6 essence remaining, 7 total
Auspice Ability: Warrior’s Eye. Once per session, a Rahu can attempt to “read” a foe, determining who is the superior warrior. The player rolls Wits + Primal Urge; success indicates that the werewolf can roughly tell whether the threat is stronger or weaker than he is, while an exceptional success grants more understanding of the gap between the two (“He’s much more powerful than me.”). A dramatic failure indicates that the character greatly misjudges his target. The warrior’s eye takes into account only those abilities that might affect a direct fight. A werewolf might read a skilled vampire assassin as “weaker,” even though the vampire is much more deadly when it can choose the time of engagement.
Clarity (•)
The light of the full moon lends a peaceful insight into the dark of night, and the Ralunim can impart a similar sensitivity to a Rahu. But rather than cutting through literal darkness per se, this clarity cuts through the distracting haze that can cloud a warrior’s mind. Jarring himself mentally by touching the white-hot core of his soul, the werewolf burns away the fog of war and keeps his wits about him.
By spending one Essence, the player increases his character’s Initiative modifier by five, greatly increasing the odds of seizing the critical first strike in any battle. The Storyteller may determine that some situations are inappropriate for this Gift (such as when the character is attacked by an invisible threat). If the power is used once combat is underway, the character’s new place in the Initiative order is applied in the next turn and in all subsequent turns for the
remainder of the fight.
Cost: 1 Essence
Dice Pool: No roll is required.
Action: Reflexive
Partial Change (•)
This subtle Gift allows a werewolf to transform only the parts of himself that he needs in order to complete a task at hand. For example, a werewolf in Hishu form might transform only his nose in order to track someone through the city streets by scent, without drawing the attention to himself that transforming into Urhan would attract. Conversely, a werewolf in Urhan form might transform his eyes to human to gain sharper color vision.
Cost: None (or 1 Essence)
Dice Pool: Stamina + Survival + Primal Urge.
The player has the option of rolling this dice pool, with the intended change occurring if even one success is achieved. In this case, the change is an instant action. Or, he may spend one Essence for his character to change automatically as a reflexive action.
Action: Instant or reflexive
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: Another feature of a different form is assumed instead of the one intended (the Storyteller decides which). Human onlookers are subject to Lunacy as if their Willpower is two dots higher than normal.
Failure: No change occurs.
Success: The werewolf chooses which parts of himself he transforms. The result might allow him to use certain abilities normally restricted to other forms (such as tracking by scent or using claws in Hishu; the Storyteller decides what modifiers transfer over). Though he may change as much or as little as he wishes, the choice is final. To add or subtract any feature requires another use of the Gift (so “undoing” features also requires another application of the power). The Storyteller decides if and how any human onlookers might spot the character’s features and potentially suffer Lunacy. If it is triggered, normal rules apply and subjects’ Willpower is considered one higher than normal.
Exceptional Success: The change occurs as a reflexive
action without the expenditure of an Essence point.
Mother’s Caress (•)
?
Everyone sees things through different eyes. Various words will bring out different responses, depending on the person in question, as well as their experiences. Like religion. It could mean going out every Sunday for a boring service, or it could mean sitting and praying heavily several times in a day. It could be residing in isolation, contemplating life, or the mental scars left behind from abuse of someone who didn’t fit into the dotted lines. This doesn’t have anything to do with the story. It’s merely….perspective.
Samantha never knew her parents. Not her real parents at the least. Her first memories are from the rooms of an adoption agency, and the other children playing there. She played with them on occasion, and at other times, she read some of the books they had there, all depending on what was going on during the day. Normal everyday things to her. People came, interviewed their kids, sometimes taking them home, other times merely moving on. She even got a couple of interviews, though, not as many as some of the others. She didn’t mind. She was happy there. Until some of the others in the building took to bullying on the side. It was normal childish things, taking something from someone, not giving it back, taunting, teasing, that sort of thing. She didn’t really mind, and even laughed along with the others when it was someone else.
