Skills Skills are the Traits used to describe your general fields of competency and what you’ve learned to do. Whereas Attributes represent your raw potential, Skills represent the ways you’ve learned to use that potential. You may not need anything but brute strength to smash through a door — but if you’re trying to use sheer muscle power to force an engine part into place without breaking anything, you’d better have some understanding of mechanics.
Like Attributes, Skills are spread across the Physical, Social, and Mental categories. Each Skill typically covers a broad range of aptitudes. When rolling dice, you may pair a Skill with an appropriate Attribute to properly depict the combination of potential and know-how that’s necessary for getting things done. (See “Dice Pools” on p. 118.)
Note that the Skill categories are only generalizations. Although Academics (for example) is usually paired with Mental Attributes to form pools, it is entirely feasible for the Storyteller to call for a Composure + Academics test (for the character to keep a straight face while presenting an intentionally falsified theory) or Stamina + Academics (when forced to apply advanced knowledge under physical duress). At character creation, pick one Skill distribution.
• Jack of all trades: One Skill at 3; eight Skills at 2; ten Skills at 1
• Balanced: Three Skills at 3; five Skills at 2; seven Skills at 1
• Specialist: One Skill at 4; three Skills at 3; three Skills at 2; three Skills at 1 Take one Skill Specialty. Add free Specialties to Academics, Craft, Performance, and Science Skills.
Skill Specialties Characters receive one free Specialty during character creation to apply to any Skill, and they can buy further Specialties with experience points.
A Specialty represents a particular expertise in one aspect of a Skill. It’s a field where a character may be especially practiced, have a personal aptitude, or be engaged in deeper study.
If the Storyteller decides a character is attempting a task that falls under their Specialty, the player gains one extra die for their dice pool. A character may apply only one of their Specialties to a single roll. A character can have only as many Specialties as they have dots in the Skill (unless otherwise specified, as with Craft).
Each Skill includes sample Specialties, but this list isn’t exhaustive. Players can consult the Storyteller to develop other Specialties that more precisely model their characters.
Storytellers shouldn’t allow Specialties that are so broad that they always, or even usually, apply to the uses of a Skill. Specific martial arts styles, for example, should not be treated as Specialties of Brawl: Because any use of Brawl could entail a Muay Thai strike, taking Muay Thai as a Specialty would effectively equal a free extra die in every Brawl test.
Four Skills come with one automatic Specialty when acquired: Academics, Craft, Performance, and Science.
Physical Skills Physical Skills depend entirely, or at least in large part, on physical control, aptitude, or effort.
ATHLETICS Athletics describes an aptitude for competitive physical performance, whether against another athlete or against the parameters of a sporting-type challenge.
Athletics allows you to outpace someone in pursuit, leap out of the path of an oncoming car, and climb or swim with vigor. A character can use Athletics in place of any Physical combat Skill in a conflict roll, but in that case, they never inflict any hits on their opponent, no matter how many successes they roll. (See “Dodging” on p. 125.)
• You were always attentive in gym class, and you still have a spring in your step.
•• You’ve had some training, or you have a remarkable knack with sporting-themed physical activity.
••• You are fit as a fiddle and excel at sports.
•••• An exemplary athlete.
••••• Olympic records await you; only a very few peak humans can achieve what you can.
Specialties: Acrobatics, Climbing, Endurance, Jumping, Parkour, Swimming, Throwing
BRAWL Brawl enables characters to hit their target when they swing a fist, boot, or claw. As long as you have no weapon in hand, the attack constitutes a brawl, from graceful martial arts to drunken fistfights.
For werewolves especially, using the monstrous fangs and claws of their shapeshifting forms (and even the natural weapons of the lupus form) usually counts as Brawl. See p. 134 for more information on the forms.
• You were the snarling and snapping rascal in your den.
•• You received some training in hitting someone hard and accurately.
••• You more than hold your own in a scrap.
•••• Either you received institutional training, or you learned the hard way in numerous werewolf escapades.
••••• You could win MMA championships, even without the use of your Garou advantages.
