Hosts (WTF)

The Hosts are antagonists from White Wolf's Werewolf: The Forsaken roleplaying game.

Origin
The Hosts (First Tongue: shartha) are bizarre creatures who, like the Forsaken, are a hybrid of spirit and flesh, man and animal. They are descended from powerful Pangaean spirits hunted by Father Wolf for their attacks on humanity. They escaped total destruction by splitting themselves into thousands of spirit shards, each of which inhabited an animal. These shards became the Hosts.

Life-cycle
The hosts begin life as a simple animal, in this form they are easily destroyed, the same as any other member of the species they resemble. In order to hide from the Forsaken, all hosts are able to kill humans and take control of their corpses, though the method of control varies. When Hosts encounter other members of their Host they battle to the death, and the victor consumes the losers essence, growing stronger, becoming a larger version of the animal they resemble. When a host gets large enough, it consumes a human and becomes a man-animal hybrid similar to a werewolf's Gauru form. The Hosts are driven to weaken or strengthen the separation between the spiritual and material world, which can wreck havok in the area they inhabit. Because of this, the Forsaken destroy them whenever possible. However, hosts are notoriously difficult to kill; when the Host hybrid forms are destroyed, they dissolve into a scattering swarm of their original form, one of which contains the spirit shard of the Host. This makes it almost to completely impossible to destroy a Host.

Commonly Encountered Hosts
The Azlu The Azlu, or spider hosts, are driven by instinct to strengthen the gauntlet. They begin life as an ordinary looking spider. They have the ability to possess a human by crawling in their ear and eating their brain. This gives them access to the human's memories. A human possessed in this way is preserved by the Azlu, and will only begin to decay after a month. After an Azlu melds with enough other Azlu, it consumes a human by biting it and wrapping it in a cocoon, after which it slowly melds its essence with the human, creating a human-spider hyprid. These melded Azlu are solitary creatures, but can easily be a match for a pack of Forsaken, since they tend to be the size of cars and often have one set of legs that are enormous bone scyths. Adult Azlu must eat one human a month for sustenence, and constantly weave webs which thicken the Gauntlet around them.

The Beshilu The Beshilu are the rat hosts, and in many ways are the opposite of the Azlu. When in their infant stage, they resemble ordinary rats. their method of camoflage is less efficient than the Azlu's; they are able to take control of a human by gnawing through the ribcage and eating their victim's heart. They retain none of the victim's memories or social skills, and their possession does not preserve the body in anyway, making it a temporary method of concealment. However, the Beshilu are able to hide effectively within a cities natural rat population. When a Beshilu consumes enough other Beshilu, it bites a human and transfers its essence to the victim. This infects the victim with a cancerous disease that rapidly transforms them into a man-rat hybrid. Unlike the Azlu, the hybrid Beshilu do not continue to consume other Beshilu, but instead for primitive tribal communities. Beshilu are driven to gnaw down the gauntlet, the barrier between the spirit and material world. The holes they create in the gauntlet inevitably become breeding grounds for disease spirits, which create plagues in the human population, because of this, the Forsaken destroy the Beshilu whenever possible. Beshilu hybrids are not nearly as powrful as a Uratha in battle, but they often can overwhelm the Uratha with sheer numbers. The Beshilu instinctivly fear werewolves and will run from them if possible, but if cornered they fight with a fury born of terror.

Other Hosts
There are three other known strains of Host, which remain unknown to the werewolf population at large due to their rarity.

The Srizaku The Srizaku are the locust hosts, and their instinctual imperative is simply to gorge themselves on anything they can find (plants, animals, buildings, humans, and even Uratha). Like most other hosts, they fear and hate the Uratha.

The Halaku The Halaku, or crow hosts, are unlike the other shartha in a number of ways. First of all, the Halaku are able to possess a human body without physically entering the body; all a Halaku has to do is peck out the eyes of a human, and the shartha is then able to control the victim's body like a puppet and see through his or her empty eye sockets. This seems to suit the Halaku's purpose, as their instinctual imperative seems to be merely to observe the world around them and gather information (as well as gathering together and getting stronger, as all Hosts are wont to do). Finally, the Halaku are unique amongst the Hosts in that their relationship with the Uratha is not directly antagonistic; the Halaku don't seem to fear the werewolves, and are content to simply stand back and observe them from a safe distance.

The Razilu The Razilu snake hosts are the most mysterious Host of all; no one is quite sure what exactly their purpose is. However, they seem to enjoy making life difficult for the Forsaken, and the few known instances of contact between the Razilu and the Uratha have ended in violence.