Back to the wordage side of things. Let’s kick things off with a preview of what the tribal spread text might look like. The advantage is that you can picture Steve Prescott’s awesome art alongside this! Also, tribal glyph and such.
I should note that this is probably a little too much word count. My first instinct is to slash out the “Character Creation” section; it’s always struck me as a little redundant to suggest that the Get of Fenris, for instance, usually have good Physical Traits and like to buy combat-related Skills. However, that is about as traditional as it gets. Rich might be able to make it fit, but we shall see.
If you were to see this cut down, what should go? If you wanted to see other things listed, what needs to go in and what’s not so vital?
Black Furies
The Black Furies are the living incarnation of a woman’s anger. They are the daughters of Luna-as-Artemis, the Huntress of the Moon. Their legends trace their origins back to Greece, where they were appointed defenders of the Wyld. However, wherever there are tales of women who take up arms for honor, vengeance or blood ties, the spirit of the Fury dwells.
The Furies are almost exclusively female. Any male cub of a Fury who undergoes the First Change is sent to another tribe for adoption; Pegasus, their tribal totem, will not accept male Garou. The sole exception is the male metis: Pegasus accepts these disfigured sons, perhaps out of mercy, perhaps out of a desire to ensure the Black Furies remember their own misdeeds. To make up for these losses of potential tribemates, the Furies actively recruit disaffected and angry female Garou who might otherwise fall under another tribe’s banner.
The tribe holds that women are worthy of respect, honor, sometimes even veneration. Though no Black Fury will suffer the hand of a man acting as master or tyrant, the tribe isn’t united by active misandry. Certainly some Furies will never forget or forgive. But others are willing to accept men as partners, helpmates, lovers, equals – but nothing more than equals.
Hatred claims the hearts of many Furies, but it’s not a tribal virtue. The true tribal virtues are honor, pride, the mysticism of the Wyld and the will to exact change. A Fury aspires to keep her word, to stand tall rather than bend knee, to guard and exult in the wildest places, and to fight until her dying breath to make the world a better place.
The Black Furies’ tribal rituals emphasize tradition and sisterhood. They hold private tribal moots frequently. Kuklochoros are informal moots, often where the Furies conceal their werewolf nature and invite human women to attend and learn the particulars of woman’s spirituality. Ulaka magelis are more exclusive moots, open only to the Furies themselves. These meetings involve more physically, mentally and emotionally demanding rituals, exposing the raw and bleeding heart of a wolf-woman’s oaths to Gaia.
Like other tribes, the Black Furies gather in like-minded camps internally (see p. XX). The Furies call their camps kuklos, or “circles.” Each circle answers largely to itself, although all must be held eventually accountable to Inner and Outer Calyxes, the high councils of the tribe. The Outer Calyx is the more public one; the elders who sit on this council are publicly initiated with much ceremony, and their names spread across the tribe. The Inner Calyx is more of a mystery (or a mystery cult), its members and their directives unknown to the tribe at large.
Ancient tradition and modern attitude frequently clash within the tribe, though they aren’t always at odds. Black Furies grow up aware of the many evils afflicting women around the world. Elders and cubs alike participate in struggles against modern slavery, sex trafficking, abuse and other offenses that are all too persistent. A generation gap still persists in the tribe – many of the elders are crones who, if rumors are correct, are at least a hundred years old, and with the set-in-their-ways stubbornness to prove it. Some cubs know nothing of the Wyld places, and want to focus their efforts on the Scabs where they grew up and their sisters are still suffering. But all the Furies are united in their Rage.
Appearance: Although the tribe originated in Ancient Greece, the Furies have since spread throughout the world. Modern Furies come from all ethnicities and all social strata. Those with strong Pure Breed have particularly dark fur in Crinos, Hispo and Lupus, often with white, gray or silver highlights. Pure Breed is rarer among the male metis Furies, as their fathers are inevitably of other tribes. Traditionally, the tribe has promoted an athletic ideal, and much of their art glorifies women of lean, strong build. This ideal isn’t universally reflected within the tribe, however; the demands of the war harden up many Furies, but the tribe tends to be as diverse as womanhood itself.
Kinfolk: The Black Furies are reputed to have their origins in ancient Greece, but they don’t practice much ethnic preference with their Kin. They’re prone to “adopt” the Kinfolk from other tribes’ bloodlines, specifically women who found themselves poorly treated by their relatives. They value their male Kin as well as their female relations, even if a male Kinfolk is unlikely to ever participate in any of the tribe’s inner spiritual traditions. As with other tribes, some Kin are highly valued allies who cultivate contacts in the outside world, some are beloved family, and some are little more than breeding stock; it all depends on the individual werewolves in question.
Territory: The Furies stake vicious claim to many of the last, secluded virgin places of the Wyld. Their spirituality is deeply tied to these sacred groves and islands, but necessity drives them to take territories in more human-settled lands as well. The mystical wards once protecting their tribal lands from intrusion have been fading steadily. The women they count as sisters and cousins continue to suffer. To defend the things they hold dear, the Black Furies go on the attack.
Tribal Totem: Pegasus. The great winged horse-spirit has a strong resentment of men, implying some truth to the myth of Bellerophon. The Furies tell the story of Pegasus straining against a cruel master, and her struggles echoing the fight of women to stand free and equal. Some Furies use “the bridle of Bellerophon” as a poetic metaphor for the hand of Man as it tries to master the most sacred things of the Wyld. Other totems valued by the Furies include Panther, the Muses and Medusae.
Character Creation: The Black Furies are hard to stereotype; some are athletic Amazons, others cunning mystics. Most learn how to fight early on, before or after their First Change; the sisterhood encourages even the gentlest political activist to pick up a dot or two of combat Skills. Occult and Rituals are also common expressions of the Furies’ sacred traditions.
Initial Willpower: 3
Background Restrictions: None.
Beginning Gifts: Breath of the Wyld, Man’s Skin, Heightened Senses, Sense Wyrm, Wyld Resurgence
Quote: “You dare condemn us for standing as a sisterhood? For choosing to help women first? Yes, women shouldn’t need our help. Gaia shouldn’t need Her Furies. But they do. Now stand the hell aside before I show you real pain.”
Stereotypes
Bone Gnawers: They defend people who need them, same as we do. It’s a shame they often aren’t as courageous about it.
Children of Gaia: Trustworthy. There’s a reason males of our blood usually go to Unicorn when Pegasus won’t have them.
Fianna: It’s good to have allies who take the joy of life as seriously as the necessity of war. If they have a fault, it’s that they favor the former a little too much….
Get of Fenris: I can’t stand anyone, man or woman, who thinks being stronger means being better.
Glass Walkers: They’re examples of both why it’s important to have friends in the Scabs and why we can’t trust anyone else with the Wyld places.
Red Talons: I understand their anger, but they have just so much of it. A rabid wolf is a danger to her own pack.
Shadow Lords: It’s a good idea not to have anything a Shadow Lord wants. They don’t seem to lust after our burden very much, so we don’t have problems with them quite as often – but keep quiet about the secret grottos around them.
Silent Striders: They go almost everywhere and see almost everything. It’s easy to dismiss a wolf without a territory, but listen to them.
Silver Fangs: A dying tree with many rotten branches – and a few that are still strong and healthy. But those last are hard to find…
Stargazers: Introspection at this late hour might find the answers we’re looking for, but what if it doesn’t?
Uktena: They’ve got a good knack for including mysticism from around the world. Including some things that are better off excluded, maybe…
Wendigo: We can understand what it’s like to suffer and have Kin who suffer. Shame they see us as part of the problem, too.
I’m betting that’s too many words, too. I’d drop the Kinfolk entry and put that info elsewhere in the book or combine Kinfolk into a line or two in Territory. Or cut all the “the”s.
That might actually be the best way to go. Give a specific chapter to kinfolk, at least 10-15 tight pages to cover it up.
Though I suspect it’ll have to be less.
Kinfolk are some of the most important aspects in the setting, and something the core book used to cover way too poorly.
When you read the book in past incarnations Kinfolk were nothing more than breeding stock that didnt go bananas when you Changed, so I would say they deserve some more attention this time around indeed!
the words “good knack” in the uktena stereotype feel redundant, too. I feel like you could just go with “knack”.
I know, one word is going to *totally* make the difference here…
WORD COUNT SOLVED.
*FLIPS CAPE OVER SHOULDER, FLIES OFF INTO DISTANCE*
Maybe Belial could be added as a new totem of Wisdom? 🙂 Gives bonus to Wits and Expression.
I think the Kinfolk and Territory section can lose some of the flavor text. That the treatment of Kinfolk depends on the individual Garou seems more appropriate for a general Kinfolk section. Similarly, the precariousness of Fury territory seems like a situation that many of the tribes are in and should be discussed in a general section.
It seems worthwhile to point out that, yes, Black Furies DO value their male kinfolk as people.
I’m not sure “Beginning Gifts” is the right terminology; to me it implies that I would get all of those Gifts on character creation, when in fact I have to choose one from that list (unless I misremember).
You picked one from the list before. Though it is possible selection will be different in W20. Beginning Gifts is the phrasing used in the old Tribal write-ups. It might be a bit confusing, but the character creation sections before explained it clearly enough I never saw anyone not get the idea with a read through.
Indeed. I’d also like to point out that they’re essentially any and all level 1 gifts in the propre category. That wasn’t as clear before because the core book always only had 3, so there was confusion if one could start with a level 1 gift found in other source books. I think this clears it up, thank you for this 🙂
Here’s my suggestion:
Beginning Gift: Breath of the Wyld, Man’s Skin, Heightened Senses, Sense Wyrm, or Wyld Resurgence
This not only tells the person it is a “Gift” but uses the “or” before the last choice.
Why not Cliath Gifts?
@Pedro: With my suggestion, it cleans up any question of “how many gifts do I get at character creation” with the most minimal of changes, in my opinion. Beginning, Initial, Cliath (or do Cubs get them too at character creation?) still can lead to the simple question “It says these are the gifts I start with, but the character creation rules later say I get one; which one is it?” While most folks understand what it means, there are others who don’t, or use any ambiguity for their own reasons. ^.^
I’m kinda curious as to what sort of word count you’re aiming for.
Cutting what’s here down to ~1200 could probably happen with some trimming without cutting any sections. Getting down to ~1000 would probably need to see some larger removals.
I don’t think there’s anything really lacking here (though I’d imagine someone that was picking up W20 without being super familiar with it might want more details on something).
