Enemies of the Garou

Black Spiral Dancers

Nearly two thousand years ago, another tribe claimed membership in the Garou Nation. They were the White Howlers, a savage tribe related to the Picts and kin to the Fianna; and they fell to the Wyrm.  In seeking to destroy the Wyrm's servants, they were tricked into dancing the Black Spiral in the heart of Malfeas, the Wyrm's Umbral home. Utterly twisted and insane, they became known as the Black Spiral Dancers. Few Garou speak their name willingly, usually out of loathing (or pity) for their fallen brothers.

Black Spiral Dancers have lived underground among foul and cancerous children of the Wyrm for centuries. Their caerns, called Hives, are nestled amidst labyrinthine cave systems, most of which are filled with industrial waste and monstrous things.  Most Black Spiral Dancers are hideous and disturbing creatures. Their human forms tend to appear pale and unhealthy, with oily or scraggly hair and pallid skin. Many have open, weeping sores from the mutations.  In Crinos, they tend to have hyena-like heads with huge, slavering jaws and vicious, jagged and crooked fangs. Their ears are pointed and hairless, like a bat's. Their eyes often glow green or red.

Dancers revere the Whippoorwill as the tribal totem, whose mad call they howl during their hunts. Many humans and other creatures have heard the whippoorwill's call in their last sane moments before serving as toys, breeding stock or sacrifices to the Wyrm.

Black spiral dancers have virtually the same traits as any other Garou, and may learn breed and auspice Gifts as appropriate. (A Theurge Black Spiral Dancers will NOT learn Mother's Touch, for instance)  Their tribal gifts resemble the physical mutations that they all share, but some draw upon the Wyrm's capacity for mind blasting insanity.  Banes, often-toxic elementals or spirits of evil desires, teach Black Spiral Dancers their Gifts (including Breed and Auspice).

Rat Head (Level One) - The Dancer can squeeze her body through any opening no smaller than a quarter in diameter. This Gift looks very disturbing to unsuspecting onlookers. Corrupted rat-spirits teach this Gift.

Sense Wyrm (Level One) - as the metis gift

Toxic Claws (Level One) - The Dancer can cause toxic waste to ooze from her claws, coating them with an unhealthy greenish-gray slime.  Wounds left by these claws tend to leave unhealthy-looking scars.

Ears of the Bat (Level Two) - This Gift allows the Black Spiral Dancer to use sonar like a bat. He may act in complete darkness without impairment. Black Spiral Dancers with this Gift have large, bat-like ears. Even in Homid form, they have abnormally large ears. Corrupted bat-spirits teach this Gift.

Patagia (Level Two) - The Dancer can extrude large flaps of skin under her arms, resembling a flying squirrel's membranes. When not in use, the flaps usually shrink under the Dancer's arms, where they are undetectable.

Terrify (Level Two) – The Dancer with this Gift is more intimidating and terrifying than normal.  A sneer from her is as effective as a full-throated growl from another.

Wyrm Hide (Level Two) – A Dancer may use this Gift to transform her skin into a lumpy, leathery, odious, sickly hide that grants her additional protection from harm. Once the Wyrm Hide wears off, it slides oozing and bubbling off the Dancer, leaving a congealing, smelly mess where she stood.

Burning Scars (Level Three) – BSD often carve stylized scars representing their devotion to the Wyrm upon their bodies. With this Gift, a Dancer can draw upon that devotion to inflict horrible injuries on her foes. When invoked, this Gift causes the Dancer’s scars to glow brilliantly through the victim’s eyes, nose, mouth and ears. The Dancer merely grabs her target, and burns it from the inside out leaving horrible scars that mirror the Dancer’s own.

Foaming Fury (Level Three) – The Dancer’s mouth bubbles and foams with a noxious, greenish fluid. His eyes widen and roll in their sockets, showing the whites. The Dancer yips, barks and howls madly as if in the grip of a rabid madness…a contagious one.

Crawling Poison (Level Four) – When the Dancer calls upon this Gift, his fangs turn black with venom, and his breath grows more foul than is normal. The venom kills humans and animals slowly, and, the victim suffers terrible agony as the venom spreads through his body. Regeneration of Garou helps the healing and preventing the death, but only at the cost of normal rapid healing.

Doppelganger (Level Four) – As the Glass Walker Gift.

Balefire (Level Five) – The Dancer can hurl balls of sickly green flame at her enemies. Balefire, as the very lifeblood of the Wyrm, is very dangerous to Werewolves. It often inflicts hideous and life-threatening mutations, as well as tainting the victim heavily. It’s impossible to dodge Balefire…it moves with malicious intelligence. It can only be resisted.

Mask Taint (Level Five) – A Dancer with this Gift can hide his Wyrm-taint from all senses or Gifts that may detect it.
 
 

Black Spiral Dancers, like all the other Tribes, have their own list of rites for special occasions. In most cases the effect of the Rite is similar to that of Gaian Garou’s, except they have been twisted to the Wyrm’s needs, and only Banes answer the Dancers’ Theurges. The difference lies not in the mechanics of the Rite, but in the description. Dancers’ rites are an evil mockery of the Gaian Rite, and should be described as such.
 
