
Jennifer Dawnell 'Rage-Against-Luna's Death, Cahalith founder of the Lodge of the Final Winter
The Lodge of the Final Winter is a Lodge of the Storm Lords.
The spirit patron of the Lodge of the Final Winter is Dreaming Bear.
Overview[]
One woman's visions gave birth to the Lodge of the Final Winter. She saw the moon broken from its orbit and pulled toward Gaea by a great evil within the Shadow, and great gray-white shards of lunar rock rained upon the world as the Mother disintegrated in the heavens.
On the night the Cahalith Jennifer Dawnell first saw those nightmares, she took the name Rage-Against-Luna's-Death. Her lodge is open to all werewolves but is filled primarily with Storm Lord Gibbous Moons who either believe her words or share her visions through the use of the Rite of the Sleeping Seer.
The Lodge of the Final Winter operates on a simple premise: what the Forsaken have done so far just isn't good enough. What Jennifer is raging against in truth is the Forsaken's failure. She believes the Urdaga must try harder, fight fiercer and battle longer to avert the coming apocalypse. If the tribes can be united into the Uratha Nation, so be it. It's certainly worth trying. But the focus is firmly on individual packs; a Winter-seer is a lode of activity and inspiration within her pack. She is the one who drives her packmates on, lifts them up when they're down and does all she can to work them a little harder than they would otherwise try. It's easy to see why most of the members of the lodge are Cahalith; in fact, it's believed Gibbous Moons make up fully half of the lodge's numbers.
This additional impetus can have two results: in rare cases, the Winter-seer is kicked out of the pack for being too much to handle. In most instances, the pack is driven by the subtle and inspiring urging provided by the Winter-seer, and achieves a greater harmony (and a cleaner, less corrupt territory) because of it.
From the outside looking in, one of the most curious aspects of the cult is not the beliefs of its members, but the curious fetishes and rites that all tie the werewolves either to each other, to the lodge totem Dreaming Bear and to the lodge founder Henny Rage-Against-Luna's-Death. These trinkets and artifacts are detailed on p. 182, and form a powerful focal point for the lodge's unity even with members scattered across North America and Europe.
Ultimately, all that binds the lodge together is a dream, and the faith that arises from trusting the dream is true. But what evidence is there to substantiate this wild claim? Why does any werewolf believe the world is coming to an end with the destruction of the moon? The answer to that is simple: Dreaming Bear.
Recruitment into the lodge is done at the discretion of Dreaming Bear and no one else. Storm Lords, Cahalith or otherwise, whom the totem believes might be potential recruits experience the dream of the Final Winter as shared by full lodge members. This nightmare of the world shattering in the apocalypse comes several times within a month to the prospective applicant, during which established lodge members (or their spirit allies) will watch the potential recruit to see how her behavior changes - of at all. After a month, the lodge members will approach the dreamer and reveal that the lodge totem has sent the nightmares and invites the werewolf to meet with the great spirit itself. Most werewolves are at least a little shaken by the recurring nightmares, even if they don't see portents within the dream's images, and will agree.
Whether the meeting occurs in a boardroom or the deep wilderness is irrelevant. The only constant is that every werewolf present must taste a drop of blood from each other Uratha, and then perform the Rite of the Sleeping Seer. This requires a great deal of trust between the werewolves, for there's every chance the potential recruit doesn't know the lodge members well - even if they are from the local area they're likely to be drawn from several packs who may never have crossed paths. The tension mounts if such packs are territorial rivals with a longstanding enmity, and such happenings are hardly rare. The lodge and its totem care nothing for such squabbles.
The Rite of the Sleeping Seer allows these involved to share a dream and manifest within it. Within the apocalypse nightmare, Dreaming Bear manifests and makes his case for what portents and omens to such a future, and then the end of the world plays out before the werewolves' eyes. The key to this already intense experience is Dreaming Bear's explanation. The spirit ties in events of the recruit's own life to the End Times, citing how each miniscule flaw, wrong decision or moment of inaction in the past will build up, joining with the same mistakes others have made, and eventually set about the birth (or is t the resurrection?) of a great idigam within the Shadow that has the power to break apart the moon.
