15

Elton laughs and says, "Great Gaia, I haven't heard someone ask a question that crazy since I met Katherine! And her teacher was quick to answer: no, of course not, one would never treat one's own beliefs as merely convenient instruments, wicker cages used to capture spirits. And then she immediately converted to Catholicism, just to see if she could catch a spirit that way. It worked. Then she spent a few months in a psychiatric hospital, renounced her former religion, and kept the Gift."

"Was she okay?" you ask.

"Katherine was never okay," Elton says. "But she always got what she wanted."

Then he sniffs the air.

"What?" you ask.

"That's an illegal propane hookup," he says. "People here are desperate, I know, but we can't have a fire: it'll draw down the filth, for one thing. So I'm going to check that out, see if I can help someone." He takes your hand in his, a sincere sign of respect of the werewolf who helped him rescue Podge. "Look around here. It's only one little street and its side alleys, but it can feel infinite. Learn from the city gods and the metal spirits. And only offer the agreed-upon nights of chiminage!"

He hurries off to deal with the propane problem, leaving you alone in a crowd.

Chiminage Possible:

Wisdom: 2 nights

I explore the physical buildings, checking for sites of power or nests where monsters might lurk.

I search the alleys and empty lots, walking openly so I can introduce myself to the local spirits.

I leave the urban blight.

Next

The spirits are everywhere, but these aren't the little gods of wood and stream that all Garou instinctively know. The machine spirits and carrion spirits are curious, though. Garou glyphs scratched in the bricks indicate Podge already came this way, so the spirits might be a little friendlier than usual. Moving carefully, you introduce yourself to Mouse and Raccoon as they gnaw on Umbral trash. A shadow-spirit crawls across broken glass, one of many such malicious powers that squirm through this urban blight.

This wasteland is alive.

Chiminage Possible:

Wisdom: 2 nights

I explore the physical buildings, checking for sites of power or nests where monsters might lurk.

I watch Pigeon flit through the Umbra overhead.

I kneel down to examine the mouse spirits.

I speak to the raccoon spirits.

What are the beetle spirits up to?

What can I learn from the alley's shadow spirits?

I leave the urban blight.

Next

You look around just to make sure there's no one here, but you're all alone. You pull out the notes Elton gave you.

Elton's paper contains a series of gestures, to be executed with a knife or a claw, that will part the barrier between worlds and allow a perceptive Garou to see into the spirit world. It's a rite specifically created for Broad Brook, which won't work elsewhere, and it's not a simple formula: the movements change based on the phase of the moon, your own auspice, and certain abstract spiritual conditions that you have to test with a different set of gestures. Back with your old pack, you found these kinds of rites murky and opaque, full of stumbling blocks that, in retrospect, might have existed only to give the Garou who mastered them a feeling of power and superiority. By contrast, this rite is diamond clear.

You reread the section relevant to a philodox, draw your knife and flick it through the air, testing the conditionals. Faint lateral resistance, what does that mean? Okay, "Arev is riding." Arev is the local name for the sun god, and if he's riding…(flip flip)…you need to make three incisions from upper left to lower right. That's what you do, and then your knife seems able to move freely. And the tip vanishes. Following the next set of instructions, you slice the barrier between worlds open.

And there is the Umbra, the realm of spirit: the stars are down here, or you're up there with them. They shine like paper lanterns, wise and clever spirits swirling around your head, but are also impossibly huge, balls of phosphorescent gas millions of miles across. Both at once and neither, a world of uncompromising truth that does not care what mortals, or werewolves, think; simultaneously, a shadow-reality shaped by your thoughts, needs, and fears.

It's only a window, you remind yourself. You probably won't fall in. And it'll close in a few minutes.

Next

The shadows crawl and writhe like living things, memories of ancient motion still clinging to existence. Hateful, empty, hungry, they are nonetheless bound to the service of Gaia. For a moment, you see Apollo fighting the Python, Marduk slaying Tiamat, Vahagn battling Vishap, and a thousand gods of radiant fury scattering a thousand serpents of darkness. These shadows are the remnants of an ancient spiritual battle: traitors to the Wyrm, they have reluctantly sworn themselves to the Garou in order to save their own pathetic and half-real lives. Squirming through an infernal analogue of the Milky Way, a ribbon of blackness in the earth that mirrors the ribbon of light in the sky, they burn with malice, but some Garou know how to tame them and force them to work their magic of blinding and baffling, to wield their malicious hexes in service of Gaia.

Using Shadow's Gift: Shadow spirits appear as physical shadows, even to your eyes—you've seen Elton control them—but they're pure occult energy, and a Garou who commands them can use his determination and Resolve to sap the will of a living thing, making them weaker and more vulnerable. Summoning one uses Rage.

Earning Shadow's Gift: These shadow spirits hate life and light, and will only serve Shadow Lords. Even if you swore yourself to Vahagn, you lack both the record of Glorious deeds and the cool dislike of humanity necessary to command these dark creatures.

The shadows require five nights of Glorious chiminage in utter blackness before one will agree to serve a Shadow Lord.

Next