Ahroun Gifts

[Xenia]

Ahroun Gifts

Level One Gifts

• Fight or Flight
• Inspiration
• Predator's Insight
• Razor Claws
• Resist Pain
• Spur Claws
• Vie for Dominance

Level Two Gifts

• Falling Touch
• Invoke Delirium
• Loyal Defender
• Luna's Blessing
• Marshal's Vigilance
• Pack Shield
• Pursuit

Level Three Gifts

• Combat Healing
• Iron Sharpens Iron
• Pack Tactics
• Renewed Vigor
• Silver Claws
• Spirit of the Fray
• Stoking Fury's Furnace

Level Four Gifts

• Black Mamba Strike
• Hobbling Strike
• Invoke Earth's Contract
• Gnaw
• Rancorous Halo
• Snarl of the Predator
• Touch of Rage

Level Five Gifts

• Aegis of Rage
• Apotheosis of Rage
• Kiss of Helios
• Shared Strength
• Spirit Vessel
• Strength of Will
• Wyld's Undreamt Fury

[Xenia]

Level One

Fight or Flight
Gaia's Warriors have little patience for those who would waste their time with jibes and elaborate words. This Gift forces any would-be challenger to make the most primitive of decisions - to either fight or back down and flee. A bear-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Rage

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

System:
Spend a standard action to make an opposed challenge against an opponent within three steps of you. If you succeed, your target cannot delay her next action in initiative order. At the beginning of her next action, she must choose and enact one of the following:

• Fight: You opponent must attempt a Physical attack against you. She may choose to meet this requirement by using a power that involved making a Physical attack or by using a combat maneuver that targets you. If you are not within her range, she must use her actions to advance towards you. In this case, she must move towards you and then attack, if she has sufficient actions to do so.
• Flight: Your opponent must spend her actions to move away from you, taking the maximum number of steps available to her.
  If you cannot be targeted by Physical attacks, your target may act normally. Alternatively, if your target is immobilized or grappled, or otherwise unable to move or attack due to another power, she may act normally. If you move away from your target or cease to be visible, she may also act normally.

Multiple uses of this power from different users do not have cumulative effects. In those cases, the target only responds to the most recent challenge. Wolves and other Garou may view the use of this Gift as a form of social aggression, possibly initiating a Staredown.

Exceptional Success:
For the next hour, your target remains under your power. You may enact this Gift's effect again without a challenge by expending a simple action to growl at your opponent; no Rage expenditure is required.

Affinity:
As an Ahroun, it's often much more tempting to make sure the important enemy comes to fight, or the trash weeds itself out. Upon succeeding with this Gift, you may choose one of the two options and 'disincentive' it. In order for the target to choose that option, they must spend 1 point of Willpower.


Inspiration
Other werewolves often look to the Ahroun for leadership in combat. The Gift of Inspiration is one reason. The Garou with this Gift lends new resolve and righteous anger to his brethren. Either a lion- or wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: None

Test Pool: None

System:
Upon downing a foe, you may let out a howl as a simple action, any comrades within ear shot (up to your dots in Leadership) may howl back (this costs them no action) and gain one of the following benefits their choice (you do not gain this benefit):

• Heal 1 point of damage (bashing, lethal, or aggravated)
• Gain 1 temporary Willpower (up to their maximum)
• Gain 1 temporary Gnosis (up to their maximum)
• Gain 1 temporary Rage

Any given individual may only benefit from Inspiration once a round.

Affinity:
Consummate leaders, a number of allies up to double your dots in Leadership may howl back and gain one of the benefits.


