As we wait for Rich to finalize details of the Werewolf20 Kickstarter, it’s time to look to the future. As those of you who’ve read the release schedule are no doubt aware, Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition is just the start. In addition to the Skinner SAS, we’ve got three new books in the pipeline.
Changing Breeds is the first of those books.
The Fera have had a place in Werewolf since the first edition Player’s Guide, with Breedbooks, small sections in the Revised-era Storyteller’s Companion, and the Player’s Guide to the Changing Breeds. A lot of players have a lot of love for one or other Breed, myself included, and we knew that we couldn’t ignore the Changing Breeds in W20.
W20 marks the first Werewolf corebook that includes a section on the Changing Breeds, giving game information enough to create Storyteller characters. Changing Breeds goes above and beyond that, giving background, traits, and mechanics for all of the non-Garou shapeshifters in the World of Darkness.
If it helps, Changing Breeds is to the Breedbooks and PGttCB what W20 is to much of the Werewolf line: a condensed and updated single source of information on all kinds of Fera.
Have a look at the outline and see what you think.
As those of you who pay attention to usernames or writing styles can probably tell, I’m not Ethan. My name’s Stew Wilson, and I’m developing the supplements for W20, starting with Changing Breeds. I’m keenly aware that Ethan is Werewolf to a lot of people, so I know I’ve got a lot to live up to. But I’m confident that what we’ve got coming up for W20 is totally dynamite.
Comments
96 responses to “Changing Breeds”
At the end of the outline it says there is a section on the lost breeds, gotta say, really looking forward to this part in particular.
Nagah? I don’t think they exist. 🙂
Very happy to hear this. I still own all of the original breed books and wouldn’t mind the changing breeds book being as large as W20 itself! 😉
It’s like you guys are using some form of telepathy to read my mind for the most efficient way to take all of my money!
Let us know when we can preorder the Werewolf 20th please!
I AM very much looking forward to this, but one thing I have felt consistently missing from the Changing Breed books is the Wyrm-tainted versions (Buzzards at least 4 pages in BotWyrm2, but Hellcats just got a passing reference.)
I’m sure there was something else but I’ve forgotten it….
Hey, Picks: Most of this was in the MET Book of the Wyrm instead. So it would be neat to see it at least in W20 Book of the Wyrm or CB.
In short, MET BotW had:
Buzzards (Corax)
Hishtpah (Fallen Bastet/Hell Cats)
Purgers (Fallen Gurahl)
The Dumenkara (Fallen Mokole)
Bitter-Grins (Fallen Nuwisha)
The Breakers (Fallen Ananasi) (The Hatar weren’t enough?)
Vermin (Fallen Ratkin)
So there’s no unique names for fallen Kitsune, Ajaba, Nagah, Rokea, etc.?
Actually, as I understand it the Hishtpah and the Hellcats were distinct. Hishtpah were just cats that had gotten corrupt, twisted, or evil over time, where Hellcats were the cats that, right before the apocalypse, were actually forced to walk the spiral like BSDs. Full-on religious devotion to the wyrm, vs simply being overly influenced by it.
Fallen Kitsune have their name listed in the kitsune lexicon though they aren’t otherwise mentioned in the “breed book”-part in hengeyokai.
The name however escapes me for the moment.
Kuko are the Wyrm-Kitsune.
As in history was only one Wyrm-tainted Nagah, it really wasn’t necessary to give a generic name.
Personally I was always a bit disappointed that there was never any kind of update to the ajaba. They had a passing mention in the bastet book but the actions of the Ahadi and their redemption was always kind of neat to me.
Any idea what kind of pagecount we’re likely to see for this, I’m actually tempted to pick up the PG: to the Changing breeds but if it’s going to be a lot of overlap I may just wait.
PGttCB actually has the Revised Ajaba, though of course it’s not a Breedbook.
And the PGttCB, just like the Bastet book before it, forgot to add starting Ajaba PC Willpower. You can only get that info online (Willpower 3 from Bastet Breed Book Missing Info) and not from any existing W:tA book.
Hopefully, W20 Changing Breeds will correct this grievous error.
I also don’t want to go back before the “retcon” and go back to the Ajaba from the Bastet Breed Book to have the so very common “Lion King” evil hyena hate-all-lions stereotype BS people have who don’t have a single clue what hyenas are really like.
I really liked the retcon writeup in PGttCB and hope that W20 CB sticks to that version more or at least updates it.
I would also like a section on about lost rites and gifts (Up to Level 4/5/6) if you wanted to run Ajaba characters before Black Tooth comes into the picture. And because werehyenas are associated with blacksmiths: Awesome fetishes and a tradition of fetish smiths/makers.
Also lost sub-breeds/tribes of the Ajaba. In the past, there were hyenas that were the equivalent of modern day cheetahs, aka “Chasmaporthetes” (The Chasmaporthetes also managed to cross the land bridge into North America). And that the modern day “Brown Hyena” is very close to becoming lost.
Also giving Ajaba the optional flaw of “Entomophagy” to reflect that the Aardwolf is part of the Hyena family.
And having “Striped Hyena” Ajaba and what the Ajaba were doing in Greece and India (The Striped Hyena’s other main territories).
During the Ice Age there were giant spotted hyenas throughout Eurasia. I’m not sure about India. But they should be just as valid as the Eurasian and American Simba, and the European Qualmi, mentioned in PGttCB.
Does the non-expansion of Abilities mean no suffering through the tortured justifications for Gurahl getting Biorhythms when Mokole and Nagah don’t? ^VVVVVVV^
Looks great! It’ll be interesting to have a PGttCB-sized writeup on Ajaba before Kisasi and the Ahadi. A bit sad there are still no plans for Bunyip expansions or form stats, but there will be more room for the CB themselves here.
