GAROU 101

Playing a werewolf in a Mind’s Eye Theatre game is all about attitude and acting. When first you create your Garou character you’ve got a collection of stats and points, merits and flaws. You’ve got numbers. What you ain’t got, is attitude.

Attitude starts with your character concept. Are you a shy theurge, belligerent ahroun, gossipy galliard? Or have you twisted the stereotypes and crafted a pathologically shy ahroun who flies into murderous rages when teased about being a wuss? A ragabash with the absolute inability to tell a joke? Slightly skewed characters are usually more fun, both to play and to watch being played.* Once you’ve got your concept, you choose the auspice and tribe to go along with it. Or vice versa - some people like to decide on tribe and auspice before they figure out exactly what the character is. See Laws of the Wild for more info on tribes and auspices.

The third thing to consider when creating a character is breed. The Garou are known as the Changing Breed, meaning they’ve got more than one natural form. But they can only be born in one of them.

The Many Forms Of Rage

Either parent can carry the Changing gene, but a Garou or Kinfolk’s breed is matrilineally determined.

LUPUS

Your mother was a wolf, which means you were born with 4 legs and a tail. You probably lived your life as a plain ol’ wolf in a zoo, protection program, or the like, and never knew you were different until the time you first Changed. Now you can walk around on two legs, scratch with hands (not feet), and just forget about wagging your tail.

MANNERISMS: tilt your head to hear better, growl a lot, talk like Tarzan. Cringe when loud noises go off and airplanes fly over. Sirens make you howl. Mark your territory. Everyone in the player troupe is in a hierarchy, the same as a wolf pack. Disputed leadership is bad. Remember that your English comprehension is probably not great. Abstract concepts confuse you: "What is "shiny"? What is "round"? Relate everything to something in nature. Remember that Lupus are naturally spiritual.

METIS

Your mother was a full-fledged werewolf; so was your father. Not only were you born looking like a miniature American Werewolf in London, you were messed up, either physically deformed or mentally goofy. The good part is, you always knew exactly what you were, and never went through a traumatic First Change. You are usually raised in a Sept, and as a result know a lot about Garou culture.

MANNERISMS: Whatever you want. You are comfortable in all your forms. Don’t forget to roleplay your disfigurement! Metis are never ever able to forget, no matter what form they shift into, that they are a Garou and a Warrior of Gaia.

HOMID

In these End Times, you are the most common of the three breeds. Your parents were both (apparently) human. At least they looked human; chances are at least one of them was Garou. You probably never found out about your Garou parent’s habit of sprouting a fur coat and slashing bad guys until later in life - most likely after your First Change. And you thought normal adolescence was bad! If your parents never told you anything about the Garou, then you are in for a serious culture shock; not only are you different from your friends, you’re not even the same species! On the other hand, it may have been a great relief to you to finally know there was a concrete reason for you never feeling like you fit in anywhere.

MANNERISMS: Act like a normal human being, but never forget that it’s not what you really are. You have it easy with technology and hiding among the teeming masses of humanity. You probably have a job - and sometimes it’s hard to hold one down when you have a habit of disappearing into the Umbra for weeks at a time. Because you were most likely steeped in human traditions, sometimes it’s hard for you to understand the mind-set of other Garou. Being constantly in the wilderness may unnerve you a little - you’re used to cities and civilization.

QUOTES: "Yeah, sure, claws are good. Uzis are better." "Ok, kill the fomori by 5PM, then dinner with the boss...."

Underlying your character concept and everything that goes with it is the knowledge that you are creating a Garou - a creature which is by turns a rabid eco-warrior with claws and fangs, an ardent human-hater, a protector of humanity, a social maven, an entertainer.... Although not usually all at once. But the biggest thing to remember is the spiritual stuff.

Jes' Gimme Some Of That Ol' Time Religion

The Garou are a race that are millennia old, and practice the worship of Mother Nature. Technically, the belief system is probably monotheistic animism, with a dash of Hindu reincarnation thrown in (although I have yet to see any Garou who’s a vegan...) They see spirits in everything - and I mean everything. We’re talking chewing gum probably has a spirit. Spirits can be roughly broken into 3 classes: Wyld spirits (Nature), Weaver spirits (technology), and Wyrm spirits (banes, toxic dumps, etc.) Wyld spirits tend to be the spirits of living things, like houseplants (ever notice that plants do a lot better when you talk to them?). Weaver spirits are the spirits of computers, streets, cities, and TVs (and now you know why the remote control is always getting lost....). Wyrm emanations are the dark stuff of nightmare, the sinister spiritual energy of urban wastelands, toxic waste, and the IRS. The Wyrm is not the wrinkled lil fella at the bottom of the tequila bottle. It is Decay, Corruption, and Death all rolled into one big slimy package.... and it’s pissed.

Gaia (Mother Nature) is also pissed; but she’s slowly dying from the influx of the Wyrm, aided by the Weaver (Technology). Therefore, the Garou, Gaia’s immune system, are also pissed. And when the Garou are pissed off, they Rage.

Ragin' Across The World

Rage is the principle weapon and driving force of the Garou. It is the righteous anger of Nature being raped by "Progress", the primal survival instinct of a living organism (Gaia) infected by a deadly cancer , and, despite the Get of Fenris’ arguments to the contrary, a good healthy dose of PMS. Gaia’s mad as hell, and she’s not gonna take it anymore.

