Gray Masses

Gray Masses are Fungi Banes that possess living creatures to make Gray Men fomori.

Overview

The Wyld has its own ways. Life grows even in the face of death, a part of an endless cycle that isn't meant to change. Fungi are a part of that cycle, decomposing the dead flesh of plant and animal alike, leaving rich fertilizer behind - Gray Masses are different.

Gray Masses are Banes of infestation and decay. They seem to be despised even by other Banes, and are frequently devoured or burned away by other spirits. Gray Masses are drawn to physical sites of filth, squalor, and ruin. When a Gray Mass possesses a host, infestation can spread quickly, with the host becoming the vector of an outbreak that can incur dozens of casualties before anyone realizes what’s happening. They are particularly dangerous in isolated communities, and galliards know tales of human settlements and wolf communities wiped out by Gray Masses before Garou could destroy the blight.

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The Gray Masses have no real spiritual presence, as tiny as they are. It's only when they manifest through their Gray Men hosts that they become obvious. Gray Masses are harmless in the Spirit Wilds, where they’re apparently capable of nothing apart from traveling to the material world while attached to other spirits. They are near invisible, little more than noxious motes visible only when they gather in grand numbers.

Once in the physical world, they find a living host in an unclean environment to attach to and, thereafter, multiply. These victims are often diseased or otherwise contaminated, providing the “lesion” in which the Gray Mass thrives. Within days, one mote becomes thousands, and the resulting victim becomes the proverbial plague dog, spreading whatever foulness it was that attracted the Bane’s sympathies in the first place.

Stats

Second Edition

Rage 0, Gnosis 4, Willpower 2, Power 10
Charms: Blighted Touch, Corruption, Possession, Sporing*

• Sporing - The Gray Masses' primary agenda is to make more of themselves, and they begin to multiply when they find a host. Each Power Pont spent by a Gray Mass allows the Bane to create another of its kind. Each of these new Banes is as powerful as the original, and will also produce offspring once it finds a host. Without a host, a Gray Mass is little more than a spore, virtually powerless to accomplish any task. Most of the Power in a Gray Mass goes to creating more copies of itself. Each of these Banes is capable of producing eight or nine more just like itself, and each of these in turn is capable of creating a new fomor from its host and still more of the Banes that transmit them.

Fifth Edition

Gray Mass-possessed wretch

• General Difficulty: 2 / 1
• Standard Dice Pools: Physical 3, Social 2, Mental 2
• Secondary Attributes: Health 5, Willpower 3
• Exceptional Dice Pools: Brawl 4
• Group Attack: Gray Masses can swarm their opponent, adding two dice (or 1 Difficulty) for each additional Gray Mass attacking simultaneously. They usually grapple their opponent, sometimes dogpiling them to effectively spread the Bane-strengthened contagion, other times to simply crush the life out of an opponent.
• Infect: An immobilized victim must make a Stamina + Medicine test against Difficulty 3 or be infected. Infection effects vary, but regular humans are often turned into new Masses within a few days, whereas Garou are unable to regenerate Health for a number of days equal to the Bane’s Power, or until it is banished by supernatural means.

References

• WTA: Book of the Wyrm Second Edition, p. 120-121
• WTA/cMET: Mind's Eye Theatre: Book of the Wyrm, p. 130-131
• WTA: Werewolf: The Apocalypse 5th Edition, p. 248-249