One of the chapters of W20 is the Allies chapter: Kinfolk, spirits and totems, and yes, we’re putting some bits of the Lost Tribes in there. This shouldn’t be a surprise, since you’ve already seen the sketches. Well, here’s a stab at the format.
We’re not using advanced metaplot to make them show up in the modern world or anything: this is basically a skeleton that can be used for historical chronicles, inspiration for stories about legacies, and so on. You’ll note it’s not quite as fleshed-out as the tribal spread of an extant tribe; a little less word count on society, and no Stereotypes, so that we can put a workmanlike Gift list in place. Even then it’s a lot of words! We’ll see if this is feasible at all, but I’m certainly hoping it will fit into two pages per. Maybe three. We shall see!
Bunyip
The Bunyip of Australia were a strange tribe by the reckoning of the other Garou – the protectors of a peculiar land without any wolves to its name. Some weren’t sure that they were werewolves at all. This belief led to the tragedy known as the War of Shame, when other Garou made war on the Bunyip, believing them to be no longer cousins. They have the sad distinction of being the only Lost Tribe to fall to the claws and fangs of the Garou Nation.
The Bunyip’s beginnings as a distinct tribe came when they arrived in Australia along with the first human settlers. They chose to bond as deeply as they could with the land, the better to understand and protect it. Using a strange ritual that some say they learned from the Mokolé, the Bunyip altered themselves so that they would be able to breed with the marsupial thylacines native to the land.
For millennia they had no contact with the rest of the Garou Nation. They bartered and struggled with the spirits of the Australian Umbra, and walked alongside the aboriginal tribes. They weren’t perfect stewards, of course – like all Garou, they were subject to their Rage, and had occasional struggles with each other. But they took their role as spiritual stewards very seriously, and achieved a certain form of peace for a time.
Everything changed with the arrival of the other Garou. When European settlers came to Australia, bringing werewolves in their ranks, war quickly broke out. Some see the hand of the Black Spiral Dancers in the War of Shame, cleverly manipulating each side against each other so that Gaia’s most experienced local defenders would be overrun. Simple prejudice accounts for much of the tragedy: many of the newcomers couldn’t believe that the Bunyip were Garou any longer, without their wolf blood. The Bunyip were unwilling to fight their relatives with as much ferocity as was directed at them – and with their Kin falling prey to European migrants, it was soon evident that the war was lost. The last surviving Bunyip wandered off into the Umbra rather than fight any longer, and were never seen in fleshly form again. To this day the angry spirits of the Bunyip still haunt the Australian Penumbra, striking out at luckless Garou who wander too deeply.
Appearance: The Bunyip resembled the thylacine in their “wolf” forms; they were small and lean, with smooth coats, long and thin tails, and some striping on their back and flanks. Their Pure Breed manifested itself as more distinct striping, and frequently as a larger frame, a throwback to their size before they began breeding with the “marsupial wolves.”
Kinfolk & Territory: The Bunyip had spread across Australia and Tasmania, where they were close to their aboriginal Kin. They bred with thylacines rather than the dingo, and were careful to protect small breeding populations of their animal-Kinfolk from the more aggressive and stronger wild dogs that gradually supplanted them.
Tribal Totem: Bunyip, a strange water-monster with elements of mammal and reptile. The tribe also revered Rainbow Serpent, the creator-spirit of the Dreamtime, and were on good terms with many other spirits of the Australian Umbra.
Character Creation: The Bunyip were a well-rounded tribe, as they had no other tribes nearby to share duties with. They were particularly well-versed in survival skills and in dealing amicably with spirits.
Initial Willpower: 4
Background Restrictions: No restrictions.
Beginning Gifts: Bunyip’s Spell, Mother’s Touch, Resist Toxin, Sense Prey
Quote: “Thousands of years we carried out our duty, and all so we could be slain by our own cousins? I fear the Apocalypse must already have come in the world beyond the ocean, and now it simply reaches us.”
Bunyip Gifts
• Bunyip’s Spell (Level One) — Great Bunyip taught his children the trick of paralyzing a person with a glance, so that they might defend themselves against humans with mercy.
