Cleverness and cunning are essential to survival, for both wolves and humans. Gifts of Evasion embody the shrewdness of the human mind with the instincts and natural intuition of a predatory animal. The Storm Lords have affinity with these Gifts; many Irraka also find them useful. Lunes and animal spirits, both taking the forms of creatures such as ravens, foxes and otters, teach Gifts of Evasion. The Gifts represent a blend of both keen intelligence and “gut feeling” that enables a werewolf to sneak, deceive and mislead with preternatural ease.
Gift List
Loose Tongue (•)
Some folks just have a knack for getting other people to blab incessantly. A werewolf with this Gift can take advantage of that strength, making people feel oddly chatty around her. The werewolf must engage a subject in conversation for at least 30 seconds before she can use this Gift. Success clouds a target’s better judgment, making it difficult to keep secrets from the werewolf.
Sand in the Eyes (••)
The genuinely cunning know the value of covering their tracks… not simply footprints, but also slips of the tongue or suspicious behavior. This Gift tends to make the questioner seem imminently forgettable to onlookers. The Gift doesn’t make the character any more innocuous at the time (a security guard will probably still ask to see her ID, for instance), but it becomes more difficult to remember her after the fact.
Playing Possum (•••)
Enemies often turn their backs on fallen foes. Imagine a victor’s shock when a supposedly dead werewolf rises to attack with complete surprise. To all but the most careful examination, a werewolf using this Gift appears quite dead. Her chest doesn’t rise and fall, her heart fails to beat and her body seems cooled to ambient temperature for as long as a day.
Double Back (••••)
While one facet of being clever and evasive is hiding your tracks, another aspect of wiliness is seeing when someone’s trying to pull the wool over your eyes. This Gift gives a werewolf a keen sense for deception, alerting her when things aren’t as they first appear. The effects of this power persist for the remainder of the scene.
Fog of War (•••••)
A well-ordered battle plan seldom survives being put into action. Noise, smoke, darkness and fear lead to disorganization as confusion sets in. This Gift increases chaos in any situation. SWAT teams fire on each other, intruders get hopelessly lost, and emergency instructions are garbled.
