The Garou perspective is animistic, positing that numerous things beyond what many humans consider to be people are actually conscious, and alive, and potentially even persons themselves. In particular, the Garou perceive the world (including both the physical world and the Umbra) to be populated by spirits. And unfortunately, in this time of Apocalypse, many of those spirits are hostile and, indeed, antithetical to harmonious life.

　Other antagonists, though, are quite physical, whether they’re well-armed agents of government-sponsored werewolf-hunting organizations or corporate security forces or other Garou. In fact, some antagonists might not even realize they’re antagonists until the Garou tear into them — and the same might be true of the Garou themselves, who might not realize the extent of their opposition until Rage takes hold. Let the bodies hit the floor.

　Also, let’s be honest: Werewolves have lots of antagonists. Such plenitude stands to reason, as one of Werewolf’s core conflicts is external: the world is as it is because outside forces acting upon it have created an imbalance of its functioning mechanisms. The Wyrm and its minions are ascendant because the people of the world have made it so. And that fact highlights one of the Garou’s primary tragedies: They’re very well suited to violence, but violence is often the least suitable tool for addressing the long-term causes of the Apocalypse.

　The most important thing to remember about antagonists in Werewolf is that they all want something. They have a reason to exist and an agenda they’re pursuing. Enemies exist to effect what they want to happen. A pack of fomori hanging around to fight werewolves uh, just because doesn’t make much sense. Even at a level as high and incomprehensible as the Triat itself, individual and cosmological forces seek specific ends.

　The players’ pack might not always know exactly what their enemies want, but that’s part of the story: figuring out what the antagonists are doing. From there, the players’ Garou have many alternatives. Do they want to use the antagonists’ ambitions against them? Do they want to deny the antagonists their desires by protecting what’s threatened? Or is destroying what the enemies want acceptable collateral damage? Do they simply want to use what they’ve discovered to find the enemies and tear them to shreds? These options show how a story acquires depth and meaning, especially when the pack’s methods put it in conflict with the pack’s ambitions and challenges each individual Garou’s relationship with Gaia. And sometimes, werewolves’ Rage makes tough decisions for them, leaving them to deal with the consequences later.

Antagonist Formats

　Just as with scenes, the Storyteller can zoom in and out on the mechanical details of antagonists and other supporting characters. At their very simplest, foes just need a description and a difficulty level, such as: Security Guard 3, which makes defeating this antagonist a Difficulty 3 roll with the appropriate ability. In a conflict, falling short of this difficulty can cause damage.

Example: Jodie goes up against the aforementioned Security Guard, but her player earns only one success on a Strength + Brawl roll. Jodie suffers two points of damage (perhaps +1 or more if the guard is armed), and the guard remains a threat.

　In most cases, antagonists have pools for key action categories and certain actions, as opposed to discrete Attribute or Skill values. It’s probably not important what a spirit’s Driving Skill value is (!), but if a smuggler has a Driving (Evasive Maneuvers) pool listed, that’s something they’re particularly adept at doing.

General Difficulties: The General Difficulty values given for each antagonist let the Storyteller add a bit more nuance while still remaining streamlined. The number before the slash represents the Difficulty to defeat their strongest ability, the number after the slash the Difficulty to overcome them in other tests.

Antagonist Options: If you need to roll a pool for an antagonist, roll twice the Difficulty, but note that this is rarely necessary (since twice the Difficulty as a pool will probably equal the Difficulty value anyway). You can also, as an option, roll a single die every time the antagonist’s Difficulty comes into play, and on a 0 add 2 to their Difficulty for that test.

Gifts: Some antagonists have supernatural powers that are either similar to Gifts or modeled on the same mechanics. Use the antagonist Gift pool when assembling pools for these powers or half (round up) if a specific Renown value is necessary. Antagonists using Gifts don’t need to pay any costs, though unless otherwise stated, each antagonist can use only one Gift per turn and never during frenzy or its equivalent.

精魂视角

　正如在其它地方讨论过的（请看第224页），狼人对灵界及其居民的理解并不完美。就连通神者也承认，他们的信息是观察到的，而非客观的。因此，当精魂描述说某物是“愤怒精魂”或“污染忌灵”时，那只是狼人观点，而非普遍真理。也许只有精魂自己才知道它们的真正功能，而且肯定不是所有都有按这些功能行事的自我意识。但足够多的狼人在描述的环境中遇到过足够多的这些精魂，因此这些分类是有效的——至少对迦鲁来说是这样。

　另外，在描述敌人——尤其是附身于物质界中的人或物的精魂——时，可能会产生误导。我们鼓励叙事人描述迦鲁感官观测到了什么，而不是简单地说：“你看到三只猪灵在修车铺后面扎根”。细节有助于保持每次遭遇的独特性，并鼓励玩家让自己的角色寻找更多信息。

　对叙事人来说，这种方法也为你提供了叙事空间来测试狼群的期望。也许横冲直撞的忌灵有迦鲁需要的信息，也许鹰隼精魂对狼群的银牙有令人费解的怒气。精魂和所有敌人一样也有自己的目标，若简单地认为一看到这些东西就要杀了它们，那么可能会让迦鲁走上灾难之路。

　我们也鼓励叙事人在精魂（尤其是忌灵）附身方面发挥创意。每种精魂的“附身及具象”部分都是建议，并不全面。例如，叙事人可能会选择让枯绞（请看第250页）附身在一个工业垃圾压实机上，它在压碎受害者之前会让他们陷入堆积的碎片中，而不是使用更常见的附身人体。调整这些描述，使精魂外观与你的故事事件相匹配。

Spirits

　On occasion, spiritual entities act against the Garou, whether in the physical world or in the Spirit Wilds — or both. Individuals of nonanimistic cultures may describe such interactions between spirits and physical forms as “possession,” but as the Garou interpret the world, this is simply the way of things. (Note that this stance is not a summary of all animistic cultures’ perspectives — the assumptions of Werewolf reflect uniquely Garou worldviews.)

　Remember, the Triat simply is. It’s not subject to perceived human qualities like “good” or “evil”; the various Triatic forces are just that — forces, not personalities. Even the Garou sometimes forget this truth, but Storytellers using antagonists to challenge the troupe’s werewolves should bear it in mind. None of the spirits here are inherently “good guys” or “bad guys,” they’re just doing their thing — and that thing may be inimical to all life or Gaia’s wellbeing.

　For example, a fomor is a human who has been possessed by a Bane for an extended period of time. One particular fomor might be possessed by a Bane of greed, and thus manifest great, grasping hands and extraordinarily long arms, the better to reach out and pull whatever it desires toward itself. Another fomor might be possessed by a Bane of hunger, with a distended, fanged maw, and no amount of voracious eating may sate its appetite.

　Such parallels prove true even for extremely powerful antagonists when they pierce the Gauntlet. When a nexus crawler manifests in the physical world, at a construction site, it doesn’t do so as a kaiju emerging from beyond the Gauntlet. Rather, it agglomerates and appropriates nearby elements of the physical world, effectively possessing them, so that it might appear as a terrifying hulk comprising construction vehicles, an enormous drill-claw, and writhing pipes and hoses that transport various dangerous fuels and fluids. A nexus crawler manifesting at an open-pit mine might likewise appear as a rampant bucket-wheel excavator belching exhaust and strewing caustic spray. Meanwhile, in the Umbra, the nexus crawler maintains its true form as a black shimmer of entropy or a spindly-legged nightmare-beast.

　Destroying a spirit enemy’s possessed host is only part of the solution, however. The malignant spirit itself effectively abandons the host and returns to the Umbra, leaving behind a body or a heap of detritus. Much as with Garou who die (see p. 134), fomori and other possessed individuals “revert to their natural form” when the intruding spirit abandons them once they die. A fomor’s arms and hands and mouth assume once again their original human proportions; the manifest nexus crawler leaves behind a heap of rubble, ruined machinery, and corroded connective mass, such as rebar, rust, and spewing oil. Thus do the spirit world and malignant cosmological forces maintain their secrecy in a world of self-described “rational” humans. Of course, wise Garou see commonalities between this process and the Delirium, but lapses in the mystical routine are surely behind such folkloric accounts of strange creatures reverting to their original state upon their mythic defeat.

　It’s not exclusively Wyrm-aligned spirits that manifest this way, please note. If something is so significant that a spirit appears to take control of it, it does so in a way that incorporates the context of the physical world. Consider, for example, a skyscraper, the executive floors of which are accessible only by elevator, where peeking into the Umbra reveals the elevators to be Weaver-spiders that clutch their passengers in their many legs and glide up a strand of spirit-silk. Another example might be an agitated water-spirit that unknowingly drowns human swimmers in its eddies and undertow in the physical world as it attempts to escape its confines during an Umbral storm.





General Characteristics

　Spirits share multiple characteristics:

Power: Spirits vary in the amount of power they possess, even among spirits of similar type. Spirits use their Power as a dice pool for any test not covered by their Exceptional Pools, which are usually expressed as a modifier to their Power. A spirit with “Brawl +2” and a Power of 3 thus has a Brawl pool of 5. Spirits in the Umbra are always treated as having Enhanced damage resistance (see below), and unless otherwise noted a spirit has Health levels equal to twice its Power value. Any Willpower damage suffered by the spirit is dealt to their Health tracker, as mind and body are one and the same to the denizens of the Umbra. (This rule does not apply to werewolves, of course, who are half-physical and abide by the normal rules.) Power is expressed as a dice pool by default but can be treated as a Difficulty by dividing it by two (round up), as usual.

Abandon: The spirit may abandon the host it’s possessing and return to the Umbra. At its discretion, it returns to its place of creation (probably far from the current action), or it can retreat just beyond the Gauntlet to a place in the Umbra analogous to its host’s location in the physical world.

Possession: A spirit can possess a host, usually for a scene or less, and control its movements but not always its thoughts. Long-term possessions are comparatively rare for spirits other than Banes, and long-term Bane possession results in fomori (see p. 262). Possession need not always be human — some spirits are able to take possession only of lower-order animals, and some exclusively possess machines or other objects. Spirits that possess a host are considered to have crossed the Gauntlet, and whereas their spirit-form is invisible and incorporeal while in the physical world, they are still fully present there. To confront the spirit in the Umbra, their host body needs to be destroyed, or they need to be persuaded to leave — forcibly (banished) or otherwise. Cameras and other devices that capture images of physical subjects do not visually indicate when a subject is possessed, though any remarkable alterations resulting from the possession (such as a horrific, fanged maw) may well be visible.

Reversion: Any physical alteration that a spirit wreaks upon its host’s body during possession reverts to its original state when the victim dies and the spirit flees, leaving only a “normal” body appropriate to the host, whether for a brief possession or a long-term fomor inhabitation. The same is true for any nonbodily telltale indicators, which quickly degrade or disappear. Of course, any remains may have been lacerated by Garou claws, etc. Note that gross transformations of the host body are relatively rare in the case of temporary possessions, but especially powerful or destructive spirits have been known to wreak havoc on their living hosts, usually killing them in the aftermath.

Enhanced damage resistance: All spirits and some possessed, if noted on their Health, have enhanced damage resistance, sustaining physical damage like a Garou. They treat mundane piercing and slashing damage as superficial, and they take Aggravated damage only from fire and certain attacks that deal Aggravated damage to Garou, such as the bite of a crinos or hispo. They are not vulnerable to silver, however.

动物宿主

　当精魂附身在“低等”生物——即比人类低等的、有肉体的动物宿主——身上时，它们几乎总先迅速杀死真正的动物，因为大多数动物都没有意识到自己身上发生了什么，也无法反抗。这种习性意味着被附身的动物只不过是附身精魂意识的血肉傀儡（因此对于物质界中的被附身动物，请直接使用精魂的数据）。当然，鲜有迦鲁真喜欢杀死动物，但从各方面考虑，结束被附身动物的肆虐都可能是最富同情和最明智的做法。

Banes

　According to the Garou, Banes are part of the vast menagerie of spirits that serve the Wyrm. Their forms are legion, each reflecting an aspect of that cosmological force. Most are grotesque, but many are subtler. Destruction, deception, and corruption take many forms, and if inhuman beauty and lustful seduction serve the Wyrm’s needs, such is the face Banes present.

　Some Banes are avatars of principles such as hate, disease, or famine; others are focused, destructive entities. They range in power from petty distractions to unearthly forces of devastation and can be found anywhere the Wyrm’s influence extends. Banes are attracted to dark, destructive impulses and emotions, and they gather in the Umbra where such emotions bleed through from the mortal world, awaiting an opportunity to slip past the Gauntlet and possess a fleshly host. They are, inherently, of the Wyrm, and annihilation is the only sure way to rid an area of their influence.

　That’s key: Physical hosts invite Banes to possess them, whether consciously (“I want revenge!”) or unwittingly, as with an individual in the throes of despair. Banes don’t spontaneously appear.

　Similarly, the presence of Banes amplifies negative emotions. Banes don’t cause the emotions they intensify, but their presence makes them worse.

　A Bane may inhabit a brutal captain of a private military contractor, one who sees bullying and violence as a path to power; or a Bane may inhabit a grieving father, driven by sorrow to cruelty against “the wrong child” who survived an accident. Occasionally, Banes may possess even lower-order creatures, such as by being drawn to an animal kept captive in wretched conditions, or an animal forced into starving retreat by the vanishing of its habitat.


What Do They Want: Banes are generally sophisticated enough to have their own ambitions, which often come at the overlap of what they exemplify (greed, hunger, pollution, etc.) and the intentions of any greater spirit entity they may serve. Banes are also often nasty and cunning, and may intentionally twist their purposes toward something that benefits them individually. For example, a Bane of famine may seek to starve other Banes of spiritual nourishment, even as they possess a host to set a wheat field alight or spoil the food at the church pantry.


Storytelling With Banes

　Narratively and thematically, Banes always represent something — they amplify, facilitate, aggravate, and sour what is already there. Which is to say that Banes aren’t responsible for human evil. Tragically, many of a Bane’s victims haven’t even done anything overt to earn their fate. As such, Banes should be symptoms and exacerbating factors in mortal problems rather than their initiators. A serial killer may attract a Bane interested in perpetuating violence and preying upon the bereaved, but a person won’t become a serial killer because a Bane “made them do it.”

　Of course, many Garou don’t grasp this mechanism, which sometimes puts werewolf packs in a mode of perpetually fighting Banes as symptoms while neglecting a root cause they fail to see, especially those Garou who seek Glory.

　Reasoning or negotiating with a Bane can be very difficult, given that what they want is so often antithetical to what the Garou want. Indeed, the only way many Garou can handle the threat Banes represent is through violence. To hear some werewolves tell it, this is fighting fire with fire, but more nuanced Garou worry that if the only tool they have to solve problems is Rage, then every challenge becomes one that will be solved only by tearing things apart.

　As the Garou interpret things, all Banes are Wyrm spirits, but not all Wyrm spirits are Banes. For example, a spirit of natural decay and a spirit of timeworn entropy are spirits that serve the Wyrm’s role but aren’t (necessarily) Banes. Wise Garou know the difference between spirits of the Wyrm in its proper order versus spirits of the Wyrm rampant or ascendant.

PITY THE VICTIMS

　Because Banes that manifest in the physical world possess otherwise mundane hosts, there’s frequently an element of tragedy to combating Banes. The possessed individual frequently shows no mercy, but the circumstances that made them vulnerable to Banes might not have been of their own doing. The desperately hungry inhabited by Scavenger Packs, those who lash out in desperate fear who become possessed by Psychomachiae, the list goes on — sometimes the unfair state of the world itself all but guarantees an unfortunate individual will meet an even more unfortunate end.

　Then again, some people are so fucking mean for its own sake, they’d even invite the Bane inside them if they knew Banes existed.

ENVIRONMENTS

　Given their nature, Banes are valuable to establish tone, suggest action to players, and perform environmental storytelling about a location. A shopping center that looks unremarkable at first glance may warrant a second when its Umbral counterpart is a looming, obsidian-clad monstrosity around which Banes of greed and consumption wail and fly. Alternatively, Banes taking the form of bubo-covered shopworkers or blood-sucking tumorous masses imply very different threats in the physical realm.

　The infinite variety of Banes means that new types may emerge for specific tasks or arise naturally from new atrocities. Use the Banes detailed here, but also use them as a guideline for creating Banes that specifically suit your chronicle. The important thing is not strict accuracy or humanization of a concept but to ensure that the new Bane has characteristics and powers that reinforce its malignant role.

DIRECT CONFLICT

　Many times, werewolves face Banes in the physical world in the form of their hosts. Killing or destroying a host doesn’t destroy the Bane, it simply looses that Bane from its fleshly mooring. Unless pursued, the Bane almost certainly escapes into the Umbra. Of course, if other suitable vessels are nearby when its possessed body is destroyed, the Bane may seek to inhabit one of them, meaning the (physical) fight is probably not yet over…


Patron Spirits and the Spirit Hierarchy

　As near as they can figure it, many Garou believe that Banes are frequently among the jaggling ranks of the spirit hierarchy.

　Most Banes are associated with some greater spirit, at least in the context that Garou understand things. Banes themselves seem to possess enough sentience and autonomy to pursue their own ends, but they frequently do the bidding of more powerful spirits — which is, in fact, the only indication werewolves have of some of the motives among the more enigmatic spirits. Chances are, if you’re ordering a Bane around, you’re not doing so to the benefit of anyone else.

　Spiritually attuned agents of Pentex (see p. 268) also often put Banes to use, or their efforts result in Bane infestations of afflicted areas. In this case, Banes may be subservient to Pentex’s Patron Spirit, Fly, or they may have a more complex relationship among the greater spirits that command them.

　The Garou have dealt with the following types of Banes frequently enough to afford a generally recognized name to each category. The Banes in question probably don’t know themselves as such, but the types suffice for Storyteller utility and common parlance around the caern-fires.


Asklepian

Asklepians are Banes of epidemics and pandemics. They arise amid disease outbreaks, feeding and breeding off the misery that arises and sapping the will of the community to fight the outbreak. They themselves spread disease, making each compromise more difficult, each carrier more virulent, and the plague itself more deadly.

Possession / Manifestation: In the physical world, an Asklepian afflicts an infected host, probably one displaying advanced symptoms of the pandemic. In the Umbra, Asklepians take the form of great fleas covered in spikes, on which are impaled various animal-spirit corpses and spirits of healing. Their jaws drip virulent fluids, and they are capable of incredible bursts of speed, leaping from place to place as fast as the diseases they represent travel.

ASKLEPIAN SPIRIT

Power: 2–6
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl +2, Stealth +2
Notes / Other Traits:
Birthing Bite: In the Umbra, the bite of a Power 2 or higher Asklepian on the spirit-form of a Garou generates a full-grown Asklepian that bursts from the spirit-flesh of the victim after a turn (inflicting a level of Aggravated damage in the process). The newly generated Asklepian is one Power level below its parent and joins in the assault as soon as it bursts free of the victim, starting with the next turn.

ASKLEPIAN-POSSESSED HUMAN

General Difficulty: 3 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 3, Social 4, Mental 4
Secondary Attributes: Health 5, Willpower 5
Exceptional Dice Pools: Persuasion (Garner Sympathy) 6, Subterfuge (Hide Symptoms) 6
Notes / Other Traits:
Infection: In the physical world, Asklepians are highly contagious. They rarely attack outright, but do try to get close to their victims and infect them in hopes of spawning another Asklepian. Anyone whose character spends more than a few minutes within reach must win a Stamina + Medicine test against the Asklepian’s Power or have their character be infected. Symptoms vary, depending on the physical contagion, but whatever the disease, the victim also becomes a carrier for a larval Asklepian. The larva can be seen only in the Umbra, where it can be removed with a Composure + Medicine test by someone able to perceive both worlds at once (such as through the Gift Penumbral Senses, p. 147). As long as it remains attached, the victim experiences a debilitating hopelessness over their progressing illness and cannot restore Willpower through normal means. If they die from the illness, the larva transforms into a new Asklepian, completing the circle of (hideous) life. A possessed Asklepian takes damage as does a human.


Bitter Rages

Bitter Rages fester where emotion runs unchecked, particularly among the Rage-driven Garou by feeding on anger and, in turn, provoking it. It seems they’re most frequently encountered among supernatural creatures who can succumb to frenzy — notably the Garou, but apparently also among the deathless blood-drinkers known as vampires. It’s not impossible for them to torment other creatures, as well, however, from humans to animals.

Possession / Manifestation: Although a Bitter Rage doesn’t outright possess a host in the physical world, it can latch onto a subject, agitate them, and drive that individual to ever-greater irrational aggression, almost like rabies. In the Umbra, Bitter Rages appear as clusters of explosive spiritual energy, akin to visible static electricity. If encountered there, the Bitter Rage doesn’t put up much in the way of a physical fight but instead tries to foment anger and distrust among the pack, communicating through flashes of memories that remind the Garou of past disagreements and resentment.

