From Tab Wiki

This was a campaign about a pack of newly-changed werewolves in the middle of Chicago who had to claim a territory and defend it from a variety of threats. The campaign ran from July 2007 through October 2007.

"The Exterminators"

• Aidan O'Connor: Social Worker
• Alejandro Moreno: Starving Musician
• "Hanya": Aspiring Yakuza
• Joseph Stone: Bail Bondsman (Deceased)
• Smoothe Money: Pimp
• Justin: Werewolf From Atlanta

Links

• Rules Cheatsheet
• Mortal Character Sheet [Editable]
• Werewolf Character Sheet [Editable]
• Campaign Map [Interactive]

Intro Vignette

The diner wasn’t a place that you’d stop into randomly, just passing by and feeling peckish. It wasn’t the sort of place you’d pick out of a phone book, either. If the diner had ever had a real name, that name had been buried under cigarette ash, tied up in varicose veins and erased along with Tuesday’s lunch specials. It was just “the diner.” It didn’t warrant capitalization. It didn’t attract business so much as accept it, the way a drain accepts garbage and dirty water.

The diner squatted between a porno theater and a burned-out tenement like a bum taking a shit in an alley. The employees, those who drove to work, parked their cars in the theater’s lot. Arliss, the theater manager, took his payment for this privilege in free coffee and sandwiches, stumbling into the diner late at night reeking of mildew and beer.

Joel bussed tables at the diner. He was just out of college, but he had pulled out too soon. He was barely 19 and had received enough schooling to know how to write an essay but not enough to know why he should. He worked at the diner because, on night shifts, the owner paid the staff minimum wage instead of making them work for tips.

Continue Reading Werewolf Intro Vignette [Optional].

Premise, Tone & Themes

Imagine for a moment that everywhere you go, whatever you do there are hundreds upon hundreds of invisible, inhuman eyes staring at you hungrily, waiting to feed off your every thought and emotion. As you ride tiredly to work they prey off your exhaustion; as you sit alone and lusting in your room, they prey off your lust. But this is not just one-way. These invisible spirits can urge you, manipulating your feelings and subtly twisting them to serve their own inhuman ends. Spirits of exhaustion may drive you to stay awake longer at night, reaping a greater harvest of exhaustion from you as you tiredly sit in front of the television and sit even more exhausted the next day. Spirits of lust may tease you with lustful thoughts, but cause you to stumble socially, keeping away any relationship and ensuring that you continue to lust from a distance. The spirits don't care about you; you are merely a source of food to them. This is the world the werewolves see and the humans do not.

Themes

The following are prominent themes of this campaign and Werewolf in general.

Predator & Prey

A central theme--hunt or be hunted. Everything preys on something else: animals hunt other animals, spirits hunt and devour each other for essence, werewolf packs quarrel and fight each other for territory, the rich exploit the poor. Packs need to seize the initiative and aggressively search out threats to their territory, lest those threats take root and eventually hunt the werewolves themselves. Violence among werewolves is common, if not expected. Sides often settle their differences by fighting it out until the one side or the other is beaten and bloody; spilled blood and broken bones mean little when they'll be healed within the hour. For werewolves, this violence is a way of life.

Dark Animism

Werewolf takes an animistic view of the world: trees have spirits; cars have spirits; emotions have spirits; concepts have spirits. These spirits are very real, and they have their own alien intelligences. What's more, if you're a werewolf, then chances are they despise you. Werewolves inherit an inborn duty to patrol the border of the world of the spirit and the world of the physical. This duty involves keeping the worlds somewhat separated--keeping the spirits out of the physical world and the humans out of the spirit world. This prevents reality as we know it from breaking down. The spirits don't like this. They want in the physical world and despise werewolves for their duty. Nevertheless, spirits are necessary for the spiritual balance of things. Werewolves often bribe, bully or cow spirits in their territory into submission; emboldened spirits may try to kill werewolves they don't fear.

Pack & Territory

Werewolves are territorial pack animals. After the first change all werewolves feel an instinct to gather into packs, and as a pack seize territory. Consequently, werewolf society is primarily concerned with packs over individuals. Packs make deals; packs take territory; packs make oaths. To betray one's pack is to merit exile or death. A pack is necessary for one's spiritual balance, as when a werewolf runs without a pack for too long she loses her spiritual harmony and becomes more of a raging monster. Additionally, werewolf packs are territorial. They feel the need to claim territory and patrol it, keeping encroaching spirits and other threats at bay. Often claiming a territory means seizing and taking it from other werewolves, whether other Forsaken or from the antagonistic Pure. Either way, this is a way of life, but not likely to cause a pack to make friends.

Fear of Oneself & Paranoia

Werewolf is a horror game. The world is filled with threats, both external and internal. Externally, werewolves have many enemies, from hostile spirits, to other werewolves, from the half-spirit hosts to hostile human interests. Internally, werewolves are often their own biggest threat. Werewolves often experience extreme emotions--particularly rage--and can to some extent be set off at any time, turning into an uncontrollable monster and harming those they hold most dear. To make matters worse, werewolves often flirt with disaster, for each time they change into Gauru form--the monstrous hybrid form--they put themselves more at risk of losing control.

Grime & Poverty

Given the campaign setting and general tone, another theme is grime and poverty. The location of Bridgeport is surrounded with urban decay--burned out houses, boarded up windows. Gangs roam the neighboring areas at night. The city of Chicago has the highest number of garbage dumps per capita in the United States. People work till they die and barely make ends meet.

Campaign Premise

This campaign takes place in the community of Bridgeport within the city of Chicago. Bridgeport is a poverty-stricken neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. The campaign is designed to stay focused very locally. Player characters will begin the campaign as mortals living and working in the community. The campaign will detail the lives of the player characters as they go through their first change into werewolves, form a pack together and establish themselves in werewolf society--acquiring a territory and a totem spirit. In the end the campaign is about personal change and building one's place in the world--a pack, a territory, a new dynamic--among the grime, poverty and urban rubble.

Beginning the Campaign

At the beginning of the campaign, all of the characters will still be mortals having not as yet experienced their first change [into werewolves]. They will experience this first change one by one over the course of the first couple sessions. That being the case, there is a certain amount of time in game where the player characters are not yet a pack, so there needs to be some other structure to keep the game moving and to get multiple characters involved together in scenes. Because of this, I would like all of the characters at the beginning of the game to either work at the same place (say perhaps a pizza parlor or some other fitting place), live in the same crummy apartment building or otherwise frequent the same bar every night. While this may require some suspension of disbelief as to why so many people from a single establishment experience their first change into werewolves within a short time-frame (a spirit plot maybe? fate?), this does provide some framework to center the early scenes of the campaign around as to involve as many player characters as possible and get things rolling.

What type of establishment we pick to associate the characters with one another is something we will discuss at the character creation session and decide upon.

Appropriately Thematic Media

• Ginger Snaps [Movie]: Not a cute and fuzzy movie as the title and cover would lead you to believe. Deals with a teenage girl becoming a werewolf and the situation surrounding that.
• Brotherhood of the Wolf [Movie]: A bloody movie about the Beast of Gevaudan, the story from the 1700's that originally linked werewolves to the idea of being harmed by silver.
• Fight Club [Book/Movie]: Doesn't have anything to do with werewolves, but it deals with personal change, institutionalized violence, grime and other shared themes.
• Dog Soldiers [Movie]: A soldier movie with werewolves. Shows werewolves working as a pack and how much more devastating that can make them.
• An American Werewolf in London [Movie]: I haven't seen it, but I am told it is fitting and a decent movie.

Bridgeport, Chicago

Bridgeport is a lower class neighborhood on the near South Side of Chicago, known for its ethnic populations and proximity to other Chicago areas and landmarks.

Demographics

Population: 33,694 | Population Density: 6,194.9 /km² | Median Income: $20,955
White: 41.0% | Black: 4.05% | Hispanic: 27.2% | Asian: 26.1% | Other: 1.63%

The community area of Bridgeport was first settled in the 1830's by a wave of Irish immigrants, many of whom came to Chicago to work on the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Because of inadequate funding for the project, the State of Illinois began issuing "Land Scrip" to the workers rather than paying them with money. A large number of those Irish-Americans who received the scrip used the scrip to purchase canal-owned land and settled at the northern end of the canal, at its junction with the south branch of the Chicago River, near the original Bridgeport village, named Hardscrabble. Starting in the early 1900's, Lithuanians began to flock to Bridgeport, particularly settling the area between 31st and 35th Streets. This was followed by an influx of Chinese-Americans who began to live along the side of Bridgeport neighboring Chinatown. Finally, during the 80's and 90's the area saw a new wave of immigration, this time Mexicans who also settled in the Bridgeport area due to its affordability and proximity to their work. All of these ethnic groups still have a sizable population living in Bridgeport today.

About Chicago

Chicago is the third biggest metropolitan area in the United States--trailing only behind Los Angeles and New York--having some 9.5 million people. The economic heart of Chicago is "The Loop", the downtown area of the city, getting its name for the fact that it is entirely encircled by the "El" (Elevated Train)--Chicago's subway system. The city is roughly divided up into two halves--the North Side and the South Side. The North Side is primarily the home of Chicago's wealthy and influential, expanding north along the lake up into Wisconsin. The South Side on the other hand, is the home of Chicago's less well-off, filled with barrios and ghettos, expanding southwest along the lake, till the area eventually fades away into the Indiana and the abandoned factories and work yards of the old Rust Belt. Cutting through all of this is the Chicago River, a waterway that once emptied out into Lake Michigan, but whose course has been altered by feats of human engineering, causing the river to empty instead into the Mississippi Rivershed--a choice made due to the millions of galleons of animal blood and rotting body parts being emptied into the river by the Chicago meatpacking industry in the late 1800s's.

