VOD: Pantheon

White Howler Gifts

Level One Gifts

• Death Sight
• Haunting Howl
• Shining Sigils

Level Two Gifts

• Howl of the Banshee
• Lion's Bite
• Spectral Authority

Level Three Gifts

• Blooding Fury
• Sense the Deep
• Walking the Dead

Level Four Gifts

• Collapse the Barrow
• Visions of Slaughter

Level Five Gifts

• The White Howl
• White Fire

Level One

Death Sight
The Howler's irises become pale blue and glow faintly as she attunes her vision to the ashen landscape of the Underworld. An owl-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 character can see (and hear) ghosts and detect haunted areas. This Gift bestows no power to touch or communicate with the dead.

Affinity:
After activating this Gift you may spend an additional point of Gnosis (no action) to manifest vague ephemera around your hands, claws, weapons, etc., granting you the ability to touch unmanifested ghosts that you can see. Further should the poor wraith be beyond any reason or salvation it is the duty of the White Howlers to put it to rest, and to that end you also deal an additional point of damage to any wraiths while this Gift is active.


Haunting Howl
One of the howl-Gifts peculiar to the tribe, this eerie cry often echoes across the desolate moors prior to a White Howler raid. A banshee-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost:None

Test Pool: Charisma + Performance (Howling) vs target's Composure + Willpower

System:
Expend a standard action and engaged every enemy within ear shot in a contested challenge to enact this Gift; if you use your general retest on any of the challenges, you may use your general retest on all remaining challenges without needing to spend another point of Willpower, you may not go back to previous challenges you have already resolved. On a success, they feel the terror settle into them and they find their own resistances lowered. For the next three turns all enemies suffer a -1 on all challenges involving their Willpower.

Exceptional Success:
The effect lasts for 6 turns, rather than 3.

Affinity:
The terror inspired by a true White Howler is even more unnerving, all enemies suffer a -2 rather than a -1 on all challenges involving their Willpower.


Shining Sigils
When this Gift is active, glowing sigils representing the Garou’s tales of Renown appear upon their skin or pelt. The marks shine a luminescent woad-blue, although each Renown bears its own subtle inflection of color. Glory sigils appear nearly purple where blood-red veining interlaces with the blue marks. Honor’s blue sigils gleam with silver and white highlights. Wisdom’s marks, on the other hand, are underscored with inky shadows, the cobalt deepening to nearly blue-black. This Gift is taught by a lune spirit.

Cost: None

Test Pool: None

System:
Spend a simple action to activate this Gift. The renown will glow as described above along the character's flesh for 10 minutes, or until all uses of the Gift are used up. Once activated, while the runes glow, the character gains a +1 bonus on a number of Social tests equal to their rank. These Social tests gain be against spirits or other Gaian Garou, as they respect Renown. This Gift may only be activated once every hour.

Affinity:
Rather than spacing out the bonus to a number of different tests, you may choose to combine some or all of the uses of this Gift into a single test. (E.g. an elder with this Gift active could choose to gain +1 to 5 challenges, or +3 to one challenge, and then +2 to another, or a +5 to a single challenge.) You do not need to determine how you are combining the points at activation, rather you can decide how many uses you are expending on a given challenge.

Level Two

Howl of the Banshee
The werewolf emits a fearful howl that causes those who hear it to run in terror. A Banshee —  a mournful spirit of the dead — teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: Charisma + Performance (Howling) vs. target's Composure + Willpower

System:
Spends a standard action and howl at your enemies unleashing an unearthly wail. Engage three enemies within 10 steps of you and each other in a contested challenge; if you use your general retest on any of the challenges, you may use your general retest on all remaining challenges without needing to spend another point of Willpower, you may not go back to previous challenges you have already resolved. If you lose this test, you may use this power against the same target again in following rounds, this is an exception to the rule that prevents using social/mental powers again on a target right after they have failed.

On a success the targets suffer 3 lethal damage as the howl tears into them.

Exceptional Success:
The voice rips their ears apart, the targets become deaf until the damage dealt by the attack is healed.

Affinity:
This attack deals 4 lethal instead of 3.


Lion’s Bite
Lion’s children learned many things from their patron, including some hunting tactics more familiar to big cats than to wolves. The Garou with this Gift gains an unerring ability to bite down on the throat of his prey, choking it unconscious or to death, or even crushing its windpipe as lions do.