System: The Garou makes eye contact with the target; the player rolls Willpower, opposed by the target’s Willpower. For each success that the player gains over the target, the target is frozen in place for one turn and cannot defend himself. If the target is an ordinary mortal, the player may choose to spend a Willpower point to make the paralysis last for the rest of the scene. The paralyzed victim remembers not being able to move, but does not know why; it is rationalized away as per Delirium rules. This Gift cannot be used on shapeshifters or the undead, only mortals or those who are mostly mortal (such as most fomori).
• Mother’s Touch (Level One) — As the Theurge Gift.
• Resist Toxin (Level One) — As the Bone Gnawer Gift.
• Sense Prey (Level One) — As the lupus Gift.
• Coils of the Serpent (Level Two) — As the Uktena Gift.
• Crocodile’s Cunning (Level Two) — The Bunyip passed into the lore of humans as an aquatic monster. This Gift, learned from crocodile-spirits, allowed the Bunyip to defend their waterholes, swamps and rivers with clever ambushes, or simply to evade pursuers. Crocodile-spirits taught this Gift.
System: The player spends one Gnosis. The character may hold her breath for up to one hour, and gains two dice to any Stealth rolls made while submerged in water or mud.
• Lonesome Voice of the Bunyip (Level Three) — This Gift was one of the last Bunyip Gifts to be developed, as it directly arose from the pain and loss of the War of Shame. It is taught by Bunyip ancestor-spirits. The Garou using this Gift emits the booming cry of Great Bunyip himself, a frightening and saddening roar-howl of fear and loneliness.
System: The player spends one Gnosis and rolls Charisma + Performance (difficulty 7). The Gift affects all non-Bunyip within earshot. Those affected lose one temporary point of Willpower per success, and cannot regain Willpower until they have retreated from the Gift user’s immediate area (roughly earshot) or until the scene ends. No victim can be affected by this Gift more than once in any sunset-to-sunrise or sunrise-to-sunset period.
• Pulse of the Invisible (Level Three) — As the Theurge Gift.
• Dance of the Lightning Snakes (Level Four) — The Penumbra of ustralia is inhabited by, among other things, the lightning snakes — spirits that leap to the earth and rebound to the heavens during Umbral storms, bringing lightning and rain. This Gift allows a Garou to call on the lightning snakes to evoke a powerful storm in the Umbra, washing away spirits and lashing foes with bolts of spirit-lightning.
System: This Gift works only in the Umbra. The player spends one Gnosis point, and rolls Willpower, with the difficulty based on the spirit world’s existing weather (if any) — 5 if an Umbral storm is already brewing, to 9 if the spirit world’s skies are clear. The difficulty is reduced by 1 if the character is in Australia’s Penumbra, where lightning snakes are more plentiful. The storm gathers in three turns; it covers the equivalent of 5 miles per success, and increases the difficulty or Essence cost of any fire, perception or travel-related Charms by 1. The Garou may direct the lightning snakes to strike opponents (Charisma + Occult, difficulty 7 to hit; 10 dice of aggravated damage). The storm cannot bleed over into the physical world, although a sympathetic (and uncontrolled) rain or storm may gather in the material world.
• Quicksand (Level Four) — As the Red Talons Gift.
• Billabong Bridge (Level Five) — Great Bunyip’s children used this Gift to successfully cross large expanses of Australian terrain by using water as a shortcut. The Garou enters one body of fresh water and emerges from another such body any distance away; salt water “fouls” the Gift, and cannot transport the Gift user. Both bodies of water must be personally well-known to the Garou using the Gift.
System: The player spends two Gnosis points and announces her destination. At the Storyteller’s discretion, using this Gift to leave or arrive in an area of high Gauntlet may require a roll to step sideways to make the transition safely. The Gift user cannot take anyone with her while using this Gift; only those items dedicated to her complete the journey.
• Invoke the Spirits of the Storm (Level Five) — As the Wendigo Gift. This Gift invoked the Rainbow Serpent in its aspect as rainmaker.
Comments
52 responses to “Lost Tribes: The Bunyip”
Woo! Very excited about this framework. I loved “Past Lives” for exactly this sort of stuff, so it’s great to see that this is being considered.
I’d like to see more about their social structure in this; rites, auspices, tribal structure et all; the gifts and general appearance are just the surface after all- Doesn’t need to be more than a few lines to give us an example.
+1 to this.
From what I understand of the Aboriginal people of Australia, which is pretty much what I learned in high school, is that they were largely nomadic. They travelled across an area, probably seasonally, and interacted with each other rarely, other than fighting.
