Wound Gifts

Blasphemies p. 139
Auspice, Lodges & Tribes
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These particularly vile Gifts are learned from the spirits serving the Maeljin. The Gifts draw on saturation in negative resonance, and become fearsome weapons in the arsenal of the Asah Gadar.

Gift List

Wound-Born (•)

With this Gift, the Maeltinet blesses the werewolf with the ability to cope with the taint of Wounded places, as if she had been born in a Wound like one of the Maeljin’s own avatars, and saturated in such resonance from birth.

The Bale Hound becomes immune to the foul resonance emanating out from a Wound. He no longer suffers the penalties of entering and interacting within Wounds, as described on p. 259 of Werewolf: The Forsaken. This Gift requires no expenditure or dice roll to activate, only a moment’s concentration.

• Cost: None
• Dice Pool: No roll is required.
• Action: Reflexive

Lord of the Wounds (••)

With this power, the werewolf’s “spirit-half” is tainted by the Maeltinet. To Wound-born spirits, the Bale Hound now appears as one of the Maeltinet (albeit in a strange, half-fleshly form) and his words (and bribes) are accorded greater weight. Any Bale Hound with this Gift adds a +2 bonus on all rolls to bargain, bribe or command spirits. This Gift lasts for the duration of a scene.

• Cost: 1 Essence
• Dice Pool: No roll is required.
• Action: Instant

Blessing of Pain(•••)

Wounds cause very real spiritual pain to those who enter them. They are poisoned sections of the world, where aberrations and abominations are born in the Shadow, and they are the very worst of the sickest and most tainted place in the two worlds. The Maeltinet can teach a Bale Hound how to harness the sickening power of a Wound, and force her opponents to feel the spiritual pain of a corrupted world with a single caress. The Bale Hound must touch her target to activate this Gift, though it cannot be “transferred” by a claw or bite.

• Cost: 1 Essence
• Dice Pool: Intelligence + Occult Skill + Purity – target’s Resolve
• Action: Reflexive

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The Bale Hound is struck with the feelings of pain and unease that he was trying to force on the target. Until the next moonrise, the Bale Hound suffers an additional Health point of damage from all injuries he sustains.
• Failure: Nothing happens.
• Success: The target is suddenly wracked with sickness, and suffers all the penalties of entering a Wound, as detailed on p. 259 of Werewolf: The Forsaken. The effects last for one turn per success on the roll.
• Exceptional Success: The effects last until the end of the scene, and the roiling, impure sickness is potentially enough to drive the target insane. The target must make a Harmony (substitute Morality or the appropriate trait for non-werewolves) roll with four dice, and suffers a derangement if he fails. Creatures with no Harmony equivalent, such as spirits or Hosts, are immune to this effect.

Siphon Suffering (••••)

The Maeltinet teach the Bale Hounds how to draw the suffering of others to replenish their personal energies, much how a spirit feeds on occurrences of its primary Influence. This Gift allows the Bale Hound to attempt to siphon Essence from a mortal experiencing a negative emotion or urge — lust, wrath, greed and so on. The Gift only works on normal human beings, and only if the target is feeling a negative urge or emotion, such as a Vice, one of the Maeljin’s Influences or an obviously dark emotion such as hatred.

• Cost: None
• Dice Pool: Manipulation + Empathy Skill + Cunning versus the subject’s Morality
• Action: Instant and Contested; resistance is reflexive.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The attempt fails, and the Bale Hound is unable to summon the spiritual willpower to spend Essence points until the following moonrise.
• Failure: Nothing happens.
• Success: The target is struck by powerful feelings of apathy and lethargy, as her emotions are spiritually ripped from her mind. The Bale Hound gains a point of Essence, and the human suffers a –1 to all dice rolls until she next sleeps and recovers with rest.
• Exceptional Success: The Bale Hound receives two Essence points instead of one.

Communion with the Wounds (•••••)

A perverted version of the Knowledge Gift: Communion With the Land, this power is granted to the most powerful Bale Hounds so that they might know the location and details of every Wound nearby. The werewolf opens his mind to the pulsating, sick pressure of the Wounds, and gains the knowledge of what is occurring in each Wounded area within several miles. This knowledge increases the Bale Hound’s understanding of just how to most efficiently defend each Wound, as well as getting a look at the current state of the surrounding areas.

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

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The Bale Hound receives conflicting images and messages from the spirits of the Wounds. She suffers a –1 penalty to all rolls for the rest of the scene as her senses are overwhelmed with the backlash.
• Failure: The werewolf receives no images or messages from nearby Wounds.
• Success: The character immediately gains full knowledge of all Wounds within a 5-mile radius, their proximity to loci, the number of spirits around the areas, the name of the Maeltinet present within each (if any) and general terrain features. When in the area of one of the Wounds he has seen, the Bale Hound gains a +2 to Defense and Initiative. The Gift’s effects lasts for a scene.
• Exceptional Success: As success, but the distance of the knowledge spreads to 10 miles, and the bonus to Defense and Initiative is +3.