I will repeat what I said earlier about CB, in case it wasn’t seen since it was on the Croatan thread:
My main request for the Changing-Breeds is to totally redo how movement speed is calculated. Right now it’s based solely on Dexterity, and calculated the exact same way for nearly every Breed’s animal form. This results in Swara, for example, having ridiculous Dexterity modifiers in their non-homid forms. It also makes no sense — of all the animals Changing-Breeds can become, wolves are the ONLY ones that can cover long distances with the same kind of speed that humans can (which is why our nomadic ancestors domesticated them so much earlier than other animals). Even unburdened horses slow humans down over long distances — their value is more in carrying and pulling stuff. Cats can sprint better than us but none of them, including cheetahs, have anything like our long-distance endurance. And snakes, well you get the picture.
Movement speed should not be determined using the same formula for every animal and form. And for some (at least the Bastet) sprinting speed should be different from long-distance running/jogging/hiking speed. Also, the Long Running feat/ability/thingy should only be possible in Homid and (non-Bunyip) Lupus forms.
I think it would require whole new mechanic something like dex* x where x is race/form specific.
That would be a simple solution, yes.
I gotta say, knowing that Stew is working on W20 makes me that much more stoked to see the final product.
Looking awesome! I play werewolf the apoc (and still ST`ing a campaign hah), and I just cant wait for the W20!
But may I humbly give my opinion?
Ahadi were awesome. It gave a good chance to play in Africa that was away from the “everyone is killing each other” stereotype of that wonderful continent. Please dont do it before the Ahadi! One of the things that made werewolf players sad when the apocalypse came is that we didnt got to see the Ahadi blooming!
So, in short, AHADI! AHADI!
Oh man, I hope the Kickstarter opens soon so I can throw money at it. I am so totally geeking out right now, it’s just like getting my 2nd Edition corebook when I was 13. Only better, because now I have disposable income…
First of all, a quick question: What does the “# / #” mean? [ Example: Bastet (10K: 5/5) ]
I’m still getting used to word-count numbers, but some of the choices in the word counts seem a bit odd to me. Bastet with their MANY distinct groups get 10K words, while groups like the Rokea get 70% of the same space? Maybe I’m just a bit Bastet-bias, but with the Bastet covering every continent (minus Australia) that the Garou do (and even more territory in Africa), I somehow can’t help but think that each of the Bastet Tribes deserve at least 1k words to describe each… not to mention some space for the “general Bastet” information.
I’m curious about the Renown and Delirium being handled outside of each group’s Chapters. I can see the advantage of having all of those rules in the same place, but since each one is likely treated quite differently, might it be better to just have exclusive information all presented in the same chapter?
Also… Fera Around the World at 4,000 words? that’s less than 1K per continent… covering dozens of groups. *wince*
I’d really like to see some greater depth in the outline so that can feel better about it. ^.^
I know Jess has mentioned that she’s doing some writing in it. What other writers are on board/doing each part?
And, finally… any word on the artists lined up/working on pieces for the book? (Probably a Richard question.)
I suspect the #/# is the split between the breed write-ups themselves, and the breed gift-and-rite-lists.
The 3 thousand word count on the lost breeds worries my quite a bit. I hope we get the background infromation as well as the forms and rank 4 and 5 gifts. Give it to us! …please.
No Weresloths? 🙁
They missed the registration deadline. 😛
…. nor Weremonkeys/Were-apes? 😉
Werehedgehogs mate, the wave of the future.
“…. nor Weremonkeys/Were-apes?”
Someone else remembers the Stargazer part in Garou Saga then?
Not to mention all the dang hints White Wolf would drop from time to time about this in certain books.
You guys also forgot Japanese werecats, “Neko”, from Dark Alliance: Vancouver. Which were never mentioned again after that book.
Do you think that W20 CB should have a section on creating your own Changing Breeds if you wanted to, such as like Forsaken’s War against the Pure?
Nope, I think such things should be put into a Kickstarter as a Changing Breeds Companion.
Because this 160 page book will never exhaust our thirst for all things Fera.
I thought Neko were in A World of Rage? I also thought they were “retconned” into the Nyan Hsien.
So, here’s my gripe:
Africa – I’m really unhappy with the choice of moving Africa back to the state before the Ahadi. It was one of the things that made me happy to own PGttCB, as it allowed to play varied campaigns. Moving back to Black Tooth makes Africa pretty shallow to play in, as it forces the players into a single type of campaign (players against Black Tooth tyranny). Having a big bad omnipotent NPC is not a good setting background, especially since his death made a lot of things better game wise and retconning it would be akin to moving from good to bad.
Let me quote the document here “clinging to shitty mechanics for reasons of nostalgia.” It’s only 1K words, an hour of writing tops, so please change it.
Tools – do we really need 9K words for secondary rules? I would be more happy with extra space devoted to Lost Breeds than delirium effects or pack tactics.
Lost Breeds – 1K words is very little, especially since we are talking about changing breeds that never had any screen time before (past Lives doesn’t count as it was a book for werewolves). I would prefer seeing more info on them, as it will be probably their only appearance for the foreseeable future.
“past Lives doesn’t count as it was a book for werewolves”
This is a good point. Even the gifts in Past Lives are explicitly said to be garou-oriented gifts based on the breeds, not gifts the breeds themselves used.
I agree with your thoughts on Ahadi.
First off, Africa pre-Ahadi was a game where hyenas were evil (of course..), Lions were the bosses and everyone sort of stood in the sidelines. Africa was simply a continent of savage war.
With Ahadi in place, Africa suddenly became a place you wanted to play in, to explore the Beast Courts. But more than that, it gave the continent its due in culture. With so many different species working together, and the continent in general being very much one of the last true wilds, there became internal issues and fights to preserve the natural beauty.
It also gave Africa a needed leg-up, giving players from there a chance to see their continent treated with respect.