Cost: 2 Rage

Test Pool: Strength + Brawl vs. Target's Physical Defense

System:
The White Howler expends a Standard Action to make a bite attack at her opponent. If successful, the attack does its normal bite damage the first turn. In addition, she establishes a choking hold on her target; and the target is considered grappled with the following additional effects if the grapple is not broken by the end of a number of rounds equal to the target’s Stamina rating, he is rendered unconscious. Once a target is unconscious, he takes a level of lethal damage from the hold each turn, and cannot regenerate this damage until the hold is released. When his health levels are full of lethal damage, he reverts to his breed form, and if the hold is continued, will die in a number of turns equal to his Stamina. These additional effects do not apply if the target does not need to breathe.

Affinity:
The White Howler need only expend 1 Rage when activating this Gift.


Spectral Authority
Names have great power among the dead. For the White Howlers who honor and know those that went before them, they may make use of this power to call upon a wraith that they know the full name of. This Gift is taught by a wolf-spirit.

Cost: None

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

System:
The Garou must know the name of the wraith she wishes to summon, and the wraith must be within at least a number of miles equal to the Garou's rank. To activate this Gift the Garou expends a simple action as they call out the name of the wraith they are calling to listen to them (e.g. "Eilish Elkdaughter, priestess in life and death of Gallia I call upon you to appear before me!") and engage the wraith in a contested challenge.

If successful the wraith will manifest and one command may be given it that it will do it's best to follow, and will then depart immediately after. A given wraith may only be targeted by this Gift by a given Garou once a lunar month.

Affinity:
In addition to the normal effects, when you first summon a wraith, you may briefly converse with it, typically for about 5 minutes before you must give the wraith your order. Depending on the relationship you have cultivated with those that have gone before the wraith may be more or less friendly.

Level Three

Blooding Fury
Many Garou have often wondered if the White Howlers were the masters of their Rage, or if Rage was the master of the White Howlers. This Gift only added to the Garou's trepidation. By wounding herself, the Howler is able to tap into a fresh reservoir of Rage, for good or for ill. This Gift is taught by a fire-spirit.

Cost: Special (see Gift)

Test Pool: None

System:
The Garou must injure herself with a claw or bite. The character expends a simple action and takes one level of unsoakable aggravated damage, and regains all her temporary Rage. This Gift can be used only once per scene.

Affinity:
By wounding themselves even deeper, a Howler can make use of this Gift a second time. The character expends a standard action and takes two levels of unsoakable aggravated damage, and regains all her temporary Rage. This Gift may not be used again this scene.


Sense of the Deep
Lion’s tribe knows it is their duty to Gaia to hunt down Her enemies even beneath the surface of the earth. This Gift aids them in their endeavors to fight Wyrm-things in their own burrows. A werewolf with this Gift is at home in a subterranean environment, almost moreso than above ground. A mole teaches this Gift.

Cost: None

Test Pool: None

System:
This Gift’s effects are permanent once learned. While underground, the werewolf automatically knows which direction is north, and can instinctively retrace his path to the exit. (However, this direction sense can be tampered with by other supernatural powers.) The character can also see in darkness underground without suffering any dice pool penalties or added difficulty.

Affinity:
In addition to the additional senses, a Howler is skilled at moving through the ground and gains a +2 on all climbing or other challenges related to moving underground. Further, the Children of Lion know when they go underground it is to fight, and while underground they can feel where the greatest threat is - this isn't a precise sense that can be pointed to; however if followed it will lead you directly to whatever creature is the biggest threat in the most direct way possible, this does not avoid other enemies if there are any, but to the White Howlers this is seen as a feature, as it means that you are able to kill more Wyrmspawn on the way.


Waking the Dead
This Gift creates a shadowy representation of a fallen individual (human, Kin, or Garou) and gives the werewolf the ability to ask it a few questions. The shade created is not a ghost, and possesses no knowledge that was not known to the individual before their death. This Gift can only be used once on any given corpse. A banshee-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Gnosis + Special (see Gift)

Test Pool: None

System:
The Garou touches the dead body when activating this Gift. A shadowy figure that resembles the fallen individual rises from the corpse, and will truthfully (to the best of its ability) answer one simple question for every point of Gnosis beyond the initial cost that the Garou spent when activating the Gift. Its answers will be no longer than one sentence per question. After the last question has been asked (or at the end of the scene), the shade will disappear, and this Gift can never be used on that individual again. If the Gift is used on the undead, they will remember nothing after their first mortal death; vampires cannot answer questions about things that happened during their unlife, for example.

Affinity:
The shade summoned will also offer any last words the individual had before they died, passing on a final message they wish they could have given.