 

Fomori (singular: fomor) are not your typical humans who have chosen, unwittingly or willingly, to turn to the Wyrm. They undergo a process similar to possession in which a Bane merges with them and warps them into a form more suitable to a Wyrm servant. They gain great power, but it always comes at a price. Nearly all fomori are physically deformed, mindless cannibals who lurk near toxic waste sites, lanfills, poisoned stretches of wilderness or forgotten sewers or steam tunnels. Some retain a semblance of sapience, free will and near human appearance, and these few infiltrate human society on the Wyrms behalf.

The process of becoming a fomor is a traumatic experience, even for those least affected. The fomor retains his personality and conscienousness, but his fusion with a malevolent spirit warps his psyche in very nasty ways. If the person was already corrupt, violent or insane, the resulting monster is truly psychotic.

Some organizations employ (or may actually create) fomori, although most Garou are unaware of the ultimate source of these creatures. Many are formed into paramilitary units and used as shock troups against the Garou.

In some remote backwaters, fomori sometimes form into family units, all of whom share some particularly unique and grotesque mutation from their service to the Wyrm. The Garou try to wipe out these sick enclaves whenever they find them, but the families are usually well entrenched wherever they've chosen to thrive. Most have little intelligence but a surplus of malicious cunning.

Fomori nearly always look inhyuman in some overt and disgusting fasion. A few can pass in human socitey without much comment. Some can conceal their deformities with bulky clothes. Many fomori positively reek - some are as fragrant as a human who's lived in it's own filth for weeks. Humans aren't always sensitive to these odors, but Garou nearly always are.

All fomori are granted powers through their fusion with a Bane. Most fomori have two or three powers. A few have as many as five, and only the exceptionally accursed have more. Each power twists the fomor's form in progressively disturbing ways.

Armored Hide - The fomor's skin is rough and leathery, or hard and scaly, or perhaps it secretes some kind of disgusting ooze that causes attacks to slide off harmlessly.

Beserker - A fomor with this power is filled with a rage similar to that of Garou. He can channel his inner anger and use it more effectively to combat the Wyrm's foes. (5 Rage Points, and is now subject to frenzy)

Bestial Mutation - The fomor's body twists and shifts into a monsterous shape. The shape is different for each fomor, and none are pleasing or accommodating to the senses. They're given to noisome odors, scaly or oozing features and horrible, gut-wrenching calls from one or more twisted mouths or some other unidentifiable orifice.

Claws and Fangs - The fomor has some kind of vicious bodily weaponry. In some cases, they may manifest as claws and fangs. In other cases, the fomor may develop bone spurs that protrude from wrists and elbows, barbed quills all over his body or long, savage horns.

Extra Limbs - Fomori foten have on or more extra appendages, usually in the form of tentacles or masses of tendrils. Such extra limbs usually sprout from awkward places, like an extra arm growing from a fomor's thigh,  or a tentacle replacing it's tongue. Some limbs need to be stored someplace, like a pouch around it's neck or belly.

Eyes of the Wyrm - The fomor's eyes are grotesque in some way. Perhaps they are faceted like a fly's, or the pupil is an odd shape (like an oval, or a square, or amorphous and shifting). The fomor can dilate or otherwise alter his eyes in some nauseating fashion, revealing images of the Wyrm's damnation.

Fungal Touch - The fomor's internal organs, nervous system and cardiovascular system have been replaced with a foul-smelling, infectious fungus. The fomor may infect a victim by touching him, or in some rare cases, actually breathing a nauseating, viscous cloud of fungal spores onto him.

Immunity to the Delirium - Many fomori are resistant or immune to the Delirium. Perhaps the terrors inflicted during transformation immunize them, or maybe the part of the brain that remembers the Impergium was burned out.

Poison Tumors - The fomor's body is covered with pus-filled tumors. The pus is always incredibly noxious or corrosive, and it often comes in many nauseatingly inappropriate colors.

Regeneration - The fomor recovers from injury at an incredibly fast rate, much like werewolves do. Wounds never heal perfectly, though, so they leave scars in their wake. Occasionally, the regeneration leads to tumors that spread with each successive injury. A fomor who's survived several fights will probably look quite unhealthy.

Triatic Scent - The fomor may mask his Wyrm nature by wrapping himself in the Wyld or Weaver essence; each counts as one power.

Twisted Senses - The fomor's eyes have been altered to percieve wavelenghts that no human was meant to perceive. She can perceive spectra that would drive a normal person mad with anxiety or terror.

Unnatural Strength - The fomor's muscles are unnaturally developed, and they bulge in odd, disturbing ways. They may even writhe in some bizarre manner. In some disgusting cases, the fomor may seem to have no skin at all.

Voice of the Wyrm - The fomor's tounge has been changed into some alien form. In some, it becomes long and sluglike in appearance, where others have a snakelike tongue. A few fomori simply have their tongues replaced with a mass of writhing tendrils. In no case does this transformation affect the fomor's ability to speak., although his voice may take on a rasping, sibilant or otherwise odd quality. He may use his altered tongue to speak in the Wyrm's own language. Chanting the Dark Litany will affect the enemy's Gnosis, and if licked will suffer agony.