Predator's Insight
Only the most foolish Cubs rush into battle without first knowing the strength of their prey. With but a moment's study, the canny hunter can discern her quarry's strengths, adapting her strategy to suit her target. An owl-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

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

System:
Spend a standard action to invoke spirits of the hunt. If you succeed in an opposed challenge, you determine one of the following pieces of information about your target:

• Her current Willpower
• Her current Gnosis
• Her current Rage
• Total number of health levels, and current health

This power does not determine creature type; however it is useable on creatures other than Garou. In such a case, it will return the closest analogue temper for the creature. (e.g. A use of this Gift against a vampire asking about it's Gnosis would return how much Vitae they have, but would not say that is Vitae.) This power does not overcome powers intended to confound supernatural powers of detection.

Predator's Insight may be combined with other powers that enable you to see or smell at a distance, provided they augment your own perceptions. Use of this Gift is not surreptitious, as any who are able to observe can notice you seem to be sizing the target up. Wolves and other Garou may vide this Gift as a form of social aggression, possibly initiating a Staredown.

Exceptional Success:
If you achieve an exceptional success, you also learn any hidden weaknesses of your target, such as Physical Flaws, or Derangements.

Affinity:
You may target up to three individuals at once with this power. Should you spend a point of Willpower to use the general retest on any of these opposed challenges, you also gain that general retest for the remainder of the opposed challenges, without spending further Willpower. If you spend the Willpower to retest after some challenges are already resolved, you cannot go back to previous challenges you have lost and apply that Willpower retest retroactively.


Razor Claws
A Garou's claws are already a deadly weapon. With this Gift Ahrouns learn how to make them even deadlier. A cat- or bear-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Rage

Test Pool: None

System:
Send a simple action as you sharpen your claws, honing them into even deadlier weapons either against some other hard surface or against your own claws. You do an additional level of damage with all claw attacks.

You must be in a form that possesses claws to activate and benefit from this Gift. This effect lasts for 1 hour, or until you shift into a form that does not have claws.

Affinity:
When activating this Gift choose one of the following weapon traits and apply it to your claws: Accurate, Armor Piercing, Deadly or Fast


Resist Pain
When the world is in jeopardy, there is no time for rest or for weakness. The body must be as resistant as stone, able to stand even the greatest agonies without flinching. Gaia’s children can learn to toughen themselves beyond imagining, withstanding pain that would bring a human to her knees. A bear-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: None

Test Pool: None

System:
You are immune to pain, wound penalties, and torture.

Affinity:
Damage doesn't hurt, it just makes you angry. The first time you suffer a point of damage in a given combat you automatically gain 1 point of Rage (in addition to the Rage you would normally gain from this).


Spur Claws
Some Garou take the bee as a role model for their cause. The bee is so devoted to her queen that she attacks her enemies with no care to the inevitable fact that she will die in the attack. For those Garou who feel similarly, bee-spirits may teach them how to turn their claws into stingers that stick in their opponents. Such poison as they excrete won’t kill their opponents, but neither will it kill the werewolf in question.

Cost: 1 Rage

Test Pool: None

System:
Spend a simple action to activate this Gift. The next successful claw attack the character makes will bury her claws into the victim, where they stay stuck after they rip from the Ahroun’s fingertips. Until the victim takes the time to pull them out (which takes both a standard and simple action) they will suffer -2 penalty on all actions. However, the Garou’s claws take a full turn to regenerate and can’t be used in that time.

Affinity:
Further, until the claws are removed the wounds cannot be healed from.


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 -4 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 -5 penalty to her non-defensive Social Challenges for the duration of this Gift rather than -4.

Affinity:
Your stylish humifaction detracts little from your attack. When you successfully attack your target, reduce the damage from your attack by 1, instead of the standard reduction of 2.

[Xenia]

Level Two

Falling Touch
The most powerful fighters are neither those who rage and fury, nor those whose strength lifts mountains. Such distinction belongs to those who understand how it was the lowly blow to his heel that laid Achilles low. Those who master this Gift know that Gaia’s gentleness is also a weapon and how her smallest movement can bring victory. Depending on your approach, this Gift can be taught by wind spirits or goat spirits.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: Strength + Brawl versus target's Physical Defense (soaking makes the Gift automatically successful)

System:
Spend your standard action as you touch an opponent with the palm of your hand. Touching an opponent in this manner requires a challenge using the Gift's test pool. If you succeed, your target is knocked two steps away in a direction of your choosing and lands prone, but she does not suffer any damage.