The Ahadi didn’t give Africa a leg up, it put Africa on the map for Werewolf/Fera players. As a part-time vampire player and collector I’ve bought Kindred of the Ebony Kingdom, which is an incredible Africa sourcebook, for vampires. The Ahadi don’t have that, they have barely 15 pages of text in PGttCB. But those 15 pages made Africa playable for most GMs, gave reasons to play varied Fera types that weren’t bound by centuries of traditions like the Asian Beast Courts. Those 15 pages were not some badly handled Metaplot devices forced on players and GMs alike (Mage revised I’m looking at you), they were a well made evolution of the situation present in the 2ed, representing a speck of hope before the coming Apocalypse. The Ahadi underlined the feel of Werewolf revised, where much of the bad press surrounding certain groups was done away with (Silver Fang incompetence, Shadow Lord maliciousness towards others, Ajaba description). And it was a good choice.
I think that the Ahadi was the best setting outside the west of WW. I am sorry to say, but as a Brazilian fan of the oWoD, it saddens me to see how bad south america and pretty much everywhere no west (with the exception of Asia for some things) were treated.
Ahadi was the shining exception.
I think the book sounds really nice and I’m entirely with you all here there. I would absolutely love to buy an Ahadi book. So very very much… Actually:
To be honest, and without meaning to insult anyone. I’m very much astonished with the decision to retcon everything back to mid 2nd ed era. There was good stuff back then, sure, but considering we’re talking new books here I was really hoping to have a continuation of the setting from where we left off and bring it into 2012.
And to be entirely sincere, I have several books that cover the same topics from a slightly different perspective and a lot of word count is spent repeating information I already have… sometimes twice. Don’t get me wrong, I love each of those books, but I’d love to see real in-depth coverage of elements that really were not covered enough in WW’s previous incarnation. To me the Ahadi and the Black Spiral Dancers are the obvious two contenders that have extremely high potencial for awesome hardcover full coverage books. Exactly like The Sabatt and Kindred of the Ébony kingdom had before them.
That said, I have all the Fera books ever made and my Fera collection is my most precious book collection. And I will be sure to grab this one too. It’s just that… if we’re going back to 2nd ed, I feel like I’m buying a book I already have twice.
I am astonished that you’re astonished/surprised that they’re retconning. W20 is a celebration of Werewolf: the Apocalypse and is not a 4th Edition. As was explained in the W20 panels and other places by Rich and Eddy, had they wanted to make a 4th Edition, they would have made very different changes (both to V20 and to W20), but W20 basically takes things back to before Revised and re-engineers things to fit into a contemporary (today) setting. Not only that, but they want it to FEEL and LOOK like it’s something from the earlier days (though updated with stuff like full-color pages and the likes.) That’s why they include some favorite old artwork along with the new artwork.
Star Gazers are still in the Garou Nation, Ceilican are still among the Bastet, The Red Star (Antihelios) is only rumored to have been seen, Albrecht is Lord, not King, and Samuel Haight is in his Valkenburg Foundation incarnation… for starters. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be some bits and pieces added from other parts/settings, but for the most part W20 is set in 2nd Edition.
Since Sam Haight is getting put back to his starting form too, perhaps Black Tooth isn’t going to be as unstoppably powerful as he was in 2nd Edition/Revised either… since they’re still writing W20 Changing Breeds.
The other thing is this too: Since these books look like they’re going to tend to be more setting/rule books and contain less stories in and of themselves (following what we’ve seen of V20 so far), a lot of the Black Tooth specifics may be left to STs to use as they wish.
However, even as big of a Bastet fan as I was, I don’t really think that Black Tooth’s being a super bad-ass and keeping the African Fera at war was really that great, or important to the setting… so even if they toned him down, or only briefly mentioned him, I wouldn’t be hurt/surprised.
Well, to be honest Torakhan, I indeed knew nothing of this. Long story short, I work in the video game industry. I can garantee you that it implies fairly crazy work hours. When I’m not working, I’m handling a Werewolf LARP. That’s also a crazy time investment. My Point? I don’t have time to read all the blogs or scrounge the internet for the news on all things White Wolf. Even though, I do try. I really wanted to go to this year’s Grand Mascarade, I regularly looked for updated and I even made deals with my boss to be able to keep my vacation floating so I could fo. And I was really sad to know that another convention that I hadn’t ever heard of was going to be taking it’s place and that it was happening way too soon for me to show up.
To be even more frank, you, my friend, has quite seriously been my most reliable source of information for a while, as you’ve been ever willing to answer my questions and inform me, as you are doing right now. Seriously, thanks a lot for that, BTW.
So, may be I’m just incapable of finding the right site for quick and easy information on what’s coming up, but the bottom line remains, I find it extremely hard to keep up with the news and actually to just plain find it in the first place. So, there, that’s why I’m astonished. I really didn’t know. 🙂
I love the idea of the W20 to feel like the early days, because a lot of what WW did back then was extremely AWESOME, and to my mind much more heartfelt, cultural deep and artistic than anything in 3rd ed. But, the fact remains for me: What am I going to learn about the world of Werewol: The Apocalyose that I don’t already know or can’t find in books I already own?
It’s going to be fun to read, it’s going to be a beautiful book if V20 is any indication, and it’s going to have updated rules. That’s all great, don’t get me wrong. I’ll buy the books and I’ll love them. I’m not trying to bring a bad vibe. I just really hoped, when I heard about “A world of Rage” and “Book of the wyrm” that we’d get to expand the universe, you know?
Granted, there will be the inclusion of anything taking 2012 into account that will be of the utmost interest to me. Cell phones everywhere and it’s possible impact on the umbral scape (is there cell waves spirits EVERYWHERE now?) for example. Does even the Glass Walkers think the humans have gone too far with all those kids completely entranced by by their little phones texting by the second everything they do everywhere to everyone and ignoring the real world that’s all around them. Or do they embrace completely this digitization of life itself?
