The Hidden Rain [Werewolf: The Apocalypse]

It’s time for some Werewolf: The Apocalypse news! Work on Shattered Dreams and Changing Ways continues apace; in the meantime we’ve been working on some web enhancements that W2o players and Storytellers can use to spice up your games.

First up, we have the Ozuzo — fallen werehyenas created by Leath Sheales in response to a request on our forums.

Ozuzo — Fallen Ajaba

The Hidden Rain

Once, the Ajaba were proud and strong. Once, before the Dark Times, the choosers of the slain culled the weak to keep populations strong. The werehyenas weren’t hypocrites — they applied their sacred duty to their own people as well. Ajaba who were too old, ill or weak to fulfil their duties were killed in accordance to Gaia’s plan.

Now, Black Tooth’s crusade has scattered the Ajaba to the different lands of the Earth, and weakened them to the point that their numbers are too low and they’re too desperate to practice their duties on anyone, let alone their own. Now, they allow their weak to live.

Before the Dark Times, the Ajaba were perhaps the most pure of the Changing Breeds. None of their kind had ever been known to fall to the Wyrm. The Ajaba’s strength kept them free of the Wyrm’s hold. By monitoring each other, they could identify weakness early and cull the vulnerable shapeshifter before he could become a threat.

The weakened Ajaba gave the Defiler Wyrm the chance to take hold. The Ajaba’s strength made them ignorant of how the Wyrm would seek to corrupt them, and this was a blindness the Wyrm waited to exploit. All it needed was something to sink its claws into, and Black Tooth’s crusade gave it the opportunity.

The Ajaba despise their weakness; they hate the loss of their homelands and the fact that they fled rather than fight to the end. No Ajaba likes this feeling, and those who know they should be culled despise themselves with an intensity that calls to the Wyrm. The Defiler Wyrm offers these chosen few a chance to turn their weakness into strength. All the prospective Ozuzo has to do is prove his ultimate weakness by debasing himself before the Wyrm, sacrificing his strongest trait, and admitting defeat.

Once the fallen Ajaba has given his power to the Wyrm, its servants impart hidden knowledge to give the Ozuzo false strength and the power to lead other Ajaba into darkness. The Ozuzo learns how to steal the strength of his fallen foes, and exudes an alluring charisma that draws those of werehyena blood to him. The Ozuzo prefer to kill the strong over the weak, because they view any strength that isn’t theirs as their own weakness. The fallen Ajaba grows stronger from feasting on the souls of his opponents; while murdering the strongest most empowers the Ozuzo, in a pinch anyone will do. The Wyrm always benefits from weakening the pack.

To the blind Ajaba, the Ozuzo appear to be the saviors of the Breed, but it’s a lie. Their strength is the demise of other shapeshifters, and they’ll lead the Ajaba to war in the name of the Wyrm, proving as they survive that they’re stronger than everyone — including Gaia.

Opportunity, or Design?

Did the Defiler Wyrm simply take advantage of the weakness Black Tooth’s Rage inflicted on the Ajaba, or did it whisper to the Simba in the dark, urging the Bastet to assault the werehyenas and create the opportunity? No one except possibly Black Tooth knows, and it’s unlikely he would be drawn on the subject. Storytellers should feel free to use whichever scenario best suits their chronicle.

Strength from Weakness

The Wyrm provides three Gifts to the fallen Ajaba so they can lead the other werehyenas into its clutches. These Gifts are deliberately of lower level than such powers would normally be – the Wyrm cheats the universe to ensure its weak new servants can best serve its designs. Ozuzo can teach these Gifts to other Ajaba, but until the werehyena sacrifices her strength to the Wyrm, the Gifts remain inert.

Strength of the Fallen (Level One) — Ozuzo steal the greatness from their defeated shapeshifter foes, unmaking their essence and using their strength to serve the Wyrm.

System: The Ozuzo spends a point of Willpower while devouring her foe’s entrails, organs or other parts traditionally left for scavengers. Prime meat is worthless for this Gift. For each pound of flesh she eats, the Ozuzo adds a temporary dot to any Attribute. She may take a maximum number of dots equal to the victim’s Rage or Gnosis; choose which on activating this Gift. Each time the Ozuzo rolls using an enhanced Attribute, remove one temporary dot. The Ozuzo also loses one temporary dot from her highest Attribute each dawn. (Player’s choice if several Attributes are tied for highest.) This loss stops when the Ozuzo reaches her normal Attribute rating.

The Ozuzo must have delivered the killing blow for this Gift to work, but can capitalize on wounds that others have inflicted. The victim need not be fresh; this Gift works on foes killed within a number of days equal to the Ozuzo’s Gnosis.

Matriarch’s Scent (Level One) — Regardless of the Ozuzo’s gender, Rank or deeds, the Ajaba react to his presence as if he had the power and authority of a matriarch. This supernatural presence also affects anyone carrying the blood of the werehyenas.

System: The Ozuzo reduces the difficulty of all Social rolls with other Ajaba by 2, and with Ajaba kinfolk by 1 (minimum 4). This power is always active.

Scent of Rain (Level One) — The Wyrm’s taint slides from the Ozuzo like scent washed away in the rain. The Ajaba are especially blind to the serpents hiding among them.

System: Any use of Gifts or other powers by Ajaba to detect the Wyrm automatically fail to detect its presence on the Ozuzo. This power is always active. The Ozuzo may also reflexively spend a point of Gnosis to extend this effect against anyone who isn’t actively working against her, at the moment her ally uses their power. Her enemies may smell the Wyrm on her, but her allies never will.

Weakness from Strength

The Ozuzo’s pact with the Wyrm mitigates her weakness, but imparts new drawbacks as well. On sacrificing her strength to her patron, the Wyrm devours one of the fallen Ajaba’s Yava (determined randomly), and replaces it with a new curse. For every lunar cycle that the Ajaba doesn’t consume another shapeshifter’s strength, she permanently loses a dot from her highest Attribute. If several Attributes are equal highest, the player may pick which one suffers the loss. This dot doesn’t return when the Ozuzo fulfills her compact with the Wyrm – it can only be regained by purchasing it again with experience.

Creating the Fallen

Fallen Ajaba tend to be physically weaker than others of their kind; Physical Attributes are almost always tertiary. Ozuzo lose one dot from their primary Attributes, given as their sacrifice to the Wyrm. Distribute the Primary Attribute dots as normal, then remove the highest dot — the Wyrm demands that the Ozuzo sacrifices her only strength to it.

Ajaba who fall to the Wyrm during the course of a chronicle (rather than starting out fallen) must sacrifice their highest Attribute dot to their patron to seal the pact.