Exceptional Success:
The target is too stunned to act immediately after the Falling Touch impacts her flesh. She loses her standard and simple actions during her next initiative.

Affinity:
Instead of moving your target two steps, you can move her two steps plus one step per dot of the Brawl ability you possess. The target still lands prone.


Invoke Delirium
In the Age of Impergium, the Garou carried out the culling of humanity, hunting them openly and with abandon. The pervasive slaughter left an imprint on the genetic memory of all mankind; a residual fear of the Garou who hunted them. Through the subtle use of subconscious cues, you are able to bring your target’s deepest primal fears to the surface of her mind, driving her into the throes of madness. Any spirit under Griffin or Dionysus may teach this gift.

Cost: 1 Rage

Test Pool: Charisma + Subterfuge skill versus target’s Composure + Willpower

System
To activate this Gift, expend a standard action issuing a word of caution to your target, bringing her primal fear to the surface. A simple warning, such as “look out!,” “beware!,” or “there are monsters about…” will do, even if it is whispered quietly or inserted into a sentence. A predatory growl or snarl will suffice as well. For the next 10 minutes, she suffers the effects of the Delirium, acting erratically and in a heightened state of paranoia. This effect persists even if there are no Garou in Crinos form present, and will vary depending on the target’s Willpower.

This power only functions on non-supernatural humans. Other humans who witness someone under the effects of this Gift may suspect she has suffered some type of psychotic break. Once the power ends, the target’s sanity returns. Depending on her Willpower, she may or may not remember what transpired during the power’s duration, and she is likely very confused.

Exceptional Success
Subtract 2 from the target’s Willpower rating when determining the effects of Delirium.

Affinity:
Your terrifying presence is effortlessly brought out and it only takes a simple action for you to activate this Gift.


Loyal Defender
Dark forces conspire to turn the Garou against one another in these fallen days. Between the mind-bending powers of the Leeches, the meddling of mages, and the Thrall of the Wyrm, every pack fears the day when its Ahroun defender turns his claws on them instead of the enemy. The werewolf who learns this Gift pledges a vow of loyalty to his sisters and brothers in arms, as proof against anything that could tear open a rift between them. A wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: None

Test Pool: None

System:
Once learned, the effects of this Gift are permanent. Any attack the character makes against his packmates, whether due to mind-control, uncontrolled frenzy, or even his own will, suffers a -3 penalty. If he deals damage to a packmate while under supernatural influence, he may immediately make another test against the original effect that caused them to attack. If successful, the supernatural effect or frenzy ends, and the Ahroun gains a point of Rage.

Affinity:
In addition to the above, the Ahroun gains a +2 benefit to resist any effect that that would cause them to attack their own packmates.


Luna's Blessing
Silver is the legendary bane of the Garou, but you've learned to commune with the spirit of Luna and have earned her blessing. By invoking her name, you can sense silver and even become immune to its harmful effects. This Gift is taught by Lunes.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: None

System:
Spend your standard action to call upon Luna and enact her blessing. You can immediately sense the presence and relative size of any silver within line of sight. While silver is common in the currency of the area, the Gift will expressly highlight any concentration that should be alarming. This power detects silver concealed by mundane means, but does not reveal silver concealed by supernatural means, such as Blur of the Milky Eye. In those instances, this Gift reveals that silver is present, but at an indeterminate location.

Additionally, for the next five minutes, you are immune to the negative effects of silver due to being a werewolf. You can touch silver without issue, and you are immune the damage effects of silver.

Affinity:
Sometimes someone gets the drop on an Ahroun, in those cases Gaia's warriors can still find protection. By spending 1 point of Willpower in addition to the normal cost for this Gift, you can activate it reflexively in response to being attacked.