I like the emphasis on water, as it is stereotypically a precious commodity in Australia. I find it thematically interesting. It means you’d be able to get around easily with that gift in the eastern states where it’s green and forested, but difficult in central and western Australia, where it’s all desert or salt lakes.
Re. aboriginal moiety and language group interaction.
Central desert groups were largely nomadic, other groups not so much, coastal tribes esp. in the south east had permanent settlements and north coast tribes had permanent trading settlements with trepang fishers from Indonesia and the like.
Complex webs of trade routes crossed the country and trade in ochre and other relatively rare commodities was important in forming relationships between groups.
Whilst there was conflict between groups in similar ways that there was conflict among native american groups; raids for wives, payback killings etc.
I understand the desire, but that’s another paragraph or so if you want tribal structure, stereotypical auspice roles, breed roles, to say nothing of trying to characterize their rites and fetishes and other such things. This is already a bloated mess of words for the space we have; to properly entertain requests for more content, even if it’s just a hundred-word paragraph, I must also ask for a linked request for what hundred (or better, 200 or 300) words are better off being left out.
I dunno, I’ve always found the quote section fairly useless, but I guess maybe that’s because I’ve been playing the game since 1993, so I pretty much have a decent grasp already of such things. 🙂 Also, is there a reason the Gifts are out of Level order?
Typo, now fixed. They weren’t out of level order, there were just some “Level Ones” left over from some uncorrected copy-paste action.
Great. I’m so excited about this, there seems to be a lot more new stuff than I thought there was going to be when it was first announced.
Not that I wouldn’t have bought it anyway. 🙂
So, from the twelve tribe gifts, seven are elsewhere/aren’t tribe specific. Sure, the lost tribes aren’t as important as the main ones, but how come they get less than a dead vampire clan from V20? Two pages is in my (not humble at all) opinion too little.
I don’t know if the dead tribes will get any coverage at all if there is a companion to W20, hell, I don’t know if there will be a companion to W20. But right now I would say that the way the Bunyip are described is not sufficient to use them as anything but NPCs. There is just too little to work with, too little description and too few gifts that would give a definite feel to them.
I would say, that if you are so hard pressed for space, then it would be a good idea to leave them out, instead of using this scant description.
Comparing things on a werewolf-to-werewolf basis, they get about as much mechanics as the Hakken or Kucha Ekundu. Comparing things on a werewolf-to-vampire basis, well, it’s back to the space issue: Werewolf has more cosmology, more powers, more character creation axes, more supporting cast and more antagonists. Vampire is luxuriously roomy when it comes to all the things they don’t have in the basic core book pre-V20, and therefore has more room for stuff that was optional.
I’ll certainly take the option of “leave them out if they don’t get full treatment” under advisement, though I’d like to see what the overall consensus is.
I know, V20 doesn’t have to deal with all the things W20 will have to.
Here’s an idea:
Take everything that is not part of the western concordiat and put it into a Kickstarter project dealing with things like Hengeyokai, Ahadi and Fera in the W20 era. I know at least 5 people who would pay for a book like this.
Comparing it to V20, that book didn’t have piecemeal info on the Kuei-Jin. There is room elsewhere for it.
In a way I have a feeling that you are trying to accomplish too many things with W20 at once.
I’d definitely contribute a fair old chunk of change to a Kickstarter updating the PGttCB to W20, yep.
Um, Arag does not speak for me.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. I’d rather enough info is given for the fundemental mechanics, and if folks want to know more, they can go to the older books. I’m sure W20 is not going to give us 120 pages of information on the Get of Fenris, or go into detail on the Fianna camps, or talk about how the Glasswalkers specifically see each of the parts of the Litany.
V20, and what we’ve seen of W20 is meant to be a boiled-down version of the setting and setting’s mechanics. I am fine with just the briefest of mentions about the Fera and possibly trying for a W20 PGttCB KickStarter in the future.
But, just because you can’t give more than 2 pages to one of the original Garou tribes doesn’t mean you should leave them out of the book. The same goes for the other “side-line Tribes/Bloodlines/etc.” that are out there too. I’m sure information on the War of Sorrow, the Croatan’s sacrifice, and the fall of the White Howlers will be handled elsewhere in the books in some capacity as well, adding in some way to the information in their “Allies” section (though, considering what happened, it’s a bit interesting to put the Bunyip in an “Allies” section, since they were pretty much regarded by the Garou Nation as nothing more than Fera who claimed they were Garou.”
