Werewolf House Rules

This page has little content currently, as we work out what HRs are necessary. Please be patient with us in the meantime.

Communication & the High Tongue

  • The W20 Core Rulebook (p.60) describes the High Tongue as a worldwide, multi-form means of communication between werewolves. In order to avoid confusion about which shapeshifters can communicate with which in which forms, we have adopted a slightly modified version of the High Tongue and its origins, and extended its use to all shapeshifters.
  • In TowersMUX canon, the High Tongue was invented by the Mokole, as the oldest of Luna’s children and the first to see a need to communicate with the others. The Garou firmly believe that they are its inventors — they erased the parts of the historical record that would say otherwise after the War of Rage, and there isn’t anyone around now who both remembers the truth and feels up to contradicting them on the subject. The presence of words and phrases that are difficult for Garou to pronounce is rationalized away as an attempt by the creators of the language to teach the young discipline and humility.
  • With the exception of Mokole who have the highest levels of Mnesis, other Fera do not know who invented it. They are, as a rule, highly skeptical of the Garou’s claims to have done so and have their own story (or stories) about who did, but there is no general agreement on the subject even among members of the same type of Fera.
  • All Fera speak what are essentially different dialects of the High Tongue, and can speak it (with greater or lesser facility) in each of their forms. Knowledge of the language costs no points and does not require an entry on the character sheet.
  • Each type of Fera thinks that their own version is the “right” one, each version is mutually comprehensible (sometimes with effort), and each of them sounds “wrong” in some way to other Fera. 
    • Garou always sound rather threatening to other Fera.
    • Mokole sound like extremely literate, intellectual professors of literature, with wide vocabularies, complex sentence structure, and by-the-book pronunciation. (Actual footage of a Silver Fang and Shadow Lord conversing with a Mokole.)
    • Bastet tend to sound like the newly-wealthy upper middle class.
    • Corax sound like working class gossips (or, if taken to a comedic extreme, Monty Python pepperpots.)
    • Rats sound like the urban poor or “underclass”, as appropriate to the location (or the listener).
    • Ananasi sound as though they learned the language from a book, without any help from native speakers. It’s still understandable, but their pronunciation, emphasis, and sentence structure all sound wrong.
    • Gurahl sound like rural farmers — Britishers might compare them with Yorkshiremen.
    • Kitsune sound like they think they’re getting away with something.
    • Nuwisha sound like they’re having trouble holding back laughter.

Gaining Renown and Rank

Please see the separate page on Rank & Renown.

Primal Urge

Primal Urge has specific rules governing its use for the detection of supernatural phenomena. See the page on Awareness for details.

Specific Gifts

Sense Wyrm / Sense Weaver / Sense Wyld

These Gifts allow the Garou to sense that something is somewhere nearby; they do not identify specific individuals as the source of the taint in question, unless the taint is overwhelmingly strong.

Sense Wyrm will note the presence of strongly jhor-tainted mages or Nephandi (difficulty 7), Shadow Court fae (difficulty 7), and Thallain (difficulty 6). Sense Weaver will note the presence of Technocrats, technomancers, and other mages with highly orderly systems of magick (most Hermetics, for instance), at difficulty 7. Sense Wyld will note the presence of mages with primordial systems of magick (most Dreamspeakers or Verbena, among others) and of Kithain (difficulty 7 for both).

For PC character types, except where specified by staff, the “reading” obtained is not strong enough to definitively classify the presence as nonhuman. A Son of Ether will register on Sense Weaver, but will be within the range possible for ordinary humans tainted by the Weaver. And so forth.

Pulse of the Prey

This Gift permits Garou to locate someone about whom they already have some information that would allow them to distinguish the target in a small group (c.f. the examples given in the W20 Core Rulebook.) Trying to locate someone that the character couldn’t somehow pick out of a police lineup — “the person who broke into my house last night” when they have no idea what that person looked like, “the person who knows the key code to the Pentex vault door” if they’ve never observed anyone opening the vault –will either fail outright or lead the character badly astray.

