Any Answers [Werewolf: The Forsaken]

No, not the Radio 4 programme. Told you I’d set a reminder. This week, as promised, I’m rummaging through the comments section of last week’s post for content. I’m also reminding you that the Idigam Chronicle Fiction Anthology is out now!

Just a follow-up to the Primal Urge section, does 2nd edition include any suggestions for when buying more Primal Urge is appropriate or how it feels from an in-character perspective?

Not really. Primal Urge is your measure of how close you are to the Great Predator God, and its benefits come from the hunt. Its increases don’t come through time, or by a specific subset of actions (like Mystery Plays), but through embodying being a werewolf — doing things that get you Experiences to spend on Primal Urge.

I wonder, can you spend more than 1 Essence on healing each turn?

No. Even if you can spend multiple Essence, only one of them can go on healing. If you need more than your Primal Urge gives you, well, Gauru exists. And if you’re not in combat, welcome to Kuruth.

Liked the idea of contagious Wolf Blood, but I would it rather be the result of the classic werewolf bite.

That’s fair. Most werewolf bites come about when a werewolf is in a form other than Hishu or Urhan, so the prey is already facing a breaking point from Lunacy. Making it so failure = Wolf Blooded if bitten (rather than dramatic failure) is certainly an option.

To digress for a moment: sources on the real-world inspiration of werewolf stories disagree on the real-world basis for the myths. Dr. Lee Illis’ On Porphyria and the Ætiology of Werewolves argues that much of the werewolf myth is attributable to porphyria — the same disease used as an explanation for stories of vampires. In The Werewolf Delusion, Ian Woodward points out that porphyria is a bad fit for werewolves as their human form has none of the obvious symptoms of porphyria — the very physical markers that make it a good fit for classical vampirism. Instead, Woodward makes the case for rabies as a source of the myths, but a large part of his justification is made on the uncited claim that lycanthropy is transmitted via bite. In Of Wolves and Men, Barry Lopez makes a more cohesive argument that werewolf myths reflect people with Down’s syndrome, rather than those with rabies.

Woodward accepts contagious lycanthropy even though it only really became a generally accepted part of werewolf mythology in the 1935 Universal film Werewolf of London (which has no relation to Warren Zevon’s Werewolves of London). It was cemented by the 1941 Universal film The Wolf Man, featuring Lon Chaney, Jr’s portrayal of the eponymous monster.

End of long, rambling aside.

Will there be any mention of other changing breeds in any capacity? I know they aren’t a major part of the mythology in this game but its always been rather vague as to whether the Forsaken shared their origins in some fashion with these others or if each changing breed is a product of a unique and very specific genesis in ancient history.

No mention of other shapeshifters at all. I doubt that we’ll get to the point of revising the shapeshifters presented in War Against the Pure any time soon.

Additionally, is the story of Father Wolf as told in the 1e Core still the dominant origin story or will there be side bars questioning its authenticity or mentioning conflicting evidence / alternative beliefs held by Werewolves?

The story of Wolf and Moon and the Firstborn is still in there, though presented in a more mythological fashion. We outright state that it’s just the most common story, but most werewolves learn some form of a story that includes Wolf, Moon, and the werewolves being responsible for a fall from paradise. Whether Wolf and Moon have a gender (or parental title) and what those genders are (and whethe they’re constant, in the case of the bipolar moon god/dess) is up to the teller. As the Firstborn play a bit more of a role, they tend to have a set gender at least.

Maybe I missed it, but if I can ask anything. What sort of coverage do the pure get?

The Firstborn who sponsor the Pure Tribes get a mention in the creation myth, and the Pure themselves are presented as antagonists with short descriptions of each tribe that flow out of their depiction in The Pure.

I’m curious, about the werewolf’s senses. How do things like Hearing, Scent and Sight work in the various forms?

Werewolves have three sets of senses. Human senses are the default in Hishu and Dalu. They work like the senses we have, but the First Change fixes any existing imperfections — werewolves have 20/10 vision, and keen senses of hearing, even if they were born deaf. I kinda want to explore how this impacts werewolves who grew up in the deaf community, but for now it’s because werewolves are hunters who need all of their senses for their job.

Wolf senses are the default in Gauru, Urhan, and Urshul, and can be activated in other forms. This is where the Perception bonus from each form comes in to play. Wolf Senses also completely negate any penalties due to sensory deprivation. They also have specific features called out, like how far away an Uratha using wolf senses can hear, and how they can smell other Uratha and Wolf-Blooded.

Spirit senses allow a werewolf to send her senses across the Gauntlet. Without a Gift, each sense is binary. She may choose to see into the world of Flesh while leaving her hearing in the world of Spirit, but she’d better be a damn good lip-reader if she wants to know what the Claimed businessman is saying to the city councillor. Spirit senses only applies to her default senses; she can’t pass a wolf’s sense of smell through the Gauntlet if she’s in Hishu. Spirit senses means that she can always sense spirits in Twilight as though they were manifested.

Senses also play in to a new tracking system that we’ve got, which works rather neatly.

How are the mechanics for entering the Shadows? It’s still the same?

Kinda but not quite. It’s the one place where Harmony is used as a dice pool — if you’ve low Harmony, you’ve an easier chance getting to the Hisil, while high Harmony makes it easier to get back to the Flesh. Low Harmony also means you don’t need a Locus to enter the Shadow.

And do werewolfs still suffer from social penalties based on Primal Urge?(Personal opinion: I hope not, it’s such a remnant from Apocalypse, and Forsaken is stepping up to be its on game)

No. They’ve got enough to worry about, and it’d make keeping a pack together harder than it needs to be.

