WEREWOLF THE APOCALYPSE 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION24

© 2012 CCP hf. All rights reserved. Reproduction without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden, except for the purposes of reviews, and one printed copy may be reproduced for personal use only. Werewolf the Apocalypse and Storyteller system are registered trademarks of CCP hf. all rights reserved.

This book uses the supernatural for settings, characters, and themes. All mystical and supernatural elements are fictional and intended for entertainment purposes only. This book contains mature content. Reader discretion is advised.

Check out White Wolf online at http://www.white-wolf.comCheck out Onyx Path online at http://www.theonyxpath.com

CreditsCreative and Art Director: Rich Thomas20th Anniversary Development Team: Bill Bridges, Ethan

Skemp, Rich ThomasAuthors: Bill Bridges, Satyros Phil Brucato, Brian Campbell,

Jess Hartley, Matthew McFarland, Holden Shearer, Ethan Skemp, Eddy Webb and Stewart Wilson

Editor and Indexer: Genevieve PodleskiBook Design: Aileen E. MilesWerewolf 20th Anniversary Edition Logo: Craig GrantCharacter Sheet: Mr. GoneInterior Art: Charlie Bates, Dan Brereton, John Bridges, Ron

Brown, Mitch Byrd, Mike Chaney and Matt Milberger, John Cobb, Steve Ellis, Richard Kane Ferguson, Michael Gaydos, Doug Alexander Gregory, Pia Guerra, Tony Harris, Jeff Holt, Brian LeBlanc, Steve Prescott, Jeff Rebner, Alex Sheikman, Ron Spencer, Richard Thomas, Joshua Gabriel Timbrook, Drew Tucker, Melissa Uran, Bryon Wackwitz, Kieran Yanner

Based on the work of Mark Angeli, Bruce Baugh, Bjørn T. Bøe, Bill Bridges, Dierdre Brooks, Phil Brucato, Brad Butkovich, Tim Byrd, Chris Campbell, Jackie Cassada, Ben Chessell, Sam Chupp, Lisa Clark-Fleishman, James Comer, Richard Dansky, Lon Franson, Geoffrey C. Grabowsky, Andrew Greenberg, Daniel Greenberg, Ed Hall, Wes Harris, Robert Hatch, Harry Heckel, Heather Heckel, Shannon Hen-nessey, Sam Inabinet, Michael Lee, Ian Lemke, Forrest B. Marchinton, Robert Scott Martin, Ed McKeogh, Deena McKinney, Aileen E. Miles, James Moore, Kyle Olson, Devin Parker, Geoff Pass, Nicky Rea, Mark Rein Hagen, Sean Riley, Ethan Skemp, William Spencer-Hale, Rich Thomas, Josh Timbrook, Adam Tinworth, Stewart Wieck, Travis L. Williams, Samuel Witt, Teeuwynn Woodruff, Fred Yelk

Werewolf: The Apocalypse Creators Sam Chupp, Andrew Greenberg, Wes Harris, Robert Hatch, Geoff Pass, Mark Rein Hagen, William Spencer-Hale, Rich Thomas, Josh Timbrook, Stewart Wieck, Travis L. Williams, Samuel Witt

Special Thanks to:Cory “I’d Like To Talk To Bill, Please” Lucas, who hasn’t re-

ally...yet.Matthew “Zettler” Dawkins, who knows just what goes into

the water when the Board of Directors get together.Luke “Prince of Ruin” Parsons, for dancing the Black Spiral

and coming out with most of his sanity intact.

