Breed Fetishes

Breed Fetishes are fetishes unique to the Garou Breeds: Homid, Lupus and Metis.

Overview

Homid

The largest group in current werewolf society is also a disproportionately large number of fetish users. Just as tools are primarily a human institution, so are fetishes commonly a homid institution. This is partly straight biology (lupus grow up without the opposable thumbs necessary for most tool use), but it's largely cultural. After all, a lupus Garou can easily shift to Homid, Glabro or Crinos to use a tool or (with somewhat more difficulty) just shift their paws into hands. It's the familiarity with tools, rather than the ease of using them, that makes fetishes primarily the domain of homid Garou.

Asa result, fetishes created by homids tend to be the most "standard" fetishes. Homids are the Garou most likely to believe in the status of owning a fetish, and take the concept the most seriously. If a homid is going to make a fetish designed to hurt someone, he will bind a spirit of War into a blade or a gun. There's rarely a profound disparity between what a tool is meant to do and what it will do when turned into a fetish.

It is, of course, somewhat ironic that homids make and use the most fetishes given that their low innate Gnosis makes them the least proficient in using them.

Metis

Metis tend to have a surprisingly low number of fetishes. Though they are perhaps the Garou most familiar with the spirits and fetish culture, having been immersed in it since birth, their pariah status means that they are the least likely to be given one in any circumstances. For a metis, owning a fetish almost always means making it yourself, and not all spirits are willing to deal with a creature cursed by Gaia, either.

That said, not every spirit is unwilling to deal with metis. Frequently, the deformed breed can be the most humble and many spirits find them the most approachable. And all that knowledge of Garou society, spirits and fetishes does make itself manifest in a metis-made fetish. Metis who pay attention to those around them know all the tricks of dealing with spirits from a very young age and thus can coax more powerful spirits into fetishes in exchange for less. They have ample Gnosis and are quite capable of handling fetishes with ease. In a few cases, metis have earned much Wisdom as master fetish creators, and metis fetishes are very distinctive. Since they grow up with both opposable thumbs and familiar instinctual thinking, their fetishes are often less literal and wildly diverse. They know it's not what the spirit is bound in that makes a fetish, but what spirit you bind in the object. A metis may well bind a spirit of war and a spirit of iron into a large oak leaf, creating a razor-sharp, hardened blade that few would consider dangerous until it's embedded in their body.

Lupus

Despite their high Gnosis, lupus employ fetishes the least of the three breeds. There's simply not the cultural background to be familiar with the concept nearly as much as homids and metis are, so they start learning about them on the wrong paw to begin with. Even when they do get their heads around the notion, their own biology cheats them - in breed form, almost every tool is useless. While some lupus do their best to get around this by creating fetishes that can be held and used in their jaws, for the most part this is uncommon.

Which doesn't mean that lupus ignore fetishes. Not at all, but they tend to use them less often and have less use for any fetishes that aren't immediately usable in Crinos form, which most commonly means weapons. In these cases, the fetishes they most commonly employ are either klaives, or the traditional weapon of the tribe they belong to. The other exception is the fetish that can be worn in all forms, from necklaces or earrings of bear's teeth to the gun barrel wrapped around Storm-Eye's forearm.

When lupus Garou make fetishes, they tend to be highly abstract but within a limited range. Scar fetishes are a popular choice, as they can be easily used in any form and are more easily related to than tools based fetishes.

