laws of the wild (revised)

7/23/2019 Laws of the Wild (Revised)

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Regaining

inosis

You can regain Gnosis in one of a number of ways:

Spend 1 minutes out of game in meditation, reflecting the time you take to

renew your connections to Gaia which doesn’t mean sitting under a tree and picking

your teeth). Then you may spend one of your Meditation Ability Traits or Mental Traits

to recover one Gnosis Trait. You must already possess the Meditation Ability in order

to perform this feat.

You may participate in the Sacred Hunt, one of the most frequently performed

activities at Garou moots. It is a ritual performed for the good of the people and the

caem, in which an Engling spirit

s

the chosen prey, summoned and then hunted down.

This ritual can be undertaken in either the Umbra or on Earth. After the prey has been

caught and “killed,”all werewolves who take part in the hunt give thanks to the spirit

for the gift of its life. Upon a successful hunt, all participating Garou completely

replenish their Gnosis pools.

There are certain Rites and Fetish powers that can lend temporary Gnosis to

your pool.

Willpower

Willpower Traits measure the strength of your character’s resolve and sense of

self. By exerting your Willpower, you can withstand otherwise untenable conditions

or renew your commitment to a course of action.

Willpower Traits are not described with adjectives. You simply have permanent

Willpower your normal limit of Willpower Traits) and temporary Willpower, your

expendable Traits). Your tribe determines your starting permanent and temporary

Willpower. When you expend temporary Willpower Traits or raise your permanent

Willpower, you regain temporary Traits at a rate of one per game session though your

Storyteller may vary this pace to suit the needs of her game or simplify book-keeping).

Expending a Willpower Trait allows for one of any number of effects, generally

to keep self-determination and to empower difficult or complex actions. Using

Willpower is almost always a reflective action and does not count as your tum.

Willpower Trait can be spent to refresh all of your lost Traits in one Attribute

category hysical, Social or Mental. You may do so once per category per game

session.

Expenditure of a Willpower Trait allows you to gain a retest when defending

against a Mental

or

Social Challenge. Trait loss works as normal for such retests.

Spending one Willpower Trait enables you

to

enter a challenge for which you

lack an appropriate Ability. Thus, you can make a test even if you would normally

require a specific Ability that you don’t have or have used up.

You can spend a Willpower Trait to

try

to control yourself briefly while in

frenzy. You are able to act normally for one turn when you spend a Willpower in this

fashion, though you otherwise keep all the other stipulations of frenzy gnoring

wound penalties and

so

on. You do not actually regain control

so

much as you fight

mightily to direct yourselffor a few moments in the face of overwhelming rage or terror;

roleplay your actions appropriately.

You can expend a Willpower Trait to ignore all wound penalties, up to and

including Incapacitated, for the duration of a

full

turn.

Certain Gifts require the use of Willpower.

11



T mm?-///-

S te p Three Abvantages

1

Now that Cliff has T.J.’s Attributes all banged out, Wendi points him to the

section on Abilities. Cliff notices many that he would like to take, but sticks with the

most fitting to T.J.’s background: Brawl and Melee. Then he takes anotherMelee and

Occult representing his above-average skill with hand-to-hand weapons and his

mystical knowledge within his Cree heritage. He finishes with Athletics, to reflect that

he was doing more through his youth than playing video games. Though his choices

are not as diverse as Cliff would like for

T.J.,

Wendi points out that this reflects his lack

of worldliness that will come with experience and age.

Gifts arenext; this isaplace that Cliff points out to Wendi thatT.1. isveryfocused

on warrior powers.

As a homid Ahroun Uktena, T.J.begins the game with three Basic

Gifts. After looking over the choices available to him, Cliff selects one level from each

of his breed, auspice and tribe: Master of Fire Homid), Razor Claws Ahroun) and

Shroud Uktena).He reasons that these choices are a legacy of his warrior upbringing,

reflecting his narrow scope of education and need for greater experiences to round out

his life.

Wendi notes that Cliff has five levels of Backgrounds to spend on

T.J.

Cliff takes

extra time to think on this part liff decides that

T.J.

s the son of a chief and the

descendent of chiefs.To reflect this, he takes one level ofAncestors, one level of Fetish

and three levels of Pure Breed. Wendi pauses things and asks about the story behind

the level of Fetish. Cliff tells her that the fetish is a weapon that was passed down from

his ancestors to his grandfather, his father and recently to him. Wendi explains that

weapon fetishes are very rare and not available to new characters. Cliff has three

options

hoose another fetish, choose another Background or choose to sock the

point away to be put toward a weapon later on. Cliff decides he wants the instant

gratification, and chooses a different Fetish his is a medicine bag that belonged to

a several-greats grandfather who was also Garou), and contains several small things,

like a shard of an iron pot, a cowrie shell and a small string of wampum. Wendi

approves this, and makes a note to herself that she will sit down with the other

Storytellers to determine what exactly the bag can do.

