Gifts

Some powers are the stuff of legend. A man tastes the blood of a dragon, and he instantly understands the speech of birds and animals. A falcon gives a feather to a wanderer, and when the wanderer places the feather in his belt, he is able to fly as swiftly as the falcon. A woman pleases a mercurial fey creature, and she is blessed with the ability to see through illusions. These are the Gifts given by the spirit world — ancient blessings that hint at a time when flesh and spirit were close.

Gifts are tricks bestowed by spirits, unusual magical abilities that draw on a werewolf’s half-spirit nature to accomplish things that would otherwise be impossible. They are not spells or innate abilities. They’re more like a spirit’s Numina. Individual Gifts are frequently limited in effect, but the sheer variety of Gifts that spirits are capable of teaching grants werewolves a versatile array of power.

All Gifts are taught by spirits and can be learned only by those who are part spirit themselves. In game terms, a character must have an Essence trait to be able to learn a Gift. Spirits cannot use Gifts themselves, only Numina. The process of teaching a Gift is a supernatural blessing, an example of the living symbolism of the spirit world. The Gifts a spirit teaches depend not on the spirit’s traits, but on its nature. Most spirits grant Gifts with a common theme — hence the arrangement of Gifts in lists. A bullspirit (largely a spirit of strength) teaches many Gifts that have strength as a common factor, so bull-spirits are listed as teachers of the Strength Gift list. In turn, only spirits can “teach” Gifts. A werewolf cannot convey the same sort of blessing to another, even a packmate.

Spirits don’t hand out Gifts for free, though. Nothing comes for free in the spirit world, particularly to the Uratha. A werewolf must somehow appease one of these hostile entities, even one that is ordinarily a friend to her totem, before it agrees to bless her with a Gift. Even if a spirit were to be greatly fond of a werewolf (or in love with her, as legends sometimes speak of), it couldn’t give her something without asking for something in return. It is one of the laws of the next world. The spirit may ask for little in return if it feels charitable (unlikely), or it might ask for the near impossible if it dislikes the werewolf (sadly likely). In any event, learning a Gift is more a matter of negotiation and making offerings than of study and practice.

Learning Gifts

As a character grows and learns, she may continue to acquire Gifts. When Renown of any kind is increased through experience points (see the chart on p. 247), your character gains a new Gift worth the same number of dots. This Gift must be chosen from one of the lists for which your character has a tribe or auspice affinity. For example, if the Honor Renown of a Hunter in Darkness Cahalith increases from • to ••, she gets a new two-dot Gift from one of the following lists: Gibbous Moon, Inspiration, Knowledge (from her Cahalith affinity), or Elemental, Nature or Stealth (from her Hunter in Darkness affinity). She could alternately choose two-dot a Gift from the Father Wolf or Mother Luna lists since all Forsaken have affinity with them.

Gifts can also be acquired in the course of the chronicle by making pacts with spirits, without raising Renown. In systems terms, you spend experience points for your character to learn a new Gift. This power can be from any list. As stated previously, the Gift cannot be of a level higher than your character’s highest primary Renown. If her highest primary Renown is 3, you can’t spend experience points for her to acquire a four-dot Gift of any kind.

Using Gifts

The basic system for using a Gift is a bit different from the standard dice-pool mechanic. The Attribute that governs a certain Gift’s use is included in the system subsection of the Gift’s description. In conjunction with that Attribute is a specific Skill that lends finesse or emphasis to the power. Note that Gifts that rely on a Physical or Social Skill are at –1 when the user lacks that Skill, while Gifts that rely on a Mental Skill are at –3 when the user is untrained.

Additionally, your character’s Renown traits add dice to a pool. The result is a dice pool composed of three traits instead of the usual two for mundane tasks. For example, the first Gift in this chapter is Two-World Eyes, of the Crescent Moon list. The power lists Wits as its requisite Attribute, Occult as its requisite Skill and Wisdom as the Renown trait pertinent to it. If a character has Wits 2, Occult 3 and Wisdom 4, his player rolls nine dice to determine the margin of success of using Two-World Eyes.

List of Gifts