Ending Gifts

The Rage Forsaken Players Guide p. 114-116
Auspice, Lodges & Tribes
Bone Shadows
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Death Wolf walked the Pangaean landscape for many years, seeking out the answers at the end of every creature’s life. Through the Ending Gifts, her Bone Shadow children are able to explore the ending of lives as she once did, learning as their totem learned. Though the Hirfathra Hissu already have access to the Death Gifts, the Ending Gifts focus on aspects of death more tied in to Kamduis-Ur’s personal journey and the answers she worked for. As such, the Ending Gifts are often referred to as Death Wolf’s Gifts.

Gift List

Fear of Death (•)

The werewolf can look into the eyes of any living being and determine what type of death he most fears. The Gift can have some dark uses, revealing to a Bone Shadow just what method of death a subject fears the most, providing enough information for the character to arrange some grave threats or terrifying ambushes. Although the Gift was bestowed with a more insightful and cerebral intent in mind, there’s nothing stopping a cunning werewolf from using Fear of Death to scare his enemies or punish someone by killing her in the way she’s feared most since childhood.

• Cost: 1 Willpower
• Dice Pool: Wits + Empathy + Wisdom versus target’s Resolve + Primal Urge
• Action: Instant

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The werewolf garners an incorrect perception of the subject’s greatest fears regarding death. Whereas a person might fear being strangled after rape because of a similar incident in her life, the werewolf might sense a distinct fear of heights and falling that do not exist in the target’s mind.
• Failure: The werewolf is unable to perceive the subject’s greatest fears regarding death.
• Success: The character learns the method of death that the subject most fears, which is perhaps tied into a phobia or horrifying event in childhood.
• Exceptional Success: The character also gains a faint impression of the reason the subject feels such fear, sensing images and fragments of thoughts detailing why that particular fear is so strong.

Eyes of the Slain (••)

This Gift is a take on the apocryphal power to stare into the eyes of a corpse and discover how the victim was murdered. Though the Ending Gifts do not allow a werewolf access to such power, many Bone Shadows find Eyes of the Slain to be a fascinating opportunity nevertheless.

The Gift only functions on the bodies of physical beings (not ghosts or spirits) that the werewolf has killed herself. In bringing about the death of the person, the character has bound herself to the path of the deceased soul’s destiny. By staring into the eyes of the corpse, the werewolf can focus her senses on that bond, determining what it was in life that the slain person most lived for. For some corpses, the images that shine in the eyes might be of their drug addiction, love for their children or an ambition regarding their career. It can be a difficult process to watch, for even the most hard-hearted of killers might have left behind something touching that they truly lived for, no matter how twisted their ideals. It goes almost without saying that some Bone Shadows use this Gift as a means of post-mortem interrogation

• Cost:1 Essence
• Dice Pool:Intelligence + Empathy + Honor
• Action:Instant

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The corpse’s eyes show nothing. Any local ghosts or death-spirits might become drawn to the location, sensing the killing and a potential new ghost.
• Failure: The character learns nothing from the glazed and motionless eyes.
• Success: The character spends a full turn looking into the corpse’s eyes and learns the most important thing that the soul is sorriest to leave behind. In the cases of people, the Gift allows the character to sense the name of the face she sees and its relationship to the dead person, i.e., “Mary, his daughter” and a detailed description.
• Exceptional Success: Per a success, but the character also learns another driving aspect that the deceased is sorrowful at leaving behind.

Death Masque (•••)

It takes a bold werewolf to call on Death to protect himself, but some Bone Shadows do just that. This Gift allows the werewolf to wrap himself in the imagery of his own death, effectively deceiving onlookers into believing that a glancing wound was lethal or that a near-miss became a mortal strike. Once the foe believes the Bone Shadow dead, he may gain a few precious moments to heal — and to strike from behind.

