This Story is True
Pack Hierarchy can be broken down as follows. This is how many werewolf packs work, but certainly not all of them.
The Alpha
The alpha is the head of the pack.
He is the face, he is the wolf in charge. He eats first at meals. He
gets first choice of mates. His word is law. When it comes to essence,
he is entitled to all of it. Any he does not desire is his to
distribute as he sees fit.
The Beta
The alpha gives the commandments, the beta moves the mountains to make it work. Betas are often the fighters, and are usually the physically strongest members of the pack. However, others use the Beta as the face to the other packs,
and as the backup singer to the alpha.
The Chorus
Those wolves who don't have one of the three major roles are sometimes refered to as the chorus. They work as a unit, following the alpha's plans, the beta's directives, and the Omega's jokes. They have thier own internal pecking order, and that determines who eats first, after the Alpha and Beta.
The Omega
The Omega is often the smallest wolf. He eats last, after all the others. He is also in charge of morale. It is his role to keep the werewolves hale and happy. It is his job to be the butt of jokes, to be the one whom everything is blamed, and the one whom the pack relies on to diffuse tense situations. Part Fool and part Bard this wolf's first duty is to the packs' overall well being.
Signature Lines:
All werewolf players must include their character's Auspice, Tribe and dots of renown in their signature line. If your character is newly changed and has yet to be spirit-branded, make mention of that instead.
Minisheets
Please fill out the form for your minisheet in totality, yes it is very useful for me to know your perception pool, your defence, and your speed.
Posting Rules:
Here are the rules for posting. This should be your go to reference guide if you are unsure. If I ever tell you to do
something specific in a thread, that takes precedence over this.
Combat Threads:
If you are in physical combat, all rolls must be posted. Preferably in a spoiler tag. This includes shapeshifting rolls, and remember, there is no roll to shift to hishu (or uhan if you took the special merit)
Non-Combat threads:
Please post your rolls. use the [spoiler] tag to occlude them from general perusal. If you have a stamina+survival+Primal Urge dice pool of 5 or better, you do not need to roll for shapeshifting in non-time sensitive situations.
Please mention what you are shifting into and describe it IC.
Finally: Please start your post by putting what form you are in OR have it in your signature line.
Social Scenes
From now on, you can do social threads in any particular place. However they can genreally be divided into two categories. Tur threads are open social threads that occur in your territory. Because your territory is so small though, all such threads are open. The other option is a private thread somewhere else. All such threads have the risk of being dragged out of social discussion with the arrival of pure scouting parties, malevolent spirits, or Hunters.
As you expand territory, you will be able to add enough space to enable non-open safe threads. Or if you discover a safe house during your scouting, you can discuss things there in privacy as well.
Totem creation:
There are two ways to create a totem.
Method 1:
Have your alpha tell me you have all decided to find a specific totem. Lets say you want a darkness spirit, or a joy spirit, or a maternity spirit; basically, some spirit that you haven't seen in the game. You ask me to make a spirit for you to use as a totem. We will use the pack thread to make a totem for you guys, and then you go hunt it down and turn it to your side.
Method 2 Hunt down a spirit already discovered in your territory (you could also poach from someone else's territory, but that comes with its own easily noticed risks). For example, the werewolves of the Sworn could hunt down the disease spirit that they defeated a while ago. The shadow seekers could go after the pain spirit that guards their locus. Since some spirits are more powerful than others, this functions as bonus dots of totem that are spent on improving the spirit. This means that you could get a very powerful spirit with only a half-dozen totem dots, but who has a
totem ban of a 20-25 dot totem.
When you want a totem, you will need to have a locus or some other way of entering the spirit world. Once you do, you spend a scene hunting one down and beating it up until it agrees to work with you. Then we go to the pack's personal thread and do a creation of the totem together. (thats where your totem points come in).
Totem points, as a reminder, are a flat 3 xp per dot, maximum of 5 dots per character. So at most, each character can spend 15 xp for 5 dots of totem.
A pack is a minimum of 3 werewolves is the size of group of werewolves neccessary to get a totem. Totems must be earned in play.
Renown and Gifts
Renown can be a struggle in werewolf, so here's the guide.