But then her turn came around. Unlike so many, who cried and screamed at the taunters, she felt her cheeks burning, and moving purely on instinct, she hit the first of those who were trying to keep her small carton of milk from her. The laughing and chatting stopped fairly instantly, as the boy she’d knocked down looked up at her in shock, tears starting to fill his eyes. She just blinked a few times at him, retrieved her milk, and made to go back to her seat. Needless to say, the caretakers there had her place her milk on the tray and escorted her quickly from the lunchroom, taking her to the matron’s office. She was set in a chair just outside, and the one who had led her there entered the office, holding a several minute long conversation with the matron before she was called inside. She was asked why she had been taken there, and she responded honestly with ‘Not really.’ The matron then gently sat her down in a chair, and gave her a bit of a long chat, telling her that it was wrong to hit people, no matter the circumstances. She honestly didn’t understand though. He hadn’t really been hurt, and she’d got what she wanted. What was so bad about it? Around that point, the matron took a more firm tone with her, and sent her to the room she shared with many of the other children, though it was still fairly empty, since it was only mid-afternoon. She’d been left with instructions that she was not to leave the room until she was ready to apologize to the boy she’d hit.
It only took till around lunch for her to cave into the apology, since she hadn’t gotten a chance to really get too much lunch before she’d hit him in the first place. While she did apologize though, the other children started, mostly, to avoid her. Not outright running, but, more she found herself being far less included in the games they played, though she was still picked just because she could keep up with the boys. She didn’t really notice it at first until one of the younger kids she spent her time talking to actually told her that he didn’t feel like having what passed for a conversation anymore. Given that he usually talked her ear off, it made her see all the little things that she had been missing from the others, and hurt her more than a little, though she refused to cry. For some reason, crying in front of people seemed wrong to her. Like it was something to be ashamed of. After wandering through their limited yard for a bit, doing her best to find somewhere quiet to think, she was irritated. Now that she was actually pausing to think, she saw all the more how the smaller kids would slow when she was close, and watch her until she was away. Most of those her own age didn’t really show that much difference in the way they acted, but they also didn’t invite her over to join in their games when she was around as they used to. Feeling frustrated, she retreated into the agency’s building, ending up right back in the dormitory, where she slumped onto her bed.
The change in behavior didn’t last too long, only a couple days before everyone was acting normally around her again. Even she began to forget about what had happened, moving on with life as children normally do. It was only a couple years later that she, to her surprise, found herself adopted. It wasn’t that the process was new to her. The staff had explained it once a couple of her friends had left somewhere. What did surprise her was that she was the one being chosen. Mostly due to the fact that her hair was a fair shade of red. For some reason, that seemed to put most of the adults off. She was usually well-behaved too, which kept her from being blamed for many of the shenanigans that went on in the orphanage. Still, the prospect of leaving the only home she’d really known was rather daunting. Heavily nervous, she went with the rather well-dressed woman, who led her out to the street and flagged a taxi, and promptly took her and her limited garments over to a rather nice apartment building. During the trip, she learned a little bit about her new ‘mother’ as she was expected to call her. She wasn’t sure about the title, as it hadn’t really meant anything to her. The woman was middle-aged, single, and worked as a criminal lawyer, attempting to prosecute anyone who broke the law. The reason that she had chosen Samantha was that she thought the girl could use a little support, coming into the world with no real knowledge of her real family. Besides, she thought the fire in her hair was rather unusual, it’s tone more akin to that of blood than the traditional orange.