Specialties: Animals, Armed Humans, Bar Fights, Ceremonial Combat, Grappling, Unarmed Humans
CRAFT Craft broadly encompasses artisanry, creation of items and utilities beautiful or functional, and arts and crafts from throwing pottery to architecture and interior design. Some Garou Rites also require knowledge of this Skill to be properly performed.
When you take this Skill, you get a free Specialty.
• You are an amateur, but you know what you’re doing.
•• Your crafting is admired for its functionality.
••• Your creations can be beautiful or horrifying, but their intent is always clear.
•••• Your skill is highly respected among those who are aware of it, whether they are supernatural or mundane themselves.
••••• You are a virtuoso, capable of visionary breakthroughs in your chosen medium.
Specialties: Carpentry, Caern Rites, Design, Painting, Sculpting, Sewing, Weaponsmithing
DRIVING In most cases, mere driving isn’t particularly difficult. The Driving Skill connotes ability to drive speedily and safely under adverse conditions or in stressful situations: to drive off-road; speed away from ambushes; win street races; and escape from pursuit by hunters, police, or security forces.
• You are a cautious driver, unlikely to make any mistakes.
•• You can put your foot down without much fear of an accident, providing visibility is good.
••• You have won car chases and earned a reputation in certain circles.
•••• You could be a stunt driver; few can match your skill and knowledge.
••••• Wanna race for pinks?
Specialties: All-Terrain Vehicles, Construction Equipment, Evasion, Motorcycles, Street Racing, Stunts, Tailing, Trucks, Vintage Models
FIREARMS Leaving a victim torn to shreds will raise the wrong eyebrows. Leaving a victim with holes in their head? Just another Saturday night in a rough city like this one. Garou use Firearms not only for human reasons (efficiency and thrills) but also to avoid revealing the secret of their existence. This Skill comprises familiarity with small arms, from holdout pistols to assault rifles. It also includes other trigger-operated weapons, such as crossbows and shoulder-fired rocket-propelled grenades, as well as archery bows. Finally, it encompasses cleaning, unjamming, and rapidly reloading such weapons.
• You’ve fired a gun a few times, at the range or in less-formal circumstances.
•• You know (and know how) to keep your weapon clean, take it apart, and reassemble it.
••• You’ve exchanged fire with hostiles and come out the other side.
•••• You can handle trick shots, called shots, running shots — really anything ending in a gunshot.
••••• If it’s in range, you can hit it dead center.
Specialties: Crossbows, Gun Dealing, Gunsmithing, Handloading Ammunition, Quick Draw, Sniper, Trick Shooting
Storytellers should discourage Specialties in “Combat Shooting,” “Pistols,” or even “Glock 17s.” A Specialty in a personal “signature weapon” might be allowable, because if you carry into every gunfight the personally engraved Colt that’s balanced to your grip, you’re much more likely to drop it, have it stolen, or have its ballistic fingerprint connect you to a series of murders.
LARCENY This Skill entails familiarity with the tools and techniques for picking locks, planting bugs, deactivating standard burglar and car alarms, manual forgery, hot-wiring automobiles, or even safecracking, as well as countless forms of breaking and entering. Characters also use it for setting up “unbeatable” security systems or deducing how and where systems failed during a break-in. Doesn’t matter which side of the law you’re on, Larceny relates to the doing of dirty deeds as well as to the countermeasures.
These days, most high-end security systems feature computer controls, video surveillance, or electronic alarms, so they might also involve the Technology Skill to defeat.
• You can pick a simple lock or a careless pocket.
•• You can hot-wire a car or shoplift with ease.
••• You can identify the likely locations of security cameras and alarms, the better to bypass them.
•••• You can defeat a keypad, retool an ID card, or crack a safe.
••••• You can break into — or out of — the vault at a multinational bank.
Specialties: Alarms, Forgery, Grand Theft Auto, Housebreaking, Lockpicking, Pickpocketing, Safecracking, Security Analysis
MELEE Use Melee to wield such handheld weapons as knives, chains, baseball bats, or klaives with prowess. Feel free to improvise with a length of rebar or, hell, maybe a manhole cover, if you can swing it.