^.^ I’m glad I’m helpful, Yiodan 🙂
(the rest of this post isn’t necessarily to you, but a general statement for those unknowing.)
W20 (like V20) is right out of the gates intended for old players of the game who want a book that brings back that nostalgia, adds a little more, and includes a few things they always wanted and/or can help with games today that might be missing from the books printed 10-20 years ago. They’ve never tried to hide that fact, and even have tried to remove most of the “What is a roleplaying game?” sort of stuff out of the books. They’ve tried hard to not develop a “new edition” because they really could have gone in and re-tooled the mechanics and made it more balanced and have a different play-style… but then that would have removed part of what made the CWoD/W:tA what it was… what it felt like.
It’s like taking a flawed, but loved muscle car. Sure, you can put a new paint job on it and make a few additions here and there, but eventually you make too many changes and even though it might be “better”, it’s just not that same car you fell in love with 20 years ago and that’s the issue Rich, Eddy, Ethan and the rest are dealing with.
So if you already have all of the 1st, 2nd, and Revised books, why do you need W20?
• Contemporary setting rules
• Combining of rules from many books into one rule book.
• An edition created from “the best of” parts of other editions.
• New artwork (hey, that’s pretty big for some of us. 🙂 )
• To just have a new product for something we love.
• … probably some more stuff… also, having the core book that will work with the other W20 supplements. 🙂
So… yeah, for some folks, they can live without W20 because they already have the material they want/need for their games. The mechanical over-hauls likely aren’t going to re-invent the game, and the removal of the Revised metaplot/story-modified parts can be done without the W20 book as the ST wants. But that’s not really what W20 is meant to be about–it’s about celebrating, enjoying, reliving, and basically buying something we loved that we thought was dead (publishing-wise) ten years ago and watching it breathe life again, even if its future is unknown.
I hope that I can continue to keep everyone as informed as possible through the many sites and methods as I can. So long as I continue to evangelize W20 and find new people to are discovering W20s existence, then I feel like my time is worth it. 🙂
That’s a very good review of what those books are about. It give me a better perspective. I hope it sell enough that we get the books I crave, but I definitely will be able to enjoy those books better from that point of view. Thanks, Torakhan.
Not to mention, when it comes to Lost Breeds: The Okuma are going to be forgotten again in the Beast Courts section.
If anybody doesn’t know what they are: In the Hengeyokai book, there’s a sub-tribe of Gurhal known as the Okuma that got wiped out in their War of Shame. The Okuma should be based on Asian bears species (Like the Asian black bear) and not Pandas…
The other problem with Black Tooth: He’s still too recent for me metaplot-wise as well. Black Tooth did his genocide of the Ajaba around 1983/1984. And yet Black Tooth’s slaughter of them is still used as a dumb reason to go: Well, the Ajaba can’t know any above level 2/3 gifts and rites. Did White Wolf know that the University of California at Berkeley moved a bunch of spotted hyenas before that date into California for study?
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/hyena.html
And what if I wanted to run a campaign before stinking Black Tooth?
The other problem you run into is the Hyena King. For a species that’s ruled by a matriarchy? Really?
If we are going to sideline tons of meta-plot already as a “What if?” sidebar, why not chuck out Black Tooth altogether? He was stupid then and he’s stupid now.
Again, I’m tired of the “evil” hyena stereotype that exists in media everywhere. And the whole, “Lions are noble creatures/tyrants!” too.
You can have my werepandas when you pry them from my cold dead fingers.
Okuma! I forgot about them. Please mention them, WW.
Ah, you guys have changed my mind. Though it would be interesting to see what Ajaba were really like (non Bastet Breedbook version) before the Ahadi, I was super-sad that Ahadi didn’t get more wordcount in PGttCB. They are awesomer than Hell and since W20 updates everything to the 21st century, not telling how the Ahadi are (or could be) doing would be a lost opportunity. They provide so many different roleplay options for Fera AND Garou in Africa (investigating Antediluvians and other horrors, rescuing Kyphurs, slaughtering vampires and banes, protecting parks, building new mixed-Breed caerns, diplomacy, sabotaging the alliance, hunting down Amandu’o Simba vigilante-style, trying to contact Breeds who haven’t joined, helping those two Rokea or those two Gurahl, trying to get more angle with those Ratkin with the umbral tunnels, going on a quest to the Beast Courts to ask them for useful spiritual tools (surely the Mokole remember they have stuff like Waking Dream of Unity), etc.) So many possibilities.
PGttCB only whet the appetite, truly. It provided how the Ahadi started, and left it up to the PCs and ST how it proceeded. Which is great, but it would be excellent to see how things could have turned out 10-20 years later — an Ahadi-fell apart scenario and an Ahadi-held together scenario, for example.
‘cept that… well, like stated before, W20 throws the clock back to the mid-90s and re-tools from there.
Depending on how important Stew thinks the whole African Zoo stuff was to the setting of Werewolf: the Apocalypse, he may or may not include it into the book.
Personally, I think that the Beast Courts and the Ahadi were a bit too “Shiny Happy People working together” for the World of Darkness, and may be one reason why some of those aspects are kind of downplayed in W20. Still, a side-bar or page about the “Zoo of working-together Fera” might not be bad either just for filling out the information for others.
Wow, never saw a whole line of argumentation dismissed by a R.E.M. reference. Respect.
But jokes and bell peppers aside, 2ed had lots of story problems.
Black Tooth was one of them, as it made playing Ajaba almost impossible and Africa uninteresting to most players. The whole Ahadi in Changing Breeds argument is not about the vision of the setting but about not limiting player options. Besides, Hengeyokai was a 2ed ’97 book, so those concepts should be there if W20 returns to those times.