For me, one of the things I wouldn’t mind getting trimmed are the Stereotypes. I’m not against having them as a concept, but I think having 12 entries every time is a waste of space. I think you can trim down to 5-7 of them pretty easily by just focusing on when a Tribe’s stereotype of another Tribe is significantly different from the general Garou nation stereotypes. I don’t think it is a good use of page space to say that the Furies think that the Uktena are good with mystic stuff but perhaps delve too deeply into things best not touched on. That’s pretty much what every Garou thinks about them. And I’m sure the Uktena write-up will say that on its own. The Fury opinion on the CoG is a lot more useful because the CoGs aren’t necessarily trusted by most Tribes; rather grudgingly respected.
On a practical note, stereotypes also take up a lot of space for the word count. They are only ~1/5 of the total words, but ~1/3 of the document due to formatting with all the spacing.
————————————–
On a separate point:
Commence speculation on the implications of things like expanded starting Gifts!
I agree that the Stereotypes are often redundant, but I think they’re also often the single most fun thing about tribal spreads. Not necessarily most useful, but so many people love to see those immediate relations between tribes summed up in zinger form.
I love the gems in there. Like I said, I don’t think they should be cut completely from this. What I’m trying to say is that with 156 of them to write (13 Tribes x 12 per) most of them don’t live up to the potential of either communicating immediate relations or being amusing zingers.
I know this is pretty subjective stuff, and this isn’t a problem with the writing of any individual entry. But for me I can see how writing them is really fun, but trying to sit down and read the Tribe write-ups in a row and they’re not.
For example: In Revised, 10/12 Tribes commenting on the Shadow Lords basically all say, “they’re sneaky, manipulative and untrustworthy.” It actually ruins some of the better zingers on that list because they’re towards the end of the alphabet (I love the Red Talon one) because you’ve already heard the punchline a half dozen times before you get there. It’s also really easy to miss that the Silent Striders and the Silver Fangs actually have something else to say about them.
I understand there are compelling reasons to keep the full list in each write-up. But to my personal feelings on this sort of thing, they present the most reasons to be trimmed if something needs to get shortened significantly: They are have a low level of information density of the amount of page they take up, and they tend to get redundant.
I totally understand your point. However, I think limiting the stereotypes actually makes them less useful overall. A tribal relationship is best summed up in two lines, not one: I’m probably not the only person who checks first “how does tribe Y feel about X” and then goes over to the tribe X page to see how they feel about tribe Y in return. Or if I really like a given splat, I’ll browse all the other sections to see which of these guys actually might like me and which I should watch out for. The give-and-take is fairly critical. (Though I’ll admit that the Fury stereotype on the Uktena needs to be tweaked a bit to emphasize that the Furies respect the Uktena for incorporating global cultural mysticism because that’s something they genuinely have in common, not just because they’re looking for something nice to say about the Uktena.)
Reading them all end-to-end is not really fun. Is that how most people use them, though?
Just to be clear:
I’m not talking about cutting down the length of each stereotype quote. I’m talking about cutting down on the number included. Basically, that I’d rather see six focused ones than thirteen that end up with a few that feel “thrown in.” I agree two sentences is better than one for this.
In my limited personal experience, we don’t really use them at all. It’s something that I see people read straight through as they play the first few times to get a feel for things. Once people I’ve gamed with get into WtA and stick to it, they’d look into more detailed books like the Tribebooks and PGttG that have more information.
No, I know what you mean. I didn’t mean to imply two lines: I meant that stereotypes are useful when they represent a two-way street. The counterpart to Black Furies -> Stargazers is Stargazers -> Black Furies: if you read them both, you have a micro-picture of how those two tribes interact. In essence, these 13 x 12 stereotypes do the job of 78 descriptions of tribal relations, one for each possible pairing of tribes. In that sense, they’re actually pretty efficient — and since this book is supposed to be useful even if you don’t have a selection of Tribebooks, I honestly believe it’s good to have some word count devoted to these many pairings. If you omit, say, how the Furies feel about the Stargazers, it may never be discussed in the book at all otherwise.
I hope this works without messing up the formatting too much:
I see what you’re saying about the pairing point. I think that is a really good reason to have them in uncut. I’m not sure it is as efficient as a dedicated section on the subject outside of the Tribe write-ups, but the appeal of this format is good. I still feel if the need to cut something big is still an issue, they are a place for it; but it definitely seems that this isn’t going to be an issue.
I’d love a chance to restart some of this once all though and we can see what the total picture is shaping up to be.
The trouble is that there is a lot of overlap in the stereotypes sections. We do end up seeing mostly the same sentiments dressed in the various tribal vestments. the Bone Gnawer and the Get both think the shadow lords are sneaky and conniving; one says so with a Bronx accent and the other (violently) laments the supposed “failing” of winning via anything other than brute strength. Is it vital? you’d be lying if you said it was. This isn’t to say it should completely go the way of the Croatan. If each tribe said their piece about the four or so tribes they feel strongest about, we would save space and give those stereotypes more impact. With a little careful planning we can give each Tribe a little limelight without repeating ourselves endlessly.
This implies that the overlapping sentiment is “the truth,” however, rather than describing how members of a particular tribe feel about them. If you say “well, unless it’s said otherwise, everyone sees the Shadow Lords as sneaky and conniving,” it’s very similar to saying “the Shadow Lords are sneaky and conniving, but here are some examples of people who see other elements to the tribe.”
The example you gave actually kind of reinforces my believe that we need ’em: because the Get explains why they find the Shadow Lords dubious from a Get perspective. We learn something about the Get by the fact that it’s not the *morality* of the Shadow Lords that bothers them, but rather just the lack of “honesty” in their avoidance of brute strength.
Is it vital? Probably not, but there are many, many, many things in this book that aren’t vital and yet that celebrate what people love about Werewolf.
I agree with you, ethan. I do however think we can learn what we need to know about the Get mindset from the tribe description. We know already the Get are warlike to a fault and that they don’t see a point in talking without action. We don’t need to hear this in the Stereotypes as well.
It’s a tough call, but I think if we have to cut something, we could do worse than cutting a portion of these. The more words we have save here, the more can be used to describe the Umbra, which is a LOT more important to the game than some Tribal stereotypes. I think most people can agree with that.
Actually, the more words we save here… the rest of the book is totally unaffected. These will be two-page spreads, no more, no less; if we drop one down to a page and a half, then there’s some white space on the page before you flip to the next spread. So this is about just making sure they’re the right word count for two-page spreads.
It’s also very hard to discern the political alliances and climates between the tribes if it’s omitted.
I am so mixed on this topic. I think they are, and have been my favorite part of the core box since I first picked up Vamp forever ago… but at the same time I totally agree with all of Heavy Arms’ points… and I kinda have to add another one of my own.
(I’m gonna hate myself forever to argue against Ethan)
But the thing is this, a lot of people tend to see all the books across all the editions (and gamelines) as factual, not always considering that some editions take new things into account according to perception of the speaker, the passage of time, metaplot, etc. And because from one writting to the next, some tribes perspectives change it creates confusion and sometimes heated arguments. Brining us back to your own point about absolutes in your post about “The Voice of Rage”. Often bringing an ST to the point where we gaze at them and wonder exactly how we’re supposed to portrait tribal politics when actually it really boils down to each individual Garou’s perspective and experiences with said tribe.
In short, one player will play a tribe hating X other tribe on principle because Revised said so. Another will love the tribe, because 1st Ed said so. And they argue about it IRL when actually they should have asked themselves what their character thinks according what they, themselves, have seen of that tribe in question.
(posted that too fast, should have done some correcting, sorry for the typos, I wish we could edit)
I don’t really know what else we can do besides use the term “Stereotypes” to describe this commentary. They’re stereotypes: common examples of attitudes that might or might not have basis in facts.
It sucks when players don’t take them as their literal definition and apply the appropriate context, but honestly I hate to disrespect readers by being even more explicit about how they’re, well, stereotypes.
I must admit I have to give you that one. And they ARE really fun (I did say I was torn on this topic).
Perhaps switch them aroung: instead of the Stereotypes section being a list of what they think of other tribes, arrange it as a list of what other tribes think of them! Then, if 5 of the 12 think the same thing, condense that into “Common Stereotype” at the top of the list. So for Shadowlords for examle (using Revised examples):
Stereotypes
Common Stereotype: blurb about how they’re sneaky, untrustworthy, arrogant, selfish, and will betray you at any opportunity
Black Furies: They can give you insight into your enemies’ schemes blah blah blah
Bone Gnawers: We’re still better at it than them, and more streetwise
Get of Fenris: Trust your gut instinct when dealing with them, blah blah
Glasswalkers: It always helps to have informants. Just don’t depend on them too much. They rarely help out without demanding something in return … or taking it outright.
Red Talons: It is right they test the Silver Fangs, but the Shadow Lords are not fit to lead. They use deception to cover their weakness.
Silent Striders: If they spent all that time and energy opposing the Wyrm instead of the Silver Fangs, we’d all be better off.
Silver Fangs: blah blah We will put them in their place again, March or any other month.
Stargazers: Hey, the Revised book left me out! Oh, yeah, and those Shadow Lords suck.
Wendigo: They embrace the worst traits of all the Wyrmcomers, blah blah. They take everything and deserve nothing.
Grah, sorry for typos.
@Erinys: I had thought something similar with the idea of “These are what other Tribes think of this Tribe”, except that if I’m looking in the Character Creation section, it’s more important for me to know how my Tribe thinks of others than what others think of my Tribe. So I think it works better here, and if I want to go find out what others think of me, I should go to the other Tribe’s pages, or go ask other Tribes IC. ^.^
Yes, good point Torakhan.
Actually, I don’t think anything needs cutting. As it stands, it’s only 1,300 words, and that’s about perfect for a splat spread. I can think of things I’d love to see added if you needed *more* wordcount, but this is pretty solid, Ethan.
Unfortunately, the final arbiter of this is Rich. I don’t think he wants to shrink down that awesome Prescott art to a quarter-page.
Looks good, execpt I think the tribal stereotypes should be a bit more biting. Furies are known for speaking their mind about things, so that should show in the text.
Yeah, this may be slightly too strong a reaction to the Revised treatment, which focused on witty repartee to the extent of sometimes not actually giving you useful information about how the tribes interacted. The Bone Gnawers make a booze joke about the Fianna: okay, right, but does that say anything about whether they get along? Resent them?
