Gifts 

 

The inhabitants of the spirit world share their secrets with werewolves and other shapechangers. In accordance with pacts struck long ago, the spirits teach Gifts, magical abilities of many sorts, to the Garou. Tribe, breed and auspice all influence a spirit’s willingness to teach a particular Gift to a Garou; every community within the Garou Nation has its own secrets and connections.

There’s a story behind each Gift: A spirit bound itself to a pact to teach that Gift to Garou who meet a particular qualification. Storytellers and players should keep this in mind when characters use Gifts in play. See “Systems,” below, for ways the vital history of Gifts can matter in the course of a game. 

Gifts do not come automatically or mechanically. Living spirits teach them, and when a Garou fails particularly impressively in his fundamental duties, the spirits can revoke their Gifts. The Gifts come to allow Garou to accomplish their assigned roles and tasks more thoroughly, not to do whatever seems like fun. Gifts are divided into three levels. Basic Gifts are available to cubs from the moment of their First Change, while Advanced Gifts are granted to those Garou who have done great deeds. A new Garou begins with one Basic Gift each from the lists for her breed, auspice and tribe. The player can spend freebie points to acquire more starting Gifts during character creation and can buy others after play begins with experience points.

 

Learning Gifts

The quickest and most reliable way for a Garou to learn a Gift is through dealing with spirits. Either the Garou petitions a suitable spirit himself, or he requests an elder to do so on his behalf. No spirit teaches a Gift to a werewolf who hasn’t earned the proper rank, and only spirits allied with the Garou willingly teach Gifts at all. The usual way to learn a Gifr is to travel to a caem with a power level equal to or greater than that of the Gift the Garou wishes to learn: level 1 or 2 for Basic Gifts, level 3 or 4 for Intermediate Gifts, level 5 for Advanced Gifts. The traveling Garou then petitions the spirit directly. The act of summoning a spirit to a powerful caem it shows proper respect and inclines the spirit to honor the request. 

Unfortunately, the world is sadly lacking in powerful caems as the Apocalrpse approaches, so it’s often necessary to seek compromises. The next best course of action is for the Gift-seeking Garou to ask a powerful Theurge to petition the spirit on the seeker’s behalf. The Theurge’s rank and expertise in rites can offset some of the penalty from using a weak caem.

A Garou may choose to enter the Umbra and seek out a spirit teacher directly.This is generally a bad idea. Inexperienced Garou can easily offend a spirit, and doing that in the spirit’s home realm leads to reprisals that may insure the Garou never gets home. Even a well-behaved Garou arouses spirits’ suspicion by making a request

without proper support and ritual.

Storytellers and players alike should keep in mind that spirits aren’t vending machines for Gifts. Every spirit has its ownpersonality, history, concerns and agenda. Garou who spend time cultivating the spirit’s company may win an ally as well as a source of Gifts, and spirits do sometimes return (without advance notice) to see how Garou use their Gifts. Werewolves who fulfill the general mission of the Garou and the more specific callings of their auspice, breed and tribe earn favor and may have an easier time dealing with pleased spirits in the future. Roleplaying the experience around the challenges to learn Gifts can strengthen a chronicle and help guide it away from clicht. 

Garou can teach Gifts to each other. This is inefficient, and when spirits find out that Garou have been doing it, some sort of atonement must almost always follow to restore spiritual harmony. Whena spirit teaches aGift, it merges withtheGarou’s soul and, in a period ranging from an hour (for Basic Gifts) up to asingle night (for the most complex Advanced Gifts), the spirit shows the Garou what to do and how it feels when the Gift works properly. When one Garou teaches another, on the other hand, it takes at least a full lunar month and often more. Practice requires a great deal of experimentation and often painful failure: learning Silver Claws, for instance, can render a Garou nearly incapacitated throughout the learning period. Garou teach Gifts this way because they must, thanks to the shortage of elders as well as of powerful caems. A Garou teaching a Gift to another Garou must be of the same Rank or above (or only one level less, if they’re packmates). Unless otherwise stated, Gifts may retest with the Occult Ability.