I for one hope that certain 2ed story elements won’t make a return in W20, like mengele-style Shadow Lord experimentation on Bone Gnawers, Neo-Nazi Get of Fenris, or Fianna killing each other in Ireland over being Catholic or Protestant.
Yet, Ahadi offered something more than ‘happy zoo people’. It offered Africa as a genuine setting with it’s unique flavour, as opposed to just another foregein warzone of a continent.
Does it matter? Yes, because there are WtA fans around the world who want to see their own countries portrayed as they should, rather than overlooked.
I kinda gotta give the credit to Dennis Leary for the “Shiny Happy People” reference when he used it in his No Cure for Cancer album. Since then it’s stuck with me. 🙂
It’s not that I don’t think that there’s a place for the Ahadi, but if “this makes it hard to play” was a reason for not including certain parts of the CWoD, then we might not have Red Talons, or even Lupus in the game.
Stew may very well be taking notes too and making alterations to his thoughts on the African setting as he reads this. Is there a way for the Ahadi to exist at the same time as Black Tooth to be an opposition for him? Perhaps Black Tooth is powerful, but not supremely so in W20… just a formidable adversary as Sam Haight, or Zhyzhak.
The Beast courts come off as “Shiny Happy People” because they were written in the same fashion as the other YotL games – the subjects are “more betterer” than their western counterparts, and this, for Werewolf, means that the Hengeyokai apparently don’t have territorial conflict, never frenzy, their breed duties never conflict, their totems get along, and it’s all handwaved as “you know… Asia… ‘balance’ and all that Zen stuff!”
The Hengeyokai book “missed the mark” on a lot of things, and this is one of them. Perhaps if the Kitsune breedbook had been released as a separate YotL supplement for Werewolf, and the extra space devoted to the nitty-gritty in Hengeyokai? But… Oh well.
You can still use the Hengeyokai as savage, shape-shifting monsters. if two Garou of the same tribe in the same sept can butt heads and fight a duel over some nonsense of who sits where (and they do!) then you bet your butt that a Hakken Ahroun and a Nighty Khan Fist are going to throw down over just about ANYTHING. But… you don’t get that from the writeups. Instead you get some vague mumble about working together, and in the ST handbook, that darling picture of a crinos Khan cuddling a hummingbird.
The Ahadi, in its fifteen pages, crams a good amount of conflict into itself. The Bagheera and Swara do not want to be part of this, but are stuck with it. The Simba are facing a civil war, and nobody trusts them. The Kucha Ekundu are nearly extinct, and the Silent Striders are seen as foreigners. The Mokole resent their wallows being open (in theory) to other changing breeds, as do the Garou. The Ajaba are still trying to figure out what an Ajaba is, and they have a strong faction that wants to kill off the Simba still. of course then you have the Ratkin being Ratkin, and the Bubasti trying to figure out how to manipulate the whole deal for their best interests… The whole thing lacks any real cohesion because there are no “mixed septs”, there are no “sentai” equivalents, everyone does their own thing, and SOME of them agree with the Ahadi ideal that they should work with their cousins – even among the Ahadi-aligned breeds, there’s bound to be plenty that have no interest in the whole thing.
All this on a war-torn continent where the Wyrm’s forces are literally on the march on a scale only before seen in the Amazon.
yeah, the Ahadi are “Shiny Happy people” if you think the fact that Talons and Wendigo can sometimes share a caern without slaughtering each other every waking moment is also “shiny happy people”
I’ve always used his to express their haughtiness and a type of blind spot: in other words the Beast courts think themselves as co-operative and cohesive and all that but in reality its a maze of intrigue and backstabbing in a very similar fashion to kuei-jin or Camarilla power-plays.
Too bad its never spelled out directly, would have saved a lot of energy form all those Orientalism critics.
There may be hope for the Ahadi. V20 was retconned but the authors still choose to include the 3rd Maelstrom. Without knowing the authors intent the demise of Blacktooth may still have happened. I hope so.
If there was a way of searching, I would point out the location, but I was told that Black Tooth will still be around in W20 Changing Breeds. However, his role/powers/and whether or not there is an organized faction of Fera against him/in Africa anyways might be different than straight-up 2nd Edition.
I’d like to see the Bastet Yawa updated and Ajaba starting Wp added in, also Kitsune, Bastet and what not racial hedge magic needs some trimming & pruning. It’s currently messy enough to explode my head if I think about it too much.
And lastly fix Ceilican, their current and previous iterations are pretty much unplayable except as antagonists. And lastly European lion really? What’s wrong with European wild cat felis sylvestris?
What about Yava would need updating, even in the hypothetical situation they weren’t retconned out completely?
Oh yeah! Yavas. I always had a problem with them. My opinion would be either give A LOT more information on them or ditch the concept. I ran a fera LARP several years ago, I redid the entire timeline and the Garou had lost the war of rage. And let me tell you as an ST I did not have enough to go on with the Yavas to play with them reliably. Some of them are extemely obscure and I had no idea how to rule what worked and wouldn’t.
I don’t know if the idea was the make them “mysterious”, and that is honestly awesome for a player, but as a storyteller I need concrete information.
Another example, Rokea are suddenly extremely sexually active when they’re in the surface… okay but why? If I don’t know enough of the reasoning behind, I cannot figure out things relating to it when players start walking outside the lines. And they will.
I especially hated the Ceilican one. It was just… To quote another forumite “super retarded”.
Ah, the Rokea book had some speculation about the horniness thing. I think it was meant to be a major issue that the ST should decide the reason for. My opinion. Sea wants them to stop being so frikkin isolated and start breeding with humans now, to preserve their blood (sharks are going extinct) and so they have some comprehension of human threats.