Rage allows your character to make multiple attacks (you are so angry that you just keep going until there’s nothing left) or to heal (you’re hit pretty bad, but Gaia and your pack need you, and you are going to keep going until everything is dead...) Technically, you can spend Rage points like candy, but you can also regain Rage fairly easily. The first time you’re wounded, the first time you see the moon that night, if you’re humiliated... Like I said, the Garou are naturally cranky creatures.

Rage is your friend (most of the time). Gaia gifts her children with Rage to fuel their determination to defeat the Wyrm. That’s where you come in, packmate.

Packs, The Building Blocks Of Garou Society

Garou, being wolves at heart, run in packs. Just like in the wild, the players in the troupe should be in packs. Some people prefer being in packs with members of their own tribe (Garou are naturally clannish, and some are downright hostile toward Garou not of their tribe); or in packs with people who the character (not you!) know well and have a history with.

Pick your pack wisely. Make sure these are Garou that it makes sense that you hang out with them. Make sure the pack totem is one you agree with (A Get of Fenris Ahroun battle monster is unlikely to be found in a Unicorn-totem pack, since Unicorn is a peace-loving, healing totem.). If you are a cliath (new guy) joining an established pack, present yourself to the alpha of the pack you’re interested in and talk to them about joining. If there is a Den Mother/Father available in your game, you can talk to him/her about what kind of pack you’re looking for, and they should be able to make introductions.

I cannot stress enough the importance of a pack. Real wolves are born into, spend their whole lives in, and die in a pack - if they’re lucky. The pack is a family; they’ll fight, but rarely seriously, and in these End Times when the Apocalypse is breathing down the Garou’s necks, your pack is the one thing you can always count on to back you up.

Why A Pack?

Someone once said that there is nothing in nature sadder than a lone wolf. Wolves are naturally family oriented, gregarious, social creatures - this attitude has evolved over centuries of being pack hunters. A lone wolf will die quickly in the wild, because he can’t bring down enough food to feed himself properly. The need to be part of a pack is part and parcel of being a Garou. You eat, sleep and breathe your pack. You are almost always with them (in game, maybe not in real life).

The pack, in my own humble opinion, tends to be underused in the game, but it is extremely important to your character. Think about it; if you’re fighting with your family, aren’t you going to fight even harder to kill the bad guys before they can hurt anyone? And who would you rather fight with - people whom you know pretty well, or people with whom you’ve spent nearly every waking moment since becoming a Garou, whose moves and capabilities you know as well as your own?

The feeling of camaraderie, of singleness of purpose, defines a pack. A good pack takes the abilities of its individual members and uses them to the fullest of its ability. It also downplays any weaknesses anyone has. The Garou will (almost) always stick up for their own, packmate or no, but while that other guy is over there hesitating to risk his own skin to save yours because your tribes don’t get along or he just plain doesn’t like you, a packmate will have already moved in to help you out.

The Sept

By extension, the Sept (gathering of many packs in one spot sacred to Gaia and defending it) is a larger pack, but it has different dynamics. Unless your Storyteller wants a single-tribe Sept chronicle, there will be representatives of most of the tribes in one Sept. This can get dicey, because some tribes have serious animosity toward others. Wolf packs have a single hierarchy, from top to bottom. A Sept, with its multiple packs, has an occasionally confusing hierarchy of Sept Leaders (as chiefs) and pack alphas as minor chiefs (which has no parallel in lupine society), and Sept positions, which give authority over certain things (i.e. the Caern Warder is responsible for the guarding and defense of the caern (sacred place), but may not necessarily be a pack or Sept alpha.)

Since both wolves and humans have an innate desire for status, this occasionally creates a conflict. As Garou, status is extremely important. One of the goals of the game (besides have fun) is to do enough and live long enough to move up in rank and be accorded more status. So if you play a stereotypical power-hungry Silver Fang or Shadow Lord, it’s true to the character to work your way up the totem pole. You will probably tick off quite a few people doing it. Be careful you don’t tick off the wrong people. A Sept is only as good as its members, and only as effective as its leaders. Ineffective leadership with no regards for the guiding traditions of the Garou will net you two things: dead Garou, and a lost caern.

The Reason For It All: Your Caern And You

Gaia is dying. The Garou are losing. That’s the premise of the game you’re getting yourself into. Unless a major miracle occurs, your character is A) highly likely to die, and B) you good guys are gonna lose.

Are you going to stop fighting? Hell, no!

The caern is a spot which radiates the power of Gaia - gnosis, which is a Garou’s spiritual connection to Gaia and which powers her gifts. Think of the most beautiful natural place you’ve ever seen, somewhere that touches your soul with its beauty and purity. That’s what a caern is to your character - a place of beauty and spirituality; your equivalent of the Vatican. Your Sept lives near the caern to keep it safe from marauding BSDs and unthinking humans alike. Your character will (probably) die to protect a caern.

There are few of these magical spots left in the world. Progress and Technology have advanced far enough into the wilderness that Caerns which were once safely remote are now probably under a parking lot. Or worse, the forces of the Wyrm have corrupted many Caerns; instead of refreshing the world and the Garou with sweet gnosis, tainted Caerns pump out toxic emanations and warp everything near them into soulless monsters.

If all Caerns in the world fall, if the Garou fail their charge, the world will plunge into an eternity of darkness where there is no good, no humanity, no decency or love. The world will spin screaming into an abyss, and Corruption, soul-rotting and flesh-distorting, will smile in triumph.

And there is no return.

You as a character exist to keep this from happening. And so I ask you...when will you Rage?

On to Character Creation