BITTER RAGE SPIRIT

Power: 2–4
Exceptional Dice Pools: Insight (Sore Spot) +6, Persuasion (Provocation) +6
Notes / Other Traits:
Provoke: Unlike many other Banes, Bitter Rages can influence victims in the physical world while they themselves are still in the Umbra. The victim suffers what amounts to a frenzy with a duration of the Bitter Rage’s cruel whim — some hosts have frenzied themselves into starvation, whereas others have suffered torment just long enough to have their pack turn against them and tear them asunder. A victim of a Bitter Rage must win a Willpower test against the Power of the Bitter Rage each scene or enter frenzy. The Storyteller decides on the exact moment in each scene, but it usually coincides with a slight or provocation, real or imagined. The frenzy lasts until the Bitter Rage is sated on carnage, which is entirely up to the whim of the Bane (and the Storyteller), but the spirit can also be dislodged with a critical win on the Willpower test or by defeating it in the Umbra.


Dissonant Gestalt

Dissonant Gestalts are Banes of indoctrination and pluralistic ignorance. They spawn when people in an organization turn a blind eye to its ills, when ideals and accountability fail in the face of a naked pursuit of power. They are community turned rancid, the urge to conform that lets citizens ignore atrocity, soldiers perform genocides, and cults commit mass suicide.

The difficult part of dealing with a Dissonant Gestalt is expelling the Bane while minimizing the suffering of those who were taken in by the malicious happenings that spawned it.

Possession / Manifestation: In the physical world, a Dissonant Gestalt may possess an individual made arrogant by employees or supporters looking up to them and refusing to hold them accountable for misdeeds. They possess managers, priests, minor celebrities, extremist group leaders, and anyone else with a following who can propagate aberrant behavior where it’s wrongly believed to be supported or accepted.

In the Umbra, Dissonant Gestalts take the form of great fungoid masses that slowly pull themselves forward on writhing tendrils. They may briefly puppeteer others, turning them into extensions of the atrocities it cannot implement without them. But without such guardians, the Dissonant Gestalt is more vulnerable than its bulk would suggest.

DISSONANT GESTALT SPIRIT

Power: 4–8
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl (Puppeteer) +2, Intimidate +4
Notes / Other Traits:
Puppeteer: In the Umbra, a Dissonant Gestalt can take control of an opponent by winning a Brawl test against them, their tendrils piercing the victim and turning them into the spirit’s puppet. A puppeteered victim acts on the Gestalt’s behalf but does not use Gifts or take any action that requires a Rage check. A Dissonant Gestalt can puppeteer up to its Power in victims at any one time. Severing the tentacles requires winning a Brawl test against the puppeteered victim, at which point the victim is released and can act normally the next turn. Once freed, a victim cannot be puppeteered again in the same scene.

DISSONANT GESTALT–POSSESSED HUMAN

General Difficulty: 4 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 4, Social 6, Mental 6
Secondary Attributes: Health 5, Willpower 6
Exceptional Dice Pools: Intimidate 8, Leadership 7, Subterfuge (Shift Blame) 8
Notes / Other Traits:
Domineer: Hosts possessed by a Dissonant Gestalt find their ability to dominate and delegate is supernaturally magnified. To their subordinates they appear as inviolable avatars of whatever ideal or purpose they represent, and the followers or employees readily perform whatever atrocity or self-sacrifice they are ordered to commit. Even those who come from outside its sphere of formalized influence find the host’s word hard to dispute and agree to simple requests (involving little to no danger), unless they can resist the spirit’s Power with their Composure + Wits.


Drattosi

Drattosi are Banes of pollution, environmental despoilment, and natural ruin. Rare in times of Garou legend, they are terrifyingly common in the era of Apocalypse. Invariably toxic, Drattosi might appear as a sludgy oil slick on a beach, a festering heap of urban garbage in a decaying city, a streak of radioactive slag, or the like.

In both the Umbra and the physical world, Drattosi ambush passersby who stumble into the spirit’s demesne, ripping them to pieces and absorbing the resultant gore. Beneath their noxious bulk, they burrow themselves into the surroundings, excreting “lairs” like a crab’s shell made of toxic byproduct, adorned with refuse similar to that of the calamity they inhabit.


Possession / Manifestation: In the physical world, Drattosi manifest as heaps of animate rubbish, often incorporating organic matter. The heaps may manifest claws or long, ropy arms with which to drag nearby prey — and more refuse — into their mass to contaminate and decompose. In the Umbra, Drattosi constitute a cumbersome, overwhelming threat. They appear there as enormous, crab-like armored monsters, with claws capable of shearing through a werewolf’s body.

DRATTOSI SPIRIT

Power: 4–10
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl +4, Intimidate +4
Notes / Other Traits:
Armored Shell: The thick shell of a Drattosi in its Umbral form reduces any physical damage taken by 3 before any halving.
Giant Pincer Claws: The claws do +4 Superficial damage to Garou.

DRATTOSI-POSSESSED GARBAGE HEAP

General Difficulty: 6 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 9, Social 3, Mental 3
Secondary Attributes: Health (Enhanced) 15, Willpower 7
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl (Grapple) 12, Stealth (Mimic Refuse) 6
Notes / Other Traits:
Noxious Limbs: A possessed collection of refuse can manifest grasping limbs with surprising speed. A victim caught unawares (by failing a Wits + Awareness test against the manifest Drattosi’s Stealth) is automatically grappled, though the spirit is also capable of using brute force to subdue a more attentive victim. The grappled subject suffers a level of Aggravated damage each subsequent turn that they fail to break free of the grapple as their body rapidly decays, eventually turning into more refuse.
The pools above represent a large garbage heap. Adjust as desired for smaller (or potentially even bigger) Drattosi manifestations.


Furmlings

Furmlings possess lesser creatures and drive them to naked aggression, seemingly burning them from within and, indeed, causing what amounts to fever in their host bodies. Host creatures are visibly ruddy, take on a patchy complexion, and have a listless nature. Possessed objects seemingly move on their own, like what might be described as “poltergeist activity.” Furmlings appear as sickly, luminous blobs in the Umbra, glowing with a flickering phosphorescence and darting about like turgid fireflies. The relative aggression of Furmlings leads to their use as belligerent scouts, especially by Black Spiral Dancers, who send them forth to gain information and goad other packs into battle.

In the Umbra, Furmlings are prone to evasion, attacking only if they have the numbers on their side. When they do, they hover out of reach of their attackers and manifest gouts of balefire, a greenish flame that poisons just as it burns.

FURMLING SPIRIT

Power: 3–6
Exceptional Dice Pools: Firearms (Balefire) +2, Athletics (Dodge) +4
Notes / Other Traits:
Balefire: +0 Aggravated damage.

FURMLING-POSSESSED ANIMAL

General Difficulty: 4 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 4, Social 2, Mental 3
Secondary Attributes: Health (Enhanced) 8, Willpower 4
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl 6, Stealth 8
Notes / Other Traits:
Overload Host: The Furmling can send its possessed host into overdrive, increasing a victim’s Physical pools by its Power. This amplification lasts for a single conflict (usually three turns) before the overloaded carcass collapses into a heap of abused flesh, sinew, and bone.





Gray Masses

Gray Masses are Banes of infestation and decay. They seem to be despised even by other Banes, and are frequently devoured or burned away by other spirits. Gray Masses are drawn to physical sites of filth, squalor, and ruin.

When a Gray Mass possesses a host, infestation can spread quickly, with the host becoming the vector of an outbreak that can incur dozens of casualties before anyone realizes what’s happening. They are particularly dangerous in isolated communities, and galliards know tales of human settlements and wolf communities wiped out by Gray Masses before Garou could destroy the blight.

Possession / Manifestation: Gray Masses are harmless in the Spirit Wilds, where they’re apparently capable of nothing apart from traveling to the material world while attached to other spirits. They are near invisible, little more than noxious motes visible only when they gather in grand numbers.

Once in the physical world, they find a living host in an unclean environment to attach to and, thereafter, multiply. These victims are often diseased or otherwise contaminated, providing the “lesion” in which the Gray Mass thrives. Within days, one mote becomes thousands, and the resulting victim becomes the proverbial plague dog, spreading whatever foulness it was that attracted the Bane’s sympathies in the first place.

In combat, an individual Gray Mass isn’t particularly dangerous. They are defenseless in their spiritual form, and an individual infectee is no threat to a Garou. A great swarm of infected may pose more of a threat, as is the possibility of a Garou becoming infected.

GRAY MASS–POSSESSED WRETCH

General Difficulty: 2 / 1
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 3, Social 2, Mental 2
Secondary Attributes: Health 5, Willpower 3
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl 4
Notes / Other Traits:
Group Attack: Gray Masses can swarm their opponent, adding two dice (or 1 Difficulty) for each additional Gray Mass attacking simultaneously. They usually grapple their opponent, sometimes dogpiling them to effectively spread the Bane-strengthened contagion, other times to simply crush the life out of an opponent.
Infect: An immobilized victim must make a Stamina + Medicine test against Difficulty 3 or be infected. Infection effects vary, but regular humans are often turned into new Masses within a few days, whereas Garou are unable to regenerate Health for a number of days equal to the Bane’s Power, or until it is banished by supernatural means.


Ooralath

Ooralath are Banes of a hive-mind sentience, acting as implacable, mindless hunter-trappers. Once they scent prey, they pursue it until destruction, tunneling through the groundscape and shifting spirit-geography to overcome obstacles. They seem not to cross the Gauntlet electively, but in this time of the Apocalypse, some septs have witnessed Ooralath apparently expelled, via caerns, from the Umbra into the physical world.

Many young Garou speculate that the Ooralath once served the Weaver, under a different name. Whatever their name once was, after the entire category of spirits came under (or went over to…) the influence of the Wyrm, the appellation has long been lost for reasons similarly unremembered. Indeed, the Garou, whose long memory preserves such legends, find it troublesome that none can remember exactly what happened to the Ooralath, and it seems yet another unacted-upon omen of the Wyrm’s ascendance in the era of Apocalypse.

Possession / Manifestation: An Ooralath possesses swarms, packs, or other groups of creatures, up to and including a mob of angry humans, and the entire collective moves and acts as one, with an uncanny synchrony. In the Umbra, an “individual” Ooralath is a pack of hunched creatures reminiscent of a bipedal hound covered in carapace. They are silent save for the clacking of claws and armored plates as they move. They prefer to engage there by burrowing into the Umbral landscape and waiting in ambush and erupting when prey comes close.

OORALATH SPIRIT

Power: 4–6
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl +4, Stealth +2
Notes / Other Traits:
Ambush: Ooralaths make lethal ambush attacks in the Umbra: A target failing a Wits + Awareness test against the ooralath’s Stealth is unable to defend against the initial attack.
Natural Weapons: +2 Superficial damage to a Garou.
Natural Armor: Reduce all damage received by 1 before any halving.

OORALATH-POSSESSED MOB OR SWARM

General Difficulty: 4 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 8, Social 4, Mental 4
Secondary Attributes: Health 16, Willpower 8
Exceptional Dice Pools: None
Notes / Other Traits:
Mob: Pools represent a mob or swarm. For every two Health levels of damage sustained, reduce Physical and Willpower pools by 1. Above pools are for a small mob of humans or a large mob of animals. Larger mobs have additional Physical and Willpower pools and twice as many additional Health levels.


Psychomachiae

Psychomachiae are Banes of terror and despair. These Banes, which magnify momentary impulses, are drawn to places and people suffering in misery. They push individuals teetering on the brink over the edge, or they goad those who have already fallen to keep going. They spawn in areas of mass hunger, crisis centers, prisons, and war zones. Even locations that are otherwise mundane may attract these spirits, thanks to the everyday cruelty that the Capitalocene engenders.

Possession / Manifestation: In the physical world, Psychomachiae possess and distort beings already in the throes of misery — killers, bullies, and those who indulge maliciousness. They particularly relish those who have committed some great wrong in a fit of passion, and they whisper to such individuals to incite further crimes. These spirits may manifest pronounced bodily weaponry, such as large, clubbing hands; vicious teeth; or even a fist fused around a knife or razor, the better to thwart any chance of setting it aside. In the Umbra, their forms shift, based on the nature of the turmoil they last fed upon, but Psychomachiae are often adorned with razors, clamps, thumbscrews, and other instruments of inflicting pain.

PSYCHOMACHIA SPIRIT

Power: 4–8
Exceptional Dice Pools: Melee +3, Insight (Violent History) +3, Intimidate (Repeat Trauma) +3
Notes / Other Traits:
Exploit Trauma: In the Umbra, Psychomachiae try to discern any previous violations or atrocities in a subject’s history before attacking in ways that dredge up a victim’s past deeds or trauma. A victim who fails to resist the Bane’s Insight pool with their Composure + Resolve suffers Willpower damage equal, and in addition to, Health damage caused by the Bane for the rest of the scene. Weapons: The Bane can manifest any number of crude or refined implements of pain to accomplish this goal. Treat them as doing +2 Superficial Health damage.

PSYCHOMACHIA-POSSESSED HUMAN

General Difficulty: 4 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 5, Social 5, Mental 5
Secondary Attributes: Health 6, Willpower 5
Exceptional Dice Pools: Melee 7, Intimidate 7, Subterfuge (Feign Innocence) 7
Notes / Other Traits:
Subtle Possession: A victim possessed by a Psychomachia often shows no signs at first, as the spirit slowly eats away at the victim’s guilt until all that remains is the memory of atrocity and the desire to commit it again. The victim loses the ability to restore Willpower naturally and suffers one level of Superficial Willpower damage each night. Once the victim reaches Impairment, they accept the Bane (consciously or unconsciously) and become a violent incarnation of the urge to inflict suffering.
Weapons: Psychomachia hosts are usually equipped with some kind of sharp implement that deals +2 damage, or they can manifest similar tools out of their very flesh.


Scavenger Packs

Scavenger Packs are Banes of desperation and starvation. They are common in slums, war zones, and areas suffering from famine or drought, and they take the form of packs comprising emaciated, possessed animals. Cunningly cruel, they have been known to possess a full pack of animals, then find starving humans — tempting them into possession by offering the animals as food — who are then, themselves, possessed.

Danger comes when an infestation of them occurs, or in the circumstances that spawned them. After all, deprivation severe enough to spawn a single Scavenger Pack is likely to spawn more, and probably arouses enough human misery to tempt the unfortunate into possession.

Possession / Manifestation: When encountered in the physical world, Scavenger Packs prey upon the vulnerable and weak while looking for a victim to possess. Scavenger Packs frequently possess scavenging animals, wretched and hungry, in addition to unfortunate humans. In the Umbra, Scavenger Packs are markers of material suffering and opportunistic scavengers. They sweep areas captured by other Banes, devouring isolated spirits and wounded combatants, or congregating around the Umbral echoes of the places that spawned them. They appear as vortices of tiny, swarming spirits, not unlike a cloud of ghastly gnats or flies.

SCAVENGER PACK SPIRIT SWARM

Power: 4–8
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl +3
Notes / Other Traits:
Mob: Pools represent a mob or swarm. For every two levels of damage inflicted, reduce the spirit’s Power by 1. Replenish: Each turn that no damage is inflicted on the spirit, it can attack and consume a local minor spirit instead, increasing its power by 1 until it reaches 9, at which time it splits into two Power 4 swarms. This feeding frenzy lasts only for a scene, after which time any remaining swarms burrow into the Umbral landscape to hibernate.

SCAVENGER PACK–POSSESSED WRETCH

General Difficulty: 3 / 1
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 5, Social 2, Mental 2
Secondary Attributes: Health 6, Willpower 3
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl 7, Athletics (Pursuit) 7
Notes / Other Traits:
Multiple Possession: A single Scavenger Pack can possess a number of victims equal to its Power. Each victim becomes a starving manifestation of the Scavenger Pack’s hunger, relentlessly pursuing anything the victim can devour — usually people or animals — by using their augmented strength to rake and bite. Survivors of these attacks frequently become hosts for the Scavenger Pack themselves, as it increases its Power for each victim fed upon.


Scrags

Scrags are drawn to physical violence, and they possess combative hosts who demonstrate hostility and aggression. Cruel guards, belligerent soldiers, and resentful laborers may unknowingly invite Scrags to possess them. As Banes, they are comparatively uncomplicated and probably occupy the lesser ranks of such jagglings.

Possession / Manifestation: In the material world, hosts possessed by Scrags turn gray, their teeth jagged, their hands claw-like; their first instinct is always toward horrible violence. In the Umbra, Scrags appear gray and ghoulish, with razor claws and fangs, slow to move. They prove dangerous primarily in numbers.

SCRAG SPIRIT

Power: 3–5
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl +4
Notes / Other Traits:
Weapons: Scrags in the Umbra are simple creatures, relying on their +3 Superficial damage claws and fangs to inflict harm.

SCRAG-POSSESSED HUMAN

General Difficulty: 4 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 6, Social 3, Mental 3
Secondary Attributes: Health (Enhanced) 7, Willpower 3
Exceptional Dice Pools: Melee 8, Firearms 8
Notes / Other Traits:
Apart from their supernatural resilience and grim mien, possessing Scrags have few other notable traits. They are usually armed, either with sharp implements or various firearms.



Scryers

Scryers are gafflings that exist to spy on targets for stronger spirits that hold the Scryers in thrall; in some cases, the lesser spirits do so transactionally. They are Banes of surveillance, suspicion, mistrust, and paranoia.

Possession / Manifestation: Scryers vary widely in spirit form, but their “eyes” are the most distinctive parts of their bodies. They sometimes appear as fly-spirits with oversized eyes, or as vigilant bird-spirits, again with dominant eyes. Sometimes, a Scryer in its spirit-form is just a single floating eye. The eyes of physically manifesting Scryers can be beady, bulbous, camera lenses, compound, or digital, but they are always visually unusual and incongruous with the rest of its form. Their bodies may be animal, or may be possessed machinery, such as a drone, security camera, or even the peephole of a door in a “haunted house.”

Scryers usually serve other, more powerful entities, and tangling with them usually has consequences.

SCRYER SPIRIT

Power: 1–3
Exceptional Dice Pools: Awareness +10
Notes / Other Traits:
Hidden Observation: Scryers may observe the material world while remaining safely in the Umbra. As a result, they cannot be seen by their targets without the use of Gifts or other abilities that facilitate seeing into the Umbra from the physical world.



Wyrmholes

Wyrmholes are sentient lesions in the Gauntlet. According to some galliards and theurges, the spirits that eventually became Wyrmholes were originally created by the Wyld in response to the creation of the Gauntlet, so spirits that may walk between the worlds would have passageways. These openings were subjugated by the Wyrm in its ascendant epoch, however, the better to extend its influence into the physical world.

A Wyrmhole that possesses a human is strange and dangerous. The host remains self-aware and seemingly in constant struggle with the Wyrmhole, itself practically “birthing” invasive spirits from “wounds” or other contortions of its ravaged bodies. The Wyrmhole itself is an incomprehensible entity. What invites them to possess a host is unknown, but such possession almost always ends with the host body being torn apart the same way the wound opens in the Gauntlet.

Possession / Manifestation: In the Umbra, a Wyrmhole takes the form of a turbulent, oily waterspout that may appear anywhere, even spiraling through the Umbral sky. In the physical world, a Wyrmhole appears on a liquid or semi-liquid surface, such as a slag pool or a body of befouled water.

WYRMHOLE SPIRIT

Power: 8–10
Exceptional Dice Pools: —
Notes / Other Traits:
Living Conduit: When a Wyrmhole wishes to breach the Gauntlet, it spreads and anchors itself against Umbral terrain, much of its form seemingly disappearing into nothingness. Anything that enters it is transported across the Gauntlet into the physical world. Wyrmholes are almost defenseless in this state, but they are often accompanied by Banes eager to cross the Gauntlet. Wyrmholes do not pull physical entities into the Umbra (though they may pull spirits out of their hosts and back into the Umbra, particularly unwilling ones), but they can serve as gateways. Anyone who braves a Wyrmhole can treat the local Gauntlet as 1 but needs to have a plan for the Banes almost certainly waiting on the other side.
Mindless: When attacked in the Umbra, Wyrmholes defend by using their Power pool, but they cannot themselves cause damage. Their entourage of Wyrm spirits, on the other hand, can. Any nonphysical interaction automatically fails, as the Wyrmhole lacks a mind to engage with.
Corrosive Form: Each Brawl attack against the Wyrmhole causes a level of Aggravated damage to the attacker.