And Yava… ugh. Hated them. If they have to continue to exist (PGttCB never mentioned them) then change them to complicated riddles which a Bastet must advance in knowledge, experience, and understanding (rank, gnosis) to understand. When solved, they provide valuable information about the spiritual make-up of the tribe — useful both for the Bastet herself, and for her enemiees.
I’m down with that idea. Very much!
To be honest, I never minded the Yava.
They were supposed to be the greatest of Bastet secrets… and they were never guaranteed to work on Bastet anyways… and anyone who went up to a Kahn with baby meat (especially one who didn’t have that Yava) would be hunted down and murdered mercilessly, not only for insulting and abusing the Yava, but because they knew it… and then the player who used it would be beaten for having known it for no good reason either. 😉
Some weren’t great, but I liked the concept… because they were SO SECRET ((Want to know the Kahn Yava? Do you have “Kahn Lore” as a Skill? Oh, How high?). Again, unless someone had a REALLY good reason for knowing them, no one should have ever known the Yava ever existed, let alone what they were.
That’s not to say that they couldn’t use some tweaking here and there. But like Tribe Flaws (I hope those are in W20!), they should/could be optional rules too.
> Another example, Rokea are suddenly extremely sexually active when they’re in the surface… okay but why?
Isn’t that obvious? Because they are supposed to have homids, and they refuse. Gaia is trying to fix that. 🙂
I like the IDEA of yava. The notion that the Bastet have these super-secret, ultra-dangerous secrets that they have to guard. They might be true, they might not, and you really never want to find out.
I hate the execution of the Yava, however. if someone knows a Yava, they get a difficulty modifier regarding that particular tribe… oh goody? Okay, it’s a nice bonus, but it’s flavorless. And then, if we’re going to assume some of the Yava are true.. .well.. the Yava themselves are super-silly. Poke an Ajaba’s head and he dies instantly!
The idea of folkloric secrets that have some detrimental power over the Bastet tribe is neat and flavorful. The mechanics (and the specific Yava themselves) are silly.
“Greetings. I am a Bubasti Mystic. I am strange and mysterious. As all Bastet, I am fond of speaking in riddles, and because we’re even more mysterious than all of the other tribes, I make every effort to look dark and foreboding and talk slow and I create a very intense mood and you are at the ti — OH! BURGERS!!!”
Nah. I’m not sure it gives off the right feeling. For the tribe. As the Rusty says, the general idea of the Yavas is absolutely awesome. The execution needs a bit more work.
I’d suggest something like the new Changeling’s flaw when you become too much fae, or something like the Mokole form characteristics. For example, All Bastets have them and they would have a list in the book from which to choose with ideas and guidelines to create new ones. May be seperate in group of 2 or 3 per tribe, and the user must choose one from his tribe and the other two can be taken from the other ones.
Some of the effect were rather nice, like dropping alchool in the footstep would make the cat at the other end become drunk. That’s cool, that can give you the drop on him. It encourages being creative. Another could send the bastet in a frenzy automatically, or make him paranoid, etc.
So far I like it.
But it would be nice to have sidebars regarding the revised edition development, especially the Ahadi stuff. Not that I particularly like them, but I hate if books don’t add together. So a sidebar disclaimer would be nice, simply stating that “if you have other sources, talking about the Ahadi and stuff, then they detail a situation that hasn’t happened in this description, yet. Or maybe it won’t.”
Also, with all the Fera and their ties to Helios, Luna or whatever, I’s like if someone made sure that all the basic rules and mechanics are checked it they make sense or if they need to be adapted and that should be mentioned. That is how do they regenerate Willpower, Gnosis and especially Rage. How is their Frenzy difficulty determined. When are they allowed to spend Rage and for what purpose.
Many of the breed books gave me the impression, that the mechanics were some cool ideas of stuff the breed could do different than garou, but in the end weren’t thought through to form a comprehensive system.
All I can say is…man, only 5k for the corax? Everybody else gets more wooooooorrrrrds.
Ajaba only have 4.5k set aside so far. 😉
It’s especially surprising, since my only memory of Stew is the Corax he played!
Oh, right, the other thought: where do fetishes fit into this spread, if they do?
We might get another Hammer & Klaive as a W20 book, hopefully. Which would be awesome. That book also outlined Fera fetishes. If you don’t have it, get it!
I just hope that the fetish tradition of the Hakken (no spirits in the dai-sho) isn’t oddly expanded and then blanketed over the entirety of the Beast Courts this time. That came from out of nowhere, given that the Hengeyokai book had several fetish weapons in its text, and it was never even hinted a bit within said book.
I think its more that they refrain from using the fetish weapon of the pair against a fellow Fera but not against a bakemono.
Also a Hakken isn’t against binding a spirit into a weapon its just the fact that there are no weapon smiths good enough to make a decent sword alive any more, an the Hakken are described as excruciatingly meticulous and hide bound when they make them.
Those weren’t the reasons given.
Only versus bakemono (and other lessers): The general use of the dai-sho, which are about benevolence and unselfishness. The katana and wakizashi never have spirits bound into them for this reason, and this reason alone.
There were no restrictions listed about the use of Fetish weapons, even for the Hakken. Then H&K (hahaha, the name) came out and did something drastically weird that had no precedent with Beast Courts fetish culture that makes the weapons in the Hengeyokai book seem really, really weird.
Actually I’d prefer the Hengyokai to not be included in the Breed Book and instead gets its own volume. This way there is more word count for the Fera of Europe and Africa.
Heck, if they just want to focus on europe and the Americas and then create an additional book for Africa I’d be more than happy.
Please make sure to get into the metaplot of the old breed books and figure out what applies now and what doesn’t!