I want the stereotypes to be useful, but there is such a thing as being too conservative in delivering that information.
I understand. Wording things differently however might give more bite.
For example;
“Glass Walkers: They’re examples of both why it’s important to have friends in the Scabs and why we can’t trust anyone else with the Wyld places.”
Might be better if;
“Glass Walkers: they are valuable allies in the Scabs, but I would not trust them with any other terrotory”
Which is more akin to giving them their due, but still not trusting them due to their Weavery nature.
I think this is a good point though- these are supposed to really define the overall viewpoint of a Tribe for a Tribe and should both illustrate the nature of the Tribe speaking as well as their attitude towards another Tribe. If the BF stereotype in the GW spread sounds like the BF stereotype in the SF spread then issue should be taken with the evocative-ness of the writing, not the value of the format.
In Revised, the “Stereotypes” were supposedly written from a particular character’s point of view.
Here, there doesn’t seem to be that “narration.” So the need for wit, or other gems aren’t necessary, and it can be far more “4th wall”, or OOC-ish of “This is how the Black Furies see the other Tribes”, where as if it is from a narrator’s point of view, it become more “Well, this is what I think.” and gives more distance and loop-holes for “Well, this isn’t necessarily what the Tribe thinks as a whole.”
And if you’re going to include the Camps, stereotypes might not be entirely accurate either.
“The need for wit” is precisely why Stereotypes are popular, though. It’d be crazy-talk to get rid of that: they’re just at their best when they’re witty *and* convey some good starter generalizations.
Such as “They [Get] would attack a tree if you wrote “Wyrm” on the side of it… assuming they can read.” ?
Oh, I agree. I enjoy the Wit. It’s just kind of strange that there would be “wit” in such OOC statements, without some sort of perspective/narration anywhere else, or even implied in the rest of the writing.
Maybe either write the entire Spread more as someone talking to a Cub/non-Tribe person? Or treat it like Revised, where the top of the Stereotypes is labeled “Mary the Man-Eater speaks.” or whatever. ^.^
I have to admit I am extremely surprised to learn that anyone has ever interpreted the Stereotypes, in any WoD game ever, as “out of character.” They don’t have a specific name or context attached in most cases, but the incredibly casual conversational tone (to say nothing of the common use of “I” or “you”) has always seemed to clearly imply that the speaker is an average, stereotypical member of the tribe expressing a stereotype to an unknown person (presumably the reader).
I think I mis-typed/mis-spoke and failed to properly express myself. Hmm. Let me see if I can do better (probably not, but I’d like to!)
It is obvious that the text itself is “In Character”, and I fully agree that they have always felt “in character”. I guess what I meant was that with the rest of the information in the Character Spread being entirely OOC (even to the point of talking about dots in Abilities), it feels kind of awkward not to at least present it with some sort of context to change that voice from OOC to IC in some way.
I enjoy the Stereotypes in the books and think that they give great insight into the Tribe and not only what they think of other Tribes, but how they internally project and interpret the world around them too. The Stereotypes as they are written are pretty good (I’m sure there will be some finessing here and there), and in line with how they’ve always been done, which I’m happy with. My only real point was just that it felt awkward that the rest of the page(s) are written entirely OOC and suddenly there’s a block of information given ICly. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad thing, just that I thought some sort of preface, or bringing the rest of the pages into the same style of presentation might not be a bad idea either. 🙂
Yeah, in many cases that’s why the Stereotypes go into a sidebar box to make a visual break.
Hi,
In Brazil we have some tales about indigenous woman who are Amazones (and we have a state – and a great river – named Amazonas, from amassanu, “thundering waters”, but the Portugueses explorers say they have found a tribe of indigenous women who fought like Greek Amazones when Brazil was part of Portugal Empire) – just saying.
But I love to play with latin-american Black Furies *-*
And I don’t think anything needs cutting, I wanted more words if was possible ^-^
What I’d change is to use classic Greece instead of modern. So kuklos would be cyclos and so on. I’d also change their origins from coming from Greece into hailing from the Pindus mountains & Asia minor. Which is more correct and geopolitically more appropriate.
I’ve always found it way too stereotypical to lump the Furies as ” dem’s the hoes from Greece” When the Hellenic culture sphere covered the whole Mediterranean basin and Persian empire all the way to (old) central Russia, Afghanistan and modern Pakistan after Alexander the Greats conquests.
For those who don’t know where the Pindus is; It’s the mountain range running through the southern Balkans and Greece, ending to frorm the islands of Crete which are it’s southern most tips.
I don’t think we could ever get away with actively changing the Furies’ origins, particularly in a book that’s supposed to celebrate rather than retcon, but you definitely have a point about Asia Minor. They should absolutely have some ties to the Scythians, given the parallels between Scythian woman warriors and Amazon legends.
Honestly, cut the Character Creation section all together. It’s high time W:tA shed its old cliches. Fenrir gifts produce warriors, there’s no reason they all need Brawl 5 as well. Furies protect the Wyld places, but to recommend they do so with combat skills instead of Law or Investigation simply stifles creativity.
It made me cringe to read “The Black Furies are hard to stereotype” and then immediately see the attempt made. To me, that simply reads “The Furies can’t really be put in a box, but this is the box we’d use if we had to do it.”
I think the opening paragraph tells us all we need to know about the Furies mission and beliefs. Why not let us determine how any particular Fury pursues them?
There’s something to be said for example characters, but I’d be happy to see the stereotypes left out where possible.
Also, “the sisterhood encourages even the gentlest political activist to pick up a dot or two of combat Skills” reads as if the in-game Furies are encouraging their cubs to “spend XP on Brawl” or some such. They’d never rate combat prowess in “dots”. It’s jarring to read. Perhaps it should read more like “the sisterhood encourages even the gentlest political activist to learn basic armed or unarmed combat skills”?
I disagree.
First I don’t see that werewolf should be less stereotyped, especially if it is a edition to celebrate Werewolf, which had a bunch of stereotypes (some fun, some unfortunate).
Second, all the “less stereotyped” argumentation is faulty in it one right. If one writes “Black Furies have come from any background and have any traits”, then the same is true for any other tribe and then being of a tribe pretty nondescript. But that is not the case.
A character after character creation is a Cliath (although I wish for some whelp character creation rules). A Cliath has had a basic education as a werewolf and a Rite of passage to prove his worth as a member of the tribe (not as a garou in general, there are tribe specific Rite of Passage elements).
As such, there is merit to state what the average sept of a given tribe would have taught the average cub and what level the average cliath of that tribe would probably have learnt.
First, it helps define the tribe and does so with a higher information versus word-count ratio than a detailed description of training topics.
Second, it allows to have a character that diverse from the “norm”, by defining the norm. Without such a guideline all attempts do do something “different” are futile to begin with.
So, just like it is unfair to state, that all U.S. High School graduates no nothing of the world because all they learned was math, American history and Phy Ed, there is still the fact that the average (sans naturalised) U.S. citizen knows something about American history. Just like the average Christian would recognise a couple of Bible quotes, even if he isn’t practising his faith.
So, in this context it is legitimate to have some statement about what the average Fury should have learned during her education. Same is true with all tribes.
How about this, dude? Describe the average Fury somewhere, even listing typical traits or skill selections, but just don’t list it in a section labeled “Character Creation” that implies each and every starting Fury should, or would, have these traits. If I can dig through books and show you Furies that don’t have those traits, then the “Character Creation” section has already been proven worthless.
To say Glasswalkers enjoy and embrace technology is more than sufficient to encourage and enforce the stereotype. To say they all have Computer 2, just shuts down all the cool character concepts involving Biotech (Science + Medicine) and Future Weapons (Science + Firearms).
Amen
While I kinda agree, lets not forget that Werewolves go through something called the Rite of Passage, and they are shaped by the Moon and accepted by Totems. They do have some shared traits with everyone in their Tribes when they become Cliath, even if they do not when they are pups.
I pretty much endorse Jarvis’s statement completely.
I gotta agree with the cutting of Character Creation, as Jarvis has a great point here. What we need to know about Character Creation is told in-universe during the description, which is always going to be better than trying to boil it down to one paragraph. More importantly, cutting this will allow more room for things that aren’t already put in black and white, like the issue of Stereotypes, or (knocking on wood here) information on Fera, or even just more room for art to set the stage.
If we have a limited amount of space in which we can cram all the Werewolf Goodness of the past 20 years, and we certainly do, let us not waste it repeating ourselves, especially for the sake of convention or nostalgia.
Also, It’s my opinion that the less we specifically state about what a Fury SHOULD be like, the more diversity we see in our PCs. Leaving it (mostly) open allows for a much wider palette.
I played a Lupus Glass Walker in one of my first ever games. Had a paid more attention to the Character Creation, I probably would have just made him a Homid, because it “made more sense.”
I know, it is a short description but some of the statements I just need to comment on.
> Their legends trace their origins back to Greece, where they
> were appointed defenders of the Wyld.
The earlier TB stated, that the tribe was also prominent in the region now known as the Near East and fell back to Greece when patriarch societies rose there.
I would prefer if it read “Most of their legends…” to include possible differences and not contradict the older TB completely.
> Any male cub of a Fury who undergoes the First Change
> is sent to another tribe for adoption; Pegasus, their tribal
> totem, will not accept male Garou.
Do they? With the “Baptism of Fire” it is clearly stated that “Scent of the true form” would recognise even toddlers as garou, so why not give away the babies. Although the TB Black Furies revised “Free the Wayward Child” Rite doesn’t specify the sons age, but for me it makes little sense to raise a son and then give him away. The formulation should read
“Any male cub of a Fury is sent to another tribe for adoption. If the child has recently or is about to undergo his First Change at the latest, but more often the children are given away as toddlers.”
> To make up for these losses of potential tribemates, the
> Furies actively recruit disaffected and angry female Garou who
> might otherwise fall under another tribe’s banner.
I can’t remember that info in any previous book, although it was hinted at some points, like the Valkyrie/Furies alliance or so. Sure, it might make sense for the tribe, but not really in the Setting. To actively headhunt other garou cubs is something that surely would make the tribe untrustworthy in the eyes of most other garou, for they steal away their daughters form their family tradition.
Therefore I would prefer a statement that reads:
“Although the Black Furies strangely seem to have more than average female birth rate among their true born, they still have to live the losses of male garou. And while some Furies actively recruit disaffected and angry female Garou the tribe is still smaller in numbers than other tribes of the garou nation.”