Well, I do speak for myself. 😉
We are talking about a very brief description that is barely usable as an NPC template. Frankly, I don’t see the point of adding those tribes in this form to the book. And let me say that the Bunyip are the easiest to convert into playability (you need 4-5 books to do that, from my experience at least). Making them really playable “as is” would require some effort and space that is not there in W20.
As to the tribe offshoots – they are very setting specific, as there are no Hakken, for example, outside the Hengeyokai. The way it has all been handled in 2ed was very “special” and the Rev Ed made things more strewn about for werewolves, while consolidating Fera into one book. Putting them in W20 (the werewolves), while letting the rest of the setting out (like the Beast Courts fera) would be similar, to going out while wearing a shirt, tie, shoes and nothing else. There is too much missing. And having a part of the setting “upgraded” to W20 doesn’t sound very balanced.
I am really ambivalent about things that aren’t really useful for people playing in modern settings located in Europe/Americas. The main book never had extra stuff for Asian or African settings and campaigns.
PS: I read the request for more tribal info above and the response with the 200-300 words needing to be cut for that. If the authors are so short on space, then maybe it would be good to discuss what people can safely go without in W20.
I agree totally with Torakhan. Two pages about the Bunyip here is better than 0. No, there isn’t room to make them playable, but that doesn’t mean that Race Across Australia should have the last word.
Nice. It even has a nice fatal flaw the tribe needed in the kinfolk section ^^
I’m trying to remember, were there historic Red Talons breeding amongst the dingo population living alongside the Bunyip? Do Garou today of any given tribe breed with dingos, or have that as their lupus form?
1) No. The Red Talons only arrived with the Europeans.
2) Yes. Most of the Tribes in Australia today have dingo forms. The main exceptions are the Silver Fangs and the Shadowlords. More info on p.40 of Rage Across Australia.
p.49, actually.
I as thinking the same thing… but since Humans first inhabited Australia around 50K years ago, and canines were only introduced 4K years ago, it would make sense too if the ritual used to breed with the thylacines very early on meant that they were no longer able to breed with canines (I don’t know if this is addressed in RaAustralia or not), so even when canines were introduced, and the Europeans began to wipe their marsupial kin down, they couldn’t turn back to the canines of the land. At least, that’s my thinking.
RAA just says that the Bunyip allowed the extinction of thylacines on the mainland (they thought it was Gaia’s plan), and were able to adequately protect the Tasmanian thylacines until their own destruction. Remember, RAA says the Bunyip were destroyed before the thylacines themselves were seriously threatened.
For me, the presence of the Lost Tribes in the books aren’t just useful just for historical eras (like, if one were to play a wayward Bunyip in a Dark Ages game for instance), but when dealing with their spirits, or other entities that have memory of the the Lost Tribes, or the likes. Discovering lost secrets, or games where it’s good to have something canon to use just so everyone is on the same playing field from ST to ST.
Maybe it’s mentioned in RaAustralia, but it’s mentioned that the Bunyip came to Australia and had to create/find a ritual to breed with the local wolves. Where did they come from? Were they an “original tribe” of their own, or were they an off-shoot of the Stargazers?
I know that this isn’t the time to re-invent the Bunyip, but I think that their existence (and more importantly many of the holes in the story) over the years has caused a lot of STs and players to alter the canon to “make more sense” (whether to make them more than just an “example of Garou’s mis-deeds as a Nation”, or “That weird group that did something kooky and got gacked for it.”) The lesson of Garou doing something so stupid as a group (a la War of Rage as well) seemed to be at the detriment of something that could have had so much more RP potential if they hadn’t all been completely wiped out before the game even began. Again, though, what is done is done, and any changes that would make them still alive/useful in a story/give them a greater presence would alter who/what they are in the game, and this isn’t really the place for that (maybe in some sort of Alternate Setting Ideas book though?)