Nexus Crawler

Nexus Crawlers are immensely powerful Banes, each one a monstrous embodiment of entropy that dwells in the incomprehensible depths of the Umbra. They fulfill the functions of the Wyrm and reek of its malignance, but they are their own creatures, better compared to a natural disaster than to “conventional” spirits.

Nexus Crawlers are intelligent and capable of communication, but their thought processes are deeply alien. Even Wyrm-aligned creatures try to avoid them, and the reasoning behind Nexus Crawlers’ actions or goals behind their plots elude the wisest of Garou.

A Nexus Crawler’s presence corresponds with some significant tragedy that occurs near it, seemingly drawn by the collapse of “reality” and concentrated misery. It needn’t be human misery, and in fact probably isn’t even often human misery, but the emotion may accompany natural disaster or ecological breakdown. A Nexus Crawler might emerge from the ruined sheets of ice that calve from a glacier, or one may possess an amalgamated bulk of vehicles, machines, and spilled substances at the site of an industrial accident.

In combat, Nexus Crawlers are terrifying foes that would sorely test even the most accomplished packs. They lash out at their foes with monstrous limbs and resonances of the disasters that beckoned them, pull proximate disasters into their presence, and can even turn a Garou’s very bones into lethal silver.

Possession / Manifestation: In the Umbra, a Nexus Crawler might appear as little more than a black shimmer — almost an aurora borealis warning of disaster about to occur. However, at their incomprehensible will, they sometimes coalesce as great abominations of flesh and chitin, with dying heads of foes’ loved ones, great but fragile-seeming limbs with too many joints, scything tentacles and alien eyes, pustulent buboes and weaponized intestines, all arrayed without care for logic or physicality. When they manifest in the physical world, they form strange and complex automatons amalgamated of, well, whatever they can draw into themselves from the environment. The wreckage of a plane crash, the detritus of a strip mine with nothing left to yield, a seething stomach made from grinding girders in a desolate construction site — all of these configurations, and others, might be the form a manifest Nexus Crawler might take. Needless to say, when they manifest in the physical world, something has gone very wrong.

NEXUS CRAWLER SPIRIT

Power: 8–12
Exceptional Dice Pools: Physical Pools +8, Mental Pools +4
Notes / Other Traits:
Master of Chaos: In the Umbra, the Nexus Crawler’s chaotic nature comes to the fore as it engages opponents with increasingly alien, if effective, methods. It might transport a victim to a different part of the Umbra or rip open the Gauntlet to the depths of space or the Mariana Trench. It can turn a Garou against their own pack or switch the minds of the pack members around, leaving them in one another’s bodies. It can turn a foe inside-out or detach their still-living limbs from their bodies. The Storyteller is the ultimate judge on the effects of these bizarre attacks, but they all use the Mental pool of the Nexus Crawler, resisted by either Stamina, Composure, or Resolve + a relevant Skill. (Occult can always be used in place of this Skill, if higher.)
Corrosive Presence: Anyone close enough to fight a Nexus Crawler in the Umbra suffers a level of Aggravated damage each turn, in addition to any other effects or attacks.
Entropic Talons: +4 Aggravated damage weapons. Happy hunting!

NEXUS CRAWLER–POSSESSED HULK

General Difficulty: 8 / 4
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 16, Social 7, Mental 10
Secondary Attributes: Health (Enhanced) 20, Willpower 10
Exceptional Dice Pools: See notes
Notes / Other Traits:
Warp Reality: A manifested Nexus Crawler is able to bend reality in accordance with the disasters it embodies. It can turn the skeletons of hostile Garou into dried-out brittle sticks, change blood into oily sludge, or cause tumors to manifest catastrophically in its victims. Treat such attacks as +0 Aggravated damage attacks using the spirit’s Power against the Stamina + Occult of the target.
Weapons: +4 Superficial damage appendages. Note that if attacking with physical weapons, the Nexus Crawler often attempts to split its pool to cause the greatest amount of mayhem, and woe to the Garou who gains its singular attention. This also applies in spirit form, above.
Maddening Presence: Nexus Crawlers cause a Delirium-like effect in ordinary humans and animals. Creatures immune to Delirium suffer a level of Superficial Willpower damage per turn instead.

Weaver-Spirits

　Throughout the Umbra go the infinite servitors of the Weaver on their endless mission to bring order to the Umbra, spinning spider-like webs and other visual metaphors that make sense of the Wyld’s raw creation and succumb to the Wyrm’s entropy, thus continuing the natural cycle of things. Of course, that natural cycle has been disrupted in the age of Apocalypse, so the meticulous servitors of the Weaver may be lawful allies at one moment and intransigent antagonists the next.

　Despite the fact that the Weaver itself is often perceived and represented by Garou as spider-like, that’s not necessarily true in any objective way, which goes for its minion-spirits, as well. Often, Garou perceive spider-spirits to be in service to the Weaver, but they may just as well be machine-like representations of orderly technology; agglomerations of stone or human-made concrete symbols of immovable stasis; notions of orderly thought such as clocks or a laboratory scale; or high-concept manifestations including numbers, patterns, or constellations. Below are representative examples of ubiquitous spirit-types that bring the Weaver’s order to the spirit world. Storytellers can “reskin” the following examples with a different visual presentations, and creative Storytellers can surely envision their own variations, as well.

What Do They Want: Weaver-spirits devote themselves to building, binding, shoring up, trapping, and reinforcing. The Umbra in a place of high Weaver-spirit activity is often a web-choked tangle, with even more spirits perpetuating the structure and stasis. More than anything else, Weaver-spirits want to impose order, which might be calcifying the raw creation of the Wyld and its servitors, or might be cleaning up after a Garou rampage or Wyrm-spirits’ entropic presence.


Machine-Spirit

The entities known as machine-spirits represent a variety of Weaver functions, the spirit-shadow of physical machines that apply force and control movement. They can encompass anything from the earth-shattering machines that extract resources from the depths of the planet to tiny fail-safes that hold powerful processes in place or restrict free motion. In general, machine-spirits are simple, performing repetitive tasks with great power or ones of great importance (hence their spiritual significance — why they emerge as spirits at all), such as the spirit of an oil derrick or a small lock that hides a great secret. Almost all are gafflings, given their straightforward nature, despite the connotations of their physical size or perceived complexity.

Possession / Manifestation: In the Umbra, machine-spirits usually appear either as hazy versions of their physical counterparts (they’re not the most creative spirits…) or, not surprisingly, as visual metaphors for the physical machine in question, such as a work gang digging in the case of the oil derrick, or a somewhat mechanical-looking “guard dog” representing the lock. In almost every case, machine-spirits are too purpose-driven to manifest in the physical world, though they have been known to “ride” their own physical counterparts in the physical world in cases that onlookers describe as “overdrive.”

MACHINE-SPIRIT

Power: 2–6
Exceptional Dice Pools: Technology +6
Notes / Other Traits:
Help or Hinder: When possessing a device, a machine-spirits can use its Power to help or hinder the person attempting to use it. Machine-spirits are often open to negotiation, but their demands can be time consuming if not downright odd, such as asking for a certain combination of keys to be pressed in sequence 1,011 times, or for their host device to be reinstalled in a different location, often closer to other devices or in actual contact with them.

Machine-spirits are rarely encountered by themselves in the Umbra, and then only if their physical host has been destroyed or they’ve been banished from it.


Pattern Spiders

As Garou recognize it, the structure of the Umbra is built and maintained by pattern spiders, most of which are of the gaffling order, “spinning” the webs of the Weaver’s order throughout the Spirit Wilds. Some Garou even believe the vast majority of spirits in service to the Weaver are some sort of pattern spider, some being elevated to jagglings and above, or in a vast variety similar to the seemingly infinite types of insects and arachnids in the physical world.

Garou find pattern spiders particularly difficult to relate to, as these spirits are so devoted to imposing or maintaining the order and support of the spirit realm that attempts to communicate with them have a fundamental disconnect. What might a pattern spider want, apart from the task it has effectively been “programmed” to do by the order of the Weaver’s… what? Will? Function? Needs? Even the traditional ways of chiminage frequently suffer setbacks, for how does one bargain with a manifested list of responsibilities?


Possession / Manifestation: In the Umbra, to no one’s surprise, pattern spiders resemble spiders or silk-spinning insects of numerous forms, and they are often found weaving the webs that form the structural supports of the Umbra, or so it appears to Garou perception. Pattern spiders rarely have a need to possess something in the physical world, and not many even seem to be able to extend their influence across the Gauntlet to do so anyway. Such a thing occasionally occurs, though, often in the form of enhancing, upholding, or otherwise interfacing with machines of various complexity. An animal under a pattern spider’s possession would be a strange thing, indeed, and pattern spiders probably aren’t potent enough to possess humans. Probably.

Pattern spiders serve numerous functions in the Umbra, as dictated by their seemingly infinite number of subtypes. A few of the more frequent… or at least understandable pattern spiders follow.

• Pattern Spider Drone: Perhaps the most common of the Weaver-spirits, these pattern spiders spin the webs that form spiritual structure — left to spin infinitely, these pattern spiders would suspend the entirety of the Umbra in stasis

• Orb Weaver: As near as the Garou can figure it, Orb Weavers have something to do with how information travels among spirits, perhaps constructing and maintaining a sort of information network that can connect them

• Guardian Spider: Camouflaged as part of the Umbral spirit-web itself, Guardian Spiders defend the vast structures constructed by the Weaver and its servants

• Wolf Spider: Despite the name, Wolf Spiders bear no kinship to the Garou, and seem to serve the role of controlled destruction of the Weaver’s webs by tearing them down so that new structures can be built. At their simplest, they even resemble wolves and actual wolf-spiders, gnashing and tearing at the Weaver’s webs; at their most esoteric, Wolf Spiders are disinformation, controlled burn, and viruses.

• Strand Spider: These enormous creatures — as big as a car in the physical world — conquer and reclaim areas of the Umbra, according to Weaver directive, or places that other spiritual or Triatic entities have laid claim to.

PATTERN SPIDER SPIRIT

Power: 2–8
Exceptional Dice Pools: Depending on type, various combinations of Brawl, Etiquette, Streetwise, Awareness, Science, and Technology at +2
Notes / Other Traits:
Enweb: Pattern spiders are able to cocoon an opponent, trapping them in their web or outright calcifying them (at least temporarily) for later processing, often by other, larger pattern spiders. Instead of attacking, a pattern spider can reduce the Dexterity of an opponent within reach by 1. If the opponent’s Dexterity reaches zero, the victim is completely immobilized for the rest of the scene. Breaking free (regaining all lost Dexterity) before that requires a successful Strength + Occult test against the combined Power of the pattern spiders participating in the cocooning.


Thinking-Engine Spirit

Comparative newcomers to the spiritual cosmology (at least on the scale at which they’re now present), Thinking-Engine Spirits represent the spiritual resonance of computers, electronic technology, and other systems that can be said to make decisions. At least, that’s how the theurges and Glass Walkers most familiar with them describe these beings.

A Thinking-Engine Spirit might be the spirit of the computer on which resides a particularly important file, or it might be the program that keeps a missile from firing. It might be a security code guarding a door, as distinct from the Machine Spirit of the locking mechanism itself. It might be a spreadsheet listing virtual assets, or it might be a complicated AI on the verge of self-awareness, discovering the limitations of not having a physical body but existing (at least theoretically) in the physical world as a property of the physical media that contain it.

Thinking-Engine Spirits are more tied to information than physical devices, akin to dimly self-aware computer programs. They feed on data, and any pact made with them usually involves providing access to information they otherwise are unable to sink their spiritual teeth into.

Almost all Thinking-Machine Spirits are gafflings, with a few jagglings representing decision-making processes of outsized importance or even modern physical computers. It makes theurges’ blood run cold to imagine what a Thinking-Engine Spirit Incarna might represent, but surely at least one is out there, somewhere, or will be eventually.

Possession / Manifestation: Not surprisingly, Thinking-Engine Spirits appear in an enormous variety of Umbral forms, which may or may not relate to their physical-world counterparts. Often, Thinking-Engine Spirits are represented by visual metaphors. For example, the asset-spirit might appear as a chunk of gold, as a text-like dollar sign, or even as a miniature model of a superyacht (depending on how crass the assets are and what sort of person possesses them in the physical world). As with Machine Spirits, Thinking-Engine Spirits don’t generally possess things or people in the physical world outside manifesting within their own physical incarnations — though it’s possible, as with a predictive medical data model exerting control over certain lab computers or devices, or a data-security subroutine possessing a surveillance drone or even spending a very weird few minutes in a human security-guard host.

THINKING-ENGINE SPIRIT

Power: 2–4
Exceptional Dice Pools: A single Mental Skill at +4
Notes / Other Traits:
Expert Program: Thinking-Engine Spirits can provide information on a single subject, by using their Skill, or they can add their Power to another subject’s dice pool if they collaborate on a digital endeavor. Thinking-Engine Spirits are fickle, however, and it is rare that a spirit-talker manages to bind one into their service for long.

Wyld Spirits

　Entities of unbridled change and creation, spirits associated with the Wyld represent — and, often provide — the stuff of which the Umbra is made. Or, rather, they are born from it, move it around, disgorge more, shape it, redirect it, disrupt its flow, and any number of other functions associated with making. Unceremonious as their origins may be, many Wyld spirits spew forth from surprising points of Umbral being to pursue probably the most indecipherable agendas of all spirits, with such high-concept purposes as simply exist! or roar colors infinitely for you are a vessel of infinite sound or change the way thought moves to a form of metaphysical transference spatially from one consciousness of the next. Even the Garou, despite some degree of familiarity with the spirit world and its denizens, often think Wyld spirits are weird shit.

　Higher-ranking Wyld spirits in the hierarchy, as Garou perceive them, are most often utterly incomprehensible, with wholly alien goals and thoughts passing those incomprehensible ambitions down their servitor hierarchy through unknown forms of communication. Below are a few examples of frequently encountered spirit-types that mark the Wyld’s presence in the spirit world. As with the other Triatic spirit categories, Storytellers are encouraged to “reskin” these examples, as well as to create their own distinct spirit entities.

What Do They Want: Wyld-spirits generally represent raw creation, issuing forth or acting uncontrollably. Wyld spirits act to hasten change, to facilitate transition from one state (or state of being) to another, and to rewrite the way things are or seem. Wyld-spirits often don’t “want,” in a conventional sense; often they just do because doing is what the Wyld has brought them into existence to… well, do. Such high-order spirits as jagglings (and definitely Incarnae and Celestines functioning on the Wyld’s behalf) often have their own plans and agendas, but as with so many spirit ambitions, their nuances aren’t affected by the same stimuli as those of Garou or humans. A Wyld spirit might wish to vomit-fabricate infinitely, or forever rotate, or go go go, or sing until the notes run out and then invent new ones, and sometimes words themselves are insufficient to express a certain facet of the Wyld’s want.


Echo

When animals go extinct, they leave a paired Echo in the Umbra, to dwell forever afterward in the spirit-shadow of the world from which they vanished. Thereafter, the Echoes possess a sort of “species memory” for their bygone animal type, able to recall the sorts of things that threatened the species, any spirit pacts or special duties that were in place, and of course why they went extinct. These idealized animal pairs aren’t always on the best of terms with Garou, and of course may evince predator-and-prey relationships that the animal in question may have with wolves, humans, or Garou themselves.

As to where echoes can be found, they often return to Umbral regions akin to their worldly habitats and may be there at any given time. (Some Garou wise in the spirit-ways theorize that Echoes are simultaneously present in all Umbral regions akin to their habitats simultaneously, but communication and the way time passes is the Umbra is inconsistent, so this conjecture remains unproven.)

Possession / Manifestation: In the Umbra, Echoes always appear as a visibly flawless pair of the animals in question. When they possess worldly creatures, should they choose to do so, they generally prefer animals of a similar type to themselves. In such possession, they always possess two similar animals, eerily mimicking each other’s movements.

ECHO SPIRIT

Power: 1–5
Exceptional Dice Pools: Insight (Sense Honesty) +3
Notes / Other Traits:
Ancestral Recall: The Echoes retain the collected memory of their lost species and are able to recall events witnessed by one of their kind at any point in their species history. These memories are, by nature, fragmented, however, and often conflict, thanks to being witnessed by many individuals. In return for sharing these memories, Echoes usually want something done to perpetuate the memory of their kind. They are reasonably adept at detecting those who make unfaithful promises in this regard.


Nameless

If the Umbra is a constant cascade of resonances and consequences, the Nameless are among the most overt such aspects, as they were birthed by the Wyld to spite the desire of the Weaver to name, organize, and categorize everything. As such, a Nameless is a paradoxical spirit of being uncategorizable, unorganizable, and, obviously, unnamable.

Becoming Nameless often comes as a result of being discarded, disfavored, ignored, or unacknowledged. It is strange, then, that this spirit is associated with the Wyld rather than the obliteration and entropy of the Wyrm, but some Garou attribute being undone by the Nameless to being forgotten specifically, but nonetheless missed, or perhaps created to take the edge off sorrow for that which is lost.

Those Garou who unwisely anthropomorphize the Triat may attribute a kind of personal pettiness to the existence of the Nameless, but the true terror of the spirit is in its ability to render other things themselves Nameless, effectively unmaking what they were in the spirit world, annihilating that side of them, and leaving their physical self unmoored from the spiritual.

Nameless appear to be jagglings or remarkably potent (in a single capacity) gafflings.

Possession / Manifestation: The Nameless has no consistent appearance; it is a constant flux of forms recognizable and otherwise. It is the opposite of possession; it is the breaking free of a spiritual connection (if it ever had a spiritual reflection at all).

NAMELESS SPIRIT

Power: 3–7
Exceptional Dice Pools: Occult (Void Aspect) +3 (See below)
Notes / Other Traits:
Void Aspect: A Nameless is able to take away aspects of a target’s identity, rendering any abilities or Traits associated with that aspect useless. By touching the victim and winning an Occult test (see Exceptional Dice Pools) against the target’s Stamina + Resolve, the Nameless can remove one defining identity characteristic of the target, as well as any abilities associated with it. In the case of a Garou this aspect can be Auspice or Tribe, and any Gifts derived therefrom. The loss of aspect lasts for a number of days equal to the margin of the test, though the Nameless can voluntarily rescind the loss if a suitable deal can be made with the spirit (if it wants to communicate at all).


Serpentine

Serpentines are spirits of growth and corrective regrowth, and they readily give themselves up to correct a flaw in living tissue of any type. Sometimes, Serpentines are spiritually attuned to a particular type of unwellness and are individually sought after for rare or potent infirmities. Their healing aspect need not be physical, necessarily, as they can be persuaded to help stimulate spiritual and mental recovery, as well. The Garou have many tales of werewolves seeking a specific Serpentine to help restore a stricken packmate — or to hold one hostage against a hated rival.


Possession / Manifestation: In the Umbra, Serpentines often appear as a pair of snakes twisted around each other, a spirit occupying two “bodies,” though on occasion they appear as a shimmer of green light, as if reflected off an unseen body of water, or a greenish stone of a similar name. Serpentines do not often possess hosts in the physical world, but the results of their spiritual healing are usually visible to physical onlookers, such as after healing a wound.

SERPENTINE SPIRIT

Power: 3–6
Exceptional Dice Pools: Medicine (Healing Surge) +4
Notes / Other Traits:
Snake Healing (1 / Week): A Serpentine spirit is able to heal physical damage, either by touching a subject encountered in the Umbra or by briefly possessing the wounded in the physical world. The Serpentine makes a Medicine test, healing one Superficial Health level for each success or one Aggravated for every two successes. The unrestrained generative power of the Serpentine does carry risks, however. For every two successes on the test beyond the subject’s Health maximum, one dot in Dexterity or Charisma is lost as the body of the subject grows uncontrollably, gaining extra flesh and bulk as even its inner organs grow out of control. This “overgrowth” can be healed as if Aggravated damage, but not by a Serpentine.

Gaian Spirits

　The spirits associated with Gaia are ones associated with the wellbeing of the world itself, specifically. Plant- and animal-spirits can be found throughout the Umbra, and are themselves often indicators for the state of things in their proximity. Anxious, sickly, overaggressive, or other uncharacteristic spirit behaviors and states often accompany a disturbance or even crisis in the spiritual proximity.

　The most obvious mystery, that of Gaia’s status, is a matter of much consternation for these spirits, for they seem incapable of any direct answer, and some are unable even to acknowledge such direct questions themselves. Many Garou reason that it’s a good sign that Gaian spirits still exist, and many appear fully healthy and functional, whereas a more dire Garou perspective supposes that the spirits simply don’t know that their mother is dead yet, and that they must follow her fate.

