribute, and two dice to the damage of all Brawl attacks.
Black Spiral Dancer Tribal Gifts
The following Gifts are a mixture of the signature blessings of the Wyrm upon the Black Spiral Dancers, and adaptations or corruptions of other tribes’ Gifts, brought to the Wyrm’s wolves by converts from the Garou Nation.
Level One
Bale Armor
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 121
Description: The Black Spiral Dancer’s body is limned in a terrible green-black radiance that saps the strength from her enemies’ blows and inflicts toxic burns upon their flesh. A Furmling teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends one Willpower point to activate the Gift. The light illuminates a 100-foot area around the Dancer for the rest of the scene. All attacks against the werewolf suffer a –1 die penalty while this Gift persists, and anyone who lands a Brawl attack against the Dancer takes one level of bashing damage.
Spiral-Shadow Dance
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 121
Description: The Black Spiral Dancer learns to twine herself through the darkness, becoming swift as a scream. A variety of Banes teach this Gift.
System: Whenever the Black Spiral Dancer is concealed by poor lighting (no brighter than the light of the half-moon), she adds +3 to her Initiative. This Gift’s effects are permanent.
Level Two
Grave Claws
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 121
Description: The werewolf’s claws and fangs become obsidian daggers, capable of tearing the soul loose from Gaia’s cycle and pinning it to the Dark Umbra. Any creature slain by this Gift is guaranteed to leave behind a ghost, which is anchored by dark magic to its killer. Outside of risky Umbral quests, only killing the Black Spiral Dancer who used this Gift can return a victim’s soul to Gaia. A Nihilach teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends one point of Gnosis. Anyone killed by the character’s claw or bite attacks for the rest of the scene is guaranteed to linger as a wraith. A wraith created using this Gift cannot directly harm the Black Spiral Dancer, and is tormented by dark urges.
Level Three
Claws of Corrosion
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 121
Description: One of the greatest Black Spiral Gifts, this wicked magic allows the werewolf to poison a spirit with mystical toxins that slowly corrupt it into a servant of the Wyrm. A variety of Banes teach this Gift.
System: When the Black Spiral Dancer makes a successful claw attack against a spirit, the player may spend one point each of Rage, Willpower, and Gnosis, and roll Intelligence + Occult (difficulty 6). This infects the spirit with a number of ‘corruption points’ equal to the successes rolled; multiple applications of this Gift are cumulative, and corruption points dissipate at a rate of one per day. Should a spirit ever have more corruption points than its current Essence, over the next lunar month it suffers a slow, painful transformation into a Bane.
Level Four
Hungry Rust
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 122
Description: The werewolf summons a Bane and invests it into a mechanical device. The Bane awakens when someone next uses the device, spewing corruption throughout. The tool rusts and twists, both degrading and attempting to bond with its user. A gun might fuse to a person’s hand, coating her arm in plates of stamped metal and loops of corroded casings, while a vehicle might partially absorb its driver into the seat and seal his hands to the steering column. A Nexus Crawler teaches this Gift.
System: The player spends two Gnosis and rolls Intelligence + Craft against a difficulty based on the size and complexity of the device. A revolver would be difficulty 6, a vehicle 9. The next individual to use the cursed tool must gain more successes on a Wits + Occult roll than the werewolf, or fuse with the tool. This transformation is permanent for humans, but Garou may forcibly tear themselves loose from the intruding technology at a cost of (activation successes) levels of lethal damage.
Stolen Hide
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 122
Description: The Black Spiral Dancer can don tormented spirits like a cloak, consigning them to oblivion to protect himself. A Nihilach teaches this Gift, but only to those who have already mastered Grave Claws.
System: The character can only use this Gift against a ghost that she has created with Grave Claws. She spends a turn in concentration and her player spends one point each of Gnosis and Willpower, then makes a contested Stamina + Primal Urge roll against the ghost’s Willpower. Success stretches the ghost’s tortured plasm across the Dancer’s body as a kind of grotesque ablative armor. The werewolf gains two additional Bruised health levels for each ghost worn in this manner. These health levels are the first lost to damage, and when they both disappear, the ghost used to create them is destroyed.