Gift - The fomor may take on Level One or Two Homid, Ahroun, or Black Spiral Dancer Gift. If it requires Gnosis or Rage to activate, the fomor may use Willpower instead (unless it has aquired Gnosis or Rage in some way). Such Gifts always warp the body in some way, like Persuasion giving the fomor a child-like innocent look on it's face.

Vampires are far from defenseless.  The blood they steal from their human herds grants them an amazing variety of powers unique to them.  It makes them much faster and stronger, especially if they've fed recently.  A vampire may use his stolen blood to increase his Physical Attributes at one dot per blood point spent to increase.  Most vampires may only increase their Physical Attributes to 6, although some powerful elders can reach heights sufficient to rival a Crinos Garou.  He may also spend a blood point to heal lethal or bashing damage (bashing damage is halved before soaking).  It takes several nights of intense feeding to recover from aggravated injuries.  Vampires suffer aggravated wounds from werewolf claws and teeth, from the sun itself (treat as fire), from fire or from certain Gifts or Charms.

Vampires frenzy like Garou if presented with sufficient provocation.  The player rolls Willpower to resist frenzy.  If presented with insult, threat to life and limb, or humiliation, she needs at least three successes to resist attacking the cause of her distress.  If she is exposed to fire or sunlight, she must roll or run away in utter terror (as a fox frenzy).  The number of successes needed is based on the magnitude of the threat.  Exposure to sunlight always requires three successes.

Aside from the very typical attitude of Garou towards Leeches described above, the only exceptions to this attitude generally are the very very rare Garou individuals who tend to take a being on an individual basis rather than as a group or race; a very few members of the Gangrel vampire clan, whose Humanity rating (or Path of the Feral Heart Path of Enlightment rating if they do not follow Humanity) is 7 or higher; or any other vampire clan member (Toreador, Tremere, Ventrue, Tzimisce, etc.) whose Humanity rating (or Path of the Feral Heart rating once again if they do not follow Humanity) is 7 or higher.  Those with this Humanity or Feral Heart rating score are not considered Wyrm tainted, either in opinion or by the use of Gifts such as Scent of the Wyrm.  To the Garou observing or interacting with them, they do not seem to be Wyrm tainted, evil, or needing destruction.  Now, bear in mind that this does not imply that the Garou in question will trust them in any fashion, just that they do not "stink of the Wyrm."
 
 

Mages are normal-seeming humans who have the ability to bend reality through the direct application of will.  Each mage uses her power as she feels is appropriate, which can bring her into conflict with the Garou easily.

Many other Garou see mages as usurpers of Gaia's rightful power as creator.  They feel that the versatile and powerful magic mages wield is the birthright of the Celestines alone, and they would prefer to see the vainglorious mages humbled.  The fact that some mages have attempted to raid the Garou’s caerns for spiritual energy (and drained more than a few in the process) does not improve the Nation's attitudes about them.

Mages practice a multitude of traditions.  Some use very ritualized styles, calling upon powerful spirits for favor, and others practice more informal shamanic systems.  Some insane mages seem to have no internal consistency to their methods, and they are as dangerous as any Wyldling Vortex or Nexus Crawler when they appear.  A very few Garou have Kin among the mages (and very few of them).  Kin mages are considered more trustworthy than other mages, but they are expected to assist Garou and respect the Garou Nation’s needs – or else.

Some terrifying mages serve corruption and destruction, bringing both with them wherever they go.  Most are subtle tempters, who prefer to lead others down the primrose path to damnation.  When threatened or angered, they become terrible enemies indeed.  Many have pacts with powerful Banes, and they may call upon those Banes at need.  A few also create fomori to serve as soldiers to use against their enemies.  When werewolves find one of these twisted mages, they stop at nothing to kill him.

Mages fear some kind of retributive force that strikes them down when they grow too proud and haughty with their powers.  Mages who recognize and respect this force use magic in subtle and often invisible ways.  Mages who attempt flashy or showy effects (especially in public places, where normal people can see them) often suffer mysterious injuries.  (They explode, blood spurts from the eyes, their flesh peels off, and some even vanish without a trace.)  The Garou simply consider this just and appropriate, the hand of Gaia (or the Weaver) forcing them to behave.

Magic doesn’t normally inflict aggravated damage unless the attack takes the form of fire, electricity, toxic waste, silver, or pure magical energy.  (The latter always subjects the mage to a backlash.)

Typically, mages have access to one or two of the following spheres:  Spirit (can enter the Umbra or summon and command spirits), Elemental (can manipulate earth, fire, air and water), Entropy (command of fate, decay and luck), Travel (teleportation or flight), Divination (see distant places, the past or the future), Life (can shapeshift himself or others, heal himself or others).  Feel free to add any others that seem appropriate.
 
 

Source Material taken from Werewolf:  The Apocalypse Third Edition; Copyrighted by White Wolf Publishing and Gaming Studios, Incorporated.