Marshal's Vigilance
Yours is the unflinching stare of the hardened warrior. With a sharp glance and a tacit show of force, lesser wolves and lesser men find themselves thinking twice before provoking hostilities in your presence. A wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Rage

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

System:
Expend your standard action to glare at your target and make a simple show of force. This act could take the form of a soft growl, the brandishing of a sword, or the nocking of an arrow. Then, make an opposed challenge. If you succeed, your target becomes instantly aware that she is the object of your attention, as well as a potential target. For the next 10 minutes, you automatically have her Gaze and Focus, for as long as you remain visible.

For the duration of the scene, if your target attempts to initiate combat with a surprise action, you will be able to take an action concurrent with her, handled in order of initiative. Additionally, you may make an immediate use of the Quick Draw combat maneuver for free.

Use of this power requires you to have line of sight on the target. Wolves and other Garou may view the use of this Gift as a form of social aggression, possibly initiating a Staredown. You can only have this power active against a single target at a time. Should you affect another target with Marshal’s Vigilance while it is already active, the effects of the power on your previous target end.

Exceptional Success:
Your opponent’s weakness is made plain before your piercing stare. If your target makes a combat attack at any point during the power’s duration, you may use one of the following combat maneuvers against her once, without spending Willpower: Disarm, Grapple, or Knockdown.

Affinity:
Watching a person, you are able to note their weak spots and where to hit them so it hurts. If you launch an attack triggered by this Gift, it inflicts 1 additional point of damage.


Pack Shield
The Garou were chosen as Gaia’s protectors, but even protectors need protecting occasionally. That’s where the Ahroun come in. With a fierce snarl and a show of might, the werewolf convinces the enemy that he’s the greatest threat on the battlefield (they’re probably right!) and needs to be taken down first. An ancestor-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Rage

Test Pool: None

System:
Spend an standard action drawing the attention of everyone you're fighting within 10 steps, at the end of which you immediately gain all of their Gaze and Focus. For the next 2 turns, opponents take a penalty equal to the Ahroun's Intimidation to any attacks that don’t include the Garou as a target. This penalty doesn't apply in the case of an Area of Effect attack, so long as the Ahroun is part of the area. Opponents are determined according to your understanding of the battle; as such if there was a spy within your allies that you were unaware of they would not suffer this penalty. This effect persists even if the opponents move beyond 10 steps from you after the Gift's activation; however, it does not apply to new opponents that step within the 10 step range after the Gift's activation while it is still ongoing.

Affinity:
In addition when activating this Gift you may designate one target within 10 steps of you and engage them in a contested Charisma + Intimidation versus the target's Composure + Willpower, if successful the target is unable to attack any target but the Ahroun; unless they must in order to reach the Ahroun. For example if an Ahroun used this Gift and then was inside of a building blocked by another, then the target of this Gift could attack the blocker in order to attempt to reach the Ahroun - though if they had another method of reaching the Ahroun that did not involve attacking they would be expected to use that - and they would need to cease attacking the blocker the moment they could move forward. In such a case they would still suffer the normal effect of this Gift, suffering a penalty to the attack as above. On an exceptional success the chosen target suffers the effects of this Gift for 3 turns, rather than the normal two.


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:
This Gift enhances your speed for 2 turns, rather than the standard 1.

[Xenia]

Level Three

Combat Healing
The Ahroun are famous for their ability to fight — it’s their purpose in life. This Gift allows a Garou to heal wounds during combat without hesitation or even a moment’s pause. While other Garou are licking their wounds, the Ahroun with this Gift keeps fighting. Wolverine-spirits teach this Gift, although they usually have to be bested in combat first.

Cost: 2 Rage

Test Pool: None

System:
Spend a simple action to activate this Gift. For the next 10 minutes, the Ahroun heals 2 points of non-aggravated damage each turn, rather than the normal 1.

