Level One
Call of the Wyld
You can charge your howls with a mystical force, rousing your fellow Garou and provoking them into action. This Gift is often used to inspire others in battle or while hunting, but it can also aid communications or fire up the sept during a revel. A wolf spirit teaches this Gift.
Cost: None
Test Pool: N/A
Tags: Howl, Simple Action, Emotional (Buff), Trait Adder
System:
Spend your simple action to call upon the Wyld, giving voice to it with a powerful howl. In Homid, Glabro, or Crinos forms, your call can be heard by anyone within range of your normal voice. If you are in Lupus or Hispo forms, your howl travels even further, up to one mile away for each dot you have in the Performance ability.
Each use of this Gift conveys a specific benefit selected by you, that can only be used by allies in challenges or situations related, at least tangentially, to the mission or goal described by your howl. You automatically benefit from this Gift, but others must respond with a howl in order to claim the same benefit. (Responding to a howl is not an action, but does require that the character be able to speak.)
Choose one of the following four benefits to convey:
- Catch and Collar: Garou using this benefit gain a +1 bonus to Physical test pools when using the Blinding Attack, Grapple, Knock Out, or Pierce the Heart combat maneuvers. Once per hour, the affected Garou can attempt a combat maneuver without spending the requisite 1 point of Willpower.
- Keep Your Kin: Those affected gain a +1 bonus on static challenges to resist damage from environmental conditions, such as Athletics challenges to spirit unharmed through a flaming house. It also applies to Physical test pools to resist damage-inflicting attacks that you intercept with the Assist Defender mass combat tactic. Once within the hour, the affected Garou can elect to spend 1 point of Gnosis to heal 1 level of bashing or Lethal damage. This healing does not require an action.
- Steady the Spirit: Affected Garou receive a +1 bonus to their test pools to resist emotion-manipulating powers, or powers that inflict madness or frenzy. Once within the hour, when an affected Garou is testing to resist such a power, they gain a Gift retest to resist such a power.
- Track and Traverse: Those affected gain a +1 bonus on challenges to find and identify enemies or prey, through both mystic and mundane means. Once within an hour, when an affected Garou spends an action on normal movement, she can elect to move an additional three steps.
You can only have a single application of this power in effect at a single time. If you choose to receive the benefits from a second application of this power, you immediately lose the benefits of the first.
Affinity:
Skilled with howls beyond compare, galliards can blend multiple howls into one, making their own unique call. Choose two separate benefits from the above list to apply when using this Gift. The bonus to test pools is not cumulative; only a single bonus applies from this Gift even if a challenge meets both situational requirements.
Canine Call
Ever since the Impergium and the War of Rage, everything else on the planet has lived in awe and terror of the sound of wolves howling. Pitching her voice just so, the Galliard produces a call that only canines can hear (including homid werewolves). Humans and other creatures automatically ignore the sound, feeling safe in their ignorance. City Garou and those infiltrating enemy bases find this particularly useful. A wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.
Cost: 2 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
Tags: Howl, Free Action
System:
This Gift is used in conjunction with one of the Garou howls, or a howl performed as part of another Gift. Using this Gift does not cost an action. This Gift doesn’t work with Rites, since the spirit world must hear any howls performed as part of a Rite.
When augmenting a howl, it makes it so only canines (including homid garou) are able to hear. Other supernatural creatures are only able to hear if they have a sensory enhancing power. All other creatures though will ignore the howl, making it so they do not respond to it, but also cannot be affected by it.
Affinity:
Sometimes a Garou wishes to make sure their howl is still heard by others, but only a few. When using this Gift you may specify another kind of creature mundane or supernatural; cats (which then would also include any cat-shifters in the area); leeches, etc. They as well as canines are able to hear this howl without issue.
Empathy
Galliards live by the ancient adage of "know your audience". This Gift grants the gibbous moon a sense of the crowd and their expectations and desires. A stag-spirit teaches this Gift.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Intelligence + Empathy vs highest Composure + Willpower in the group
Tags: Information Gathering, Emotion Affecting, Target (group)
System:
Expend a standard action and spend a Gnosis as you study your audience. Success indicates that the Garou knows what desire governs the majority of the crowd (discerned by a quick survey conducted by the Staff member on scene). Note that this Gift by no means reveals the wisest or most rational decision, just the most popular one.
