Wolfslayer Gifts
From Edge of Darkness Wiki
The Wolfslayer Gifts are powers only effective against werewolves and, unlike some Rage or auspice-related Gifts, Wolfslayer Gifts are almost always harmful or negative. Some Uratha disapprove of these Gifts because there is only one real reason to learn them: to fight other werewolves. Spirits are often reluctant to teach these to the Forsaken, less than eager to reveal their arsenal of anti-werewolf powers. Other spirits are happy to share the knowledge, considering it a warning of their capabilities or hoping that the People will use them to tear itself apart.
Rebellious and warlike spirits teach these Gifts, the ones that the Forsaken consider most likely to rise up in arms against the continued policing of the werewolves. Greed-spirits, envy-spirits and panther-spirits can be teachers, among others.
Contents |
Gift List
Form Lock (•)
Shifting shape is instinctive to the People. It’s as completely natural as clenching a fist or flipping off the guy who’s tailing you. So, when shapeshifting is denied a werewolf, it is very frustrating. Some even panic, unaware that hostile magic is affecting their change.
- Cost: 1 Essence
- Dice Pool: Charisma + Science Skill + Purity vs. Resolve + Primal Urge
- Action: Instant
Roll Results
- Dramatic Failure: The Gift not only fails to affect the target, its residue hinders the shapechanging of the werewolf who invoked it. The character suffers a –2 dice penalty to all shapechanging rolls.
- Failure: The Gift fails to reduce the target’s shapeshifting pool.
- Success: Each success on the roll reduces the target werewolf’s shapeshifting pool for one minute by the character’s Purity. Any successful, voluntary change on the target’s part eliminates the penalty.
- Exceptional Success: The target’s shapeshifting pool remains penalized for one hour; each successful change reduces the remaining duration by five minutes.
Patronless Pack (••)
Nearly every werewolf pack has a personal and specific totem, which lends them a portion of its power in exchange for children among the Uratha. Werewolves with this Gift can temporarily sever the bond between pack and totem, eliminating some of the advantages her enemies have.
- Cost: 1 Essence
- Dice Pool: Intelligence + Occult Skill + Cunning – totem’s Resistance
- Action: Instant
Roll Results
- Dramatic Failure: Offended by the attempt, the spirits instead separate the werewolf from her totem for one day. Werewolves without totems are unaffected and fail simply.
- Failure: The werewolf is unable to remove her opponents’ totem’s influence.
- Success: The werewolf targets a pack and temporarily drives a wedge between them and their totem. They lose any and all totem benefits for the rest of the scene. She affects all werewolves she can see that belong to the same pack; she need not know the pack’s name to target it — looking at an enemy werewolf and concentrating on thatpack is enough. Members of the affected pack not present are unaffected by the Gift and remain blessed by the totem. (This may mean that one lone werewolf is the only one available use pack Attributes or Skills, or the only one who can call upon story bonuses.) Some werewolves consider being under the effect of this Gift to free them from the constraints of their totem’s ban until the Gift ends, but few totem spirits see it that way.
- Exceptional Success: Even members of the pack who are not present are cut off from the totem spirit. The pack is sure to have a few words about why their totem is so susceptible to enemy Gifts later on.
Return to Birth (•••)
Hishu, while the best form for hiding among the six billion sheep on Earth, is one of the least combateffective and everyone knows it. This Gift forces a werewolf back into human form, though it can’t keep her there.
- Cost: 1 Essence
- Dice Pool: Charisma + Science Skill + Purity vs. Resolve + Primal Urge
- Action: Instant
Roll Results
- Dramatic Failure: The attempt fails, and the werewolf cannot use this Gift again for 24 hours.
- Failure: The werewolf fails to force his target into her human shape.
- Success: The target reverts immediately to Hishu form and cannot use her next action to change shape. For werewolves already suffering from Form Lock, this forced change does not end that effect. A werewolf currently suffering Kuruth is immune to this Gift.
- Exceptional Success: The target’s system is so shocked by being forced into Hishu form that she cannot attempt to change into another shape for five turns.
Human Health (••••)
One of the Uratha’s most serious advantages in battle is their ability to bounce back from nearly any wound, and quickly. Take that away, and a werewolf goes down that much faster. Even worse, a werewolf in Gauru knows he has to release the form soon or go berserk, and if he’s taken so many wounds that he would die by shifting back to human, he’s in a very bad place.
- Cost: 1 Essence
- Dice Pool: Wits + Medicine Skill + Purity vs. Composure + Primal Urge
- Action: Instant
Roll Results
- Dramatic Failure: Rather than shutting down, the target’s enhanced healing blurs into action. As if the werewolf spent a point of Essence on her target’s behalf, the target immediately heals a point of lethal damage.
- Failure: The target continues to heal as normal (for a werewolf).
- Success: For the next hour, the target heals as a human does. See p. 175 of the World of Darkness Rulebookfor full details on human rates of healing. He cannot spend Essence to heal lethal wounds instantly, though it will heal bashing wounds.
- Exceptional Success: The effect lasts a full day, and the target werewolf cannot even spend Essence to heal bashing damage.
Object of Piercing Clarity (•••••)
One of the People’s greatest defenses is Lunacy. Against mortals, it is usually effective enough to end a fight. When the fight is with other supernaturals, Lunacy can blank the minds of those annoying witnesses. It may be hard to deal with in personal life, but it’s a great blessing when worrying about “the herd,” especially when a war spills into the streets. This frightening Gift frees a werewolf from the curse of Lunacy for a time. While it may seem like a boon for those Uratha who still try to live a human life, it is definitely a double-edged sword.
- Cost: 1 Essence
- Dice Pool: Presence + Expression Skill + Glory vs. Composure + Primal Urge
- Action: Instant
Roll Results
- Dramatic Failure: Some measure of the werewolf’s Lunacy shifts from him to his target. Mortals viewing him in a form that induces Lunacy gain +2 to Willpower for the purposes of dealing with Lunacy, cumulative with bonuses for wolf blood and less-frightening forms. Mortals viewing the target lose –2 from Willpower for the same purpose. Both effects last a halfhour.
- Failure: The Gift fails to dampen the target’s cloak of Lunacy.
- Success: The werewolf temporarily subdues his target’s Lunacy; the target senses this diminishment. Treat all onlookers as if they have +4 Willpower for the purposes of dealing with the target’s Lunacy. This bonus is cumulative with others. Successful use of the Gift does not mean that a person with six dots of Willpower (treated as 10 after this Gift takes effect) is automatically unafraid of a werewolf in Gauru, because it would be stupid not to fear a giant wolfmonster. But significantly more people are going to see the werewolf for what she truly is and be in control of their own actions. The effect lasts for a half-hour. Object of Piercing Clarity has multiple potential effects on the target. A werewolf concerned with the Oaths of the Moon might break off the fight and retreat, more wary of revealing herself than usual. Or the humans that see her in an impossible shape — and recognize it, thanks to the Gift — might assault her, especially if her opponent looks like nothing more than a fellow mortal. Use of this Gift can be very tactically effective, but many Uratha do not approve. It is a few hairsbreadths short of actively revealing the People to humanity, which no sane werewolf desires.
- Exceptional Success: The werewolf completely subdues his target’s Lunacy for a full hour. Even the weakest-willed mortals are unaffected (at least supernaturally), even by the terrifying Gauru form.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