Level Five
The White Howl
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 122
Description: Once the most sacred blessing of the White Howlers, this mighty Gift is still passed down among the ranks of the Black Spiral Dancers as a reminder of the past to their Garou enemies. The sound of the White Howl is sufficient to rend both the workings of the Wyrm, and the hearts of Garou who hear it and realize how much Gaia has lost. It was once taught by an avatar of Lion, but no spirit teaches this Gift in the modern age; it survives entirely through a history of Black Spiral Dancers handing it down from warlord to warlord.
System: The player spends two points each of Gnosis and Rage. The character spends a turn unleashing a mighty, full-throated howl, and the player rolls Charisma + Primal Urge (difficulty 6). Every Wyrm-tainted being within earshot suffers a number of levels of unsoakable lethal damage equal to the successes rolled — including the Black Spiral Dancer herself — and any of her nearby packmates. Each Gaian Garou who hears the howl, by contrast, loses one point of Willpower per success rolled, as they recognize the lost purity of the White Howlers, and must face the reality of all that Gaia has lost to the hunger of the Wyrm. Any Garou reduced to 0 Willpower by this Charm falls into Harano.
Stolen Gifts
Black Spiral Dancers who fall after a long period of service to Gaia bring their own Gifts with them, though the infectious energies of the Labyrinth warps these abilities. Most of these Gifts started out as Gaian Gifts, but have additional or changed effects.
Level One
Repress Taint
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 122
Description: In order to infiltrate the Gaian Garou, a Black Spiral must be able to hide the touch of the Wyrm. This Gift allows him to repress his taint, hiding it from the prying eyes of the suspicious. The werewolf must still take care, however, as more talented Garou might sniff him out. Scryers teach this Gift.
System: The player rolls Perception + Subterfuge, difficulty 7. Every success increases the difficulty to detect the character’s taint by one, to a maximum of 9. The effect lasts one scene.
Bale Aura
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 122
Description: Twisted from the grandeur of Lambent Flame, a Dancer can shroud herself in the green light of balefire. The light causes no physical damage, but shadows cast by the light seem to move of their own accord and the whispers of the Wyrm crackle within the green flames, stoking the Rage within the Garou. Furmlings and Harpies teach this Gift.
System: The player spends one Willpower point to activate the gift. The light illuminates a 50-foot area around the character for the rest of the scene. Garou and Fera require one fewer success to frenzy, and to enter Thrall of the Wyrm, as the whispers taunt them from the shadows
Level Two
Hidden Killer
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 122
Description: As the Red Talon Gift, but the werewolf can also choose to alter the evidence to match another Garou so long as she has a piece of the target, such as hair or blood. Abliphets teach this Gift.
System: As the Red Talon Gift. To change the forensic evidence to match another Garou, the player must roll Intelligence + Larceny (difficulty 8). Success means the physical evidence remains unchanged, but forensic evidence changes to match the target.
Submit
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 122
Description: Stolen from the Black Furies, with a snarl, a Black Spiral Dancer can force a target to kneel before him, agony coursing through her body until she submits. Spirals with this gift delight in forcing a proud Garou to the ground just to kill her while she’s on her knees. Raptors teach this Gift.
System: As the Black Fury Gift: Kneel. Any target who resists the Gift subtracts two from their dice pools for the Gift’s duration. This penalty can only be offset with the Gift: Resist Pain.
Level Three
Ichor Blade
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 123
Description: The Spiral’s arm changes into a black blade dripping with dark green poison. The ichor poisons the blood of anyone injured by the blade, causing crippling agony. Harpies and Wakshaani teach this Gift.