At character creation, you get three dots of renown usually (ghost wolves get 2), and three gifts. The first gift comes from your auspice list, the second from your tribal list, and the third from any list so so please. Using your third gift to give yourself a 2 dot gift is fine, you just have to have a renown of 2, and the second dot gift must be in a gift list you have a 1 dot gift in already.
Now, the tricky part.
When you spend xp to raise a renown, you gain a gift of that level from you affinity list.
Translation.
When you buy a new dot of a rewnown, you look through your affinity lists. (we will use Bob the Devourer, a Rahu Bone Shadow) Bob has affinity with Dominance, Full Moon, Strength, from his auspice; Death, Insight, and Warding from his tribe, and Father Wolf and Mother Luna are allways affinity. So bob buys purity 2. He looks through the 2 dot gift in each of those lists, and settles on father wolf's speed. He then buys Wisdom 3. He loosk through the 3 dot gifts in each of those lists, and buys Ward Vs. Technology. He then buys glory 1, and goes through the 1 dot gifts of all of these, and settles on Crushing Blow. No matter what renown you buy up, you always consider your affinity lists.
Also remember to check the xp reductions in the character creation page on the wiki.
Customizing the Element Gift list
For those of you blessed with the elemental gifts, there are special rules:
You can create your own elemental adaptation of any gift in the elemental gift list.
Call water is standard.
Call Fire (lasts for 1 turn before your hand actually catches on fire, so put the fire to good use quickly) Call snow (snowball), Call earth, call Air, etc.
Manipulate earth is standard
This allows for cosmetic or non-damaging alterations. Can move water in a pond to create a drier section, can part the flames as you walk through them, etc.
Command does damage with the element; watch Avatar Last Airbender if you need inspiration.
The 4 and 5 dots do even more damage. And are really rather scary.
Everything that's not standard has to be approved by me. However, I generally like adaptations.
To purchase another element of the same level (have call earth, want call snow) is 3 xp per dot level. (4 if non-favored)
Sleeping in forms other than human:
You may sleep in either Urhan or Hishu form without issue, and can sleep in Dalu or Urshul with the concern that you are violating the oath of the moon if anyone comes across yo.
Additionally, there is the alternate Form merit:
http://nwod.org/wiki/index.php/Alternate_Form
which allows you to go into urhan form when you are knocked unconcious, or to choose which form you fall unconscious into.
Totems and Glimpses
The Totem is an essential part of a pack's strength. Each month that the totem works with the pack, one of the pack members must post a totem glimpse, wherein they show how they are helping fulfill the pack ban of the totem. Once each member has posted 6 such posts, the pack no longer needs to post such glimpses.
If the pack fails to post for the month before having reached the 6 per packmember, then the totem rescinds its benefits, and the pack must do a group glimpse of contrition to restore the totem's benefit (This does count towards everyone's 6 glimpses).
Additionally, should the pack violate the totem's ban, even if they have the requisite number of posts, they must still perform a group contrition glimpse in order to restore their totem's benefit.
Example:
Caleb, Christian and Chantay have Mother Duck as their totem. She demands they protect the waters of their territory as her ban. First month Caleb posts about stopping a guy dumping waste into the sewer, second month Caleb posts about cleaning up a dirty beach, third month Christian posts about hunting down a polluter, fourth month no one posts. Mothering Duck retracts her benefit. All three characters together do a group glimpse of cleaning the beach. She returns the benefit. Currently Caleb has 3, Christian 2, and Chantay 1. After many months, each has 6 glimpses, and they no longer need to post. A new packmember, Charity, joins the pack, and so she posts once a month until she has garnered the 6, and now she needs post no longer.
The pack then is forced to dump poison in the water, and so they loose the benefit of mothering duck. They all make a group Glimpse demonstrating their reintroduction of fish and cleanup of the toxin, and regain the benefit.
Disclaimer:
When an NPC of mine says "this sounds like a good idea, lets do it" it certainly DOES NOT mean that I, as the ST think its a good idea. In fact, it might be a horrible idea. It might very well get you all killed. Just consider the source of the information.
Suggested Viewing:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episo...-episode/4678/
A great documentary about how wolves in the wild work. And also how territory battles usually go. (though werewolves are a little more merciful than wolves)
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