Besides that, I like the info given. I’d loose the Starting Gifts entry and even the Initial Willpower probably is something that might be enough to mention in the character creation cheat sheet page.
In general I think there is more to the tribes than the stuff mentioned, so I really would co for two double pages per tribe or so…
On the male cub issue:
1) You’re still talking about their children and the Furies are very big on empowering motherhood. It’s not really an issue of logic. Parents don’t want to give up their children, even if they know they’ll have to eventually.
2) From a logical standpoint, raising the male cubs first indoctrinates them into the Fury’s philosophy and values. It gives the Furies a chance to deflect the eventual trauma of rejection and being sent away, so that those male cubs end up as allies that help influence the other Tribes in the Furies’ favor rather than pissed off exiles.
There might or might not be a lot of pros and cons regarding the child and whether or not the Furies raise them among themselves or give them away to be adopted while they not yet remember their parents.
But, simply put, the statement as written above creates a new fact, that I can’t remember in previous Black Fury descriptions and that is nothing W20 should do.
I don’t care if it reads
“Any male cub of a Fury is sent to another tribe for adoption. Sometime they give away the child as a toddler to be raised among his new family. If the furies raise the son among themselves the son is usually send away if he had recently had his First Change or is about to undergo it.”
Even
“Any male cub of a Fury is sent to another tribe for adoption, at the when they undergo the First Change.”
would give more freedom to interpret and keep all the previous texts valid.
But there should be some tolerance to the statement.
The revised tribebook mentions sending away sons who change, and recruiting and welcoming females from other tribes. And it emphasizes that they’re big on celebrating and honoring motherhood, so I can’t imagine them giving away babies at birth, except the female metis.
I guess I just don’t see how the statement in the text is so bad. I don’t see how it “creates” anything new. I don’t see how switching the order of the two phrases in the sentence makes it easier to interpret in different ways.
About the female cub taking issue; in many revised books, especially the Get tribebook, Furies are said to be open to all female garou who have felt wronged in their original tribes. The Get rev. has a female Get noting that Furies kept insisting she would join them, because to the Furies the Get are chauvinistic.
The book also mentions that some females who could not handle the intiation to Get culture DO leave for Black Furies.
The book also clearly states that the Get are very much fine with it. They don’t mind losing people to the Furies because those who can’t cut it would have weakened the tribe anyway. Cubs are forced to endure extreme emotional, physical and mental pressure before the rite of passage specifically to root out weaklings and sent them crying to the other tribes.
I agree that previous books stated, that they are open to all female. But there is a difference between welcoming those who want to join and actively convincing others to join.
And I’m not saying that some furies wouldn’t do that, but that if this was a practice all furies followed, the tribe would have a bad reputation for sweet-talking away the cubs of other tribes.
Or not, if you look at what the Get, whom are source of most of their tribe hopping members. The Get are fine with the cubs going to a respectable tribe, not as good as the Fenris one, but still not cowards.
And if you look back into times when women had little rights, such as the DA game, Furies could have easily been the home for all the women whom could not stand their chauvinistic tribe mates.
But here’s the thing, they have to know its an option, hence why the Furies might fight, or speak to the female cub they feel would fit into their tribe.
I think the important distinction here is recrutement VS acceptence. They accept the rejects of other tribes (such as weak Get or SF with low pure breed, pretty much all tribes have rejections factions), something other tribes would agree to, the cubs have to go somewhere. But, I agree that if I was playing a proud Fianna, and some random Black Fury was trying to win my daughter over to her tribe, I’d challenge her face with a shovel for the insult to all our proud Fianna ancestors.
I don’t think most Gets would be proud if their daughters wouldn’t continue their line, give a crap about Fenrir tradition and joined a other tribe, no matter how respected this tribe is. If the kid had some ancestry with that tribe, sure, but Get value heritage and that no only makes it a prerequisite to be of get blood to be a get (if you are of mixed heritage you may choose the corresponding Flaw) but also means, that a Get being patent/grandparent to a child, regardless of gender, that can’t make it among the Gets is a huge renown loss. Maybe even more than not breeding true in the first place.
As for the Dark Ages, there is a difference between human and garou society. Human women having not so many rights isn’t much of an argument if garou society doesn’t reflect it. And in those day the homid/lupus breed ration was different to, and lupus probably aren’t that sexist. Besides the fact that those who had rights were those who were nobles, which often was also not necessarily tied to gender. There were queens and other powerful women, just as there were men, and among those who didn’t have rights were men, just as there were women.
But even that isn’t the point. That Furies might show those who need to know of that option that there is the possibility to join another tribe, seems okay. To “actively recruit” seems like they spend a lot of effort searching for garou who they can bring into the tribe. That seems to much. To aggressive to not warrant that other tribes force Furies away in fear they might turn their female tribe members. That’s why I advocate a less drastic seeming choice of words like:
“Some Furies recruit disaffected…”
Making the statement less harsh.
As a player, this really gets me excited. First, can I say how much I like it? The Art, the attitude, and now the black fury rules? I’m really happy with what I’m seeing, and I can’t wait to buy it.
I like that you’ve expanded starting gift choices to 5. There were some tribes before that I had trouble picking a gift that went with my character, almost down to an “eeny-meeny miny mo” degree. Expanding that by half again (almost the amount of choice for any two of breed/auspice/clan) can’t help but allow me to choose something more appropriate. Cheers.
I like appearance and quote as is. I think there’s a lot of meat there for different types of players to grab onto and incorporate into their vision of a PC. And I’ve always used the stereotypes to help define my relationship with other characters at the beginning of the game. Your suggestion of cutting character creation doesn’t seem too bad, although I think I’d trim most of Totem, first. I assume totems will have their own descriptions along with rules, so it seems like you only need to go in-depth on describing them in one of those two places, not both.
Glad you’re digging it!
Totem actually represents an experiment. We have all this information about tribal totem broods provided in books like Axis Mundi, and I thought it might be worth exploring it here in the tribal spreads. Perhaps it would be better off in the latter part of the book. Not sure!
Well, if you’re looking for feedback, I think it’s a great idea.
I like this write-up, good. I like that it makes clear they aren’t all man-hating butch lesbians XD. And the quote is soooo much better than the one in Revised. I guess there could be a little more emphasis in the text on their martial tradition, but overall this is great. Editorial things I would change below (changed words in all caps):
Kuklochoros is singular in Greek, not plural, and looks odd mixing Ks and Cs. The singular form should be kuklokhoros. The plural is kuklokhoroi. Likewise for camps: kuklos is singular, kukloi is plural. Ulaka magelis looks singular as well, but I don’t know what the plural would be — you should try to find out. Offhand, it looks odd to start it with U instead of Hu. To whomever suggested switching to modern spelling, these look more like ancient than modern Greek to me. Modern would look more like kiklos, kikli, kiklokhoros, kiklokhori.
I would change “…under another tribe’s banner.” to “…under another tribe’s TOTEM.” Because these are werewolves, not humans with flags.
I would change this sentence: “…the Scabs where they grew up and their sisters are still suffering.” to “…the Scabs where they grew up and WHERE their sisters STILL SUFFER.”
Pegasus, according to the revised tribebook, is of unknown sex, and Furies can’t agree if Pegasus is she, he, or just it. With word count constraints, I’d just use “it.”
For shortening things, the last sentence under Appearance could change to “This ideal isn’t universally reflected within the tribe, BUT the demands of the war harden up many Furies.”
And likewise for space I’d change “Elders and cubs alike participate in struggles against modern slavery, sex trafficking, abuse and other offenses that are all too persistent.” to “Elders and cubs alike STRUGGLE against modern slavery, sex trafficking, abuse and other ALL-TOO-PERSISTENT offenses.”
Actually, I should add if you’re going for modern Greek then a word could start with U, though it’d be pronounced more Y or I.
One more thing (if only we could edit posts):
Modern spelling could also go kyklos, kykli, kyklokhoros, kyklokhori instead.
Using the letter C isn’t modern so much as Latinized.
I’m with Ethan; I’d drop the character generation paragraph. It’s either going to be redundant, or boil down to, “well, we don’t know”. This one reads as a “we don’t know”.
I think you could get away with trimming most of the appearance section. For almost all tribes, it’s going to consist of a lot of “they can basically look like anything because the tribe is largely global now”. Which is going to lead to a lot of repetitive nonstatements. I’d say just trim it down to the pure breed description and leave it at that.
I agree, Purebreed would be a better section, because each tribe has different looks. And I think even then, it would be more about the lupus form’s fur colour than anything.
True that. A Pure Breed section would be an upgrade in my mind.
I like this because of two things;
1 – The character creation section, like you, I think it is redundant. I have never liked this, it makes the tribes/clans/traditions feel like classes right out of D&D. I say put more effort into fleshing out the info on the tribe and let the player build a character around that. Yes I know no one says you HAVE to go after this section but it has never clicked for me. I never read this section no matter what WoD game I play. The only “rule” you have to think about when you make your character (at least in WtA) is the tribe totem. For ex, if you’re characters’ not a female, Pegasus won’t accept you as a member of the tribe no matter what. That could maybe be included somewhere, the different rules and expectations the tribe totem have for each tribe.
And 2 – The appearance section in this is excellent and just the way I want it. It has always bugged me how some WoD games use this section. Sometimes it’s almost like the game tells you that if you join this clan or this tribe you start to look a certain way. There are excuses of course. The Nosferatu are cursed to look the way they do and the Tzimisce because of the way they use their powers. Anyway back to werewolf. The reason why I like it is because you say that the Furies look the way they do when they are of pure breed, and that makes sense! I doesn’t make sense to assume that a werewolf is going to look a certain way just because he or she is of that tribe.
Ok here we go…
Appearance- “Traditionally, the tribe has promoted an athletic ideal, and much of their art glorifies women of lean, strong build. This ideal isn’t universally reflected within the tribe, however; the demands of the war harden up many Furies, but the tribe tends to be as diverse as womanhood itself.”
Ethan, remember what you were saying about your “voice” and how you don’t like to deal in absolutes, giving everything a qualifier, etc.? I think this is an example of where its not necessary or at least a little too drawn out. I think it could at least be shortened to “, though this ideal isn’t universally reflected within the tribe.”
Kinfolk- I think the entire last sentence could be cut out or at least severely shortened.
Character Creation- You probably could cut this out considering that this book is being made primarily for those who have already played the game, but in general I think its a good thing to include.
Okay, now for my own thoughts. I think it’s an excellent write-up, I only have 2 things I’d like to point out.
