Lupus Gifts

[Xenia]

Lupus Gifts

Level One Gifts

• Call of the Wyld
• Predator's Arsenal
• Sense the Balance
• Vie for Dominance
• Wolf Senses

Level Two Gifts

• Axis Mundi
• Name the Spirit
• Pursuit
• Surround the Quarry
• Trappers Bane

Level Three Gifts

• Death Whispers
• Scent of the Prey
• Shattering Howl
• Spirit of the Fray
• Thousand Forms

Level Four Gifts

• Beast Life
• Gnaw
• Rancorous Halo
• Snarl of the Predator
• Venom

Level Five Gifts

• Apotheosis of Rage
• Song of the Great Beast
• Spirit Vessel
• Terror of the Dire Wolf
• Thieving Talons of the Magpie

[Xenia]

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

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:
You were born Lupus, and you know how to make your voice clearly heard however far you need. Your howls always have a range of your performance in miles, regardless of form.


Predator's Arsenal
One of the most unnerving aspects of the Homid shape is its lack of proper weapons. This Gift remedies that problem (while still retaining much of the Homid shape's ability to blend in with the human world), granting the Garou battle-ready claws and teeth in Homid form. It is taught by a wolf-spirit.

Cost: None

Test Pool: N/A

System:
Spend a full turn in concentration to activate this Gift. For the next hour, the effects of this Gift persist. While this Gift is active you gain access to claw and bite attacks as though you were in Crinos form. The damage from these attacks is Lethal, this allows for the use of any claw Gifts (such as razor claws) or benefit from Merits (such as natural weapons) while still in Homid form. So long as you do not open your mouth too wide, and keep your hands concealed (perhaps by clasping them behind your back, or hiding them under a shawl) you appear completely human as you normally would. You are even able to speak normally so long as you, again, do not open your mouth to wide, though your voice does sound a little distorted.

Affinity:
It can be beneficial to only bring what tools you need. When activating this Gift, you may choose to only gain either claws or a bite attack if you so wish. This leaves the unaffected part unchanged - allowing a clever lupus to keep talking with their prey while their clawed hands wait for the chance to strike, or for easy display of open hands with no weapons, while keeping the actual deadly weapon concealed behind innocent lips.


Sense the Balance
The world exists in a state of balance -- a pull between Weaver, Wyld, and Wyrm. With concentration, you can pierce the veil of reality to discern if a creature has a certain affinity for one aspect of the Triat over the others. If your perception is keen enough, you determine fine nuances of that balance, even to the extent of identifying whether that creature has recently associated with an aspect of the Triat. Most keen eyed spirits can teach this Gift, though most Garou find their instruction from an owl sprit.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: Wits + Empathy vs Target's Resolve + Willpower

System:
Spend a standard action to make an opposed challenge against your target using this Gift's test pool.

If you succeed, you can determine whether the creature is most associated with the Wyld, the Weaver, or the Wyrm. This Gift allows you to determine which type of supernatural creature your target is, if any, such as Garou, Vampire, Fae, Ghoul, Kinfolk, Bane, etc. If your target is possessed by a Bane, a Vampire, or another creature, this power reveals that information and determines the possessing creature's type.

If you have no experience, knowledge, or Scholar of related merit of the specific creature type, the Storyteller may simply describe facets of the creature rather than answering with detailed information. For example, she might say, "It seems to be a creature that drinks blood and only comes out at night."

Once you have taken your target's measure, you automatically learn of any taint she might have from the Triat, even if she isn't directly associated with a member of the Triat.

Exceptional Success:
You can also sense if your target has recently been to a place associated with the Weaver, Wyld, or Wyrm.

Affinity:
You may activate this power as a simple action rather than a standard action.


Vie for Dominance
Competition among wolves begins at an early age, as eager cubs wrestle and scrap to prove their mettle. Use of this Gift clearly demonstrates the social order, establishing your dominance over your opponent until she can show otherwise. A wolf spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: None

Test Pool: Strength + Brawl, Strength + Melee, or Dex + Archery versus Target's Physical Defense Pool

System:
Expend your standard action to make a Physical attack against your opponent, assaulting her in an embarrassing or domineering manner. For example, this attack could be a kick to the shins, a backhand to the face, or an arrow shot through their hand. If you succeed, reduce the damage dealt from your attack by 2 (minimum 0). Then, for the next hour, your target suffers a -2 penalty on all non-defensive Social Challenges. If she succeeds in a Physical attack targeted at you while under the effects of your Vie for Dominance, the power's effect immediately ends.