A good example for this would be the Rokea and Mokole books. In the Rokea book, their genesis and origin story makes little to no sense outside the ocean. With the ocean as a campaign setting, Sea, Oversea and Unsea as a triumvirate is neat, but it doesn’t really translate well. Is Sea another aspects of Gaia, or is Gaia the Unsea and separate from Sea? Is the Nightmare detailed in their genesis story some sort of Dream Speaker?
I applauded the Apocalypse book, because it actually gave storyteller secrets for some of the nebulous fluff. In my opinion, such events should be meta-canon. As in, the storyteller can choose to follow things as they’re intended to be, or pull a big twist.
Also, I distinctly remember the Gift: Bark of the Mud Puppy in my version of Mokole. If I recall, it said it had no cost, always struck the target, and always did one damage. One of what type of damage?.. Non-lethal? Lethal?.. Aggravated?
Also also, I seem to recall in the Mokole book, ‘silver claws’ was a Gift they had. It claimed that ‘no gold claws variant exists.’ Then the book contradicted itself with a Gold Claws Gift.
It said no Common Gold Claws Gift existed. The Unshading keep it to themselves as a weapon against lawbreakers of their own kind.
Very much excited for the section on the Lost Breeds. Will we finally be getting form stats and level 4/5 Gifts?
I really really hope we do. I’d love to know about their cultures too.
First off: http://tinyurl.com/shutupandtakemymoney
Now on a more serious note; a lot of the comments above are focused on the settings that were very fera-intensive in their scope. I feel like it’s only right that the three biggest non-werewolf areas for conflict and exploration be given some space in this book: Africa, Brazil, and Southeast Asia. Each of these areas has a very rich history involving many of the Fera just as much (if not more so) than Werewolves, and it would be a shame to see a changing breeds update come out that didn’t really give some meat to these settings for players and storytellers to go off of. I’m not suggesting canned adventures, but a couple famous (or infamous) NPC’s and possible plot hooks for each setting certainly wouldn’t go amiss.
W20 Changing Breeds is likely more of a setting/rules book.
There could very well be a bit of detail about each continent… but maybe “Rage Across the World” (which is supposed to be more of a W20 Companion book) could have more info about places/people instead?
One of the arguments that has been given before is “Would you prefer to have a few under-developed pieces of information, or one fleshed-out and finished area?” If only a page can be dedicated to each continent, is that enough room? Would it be better to try to use that space elsewhere? The argument could be made either way, and likely successfully so on both accounts and a decision just has to be made. It’s certainly a valid idea, but something else may have to get bumped/cut down to fit it… or just make the book bigger… *whistles*
I’d like to have 1600 pages instead of 160
So we could fit everything about the fera into nice package with arts and letter and the wrap a nice bowtie around it before shipping to us with its own custom-made wheel barrow 😉
I second this motion, I love my fera and want to see pages and pages of them!
Any chance we could get a little more on (possible) friendly relations with Garou? It’s mentioned that the Pure Ones, for instance, had better rapport, and that the Corax were still on good terms, etc. A bit here or there about Red Talons in America having an agreement with the Gurahl, or more on the events in the Amazon, or even a ‘Fera Ally’ Merit or something would be nice. Obviously the tension is meant to be there pre-Ahadi, but a glimmer of alliance would be neat; hell, there is (or was) a ‘Vampire Ally’ Merit. Surely this can’t be more far-fetched?
There was the “Supernatural Ally” merit. It didn’t necessarily mean that your people, or their people liked (or even knew about) it though.
I agree that there seemed to be a little bit of a stretch in places where sometimes it was suggested that different groups had friendlier relations to some groups than others (Corax and Shadow Lords seem like they might have some connection there too, what with their Storm Crows and all), but I really would like to see that animosity and dis-trust being a strong force when playing, or meeting up with Fera.
As much as we want that “glimmer of hope”, we have to remember that we’re still talking about a “World of Darkness” where that glimmer of light in the tunnel is likely the train that is coming at you, or that you’re still fighting that losing war because that’s your cause/purpose, not because you know you’ll win. The Apocalypse is still coming… they just don’t know when yet in W20–it could be months, years, decades, or a hundred years down the line, but it’s coming. So even “allies” or “friendships” between Fera and Garou should have its friction to stick with the theme of the game. 🙂 Obviously STs can make that easier, or harder, but including into rules too many “let’s be friends with rainbows and kittens” (over-exaggerating here) will likely only encourage the mindset that “everyone can/should get along” that does happen. But I agree, some of those alliances/connections can/should exist because they have in the stories and they should show up in connections too. 🙂
I hear ya. I agree too that animosity should be key; the theme that I love most about Werewolf is that they are their own worst enemy, really, and reducing them to the Care Bears with the assorted and forgotten ‘Cousins’ playing backup is bogus. Still, what a powerful story one could tell if a lone Garou befriended a Gurahl, and had to choose between what she knew was right in her heart and what her sept kept saying about them. It’s more genuine than something ‘Underworld’-esque, and having a few rules or a snippet here and there with past precedent might make that a little easier for a Storyteller to string together. =)
Even the First Edition Werewolf: the Apocalypse had a page on “How to mix games” and offered a few ideas on how to play a game where Werewolves and Vampires worked together for a common cause.
That being said, I think that more than a page of “here’s some ideas for STs to incorporate Fera into their games, or run Fera-only games” should be seeds of ideas. Let’s face it, the setting might be about one thing, but players and STs have always created characters/situations that are “the exceptions”. But if it is at all over-emphasized that there are possibilities that Fera and Garou work together, then it become even more difficult to separate what players/STs do from what the common setting tells us. This sort of thing, I think, would work better in a “W20 Storyteller Companion” than a player document, but since we likely won’t get one of those, it should probably be in W20CB since it might be a bit awkward in W20 Rage Across the World (unless there’s an area in there for “mixing games/Fera/Werewolves up a bit”, or something.)
