Tanglejaw, a member of the Predator Kings and the Cult of Bones
The Pure Tribes are saturated with faith. It isn’t a gentle faith; it’s a belief that’s born in ritual ordeals and fed with the poisonous words of fanatical prophets of hate. A common religion binds the three tribes of the Pure, but this religion too has its denominations. Some of these denominations take the form of lodges, though they’re just as easily termed “cults.” And, of these cults, some are cruel and violent even beyond the Pure norm, but others concern themselves with mysteries of particular spiritual import to the three tribes. One such cult is the Cult of Bones.
Overview[]
Members of the Cult of Bones believe that Father Wolf was too mighty a spirit to vanish entirely from the world upon his death. They preach that some remnants and vestiges of Urfarah live on, waiting for his children to breathe new life into them. The cult’s ambition is to seek out the relics of Father Wolf and unite them, and, in so doing, return Father Wolf to existence. If the hated Forsaken betrayed and murdered their father, then the faithful Pure will be the ones to resurrect him and run with him on his hunt for vengeance.
Werewolves of the Cult of Bones are explorers, part archaeologists and part necromancers. They sift through the various rumors of relics of their father, making raids against any targets suspected to hold a piece of his spiritual bone. Some have attempted to find the First Wound, the legendary place-that-isn’t where, some say, the corpse of Father Wolf resides. Other occultists of the lodge have developed theories that the fragments they seek reside in Father Wolf’s various children, both spirit and flesh. The cult members chase down wolf-spirits, and Uratha ancestor-spirits in particular, sometimes going so far as to sacrifice their prey in hopes of returning more of Father Wolf’s essence to its source. The cult tends to believe that individual werewolves don’t hold enough of Father Wolf’s essence to be of great use — but they are Pure, and many feel that the ritual slaughter of a Forsaken can’t hurt their cause at all. Tribe is not particularly important to the cult; though there are proportionately more Fire-Touched than Ivory Claws or Predator Kings, it’s not by a huge margin.
The cult is an organized lodge, with comparatively fewer variations by region than most. The cult practices numerous ritual traditions, many of which seem bizarre and esoteric, even to the other Pure. A common theme is sacrifice to the spirit of Father Wolf, practiced in simple terms such as daily libations or in greatly elaborate human (or werewolf) sacrifice. Members hope that such continued sacrifice in Urfarah’s name will give him a greater reserve of energy with which to return to life when the time comes. Interestingly, the Cult of Bones is one of the Pure lodges most involved with fetish creation. Cult members are prone to gathering relics of spiritual bone and blood, and have devised ways to carry those relics with them even in the realm of flesh. They also craft weapons that will assist them in dealing with recalcitrant spirits, which puts them slightly at odds with other Pure occultists; some accuse the Cult of Bones as too close to the Forsaken lie that the spirit world belongs apart. The Cult of Bones shares many similarities with the Bone Shadows’ Lodge of Death. The two groups have parallel philosophies, and might even have been able to work well together if not for the wall of hate that exists between the two. Cult members are reminded of Father Wolf’s slaughter every night of their lives as they work to call back his murdered spirit. Each time they discover a new potential relic of their lost progenitor, the joy and hope they feel is always tainted with the thought that Urfarah would have been so much greater had he lived. Their howls of pride are tainted with mourning dirges, and their victory feasts always taste faintly of ashes. Even though the cult places the positive ambition of resurrection before the negative ambition of revenge, the followers of the Cult of Bones are all too aware of what they’ve lost to the Forsaken, knowledge that sits in their bellies like black bile.
Membership[]
Asking to join the Cult of Bones is easy enough. Typically, a senior cultist will speak with the would-be acolyte for some time, testing her knowledge of spiritual and occult matters. The cultist also looks for signs of weak resolve; the cult’s mission demands that cult members spend more time than is healthy in the Shadow Realm, delving for information and relics in places unfriendly to any werewolf. If the potential recruit seems to be smart enough to understand the cult, strong enough to endure the coming ordeals and brave enough to face them, they are invited to join. As a lodge associated closely with death, the Cult of Bones practices initiation rites that emulate a funeral. The initiate is taken into the Shadow, where the ritual takes place. A priest of the cult wraps the initiate tightly in a shroud, covering even their face and immobilizing them entirely. The bound initiate is still able to breathe, but cannot move without shifting form and destroying the shroud. The cult then either raises their on a skin platform as if exposing a corpse to the elements or, more rarely, places them in a coffin at the bottom of a hole. The initiate is then left on their own for a day and a night, with only a bound spirit to watch over them. The period of “death” is harrowing — perhaps not as traumatizing as the indoctrination rites of the Pure Tribes as a whole, but still an unpleasant and frightening ordeal. The initiate may hallucinate wildly within the shroud’s darkness. The spirit sentinel set over them will warn away spirits that might spoil the ordeal, but it allows spirits of fear or death to intensify the ordeal by using their powers on the initiate. The initiate can escape the shroud at any point by shapeshifting, but that of course means the ordeal has failed. At the close of the ordeal, the initiate hears a faint howl that carries a terrible feeling of sorrow and pain. The effect is usually profound — at that moment, the initiate understands the beliefs of the cult more thoroughly than before. The cult priest then cuts them free of the shroud, ritually washes them, then anoints them with ash and bone dust to conclude the ritual.
Game Mechanics[]
The following are an overview of the game mechanics.
Prerequisites[]
- Resolve ••
- Composure ••
- Occult ••
Benefits[]
Members of the Cult of Bones may purchase Death Gifts as affinity Gifts. They also receive a cult talisman upon initiation into the cult.
Fetishes[]
Cult Talisman •: The smallest and most basic of the Cult of Bones’ various relics, this talisman appears to be a small shard of bone with a carefully etched glyph picked out on it. The talisman may be worn on a thong around the neck or incorporated into another adornment such as a wristband or earring. Activating the cult talisman grants the user a measure of serenity as they feel the presence of their cult’s faith; they gain two dice to their next Resolve or Composure roll. This fetish can be used only once per scene. The Cult of Bones tends to invest these talismans with spirits of wolves or weak ancestor-spirits.
Corpse Dowser ••: This fetish may take the form of a forked dowsing rod, but is more often fashioned like a lead plumb attached to a long cord (often woven from the hair of dead humans or werewolves). When activated, the Corpse Dowser points gently in the direction of the nearest human, wolf or werewolf corpse within 100 yards. The fetish is also designed to guide the user to a spirit fragment of Father Wolf’s corpse while in the Hisil, though such fragments are enough of a legend that a user might never be in a place where the fetish could fulfill this part of its function.
Wolf-Drinker •••: This leaden ritual knife is much sharper and harder than its material would seem to suggest. The Cult of Bones crafts such tools — and weapons — for the purpose of collecting Essence of the proper resonance. If the wielder kills a werewolf, wolf-blooded, wolf- or lupine-spirit with this knife, they may activate the fetish as a reflexive action. Success stores a point of Essence within the blade; the Essence is of a lupine resonance unless the process of the kill was violent and cruel enough to taint the spiritual energy. The knife’s wielder may use the stored Essence point as if the knife were a touchstone, though most cultists transfer the Essence into a shared cult vessel in preparation for their ultimate goal.
References[]
- WTF: Lodges: The Faithful, p. 120-123
