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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.
Shifters Recognizing Shifters
Shapeshifters, as a general rule, do not recognize each other immediately unless they have a particular Gift that permits this. A Perception + Primal-Urge roll (difficulty 6 for others of the same shifter type, 8 for other types) may give the character the sense that someone unusual is present, but is no more specific than that. Individual shifter types do have secret countersigns, code words, and so forth that they can use in conversation to recognize others of their type, but this requires an fairly extended conversation to have any useful accuracy. Different types of fera will generally not recognize one another’s countersigns (e.g., Ratkin will not be able to use this method to identify a Mokole).
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, talens, and fetishes are in some way conveniently stored — slung on a shoulder strap, in the pocket of a suit of dedicated set of clothes, 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. In this case they are likely to be misplaced, lost or destroyed should the character suddenly change shape.
Larger items require 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.
Totems
Individual and Pack Traits
The W20 definition of “pack traits” is found on p.372 of the W20 Core Rulebook:
“Any member of a pack can draw upon a Pack Trait, but only one at a time. If a totem grants dots in a Skill, or a Gift, the first werewolf to draw upon the bonus in a given scene holds on to that specific Trait until the end of the scene, or until they relinquish it. In combat, relinquishing or claiming a Pack Trait is a reflexive action.”
That’s straightforward enough, and is distinct from “individual traits,” which are given to “every member of the pack […] as soon as they gain the totem’s favor.”
Thanks to the nature of reflexive actions in combat, however, a strict interpretation of the rules would allow every member of a pack to make use of the pack traits in the same turn. A pack dedicated to Boar, for instance, might have the member with the highest initiative claim the two Brawl dots, attack, and then relinquish them; then the next-highest initiative member could do the same; and so on until each member of the pack has attacked, all making use of the extra two Brawl dots.
This usage would, in essence, erase the distinction between individual and pack traits for certain types of the latter. For this reason, it is our opinion that this interpretation — while apparently legal by the letter of the rules — is contrary to design intent. If the designers had wanted all members of a Boar pack to have 2 extra dots of Brawl, they could have designated that as an individual trait.
In order to maintain a meaningful distinction between the two types of trait, we have adopted the following interpretation:
“The effects of a Pack Trait apply to whichever pack member has claimed that Pack Trait at the beginning of a game turn; if it is currently unclaimed, then those effects apply to the first pack member to claim it that turn. While the Trait can be relinquished and subsequently claimed by other pack members, its effects do not apply to any other pack members that turn. At the beginning of the next turn, if a different Garou has claimed the Trait, its effects are removed from the previous holder and applied to the current one for the duration of the new turn, and so forth.”
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.
Bastet
Yava
The Yava of the various Bastet tribes are as per the W20 Changing Breeds book. While we hope that it’s clear from context, these are probably the deepest secrets a Bastet can know, and are likely to go unrevealed even on pain of death. Unless your character is a Bastet, you should never assume that they are even aware of the existence of the Yava, much less know what any of them are — and even Bastet will only know those of their own tribe. Any exceptions will have a staff-approved note to attest to that.
Per the Inter-Sphere Play page, revealing a Yava, or that there are such things as Yava, is considered “revealing in-depth information” and is likely to have harsh consequences for all parties involved if discovered.
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.