Chicago History

Chicago was built on the site of Fort Dearborn, actually the second of two forts that each went by the same name. The first Fort Dearborn was constructed 1803, but after an escalating series of conflicts with the local Native Americans, the first Fort Dearborn was razed and the inhabitants killed in 1812. The second Fort Dearborn was constructed in 1816 (after the US had recovered from the War of 1812) and this time it was the Native Americans driven out and slaughtered.

The Union Stock Yards opened in 1865, and Chicago’s slaughterhouses grew at a phenomenal rate. One poet called Chicago the "butcher to the world." As the decades passed, the intimate connection between spilling blood and making money would only grow stronger, and that legacy would long outlast the city’s stockyards. Chicago was a workingman’s town that still had a feel of the frontier to it. When the town’s citizens weren’t working, they liked to drink, gamble, visit whores and, of course, go to church on Sundays. Even in the early years, Chicago was known for its crime and rampant vice, and had a reputation throughout the United States and Europe as a wicked city. Newspapers would daily announce the latest sensational crimes. Compared to other cities of the day, Chicago’s many dens of vice of all sorts were blatant and unapologetic. Many of these establishments, called "the Patches," were located along the banks of the Chicago River, and the Chicago Tribune described them as "places of the most beastly sensuality and darkest crimes."

On the night of October 8, 1871, a barn in the southern portion of the city caught fire around 8:30 in the evening. With the wind fanning the flames, fire lunged through the city’s tightly pressed wooden buildings at an astonishing rate. For 36 hours, the flames raged through Chicago, destroying more than 18,000 buildings over nearly four square miles in the heart of the city. Whatever the cause, Chicago was not the only place to experience fires that night. All across Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois, blazes seemed to erupt spontaneously at approximately the same time. In recent years, scientists have suggested that these fires were caused by a swarm of incoming meteorites, but, in the 19th century, the more commonly held belief was that the Great Fire was the old-fashioned wrath of God brought down on a city that wore its wickedness on its sleeve.

In 1886 the infamous Haymarket Riots occurred in Chicago over lowering the ten-hour workday to eight hours, leaving perhaps hundreds of people shot by police and giving rise to Mayday as an international holiday.

In 1900, after many years of discussion, an unheard-of expenditure of money and a great deal of work, the city of Chicago succeeded in subjugating nature to the city’s will and reversed the flow of the river the city was named for. With the Chicago River no longer emptying into the lake where the city’s drinking water originated, the river could be used to dispose of all manner of waste, including all of the increasing output of blood from the stockyards. Thousands of animals were killed and butchered in Chicago’s slaughterhouses every day, and truly staggering quantities of blood and offal were dumped into the river. The meatpacking plants were among the worst violators. From 1893 to 1933, there was no year in which fewer than 15 million animals were butchered in Chicago’s abattoirs. Hundreds of pounds of spoiled meat and gallons of blood from the slaughterhouses poured into the Chicago River every day, and the viscous, rusty brown river took everything away. At times, the blood was so thick that a scab formed over the top of the river thick enough for birds and squirrels to run across. A number of drunks tried the same thing and fell through, becoming just a bit more rotting meat in the water. And when other, heavier industries came into Chicago, they pumped their trash, their arsenic and mercury and lead compounds into the river as well. Out of sight, out of mind, after all.

The constitutional amendment outlawing the creation, distribution or sale of alcohol went into effect in January of 1920, and the next 13 years saw Chicago earn a reputation for lawlessness unrivaled by any other city in America. Prohibition undermined the law, turned organized crime into an American empire and resulted in the corruption of hundreds, if not thousands, of police officers, judges and politicians. The number of murders committed in Chicago started climbing as soon as booze was outlawed.

The South Side

Once, in the early decades of the 20th century the South Side was Chicago's affluent core, full of the conspicuously rich strolling down its avenues and boulevards in front of lavish Victorian row houses. Sixty years of steady decline have brought a drastic change to the South Side. Today it comprises several square miles of gang-infested ghettos. If someone were looking for a handy one-word descriptor of the area "squalid" works nicely., as does "dangerous." All that's left of South Side's rich heritage is street after street of beautiful stone homes that have fallen into graceless ruin. These once-beautiful homes are not rat-infested, run-down and abandoned. Many of these have already been deemed dangerous and demolished (because they're collapsing or for other, less explicit reasons), and these places have been the setting for many, many crimes, from theft and extortion to rape and murder.

A good 70% of Chicago's murder rate gets racked up down here. To most Chicagoans, this means "stay out." To criminals, it means "come here to do your dirty work." The South Side is a playground for the desperate and malicious. Missing persons, when they're carefully chosen, aren't missed down here for a long time, and can easily go unmissed. Unless circumstances insist otherwise, the cops are likely to attribute most South Side deaths to one of four categories: drug deals gone bad, gang violence, poor pimp-whore relations or domestic disputes gone too far.

The farther south and west you go in the South Side, the worse things get. The farthest southwest neighborhoods are so polluted from the heavy industry of the early 20th century, they're no longer safe to live there, although the desperately poor still do.

However, throughout the grim and ugly expanse of South Side, one can find tiny oasis neighborhoods where the residents have kept "undesirables" (and somehow a range of other urban blights) out of their neighborhoods. These enclaves--working-class ethnic neighborhoods, with residents from Poland or Romania or the Czech Republic or multi-generational ties to the region that transcend race or income--exist for a few square blocks here and there throughout the South Side, a time warp to the late 50's, where children play in the street into the gloaming and people sometimes forget to lock their doors and live to tell about it. These communities are tight. If someone goes missing, people notice and they take action. Predators take their chances when they wander in to these tiny enclaves. Vigilantism is still considered an Old World virtue down here, and more than one would-be burglar or rapist has been shot, stabbed or beaten to death while walking down the the quiet tree-lined streets of these neighborhoods without so much as a single witness--or at least any who will come forward. Given the wealth of easy and unquestioned goods elsewhere, most of Chicago's criminals world rather ignore these enclaves in favor of easy pickings.

Neighboring Areas

Bridgeport is neighbored by five different Chicago community areas. As one goes North one arrives in Pilsen--known officially as the Lower West Side. Historically an ethnic Czech neighborhood, it has since the 1970's been a predominantly Latino barrio. To the West is the community of McKinley Park. Also a Latino barrio, in recent years the neighborhood as been the subject of urban renewal efforts that have been met with little success. To the East is Armour Square, which includes both Chicago's Chinatown and U.S. Cellular Field (known formerly as Comiskey Park, home of the Chicago White Sox). This is one of the areas of Chicago that tourists flock to, and are warned not to stray too far from the ball field or Chinatown--especially at night--for fear that they will wander into a neighboring and more dangerous neighborhood (like Bridgeport or Fuller Park). Finally, to the Southeast is Fuller Park, one of the South Side's many African-American ghettos--an area even more poverty-stricken than Bridgeport.

Local Landmarks

• 31st & Morgan Check Cashers Inc: A small, seedy short-term loan and pawn shop known for not asking questions and for having particularly brutal loan payment enforcers; good selection of firearms.
• Armour Elementary School: Where kids from Bridgeport probably went to school. An iconic early twentieth century brick building with small, barred windows and surrounded by a razor-wire fence.
• Beluga's: A local greasy-spoon dinner; the kind of place where they clean glasses with spit and a dirty rag.
• Bridgeport Coffeehouse: Known for its late hours; frequented by cracked out writers and the local young punks who think its cool to be pretentious.
• Church of God In Chicago: A beautiful old church that's seen better days; pretty empty, even on Sundays.
• Cousin's Food Mart: A run-down grocery/convenience store stocked with five-year-old twinkees and expired frozen pizza; does a tidy business in crystal meth on the side.
• Healthy Food Lithuanian Restaurant: Not as healthy as the name suggests, although tasty; the atmosphere is cold unless you're a local Lithuanian; they're not afraid of putting would-be robbers in a body bag.
• Los Primos Groceries: May have once been a grocery store, but has been since taken over by "adult" novelty items; also willing to hook people up with various "escort services."
• Monastery of the Holy Cross: A pious island in a sea of social decay and concrete; the monks like secluding themselves.
• Morrie O'Malley's Hot Dogs: More remarkable for its well-connected and dangerously-eccentric vendor than for its wieners.
• Puffer's Tavern: A favored nightly hang-out for the local blue collars; a black eye for everyone else.
• Schaller's Pump: Generic American food; the joke is it's named after what they'll have to do to your stomach after eating there; word is the family that runs it is into organized crime.
• South Central Bank: The local bank; robbed almost annually.
• Special Religious Education Agency: A generically "Christian" establishment; the sort of place where regional protestant fundamentalists send their homosexual children or other black sheep progeny to be "corrected".
• Uncle Johnny's Deli: This place is like a Norman Rockwell painting; how it manages this is beyond anyone's reasoning; particularly unsettling when juxtaposed next to the frequent gang shootings not a block away.
• U.S. Cellular Field: Not technically in Bridgeport, but close enough that it is often referred to as being there; home of the Chicago White Sox and many a littered beer can.

Game Mechanics

The following are the relevant and/or changed game mechanics for the campaign. Also see the World of Darkness/Werewolf Rules Cheatsheet.