Even after witnessing such an event, most potential recruits do not join the Lodge of the Final Winter. Just as individuals don't necessarily see their contributions to charity or global warming as making a difference worldwide, it can be hard for any werewolf to see how her mistakes and actions contribute to the end of the world - or what can be done even if she does believe what she sees in the dream.
The low recruitment rate has led to a sense of elitism among some of the Winter-seers. Their lodge, they reason, is only for those of great faith and the devotion to doing something about the world's dark fate.
Membership[]
Once within the lodge, a werewolf must work her hardest to ensure her (and by extension, her pack's) actions are above criticism from other members of the lodge. This manifests as a stronger survival ethic and a much sharper, clearer and more forceful devotion to keeping a territory cleansed.
Most Storm Lords of the Lodge of the Final Winter will make overtures to their packs at some stage, seeking to explain their knowledge of the coming End Times and recruit more followers. It is well-known that although Dreaming Bear chooses who will see the nightmare of the apocalypse, many instances exist where a werewolf has had the vision after believing the words of a lodge member and desiring to learn the truth for herself.
An aspect of some horror to many of those who learn of this lodge is the Winter-seers' attitude to the Pure Tribes. Lodge members kill Anshega werewolves. Certainly there's an attempt to convert the Pure if the opportunity arises, but when packs meet, a Winter-seer rarely hesitates in delivering a death blow when she sees the chance. When asked why the lodge treads so loosely around 'The People Do Not Murder the People,' the answer from lodge members is always the same: the Anshega will be instrumental in bringing about the apocalypse.
This can understandably wreak havoc with a lodge member's Harmony score and create tension between the werewolf and her pack, but such is the cost of total dedication to saving the world.
Game Mechanics[]
The following are an overview of the game mechanics.
Prerequisites[]
Honor ••, Investigation ••, Wits •••
Benefits[]
Members are taught the Rite of the Sleeping Seer, as well as taught how to make the Spirit's Dream fetish. Lodge members also gain one free dot in Wits, Investigation and Expression.
Curiously, members of the Lodge of the Final Winter also gain the unique ability to survive on only one to three hours of sleep each day. Any further time spent asleep in a 24-hour period makes the werewolf feel restless and uncomfortable.
Fetishes[]
Spirit's Dream (• to •••••)[1]: Some fetishes are created not for battle or even with a particular beneficial use in mind. Some are created purely out of curiosity, and any potential uses for the items are discovered after the tool is completed. A Spirit's Dream is one such fetish, made by the Storm Lords of the Lodge of the Final Winter and then spread among the rest of the tribe - even to Irraka and Ithaeur of other tribes, who may sometimes find the tool has some fascinating applications.
A dream-spirits (not always easy prey in itself) is bound into a piece of clear stone, such as quartz or crystal or diamond. The fetish can be created with a shard of glass, though it is notoriously difficult to persuade a dream-spirit to enter such an item.
A Spirit's Dream is activated by a werewolf within arm's reach of a spirit in Slumber, or otherwise inert, such as shackled by a rite or bound within a fetish. The spirit cannot be resisting (or even mobile) in any way, or the fetish will fail to function. Once activated, it allows the werewolf to experience several moments of the spirit's own dreams. The duration is based on the power of the fetish, with each dot allowing a further 30 seconds of perception, during which the Uratha sees the dreams as though she were seeing through the spirit's eyes. The fetish's rating also determines the rank of the spirit that the fetish-user is able to 'pry into,' with one-dot Spirit's Dreams allowing a werewolf only to see into the lowest-ranked spirits, and five-dot fetishes seeing into the dreams of Rank 5 spirits.
A spirit's dreams are not the dreams of a mortal. A werewolf is likely to look into the very essence of the spirit's concept, reliving moments where the spirit has acted out its core nature or important moments in the spirit's existence such as when it devoured other spirits and grew stronger. For some packs, this can be a fascinating look into the psyche of a Shadow-being. For others, it can be an insidious way of learning about a type of spirit, or exploiting a particular spirit's ban.
- Action: Instant
References[]
- WTF: Tribes of the Moon, p. 172-176
- ↑ WTF: Tribes of the Moon, p. 182-183