Now

Cliff

needs to note T.J.’s Renown. Wendi suggests that Cliff might find it

more interesting to come in as a cub, learning about Garou society along with

T.J.,

since he’s new to live-action roleplaying and Apocalypse. Cliff agrees, deciding that

T.J.

had his First Change around 20 which is a little older than usual for most Garou.

T.J.’s beginning Renown will be awarded to him when he completes his Rite of

Passage.

S t e p Four Finishing Couches

Cliff must now record T.J.’s starting Gnosis, Rage and Willpower. Looking at the

breed section on page

7

and sees that homid Garou begin the game

wi th

one Gnosis

Trait. He then skips over to the auspice section and notes that the Ahroun begin the

game with five Rage Traits. Finally he flips to the page with his tribe and sees that

Uktena begin the game with a Willpower of three Traits.

Cliff now has the option to choose Flaws and Negative Traits for his character.

He decides that

T.J.

s Impatient and Condescending- no matter how fast things come

to him, T.J.wants it five minutes ago, and his pride in his native heritage occasionally

translates into

a

distinct dislike of whites or Wyrmcomer Garou Wendi approves,

gleefully thinking about the interesting roleplaying that’s sure to follow that).

Nothing else seems to

sui t T.J.

n this area,

so

Cliff moves on to Flaws next, selecting

2



Strict Carnivore salads ust don’t cut it for

T.J.)

and

Nighmre s

Wendi asks Cliff about

the nature of T.J.’s Nightmares, and Cliff explains that when T.J.was a little boy he

witnessed the slaughter of his father’s pack. Elaborating further, Cliff tells of how T.J’s

desire to lead stems from this incident

.J.

wants the resources that being an alpha

can bring to better aid his quest to destroy the killers. Wendi thinks that the Flaw:

Vengeful might be a good choice with that story, and Cliff agrees, gaining five extra

Traits altogether. Now he has a total of 2 Free Traits in all to spend anywhere on his

character five Free Traits plus

tw

Negative Traits and five Flaw Traits).

First, Cliff adds three more Mental Traits, and picks Attentive, Cunning and

Intuitive, moving up his total to six Traits; T.J.is not

so

fast to fight without a quick

analysis ofhis opponent and surrounding.

T.J.

s also more likely to rise as

a

leader now

that he is a

bit

more thoughtful. Then Cliff decides to take the Merit: Ancestral Mentor

for three points, specifying t as T.J.’sgreat-grandfather Wendi tells

Cliff

that he

will

need to work with one of the Storytellers in creating the specific powers and

knowledges of his Mentor). Finally, Cliff decides that T.J.would attempt to be more

well-rounded all in the name of making a better leader),

so

Cliff raises T.J.’s Gnosis

and Willpower

by

two Traits each, leaving him with no more Free Traits to spend

three points ofTraits, three points for his Merit, four points for two Gnosis Traits and

two points for Willpower Traits).

Wendi checks over the character sheet and affirms the correct amount of points

Cliff has spent, as well as confirming that everything needing explanation has been

done. Cliff is now ready to assume the role of

T.J.

Sampson.

Though Cliffhas completed the skeletonofhis character- Attributes, Abilities,

Gifts, etc.

.J.

s by no means finished. Cliff has to test the waters of the game to

get afeelfor whereT.J. fits socially and physically. D0esT.J. actually havewhat it takes

to play the part of leader, or does his strength lie in upholding previously dictated rules

by

other leaders? His past is obviously important after

Cliff

said that T.J. had

witnessed his father’s murder), but how did it shape

T.J.

himself?

s

revenge a

prominent issue in his life?Does it rule his emotions, or is it the catalyst

to

his battle

against the Wyrm?What clothes does T.J.wear? Does he have an accent? How does

he handle social interaction, such as shaking hands or making eye contact?When he

walks, does he tend slouch, or does he stand up straight?

These are all questions that Cliff will have to answer before and during his time

as

T.J.

Cliffunderstands that

T.J.

still needs more character development, but also sees

that he has done as much as he can do; game play will help him discover more about

the personality of

T.J.

He

s

all ready to go, and soon

T.J.

Sampson will experience the

red-in-tooth-and-claw fight ongoing in a world plagued

by the coming Apocalypse.

3

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