Part 1: Two sections right next to each other have almost identical introductions. Namely:
Appearence: “Although the tribe originated in Ancient Greece, the Furies have since spread throughout the world.”
Kinfolk: “The Black Furies are reputed to have their origins in ancient Greece …”.
Also, one is factual: they originate from Ancient Greece. The other one is not: they are reputed to originate from there. I know it’s pretty obvious to most people but depending on which paragraph some resonates with the most, one reader will come out remembering a fact about his tribe and another will think that it’s possible that they don’t. I think some things are meant to be open, like character creation and other should be set completely in stone to establish a common, factual ground and understanding of the setting. There’s always room to use the golden rule if the DM wants to change it or make a story reveal out of it “Surprise! You’re not greek after all!”.
Part 2: Motherhood.
May be it’s in my head, God knows I try to be a good ST and know my tribes as much as I can, but there’s just too much info, right? So, I could be wrong, but I think I remember that to the BFs there is a strong concept of some sort of trinity (Maiden, Mother and Crone) and a great importance to carrying a child / birthing life which I do not see reflected here. May be a line or two could be squeezed in to add at least the birthing thing?
(if my memory didn’t betray me that is)
That’s it, thanks for listening.
The stress on the Triple Goddess model is definitely a part of the BF material, but it isn’t portrayed as being a major thing outside of the Tribebook IIRC. I’m not sure the core book is really a good place for using it as a framing device to discuss BF culture.
I’m actually kinda happy motherhood isn’t overly stressed. While the BF’s certainly view all aspects of femininity as important, putting too much stress on child bearing is ultimately restrictive and seems too much like caving to a patriarchal model where a woman is defined by her ability to produce and raise offspring.
It’s a personal thing, but I agree as well. As someone who is one-half of a childless by choice couple, I view the attitude that “real women are those who bear children” as ranging anywhere from well-meaning-but-pig-ignorant to outright villainous.
Besides, that would imply that the tribe gets rid of its female metis, and we know that’s not true (save for the inevitable “there are always individual exceptions” clause).
Part II: Motherhood
I see your stance. Respectfully, I’d like to counter argue, if you’ll allow it (Feel free to skip if not). I do not beleive that having an immense respect for women and giving life instantly means hating what cannot. Therefore, while I sincerely think metis females have no place in some Fury rituals, I beleive they’d still be accepted as women and part of the tribe. Some may well see them as incomplete, but women all the same. I also think there’s a distinction between choosing not to have children and being incapable of having them. That choice being a major point of one of the tribe book as I recall.
I have a friend, who is a feminist and whose favorite tribe is Black Fury, and I had her read this. She chose not to have kids as well, but she loves them and insisted on the importance of it being such a strong part of being a women and (being my fury expert) she stressed out several key parts of Fury culture which have the concept of birth as a central core element, such as the very nice ritual in which a caern is not build, but birthed. She also pointed that most matriarcal societies held women is such high respect because of this gift (I don’t have references).
Of course, that’s all just my views, and I mention it mostly for the sake of a good discussion and may be help in writting the book should I manage to make a good point. I mean no disrespect or challenge. Obviously, you wrote the books I’m basing myself on and have worked on this game longer than I’ve played it. So I respect your position. May be I could finish by giving an exemple, it’s easy to critize, but one should be able to be constructive as well. With this in mind I beleive a simple phrase like “giving life is a sacred thing to the Black Fury” would be sufficiant. May be right after “The tribe holds that women are worthy of respect, honor, sometimes even veneration.”
Thanks for listening.
I do understand your point. I simply think there’s a difference between honoring the choice and ability to give birth, and honoring birth itself to the point where it overshadows the choice. The struggle over reproductive freedom’s a pretty important example of what women content with in the USA right now, for example. I think it’s good to stress that the Black Furies honor motherhood, but if you start saying that “birth is sacred” then we start getting the contentions over whether or not bombing abortion clinics is something the Furies would find appalling, or something they’d be doing themselves.
I must say, that’s an extremely good point. The strength of the word “sacred” would indeed incite that kind of reading and/or imply things not intended. I definitely agree.
I do think it’s an actual issues the Furies face, but seen this way, the point would require a lot more clarification for which you just don’t have space here (Precisely because it’s a real world current issue, it would need to be handled with care).
I seem to remember the whole “choice” versus “sacred motherhood” thing being a big point of contention between older and younger furies, and I really liked that conflict, personally. (As a childfree feminist, I obviously have a favorite side, but even so…)
I share the sentiment, but I’m forced to admit that this kind of takes takes space to elaborate right. Sadly, the right place for this isn’t the Core book. But, i’m with you, entirely.
Yeah, the Revised tribebook has a long section devoted to the debate within the tribe about abortions, with all-Fury packs fighting each other over it, a sidebar disclaimer reminding STs they can ignore the entire issue if it creeps them out, and stuff. There’s not room here to cover the matter with the detail and respect it would require.
Part III: Male Domination
Can’t beleive I didn’t brign this up sooner as it’s been something I’ve had difficulties picturing before. Please allow me to quote to build my argument “Certainly some Furies will never forget or forgive. But others are willing to accept men as partners, helpmates, lovers, equals – but nothing more than equals”. So, the worst of the lot won’t ever forgive you, and the best will be able to see you as an equal at best.
See this point more as question then a objection, if you will, as I’m trying to understand and I must not be the only one. So, here goes: Doesn’t this imply that a Fury will never accept being in a pack with a male alpha or, in a multi-tribal sept, accept to “submit to those of higher station” of the male gender? In Europe tribes don’t mix much, so it makes more sense to me, but in America, they mix all the time. Wouldn’t it make things pretty hard in a society where the very Litany speaks of submission. I also have a hard time grasping Albrecht and Mary since he is the alpha and the king. If she’s all “Don’t you boss me around!” he has no credibilty at all as a king and he cannot allow that to preserve his position.
Furthermore, and this is going to be a very redundant point with me, what about lupus characters? Submission and dominance is the very fabric of their social life, at least for their first few years, before (if) they learn the ways of humans. A someone being the alpha is only the order of things, there is no feminist wolf (I know there are distinct Male/Female hierarchies in a wolf pack, I’m just trying to keep this simple). I play lupus a lot, and this is the kind of thing which is rarely covered.
My previously mentioned feminist friend made an interesting suggestion earlier when she said that may be the sentence “but they understand the concept of pack hierarchy” could be added after the afore mentioned paragraph.
Once again, thank you for listening.
This point was addressed in the revised tribe book.
Only it was addressed VERY poorly. Essentially, Furies will NOT obey ANY litany tenet that says submission to someone in it, so ‘Respect those of Higher station’ and ‘First share of a kill goes to greatest in station’ are not obeyed.
Which is actually hilarious if you know anything about female canines’ idea of dominance, which is actually far more stronger and vicious than with males. A common dog breeder saying is that male dogs will fight to see who is better, female dogs will fight to the death. And it’s no different in wolves where the ‘mother’ of the pack will kill any other litter born to the pack aside from its own.
Even if you don’t account that info dump, Furies still have to deal with the rest of the Nation. And if they literally can’t obey two tenets in Litany, especially two about leadership and rank…not going to go over well.
Indeed! That’s pretty much how I read this as well. Thanks for the info, I had totaly forgotten the bit about the litany in revised. 🙂
No problem ^^
I think there should be a distinction between submitting to an Elder and submission to Man. While the latter makes sense, it makes no sense if Furies literally cannot stand any commanding from those outside their tribe.
And especially because it’s a very human trait anyway, since in wolf packs, the lead female is MUCH more the boss than the male. And take very little shit from lower females and males ^^”
Actually, I’m going to go right out and say it:
Can we have a entirely new section in there called “Ways of the Wolf” or something? I mean no offense, but very often the “lupus” section of most tribebooks say “We have population issues and we’re doing this to solve it” and tells very little of the wolf perspective and their mindset within in the tribe. I honestly think this would be a critical thing to include in there. May be even a section per breed.
My thoughts on the Tribal Spread for Black Furies and the rest in general.
First, I would not be against making this 4-pages each, and since the Camps are going to be included in the book anyways, I’d say toss each Tribe’s Camp right there into the Tribal Spread area rather than a section just for Camps—unless each Camp is getting 2-4 paragraphs of information, in which case just a list of the Camps might not be bad. Still, I’d rather see more info all in one place then to eliminate text because Prescott’s artwork wound up taking a full page in itself.
As for the wording… maybe it’s their being Black Fury, and some of their Feminist-Spiritual stuff that’s not quite ringing right with me, but the “voice” seems off in the writing here to me. Maybe it’s a lack of a “narrator”? Or maybe it will read better with the rest of the book around it, but it just reads strangely to me as a fluid page of reading.
Basics: I don’t really see much here that needs to be changed, but then again some of that might change after I see what the other Tribes’ basic write-up looks like, or includes.
Appearance: My concern with this goes into the “Pure Breed” aspects that I hope are talked about in the Pure Breed section of the book. Will the “Pure Breed” of male-born Black Fury remain with them? Would a “Children of Gaia” with a Black Fury Pure Breed not likely breed with a Black Fury Kinfolk and result in Black Fury pure-bred children? I bring this up only to highlight one of the issues potentially in the mechanics of Pure Breed and the fact that it’s brought up specifically in the “Appearance”. Now, if a werewolf is not accepted by their born-Tribe’s totem, do they lose their Pure Breed, or does it change to match that of their adopted Tribe?… just thoughts.
Kinfolk: Nothing here really poking me specifically.
Territory: Again, looks pretty good.
Tribal Totem: I like the inclusion of other Totems too.
Character Creation: My only point here is the use of “the sisterhood encourages even the gentlest political activist to pick up a dot or two of combat Skills.” It just feels wrong to say that the characters encourage mechanical stat numbers. I would suggest making the sentence “Even the most gentle political activist characters are encouraged to pick up a dot or two of combat skills”, or “the sisterhood encourages even the gentlest of political activists to be skilled in combat and self defense.” I understand that these Tribal spreads are OOC, but it just feels weird to say that characters encourage “dots”. Otherwise, I think it’s fine to help give some tips on generic character nudgings of a Tribe.
Initial Willpower: Nice change from “Beginning Willpower”.
