Werewolves
Character traits
Werewolves have certain traits that are specific to them:
- Primal Urge represents the inherent power of the character's werewolf nature.
- Essence: This is the amount of distilled spirit power that currently fills the werewolf character's body. You spend Essence to activate different powers.
- Gnosis has been split into both of the above
- Gifts are special werewolf powers, and each is explained in the character's description.
The Two Worlds: Werewolves are born, raised, and taught to live in the physical world, but they are equally part of a different world. That world (the Shadow Realm) exists parallel to this one on the other side of a mystical barrier known as the Gauntlet. The Shadow Realm is the world of spirits, and it was once blended at the edges with this world. Even today, though, things that happen there affect the physical world, and vice versa, which is why the werewolves must work so hard to keep things in harmony. If a werewolf wants to look across the Gauntlet to see what is happening on the other side, the player rolls Wits + Empathy + Primal Urge. On a success, the character can see a blurry image of the opposite side of the Gauntlet for one turn (sacrificing his perception of his current side of the Gauntlet). Werewolves can see spirits who have escaped into the physical world (but not yet taken a host or fetter) even if they remain invisible to normal humans.
If a werewolf wants to physically cross the Gauntlet and enter the spirit world (or exit it), he must first find a locus. A locus is a wellspring of spiritual energy that erodes the Gauntlet and attracts spirits of all types who feed on the energy that has welled up. Having found one, the character stands in the locus's area of influence (which grows wider the more powerful the locus is), and the player rolls Intelligence + Presence + Primal Urge. When he enters the area of influence of a locus, a werewolf is innately aware of it, though he does not know exactly where the locus is. To find the locus specifically, have the player roll Wits + Investigation + Primal Urge.
Essence: Werewolves have a trait called Essence, which represents the amount of distilled spirit power that currently fills a werewolf character's body. Werewolves channel Essence across the Gauntlet (stocking up on it at a locus) and spend it to activate various special game effects. Young werewolves with a Primal Urge of 1 can spend only one Essence per turn and hold at most 10 Essence at a time. Slightly more experienced werewolves with Primal Urge of 2 can still spend only one Essence per turn, but they can hold 11 Essence at a time. Any effects that require Essence expenditures fail if the character has none to spend.
Characters regain Essence by touching the physical form of a locus (either in the physical world or in the Shadow Realm) and having their players roll Harmony. Each success on the roll (i.e., each die that comes up 8 or better) grants the character one Essence. Loci can generate and hold only so much Essence at a time, though, so it doesn't do any good to get greedy or wasteful.
Shapeshifting and Rage: Being children of the ever-changing moon, werewolves have four natural shapes and one special war form that they can assume at will. Each form offers special modifications to various traits, all of which have been accounted for on the individual character sheets. The natural forms each have unique advantages especially suited to certain Uratha functions (such as dealing with humans, performing rituals, or hunting). The war form is good for only one thing, but it is quite good for it, making werewolves some of the most feared engines of destruction this world has ever known.
For their characters to change forms, the players roll Stamina + Survival + Primal Urge. On a successful roll, the character assumes the form the player selected and his traits change as listed on the character sheets. (For the purposes of shapeshifting, always roll the character's unmodified Stamina, regardless of what form he's wearing.) Changing shape takes one full turn, in which the character can do nothing else. Should the player choose, though, he can spend one Essence for his character to change instantaneously without a roll.
The four natural forms include Hishu (the human form, in which all werewolves are born), Dalu (a more bestial and muscular humanoid form, in which werewolves practice rituals), Urshul (the savage form of a terrifying dire wolf), and Urhan (the form of a normal wolf). Should a werewolf in any form suffer enough damage to fall unconscious or die, he automatically reverts to his Hishu form. The werewolves' fifth form (Gauru form) is the form of war, in which they unleash the power of their Rage (a legacy of power inherited from Father Wolf). A werewolf assumes the war form just as he would assume any other, but using it is different and less stable. For instance, the werewolf can take on the war form only once per scene, and he can remain in it for only a number of turns equal to his Stamina + Primal Urge. (Again, use the character's unmodified Stamina to make this determination.) After that, he either switches immediately back to his Hishu form, or the player must roll or spend Essence to switch to another form. While he is Raging (i.e., in Gauru form), the werewolf can do nothing but attack or move toward an opponent whom he intends to attack, and he cannot use complex weapons such as guns or bows. Nor can he gather the presence of mind to talk. On the plus side, though, he is immune to wound penalties while he is Raging, and his bite and claw attacks inflict lethal damage.