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25TABLE OF CONTENTS

ContentsPrologue: The Eighth Sign 1

Book One: The Wyld 26Introduction 28Chapter One: A World of Darkness 34Chapter Two: The Garou 72

Book Two: The Weaver 106 Chapter Three: Character and Traits 108Chapter Four: Gifts, Rites and Fetishes 150Chapter Five: Rules 230Chapter Six: Systems and Drama 242Chapter Seven: The Spirit World 304

Book Three: The Wyrm 334Chapter Eight: Storytelling 336Chapter Nine: Allies 364Chapter Ten: The Enemy 422Appendix 470

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When the skies were huge and dark at night,

Unlit by cities’ restless blaze,

Brightened only by the glowflies’ dance,

The stars, and the crackling of our fires,

And the air was thick with green tree-breath

The fleeting tear of burning wood,

We hunted those days like the wolves we are,

And sung by night like the men we may be.

Book One: The WyldSam

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INTRODUCTION 29

Introduction

Those of you holding this book in your hands probably need no introduction to Werewolf: The Apocalypse. You already know the savage horror and the joyous exultation of Rage. You know the tragedy of a warrior-people who turned on their own, and the one last hope that still burns as long as their hearts possess the will to fight. You know the glory of a struggle against a god of Entropy and Corruption, and the triumph of delivering just one small mortal soul. You know the pain of a world and the beauty of the spirit.

This book is for you. Werewolf: The Apocalypse — 20th Anniversary Edition. The Prophecy of Phoenix will be fulfilled.

The Nature of the BeastTwenty years ago, a game about werewolves hit

the shelves like a hammer. Nobody knew quite what to expect. Vampire: The Masquerade had alluded to werewolves — we knew they were out there, that they were terrifyingly strong, and that they hated vampires. And of course, we knew what to expect from werewolf movies: creatures that went mad by the light of the full moon. But there had to be more to it than that, right?

And there was. There was so much more.Where the vampires gathered in clans, the were-

wolves had tribes. They were born of humans or wolves,

or neither. And although they were every inch the physi-cally powerful, terrifying monsters we’d expected, they were also incredibly spiritual. Werewolf opened up an entirely new facet of the World of Darkness: the spirit world. They still hated vampires, but they were defined by an entirely new struggle, a battle against cosmic horror that incorporated a commentary on the horrible things humans do to one another and the world we live on. We even learned a new name for these creatures — the Garou.

Twenty years have passed since Werewolf: The Apocalypse came clawing its way into the world. To this day, it’s still hard to find many games like it. Werewolf is a game with a laser-precise focus, mixed with and almost contradicted by a remarkable mélange of components. It can keep a narrow, precise course of the story of a pack or sept’s war against the Wyrm, or it can branch out into stories of politics, tragedy, spirituality, history, ecology — the entirety of human experience and far, far beyond. No matter what you’re interested in as a Storyteller or a player, it can be relevant to the struggle of the Garou.

What This Book Is• A Classic Experience: Everyone’s first experi-

ence with Werewolf: The Apocalypse was different, but we’d venture a guess that a common theme was the sudden realization of the scale the game implied. This

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WEREWOLF THE APOCALYPSE 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION30

wasn’t about simple territories and city politics. The book described a war for the soul and body of the Earth itself, fought in countless gritty trenches and across truly cosmic backdrops. This book is about that sense of scale: it’s about the immensity of the threat facing the Garou, and the great depth and breadth of the People themselves. It’s about the immediacy of a world in peril and the exultation of raw, bestial might.

• A Howl of Warning: When Werewolf: The Apocalypse first debuted, there was a lot of tension building up as the millennium was about to turn over. We were all becoming increasingly aware of the dangers of environmental destruction, the dangers of factional bickering, and the sense that society could come undone. Werewolf was a cry of fury that people could do so much damage in the name of greed, and a desire to strike back.

Fast forward twenty years. Society didn’t collapse, obviously — but the themes of Werewolf: The Apoca-lypse stay with us. We’re seeing more and more signs of consequences for abusing the planet. Droughts and wildfires hint at the dangers of a climate that is shifting, thanks to human pollution. The oceanic food chains are being torn apart and disrupted by thoughtless overfish-ing. Avaricious bankers have gambled away billions of dollars, gutting economies around the world in their pursuit of Mammon. Industry continues to plunder the natural resources of the world without questioning what will happen when those finite resources run out.