• You can wield a bat or blade and mostly strike the people you intend to.
•• Your clear competence with a weapon in hand should give attackers pause.
••• You know when to use Thibault against Capo Ferro, but you keep your Agrippa at the ready.
•••• The fools brought a gun to your knife fight.
••••• Your weapon moves, instinctively, like an extension of you.
Specialties: Axes, Chains, Clubs, Foils, Disarming Blows, Garrotes, Improvised Weapons, Knives, Stakes, Swords
STEALTH Stealth allows a character to shadow a target, whether in an urban environment or some remote wilderness. They benefit from the ability to spy, sneak, and blend in with crowds when needed. Lupus-form Garou are often quite adept at stalking, particularly if they’ve grown up in wolf communities that hunt their every meal.
• Spotting you under the cover of darkness or in camouflage proves difficult.
•• You can sneak by casual observers and stalk unknowing victims without drawing any attention.
••• Moving softly and hiding easily, you evade patrolling guards.
•••• Your subtle, silent passage could make you the bane of creatures born as prey.
••••• Your victim doesn’t even know there’s a there when you’re there.
Specialties: Ambushes, Crowds, Disguise, Hiding, Shadowing, Urban, Wilderness
SURVIVAL Survival conveys the ability to exist in the wild and under adverse conditions. Navigating by the stars, establishing a makeshift shelter, and noticing the spoor of prey and predators are all parts of it, as is foraging for food and seeking cover. Whether in city parks or amid trackless wastes, the intent is the same.
• You know the trails and wilderness of your locale.
•• You spend more time outdoors than inside, and you can probably track anyone who possesses a lesser degree of your craft.
••• You can subsist when denied “home,” setting traps and building shelter as necessary.
•••• Like the true predator you are, you can catch as catch can.
••••• Your hardiness is a lesson to all Garou.
Specialties: Desert, Hunting, Jungle, Tracking, Traps, Shelters, Urban, Woodlands
Social Skills Social Skills operate in the space between humans, Garou, and even spirits and stranger things. Although these Skills depend on your ability and your personality, the other party’s response contributes something to the effort. Without proficiency on your part, that response tends to be negative.
ANIMAL KEN Animal Ken allows you to manage, pacify, and even befriend fauna. This Skill lets you predict how an animal might react in a given situation, train a domesticated creature, and even try to soothe beasts — or enrage them. Note, though, that using Animal Ken won’t allow you to flawlessly command animals, nor is their response instantaneous — Animal Ken is a Skill, not a supernatural power in and of itself.
Animal Ken also makes for familiarity with various animal spoor, remains, and even behavior. “Something bigger than your average wolf must have made these bite marks.”
Without this Skill, most creatures pointedly avoid the obviously predatory Garou.
• Animals shy from you but do not bolt or snap.
•• Animals are docile around you, acting as if you aren’t there, unless you build a rapport with them.
••• Animals treat you as if you were a familiar, friendly companion, unless provoked to do otherwise.
•••• You draw animals into your orbit. Few hostile creatures maintain their aggression in your presence.
••••• You can predict animals’ feelings and thoughts, and they can feel and act on yours.
Specialties: Attack Training, Cats, Dogs, Falconry, Horses, Pacification, Rats, Snakes, Wolves
ETIQUETTE Etiquette is the ability to identify and respond to current social conventions, set new protocols, and please everyone around with your good graces. It represents all forms of respecting customs, from tea rooms and hierarchies of royal address to showing proper respect for Renown around the moot-fires, and is also useful when conducting certain Rites.
• You know the conversational difference between the various inflections of “get the fuck out of here.”
•• You know the rules of behavior in all the popular nightspots.
••• You impress others with your command of politeness, deference, and grace.
•••• Your behavior sets trends, especially if you do something to buck an etiquette norm.
••••• You’re Beau Brummel when need be, but you could get away with being Lord Byron.
Specialties: Celebrities, Corporate, Garou, One-Percenter, Spirits, Secret Society
INSIGHT Insight grants you the ability to interpret body language, note subtle cues in expression and tone, and distinguish truth from lies. It also allows you to perceive and understand the motives behind another’s actions.