Character Creation

The system for character creation presented here is not the one presented in the World of Darkness book. I have chosen to rip up and rebuild the character creation system into something that I feel would be more useful for getting into character and providing that character with a useful context in a Werewolf game. When you turn your character in to me, please make sure to turn in what choices you made at each step in addition to the final product.

Looking to the End

Before beginning character creation it is useful to look to the end, so that one gets an idea where one's character is going to end up. Character creation is broken up into three stages: childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Most new werewolves experience their first change somewhere between fifteen and thirty years of age, so as you are making a human character not far from her first change, keep what age she will be in mind. Additionally, as the campaign centers around the [poverty-stricken] neighborhood of Bridgeport in Chicago, and characters will begin as people working and living there, it may be important to remember that at the end your character needs a reason to be there.

Childhood

Unlike in Vampire or Mage where a character lives a totally-unaffected life and then one day out of the blue suddenly is embraced or experiences the Awakening, in Werewolf a character's future state as one of the Uratha affects her entire life, even if she doesn't know what it will mean. After all, being wolf-blooded is an inherited trait.

Most wolf-bloods have troubled childhoods. Although occasionally a wolf-blood only has a grandparent that is a werewolf, the vast majority of wolf-bloods have a parent who is Uratha. This leads to a number of complications in a wolf-blood's life.

For one, most Uratha do not long take an active part in raising their children. They are discouraged from doing so as a werewolf represents a threat to her entire family. When emotionally stressed, werewolves risk going into death rage and seriously harming those around them. Additionally, the Uratha have many enemies who would threaten or kill a werewolf's family if they could trace her to them. Those that do not leave their children always pose a threat to their child's life, often losing their tempers and destroying things around them. Uratha have many responsibilities that may alienate them from their children and stress their relationships: coming and going at odd hours of the day, staying gone for days or weeks, coming home with blood and aggravated wounds. Wolf-blooded children in this situation may grow up afraid of their werewolf parent. The family may receive troubles from the Uratha's enemies. If she pisses off fire spirits the house may burn down. If she pisses off someone with the right contacts, the house may be repossessed. Because of all this, most werewolves leave their human mate to raise the child alone, or leave the child in the hands of extended family or adoption agencies. This too presents problems. Statistically, being a single parent is one of the most reliably effective tickets into poverty. Or the child may grow up with child services, passed from home to home, never receiving adequate care, maybe even abused. The abandoned mate may feel betrayed by the werewolf, and the wolf-blood may grow up learning to hate their missing parent. Nevertheless, Uratha society encourages parents to look after their children from afar, providing what little support they can. The wolf-blooded child may receive anonymous gifts and aid from their werewolf parent, coming at odd times, leaving them puzzled but a little better off. Finally, Uratha do not have a high life expectancy. With as many enemies as the Forsaken have, all but a very few die young and from violence. This may mean the werewolf parent is found dead part-way through the wolf-blood's childhood, or that the mysterious aid one day suddenly stops.

Children are almost never told about their status as one of the wolf-blooded. For one, revealing one's nature as one of the Uratha is a sin against a werewolf's spiritual balance, potentially leaving them less stable and thus more prone to dangerously lashing out at their family. Second, young children are not known for their ability to keep secrets. Even mindlessly blurting the secret out to classmates may be dangerous: One never knows where one's enemies might be listening. Third, most wolf-bloods never experience the first change and become werewolves, thus for most wolf-bloods it never becomes relevant to them. Lastly, providing the wolf-blood with knowledge about her heritage may lead to her going out and asking questions; werewolves have any enemies and humans are comparatively fragile creatures; asking such questions may be the very thing that would put the wolf-blood in the most danger.

The final thing to consider is how your character will fit in. What are other people doing? How does your character fit into the premise and themes of the campaign? A happy and privileged childhood may run counter to the themes of the campaign, unless used to emphasize how far your character has fallen.

For this step think about your character's childhood. Where does your character come from? Who were her parents? Which one was Uratha? What did they do? What was you character's naive childhood dreams? How does all this affect your character today?

Make a section of your character's bio on the wiki marked “Childhood” and write down a few of these things. Aim for a paragraph or two. Next think about what your character is innately talented at: Is she better at mental, physical or social tasks. Categorize these three categories into primary, secondary and ternary. You start with one dot in each of the nine attributes, but go ahead and distribute three more dots in your primary category, two in your secondary and one in your ternary category to represent your childhood development. If she spent most of her childhood trying not to cry when being beat, you might select Composure or Stamina.; if she spent her childhood hiding on ghetto rooftops reading books, you might select Intelligence; etc. Finally, go ahead and put one dot into each of the three categories of skills to represent skills picked up during childhood. Get in fights with classmates a lot? Put a point in brawl. Sneak out of school to play hooky? Perhaps a point of Stealth or Socialize. Remember, there are some skills that would be particularly hard-to-explain being picked for childhood. Such as firearms—most people wait until at least adolescence before letting their kids fire guns; or computers (as we're probably talking about under-privileged kids in the late 70's through late 80's). At this point your character also automatically gains the Wolf-Blooded merit. Finally, you might want to give some though to a flaw if your character has one. Take a look at the flaws list in the World of Darkness book, or talk to the GM about taking another one. Make sure to put all this on the wiki, too.

Adolescence

Things get more complicated for wolf-bloods as adolescents. While childhood may have been troubled or unhappy, it's usually at least simple. The same can not be said about adolescence. Hell, adolescence is hard enough for people even without wolf-blood complications setting in.

For one, the family problems usually continue. The parent is still single, or the wolf-blood is still being passed around in child services, etc. Being the kin of werewolves, the wolf-blooded adolescent experiences unusually strong emotions, particularly rage. She may be prone to getting in fights, or have other behavior problems in school. This alone may make her particularly unpopular or ostracized from her peers. But the icing on the cake is this: She may begin to see things. Nothing too severe, certainly nothing blatant or obvious. But little things: Movement out of the corner of the eye. Twisted, inhuman faces seen standing behind her in the mirror—there for just a second, but gone with a blink. It manifests in different ways and to a different extent with everyone. Unbeknown to her, this is her wolf-blood acting up, making her more aware of spirits in the world around her. It may manifest as fleeting glimpses of half-seen monstrosities. Or it may manifest as hair pricking up on the back of the next, or faint inhuman voices heard speaking no known human tongue, whispering to her as she tries to sleep. She may believe she's going crazy, or she may come to some other conclusion for the strange senses that plague her: angels, demons, aliens, the voice of god—whatever her mind can rationalize. What do those around her think when she starts reacting to things only she can see?

Think about how your character spends her time as an adolescent. Who are her friends? How does family life affect her? To what extent does she sense spirits, if at all? What do others think of her? What does she want at this point? Go ahead and make a section named Adolescence on the character's wiki page and write a paragraph or two about her adolescence. Write down the name of an adolescent friend or two. Accompany the name with a sentence or two about the person.

What sort of activities does the character spent the most time doing? Physical ones? Mental? Social? Now look at the skills section and prioritize the three categories (physical, mental, social) into primary, secondary and ternary. This does not have to be the same prioritization as selected for attributes. Now distribute five more skill dots into the primary category, three into the secondary category and one into the ternary category. Look back at attributes. How does your character's activities affect her more general development? Distribute one more dot into each category to reflect her adolescent development. But before these are all finalized, remember this caveat: Placing the fifth dot into any attribute or skill costs two dots instead of just one.

Just a couple more things for adolescence. Now think about what virtues your character has. What good is in her? Is she violent and rebellious, but helps old ladies across the street? Does she refuse to indulge in drug abuse despite her friends doing so? Pick a virtue from the World of Darkness book that best fits your character. Now, similarly, think about what makes your character bad. What makes her a jerk? What's her biggest character flaw? Now look through the book and pick the best-fitting vice. Finally, she starts with seven Morality. Does her adolescent activities make sense for her to have a lower Morality score? If so, then you may opt to lower her Morality to six. There is no mechanical award granted for choosing to do this; the choice is there merely to help potentially model your character better. Make sure all this goes on the wiki.

Adulthood

This phase may reflect more or less time in-game, depending on your character's age. Even if your character is only fifteen years old, use this stage to represent the last year of her life or so. Think about what your character's done with her life. The glimpses of spirits wolf-bloods receive in childhood and adolescence are usually on the decline by this age, but in some individuals it persists, causing them continuing problems and making it harder to keep a steady job.

The wolf-blood's werewolf parent is most likely dead by now—most werewolves die violently and young. She once had naive childhood dreams. What has become of them? How have they gone wrong and been forgotten with the years? The wolf-blood may be out on her own, working two full-time jobs just to make ends meet, she may still be living at home with mother, still bumming around, or anything in-between. Nevertheless, remember the premise of the campaign specifies that when all is said and done, at the beginning of the campaign she is living in the poverty-stricken neighborhood of Bridgeport in Chicago's south side. Why is she there? Did she grow up there? Move there after moving out of her adopted parents' house?

Everyone has some social contact with the outside world. Who are your character's closest associates? Remember, Werewolf is a horror game, and part of the horror particularly in Werewolf comes from the fear of what one might do to those they care about. So think about this. Even if your character is generally a social recluse, she may still have people she sees and forms some sort of distant attachment to: co-workers, family members, the old man she always sees at the grocery store, members of the same religious group, etc. Make sure to include a couple of these when you write up your character's adulthood.