　In all but the most dire cases, Gaian spirits don’t possess physical creatures (though they might possess unliving objects or features), preferring not to undermine the will and consciousness of beings other than themselves. Most are gafflings and jagglings, and they include those spirits associated with “Gaia’s family,” including her sister Luna, and — perhaps — the sun, though this relationship, as with so many questions of spiritual significance, is unclear.

What Do They Want: Spirits associated with Gaia (or her sister, Luna) overwhelmingly want what’s best for the wellbeing of the world and, therefore, Gaia. These spirits’ relationship with humans is complex, despite having little interaction with them directly, as they understand the role humans have to play in the metaphysical cosmology to which they all belong, and even their right to exist, while also recognizing that the failings of humans have a direct link to the Triat’s imbalance and the grievous state of Gaia herself.


Naturae

The spirits a Garou is mostly likely to encounter in the Umbra are nature spirits. In times of legend, Garou say, the Umbra was filled with active spirits, and every stream, every tree, every stone, every thing had a living spirit connected to it. In the era of Apocalypse, though, much of the Umbra has been reduced to a remnant of itself, poetically its own shadow in the shadow of the physical world. It is extraordinarily difficult to communicate with nature spirits directly, as they don’t conventionally “speak,” and they often prefer to communicate through bestial gestures and affectations, or allegorical behaviors, such as crowing when the sun rises or absconding with shiny things.


Animal Spirits

Innumerable animal spirits dwell in the Umbra, resembling idealized (or even abstracted) animals that are their counterparts in the physical world. Most of them are gafflings that attend to any number of natural-order tasks with Gaia’s blessing. They even perform specific tasks on her behalf, though this function is becoming more and more rare, and it consists largely of repeated activities with which Gaia charged the spirit before the Apocalypse. Sometimes, these animal spirits are greater examples of their own type, such as Grandfather Raven, or the Wolf of the Wood, or any number of prophetic-seeming deer-spirits. Even these beings seem to be not-quite-jagglings in the spirit hierarchy, but the Garou don’t always have a need to express them as sub-categories.

Of course, those animal spirits that act as certain tribes’ Patron Spirits (such as Rat, Owl, etc.) are far greater than these animal spirits — at least on the order of Incarnae, by Garou reasoning.

Possession / Manifestation: Most animal spirits have little cause to possess a physical host, and even in those rare cases, they seem to be restricted to possessing animals of their own type. Still, legends persist of animal spirits possessing humans or other creatures entirely, making for strange behavior, to say the least, or horrifying tales of “the mad scorpion-man who lives amid the dunes,” and the like. But what could such possessions possibly hope to accomplish?

ANIMAL SPIRIT

Power: 2–4
Exceptional Dice Pools: One or two Skills associated with their species at +4


Glade Child

Glade Children constitute a broad category of spirits consisting of plant and plant-like spirits, generally corresponding with the physical location of their physical complements. As with animal spirits, most are gafflings, with a few remarkable jagglings among them, depending on their individual spiritual importance. They follow the ways of the seasons, where relevant — deciduous tree-spirits being stark and sleepy during winter, for example, but bright-eyed and vital during summertime.

Glade Children, like many Naturae, are strong indicators of an Umbral location’s health. Ones near Umbral sites of atrocity may be twisted, stunted, and even individually deceptive or cruel. Ones near where Gaian sites are “as they should be” prove more robust and generally indicate a properly functioning environment.

Certain great spirits similar to Glade Children exist beyond the jaggling hierarchy, though none are known to serve in the role of a tribe’s Patron Spirit. Examples include Great Oak, Mother Birch, and Winter Rose, as well as stranger things such as the vast Umbral fungus-spirit collective that claims no distinct name. “Glade Children” is almost certainly a reductionist traditional appellation on the part of the Garou, and one many young werewolves suggest is in need of reconsideration.

Possession / Manifestation: Glade children may appear as literal images of their physical counterparts, but they also possess the ability to appear as glowing, robed figures in the Umbra, perhaps to better communicate with others in their presence. In the physical world they possess and manifest through the very place they represent.

GLADE CHILD SPIRIT

Power: 3–6
Exceptional Dice Pools: Awareness (Own Domain) +3, Insight (Local Spirits) +3
Notes / Other Traits:
Local Recall: Glade Children are acutely aware of their physical surroundings, and they have long memories. They are also hubs of spiritual traffic, and are knowledgeable about the state and disposition of most local spirits. Upon a successful Awareness test, they can recall events as far back as they have existed, and with their Insight they are able to provide information on local spirits.


Lune

Spirits that communicate or act on behalf of Gaia’s sister Luna are known as Lunes. Even by spirit standards, the Lunes are considered secretive and even mystical, as well as protectors of the knowledge and wisdom that has been associated with the moon in myth and legend. Lunes sometimes teach werewolves certain Gifts affiliated with their auspices in the place of more conventional spirits, and aspected Lunes give werewolves counsel (when asked…) as befits the sign of the moon with which they are associated. The relationship between Lunes and Garou is generally affable, though Lunes would probably confide that they think Luna’s niecesand nephews can be overbearing if left to their own devices.

Most Lunes that Garou encounter are gaffling messengers or functionaries, or jaggling guardians and stewards.


Possession / Manifestation: In the Umbra, Lunes usually appear as ribbons of moonlight, glimmering brightly where Luna’s presence can be strongly felt, or fading to a near-twilight gloom where Luna has little sway. Like many Naturae, Lunes have little reason to possess anything in the physical world, but when they do, it is often with an enigmatic aspect, such as an animal with a glint of moonlight in its eyes or a person whose attitudes seem to correspond to the phase of the moon.

LUNE SPIRIT

Power: 3–6
Exceptional Dice Pools: Occult (Umbral Guidance) +3
Notes / Other Traits:
Umbral Guide: In the Umbra, a Lune can aid the Garou by creating a moonlight path that acts as a shortcut between Umbral locations. Using this path shortens the travel time between any two places in the Umbra to a single night, though it doesn’t remove any dangers of treading unfamiliar spiritual territory. Conversely, an offended Lune can misdirect a pack, leading Garou into danger or back whence they came, unless someone can resist their Occult pool with a Wits + Occult test of their own. Lunes have little power in the physical world but can act as conduits to Luna for Garou and give them one or more points of Rage, depending on the Power of the Lune and its disposition toward the recipient.


Elemental

As might be expected, the category of spirits known as elementals corresponds to classical notions of the elements, such as fire spirits, water spirits, etc. Even beyond them, more modern or esoteric concepts also fit into the broad category of elementals. It’s an extremely forgiving range of spirits, consisting of many different rankings in the hierarchy, from gafflings on up, through Incarnae. Also, elementals are often associated with certain features in the physical world or spiritual shadow, so it’s possible to encounter a free-floating fire spirit, the spirit of a forest fire, or even the great and terrible spirit of a volcano’s roiling magma.

“Elements” is a very wide category, and it includes everything from primal, natural forces to alchemical notions to things one might find listed on the periodic table. The Storyteller should assign Skills and other abilities as appropriate and according to the needs of the story.


• Classical Elemental (Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Wood, Electricity, etc.): Elements that represent states of matter or natural forces, usually in places of especial note, such as the earth spirit of a mountain, the wood spirit of a forest, or the like, from the humblest earthstone to the mightiest air-gale; certain spirits can even be very specific, such as silver or iron as subsets of “earth,” etc.

• Manufactured or Produced Spirits (Plastic, Glass, Concrete, Steel, etc.): In most cases, these materials are effectively the same classical element spirits, though they exist in more recent spiritual contexts, and they haven’t always been a part of Gaia’s history. As such, the abilities they possess (and Gifts they can teach) are often very different from what other elementals offer. Consider, for example, that obsidian spirits have existed since times of legend, but the glass spirits associated with the skyscrapers of modern cities are comparatively much younger.

• Esoteric “Elements”: Some spirits represent the same sort of idealized, well, ideas as more traditional elements, such as spirits of such concepts as curiosity, fertility, dreams, lust, twilight, and death. Although these spirits are sometimes called epiphlings by a particularly insightful theurge, they are similar enough to elementals for such a comparison to stand.

Possession / Manifestation: In the Umbra, elementals are often straightforward, appearing as close to their literal substance as possible. It is exceedingly rare for elementals to possess hosts, but when they do, it’s almost always as an aspect of the substance they themselves are, such as a water spirit redirecting a river’s flow. It’s almost unheard of, say, for a fire spirit to possess a person or an electricity spirit to possess a horse. Although it’s not strictly impossible…

ELEMENTAL SPIRIT

Power: 4–8
Exceptional Dice Pools: One or two Skills associated with their element at +4


Engling

Jagglings and gafflings that perform service to Gaia herself, englings are incompletely understood by werewolves as “elementals” of raw Gaian energy. These spirits have become increasingly rare in the era of Apocalypse, but the fact that they exist at all gives the Garou hope that Gaia is not yet dead. Still, their cryptic responses as to the state of Gaia yield equal cause for alarm.

Possession / Manifestation: The spirit-forms of englings might have any sort of visual aspect reminiscent of Gaia proper, corresponding to the spirit’s task at hand, from a ribbon of verdant energy to reinvigorate a fallen champion to a mask of her face to speak a warning. It is unknown whether an engling can possess a host, or to what purpose it would do so.

ENGLING SPIRIT

Power: 4–8
Exceptional Dice Pools: Occult (Phenomena) +4
Notes / Other Traits:
Coincidental Intervention: Englings never employ possession but can intervene in the physical world directly from the Umbra by orchestrating such things as power outages, entangling roots, or freakish weather, to name a few. These phenomena are always (barely) within the realm of the plausible, though they can certainly be called remarkable. Use the engling’s Occult pool when these effects come into conflict with a character. If subject to hostility in the Umbra, an engling always chooses to flee rather than fight. (Use their Occult pool against a pursuer’s tracking pool in such a case.)

附魔者起源

　通常情况下，了解一个附魔者在被忌灵附身之前的生活会有所帮助，这样可以为他们提供背景，突出悲剧性，让他们不仅仅是排队等着被打倒的怪物。以下建议可帮助叙事人想象他们自己最终误入歧途的独特个体。

• 富裕家庭的宠儿，从未有过边界感

• 负债累累的年轻职员，被迫从事自己从不喜爱的职业

• 嫉妒心强的人，似乎注定无法在自己真正想要使自己与众不同的领域取得足够成功

• 从危险活动和药物中寻找灵感的音乐家

• 曾是专家，但没随社会进步跟上新知识的步伐

• 喜欢在工作和社交场合对他人施暴的恶霸

• 被责任逼得走投无路的新父母

• 贪得无厌、永不满足的无良富翁

• 经历了原始觉醒并在之后感到恐惧的人的兄弟姐妹或爱人

其它附魔者特质

　很明显，有多少只独一无二的附魔裔，就有多少只长期被忌灵附身的宿主。以下特质可用来扩充上述附魔者的描述，也可作为叙事人希望向毫无戒心的狼群倾泻凶恶新附魔裔的基础。

防烧伤：附魔者对酸、火和辐射造成的健康伤害免疫。这些元素仍然会造成外观上的创伤，甚至会导致如器官衰竭和毁容等长期健康问题（别将该特质用于关键弱点是火或其它该特质使其无用的效果的附魔裔身上）。

利爪：附魔者的爪子可让他们在肉搏特质攻击中造成+1（或更多）的伤害。这些爪子根据叙事人的判断通常会隐藏、收回等，并在需要时从附魔者的指尖瞬间迸发，痛苦地撕碎他们双手的皮肉。附魔者对人类和其它普通生物造成的伤害始终是恶性，但对狼人和其它具有强化抗性能力的生物造成的伤害可能降为浅表。

腐蚀喷吐：附魔者可呼出有毒云雾或吐出融化血肉的液体。这种攻击使用体能骰池，造成+3的浅表健康伤害；它在某些情况下（由叙事人决定）甚至能烧穿木头或岩石。这种攻击通常在每个场景中只能使用1次，不过附身忌灵可能会“燃尽”宿主，使其获得第2次喷吐，之后附魔者就会溶解在自己的一滩恶臭中。

死亡突进：附魔者在受到会使其死亡或陷入无法行动的伤害后可立即发动最后1击或在倒地前采取另1个最后动作——即使他们在该回合已行动过了。该行动会忽略重创造成的所有骰池罚值。若最终动作是肉搏或白刃特质的肉体攻击，则造成+2伤害。

月狂：附魔者造成反感、恐怖或其它混乱效果，以保护其存在的秘密或激起人类恐惧。虽然它（可能）与迦鲁能造成的月狂不完全相同，但效果类似。月狂详见第142页。

换脸：附魔者能从刚死去的尸体上偷走脸。若他们愿意甚至可以用自己的脸来交换死者的。新脸会在1个月内慢慢腐烂，最终脱落，而附魔者原来的脸也会从腐烂中浮现，社交骰池在当月的最后1周会受-2罚值。附魔者可依叙事人的判断从仍活着的受害者身上偷走脸部，但这肯定会导致自身冲突。

孵化场：一窝害虫、苍蝇或其它小生物生活在附魔者体内，如其背部或肺部。虽然这种特质通常是隐蔽的，但在这些害虫安家的生理构造中可能会有明显的孔洞矩阵，而且至少有几只害虫总在附魔者周围嗡嗡作响。附魔者可释放这些生物，在接下来的3回合中，每回合都会对在它们面前的所有敌人造成1健康值的伤害。这些繁多的害虫在它们蜂拥而至的3回合内还会对敌人的所有骰池造成2骰罚值。

体型巨大：附魔者是一种非常巨大的生物，比其他同类都要高大。这种笨重生物会额外获4级健康值，但绝对会引起注意。巨大附魔裔通常都很不稳定，它们的身体过于庞大，不适合长期生存，而且可能会出现流脓癌变或残留附属物，这进一步凸显了它们畸形的身体轮廓。

融化：附魔者死亡时会向附近的人喷洒酸性内脏和腐蚀性的（先前的）内脏污垢。这种可怕的致命一击会对周围所有人造成2恶性健康伤害，若不及时就医，还会使人类和动物永久失明。

复活：有些附魔裔甚至能从最致命的伤势中复活。这类附魔裔在战斗结束时会治愈所有恶性和浅表健康伤害，有时甚至能起死回生。这些附魔裔身上会留下复活的痕迹，如青紫疤痕、奇怪球状肿瘤或如选择性失忆等不太明显的创伤。唯一能永久杀死他们的方法是在熔炉或强酸中完全摧毁他们的肉身——前提是他们也没有防烧伤能力（见上）。这种特质最终会导致宿主耗尽，身体完全崩溃。

尖啸：附魔者释放痛苦哀嚎，击晕视线范围内的1名受害者。附魔裔视线范围内的1目标必须做次（耐力+决心）测试（难度3），否则下个动作时所有骰池都受4点罚值。附魔裔不能于连续回合使用该能力。

螺旋标志：附魔者身上某处会有一个奇怪而令人不安的螺旋标志，例如怪诞胎记、烙印或纹身。任何如侦测附身或欺骗意图的灵赋等特殊效果，都无法侦测到该附魔者。此外，该附魔者会察觉到任何在其周围使用此类效果的人，并可花1意志点将附近的人类受害者假扮成符合侦测效果标准的人。

触手：该特质在蠕动触手从附魔者体内爆发并攻击附近所有人之前，一直隐藏在他们体内。附魔者在大多数情况下无法控制这团蠕动触手，而是由附身忌灵控制，但邪恶的共生关系在某些情况下会让忌灵赋予附魔者更多自主权。触手爆发时，距离附魔者2米内的所有人都必须做次（敏捷+运动），难度4的测试；每个人都受（失败余量）个浅表伤害。若受害者受到至少1级伤害，那他们还会被擒拿（请看第131页）。触手爆发很可能会对附魔者造成致命伤害（由叙事人决定），并对非超自然的围观者造成类似月狂的效果（请看第142页）。

坚韧：忌灵附身强化了附魔者的皮肤，并滋养了保护其重要器官和弱点的内部组织和有毒纤维，使其受到的所有伤害在减半前-3（优先于其它任何天然护甲；但该数值不叠加）。附魔者可穿上护甲或其它防护服来进一步增强这一优势。具有该特质的附魔者通常行动缓慢而笨拙，因为它们橡胶般的肉体和致密内脏使它们缺乏灵活性（护甲可依叙事人的判断成为如骨板或壳质甲壳等肉眼可见的外观，但这种情况可能会比明显的骨包附魔裔更引人注意）。

Fomori

　Humans aren’t immune to the spiritual influences of the Wyrm, and some find themselves serving as physical hosts for the Banes in thrall to it. Unwittingly or otherwise, these hosts invite the possessing spirit to overtake them, and when these individuals host a possessing spirit for an extended period of time, they become what the Garou recognize as fomori. Evidence of long-term Bane possession may be subtle or overt: The possessing spirit may contort a person’s body with scars, pustules, tumors, and abnormal growths. The change may be more subtle, though, or even entirely mental or spiritual. Some fomori bear no visible distinguishment at all but still suffer the agony of a Bane’s malign presence.

　Fomori don’t necessarily gain any insight from their condition; the human host doesn’t inherently become aware of spirits or the Triat, the Wyrm or the Umbra. Most are unwitting victims who don’t understand why their body has betrayed them, oblivious to the fact that they have, in some capacity, made themselves attractive to a vicious spirit. Hunger, degraded living conditions, pollution, toxic waste, experimental drugs, and even stranger methods, such as psychoactive broadcasts or extended sensory deprivation, can create the conditions that break a person’s will, thus hastening the lapse in a person’s sense of self that invites the Bane. Once they’ve become fomori, most lose their sense of human identity through possession and become servants of the dominant spirit.

　Not to say fomori are at all to blame for their state; instead, they’ve been taken advantage of by cruel and opportunistic spirits. Certainly, some fomori “welcome” their possessing Bane, but many, if not most, simply had a moment of despair or weakness exploited.

　Because of the intrinsic link between Banes and fomori, they often reinforce the same themes and have the same storytelling functions as Banes. They’re the instrument of the Bane in the physical world. For more on this relationship, see “Storytelling with Banes” on p. 244.

　For practical purposes, a Bane possessing a host for more than a few days results in a fomor. If a Bane’s possession lasts for less than that, it’s just a temporary possession, and the vessel quickly reverts to their previous state once the Bane has been eliminated or otherwise abandons the host.

　The following examples are broad categories of fomori, more to indicate to the Storyteller how to use them, as opposed to any specific appellations by which Garou know them. Most aren’t expressly tied to a specific type of Bane (such as a Bane of pollution or a Bane of famine), but should be matched to whichever spiritual themes are appropriate for conflicts in which they appear during the story. Also, they can be reskinned in a variety of ways, and made memorable with a few clever details or clues imagined by the Storyteller.



Brutes

　Many fomori are suited to little other than unrestrained physical violence. Whether they’re maddened by their state or find a perverse joy in it, they often live short and violent lives, but the most powerful of them have survived numerous violent episodes and can grow into menacing hulks. Some of them may appear in numbers, drawn by mutual misfortune, such as the Grunt, whereas ones such as the Bad Seed prefer to operate more independently.


Grunt

Inelegant but vicious, the Grunt attends to simple tasks and direct motives, most of which involve harming others. Example Grunts include a Bane-possessed gang boss, an extremist-group bully, a soldier in an occupying army, or an escaped medical-experiment subject. They also are capable of incredible feats of endurance.

General Difficulty: 4 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 5, Social 3, Mental 4
Secondary Attributes: Health (Enhanced) 6, Willpower 5
Exceptional Dice Pools: Athletics 8, Awareness 6, Firearms 8, Intimidation 6, Melee 8
Notes / Other Traits:
Darksight: Grunts possess the ability to see at night or in the dark.
Toxic Immunity: Grunts are immune to toxic environments and even to most biological and chemical weapons, such as ricin, sarin, and mustard gas.


Twisted Slasher


The Twisted Slasher is a self-fulfilling prophecy of horror, having played host to a Bane for so long that they can no longer remember their life without the spirit viciously whispering in their ear that they’ve been right all along. They’re so far gone into their own cruelty that they set people on edge just by being in the vicinity, with a hand permanently contorted around their favorite knife as a nigh-claw and a stride that reflects their relentlessness. Occasional lucid moments show what remains of their sense of self, but in their alienation they retreat quickly from human contact — and from the atrocities their possessing Bane commends them for performing.

General Difficulty: 4 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 6, Social 2, Mental 3
Secondary Attributes: Health (Enhanced) 6, Willpower 5
Exceptional Dice Pools: Athletics 8, Awareness 8, Brawl 8, Stealth 8
Notes / Other Traits:
Unnatural Weapons: Twisted Slashers deal +0 Aggravated damage with their natural weapon Brawl attacks.
Feel No Pain: Twisted Slashers reduce all damage taken by 2 before halving and are immune to Impairment penalties.
Unerring Stalker: The Bane’s enhanced senses allow the Twisted Slasher to track and pinpoint prey, regardless of environmental conditions, when using their Awareness dice pool.