One thing though that was always a bit curious to me, and maybe it can be (if not already) handled is that Garou apparently can’t go from continent to continent via the Umbra, nor can they apparently communicate/Moon Bridge to locations they aren’t familar with/know about. The fact that the European/Asian/African Garou were unaware of the North American Garou, or the Australian continent was a bit odd to me (though likely reasoned away in the books somewhere.) And that a wandering Bunyip was never found/noticed walking around in the Umbra in the 40k years by other Garou was a bit odd too, nor did their spirits ever communicate knowledge about one another either. Again, I suppose that this isn’t the time to say “well, it happened”, but a decent reason behind it might not be bad, and could also give some interesting reasons for other things that can/could/do happen in the games. “The Dreamlands that the Bunyip inhabited were not the same as the Umbra that the Garou inhabited…” but something like “Spirits of one continent do not know/communicate with spirits of another” would mean that those following Fenrir, or Owl, or Pegasus wouldn’t have ties to their totem/spirits in other continents… bah, I’m rambling now.
One thing perhaps you could add, would be to say that they came with “the first human settlers from Southeast Asia” just to clarify which settlers you’re referring to? (though, later information SHOULD make that apparent anyways.)
Otherwise, for what it is meant to do, and the space you have available (especially since you don’t have to worry about Stereotypes), I think it’s pretty decent.
Moon bridges require active attending and its precious few cairns which have the power to reach across the continents.
You should remember that its 4000km from Europe to America and over 6000 from Asia to America for instance , so any communication between Eurasian, Amerindian, African or Australasian shifters would have been extremely sporadic even at the best of times.
Yep. Also bear in mind the territoriality of the Garou, particularly back in the day. I think we as gamers latch on readily to the idea of globalization and cultural exchange and exploration, but generally I feel the Garou have been a conservative lot, historically more prone to follow when the humans explore.
“Again, though, what is done is done, and any changes that would make them still alive/useful in a story/give them a greater presence would alter who/what they are in the game, and this isn’t really the place for that (maybe in some sort of Alternate Setting Ideas book though?)”
Well, the way I see it, the purpose of this section is to present some information and mechanics without comment, and it’s basically up to the individual groups to decide what to do with it. I honestly would be disappointed if there were groups out there who really wanted to do an interesting Bunyip story but felt they needed us to sanction them first.
One of the reasons that “uniform understanding” is important is that games are often played not just regionally, but globally. It’s one thing when your troupe of gamers has a general understanding of what the nuances of different parts of the world are. But when you start playing games with people from the other side of the state/country/world, at least having a foundation that you can say “Uh, yeah, we changed this from X to Y” is pretty helpful. Back in 1993, the only times anyone worried about this was when you went to a gaming convention and sat down with 8 strangers to play a game of “Werewolf: the Apocalypse”, but even when we moved into the HTML chats, and then more sophisticated means, that “canonized” setting became more important.
I wholly agree that STs should almost never feel like they’re forced to stick to canon, or rules in the books, but there are plenty of times when having “the game designers’ intentions” or “the game’s original world” is important so that everyone is on the same page (including an ST who might just want to have that information rather than having to make it all up as he goes along), and leaving segments completely un-touched, or undecided upon only creates confusion/frustration. I can already sense that you and I have a difference of opinion in that regards, and since this is your book, obviously your vision prevails. 🙂
But, like I said, this isn’t the place to go completely changing fundamental history (in this case, who/what the Bunyip were) in the book just because 20 years later there might be some better ideas. ^.^ W20 is a celebration of what we know to be W:tA , good, or bad in some cases. 😀
“But when you start playing games with people from the other side of the state/country/world, at least having a foundation that you can say “Uh, yeah, we changed this from X to Y” is pretty helpful.”
Agreed. As someone who started playing the games online, there is a huge importance in very clear wording so everyone understands. It took until the BSD spread for some to know that Pure Breed was not linear.
So, I think very clear wording on what the Bunyip’s ‘hat’ was would be cool.
Considering that they “did it” with thylacines:
How about weakened pack instinct and exaggerated aggressiveness towards their each others but not other Garou or fera, making them strong individually but weak in groups?
If you’ve ever seen tasmanian devils in film or nature you know what I mean.
I find the information missing, that the Bunyip mystically hid Australia and might even continued to hide themselves when the Europeans came. Also, previous books named the End in the War of Shame in the 1930s. That should be included, for it is a date less than 100 years ago not several centuries, like the War of Rage in the new world.