One question, when you say, “It also covers how much Bashing damage a character regenerates each turn, from one point of damage at Essence 1, to six points of damage each turn at Essence 10.” Did you mean Primal Urge? Or is it dependent on how much essence they have?

Yeah, I meant Primal Urge.

If you become a wolf-blooded this way does that mean you can go through the first change? If yes are there any differences between a “naturally born” werewolf and a “lunacy-cursed” werewolf? There has to be, right? This is also starting to enter Vampire territory. What happens when you curse someone? Is it considered a bad thing or a good thing? If you curse someone is it your job to take care of her? Are there punishments for doing this? Are the Uratha aware of this phenomenon?

In order: Maybe, nobody’s noticed one, does there?, you often don’t know as you’re either dead or have moved on to kill something else, neither, would you want to if you knew?, not that most werewolves know, not yet but you bet it’s showing up in a supplement. 😉

Oh, also, I take it that, with the book only just going into editing that we shouldn’t expect it to release before mid-late December, at the earliest?

I don’t know how long editing or layout will take, and I’d rather we take the time to get the book looking sexay. I’d rather not prognosticate about release dates.

Can you elaborate on any changes made to how loci work and how they are formed?

Loci work as they did in The God-Machine Chronicle.

I am intrigued by this, for sure. nWoD always frustrated me in that, I didn’t like the setting material quite as much, but I LOVED the rules so much better than cWoD. Though, it annoyed me that certain design decisions were made strictly for the sake of balancing. In other words, they had to limit the number of turns that Uratha could remain in Garou so that they wouldn’t have too much of an advantage in a fight with a Vampire, or whatever. It doesn’t make much sense to me, beyond that. I would be fine with it, though, if you could CHOOSE to remain in Garou beyond the Stamina+PU+Renown limit, but you MUST enter Death Rage. That is a little more in line with Werewolf mythology, I think, than a Werewolf who randomly changes to a different form in the middle of a fight.

That wasn’t really a limit imposed for “balance” and more to get people to use Gauru for fighting. I don’t think it had the desired effect, though, and a lot of people didn’t like it. Good news! Gauru is still timed, but at the end you either have to shift down or fall into Kuruth.

Also, we have a Facet that allows a werewolf to remain in Gauru without a time limit, though without the hyper-regeneration, the automatic down & dirty combat, and with Urshul’s Lunacy. That’s got a few interesting implications — especially around werewolves who use the Facet for ritual use — that get called out in the Storytelling chapter.

What’s up with Blood and Bone?

They’re personality archetypes, like a vampire’s Mask and Dirge. Let me quote the book:

When your character makes a clearly bad choice in the heat of the moment in accordance with her Blood archetype, she regains a spent Willpower point. If she takes it a step further, submitting to Kuruth or calling a hunt on a whim in accordance with her Blood archetype, she refreshes all her spent Willpower points.

When your character forces down her rage, and takes action with what she fundamentally knows as true, if it’s in accordance with her Bone archetype, she regains a Willpower point. When she stands her ground and lets her rational mind interfere with the hunt, or cause conflict within the pack, she refreshes all her spent Willpower points.

Could something be said about the lodges?

Not much. As with Bloodlines in Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition, we don’t have space to cover more than a couple. We do talk a bit about their place in Uratha society alongside pack, tribe, and protectorate.

Is there going to be anything in the book about how humans interact with the shadow? The big theme of werewolf is to keep the shadow and flesh in balance, this is normally done by making the spirits behave when they step out of line. Do you have any information about how humans step out of line, or push too much of the physical world into the shadow or anything like that? I’m really curious to see some presentation of Humans as antagonists especially since they’re one of the tribes favored prey.

Most of how humans interact with the Shadow comes from the rules chapter, which compresses the Shadow mechanics from The God-Machine Chronicle. Humans themselves get a writeup in the Prey chapter, focusing on what makes them dangerous to Uratha on their home turf, whether that’s a cult, a terrorist organization, or a corrupt city council. They’re designed to be real threats in realms other than the physical — sure, you can tear people apart, but killing an influential politician doesn’t make his policies go away, and the incoming police investigation will fuck your pack up good.

Based on what you’ve told us so far, do you expect it will be very difficult for a werewolf with high Primal Urge to avoid hitting Harmony 0?

I think it’ll be difficult, and that’s pretty much the point. A big thing with Harmony is that it’s not going to be easy to keep it at 5. Doing what you need to do to avoid losing Essence at higher Primal Urge will cause breaking points towards spirit. Ignoring your obligations (like not going on the Siskur-Dah often enough) will break you towards flesh. Sometimes you want to do that, but the breaking point isn’t the only thing that hurts — if you want to use “not hunting” as a source of breaking points towards Flesh you’re also haemorrhaging Essence.

The thing is, maintaining Harmony 5 is never easy. Early on, it’s too easy to try to cling to human life or throw yourself into being a werewolf. Even if you as a player plan on hitting breaking points the Storyteller will throw new ones your way as a result of events in the story. From the very start, you’re in a position where you need to work at maintaining Harmony. High Primal Urge takes away some of the barriers, but puts new ones in place.

Whew! That was a long one, and hopefully it provides food for thought. It was also a lot of fun, so let’s do it again. Ask me a question in the comments to this post and I’ll put them up in the next blogpost. As for music, let’s have Amanda Palmer giving it wally on what might make a werewolf break toward Flesh.