Affinity:
Alternatively, when activating this Gift the Ahroun may choose to heal 1 point of aggravated damage each turn when activating this Gift. The healing overwrites their normal healing.


Iron Sharpens Iron
Conventional wisdom teaches that an experienced warrior brings more to a battle than simply another sword. Offering guidance and direction to your allies, you have the power to impart the benefits of your skill and expertise. Others find themselves bolstered by your influence and command, their efforts strengthened by your example. Perseverance and training have made you a powerful force on the battlefield. A war-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: None

System:
Use your simple action to shout words of inspiration to your allies. Choose one of your Abilities. For the next five minutes, a number of allies up to the number of dots you possess of the Leadership ability may opt to use the value of your chosen Ability in place of their own.

A recipient of this power can only benefit from a single application of Iron Sharpens Iron at a time. Should a second user of this power attempt to target one of your beneficiaries, she must choose which application to retain and which to relinquish.

Affinity:
You may grant this Ability to a number of people up to double the dots you possess of the Leadership ability.


Pack Tactics
Wolves instinctively fight using pack tactics, supporting one another to bring down their quarry. Your commanding will inspires others your pack to fight like a streamlined unit, working together as a unified force. With your guidance, even a diverse group can truly fight as one. A wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Rage

Test Pool: None

System:
Expend a simple action to howl or speak words of encouragement. Select a number of packmates up to the number of dots you possess of the Leadership ability. This symbolic gesture unifies the instincts and spirits of your allies, encouraging them to fight as a united force. Until the start of your next Universal round action, each character targeted by Pack Tactics can offer one another a single use of the Assist Attacker or Assist Defender mass combat tactics without expending actions to do so. This additional mass combat tactic can be used during Rage rounds, but only one such action can be used each turn. Multiple applications of Pack Tactics do not stack.

At the start of your action during the next Universal round, you may choose to spend another simple action to continue howling or speaking. If you do, the effects of this Gift continue, as if you enacted the Gift this turn. You can perform this continuation every turn thereafter, but if you choose not to continue the power on a given turn, you must spend a Rage and a simple action to reenact the Gift anew thereafter.

Affinity:
When people follow work together as you told them they are especially effective. When making use of the assist attacker combat maneuver, they also grant an additional +1 bonus to the attack in addition to the normal effects of Assist Attacker.


Renewed Vigor
In celebration of a successful hunt, a glorious battle, or an honorable fight, this Gift carries your triumphant howl to the spirits, who bless your victory. Any allies who join in your song receive their blessings as well. A glory-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: None

Test Pool: None

System:
Whenever you reduce an opponent to 0 remaining health levels, or when you accept an honorable surrender, you may expend a simple action to activate this Gift. You can expend this simple action either during your current initiative, or during your next action in the initiative order. Once you do so, you gain 1 point of Gnosis and heal 1 health level of damage, either normal or aggravated.

A number of allies up to the number of dots you possess of the Leadership ability may celebrate your victory and gain the same benefit. To do so, they must respond immediately with a howl of acknowledgement; however, this response does not require an action and may occur out of intuitive order.

Affinity:
You and any allies who join in your howl also regain 1 point of Rage in addition to the normal effects of the howl.


Silver Claws
The Ahroun can establish her battlefield primacy against other werebeasts by transforming her own claws into silver. A Lune teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: None

System:
Spend a simple action to activate this Gift. The transformation lasts for the next 10 minutes. Silver claws deal aggravated damage to all targets that are vulnerable to Silver, and they are naturally unsoakable to the Garou and most other werebeasts. Further, increase the amount of damage dealt by your claw attacks by 1 while this Gift is active. Lastly, select one of the following weapon traits and apply it to your claw attacks: Accurate, Armor Piercing, Deadly, Disabling, or Fast.