To be sure, there’s been some progress. “Green” is a concept that has yet to die on the vine. More people think about carbon footprints and alternative energy supplies — but not enough people; not yet. We aren’t out of the woods. Things still have the capacity to get a lot worse. The Garou can still see Apocalypse coming, and anyone with the eyes and the imagination can see it as well. The warnings of Werewolf are still relevant.

• A Thank You: It’s not just the warnings that remain relevant. Werewolf would be nothing if its mes-sage wasn’t carried on by people who care; the Garou would be forgotten if people still didn’t enjoy telling their stories. Without you, this 20th anniversary edition would never have come to pass: without you, Werewolf wouldn’t have taken off in the first place. Thank you for letting us sketch this portion of the World of Darkness for you, and thank you for bringing it to life.

Live-ActionFor those troupes interested in exploring Werewolf

through live-action play, there’s plenty of support out there. Some troupes use our Mind's Eye Theatre rules or a variation of these tabletop rules, but there are also groups that use their own rulesets to bring the Werewolf: The Apocalypse experience to life. Organizations such

as The Mind’s Eye Society, The Garou Nation and One World By Night organize regular events.

Werewolf can be a challenging setting for a LARP, requiring as it does an active imagination. Costuming can’t easily account for a Hispo form or a Nexus Crawler. But Werewolf also enjoys the advantages of other modern live-action games, in that many of the locations require little modification, and it’s easy to dress as a modern Garou in Homid form. Not that costuming goes to waste, of course!

Werewolf also provides plenty of conflicts for a LARP to thrive on. The external war against the Wyrm can be used to gather a group together, while the internal rivalries and blood feuds of a sept can threaten to tear them apart. It all makes for meaty, bloody roleplay of the finest sort.

SafeguardsDespite the wide variety of live-action games out

there, there are some rules common between them to ensure that live-action is safe and enjoyable for all par-ticipants and bystanders.

• No Touching: All combat and physical interac-tion is generally handled through the rules. Players must never strike, grapple, or otherwise touch anyone during the game — some games allow some consensual touch-ing in specific instances, but it doesn’t hurt to assume “no touching” is the rule. The Storyteller should call a time-out if one or more players start straining at this rule.

• No Weapons: No knives, no swords, no klaives and nothing that even remotely resembles a firearm should be carried. It’s best to represent weapons with index cards marked “Grand Klaive” or “Glock” or the like; during combat challenges, present the card to the Storyteller, who will adjudicate its use in play.

• Play in a Designated Area: Most games should take place in private areas. Don’t involve bystanders in the game, and make sure everyone in the area, or who passes through the area, understands exactly what you’re doing. And always, always be polite to people outside the game.

• Know When to Stop: If the Storyteller calls for a time-out or other break in the action, stop immediately. In Live-Action, the Storyteller is still the final arbiter of all game events.

The WerewolfWerewolves are creatures caught between worlds.

They are both human and wolf, yet not truly either one. They’re modern monsters with primal souls, each one a beast of flesh with a heart of spirit. Werewolves are sufficiently like us that in their human forms, they seem as mortal as the rest of us — no stronger, no faster, no

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31INTRODUCTION

more invulnerable. When the change comes over them, however, they become true monsters: strong enough to smash down doors and claw apart metal, swift enough to run down any human and even able to shrug off bullets.

What Are Werewolves?The werewolf has many different incarnations through-

out human folklore and fiction. There are dozens of explana-tions for the person that turns into a beast, often contradicting one another. The Garou are like the werewolves of myth in many ways, and unlike them in many others.

• Werewolves are the victims of a curse. False. Most werewolves consider their nature to be a blessing, although it’s not without its burdens. Their anger can burn out of control in horrible ways, and by their birthright werewolves are drawn into an ancient and terrible war against an enemy that might never be defeated.