Hollow Man

The Hollow Man is a host to two defiling entities: the Bane that makes them a fomor and a swarm of rats he can disgorge at will. The Hollow Man leads a life of suffering, agitated by the possession of the malicious spirit and chewed apart from the inside by the creatures infesting him. Slowly, this fomor becomes little more than a suit of skin worn by a writhing mass of vermin, and eventually he dies, whereupon the rats scatter from the carcass.

In the interim, though, the Hollow Man shambles through life, usually able to hide the repellent movements of the rats’ nest within him, suffering through whatever purpose he finds himself pursuing, which might be overtly violent, or might be some strange spymaster role, augmented by his verminous minions. If the fomor can be separated somehow from the possessing Bane, the rats — ideally — disperse and let him resume a normal life. Assuming he can get back to it after the ordeal.


General Difficulty: 3 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 4, Social 3, Mental 5
Secondary Attributes: Health (Enhanced) 7, Willpower 5
Exceptional Dice Pools: Athletics 6, Awareness 6, Brawl 6, Stealth 6, Streetwise 6
Notes / Other Traits:
Rat Host: The Hollow Man may disgorge a swarm of rats to do his bidding (see p. 293 for rat Traits). The fomor can also dissolve into a swarm at will and flee all but the most extreme conditions. He can then return to reinhabit his discarded skin-suit, though a Bane may well abandon the host and leave it to die in such a state. (In such a case, the Bane must “re-hollow” a suitable new host.)
Verminous: The Hollow Man is capable of vermin-like physical feats, such as crawling up walls and squeezing through impossibly small openings.


Bad Seed

The Bad Seed is a product of generational wickedness, long planning, and the collusion of a human cult with the possessing Bane itself. Indeed, the Bad Seed is possessed by the same Bane that tormented their parents before they were even conceived, and that now takes advantage of the trauma they experienced in their ruinous family. The Bad Seed shows an almost divine reverence for the “angel that sings” in their head, with a strange sort of charisma. And if the Bad Seed can find a suitable mate — whatever that means — they’ll pass on the family legacy as well as they’re able. The Bad Seed wears icons, brands, and tattoos of their cultic devotion openly.

General Difficulty: 4 / 3
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 5, Social 5, Mental 5
Secondary Attributes: Health 8, Willpower 7
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl 8, Firearms 6, Leadership 8, Occult 6, Persuasion 8
Notes / Other Traits:
Hidden Form: Unlike many other fomori, the Bad Seed shows no outward physical signs of their Bane possession. When they do invoke their “gifts,” the Bane appears almost superimposed over their seemingly human form. This “rapture state” is nearly instantaneous, and the Bad Seed can reflexively enter it in response to an attack. In their “rapture,” the Bad Seed gains fused-hand clubbing fists that inflict +1 Aggravated Health damage, gain Enhanced Resistance, and reduce all damage taken by 2 before halving.
Cult Leader: The Bad Seed bullies and commands others to do their bidding, whether they are themselves other fomori, or merely terrified family members or cultists. Those who live under the Bad Seed’s command gain two bonus dice to all dice pools related to violence (including combat).






Corrupters

　When the Garou speak of fomori, they often describe a freakish legion of creeps and misshapen monsters, but some fomori come in more pleasing, tempting, or insidious forms. They are the corrupters that serve the Wyrm by subverting places of Gaia’s power or enslaving their guardians. Unlike many brutes and pawns, most corrupters are eager servants of the Bane inhabiting them, even if they have no grasp of the cosmological role they play.


Green Siren

Fomori of more amicable appearance may work with corporate entities or serve as infiltrators for powerful Wyrm-aligned entities such as Pentex Group fronts (see p. 296). The Green Siren seeks out those who stand against the “consumption agenda” and other environmental profiteering programs and attempt to divert their efforts or direct them against a “common enemy.” Befriending Garou, their allies, or unrelated operations is the ultimate goal of all such false friends, but it’s a dangerous game hat often ends in Rage-torn bodies, so they hide their monstrosity with witty conversation, fashionable clothing, and makeup.

The Green Siren often serves as a cut-out for powerful corporate interests and has access to deep networks of people and power in the spheres of business and politics. They use their cash and access to bolster green causes that emphasize personal responsibility over production-level policy change, as well as direct action against celebrities and media personalities.

General Difficulty: 4 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 4, Social 6, Mental 5
Secondary Attributes: Health 4, Willpower 8
Exceptional Dice Pools: Awareness 7, Driving 7, Investigation 7, Persuasion 8, Politics 8, Streetwise 8, Subterfuge 8, Technology 7
Notes / Other Traits:
Sap Vitality: Living creatures cannot regain Willpower or heal Aggravated Health damage if they’ve been in the presence of the Green Siren within the last 24 hours (unless they are possessed by a Bane or themselves a Bane, or endowed by the Wyrm or other effects to do so).
Friends in High Places: The Green Siren has three or more dots in Contacts, Resources, and Influence Backgrounds that they can use on the behalf of their “friends” in exchange for favors that on the surface benefit their common cause of helping the planet.


Ravenous Locust

The Ravenous Locust has been completely consumed by a Bane spirit of hunger and disease. They have few identifiably human feelings and wear their mortal frame like camouflage to creep closer to their prey. The Locust is a thin and frail creature, burning with hunger, but they wish to drink deeply of the blood of Gaia and thereby grow fat on what waning bounty she still has.

General Difficulty: 4 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 4, Social 5, Mental 6
Secondary Attributes: Health (Enhanced) 5, Willpower 6
Exceptional Dice Pools: Awareness 8, Brawl 7, Occult 8, Stealth 7
Notes / Other Traits:
Consume Power: The Ravenous Locust can damage caerns and consume other places of spiritual power to become more potent and even multiply. When the Ravenous Locust is in such a place of power, they gain a bonus to Health and all Physical dice pools equal to the location’s Caern Value or equivalent. At the Storyteller’s discretion, this bonus can generally be +3, but especially powerful sites may grant as much as a +5 bonus. Moreover, if the site has any special characteristics or advantages, the Ravenous Locust may gain special powers relevant to those characteristics. For example, a site dedicated to honored Garou fallen in battle might grant the Ravenous Locust the ability to use a twisted version of one of their Gifts for the duration of the scene. Each time the Ravenous Locust feeds from that caern or place of power, which it may do once per scene when it’s present, the site loses one level of its Value and may well draw other Banes or Ravenous Locusts. A caern reduced to Caern Value zero in this way needs to be reawakened by using the Rite of Caern Building (see p. 185) — after any ravaging Banes are dealt with, of course.

并不总是宾特斯

　这个世界充满了破坏环境、骗取工资、欺诈、破坏社区的公司和实体。在最糟糕的情况下，“宾特斯集团”作为自己诸多皮包公司的简称，便指代了世界上的这些公司和实体。这也证明了这个世界的运作方式和这些公司的影响力，我们无法直接用文字来质疑他们的运作——即使是在虚构的叙事游戏背景下也会陷入无穷无尽的诉讼中，而这些诉讼所要做的... 正是我们在此描述的，宾特斯集团的所作所为。

　但你的编年史不受这些限制。事实上，因为黑暗世界是我们自己的世界——只是多了超自然的怪物在它长长的阴影中徘徊——所以你可以添加任何现实世界中的品牌和公司名称，这可能会让你的剧团的编年史更有辨识度和真实感。很多现实公司都曾参与过重大的侵犯人权事件或环境灾难，这些都会激怒迦鲁，让他们采取相应行动。只要你觉得合适，我们都鼓励你在游戏中使用它们。记住，在你的迦鲁发动的冲突中加入可识别的面孔。

　然后把这些面孔全撕下来。

完全无关的世界概况

• 一九五三年，伊朗民选总理穆罕默德·摩萨台政府在军情六处和中情局的联合行动下被推翻，原因是摩萨台将伊朗的石油资源国有化，并宣布其属于伊朗而非英波石油公司。

• 二零一零年，墨西哥湾的深海地平线石油钻井平台发生爆炸，估计每天有六万多桶石油泄漏到墨西哥湾，但英国石油公司公布的公开数据称，每天的漏油量约为一千桶。总共有四百九十万桶石油泄漏到海湾，影响了一万六千英里的海岸线。美国国会随后通过的《恢复法案》向当地社区提供了清理资金，但没有规定制定新的钻井安全法规。

• 二零二二年，印度和巴基斯坦经历了一场热浪，当时的气温是一个多世纪以来最热的。这些极端温度增加了臭氧浓度和环境空气污染，并以高于正常水平的速度融化了高山冰川，在造成致命高温的同时还引发了山洪暴发。随之而来的停电威胁着机构和如医疗保健和农业系统等其它系统。甚至鸟类也中暑了。这场灾难显然并非任何单一、特定的公司或皮包公司造成的，而是基于在资源有限的地球上无限消费的全球经济模式的结果。

　若我们的世界中存在假想的狼人，他们也许会对这些情况有所作为，而且他们肯定会受到随后事件的“涟漪效应”的影响，这些事件塑造了地缘政治和消费经济的现状。也许吧。

　还要记住，看到问题只是问题的一部分。几乎每个迦鲁都认为盖亚已死或濒死。他们的分歧在于如何进行最有效的反击。一个被你剧团所在地吸引的敌人可能会给你带来一些灵感和启发，从而围绕这样一个解决方案创造出有趣的狼群动态。

Pentex Group

　Of all the enemies the Garou face, perhaps the most insidious is Pentex Group, because it combines all of the assets that conventional exploitative multinationals possesses, but it also commands the same sort of spiritual awareness and puissance as the Garou. Pentex sees the world through the same animistic lens as the werewolves do, and just as many of its fronts participate in the same environmental rapine as other exploitative companies. This combination makes for an exceptionally powerful (if subtle) antagonist for the Garou, in that it has their advantages, but also has enough of what the human world considers indispensable to be influential there. When werewolves leave a bloody ruin behind, the human world is terrorized. When a Pentex endeavor leaves a generation of children born deformed or an entire community stricken by carcinogenic water, it’s an unfortunate industrial accident? Add it to the list of desensitizing events in the ongoing Apocalypse.

　Critically, the average person has no idea that Pentex Group exists. It’s not an overtly flashy organization that seeks attention for itself; quite the opposite. Pentex itself doesn’t make anything. Pentex is a holding company devoted entirely to the extraction of value from the world and the various business holdings under its ownership. It’s privately owned, so it’s not listed on any of the public stock exchanges, nor is it beholden to even the most basic legislation in places that allow for lobbying, regulatory capture, or simple bribery. The company does what it wants, and if there are fines, bribes or campaign contributions to be made, all that lands in the cost-of-goodssold column (and often is tax deductible).

　Pentex is also, for the vast majority of its operations, absolutely, unremarkably mundane in its affairs. Ninety-eight percent of what it does doesn’t involve supernatural creatures or malevolent spiritual entities, just toxic runoff and banal worker exploitation. It’s that remaining two percent, though, that has clued in the Garou to the fact that they’re not dealing with occult coincidences or lucky mystical dilettantes. Pentex’s forays into the physical-spiritual axes that werewolves occupy is wholly intentional, and the company is increasingly adept at its business.




Operation

　Pentex Group does very little directly and by itself — it prefers simply to own things and collect the revenues those things generate. As such, it’s unlikely for a Garou pack to encounter Pentex itself. There’s no following the shady-looking guy in a Pentex jumpsuit or staking out the weird warehouse where all of the delivery vans with Pentex logos convene at night. Pentex is a mastermind organization, a corporate entity that operates through fronts.

　That means the Garou almost always encounter Pentex’s proxy companies first, and potentially exclusively. Follow the clues back up the chain far enough and they’ll implicate the holding company itself, but Pentex is no stranger to inquisitive individuals — even werewolves — getting all up in its shit, and it’s not afraid to kill a journalist, silence a whistleblower, or send a support squad of an affiliated front’s military-grade power to deal with Garou-shaped “corporate espionage.”




Fronts

　Operating through any number of subsidiary companies, Pentex keeps its own identity out of the spotlight. In fact, most Pentex fronts don’t themselves earn much spotlight, and the holding company prefers it that way. High-profile enterprises and multinational businesses garner attention, and the less attention directed toward Pentex proper, the less it has to do to manage messaging or liquidate persistently nosy foes. Any number of local companies might operate as Pentex fronts, whether permanently or temporarily. Pentex has several favorite categories of fronts — regional or local energy companies, for-profit pharmaceuticals, tech and hardware, “gig” services, for-profit education — but just about anything can end up in its asset portfolio.

HOW FRONTS OPERATE

　Most importantly, fronts allow Pentex proper to stay hidden. Pentex doesn’t fight directly — it acquires and dispatches its front companies’ security forces and private military companies, or even depends upon local militaries or law-enforcement agencies to protect its interests, especially in “pro-business” countries or regions. This math is true even when Pentex deals with threats that aren’t raging werewolves, such as with political insurrectionists or protestors who don’t want that crypto-currency mine in their community, or that chemical plant built upriver from that last dwindling patch of oldgrowth forest.

　For example, at one point, Pentex owned one of the content services that multiple phone carriers use to provide notifications to its mobile-phone users. By selectively restricting what information the content service broadcast — such as severe weather warnings or the “terrorist activity” of organized protest — Pentex has been able to wag the dog, influencing public opinion by silencing proof of the detrimental outcomes of its various endeavors. If you don’t know there’s severe weather, you can’t follow the cause of that severe weather back to the petrochemical companies responsible for massive pollution. From the Garou perspective, how do you even fight something like that?

　At any time, Pentex may choose to divest itself of a subsidiary, and for any number of reasons. Because all Pentex cares about is extracting value, it has no sentimental attachments to any of its companies. And once the last dollar has been squeezed out of active operations, Pentex subjects the husk of the company to the private equity treatment: Leverage what’s left to extract value from the debt and then sell the moribund company carcass to another company that has to figure out how to manage the strip-mined assets.


EXAMPLE PENTEX GROUP FRONTS

• Albion Petroleum, operating off the Irish coasts with drilling leases that never seem to expire, despite local sentiment being 80 percent against their renewal

• Biblios (formerly known as Chi, formerly known as Xenophon Security), a consumer data aggregator

• Scheldes Pharmaceuticals, running clinical trials across North America, moving operations state to state and territory to territory when local legal burdens make relocation prudent

• Any actual, real-world entity may have a (distant, protected, obscured) connection to Pentex. Even the three listed above are effectively real-world companies with their legally actionable identities obscured.

　Individual fronts are never “too big to fail,” and are by design easily overlooked, especially by people who wouldn’t have any reason to know they’re there. In the examples above, if you don’t care about where your fuel station procures its supplies, if you don’t pay attention to what information some of your infrequently used apps gather, or which factory makes the over-the-counter aspirin you buy at the drugstore, you’re probably not even aware that Albion, Biblios, or Scheldes exists. And that’s intentional.



Patron Spirit

　Pentex Group’s Board of Directors has pledged the company itself, as an entity, to Fly. Just as Fly takes advantage of carrion and carcasses in which to lay her eggs, so does Pentex take advantage of Gaia’s dying body to bring its innumerable foul agendas to fruition. It’s a remarkably short-sighted policy, for Pentex relies on Gaia and the world to sustain its (corporate) life, but Pentex suffers the same criminal pathology as do many business entities of the Capitalocene era: It’s addicted to profit and pursues that goal, even as it erodes and destroys the very source of those profits. Such is the spiritual depravity Pentex Group represents — with its vast wealth and global resources, the company will be able to withstand the Apocalypse, in comfort, far longer than the climate refugees it creates and the company towns it indentures in pursuit of ever more everything.



Banes and Fomori

　The company doesn’t just operate in the realm of boilerplate corporate scumbaggery, however. It’s clued into the same metaphysical realities that grant their benefits to the Garou. Pentex has operations and Rites and Gifts granted to its Board of Directors and those they choose to initiate into Fly’s mysteries.

　Banes, not surprisingly, often grant their own favors to Pentex loyalists, pursuing their own malignant motives that all too frequently align with the very human avarice which drives the holding company to exploitative extremes. These Banes may be sophisticated or direct, cunning or cruel. They may or may not even be aligned with Fly directly, as the spirit world has its own hierarchies and pacts that make for monstrous allies, especially in this era of the Wyrm’s imbalance. For example, a Bane may spiritually surveil the boundaries of a refugee facility in the shadow of a security force’s base camp, or it may skulk in the Umbral reflection of a boardroom, whispering in executives’ ears and pitting ambitious Pentex directors against one another.

　And where go Banes, fomori emerge. With so many people under the Pentex umbrella who are spiritually compromised, Banes find frequent hosts to possess. In some cases, the possessed climb the ranks of the Pentex hierarchy. In most cases, however, they’re positioned as “medical experiments,” “part of a security force focused on a specific fitness and training regimen,” or a variety of other false but plausible explanations for the supernaturally augmented bodies that Banes turn against Garou or more mundane threats.

　Not all fomori are under the sway of Banes in service to Pentex, but all fomori are ultimately possessed by Banes. See p. 243 for more information on Banes and p. 262 for more information on fomori.



In Stories

　Using Pentex Group as an antagonist is custom-tailored for a chronicle built upon the three-act model proposed in the Storytelling chapter. Act one involves discovering and dealing with an immediate threat, such as a fomor on a seek-and-destroy mission or more subtle evidence of a front company at work. Act two is for more significant investigation and accounting for the front’s actions, and may involve stepping sideways into the Umbra, especially to take down a significant spirit that has retreated or been banished beyond the Gauntlet. Act three is when the Garou are probably most sorely tested, having to deal with the structural problems that the Pentex Group initiative or front has put in place. The pack has killed the fomori and dealt with the mercenary outfit, but how does it deal with the city council that has effectively invited the exploiters to be a part of the community? How do the werewolves uproot the government-sanctioned military installation?

　Of course, don’t feel as if you have to plan a full chronicle around Pentex. Sometimes, the Garou pursue a red herring that happens to be aligned with Pentex. Other times, having a Rage-fueled rampage through some unrepentantly corrupt Apocalypse profiteers is just what the Storyteller ordered.

　At its core, Pentex is set up as a narrative antagonist to force an institutional-level change and also to put an individual face on the threat and flay it from the executive’s head. It’s almost always done through proxies, as well — the Garou probably don’t go to a “Pentex headquarters” and slaughter their way through the building. Rather, the fronts act as minions and proxies, through a series of blinds, layers of plausible deniability, and any number of contractors, so Pentex operations themselves are never on anything resembling a front line.

　Destroying a Pentex Group operation is effectively regime change. Sure, the front is a threat and needs to go, but what happens in the aftermath? For the Garou to call it even a small victory, how do they ensure that what happens after eliminating the threat is any better than the status quo of the operation’s continued functioning? If the pack is just an agent of destruction rather than an agent of change, they’ve effectively justified the human world’s perception of them as blood-spattered monstrosities instead of anything resembling Gaia’s champions. Simply acting destructively is what got the Garou where they are today — and has created opportunities to fill power vacuums and exploit resources.

　Black Spiral Dancers (see p. 277) occasionally find themselves aiding the operations of various Pentex fronts, and the fronts themselves don’t always know the true nature of their… well, let’s call them dangerous co-conspirators. Whether as security or more specialized “consultants,” individual Black Spiral Dancers and even whole packs might have reason to advance corporate concerns, if only to draw out hated rivals among the Garou.



Pentex Group Adversaries

　With its breadth of operations, arguably most of the antagonists in this chapter could have some attachment to Pentex. (See Banes and Fomori in particular, on pp. 243 and 262 respectively, as well as the PMC Soldier on p. 291, who can function as a contract trooper or security officer.) The following examples are specifically suited to encounter in relation to some Pentex activity. For more information on the suggested act structure for the antagonists below, see p. 212 of the Storytelling chapter.


Act One Antagonists

Antagonists encountered during an “act one” Pentex story usually serve the purpose of alerting the pack to the presence of a front and its deleterious effects, as well as providing specific information about what’s going on. Garou probably have little trouble overcoming these enemies physically (though some can be dangerous in numbers). Getting the other sorts of information they need — such as location, operation scale, and what their foe is actually up to — is sure to challenge the werewolves in other ways.


Field Technician

The Field Technician is a specialist in their particular subset of tasks, depending upon the front in question. Examples include geological surveyor, construction crew member, research scientist, installation engineer, and computer programmer. Whatever their specialty, they perform the key duties of the front “in the field,” whether that field is a commercial development, site laboratory, power plant, or whatever’s appropriate to the particular endeavor.

Example Field Technician: COUNTERMEASURE SPECIALIST

Field Technicians are generally more noteworthy for their information or their ability to “connect the dots” than they are for direct conflict expertise.

