The Umbra

The Umbra.  Among the Garou, this place is known as many things:  The Umbra, the Middle World, the Velvet Shadow, the Spirit World, plus any number of indigineous names that a Tribe or people may have for it.  All their names for it reflect their reverence for this invisible half of the universe.  It is the counterpart to the physical world, almost its twin.  Though divided, the two were once joined.  The spirit world still touches the material one, for were it gone completely, Earth could not sustain life.  The Penumbra, the part of the spirit world that is closest to the physical one, reflects the material world closely.  Powerful actions on the physical plane send emanations into the spirit world.  The most powerful of these psychic emanations ripple past the Penumbra into the Near Umbra, where they can create whole Realms.  Such Realms often form based on a single idea or collection of legends.

You will find the Umbra filled with spirits, some of which will be your allies, some your enemies.  Spirits representing all aspects of Gaia's world live in the Umbra.  Animals, trees, wind, fire, water -- they all have form and life here.  Supernatural forces like hideous monsters and living pollution have form here as well.  These spirits lack physical substance, and they can usually enter the physical world only when someone binds them into a Fetish or a living being.  The more powerful spirits can will themselves into the physical Realm with great exertion and energy.  The philosophers among our people see these spirits as concepts that have become self-aware.

Here, in this place, I know that the prophets and poets have touched their true souls.  They have tried to show us far more than the reality humanity knows.  The terrors and wonders of the physical world are but shadows of those in this shadow world.  Just beyond the grasp of the masses of people teeming on Gaia's surface lies an eerie landscape that is their loss, and our hope.  Here, in the Umbra, we find out totem spirits and the horrors of the Wyrm's spawn.  We find the spirits we hold sacred and the festering sores we must eradicate.  Here we find Gaia's soul, and our own souls as well.  The Umbra is not perfect.  We are not truly at home here -- we are still tied too much to our physical reality for that, but we know that the Umbra should be part of our home, and that we should be part of it.

The Umbra is a place of possibilities, not a place of structure and finite thought.  The Umbra no longer joins with our material world, but rather lies next to it and through it.  The vast Gauntlet divides the Umbra's spiritual energy from the physical world.  This barrier maintains the split between the twin worlds of matter and soul.  They yearn to reconnect, but harsh reality holds them apart.  The spirit Realm pierces the Gauntlet at many points to reach into the physical, but the two cannot shatter the Gauntlet and unite.  Few but we, the werewolves, Gaia's chosen children, can break through the Gauntlet and journey from Earth to Umbra.  Unfortunately, many wicked beings from the spirit world can travel in the other direction.

If you can conceive of something, it can happen in the Umbra.  If you can't conceive of it, it may still happen.  The Umbra is beyond my small mind, and its beyond yours as well.  Gaia's mind and the hopes and fears and dreams and thoughts of every one of Her beings and spirits roam the Umbra.  Some have form; some simply await the chance to spring into existence.  In the Umbra, you can find all those things that have yet to be, but always have been.  The Umbra is well beyond the comprehension of even Gaia's chosen, and I still have the task of explaining it to you.  Since we are of the physical world as much as the spirit, we see the spiritual world in physical terms.  We've defined "pocket dimensions," called Realms, within the Umbra, each governed by its own laws of reality.  A Realm can look and behave like anything at any time.  Some Realms even utterly defy all of Earth's physical laws.  Most Garou are more comfortable in Realms that look and feel like the physical world, so these Realms are the ones we tend to visit.  These Realms have ground, sky, foreground and horizon.  While you travel in the Umbra, you will find that you can still use all of your formidable senses in the spirit world.  Don't forget that you are part wolf.  Take advantage of the keen senses Gaia gave you.

Human philosophers and poets are not alone in their speculations on the spirit world.  All of our Tribes have unique perspectives on the Umbra.  Spirituality and the nature of the Umbra spark just as many discussions and arguments as human religions do.  The Native American Garou Tribes have a simple view of the spirit world.  They have only glimpsed it from afar, and they believe it to be as it appears in their visions.  The other Garou have more complex views.  The Stargazers, for example, speculate that the spirit world is radically and unknowably different from what it appears to be.  They believe that this is because it is a world not of form and substance, but of fleeting impressions and potent tsymbols that are translated into sensory information by the Garou.  The life experiences of the Umbral traveler literally shape her moment-to-moment awareness of the Umbra.