System: The player spends a point of Rage to transform one hand into a blade. For the rest of the scene, she may use her arm like a sword, rolling Dexterity + Melee (difficulty 6). Such attacks inflict Strength + 1 aggravated damage. The poison causes excruciating pain, forcing the target to subtract two from his dice pools for a turn per success. Resist Toxin and Resist Pain both negate the effects of the poison.
Gift of the Tainted Totem
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 123
Description: A twisted version of an Uktena Gift, a Dancer can not only bar a pack totem from aiding its children, she can temporarily replace the totem with her own pack or personal totem. The horror of having a Wyrm spirit binding a Gaian pack, even temporarily, is disorienting, and the taint left behind might be difficult to explain. Nexus Crawlers teach this Gift.
System: As the Uktena Gift: Banish Totem. If the player succeeds on the Gnosis roll, the pack not only loses all traits associated with their totem, they gain all traits associated with the Dancer’s totem. The effect lasts for a number of turns equal to the number of successes. Upon departing, the tainted totem leaves behind enough Wyrm taint to show up to users of Sense Wyrm for the rest of the scene at difficulty 7. If a member of the pack used any of the totem’s powers, the lingering Wyrm taint remains for a day, and is difficulty 5 to detect.
Level Four
Howl of the Bane
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 123
Description: The Dancers have their own fearsome spirits to call, and in a blatant mockery of the Wendigo, a Spiral dances in a Blight or Hellhole, hooting, laughing, and slashing profane glyphs into the air. A bane of the user’s choosing coils from the darkness, taking a description of the target before it leaves on its murderous quest. Any powerful Bane can teach this gift.
System: As the Wendigo Gift: Call of the Cannibal Spirit. The user can choose which Bane to summon, so long as its Essence rating is no higher than 30.
Summon Wyrm Elemental
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 123
Description: The Dancer performs a short dance around a piece of a pure element. The dance corrupts the element and summons forth a Wyrm Elemental (Hogling, Furmling, H’ruggling, or Wakshanni). A Wyrm elemental teaches this gift.
System: As the Uktena Gift: Call Elemental. Black Spiral Dancers only bother trying to make a Wyrm elemental amenable if they need a specific task completed. Many often summon Wyrm elementals simply to wreak havoc.
Level Five
Mask Taint
W20 Core, pg 199, and W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 123
Description: A Skin Dancer possessing this Gift may completely camouflage Wyrm-taint from all senses, including Gifts that detect such taint. This Gift is taught by a servant of Minotaur. Scryers also teach this Gift.
System: The player spends one Gnosis point, rolling Perception + Subterfuge (difficulty 8). The effect lasts for one scene per success scored.
Cloak of Anthelios
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 123
Description: Sculpted from Halo of the Sun, the character speaks the sacred word of Helios while drawing on his own Wyrm-tainted powers. The character is wreathed in violent red flame that drapes about him as a cloak. A servant of Helios who breaks under torture can teach this Gift, as can fallen Children of Gaia who know the sacred word of Helios. The gift is exceedingly rare, if even acquired as of yet.
System: The player spends one Gnosis point, and the effect lasts one scene. The character adds two dice of aggravated damage to all Brawl-based attacks in all forms. Any attack that causes more than three health levels of any kind of damage burns the glyph of Anthelios into the flesh of the victim. The victim bears Wyrm taint (detectable by Sense Wyrm at difficulty 4) until he is cleansed. Anyone looking directly at the werewolf adds two to all attack difficulties due to the glare. Vampires are unaffected by the Cloak of Anthelios.
Rites
The Black Spiral Dancers make use of perversions of many of the same rituals as the Garou. They have mystic rites to summon and bind spirits, punishment rites, acceptance rites, rites used to build and defend their Pits, and more. Detailed below are a small selection of their most notable and vital rites.
The Dance of the Black Spiral
Level Two Rite of Renown (Cha + Rituals vs 6)
This is the Black Spiral Dancers’ tribal Rite of Passage, granted to Spiral-born cubs after their First Change, or to defectors from other tribes.