Level Four

Collapse the Barrow
In a land plagued with subterranean Wyrm-pits, the ability to destroy the structural integrity of an underground lair is priceless to the White Howlers. By using this Gift, the werewolf is able to collapse an earthen or stone structure or tunnel in upon itself, making it much more difficult for it to be re-used for evil purposes. This Gift is taught by a badger-spirit.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: Strength + Occult vs a static difficulty.

System:
Spend a simple action and touch the floor, ceiling, or walls of the targeted structure. The player then makes a static challenge with the storyteller based upon the size, structural integrity, and craftsmanship of the barrow. (4 for a quickly dug barrow, 5 for a hastily built rock hut, 6 typical difficulty, 7 for a stone cave or natural rock tunnel; 9 for a masterful stone broch tower.) If successful, a portion of the structure (equal to 5 sq ft per the Garou's rank) collapses.

This Gift does not cleanse the area, and simply collapsing a pit creates a festering magnet for Banes and other Wyrm-creatures. Because of this, Collapse the Barrow is most often used on the way back out of a pit, after the inhabitants have been dealt with, and the area within has been ritually cleansed.

Affinity:
Howlers know how collapse more of the structure to make sure to deny anything to the servants of the Wyrm. The area collapsed becomes equal to 5 sq ft per twice the Garou's rank.


Visions of Slaughter
This frightening curse derived from the White Howlers’ unusual practices of bonding with the ghosts of slain animals. The werewolf can curse his victim to be haunted with visions of any animal or individual killed by his actions (or inaction), Even animals can be driven to distraction by visions of prey animals that are always within view, but cannot be touched. This Gift is of course of little use against the innocent, but against the soldiers, shapeshifters and vampires that werewolves most commonly face, it has terrible power. A fear-spirit teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Willpower

Test Pool: Intelligence + Occult vs target's Resolve + Willpower

System:
Spend a standard action and engage in a contested challenge against a target within 15 steps. On a success the victim is haunted by bloody visions of any reptile, bird or mammal dead by her hands. The more deaths the victim has been responsible for, the more vivid and distracting the visions. No matter the number of deaths, the target suffers -3 on all non-defensive challenges for the next hour.

Exceptional Success:
The initial surprise and terror from seeing these creatures causes the target to lose their next simple action.

Affinity:
The specters conjured up by use of this Gift are especially distracting and the target is knocked down, as per the knock down combat maneuver, when they first manifest.

Level Five

The White Howl
The most sacred blessing of the White Howlers, this mighty Gift is often used by those White Howlers that can to show their unflinching devotion to destroy their enemies. The sound of the White Howl alone is sufficient to rend the workings of the Wyrm. This Gift is taught by an avatar of Lion.

Cost: 2 Gnosis and 2 Rage

Test Pool: Charisma + Performance (Howling) vs target's Composure + Willpower

System:
The player spends an entire turn unleashing a mighty, full-throated howl. Engage in a contested challenge against every Wyrm Tainted creature within 50 steps; if you use your general retest on any of the challenges, you may use your general retest on all remaining challenges without needing to spend another point of Willpower, you may not go back to previous challenges you have already resolved. At staff's discretion this Gift may be automatically successful against weaker Wyrm Tainted creatures.

On a success, the creature suffers 5 unsoakable lethal points of damage. After using this Gift, the White Howler loses their voice for 3 turns and is unable to speak or use any power that requires use of her voice or participate in any Gifts that require a response.

Exceptional Success:
The creatures suffers 7 unsoakable lethal points of damage.

Affinity:
This Howl of defiance inspires courage in all Gaian Garou that hear it, when one hears the White Howl it almost seems as though it is just a matter of time before the Wyrm is defeated. All Gaian Garou, including the howler, immediately regain 2 points of Willpower, these points are not able to exceed a character's permanent Willpower. A given individual may only benefit from this effect once a session.


White Fire
In their homeland, the White Howlers burn sacred bone fires, ancient pyres that both protect them and also harm their enemies. The werewolf can hurl a stream of blinding white fire from his hand, searing the flesh from the bones of his foes. A fire-spirit or avatar of Lion himself teaches this Gift.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: Dexterity + Occult vs target's Physical Defense

System:
The player spends one Gnosis and a standard action and engage the target in an opposed challenge. This attack may not be parried. On a success, the target suffers 4 points of aggravated damage as the fire burns into them.

Exceptional Success:
The blinding white fire truly blinds; the victim finds themselves unable to see for the next 10 minutes. Unless they possess a power that allows them to compensate for their lack of sight, they will have to use the Fighting Blind combat maneuver for any attack.

Affinity:
The attack deals 5 points of aggravated damage instead of 4.

TBD