Rage Across Australia says they were killed off in the 19th century, during the Frontier Wars. While I have issues with RAA, I’ve always preferred the timeline given there over the 1936 date, which to me just adds a layer of cheap symbolism to a Tribe already drowning in cheap symbolism (1936 being the year the last thylacine in captivity died).
I don’t think W20 needs to nail things down one way or another.
Dance of the Lightning Snakes has some typos in it’s description.
“Everything changed with the arrival of the other Garou.”
Is it bad that my mind immediately substituted “But everything changed when the fire nation attacked”?
And that’s one of those times when I laughed and then felt bad for laughing.
Great stuff Ethan, even though it is isn’t (and can’t be) as long as we would like it to be. P.S. There’s a typo in the Dance of the Lightning Snakes Gift description (“The Penumbra of ustralia”).
Fixed in the manuscript, thanks!
Speaking of Bunyip… We seriously need a revised RaA.
Maybe as a future project if W20 and other already planned onyx path stuff are received well?
Preach it.
RaA is………less than good……
But not as bad as the australian caern detailed in Caerns….
Probably why I fully revised most of the info related to Australia in MyWod. 🙂
SOOO glad the lost tribes will be getting so much. This looks pretty good to me. Here is my feedback:
1. Thank you for pointing out they weren’t perfect. This is good. However, I’d mention that they were already suffering from the loss of most or all mainland thylacines before the Europeans invaded: somehow they failed their duty in a big way. This is already sort-of-mentioned with wild dogs displacing their kin, but I think that sentence could make it more clear.
2. It is probably a good idea, if the wordcount can handle another half-sentence, to mention they took thylacine as kin because the dingos hadn’t arrived yet. That would put to rest the perennial “Why thylacines?” question I keep seeing on forums.
3. Why were they reluctant to fight their attackers with sufficient furocity? That just seems strange to me. This seems like something that you could drop, making word-room for the above two suggestions.
4. Capitalize Aboriginal, as you would Native American, European, French, etc.
5. The quote, unfortunately, emphasizes the “sacrificial lamb” problem the Bunyip have had before now: the impression that they were put in the gameline only to be killed by other Garou. I’d much prefer a quote that expresses something of their spirituality, or their relationship with the Australian Fera.
6. Yes of course, Resist Toxin. Who could survive Australia without it? 😉
7. So many Gifts! They have nearly as many as the playable live tribes. 😀 I really want to see what Croatan and White Howlers get.
8. If there is room (I recognize that’s unlikely), you could give them form stats. Or rather, more reasonable form stats than what they have in current canon. Having read what I could about thylacine physiology and hunting behavior, my proposal is this:
Glabro: Strength +1, Stamina +2, Manipulation -2, Appearance -1
Crinos: Strength +3, Dexterity +2, Stamina +3, Manipulation = 0, Appearance = 0, full Delirium, bite damage +1
Hispo: Strength +2, Dexterity +3, Stamina +3, Manipulation = 0, Appearance = 0, Perception difficulties -1, bite damage +2
Thylacinus: Strength +1, Dexterity +3, Stamina +2, Manipulation = 0, Perception difficulties -2, bite damage +1, running speed equal to Homid form, no Long Running ability
I imagine there isn’t room for form stats, but even if there is I hope there will be a W20 Companion with room for playable Lost Tribes alongside the Fera!
Another option to reduce wordcount is to just leave out the quote. I know that means they won’t have any moment of IC speaking for themselves, but a quote is less important IMO than some other stuff that could be in there.
Agreed on all points.
And yeah, I get the Bunyip are supposed to be tragic. But they were the last tribe to die, so they had plenty of history to get the quote from.
Plus, establishing the weakness and reason why to breed with non-canines to begin with.
Oh, they already put in the stats for the Bunyip’s alternate forms in the Wild West Companion. Although I always wondered if there was a typo in that since they gave galabro and crinos a -1 dex, but hispo a +1 and thylancinus (lups) a +3. O.o I always treated that as a typo and made it a plus.
Galabro Str +1 Dex +1 (?) Sta +1 Man -1 App -1
Crinos Str +3 Dex +1 (?) Sta +3 Man -4 App 0
Hispo Str +2 Dex +1 Sta +2 Man -3
Thylacinus Str +1 Dex +3 Sta +3 Man -4
“The Thylacinus form is highly agile but not particularly fast or well-adapted to running.”