Multiple uses of this power against a single target do not result in a cumulative penalty. Instead, apply the single greatest penalty. If a target has been affected by multiple uses of Vie for Dominance, succeeding in a Physical attack against one user of this power does not negate its effects from other users. if you become unconscious or your target can no longer see you, this power's effect immediately ends.

Exceptional Success:
The normal benefits of an exceptional success, such as additional damage, apply to a physical attack used to trigger Vie for Dominance. Additionally, the target receives a -3 penalty to her non-defensive Social Challenges for the duration of this Gift rather than -2.

Affinity:
You drive the humiliation home. The penalty suffered increased to -4, or -5 on an exceptional success.


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 (see power)

Test Pool: Wits + Investigation verses target's Resolve + Willpower

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 t 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 may sharpen your senses with only a simple action, rather than a standard action.

[Xenia]

Level Two

Axis Mundi
Centering herself in relation to Gaia, the Lupus knows where she is at all times, all the while making sure she and her pack are safe. Any spirit can teach this Gift.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: None

System:
Spend a simple action to activate this Gift. For the next hour, the wolfborn always knows which direction she is traveling in or facing, no matter where she travels, so long as it is within a Gaian realm.

Affinity:
While this Gift is active, if you or any individual that was recognized as traveling with you is attacked by surprise, you immediately become aware of the attack just before it occurs and may make a simple action prior to the attack being resolved. If your action makes the attack impossible the individual launching the attack loses their action. This may only be used on the first round of a given combat, though if you end up in multiple combats within the hour of the Gift it functions for all of them.


Name the Spirit
The Garou gains an instinctive rapport with denizens of the Umbra. He can sense the type and approximate power of spirits. Owl- and raven-spirits teach this Gift.

Cost: 1 Willpower

Test Pool: Wits + Occult vs. target's Resolve + Willpower

System:
Spend a standard action to examine a spirit and engage them in a contested challenge. On a success, you learn the target's approximate current levels of Rage, Gnosis, and Willpower within 1 (as such if they had Gnosis 6 you might be told any number from 5-7).

Exceptional Success:
You learn the target's traits perfectly; no range.

Affinity:
After successfully using this Gift on a target, you are aware whenever your target spends a temper. You may not be aware of the reason if the effect is subtle. This effect lasts for 10 minutes or until the target leaves your line of sight, whichever comes first.


Pursuit
You share a kinship with the spirits of mighty predator animals that chase down their prey, such as the wolf or the cheetah. If you are pursuing an enemy, you can invoke their hunger and fury to increase your speed until you have caught your quarry. This Gift is taught by any predator-spirit, but most commonly a wolf-spirit.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: N/A

System:
This Gift takes no action to activate. For the remainder of the turn, you may add a number of steps equal to your dots of the Athletics ability to your base movement rate. For example, if expending a simple action would normally allow you to take 3 steps and you have 4 dots of Athletics, you would be able to take 7 steps while under the effects of Pursuit. You must continue to chase your quarry to maintain Pursuit; any action that moves you away from your enemy, even unwillingly, ends all benefits of pursuit.

Affinity:
Any action spent moving towards your enemy now yields an additional three steps in addition to your base movement and Athletics ability. For example, if expending a simple action would typically allow you to take three steps and you have four dots of the Athletics ability, while under the effects of Pursuit you are able to take 10 steps (3 + 4 +3)


Surround the Quarry
Seasoned pack leaders are also skilled tacticians, positioning their packmates to be more effective in battle and in the hunt. This Gift allows a Garou to engage her target, while also enabling her pack the freedom to advance, maneuver, and surround. Hyna-spirits teach this Gift.