The Death Rage: A werewolf whose Rage is upon him is a fearsome foe who makes his enemies tremble. A werewolf who loses himself to the Death Rage, however, is a danger to not only his enemies but to his allies and even to himself. He becomes a mindless killing machine, unable to distinguish friend from foe and unable to stop himself from ripping and tearing anything he can get his claws and teeth into. A Death Rage can be prevented, but once it has begun it must run its course. To prevent a Death Rage, the werewolf's player rolls Resolve + Composure and hopes for a success. If he fails, the werewolf assumes his Gauru form (without a roll or Essence expenditure; even if the character has taken that form once in that scene already) and attacks anything in reach. The Death Rage ends at the end of the scene, only when everyone around the werewolf is dead or the werewolf himself is dead or incapacitated.
A werewolf is in danger of Death Rage when he suffers aggravated damage, when a wound is marked in one of his last three Health boxes, or when he is hurt or terribly humiliated outside a combat situation. The latter circumstances outside combat rely on Storyteller discretion, but the humiliation ought to be fairly significant. Slipping on the ice on a sidewalk and having some pedestrian snicker probably wouldn't threaten a Death Rage, but having a lover cheat on you with your best friend (or a packmate) certainly would.
Health and Regeneration: As werewolves change forms, they receive certain modifiers to their Stamina. As their Stamina increases, their Health increases as well. (These fluctuations have been accounted for on the character sheets.) Should a werewolf suffer excess damage in these extra Health spots and then change back into a form with fewer Health dots, the extra wounds he suffered upgrade his previous wounds.
Fortunately, werewolves recover from their injuries far more quickly than humans do. Regardless of what they're doing, werewolves can regenerate one point of bashing damage per turn (from right to left on the Health chart) instantaneously at the beginning of their action on that turn. If the player so chooses, he could spend one Essence instead for his character to regenerate one point of lethal damage. Even if the character has been knocked unconscious and left for dead, this regeneration still occurs as the player wills it. Characters cannot regenerate aggravated damage, though. They must let that heal in its own time.
Sharpened Senses and Tracking: In forms other than Hishu (i.e., the human form), werewolves have much sharper senses. As such, werewolf characters gain bonus modifiers to any perception roll (Wits + Composure) that you might call for when the characters are in those alternative forms. These bonuses have been accounted for in the given characters' individual character sheets. The sense of smell becomes particularly acute, allowing werewolves to track their prey over vast distances long after their prey has passed. Once a werewolf has picked up his prey's scent (or noticed other signs of its passing), the player rolls Wits + Survival to be able to track it. If the prey is aware that he is being followed and tries to cover his trail, he may do so - allowing him to contest the werewolf's player's roll with a Wits + Survival roll of his own. He may move at only half his Speed while he is trying to cover his trail, though. The Storyteller determines how many successes the tracker needs over several rolls to catch up to his prey (usually from three to ten, depending on how much of a lead the prey has).
Should a werewolf have tasted his prey's blood, however - a not uncommon occurrence - things change in his favor. For up to one year after the werewolf has tasted that prey's blood, he always has an additional +4 bonus on any roll to track that prey. The taste of blood is not a magical prey-tracking compass that always points the way, but if the werewolf catches a hint of that prey's trail, the +4 modifier applies.
Silver: Werewolves suffer terrible damage from silver weaponry. While merely touching silver does not hurt werewolves, stabbing them with silver blades or shooting them with silver bullets inflicts aggravated damage. The number of points of damage is determined as normal by the number of successes on the attacker's attack roll.
The Oath of the Moon: Luna has forgiven the Uratha for hunting down Father Wolf, but she has not done so unconditionally. She has made them swear to uphold a code of behavior that (not coincidentally) runs in line with maintaining the harmony integral to their existence. Some of the key tenets of the Oath of the Moon involve not murdering each other (or even bearing silver weapons against one another), not revealing the existence of werewolves to humankind, not eating the flesh of man or wolf, and not mating with other werewolves or with wolves.