Exceptional Success:
With an Exceptional Success, the Galliard can gain an +1 bonus on mundane Social Challenges related to advocating or playing to that desire.
Affinity:
Masters of nuance, a Galliard can silently gauge where the crowd stands on a single topic presented, again gleaned by a Storyteller surveying the players in silence. You must present a simple option (Attacking the enemy, granting clemency, etc.), and will learn if the majority of the crowd is for, against, or indifferent. An exceptional success will likewise grant a breakdown of how many leaned towards each option, though not who voted which way.
Memory Circle
The Galliards are the Garou’s historians, charged with committing the legends and tales of their people to memory, perfect memory. Not all of them are particularly good at it. Thankfully, this Gift gives those Galliards a chance to make up for their weakness by planting Umbral “reminders” on their person. This Gift is taught by an elephant-spirit.
Cost: 1 Gnosis or 1 Willpower, see Gift
Test Pool: None
Tags: Mind Affecting (Memory), Simple action, (A) Trait Adder
System:
This Gift is performed in two parts. When hearing words the Galliard wants to remember perfectly, he spends a simple action and one point of Gnosis. As this happens, the player should write down exactly what he’s committing to Umbral memory and have a staff member sign off on it. Later, when he wishes to retrieve the memory, he may spend one point of Willpower and ask the Storyteller to read it back verbatim or refer to their own note. The use of this Gift leaves tiny clear spheres matted within the Garou’s fur that can be seen within the Umbra, the so-called “memory circles”. Should the Garou wish to remove a memory circle, they may do so simply by pulling it out of their fur while in the Umbra.
The real strength of this Gift though is passing these memories to another. While in the umbra with an individual, by taking a minute to carefully remove a memory circle on you and attaching it to another you are able to give them the memory you preserved with this Gift. Thereafter, you lose the ability to recall the memory with this Gift and they are able to use the second aspect of this Gift to recall the memory. They do not need to have this Gift to do so.
Affinity:
Galliards are emboldened by stirred memories. When spending a Willpower to reflect on one of their stored memories, the gibbous moon gains a +2 bonus on related, non-combat, mundane challenges. This nostalgia-induced benefit lasts for the remainder of the evening, or until another memory is chosen, whichever comes first.
Mind Web
This Gift grants mental communication, even over vast distances. Bird spirits and spirits of intellect teach this Gift. Owl is a particularly sought-after teacher, and those who learn from him claim to have enhanced abilities at night.
Cost: 1 Willpower
Test Pool: None
Tags: Mind Affecting, Simple Action, Range: Line of Sight, Target Group (half Willpower +1)
System:
Expend a simple action to create a telepathic connection with a single willing subject in your line of sight. For the purpose of determining whether or not a subject is willing, she knows beforehand who is attempting to contact her and may decide whether or not to accept the connection. Once the connection has been established, you and your target may communicate via telepathic whispers. This link only conveys short, verbal messages and does not transmit thoughts, images, or memories.
Once a link has been created, you may include new members in the Mind Web, so long as they are willing and within your line of sight, by spending one simple action per person you intend to include. Bringing new members in does not require further expenditure of Willpower and can be done at any point after the first connection has been established. The maximum number of individuals included is equal to half the user’s dots of Willpower (round down) + 1.
Once your telepathic web has been established, all the participants may communicate freely and silently as long as they remain within 10 miles of you and on the same plane of existence. A person can only participate in a single Mind Web at a time. If you are targeted to participate in another Mind Web while your preexisting Mind Web is already active, you must decide whether to remain in the existing instance or join the new one.
Affinity:
Galliards draw groups together like no other. As such, members linked by the Mind Web gain +1 on any challenge related to the goal for which the minds were linked (which must be stated upon activating the Gift). "Scouting the area" would give a benefit to investigations and even stealth to maneuver around the area, but not for attacking people there or killing time making a Crafts test while other people are looking around. Further, those linked may respond to the Galliard's howls through the Mind Web instead of howling aloud in response to receive the benefits.
Tongue of the Wild Court
You remember the times of your distant ancestors, when great beasts roamed the earth. Many such creatures were allied with the Garou and taught them animal languages. With this Gift, your mere presence awakens the spiritual aspect of animals as you draw near. This heightened self-awareness affects birds, mammals, reptiles, and even fish, allowing you to communicate as though speaking a common language and invoke ancient pacts to secure the aid of such animals. Any animal-spirit can teach this Gift.