Now it is time to finish character creation. Write down a paragraph or two about your character's adulthood. Think about how this would affect her mechanically, then put an extra dot into attribute each category. Think about her adult skills. What does she do at work or school or for fun? Distribute five dots in her primary skill category, three in her secondary and two in her ternary. Remember, the fifth dot of any attribute or skill costs two (which means you will have to combine it with a similar pick from Adolescence to get a fifth dot, in the case of attributes). Finally, think about what she specializes in and pick three skill specialties—either from the list in the World of Darkness rulebook or something else with the GM's permission.

If the character still engages in activities that would lower her Morality score, you may optionally reduce her Morality score by one again (to either five or six).

It is time to think about your character's background and what makes her unique. You have 30 experience points to spend for your character. These can be spent to raise attributes, skills or anything else like normal, but pay special attention to merits [as these experience points replace the normal starting merit dots]. You may freely buy mental and physical merits as makes sense for your character. Social merits, however, may present more of a sticky situation, as your character is on the verge of going through a massive social upheaval (the first change). You probably want to speak to the GM before settling on any social merits. Your character probably shouldn't have more than a single dot of resources given the premise of the campaign, and certainly not any dots in fame. The Barfly and Striking Looks merits, however, are fairly safe picks.

Now just add up the secondary statistics as indicated on the character sheet (defense, initiative, speed, etc.) Finally, think about what your character owns, as appropriate for her Resources rating. Work out with the GM any significant items you own.

Looking Back

So at this point the character should be mostly complete. At minimum you should have written down your choice of mechanics and three paragraphs (childhood, adolescence, adulthood). Look back at it and ask yourself: Does this character seem fun to play? Is it an interesting character in its own right? Characters should be interesting people first, interesting soon-to-be-werewolves second. Finally, does the character fit the themes of the game? Do you think she will mesh well with the other characters? If this reflection reveals any problems, go back and tweak things as necessary to ensure you and everyone else has a good time with the characters.

The Future

Looking to the future, characters will probably undergo their first change [into werewolves] a session or two into the campaign. This will cause them to lose the Wolf-Blooded merit, but they will gain the Werewolf template. Not all of the abilities of the template will be immediately available—as the characters have not gained them or learned how to use them yet. But these abilities will be soon-in-coming after this point. These abilities include changing into different forms, regeneration, the ability to track by smell and the taste of blood, a vulnerability to silver and a number of supernatural gifts taught by the spirits. [Also, note that upon their first change into werewolves, the character's Morality becomes Harmony and is set back up to 7 instead of the Morality rating becoming the Harmony rating. This is because Harmony replaces Morality instead of augmenting it (the way it does in say, Mage). According to the rules of Harmony, what makes one a bad person and what makes one a bad werewolf and two different things.]

One thing werewolves gain is an Auspice. This is a set of powers granted by the fickle spirit Mother Luna based upon the phase of the moon the werewolf first changes under. Each auspice grants an archetypal power of these sorts: warrior, prophet, judge, occultist, sneak. If you have a preference of which auspice you would like, let the GM know before the first session and he'll see what he can do.

Character Advancement

Players should expect to gain between two and five experience points per session. Experience points are awarded as follows:

• 1 point for being present.
• 1 point for doing a character journal.
• 1 – 3 points awarded from other players.
• 1 point if a character flaw came up.

Traits have the same costs marked in the Werewolf book, except that Totem Merits, Harmony and Renown are not purchasable with experience points. Instead they will be awarded to players directly by the GM for accomplishing great tasks in game that would in-character merit increased power for the pack's totem, a greater spiritual balance or markings of renown from the Lunes, respectively. Also, note that all gifts, rites and merits must be “unlocked” in game by undertaking actions that get your character access to a new rite or merit, etc.

Mundane flaws must be taken at character creation. Players will also get a chance to take werewolf-specific flaws after their first change.

The only merits, gifts, rites and other options available to players are those found in the World of Darkness core book, Werewolf the Forsaken and the Forsaken Player's Guide. This keeps the number of books with crunchy character options being used down to a manageable number rather than having character options scattered across many supplements. Note that the only book relevant at character creation is the World of Darkness core, with the exception of the Wolf-Blooded merit all PCs get for free (found in Werewolf the Forsaken).

Also note that the Werewolf book speaks of a third social distinction of werewolves--that of Lodge. Lodges are not a prominent feature of werewolf society in the area this campaign takes place in, and thus player characters cannot join lodges [and chances are no non-player characters will be members either].

House Rules

Read full text of house rules in WoD House Rules.

• Alternate Chance Die Mechanic: Chance rolls do not always have 10% chance of success.
• More Common Dramatic Failures: Rolling all 1's is a dramatic failure.
• Turns and Rounds in Combat: Your round begins on your turn.
• Defense Dice Pool: Defense now a dice pool, not a subtracted modifier.
• Damage Does Not Add to Attack: Weapon "Damage" bonus is rolled after an attack hits.
• Armor Clarification & Dice Pool: Armor is now a dice pool, not a subtracted modifier.
• Expanded Resources Mechanics: Keep closer track of money.

About Werewolves

A werewolf's first change is foreshadowed by her entire life. From the moment she is born she has a werewolf ancestor, either directly or indirectly affecting her family life. As she grows older she suffers from heightened emotions and sometimes a sensitivity to spirits that makes her seem crazy in the eyes of others. And then sometime in the day or weeks before her first change the world goes mad. Peculiar, inexplicable things begin to happen. While she lies in bed at night, she hears whispers in a language she doesn’t recognize but can almost understand. She walks for five minutes and travels five miles, or she finds herself in horrible nightmare-spaces like eternal hallways or burning buildings with no exit. In the middle of the afternoon. For no reason.

And then there are the others. She catches a glimpse of a stranger watching her, or she wakes up in the dead of night to see what looks like a huge dog sitting on her lawn. Then it comes — the attack. Something that might be a dog, a wolf or even a crazy human being with too-sharp teeth knocks her down at night — maybe even in the safety of her own home — and bites deep into her flesh. The wound doesn’t seem infected; in fact, it heals more quickly than it should. For days, her life breaks down. The world twists and shudders around her, and finally instinct takes over. The only escape from the wildly whirling world is to change to match it.

When the First Change comes on her, her body ripples uncontrollably. She goes through partial transformations. Her face and skin might remain human while she extends an enormous bloody muzzle, or her legs might turn into weak wolf’s legs while her body’s mass remains the same. Many think they’re dying or going insane. They’re wrong.

And overhead there is the moon, forever after marking the new werewolf with its phase, granting her an Auspice--an affinity with that phase of the moon and a set of symbolic abilities to match. The others who have been watching--the thing that bit her. They show up again, confront her, tell her what she is. Tell her of terrible things. They are Forsaken, and they are always vigilant for newly changed werewolves--after all, they have to compete with the Pure.

She's taken in for a time. Taught of the spirits and the world as the Forsaken see it. Perhaps she joins a pack, perhaps she helps form a new one with others newly-changed. But before too long she's on her own--in a harsh, hunter's world.

What it's Like to be a Werewolf

Upon experiencing and taking one's first breaths as a werewolf, the world beings to be viewed differently. For one, werewolves possess superior senses to mortals, able to smell the scents of sweat and garbage from yards upon yards away. For another, injuries begin to matter less, as werewolves possess a supernaturally fast ability to heal all but the most lethal of injuries--those caused by silver--quickly. Third, werewolves see things that normal mortals do not. They can see the immaterial spirits that have slipped into the physical world and see what those spirits are doing, something to which most mortals are thankfully oblivious to. Spirits and many werewolves speak their own language--the First Tongue--said to be the original language spoken by all things, something akin to what was spoken before the Tower of Babel. Werewolves feel a paranoia. They have many enemies, many of which are subtle.

Finally, werewolves must worry about their spiritual Harmony. This is a measure of how well they are spiritually balanced. Some acts are considered sins against Harmony and by undertaking these acts, a werewolf risks degeneration into a mindless beast, full of rage and savagery. In fact, the further a werewolf slips, the easier to becomes to lose control and lash out at the werewolf's loved ones around her, perhaps killing those she holds dear. For many, this spiritual Harmony eventually replaces thoughts once held of mortal morality.

When a werewolf joins Forsaken society, in order to join a tribe or otherwise gain social acceptance among her new peers, she must swear the Oath of the Moon. This oath is part religious creed and part law. It forms the tenants that hold werewolf society together. Breaking the Oath of the Moon may result in knowledgeable werewolves seeking to punish the offender for her transgressions, or even spiritual consequences. The parts of the oath are as follows:

• The wolf must hunt. This represents the duty of the Forsaken to hunt and protect their own.
• The People do not murder the People. This means that werewolves do not kill other werewolves.
• The low honor the high; the high respect the low. This establishes renown and hierarchy in werewolf society.
• Respect your prey. This means to not kill needlessly; do not overtax one's territory in hunting.
• The Uratha shall cleave to the human. This is a prohibition against fucking other werewolves.
• Do not eat the flesh of man or wolf. This is a prohibition against eating human, wolf or werewolf flesh.
• The herd must not know. This is a prohibition against revealing one's nature to mortals.

Social Distinctions

Most werewolves are brought into werewolf society by either the Forsaken or the Pure--two competing groups of werewolves that have a blood feud going back ages. The PCs will be taken by the Forsaken.

