Ephemera [Werewolf: The Forsaken]

Open Development, Werewolf: The Forsaken

Like the finest werewolves hunting Black Friday discounts, you get two for the price of one this week. I’ve got answers to questions from last time, but I’ve also got something to ask you.

Let’s do the last thing first. As some of you may know, much of the First Tongue in Werewolf: The Forsaken has an actual linguistic derivation: we take words that get the sense across in Sumerian, run them backwards through Grimm’s Law a couple of times to get what might be “proto-Sumerian”, and bam! That’s your First Tongue. It lends itself well to guttural, short words that sound like the kind of things that werewolves might say in their own tongue, while having a connection to a kind of pre-symbolic language. Ethan Skemp explained it better, along with some of the exceptions.

One of the exceptions is spirit names: “Descant”, “Gaffling”, “Jaggling”, “Incarna”, “Chiminage”, and “Celestine” aren’t in use anywhere else in the World of Darkness. “Choir” and “Mote” are English words used for some spirits as well. As a mix of fictional and English terms they don’t really fit as First Tongue, but as they’re not used in other games we can’t claim that they’re a general set of names.

Travis Stout came up with some potential replacement names:

Old New Mote Muthrum/Muthra Lesser Gaffling Hursih/Hursihim Greater Gaffling Hursah/Hursahim Lesser Jaggling Ensih/Ensihim Greater Jaggling Ensah/Ensahim Incarna Dihir/Dihim Celestine Ilusah/Ilusahim Chiminage Gathra Choir Umia Descant Ilthum

We could replace the spirit terms in the second edition. That would give us what are (to me) more evocative and more First Tongue-sounding names for various spirit terms. That does however break some backwards compatibility, as first edition books use the old terms. If we decide to use the new terms, then we’d need a sidebar translating them.

As I can see benefits to both arguments, I wanted to open it up to you, the players and fans, to decide which we go with. Click either one of the options in the poll below to vote.

The poll is now closed. While you can still vote, the results are in, and we will use the First Tongue terms in Werewolf: The Forsaken 2nd Edition. Thanks for participating!

New Terms or Old



I will be checking the results at 5pm GMT on the 6th of December. That’s this Saturday, noon EST. Please vote before then. I can’t hold off much later, as I want to get the text of the book over to layout so that you can get your hands on it.

Please remember to vote using the above poll widget. I will not track answers in the comments or on forums as I’m trying to spread this as wide as possible.

Now that you’ve voted, let’s get to the questions!

First, a follow-up to one from last week that I didn’t get the right sense of.

Uratha are to Luna

as

[blank] are to Helios.

Helios doesn’t have anything quite like the Uratha that we’ve detailed. We’ll get to that, though. It won’t have its own shapeshifters, but something more appropriate for the god of the sun.

if you had to pick two words to sum up the Idigam Chronicle (like Blood & Smoke) what would they be?

The defining words of this edition are “the wolf must hunt”, but to boil it down to just two words? “Hunter & Hunted”. Our werewolves are both, no matter how much they may want to think they’re just the former.

I wish lupus could be an option in nWoD. I wanna play an animal that becomes human and is enthralled by technology. But at the same time I don’t wanna be ~weird~ and be the only lupus in the world.

I know this isn’t exactly a question, but I did want to cover this: the Werewolf Translation Gude provides systems and options for taking features of Werewolf: The Apocalypse and using them in Werewolf: The Forsaken (or vice versa). I can recommend that book (though I should note that I wrote it; I also posted some expanded material over on my blog which I will bring across here when I’ve got time). Though I make no promises, I might be able to update some parts here on the blog if people are interested.

Actually, to hell with it. Let’s update the Urhanu (Forsaken’s version of Lupus) from the Translation Guide right now.

An Urhanu cannot choose Mental Skills to be primary at character creation. Worse, any time an Urhanu character attempts an action that relies on a Mental Skill in which she has no dots, her roll is automatically reduced to a chance die even if she spends Willpower on the roll. This lack of book learning doesn’t affect rolls to activate Gifts or rites. On the positive side, Urhanu start with Harmony 6. They’re also able to focus on breaching the Gauntlet to the exclusion of pretty much anything else; when Reaching treat the Gauntlet strength as one step lower (so a small town uses the Gauntlet strength of the wilderness). Urhanu can spend a point of Essence to Reach into the Shadow when not at a Locus. She can extend this facility to other packmates but must spend an additional point of Essence per packmate.

What are your main literary sources of inspiration for Werewolf: the Forsaken?

Outside of werewolf-specific media, I think the biggest sources of inspiration are Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, The Shield, Queen and Country, and Boyz n the Hood.

About Protectorates: Do I get it right that they are werewolves analog to the vampires Domain or mages Consilium? I understood they are more loosely defined and don’t have proper “ruling group”? But are there chosen something like Alpha Pack in Protectorate? Also, could it be few Protectorates in very large metropolis, like for example New York, and each one of 2–3 Protectorates works mostly like Mafia family, competing with others? Do Pure have they analog struture, or all about their Tribe cults?

In order: They’re that sort of level, but nowhere near as ubiquitous (many areas don’t have them) and not organized the same. Yes. Some choose to work that way, others have representatives of each pack, others remain strictly informal without anyone “in charge”. Yes, the image of competing Mafia families is a really good image for competing Protectorates. The Pure have Confederacies, but we don’t go into them in the book.

Would you consider Max Roman’s dream a big Protectorate, or something more?

Max Roman’s dream would be a large Protectorate, yes.

Also, I still not like the term “Tribe” for the Y-social splats. It’s the last big holdover from Apocalypse, and I know there’s very little chance of seeing it going away, yet I still hope for a less confusing denomination. “Traditions” (as in ‘shamanic traditions’), “Great Lodges” (for that’s what they are, right?), “Brotherhood/Sisterhood”, “Choirs”, “Allegiances”, “Hunting Societies” (like ‘Medicine Societies, but with hunting), all of them are more suitable alternatives, IMO. Heck, even “Club” would do the trick! Have you considered doing a poll regarding the permanence of this particular term in the game line?

No. I don’t believe that “tribe” is an inappropriate term for what the tribes are, I don’t believe it’s in any way a “holdover”. Our tribes are remaining tribes.

Will here still be Milestone Gifts ?

Not in the core book. I think that we do have some design space for them, so they may show up later.

Will there be a mechanical risk/reward for eating outside of your “station?” I mean, Demons got Pacting, Vampires, Diablerie, and I’m sure Prometheans will get revised Lacunae rules, and Mages may get likewise, but what about Uratha?

No. Unlike the Hosts, werewolves don’t steal power from one another. They can get plenty of Essence by eating humans or wolves (enjoy your breaking points!) but cannot gain Primal Urge from eating other werewolves. Successfully hunting a more powerful pack of Uratha is a very good excuse for Renown awards, which have their own benefits.

Are [the Pure] still portrayed in the “we won’t stop until every Forsaken is dead” type of light, or have they been changed to be more in line of an opposing viewpoint that can be violent like all such Werewolves, yet occasionally open to peaceful(ish) dealings?

That very much depends on the Pure. The general portrayal is closer to that in The Pure, but some of the Hunting Grounds tell a different story.

The iconic or signature characters. Could we see one? Are they new? Are they old characters? Moriarty from 1e was verging on becoming a Bale Hound in his last piece of fiction. Or did Idigam Chronicles skip them? I’ve always found that characters like that tend to go a long way towards making a game presentable to people new to the game.

We haven’t included any of the existing characters as of this book. If the previous writers want to bring their own choices back in future books then I’m not about to stop them (just try to stop me using Steel Trap Mind), and I’m working out some more signature characters to go with the depictions in the book.

Also, in terms of antagonists, what does the book make available for us? Obviously some things have to be left out due to space and you’ve already told us things like the Bale Hounds should be in another book. But do the shartha get a write-up? I figure the claimed and ridden do, and the idigam of course.

We have specific antagonist write-ups of each of the tribes’ specific prey: the three Pure Tribes, antagonistic spirits, the shartha (just Azlu and Beshilu for now), humans and human institutions, and the Ridden (Urged and Claimed). We also have a large chunk on the idigam.

What???!!! No more unihar???!!! What lead to that call? They were some of my favorite, nastiest villains to utilize. I also really loved how the social dynamic worked with packs and their wolf-blooded families, especially if it was strained by an in-pack romance that was doubly forbidden. Was this done to re-emphasize the importance of the pack? Was it done to allow players that are couples to have characters that are couples?

They have some really unfortunate implications that we want to move away from — penalising sex with the “wrong” people, casting Wolf-Blooded as breeding stock, punishing female characters far more than male, and a whole mess of problems around their impact on people who have lost pregnancies. I want to stress that nobody on the original design team intended any of this, but a we’re older and wiser we decided to drop a highly problematic element of the game.

Ultimately, we removed Unihar because removing them removes a bunch of unintential messages that people found very off-putting. They won’t be coming back.

Have elements been implemented to keep Uratha social with humans outside of their pack (besides just the occasional NPC Wolf-blood or enemy)?

Less so outside the pack — human members of the pack are the way that most werewolves interpret Uratha Safal Thil Lu’u. And, y’know, you do have to deal with humans in general. Human and Wolf-Blooded packmates aren’t part of the Siskur-Dah, so you shouldn’t be using them when gathering information for the hunt.

Odd secondary question: what do Uratha believe happens to them when they die?