It took her a couple of weeks to get used to being alone in her room, and shortly thereafter, she was enrolled in one of the lower tier schools in the area, being walked through the routine a few times to be sure that she knew how to get there properly. Her ‘mother’ guided her there on her first day, but after that, she was generally on her own in the sea of humanity that was the school grounds. Being a new student in the middle of the semester was bad enough, but compound that with her arrival including her mother and the shade of her hair, and she was fairly well the topic of conversation that morning. She was introduced to the class, assigned a seat in the cramped classroom, and did her utmost to keep up with the rest of the class. Breaks saw her the victim of teasing again, and while she held down her irritation at the simple verbal notions, when one of the older boys shoved her, she retaliated by kicking him squarely between the legs, crumpling him. Unlike the situation in the orphanage though, the teachers knew that he was a bully, and so didn’t scold her too heavily for her reaction, which got her a mix of fear and respect from the student body. They even watched her carefully for the rest of the day, since most were certain that he wouldn’t let it lie that way. Sure enough, after school, as she started making her way home, he and a couple of his friends confronted her. The confrontation that followed was rather unpleasant, and ended with her having a bloody nose, a black eye, and a few other marks, though she had returned the favor to him. His friends were what tipped the scales against her, and eventually she hobbled home, finding her ‘mother’ in a panic since she hadn’t arrived home on time. It got worse with the state she had been left in.
Her mother talked to the principal, who talked to the school, with both Samantha and Keith, the boy she fought with, being called into the office to get a rather half-hearted scolding. She was about as uninterested in it as he was, so when they left the office ten minutes later, they were both rolling their eyes for only slightly different reasons. The end of the day brought the three of them back out to confront her again, though it didn’t end in a fight this time. Rather, an uneasy friendship based more on not bothering each other than any sort of affection. So long as she didn’t interfere in what he did, she wouldn’t have to worry about fighting him again, and so long as he left her alone, she would do the same. Over the next few years, she made a few friends here or there, but most were only superficial as she never actually stood up for them when they were in trouble, seeing it more as the need for them to stand up for themselves, and telling them so directly. It was during this time that her ability to run quickly was noticed by the P.E. teacher, who encouraged her to develop that skill. He also cautioned her not to neglect her upper body, since uneven training could be more harmful than helpful. Before she even realized it, she was entering middle school with one rather consistent friend, and a sense of comfort when it came to her mother, who she actually came to care for to a degree. Rather unfortunately though, being prominent among those going against criminals in a city that large was never truly the safest of options. Her mother had agitated a mid-level wanna-be crime boss, who came up with a rather creative way to deal with the situation that wouldn’t get the police involved, or so he hoped. He sent one of his men to the school, dressed in a police uniform, to inform Samantha that there had been a threat against her mother and that she was to be taken down to the station to be held in protective custody until her mother could come pick her up. Her mother had never really mentioned this sort of situation, but the man looked official, so she went with him without question. Since she didn’t know where the police station was, she didn’t question their direction until the man stopped the car in front of a rather large warehouse.
Despite her protests, the man took her into the building, where she met the man behind the plot, which he decided to explain to her. Rather than ransoming her back, Samantha’s own safety was based on no longer taking any cases to prosecute criminals. Her mother’s safety rested on her not trying to get away. Once he was sure she understood such, he made the phone call to her mother, who caved in after only a moment of threats. Still, he couldn’t rightly hold her near him al the time. She was sort of noticeable, as well as memorable, with her hair being that shade. So, in addition to not running away, she had her hair cut short, and then dyed a shade of off brown, which she was ordered to maintain until he told her otherwise. She was then placed in the care of a ‘family’ he owned, who were told to keep quiet about where she had come from. Her new mother was a streetwalker, and her father a janitor as well as a drunk. They spent half a year breaking her rebellious spirit, making sure that she wouldn’t go running to any police officers she happened to see when she was allowed out, the vague idea that the man who had brought her was on the force and would know, as would the other ‘corrupt officers’ should she tell them, helped to reinforce such in her mind. So, once they were sure that she would follow their orders, the re-enrolled her in a public school, one fairly far away from the one she had been attending, under a fake name.
Mother’s Caress: 1 Essence: Can make a roll to calm any form of supernatural frenzy. In addition can temporarily alleviate the affects of any derangement upon a person. Grants 2 of whatever form of supernatural energy is used by the person being cast upon (Vitae for Vampires, Essence for Werewolves, etc.)
Even when not cast you receive a +2 to all dice pools to resist Frenzy.