Auspice

Depending on what phase of the moon a werewolf undergoes her first change during, a werewolf is gifted spiritually with one of five auspices. These auspices are said to be a gift from Mother Luna. Werewolf society sees each auspice as having a different role to play, as each auspice is granted with a different gift of power and has the potential to develop spiritual abilities on different paths. But even though werewolf society may--say associate those with the Rahu auspice as being warriors--that does not make the werewolf so-associated a warrior; it only means werewolves will expect her to be a warrior, being that she's been gifted with the warrior's auspice. The different auspices are as follows:

Rahu: Full Moon

• Affinity Skills: Brawl, Intimidation, Survival

The Rahu is a howler at the full moon, a reflection of Luna’s warrior face. Rahu take the lead in war, be it quiet war against neighboring packs or open combat against their enemies. Rahu reflect every aspect of the warrior archetype. They are the ravening berserkers and the calculating generals. The two contrasting styles can even be found in the same werewolf. Uratha warriors pass down lore of combat ranging from Caesar’s battle tactics in Gaul to up-to-the-minute tactical manuals stolen from elite armed forces.

Cahalith: Gibbous Moon

• Affinity Skills: Crafts, Expression, Persuasion

Every Cahalith’s First Change occurs under a gibbous moon — one either well on its way to or just past full. The Cahalith is a storyteller, vision-quester and lorekeeper among the People. If the gibbous moon is “pregnant,” the Cahalith who reflect that moon are pregnant with ideas, emotions and creative energy. Some Cahalith experience intense dreams every night, while artistic creation drives others to near-ecstatic madness. They are the visionaries of the Forsaken, frequently lost in reveries that echo the distant past or chasing faint glimpses of the future. As the moon waxes toward full, a Cahalith looks to the next night; as it wanes, she glances into the past. Many Cahalith are driven to express their lunar dreams through music. More importantly, nearly every Cahalith knows many epic howls and histories, and has access to dozens more from allied spirits and Uratha. History is alive to a Cahalith. Just as a scent can tell her something of a person who passed by yesterday, an old saga can tell her about the life and passion of someone who lived long ago.

Elodoth: Half-Moon

• Affinity Skills: Empathy, Investigation, Politics

Half Moons represent Luna half-hidden. It is said that half of them go through the First Change in the daytime, and half at night. Every werewolf’s personality changes slightly over the course of the month; becoming more easily aggravated during the full moon and a bit morose during the new moon. Elodoth feel that ebb and flow more strongly than other auspices do. (Some consider such changes to their mental state gifts from Luna.) Many Elodoth take their role as the bridger of gaps farther than other auspices do. They spend half their time in each native form, experiment with sexual partners of either gender or otherwise deliberately choose to walk in two worlds. This ever-changing perspective gives Elodoth unique insight into the other auspices. As a result, Elodoth are trusted as judges and arbiters throughout the Forsaken territories. They are also excellent diplomats where the fickle and hostile spirit world is concerned, and it is usually the Half Moon who has the greatest chance of talking a spirit into or out of action. Many Elodoth believe they understand Luna better than other Uratha do, so they’re the ones most often nominated to stand in judgment over violations of the Oath of the Moon, Luna’s sacred law.

Ithaeur: Crescent Moon

• Affinity Skills: Animal Ken, Medicine, Occult

As a crescent moon, Luna is hiding most of her face. She reveals just a sliver — an eye or the line of her jaw. Werewolves know she’s there but she’s concerned with other matters — or she doesn’t want them to think she’s watching them. The children of the crescent moon are the occultists of the Forsaken, those who learn the secrets of mastery over the spirits. Where an Elodoth sways a spirit with sophisticated reasoning that appeals to its very nature, an Ithaeur decisively binds it through magic or strikes at its ban. Ithaeur maintain libraries of occult rituals of all stripes — ranging from harmless prayers to skyshaking rites that could slaughter humans by the score. The Ithaeur is the one who cannot walk away from the shadowy terrors of the Shadow Realm. He’s the one who has to master the darker side of the spirit world. Any werewolf can parley with a Lune or wolf-spirit, but the Ithaeur has to be the one to master spirits who would as soon destroy an Uratha as bandy words with it. The Ithaeur’s life is a dangerous one — and it isn’t always true that the rewards match the risk.

Irraka: New Moon

• Affinity Skills: Larceny, Stealth, Subterfuge

When Luna cannot be seen at all, then the Irraka hunt. The Irraka are the scouts and stalkers, the cunning hunters who elude the worst threats only to strike at their vulnerable spots from behind. They ply their wits socially as well, testing the dedication of other Uratha to their packs, their tribes and the Oath of the Moon. The Irraka are forever on the boundary, sometimes stalking the borders of their pack’s territory, sometimes wandering the boundaries between Uratha and human society. Some Irraka function as ambassadors between werewolves and the rare humans, wolf-blooded or not, who can be considered allies. More often, though, they direct their efforts toward distracting humans into looking at their own lives and society rather than digging too deeply into matters best left to the Forsaken. The Irraka is a creature of keen wit and great cleverness, like the fox of ancient fables. The new moon’s path leads through dark places, but also reveals shortcuts; an Irraka who plans an attack will more often assemble a cunning ambush than an overpowering direct assault. The New Moon’s talent for skullduggery serves a greater purpose — showing his packmates the shadow way. Where the Cahalith inspires with emotion, the Irraka prods them with cunning. By his wiles, they may hit upon the tactic their foes would never expect.

Tribes

Tribes among the Uratha are not like tribes among primitive humans. They aren’t tied together by blood, although blood ties within tribes are common. A particular tribe doesn’t claim a particular patch of land as a tribal home, nor do its members roam as a group across the steppe in search of fertile resources. Two characteristics define werewolf tribes. First, all members of a Forsaken tribe follow the same one of five powerful Incarnae, said to be the spirit children of Father Wolf. These totems, called the Firstborn, look over modern Uratha tribes as elder siblings. Secondly each tribal totem has a unique ban just as all spirits do. The totem’s ban informs its outlook and way of life, and it’s frequently reflected in the vow that binds it to its tribe, and its tribe members to one another.

The proper choice of tribe resonates in a werewolf’s heart — sympathy for a particular totem, agreement with its goal, willingness to adhere to its vow and even a certain affinity for the other members of a tribe. The choice of tribe is the choice of how best to live up to the legacy of Father Wolf, and the bond of a tribal totem connects the souls of all those who share that choice. Those who refuse to choose a tribe are known as Ghost Wolves and live on the fringes of Forsaken society, lacking in resources or allies. The five Forsaken tribes are as follows:

Blood Talons

The Blood Talons are the most aggressive warriors among the Forsaken. They follow Destroyer Wolf, the warrior and devourer. Also called Fenris, he is the fiercest of the spirit children of Father Wolf, though not the wisest, and he can be led into a trap by the cunning. The Talons live by a warrior’s code. They believe that they must emulate Fenris’ ferocity in combat. According to their credo, any foe that can be bested in combat is an inferior one. This belief occasionally backfires, particularly when Blood Talons face an enemy who shows less aptitude for direct forms of combat yet can still out-think and outflank them. A corporation whose goals interfere with a Blood Talon pack’s plans for its own territory cannot be defeated on the battlefield, even if its minions can. Only the wisest and most accomplished Blood Talons can handle such a foe. Fenris’ vow of the Oath is, “Offer no surrender that you would not accept.” This vow makes Blood Talons hard to deal with if they aren’t restrained by more careful packmates.

Bone Shadows

The Bone Shadows have sworn oaths to pursue the secret lore of the shadow world. They have a broad and deep attention span when it comes to magical mysteries and the spirit world. They inherit Mother Moon’s inquisitive nature and Father Wolf’s intrinsic awareness of the Shadow Realm. The Bone Shadows follow Death Wolf, the wolf that once walked into the domain of Death itself and returned carrying strange wisdom. This is an appropriate totem, the Bone Shadows say, for the descendants of a goddess who walks between light and dark and a wolf spirit who walked between spirit and flesh. The Shadows endlessly seek illumination in the darkness. They search out the greatest mysteries, learn the unknown rites and puzzle out the bans of great baneful spirits. The Bone Shadows know that Father Wolf understood great mysteries, and they howl mournfully for the loss of his secret knowledge. The Bone Shadows often chase secrets even at the expense of more sensible daily affairs. Many Shadows lack proper attire, money and other effects of modern life. Death Wolf’s portion of the Oath is, “Pay each spirit in kind” — a vow to offer chiminage and respect to spirits that deserve it, and to bring ruin to those that have earned it. The Bone Shadows take their debts seriously. Few debtors ignore payments owed to these masters of darkness and magic. The Bone Shadows repay favors they owe to spirit, Uratha, human and any other creature. They repay treachery and violence in similar fashion.

Hunters in Darkness

The Hunters in Darkness care little for humans and human society. They don’t believe that Father Wolf would approve of the current state of the world. The Hunters’ totem spirit, Black Wolf, is by far the most primal of the Firstborn who look after the Forsaken. Many Hunters in Darkness strive to spend as much time living as wolves as they can; those who take up residence within cities do so not because they desire to live among their human kin, but because they desire to hunt there. Some Hunters in Darkness wish to return a large part of the world to its primal state, bring back ancient prey animals as well as predators, and clean the water, earth and air in most of the world. Many tend to reflexively reject modern conveniences, even when those conveniences might help them protect their territory. Black Wolf’s vow is, “Let no sacred place in your territory be violated.” Of course, since there is no universal standard for what constitutes a “sacred place,” the Hunters in Darkness make their own estimations. Generally, the Hunters show the greatest concern for the unspoiled wilderness and for endangered wild species, though some of them prefer to work a little closer to humanity — trying to slow the rate of humanity’s despoiling of natural resources.

