Bone Gnawer Tribal Gifts
When playing a member of the Bonegnawer tribe, try to reflect this tribe's unrelenting willingness to survive, even in the some of the most harsh surrounding that gaia's paradise has to offer. Being a Bonegnawer is not just about playing some hobo on the street. Hell no, they are the folk we help! Try to show and express the resourcefulness and the strength the children of Momma Rat tend to show time and time again.
Blissful Ignorance: With this Gift, you can become nearly invisible to all senses, spirits and monitoring devices by remaining still. Make a Physical Challenge. If successful, you blend into the landscape as long as you remain still. The Gift lasts as long as the Garou can remain still. Talking, moving, attacking someone or the like will break the effect.
Basic Gifts
Cooking: With only a small pot (a coffee can or bigger) and a ladle or spoon, you can stir together any rubbish you can find with water and produce a nourishing mush. It’s pasty and bland, but very filling. Make a Static Mental Challenge (retest with Survival), against a difficulty depending on the ingredients: six Traits for inedible but harmless materials, up to 10 Traits for virulent toxins.
Odious Aroma: You can magnify your body odor to a debilitating degree. Spend one Gnosis. All beings with a sense of smell suffer a two-Trait penalty to all challenges while within 20 feet of you, thanks to the stench. This Gift lasts for the rest of the scene.
Resist Toxin: The Bone Gnawers’ usual diet, rich in dangerous substances, provides the basis for developing a truly amazing resistance to poisons of all sorts. Make a PhysicalChallenge (retest with Survival). Success neutralizes most poisons and gives you a three-Trait bonus on challenges to cope with Wyrm-enhanced poisons.
Tagalong: This Gift makes you seem appealing, or at least acceptable to the totem guarding a pack or caem, for a short while. While it’s in effect, you are treated just like any other member of the pack when it’s time for the totem’s blessings, pack maneuvers and the like. A caern totem will allow you to perform the Rite ofthe Opened Caern without fear of retribution. You must know the totem’s name and must prostrate yourself before the caem center or pack leader, wriggling forward on your stomach like a begging dog (you need not actually do this). Make a Static Social Challenge (retest with Subterfuge) against the totem’s Gnosis. Success gives you the benefits described above for one day, and the totem will disapprove of any Garou who mistreats you without cause. Overuse of this Gift can cause bad will, though occasional, careful and respectful usage won’t.
Cardboard Mansion: A Bone Gnawer with this Gift can create a perfectly functional shelter for herself. The Garou can fashion any ordinary cardboard box into a waterproof, noise-resistant and insulated home. Despite conditions outside the box, the mansion remains dry, warm and quiet. A Home or Hearth-spirit can teach this Gift. The Bone Gnawer needs only a box of suitable size. A large enough box can sleep more than one - as long as everybody is friendly. The Gnawer spends a Gnosis point and crawls in for an evening's nap.
Intermediate Gifts
Attunement: You can communicate with the spirits of a city or town and leam useful things from them: The population of the city (in general terms), Garou and other supernatural beings’ enclaves, secret tunnels and the like. This Gift only works in urban areas. Spend one Gnosis and make a Mental Challenge (retest with Streetwise). Success provides you with general information. Spend one additional Mental Trait for precise answers to one or two questions, and two additional Mental Traits for detailed information on a whole category of questions like “supernatural enclaves,” “derelict buildings” and so on.
Friend in Need: Garou of other tribes are slow to accept Bone Gnawers as equals. When they do, Bone Gnawers can repay that trust in remarkable manner. You can choose to sacrifice everything for the sake of a packmate or tribemate. Spend one Willpower and make a Willpower Challenge. If successful, you can transfer one of the following - health levels, Rage, Willpower or one Gift -fromyourself to a comrade.
Friend in Need does not allow for transferring Gifts of higher ranks than the recipient could know, nor for the transfer of Abilities or Attributes. The transfer lasts for the rest of the scene, or until the recipient chooses to terminate the transfer. While Friend in Need is in effect, you cannot use the transferred Traits. If the recipient dies before they’re returned, you lose them permanently (although you may buy them back with Experience Traits). Health levels lost in this way return as aggravated damage.
Infest: You can summon vermin to invade any structure up to the size of a large building. Whatever creatures are at hand come, be they insects, slugs, rodents, snakes, carrion birds or other unpleasant creatures. The creatures summoned do not attack people, but behave according to their nature, which generally means looking for dark places to hide within the targeted structure. Spend Gnosis to achieve the desired effect, and make a Static Social Challenge (retest with Animal Ken) against seven Traits. A single Trait gathers a few creatures to make a nuisance, while five Traits fill the building with enough vermin to make it uninhabitable for a prolonged period of time.
Reshape Object: You can transform once-living material (but not the substance of undead beings) into objects: trees into shelter, antlers into spears, animal hides into armor, flowers into perfume and so on. The resulting items resemble their sources: the spear shaft is made of antler, the armor retains skin textures, etc. Spend one Gnosis and make a Static Social Challenge (retest with Repair). The difficulty depends on the degree of transformation: making a broken tree branch into a spear requires a test against five Traits, while making a single plank into a raft that can carry
three Garou requires a test against eight Traits, and making a blade ofgrass into a leanto that can resist hurricane winds requires a test against 10 Traits or even more. Spend a second Gnosis Trait to allow a created weapon to inflict aggravated damage. Objects stay reshaped for only five minutes. Spend one Mental Trait to increase this to 10 minutes, two Mental Traits to increase it to one hour, three Mental Traits to increase it to the rest of the session or four Mental Traits to make it permanent.
Advanced Gifts
Riot: You summon malevolent spirits to goad a city’s people into violent
rioting. The spirits make hatreds and fears of all sorts seem justified, distorting perceptions and blocking communication that could defuse the escalating tension. Spend Gnosis enough to achieve the desired effect, and make a Static Mental Challenge (retest with Subterfuge) against eight Traits. One Gnosis Trait provides enough spirits to infest a building, two to infect a block, three to rouse a neighborhood, four to arouse several neighborhoods or a district, five to affect the whole city. The spirits begin by concentrating on a target group you specify, but they don’t work together or stay directed. The spirits leave at the end of the scene; after that, normal human psychology takes its course.
Survivor: This Gift brings the Bone Gnawer knack for survival to its purest expression, providing (temporary) freedom from the need for food, water, sleep, protection from the climate or temperature extremes and the like. You develop a temporary immunity to natural poisons and diseases, and even Wyrm-toxins work at only halftheir normal strength. Spend one Gnosis and make a Physicalchallenge (retest with Survival). Success grants the effects described above; the effects last for one day. By spending a second Gnosis, you can gain three Stamina-related Traits and suffer no wound penalties, but the Gift will expire early after 10 rounds of combat. When the Gift wears off, you must sleep for at least eight hours, and you’ll awaken ravenously hungry.