• You can see right through hollow boasts.
•• You pick up on the hidden emotion between humans and among Garou.
••• It’s hard to put one over on you; you’re almost never the mark.
•••• You are a veritable lie detector. Only the most mendacious can slip one past you.
••••• People are as books to you, and they are printed in large type, easy to read.
Specialties: Discerning Lies, Empathy, Interrogation, Motives, Phobias, Spirits, Vices
INTIMIDATION Intimidation is the power to bully, coerce, threaten, and strongarm your way to a social victory. Werewolves who rely on Intimidation never hesitate to crush the wills — and occasionally the skulls — of their rivals.
• Your words are cudgels.
•• You can push your way around most humans without difficulty.
••• Your swagger and cruel behavior have earned you your reputation.
•••• You’re far past mere physical threats.
••••• Even higher-Renown Garou may step back as you loom.
Specialties: Extortion, Insults, Interrogation, Physical Coercion, Stare Downs, Veiled Threats
LEADERSHIP Leadership grants you the ability to lead a crowd, command a detachment, boost the morale of your supporters, and subdue (or provoke…) a riot. As Garou Renown rises, so, too, does expectation, and esteemed werewolves are often expected to lead ones of humbler Renown.
• You have led informal clubs and can organize packmates of like mind.
•• Your voice makes itself heard at the moot, and even your superiors sometimes listen.
••• You can command on the battlefield and lead soldiers to their deaths.
•••• You can inspire the injured and dying to action, so long as you are there to lead them.
••••• Your presence could rouse an entire sept to hurl itself into the very lair of the Wyrm.
Specialties: Command, Down But Not Out, Inspiration, Oratory, Team Dynamics, War Pack
PERFORMANCE Performance covers a range of arts, from dance to poetry and comedy to melodrama. You may be a gifted performer in your own right or simply an enthusiastic student of the arts. Many Rites rely on being able to put on a good show as well.
When you take this Skill, you get a free Specialty.
• You are the life of the party, but you wouldn’t take your act on stage.
•• You have performed for others, to mixed reviews. Some love you, others have no opinion.
••• You are an expert student of your chosen lively art.
•••• You perform your practiced art form stunningly, winning over even the most curmudgeonly critics.
••••• You play an audience’s emotions as if you’re strumming a familiar instrument.
Specialties: Comedy, Dance, Drama, Drums, Guitar, Moot-Songs, Poetry, Rites, Rap, Singing, Violin, Wind Instruments
In theory, the Storyteller could break down these Specialties endlessly — can even a five-dot pop star also perform as a coloratura soprano and a country crooner? But in practice, unless the whole chronicle happens in a musical or theatrical milieu, allow broader Specialties.
PERSUASION Use Persuasion when trying to bring others around to your point of view — or convince others that you know what’s best for them. Skilled persuaders make effective arguments and organize their positions well, but they can also play on victims’ emotions and appeal to peers’ reason. Persuasion applies in law courts and around caernfires, in boardrooms, barrooms, and bedrooms. Some spirit-Rites also require a good grasp of this Skill.
• You can sell to a motivated buyer.
•• You can always nab a discount or get on the inside track of the latest gossip.
••• You can usually figure out a compromise in a given conflict.
•••• "I mean, sure, the Litany
says that, but…"
••••• You may be the original silver-tongued devil.
Specialties: Bargaining, Fast Talk, Interrogation, Legal Argument, Negotiation, Nonstop Bullshit, Rhetoric
STREETWISE Streetwise enables characters to speak the language and negotiate the societies of the streets and the underworld. You can understand code words and slang, interpret graffiti tags, and emulate gang signs. Streetwise doesn’t inherently require criminality, but they do seem to overlap in many situations…
• You know where to buy weed that isn’t oregano.
•• You know which gangs operate in the area, including their signs and rivalries. You may have your own graffiti tag.
••• You can tell good shit from bad, score guns, and blend seamlessly into streetlife.
•••• When someone connected says, “I know a guy,” they mean you.
••••• You can hire, orchestrate, or set up an alibi for almost any criminal activity, anywhere in your city.