Iron Masters

Unlike the Hunters in Darkness, the Iron Masters strive to walk among human society for its own sake. The Iron Masters — the other tribes simply refuse to call them the “Masters” even as shorthand — are most likely to live in cities. Their totem, Red Wolf, is a master of adaptation and cousin to Coyote. The Iron Masters believe that if they fall behind humans technologically or socially, they are lost. The natural advantages that Uratha have over humans (their great strength, spirits and magic, and the Lunacy) mean less in the face of modern technology. They draw many of their numbers from werewolves who cared about their human lives and who still try to hold on to a portion of their mundane existences. This is both a strength and a weakness — the Iron Masters often have more resources to draw on in the form of allies or equipment, but with so many humans that they care for, it is impossible for them to protect them all. Red Wolf’s vow is, “Honor your territory in all things.” The soul of adaptation is respecting one’s circumstances and surroundings and using the good of them in clever ways. Therefore, in honoring their territory and respecting the innovations of the humans who dwell therein, the Iron Masters are best able to emulate their totem’s example.

Storm Lords

The Storm Lords dominate the politics of the Forsaken. They are the personification of elemental power and political ambition. The Storm Lords have no particular affinity for life in a particular part of a country or the world. The Lords have two main constituencies: those who revel in the raw power of the elements and those who revel in power over others. The Storm Lords are grim and intimidating. Their totem, Winter Wolf, is a dour creature of blizzards and the coldest nights. The Storm Lords focus on individual goals, pack goals and tribal goals and pursue them with frightening single-mindedness. Many other Forsaken see the Storm Lords as self-righteous, ambitious politicians; the Lords feel that the other tribes simply lack focus. The Storm Lords believe that the Uratha should return to their ancient roles as masters of the world — or at least as masters of the borderlands between spirit and flesh. Their tribal vow is, “Allow no one to witness or to tend your weakness.” The Storm Lords do truly hold the Uratha ideals close to their hearts and consider it their responsibility to lead the rest of the People in upholding those ideals. Doing so takes a firm hand and a commanding presence, though, so letting slip the slightest hint of weakness is strictly forbidden.

Packs

The most important social distinction in werewolf society is that of the pack. All werewolves feel an instinctual pull to become part of a pack, and werewolf society tends to deal with packs first, individuals second. Most packs have a totem spirit that the pack has been bound to, giving the pack strength and binding the members together. Packs are expected to stick together through the thick and thin, and once bound together spiritually with a totem, actually leaving a pack [without going mad from the loss of Harmony] becomes a task in itself.

Establishing a Pack

Sometimes enough new werewolves change within a short enough period or time that they are pushed to form a new pack. Or older packs fall apart (usually from the deaths of most members) and surviving members band together to form a new pack. These members band together for company and survival, their werewolf instincts compelling them to stick together. A pack becomes a young werewolf's new circle of family and friends, soon replacing their human contacts in that function. The pack serves as the basic social unit in werewolf society and to betray or turn one's back on one's pack is considered strictly taboo (and indeed, betraying one's pack is a sin against Harmony of the most nefarious sort).

Sometimes the formation of a new pack results in a series of internal conflicts within the pack, as pack members struggle to form an internal hierarchy consisting of an alpha (who heads the pack), followed by a beta and some number of pack mates down until the omega who holds the lowest rank. Other times the pack clicks together well and no internal struggle is necessary. For a pack to be considered a proper pack spiritually, it must include at least three members.

Once a new pack is formed, there are two things most packs do: Find a totem spirit and seize a territory. Of the latter of these, there are often some unclaimed areas, but the best areas (and loci) are almost always already claimed by established packs who wish to maintain a hold on them. This means that new members are forced to choose between living on the table scraps of the established packs or taking a risk and sizing up an established pack that has grown bloated on territory and weak. With a territory established, the new pack must then go about securing their territory, investigating it, cleaning it up of unwanted spirits and other influences, and finally guarding it.

The other task undertaken by new packs is to acquire a totem spirit. A pack’s totem represents its link to the spirit world. It also s the link that spiritually binds the pack together. If ever a new member is added to the pack after binding the totem, not only do the werewolves have to accept the new member, but the pack's totem does as well. A pack totem travels with the majority of the pack, so it’s usually immaterial but present in the physical world. A pack totem can also communicate with other spirits and even spy for a pack. Warlike totems might even join in battles in the spirit world. The way a pack of werewolves acquires its totem spirit is a complicated one. Most spirits still feel great hostility toward the Uratha, the half-flesh usurpers who gave themselves the authority to cull the shadow world’s denizens. Most spirits simply don’t want werewolves intruding on their turf. Some packs’ totems are rebels or using the opportunity against their own spirit enemies; others were compelled into service with a mixture of respectful offerings and subtle threats. Keeping a pack totem appeased usually means abiding by the spirit's ban and offering chiminage. Bound totem spirits might eventually become willing and loyal servants — particularly if they are treated and compensated well. Others become rebellious over the years, and those that do pose a real hazard if they figure a way around the binding and ban.

The Shadow

An echo of the physical World of Darkness exists just beneath perception, behind mirrors and at the end of winding roads that lead nowhere. This ephemeral shadow, the Hisil, has been tied to the physical world from the beginning, each influencing the other.

Werewolves are aware of this world — it is part of their heritage — but this awareness is a mixed blessing. Knowledge of the spirit world and the entities that escape it is more responsibility than gift. The freedom to force one’s way past the Gauntlet — the wall between matter and spirit — is a power that draws the spirits’ jealousy and resentment, not admiration. Once initiated into the knowledge of the Shadow Realm, a werewolf knows just enough to get her into deep trouble with its denizens.

Yet just as it’s folly for a werewolf to ignore her bestial side, it’s folly to avoid her spiritual heritage and responsibilities. The Forsaken would have been hunted down and destroyed long ago if it weren’t for the pacts they struck with their powerful wolf totems and the supernatural blessings of Luna. The spirit world possesses great power for those who can wrest it from its holders — potent Gifts, elaborate rites, even potential allies — and by making changes in either world, a werewolf pack can evoke similar changes in its reflection. Destroying an infestation of disease-spirits in the Shadow can make the immediate physical world healthier, while tearing down the abandoned house of a serial killer can scatter the spirits of fear and death that congregate near it in the spirit world.

Essence & Loci

In order to claim, expand and improve their territory, werewolves must pay attention to both worlds. They can draw on the energy of the spirit world to fuel their supernatural powers by taking control of loci, places where spirit energy--called Essence--bleeds into the physical world. It is at these locations that creatures can "step sideways"--to walk between the worlds. Only thus can they stand against the myriad foes, flesh and spirit, that would tear them apart.

These Loci thus become prize possessions for werewolves claiming territory. They act as a source of spiritual power and a gateway between worlds for most Forsaken. Consequently, they are also often targets for rival packs looking to steal Essence or territory, or even a target for local spirits that want to steal essence or enter the physical world.

All essence produced by a loci has a particular resonance determined by what caused the loci to form and the local environment. A locus that forms in an alleyway frequented by rapists and gang killings likely has a resonance and pain and suffering. A locus that forms in a long-forgotten attic likely has a resonance of loneliness or nostalgia. When a spirit or werewolf consumes essence the resonance of the Essence affects the consumer's outlook and actions slightly. Consuming essence with a resonance of depression will make a werewolf more depressed, etc. Consequently some loci are prized over others, although since Essence is almost always in short supply, werewolves will usually take what they can get.

Dark Animism

In the World of Darkness, animism — the belief that things of the physical world have living spirit counterparts — is one of the secret truths of the universe. Though not everything has an active spirit reflection, many things cast echoes in the spirit world: some animals and plants, machines, even powerful sensations like fear and pain. The spirit world is a reflection of the world itself, and it reflects the world’s dark nature. The spirits of animals and plants prey on one another in a sharpened reflection of the cruelest side of Nature. Many spirits are hostile to the denizens of the physical world, and almost all care about humanity only as a source of strength and energy. Other spirits covet the experiences of the flesh, so they slip through the Gauntlet to sate their alien urges.

The legend of Father Wolf describes him running the Border Marches [the space between worlds], hunting the worst of the would-be intruders and either casting them back into the spirit wilds or destroying them utterly. Now Father Wolf is dead, and the only ones left to do this work are the Uratha. And the spirits abhor them for it. Not for the actual death of Father Wolf — the spirits had no love for the great hunter that kept them in check — but for being horrible hybrids of material form and ephemera that dare act as judges over the spirit world. The werewolves are what stand between spirits and the expression of their desires. They will have to go. [The exception being the Lunes--the moon spirits--and the various pack and tribal totem spirits who have struck deals with the Forsaken, most notably the Firstborn].

Spirit Bans

Every spirit has a ban — an absolute prohibition against certain actions by the spirit, or an unquestionable requirement that the spirit perform certain actions. Related spirits tend to have similar bans, though not necessarily identical ones. A particular fire-spirit might not be able to use its powers during a rainstorm, while another might be only at half strength during the winter unless invited indoors where it can draw on the power of the hearth. Werewolves do their best to gather information on various spirits’ bans, for the possibility of exploiting a spirit’s ban is the surest way to keep it in check.

Spirits’ activities are tightly limited. For instance, many are tied to their physical-world form, and they can leave it only while their physical form is asleep or enchanted (if at all). Most spirits are bound up in complex covenants that govern their activities. Ancient bargains make sure that any werewolf who knows the proper rituals, abasement and sacrifices can acquire a spirit’s services. The trick, of course, is learning the proper set of rituals to force a spirit’s cooperation. And the spirit will may hate the werewolf for binding it into service.