This is the most sacred rite of the tribe, and is usually attended by all the Dancers in a Hive who are able to do so. They bring the cub to the Pit’s spiritual heart, where the ritemaster paints an elaborate spiral on the floor. While the ritemaster works, the Hive’s Galliards recite the tale of the betrayal of the White Howlers by the other tribes of the Garou Nation, and the rebirth and dark enlightenment of the tribe as the Black Spiral Dancers. When the tale concludes, the cub must pass each member of the Hive present for the rite before approaching the ritemaster. Any member of the Hive who objects to the pup’s inclusion in the tribe is free to attempt to murder him without fear of reprisal. Assuming the pup makes it to the ritemaster, he is bid to enter the spiral drawn on the floor.
This is a spiritual representation of the true Black Spiral Labyrinth, and as the pup walks the spiral, Banes rise up to challenge, test, and enlighten her. The spiral seems to twist, growing to dark enormity, and the pup actually passes in and out of the Umbra at times. Should she reach the center of the spiral, she glimpses the true face of the Wyrm for one stark, impossible moment, shattering her mind. Her education continues as she staggers back the way she came, soul now torn open and receptive to the Wyrm’s dark miracles. Banes taste her agony and madness, and grant her their blessings in response. When she emerges from the spiral, she is now a full-fledged member of the tribe.
By custom, the first thing a Black Spiral Dancer utters becomes her tribal name, which is usually a gibbering collection of nonsense syllables. Much respect is accorded to those rare few with the presence of mind and strength of will to bestow mighty deed-names upon themselves in expectation of future triumphs.
System: Though there are many paths by which a werewolf might fall to the Wyrm, and Spiral culture has a concept of “Dancing the Heart-Spiral,” becoming a Dancer in spirit, no werewolf is formally a member of the Wyrm’s tribe until he has undergone this rite.
Rite of the Flayed God
Level Four Mystic Rite (Wits + Rituals vs 7)
This rite is among the most powerful and terrible practiced by the Wyrm’s children. It requires a captive spirit, and can only be performed in the heart of a Pit. Over the course of a ritual lasting from sunset to sunrise, the Black Spiral Dancer ritually murders and hollows out a spirit, usually a bound Gaian spirit, though some Hives are happy to sacrifice lesser Banes for power. This rite destroys the spirit forever, but a tattered shell of its power remains, and is bound into a special fetish.
This fetish is an article of easily donned and removed clothing; usually a cloak or belt, and its construction must incorporate some element symbolic of the spirit. Thus, a flayed bear-spirit might be bound into a bear pelt, while a murdered forest spirit might be bound into a crown of hawthorn.
Upon donning the fetish, the Black Spiral Dancer is able to assume the stolen power of the flayed spirit. With this mantle of power usually comes a dramatic and grotesque physical transformation. The wearer of the bear pelt might grow a second set of powerful, ursine arms, and a gaping set of bear jaws might frame her head, granting her extra attacks and a vicious bite. The wearer of the hawthorn crown might find sharp thorns erupting from her flesh, and her scent masked by the verdant smell of the woods.
System: The difficulty of the rite’s roll is the spirit’s Gnosis rating. Failure means that the spirit dies without empowering the fetish. Donning or removing a flayed spirit to gain its power costs two points of Gnosis. Only the ritemaster can benefit from a fetish created by this rite, and only one such fetish can be worn at a time. The exact effects of a fetish created by this rite are up to the Storyteller but the transformation is usually physical and grotesque. The benefits are comparable to the Gift: Totem Gift, though focused on personally empowering the werewolf.
Wyrm Totems
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 125
Black Spiral Packs bind themselves together under Totems in much the same fashion as their Gaian counterparts, save that the Wyrm’s bastards make pacts with bleak spirits of corruption and destruction, rather than mighty spirits of Gaia.