Specialties: Arms Dealing, Black Market, Bribery, Drugs, Fence Stolen Goods, Gangs, Graffiti, Sex Trade, The Best Parties
SUBTERFUGE Subterfuge is the art of lying convincingly, pressing an agenda, and making good excuses for bad actions. This Skill defines your talent for intrigue, secrets, and double-dealing. Subterfuge can also be used for seduction and for imitating human and wolf behavior.
• You can tell believable, simple lies.
•• You can hustle naive people, old or young, into giving you their things.
••• You can operate on multiple levels, telling lies intended to be uncovered to bolster other lies.
•••• You can operate endlessly under deep cover: a perfect double agent. Maybe you are one!
••••• Nobody believes you have even a single dot in Subterfuge.
Specialties: Bluff, Corporate Double-Talk, Impeccable Lies, Innocence, The Long Con, Seduction
Mental Skills Mental Skills depend almost entirely on specialized knowledge, as well as on the character’s core intellectual gifts.
ACADEMICS Academics reflects understanding, higher education, and ability to research fields within the humanities and the liberal arts. Historical study, for instance, is hardly “just academic” when considering the ubiquity of the Garou and their presence amid human societies since time out of mind.
When you take this Skill, you get a free Specialty. For foreign languages, use the Linguistics Merit (p. 98).
• Basic primary and secondary education; a night class at community college
•• Basic university education or tutelage from a standard mentor; a four-year degree
••• Advanced university education or dedicated personal tuition; an excellent four-year degree, a doctorate
•••• Advanced specialized study beyond university, with learning in subjects few understand
••••• Refined and advanced scholarship; you’re likely to be sought out for advice and tutelage
Specialties: African Literature, Architecture, History of Art, History (specific Field or Period), Migration Practices of Predatory Animals, Journalism, Philosophy, Research, Teaching, Theology
AWARENESS Awareness encompasses your perceptions. The hair may stand up on the back of your neck before the fomori spring an ambush, you may spy a key dropped into the trash, or sense a lingering perfume.
• You have a history of knowing when something is out of place.
•• You can spot erratic or pattern behavior in an individual.
••• You can see through most disguises and sense concealed dangers or hidden clues.
•••• Even when you are distracted, few things elude your notice.
••••• Your senses are preternatural.
Specialties: Ambushes, Camouflage, Concealed Objects, Hearing, Instincts, Smell, Sight, Traps, Wilderness
FINANCE Finance allows you to identify trends in the market, invest well, manipulate stocks, and know when a fall is coming. It also lets you assess — and trace — the wealth of others and broker financial deals. You can generally appraise art, property, or any other noncriminal goods, as well as trace a money flow that someone (or something) wants to keep untraced.
• You can run a business and keep books.
•• You can manage a corporate division or bank branch; you file impeccably plausible tax returns.
••• Thanks to international trading, you make a fine broker on foreign stock exchanges.
•••• Investment banks follow your financial lead. You have no trouble concealing fraud.
••••• You can make money do anything, including stick to your pockets or crash cryptocurrencies.
Specialties: Appraisal, Banking, Black Markets, Corporate Finance, Currency Manipulation, Emerging Markets, Forensic Accounting, Meme Stock Speculation, Money Laundering
INVESTIGATION Investigation allows you to unravel cases of mundane and mysterious doings, spot clues, interpret them, and trace missing persons. Garou find this Skill especially useful when connecting the dots between immediate tragedies and the exploiters funding them, as well as when performing certain Rites.
• You love a good mystery novel and fancy yourself an amateur sleuth.
•• You have a firm knowledge of criminology and the telltale signs of gross malfeasance.
••• You are, or could be, a detective by trade. Nothing at a crime scene escapes you.
•••• You could be consulted by local detectives when unknown parties have risked the community’s safety.
••••• You set riddles for others and may live an enigmatic existence few can penetrate.
Specialties: Criminology, Deduction, Forensics, Missing Persons, Murder, Racketeering, Traffic Analysis
MEDICINE Medicine enables you to give health aid to people or animals who need it and to diagnose causes of death or sickness. It also lets you use medical equipment, prescribe drugs, and stanch (or encourage) rapid blood flow. Characters use Medicine to heal Aggravated Health damage (see p. 129).