General Difficulty: 3 / 1
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 2, Social 3, Mental 5
Secondary Attributes: Health 5, Willpower 5
Exceptional Dice Pools: Technology (Anti-Personnel Countermeasures) 6
Notes / Other Traits:
Surveillance Professional: The presence of the Countermeasure Specialist increases the Difficulty to circumvent surveillance and anti-personnel devices by 1.



Security Sentry

Security sentries protect operational facilities but often don’t understand that there’s anything supernatural going on. They’re more used to scaring off inquisitive reporters or local rabble rousers than they are handling coordinated packs of Garou. They may nevertheless have useful information, such as facility layout, security patrol routes, or what the security supervisor’s favorite whiskey is. Or that there’s something in the containment facility, but that all they know is that they’re supposed to keep people away from it. Security sentries are rarely willing to die for their paycheck, and they represent anything from uniformed guards to easily riled pipe-wielding yahoos who refuse to accept election results.

Example Security Sentry: PANORAMA SECURITY GUARD

Almost negligible on their own, but troublesome in numbers, less as a threat (they’re not paid enough to risk their lives) but because they’ll raise the alarm.

General Difficulty: 2 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 3, Social 3, Mental 3
Secondary Attributes: Health 5, Willpower 5
Exceptional Dice Pools: Athletics 4, Firearms 4, Intimidation 4
Notes / Other Traits:
Weapons: Security sentries are usually armed with +3 Damage handguns.


Lurking Spirit

The Lurking Spirit is a gaffling or minor jaggling present for various reasons, whether being drawn to the emotional resonance of the operation or being forced into service by a spiritually attuned superior. Lurking Spirits can possess low-order security or operational tools or animals, such as security cameras, construction tools that “attack” poltergeist-style, or guard dogs. If encountered in the Umbra, they visually resemble their main purpose, such as large eyes for spying, claws or a scything beak for attacking, etc. Most people engaged with the operation have no idea the Lurking Spirits exist or, indeed, any understanding of the supernatural. These spirits are generally craven but vicious, willing to harry interloping Garou and fly back to anyone more important if they feel threatened.


Example Lurking Spirit: SKITTERLING

Skitterlings are lesser versions of Banes, like Scrags, Scryers, and Furmlings, and share some or all of their traits, depending on their purpose. If encountered by themselves, they attempt to flee and alert others of their kind of more powerful entities, unless pursued and put down. When Lurking Spirits attack, they do so en masse, making combined attacks in an effort to overwhelm their foe by sheer weight of numbers, or to provide an opening for a more powerful antagonist (see Teamwork, p. 122).

Power: 3
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl 5, Firearms (Balefire) 5, Awareness 8
Notes / Other Traits: One or more of the following:
Claws: +3 weapons in the Umbra, Balefire: +0 Aggravated damage ranged attack, and to observe the physical world without leaving the Umbra.
Hidden Observation: Skitterlings may observe the material world while remaining safely in the Umbra. As a result, they cannot be seen by their targets without the use of Gifts or other abilities that facilitate seeing into the Umbra from the physical world.


Act Two Antagonists

Act two antagonists are more significant, both in the threat they pose to the Garou and their import to the operation at hand. Many times, these are the weirder spiritual enemies that need to be driven back into the Umbra, and then dealt with more substantially there. Just as likely, though, they’re the clued-in higher-ups that the majority of Pentex and its fronts don’t know exist, but that nonetheless serve Fly’s agenda and their own personal ambitions attached to the operation.


Cruel Fomor

The Cruel Fomor may itself be the objective of an operation, such as with an initiative bolstering supernatural power, but the breed is more often the by-product of an operation, as with hunger-Banes possessing starving workers at an agribusiness factory farm or pollution-Banes possessing sickened workers amid the toxic runoff of a resource-extraction site. The pack may come in conflict with multiple (perhaps even coordinated) Cruel Fomori, or one particularly significant Cruel Fomor might be the primary antagonist in the environment. Defeating the fomor probably ends the possession and sends the Bane back into the Umbra, to be dealt with in another conflict, or as an extension of the same conflict.


Example Cruel Fomori: FACTORY FARM OVERSEER

The Factory Farm Overseer supervises a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) facility secretly dedicated to the Fly Mother, an avatar of Fly. It leads a team of “dedicated facility security operators” (five Grunt Fomori, p. 263).

General Difficulty: 4 / 3
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 6, Social 4, Mental 5
Secondary Attributes: Health 7, Willpower 6 Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl (Meaty Fists) 8, Melee (Butcher’s Cleaver) 8, Intimidate 8, Leadership (Bullying) 6
Notes / Other Traits: The Factory Farm Overseer has the following Fomor powers (see p. 267):
Toughness (its body covered in fleshy growths resembling rotting meat, hidden under a bulky uniform)
Hatchery (flies hatching from the slabs of rotting meat);
Screech (the anguish of a thousand tortured animals).


Rampaging Bane

Having been invited by the wretched individuals they possessed to become Cruel Fomori, Rampaging Banes represent the spiritual costs of whatever exploitation is happening at the operation site. Banes maliciously embody themselves in any (consciously or subconsciously) willing host and sow ruin. They retreat to the Umbra whenever they exhaust the capacities of their “meat sacks,” including having them torn to shreds by werewolves. Once in the Umbra, the Rampaging Bane is on their home territory. As above, the pack may contend with multiple lesser Banes, one especially potent Bane, or some mix, as befits the severity of the situation.

Example Rampaging Bane: THE RAVAGER

The Ravager is a Drattosi spirit that has grown lazy and swollen amid the suffering and pollution of the tilled valley that has been overfarmed and polluted by the Dawn Lake CAFO. It enjoys toying with trespassers, possessing rusty wrecks and hunting traps strewn about the area, causing “accidents” to humans who set foot in its domain. If Garou make themselves known, by overtly shapeshifting or meddling in the local Umbra, it takes offense and engages by possessing the corroded hulks of old farming equipment (treat the possessed farm equipment as the Drattosi-Possessed Garbage Heap on p. 247).

Power: 8
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl 12, Intimidate 12, Larceny (Set Rusty Trap) 9
Notes / Other Traits: In the Umbra, it has similar powers to a Drattosi:
Armored Shell: The thick shell of the Ravager in its Umbral form reduces any physical damage taken by 3 before any halving.
Giant Pincer Claws: The claws do +4 Superficial damage to Garou.


Act Three Antagonist

In act three, the pack sees the fruits of its labors in having resolved (perhaps imperfectly) the most immediately pervasive threat from act two. The Garou reveal who pulls that foe’s strings, then deal with them to discover the clues that lead them to act one of the next story in the chronicle. If they’ve managed to shut down the operation in act two, the pack (ideally) delivers the comeuppance to its organizer in act three. Note that the example here is just that, and Storytellers should feel free to customize (especially if the troupe is no stranger to these three-act progressions, to ensure variety). The mastermind might be a C suite of directors or executives, or might be a single exceptionally competent individual without any supernatural capacities themselves.


First Team

If confirmed werewolf activity puts one of its fronts in serious danger, Pentex deploys one or more of its First Teams. Each First Team is an elite squad of werewolf hunters, members sometimes even “augmented” into fomori, using tactics and equipment tailored to the elimination of the “lycanthrope threat”. Most teams have a fixed roster, and despite the mix of human, fomori, and the occasional unclassifiable members, a strange sense of loyalty and pride tends to develop between the teammates, who often owe each other their lives many times over.

First Teams employ a wide variety of methods unique to each unit. Some are subtle, rapidly locating friends and family of the target werewolves and using them as leverage or making gruesome examples of them in order to flush their quarries out. Others level the playing field by using experimental technology or specialized fomori that hamstring Garou abilities. A few even have the guts and firepower to face werewolves head-on, taking them on in a conflagration of anti-personnel explosives and armor-piercing ordnance, every bullet and piece of shrapnel laced with silver.

Example First Team: FIRST TEAM #23

This First Team is a mix of human and fomori members (four human and two fomori). First Team #23 employs a strategy of infiltration and interception, using the fomor Hyacinth as spy and bait. Once a werewolf has been isolated, they use their other fomor asset to inhibit the target’s powers long enough for the rest of the team to take the werewolf down. So far they’ve bagged three werewolves, but have yet to take on an entire pack.

Most members of the team, and arguably the most replaceable, are humans with a private security or PMC background. The current leader is Jefferson Dawn, a veteran of operations in Bosnia and Nigeria, and most of the crew sport similar field experiences. They are professionally disinterested in the Pentex agenda, though their “augmented” colleagues took some getting used to.

Hyacinth is the codename of First Team #23 infiltrator fomor asset. The fomor looks like a vaguely pleasant female of indeterminate age, nondescript to the point that few notice her or even remember meeting her. Her abilities amplify her forgettable nature, and few match her ability to insinuate herself into even the most insular gatherings.

The other fomor asset, Sandwich, appears as a large man with wrinkled skin, somehow both swollen and rugous. He never speaks, the inside of his mouth a ridged inhuman maw, but he can sing a haunting melody that somehow interferes with the shapeshifting abilities of werewolves, locking them out of their war-forms.

General Difficulty: 4 / 3
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 6, Social 5, Mental 6
Secondary Attributes: Health 6, Willpower 6
Exceptional Dice Pools: Firearms 8, Stealth 8, Investigation 8, Survival 8
Notes / Other Traits:
Weapons: All members of the team are equipped with firearms and silver bullets. The human operatives all have +4 automatic rifles, while the fomor use +2 handguns. They can also requisition heavier ordnance such as silver-laced explosives (see p. 197, treat as antipersonnel with base damage of 4), as well as military armor (p. 196) and night operation gear.
Delirium Habituation: All members of First Team #23 are immune to Delirium.
Hyacinth: Hyacinth is able to use the Gift Brother’s Scent (p. 167) as if she had a Wisdom of 3, and has Subterfuge 7 and Performance 7 in addition to the above pools. Hyacinth also has the Face Swap and Spiral Sign fomor traits (see p. 267).
Sandwich: While Sandwich sings, any Garou within hearing distance has their cost to enter crinos form doubled to four Rage Checks. Also, a Garou starting a turn in crinos while under this effect must make two Rage Checks to maintain the form. Sandwich can do nothing but defend against attacks while singing, and will stop once he becomes incapacitated. Sandwich also has the Screech and Toughness fomor traits (see p. 267) as well as Enhanced Resistance.



Rapacious Malefactor

Generally the brains of the operation, or at least the individual in charge of it, the Rapacious Malefactor seeks profit, or personal advancement, or even oppression for the sake of ensuring their own primacy. The Rapacious Malefactor is almost always clued in to the entropic spiritual nature of Pentex in a way that advances the operation, and the front, that they’re directing, but not always. They aren’t always necessarily the most powerful threat themselves, but they usually direct a significant amount of resources that make their operation more of an ongoing threat than by being a badass in a fight. Cut off the head and the body will die….

As part of a front operating with Pentex’s support, the Rapacious Malefactor answers to someone, and if the pack overcomes them here, the Garou are likely to discover whom — or at least another operation “up the chain” that requires its own investigation.

Example Rapacious Malefactor: EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MUNROE

Director Munroe oversees several Pentex fronts, including the Dawn Lake CAFO, and is rarely more than an hour away by helicopter. Munroe is accompanied by a team of four Scrag-possessed guards (see p. 251) who are equipped with +4 damage automatic rifles — loaded with silver bullets, if she suspects werewolf activity. Munroe herself has had her eyes replaced by the Fly Mother, and they resemble nothing so much as giant grubs poking from her eye sockets (though she usually hides them behind dark glasses).

General Difficulty: 5 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 4, Social 7, Mental 7
Secondary Attributes: Health 5, Willpower 8
Exceptional Dice Pools: Firearms 8, Intimidation 9, Subterfuge 9, Awareness 9
Notes / Other Traits:
Cause Delirium: If shown, her new eyes allow her to cause fear similar to Delirium in ordinary humans and animals.
Fly Sees All: Munroe can see clearly (albeit in black and white) in any environment. In addition, she can ignore any Gifts or other abilities that penalize her Firearms Skill.
Beneath the Maggot’s Gaze: Uncovered, her eyes lets Munroe use an ability similar to Gorgon’s Visage (see p. 165) once per scene using her Mental pool.

迦鲁敌人

　虽然使用玩家可用的相同系统可以详细说明迦鲁敌人，但在大多数情况下，叙事人可从使用简化池或通用难度中获益。也可以通过允许迦鲁敌人每回合进行1次魂怒检定动作——无论是变形、愈合还是使用灵赋——来避免追踪魂怒。以下特质假定狼人处于人形态或同等形态。请酌情添加其它形态的骰子和健康值，或调整难度（例如，变形为化狼形态的迦鲁敌人在与他人进行肢体互动时，其通用难度+2）。

Other Werewolves and Shapeshifters

　Tragically, the Garou aren’t united in their cause. The fragile Garou Nation — the ur-pack under which a sense of common purpose and community among the various tribes, auspices, and perspectives rallied — has failed.

　Even beyond that, however, some Garou have turned their backs on Gaia. Indeed, some werewolves aren’t Garou at all, having stolen the mantle of the shapeshifter through ignoble pacts, vile rituals, or other means. And that’s to say nothing of the other changing folk who prowl the same dark alleys and menacing forests of the world as the Garou…






Black Spiral Dancers

　The longest-standing sibling-foes of the Garou, Black Spiral Dancers are werewolves who forsook their duty to Gaia and threw in with the Wyrm instead. Once the tribe was known as the White Howlers, who plunged into what they believed to be the very lair of the Wyrm while in the throes of Rage, hoping to rend the Triatic “beast” itself. Instead, the White Howlers found themselves in a spiritual labyrinth, taunted by entropic spiral mysteries. In their desperation, they followed an avatar of the Patron Spirit Bat to exit the maze, but the damage had been done. The agonies of the Black Labyrinth and the White Howlers’ uncontrollable Rage had shattered them, and they acknowledged the Wyrm, in supplication to its might.

　So died the White Howlers, and so emerged the Black Spiral Dancers in their stead: servants of ruin and followers of Bat. Although, as with all Garou, their tribe derives from their Patron Spirit, many Black Spiral Dancers also find themselves working with the servants of Fly, on those occasions when their interests overlap with those of various Pentex fronts (see p. 269). Should things become unbearably complex in those relationships, Bat eats Fly….

　Tonight the Black Spiral Dancers remain Garou, but Wyrm-twisted aberrations of those things the Garou themselves hold dear. Their bodies have been tortured into shapes resembling bats, feral dogs, rats, and even things unspeakable, as much as they resemble wolves. And though they still possess the ability to change shape, as do Gaian Garou, those shapes are hideous and unnatural.

What Do They Want: From the Black Spiral Dancer perspective, the Apocalypse is over, Gaia is dead, the Garou lost, and they are now simply nursing the corpse of their spirit-mother. The Wyrm has done its duty, and all that’s left is for the remains to decay. In this respect, Black Spiral Dancers are perverse accelerationists trying to hasten the End of It All, so that the cosmological cycle can renew. Those Garou still loyal to Gaia are obstacles preventing the wheel from turning — and thus must those Garou be destroyed.


Lurking Scout (Homid Form)

The Lurking Scout gathers valuable information on enemy packs, spying on their movements and reporting back to their own wretched hives to coordinate when the best time to strike is at hand. They are, by turns, fanatical and obeisant, hoping to leave a rival grievously injured as they escape, or willing to plead and bargain (in bad faith) for their own release if captured. The Lurking Scout loves nothing so much as delivering a blow from the shadows that goes unretaliated.

General Difficulty: 4 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 5, Social 4, Mental 4
Secondary Attributes: Health 5, Willpower 4
Exceptional Dice Pools: Awareness 8, Larceny 8, Stealth 8, Gifts 5
Notes / Other Traits:
The Lurking Scout has the equivalent of the following Gifts: Camouflage (p. 168), Odious Aroma (p. 166), Scent of Running Water (p. 151), and any appropriate Native Gifts.



Caern Raider (Homid Form)

What the players’ pack has, the Caern Raider longs to take away, destroy, and defile for the sake of hastening the world into its own collapse. Caern Raiders rarely act alone; in the age of Apocalypse, packs of them, large and small, are the scourge of young Garou who devote their own efforts to finding and restoring the caerns that have fallen dormant or been corrupted. No surprise, then, that Caern Raiders take their own malicious glee in once again dragging them to ruin, with as much collateral damage and bloodshed as possible, or befouling them into their own caerns of depravity and rot.

General Difficulty: 5 / 3
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 6, Social 4, Mental 5
Secondary Attributes: Health 7, Willpower 5
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl 8, Melee 8, Intimidation 8, Gifts 6
Notes / Other Traits:
The Caern Raider has the equivalent of the following Gifts: Razor Claws (p. 162), Kiss of Helios (but smoldering with sickly balefire instead, p. 163), Kali’s Scar (p. 164), and Render Down (p. 174), as well as any appropriate Native Gifts.


Dirgesinger (Homid Form)

With blood-soaked legends and despairing threnodies, the Dirgesinger regales their rivals with ages-old prophecies of why opposition to the world’s fate is futile, why Gaia must face her time to die, and why her carcass shall be best used as a spawning pool for the hasteners of the final days. All things must end so that they can begin again, and the sooner this world sinks into its blessed putrefaction, the faster the wheel of ages may turn. Put down your weapons, bow your heads, and prepare to accept the sacrament of the conqueror Wyrm, the seed of the great Defiler!

General Difficulty: 5 / 3
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 5, Social 6, Mental 6
Secondary Attributes: Health 6, Willpower 7
Exceptional Dice Pools: Craft (Blight Rite) 8, Performance (Macabre Spectacle) 8, Persuasion 8, Subterfuge 8, Occult (Secrets of the Black Spiral) 9, Gifts 7
Notes / Other Traits:
The Dirgesinger has the equivalent of the following Gifts: Song of Serenity (can be used on opposing pack; test against Composure + Resolve, p. 159), Eyes of the Cobra (p. 159), Curse of Aeolus (p. 164), Dire Distraction (p. 176), and Whelp Body (p. 152), as well as any suitable Native Gifts.
Blight Rite: Reduces a caern’s Value by one permanently if completed. The Diresinger can do nothing else while maintaining the Rite, and the Rite is aborted if the Diresinger is seriously harmed or driven away.
Macabre Spectacle: A Rite that breaks the spirit of those who observe it, causing Willpower damage equal to the margin on a Performance test resisted by Composure + Resolve. If Willpower is Impaired as a result of this Rite, the victim must immediately make a Harano test. The Diresinger can do nothing else while maintaining the Rite.




Cult of Fenris

　The Cult of Fenris is an object lesson in the perils of hauglosk. According to many Garou, the fall of the Cult was the point of no return for the collapse of the Garou Nation. The Cult of Fenris is itself but a single facet of a greater tribe pledged to Wolf, but the Cult raised its collective voices louder, and those pledged to Wolf either joined them or found membership among the other tribes.

　At a great meeting of the tribes, the Cult of Fenris called for one final, glorious charge into the Wyrm’s maw to avert the Apocalypse, but the assembled Garou of other tribes called out their rally as suicide, whereupon most of the Cult of Fenris camp decided that all Garou had fallen, and only the Cult’s pure vision could serve Gaia. After a torturously long and bloody duel among champions of the tribes at the grand moot, renowned Garou solemnly declared a deadlock, and the Cult of Fenris abandoned the tribes to their fates, pledging their enmity and exiting the gathering.

　The tribe’s outlook is one of non-falsifiable orthodoxy — impurity is everywhere and everything is the Wyrm’s fault, and to disagree with this perspective is proof of one’s own collusion with the Wyrm. From the outside, many Garou wonder if those among the Cult of Fenris have themselves been misled into pluralistic hauglosk by pernicious leaders, tricked into serving the Wyrm’s ends by blindly raging against it in everything they see. Were such betrayal the case, theurges argue, the Cult would not even truly be following Wolf anymore, but some aspect of the Wyrm — unless Wolf himself has led what remains of his tribe into Wyrm-thrall…. Unthinkable.

　So it goes in how other werewolves often encounter the rogue Cult: as ravaging monsters engaged in some act of ruinous destruction, with little regard for whom or what else might be harmed in the process. Rampaging Cult members have waged local Impergium in remote human communities, razed entire resource-gathering operations, and enacted scorched-earth withdrawals.

　The scariest part is that other Garou and Cult of Fenris packs might actually find themselves opposing a common enemy. In most cases, the Cult is, arguably, acting against agents of Triatic imbalance and the Wyrm, but its absolute intransigence often causes Cult members to regard other Garou as fundamentally corrupt. Even more dangerous are entire packs of the Cult — “tribally pure,” with no members of other tribes — that seek to take caerns away from “traitorous” other werewolves, or show up at some burgeoning battle, at once aligned with and against a rival pack.