Totems of Cunning
The Whippoorwill
Background Cost: 6
This totem fell to the ways of the Wyrm in the dawn-days of the world, when it discovered that its cry attracted the drifting souls of the dead, and that lost souls made for a fine feast.
This totem’s great strength is finding those who have lost their way, especially those who have lost sight of the reason to keep fighting for Gaia.
Individual Traits: Whippoorwill’s bastards gain the ability to imitate perfectly any birdcall, as well as one extra die on all Empathy rolls to spot individuals who are questioning their ideals.
Pack Traits: Whippoorwill grants two dots of Perception, but only at night and in dark environments.
Ban: Whippoorwill forbids its bastards to harm any bird, and demands a moot held in its honor twice a year.
Kirijama, “The Hidden Foe”
Background Cost: 7
Kirijama has no manifested form. It is the foe unseen, unfelt, unknown. Some Garou believe Kirijama does not even exist, but something grants blessings to those who honor Kirijama.
Individual Traits: Kirijama’s bastards gain the Uktena Gift: Invisibility.
Pack Traits: Kirijama’s bastards gain two extra dots of Stealth.
Ban: Kirijama’s bastards must never become famous, making it hard for them to rise in Rank.
Totems of Strength
The Green Dragon
Background Cost: 9
The Green Dragon is a mighty Bane, often believed to be a lesser avatar of the Wyrm itself. Its hide is armor, its claws calamity, and its breath scours the Earth. It offers its patronage only to those who have proven their might.
Individual Traits: Thrice per day, the Green Dragon’s bastards can spew forth toxic flames. This is a Dexterity + Brawl attack with a range of six yards. It inflicts two levels of unsoakable aggravated damage if it hits.
Pack Traits: The Green Dragon grants its bastards two additional soak dice and one extra point of Brawl.
Ban: The Green Dragon withdraws its blessings from any coward who flees a battle in fear of his life.
Bat
Background Cost: 7
This bitter aspect of Bat fell to the Wyrm after Gaia’s warriors hunted its children, the Camazotz, to extinction. Bat instills terror in its foes, and bids its bastards to do the same.
Individual Traits: Bat grants its bastards their choice of the Black Spiral Dancer Gifts: Patagia or Ears of the Bat.
Pack Traits: Bat’s bastards receive one extra die on all Intimidation, Stealth, and Survival rolls.
Ban: Bastards must not harm bats, and must sleep hanging upside down.
Hakaken, “The Heart of Fear”
Background Cost: 9
Hakaken is a Bane Incarna who appears as a primeval crab-reptile hybrid. This nightmare dinosaur-crustacean was once a great Ahroun of the Shadow Lords before his pride led him into the Wyrm’s coils.
Individual Traits: Hakaken’s Bastards may buy Gifts off the Shadow Lord list for one experience point more than they would pay for Black Spiral Dancer Gifts.
Pack Traits: Hakaken’s bastards add one die to Intimidation rolls.
Ban: Hakaken’s Bastards must terrorize their foes before slaying them.
Totems of Corruption
The Dark Fungus
Background Cost: 3
The Dark Fungus is believed to be an aspect of one of those great and primal spirits discarded from Gaia’s order in the time before history, a heaving and blasphemous thing boiling deep beneath the surface of the Earth.
Individual Traits: The Dark Fungus’s bastards gain one extra dot of Enigmas and Occult.
Pack Traits: When under the influence of psychoactive fungi, this totem’s Bastards have access to the Gift: Pulse of the Invisible.
Ban: Bastards must tend growing mushrooms wherever they find them.
Relshab, “The Faceless Eater”
Background Cost: 8
Relshab is a Bane Incarna that manifests as a huge man-shaped form, covered in rolls of flesh, which crawl and ripple in sickly waves. It has no face, only a great gelid roll of fat. Its right “arm” is a snuffling feeding tube. Relshab is an incautious spirit of unlimited greed and hunger.