When you strike an opponent with your silver claws, it rips away Gnosis from targets. Each time you hit an opponent that has Gnosis, you drain away 1 point of Gnosis. Targets that do not have Gnosis do not suffer any effect.

While the Ahroun manifests the claws, she suffers searing agonies: suffer a -4 to all non-combat challenges while this Gift is active.

You must be in a form that has claws to benefit from this Gift.

Affinity:
You have the power to absorb the Gnosis you strip away from your targets. Whenever you successfully attack your target with this power and she loses a point of Gnosis, you may immediately gain a point of Gnosis.


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: None

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 grant the benefit of this Gift to an ally within 10 steps for the next hour. They receive a bonus to their initiative equal to either their dots in the Athletics ability, or your dots in the Athletics ability, your choice.


Stoking Fury's Furnace
You’ve trained your heart to endure the Rage that flows through you. When the need arises, you can tap into that fury, pushing your body past its limits. This process can be dangerous, but sometimes the risk is worth the reward. An ancestor-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: None

Test Pool: None

System:
Once learned, this Gift is always active. The Garou gains one Rage point any time that he takes damage, and he does not have to check for frenzy from that specific stimulus (other stimuli induce frenzy checks as normal). In addition, the Garou can spend one Rage point — and only one — per turn without losing any temporary Rage. However, if he spends multiple Rage in any turn, they are marked off as usual.

Affinity:
As long as you are in a fight, you gain one point of Rage at the beginning of each turn.

[Xenia]

Level Four

Black Mamba Strike
Between one blink and the next, the Ahroun is there to bury his claws in his unsuspecting prey. He can dash across the battlefield with astonishing speed when he’s ready to strike. A snake-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Rage

Test Pool: None

System:
Spend a standard action to activate this Gift and designate a target within 15 steps that has no barriers higher than your waist between the two of you. You immediately move next to the target and can engage them in a Brawl or Melee attack.

Affinity:
The surprise of this attack is enough to catch the most well guarded by surprise. You gain +2 on the attack granted by this attack.


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: None

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:
Your bite attacks are remarkably deadly. On an exceptional success you deal an additional damage.

A bite attack would now deal 2 damage on a normal attack, and 4 on an exceptional success.


Hobbling Strike
By working together to exhaust their quarry, wolves working in tandem are capable of bring down prey much larger than any single wolf could defeat. Striking at your target's musculature, a Garou harries her target, weakening its defenses and limiting lines of retreat. Obviously, a wolf-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Rage

Test Pool: Physical Attack versus target's Physical Defense

System:
Spend a standard action to make a Physical attack against your opponent, using the appropriate test pool for this attack (brawl for claws, melee for a sword, archery for a bow, etc.). If you succeed, you compromise your target's ability to move and react in addition to normal damage dealt from the attack. Your opponent does not get a general retest for free on physical challenges for the rest of the turn and must spend a point of Willpower. If they would normally have to spend a point of Willpower already, they must spend a second point of Willpower if they wish to use their general retest. Additionally for the rest of the turn, your target cannot take more that three steps during a single round. This limit applies regardless of how many actions she spends on movement, even if she possesses (or is targeted by) powers or Merits that allow her to take additional or bonus steps.

Multiple applications of Hobbling Strike are not cumulative.

Exceptional Success:
The normal benefits of an exceptional success apply to a Physical attack used to trigger Hobbling Strike. Additionally, this power's duration extends to the end of the next turn, instead of the standard duration ending at the conclusion of this turn.

Affinity:
Instead of increasing the Willpower cost to make a general retest for Physical challenges, your target cannot use the general retest at all to retest Physical challenges for the duration of the power.


Invoke Earth's Contract
Calling on the ancient pacts between Garou and Gaia to protect the earth, you infuse your body with great resilience. Your skin takes on a faint gray cast as your body becomes imbued with the spirit of stone. Attacks barely scratch your granite-strengthened skin. Earth elementals teach this Gift.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: None

System:
Use your standard action to invoke the special bond between you and the spirits of elemental earth. For the next hour, you gain the Full Body and Ballistic equipment qualities. These qualities are immune to the Armor Piercing weapon quality, due to their supernatural nature. You cannot benefit from this power more than once per hour.