• Cost:1 Essence
• Dice Pool:Intelligence + Survival + Wisdom
• Action:Reflexive

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The death energies come to the werewolf, but do not act in his favor. The werewolf takes one point of bashing damage.
• Failure: The Gift fails to work; the werewolf’s wounds may appear a bit worse than usual, but not enough to convince anyone that they’re mortal.
• Success: The illusion takes effect. Any wounds that the werewolf has just suffered appear to be magnified. If the werewolf is unwounded but was previously in mortal danger, the illusion depicts that danger catching up to him. For instance, a recent claw rake across the back appears to be much deeper, with more blood and possibly deep cuts into the spine. If a person was shooting at the werewolf, Death Masque creates an illusion of bullets going into the heart, throat or head (or all three). As long as some plausible source of death has threatened the werewolf within the last six seconds, Death Masque can make it appear as though the danger has killed the werewolf.

The illusory wounds granted by Death Masque last for the remainder of the scene, or until the werewolf chooses to end the Gift’s effects. The illusion extends to all five senses; the Bone Shadow smells dead, has no discernable pulse and cools to the touch. However, it will not conceal any movement more dramatic than breathing, regeneration or eye movement. If the werewolf gets up and keeps fighting (or doesn’t fall to the ground in the first place), others see him still moving and fighting, just with what would appear to be mortal wounds. This Gift can be used to gain the element of surprise on an attacker (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 151).

This Gift automatically deceives any mundane observer. A supernatural power used to see through the illusion (such as the vampiric Discipline of Auspex) may see through the Death Masque; compare the observer’s successes on her activation roll to the werewolf’s successes gathered to activate this Gift.

• Exceptional Success: As above, and any supernatural attempts to see through the Death Masque are at an additional –1 penalty.

Bone Hex (••••)

Death Wolf learned to influence Fate in her travels, watching as creatures died under the twists of her machinations. This Gift allows her children to do the same, by weaving fate into a different pattern and altering the immediate destiny of a chosen subject. By killing in this manner, the werewolf does not avoid any Harmony loss she would otherwise experience if the death had been administered directly.

• Cost: 1 Essence
• Dice Pool: Presence + Occult + Glory
• Action: Instant

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The veins of fate refuse to be manipulated and the effects of the Gift backfire. The Bone Shadow suffers a –4 penalty on her next three dice rolls.
• Failure: Fate remains the same, refusing to be twisted by outside interference.
• Success: The character manipulated the fate of the subject by conscious thought. The target suffers a –4 penalty on his next three dice rolls, including Harmony, Morality or other degeneration rolls.
• Exceptional Success: Per a success, though the Bone Shadow can choose when the effects of the Hex apply, as long as they occur within one month of the Gift’s use.

Images of Death (•••••)

Death Wolf learned all aspects of endings in her travels, even the ability to perceive a creature’s death from the moment of its birth. With this Gift, the werewolf can flood a target’s mind with images of his own death to come. This is a horrifying power, filling the subject’s mind with sensations that he unerringly knows represent the way he will die. Even relatively painless or quick deaths will hurt the target’s mind and eyes as he sees the literal end of his life.

• Cost: 2 Essence
• Dice Pool: Wits + Intimidation + Purity
• Action: Instant

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The Gift fails and instead shows the werewolf conflicting visions of her own death. Unlike the images inflicted on others, these detail only possible deaths, appearing as eye-wracking visions that debilitate the character, reducing her dice pools by 2 for 10 – Stamina hours.
• Failure: The Gift fails to show the target anything.
• Success: Images of the target’s eventual death flash before his eyes, stealing all of his senses. If he dies in a car wreck, he feels himself standing on the road staring at the accident. If he dies in battle, he sees the death blow falling and his body breaking. If he dies in a hospital bed, he smells the disinfectant on the ward and the stale blankets bathed in his sweat. This is a traumatizing experience, to say the least. Anyone witnessing his own death in this way must suffer a –2 penalty to all dice rolls for the next week as he experiences recurring nightmares of the vision. No matter what steps the target takes to avoid his death, it will still occur in the ordained manner.
• Exceptional Success: The visions turn into nightmares that last a month instead of a week.