Individual Traits: Relshab’s bastards gain the Ragabash Gift: Whelp Body.
Pack Traits: By spending one point of Gnosis, a bastard of Relshab may chew, swallow, and digest anything she can get her mouth around.
Ban: Relshab’s bastards must eat everything put before them.
G’lough, “Dance of Corruption”
Background Cost: 12
G’lough manifests as an ever-shifting panoply of horrors, constantly flowing like wax and reforming into increasingly horrid configurations. Sometimes elements of G’lough slough off to become independent Banes. Some Theurges believe it to be the mother of all Nexus Crawlers.
Individual Traits: G’lough grants its bastards the Gift: Fabric of the Mind.
Pack Traits: G’lough’s bastards enjoy two extra dots of Occult.
Ban: Bastards must always oppose the status quo, even when it benefits them.
Addictive Presence
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 130
Description: Addictive Presence requires the Enticer to spend a scene interacting with a target, and then to spend a point of Willpower and roll Manipulation + Subterfuge against the target’s Wits + Primal Urge (difficulty 6 in both cases). If the Enticer wins, then the subject is addicted to his presence, and will go to extremes in order to be with the Enticer again; once per week, the target may make another roll to attempt to break this addiction.
Barbed Tongue
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 138
Description: Barbed Tongue functions as a hybrid of both Lashing Tail and Frog Tongue, being capable of both capturing targets and inflicting damage with its sharp tip at the fomor’s discretion. Particularly old or vicious Toads may also possess Venomous Bite, which can be applied with their tongue.
Blood Gorge
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 142
Description: This power doubles the size of a vampire’s Blood Pool, but causes her to fail all hunger frenzy rolls, and to automatically fail any Humanity rolls she makes.
Corpse Hide
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 142
Description: Corpse Hide allows the vampire to soak damage at a difficulty two lower than normal.
Disguise
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 137
Description: Sons of Typhon can hide their true appearance. They look exactly as they did before they were possessed. They can drop the disguise if they so choose, but few rarely do.
Howling - as Roar of the Wyrm
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 143
Description: Editor's note: Where the fuck is Roar of the Wyrm details??
Silent Aura
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 136
Description: Silent Aura creates an area of silence around the Shadowfiend. By rolling Wits + Stealth (difficulty 6), the Shadowfiend can negate all sound within a fifteen-foot radius. The whole area is entirely silent. The effect lasts for a one turn per success.
Shambling
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 143
Description: When a Howling Shambler dies, it gets up one turn later and finishes whatever it was doing — making dinner, fighting a Pentex First Team, whatever. Once that task is accomplished, the Howling Shambler goes ambling off to find, kill, and eat anything with werewolf blood in it. The reanimated Shambler is nearly unstoppable. Its chopped off limbs keep crawling or rolling along with the rest of the body. Only burning, melting, or smashing it into a raw pulp of meat and gristle will stop it (in game terms, the thing must be killed with fire or acid, or have its health track filled with aggravated damage twice over; even then, the parts keep twitching and flopping until they’re burned).
Siren’s Veil
W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 130
Description: Siren’s Veil adds two to the fomor’s Social Attribute ratings, and allows him to roll Appearance + Empathy against a difficulty of a target’s Willpower to appear as their ideal mate, even radically changing the Enticer’s age, or making him appear as a different gender. If this roll fails, the Enticer simply appears to be a generic, attractive individual.
Tongue of Typhon - As Homid Gift: Persuasion.
W20 Core, pg 153, and W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg 137
Description: This Gift imbues a homid's words with intrinsic credibility and conviction, causing them to ring true to the ear and lay heavy on the heart. An ancestor-spirit teaches this Gift.
System: The player rolls Charisma + Subterfuge (difficulty 7). Success lowers the difficulty of all social rolls by one for the rest of the scene, and allows successful rolls to have uncommonly strong impact (such as changing long-held political views, or causing an addict to seriously reconsider the course of his life).