Specific Rites

Rite of Talisman Dedication

Our take is that the intent of this Rite is for Garou and other Fera to be able to carry items even when in a form that cannot meaningfully use those items, and not as a sort of extradimensional pocket. For instance, items that require hands are only useful in Homid, Glabro, and Crinos. Therefore, the item remains in its normal state when the character is in those three forms, and melds with them only when taking Hispo or Lupus. Characters may not choose to have the item meld with them when in a form where it would be useful, or, conversely, choose to have it not meld with them when in a form where the item isn’t useful.

Generally, dedicated items (and also talens and fetishes, which do not require this rite to change with the character; see the W20 Core Rulebook, p.211) retain a similar orientation vis-a-vis the character when changing forms. A character who changes from Homid to Lupus while holding a dedicated baseball bat, and then back to Homid, will be holding the baseball bat when he resumes his form. Characters wearing dedicated suits of clothing will still be wearing the clothes upon changing back from Lupus or Hispo, and so on.

It is assumed, unless the character prefers otherwise, that dedicated items are in some way conveniently stored — slung on a shoulder strap, etc. — rather than loose. Items not dedicated that are attached to a dedicated item in some way (e.g., a wristwatch buckled onto a fetish’s shoulder strap) are not considered dedicated and will not shapeshift with the character or follow them into the Umbra.

Larger items take more Gnosis points to dedicate. Items that are too big to fit in a messenger bag or briefcase require two Gnosis points and take up two points worth of “space”. Items that are larger than an average-sized human generally cannot be dedicated.

Fera

Ability Restrictions

In the W20 Changing Breeds book, some animal Breeds (i.e., corvid-breed Corax) have their own specific restrictions on what Abilities can be taken. Others (ursine Gurahl, squamus Rokea) are explicitly assigned the same restrictions as lupus Garou. Still others do not mention the issue at all. In our opinion, the Ability restrictions are the main game mechanical drawback that compensates for the higher Gnosis of the animal Breed characters; therefore, unless there is a Fera-specific restriction, all such characters (arachnid Ananasi, feline Bastet, roko Kitsune, suchid Mokole, and rodens Ratkin) operate under the lupus restriction: they may not take Crafts, Drive, Etiquette, Firearms, Larceny, Academics, Computer, Law, Science, or Technology with their initial Ability dots. They may still buy them with freebie points or with starting XP.

Corax

Raven’s Gifts

W20: Changing Breeds specifies that Corax automatically gain an additional dot each of Enigmas, Subterfuge, and Dodge. W20 has no “Dodge” skill, nor do we; this is most likely a copy-paste error from the Revised Edition. Substitute Athletics for Dodge.

Ratkin

Aspect Bonuses

Anonymity

The rules for aspects in Changing Breeds are written for a tabletop game in which all players are members of the same pack (whether all-Ratkin or mixed-Fera). Anonymity as written works well in that context, but, for a primarily social, heavily multiplayer game, it can put a heavy burden both on the Twitcher player (whose RP options are closely circumscribed) as well as on other players (who have to continually ‘start from zero’ in RP with the Twitcher character). At the same time, Anonymity is one of the two aspect benefits, and it wouldn’t be fair to eliminate it entirely, either.

Therefore, we’ve opted for a rule that reflects our treatment of similar effects (chiefly Arcane). When a Twitcher deals with other characters in passing, or in a strictly transactional way (e.g., ordering and paying for a latte from a Twitcher barista), those characters — PC or NPC, regardless of sphere — must roll Willpower vs. 8 to remember anything about them. If the interaction is more than trivially social — the characters discuss anything personal whether true or entirely made up, strike up the beginnings of a friendship, etc. — then Anonymity has no effect.

A character who is friends with a Twitcher may still lose track of some personal details, and is still subject to Anonymity for future interactions which are in-passing or strictly transactional (whether because they don’t recognize the Twitcher, aren’t paying attention, etc).

Characters with Anonymity should ensure that they mention it in their description, or at minimum in a +view, so that others can react appropriately.