Helen Shepherd/Gifts

Helen is a rank 1 (Cliath), Fallen Children of Gaia - Black Spiral Dancer; Homid, Philodox

Level 1 Gifts

• Call the Breeze - The Garou calls up a strong (20 mpg), cold breeze and directs it at whim. This breeze chills anyone not prepared for it, and it disperses (or redirects) clouds of vapor (including tear gas or airborne toxins) or swarms of insects. A wind-spirit teaches this Gift. System: The Garou simply whistles to call the breeze. Anyone caught in it loses one die from Perception rolls as long as the breeze lasts.

• Declamation - After the Garou spends one Gnosis, he can repeat, word for word, anything he reads over the next eight hours. As a rough guideline, the Garou can read about a hundred pages in an hour; each time he “studies,” he must concentrate for at least an hour. As a side effect, for the duration of the Gift, the user can add one die to any one Knowledge-based dice pool related to the information. Repeating the information word for word can take hours; however, a second Garou with the Gift: Mindspeak can sift through the information in the Gift user’s head in one scene if he doesn’t resist. A supernatural creature can try to steal this information with a mind reading ability (such as the vampire Discipline: Telepathy or an application of a mage’s Mind sphere). If this happens, the Garou can resist with a contested Willpower roll (difficulty 4) in addition to any other defense he would normally have against the ability.

• Hidden Killer - After a battle, the Garou must lick each wound she inflicted once. The player spends one Gnosis point and rolls Intelligence + Stealth (difficulty 7). If the roll succeeds, the wounds alter themselves so that they resemble stabbing wounds rather than bite marks, and any hair, saliva, blood or other physical evidence from the werewolf’s body disappears. Any peripheral damage (smashed furniture, for example) remains as it was, however.

• Kitchen Chemistry - One scene. One Rage. At least three household kitchen chemicals approved by the Storyteller. The Result? An explosion inflicting an amount of aggravated damage equal to the character’s permanent Rage. Detonating the explosives properly is the difficult part. At the end of the scene in which the chemicals are cooked, the character attempts an Intelligence + Science roll (difficulty 6). With one success, the explosives will detonate at the specified date and time. Three successes allow them to be thrown (Dexterity + Athletics, distance equal to the Garou’s Strength in yards) or triggered by remote (line of sight). Five successes allow for a complex trigger, such as a timed matchbox fuse, trip wire, weight-sensative pressure plate, or sound of a particular television personality’s voice. On a botch, of course, the bomb goes off in the Garou’s face.

• Master of Fire - This Gift allows a werewolf to heal fire damage as if it were bashing. This requires the expenditure of a Gnosis point; the effects last for a scene.

• Mercy - The player spends one Gnosis point. For the rest of the scene, all damage that the Garou inflicts with her own body (claws and teeth, but no weapons of any kind) is considered bashing. A creature “killed” by such damage merely falls unconscious, and he may heal the wounds at the usual rate for bashing damage.

• Mother's Touch - The player spends one Gnosis point and rolls Intelligence + Medicine (difficulty of the wounded individual’s Rage, or 6 for non-Garou). Each success heals one health level. The Garou may heal even Battle Scars in this manner if the garou uses the Gift in the same scene in which the scar was obtained and she spends a second Gnosis point. There is no limit to how many times this Gift may be used on a person, but each use requires the expenditure of one Gnosis.

• Open Seal - The player rolls Gnosis (difficulty of the local Gauntlet rating).

• Rains of Mercy - The Garou spends one point of Gnosis. By the end of the day, rain pours down in an area around the garou. The size of this area depends on the garou's rank; it affects a radius of 15 minutes’ walk for each Rank the garou has achieved, so an Athro can affect a region one hour’s walk in radius from his location. This Gift cannot summon harsh storms, but does produce a heavy downpour.

• Resist Pain - The player spends one Willpower point; his character may ignore all wound penalties for the rest of the scene.

• Resist Toxin - The player rolls Stamina + Survival. Success nullifies the effects of most conventional poisons, and adds three dice to the Garou’s Stamina for purposes of resisting Wyrm-enhanced poisons. The effects last for the scene.

• Scent of Running Water - The difficulties of all rolls to track the Garou increase by two. This Gift becomes an innate ability to the Garou who learns it. She need not expend any points or make any rolls. However, the Garou may still leave a scent behind if she decides to do so voluntarily (which may be necessary to blend in with wolf packs).

• Scent of True Form - The Garou can tell automatically when someone is a werewolf; anything else requires a Perception + Primal-Urge roll. It takes two successes to detect vampires, faeries or other shapeshifters as such, and it takes four to detect fomori or mages.

• Smell of Man - All wild animals (not including supernatural creatures in animal form) lose one die from their dice pools when within 20 feet of the Garou (save when defending themselves or running away), and they are likely to flee. All domesticated animals recognize the werewolf as a friend and refuse to harm him. For example, an attack-trained dog ordered to take down the werewolf would run up to the character and wag its tail. If the domesticated animal is harmed, then it will revert to acting naturally. The Garou may use this Gift at will. She wimply states when she is activating it or turning it off.

• Spirit Speech - Once learned, this Gift allows the Garou to understand the communication of spirits intuitively. Particularly alien spirits may be difficult — or, in the case of many Banes, outright painful — to understand.

• Swallow Rage - When the Garou falls into frenzy, the player may make a reflexive Rage roll, difficulty 7; this Rage roll, unlike others, cannot in itself induce frenzy. Even one success on this roll immediately brings the werewolf out of frenzy. However, each success does one health level of lethal damage to the Garou, and reduces her temporary Rage by a similar amount. The player must decide at the moment of entering frenzy whether to use this Gift or not; once the Garou has fully succumbed to frenzy, she cannot focus enough to use this Gift.

• Toxic Claws - This Gift requires the expenditure of one Rage point and a turn of full concentration. For the remainder of the scene, the Dancer’s claws inflict an additional die of damage and leave residual Wyrm-taint on anything she slashes.