Werewolf Sourcebook

The Sept of the Starlit Sky has many spirit allies and maintains a good relationship with many of the spirits of Cougar Mountain National Park. Some of the most notable spirits are...

Starlight aka "Lady Starlight": Shining down on the Caern night and day is the Caern's totem spirit for whom the sept is named. Starlight often takes the form of a beautiful woman with shining silver, dark purple, or golden hair (depending on the time of day and weather when she is summoned). Starlight is very enigmatic even for a spirit and is notorious for rarely giving a straight answers. Often her followers find that they are given a seemingly meaningless or unrelated task by their totem and wind up finding in the end that they now understand what they must do to solve their problem. Starlight is quite gentle, but when her anger is raised, she will smite her enemies with the forces of the heavens themselves!

Lets face it. Even in a Children of Gaia Sept like this one, fights and challenges are occasionally going to break out. So what do you do in these situations? Well ideally I will be on and can send the Master of the Challenge (Seeks-the-Balance) to help sort things out. But as we all know that is rarely the case in an online enviroment so if this happens and a formal challenge is declared, a player character will have to act as referee (hopefully a philidox as this kind of thing is in your job description). As for challenges for pack positions like Alpha and such, these are mainly pack only affairs save for perhaps right after the pack is formed. In these kind of challenges, usually the rest of the pack acts as referee, though the Master of the Challenge can watch too if players want.

When a spirit is summoned, they usually expect payment for their services unless of course you did an amazing job on your summons (5 or more successes) and the spirit was in a generous mood. This payment usually takes 2 forms either Chiminage or Gnosis.

Chiminage, simply means that you perform a service for the spirit that is befitting of it. For example, if you wanted to gain the favor of an owl spirit, you might catch mice and other vermin and leave them tied up in the forest at night for other owls to get. Or if you were trying to curry the favor of an oak spirit, you might plant several oak trees in a good location. Chiminage is a way of honoring the spirit through service. Such service is usually an extended period of time from a few days to a month. Even the mighty Garou must remember to give thanks to his spirit cousins. Remember, Respect those beneath you for all are of Gaia!

Perhaps the most useful Rite a Garou will ever learn (in my opinion at least) is the Rite of Summoning (though to be fair, the Rite of Talisman Dedication is pretty important too…unless of course you LIKE being naked!). The Rite of Summoning allows the Garou to summon a spirit to do his bidding for a short amount of time in exchange for payment of some kind (for more on payment, see the Chiminage and Gnosis Cookies section of House Rules) Mechanically here is how it works:

Perhaps one of the most overlooked rites in Werewolf is the Rite of Awakening. Awakening an object makes it sentient and increases its inherent properties. For example awakened whiskey will taste twice as good and get you drunk twice as fast! Further if the Rite of Awakening is used on something like a Toaster or TV, the toaster might never burn your toast, the TV might never show you commercials, a knife might never get dull, awakened lavender might cause sleep, etc.

While this is a major plus, you must keep in mind that the object is now intelligent and also now has primitive emotions and so if you do something like hit an awakened computer or yell at an awakened car…it might just crash on you!

In some situations, a Garou may desire to simply look into the umbra rather than go there bodily. In this case the Garou rolls Gnosis against the Gauntlet rating, but at a +1 difficulty. It is harder to simply send your sight into the spirit world rather than transport all of you there. A mirror or shiny surface can also be used here to decrease the diff by 1.

The Umbra is the reflection of the real world and as such it can more easily be reached with the aid of a reflective surface. Anything from water, to a mirror, to a shiny spoon can be used as a focus for aiding in entering the umbra.

Mechanically, when using a reflective surface you lower the diff to step sideways by one. This is why most Garou carry a reflective surface with them and this is also how the Glasswalker tribe got their name (do you get it now…). When stepping sideways, the mirror also has a second usage, if you botch while attempting to step sideways and are not using a mirror, you become trapped between worlds and have to be rescued by one of your packmates. If using a mirror however, the mirror/shiny surface simply breaks. No harm no foul. So remember…always use protection.

Players are usually fascinated by specialized martial arts. Here are my rulings on the three most common in Werewolf:

Iskakku:
The ancient Garou art of staff fighting, created ages ago by the Children of Gaia. The art of Iskakku teaches that deadly force is not necessary in combat and is a favored style by those Garou who prefer to spare their foes for one reason or another. While this style is not deadly, it is by no meansany less dangerous! Iskakku masters are an incredibly dangerous opponent who can even best a Crinos werewolf without switching out of homid as long as they have a staff. Iskakku is actually not as difficult to learn as one would think since Iskakku Masters are actually quite generous and enjoy teaching their style to like minded individuals both Garou and Kinfolk. Since there are 2 Iskakku masters in the Sept of the Starlit Sky (Curtis and Danny), players are allowed to learn Iskakku if they choose, though they must roleplay out their desire to learn with either Curtis or Danny.

During the course of a game, Rage, Gnosis, and Willpower will fluctuate...sometimes quite wildly. Since it is nigh impossible for me keep track of everyones current Rage, Gnosis, and Willpower, I leave it up to you to be honest. Keep in mind all the ways you can regain Rage, Gnosis, and Willpower and you should be fine.

The act of gaining a totem spirit is something that most Garou experience only once in their lives, but some Garou, for whatever reason feel the desire to serve more than one totem. Those rare Garou who desire to do so have a long, hard road ahead of them for not only do they have 2 totems to placate now, but they also have to uphold the bans of both totems. Couple with this the fact that some totem spirits like Pegasus and Fenris refuse to have anything to do with each other and you have got some real problems on your hands! But following 2 totems can also be quite rewarding. Once you have figured out how to serve 2 masters effectively, you can reap fantastic rewards. In game terms, you must uphold the bans of both totems, but you also gain the benefits of both totems. Here is how it works: