Gifts!

Open Development, Werewolf: The Forsaken

The Idigam Chronicle focuses on those four words that you’re probably sick of by now: The Wolf Must Hunt. Gifts and Gift lists as they stand at present don’t really play in to that. So we’ve taken a long, hard look at Gifts, from how your characters purchase them to what each Gift does to help in the Hunt.

As well as looking at how Gifts tie in to the hunt, we also wanted to re-examine how Gifts and Renown work together. Some Gift lists used different Renown for their powers, meaning that characters either took an XP hit by picking up only the Gifts that matched their Renown, or bought a full set of Gifts that varied significantly in power level because of the character’s Renown. We wanted to get around that. We also wanted to make the whole system clearer, to make it clearer what a character can get by when.

We’ve renamed Gift lists in order to make things clearer. Instead, what would be a Gift list is now just a Gift — Crescent Moon’s Gift, or the Gift of Dominance. The idea here ties in to how Gifts work in the world. A character’s Tribe, Auspice, or a spirit she hunts, gives her access to a Gift. She can then learn the Facets — independent expressions of that Gift — independently.

We’ve further split Gifts down into two types. Well, three types. Ish. Two and a half.

Moon Gifts replace Auspice Gifts. Each Auspice has one — Crescent Moon’s Gift, Full Moon’s Gift and so on — as part of your Auspice. Moon Gifts have levels from one to five, and you gain a Facet of your Moon Gift for free every time you buy up Auspice Renown. A Rahu with Purity ••• will have the •, ••, and ••• Facets of Full Moon’s Gift.

Every Moon Gift makes your werewolf better at her Auspice’s role and style of hunting. Crescent Moon’s Gift starts by allowing you to see spirits in Twilight and push your senses across the Gauntlet and finishes by telling you where every spirit is within five hundred yards and letting you see with its senses.

The Idigam Chronicle book itself includes only one Moon Gift per Auspice. When we have a chance to either create more, or to revisit the Auspice Gifts from Lore of the Forsaken or Signs of the Moon, characters can choose one Moon Gift as part of her Auspice, and can then buy in to other Moon Gifts.

Shadow Gifts comprise the second type. The facets of a Shadow Gift aren’t ranked; they don’t have dots at all. Instead, each Facet of a Shadow Gift is linked to a specific type of Renown, and are roughly the equivalent power of a three-dot Gift. Characters start with access to two Shadow Gifts, taken from among options from Auspice and tribe, and can buy in to other Gifts with Experiences, allowing them to purchase Facets or gain them with Renown.

Characters can’t have a Shadow Gift Facet that they don’t have any dots in the Renown for. We have sorted out how this applies to characters who double up their Auspice renown so that’s not a cheap way to start with more Gifts. Renown gives a free Facet of a Gift that the character knows as before — and Auspice Renown grants a Shadow Gift in addition to a Moon Gift. If a character wants a facet that she’s not likely to gain through Renown in the near future, she can also buy it with Experiences. By making it clear how much Renown ties in to the various Gifts, I’m hoping we can reduce the number of times when players buy Facets with Experiences when they’d have been better off using a free Renown pick.

Because of this link, two Bone Shadows of different Auspice that pick up the Gift of Death will favor different Facets. As Bone Shadows, both benefit from Eyes of the Dead (the Wisdom Facet), which gives them visions of what the corpse last saw. A Rahu will likely favor Bone Gnaw (Purity), which grants knowledge or skills by eating the bones of the dead. An Irraka, by contrast, will likely choose Cold Embrace (Cunning), which lets her appear to be a fresh corpse.

By their Auspices and deeds, each Uratha can find facets of Gifts that help her hunt the way she prefers to hunt.

The “and a half” type of Gift are Wolf Gifts, natural paths of spiritual development that many werewolves go through. Wolf Gifts work like Shadow Gifts, but characters don’t have to buy in to them. Characters can take Facets with Renown or with Experiences. The Gift of Change and the Gift of Hunting are what used to be Father Wolf and Mother Luna’s Gifts, but again re-focused around what each werewolf does as part of the hunt.

And to put my money where my mouth is, here’s the first drafts of four Gifts: Half Moon, New Moon, Nature, and Technology. As a first draft, things may change between this document and publication.

Gifts are a core part of Werewolf, so have the other key musical inspiration behind the Idigam Chronicle: Hungry Like the Wolf.

As promised, I’m back to offering a real choice this week. Would you like to see Auspices or the Idigam?