Our various Tribes and camps differ on many points about the Tellurian.  The only thing on which we all agree is that we can never understand the whole of reality.  We expect disagreements, and we know that we can only hope to know truth through direct unity with Gaia.  And the only sure way to connect with Gaia is through the spirit world.

Just as human civilizations have creation myths and stories to intruct their youth in the cosmology of the world, so do we Garou.  The Umbra envelops the material Realm in something akin to Earth's atmosphere.  Our cosmology begins with the three levels that compose the Umbra.  The most familiar to us is the middle world that lies on the back of the great World Turtle.  The Heavens lie above the Turtle and the Underworlds lie in his guts.  Werewolves, along with all the humans and animals and other things of the physical world, live in the middle world on the Turtle's back.  Our Theurges say that the Heavens are an unknowable world visited by human wizards and inhabited by frightening astral beings.  They say that worlds below are unfathomable crypts populated by spectres and demons.  These lands are not the lands of the Garou.  Just as wolves do not live high in the clouds or deep in the mud, werewolves belong to the middle world.

The Theurges say the truth lies in the Umbra.  We can know the Umbra.  We can explore it and understand it.  If we heal the problems in the spirit world, we will also heal them in the physical.  This is the essential guiding principle behind much of our crusade:  find the true spiritual source of a physical manifestation, understand it and change it in spirit.

Three primal forces create and support the rest of reality:  the Wyld, the Weaver and the Wyrm.  These forces, called the Triat collectively, anchor all of existence.  In the simplest terms, the Wyld is a body of vast potential that remains unrealized and in constant flux.  The Weaver is the force of definition that takes the unformed creations of the Wyld and spins them into stable forms of matter and energy.  Its power is the power to Name, to limit a things's potential by giving it definition.  The Wyrm is the force of destructive entropy that culls the myriad creations of the Weaver, thus creating sense from the senseless spasm of raw creation.  The Triat's interrealtions gave birth to the universe, and their continuing conflict ravages it.  some scholars see the Weaver as a great nest spider that nests in the World Tree's branches, coating the Tree in webbing, while the dragonlike Wyrm gnaws at the Tree's roots.  The Wyld is the water that flows through the Tree, the sunlight that feeds its branches.  Between the Weaver's webs and the Wyrm's destruction, however, the Wyld cannot nourish the Tree as it once did.

The world is dying.

A recounting of an experience within the Umbra from a cub, long long ago.  Strangeness surrounds me.  It fills me.  I am the stranger, the lost cub.  Whenever I slip into the spirit world, the places that I've left seem like a dream.  I always thought that it would be the other way, that the Umbra would be the place of misperception and illusions.  It isn't so.  Whenever I enter the Umbra, my first sensation is that I've woken up from a long dream.  Have you ever woken up disoriented and unsure if you actually lived the last 10 years of your life or if you're still a child who's late for school?  That's the spirit world, which shouldn't be such an odd sensation, considering that its the true home of our spirit.  Our spirits have spent far more time in the Umbra than we've spent among the living.  Of course, when we return home, it feels as though the time in the Umbra was just a dream.  Usually...But no matter what, whenever I enter the spirit world, I am far more certain of its reality than I am of anything else I've experienced.  I can't hide from myself, and this strange place, this shadow world, this Umbra...I belong to it, and it belongs to me.

Yet, there might remain some hope for civilization.  The Glass Walkers argue vehemently to promote the new creativity and connectivity of people brought about by the advent of the Internet.  However, there are far more voices in other Tribes that call for the destruction of the scabs and an end to the tempestuous escalation of technology.

Every place on Earth has a Gauntlet rating from 2 to 9.  Stepping sideways in areas with a high Gauntlet rating is well nigh impossible.  Areas in which the Gauntlet is thin allow almost unhindered access for those who know how to step sideways.
 

Now we skip the descriptions of spiritual places, such as Caerns, in favor of presenting the areas and Realms of most interest within the Umbra.  Each Realm or Domain or area will be described briefly as best as knowledge concerning it exists.  Bear in mind that these Realms, Domains, and areas are merely some of the most commonly encountered or visited.  They are not by any means the totality of the Umbra.  They barely even begin to scratch the surface, as a matter of fact.

