Stefan Ellis, Rahu member of the Lodge of Stones
The Lodge of Stones is a lodge of the Iron Masters dedicated to understanding the way of the city spirits.
The Lodge of Stones has no given patron spirit. Individual cells tend to venerate the spirit of whatever city they call home, but the bond is not truly that of a patron.
Overview[]
This is one of the most secretive lodges that exist, and certainly the most secretive Iron Masters lodge within the mainstream of the tribe. The reason for the caution in revealing this lodge’s existence is simple: the knowledge that a pack has a member who can seek out, talk and negotiate with the city-spirit that has influence over every pack in the city’s territory would rip the delicate balance of power between the packs apart. Or, at best, such knowledge would lead to a swift death at the claws of rival packs for the unfortunate city-speaker. Perhaps, in time, the lodge will be able to accumulate a big enough body of lore to make its existence more pubic and spread that information through Ithaeurs throughout the Iron Masters, and possibly wider than that. That time is still a long way off. Gatherings of city-speakers in a physical sense are rare, and never more than two or three meet at a time. Lodge members try to minimize the chance of message interception by rival packs or the city-spirit itself. Information about city-spirits and dealings with them is often coded into fictional forms, a modern riff on the old tradition of using stories to convey accumulated wisdom.
Anything from fictional blogs to painful fanfic to semi-professional efforts fly backwards and forwards, passing information as easily as possible between the various city-speakers. Given all the problems and threats involved in being a member of the Lodge of Stones, why do werewolves accept membership in it? For one, there’s the power that comes with it. City-speakers gain greater control over the spirits of the urban Hisil. City-speakers also have the ability to contact and reason with — never control — the city-spirit itself. And, in the end, they genuinely believe that these spirits are the future. As human cities grow, and their spiritual counterparts with them, whole new choirs of spirits are developing, and it may well be that the city-spirit of today is the Incarna of the future. And these could very well be Incarnae that don’t hate the Forsaken. However, if the lodge members make a mistake, the city-spirits could also end up as powerful new enemies for the Uratha to content with. It’s a high-stakes game, but one the city-speakers truly believe is worth it.
Membership[]
Lodge members often make approaches to likely candidates under the cover of the long defunct Lodge of Bricks. Membership in that small lodge, dedicated to dealing with building-spirits, largely dried up decades ago. If a potential member shows any warmth at all to this approach from an obscure lodge with a generally redundant focus, that’s taken as a good sign. Over a period of months, or even years, lodge members discreetly probe the candidate for an understanding of urban-spirits and the complexity of the local Hisil. If the candidate shows the right openness to urban spirituality, and the complex intermingling of spirit choirs it entails, as well as passing practical tests in dealing with ever-more powerful urban-spirits, then the lodge members move the candidate on to the final step.
The final test is an encounter with a city-spirit itself, preferably the one governing the applicant’s native city. The experienced lodge member uses their experience and knowledge to track down the city-spirit and persuade it to meet with the young werewolf. This is never an easy process, and the lodge member may well end up on some strange quests indeed in return for the aid of the spirit, but only twice have cities refused to participate. On both occasions, the cityspirit had had negative experiences with the potential lodge member, which colored its judgment. The would-be lodge member has to do three things to pass the test: survive, communicate with the spirit and avoid antagonizing it. All but the most powerful werewolves are very low down the city-spirit’s priority list, being only a few steps above the humans who throng the streets of the city. Given time, and repeated communication, a lodge member will become more significant to the city, but a raw initiate doesn’t deserve much attention. Indeed, just by getting and holding the spirit’s attention long enough to actually conduct a conversation, the Uratha has proved that they're worthy of membership. What if the werewolf fails the test? Well, initially, very little. The werewolf might gain some reputation from local packs for having met such a powerful spirit and come away to tell the tale. They may well be enjoying that process so much that they don’t notice that communication from this “Lodge of Bricks” has stopped. By then, it’s too late. Their contacts have dropped from sight. The application is over. On a few, rare occasions, the werewolf then goes on to seek out the city-spirit again and again, and to establish some sort of relationship with it. The lodge members may have stopped communicating with the werewolf, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not watching them. If they can achieve this off their own back, then they can become a member of the lodge. In an equally small number of cases, werewolves who have already had dealings with the spirit of a city are approached directly.
Game Mechanics[]
The following are an overview of the game mechanics.
Prerequisites[]
- Occult •••
- Manipulation •••
- Empathy ••
Benefits[]
All members of the Lodge of Stones gain the ability to contact a manifestation of the local city-spirit on a successful Manipulation + Occult roll; this is an instant action, requiring nothing more than speaking to a telephone pole or scratching a note on a wall. A successful roll only indicates that the spirit has received the message. The spirit is not compelled to reply, but can act as it chooses. In addition, lodge members gain three additional dice in any Social roll that involves the spirit of a city or town, and two extra dice to Social rolls made to deal with any building-related spirit.
Fetishes[]
CITY COMPASS •••:City compasses are treasured items amongst the Lodge of Stones. Lodge members can only create these fetishes with the active cooperation of a city-spirit, which orders a member of its own choir of local spirits to bind itself to the compass. Persuading a city-spirit to do this is no mean feat, and performing the chiminage needed can be pretty demanding in its own right. The compass points to any given locale where the city-spirit has focused its attention at any one point. Often, this is useless, as the city’s focus shifts rapidly from place to place. However, when the city does focus its attention, it’s going to be on something that the werewolves probably need to know about.
Rites[]
RITE OF ANGRY STREETS (••••) In The Art of War, Sun Tzu teaches that you must choose and control your battleground if you want victory. In the urban jungle, the city-speakers can control the battleground like no others. Experienced members of the lodge — and only experienced members are taught this rite — are enough in harmony with the agendas of the city-spirit to rouse them in anger to make life ever harder for mutual foes of the werewolf’s pack and the city itself. The very city itself seems to turn on the enemy, making even the simplest task, such as passing through a door or navigating the streets difficult. Door jams and curbstones reach out to trip him up and urban animals attack unexpectedly from the shadows.
References[]
- WTF: Lodges: The Faithful, p. 94-96