Cost: 1 Rage

Test Pool: Physical Attack (Archery, Brawl, or Melee) vs. Target's Physical Defense

System:
Spend a standard action to make a Physical Attack against a target. In addition to the normal effects of your Physical Attack (such as damage), if you succeed in the opposed challenge, you and a number of allies up to the number of dots you possess of the Leadership ability may each move up to two steps, taken immediately. These steps may be either towards or around the target of your Physical Attack, but not away from her. You cannot benefit from this power more than once in a single round.

Exceptional Success:
The normal benefits of an exceptional success apply to a Physical attack used to trigger Surround the Quarry (such as additional damage). Alternatively, you may choose to forgo the normal exceptional success benefits and instead select a number of allies up to twice the number of dots you possess of the Leadership ability to benefit from this power.

Affinity:
If your Physical attack succeeds, you and your chosen allies also receive a +3 bonus to your initiative at the beginning of the next round. Bonuses from additional uses of Surround the Quarry are not cumulative.


Trappers Bane
Humans set up traps for all kinds, even wolves; however, the wise lupus does not let any traps - or ambushes them take them by surprise. A wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: None

Test Pool: None or 1 Willpower

System:
Once purchased this Gift is always active. When testing against a trap, the Garou gains a +3 to resist the effects of the trap; this applies against traps such as those to protect territory.

Alternatively, if the Garou is attacked from surprise, if they so choose they may spend a Willpower, doing so allows the Garou to immediately take their simple action before the surprise attack is resolved; afterwards the surprise attack is resolved - then initiative starts as normal.

Affinity:
Rather than being able to just take a simple action when attacked from surprise, you may instead take a standard action; you may only take one or the other - not both.

[Xenia]

Level Three

Death Whispers
The Greeks associate the wolf with death. Hecate wears three wolf heads, while Charon wears wolf ears. Lupus with this Gift echo that connection. By standing entirely still near a recently dead body, the lupus can hear the final worlds of the deceased. These words are often rambling and incoherent, but can provide clues and understanding of what happened at the moment of their death, or of their most prominent thoughts at the moment of their demise. This Gift is taught by a servant of Charon; this is a Gift he teaches to all Lupus, regardless of if they serve him.

Cost: None

Test Pool: N/A

System:
The lupus must stand next to the corpse and stay entirely still for five minutes, trying to hear the very soft whispers. Any motion on the Lupus' part willing or no end the Gift prematurely. Upon completion of the five minutes, you are able to gain a number of pieces of information equal to your dots of the Occult Ability. This information is given from the corpse's perspective and so may be limited by it's knowledge (e.g. a human murdered by vampires might talk about the pleasure they felt when they were bitten, but might have no idea what a leach is). This Gift may be attempt only once per dead body.

Affinity:
In addition to hearing the whispers of the dead you can gain a hazy image of what they saw last - this sight is based on the corpses, which means that a normal mortal might not see everything; meanwhile a strange corpse may have a final sight that is strange even to the Lupus.


Scent of the Prey
The wolf can tack her prey from miles away by scent alone. You've learned to call upon the spirits of the hunt to mystically enhance your own sense of smell, tracking your quarry to the end of the world and beyond. A wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: Intelligence + Investigation versus target's Resolve + Willpower

System:
Expend a standard action opening your senses to your prey's distinct qualities. To attempt Scent of the Prey, you must be in a location where the target has been within the last 24 hours and be familiar with her. If you succeed in an opposed challenge, you sense your target's exact direction. For the next hour, you can use this instinctual knowledge to track the target until you see her.

Scent of the Prey does not provide you with any specific information about the location where your target is, but you can sense her approximate distance and exact direction. If the target is currently hidden via supernatural powers then you can track the target to her general location before losing the mystical connection. If this happens, it becomes obvious to you that the target is hiding with supernatural powers.

This Gift can track your prey anywhere on Earth and through umbral realms within its hour-long limit. Afterwards, you must test again to regain the scent. If you fail any attempt to use Scent of the Prey, then you cannot attempt to tract the same target again until 24 hours have passed. If the target benefits from a supernatural power that removed familiarity, such as The Madness Season, then the mystical connection breaks and the Gift fails.

Exceptional Success:
If you achieve an exceptional success when activating Scent of the Prey, the Gift's duration extends to five hours.