There weren’t any rules given for the above quote.. I’m guessing that you’re right-on-the-button with them not having long run and a speed maybe equal to homid.
They may need a better bite bonus in crinos.. those jaws are so wide and potentially able to take a nastier bite, but I have no idea how powerful their jaws were supposed to be.
There are rules given in the Wild West Companion (pg. 110-116) from Werewolf the Wild West. I think that sourcebook is a great example of the issue with putting small sections on other Fera and Lost Tribes in that it gives the ST and players some information but not enough to develop fleshed out PCs or NPCs. I would much rather have space spent in the book that is going to be useful for the vast majority of werewolf games about werewolves in a modern setting. I think that functionally for those games a one page writeup on the Bunyip would do the same thing as a list of gifts and take up less space. Werewolf is a storytelling game and Bunyip play a role in the story of werewolf and it is not as PCs but as a lesson on the misdeeds of the Garou in the past. If folks want to play a historic campaign or alternate history there there are already printed rules that would allow them to do so without taking up valuable space in the W20 book.
I would fully support a follow up companion book that covers Fera, Lost Tribes, and Hengeyokai. I am not, however, so desperate for new content for WtA that I want a bloated product that poorly answers all of the questions that I have about the game. I want a polished new book that will help me introduce the game to new players without having to track down lots of old, OOP books. I would love a polished follow-up book that expands on the many questions that have been asked here but I think that the core book should be true to the game and that does not mean facilitating alternate history or historical chronicles that focus on fringe elements of the game. I don’t think that it is true to the themes of the original game or the nature of the W20 project.
Most people ignore the Wild West line, in fact I was surprised that it was reprinted (even though it has some incredible gifts, rules and campaign ideas).
But you are right, save for the two NPCs taking a page the description of Bunyip there is superb (it even has a picture of their Crinos, it looks like a really big thylacine :-D).
I personally believe that the Bunyip should be kept in, or at least mention of their story should remain. I could see cutting out the RULES and saving those for a supplement (which I heartily support), but hat bugs me about not including them is that this is the first introduction some people will have to the gameline. It irritates me to think that you’d exclude mention of them, only to come back later and say, “Oh, yeah, hey, the Spirals made the Garou commit genocide on a pretty cool tribe.” It’s one thing if something still exists and is in hiding, avoiding attention. But the massacre of the Bunyip is a major event in the WtF universe, and should be known to new players.
I certainly think their story needs to be mentioned, I just feel the theme of their story is undermined when after a lengthy explanation of their demise you are like, “and here are rules to play the tribe that was a victim of genocide.” If the idea is to give an updated and comprehensive guide for WtA in modern nights, then a tribe that was last around in the 1930s should probably not be made available. I just think that the writers could likely find more applicable information to use in the space than information for PC Bunyip.
I have to disagree about W20 only being about the modern nights.
V20, despite its modern focus, still detailed ancient bloodlines and ways of the vampires. So Bunyip info isn’t really that out of the question, as the book’s point is to be a comprehensive guide to play Werewolf in general. Wether modern or ages past.
V20 wasn’t so hard pressed for space as W20 is.
But I agree with the idea of being useful for all time periods. How it will look practically is another thing though.
If I recall the Bunyip’s other forms had different stat bonuses then the wolf garou, same thing with the Kucha Ekundu… should these be added in somewhere for game mechanics?
I.. don’t really have anything to add to this. I like it. Which just makes my attached question seem irrelevant.
In the Ananasi breed book, they stereotype Australia as a horrible, horrible place for a were-spider. They speak of this thing called the ‘Yahweh,’ that has been hunting Ananasi like some sort of super predator. What was that? It was given no stats, and unfortunately as I never read Rage Across Australia, I never read about what it may have been in that book.
What was going around slaying Australian Ananasi in Australia?
The only thing I would like to see added is a reason why the Bunyip chose to breed with the thylacines, as opposed to dingos or any other wild dogs that are closer to wolves. This always struck me as strange, and an explanation would be nice.
There were no dingoes at the time of the Bunyips arrival to downunder. So they took what was available; the marsupials, and couldn’t or more likely wouldn’t change back to canines when the Aboriginals brought the Dingo with them.
why did the gift leap of the kangaroo get left off thier list?