Cost: None or 1-2 Gnosis (see Gift)
Test Pool: Manipulation + Animal Ken versus target's Composure + Willpower
Tags: Mind Affecting, Standard Action, target (Animal)
System:
The first part of this power is always active once this Gift has been purchased; this power allows you to invoke ancient pacts, swaying animals to your side. Mundane animals have no fear of you, and you instinctively know how to communicate with such creatures - you do not suffer the effects of the curse when dealing with mundane animals. You need not imitate animal noises or gestures to communicate; any combination of sounds or movements can carry your meaning to animals watching you.
Additionally, you can leverage your status to request service from mundane animals. To do so, spend 1 point of Gnosis and expend a standard action to entreat a beast, convincing it to serve you for the next hour. You may opt to spend a second point of Gnosis during activation, causing the animal to serve you for up to 24 hours. An affected creature assists you however it can, but it will not fight on your behalf, directly endanger itself, or lead you to its young. It will answer questions to the best of its ability, though the extent of its understanding is limited. You can only have one animal in your service at a time; engaging another releases the first from its duty to serve.
An animal cannot speak to you or cooperate with you if its loyalty is already commanded by another supernatural creature. Animals that are supernatural in origin, such as bygones, are not affected by Tongue of the Wild Court, nor does the Gift affect spirits, even those shaped or themed like animals.
Exceptional Success:
You do not need to spend the second point of Gnosis to make the animal serve you for up to 24 hours.
Affinity:
If an animal is compelled to serve another via a previous power you may attempt to contest this power. Spend a standard action to activate this Gift and while talking to the animal engage the user of the power in this Gift's challenge. Their defense pool is either the defense pool of this power, or their test pool for their effect -- whichever is higher. If successful, you are able to supersede their power and the animal will listen to you for the duration of this Gift.
This does not end other effects that may persist on the animal though such as being ghouled.
Wolf Senses
You can extend your physical senses well beyond that of a human or even a typical wolf. Eyesight and hearing sharpen to twice mortal limits, while touch, smell, and taste become acute enough to discern even the smallest details with ease. Apt for the name, a Wolf Spirit teaches this Gift.
Cost: None, or 1 Gnosis (see power)
Test Pool: Wits + Investigation verses target's Resolve + Willpower
Tags: Simple action, Breaks Stealth, (A) Trait Adder
System:
Once learned, Wolf Senses is always active. You have the ability to see clearly, even in total darkness, and to understand sounds too quiet for normal people to hear. Your olfactory senses are strong enough to identify familiar people or substances by scent alone. You gain the scent-tracking abilities of Lupus form, even when you are in other forms.
When a character with Wolf Senses comes within two steps of an individual hidden by supernatural concealment, such as Blur of the Milky Eye, the character with Wolf Senses automatically realizes that someone is nearby, although she does not know who or precisely where to find that someone. Wolf Senses provides only a vague warning that something or someone is near.
When something blinds you, your smell or hearing can provide adequate compensation or the loss of vision. Normally, characters that cannot see while in combat must use the Fighting Blind Combat Maneuver to attack an opponent. So long as your character's sense of hearing or smell is unimpaired, you can fight without needing the Fighting Blind Combat Maneuver.
If you spend 1 point of Gnosis and expend a standard action, your character sharpens her senses even further. You automatically notice any objects mundanely hidden within line of sight.
You may attempt to see any person or object hidden with supernatural power, to discern the true nature of illusory objects, or to recognize objects or people disguised by supernatural powers. To accomplish this goal, spend a standard action, and 1 point of Gnosis. You must succeed in an opposed challenge using this Gift's test pool, the target of this Gift may have a different defensive test pool given by their power. If you pierce a supernatural power in this way, for the next five minutes, you ignore the effects of that power, so long as they were generated by the target you defeated in the opposed challenge.
Exceptional Success:
If you score an exceptional success when seeing through supernatural concealment, you automatically pierce any supernatural concealment (or illusion) created by the same individual for the next hour.
Affinity:
You are extremely adept at tracking. When attempting to track another individual, you gain +2 on all related challenges.