The Non-Hostile Spirits

While most spirits certainly have no love for the Forsaken, a few types of spirits are not normally hostile. The foremost of these are the Firstborn, the great wolf spirits--some say children of Father Wolf--that serve as the totems of the five Forsaken tribes. These great spirits rarely have any direct interaction with the Forsaken, but have an assortment of allied lesser spirits that may be persuaded to provide the Forsaken with aid or information.

The next category of non-hostile spirits are the Lunes--the moon spirits. While the Lunes--like some say Mother Luna--have forgiven the Forsaken for their crimes, their friendship comes as a mixed bag, for lune spirits are also spirits of madness. This simple fact makes them dangerous and causes many Forsaken to keep their distance--not all gifts from Mother Luna should be accepted.

Finally, sometimes lesser spirits can be coerced or bribed into entering pacts with the Forsaken, thus acting as totems to individual packs. These totem spirits grant the Forsaken boons in return for things the Forsaken can do for them, such as protection or giving chiminage.

Spirit Interactions

The spirit wilds of the Shadow form a complex ecosystem. Human and animal experience across the gauntlet gives birth to minute spirits of the things they are or the experiences they feel. These tiny spirits consume each other, becoming more powerful or are consumed by larger and more powerful spirits. Predator spirits hunt prey spirits, or given types of spirits hunt each other, consuming their Essence and absorbing their traits. This results in a process that as spirits get larger and more powerful, they absorb and incorporate the traits of a greater number of spirits of their type. In a sense as spirits get more powerful they become less specific and more of an archetype. So say, Swift Fox consumes Cunning Fox and Leaping Fox and Bushy Fox and eventually comes to represent something that's just Fox.

But spirits aren't just animals. They often have a keen and utterly inhuman intelligence of their own. Because of this spirits often take actions to ensure their own survival. Spirits have complex, feudal hierarchies. Nearly every spirit pays fealty to a local lord, who pledges support and protection to his vassal spirits. Local lords might owe their allegiance to greater lords, eventually following a chain of allegiance back to one of the Incarnae in the spirit wilds or elsewhere. The cat-spirits of a city might all bow to the cunning and cruel Tom Bloodyhooks, who pays homage to the Pride Mother, a monstrous feline Incarna who hunts the darker paths of the spirit wilds by night. Some spirits act as loose allies to the Uratha, for they owe their allegiance to the Firstborn. Others are independently bound as pack totems. The great majority of spirits have no love for the fleshy children of Mother Luna and Father Wolf, though.

The more powerful the spirit is, the more likely it is that it owes allegiance to multiple lords, that it plans to supplant its own master or that it vies with its brethren for a place of superiority. These rivalries and ambitions are often the greatest weakness that a powerful spirit can possess apart from a ban — which the Uratha know well and can exploit.

The Ridden & Urged

When a spirit enters the physical world, it remains immaterial unless it takes other steps. An immaterial spirit can still use its Numina (the supernatural powers unique to its nature) to influence its environment, but to truly exist as a solid thing, it must acquire a body. Some can use their Numina to materialize. Those that can’t must resort to other methods, and the most typical is possession.

When a spirit possesses a living creature — sometimes an animal, but usually human — the result is something that werewolves call Hithimu, or the Ridden. Most spirits prefer to ride human hosts, as humans can use tools, go almost anywhere, indulge in almost any pleasurable (or painful) activity, and yet are weak enough spiritually to be susceptible to possession. Werewolves and other supernatural beings are too dangerous. A spirit usually wants to hide from werewolves, not attract their attention by attempting to take one over.

There are two states of being Ridden — being Urged and being Claimed. The Spirit-Urged (or hithisu) are the less extreme examples of possession. The spirit settles into possession subtly, only nudging the host’s desires and impulses like a backseat driver. Conversely, the Spirit-Claimed (or duguthim) are victims of outright possession and control. The spirit directs every movement of its vessel, and its more direct control can affect its host’s very flesh. A duguthim who has been overtaken by a spirit of glass might suffer from exceptionally brittle nails and teeth, with shards of glass eventually growing to replace any broken bits.

The urges of spirits have a dangerous effect on human psyches, often driving the Ridden away from friends, family, jobs and homes. For those in the majority of humanity that know neither magic nor anyone with access to magic, spirit hauntings destroy lives. Strong Hithimu don’t have to deal with such problems, as they totally dominate their hosts and do as they please. If the host’s life is destroyed in the process, it doesn’t matter. The spirit finds a new life and continues in its activities.

Weak spirits unravel lives slowly. Some strong souls can keep spirit urgings under control with willpower alone, but those who can’t, turn to medication or illegal drugs to keep themselves under control and the spirits at bay. Some packs have even discovered humans who deliberately opened themselves to spirit possession, either as part of a religious ceremony or as a desperate pact for power. Few of these humans are equal partners in the possession.

Enemies

In a situation where it's hunt or be hunted, werewolves have many enemies. The most common are detailed below.

Other Forsaken

The player characters will become part of a group of werewolves known as the Forsaken and it is other Forsaken that are perhaps the closest enemies to the PCs. Werewolf society is an ongoing struggle over territory, and much of this competition is between Forsaken packs. For many werewolves this constant infighting between packs is not just a way of life, but a sacred duty. Werewolves are born to enforce the balance between the physical and spirit worlds. There are many threats to the balance and werewolves must be strong to play the part well in their territory. Therefore, the strongest werewolves should control the most territory, as they are the most capable of enforcing that balance. Remember, if a pack isn't doing their duty in enforcing physical-spiritual balance in their territory, this is just going to give the real threats a safe haven to grow, soon posing a threat to neighboring packs' territories. This provides a strong incentive not just to live and let live. By werewolf sensibilities the pack not doing their duty deserves a beat-down and their territory deserves to be taken by the stronger neighboring packs. The system might-makes-right tempered by a set of spiritual sensibilities informing when to pick a fight and when to gang up on a stronger pack that's not doing their duty. Of course this is how it's supposed to work in theory. In reality it works part of the time, but werewolves are also susceptible petty squabbles, wasteful fights and long-term vendettas, just as people are.

Despite their frequency, fights between Forsaken packs rarely turn lethal, as it is a sin against Harmony (and thus against one's spiritual balance) to kill another werewolf, and it is a sin against Harmony to wield silver in battle. These battles usually end with one pack simply being beaten up and driven off by the victor.

The Pure

The other major group of werewolves call themselves the Pure. They have an ages-old hatred of the Forsaken because of asserted crimes of the Forsaken's predecessors. The Pure hold territory and often clash over it both with each other and with the Forsaken. They too enforce a spiritual balance of a sort, although the spirits do not seem to hate them as much, and the Pure give the spirits more free reign. There are three tribes of Pure, each with differing sets of traditions, but with some things in common: All Pure shun Luna's blessing of auspice, spiritually burning it from their body in their initiation rituals. All Pure are abused and brainwashed from the moment they are taken in, to harbor a genocidal hatred towards Forsaken and blame them all manner of wrongdoings. All pure are brainwashed to look down on humans as weak creatures of the flesh, worthy only to serve as slaves and breeding stock.

Conflicts between the Pure and the Forsaken turn deadly much more often than conflicts between two packs of Forsaken, but lethal means are still not undertaken by either side lightly, as the Pure still are werewolves and killing them still is a sin against one's spiritual balance. They too must maintain their spiritual Harmony and suffer the same effects when killing Forsaken. In their initiation ceremonies the Pure willingly, spiritually mutilate themselves, cutting off their ties to the Moon in a way that is permanent and can never be redeemed. Ironically, though this leaves them more vulnerable to silver--the metal of the moon--making them incapable of wielding it in combat, and therefore less likely to upset their spiritual Harmony.

Bale Hounds

The Bale Hounds are the final group of werewolves and are often overlooked, as they are the most subtle and secretive. Deep within the shadow there are many blasphemous spirits of near-godlike power, looking to make a deal for followers. Bale hounds are werewolves who for whatever twisted reason have struck a deal to follow one of these spirits, and do so from the shadows--masquerading as one of the Forsaken or Pure--doing their spirit-master's bidding. Such deals usually come with power bestowed upon the werewolf that allows the werewolf to conceal her spiritual allegiance from her packmates and totem. Bale Hounds are scary, as one never knows who could secretly be one.

Spirits

Most spirits hate the Forsaken. This means that conflict between werewolves and spirits is common. It is not a sin against Harmony for a werewolf to kill a spirit, and spirits need not maintain Harmony. Thus conflicts between spirits and werewolves are usually to the death. Whether the werewolves are fighting the spirits on their home turf in the Shadow, or are fighting spirits that are possessing or urging mortals, this is one of the central type of conflicts in a werewolf's life.

The Hosts

Legend holds that in the time of Pangaea, Father Wolf hunted down many powerful spirits that violated the physical without permission. Most of them were caught and either banished to distant prisons beyond the sky or destroyed outright. Some, however, discovered a way to escape Father Wolf in the physical world by scattering their essence into many hosts. But when the Gauntlet came crashing down, they became stranded. They forgot much of who and what they were, but the separate pieces of their essence have since evolved into something stronger than what they were. Gradually, these shards draw together, seeking one another out. These are the shartha — the Hosts.

The strange composite entities are a constant worry, for they affect the very balance between spirit and flesh. The Rat Hosts (the Beshilu) feverishly gnaw holes through the Gauntlet, creating new loci that let more spirits into the physical world. Conversely, the Spider Hosts (the Azlu) spin ephemeral webs that thicken the Gauntlet everywhere but the loci that they control. If the Beshilu run unchecked, a territory becomes plagued with spirit intruders and dangerous resonance. If the Azlu are not opposed, the spirit reflection of an area withers and dies, sapping the vital spark from the physical world everywhere but in the spiders’ hunting ground. If the two Hosts were evenly matched and could be counted on to cancel one another out, they would pose less of a problem, but it’s never that easy. If the rats are strong in an area, the spiders are inevitably weak, and the Hosts don’t police their own numbers.