Depends on the werewolf. We haven’t said anything specific on that front, and we’re not going to. Are ancestor-spirits actual dead werewolves or the impression of legendary werewolves created from story and myth? Are the souls that an idigam can mix and match the same as human souls, or are they something else? Right now, we’d rather leave these as questions that the characters don’t know.

In the 1st edition, there is reference to Uratha needing to vent their rage every so often to keep from losing control, but I’m not aware of any mechanics that enforce that. With the coming changes to Death Rage, are there any rules that enforce their need to normal – rage every so often?

They don’t need to unleash their Rage per se, but depending on Primal Urge a werewolf has to engage in the Siskur-Dah more often.

How can humans take part in Hunts, with the Integrity rules? They would seem to ruin Hunts by becoming Shaken or Spooked, and soon degenerate into mindlessness.

Generally, they don’t. Human packmates don’t know about the hunt, and don’t take part in the Siskur-Dah. Humans cement a pack in the community — could be a street gang, could be the local Rotary Club. Wolf-Blooded tend to the pack when the Uratha are away, and help deal with spirits and the hunting ground. Only the Uratha hunt.

Of course, sometimes humans and Wolf-Blooded decide to take up the hunt themselves. That works about as well as you’d expect. They have no benefits

Well my next question its about the “alphas”, how urathas decide the alphas in second edition? What os the benneficts to be a alpha? Any merits related to make the job more viable? In first edition my last alpha player asserted its status roleplaying and with dominance gifts its feels the same way now? Be a alpha after harmony at all?

It all depends. Some packs have alphas, while others have more fluid structures. The idea of alpha/beta/omega is based on how wolves act in captivity, not the wild, so we’re moving away from it. Some packs have an alpha who is a bully (or an abusive parent), some have a dominant leader, some make all their decisions with all of the Uratha in the pack, and others work off each packmate’s instincts as to what the pack should do next.

What’s the highest spirit rank a werewolf can come, rules as written? Is it an honorary spirit rank, or ‘just’ an honest spirit rank from the spirit-half of their soul?

Werewolves don’t get “free” Rank, no matter how much a spirit may like them. With enough Renown, a werewolf acts as a Rank 5 spirit (whatever we end up calling them), including her natural weapons being a Bane of spirits two or more Ranks lower.

Something I’m curious about: how often can a werewolf be triggered into death frenzy? It seems like if your harmony is out of balance, you can wind up permanently frenzied all night every night for three or four nights in a row, depending on your auspice. I’m just really curious how a pervasive trigger like that interacts with your normal frenzy duration based on primal urge

Death Rage has no inherent limits on how often it can occur. The results of Death Rage will often trigger Breaking Points towards spirit, pushing more human werewolves towards a rarer Kuruth trigger. If she’s determined to maintain an extreme of Harmony (the passive triggers only hit at Harmony 10 or 0), then she falls into Death Rage as often as she encounters the trigger.

So one thing I’d like elucidated upon is how the new harmony system will actually work in practice. I know that touchstones will be involved somehow and that you can sin in either direction, but I’m a little concerned about it mechanically. I think my friend put it best when he jovially suggested that murdering a bunch of Pure with silver would be fine as long as he ate a baby afterward. From what I’ve read so far, that might not be entirely inaccurate. I have no doubts it will produce a cornucopia of amusement and horror, but what other system(s) are in place to curb that kind of behavior?

Well… your friend isn’t entirely wrong. One breaks towards Flesh, the other breaks towards Spirit. On the other hand, you only move Harmony if you fail the breaking point roll. So if you’re more spirit than flesh and you use a silver weapon, you move towards balance only if you feel the imbalance in your soul. Likewise, if you go out to eat the flesh of a human being just because your Harmony’s too high, hope you fail.

The thing to remember is, Harmony measures your spiritual balance. It does not judge your actions. Other people (including your packmates and other werewolves) will judge you. You might feel more balanced for it, but many acts that cause a breaking point are violations of the Oath of the Moon. Even if your pack don’t give a toss, other werewolves will.

What kind of open design space is there for home brew content? By that, I mean, Vampire has devotions, where you can figure out unique powers from combining disciplines, demons have gadgets, it’s one of the really cool things I’ve liked from 2nd edition content so far that there are very useful guidelines for making your own cool powers. Gifts don’t seem to be very conducive to homebrew, because you have to come up with a whole gift wholecloth, rather than a single distinct power. Do you have any space in the template for distinct powers with useful examples that would help players make their own?

Rites exist for players to make their own, with much more flexibility and guidelines on making things tailored to your group than before. Fetishes likewise offer plenty of options for customization. Gifts maybe less so, but I know Chris Allen has shared his thinking on the topic several times (and it’s a lot more in-depth than my old “have a cup of tea and a fag and a look out of the window” method).

This week’s soundtrack comes from The Runaways, recently re-popularized by the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack. I’ll do another round of Q&A from the comments (or the forums), but I really need you to vote in the poll above before you do.