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Tribal Gifts

Level One

Declamation

Source: WW3852 - Bone Gnawers Revised p. 67

Description: By spending at least an hour studying a written text, the Garou can memorize vast passages of information word for word. The effects work like a cross between speed-reading and eidetic memory. Actually understanding or accessing the information is difficult, but repeating it by rote is simple. Lupus Garou cannot learn this Gift, but remarkably enough, illiterate homids can; for the Gift’s duration, they can decipher all sorts of “funny little squiggles” on paper. The Garou must be fluent in speaking the language he is reading.

This Gift is often taught by Rat Finks and Frankweilers. Rat Finks use this Gift to transfer sensitive information in a format that’s difficult to steal. Frankweiler Galliards use this Gift repeatedly on their favorite plays and novels. This Gift is taught by a bookworm-spirit, a favorite Gaffling of Frankweilers.

System: 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.

Desperate Strength

Source: WW3852 - Bone Gnawers Revised p. 67

Description: In times of great trauma, desperate people have displayed amazing feats of strength and endurance. With a burst of adrenaline, a mother can lift a truck off a pinned child, or a father may smash through a wall to save his family. Through strength of will, a Bone Gnawer may channel that same desperate energy. If another packmate has fallen or been captured, the Garou may use this hideous strength in a desperate effort to help his pack.

System: After rolling on the Feats of Strength table, the Garou can burn a point of Willpower and roll one die for each Health Level he has remaining. For each success he can take an extra level of aggravated damage to increase his number of successes by one; he does not need to trade all of his successes in this fashion.

Smell of Success

Source: WW3852 - Bone Gnawers Revised p. 65

Description: You’re good at sizing people up. With a few sniffs, you can smell how successful someone really is. Even on a bad day, you can sense whether he’s got money in his pocket, a steady job, or a place to stay. When passing by street folk begging for change, some people claim they don’t have anything to give. By repeatedly sizing up people on the street, Bone Gnawers learn to distinguish a real bad-luck case from a cheap bastard who doesn’t give a damn. After mastering this elemental talent, the Garou can then sniff out deeper secrets from passers-by.

This insight can also be used on people who beg for food, money, or assistance from the Garou; for instance, Hoods use this ability to distinguish someone who really needs help from a scam artist. Either way, this Gift is taught by a rat-spirit, usually while the student sits on a street corner asking for help over and over again; the rat gets a cut of any handouts during the time of training.

System: Spend one Gnosis and roll Perception + Streetwise (difficulty 6). Pick a person within about a city block you can see. One success reveals one of the following facts: whether the person has money in his pocket, whether he has a job, or whether he has a home (your choice). Three successes either answer all three questions or give more detailed information about one of them: how much money he’s got on him, what his occupation is, and what kind of place he lives in.

If you score five successes, some telltale clue also reveals more specific information. With spiritual insight, you can narrow down four or five choices of where his home may be, what company he works for, or the last item he just bought. Specific information may come as a vision of facts whispered by a helpful Gaffling. (“Guess what a little rat told me.”) Alternatively (at the Storyteller’s discretion), it can reveal the number of dots a character has in his Resources Background.

This Gift may be unreliable on creatures other than humans. Most supernatural creatures can resist this ability with Willpower (difficulty 6) or Perception + Subterfuge (difficulty 7). If a supernatural creature is impersonating someone else (say, with the Obfuscate Discipline or the Doppleganger Gift), you must beat the number of successes on the initial roll for that talent. Figuring out a vampire’s haven or where he draws his financial resources takes a bit of work, but it can be done.

The Hungry Hound

Source: WW3852 - Bone Gnawers Revised p. 65

Description: A Garou with this Gift can hunt down the closest source of discarded, safe, edible food. The user might find a bag of nacho puffs dropped out of a passing car window or the one perfect warm slice of cheese pizza buried at the bottom of a dumpster. The Gift may also reveal people who are willing to give a handout or spare some munchies. The Hungry Hound reveals food that’s available for free. For instance, it won’t automatically detect the hot dogs in a vendor’s cart, but if the man selling them would be happy to give one away to a hungry-looking wolf-dog, the chance of finding them improves considerably. This Gift is taught by a raccoon-spirit, often in exchange for liberating a few choice treasures the spirit really wants.