Affinity:
You can use this Gift if your target has been through your current location anytime within the last week.


Shattering Howl
Unleashing a deafening howl that resonates powerfully, the lupus smashes the paltry fruits of mankind’s labor. Storm- and wind-spirits teach this Gift.

Cost: 1 Rage

Test Pool: Charisma + Primal Urge vs. static difficulty determined by the storyteller

System:
Spend your full turn howling. The resultant ear-piercing sound shatters all glass and anything brittle or fragile within a radius of (20 x Dots of Primal Urge) yards no test. It also knocks over anything precariously stacked or top-heavy, and shoddily-made things fall apart no test. Sturdier objects may be damaged by making a successful test using the Gift's test pool; a stone wall would have a difficulty of 8, other materials will have their difficulties determined by the Storyteller.

Affinity:
By increasing the cost of the Gift to 1 Rage and 1 Willpower, you are able to make the howl out of the range of human hearing. While the effects are obviously noticeable, creatures without heighted senses are unable to detect the source of this Gift, this includes Garou in Homid or Glabro forms unless they possess a Gift that heightens their hearing.


Spirit of the Fray
The glory of battle resounds within your blood, calling you to great and heroic deeds. You are almost always the first to strike; a spirit of fire within your heart guides your lightning fast reflexes. A cat-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: None

Test Pool: N/A

System:
When calculating your initiative, you receive a bonus equal to the number of dots you posses of the Athletics ability. This power is always active.

Affinity:
In addition to the above, you may spend 1 Gnosis to receive and additional +10 to your initiative for the turn. You can spend this Gnosis and activate this power at any time - even before your turn in the initiative order. You may spend additional points of Gnosis for successive +10 bonuses to your initiative, which combine with other initiative bonuses.


Thousand Forms
Most cultures possess stories of tricksters changing shape. Whether to confound pursuers, move more efficiently, or have a bit of fun, you can change your shape into any small animal, such as a small bird, a squirrel, a fish, or a cat. Wyld-spirits teach this Gift.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: N/A

System:
Expend your standard action to change into a small animal, choosing a specific form each time you use this Gift. You may select any non-supernatural animal roughly the size of a cat. In no case can the form you assume be small enough to hide on another individual's person. While you retain the form of this animal, you can't speak or communicate with other animals. While transformed, you divide your Physical Attributes in half (round up) when making any physical attacks; however you gain a +3 to your Dodge-based defense test pools due to your small size. You can possess one of the following bonuses, so long as it fits the theme of your chosen form:

• Agile: You receive a +5 bonus to your Dodge-based defense test pools, rather than the standard +3 bonus.
• Aquatic: You swim at normal movement speed, but your movement speed on land is reduced to one step per action. Alternately, at your Storyteller's discretion, you cannot move on land at all while in this form.
• Avian: You can fly at your normal movement speed.
• Fast: If you expend both your simple and standard actions on movement, you can move nine steps a round, instead of the standard six.
• Climbing: You can climb upward at a speed equal to your walking pace and climb as a simple action, rather than a standard action.
• Vicious: Do not reduce your Physical attributes when making Physical attacks while in this form.

Thousand forms cannot be combined with any other powers that change your form, including a Garou's innate ability to shape shift. You may end this transformation at any time by expending a simple action. Upon ending this Gift you revert to your breed form.

Affinity:
Intune with being an animal, while in the form given by this Gift you may choose two of the above tags, rather than just one.

[Xenia]

Level Four

Beast Life
The Garou with the Gift can communicate with other wild animals and attract (or even command) them. Domesticated animals will speak with the werewolf, but they have given themselves to the ways of humans and must be persuaded to obey the Garou. Any animal spirit may teach this Gift, although Lion and Bear are the most often sought as teachers.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: N/A

System:
Expend a simple action to activate Beast Life. You immediately gain the ability to communicate with any animals. Further, by expending a standard action you are able to call on any wild animals within a number of miles equal to your dots of Animal Ken who come to you as quickly as reasonably possible. Only wild animals answer this call, any animal that has given itself over to the ways of humans may still be communicated with, but does not automatically serve you.