• You know basic anatomy and how blood flow differs for a vein versus an artery. You can perform CPR and other first aid.
•• You can comfortably treat minor traumas and illnesses and narrow down a diagnosis. You may be a nurse or EMT.
••• Your training allows you to perform major operations and treat serious injuries. You may be an internist, pediatrician, or general practitioner.
•••• You can diagnose and treat all but the rarest of illnesses. You may be a surgeon or specialist.
••••• You might be a noted medical expert, sought out for your knowledge and insight.
Specialties: First Aid, Hematology, Pathology, Pharmacy, Phlebotomy, Surgery, Trauma Care, Veterinary
OCCULT Even though Garou are themselves creatures of supernatural origin, that doesn’t convey any inherent understanding of the fine details of beings other than werewolves that share such origins. Even to the Garou, the Umbra remains a strange place, to say nothing of liminal parts of the world that don’t conform to the werewolf perspective.
Occult represents knowledge of the mystical world — whether the rites (or Rites) and practices of various cultural notions, such as the Umbra, or knowledge of esoterica to any degree. You can recognize occult sigils and folk-magic practices, effective or not.
• You know a handful of the world’s secrets at a rudimentary level.
•• You can sift the truth out of pop occult nonsense.
••• You have firsthand experience of something inexplicable, even by Garou standards.
•••• You could execute a physical model of Garou cosmology with some degree of accuracy.
••••• Theurges and Silent Striders consult you on obscure lore.
Specializations: Alchemy, Faeries, Ghosts, Goetia, Grimoires, Metaphysics, Parapsychology, Spirits, Umbra
POLITICS Politics covers diplomacy, both human and Garou, as well as the bureaucracy of human institutions. You can work with, and possibly put pressure on, city government or levels even higher. Among Garou, you know the inside scoop on which packs claim which territories, who’s nursing a grudge with whom, and where more than a few bodies are buried. Literally.
• You follow human political affairs in your region, and you know “the lay of the land” as regards local Garou politics.
•• You can apply influence at a local level, or you know who can.
••• You could run political campaigns or political machines, or make waves among werewolves as an up-and-comer.
•••• You know the true personalities of the real movers and shakers, human and Garou, in your area.
••••• You’re either acknowledged now as an eminence grise or will be someday.
Specialties: City Government, Diplomacy, Media, National Politics, Pack Territories, State or Provincial Politics
SCIENCE Science is a broad remit, covering everything from basic principles of life to the understanding of universal entropy. The laws of science govern the physical world — mostly — and Garou who are a part of that world study them.
Levels of the Science Skill roughly match ones in Academics, from some college to world-famous scholar. Also as in Academics, characters with a rating in Science get a free Specialty.
• You dabble in the sciences and understand the principles behind the building blocks of life.
•• Your study goes deeper than the surface, explaining much why as well as much what.
••• You make an excellent scientific manager; you can run a laboratory, interpret scientific findings, and come up to speed on scientific research in most fields. You can repair scientific equipment.
•••• You are an expert in your field and in persons allied to it.
••••• Few peers match your understanding, and others come to you for guidance.
Specialties: Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Demolitions, Engineering, Genetics, Geology, Mathematics, Physics
TECHNOLOGY As a Skill, Technology exists as something of a moving target; it governs the operation and understanding of “modern” technological developments, with an impressionistic definition for modern. A hundred years ago, Technology might have most often concerned itself with steam engines and electricity. Now, it means computers and computer systems. Of course, now computers govern almost everything, including steam turbines in power plants and electrical systems in office buildings.
• You know how to upgrade a home PC and keep it protected from viruses.
•• You can conceal your IP, operate drones, and fake a digital photograph.
••• You can create and unleash your own viruses without fear of detection.
•••• You could personally manage cybersecurity for a business or region.
••••• On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a wolf — or that you’re there at all.
Specialties: Artillery, Coding, Computer Construction, Data Mining, Energy Systems, Hacking, Networks, Phones, Surveillance Systems