In the end, I don’t think I have to worry too much–I don’t see W20 Changing Breeds being too strong on the “we all have to work together” aspect, and I’m sure that there will be plenty in the write-ups that show the animosity and hatred that the Fera still have for the Garou because I think that almost any ST worth his salt will know how to make it work for their own game IF they want to have a friendly ally, one way or the other. 🙂
I had a disturbing personal insight when I read this post- specifically, I had a very strong fan-attack so powerful I could hardly breathe. I didn’t know that kind of behaviour was in me and I would have been very cynical if anyone else had reacted in such a way. Awkward.
I am SO HAPPY to read that the Fera have not been left by the wayside, I can’t wait to get my hands on this book.
YEsssssss!!!!! I can’t wait to read up on how I can play my ceilican and do my Camazotz revival quest 🙂 I love the changing breed dare I say even more then the garou! The lack of love for the other breeds is one reason I returned my WTF books to the store the day I got them >.> Along with a few other reasons.
austria taylor
Very excited about this book! Very, VERY exicted 😀
However, I do have my reservations… particularly about the Kitsune. All the Changing Breeds were created to aid Gaia in some way, with a specific (if general) purpose. The Garou, most obviously, Gaia’s Warriors – the ones there to hold the line against all who harm Gaia; the Gurahl, Gaia’s Pain – the ones best placed to heal her wounds; the Corax, Gaia’s Messengers, responsible for the survival of many of the Changing Breeds through the War of Rage; the Nagah, Gaia’s Judges, there to kill members of the Changing Breeds who have done wrong… the list goes on, each Changing Breed with their definite and important purpose…
Mokolé, Gaia’s Memory; Nuwisha, Gaia’s Teachers; Ratkin, Gaia’s Population Control; Rokea, Gaia’s Survival in the Sea; Ajaba, Gaia’s Warriors where the Garou were not; Bastet, Gaia’s Curiosity; Camazotz, counterparts to Corax; Apis, Gaia’s Matchmakers; Grondr, Gaia’s Groomers.
And then we have the Kitsune, Gaia’s Magicians.
They are not particularly impressive in that respect – I’m sure most people could name a great many Garou or other Changing Breed gifts more impressive, deadly or magical than making a paper beast come to life, without even needing to rise to gifts of rank 5 or above. Not to mention that Kitsune Rank 5 Gift – (or, Whinge for Help), whereupon the Kitsune cries out for help from nearby Kinfolk and Changing Breeds. This call does not have to be answered by any who hear it. A far cry from the power of other Breeds’ rank 5 gifts, such as taking oneself and one’s opponent to a pocket realm from whence only one may return.
Not really what you’d expect from Gaia’s Magicians, being overshadowed in Magic by Gaia’s Warriors… oh well, at least they’re at least a little capable in combat like the rest of the Changing Bre… oh. Perhaps not. They do not heal rapidly*, they tend to fight with a dagger between their jaws because it’s more dangerous than their jaws in their ‘War Form’ their Hispo-analogue, Koto, and they do not incite any form of delirium*.
*Admittedly, these are both addressed in their creation story, being created last among the shapeshifters, and after even the War of Shame. Smells a little of runt of the litter really.
Worrying that a high level Fox Pooka, a Changeling no less, is capable of more impressive feats and is just as, if not more, capable in combat than a Kitsune.
Saying all this, they’re also described as Gaia’s Politicians, the glue that holds together the Beast Courts. Then, why are they only in the Far East? There are foxes everywhere, are there not? And how come Beast Courts in other lands do just fine? Oh, and for a Breed so useless at combat, why has something not dissimilar to the Ajaba happened to them? They certainly smack of that ‘shiny happy people’ mentioned previously.
I would dearly love to see something done about this. Whether it’s redefining their purpose, making it more important or more widespread; reducing their wordcount, particularly considering their limited ‘habitat’, compared to the Nuwisha and Corax both of which have lower wordcount); giving them Gifts more worthy of Gaia’s Magicians (although one would hope their split of 3/3.5k words story/gifts & rites may address this… the only CB with more gifts & rites planned than story); or something else. I believe the Kitsune in their current form are rather undeserving of their wordcount.
“Call To Allies” is the name of the Kitsune Rank 5 Gift I was on about, my apologies for not editing that in!
Looks like you are not playing the Kitsunes strenghts here.
The gretest strenght the Kitsune have is immortality, yes immortality. They ahve a really hard time on dying of old age so a Kitsune Elder is a true smorgasbord of gifts and rites because a Kitsune with 5 or more tails has had literal centuries or even whole millennia to collect his lore and they learn their gifts at 15-30% discount.
But what PURPOSE do they have? What role do they fulfil for Gaia so much better than any other Changing Breed? Because it certainly isn’t taht of magician. Rokea are the survivalists, unarguably so, and are present where the Kitsune are, so why have so much magic dedicated to escaping and staying alive when you are not the survivors? WHY does Gaia need them to live forever? Why did she make sure they could live forever, at the expense of being able to heal quickly, like the others? They simply don’t fit into the servants of Gaia mould that every other Changing Breed does, at least in my eyes.
As I said before, I’d dearly love to see that purpose better realised, or modified, so that they really can rub shoulders with the rest of the Changing Breeds. Or, if you could shed some more light on that purpose… please, I’d love to be *proven* wrong, to be shown that they already do deserve that.
Where do we sit with updates on this book? Anything?
I hope we might see some degree of thematic shift back to the portrayal of the Bastet in their Breed Book from the PGttCB portrayal. I like thematic quirks like their tribal “secrets”. Of course said “secrets” work best by treating them as metaphors that form each Tribe’s True Name, and thus serve to protect Bastet from mind reading and control powers as long as said secrets aren’t known – rather than treating them as literal additional weaknesses.
What about a lexicon? For those that dont understand things like Sohkto and such.