 

The Consequences

Once he leams a Gift, a Garou does not forget it.Once a spirit teaches a Gift, that spirit cannot remove it: It’s now part of the Garou’s own nature, an innate ability to call upon like the reflexes for walking. Garou who use their Gifts in disregard for the Litany and fundamental tenets of Garou society face social sanction, even as their Gifts continue to work. In the gravest extreme, Incamae and Celestines can block a Garou’s access to the Gifts their spirit broods teach. This is usually a temporary matter, Lasting until theGarou atones; blocking Gifts permanently is far more shameful than a mere death sentence. Most Garou live their lives without ever seeing a great spirit’s sanction imposed, though tales circulate about the unfortunates who suffer the consequences. The vast majority of packs and septs intervene to discipline or expel their rebellious members long before one of the kings of the spirit world can take offense.

Social sanctions can punish careless or inappropriate use of Gifts. For instance, Sense Wym doesn’t tell Garou that the targets are active minions of the Wyrm, only that they’ve been touched by the Wyrm at some point, perhaps through tainted food or a contaminated workplace. A Garou who uses Sense Wym to justify rampant slaughter and destruction is eventually going to lose Renown for foolish waste of effort and for failing to protect innocents: He’s forgotten that the Gift is a way to gather clues,  not a license for carnage. Likewise with other Gifts, which Garou might attempt to justify with appealing to just one of the taboos that define Garou norm. There’s seldom just one relevant principle, and Gaia gave Her warriors judgment as well as strength. Storytellers and players alike should feel free to ask “Was this agood idea?“ as well as to reward innovation and ingenuity. Garou who use their Gifts intelligently as well as courageously should earn favor for it.

 

 

Breed Gifts

 

Basic Gifts

 

Climb Like an Ape

Cost: One Rage

Effect: If you can climb a surface, you may do so at your full movement rate. This gift doesn't make surfaces any easier to climb (that's still determined by an Athletics challenge from a Storyteller), and surfaces like walls of glass may still be outright impossible to scale -- but if you can successfully climb something, you're quick about it.

Duration: One scene or hour

 

Divide

Initial Cost: One Gnosis

Challenge: Social vs. one target

Retest: Empathy

Followup Cost: 0 to 5 Mental Traits

Effect: You put a spiritual spin on the human knack for escalating tense situations. The target of this gift is unable to end a particular disagreement peacefully. If the target is Garou, they take a penalty to resist Frenzy equal to the number of Mental Traits spent plus one.

Duration: until the disagreement in question is settled

 

Jam Gun

Cost: One Gnosis

Activation: Social vs. variable difficulty (see below)

As the workings of guns become more and more present within the dockyards of Tortuga, the ability to defend yourself becomes a much needed necessity. With this gift you may spend a Gnosis and throw a social challenge vs. an amount defined by your Storyteller against the weapon you would like to Jam. 

 

Master of Fire

Cost: One Gnosis

Effect: Fire spirits have taught you the secret to resisting their caress. You heal damage from fire as if it were merely Bashing damage.

Duration: One scene or hour

 

Persuasion

Cost: One Social Trait

Activation Time: At will

Frequency: Once per Social Challenge

Effect: Your ancestors have imbued you with sublime composure and a keen ability to drive an argument home. You may immediately retest a Social Challenge you've just failed.

 

Rooftop Sprint

Cost: One Rage, plus 1-5 Physical Traits

Effect: With the grace of an alley-cat you can chase your quarry across the rooftops. For each Physical Trait you spend, you gain a leaping distance of three steps horizontally or one story vertically. In combat, making such a leap replaces your standard movement; no Athletics challenges are necessary unless you're trying something especially tricky, like leaping from car to car in traffic.

Duration: The gift ends the moment you touch the ground ("city" ground, like pavement and sidewalks, included).

 

Smell of Man

Activation Time: At will

Frequency: This gift is either on or off -- you can't activate it multiple times for more effect.

Effect: Tapping into the human half of your spirit, you put tame animals at ease and you frighten wild ones away. Wild animals will flee you if they can, and take a 1-Trait penalty to all challenges within 20 feet of you. Domesticated animals won't attack you unless you harm them in some way.

 

Staredown

Requirement: Your target must be able to see your eyes.

Challenge: Social vs. one target (see below)

Retest: Intimidation

Frequency: Once per turn

On a Human or Animal Target: Followup Cost: 0 to 5 Mental Traits

Effect: The target flees your frightful gaze for the duration; they may reduce this duration by spending Willpower. One point of Willpower reduces the duration by one turn.

Duration: One turn plus one per Mental Trait spent

On a Garou Target:

Effect: Primal instinct flashes in your gaze, and the target cannot flee or attack you for the duration.

Duration: Until your gaze is broken or one of you is attacked

Other Supernatural Targets:

Treat Fomori, Mages, and Changelings like humans; treat Fera, Spirits, and Vampires like Garou.

 

Intermediate Gifts

 

Cocoon

Initial Cost: One Gnosis

Activation Time: One turn

Followup Cost: 0 or more Gnosis

Effect: You spin a protective cocoon out of the Weaver's webs, immobilizing but protecting yourself from environmental hazards. You are completely immune to fire damage, and immune to all other damage until the cocoon breaks (see below).

Duration: One scene or hour, plus an additional scene or hour for each additional Gnosis spent. The cocoon breaks if it takes five Aggravated damage, or if a single attack deals it non-aggravated damage equal to your Tough (or Stamina-related) Traits.

 

Disquiet

Challenge: Social vs. target

Retest: Empathy

Followup Cost: 1-5 Social Traits

Effect: You project a spiritual disquiet into your opponent's soul. Your target cannot regain Rage and suffers a one-Trait penalty on any extended challenge.

Duration: One turn, plus an additional turn for each Social Trait you spent.

 

Paralyzing Stare

Requirement: Your target must be able to see your eyes and facial expression.

Cost: One Gnosis

Challenge: Social vs. target

Retest: Intimidation

Effect: One glimpse of your terrifying visage freezes your target in place, unable to move, for the duration.

Duration: A number of turns equal to your permanent Gnosis, or until the target takes damage.

 

Reshape Object

Cost: One Gnosis

Challenge: Social vs. a Storyteller-chosen difficulty, based on the change being attempted

Retest: Repair

Followup Cost: 0 to 3 Mental traits or a permanent Gnosis for duration; an optional Gnosis to deal Aggravated damage (see effect)

Effect: You extend your shape-shifting spirit into an organic, non-living object, changing its shape and size to suit your needs: you can turn a dead branch into a spear, a pile of leaves into armor, or a piece of bone into a canoe, for example. If you create a weapon and spend an additional Gnosis, this new object can deal Aggravated damage.

Duration: The duration depends on the followup cost paid:

0 Mental Traits: 5 minutes;

1 Mental Trait: 10 minutes;

2 Mental Traits: 1 hour;

3 Mental Traits: the remainder of the session; or

1 Permanent Gnosis: the change is permanent.

 

Spirit Ward

Cost: One Gnosis

Challenge: Static Social vs. 11 Traits

Retest: Spirit Lore

Followup Cost: 0 to 5 Social Traits

Effect: You place a protective ward over the local area, interfering with spiritual activity. In challenges, spirits within 100 feet of you (excluding pack totem and Caern spirits) take a penalty equal to one Trait plus one per Social Trait you spent.

Duration: One scene or hour

 

Tongues

Activation Time: At will

Challenge: Mental vs. a difficulty based on the obscurity of the language (between 6 and 15)

Retest: Linguistics

Effect: Calling on the vast experience of homid ancestor-spirits, you may understand, speak and read (but not write) any human language.

Duration: One scene or hour

 

Advanced Gifts

 

Assimilation

Activation Time: At will

Challenge: Static Social vs. a Storyteller-set difficulty based on how foreign the culture is

Retest: Subterfuge

Followup Cost: 0 or more Willpower

Effect: You gain a supernatural facility for blending in with the local culture, be that a local street gang or a spirit court on a distant planet. You take no social penalties for interacting with that culture.

Duration: One scene or hour, plus one day per Willpower spent

 

Calm the Flock / Part the Veil

Cost: One Gnosis

Challenge: Social vs. target (who may not relent)

Retest: Empathy

Effect: You soothe the supernatural fear of werewolves born into each human soul. Your target will not experience the Delirium for the gift's duration.

Duration: One scene or hour

 

Ubermensch

Frequency: Once per scene

Cost: 1 to 5 of either Rage or Gnosis (or, if you have a way to spend both at once -- 1 to 5 of both, giving a max of 10)

Effect: When this Gift take effect, humans no longer fear you because of the Curse: instead, they feel awe toward you, perceiving you as a paragon of human potential. You gain a trait bonus on all Social Challenges equal to the number of Rage and/or Gnosis you spent.

Duration: One scene or hour