Background Restrictions: I would actually include “Females and Male Metis only.” Yes, I know it’s not exactly a “Background” in the mechanical sense of the word, but it would be nice to include it in the Mechanical area of the sheet. Either here, or in the “Character Creation” area? While there’s no real Background Restrictions for Black Furies, it would be nice to have somewhere a very brief reason why there WOULD be any for Tribes that have them (“Rat does not approve of his Children to have resources beyond that which they find in their environment”, or the likes; it doesn’t have go be too detailed, but enough to not only give a “reason” but help to understand the relationship between a Tribe and its Totem.
Beginning Gifts, Quote, Stereotypes: All look good to me. If I could think of a way of wording “Beginning” differently with another single word so that it is more easily understood that you don’t get all three, that’d be a great clarification. “Beginning Gift Choices”? or “Beginning Gift: Breath of the Wyld, Man’s Skin, Heightened Senses, Sense Wyrm, or Wyld Resurgence”. The later is probably the best option, as it replaces the “s” in “Gifts” with an “or” before the last choice of a Gift.
http://www.furnation.com/torakhan/main2/ljpics/black-fury-tribal-spread.jpg
Without the inclusion of Camps, or suggested changes, this is an idea of what we’re looking at with a 2-page spread, modeled after the Revised book (the gutters are a bit wider than in the Revised book, but my program was acting up.)
http://www.furnation.com/torakhan/main2/ljpics/black-fury-tribal-spread.jpg
Wow, Torakhan, this is fantastic! Are you sure you’re not working with Rich and the rest of the pack on W20 and hiding this fact from us? 🙂 Anyway, this proves that we don’t have to cut anything, especially the Stereotypes section as some have already suggested (sorry, can’t imagine a cWoD product without those. They’re simply too cool to be omitted.).
Pretty cool mockup!
But actually, it cuts off the bottom half of the picture.
Thanks for the compliments. 🙂
The only thing I cut off was the very bottom bit of the pillar. The foot on the Left is hidden behind the pillar, but it’s not helped by the cut/paste job I did with the number I grabbed. Still with the full-bleed, full-color, some edge-to-edge cropping may occur with these pieces anyways to make them work.
It’s also important to mention that Mari’s arm could change in any position, and that Steve could possibly add in a background (Pegasus) that will change this entirely–this is why I mentioned in another posting that some of these pieces may not even allow for much text-wrapping and text might not even be able to go on one whole page, no matter how “creative” Rich gets, and thus, a 4-page-per-Tribe spread might work out better.(because I think 3 would just be awkward.)
Still, it shows that with a similar lay-out to this, all of the text (as written) would/could fit.
Looks good- what was your type size and leading? Figure looks small for a cool werewolf in Crinos, but the key to that is how all the Tribe figures work together from spread to spread. As for 4 pagers- I’m really against them- a ) the concept of these splat spreads is to present in a simple form the coolness of the splat pictured- when we have kept them to a finite 2-pg spread, the response has been terrific. Once we let them drift longer into 3 or 4 or 6 pages in the past they were no longer focused and a cool thing unto themselves- they were just more text with the first page kind of designed. b) the 2page spread forces the writer and dev to be concise and not redundant (at least it should), which again makes the Tribe that much easier to jump right into. Stereotypes need to be broken- sure, once you know you’re breaking them- that’s the fun part. This s the way all of the Tribe looks- again, fun to look different once you know you’re playing against type.
@Rich: At 8.5″x11″, I’ve used Goudy Old Style at 10 points with standard leading.
I’ve updated the file after I realized that I didn’t have it at full justification, and it modified it a bit more than I was expecting so it added a few extra lines.
Still, it all fits at the moment with this sort of word-wrap, but obviously Steve’s final piece and the size of the spread character on the page will change that.
The size of Mari here is about the same area (if not more) that the other characters in Revised were. But, with such awesome artwork, but the larger it is, the better it’ll look ^.^ At some point though, the actual information has to be the important part of the spread, otherwise it’s just a picture book (that’s tough for me to say since I LOVE the artwork so far!)
And I can see your points about making the pages longer affecting the presence and losing the focus, while shorter areas make the authors distill the information to the minimal necessary. But, still, when the artwork has basically become a whole page unto itself, does reducing 2 pages of information to 1 really make it better, or create the desired effect you’re looking for either? As a personal preference, I wouldn’t mind a 4-page “Spread” with the Tribe’s “Character Creation” rules, especially if a full page is just the name of the tribe and the Steve Prescott artwork, the second page being a description of the tribe, the 3rd page being character creation rules, and 4th being Camps and Stereotypes… but that’s just my own personal thought. 😀
The other options, I suppose is either to decrease the leading, or to reduce the font size of the book from 10pt. to 9pt, or less (personally, I have pretty good vision, so I don’t mind even 8pt type 😉 )
But, we haven’t seen Steve’s final pieces, nor your own work at laying it out, so I won’t make statements like “this won’t work” or “this will work” because, well, I don’t know those as being facts. ^.^ Plus, you guys get the final say on how it looks anyways. 😀
… again, I did this pretty quick and dirty, so I didn’t do a whole lot of finessing, and the program I’m using (Corel Draw X4) is still having issues with the gutter width, so it isn’t exactly the same, and I’d love to get Stereotypes back to the top, and the character creation back into the same column, but that would depend on reducing the copy, or font size, or image size of Mari, of course. *chuckle*
Sigh.
I never said remove the Stereotypes section. I suggested trimming out the redundant ones that are just rewording the general stereotypes of the Tribe in a different voice. It’s also something WW has done in the past in VtM books where a Bloodline write up might have a stereotype for the major Sects and one or two Clans rather than one for every Clan.
Ethan already also convinced me that having the full 12×13 stereotypes is something worth trying to leave in as a whole and it should be more a matter of making sure they all work well together to avoid some of the issues I’ve had with them in the past.
Also given the slight cropping of the picture (it isn’t really half, some of the bottom is shaded out and goes past the border into the margin) and the fact that Ethan implied earlier than the picture is more likely to be aimed at being a full 1/2 page spread, that would mean the text probably isn’t going to fit without a bit of trimming.
My only real gripe about the Basics write up is that I would loved to see a little bit on younger Furies trying to get the Tribe to change. It’s always bugged me that a Tribe dedicated the defending the Wyld was so.. stagnant.
As for saying Word Count, I think eliminating the character creation section would be perfectly acceptable. All that information will appear elsewhere anyway.
Tribal stereotypes are a double edged sword. One one hand, yeah it’s gives you an idea how Tribes view each other, but on the other, players tend to treat stereotypes as the gospel truth. Which makes it exceptionally difficult to play “against type.”
Finally, I think replacing the Appearance section with a Pure Breed write up would be more useful. Pure Breed was always one of those traits that cause arguments. You could have four players, each having four different opinions of how Pure Breed worked. Is it mystical? Genetic? Do adoptees still not have “Pure Breeding”?
So instead of giving a “this is what the average Fury looks like,” give us a section of what Pure Breed Furies look like. After all, Tribes are Global now, a Fury born in San Francisco could look Asian rather then Greek.
And let’s be honest.. don’t ALL Garou characters end up looking like fitness models anyway?
The Character Creation section could go, sure. The Tribes’ stereotypes/general character is pretty clear from their descriptive text, there really is no need to insist on it further in a separate section.
Replacing the Appearance with a Pure Breed section would be a great improvement. That is how I always thought of it anyway, since most Tribes these days come from all over. Having the appearance of Pure Breed differ for each of the Tribes is essential though, and enlightening as to how exactly the Garou detect it.
Werewolf is full of stereotypes and racism, so trying to homogenize tribes with our modern thinking is just wrong. I think this entry doesn’t reinforce the stereotypes enough, and begins to lead us towards a “carebear” Black Fury tribe.
But you could just blend the stereotyping into the main paragraph instead of create a separate part for it. Just make sure you press the man hate with them, and make sure you press all the other bigotry with the other tribe’s spreads as well. I’ve seen too many Black Furies played as nice girls and victims who just pack up with Get of Fenris or other shit they should have their hate on for, and rarely see them played as they should be.
Thanks for your feedback, but “played as they should be” is the domain of the individual player to decide. It’s completely and utterly uncool for us to mandate that there is a “doing it right” way to play a member of a tribe, particularly if we tell players that playing characters they identify with (for example: not bigots, not cartoony stereotypes) is Bad Wrong Fun.
Players get to interpret the tribes as they want. If they want to be the bigoted throwbacks, they’re welcome to: but if they want to be werewolves who grew up exposed to modern ideas and are more focused on fighting the Wyrm than each other, that’s part of the game as well. At no point do I intend to force them away from that.
While I disagree with Jacob’s assertion that the write-up makes the Black Furies look like carebears (I thought the write-up was, over-all, excellent), as someone who is almost ALWAYS the storyteller, I can empathize with his point about tribe stereotypes. Players certainly should have the freedom to play their characters as they see fit, but we as storytellers also have a vision of how we see these characters fitting into the stories that we are crafting. I, personally, try to be as accommodating as possible to players during character creation. If you are going to be the rare Red-Talon that doesn’t hate humanity, hey I’ll allow that, but you have to tell me why. Not just “I don’t know, he’s just more accepting than the rest of them.” Help me out. Make it interesting. We’re trying to tell a story here.
Anyway my main point was that I actually agree with Jacob’s point that the tribes shouldn’t be homogenized just to make it easier to have an all inclusive pack of tribes X, Y, and Z. However, for the most part I don’t think this particular write-up is an example of that. I think it portrays the Furies as how I pretty much remember them to be from previous iterations of WtA.
There has been talk already of the Camps being included in the book, so the “alternate outlooks/motivations within the Tribes” will be represented. They won’t have a “Tribe by Tribe Stereotypes”, but they will give some of those “Outside of the normal thinking of the Tribe” thinking included in them, I’m sure. 🙂
Personally, I don’t care at all for the tired old depiction of the entire Black Fury tribe as man-hating evil straw feminists. It’s just a tired rehash of the common stereotype of bra-burning butch sexist lesbian feminists that so many Americans are hung up on.
There are plenty of sexist bitches in the tribe, and the camps have a place in bringing out that diversity. To declare you have to treat the entire tribe like some idiotic strawman representation of feminism would be a great detriment to ghe game. If that’s all they were, they’d probably be my least favorite tribe, instead of my most favorite.
I think the biggest issue here is that there is a difference between how the tribe members usually think, and what a stereotype is.
A Red Talon usually dislikes humans, however I don’t think every single one will behave exactly the same about them or have same reasons hating them. You don’t have to like humans to tolerate them while your pack is on a mission in the city, for example.