What animals answer is left to the discretion of the Storyteller, but you may call anything from an army of rats, to perhaps a passing bear. Any animals summoned with this Gift will listen to your commands and perform any reasonable request. Requests that may result in harm, or even death, may require a successful social challenge at the storyteller's discretion. If any animals called with this Gift die, you must pay homage to it's spirit within 2 game sessions or else gain the Spirit Enmity Flaw for 3 sessions.

The effects of this Gift last for one hour.

Affinity:
The range to which the call goes out is twice the number of miles equal to your dots of Animal Ken. Further, if you are needing to engage in a social challenge to convince the animals to engage in activities that might be dangerous or deadly to them, you gain a bonus on that challenge equal to your Rank.


Gnaw
You have the ability to bite through wood, stone, and even iron given enough time and motivation. Gnaw extends and increases the size of your maw to monstrous proportions, offering extreme leverage and toughness - and potentially inflicting frightening levels of damage on any enemies you bite. A wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Willpower

Test Pool: N/A

System:
Expend a simple action to activate Gnaw. This Gift can only be activated while you are in Lupus or Hispo form. While this Gift is active, your jaw becomes grotesque in proportion, and your fangs turn into horrendous, ragged tools of destruction. Under the effects of Gnaw, you can chew through anything, with sufficient time. You can chomp through Iron chains using a standard action and gnaw your way though a reinforced wall in a few minutes. In addition, your bite attacks gain the Brutal and Fast melee weapon qualities and do an additional point of damage on a successful attack.

A bite attack would now deal 2 damage on a normal attack, and 3 on an exceptional success.

Affinity:
Lupus know the importance of hunting as a pack. By increasing the cost of this Gift to 2 Willpower, you are able to affect a number of packmates up to your Rank with this Gift granting them the effect of Gnaw for the next 10 minutes. Multiple uses of this Gift do not stack. They must be willing to receive this Gift, and those affected can end the effect at any time by spending a simple action if they so wish.


Rancorous Halo
The bristling wolf has reached the end of her patience, a clear indication that further provocation will lead to violence. Use of this Gift brings your Rage to the surface, seething into a visible aura of anger. Any who would challenge you for dominance risk hastening their demise. A wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: N/A

System:
Expend your simple action to bristle and growl, calling forth your anger and making it manifest. You immediately project a pulsing aura of power that is visible to the naked eye; it reflects the tone of your anger, in a color of your choosing. Whenever an opponent attempts a Mental or Social challenge against you and fails, you have the option to immediately gain 1 point of Rage. Frivolous or non-aggressive challenges do not give you the option of gaining Rage. This power lasts for five minutes.

When this power is active, you cannot benefit from any form of concealment, either mundane or supernatural. The light your aura provides is dull and insufficient for illumination; use of this Gift in total darkness does not negate penalties due to low visibility.

Affinity:
While this power is active, if an opponent attempts a Mental or Social challenge against you, you can immediately gain 1 point of Rage, even if the challenge succeeds.


Snarl of the Predator
Wolves struggle for dominance through tests of strength and will. The most primitive-and arguably the most important-of these is the staredown. BY glaring into your opponents eyes, you can inflect terror into her hear and force her to submit to your will. An ancestor-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Rage

Test Pool: Charisma + Intimidation versus target's Composure + Willpower

System:
Spend a standard action to make a display of strength and dominance, such as growling, posturing, or raising hackles in your fur. If you succeed in an opposed challenge against your target, she immediately flees in terror for five minutes. The target cannot willingly come within five steps of you for this power's duration. In addition she actively seeks to avoid your presence and fears your against for the rest of the game session and she cannot initiate a Staredown against you.

If your target is a Garou or a Fera, she may choose to kneel or roll over onto her back instead of fleeing. A shapeshifter who chooses this option must do so during her next available action, and she must continue to submit for two full turns. She cannot attack you for the next five minutes, unless you attack her first. However, she is not forced to flee or to stay away from you. If the target is attacked, including by you, she can defend herself normally.

Exceptional Success:
If you achieve an exceptional success when attempting to use this power, the effects last for one hour, instead of five minutes, and submission lasts for five turns instead of two.