System: Roll Perception + Primal-Urge (difficulty 7). One success produces an unremarkable snack. More successes can either uncover more food (like a feast of discarded donuts or cold pizza) or tastier food (like a single heavenly untouched eclair). This Gift is somewhere between a specialized version of hunting and the lupus Gift: Sense Prey. A successful roll means that the scent of tantalizing food has just wafted past the werewolf’s nose. Three successes and a couple of sniffs can give more details about the “prey,” even from a great distance. (“Wait! It smells like… a birthday cake… there’s writing on it…”)

The Mark

Source: WW3852 - Bone Gnawers Revised p. 67

Description: The Garou can mark a person or place with a scent only other werewolves can sense. The mark is subtle; placing it isn’t. This Gift is taught by lost-dog-spirits.

System: Using this Gift requires one Gnosis and a stream of the Garou’s urine. The Garou must use his own fluids to mark his victim. Any Garou with at least one dot in Primal-Urge can sense the mark within line of sight. With three dots in Primal-Urge, the Garou can sense it up to a mile away. If the user of this Gift has five dots in Primal-Urge, he always knows where the mark is. The effects last for twelve hours, then persist until the following sunset or sunrise (whichever comes first).

Urban Ward

Source: WW3852 - Bone Gnawers Revised p. 66

Description: If your home has no walls, sleeping can be a nightmare. There’s no guarantee that someone won’t sneak up on you to steal your stuff… or even take your life. Some werewolves solve this problem by sleeping in packs, but it never hurts to take extra precautions. Rural Garou set twigs and branches that easily snap underfoot; Bone Gnawers rig the same warnings with tin cans, tripwires, or even broken glass. With a little mystical aid, a werewolf can enlist spirits in similar defenses. The werewolf can never be sure exactly where the boundary of the urban ward is set but he may be paranoid enough to spend more time setting multiple layers of trash around his encampment. This Gift is taught by a Rat-spirit, who usually warns its student to always collect trash and shy things for just this purpose.

System: By spending one Gnosis, a Bone Gnawer can ward an area against intrusion. The “area” can be anywhere between the size of a room and the size of a building. Trash is set around the periphery, usually junk that makes noise when its disturbed. If anyone crosses this imaginary boundary, the Bone Gnawer hears the spirits scream a silent warning to him. This ward remains in effect for eight hours (or in some cases, from dusk ’til dawn).

The Storyteller secretly rolls the characters Wits + Enigmas (difficulty 6). Any supernatural creature attempting to use its powers to overcome the Urban Ward (for instance, with the vampire Discipline: Obfuscate) must score more successes on its roll to activate the proper supernatural power than the Garou did. For more mundane creatures, like humans, crossing the boundary automatically warns the Garou, who may consciously decide whether to wake up. If the trespasser is also using Stealth the sleeping Garou can make an opposed Perception + Alertness roll without penalty, as if he was awake. Creatures that “teleport” in by means of Gifts such as Shadow Step still count as having crossed the boundary; instantaneous passage through the Umbra is still Umbral passage across the boundary.

Kitchen Chemistry

Source: WW3852 - Bone Gnawers Revised p. 67

Description: With ten minutes, a bit of rage, and everyday household chemicals, you can unleash a firestorm of vengeance against an uncaring world. You have a deep and instinctive understanding of the principles of modern chemistry, one that allows you to scratch-build and detonate explosives. (This Gift exists to cancel out the need for any sort of “realistic” explosive rules in the game.) Rat-spirits teach this Gift, occasionally with the help of a few furtive cranks on the internet.

System: One scene. One Rage. At least three household kitchen chemicals approved by the Storyteller. The Result? An explosion inflicting an amount of aggrevated damage equal to the character’s permanent Rage. Detonating the explosives properly is the difficult part.

At the end of the scen 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 teo 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.