What Jacob’s post to me meant was that it would be wrong if a Red Talon even tolerated a human for a second, because that’s what the stereotype says they should do. They are a Red Talon, so they should do X because they are a Talon. Not because personal reasons X and Y which would add to the character.
While I agree with you 95% here, I also have to point out two things.
1. Animism & Religion belief: In the case of Red Talons, their Totem is “hate the humans to death” so, they’d not be likely to be tolerant in any way to humans… or they’d just not be accepted by Griffin and just plain wouldn’t be Talons. A character could be born into the talons and then had to go to another tribe, or hell, he may even be Red Talon have gotten a change of heart and now get an hearfull from Griffin for straying from the path. But, that guy is a rare exception, not every Talon you meet as it tends to be in games over here.
2. Exceptions: As above, it may be different in other places, but around here, it seems people just won’t accept that for exceptions to be exceptions, you need to have some of the characters be by the book. Diversity is good, I’ll never say it enough, but a lot of people I know always try to play the “unique” thing, the exception, the special one… so much so that there’s usually not a single character that actually fits the generalisation. I think there are a tons of ways to make characters be interesting through quirks and a good story while remaining as by the book as possible. I guess my point is, our experiences diverge in the way that we seem to each have the reverse problem the other one has. Essentially, too much of either one isn’t good. Balance between both should be the aim.
That’s the same problem that I was trying to get at….every one wants to play the exception to the rule. Yeah, not everyone is going to be the same, but if your splat material and flavor text doesn’t reinforce the stereotypes, it gives more fuel to the “Special Snowflakes” who can then say “LOOK the books says I can be different!!!”
Everyone wants to be special, but I’ve found that the people who actually play up the stereotypes are more special than the Special Snowflakes are, because they are FAR fewer than the Snowflakes.
You say that the splat material and camps is where you put the hardliners, but shouldn’t the core description be the primary stereotypes?
In the end, if the core book doesn’t push the stereotypes, what will?
“Played as they should be” is a big reason why most people claim Red Talons and Wendigo are unplayable or only for NPC use. If the books paint them as unable to get along with other tribes -at all-, they are not going to be played because most groups do want to be diverse rather than limited.
Red Talons would have a very good position as balance point for Glass Walkers, if they would have members who are not stereotypical human hating snarlyfaces. If we stick to stereotypes, and that has happened, they are treated little more than relics of old times with dulled teeth that don’t matter anymore more than as high-rage NPCs. I have seen some great Talons being played, who did not become burdens to their packs with their tribal issues, yet who still were true to their tribe. It saddens me that most do not see that part of the tribe more often.
Wendigo have a similar problem, where their white-man hate is so emphasised that most players often have trouble bringing them to a mixed pack.
Both of these tribes are in a dire need of moderation that could make them less disliked and more open to players to try. Both have great history and purpose as tribes, but nobody will know if we only see their stereotypes.
In the end, while playing tribal war might be fun, you can get as much out of co-operation between garou from different tribes. And each member is an induvidual with their own opinions and takes on tribal philosophy. Some Silver Fangs who are born in india are not going to think like those born in germany, and that applies to other tribes as well.
And “homogenizing tribes to modern world” is not what is happening. The Garou Nation itself has evolved over time, if slowly but still. The garou born in the 21st century are garou born and raised in a world very different from their parents and they are going to reflect that no matter their tribe. And players who grew up during these years will have their characters come from the era they know, not the date when werewolf was published.
I think it’s true to think that a lot of tribe don’t mix. They’re not supposed to and that’s fine. Setting is important, if an ST starts a LARP game, its his responsability to make the setting logical so that all tribes can join, or to make it clear that in the game’s setting certain tribes are limited (playable only with a logical context).
I would think it extremely sad if all tribes were made to be perfectly mixable. A lot of flavor would be lost. The Talons and Wendigo are amongst my favorite tribes exactly because they are an RP challenge and a bit more alien to play. Also, characters that create problems, as long as its in character, have their place like any other.
I’m not saying they should always perfectly mix. What I meant was that if we go ONLY by stereotypes, tribes like Red Talons and Wendigo will suffer due to their stereotypes being ‘this and that haters’.
Characters who play the opposite from other PCs are fun, but even then there should be so common ground.
In Revised, the “Stereotypes” were given as “Bob the Get of Fenris Plumber speaks about the Other Tribes”, so that it didn’t appear as if it was the entire Tribe’s thoughts, but one of the Tribe’s thoughts, and more easily used, or not used by players, depending on the game and player. 🙂
It’s why I’d like to see that same method used again.
True, I apologize in not being clear myself. I was commenting more on the topic of the people you were quoting than your own comments. But, I agree on your points. Having myself “modernized” werewolf quite a bit for my current Werewolf campaign set in Finland in 2012.
Then again, too much modernizing can mean losing the tribe’s taste. I think you can modernize a part of the wendigo, for exemple, those who follow Evan and wish to bridge the gap between them and the other tribes, but you’d always have some part of the tribe who would see this as heresy and turn even more sour. If you consider that some Wendigo grew with kin in villages that were never seen by white men and have had none of its influence then the age we live in has no influence, same for most Red Talons. Which is good cause then you have both the extremist and the tamer playable version.
And in the case of Red Talons, I don’t think I’d want them modernized anyway, I love these guys the way they are now. But that’s just my opinion, I’m sold to the lupus if that wasn’t already plainly obvious.
Oh and does anyone else think that “tribal spreads” sounds incredibly dirty… and awesome?
The Black Fury spread is a delicious tzaziki-and-feta based substance, very good with pita chips.
Bone Gnawer spread is a packet of Velveeta warmed up by someone sitting on it, with some chopped Vienna Sausages.
I leave the other 11 to you guys as a mental exercise.
The Black Fury spread actually sounds really good!
I’ve been sitting here for the last half hour trying to come up with another good one, though, but the best I could do was something about the Stargazers and lots of curry.
The Fenrir spread is made out of pickled, fermented, rotting fish. There are no other ingredients.
A wendigo spread; red northern berries, smashed and raw all natural no sugar added 🙂
Reply to Yiodan:
“Werewolf campaign set in Finland in 2012. ”
Oh, you are Finnish? Cool, so am I ^^
“And in the case of Red Talons, I don’t think I’d want them modernized anyway, I love these guys the way they are now. But that’s just my opinion, I’m sold to the lupus if that wasn’t already plainly obvious.”
I don’t want Talons modernized, what I meant was that the middle ground between human hugging friend and human eating cannibal Talon ahroun should be brought up more.
And lupus and especially Red Talons are often in books suggested to go into what I call a ‘Lupus dramaqueen’ mode. There, they will refuse to shift out of lupus at all, only want fresh kill and lands. They won’t shift to homid in the cities etc. And that is one of the things I really hate about their stereotypes.
Look, for example, at Storm Eye, she might not LIKE humans, but she can understand her packmates none the less. She will take homid when she needs to on her own accord, and she will do her job as an philodox. This is the kind of middle-ground Talon I think should be brought up more in spreads.
Because to me, Talons who are able to hold a civil discussion will serve as a great counterpoint and counter arguers to Glass Walkers, which I think the game really needs. To show that the wolf tribe is not a remnant or useless or filled only with raging cannibals, but a tribe of garou who intimately KNOW the wilds. And can prove their worth as well as any garou.
Actually, sorry if I’m bursting your bubbles, but i’m not Finnish. I’m canadian, from Québec to be more precise. I wanted to set my Chronicle in Europe because I wanted to delve deeper into “proper politics” which I find to be more easily definable in Europe where tribes mix less and are “purer” to form. More and more, I started to think Scandinavia would make for a nice spot because I really like the Get and many of my players do too. It had just so happened that I’d gotten my hands on “Rage Across Russia” and “A World of Rage” which helped me a lot in fleshing out my setting and deciding exactly where would be best for the stories I wanted to tell. South Finland was also a good enough fit for the weather, flora and fauna we have in Quebec (it’s a LARP game and we play in the woods). Long story short, our Septe is North-East of Joensuu, near the border to Russia.
I could tell you all about it, but i’d be sure to get carried away. I did a lot of reasearch into tons of garou Sourcebook to bring the setting up to date in 2012 taking into account many tribe’s unfinished story arcs and continuing them and I’m quite proud of the results. So, i’ll stop there, cause I could go on forever and this blog is about W20 🙂
Replying here because I can’t to the post itself.
“2. Exceptions: As above, it may be different in other places, but around here, it seems people just won’t accept that for exceptions to be exceptions, you need to have some of the characters be by the book. ”
Thing is, how is a character being an exception if they do share the tribal hatered, behaviour,etc. But are still not as extreme as the streotype says?
I don’t think that a stereotype is bad initially. I gets bad if the player is unable to bring anything personal to the character and is in essence playing someone else’s character instead of his own.
Eh, maybe it’s my definition about the word, but to me stereotype means literally the most cliche and hardcore version of the tribe. A Get Ahroun homid who wields a hammer and is covered in scars. The kind that looks good on the cover, but is essentially just an example.
You step out of the stereotype by simply picking a non-common auspice for the tribe. A Strider ahroun, a Get Theurge etc. Are they exceptions as well?
I do not beleive so. In fact, that’s a wonderful exemple of doing exactly what I say, quirk up a character while staying in the mold. A sterotypical Get Theurge is very different from a sterotypical Ahroun Get, and is almost never played. You get to see a new side of the tribe, which is a quirk by nature that it’s seldom represented, but it’s still “by the book” if you try and learn about how the Get typically deal with Spirits and keep people in line spiritually and then try to portrait that in a character with a personality all his own.
I’ll post this again here because where it previously was is hard to miss:
How about sections for Lupus and Metis in the tribal spreads? Very often, when you look up at the information on lupus in the tribes the info you get is “We don’t have many, and this is what we do to fix it”, but it doesn’t really cover how they see the tribe from the inside, and how their homid counterparts see them. Even in the book “Ways of the Wolf” that’s often what you get. It’s interesting, but it doesn’t help me portray them. Considering that 90% of the page is about the homid side of the tribe, the lupus and metis can be short paragraphs that build on that information to make it short straight to the point paragraphs.
May be something along the lines of:
Lupus: Female Lupus of the Black Furies care less about the politics behind homid male/female domination and usually consider that once submission has been given to someone that some is your boss, regardless of gender. However, their unique views of the world, high gnosis and instinctual understanding of the wilder places of the world make them rare but extremely valuable for a tribe who often lives and dies in the name of protecting those last few remaining locations.