Affinity:
You may forgo the traditional means of enacting Snarl of the Predator, and may instead choose to activate this power with a dedicated stare, rather than more visible aggressive behaviors. Such an activation changes the power's test pool to Manipulation + Intimidation versus target's Composure + Willpower.


Venom
A common trick of desert-dwelling Garou, this Gift allows the user to produce a noxious venom. The Garou's bite can incapacitate or even kill a victim. The Garou herself is immune to her own poison, but she can be incapacitated by another Garou's Venom attack. Any venomous snake-spirit teaches this Gift. Most Garou hesitate to make deals with snakes and serpents, but sometimes necessity outweighs prejudice.

Cost: None

Test Pool: Strength + Brawl vs. Target's Physical Defense (if attack is soaked Gift is automatically successful)

System:
Expend a standard action and make a bite attack against a target to use Venom. In addition to the normal effects of a successful bite attack, the target is affected by a powerful venom.

You may determine the precise nature of the venom. Chose any one of the following drug or poison qualities as venom effects with the following modifications:

• Alcohol: No static test is required.
• Hallucinogen: No modifications
• Knockout: If your attack to bite the target is an exceptional success they do not get a static challenge to resist; this effect may not be combined with simulant.
• Simulant: Medical attention to treat this poison's effect is determined by a successful Intelligence + Medicine test against a static difficulty of 10. Organ failure is fatal to living targets if medical attention is received before the end of the scene - this is true even for Garou; though a Garou may Rage heal if they have sufficient Rage.
• Toxin: No static challenge is required. There is no delay to the poison's onset and damage is inflicted every turn, for a number of turn's equal to your dots in Primal Urge. This effect does not stack with itself.

Exceptional Success:
The normal benefits of an exceptional success attack apply, such as additional damage.

Affinity:
When using this Gift, you may choose any of the two effects to apply when making your venom.

[Xenia]

Level Five

Apotheosis of Rage
While all Garou carry within them the seeds of Luna's anger, those seeds only truly blossom in the deepest throes of battle. Through this Gift, you become Luna's Rage made manifest, striking repeatedly in impossible succession. A lune teaches this Gift.

Cost: 3 Rage

Test Pool: N/A

System:
This Gift takes no action to activated, but must be activated at the start of your turn on the given round. For the duration of the current turn (this does include any Rage rounds you spend additional Rage to act in), whenever you use your standard action to attempt an attack, you can attempt two separate Physical attacks. These attacks can only deal damage, and they cannot be used to activate Gifts or be combined with combat maneuvers.

Affinity:
When using this Gift, if you successfully manage to drop a target with either of your attacks, you immediately regain 1 point of Rage.


Song of the Great Beast
Howling out the song of the Great Beast deep in the wilderness to the sky, the Garou summons one of the Great Beasts to her aid. These beasts are terrible and ancient creatures that walked the earth in ages past. Examples include the Willawau (giant owl), Sabertooth Tiger, the great Megalodon, or even perhaps a Dinosaur. Who knows what a Garou might call? Few spirits know this Gift. It's said that those that do dwell in the Realm of Pangea.

Cost: 2 Gnosis

Test Pool: None

System:
Spend a standard action to invoke this Gift as the Garou sings out a terrifying song which must be deep in the wild. After some length of time - as determined by the storyteller; which can be anywhere from immediately to an hour - a Great Beast arrives with which the Garou may negotiate with. Whatever Great Beast arrives will be open to discussion; and anyone powerful enough to call them is likely to get the Great Beast to grant it's aid; however, any such creature will grant it's aid in whatever form it wills, which may not be in the precise form that the Garou wishes. Even the wisest of Garou cannot fathom the desires of these creatures, as such it is always a dangerous move to call for their aid. Though they are often more of a help than a hinderance.

Affinity:
The Great Beast always arrives in a reasonable length of time, ranging instead from immediately to 5 minutes. Once the creature arrives one will still need to negotiate with it, though simple or immediate requests often don't take much convincing for the creature (it will happily munch up enemies that are pursuing you for instance).