• A werewolf’s bite infects its victim with lycan-thropy. False. Werewolves have some spiritual powers that allow them to pass on curse-like ill effects with a bite, but they don’t create more of their kind in that way. A werewolf is born, not infected. Some are born to human parents, others to wolves; a few are born to werewolf parents, though such concentration of Garou blood is debilitating. Most werewolves never know what

they are until they undergo the First Change, and then the others come to reveal everything.

• Werewolves are skinchangers who derive their power from a magical spell or object. False. Werewolves do have a form of animistic magic: their ability to com-municate with, combat, and ritually invoke spirits. However, this magic derives from their werewolf nature, not the other way around. They are partly spirit, able to walk into the spirit world and command supernatural powers derived from there.

• Werewolves change forms only under the light of a full moon. False. Werewolves can change whenever they want, though some circumstances can force them to change against their will.

• Werewolves become savage, mindless beasts dur-ing the full moon. Mostly false. Werewolves’ emotions are affected by the full moon, and the most violent of them are on hair triggers during the full moon. It’s very easy for a werewolf to lose control to a bestial fury at this time, but they must be provoked further — the sight of the full moon alone does not take their reason from them.

• Werewolves can be killed only by a silver bullet. False. Werewolves heal incredibly quickly in most of their forms, but aren’t immortal. Silver is their weakness, however; wounds inflicted by silver weapons do not heal as quickly.

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A silver bullet is as dangerous to a werewolf as a lead slug is to a human. Of course, in neither case is an instant kill guaranteed — but with a good shot through the heart, there’s little a werewolf’s incredible healing ability can do.

• Werewolf packs work like wolf packs, with alphas, betas, and omegas. Partially true. Most actual wolf packs in the wild are family units. What people tend to think of as “alpha,” “beta,” and “omega” roles in a wolf pack show up more commonly in wolf packs formed from unrelated wolves, such as in captivity. That said, most werewolf packs are not family units, either, and establishing some form of hierarchy comes naturally to them. When the horrors come boiling up from the ground, it’s good to have a reflexive chain of command.

• There are certain “tells” for a werewolf in hu-man form, such as index and middle fingers being the same length or eyebrows that grow together. False. Werewolves are difficult to tell apart from ordinary humans, at least physically. However, a werewolf with high amounts of Rage — the supernatural fury that feeds their might — exudes such predatory malice that ordinary humans will instinctively shun and avoid her.

Blood, Moon, and TotemWerewolves are born shapeshifters, descended from

bloodlines that reach back to prehistory. Most don’t know

what they are until they reach maturity and undergo the First Change. At that point, they find they weren’t really human — or wolf — at all.

Three factors define the Garou: breed, auspice, and tribe. Breed is the birth form of the werewolf. Some are born to a human parent and a Garou parent; others to a wolf and a Garou. Still others are born to bloodlines of Kinfolk — people who possess werewolf blood but are not shapechangers themselves — and may not even know of their strange heritage. And some werewolves are born to Garou-Garou matings, though theirs is a difficult lot.

Auspice is the moon phase of a werewolf’s birth. The light of Luna affects them, granting them specific blessings that will govern their path in life. The brighter the birth moon, the more Rage the werewolf will feel. Those born under the full moon are the most furious of all — the warriors among a warrior people.

Tribe is a social unit as well as a family. A werewolf may come to a tribe for ideological reasons, but most are descended from a tribe’s bloodlines. A tribe defines itself by its Kin, its territory, its ideology and its tribal totem.

But while these three things can define a werewolf, a fourth bond exists — the bond of the pack. A werewolf’s packmates are like immediate family, best friends, and brothers-in-arms all at once.