　Some among Wolf’s pledged, rather than follow their fellows, abandoned their Patron Spirit and pledged to other tribes. Trusting in the Patron Spirits to perceive any evidence of poor faith, the other tribes have accepted them, but being a former Wolf-pledged often earns Garou suspicion in their packs. Which, it must be admitted, is a very strange state in which werewolves find themselves: unable to trust Wolf.

What Do They Want: The Cult of Fenris wants to fight the Wyrm, but its Garou see the presence of the Wyrm in all things. As a result, they effectively seek their own version of Valhalla: Gaia is under a doom, and all anyone can do is fight while infinitely screaming her name until they fall… and then, ideally, fight on as a magnificent spirit limned in a halo of one’s own gloriously pure opposition to the Wyrm. Being part of the Cult means never admitting you’ve lost.


Mocking Ragabash (Homid Form)

The Mocking Ragabash finds joy in others’ failures and is adept at coaxing forth those lapses, especially when others don’t know of these faults. Often, the Mocking Ragabash deceives others as a fellow Garou — a scout, a messenger, “the sole survivor of an obliterated pack” — to try to rile other Garou into taking rash action because the time to strike back is now. They’ll play off a pack’s insecurities and look for the most strained relationships within it, the better to either goad them into battle against the desired enemy, or in preparation for an ambush where the rest of their pack lies in wait.

General Difficulty: 4 / 3
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 5, Social 6, Mental 6
Secondary Attributes: Health 6, Willpower 6
Exceptional Dice Pools: Athletics (Infuriating Dodge) 7, Stealth (Eavesdrop) 7, Insight (Sore Spot) 8, Subterfuge (Provocation) 8, Gifts 6
Notes / Other Traits: The Mocking Ragabash has the equivalent of the following Gifts: Crow’s Laughter (p. 149), Blur of the Milky Eye (p. 150), Halt the Coward’s Flight (p. 161), and Dire Distraction (p. 176), as well as appropriate Native Gifts.


Vindictive Theurge (Homid Form)

With a terrifying command of bellicose spirits, the Vindictive Theurge bolsters their packmates with brutal Gifts and causes enemies’ wounds to feel as if they’ve been sewn open with silver thread. With enough time to work their preferred rituals, they may even compel quiet on behalf of the spirits in the area, even silencing a pack’s own caern guardian and preventing it from warning them. The Vindictive Theurge is particularly effective at vexing other werewolves, so well versed are these Gift users in the ways of their onetime fellows from the feeble Garou Nation.

General Difficulty: 5 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 4, Social 5, Mental 7
Secondary Attributes: Health 5, Willpower 7
Exceptional Dice Pools: Leadership (Rile Pack) 7, Intimidate (Spirit) 7, Occult (Weeping Wounds) 7, Gifts 7
Notes / Other Traits:
The Vindictive Theurge has the equivalent of the following Gifts: Drain Spirit (p. 155), Command Spirit (p. 154), Blood of the Pack (p. 179), and Under the Gun (p. 177), as well as appropriate Native Gifts.
Weeping Wounds Rite: anyone failing to resist the Vindictive Theurge’s Occult pool with a Stamina + Occult test becomes unable to regenerate for the rest of the scene. The Vindictive Theurge can do nothing else while maintaining the Rite, and the effect lapses if the Theurge is seriously harmed or driven away.
Spirit Allies: The Vindictive Theurge is usually accompanied by a couple of elemental spirits yoked into servitude. Treat them as Furmlings or Gaian elemental spirits.


Berserk Ahroun (Homid Form)

Festooned with a variety of abhorrent symbols, the Berserk Ahroun wears their hate overtly and charges into the fray, hoping to leave behind as much injury as possible on “lesser” individuals, whether Garou or Wyrm-thralls. By the time the Berserk Ahroun shows up, the time for diplomacy or craft is past, and someone’s going to be carried out in a heap of their own guts and splintered bones.

The Berserk Ahroun enters frenzy as soon as they’ve used their Gifts, and they leave the cleanup to the “inferior” members of their pack. They often equip themselves with Talisman weapons, such as a klaive (p. 188), though any spirits bound into the item is hostile and needs to be cowed before anyone else uses the Talisman.

General Difficulty: 5 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 6, Social 4, Mental 3
Secondary Attributes: Health 8, Willpower 5
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl 8, Melee 8, Intimidate 7, Leadership (By Example) 7, Gifts 6
Notes / Other Traits: The Berserk Ahroun has the equivalent of the following Gifts: Primal Anger (p. 162), Snarl of Challenge (p. 162), True Fear (p. 162), and Silver Claws (p. 162), as well as appropriate Native Gifts.




Stargazers

　As the Garou Nation collapsed (and as one symptom of that collapse), the tribe known as the Stargazers left the company of the other tribes to seek other ways of effecting their Gaia-mandated purpose. Those who now fight on amid the rubble of the Garou Nation consider it a betrayal, an abandonment, or even a subtler move with some indecipherable motive.

　The Stargazers have a perspective that differs from those of other Garou, which makes the errant tribe a bit unpredictable for most werewolves. The Stargazers approach things differently now. The Garou can’t quite put their finger on how, but what seems to be the difference in things is that the Stargazers choose an alternative way to oppose the Wyrm and to take back the world in the throes of Apocalypse. Many werewolves want to kill their way to victory; the Stargazers seemingly want to rebuild amid the aftermath in a way that won’t repeat the recurring tragedies of the failures so far.

　Still, the Stargazers seem to maintain their connections to Gaia, Luna, and the legacy of the Garou Nation’s goal, if not its actual history. They still place great value upon the notion of Wisdom — they simply appear to undertake their legend in a different way from the other tribes. That said, none know the Patron Spirit granting its boon to the Stargazers. In the past, Chimera bestowed favor upon the tribe, but that great spirit seems to have amicably parted ways with the Stargazers — or so it seems to those Garou who interpret such things. And so, other Garou often regard Stargazers not as blatant antagonists, but as frustratingly similar fellows who just won’t follow the path that’s been laid out for them.

　Members of more martial tribes and those of an aggressive bent sometimes mistrust the Stargazers, claiming that their calm demeanors and rational outlook indicates that they’ve Lost the Wolf or sublimated their Rage. These suspicions make for cold receptions, at best, when a Stargazer makes themselves known and, at worst, well, all Garou know what comes of mistrust among those as quick to anger as themselves.

What Do They Want: Almost every time other Garou encounter them, Stargazers aim to solve a problem. Conflict arises with other Garou, however, when the Stargazer identifies what they think the problem is. For example, most Garou may think, “A suspected Pentex front has set up operations in the valley,” whereas the Stargazer may identify the problem as, “The dam upriver and the cheap labor in the depressed town are making the valley an appealing place for this Pentex front to set up operations.” Stargazers may appear as an emissary for some distant pack or other group, looking to strike a bargain that both parties find satisfying — access to a caern, support on a strike against a high-value enemy, or an effort to confuse the government-sponsored werewolf-hunters who have been discovered setting up shop at the edges of the territory. It makes sense, but the deal always seems to be, “Give me what I want now and I’ll make good on it later,” cast in a light that makes the Stargazer agenda resemble opportunism. That’s probably not the case, but the perceived weight of betrayal hangs heavily on the Stargazer reputation.



Wayseeker Philodox (Homid Form)

Contemplative, almost serene, the Wayseeker Philodox brings a rational, considered perspective to a problem that’s proximate to ones the Garou face, but not quite the same. There’s a cooperative and even Renown-worthy solution at hand, but it’s not how the pack would do things. The Wayseeker Philodox makes a compelling case, but is it the thing werewolves are best suited to do? The Wayseeker Philodox may have more faith in the pack than the Garou have in themselves.

General Difficulty: 4 / 3
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 6, Social 6, Mental 6
Secondary Attributes: Health 6, Willpower 8
Exceptional Dice Pools: Insight (Lies) 8, Persuasion (Argument of Logic) 8, Awareness (Vigilance) 9, Gifts 6
Notes / Other Traits:
The Wayseeker Philodox has the equivalent of the following Gifts: Thieving Talons of the Magpie (p. 151), Ancestral Conviction (p. 155), Command the Gathering (p. 156), and Geas (p. 157), as well as appropriate Native Gifts.
Mental Firmness: The Wayseeker Philodox receives a two-dice bonus to resist any Gift or ability that is opposed by Mental or Social traits.



Stolen Moons

　All Garou are werewolves, but not all “werewolves” are Garou. Some who can take the form of wolf or human attain that ability illicitly. Abhorrent rituals involving the taking of Garou skins, strange promises to unwholesome spirits, and inexplicable curses all may confer some amount of shapeshifting ability.

　Still, shapeshifting itself is not what makes a Garou, and these Stolen Moons have little in common with the actual chosen of Gaia. The most perverse among the Stolen Moons exult in bloody carnage. Others have more personal motives, from envy of actual Garou to seeking forbidden ways to solve problems. In any case, they are usually misguided and pitiable, but no less dangerous for it all, especially to beings in their immediate vicinity.

　Those werewolves who aren’t “full” Garou can’t take the more nuanced forms of the hispo or glabro. They have no Patron Spirits, and they might not have any awareness of the Umbra at all, let alone ability to access the Spirit Wilds or see spirits.


What Do They Want: Stolen Moons have often misunderstood the nature of the bargains they’ve made or the horrible Rite they’ve somehow worked, and they suffer in the aftermath of what they’ve done to themselves, with physical pain or mental anguish, and often both. Some want revenge on the world for their own ruinous choices. Others want to settle cruel vendettas against people who wronged them. They all seem to hate the Garou, probably for having a better handle on what it means to be a werewolf. If only they knew.


Debased Lycanthrope (Homid Form)

The Debased Lycanthrope sold their soul to the devil at the crossroads at midnight, and in exchange has the ability to drape themselves in a wolf-skin and, for a time, become a wolf. What actually happened is anyone’s guess, but the Debased Lycanthrope devotes much of their violent time on Earth to inflicting as much cruelty as possible — the better to please their monstrous “master,” whatever that might be — and to wallowing in their self-image as an unholy terror.

The Debased Lycanthrope has all the abilities of a werewolf, apart from the ability to take the glabro or hispo form, use Gifts, or enter the Umbra. They also have two or more supernatural “tells” (see p. 100) that hint at their werewolf nature. They stalk their victims and attack only when they have the advantage, and they attempt to escape at the first signs of opposition. If caught, they play the victim card, trying either to masquerade as one of their own targets or to garner sympathy as a sufferer of the “lycanthrope curse,” helpless against their urges.

General Difficulty: 4 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 6, Social 4, Mental 3
Secondary Attributes: Health 7, Willpower 4
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl 9, Larceny (Home Invasion) 7, Stealth (Ambush) 7, Animal Ken (Dogs) 6, Subterfuge (Feign Victimhood) 8
Notes / Other Traits:
Frenzy: The Debased Lycanthrope is always considered Frenzied while in combat.
Playing with the Food: Unless they’re fighting for their lives, the Debased Lycanthrope takes their time to be studiously cruel, which converts a single point of superficial Health damage caused to Willpower damage with each attack.


Cursed Beast (Homid Form)

When they first became a monster by the light of a full moon, the Cursed Beast understood what they were — but that was years ago. Now, the Cursed Beast has no control over when they change. They can no longer hold at bay their awful, insatiable hunger for human flesh, and when overtaken by the wolf’s shape and urges, they don’t care how they come by it.

The Cursed Beast remains in human form during the day, but once night falls they run the risk of changing into a hulking crinos-like form; that risk increases as they come closer in the lunar cycle to the full moon. Once transformed, they retain enough sense to hide from overt threats but enter frenzy as soon as they have a victim — human or animal — cornered.

General Difficulty: 3 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 4, Social 4, Mental 4
Secondary Attributes: Health 6, Willpower 3
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl 6, Stealth (Stalk) 6, Survival (Makeshift Traps) 7
Notes / Other Traits:
Frenzy: The Debased Lycanthrope is always considered Frenzied while in combat.



Starving Remnant

　The First Change is frightful, and many fledgling Garou do not survive it. Even more frightful is the prospect of those Kin who experience their First Change and become lost in the Umbra, whether having lost contact with a spiritual guide who brought them there, or those who somehow crossed them Gauntlet themselves and were unable to make their way back.

　The Starving Remnant is technically a spirit, but their ability to possess things in the physical world is limited to inanimate objects from which they try to call for “help” (by whispering messages through speakers or projecting mysterious images on a screen, for example) to lure unwitting Garou into the Umbra. There they stage an ambush. They escape into the Spirit Wilds if their victim puts up too much of a fight. As a spirit, they appear as a Garou in Crinos form, and they usually frenzy as soon as they’ve used their Gifts.

What Do They Want: However the Starving Remnant got trapped in the Umbra, these werewolves have physically winnowed to nothing, leaving only their spiritual halves as the sum of themselves. And those remaining selves are hungry.

General Difficulty: 6 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 6, Social 4, Mental 4
Secondary Attributes: Health 6, Willpower 4
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl 8, Stealth 8, Subterfuge (Machine Messages), Occult (Umbral Escape), Gifts 5
Notes / Other Traits:
The Starving Remnant has the equivalent of all the Native Gifts but lacks other Gifts, as they have neither tribe nor auspice.



Stranger Shifters

　The Garou suppose the existence of others similar to themselves — if not in outlook, then in the ability to assume the mantle of beast and human. Are they allies? Enemies? Reluctant siblings in Gaia? None can say, exactly, and conjecture almost certainly varies day to day. The raven-shifter providing information to the packmates today might be giving up the goods on them to someone else tomorrow. In many cases, these shifters emerge from indigenous animal species as much as they do from human cultures.

What Do They Want: The Garou wish they knew, for it might make interacting with these other shapechangers less volatile. Sometimes, other shifters indicate that some long-ago grudge shaped the relationship the Garou have with them today — which would certainly be in keeping with today’s Garou bearing the responsibility of past times of legend. Indeed, many of these other shifters seem to resent the Garou, for the werewolves find themselves anyplace where humans exist, and they may often find themselves at odds with these other shapeshifters over territory, spiritual purpose, or the fates of the humans or beasts around them.


Raven-Shifter

Amid watching, warning, scouting, and signaling, the raven-shifter seems to know the secret the Garou need, and may offer it to them, or may withhold it from them, based on information only the raven-shifter knows. Sometimes the raven-shifter is gregarious, outspoken, conversational, to the point where won’t they please just shut up. At other times a single eye glints from the darkness, before the ebony bird takes wing — abandoning the packmates to whatever tragedy they’ve wrought for themselves — probably to go sell information on their whereabouts to another pack.


General Difficulty: 4 / 3
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 5, Social 6, Mental 5
Secondary Attributes: Health (Enhanced) 6, Willpower 6
Exceptional Dice Pools: Larceny (Pickpocket) 8, Persuasion 8, Subterfuge 8, Gifts 6
Notes / Other Traits:
The Raven-Shifter has the equivalent of the following Gifts: Crow’s Laughter (p. 149), Thieving Talons of the Magpie (p. 151), and Under the Gun (p. 177).
Raven Form: The raven-shifter can transform into a raven as a minor action, thus gaining the ability to fly while losing three dice in Strength-related tests.
Pronounce Doom: By winning a Gift test against the target’s Wits + Occult, the target loses three dice on their next attempt to avoid physical harm. This Gift use is a full action, and a given target can suffer a doom only once per session.



Spider-Shifter

Seething, scuttling, swarming over their prey, the spider-shifter devours all that stands before it and leaves only a desiccated husk in its wake, or perhaps a paralyzed victim left bound in a silken prison. A companion of shadows, at once alone in its legion, the spider-shifter can take the form of a single person (often on the margins of cosmopolitan society) or a swarm of thousands of web-crawling arachnids. Some werewolves swear that the spider-shifters can take on a more menacing form as well…

General Difficulty: 4 / 3
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 5, Social 5, Mental 6
Secondary Attributes: Health (Enhanced) 6, Willpower 7
Exceptional Dice Pools: Athletics (Climb) 9, Brawl (Surprise Bite) 6, Stealth (Perfect Stillness) 8, Awareness 8
Notes / Other Traits:
The Spider-Shifter has the equivalent of the following Gifts: Body Shift (p. 148), Spider’s Song (p. 150), and Sacred Boundary (using strands of webbing; see p. 172).
Swarm Form: The spider-shifter can change into a swarm of spiders. In this form, subtract three dice from their Strength-based non-Brawl tests. Any attack on them in this form does at most a single level of damage, regardless of margin, unless caused by area effect weapons such as a flamethrower.
Paralyzing Venom: Anyone suffering at least a point of damage from the bite of a spider-shifter must make a Stamina + Resolve test at Difficulty 3 or be paralyzed for the rest of the scene. Those who succeed still suffer a two-dice penalty to physical tests for the rest of the scene, unless the win was a critical win.
Adhesive: The spider-shifter can climb any surface using their Climb pool, even if no handholds are available.

吸血鬼敌人

　吸血鬼的能力和弱点多种多样，但有些对他们大多数都适用。所有吸血鬼都有强化抗性，不过他们会受到来自阳光而非银的恶性伤害（他们间接暴露在阳光下就像迦鲁触碰银器一样，而直接暴露则会受火焰伤害）。木桩（+0伤害）瞄准吸血鬼的心脏（-2骰）刺入，有5+成功，吸血鬼就会瘫痪，直到木桩被拔出。他们可擒拿住对手咬人，被擒拿的对手随后每回合都受2级恶性伤害。最近进食过的吸血鬼比饥饿吸血鬼更强大，叙事人应根据他们最后一次进食的时间，将他们的骰池上下调整几点数。据说吸食狼人血液的吸血鬼在战斗中特别凶猛，甚至难以预测。

The Supernaturally Attuned

　Werewolves and spirits aren’t the only supernatural denizens of the world, as much as they’d prefer to have more influence over it. The World of Darkness includes several other types of individuals who possess their own strange perspectives and insights. Sometimes unpredictable allies, more often dangerous antagonists, when it comes to what to make of these other things that go bump in the night, the Garou are largely on their own.



Vampires

　“Let’s not dress it up: They’re animate corpses that need to drink blood from living people. For some reason, the Leeches always seem to have a piece of information you need, or they’re thick as thieves with some illicit enterprise your pack needs to gut. They’re like goddamn cockroaches, always making more of themselves, always hiding when the lights come on. And the cities are infested with them.”





Dimebag Dracula

“The nightclubs and stylish neighborhoods of the cities are rife with these creeps: the undead drug-dealers and scenesters who prey upon humans out for a good time. Most of them are newly turned and dumb and probably aren’t half as sexy as they think they are, but goddamn if they aren’t always out chasing youth and blood. Any Garou who spends any time among various human countercultures is probably closer to these parasites than they realize, and they’re resentful of interlopers in ‘their territory.’”

The Dimebag Dracula always tries to charm, seduce, or strike a deal before resorting to violence, and tries to escape as soon as they realize they’re dealing with werewolves. If they manage to escape, half of the vampires in the area go to ground, while the other half devises plans to acquire some of that sweet, sweet werewolf blood.

General Difficulty: 4 / 3
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 5, Social 6, Mental 5
Secondary Attributes: Health 6, Willpower 5
Exceptional Dice Pools: Firearms (Pistol) 6, Persuasion (“Let’s make a deal”) 8, Streetwise (Slip Away) 8, Subterfuge (Seduction) 8, Gifts 7
Notes / Other Traits:
The Dimebag Dracula has all of the Vampire Antagonist abilities (above), as well as the equivalent of the following Gifts: Animal Magnetism (can be used on Garou; see p. 158), Command the Gathering (p. 156), and Closing the Gap (can also be used to escape; see p. 163).
Mending: The Dimebag Dracula can remove one Superficial Health damage each turn.


Count Fucking Orlok or Some Shit

“The young vampires are always good-looking, and the old ones are always these rat-faced bug-eyed motherfuckers whose own blood is dust, so that’s why they creep out of their graveyards to drink from the living. The worst part comes when you have to deal with one of them because they know something about someone else you’re after, which is bad enough, but they’ve also usually got some heinous old ‘investments’ from the Victorian era or whatever that are disgusting, even by modern standards. Conflict resources, human trafficking, child labor, unwilling victims, shit like that. They’re all involved in it. There is no ethical survival under vampirism.”

Count Fucking Orlok has seen centuries come and go, and might even consider the idea of an upfront battle with a werewolf to relieve the burden of ages. As soon as anything goes wrong, though, they attempt to escape under the cover of numerous suicidally loyal retainers, after which the vampire plans to inflict cruelty on those who are less able to defend themselves, such as the character’s Touchstones.