Spirit Vessel
Your mastery over spirits is such that you can transform your body into a spirit vessel that can contain and feed off a spirit, much as a fetish is powered by a bound spirit. With concentration, you can force a Jaggling spirit to inhabit your body and lend some of its power to boost your own natural abilities. But this power comes at a price - while it dwells within you, that spirit may subtly influence your mind. An ancestor-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: N/A

System:
Expend a standard action to summon a Jaggling spirit of your choice and then absorb it into your body. As long as the spirit inhabits your body you gain +3 dots a single attribute as appropriate to the nature of the spirit. For example, a rock Jaggling spirit might grant 3 additional dots of Stamina. these dots can raise you above 5; however, if they do so you do not gain a Heroic Attribute ability. The spirit is content to live inside your body until you force it out by expending a standard action or until you sleep.

While Spirit Vessel is active, you suffer from the Derangement: Spirit’s Motivation (Obsession). Each time that you are confronted with something that relates to the spirit’s motivation or purpose, you must act out that motivation or gain a Derangement trait. For example, if you have a fire spirit inhabiting you, you might become obsessed with igniting and burning things.

Affinity:
When using this Gift, if you use it for a Social attribute, if the bonus dots gained from Spirit Vessel bring you over 5 you gain a Heroic Attribute ability for that attribute while the Gift is active. If you already possess a Heroic Attribute ability for the attribute you gain a second one for the duration of the Gift. You may select which Heroic Attribute ability each time this Gift is activated.


Terror of the Dire Wolf
Wolves haunt the ancestral nightmares of humanity, and of those monsters that were once human. The Garou lets out a fierce snarl that triggers primordial terror in opponents and drowns them in the Delirium. All the while calling upon that primordial wolf of old. A wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Rage

Test Pool: None

System:
Spend a simple action to activate this Gift. You radiate the Delirium in all forms now. Any human, former human, or partially human creature suffers the full effects of the Delirium - including those normally immune the Delirium such as Mages or Vampires. Only other Garou or Fera are immune.

In addition, when in Hispo, or Lupus form you take on a more powerful appearance. Your Lupus form grants a +2 on all brawl attacks in addition to it's normal effects, while in your Hispo form you deal an additional point of damage with any bite or claw attacks as you appear as an ancient and primordial wolf.

Affinity:
Your Delirium is particularly frightening. Anyone affected by your Delirium while Terror of the Dire Wolf is active treats their Willpower as 1 less for the purposes of determining the effects of the Delirium on them.


Thieving Talons of the Magpie
There are tales of tricksters so cunning that they stole magic from the gods themselves. You've learned to identify the sacred spark that allows others to perform magic and temporarily rob them of their ability to access it. A magpie-spirit teaches this, though there are rumors of stranger powers that might offer this Gift, should you be able to find them. To some local Garou, this Gift is known as Prometheus' Fire.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: Wits + Occult versus target's Resolve + Willpower

System:
Expend a standard action concentration on the supernatural nature of your target. If you succeed in an opposed challenge against her, you steal one of your target's Gifts away from her. This stolen Gift becomes immediately inaccessible to your victim, locked away in her heart, and it cannot be used for the next hour. In order to strip a Gift in this fashion, you don't need to know the power's name, but you must be aware of the power or have personally seen it used.

If the Gift is already active, it immediately ends, even if that power would otherwise be automatic or always active. Thieving Talons of the Magpie can be used multiple times in order to rob a target of more than one Gift, so long as you pay this power's cost and succeed in opposed challenges separately for each use. If you choose to strip a power the victim does not possess, this Gift has no effect.

You do not need to speak to use Thieving Talons of the Magpie, but you must have your target's Gaze and Focus. Your victim immediately identifies you as the individual who has affected her with Thieving Talons of the Magpie, and she is also aware of which power she has lost.

Exceptional Success:
If you achieve an exceptional success when stealing a Gift with Thieving Talons of the Magpie, you can utilize the stolen power once, as though you had purchased the Gift normally. If this power has a continual or unlimited effect, you may receive its benefit exactly once in a challenge. This single use of the stolen Gift can occur anytime during Thieving Talons of the Magpie's hour-long duration.

Affinity:
Lupus know the danger of magical items as much as people. You may use this Gift to target a magical item such as a fetish; the wielder of the fetish defends as normal. If successful this does not destroy the fetish, but rather renders it inert for the duration of the power.