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A World of SpiritsWerewolves are aware of a hidden side of the World

of Darkness. They interact with the spirit world, which they call the Umbra. Much of their powers are derived from this world. Garou call on spirits to teach them su-pernatural tricks, bind them into fetishes, or invoke them in complicated rites. But not all spirits are their allies…

The spirit world and the material world are inextri-cably linked. What affects one affects the other. Pollu-tion in the physical world spreads spiritual blight in the Umbra, which in turn brings down psychic corruption on the mortals influenced by the unseen world. This dynamic is critical to both worlds, and it is the focus of the Garou’s war for the soul of Gaia.

The WarThe Garou are defined as a people by their great

struggle. Gaia, the soul of the world, is dying. She is wounded by the talons of a cosmological force of cor-ruption known as the Wyrm. This colossal spirit lurks far beyond the reach of the Garou, but its influence is felt everywhere. Its minions are myriad twisted spirits of corruption and the mortals and even werewolves that have fallen under their sway.

The corruption endemic in human society — avari-cious corporations, vicious murderers, zealous cults — is a symptom of the oncoming end. The Garou believe in the Apocalypse: a time in which the Wyrm’s legions will break forth in order to finally remake the blasted world fully in its image. The Apocalypse may be the end of all things. But the werewolves were created to fight against it, until the last Garou breathes one last breath.

How to Use This BookWhile this book doesn’t include everything from the

game line’s entire run, it is intended to be close enough to comprehensive that it covers all areas of the game at least a little bit. The organization is as follows:

Chapter One: A World of Darkness describes the overall setting as well as the basics of the Garou Nation and their struggle.

Chapter Two: The Garou elaborates on the breeds, auspices and tribes that define what it is to be a werewolf.

Chapter Three: Character and Traits details character creation and the Traits that define a werewolf character.

Chapter Four: Gifts, Rites, and Fetishes covers the many spiritual powers that give the Garou a potent edge.

Chapter Five: Rules provides the basic resolution systems for the game.

Chapter Six: Systems and Drama elaborates on those basics, providing more detailed subsystems to handle more complicated elements of gameplay such as combat.

Chapter Seven: The Spirit World explores the Umbra, the hidden side of the world.

Chapter Eight: Storytelling is a collection of advice and techniques for Storytellers, useful in preparing and running engaging chronicles in the world of Werewolf.

Chapter Nine: Allies details those that are on the same side of the war as the Garou, such as spirits, Kinfolk, and the other Changing Breeds. It also provides a look at the Lost Tribes.

Conversely, Chapter Ten: Enemies is a rogue’s gal-lery of the worst enemies the Garou face, servants of the Wyrm, Weaver, and beyond.

Finally, the Appendix adds miscellaneous optional rules and details of sub-factions such as tribal camps.

Source MaterialWhat does one use for inspiration for Werewolf: The

Apocalypse? It’s almost easier to answer the question of what doesn’t one use for inspiration. Each subsection of the game can draw from different sources.

Straightforward literary and pop-culture depictions of werewolves are reasonably numerous, ranging from early influential classics like An American Werewolf in London and The Howling to clever tales like Ginger Snaps and Dog Soldiers. Many recent urban fantasy series feature werewolves to some degree, and these days the special effects technology in movies like Van Helsing can provide visual inspiration for Garou shapeshifting.

The spiritual side of the Umbra is also highly influential. Princess Mononoke is a fantastic blend of ecological concerns, human fallibility and animistic cosmology. The Lovecraftian Cthulhu Mythos offers a take on alien horror from the depths of the world, while the more animistic terror derived from Japanese horror films offers a closer-to-home take. There’s also really no substitute for volumes of actual folktales from various cultures, from Native Americans to Russians.

Pack bonding and politics derive great impact from stories about close relationships and bloody rivalries, both in war settings and beyond. Consider Band of Brothers, Henry V, The Wire, or even The Thirteenth Warrior.

Ecological or zoological works can provide a wealth of information to help you get a handle on the animal side of the setting. Barry Lopez’s Of Wolves and Men, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac are all influential works. But there’s also something to be said for documentaries such as Nature or Planet Earth — even “shocker” shows like River Monsters and Monsters Inside Me may provide ideas.

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