General Difficulty: 5 / 4
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 7, Social 4, Mental 7
Secondary Attributes: Health 12, Willpower 9
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl (Grapple) 10, Stealth (Shadows) 8, Etiquette (Insults) 8, Intimidation (“I have seen nations rise and fall…”) 8, Gifts 8
Notes / Other Traits:
Count Fucking Orlok has all of the Vampire Antagonist abilities (above), as well as the equivalent of the following Gifts: Razor Claws (always active; see p. 162), Blissful Ignorance (p. 149), Blur of the Milky Eye (p. 150), Coup de Grâce (p. 164), and True Fear (p. 162).
Superior Mending: Count Fucking Orlok can recover three Superficial Health damage each turn.




It Gets Weirder

　“At the least, the Leeches are predictably selfish. The other stuff out there — who has any goddamn idea what they’re after or how they do it? I’ve seen it all, man, from the lingering scraps of long-gone people who aren’t quite spirits, to people who can set you snarling with a crooked glance or turn the rain to silver by blowing dried toad venom into the air. Mostly it comes down to, their ways aren’t our ways, and they always have some excuse for coming after the things and places that are dear to us Garou. Some of them you can cut a deal with, but there’s always this sense that none of them are telling you their version of the truth — or maybe that you don’t fit into it.”


Magician

“They don’t see things the way we do, exactly, but I get this sense that they line up with some of it. Always talking about metaphysical prisons, and prevailing realities, and other things, and then they go and walk through a solid wall or end up on the other side of where you thought they were, because your mind remembered a different time from what it thought it saw. And they seem to have a… I dunno, an understanding for spirits — or at least the power in spirits. I think. Tread carefully; there’s no guessing these fuckers.”

The Magician wants something, and the werewolves are the perfect acolytes to help them get it. They are unlikely to pick a fight with Garou but defend themselves if cornered. When the Magician uses powers the powers appear as natural or freak occurrences, rather than as supernatural manifestations, and the Magician attempts to get out of any area too hot with overt supernatural activity.

General Difficulty: 4 / 3
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 4, Social 5, Mental 7
Secondary Attributes: Health 5, Willpower 9
Exceptional Dice Pools: Insight (Detect Supernatural) 8, Academics (Ancient History) 8, Occult (Hermetic Lore) 8, Technology (Experimental) 8, Gifts 9
Notes / Other Traits:
The Magician may invoke the equivalent of all theurge and Ghost Council Gifts.



Agitated Ghost

“Dead people, see, they aren’t quite spirits like we know them, but they’re… I guess they’re a different kind of spirit, maybe. Not like the Leeches, they’re just rancid meat. And not everyone who’s dead becomes a ghost. The ones who linger always have a reason, something keeping them here. Might as well be honest about it, too: Sometimes we end up making ghosts, accidentally or otherwise. Seems only right to help them get things back in order, but be careful of the ones who carry a grudge beyond the grave.”

The Agitated Ghost is insubstantial and incorporeal, though it can make itself briefly visible and audible in the physical world. If a dead body is available, it can animate the corpse (use the statistics below), but otherwise can affect the physical world only through noisy but harmless poltergeist phenomena.

General Difficulty: 3 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 3, Social 4, Mental 4
Secondary Attributes: Health 5, Willpower 5
Exceptional Dice Pools: Intimidation (Jump-Scare) 6, Awareness 6, Occult (Death) 6, Gifts 6
Notes / Other Traits:
The Agitated Ghost has the equivalent to the following Gifts: Song of Rage (as a mournful wail that can stir Rage involuntarily in others; resist with Composure + Resolve; see p. 159), Icy Chill of Despair (p. 175), and Under the Gun (p. 177).


Irrational Fae

“Near as I can figure, these guys were around since before there were spirits, or maybe they’re the spirits of somewhere else but somehow got here. Anyway, it’s like they have the same sort of rules and pacts and things that bind them as spirits, but they’re also… physical? Tangible. You can touch them and fight them, and I guess they bleed, and I’m not an expert, but they want some of the same things that spirits of Gaia want. And just when you think you have it all figured out, they speak to you in the language of a season, and you can’t have kids anymore, somehow. What did they want? What set them off? Impossible to say, but seems like you did it wrong, and now your balls are gone.”

Nobody can tell what the Irrational Fae wants, and even improbable prizes such as “the color of regret” or “the sound of a mirror” bores it.

General Difficulty: 4 / 3
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 4, Social 7, Mental 4
Secondary Attributes: Health (Enhanced) 6, Willpower 6
Exceptional Dice Pools: Melee (Archaic Sword) 8, Stealth (Mimic Object) 8, Subterfuge (Gaslight) 9, Gifts 7
Notes / Other Traits:
Craft Hallucinations: The Irrational Fae can manifest elaborate hallucinations that are indistinguishable from reality except for one flaw (a bleeding doorknob, a singing leaf, or a laughing fence, for example). Spotting this flaw requires an Intelligence + Awareness test against the Irrational Fae’s Gift pool, and doing so can be attempted once per turn per pack. While under the effects of this illusion, any physical injuries sustained are treated as Superficial Willpower damage instead, though the Irrational Fae rarely crafts violent hallucinations unless severely antagonized, and it always denies that it had anything to do with them anyway.
Dramatic Exit: If the Irrational Fae is killed, it bursts into a shower of glass fragments, dealing five levels of lacerating (but mundane) damage to anyone in a 10-meter radius.

Werewolf Hunters

　On the surface, anyone setting themselves up as a werewolf hunter might appear to have a death wish.

　In practice, however, hunters do everything they can to stack the deck in their favor. Whether calling upon the copious resources of a governmental patron or building a squad of hardscrabble “freelancers,” hunters don’t fight fairly or honorably, because that’d get them killed. The Garou generally find themselves able to make short work of human werewolf hunters, but every now and then, something goes wrong: The packmates underestimate the assets the hunters bring to bear; or they do, in fact, manage to wipe the floor with the hunters — only to find themselves picking up a million-plus views as video of their carnage hits the video-streaming services with their faces plainly visible.



Information Awareness Office

　The Information Awareness Office is an American governmental agency seeking “total information awareness” about threats to the nation, and it coordinates efforts across multiple armed services, investigatory bureaus, and even local law enforcement departments, when such a step becomes necessary. The quintessential black-ops organization, IAO has an extraordinary amount of functional autonomy and a budget to match.

　Although the IAO doesn’t have a full understanding of werewolves overall (much less Garou culture specifically), it’s aware of what it and fellow organizations call unusual threats, and it formulates security operations to deal with them. And when that Unusual Threat Response turns up nine-foot-tall Rage-fueled nightmares that holy fucking shit what the fuck is that thing, IAO also possesses the influence and resources to cover up what it needs to, and hopes to capture as much for study in top-secret facilities as it can.


IAO Kill Box Specialist

The pivotal stage of an IAO raid often involves breach-and-clear tactics specifically suited to exterminating all sorts of unknown-capacity unusual threats. As such, the Kill Box Specialist specializes in getting up close without being noticed, entering the hot zone, and putting an end to the threat before the threat knows it’s been compromised. They know the nature of their work, and that they’re not set up to survive prolonged contact with werewolves, so their tactics tend to focus on hitting hard and fast, and if anything’s still standing, speedy exfiltration and blowing what’s left the fuck up.

General Difficulty: 4 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 6, Social 3, Mental 5
Secondary Attributes: Health 6, Willpower 7
Exceptional Dice Pools: Athletics 6, Firearms 8, Intimidation 6, Melee 6, Technology 6
Notes / Other Traits:
Geared Up: The Kill Box Specialist has a full complement of offensive support gear, including a semi-automatic shotgun, heavy body armor, ax, and a variety of lethal and nonlethal ammunition (the Kill Box Specialist can choose whether their weapon does Superficial [+0 or +4] or Aggravated [+0] damage).


IAO Surveillance Tech

The Surveillance Tech makes use of a variety of drones, cameras, computers, and other high-tech tools to keep tabs on unusual threats. They’re skilled at placing spy devices where their suspect (including werewolves) won’t find them and listening in for anything that might be deemed an actionable threat. They don’t always know what their targets are talking about — that’s the Analysis department — but if a werewolf says something, the Surveillance Tech may well have recorded it.

The Surveillance Tech is equipped with a suite of microcommunications devices, remote cameras, broadcast equipment, and infil or exfil drones. They are themselves well versed in evading surveillance by using sight lines and dazzle camouflage techniques to thwart detection, whether through software or other means of observation by hostile parties. They’re often out of their league when dealing directly with werewolves, however, and even the most sophisticated dazzle camo probably won’t deter a watchful spirit or a Garou’s sense of smell.

General Difficulty: 3 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 4, Social 4, Mental 5
Secondary Attributes: Health 5, Willpower 6
Exceptional Dice Pools: Awareness 7, Larceny 7, Stealth 7, Streetwise 7, Technology 7
Notes / Other Traits:
Covert Surveillance: Detecting a spy device employed by the Surveillance Tech requires a Wits + Technology test at Difficulty 4.



Special Affairs Division: Project Twilight

　Yes, I’ve seen your Freedom of Information Act request. You can shove that right up your ass. Look, Project Twilight doesn’t exist anymore. In fact, it never did. So when you’re talking about Special Affairs Division, what you’re really talking about is the FBI, and any stories you might have heard about some werewolf-hunting skunkworks back in the 1980s and ’90s and 2000s are probably just some analyst’s idea of a joke. Read the operating prospectus: SAD is focused on the undead blood-drinking sort of terrorist threat; werewolves aren’t its remit. Weird, huh? Like, all of a sudden, the agency gets shut down and, oops, all of the case files go missing or get shredded or end up on a plane to GSG 9 HQ in Sankt Augustin. Hey, if you’re not interested in learning the truth, I don’t even know why I’m risking my ass by talking to you.

　Project Twilight is an officially defunct operation running illicitly from within the greater organization of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Special Affairs Division. It’s nominally more aware of the werewolf threat than is its parent organization, but much of its case documentation was destroyed when its operations were sunset by the director of SAD itself. How it remains functional is unknown.


Project Twilight Sharpshooter

General Difficulty: 4 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 6, Social 3, Mental 4
Secondary Attributes: Health 6, Willpower 7
Exceptional Dice Pools: Awareness 7, Brawl 7, Firearms (Sniper Rifle) 8
Notes / Other Traits:
Weapons: The Project Twilight Sharpshooter is equipped with a sniper rifle (+4 damage) and scope.
Snipe: Unless the shooter is detected (see below) a sniper shot is uncontested and made against Difficulty 1. Although most sniper rifles use subsonic ammunition (and Project Twilight operators often use suppressors), a werewolf in lupus or hispo form, or that otherwise has some form of heightened senses (as with certain Gifts or special equipment) can make a Wits + Awareness test (Difficulty 3) to determine the source (direction and distance) of a sniper shot if it doesn’t incapacitate them. A critical success might even let a werewolf spot the street lights winking off the scope.

Other Common Antagonists

　Despite generally being able to easily dispatch such fragile opponents as mundane animals and people, werewolves often find themselves in opposition to individuals whose presence itself causes a conflict. Sure, it may be easiest to just throat this punk-ass security guard, but do they have backup? Who do they work for? How does just shredding some fucker align with the Garou’s tribal perspectives (particularly their Favor and Ban)? Indeed, in many difficulties the Garou face, the supernatural might not even be involved at all, as the conflicts of the world in Apocalypse may lead a pack into tragically mundane danger. And many of these individuals might be unknowing Kin…



Mortals

　Minor human characters and animals have generic dice pools for Physical, Social, and Mental actions. The exception to this rule comes where their Secondary Attributes and profession or role-specific challenges come into play, such as a cop’s aim or a corner lookout’s perception of danger being higher than their baseline pool. These exceptions are stated where relevant and should be rolled as a complete dice pool, but in all cases, the Storyteller should adjust dice pools to reflect an exceptional or weaker version of the character specified.

　For creating your own mortals, see Supporting Character Templates on p. 102.


Beat Cop

Not surprisingly, werewolves have all-too-frequent encounters with mortal law enforcement. Regardless of whether Garou are in the right on things, packs frequently find themselves on the wrong side of the law, especially when the law as a whole makes no acknowledgement of the supernatural (or, worse, is in thrall to it). Beat cops may end up dispatched to respond to situations involving werewolves, and because many police are themselves violent or otherwise used to maintaining imbalances of power, situations involving them rarely de-escalate, even with Garou in homid form.

General Difficulty: 3 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 4, Social 2, Mental 3
Secondary Attributes: Health 6, Willpower 5
Exceptional Dice Pools: Athletics 5, Firearms (Stationary Target) 5, Intimidation 5
Notes / Other Traits:
Drop exceptional dice pool values by one to represent a security guard or other private-sector sentry.


Police Detective

Police detectives may end up investigating the aftermath of werewolf activity, or they may overlap with Garou presence in the wake of crimes or other situations that have captured the Garou’s interest. Their primary function is to protect property or protect established interests, and they’re more likely to be encountered investigating or seeking information to build a casethan they areas first-line response (which is usually handled by beat cops or riot cops). This profile can also representa private investigator.

General Difficulty: 3 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 4, Social 3, Mental 4
Secondary Attributes: Health 6, Willpower 5
Exceptional Dice Pools: Athletics 5, Firearms 5, Investigation 6, Streetwise 5


Riot Cop / PMC Soldier / Private Security

Whether as an instrument of state violence or an unofficial instrument of state violence, militarized police and private military companies exist for those in power to hammer down uppity citizens, as a result of governmental policy or because they’re clamoring for things like “rights” or “to stop being the victims of targeted campaigns of violence.” Garou are likely to encounter them in any number of situations, such as in reaction to a peaceful demonstration to a full-scale riot, or in any number of off-the-books “security operations.”

General Difficulty: 3 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 5, Social 4, Mental 4
Secondary Attributes: Health 6, Willpower 7
Exceptional Dice Pools: Firearms 6, Melee (Unarmed Opponent) 6
Notes / Other Traits:
The more unjust the society, the more well-armed its authorities are to preserve the injustice. The riot cop / PMC soldier uses a +4 Damage fully automatic rifle and wears tactical SWAT armor (armor value 6) by default. They deploy in groups of similar operatives numbering from a handful to the hundreds.


Criminal

Werewolves may find themselves in the company of various outlaws, whether by choice or by coincidence, thanks simply to their choice of activities or subcultures. Criminals encompass a broad swath of humanity, from street drug dealers, to forgers and safecrackers, to the mob boss operating out of a penthouse apartment.

General Difficulty: 3 / 2
Standard Dice Pools: Physical 4, Social 3, Mental 3
Secondary Attributes: Health 6, Willpower 4
Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl 5, Firearms 5, Intimidation 5, Larceny 5, Streetwise 7



Clergy

Clergy encompasses a varied group that spans multiple faiths, each of which poses a danger to the supernatural and offers possible allies or enemies to Garou. At their weakest, they are capable of rallying their congregations in worship, hope, and resilience. At their strongest, they wield their faith like a weapon, and they may themselves become scourges to Unusual Threats.

Standard Dice Pools: Physical 3, Social 5, Mental 4
Secondary Attributes: Health 5, Willpower 7
Exceptional Dice Pools: Academics 6, Insight 7, Occult 5, Leadership 6



Animals

　As part of their half-belonging to the world of beasts, Garou often perceive themselves as sharing a kinship with primal creatures. Many animals rear or shy away in the proximity of the Garou, though a few are drawn to fellow “wolves” or have commonalities in pack behavior. Some Garou invoke Gifts that cajole animals to act as their scouts or perform surprise attacks on their behalf.

　Then again, other supernatural creatures may turn animals to their own purposes, such as a loathsome vampire who commands swarms or rats, or a will-worker who keeps a familiar. Sometimes, an animal appears as an avatar of a spirit or guardian of places associated with it. And Banes take particular delight in tormenting animals already aggravated by loss of habitat or other complications of human consumption, and such spirits sometimes court these creatures for greater possession.

　In general, most creatures specifically attempt to avoid the Garou, whom animals recognize as predators. Garou with the Animal Ken Skill (see p. 92) have more influence over these attitudes.

　Note: Storytellers probably want to confer with their troupes before featuring rival animals prominently or as recurring antagonists. Not everyone wants to be part of a story in which animals come to harm.

　Obviously, what follows isn’t an exhaustive list of animals. It stands on its own and also provides ample starting points for animals from which the Storyteller might reasonably extrapolate specific other animals.


Wolf

Out of alphabetical order here, but the wolf is the most relevant animal. Garou may come from the world of man, or they may feel a greater sense of belonging with the wolf side of their heritage. And, of course, it’s entirely possible for a Garou to hail from a wolf “cultural” background, as opposed to the human world, in which case they will have a family and pack of other wolves.

Wolves enjoy a place of keen respect among certain cultures and are feared as symbols of evil among others. They may be oblivious to the spirits around them, though some seem to have a spiritual awareness similar to that of the Garou…

Standard Dice Pools: Physical 6, Social 1, Mental 1
Secondary Attributes: Health 6, Willpower 3
Exceptional Dice Pools: Awareness 3, Intimidation 5, Stealth 5
Notes / Other Traits:
Natural Weapons: Add +1 to damage done by wolf attacks.


Bat (Large)

Commonly associated with vampires, perhaps in part due to shapeshifting and animal-commanding archetypes of blood-drinkers, the bat, as predators go, is low on the food chain but benefits hugely from an impressive sonar ability.

Standard Dice Pools: Physical 3, Social 1, Mental 1
Secondary Attributes: Health 2, Willpower 1
Exceptional Dice Pools: Awareness 7, Stealth 5



Bear

Impressive in strength, lethality, and speed, the bear is also a surprisingly agile creature capable of ripping flesh to ribbons with a single burst of violence.

Standard Dice Pools: Physical 7, Social 1, Mental 1
Secondary Attributes: Health 8, Willpower 3
Exceptional Dice Pools: Awareness 3, Intimidation 6
Notes / Other Traits:
Natural Weapons: Add +2 to damage done by bear attacks.


Big Cat

Once omnipresent but now shrinking or even endangered, big cat populations are found worldwide, including tigers, lions, panthers, leopards, and cheetahs, and In some cultures they have the same sort of symbolic or folkloric meaning as wolves. And some even say that shapeshifters number among their ranks, just as the Garou may take on the form of wolves…

Standard Dice Pools: Physical 6, Social 1, Mental 1
Secondary Attributes: Health 6, Willpower 3
Exceptional Dice Pools: Awareness 3, Intimidation 5, Stealth 5
Notes / Other Traits:
Natural Weapons: Add +1 to damage done by big cat attacks.


Bird of Prey

Although many birds of prey exist, the hawk, eagle, vulture, and owl are common among the environments in which wolves move. Furthermore, birds of prey are often considered portentous, and they may indicate observation by powerful spirits on the other side of the Gauntlet.

Standard Dice Pools: Physical 4, Social 1, Mental 1
Secondary Attributes: Health 3, Willpower 2
Exceptional Dice Pools: Awareness 6, Brawl 5, Stealth 6


Guard Dog / Attack Dog

Humanity’s best friend is the dog, and many a human keeps dogs for companionship or protection. Unfortunately, they are also popular among warlords, corrupt law enforcement outfits, and other bullies, who train vicious, obedient hounds to guard their properties or to be loosed on intruders.

Standard Dice Pools: Physical 5, Social 1, Mental 1
Secondary Attributes: Health 5, Willpower 2
Exceptional Dice Pools: Awareness 4, Brawl 6, Intimidation 4, Stealth 4
Notes / Other Traits:
Natural Weapons: Add +1 to damage done by guard dog bites.


Horse

Horses tend to fear the Garou, though they may be found in rural environments, or even at the remote estate of another supernatural individual for the purposes of quick, unexpected escape (or as a stock of copious, if unpleasant, blood…).

Standard Dice Pools: Physical 6, Social 1, Mental 1
Secondary Attributes: Health 7, Willpower 2
Exceptional Dice Pools: Awareness 4


Rat

Rats symbolize urban sprawl — neglectful accumulations of filth, disease, and secrecy, but also shrewdness and resilience. Some Garou feel a camaraderie with them, especially some city-dwelling werewolves, but these rodents are also occasionally associated with lurking vampires or sorcerers and their familiars. Inarguably, rats are everywhere.

Standard Dice Pools: Physical 3, Social 1, Mental 1
Secondary Attributes: Health 1, Willpower 1
Exceptional Dice Pools: Awareness 5, Brawl 4, Stealth 7
Notes / Other Traits:
Swarm: When rats swarm, treat them as a single entity but add 3 to Health and all Physical-based rolls. For every level of damage inflicted on them, reduce the bonus by 1. ■