Affinity:
In addition to the above armor qualities, your armor is treated as Medium Armor for the purposes of armor health levels. These armor health levels are similarly immune armor piercing.


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: None

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:
When retaining a point of Rage from this Gift, you may designate an ally within 5 steps. This ally also regains a point of Rage in addition to you.


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, to the extent of being incapable of initiating 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 subtle flex or other display of your physical prowess, rather than more visible aggressive behaviors. Such an activation changes the power's test pool to Strength + Intimidation.


Touch of Rage
Using this Gift, an Ahroun can channel a portion of her Rage to another, be the beneficiary Garou, human or animal. In the former case, the effect is fairly mundane, lending an ally strength in combat; in the latter, it grants an awesome and destructive quality to beings that do not normally possess such.

On a social level, this Gift can be a potent source of inspiration (and instigation) as well — while Rage is an intensely visceral and difficult-to-control quality, it also bestows the ability to feel righteous anger at corruption and injustice — a faculty many humans have lost in the quiet apathy of the World of Darkness. A fury-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 or 2 Willpower (see Gift) & variable Rage

Test Pool: None

System:
The Ahroun spends a simple action and one Willpower (two if bestowing Rage on a mortal). He then expends a number of temporary Rage points, and the target gains them and may spend them normally. Once any points above the target’s normal maximum Rage (zero for humans) are spent, they are gone for good barring a second use of this Gift.

This Gift cannot grant Rage to mages, ghosts or other kinds of supernatural beings that do not already possess Rage. Spirits already have a Rage Trait, and can receive the temporary points to use to gain extra actions in combat as Garou do.

Affinity:
The target receives a number of Rage points equal to the amount spent to activate this Gift +1.

[Xenia]

Level Five

Aegis of Rage
Berserkers are believed to have fought without armor, having the ability to ignore wounds though the might of their battle-frenzy. With intense focus, you have the power to channel your anger and vital energies, shielding you from attack. Blows that would otherwise hinder or maim are inconsequential when met with the power of your rage. This Gift is taught by a pain-spirit.

Cost: 1-5 points of Rage

Test Pool: None

System:
This Gift is activated reflexively in response to suffering damage and does not take an action. Upon being successfully hit and damaged by an attack, you may choose to spend 1-5 Rage. You reduce the damage suffered from the attack by the amount of Rage spent, to a minimum of 0. However, every use of this Gift in a night requires an immediate test for Berserk frenzy with a bonus to the difficulty equal to double the amount of Rage spent to activate this Gift.

Affinity:
After purchasing this Gift, the Garou is simply more difficult to wound. You always reduce the amount of damage you take from any attack by 1.


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: None

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:
Reduce the cost of this Gift to 2 Rage rather than 3.


Kiss of Helios
The Ahroun can invoke the sun’s power to become completely immune to the damaging effects of fire. Additionally, the Ahroun may ignite any portion of his body and keep it burning for extended periods. Most commonly the Garou will light his mane during rituals, but he can also ignite his claws or mouth without ill effect. A fire elemental or a sun-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: None

System:
Spend a simple action to activate this Gift. For the next 10 minutes, the Ahroun cannot be harmed by any natural forms of fire, up to and including molten lava. The Garou does one additional aggravated damage if he attacks with blazing fists, claws or fangs.

The Garou may also ignite a portion of their body and keep it alight. This allows for easy illumination of an area.