Likewise, the Penumbra contains the spirit material that corresponds to the physical matter of Earth.  The only material objects that appear in the spirit world are those with large amounts of spiritual energy.  Matter that endures the passage of time on Earth gains a spiritual representation in the Penumbra.  Old trees and old buildings have counterparts on the Penumbra; recently built structures and newer vegetation do not.  Wyld, Weaver and Wyrm energies become tangible in this Realm.  Wyld-spirits move through natural areas, Weaver webs emerge from technological equipment, and Wyrmlings scuttle through graveyards and polluted areas.

Interestingly enough, spirit is more "real" than matter in some ways.  The spirit of an object can often endure the loss of its physical body, but the physical body cannot withstand the loss of its spirit essence.  If an old oak tree is chopped down on Earth, it may linger for a long time in the Umbra.  If a living tree is destroyed in the Umbra, however, its earthly counterpart will sicken and die.  similarly, the spirits of extinct species such as dire wolves linger on deep in the Umbra, but if all the eagle-spirits in the spirit world were destroyed, the eagles of the physical world would soon follow.

Penumbral streets and forests seem eerily deserted, for most sentitent creatures do not manifest on the Penumbra.  Only spiritually advanced people appear here.  Sometimes Garou travelers see the spirits fo humans who are deeply enscounced in the Periphery.  Although attacks on these Penumbral reflections do not cause any lasting harm to their physical counterparts, they can make a person highly uncomfortable, much as if haunted by a painful memory.

The Penumbra is filled with Domains -- small zones that correspond to areas in both the physical Realm and the Near Umbra.  These areas borrow energy and definition from their counterparts in the Near Umbra, allowing them to manifest in the Penumbra and the Gaia Realm.

•  Blights - Blight Domains are mixed Weaver/Wyrm areas that appear as polluted, web-ridden cityscapes.

•  Chimares - These individualized Domains are places of dream, open to every being that dreams.  Like dreams, they can be gently euphoric or unspeakably horrific.

•  Epiphs - These peculiar Domains represent abstract ideas or concepts, such as "low" or "seven."  Most Garou cannot comprehend Epiphs, although the Stargazers claim to have gained great insight by meditating in such places.

•  Glens - Glens are Domains where Gaian and Wyld energies still run strong.  They appear as vigorous, primal manifestations of the natural world, and they are often inhabited by sentient trees and talking animals.

•  Hellholes - These Wyrm-ridden Domains correspond to polluted areas such as toxic-waste-dump sites in the physical world.  Even areas of heavy air pollution can become Hellholes.  Hellholes are inhabited by Banes, and Wyrm-creatures scuttle through these Domains en route to the Gaia Realm from the Near Umbra.

•  Trods - These Domains of faerie energy appear as faerie rings and monoliths   These areas mark the spots that were sacred to faeries in the days before the Weaver's encroachment drove them from earth.  Sometimes, faeries can still be found at these sites.

•  Webs - Areas where the Weaver encroaches on the Penumbra are called Web Domains.  Webs correspond to large areas of technologically advanced cities, and Patter Spiders and Net-spiders inhabit them.

•  Wyldlings - Areas where the Wyld still reaches Earth are fewer than Web areas.  Some Wyldling Domains exist in the Penumbra, but most are in the faraway Deep Umbra.  Nothing is stable or permanent in these constantly shifting zones, and magic permeates the air.  Appropriately enough, Wyldling spirits congregate here.
 
 

The spirit world lies just a whisper away.  Children feel it, hiding beneath their beds at night, lurking in the woods behind their homes.  You dance through it in your dreams.  It's where reflections lie, on the far side of the mirror.  To go there, stop walking forward and backward, and just step sideways.  It's that easy.

All werewolves have the ability to "reach" or "step sideways" into the Umbra.  This ability comes intuitively once the First Change passes.  Somehow, they begin to sense the world waiting on the other side of the mirror.  Shifting between worlds becomes a skill like walking; it's something that they can just do.

But, of course, the Gauntlet lies in the way, and a werewolf must push through it to step sideways.  In most places, the player must make a Gnosis roll against the Gauntlet rating.  If she succeeds, the character slips sideways into the Umbra.
 
 

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