List of Homid Fetishes

• Land Amulet - Level 1, Gnosis 6 - An instinctive grasp of the natural order is not something that comes easily to humans, and even homid Garou can have difficulty connecting with their primal selves. Some homids find themselves with something of a handicap in the wild when compared to their lupus counterparts and other animal-born shifters - not all of whom may be a homid's allies. The failure to recognize a multitude of tiny signs can be fatal in the wilderness, and that's why the land amulet was created. Carved out of a stone made smooth in a river and then engraved with the glyph for "Wilderness," the land amulet is bound with any spirit of the area from which the stone came. Common spirits bound into a land amulet include Glade Children and animal-spirits. When activated and worn, the land amulet offers +2 Primal-Urge to the wearer. The effect lasts for one scene.
• Disease Stick - Level 2, Gnosis 7 - Of all the Garou, the homids are those who have the most attachment to their human Kin, and are most affected when illness strikes the local human population. This fetish counteracts the problems of illness, although in a way that human doctors would consider unorthodox. The Disease Stick is a long wooden baton made from hardwood and carved many times with the glyph for "Resilient." Into this is bound a Glade Child or other spirit of nature. When activated, the Stick becomes charged to look for spirits of disease and can be used to strike them, forcing the disease out of the patient's body. Unfortunately, the stick doesn't ignore the body of the afflicted and this every strike does damage to them as well. The Disease Stick does Strength +1 bashing damage. For each strike (which cannot be pulled), the player may roll the Disease Stick's Gnosis against a difficulty of 8. If this roll succeeds, then the disease is cured. If it fails, another roll may be attempted at difficulty 7, and if that fails then the next roll is against difficulty 6, and so on. Magically inflicted diseases cannot be cured with this weapon, nor can any supernatural affliction be cured. (It cannot reverse the effects of becoming a fomor, either.) However, any normal disease can be cured as easily as any other - a common cold is just as fragile or resilient to the Disease Stick as cancer or AIDS. The stick is clearly not quite as much use to Garou, who are immune to mundane diseases anyway, but it provides as effective a way of curing a sickly Kin as can be found. Of course, the user must be careful about keeping the healing process secret - having your child show up bruised at school, telling the teacher "Daddy had to beat me until I was better" is not the sort of thing that helps maintain a low profile.

List of Metis Fetishes

• Thorn Bow - Level 4, Gnosis 7 - Archery may be dying art among humanity, and lupus may never see the point, but many metis learn to use a bow during their childhood at the caern. Not only is a bow necessary for delivering Bane arrows (a way in which a metis can assist in guarding the caern), but it conveys a sense of elegance that many metis long for. The Thorn Bow is one of the "little secrets" of the breed, often passed down from one metis to another in a relationship that transcends blood. The Thorn Bow is a standard wooden bow, bound with an aggressive Wyld-spirit. It may only be fired with wooden arrows, although they may have stone or metal heads. When activated, the fetish breathes life into the arrow which begins to bloom into flowers, thorns and other signs of life as it is fired. This doesn't affect the aim of the shot, but when it hits the arrow continues to bloom, digging into the body and painfully aggravating the wound. The arrow causes aggravated damage, and every turn after the initial wound, the victim takes another health level of soakable aggravated damage until he takes a full turn to rip the arrow out.

List of Metis Talens

• Grass Darts - Gnosis 4 - Grass Darts are an amazing talen mostly in that they can be created remarkably quickly - if you know what you're doing. Making Grass Darts requires a certain knack that most Garou simply cannot get their heads around, but that metis frequently develop very quickly after learning the Rite of the Fetish or the Rite of Spirit Awakening. In addition, metis frequently develop the knack of making them quite lethal indeed. Grass Darts can be made from a handful of grass and a bound rock-spirit. Even a single rock-spirit. Even a single rock-spirit is enough to prepare twenty of these darts. Even the metis that make them can't (or won't) quite explain this feat. When properly created and activated, the blades of grass become rock-hard while remaining light and thin, as well as quite sharp. Most commonly, the darts are place within the mouth and sat out at surprised opponents, either singularly or in groups of five. When so used, they do either one level of lethal damage (difficulty 6 to hit) singularly or three levels of lethal damage (difficulty 5 go hit) in a group. However, some metis take the trick even further. Using the Gift: Create Element, these metis set the Grass Darts alight as they are blown from their mouth, push a wind behind them to enable them to travel faster than normal, or make them heavier still. In all cases, Grass Darts so affected do double damage if they hit.