Metis: (Coming up later, my break is over)
I wrote that lupus part fast so it came out with a few mistakes, but I think the gist of it is there.
“Metis: Most Black Furies have one of two extreme and very opposed views regarding metis childs. Some view their incapacity to give life as insults to several prominent elements of the tribe’s spirituality while others see them as children who lucked out and still deserves to be loved, protected and cared for. As a result, Metis tend to grow up loved by some members of the sept and despised by others developping all the appropriate psycological scars that may come with it. While female metis are considered women in their own rights they are, however, secluded from all rites related to motherhood and fecundity to avoid insulting spirits.”
Disclaimer: These are just examples to give an idea of what I mean to suggest. I intend no disrespect to anyone by going so far as to write them. I do not mean to presume anything, I am merely saying that this is the kind of info I would like to find in a core book to represent the demographic of players who try to role play breeds other than homid.
Thank you for listening.
This, very much so. I could understand if the writers assume all the lupus and metis share their homid tribe mates’ opinions, but some tribe books leave that out as well.
Best example of a tribe explaining their lupus came from Shadow Lords rev. where they dedicated a page for it and discussed how their lupus adjust to it.
It’s a very solid concept, an excellent idea, and one that… does kind of the opposite of trying to get maximum information without expanding word count.
I think our “this would be nice” option would be to flat-out talk about breeds in a Breeds: paragraph — most of the elements of tribal philosophy should be breed-agnostic, and I wouldn’t want to do “Lupus:” and “Metis:” without also doing “Homid:” We also have to be careful about examples, though: if Fury lupus don’t really care about the gender politics, for instance, that would require more than a simple line to explain “So how do you play a Black Fury that is uninterested in the most striking ambition of the tribe?” Sort of like Get lupus that don’t believe in glory in battle — it’s a feasible approach, but it requires a lot more space to discuss “So what makes this character Get, instead of just a generic lupus character with Get Gifts?” It might just be simpler to talk about how the human-specific politics of a tribe are filtered through a lupus viewpoint in general terms in the Breeds section. Not nearly as accurate, of course — but to do these concepts justice we might be getting into Tribebook-levels of detail.
Besides, if you do one breeds paragraph instead of one per, you have to be very careful with your word count — thus not wasting space on “metis are sometimes liked and sometimes viewed with contempt” or other stuff that’s true of most tribes, but rather only bringing up the breeds when you’re talking about specific tribal exceptions to the generalities described in the breeds section earlier in the chapter.
The “this may be what the word count demands” option would be to simply incorporate breed-specific exceptions into the overall text. Where you talk about how male metis are kept, that can lead into a line about the status of metis in general. I’ll see how feasible each of these approaches is.
“We also have to be careful about examples, though: if Fury lupus don’t really care about the gender politics, for instance, that would require more than a simple line to explain “So how do you play a Black Fury that is uninterested in the most striking ambition of the tribe?” ”
Thing is, wolf gender roles are not like human ones. Female wolves are much more in control and are far more likely to dominate and beat lower ranking wolves down than males. If a lupus comes from a life where females really aren’t as disadvantage, what then IS the reason they are part of the tribe?
Many other reasons, Furies are close to the Wyld, they are spiritual or it could simply be the lupus feeling connection to the anti-abuse fight. Or simply, that’s where their Purebreed is.
Well, the obvious reason is “they were born to Black Furies/Fury Kin.” But I think it’s also fair to assess that lupus Furies probably don’t undergo a First Change, learn about the world from their mentors, and then say “eh, humans are dumb, let them beat up their females.” Here we’re talking about tribal culture as a whole, and I do worry that although it’s worth pointing out that lupus don’t come from the same sort of unequal backgrounds, it’s probably not worth trying to devise an entire subsection of Black Fury philosophy with the gender politics excised just to describe their viewpoint.
That said, I’m starting to worry about overthinking this. Addressing the different perspective of breeds is good: but a lot of the fun of Werewolf is letting players discover interesting combinations like “Black Fury lupus Ragabash” on their own, and then decide what that means rather than looking up the “Ragabash” and “Lupus” sections in the Black Fury tribal spread.
I agree with you on the discovery aspect 100%, however I’ve had a lot of experiences with people assuming certain things for certain splats. It is hard to explore lupus, when you are given basically a guide what you can’t do that is for all lupus no matter the tribe. Which is why I think it would be good to have sentences that discuss their side too.
Yeah, I don’t mean to say we shouldn’t talk briefly about the status of all breeds within a tribal spread. I think it’ll have to be sparse — something like “Lupus Furies have less of an immediate connection to the hardships of human women, as female wolves have no real discrimination to bear, but they are deeply tied to the Wyld and learn great empathy for their human and homid sisters.”
Thank you for considering this. However brief it may be, it does cover all the surface wolf issue and (unsurprisingly) it’s much better written than my example to boot :).
If I may suggest, should there be some, I’d love to see their perspectives expanded in relevant theoretical future books. If I may explain: May be i’m wrong to see it this way, but to me “lupus” or “metis” isn’t just a template to put over “Black Fury”, it’s a entire new part of the tribe which is just as diverse, unique and complex as the human side. Not only that, but the mingling of all three brings its own brand of politics, leading to conflicts or cooperation within a tribe. And with that comes solid role playing for players and strong potencial story hooks for STs.
For exemple, I can easily see some expanding relating to wildly diverging priorities between the Lupus and Homid breeds within the tribe. Namely, protecting Women VS protecting the Wyld. Potencially leading STs to introduce a story bringing lupus and homids at each other’s throats as each becomes the champion of one facet of the tribe’s goals. Homids insisting the tribe should focus on helping women and lupus insisting the tribe should remain away from the cities and focus on the dying Wild.
Once more, thanks for this exchange of ideas. It’s a very real pleasure to have these conversations with all of you.
I can’t say as to what the future holds for more Werewolf books, Yiodan, but what you describe is the kind of detail I think is perfect for a splatbook. I love detailing internal struggles in an organization, but within a splatbook you can really do all the detail without conveying the message that internal struggle is the primary thing the group is concerned with. (Especially for Werewolf, which has what I’d call the best external struggle in the WoD.)
Entirely with you there.
Indeed. Thanks for the backup 🙂
Think nothing of it, I love the non-homid breeds a lot, especially lupus. Sadly, the most common thing you get about lupus is ‘it’s a wolf’ rather than ‘it’s a feral member of this and that tribe’. Some books assume they cannot adapt, some say they can. But still, lupus are found among GWs and Gnawers too, so to me that means they definetly can learn and adapt to life beyond that of a wolf.
Besides, life as a garou means you must think and do things wolves wouldn’t anyway.
I agree… on all of that. 🙂
I tend to refer to the Red Talons for this. As they put it, they have a wolf heart and a human mind from the moment they change. From that point on, all Lupus can evolve in a countless ways and most will force them to grow beyond the basic life of a wolf. But the life it knew, will always color his perceptions and priorities. For exemple, It may forever always have trouble thinking ahead or focusing on the past and always be more focused on reacting to the now. It probably won’t think much ofthe humans ways just as most homids tend to think lupus plans are stupid (usually because they tend not consider things like cops, casualties, consequences and such).
I’ve all kinds of lupus concepts, most try volontarily to stick to the ways of the wolf because they honestly think it’s the right path, but I’ve also some that find lupus or tribal reasons to become interested in others things or evolve beyond it. Some are froced to do so by story events.
Especially in the case of Bone Gnawers or Glass walkers, you just can’t get around it often.
Yeah, and also there are two other factors that make it clear lupus just cannot be wolves.
Age&NPCs- Look at some lupus NPCs found in tribe books (miiiinus that one in CoG rev.), they are definetly not just wolves or in any way only reliant on their wolf half. Storm Eye had a whole character arc exactly about the want to be just a wolf and being a warrior to Gaia.
It is also one huge sticking point on some sites. I’ve seen sites where you are outright told that lupus will never learn anything beyond basic garou things due being feral children. Yet, a lot of NPCs found in WtA are quite savvy on some human things.
Besides, I’m pretty sure no non-Talon sept would let a lupus cub go to their Rite of Passage these days, without a basic spiel how to not break the veil.
Rage- Book of Auspices ahroun section brought up a good point on Rage, it’s not natural to wolves. Human have anger similar to Rage, but wolves don’t. A lupus will have to deal with a new emotion that is stronger than most.
And, if they were just wolves, they would attack every bush and hedgehog, because they could not tell difference between them and real targets. A concious mind is needed to temper Rage into a tool.
Indeed. I also remember reading about things like how Garou deal with actual wolves kin. It mentioned keeping them far because just being with them would change them because they’d have to deal with things they’re not supposed to (like the curse and being dominated by a creature that doesn’t quite “act right” due to rage and such).
Where there seems to be a lull in the on-topic developmental stuff, so I’m going to take the opportunity to wander a bit.
Rich’s V20 Kickstarter update confirmed that there is, in fact, going to be a Grand Masquerade event this year (and a Grand Masquerade/Moot version of W20 to go along with it).
Rich, if you’re reading this, is there any indication (even a general time frame) of when that will be taking place? Also- New Orleans again, or somewhere else?
For everyone else- Anybody planning on going? I definitely want to make it down there, but will most likely be coming alone. I wouldn’t mind networking with some other hardcore, passionate WtA fans while I’m down (up?) there.
Oh yeah. Me and a bunch of my friends plan to go. Since French Canadians, we wanna play a bunch of Wendigos 🙂
So, yes, please, can we get an update on this?
(That was meant to be an answer to Matt, sorry)
I would verymuch like to see a shining silver line with the Black Furies that states simply:
At the kernel of the tribe, beyond the reactionary feminism, beyond their Totem being a maybe-castrated-male-turned-social-female (as hinted in the first or revised tribe book), beyond the touchy feely 90s white witchdom and sisterhoodedness, the tribe came about and persisted because they represent the primordial female. Whatever rationale that takes, whatever way different cultures perceive or interpret that, whatever culture the Black Furies find themselves in (patriarchal or matriarchal,) they represent the female struggle. Not against men. Just for significance.
Also, would it be in any way possible for the tribe to have an answer to the question of transexuality? Would Pegasus reject a transexual MtF due to chromosomes?
I get asking that question might make for bad feelings, no matter the answer. But.. I question it, all the same. It could come up, and it’s one of those calls that could divide game groups. If only to add a little something acknowledging this unusual question.