Losing Harmony: A werewolf's worst fear is losing completely the balance between man and beast or flesh and spirit. The more heinous sins they commit, the more quickly their Harmony falls. At Harmony 7 (where all characters start), mating with a fellow Uratha or any worse misdeed can cause moral degeneration (a loss of Harmony). When the character commits such an act, the player rolls a number of dice based on the severity of the sin. The worse the sin is, the fewer dice are rolled. (Needlessly slaying a human or wolf is three dice, betraying your pack is two dice.) If the roll fails, the character loses a point of Harmony. (Willpower can't be spent on this roll.)
Characters with reduced Harmony justify their sin to themselves instead of repenting, and they become that much more unbalanced. It will now take a worse sin to cause another roll to degenerate. At Harmony 6, needlessly killing a human can spark such a roll, as can revealing werewolves' existence to a human. At Harmony 4, you can reveal anything you want to a human as long as you kill him before he can reveal it to anyone else. At Harmony 2, you can kill all the humans or wolves you want as long as you aren't hunting them for food. At Harmony 1, you can hunt any living creature except other werewolves for food.
Characters who do lose Harmony also risk becoming unhinged mentally. If a player fails a degeneration roll, he should immediately roll his character's reduced Harmony as a dice pool. If he fails that roll, the character gains a derangement. This can be any form of minor but pervasive mental disorder, such as depression or a phobia. The player should roleplay this new character quirk, but it has no mechanical effect.
Dealing with Humans: Though most of them are raised by at least one human parent, werewolves are not truly human. As their Primal Urge grows, they lose their understanding of social cues among the human herds. When dealing socially with humans (i.e., making Social rolls for interactive actions), werewolves suffer a dice pool penalty based on their Primal Urge. The penalty for characters at Primal Urge 1 or 2 is -1. This penalty does not apply to rolls involving Intimidation, however. Werewolves don't have to truly understand humans to be able to scare the fool out of them.
Lunacy: A werewolf in Dalu (near-man), Urshul (near-wolf), or Gauru (wolf-man) form is scary, and not just a little bit. Seeing a werewolf in one of these forms invokes an indescribable, supernatural terror known as Lunacy. The degree to which Lunacy overtakes a victim depends on his Willpower trait. A human with a Willpower of 1 to 4 (the most common sort) flees in blind simian panic, trampling anyone in his way. If he can't run, he'll simply collapse and either gibber pleas for mercy or escape into sweet catatonia. When this mindless terror finally subsides, the person either blocks the incident out entirely or remembers a much less terrifying version of events. (For instance, he might think he was only attacked by a rabid grizzly bear.) An above-average witness with a Willpower of 5 to 9 is still overcome with fear and will probably still try to flee. He will, however, do his best to actually lose or impede his pursuers (such as locking doors behind him or trying to hide in a rendering plant) rather than just sprinting away in a random direction until he collapses. If he can't run, he might retain the wherewithal to fight or try to reason with his tormentor. Once the fear subsides, he retains a hazy, nightmarish memory of the events but doesn't truly trust his memory. A human with a Willpower of 10 is unaffected by Lunacy. Sure he might be afraid and he might still feel the perfectly rational desire to beat feet, but he's bereft of none of his normal faculties.
Different circumstances add effective modifiers to a target's Willpower for the purposes of determining Lunacy. If the werewolf is only in Dalu (near-man) form, treat the victim's Willpower as if it were +4 higher. If the werewolf is only in Urshul (near-wolf) form, treat the victim's Willpower as if it were +2 higher. Treat it just as written when the werewolf is in the war form. Humans who are wolf-blooded (i.e., one of their parents is a werewolf - characters such as Sheriff Butch Powe) receive an additional +2 modifier to their Willpower for determining the effects of the Lunacy.
When more than one werewolf is present in different Lunacy-causing forms, apply the effects of the most frightening form present (from Gauru to Urshul to Dalu). If more than one human is present when the Lunacy is evoked (especially if the characters are surrounded by human "extras" in a scene), use the highest Willpower as representative for the entire crowd.