Affinity:
An Ahroun extends the effects of this gift to weapons in addition to fists claws or fangs


Shared Strength
No matter how strong you are, you can’t be everywhere. Sooner or later, if you live long enough, every Ahroun will experience the heartbreak of seeing a packmate die in combat, and knowing that they simply couldn’t be there to help. Elders have seen this more than any, so it is not unusual that they would learn a Gift like this. This Gift allows an Ahroun to donate his capacities to one of his packmates for a brief time, imbuing them with their strength, speed and skill. However, they pay a high price for this help, losing their own strength for the same amount of time. This Gift is taught by a wolf-spirit.

Cost: 2 Gnosis

Test Pool: None

System:
Spend a simple action to activate this Gift and state a period of time for the Gift to remain active. This could be “the next few seconds (the next turn)”, “an hour”, “the rest of this battle” or even “until the day I die”. If the Ahroun dies, the Gift ceases to work immediately, so “until the Final Battle” won’t work unless you survive to see it.

For that amount of time, one Garou of the Ahroun’s choice and within their line of sight immediately is treated as possessing the Ahroun’s Physical Attributes (Strength, Dexterity, and Stamina), Athletics, Archery, Brawl, Dodge, and Melee Abilities (if the target has higher abilities, they retain their own high scores). However, the Ahroun is treated as having a mere one dot in all Physical Attributes and no dots in Athletics, Archery, Brawl, Melee and Dodge, which applies to all forms for as long as the Gift is active. The target and Ahroun cannot spend Experience points to raise any of the shared Traits until the Gift ends.

Affinity:
Increasing the activation cost of the Gift to 5 Gnosis, the Ahroun may grant the benefit of this Gift to all members of their pack simultaneously.


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: None

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 to 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:
If this Gift is used for a Physical Attribute, bonus dots gained from Spirit Vessel that bring you over 5 will grant 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.


Strength of Will
The Ahroun with this Gift could lead his pack to the gates of Hell itself if that were what it took. A wolf-spirit or an Incarna avatar teaches this Gift.

Cost: None

Test Pool: None

System:
Once a session, you can activate this Gift with a standard action to rally yourself and a number of allies up to your dots in the Leadership Ability. All targeted individuals immediately gain 3 points of Willpower that can bring them over their cap, or even past 10. These points of Willpower last for 10 minutes before any that are over the characters cap fade away.

Affinity:
You grant 5 points of Willpower with this give instead of 3.


Wyld's Undreamt Fury
The Wyld is the soul of creation, its joyous inception entirely at odds with a Garou's rage. Creation changes your spirit, but if you let it, the spirit of flow and rebirth can give extraordinary strength. By using this Gift, a Garou can channel her rage and push her shape beyond her traditional forms, transforming into a massive, primordial beast. Wyldlings can teach this Gift.

Cost: 1 Rage

Test Pool: None

System:
While in Crinos form, spend a standard action to mutate further, transforming into a hideous and ancient version of Crinos that is barely recognizable as Wolf or Human--this form is truly that of a monster. Once transformed, you cannot leave this form for at least five minutes after your initial transformation.

Select two of the following qualities when you activate this Gift:

• Agile: Your muscles and joins shift in awkward and extraordinary ways. You gain a +1 bonus to Dodge-based defensive test pools.
• Defensive Spikes: You are covered with spikes or barbs. Anyone who hits you with a Brawl attack takes 2 points of Lethal Damage.
• Slick: Your body is slick and hairless. You can spend a simple action to automatically escape a grapple.
• Tough: Your skin becomes mutated into tough scaly armor, with extra bulk that grans you 2 additional Healthy wound levels, and also grants a +2 bonus on all Soaking challenges.
• Vicious: You receive an additional +1 on Brawl based attack test pools.
• Poisonous: Humans struck by your Brawl attacks are immediately wracked with pain. This agony prevents any form of activity other than screaming helplessly. Humans will die within three turns unless they receive medical attention. Supernatural creatures affected by your poison suffer a -2 on all physical challenges for the next hour as they struggle with the pain and weakness. Note: Resist Pain does not make a character immune this effect.

Affinity:
This Gift can be activated as a simple action rather than a standard action.