List of Lupus Fetishes

• Fire Starter - Level 1, Gnosis 3 - These two sticks, when rubbed together, will instantly produce flame, as dependably (even more so) than a cigarette lighter. It can be used to start a large campfire.
• Fish Swatter - Level 2, Gnosis 5 - By swatting the water with this stick, fish will fly up onto the shore, just as if a bear swatted them out of the water.
• Traveler's Charm - Level 2, Gnosis 5 - Just as homids sometimes develop simple fetishes to help them survive better in an unfamiliar wilderness environment, some lupus devise these fetishes to help them or other wolf-born Garou adapt to the strange world of humans a bit better. A Traveler's Charm usually takes the form a small pebble that the lupus swallows. While the pebble is in the Garou's system, she is immune to motion sickness or similar ailments caused by riding in vehicles, can digest even the greasiest, spiciest human food without difficulty, and receives no penalties to her Perception checks for background pollution (even of the noise pollution variety). The downside to the Traveler's Charm is that it must be retrieved and ingested again after it passes through the system, but few lupus are as appalled by the thought as their homid packmates tend to be.
• Toolstick - Level 3, Gnosis 6 - This rather simple stick, a branch broken off of a tree, can transform into any tool: a hammer, wrench, etc. Although it is still made of wood, it is as hard as steel. To form the proper tool, roll Intelligence + Repair against the fetishes' Gnosis rating.
• Leaf Armor - Level 4, Gnosis 4 - This short of leafy armor weighs as much as a shirt of leaves, but will act as two armor levels for soaking damage. There are also similar shirts of tree-bark armor which have three armor levels but add one to Dexterity difficulties while worn.
• Spiderweb Stone - Level 4, Gnosis 8 - The Spiderweb Stone is an effective way of protecting its owner and her pack. It is particularly popular among lupus that have lost too many Kin to human hunters, and crave some revenge - not all of whom are Red Talons. The Spiderweb Stone is a large rock carved with claw marks, pushed in four directions - up to down, left to right, and on both diagonals. It is understood that the only reason four directions are used as opposed to two is to avoid creating the Weaver glyph and summoning unwanted spiritual attention. The lupus then places the stone in a poll of shallow water and bind it with a spider-spirit. When activated, the water reflects moonlight onto the stone and makes it shine. Any human who so much as catches a glimpse of it must make a Willpower roll (difficulty 8) or he will find himself inexplicably drawn toward it, entranced by the shining light from the stone. Until the sun rises, he stares at the stone, unable to be drawn away from it before dawn. Usually by this time the lupus has come back to see what hunters she's caught, and few ever see that life-saving sunrise. As an unfortunate side effect, Corax are completely and utterly unable to resist the effects of this fetish. Occasionally a lupus has to pry a wereraven away in order to avoid giving up the secret of the trap. In a few rumored worse case scenarios, Corax haven been caught by the Stone in Homid form, and been subsequently slaughtered by accident.
• Bouncing Rock - Level 5, Gnosis 7 - This rock, smoother by years in a river will bounce off of obstacles and hit multiple targets if thrown properly. Roll Dexterity + Athletics versus an eight difficulty. The number of successes is the number of targets the rock will bounce around and hit. Only one "to hit" roll against an 8 difficulty is required, and if it succeeds, all targets are hit. The rock will do the thrower's Str + 1 as damaged and will return to the thrower's hand as long as at least one success is scored.
• Prometheus' Torch - Level 6, Gnosis 8 - This is a torch that forever burns. Its fire never goes out even when dunked in water. If used as a weapon (Dexterity + Melee), it is difficulty 5 to resist, causing one wound level. It has another property, though. It gives its bearer plus one die to Intelligence and allows a roll of Intelligence + Linguistics to understand any language. This is considered to be a sacred relic to the Glass Walkers and they would do much to find it. It is rumored to be in the possession of a lupus deep in the woods, keeping it from humankind.

List of Lupus Talens

• Tool Talens - Gnosis 3 - These various odds and ends found on the ground in the wilderness (nuts, pebbles, bark, etc.) can be used with the Toolstick fetish (above) and operate as nails, screws, etc. The user must roll Intelligence + Repair against the talen's Gnosis. Each success means that five nails (screws, etc.) are created. The Tool Talens come in a sack which holds 50 potential tools. Once they are used up, the user must use Rite of Binding to create more potential tools from found objects.

References

• WTA: Ways of the Wolf, p. 53-54
• WTA: Werewolf Chronicles Volume 2, p. WotW: 53-54
• WTA: Hammer & Klaive, p. 23-24, 76-78