Human Interests

Despite whatever pretensions various supernatural creatures might have, humans rule the world. They also undertake many different projects and tasks. Some of these unwittingly have consequences that upset the spiritual balance of the Forsaken's territory. A conflict between local organized crime rings may bring in an influx of pain and death spirits. New zoning laws may result in a change in local feelings and consequently a pack's locus may run dry of essence. These sorts of changes put a pack at odds with whatever human interest initiated the changes, posing a challenge to the pack that often can't simply be overcome with tooth and claw.

Other Supernaturals

I don't plan on them playing a very big role in this campaign, but the World of Darkness is home to a number of other supernatural creatures, from vampires to mages to stranger things yet. These creatures often have their own societies, interests and may sometimes conflict with werewolves. Besides their existence, little is known of these beasts.

Mythology

There are many competing theories about where werewolves come from and why the spirit world is the way it is. These theories vary in their academic vigor and by what part of the world they are from. Most of these theories border on [or are exclusively] myth. This is one of them; however, this myth is the closest thing werewolves have to a consensus about their origins [at least in the western world]. Some claim this is the whole, unvarnished truth. Others claim it is a malicious lie perpetuated by the spirits to mislead werewolves from the truth of the matter... but spirits have the tendency of telling werewolves what they expect to hear about history rather than what the spirits actually know. The myth is as follows [taken from the book, so it may be verbose]:

The Tale of Pangaea

Everything we are and everything we were began in Pangaea. You already know what Pangaea was. You’ve heard stories of the Garden of Eden — that’s the best that humans could do trying to remember it. You catch glimpses of it in your dreams, and sometimes you smell something — maybe a whiff of a healthy plant, or something about the scent of your prey — and you almost remember. The scents are the hardest to forget. You can’t remember it fully, though, can you? Nobody can. Only the first of our kind walked in Pangaea.

And they were the ones who had to destroy it.

Can you remember the scent? The world was lush and full of promise. Spirits could enter the realm of flesh easily, and animals and humans could walk into the cool spirit shadow of the world. Pangaea wasn’t the joining of continents that geologists talk about, but the world in its first form. Humans and spirits shared a common language, the First Tongue. We can’t remember whether Pangaea was a time, a place, or both. All we can recall is that it was glorious, and it was lost.

When Pangaea was in full bloom, its beauty seduced the heart of the moon itself. Mother Luna — Amahan Iduth — grew enchanted with the world growing beneath her. She took the form of a woman of flesh and descended to earth. She walked among the jungles and swam in the seas. She was the most beautiful creature in the world, and she had countless suitors. The greatest and most valiant was Urfarah… and you know that name, don’t you? He was Father Wolf.

Pangaea was glorious, but it wasn’t a world of perfect peace and gentleness. It was a hunter’s world. The lion still hunted the lamb; the spirit still took what it needed from the world of flesh. Death was a part of this hunter’s paradise, and the greatest hunter of all was Father Wolf. He was a warrior of the Shadow Realm and the muddy world of air and earth. He roamed the boundaries of the physical world, keeping everything in its place. Spirits roamed into the world of the flesh, but not far or for long. Urfarah was all too ready to give chase when a spirit overstayed its welcome. When necessary, his teeth and claws pushed mortals and animals back into the relative safety of the flesh world if they strayed too far into the spirit world. His heart burned with supernatural strength and conviction, a righteous Rage that made him unstoppable. But he was the master of that Rage. He was first above us all, and greater than any other.

Father Wolf loved Luna as she rode across the skies, and was overcome with joy and love when he encountered her walking through the borderlands between the spirit world and the physical. He was not alone in either of these sentiments. For her part, Luna found Father Wolf to be valiant and wise, strong and handsome, and she loved him in return. They knew one another, and she gave him children of both spirit and flesh — the first werewolves. Although she wore a human body, Luna gave birth to the first werewolves as a litter of nine pups, a sign of their future fate.

From Luna our ancestors gained the power to change shape, just as she changes her own shape every month. From Father Wolf they gained senses, strength and speed that went beyond those of flesh-born wolves. From both parents they gained a measure of spiritual power, for Mother Moon was Queen of the Shadow Realm and Father Wolf was Lord of the Border Marches.

After giving birth, Luna returned to the skies and Father Wolf raised the First Pack. He taught the first Uratha the ways of wolf and man, flesh and spirit. He showed them the roads from the Shadow Realm through forest, mountain or desert into the world of flesh, down trails to the tribal homes of men.

Father Wolf raised the First Pack to aid him in his duties as guardian of the Border Marches. They took to these duties and helped bring order to the spirit world and the muddy world. They were shepherds of human, animal and spirit. They culled any herd, tribe or pack that got too large or too dangerous, playing the role of first among predators.

Of course, some spirits and some tribes of humanity didn’t take well to this treatment. Some fought back, and through force of numbers, magic or strength, some wouldn’t die so easily. Father Wolf and his pack banished the worst to the far reaches of the spirit wilds, including mighty spirits, lesser servants of those spirits and tribes of men who worshiped dark powers and committed blasphemous crimes. Others, such as the Plague King and the Spinner-Hag, opposed Father Wolf when they could and fled when they found they could not take on his entire pack.

We were lords of the dawn world. Our great strength and our ability to take different forms allowed us to dominate any man or creature. Few predators could challenge us. No prey could resist us. Even the strongest mammoths and fiercest predators of that era were no match for a pack of werewolves. It was a dark time to be human, but it was our age of glory, a golden age painted with the bright blood of our prey. And like every golden age, it was doomed.

The Decline of Father Wolf

You see, it began with Father Wolf. Before our time, before the humans arose and when most spirits were still young and weak, only Father Wolf was necessary to keep the two worlds in check. No spirit managed to linger overlong in the physical world or gather too much power. Father Wolf’s personal power diminished a little as he brought forth progeny both by Mother Luna and by other spirits. He was still strong and fast — for a time.

It took many, many years, more than could be counted, but gradually Father Wolf began to lose his strength and speed. His fangs began to dull, and his wisdom did not reach as far. More spirits escaped his notice, setting up their terrible kingdoms among the humans and bloating with power. When he caught these would-be gods of suffering and gluttony, it took him longer to finish them off. Some even escaped — lessened by the struggle, but free all the same. Gradually, Pangaea was becoming a paradise for the spirits and for those humans who accepted their rule, and a purgatory for all the rest. Our forefathers and foremothers saw all this, and doubt began to gnaw at them.

And what happens when a wolf pack begins to fail at its hunts because its alpha is too weak, too slow, too blind to lead? Either the pack dies, or the alpha must be replaced. This question was the same, but the stakes were the whole world. What happened next was a horrible thing that should not have been necessary — but it was.

The Fall

Every spirit has bans — unbreakable laws that govern their very nature. A spirit of pain is forbidden from healing a living creature; a shark-spirit is forbidden rest. Father Wolf was one of the most powerful spirits in Creation, but even he had a ban. He felt such a strong connection to his duty that he would not close his eyes until someone could take his place. His ban’s strength was such that if those who could do so were to rise against him, he could not defend himself.

Of course, the ones best suited to take Father Wolf’s place were his own children.

Now, tales of this time make it quite clear that Father Wolf could unsheathe his claws and bare fangs against his children in ordinary struggles for dominance. Yet if Father Wolf’s pack truly desired to bring a killing blow against him, his very nature left him powerless. He would not be able to defend himself actively against such treachery, and his thick hide and powerful muscles would prove to be no more help than the wind and rain. So the only way to overthrow Father Wolf was to strike to kill.

And we slew him.

With his last breath, Father Wolf let loose a howl that shook both worlds. Humans collapsed sobbing at the sound that stirred nothing but fear in their hearts. Spirits cowered in their dens, struck with terror that something could have slain the great merciless wolf-spirit. They say the werewolf who struck the killing blow was himself instantly slain by the sheer force and emotional weight of the howl. Upon hearing the death-howl of her favored lover, Luna herself cried out in anguish and betrayal, cursing all the children she had ever borne. That curse would never be fully lifted.

It is said, then, that the soul of the planet itself stirred. As the denizens of the Shadow Realm and the mortal creatures of the physical realm recoiled in terror, the two worlds were sundered. The earth shook and storms lashed the land. Ice broke free from the north, and islands sank into the ocean. Pangaea was no more. After the Fall, the hunters’ paradise was gone forever.

Forsaken

That’s why we are what we are. That’s why we’re wolf and human. That’s why we’re children of the Shadow Realm, but Forsaken by spirit. The spirits have feared us — and most have hated us — since that day. They fear and hate the thought that creatures part flesh and part ephemera now have the power to police them, and that we once had the strength to destroy the one spirit they all feared. The humans would go mad if they knew we’re not just movie icons, but real creatures that walk among them.

We destroyed the greatest thing we ever had because it had to be done. We keep the spirit world in check, and spirits can’t stand us for it. We do our best to keep humans from maiming the spirit world in turn, and humans would despise us for it if they knew. Our own brothers have turned on us, hating us for doing what they lacked the courage and compassion to do themselves. Only fickle Mother Luna and our wolf totems stand with us, but that’s enough. We are the People. We are Uratha. We are the wolves who hunt in both worlds.

We are the Forsaken, and heaven help anyone who draws down our fury.